Nowhere To Run (17 page)

For a moment she didn’t recognize the person standing on the grass beneath her window, imagining instead that she was dreaming herself in a scene from a movie where the love interest waits impatiently outside the lead character’s window. It had been at least six years since she saw her brother, and it was only when she squinted her eyes at the wildly gesticulating figure that she could make out the fifteen-year old boy in the man that stood there, hidden under hair grown to the shoulders of his baggy jacket. Her father would have more than something to say about his hair, was the first thought that passed through her head before she opened the window.

“Eric?” she called softy, still finding it hard to believe he was really there. Her brother waved his hand angrily in response, indicating she should be quiet. He pointed to the cow barn behind him and motioned for her to come down.

Grabbing a sweater from her closet Trudy descended the stairs carefully, holding her breath as she avoided a step she knew creaked. Eric’s name hadn’t been mentioned in their house since he ran off, and she didn’t want any part of the payback if her father thought she was involved in him turning up now.

Shutting the back door noiselessly behind her Trudy shivered as she ran across the yard with her feet bare inside her boots, wishing she’d taken time to grab socks. Trudy stepped into the barn and breathed in the heady scent of hay and cows, and looked both ways for her brother, wondering for a moment if she had dreamed his presence. She found him sitting on a bale of hay, his elbows on his knees and hands clasped together as if for warmth.

Stepping closer so she was just a foot away from him she examined her brother’s face. It was partially hidden beneath the rough shading of the start of a beard, but she could see the shadow of his teenage features, now sharpened and solidified, and it made her feel strange, as though she was slipping backwards in time.

“So how’s everything?” Eric asked, unclasping his hands to gesture to the barn around him. “How’s life?”

Trudy shrugged. “It’s okay.” She answered him slowly, unsure of what her brother wanted from her. She paused for a moment. “I mean it’s the same. Where did you go, anyway?”

“Out West,” he told her. “I was in Edmonton for a while, it’s easy to find work out there.”

There was another silence broken only by the moan of a cow stirring in its sleep, and the rhythmic breathing of the animals.

“The old man?” Eric questioned after a moment passed, sliding a glancing look at his sister. “He still the same?”

Trudy looked at the barn floor and drew her boot through some loose hay. “Pretty much,” she told him, shrugging again. “Maybe he’s calmed down a bit since you left. I pretty much keep out of his way.”

Eric nodded, rubbing his hands together. Trudy’s eyes came to rest on her brother’s boots; they looked old and ill fitting, holes visible at the toes.

“So why are you back?” Trudy asked the question that had been in her mind since she saw him. “Are you here to stay?”

“Nah,” Eric replied reflexively, “I’m not staying long. I just have a few loose ends to tie up here, and I’m a bit low on cash at the moment. I thought,” Eric shrugged his shoulders, “he owes me, right? After everything.”

“You’re going to ask Dad for money?” Trudy asked skeptically.

“No, dummy.” Eric leaned forward to shove her shoulder gently. “I thought you could help me out. Take whatever’s in the kitty, I bet it’s still there. They’ll just think someone broke in.”

Her parents had kept loose bills and change in a cookie jar in their kitchen cupboard since she and her brother were little. Their father didn’t believe in credit cards or cheques, said that was how the banks stole money from people. The cash was there for paying bills or buying groceries, but the only ones to touch it were her mother or father.

“Why don’t you just take it then?” Trudy asked, not wanting to get involved in something that could end up with her in trouble.

“I don’t know if they’ve moved things,” Eric told her. “I haven’t set foot in the house for years. You’ll be faster, you know where things are.”

“For old time’s sake,” he added, when Trudy looked unmoved.

Trudy hesitated. He was her brother, but it wasn’t like he had ever stood up for her, he didn’t even tell her when he was planning to leave. She debated with herself. Eric had always gotten the worst of it from their father, and if he was asking for her help now he must trust her. Maybe they would do something together with the money.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “When do you want me to get it?”

“I was thinking now,” Eric said flatly, giving a lopsided smile to soften the words.

Trudy scuffed her foot through the hay again, considering. “Alright,” she decided, “wait here, I’ll be right back.”

Entering the house as noiselessly as she had left it Trudy went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard above the stove slowly, careful the hinge made no noise. Lifting the lid of the ceramic jar she hesitated. There were a surprising number of bills in it; was she supposed to take them all? Maybe it would be better if she just took a few, their absence might go unnoticed.

Undecided, Trudy stood with her hand in the jar. A creak from the old floors startled her and she grabbed a handful of bills, looking to be sure she hadn’t left the jar completely empty. Running across the yard towards the barn, the money clutched in her hand, Trudy felt almost excited. It had never crossed her mind that she had the freedom to rebel against her father, she had always been too scared. But maybe with Eric back in town she would get away from the farm and the town, maybe she could even go with him out West.

Trudy’s cheeks were flushed as she entered the relative warmth of the barn, and she held the fistful of bills out to her brother triumphantly. “It looks like a lot,” she told him breathlessly.

Taking the money from her, Eric counted the bills quickly. “Not bad,” he told her, giving a full smile for the first time since she’d seen him. “Just over five hundred bucks.”

“I owe you,” he said, standing and brushing the hay from the back of his jeans.

“So what are you going to do now?” Trudy asked, sensing he was getting ready to leave. “Where are you going?”

“Dunno,” Eric replied casually. “I’ve got a couple people to visit around here and then I’ll likely hit the road again.”

“Maybe I could come with you,” Trudy blurted the words before she could prepare them better. “You know, I could find some work too, it might be fun.”

Eric snorted and shook his head. “Better you hang around here, you’ve got it ok.” He gave her a light cuff on the shoulder. “You never know, you’ll likely get the farm when the old guy kicks the bucket. I’ll come back and we’ll have some fun then.”

Trudy twisted her face into a casual smile and nodded. Her brother cuffed her shoulder again and then was gone. Stupid, Trudy told herself, standing in the middle of the barn. Stupid to help him, stupid to think he’d bring her with him. What was she going to do now about the missing money, there was no way her parents wouldn’t notice it.

On her way out of the barn Trudy stopped to kick the pale brown side of a sleeping Jersey cow, the solid thud of her foot against its ribs making her feel strangely better. The cow moaned and shifted, looking at her with startled dark eyes. She stared back into them, unflinching. That’s right, she thought to herself, it is tough. She stopped to pick up a loose brick from the side of the barn and began the walk across the field towards the back of the house. Tightening her grip on the brick she set her jaw, eyes fixed on the shiny blank square of the kitchen window. No way was she taking the blame for this. It was time she started making her own luck.

Chapter 20

It was the first time they had sat down to dinner as a family since what happened to Sarah, and Elizabeth was already wishing she had made an excuse to avoid it.

The dining room was quiet except for the occasional sound of a fork scratching a plate as Elizabeth pushed the salad her mother had made around her plate listlessly.

“There was another hang up today,” her mother’s voice startled both her and her father, lost in their own silences.

“A what?” her father asked, putting his cutlery down beside his untouched meal.

“The person who has been calling us and hanging up when I answer. It’s been happening for months, I’ve told you about it a dozen times. You’ve heard them yourself.”

“It’s probably just a telemarketer,” Terry responded in an offhand voice, vaguely intended to sound soothing.

“I think we should tell the police.” Marion didn’t sound placated. “It could be someone checking our whereabouts, someone who means us harm.”

No one responded to this suggestion, and Mrs. Harmon stood and started clearing the unfinished dishes from the table, banging them onto the counter.

“Maybe if we had told the police about the calls when they first started they would have found this person before what happened to Sarah.”

“You think the person calling our house is the person who killed Sarah?” Elizabeth asked before she could stop herself. “Who would do that?”

“I don’t know, Terry.” Marion threw the words at her husband. She walked back to the table to face him. “Can you think of anyone who would have a reason to be angry with us? Anyone who would want to cause our family harm?”

Terry stared at his wife blankly. “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” he responded. “You need to calm down, Marion. Go upstairs and have a rest.”

“A rest!” Mrs. Harmon’s laugh was shrill. “That’s what I’ve been doing all along isn’t it, looking the other way, head in the clouds.” She stepped closer to her husband. “I’ve known all along what you did to those people,” she jabbed a finger in Terry’s face. “I was fine to tell whoever was asking that you weren’t to blame, that you were the victim.” Marion’s face twisted in anger. “But I know about your scam, your Ponzi scheme, whatever they call it in the papers. I know you swindled those people out of their savings.”

“Marion!” Terry stood up from the table, grabbing his wife by the arms. “That’s enough! You’re hysterical,” he said in a calmer voice, “we all just need to calm down.”

“Fine,” Marion said, “I’ll calm down. But I’m telling the police about the phone calls we’re getting,” she turned to her daughter. “And I don’t want you going anywhere on your own until the police find this person. Do you hear me?”

Elizabeth nodded mutely at her mother. Standing silently to help her clear the rest of the dishes she thought of how everyone in this household carried their burden of shame. Her own share was a dark and secret one that lay in the memory of thoughts she’d sometimes had when Sarah was alive. Thoughts of what life would be like without her sister there to always stand in the limelight. She outwardly cringed as she scraped the uneaten food from the plates, memories of her own past thoughts as loud as shouts in her ears.

It was true that people would have noticed her more if it wasn’t for Sarah. Moving here was the perfect example - girls and boys alike had looked Elizabeth over once, and then turned away to gravitate towards her sister. Elizabeth could walk down the school hall with nothing more than a couple of appreciative glances from the boys. She could enter a party and the conversation would continue without a stutter. But when Sarah entered a room everything stopped for her. There was something in her that shone, and it drew people to her. Elizabeth had asked herself what the difference was when she looked in the mirror. There wasn’t such a great disparity between their features, but she had never found an answer.

Now those unmentionable thoughts were a reality, but it hadn’t turned out anything like it had in her fantasies. Not when it came with the sickening guilt that she’d had those thoughts about her own sister.

*

It was nearing dark as Susan pulled her SUV to the side of the road at the trail access point to the town caves. There were no other cars, but she didn’t feel far removed from the town; the lights of a few boats on the lake blinked as they headed towards the harbour, and the windows of the homes that edged the dead end road were for the most part brightly lit.

Closing the door of the vehicle behind her, Susan started up the path towards the caves. Far from the most dramatic of the caves that could be found along nearby parts of the Grey Bruce coast, they were the most heavily frequented by local teenagers due to their accessibility: a ten minute hike from Myer’s road and you were standing in a vast stone cavern, wrapped in rock walls whose irregularities cast shadows that stretched into deformed figures.

Not quite sure what had pulled her here, Susan stood in the centre of the cave. The silence was eerie, and she picked a stone up from the cave’s floor and tossed it high against the rock wall. The heavy thud echoed back to her, and she shivered in spite of herself, not usually one to be affected by the unease people often found in the absence of daylight.

Taking a closer look at her surroundings, Susan noted the established campfire pit in the centre of the cave, rocks stacked evenly to make a circular hollow. The walls of the cave were streaked with spray paint, a far cry from the pristine views tourists paid to see at Greig’s Caves thirty minutes out of town. Susan stepped closer to have a look at the teenagers’ artwork, comprised mainly of explicit cartoons and initials inside hearts.

Taking a last look at the generations of letters stained into the grey walls, Susan shook her head. There was something that was gnawing at her, and she couldn’t quite bring it to the surface.

As she stepped back into her vehicle Susan drew her mind away from the case to focus on an unpleasant task that had to be dealt with, reluctantly steering the SUV down the road to George Aldershot’s home. She had turned it over again and again in her mind and decided to approach the subject casually, setting it as a friendly talk as opposed to a formal meeting at the office. She tried on various approaches in her head as she approached the house, and in the end decided to go with the most direct one.

“I noticed you’ve been looking into some old case files,” she told him, refusing the offer of a drink as she sat across from the pathologist at his kitchen table. Looks like he’s taken a cloth to the counter at least, she noticed, giving the kitchen a surreptitious once over.

“Is that right?” George asked her in a surprised voice, sitting back in his chair with raised eyebrows. “Nothing that’s been cutting into my hours getting things done,” he told her, eyebrows coming together. “I didn’t realize you were keeping an eye on me.”

Susan wasn’t Aldershot’s direct boss, but as the Inspector Staff Sergeant of the detachment, she came as close to it as anyone short of Commissioner Rutlidge.

“Things get around,” she told him. “There was mention you’d been pulling some old case files, talking about possible connections to Sarah Harmon’s case.”

“It is possible,” he said, with what looked like defiance covering embarrassment. “Maybe it’s not my place, but I had a look at a couple unsolved cases in my own hours, went over them with the co-op student. I thought maybe we’d come up with something.”

“Not really your area,” Susan told him baldly. “I’ve never known you to step out of your job boundaries before. What’s going on?”

The pathologist started at the bluntness of the question, and rubbed his eyes wearily.

“I don’t know Susan,” he responded after a silence. “I guess I haven’t been doing the best lately.”

Susan waited for him to continue. She was still holding onto the hope that there was a reasonable explanation for his behaviour, that she wouldn’t have to bring it the Commissioner.

“I didn’t do right by Joyce in the end,” he said finally. Susan made an effort to keep the surprise from her face at the sudden switch in topic. “I guess it’s been eating at me. Here are these women, young, healthy, killed for reasons that we don’t know, and we never really find an answer for them, never find justice. And then there’s Joyce, fighting a disease beyond our control, and in the end it turns out I’m just as bad as those murderers we never found.” His already gravelly voice thickened and Susan feared he was going to break into tears. “I thought I was a good person, Susan,” he finished, successfully fending off tears, to her relief, with the intake of a few deep breaths.

“You are a good person,” she told the pathologist, trying to understand what he was trying to tell her. “I’m sure you did everything you could for your wife.”

She considered him for a moment before continuing. “I think we brought you back to work too early, is all, George. You needed time to grieve your wife in peace, not deal with the murder of a young woman. How about you take a little time, you’ve already given us everything we can get from the post-mortem. Anything else that comes up can be handled by the lab.”

“I don’t think peace is what I need, Susan,” Aldershot replied, “but I hear what you’re saying. I’ll take a few weeks personal time, it doesn’t have to go beyond that.”

“I appreciate it,” Susan replied. Remembering their last interaction in this same room, and her regrets about not offering her colleague more support, she volunteered it now. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Nah,” Aldershot waved away her offer. “Thanks for asking but I guess this is just something I have to carry on my own. That’s life, isn’t it,” he said, standing to walk the Inspector to the door.

Susan left his home pleased that George had agreed to some time off without argument, but with the feeling that she hadn’t quite got to the root of what was eating at him. What do I know about losing a life partner, she told herself, shaking the feeling off. Likely the man just needed some time to get back on his feet.

*

It had been a windy walk here, and Clare shook her hair from her face as she entered the pub, not noticing the leaves and twigs stuck in its tangles. She didn’t usually come so far into town, but she had seen Tom’s car leaving the construction site, headlights headed in the direction of the pub instead of home.

The door jangled as it opened, and Clare was careful to keep her eyes from meeting anyone else’s as she scanned the room. There was no sign of Tom, and she stepped further into the tavern to see if he was in the back room.

“Evening Clare,” the bartender tried to get her attention. When she didn’t respond he wiped his hands on a towel and came out from behind the bar, approaching her cautiously. “Are you meeting Tom? Can I get you something?”

“Tom’s not here?” she asked him. Robert Sampson, he lived five lots over east of them. She remembered he had helped them when they first moved into their home, putting the neglected yard behind the house to rights.

“He hasn’t been in tonight,” Robert responded, putting his hand on her bare arm. “Look, can I run you home? It’s getting cold out there.”

“That’s ok Robert,” she lied easily. “I’m meeting up with Tom and he’ll drive us home. I just forgot where we’re meeting is all.”

Robert gave her a doubtful look and went back to the business of wiping the counters down, keeping an eye on Clare as she cast a last look around the room before turning back to the door.

Someone was going to have to do something for that woman before she got herself in trouble, Robert frowned to himself. Anyone with eyes in their head could see she was coming undone.