Res Judicata (14 page)

2. assessed that I was toast,

3. jumped up and down like a little kid who really needs to pee, then

4. somehow managed to hurl myself into the bedroom without knocking over any furniture or leaving a little telltale puddle on the floor.

The door opened—like, seriously—one nanosecond later.

Chuck was in a good mood. I could hear him whistling. Maybe that's why he didn't seem to notice that I'd left the light on. I flattened myself behind the door, and I just prayed he wouldn't come into the bedroom. (This whole experience suddenly made me feel very religious.)

He came into the bedroom. I was shaking so bad it was making the doorknob rattle. Chuck must be used to things rattling when he stomps into a room. He didn't seem to notice that either.

I heard a slurp, a click-click-smack and an “ahhhh.” When Chuck started whistling again, he sounded different. Unless I was mistaken, he sounded like a man with his teeth in. He headed back into the other room.

What was I going to do? I couldn't stay behind the door. He'd find me for sure. I needed a better hiding spot.

I heard the sound of the fridge door sucking open. My guess was Chuck would be looking inside. He wouldn't be looking this way. I made my break for it.

I dove under the bed. It wasn't as good as a passing car, but it was good enough. I was pretty sure he wouldn't spot me here. Chuck couldn't see anything below his belly. He probably hadn't seen his feet in years.

I lay on my back and tried not to gag. I was terrified, but that wasn't the only thing making me queasy. The place was like an underwear burial ground. I guess Chuck must have figured, “Why wash them when you can just kick them under your bed and let them air out for a few days?”

I flicked a couple of pairs aside so I could see what was going on. I made a mental note to disinfect my hands when or if I got out of there.

I turned on my side. Even with the gonch out of the way, I didn't have the best view. Every so often, Chuck's feet would go in and out of the frame when he got up for another snack or something, but I couldn't really see too much above his kneecaps.

Chuck sat down out of sight. (I knew he sat down because I could hear the springs of the La-Z-Boy squeak. To tell you the truth, I almost felt sorry for them. It sounded like someone was stepping on a cat's tail.) Chuck didn't get up for a while. He seemed to be settling in. I rolled over flat on my back and tried to relax.

I'd just about managed to get my heart rate below a thousand beats a minute when the phone rang.

So much for relaxing. I almost went through the roof, by which of course I mean the mattress. The phone was so loud it sounded like it was right beside me.

Apparently it was. It rang again, and I realized it was on the bedside table.

My teeth started shivering even worse than before. It was Andy on the phone. I just knew it. It had to be Andy. She'd looked in my room, seen I wasn't there, and now she was putting out the all points bulletin for me. Chuck would say, “No, no. He's not here,” but then he'd think, “Hey...Something's up.” He'd look around. He'd realize that the light was left on. He'd notice that the laptop wasn't in exactly the place he'd left it. He'd start sniffing the air and doing that “Fee-fi-fo-fum” thing that homicidal giants and friends of my mother do when they smell an intruder.

I was dead.

The phone rang again.

I could hear the La-Z-Boy scream out in agony when Chuck heaved himself up. He went, “All right. All right. I'm coming.”

He answered the phone. “Yeah. What?”

Lovely manners. It's like that old proverb, I guess. You can give a man teeth but you can't make him talk nice.

He stood there scratching and going, “Uh-huh... uh-huh...Large or medium? Okay. I'll be ready. Don't be late. People complain if it's cold. And I don't want complaints. Understood? And another thing. Hear from her yet? Did you leave that flyer at her place like I told you to?...Okay, okay. I'll have to figure out another way to get to her. Maybe we should offer a low-fat special...Yeah? What now?...I told you! I got your money! It'll be here!”

He swore and slammed the phone down.

I didn't know what was going on. Was Chuck running a pizza parlor out of here or something? Sounded like he was taking an order. That would explain the boxes, at least.

This was getting weirder and weirder. On top of everything else, was Chuck the genius behind Railroader's choo-choo-chewy crust? Was there nothing this man couldn't do?

He left the room. I started breathing again. I figured he wouldn't be back for a while. If Chuck was making pizza, he was going to have to get cracking. Other than the boxes, it didn't look to me like he had anything ready.

I expected him to head into the kitchen, but he didn't. He went back into the living room and sat down out of sight again.

A good ten minutes must have passed. I heard a couple of squeaks and a few bodily noises (if you know what I mean), but that's all. He might have been cutting the cheese, but it wasn't mozzarella.

There was a knock.

Chuck got up, opened the door, and I knew right away it was a Railroader's Pizza delivery. I recognized the smell. (I consider myself a bit of an expert. I was pretty sure I even knew what kind of pizza it was: all-dressed with anchovies. I'd smelled it plenty of times before. It was Biff‘s favorite. It was the one he always got when he didn't feel like cooking. Personally, I hated it. I could never manage to pick all the anchovies off. There were always a couple I missed, lurking under the pepperoni, just waiting for the right moment to ambush my poor unsuspecting taste buds.)

Chuck mumbled something to the guy at the door, then walked back into the living room. I figured he was getting his wallet or something. I was sort of surprised when he bent down and opened one of the clean pizza boxes he had stacked all over the place.

I was even more surprised to see that he'd put on big yellow oven mitts to do it. What did he need oven mitts for? The boxes couldn't have been hot. Neither could the pizza. I couldn't remember the last time we ordered take-out pizza and it was still warm by the time it got to our place.

Chuck's back was to me, so I couldn't see exactly what he was up to. I heard the
shush
of delicious crispy dough against fresh cardboard. It seemed weird, but I was pretty sure he'd just slid the pizza into the new box. He dropped the old box on the floor. It popped open, empty.

Chuck went back to the door and started ragging away at the delivery guy. “No! Not like that! Watch it! Watch where you put your hands! Careful with the box!” The guy must have wanted to pound Chuck. I mean, it was just a
pizza! Chuck was acting like Picasso himself had whipped it up or something.

Chuck gave the guy one last dig, then slammed the door and clicked all the locks shut.

What was going on? Why did he give the pizza back to the guy? Why did he put it in a clean box? Chuck sure wasn't what you'd call, like, fastidious or anything.

No kidding.

He walked into the room and stopped right beside the bed. Believe me, those were not the toenails of a fastidious person. I've seen groundhogs with cleaner toenails.

I heard him stretch. He yawned. He fiddled around with something for a second. Then his shirt landed on the floor. There was a grunt and a
zzzzzip
, he gave a little wiggle and his pants slid down his legs. He stepped out of them.

I knew what was coming next. I braced myself.

He dropped his underwear and, as I predicted, flicked them under the bed with his toe. They skidded to a stop, still warm and steaming, just in front of my face. If I'd stuck out my tongue—which, believe me, I wouldn't do—I could have touched them. All I could think of was the bubonic plague.

Chuck hopped into bed like some seven-year-old all excited about his new Superman sheets. The mattress gave way and I was pinned to the floor. It's amazing he didn't hear my skull crunch.

My worst nightmare had come true.

From what I could gather, Chuck slept in the nude.

Prosecutor
In criminal law, the government lawyer who charges and
tries a case against a person accused of a crime.

The good thing about being stapled under a bed by a huge man is that it gives you time to think. I mean, there wasn't much else I could do. I couldn't fidget. I couldn't chew on my hangnails. I couldn't even breathe too deeply. (My lungs worked okay. I was just terrified of inhaling the guy's boxers.)

Suddenly stuff was becoming really clear to me, not least the value of good personal hygiene.

Chuck Dunkirk was definitely Duncan Charles. He knew Ernest Sanderson.

He was a scientist, so he also knew what would happen if you put an explosive substance on a fire.

In other words, it wasn't an accident. This wasn't some Good Samaritan making some bad decision on the spur of the moment. Chuck killed Ernest on purpose.

Why? That's what I couldn't figure out.

Chuck rolled over and I could feel my bones crumbling like a handful of cornflakes. I wished I'd drunk more milk when I had the chance.

I thought of that university video taken in the lab.

Fame, maybe? Is that what he wanted? It clearly bugged Duncan-slash-Chuck that Ernest was getting all the glory. And that was even
before
the whole Gleamoccino thing hit. I mean, can you believe it? The guy was all put out because he wasn't getting equal airtime on some bad promotional video that nobody was even going to watch.

How sad is that?

Was it plain old jealousy that drove Chuck nuts? Is that what happened to him?

Yikes.

Scary.

I promised myself I would never envy anyone ever again for having a nice skateboard or nice clothes or a normal mother. I didn't want what happened to Chuck to happen to me. I pictured myself twenty years from now, all hairy and toothless and, you know, bloated by jealousy, walking up to Kendall and going hi and him going, like, “Who are you?” I mean, that's what it must have been like for people who hadn't seen Chuck in twenty years. He and Duncan didn't even
look
like the same guy anymore.

It suddenly hit me.

I would have conked myself in the head if I could have moved my hand.

Like, duh. Of course! If you planned to kill someone, would you want to be recognized? Chuck didn't
want
to look like Duncan! That's why he left his teeth out. That's why he grubbed himself up, let his hair and beard go, packed on the weight. That's why he stole my video. He must have thought I was onto him.

Everything was falling into place.

And that's why he did that whole publicity-shy thing too. He wasn't humble—no news there—he was just being
careful. He wanted to make extra sure no old lab buddy heard about Ernest Sanderson's death on
Inside Edition
and saw past Chuck's disguise.

He pulled up his hood, covered his face, laid low. It made him look good when he was still a hero—not wanting to take all the credit and everything—and it didn't look that strange once he became a suspect either. Everybody hides their face on the way into court. Nobody wants their busdriver or their barista or their second cousin seeing them on
TV
and thinking they're a criminal.

Chuck was lucky, too, that cameras aren't usually allowed in Canadian courts. All anybody ever saw of him from the trial were those sketches they put on the news. No one would recognize him from one of those. No one would recognize their own
mother
from one of those.

But Shannondoah...That's different. She was in the court. Chuck couldn't hide his face there. Had she recognized him? Is that why she was doing all that research? Because she'd figured something out about him?

Maybe.

Chuck started snoring away like Frankenstein with a sinus problem. I was just waiting for the old lady next door to start pounding on the wall again. (If that racket didn't wake her up, nothing would.)

No, on second thought, I was pretty sure Shannondoah hadn't recognized Chuck—for two reasons. One: The age gap. Shannondoah was probably still in diapers when Chuck and Ernie worked together.

And two: The whole trial would have been different if she had recognized him. I'm almost positive Shannondoah would have told the prosecution lawyer that Chuck wasn't the
do-gooding stranger he claimed to be. The lawyer would have no doubt brought that up in court. He would have sniffed around until he found out something that had happened between Chuck and Ernie—an argument, an iou, a missing sea louse, anything—and then the lawyer would have tried to convince the jury that that was Chuck's motive for killing Ernest.

And if Chuck had a motive for killing Ernest, if he
meant
to kill Ernest, he probably wouldn't have been charged with manslaughter. He would have been charged with murder.

Okay. So what
did
Shannondoah know then?

She knew something. Or, at least, she suspected something. What?

That note of hers I'd found. What had she written on it?

Frankly, when I'd seen it, I'd studied it more for her perfume than for her research. I tried to picture the paper, read it in my mind. There was something about flammability and fire extinguishers and e-mail and...what else?

Think. What else did I remember?

Blond hair. Green eyes. Big laugh.

That's helpful.

Traffic court. She'd written
traffic court
, I was pretty sure of it.

Why?

What was it about traffic court?

Biff!

Did Biff run into Ernest at court? Is that what happened? Ernest had all those tickets from speeding down Spring Garden Road. Had Biff been on duty when Ernest appeared in front of the judge?

Maybe that was the connection between Biff and Chuck!

Did Biff tell Chuck that Ernest was there? Did Biff, like, stake Ernest out for Chuck? Make it easy for him?