Bishop's Road (20 page)

“It's a fine thing you're trying to do, Eve, but it won't work. Ginny Mustard's trial begins in a couple of weeks and that's all there is to it.”

“Well maybe you should check the gun because my fingerprints are all over it. Just check. You'll find them there. In fact, why don't you take my fingerprints now so we can get this over with? I'm confessing to the crime and I want to see justice done.”

Patrick sighs. He was hoping to knock off early today but
it looks like that's out the window. Excuses himself and consults with his captain for a few minutes who tells him that if Eve says she killed the bastard and her prints are on the gun he'll have to investigate. He doesn't give a damn who did it but it does complicate matters if every old goat in the city decides to confess. Patrick arranges to have Eve fingerprinted and sends her home. There's no way she's guilty but he has to go through the motions, is surprised to be told that apparently she did handle the murder weapon and wonders what the hell those women are up to now.

When Eve tells the others what she has done there's quite a fuss in the house. Ginny Mustard is upset. Wants Eve to go back and say she was just fooling. Ruth, on the other hand, is ready to have fun with this new development. “In fact,” she says, “I'm pretty sure it was me who killed Mr. Miflin. I just forgot. Doesn't anyone remember how I was so pissed off that I just grabbed the gun from Ginny Mustard and shot the bugger?”

“But they won't find any fingerprints of yours on the gun, Ruth,” says Eve. “Mine are on it for sure because I took the gun from Ginny Mustard after she shot him. Remember? I put it on the carpet next to Mr. Miflin's body. I forgot that until this after-noon and that's why I went to the police. See? I even have ink on my fingers still.”

“The only reason they won't find my prints is because I had the good sense to put gloves on before I shot him. Blue wool gloves that I happened to have in my room. Remember how I ran upstairs and got them before I took the gun from Ginny Mustard? And how I burned them in the fireplace a couple of days later when Judy got it working again? Cut them up in tiny pieces and burned them and then put the ashes in the compost bin? Come on. You must remember that.”

Maggie says, “I think 1 must have shot him. I was pretty crazy back then. All anyone would have to do is go to that place I was in and ask the doctors. I'm sure they'll tell you I'd kill some-one
if I got upset enough. I could say I did it anyway.”

Judy can't stand it. “You're all nutcases if you ask me. But, you know, maybe Mrs. Miflin did it. She had plenty of reason and why else would she be so friggin' out of it now? Because she feels so guilty, that's why. What do you think of that?”

“For one thing,” answers Ruth, “she had a cast on her leg and couldn't get out of the bed. You might as well say Dorrie did it.”

“I didn't even live here then. You can't say I did it,” cries Dorrie.

“No one is saying you did Dorrie. We're just trying to figure it out since it's obvious no one wants Ginny Mustard to go to jail.”

“Did you ever think,” asks Judy, “that maybe they won't find her guilty anyway?”

“Not bloody likely,” says Ruth. “Her goose is cooked and ready to serve. It's well and good to pretend we can change things but we can't and that's all there is to it.”

Lights from the north are dancing over Bishop's Road. Streaking blue and pink and rose, green and yellow, as far as anyone can see. The air is right and the temperature cold but if God has a hand and if it is as big as it must surely be, then this is His work and atmospheric conditions be damned, as far as the people watching are concerned there's no other reason for the show that covers the city now, than His feeling good about something or other.

And mothers in the midst of yelling one more time to hang up your coats when you come home for goodness sake and fathers raging because the garbage hasn't been taken out and why
the hell can't anyone do anything I ask around here for a change, stop in mid-sentence when someone says geez, come look at the sky. And every door is open letting the heat out but no one cares. You never know when you'll see the likes again and someone is whistling because they say the lights will dance if you do and when it's all over they are a touch more gentle with their world for the rest of the night. Some of them on into the next morning.

When Joe Snake began his studies at the university his name was Joseph Benoit, changed quickly to Snake because he was long and lean, and Joe because it sounded better, at least to the other fellows in the residence. They liked him. Enough to hang out and cut class and do a bit of drinking with, but not enough to invite him to their homes for long weekends and study breaks. He was born too late for that. If it had been the sixties they would have been falling over themselves to be cool enough to have an Indian friend but in the eighties he would have dragged them down. Bummer. So Joseph Benoit, aka Joe Snake, went his own way, moved into a boarding house, studied hard and graduated with an honors degree in Chemistry. Ready to teach. But the only school wanting his services at the time was on a reservation and he'd had enough of small town living. He found that he was an excellent bartender. Quiet, patrons thought him a good listener. The better bars loved him but bored him senseless. He prefers the less desirable establishments where drinkers are more interested in beer and a few laughs than philosophizing over wine spritzers.

Joe Snake's needs are minimal. His room is tidy, clean. His prayers are honest. He has his computer and a bed, two armchairs, subscribes to
Scientific American
and
Discover
and over his desk is a
framed poster of the Periodic Table of the Elements. The rest of the wall space is taken up with pictures of bears. He banks one half of his pay and sends the other to his family. Lives on his tips mostly, which were better when he worked uptown but are still enough to keep him.

Into his life all manner of women have come and gone. The only permanent fixture, the only one whose company he values, is Ginny Mustard. It was Joe Snake who found her in the back pool room of the bar when a couple of college boys out slumming had hit on her, literally, because she said she was tired and had finished work for the night. He took her to the hospital to be patched up and while she was being tended, searched out the boys. He promised them ever so gently that they'd never get it up again if he found them anywhere near her, went back and took her home. Fed her and read to her until she was well enough to leave. He convinced her she could give up the streets, took her to Social Services and helped her find a better place to live. They are the best of friends. There have been times when he hasn't seen her for days on end. After her first few retreats he stopped worrying. Knows that she is sitting by the river, or listening to the music, walking the waterfront night after night after night. When she told him she wanted to have a baby or six or seven would he please marry her so she could, he said, “Yes.” Wrote to his family. Invited them to the wedding. Sent bus fare.

Ginny Mustard has arranged for his people to stay at Mrs. Miflin's house. Rented two rooms for a week. Mrs. Miflin doesn't like Indians - drunks the lot of them and they'll have feathers from hell to breakfast most likely - but the money keeps her mouth shut. Joe Snake's parents and sister are surprised when they meet Ginny Mustard. He is their pride and joy and they trust his judgement but a black-skinned girl with yellow hair is an unlikely choice as far as they're concerned and they can only imagine what the children will look like.

Joe Snake's mom and sister speak in unison, confusing Ginny Mustard, since she doesn't know how to listen to both and has to make a decision each time they start. Joe Snake points out that they are basically saying the same thing so it doesn't matter, just nod and smile back and forth and it's fine. She's not going to get a word in edgewise so there's no dilemma really, of whom to answer when a question is flung her way. They don't need a response. His father is a quiet man. Sits on the sofa and looks inward, goes outside to smoke his pipe once in a while, takes him-self for a walk. Joe Snake says he has to do that or perish with those two yammering all the time. They can't live without each other, his parents, but they are like chalk and cheese, they have that much in common.

Joe Snake's mother has brought along a wedding suit for her son. Of deerskin, beaded and ribboned, as well as her own wedding dress just in case Ginny Mustard wants to wear it. And Ginny Mustard is torn between the gown she bought and this one. Lays them both out on her bed and calls the others in for a consultation. Since long white gowns are a dime a dozen and no one has ever seen anything as exotic as Joe Snake's mother's dress the vote is unanimous in favor of the latter with its tiny beads in bright colors and the softest boots.

Mrs. Miflin is waking from her madness or perhaps scraping the bottom of it but no matter. There is a fury boiling in her. Memory is alive in vivid colour of each wrong done her for the last few months beginning with that damned Judy coming here to live and then Ginny Mustard singing that horrible song and making her drop the water and ending up with her crippled for the rest of her life. This is her home for God's sake and they have taken
over. Filled it with noise and wretched people who ought not to be allowed near a good woman such as herself. This is the work of the devil, of that you can be sure, and Mrs. Miflin isn't going to have any more of it. She's up and off on legs none too pleased to be carrying the extra weight she's accumulated but the will is strong and she only has to stop and lean once in awhile on her way to the sitting room to give them a piece of her mind.

But the room is empty. Neat as a pin and decorated with candles and crepe paper streamers' - purple, red, blue, yellow, green, orange - as though a particularly bright rainbow had found its way in and exploded. “Well,” says Mrs. Miflin as loud as she can. “They think they can do whatever they want, now, do they? We'll see about that. Yes. We'll see about that all right.” She stumbles about on protesting legs, stands on a chair and now a sofa and an end table to reach the pretty paper, tears it from the walls. Exhausted she goes to the kitchen, crawls back with a garbage bag, fills it with broken candles. The pantry is floor to ceiling alcohol and she carries bottle after bottle to the sink, pours it all away.

“There's your heathen wedding, Ginny Mustard, down the drain. You won't be marrying no Indian in my house and that you won't.” And she sits on the floor with her back to the stove to rest from carnage. That's where Ginny Mustard and Judy find her when they come back from the wedding cake shop with Ruth not far behind them.

“I'm selling this house, do you hear me? I am calling a real estate company and putting it on the market right now.” And Mrs. Miflin gets up from her break. Grabs the phone book yellow pages and dials the first agency that catches her eye. “Someone is coming over this afternoon to look at the place so they can sell it. I'll get a pretty penny for it too and you'll be out on the street, the lot of you. What do you think of that?” And for good measure she pushes the wedding cake off the counter and stomps on it with all the strength remaining in her fat, tired body. Collapses in
a sugar heap.