Dark blossoming, p.10
Dark Blossoming, page 10
His side gave a warning stab. If Everdale was a long trek in, he could be in trouble. He checked his phone. No reception. No surprise.
Neil grabbed his own hat and gloves from the back seat and followed Heidi into the forest.
CHAPTER 24
Bliss
Bernie instructed Dwayne to wind tape around the crime scene and keep it secure until backup and forensics arrived. Oh, and call Ed to view the site and verify the body as Bert Thiesson’s. The stench of Bert’s body hadn’t improved in the past few days. Hence, Dwayne’s greenness, although Bernie remained surprisingly chill.
He herded the rest of us towards the greenhouse complex. I hung back and Bernie halted in his tracks. He wheeled about to stare at me. I gave him one of my cheekiest grins, with dimples on display, just for fun, and detected the hint of the indulgent smile he usually had for me.
Alas, he stifled the smile before it bloomed and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t phone Neil about what’s happening. He’ll rush down here and set back his recovery. I’ll stop by later and inform him. Nobody leaves the premises for now.”
He waited for my nod of assent before we continued on to the tropical greenhouse. He was right about Neil. My hard-bodied and ultra-responsible husband would don his uniform and drag his ass into the forest to view the body. His recovery was on schedule, but he’d been far too active in the past week.
Undoubtedly, Bernie longed for the halcyon days of his sergeant-hood when he sat at his desk and prepared schedules and visited schools to warn kids about stranger-danger and drug use. Field trips into actual fields and woodlands weren’t his style. He badly wanted Neil back, but healthy with no chance of a relapse.
“Bernie, may I ride my bike to the parking lot? Someone is sure to run over it, once the scouts arrive.”
“Good idea, Bliss.” Thankfully, he had dropped the ‘Mrs. Redfern’ shit.
Before he left, he called over to Dwayne rummaging in the trunk of the scout. “When backup arrives, send someone inside to sit with the witnesses so I can commence the interviews.”
When Dwayne’s thumb popped up over the roof of the vehicle, Bernie followed the motley troop out of sight. Ivy’s booming voice echoed through the trees and drowned out the sound of my motor as I started up the Savage.
Astride the bike, I called to Dwayne who methodically ran police tape along the trees to cordon off the relevant section of forest. I aimed my phone at the coffin and enlarged the frame until it blurred, then backed it up. I took a couple of shots for later. There was something familiar about the coffin. It would come to me. For good measure, I turned around and took a selfie with the coffin in the background to include in the monthly newsletter to my cleaning staff.
“Hey, Dwayne. I have an extra egg salad sandwich if you’re hungry. You should eat it before the shitshow arrives. You might not have a chance for lunch or dinner, depending on how long it takes for the coroner to arrive. He might be operating or delivering a baby. Could be hours.”
Dwayne stopped his winding. “Pickle?”
“Chopped up pickle and a hint of Dijon in the mayonnaise.”
He dropped the roll of yellow tape on the ground and swished through the fallen leaves to the gravel drive. He ripped off his gloves and reached for the sandwich, unwrapping it and taking a huge bite in one swift motion, his glance sweeping his surroundings for superior officers.
“Mm, good. You make a mean egg sandwich. Hard to believe.”
I remained on my bike, watching him swallow chunks of egg salad and flax bread. I offered him a wet wipe.
He cleaned off his face and hands, then passed the used wipe back to me. “You want something?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“You always want something. The answer is no.”
Dwayne Rundell was the boyfriend of my friend, Sergeant Thea Vanderbloom. Before Dwayne made sergeant, we had fine times — he with a radar gun, and I passing him going slightly over the speed limit. He always pulled me over but stopped short of giving me a ticket. Dating the head cop gave a girl certain perks. Good times but, these days, my crazy schedule prevented me from breaking in a rookie.
“How fresh are the flowers on the coffin? For instance, were they cut last night or this morning?”
“How should I know? I wouldn’t tell you if I did.” He picked up his tape and set to work.
I didn’t respond, attempting for the fifth time this month to break the eff-bomb habit. I pulled the throttle and made it to the parking lot in eight seconds, parking close to Cranston’s white Suburban with the vanity plate, PLNTDR. He’d throw a fit when he saw my bike so close to his pricy ride. I took my time removing my Tory Burch bag from the sidecar, flossed my teeth, swiped on lip gloss, gave the top of my hair a finger-fluff.
No reason for me to wait in the tropical garden with the other hot, sweaty hostages. In actual fact, the others weren’t witnesses. Only me. I’d hover outside the tropical hell without going in.
I spared a thought for Heidi. We hadn’t seen her for four or five days. Yet, when I called Neil earlier, Heidi was at home with him. Why come over to make Neil tea and pudding now? He was on the mend, and I had to fight him to make him promise to stay home. Truthfully, I had to have sex with him so he wouldn’t call Ed Reiner to have his last week of sick leave rescinded. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve struck worse bargains. Although that beard ... Where was I headed with this?
Right, a twinge of suspicion grabbed me in the gut regarding my grandmother’s no-show, then sudden re-appearance.
She was up to something and wanted to keep it a secret. Who were these friends she spoke of? She hadn’t mentioned one name. Maybe a man? Someone she met at this bridge club she spent so much time with. Romance can flourish at any age, so I’ve heard.
I adjusted my bra strap, pretty much the last thing left to fuss with. I threw my shoulders back, and strode inside, straight to my tiny cubicle. The reptiles in the tropical garden generally stayed in the pond. The butterflies, on the other hand, dive-bombed and lit on you whether you sat still or kept moving ...
“Hey!”
I stuck my head out of my cubicle and glanced to the right, in the direction of the tropical garden. Holding the door open with one foot, Bernie stood with arms crossed and a grim expression. Butterflies escaped into the hall and flew directly at me.
“Ahhh!” I reached into my desk for a silk scarf and wrapped it around my head, tying it in a topknot. Those flying caterpillars burrowed into your hair faster than you could beat them back.
“Mrs. Redfern. If you don’t mind.” Bernie had taken his jacket off and his shirt clung damply to his chest. He wiped away a rivulet of sweat trickling from his hairline.
“Where have you been, Mrs. Redfern? I’ve been waiting with the other witnesses. We’ve all been sitting in that humid, hot greenhouse for the last 20 minutes. Except you.”
“What? Just hanging around, waiting for my turn. I assumed you’d interview me last.”
“Wrong. As I already mentioned, I can’t interview anyone in a separate room until another officer is here to wait with the others. Come along now.”
As well as a myriad of tiny butterflies, Chesley hatched the humongous Blue Morphos. One of them crawled over the edge of Bernie’s shoulder. It waved its antennae and studied me with black, facetted eyes.
I swallowed a snicker, before dropping my bag on the desk. While Bernie darted glances into the hothouse to make sure the “witnesses” weren’t collaborating on a story to explain Bert’s presence in the fancy coffin, I tucked every tendril of hair under the scarf and dragged my feet towards him.
“I’m ready. After you, Chief.”
He scowled and stared at my head. “You look like Rosie the Riveter.”
CHAPTER 25
Neil
Once past the sentry elms, the spindly pines grew sparser and smaller. Heidi’s passage a few days ago showed in the disturbed layers of pinecones and needles on the ground. Ahead of him, she zig-zagged from tree to tree, using the slender trunks for support.
She called back to him, “This was a wide path 65 years ago. These smaller pines have seeded themselves since.”
With the toe of his boot, Neil kicked aside the decayed matter until he detected hard-packed soil. Not a hospitable environment for new life. Rushing water sounded in the distance, growing louder as he pushed his way through the stunted pines.
Heidi waited for him a few metres ahead. “This is the bend in the drive. Up to this point, you can’t view Everdale. This is as far as I went a few weeks ago. There may not be much left.”
Neil expected remnants of a tent city, a post-war hippie commune. Heidi was very young when she lived here. Maybe her parents or other family were residents with her before she married Jean-Paul.
They stopped in what had once been a roughly circular clearing. So many trees had taken root, Neil saw nothing except the source of the running water — a fast-moving river off to his right.
He was born and raised in the city. Here were trees and wasteland, and unidentifiable humps strewn over the landscape. His observer training didn’t help much in the middle of all this ... nature.
Heidi scanned the rough ground beside the river, her expression resigned. He moved closer to her and studied her face. “Heidi, I don’t understand the purpose of this place.”
She swept her arm across the clearing. “Look with your mind’s eye at the spaces between the trees.”
Neil allowed his vision to blur, to discount the trees and shrubs. He focused on the in-between. Initially, the scene was nothing more than the rubble he first discerned.
Then, the piles of rust morphed into twisted slabs of iron and steel. A potbellied stove emerged from one pile. Several more littered the ground, one with a length of stovepipe attached.
“Were those Quonset huts?”
“Sort of. I overheard Jean-Paul tell one of the other men that they were Nissen huts from World War One. Surplus from the army base at Petawawa, donated to ... Everdale.”
Time and the elements hadn’t entirely eliminated the last traces of this place, but its purpose eluded Neil. Heidi had to tell her story in her own way but, damn, how did she come to be in this apocalyptic area, this place of sadness and pain?
When the silence went on too long, broken only by the splashing from the river as water tumbled over the rocks, Neil asked, “How many huts?”
“Six back then. In the fifties. Over there in the northeast corner is a high pile of rubble, the remains of more huts. There may have been a dozen or more in the 1920s and 30s.”
“Where are the cement pads for foundations?” Neil asked.
“These huts rested directly on the ground. They weren’t insulated. Dirt was piled up along the outer edges to keep the huts from blowing over in high winds and winter storms.”
Neil glanced down at Heidi. Her voice and choice of words reminded him of a tour guide explaining the origins of a historic site. She sounded like this place had nothing to do with her. “How long did you live in Everdale?” Who the hell named a primitive camp in the woods Everdale?
EVERDALE 1956
On May 14, 1956, twenty-three days after her seventeenth birthday, Heidi McLean married Jean-Paul Tremblay and moved to Everdale.
Heidi’s family owned a farm near Teasdale, Ontario. They raised everything from chickens to beef cattle. Heidi was the first of eight children and, since the oldest boy was only seven, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Marie, helped their father, Bruce, with the stock. The winter had been harsh and they slaughtered the last pig in March to make it through. That spring, Heidi’s parents decided to sell the farm and move to Sudbury where Bruce hoped to find a job in the mines. Heidi could tell by the size of her mother’s belly that number nine was due in a few months. It wasn’t Heidi's place to say it, but the older kids knew how babies happened and it seemed that Bruce and Mary should at least try the rhythm method. Everybody knew about that in 1956.
The farm sold to a neighbour who had coveted it for several years to add to his acreage. Bruce wasn’t happy with the money, but he received no other offers.
Since the truck’s cargo bed held only four cattle at a time, it took the family three Saturday trips to the stockyard to sell off the herd. Heidi noticed a tall man talking to her father the first week, and the man reappeared the following two Saturdays. He glanced at her a time or two but, since he was at least her father’s age, she paid little attention. He was handsome enough, but looked as though he’d been sleeping in the bush.
Later in her life, Heidi had a hard time recalling the details, but near the end of May while the family loaded up the truck for the move, Bruce told her that she would be married. That day. She wouldn’t be coming with them to Sudbury. He didn’t look at her when he said this, and Heidi later realized he felt guilty. But, after that day, she only thought of him with hate in her heart.
Bruce told her that Jean-Paul Tremblay was a good man, a veteran of the Italian campaign, and would take good care of her. It was for the best. Her brothers and sisters remained inside the house and she never saw them again.
Heidi prepared to run from the farmyard, across the pastures, and into the forest. She would hide there until her family left, then find a job on another farm. Perhaps the neighbour who bought the McLean property would hire her as a field hand. She could care for stock, drive a tractor, help with other chores. Anything but this, marrying a stranger, one as old as her father.
Before she took one step forward, the travelling Baptist minister drove his old car into the yard. With him was the man. He held a piece of paper; the marriage license they said. Heidi vowed not to say anything. They couldn’t make her say, “I do.”
Mary cried and begged her to marry this stranger. She said they couldn’t afford to feed her anymore. They had to protect the little ones. Jean-Paul would care for her, and perhaps soon he would bring her to Sudbury to visit.
Heidi thought this a big pile of horse manure. She could find a job in the mines, too. Or somewhere. But, then, it happened so fast, her parents’ pleas, the minister standing so stern and Jean-Paul peering down at his worn boots. He hadn’t said one word to her yet.
In no time, it was done. She wouldn’t say, “I do,” so Bruce signed the paper that the minister folded and placed in his vest pocket. The men shook on the deal, like she was a cow that changed owners.
Mary slipped her a diary, the one the kids had bought their mother last Christmas with money from selling pints of raspberries to passers-by. With the diary were two new pencils. When Heidi refused to look up or take the gift, Mary pushed it into the pocket of Heidi’s overalls. She passed over a burlap sack that held Heidi’s meagre collection of clothing.
Bruce herded Heidi into the back of the minister’s car. Jean-Paul sat in front with the minister. She glanced back once at her parents and sent them as much hate as she could muster, hoping they carried it with them for the rest of their lives. She would miss her brothers and sisters, even the one unborn.
They drove in silence for a long time, hours. Heidi sensed they drove in circles, doubling back at times, perhaps to confuse her. The minister tried to engage her in conversation, but Heidi refused to answer, directing hatred at the back of his neck. She had plenty of hate to spare. Jean-Paul still did not speak. She knew he could talk. He’d conversed with Bruce and Mary — as she would forever think of them — before they left.
Heidi thought about jumping out of the car to her death. Her parents threw her away; she married a stranger, with no idea where they were heading. A town? She could run away when they got there. Somebody would help her.
The car slowed at the edge of a dirt road. Heidi peered through the window. She didn’t see a single house or a farm gate. Only an enormous brick building with a funeral home sign over the driveway. The car lurched forward again and rounded a corner, finally stopping on the shoulder.
Her heart had been tripping ever since Bruce told her she would not accompany the family. Now, it raced and would soon burst from her chest.
Jean-Paul got out of the car and opened the back door. He reached in for her sack and waited for her to come out. Finally, he took her hand and pulled her out.
The minister rolled down his window and spoke to Jean-Paul. “Good luck to you, my good man. I’m sure you and your bride will be very happy.”
Before he rolled the window up again, Heidi found her voice. “You will burn in hell, old man.” She jerked her hand from Jean-Paul’s and snatched her sack from him. “And, you too, whoever the hell you are.”
The car sped off and left Heidi with her loathsome husband in the middle of nowhere. Did he plan to murder her? Well, she would leave a few marks on him before she took her last breath.
“It will be okay,” he said, his voice low and calm. “Come, Everdale is this way.”
He led her to a parting in the trees, two small elms marking the entrance to a place invisible from the road. Faint tire marks scarcely showed between the elms. Maybe his house was down the lane.
It was a short walk. Budding trees huddled together on either side of the path — for a path is all it could be called. Around a bend, she saw the dark outlines of small, round buildings. Except for the rippling of flowing water close by, it was silent.
The path became uneven and she had to watch her feet to avoid tripping. Other than taking her hand to move her out of the car, Jean-Paul had not touched her, even to steady her progress.
At her side, he stopped. Heidi raised her head. She couldn’t take a breath as she caught her first sight of Everdale. Nothing would be all right ever again.
CHAPTER 26
Neil
Neil made several attempts before words actually came out of his mouth. He intended to ask how she — how anyone — survived a winter in an uninsulated steel shack. What came out was a statement. “That marriage wasn’t legal.”
“I agree. I never signed anything; I never said anything. I’m sure Jean-Paul gave my father money, but the bastard minister took the paper and kept it. Jean-Paul never had a copy that I could find.”
