Bishop's Road (16 page)

“Well this is just what we need,” moans Ruth when they arrive but she accepts a beer and sets another place at the table. Patrick calls to see why she hightailed it out of the station so fast and she has to tell him another lie about having a nasty stomach flu and she'll be in bed, most likely, until tomorrow and it's best if he not come over since she'd hate for him to pick up the germs too.

If the friggin' sun doesn't come out soon I'll hang myself,” says Judy and Ruth tells her to go right ahead, she's sure there's rope in the basement and if not she will personally go out and buy some for her.

Eve wants them to come clean. This problem is way out of hand. “You can never go wrong telling the truth,” she says. “Though it will be hard on Ginny Mustard, I suppose.”

Joe Snake speaks up. “You're probably better off just getting rid of the body. You'll all be considered accessories to the crime. Why don't you bury him in the back yard? Plant a few bushes over him. As long as everybody can keep a secret, it should work.”

“Well, it seems to me there are already too many people in on this secret. We'll have to live in each other's pockets to make
sure no one tells. Look what happens when Ginny Mustard goes out alone. She spills her guts to the first person she sees.”

“Joe Snake is my friend. He can know He won't tell.”

“We can't start digging until the rain stops. Dorrie, tomorrow you and Maggie buy some kind of bushes or trees or some-thing that we can plant over him. Ginny Mustard you'll have to pay for them. Tell them what to get, Eve. You're the only one around here who knows about growing things.”

“But I really wish we could tell the police what happened, Ruth. It is starting to wear on my conscience.”

“You didn't do anything, Eve. Stop fretting. Unless someone has a better idea, we'll stick him in the ground and that will be that.”

When Joe Snake says that he wasn't really serious about burying the body, Ruth ignores him.

It's a sorry lot that greets Patrick when he comes to see how Ruth is feeling. Glum and nervous in the sitting room. Quiet. Kittens racing up and down the heavy curtains and no one telling them to stop. Dishes still on the table, and pots dirty in the kitchen. Ruth doesn't care that he ignored her warning to stay away but does nothing to make him feel welcome either and he leaves after a quick beer. Gives Joe Snake a ride to his rooming house.

Finally sunshine but there's autumn all over it. Everything green looks tired, ready to quit this party and rest up for the next one. Judy sniffs the air like a cat when she steps outside to help decide where the new trees will go. A weeping birch is what Eve wants and a blue spruce. They take turns digging. There's only one shovel and it's too late to tell Dorrie and Maggie, off in search of trees, to buy another. The going is tough and muddy. Huge rocks have to be removed before the hole is deep enough. They wait until dark to fill it. Cover their secret. Father Delaney is up all night with his rheumatism, sitting out back at the rectory with his
glasses on. Watching.

When Patrick comes to the door next morning they are still sleeping. If Ruth hadn't flushed all the pictures away he might never have put two and two together. But the missing pictures and pictures of the missing got into his dreams and, as he likes to put it, his spidey senses are tingling. In his hand is the photo of an odd-looking fellow, a vagrant, the kind few will admit to knowing. But someone in the world has reported his disappearance. No one who cares much mind, just another odd fellow who claims this one owes him money and filed a report. When he woke, Patrick added forty years to the newly-wed face in Mrs. Miflin's photo-graphs and came up with the unknown hangashore on his office wall. When he got to work, old Father Delaney was waiting to report some strange happenings last night on Bishop's Road.

Those women buried something and it looked like an old rug but it was heavier. And that Indian was hanging around yesterday so he thinks they might be up to something which doesn't surprise him at all since no good ever comes of letting a crowd of women live together without a man around to keep things normal.

Ruth doesn't know Patrick all that well yet but she's in love for sure. Tuned in. She knows what's wrong before he says hello. Knows that whatever they have begun is over. Can't make up her mind whether to cry or scream so she just sits and does nothing for a minute before calling to the others.

“The arse is out of her now, ladies. The arse is out of her now.” And she laughs. Bitterly. “Sergeant Fahey is here on official police business. Tell them, Patrick.”

“I think this missing person is Mr. Miflin. He looks a lot like the man in Mrs. Miflin's wedding pictures. No one has seen him for a month or more. Has he come around at all? If it is Mr. Miflin, it makes sense that he would show up here. Does he look familiar, Eve?”

“You would have to pick on Eve first. Nice going, Patrick. It's okay Eve. You don't have to lie. Go ahead and tell Sergeant Fahey everything you know about Mr. Miflin.”

One by one they tell him the story but when it comes time to take Mrs. Miflin's statement things get confusing. There's no way her dear husband is dead. It can't be true. He just went out and he'll be back any minute. She doesn't know who the man in the picture is but it's not her husband.

“She's out of it,” says Ruth. “She knew all about this until he thawed. I guess she just kind of snapped, lucky bitch.”

“Are you going to arrest me?” asks Ginny Mustard.

“Yes,” says Patrick. “You'll have to come to the station with me now. There'll be other policemen here in a few minutes to dig up the body and take it away.”

“Well that was a friggin' waste of time!” yells Judy. “What are we supposed to do with those friggin' trees? I'm not touching another shovel as long as I live so someone else is going to have to plant them next time.”

“You'd best keep a civil tongue in your head, young lady,” says Patrick. “Neither of you is in the clear. Ginny Mustard is not the only one in trouble.” He calls the station and in no time there are a good dozen officers all over the place, who haven't investigated a murder for years and can't wait to get their hands on a real crime. Sirens blaring and brakes screeching they come tearing up the road. Important. Cool. Digging out their spiffy sunglasses even though it's a drab day and looks like more rain. They take their own sweet time wrapping Mrs. Miflin's house in yellow tape. Block the street to traffic but not pedestrians and they're every-where, rumors flying so thick and furious you need a swatter to get through them.

With promises to take care of her little baby the others wave Ginny Mustard goodbye. Watch the police car inch its way around neighbours they never knew they had. Mrs. Hennessey
rushes home to bake up her famous tuna casserole for the bereaved. That's what you do when someone dies no matter how they meet their end but when she brings it over she doesn't get a peep inside the house, has to give it to the policeman standing at the front door. Several of the other women on the street do the same. By the time they figure out that a satisfying meal is no ticket to the inner sanctum and give it up the tenants have enough to keep themselves fed for a month.

Aside from missing the baby and Dorrie's dolls, things on the inside aren't much different than anywhere else for Ginny Mustard. Patrick lets her bring along the little CD player and one of the hookers takes a liking to her so nobody steals it. She has her music and plenty to eat. And if she can't walk to the river whenever she wants, well, it is still better than going hungry and having people yell at you all the time, listening to children crying and being beaten for no reason at all every time you turn around. As long as she never has to be a little girl again, life is grand for Ginny Mustard.

Under the assumption that she is as poor as a church mouse the courts award Ginny Mustard legal counsel free of charge. The young woman assigned the case is having a hard time making heads or tales of the story. Asks that Ginny Mustard be freed on her own recognizance until the trial date. If Mr. Miflin had been a person of any importance she might have been held forever, but he wasn't, and after a few days in the lock-up she is sent home to wait it out.

Judy is going back to school. Her probation officer and Patrick have worked it out. If there's any chance of her getting away with aiding and abetting the criminal, Ginny Mustard, those
men will see that she takes it. She's not thrilled with the idea. School has always been a pain for her. Not that she isn't smart. She surely is. But it's just so difficult to sit still and listen to some deadhead teacher drone on and on about wars and kings and the economy of Brazil and where to put your commas and who really cares about the square root of anything when you get right down to it.

Maggie wants to go as well. She never did finish up, what with being dragged away and all. When Patrick comes to deliver the news to Judy he says that since this particular school takes just about anybody that no one else will, he'll talk to them. It might help to have Maggie on board. At least she'll get Judy out of bed in the morning. Maybe even out the door.

“That's what we can spend all my money on, Judy. We can buy some new school clothes. My dad used to do that every first of September and we'd have lunch too. He would take the whole day off. Do you want to do that?”

“When can we go? Do you want to get some tattoos while we're at it? I know a guy who does them dirt cheap down the end of Water Street. It's really a video shop but he has all the gear in the back room.”

Ruth doesn't want to see Patrick and he's been asking for her. Eve has tried to get her to come downstairs but she won't budge. She has locked her door and no one is allowed in. Late at night when the house is asleep she wanders about. Stares at the streetlights from the sitting room window. All of the hurt she has ever swallowed is a monster that she cannot get around. She doesn't even try. She is as flat as if someone had run her down with a steam roller. Raw. There is nothing but the pain. She slows her
existence to a series of deliberate movements. Says to herself, “Now I am walking down the stairs. One stair, two stairs, three,” all the way. “Now I am turning on the tap. I am filling a glass with water. I am drinking water. I am rinsing the glass.” Nothing more. She does not think. She cannot think. She can only hurt all over. One foot in front of the other. Carefully. Carefully. Slowly. She is broken. There is nothing anyone can do to help. Her agony fills the house. Dorrie opens every door, every window, but there's not enough sunlight in all of creation to dispel the darkness.

Eve says they must stop trying. Says that when Ruth is ready and able she'll come back. Eve tends poor Mrs. Miflin, assures her that her dear husband will be here soon, helps her fix up her hair and holds the mirror to show her how pretty she looks. Mrs. Miflin won't go back to the hospital to have her cast removed, she doesn't want to chance not being home when he arrives, so Judy carries her to the tub and they soak it off. She still won't walk though, no matter how Eve coaxes. Sits at her bed-room window and watches the road. Waits.

The school that Judy and Maggie attend is just like a real one except it's not crowded and the teachers treat them like human beings. Judy says, “This is a nice friggin' change from the last place I was.” Everyday they walk home past Maggie's old house and if the car is gone they go in to visit her dad. When he knows that Mrs. Eldridge will be out for the day he makes cookies and they all sit at the kitchen table and talk about what's happening at school and he helps Judy with her math. When they leave he makes sure they take the leftover cookies with them so his wife won't know and she can't figure out why there's never any flour or sugar around when she needs them. They don't acknowledge the existence of Maggie's mother except for one day when she came home early and they had to hide in the backyard until Mr. Eldridge signaled that it was okay to run around front and disappear.