The Bay of Love and Sorrows (21 page)

“Well, this has been a hell of a thing,” Delano said.

“Hell of a thing,” Michael said.

“There was no indication of this, was there? I mean, did she mention to you that Vincent was harassing her? When was the last time you saw Karrie? She was — a friend?”

Michael cleared his throat, “A friend — yes — a good friend — a few days before the murder — “

“Did she say there was any trouble?”

“Trouble? No — well, she said that Tom hit her.”

“She did say that — “

“Yes.”

“And where did you see her — that last time?”

“On the path.”

“On the path — where the murder took place. By accident, or you meet her there?”

“I met her there — “

“So you were good friends — “

“Friends, yes — well, she confided in me —” “In you — really? About what?”

Michael rubbed his right hand across his face and tried to think.

“I was at Laura McNair’s the night of the murder, I don’t actually know what happened —” He looked up. Delano went back to his notes.

“Of course — but you were
her
friend — she confided in
you.
So Tom might have been jealous of you. You were going away with her?”

Michael paused and lit a cigarette once again, in the small bright office.

“Who told you that?”

Delano looked through his notes, flipped back four pages and looked up.

“Dora Smith — ‘Michael and she were going away — so Tom had Vincent...’” He looked up.

“Oh — well we talked about that, you know, just to stop Tom from beating her. Who told you, Dora Smith?”

“Who is Professor Becker — a friend of yours at unb?”

“Well, I studied under him —”

“And you went to see him?”

“Oh — no — when?”

Again Delano paused, perplexed, looked through his notes. He glanced at Michael. Michael seemed angry, flustered.

“Well, you went to Fredericton and saw a Professor Becker — that’s according to Emmett Smith: ‘My Karrie wanted to go to university and Michael had spoken about her to Professor Becker last week, and now that’s all ruined —’”

“Oh — Karrie
is
confused — I didn’t
really
go over to speak to him — it’s just — I ran into him —”

“In Fredericton —”

“Yes.”

“Yet Karrie
was
confused.”

“Pardon?”

“In Fredericton?”

“Pardon? Oh yes — in Fredericton.” “In his office —”

Michael’s cigarette was hot as he dragged on it, and he looked at the half-closed Venetian blinds where sunlight splashed through.

“Well, we went to his office —”

“We?”

“Silver was with me.” “Silver Brassaurd?” “Yes — just for a drive.”

“All the way to Fredericton?” Delano smiled. “With Silver Brassaurd?”

“Yes — why not?”

“But it was to see if Karrie could enroll in a course — and go to university — this is what she tells Dora and Emmett on September 7.”

“Well — in a way — yes,” Michael said, blushing.

“Well, that was kind of you.” There was a long pause, perhaps a half a minute. “She went with you on the sailboat — where did you go, to P.E.I. one time?”

“We never went to P.E.I. — to Portage — Island once —”

Michael felt he was being forced into a position of protecting Karrie’s lies to her parents about university. He halted and looked at Delano.

“I was hoping she would go to university, you know — I thought she had — so much to offer —”

“So that was on her birthday — and you proposed to her —”

“Proposed?”

“On the sailboat — “

“Who? It wasn’t a proposal — friends go on a sailboat — so, you know, friends — don’t you have any female friends — as
friends’“

“So there was no trip to P.E.I.?”

Michael looked about the office.

“I tried to be her friend,” he said, shaking his head, and looking deeply hurt.

“Of course — so there was no sexual intercourse? You weren’t her friend in
that
way”

“Well — we knew each other — on a sailboat, you know, you see each other — “

“But there was no sexual intercourse?”

“I was very fond of her — I tried my best to protect her — I thought — you know, if she could just be her own person, what a wonderful person she might be. But why can’t the police protect someone like this — why was it up to me?”

There was another long pause. Then Delano, taking a sip of coffee, while still looking at his notes, continued.

“Do you know why she was carrying money? Or who she might have been carrying money
for?
It wasn’t for you — this money?”

“No — of course not.”

“You didn’t owe any money on P.E.I.?”

“Why do you keep mentioning Prince Edward Island?”

“The coast guard towed you — one night. Karrie told Dora she went with you to P.E.I.”

Here Michael laughed. “No — we never really got there — the old
Renegade —
“

“You didn’t owe any money to Professor Becker for something — a course for Karrie perhaps?”

“Of course not. Things aren’t done that way”

“Did you ever see a tin box at the Smiths’?”

“What tin box?”

“You are not in any debt?”

“No.”

“And you know of no bad drugs sold late August in REX?” “No, of course not,” Michael said, his voice a whisper.

For a few days Tom and his brother existed in limbo, where nothing was expected of them, and nothing could be done for them. They stayed in the house, which suddenly looked unnatural, with its built-on extra room for Vincent. The little dog stayed outside. The farrier did not come back But the police were there, taking photos. Twice he had asked them if they’d found the diamond ring he had given to Karrie, and twice they brushed him aside, saying they were looking into it.

The days went on and each day the trees suspended in autumn dew changed colour slightly

Sometimes everything was extremely lighthearted with Tom and the police officers, and then a police officer would get a call, and come back into the house and address him.

“Vincent’s fingerprints are all over Karrie — his footprints are near the murder scene — his prints are on the tin box, he had a bloodied one-hundred-dollar bill in his pocket. Vincent carried her back and laid her in your barn and went to some trouble to try to hide the crime.”

Tom wouldn’t answer.

“The police will find the man,” Vincent kept saying. He said he was going to become a policeman and find the man. He asked Tom to telephone the police station every other hour to ask them if they had found the man.

They sat in the house together, both of them dressed to go to the funeral, as the hearse passed on the road beneath them and turned into the church lane, with its soft gracious trees in the bright sunshine.

“Karrie loved a day like this,” Tom said to Constable Matchett, but she looked at him and frowned just slightly, as if for some reason he wasn’t allowed to express devotion
now.
As the day wore on, as the moments passed on the small grandfather clock and sunlight flitted over the small dining-room table, Tom felt more and more as if he had caused everything.

“Karrie loved a day like this, boys,” Vincent said, nodding at Tom. And that in itself was excruciating to hear.

Line after line of cars passed their front field behind the hearse.

Tom couldn’t bear to look. An rcmp constable was taking pictures of the barn once again, and of the oak tree where the tin box was found. The area had been taped off and Tom had to ask permission to leave the house.

He had asked the police permission to go to the funeral that morning, and the last car had turned onto the church lane before anyone seemed to remember this.

There was a shuffle at the door and Constable Delano and Constable Matchett came in. Constable Matchett was looking at some papers in her hand, and leaned against the counter in an easy, callow fashion, her gun on her left side, as if those who owned the house had no right to expect her to stand on ceremony any more.

Constable Delano approached Tom. He advised him quietly not to go to the funeral.

“Why?”

“It’s just safer for you,” Constable Delano said.

Vincent sat with his photo album on his lap and stared at it, tears streaming down his face. He stared at the picture of him and Tom and Karrie at the picnic. He remembered they had been working in the stall that housed the game of rings, and Everette Hutch, who always tormented Vincent, put a ring on his head, and Tom said: “If you ever touch my brother — I’ll kill you.”

Then Everette and Tom fought, and toppled the rings; both of them were identical in stature and size, except Mr. Hutch (as Vincent called him) had a scar. Both threw some good punches. But Tom got in the best punch, a hard right uppercut. Then some of the men broke it up.

Later they had the picture taken, and Karrie stood between them. She put her arms around both of them, leaned forward and said: “Here I am between me two men.”

And Tom, with a cut lip, said it was still a nice day to have a picnic. Vincent had waited all week and had bothered Tom all that morning about the picnic.

Now, today, with the same childlike insistence, every five or ten minutes Vincent would ask Tom if they had caught the man. The wind blew against their farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

Vincent said he was going to take the picture of Karrie down to the funeral. But they stopped him, so he did what he had always done: he asked Tom to help him. Just as he had asked Tom to tie his shoes every Sunday morning before they went off to church.

“Vincent, they don’t want to hurt you — Vincent, they don’t want to hurt you,” Tom kept saying.

Later, Vincent sat in his room, smoking his pipe. Tom came in and, sitting on the edge of the bed, he looked at him. At times in his idiocy, Vincent took a stubborn, implacable turn. Now he would say nothing. He only looked out the window as Tom spoke to him. The more Tom asked him about Karrie, the less Vincent would communicate.

“I don’t know — ya — okay — but I don’t remember,” was the only thing Vincent kept saying, puffing dramatically and stoically on his pipe.

“It is my fault, Vincent,” Tom finally said, staring at his brother’s immense shoulders and large hands. “It’s my fault. I drove you to it without even knowing — I caused it all.”

Karrie was buried in a grave near her mother close to the bay. Later, Emmett and Dora would have a fight over the stone.

More than four hundred people attended the funeral on September 14. Gail Hutch went, but left her little boy, Brian, at home, in the care of her brother Everette, who said he didn’t mind sitting at such a time. The men wore suits and ties; the ties, and Emmett’s salt-and-pepper hair, blew in the wind. Emmett was visibly weakened and crying. Michael, one of the pallbearers, looked tired, pale, and confused. Silver Brassaurd was one of the pallbearers also, and, like many working men, looked and moved unnaturally, almost robotically, in his suit. Often he was seen breaking down crying.

Dora followed them, standing beside the Skid family, looking immensely proud and unshaken.

Four days after the funeral the community was jarred by another event that gave people an unnatural feeling of regret, repentance, and culpability