Fall from Grace (2 page)

The rain was still falling. Warren heard it in the rhododendron hedge, and he glanced in that direction and saw the extravagant blossoms glowing fitfully, stroked by somebody's headlights.

Bobby slapped the roof of his aunt's car and waved as she drove slowly away. Then he joined Warren and Wanda. He grabbed Wanda and kissed her.

Fair-haired man, dark-haired woman in an embrace; next to them, a man of medium build with short, dark hair, wearing a poplin jacket; his left hand is pressed against the back of his neck and he's looking toward the school, his face scrunched up in embarrassment.

Bobby released Wanda. He turned to Warren, his face aglow. “I am looking into my future, Warren,” he said, “and I am seeing it shine, I am seeing it shine.”

Warren was uncomfortable with this kind of talk. But he saw the truth of it in Bobby's eyes. He punched Bobby's shoulder, and they grabbed each other in a mock wrestling match, and their laughter and Wanda's shrieks drifted through the evening with the rain.

Summer 1990

i

“Happy birthday, Mom,” said Steven, and Velma's eyes filled instantly with tears.

“I knew you wouldn't forget,” she said into the phone. She turned and looked out the front window of her small house, into the branches of the willow tree; their green tendrils hung low enough to brush the lawn.

“I never forget,” said Steven. “Have I ever forgotten your birthday?”

“No,” said Velma, smiling at the willow tree.

“Or Mother's Day?”

“No,” said Velma, “no, you haven't.”

“Or Christmas? I've never forgotten Christmas, either, have I?”

Velma laughed aloud at this.

“I thought about sending flowers,” he said, “but that would have been coals to Newcastle, right?”

“Right,” said Velma, smiling. It was the middle of June, and her garden was ablaze with roses. And she had red geraniums in the windowboxes, and pink ones in pots on the patio. And in hanging baskets she'd planted fuchsia and petunias and verbena and trailing lobelia. Yes, if there was anything she didn't need more of, it was flowers.

“It's particularly lovely out there today,” she said, “with the sun shining so bright. I wish you could see it.” She said this deliberately, knowing that it might upset him, because she resented the fact that she hardly ever got to see him. After all, it wasn't as if he was half a continent away, like Lettie Charles's boy.

“Yeah, me too,” he said, which she didn't believe for a moment. He was a real Vancouverite now, Steven was. “Now I've got you on the phone,” he went on, “what's the news?” He used the exact same phrase, every time he called.

Velma, smiling, reached into the kitchen for the stool that sat next to the refrigerator. “Well,” she said, looking out at the willow tree, marshaling her recollections, “let's see.” She made herself comfortable on the stool and offered him, one by one, all the fragments of information that had come her way, since the last time they'd talked.

Velma was extremely surprised when at the close of her narrative Steven said, “I've got an idea, Mom. How would you feel about putting me up in my old room for a while?”

She didn't understand him, at first. She turned around on the stool and focused her gaze on the telephone, which was attached to the wall. She pressed the receiver more tightly against her ear. “What did you say, dear?”

Steven laughed. “I've got an urge to come home for a while, Mom.”

“But Steven,” she said. Her heart was soaring; amazement had done it. “Steven. Oh, Steven.”

“I'd have to tie up some loose ends first,” he said. “Take me ten days or so. I could be over there—say by the end of the month. In time for the July First weekend. How about it?”

“I'm absolutely delighted, Steven. I'm so happy I feel like crying,” said Velma, blinking rapidly.

When she'd hung up, Velma went outside and got her clippers. She picked an enormous bouquet of roses, pricking her hands in the process, but it was worth it to bring such gorgeous blooms inside.

She stood in the middle of the yard, holding the clippers, the basket of roses over her arm, and looked for a moment at the house. It stared back at her, squinting through narrow windows. She thought for some reason of the first house they'd lived in, the one Harry had built with his own hands, on three acres out in the bush. Steven had had a room upstairs whose windows looked out into the branches of a big tree. He'd gone in and out of that window as often as he'd used the door.

The house was blurry because of her tears.

At long last, Steven was coming home. After ten years of self-imposed exile, Steven was coming home to Sechelt.

Summer days stretched before her warm and fragrant and she saw Steven sunning himself in her backyard and Steven lounging in front of the television and Steven laughing at one of her jokes and Steven smacking his lips over homemade hamburgers cooked on the barbecue and Steven taking pictures, of course, always taking pictures. And some of these images were true and some were shot through with lies.

Velma peered into the hot summery future and a small black presentiment lodged itself inside her. She placed her hand flat upon her chest, pretending her hand was a magnet: she would pull that bad feeling right out of there and fling it into her compost heap.

And then it retreated, and Velma was relieved. She looked again with eagerness toward the future, and did not know that the murder of her son awaited her there.

ii

The highway was clogged with traffic; the two o'clock ferry had arrived, having crossed Howe Sound from Horseshoe Bay, just northwest of Vancouver. The ferry had docked at Langdale, a village at the southern end of the forty-five-mile-long strip of British Columbia that is known as the Sunshine Coast.

Among the vehicles heading away from Langdale that bright day in June lurched an elongated pickup truck, the back of it loaded, the load covered with a tarpaulin.

After Langdale and Gibsons Landing, the road wound inland through countryside occupied by people on acreages. There were horses in some of the pastures, and chicken coops near some of the houses. On some of these properties old car bodies and chunks of unidentifiable machinery lay about. There were swing sets in some of the yards, and tires hung from tree branches, and from behind the wobbly fence fronting one piece of property an ancient dog, irritable with toothache or stomach distress, barked at the slowly passing traffic.

The highway wended northwest from Gibsons, carrying its burden of traffic toward Sechelt, and about halfway between the two villages it made an abrupt ninety-degree turn and headed directly for the sea. But a gravel road continued northward. To the right a long, narrow strip of cleared land bordered the gravel road, backing up against a forest that spilled quickly upward to cover the flanks of a low-flung mountain. In the middle of the clearing, a building stood behind two old gas pumps, long since disconnected.

It was a small, rectangular, wooden building with a sharply peaked roof. There were little windows in the gables, and underneath the one facing north another piece of roof stuck out, like an eyeshade. In the long roof that looked toward the gravel road was a dormer with two tiny side-by-side windows, and in the bottom part of the roof, where it angled and the pitch became less steep, there were three skylights, one in the middle, one at each end.

A glass wall wrapped around the building on two sides; from the road, it looked like a greenhouse with a second story.

On this sunny afternoon the traffic, vehicle by vehicle, lurched up to the turn in the highway, lumbered dutifully around it, and aimed itself west, at the Pacific Ocean.

All but the pickup truck.

When it reached the corner, the pickup continued forward onto the gravel road, crunched along until it got to the building, swerved off toward the old gas pumps and came to a halt between the pumps and the glass-walled house.

For a while it just sat there. Then the driver's door flew open, and Herman Ferguson got out.

“Annabelle!” he hollered. He wore a white T-shirt through which a mat of dark chest hair could be seen. He wasn't very tall. He was wiry, unshaven, and had a lot of thick black hair. Two of his teeth were missing. Sometimes, when he got excited, he made a whistling sound when he spoke.

“Come on here, you guys,” he yelled to the children who had appeared around the corner of the building. “Where's your ma? We've gotta get this thing unloaded.”

Bowlegged and cocky, he strode to the end of the truck, where he hoisted himself up and started undoing the ropes that connected the tarp to the sides of the vehicle.

The oldest child, a girl, was nine. She had blond hair tied in a dispirited ponytail. Pieces of it had come loose and were hanging around her face. She was wearing baggy jeans that wouldn't have stayed up on her skinny frame except for a cord drawn through the belt loops and tied firmly around her waist. On top, she wore a short-sleeved pink T-shirt.

The boy was eight. He was called Arnold, and he had his father's hair, thick and black, so black that in the bright sunlight sometimes it looked dark red.

The smallest child was a girl, also blond, who was six, almost seven. Her hair was cut so short that it was hard for some people to tell she was a girl. She could run very fast and she climbed trees very nimbly and her name was Camellia.

Her sister was called Rose-Iris.

Annabelle hurried around the corner, breathless, pushing a strand of hair away from her face. “I was in the garden,” she said. She smiled at her children as she approached them, gathered at the rear of the truck. “What on earth have you got there?” she said to Herman.

From his position on the truck bed Herman whipped off the tarpaulin, revealing a collection of wire cages. “Take a look at that,” he said triumphantly.

“What is it?” said Camellia, standing on tiptoe, straining to see.

“Animals,” said Rose-Iris disbelievingly, peering into the truck. “It's animals. In cages.”

“Let me see, let me see,” said Camellia, all excited. Rose-Iris lifted her up, staggering a little.

“I got 'em from Tyrone,” said Herman.

“I thought you went over there to get money,” said Annabelle, her hands on her hips. “I thought Tyrone owed you some money.”

“He did owe me, and now he's paying me. He's sending more next week, too.” Herman gestured impatiently to his wife. “Come on over here. When the monkeys and the skunks get here there's gonna be enough critters for a zoo, and that's what I'm bound to have, a zoo, a mini-zoo, two dollars for adults and a buck each for kids.” He threw back his head and laughed. “How's that for a summer project?” he said to Arnold, with a wink.

Rose-Iris put Camellia down again. “Can we play with them?” said Camellia.

“Don't be silly,” said Rose-Iris sharply. “They're wild animals. You don't play with wild animals.”

Annabelle had ventured nearer, and now she stared into the interior of the cages. She saw raccoons, and squirrels, and foxes. All of the animals were panting. Some of them were quivering. Their eyes were huge and dark; fathomless, thought Annabelle. Urine and excrement had fouled the bottoms of the cages, which were lined with newspapers.

“Well come on, don't just stand around,” said Herman. “These critters need a drink. Climb on up here, Arnold, help me get these things off here. We'll set 'em up out back, where there's some shade.”

Annabelle stood back and watched as the cages were unloaded. Her heart was hammering in her chest. It's the heat, she thought. Really, it was uncommonly warm, for June.

She smoothed her dress with her hands, tilted her head, and managed to clear herself a passageway through the threat of turmoil.

“I'm having nothing to do with this,” she said, her tone flat and implacable. “I'm going back to my garden.”

The rest of the family watched, silent, as she walked quickly toward the house.

“I think she's scared of those animals,” said Camellia finally.

Rose-Iris gave her a push. “Ma's not scared of anything,” she said, glancing up at her father.

“She'll get used to them,” said Herman, staring at the corner around which Annabelle had disappeared. “She'll damn quick get used to them.”

iii

“Wanda, it's five to four.”

“I know it's five to four.”

“Well come on.”

“It's five to four, Warren. Not four. We're leaving at four o'clock, that's what you said.”

“Yeah, well, it's that now.”

“It's not four, it's five to four. I'll be ready at four. I told you I'd be ready at four, and I'll be ready at four.”

Warren Kettleman let the screen door bang shut behind him and went down the walk to the street, where his van was parked in front of the house. He unlocked it and opened the windows, and left the passenger door open, too. It was like an oven in there.