Where the Bodies Lie

by Mark Lisac

  “She’s the missing piece. Turlock killed Apson because Apson discovered that Devereaux was the Parson’s son. Worse, Devereaux showed up in Barnsdale and was making a name for himself in politics. Everyone is concerned about hushing up that connection. Why is no one concerned about who the mother was and what happened to her? Or about the fact she may still be alive somewhere?”

  “Maybe someone knows the answer to that already. Or maybe the calculation is that if she were going to cause trouble, she would already have done so.”

  “It must have been that young office assistant Mary Simmons. It doesn’t add up any other way. Simmons is too common a name for trolling through the usual records. Who do you think might still be around who knew staff in the premier’s office in those days?”

  “It’s getting to be a long time. There was Burris Fleming, the old party organizer, but he moved into a nursing home early this year and died a couple of months later. One of the few who might have had some idea was Turlock’s father, but he died this summer.”

  “Turlock’s father. Did he live in Barnsdale?”

  “I believe so.”

  Asher considered the possibilities. Apson would have known Turlock senior. If he had been the source of some of Apson’s information, Turlock would have had double the reason to be consumed by rage. Asher knew Jackson would already have weighed that possibility. There was little point in speculating.

  Instead, Jackson asked him, “Are you going to pursue this?”

  “Angela Apson is afraid that someone else is still pursuing it. I don’t know why she thinks so, or why anyone else would be interested. Devereaux is dead. Turlock is in prison and not talking.”

  “You don’t have a client anymore, do you, Harry? The premier has what he wants. Mrs. Apson has reason to let the matter rest.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t be poking a stick into what could be a wasp nest. Not unless someone has asked me to.”

  “Let’s put it more bluntly. Let the dead rest in peace.”

  “They don’t always get to do that, Morley. Remember Frederick the Great? King of Prussia in the mid-1700s? One of the greatest generals in European history and a musician and philosopher in his spare time. Hitler was afraid that the Allies would dig him up and use him as a symbol of a defeated Germany, so he had the casket dug up himself and hid it in a salt mine. Frederick didn’t get a proper grave again until the late 1950s.”

  “A more common complaint than often thought,” Morley said. “The Egyptian pharaohs thought the pyramids could keep them safe. First the grave robbers came, then, three thousand years later, the archaeologists.”

  Asher responded despite himself. He felt he was about to talk too much. He rarely did that. It was never wise and felt like a loss of control. He wondered why he would be losing control now.

  “It happens to big and small,” he said. “Charlemagne. The first emperor since the Romans’ day. The brightest light in the Dark Ages. He died and three of his successors brought what was left of him back into the light of day over the next four hundred years. The first took out one of his teeth for a souvenir. The Americans are prone to digging up their dead, too. They’ve exhumed everyone from outlaws to presidents. Nearly every time they do, they find that whatever dubious story led to the exhumation really wasn’t true. They seem to want proof, though, and bodies don’t lie. Some don’t yield much but they don’t lie.”

  He sounded like he wanted someone else to believe what he said so that he could believe it too.

  Jackson was always ready for what they both took as friendly encounters between equals. Now he responded in a gentler voice. “The only truth to be found with the dead is that they are dead, Harry. We have to accept that. Do you ever visit your parents’ graves?”

  Asher worked to stay calm. “I used to when I was young. I visit the memory of them. I don’t need to see where they are buried.”

  “Part of seeing people buried is letting them go. They can’t really rest until you do.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of people go out of my life, Morley. It’s taken awhile but I’m getting used to it. I hope you’re not planning to join them anytime soon.”

  “No, I still have too many books to read, or reread. And too many people I still haven’t met. Most are interesting in their own ways.”

  “Granted. I take it you think I should spend more time with the living. I do have a daughter. I’d like to spend more time with her, especially now that she’s ten. Sandra’s been good about access but it’s only weekends and the occasional weeknight. We’re trying to keep her happy. In a few years she’ll be at that age when people discover the world is tragic and chaotic. All we can do then is keep her attention focused on other things as much as possible until she comes out the other side.”

  “I’m sure she’ll get there. She has two good guides.”

  “Thank you. Right now I need a guide, someone to tell me how to find a woman who had a common name and who disappeared decades ago.”

  “Maybe it’s time to take a break. You’re due for time off here. Why not put the other on hold? See how things look after a few days? There are always flights to Mexico.”

  “No, I thought about that, but Sandra’s going there soon. Don’t want to feel like I’m hanging around her, even if she’s at a different resort. Maybe I’ll just take a few days up in the mountains for some skiing.”

  Four days later, he slipped off a chairlift seat, rounded the curve toward the top of his favourite hill, lifted his goggles and looked down at the bottom of the steep valley a few kilometres away.

  Aside from brief conversations in which partners discussed which route they wanted to take down, the only sound was the hiss of skis. It was a blend of smoothness and friction. Snow blanked out the noise of the world. That was one reason Asher liked being up here. He smiled at the memory of Sandra’s joke about “white noise.”

  The river in the distance looked too still and far away to be real. Frozen and silent, it was nothing like the milky turquoise rush of water seen up close in warm weather. Bodies in puffy jackets and bright snow pants descended the open glade to the right and the steeper, mogul-dotted trails to the left. Some went fast, making frequent and precise turns. Some moved more slowly and stopped for rests. A few fell. They got up slowly after coming to the realization that they had, in fact, not made the perfect run they had envisaged but had survived and were able to start again. All they had to do first was figure out how to stand up without getting their skis crossed.

  The air was brisk, but not biting sharp as Asher knew it would become in mid-afternoon when the usual clouds and squalls blew in. Sunshine graced the brilliant hillside. It lit sparkles and cast shadows that marked the surface contours. There were still hours left before it sank toward the mountain peaks, dragging the relative warmth of the day with it.

  He decided to take a path down the easy glade to find his rhythm and balance, and get the feel of the poles and boots, before coming back up for the black diamond runs on the left.

  The easy way. I suppose TV dinners come next, he thought.

  19

  THERE WERE BETTER WAYS TO SPEND A LUNCH HOUR. HAVING lunch with a client was one of them. So was having a sandwich at his desk and catching the noon sports roundup on the miniature television set he kept in a drawer of one of his bookcases.

  Instead he was tramping down a street on what was likely a wild goose chase. It was not even an interesting street, unless you counted the display of humanity. The houses were modest stucco bungalows dating from the late 1940s or early ‘50s. Some had patches of wood or plastic siding to relieve the monotony of grey and white stone chips. The few attempts at infill were downscale — a ha
ndful of boxlike duplexes with cheap siding and no landscaping. Asher wondered why some neighbourhoods in the city presented this blank face while others, also home to wage workers and retired people, were alive with homemade sculptures, birdhouses, painted wooden flowers, and other knickknacks and distinctive fences.

  He knew some of the houses were like barracks, subdivided into rooms that were rented out to Filipinos and Pakistanis in the country on temporary foreign worker permits. They were used to living in busy family settings and they kept the low-wage end of the economy populated; everyone was a winner, he supposed. The foreigners were off at work. It was locally born citizens who entertained Asher as he walked up the block.

  A woman, two men, and a police officer stood in a front yard. The two men looked uncertain but ready to take instruction. The woman, looking haggard and used to her beer but still certain of her position in the home, lectured them: “This is the MAN. You’ve got to listen to what he says. This is the MAN.”

  Asher found the address he was looking for and climbed the weathered wooden steps to ring the doorbell. A middle-aged man with unkempt hair, goggle-eyed spectacles and a shirt striped with two shades of brown answered. Burris Fleming’s son invited Asher into the living room.

  Asher found an open spot on a couch littered with news magazines and science fiction paperbacks. He noticed the patina of countless years of cigarette smoke on the light beige walls that he assumed had once looked much brighter. He fought off a cough as he adjusted to the pervasive smell of stale tobacco. A blocky Underwood typewriter stood on a narrow wooden table with a deteriorating finish; it looked like a shrine to the past.

  Henry Fleming was excited to have a visitor. He said his wife had just left to do the grocery shopping and offered Asher a coffee. There was still half a pot, fairly fresh. Asher said no thanks, he had just finished one before coming over.

  “Your father was something of a legend,” he told Fleming. The banal statement would not be news, but it would establish that Asher had some acquaintance with the province’s political history. “He worked for the party a long time. Did he talk to you much about what he did? About people he worked with?”

  “Yes, um, yes. It was a privilege to listen to him. It was, um, like having a peephole into the real history of the time.”

  “I guess it would have been. I’m curious about whether he would have told you much about some of the people around Tom Farber back in the early days.”

  Fleming lit his first post-lunch cigarette. “The early days. Oh, um, the early days. I was quite young then, you know. Father was quite busy with current events. He would often talk about things going on. The early days. Well, after he retired, he did sometimes reminisce. I think it was less reminiscing than trying to pass on some of what he had seen, to make sure it would not totally disappear. Historians are so unreliable, you know. They miss the important events. Or they bring, um, they bring their own biases into what they write. If we had …”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Fleming, I have an appointment at two and I’d like to narrow things down to a few specific questions.”

  “Oh, certainly, um, yes. What would you like to know? Are you sure you wouldn’t like a coffee, and, um, I think we still have some chocolate fudge cookies. My wife would have …”

  “No, thanks. I’m doing research on a family matter. It’s a question of an inheritance. I’d like to know whether your father ever mentioned one of Tom Farber’s office staff, a young woman named Mary Simmons.”

  “Oh, um, office staff. Well, he usually confined himself to historic events, you know. He was not one for gossip. In fact, he told us stories about Tractor Tom but said those were not for general circulation. He, um, talked about Tractor Tom’s vision for helping ordinary people and about his battles with the banks and the other rapacious corporations. Of course, if Tom had appreciated how big a help the business world would be in combating the Reds he would have taken a different approach, I’m sure. Father was sure of that. But his views on the money supply are still — I have some pamphlets here …”

  “Uh, can we stick to the office staff, please, Mr. Fleming? Can you remember at all hearing about a Miss Simmons? Anything?”

  “No, sorry. Um, I can tell you some funny stories about some of Tractor Tom’s cabinet ministers. One of them used a washroom just before a budget speech and forgot to pull up his zipper …”

  “Or anything about how Mr. Farber got along with his office staff ?”

  “Oh, father always said, um, father always said that was part of the secret of Tractor Tom’s appeal to people. He treated everyone the same — from the lieutenant-governor to the janitor who cleaned the trash baskets at night. In fact, he may have got along better with the janitor. He thought the janitor was more useful. I can tell you, um, a joke he told about that. Father told us some of Tractor Tom’s jokes. I should have written them down. They are real history.”

  “I don’t like to pry, but is that a typewriter that your father used in his party work?”

  “The Underwood? Oh no. That, um, that is my own memento. My first job was in typewriter sales and repair. I thought that was where I would make my career but I seem to have outlived the typewriter business. Learning sales turned out to be useful in other industries, though. I worked in commercial foods for some time. I still miss the typewriter days. Things were more solid then, more reliable. Typewriters had a human quality, don’t you think?”

  “Did your father leave anything that was written down? Any files, records of addresses? That sort of thing?”

  “He would have, um, kept extensive records. Yes. They would all have been left at the party office. Well, not all. He did keep a list of telephone numbers here at home in case he ever needed to call someone.”

  Fleming stopped the flow of words to make way for a retching cough. He picked up again as if he hadn’t noticed, the coughs being part of the background noise of life like the radio talk show that Asher could hear from the kitchen.

  “I threw those out after he died. Not much use, um, not much use these days. Most of the numbers had the old system with letters in place of the first two numbers. They were easier to remember than the all-numbers system we use now. Um, the exchange names lent a certain distinction to …”

  “Nothing on paper, then?”

  “Oh, no. Father said he was satisfied to have made a contribution to the province’s history, um, a contribution. He did not have to leave a pile of paper for his tombstone. He certainly did not want anyone poking around in any records he might have left. He was always the soul of discretion. That, um, that is why Tractor Tom and George Manchester trusted him for so many years.”

  “If they had any secrets, he knew how to keep them.”

  “Oh yes, although they were both the sort of men who did not have to keep secrets. I can remember only one thing that would even come close. Father once said their relations appeared strained for some months before Tractor Tom died. That was all kept quiet, of course. There may not even have been anything to it.”

  “Strained in what way?”

  “Father said, um, he said they did not talk to each other as much as before, and that they did not look at each other in the father-son way that people who knew them well would have recognized. He said he had the impression they may have had a disagreement over moral issues.”

  “How did he come to that conclusion?”

  “I’m not sure. I can’t see why they would have disagreed on that. They saw eye to eye on religious matters.”

  “Not exactly the same as morality. Religion may be the basis of morality, but it’s not exactly the same.”

  “Um, perhaps not. I remember telling Janice that buying lottery tickets
is a personal choice, that is, a matter of personal morality. There is no mention of lottery tickets in the Bible.”

  “No. They didn’t have printing presses or paper for tickets back then, just papyrus and reed pens. And what else did your father have to say about the disagreement?”

  Asher thought he had one crack at extracting everything there was to extract from the rabbit warren of Fleming’s mind. There was apparently no more stashed away in lost corners.

  Fleming said, “I often wondered myself. I asked once. It was one of the few times that father showed impatience with me.”

  Asher let what he intended to be his best quizzical gaze bore into Fleming, hoping to shake loose one more memory. Finally, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Fleming. You’ve been very hospitable and generous with your time.”

  “Not at all, not at all. Anytime. I hope your client’s inheritance issues are straightened out. I know I wish I’d had more of an inheritance. Father was never worried about money most of his life but started to become concerned near the end. Do come back if you’d like to talk more, um, about the old days. People today are not like they were then.”

  “Yeah? I haven’t heard that before.”

  Asher walked back to his car. A letter carrier coming the other way had been cutting across people’s yards. She kept to the walks after she spotted him approaching. Larceny may not be in everyone’s heart but the urge to cut corners is, he thought, sometimes literally. He felt queasy as he involuntarily tried to estimate how much of either impulse he harboured within himself.

  20

  “HE WENT TO SEE BURRIS FLEMING’S SON.”

  “Gerald, please don’t tell me we’ve put a tail on him.”

  “Nothing like that. Henry Fleming phoned the office. He asked whether any of his old man’s records would still be around, especially anything involving lists of names and phone numbers.”