Authors: Rudy Wiebe
Stolen Life (45 page)
In the Kingston Prison for Women, Yvonne sits coiled tight in the upholstered chair across from me. She huddles down even smaller, her long, black hair hides her face. But she will speak this, every word of it.
She says, “Within myself, I cursed all creation of the stars above, and anyone sitting there watching this happen.”
This pig has abducted her in her own van, forced her away from her house, and driven her around for hours, telling her how for years he’s watched her around town, offering stupid advice, come with me, you and your kids, I’ll hide you, I’ll take care of you, I’ll drop the body in the river, shit, I can sink a body in a slough, just come with me. While she cried, sank into comatose despair, screamed, drank in hopelessness, but he kept on driving, talking, drinking, until he finally raped her. And now he’s content. He’s so sure of his control he lets her drive again: go ahead, let’s see what’s going on at your place; hey, maybe the party’s still going on.
She’s driving, and with the van she can kill him. And herself too, of course, and then everyone in her house will be safe. If Chuck’s dead, then she’s guilty and dead, and the children and Dwa will be safe. She speeds up; there’s a low bridge abutment ahead; she aims and speeds up. He’s screaming, grabbing at her, and she can’t see so well; she doesn’t hit it square in the spraying gravel, and the tough van glances off. Okay, there’s always a roll in the ditch, and she goes over and down into the weeds; the van’s rocking, slewing wildly but it’s not fast enough to roll, he’s fighting her for the wheel and the brake, and he gets it stopped. Cursing. But he’s so confident he doesn’t drag her out of the seat, he doesn’t bother to drive again.
In the grey morning light she slams on the brakes in front of the cop shop on Main Street. “Go ahead,” she mutters through her crying, “go, tell them, get out!”
“No, no,” he says, chuckling. “We’re going home, to your house.”
When she gets inside the small porch of her house, the door is unlocked! She runs through the house to the children’s bedroom—but they’re all there. Curled under their twisted blankets. She feels them, each one, and they stir under her touch. All breathing, perfectly.
Ernie snores on the couch in the living room—where’s Dwa? Sprawled under a sheet on their bed in the bedroom. Sleeping.
Lyle Schmidt
[from a statement made to the
RCMP
, Wetaskiwin, Friday, 15 September 1989 at 7 a.m. Witnessed by Constable T.G. Witzke]:
Last night I was driving around Wetaskiwin until 11:30 with [a friend] until he dropped me off at the cab company. I rode around with the drivers until approximately 12:30. Then I rode around with [a woman] and my daughter, and they dropped me off at the Wayside […]. at around 1:45 Yvonne came in. I have known her as Yvonne for about five years. Rick asked me what was I doing, I said girl hunting, he said what are you going to find in a place like this. I pointed out Yvonne and said there is a girl I know and went and talked to her. She was leaving with two cases of beer and I walked with her. I asked her where the party was at. I suggested I buy some beer, she said, I have two cases we can drive around. She wanted to go to her place but I said no, let’s go park someplace and have a beer. We drove past John Deere where I started to drive. She said if I gave you a gun would you kill me. I said no you are a friend. I then asked her if she would kill me, she said, no because you are a friend. She said, have you killed a person, I have, we drove around and talked. She said she killed someone because that person had tried to molest her youngest daughter [aged two]. She said she had caught the guy with the girl’s legs spread and he was playing with her. She said she had cut him, she didn’t know he was dead until she tried to lift up his head. She said she also beat him up and she shoved the knife up his ass and asked him, this is what it feels like when you shove your prick up her bald headed cunt. She also said Shirley Anne Cooke [Salmon] was there, they took the guy downstairs and tied him to a post with phone cord. She asked me how to get rid of the body. I made some suggestions and we returned to her house. I noticed what might have been a blood spot on her jeans just above the left knee. We went into the house
and there was Ernie Fraser (Jensen [police correction]) sleeping on the couch. She woke him but he had had it. I then grabbed him and woke him up. He said that they took the body out to the dump but everything is covered. The guy was still alive and choking on his own blood when they buried him […]. He also said he burnt the car […]. The husband came out, he said forget it, it is done with, we got rid of him, and went back to bed.
I should add, when we first went in she took me downstairs and showed me the blood on the wall […]. A knife was stuck in the post and she grabbed the knife and took it upstairs and washed it in the sink. I took it out and put it in my pocket. I asked her for the sheath, she told me where it was and I got it. I put the knife in the sheath and into my boot. Then I woke Ernie up. After talking I called the [cab] dispatcher, who called the police, and I left […].
Q: Was there blood on the knife?
A: I did not see any blood on the knife before or after she washed it […].
[From a “Taped Interview of Lyle Schmidt (
DOB:
51 Feb. 03)” made by the
RCMP
at 1647 on Saturday, 16 September 1989. The interviewer is not named.]
[…]. she gave me a beer and I started drinking beer. I said, “How’d you kill him?” and she said, “I cut him,” not getting into any details. It was like that for about two hours […]. So I’m really being the actor, or whatever you guys call it, and really getting into it. Literally, like ‘I’m mad at you, there’s no body, there’s no car, what kind of shit are you trying to pull?’ […] I’d say within 15–20 minutes, like, she relaxed to a point where she suddenly has my trust. Like we’re going to, she’s going to show me everything, and she’s going to let me help. By the time we got intimate, I did not force myself on her […].
Q: So you had sex with her.
A: Uh huh.
Q: In the van?
A: Yes I did. Then right after that the girl really opened up. She said everything’s a mess. I need help […]. it almost got to the point where she at that time the feeling was of total trust and she was going to show me everything and I was really going to try and help her […].
Q: Alright, you’re back at the house, you go in the house … go over it again quickly.
A: […] She also mentioned that when all she wanted to do was tie him up and just let him sit there for about three days […].
Q: You had it in your mind from the beginning that if there was substance to this … you would find out what you could?
A: If there was any substance to it right from the total beginning, like … to play along with the game and fill you guys in on it later. Like if I would have had to dispose of a body there’s various ways I could have done it, with them along. But it was just a matter of letting you guys know the exact spot […]. Like this was all going through my little mind, like I’m working on this the whole time.
Q: Okay, and I assume you did this entirely on your own […].
A: I do the strangest things at the strangest times and it’s kind of like I said before, OK Lyle, let’s see what kind of shit you can get into tonight […].
Q: You did not have a reward … in mind?
A: No […].I want to do this, it sounds like fun, let’s see how far it goes […]. Like if it would have been just something passing me by, I would have just forgot it. But everything in my mind, like I’m planning ahead, like I’m asking the questions, I’m playing the role, telling her things about my life, like I know what I’m doing […].
Q: Just one other thing […]. How did you … end up having sex with Yvonne there? […]. You suggested it?
A: We both suggested it, like that part we had been tossing it back and forth all night […]. A couple of times I asked her if she wanted to and one time she said no. Now later she said yes …
Q: Was she a willing participant?
A: She took off her own clothes […].
Yvonne knows they’re coming, it’s only a question of how soon. In her staggering exhaustion of drunkenness and confused hopelessness, she sits at her kitchen table alone. The dull light from the stove angles shadows; they seem almost tranquil, lie so steady and usual across the table-top. Dwa is sleeping, or passed out, Ernie is sprawled on the couch. Shirley Anne is long, long gone.
Someone has stepped into her porch. Footsteps. A pounding, sharp and hard.
“Who is it?”
“It’s the police,
RCMP.”
She lets the silence stretch out, just a few seconds more. The banging comes harder: “Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Open the door!”
The door is locked. In the living room, Ernie jerks erect on the couch as if the cop’s voice had raised him from the dead.
“What do you want?” Yvonne raises her voice as loud as she can.
“We’ve had a complaint here.”
“What complaint?”
“That someone’s been hurt. Now open up.”
“There’s no one here hurt.” “Who’s in the house?
Yvonne looks up; Ernie has appeared at the table, but at that question he turns and darts for the living room, shoves the sliding patio doors open silently and drops out, gone. Like Shirley Anne, he can run too; it’s not his house.
There are two cops outside; she can hear them talking to each other. It’ll be just a matter of minutes now.
“Open the door!”
“If you have a warrant,” Yvonne answers, “I will.”
“Yes! Now open up!”
“Then slide it under the door, so I can read it!”
Another silence. Suddenly powerful kicks hammer at the door, and Yvonne jumps up and slides table knives in the door jamb so they can’t pop the lock—they sure as hell have no warrant—and then the first cop’s voice shouts to someone and a voice answers, seemingly from the living room.
“Ray, the patio door’s open!”
Yvonne shouts, “Where’s your warrant?” as she runs into the living room. The patio doors are three feet above the ground—the patio isn’t built yet – and the cop already has his hat and arms, shoulders in; he’s hoisting up his leg as Yvonne gets there, yelling, “You can’t come in without a warrant!”