(Monty)
If Beau Delaney was not home when Peggy died, but arrived late at night afterwards, there was a chance his homecoming was noticed by one or more of his neighbours. Given the circumstances, Beau was able to pinpoint his arrival time with some precision: twelve thirty-five in the morning. His call to the ambulance was logged at twelve forty-three, and the medical examiner arrived just before one thirty. In the M.E.’s estimation, Peggy had been dead for around three hours, which meant the time of death was ten thirty or thereabouts. I had not yet seen the witness statements taken by the police. But I wanted my own answers. I also thought there might be some value in Beau Delaney’s own lawyer asking his neighbours for help, or should I say, factual information, so I went on a fact-finding mission to his neighbourhood on Wednesday evening. There seemed little point in asking everyone on his street if they happened to notice his car going by, but his closest neighbours, those on either side and across the street, had a clear view of the Delaneys’ driveway and the front of their house. I began knocking on doors, starting with the one adjacent to the driveway. No, Dr. Harrison and his wife had taken no notice one way or the other. They were very sorry to lose Peggy as a friend, and they had no doubt about Beau’s innocence. It was much the same story with Professor Anna Goldberg on the other side of Beau’s house, and the Van Bommels directly across the street.
But Harold Gorman had something to say. And unfortunately, it was not what I wanted to hear. Mr. Gorman was in his eighties. He met me at the door in a thin brown housecoat and slippers. He had taken a turn of some kind and could not give me much time. He said he had seen Beau on the night in question, and he had told this to the police when they canvassed the neighbourhood. He just told them what he saw, as any good citizen would do. But that did not mean he thought, even for a moment, that Beau Delaney was guilty of murder or anything else. Anybody who thought Beau would kill Peggy obviously didn’t know either of them.
“Peggy probably got startled by something. A trespasser. And lost her balance and fell down the stairs.”
What was this? “Why do you say ‘trespasser,’ Mr. Gorman?”
“It’s all in the statement I gave to the police, Mr. Collins.”
“Was there somebody on the Delaney property that night?”
“On their property and other people’s property and then — poof! — gone.”
“Did you hear anything that might have given you an indication what the trespasser was up to?”
But my hopes were dashed. “No, I didn’t hear a thing.”
“What time was this, Mr. Gorman?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think Lloyd was on yet, giving the news. I have the TV in my bedroom now, ever since Vera died. I fall asleep watching the news. But that night I got up to watch the snow. I have to go lie down now. You get the police statement; it’s all in there.”
“Very well, Mr. Gorman. Thanks for your help. Were you awake when the ambulance arrived?”
“Oh yeah. I was still awake then. Or maybe I woke up again. The police came. They must have been in there quite a while. They were still there when I got back into bed.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gorman. Bye for now.”
I had to get a copy of that statement. What was this about a trespasser? Did we have another suspect? Should we alter our defence accordingly? First thing I did when I returned to the office was call the Crown prosecutor, Gail Kirk, and arrange to get copies of all the witness statements she had.
I got them later that day. I set aside for the time being the pathologist’s report and other material about the cause of death, and focused on the neighbourhood witnesses. But the police didn’t get any more than I did from the neighbours, with the exception of Harold Gorman. His statement, like the rest of them, was in a question-and-answer format. The investigating officer was Sergeant Chuck Morash. He performed the usual formalities, giving the date and time of the interview, the witness’s name, and so on, and then got to the point:
“Mr. Gorman, as you know, we’re investigating the death of Mrs. Delaney.”
“She was probably startled and fell down.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Prowler. She may have heard him, and been frightened. Jumped, or turned suddenly, and wham, down the stairs.”
“Did you see a prowler around the Delaney residence that night?”
“Some little punk lurking around people’s property. I saw him myself.”
“Did you know who he was, recognize him?”
“How would I recognize him? They all wear those hooded sweatshirts now, you can’t see their faces.”
“What was he doing?”
“Hanging around.”
“Where?”
“The place across the street from us, and Delaney’s. Then he ran down the street and around the corner.”
“Did you get the impression that the Delaney property was his main area of interest?”
“Hard to tell. But I watched him, because I didn’t know what he might do. What gives them the right to be skulking around? There ought to be a law against it.”
“There is, Mr. Gorman. Next time it happens, call us.”
“By the time you fellows show up they’ll be long gone. I’ll go out and chase them off myself if I have to.”
“We wouldn’t recommend that, sir.”
“No, I suppose you’re right. But Beau Delaney isn’t afraid of them. I figured he sent that hooligan packing.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure. I just thought that’s probably why he was out there. But who knows? I never got to ask him, with Peggy dying and all.”
“So you saw Mr. Delaney outside his house?”
“Only for a bit.”
“What was he doing?”
“Just having a look around, it seemed like.”
“What time would this have been, do you remember?”
“Oh, it would have been . . . I was waiting for Lloyd, but he hadn’t signed on yet. Then I fell asleep. Guess I missed the news that night. Didn’t stay asleep, though, on account of the snow, or it must have been sleet, battering my window. I looked out and saw it was quite a nor’wester. Was glad I paid to have the windows reset. Worth every penny, with the weather we’re having these days.”
“Did you hear any sounds coming from the Delaney house or grounds that night?”
“No, didn’t hear a thing.”
“Is there anything you’d like to add?”
“Yes. Beau would never have killed Peggy. It had to have been an accident.”
I put down the statement and got Beau on the phone. “I’ve just read the statement of Harold Gorman.”
“He’s got his times mixed up.”
“That may work for us or against us, depending on which time the jury decides he’s mixed up. He says he saw you — not just your car, but you — before Lloyd Robertson’s news broadcast. That would make it before eleven o’clock. You tell me you didn’t get home before twelve thirty-five.”
“I didn’t. Harold Gorman dozes, peers out the window, watches television, and dozes again. I’ve known him for years. He can’t sleep, so he frets about things going on outside his house. Nothing is ever going on, but that doesn’t stop him.”
“He swears you’re innocent.”
“Good man, Harold, and a sharp-eyed witness! Didn’t I just say so?”
“He says he got up to check the weather. It started to snow that night. I’ll have to check the time.”
“It didn’t start till after midnight. I remember.”
“Good. We’ll get the Environment Canada weather summary into the record. Mr. Gorman had something else to say as well. Said he saw a prowler around your place. Let’s hope he’s right, and we can create the suggestion that there was somebody else —”
“Forget it.”
“What?”
“He’s always seeing prowlers.”
“The Crown doesn’t know that. He never calls the police.”
“And he didn’t call them this time either.”
“Even so, he said he saw a teenager in a hooded sweatshirt.”
“That’s probably the last image he saw on television before he drifted off to sleep.”
“I thought you’d be a little more interested in this trespasser angle, Beau.”
“I would be, if there were something in it for me. But there isn’t. Nobody broke into our house, for instance. I can’t point to a smashed window or a jimmied lock. Or signs of a struggle. It doesn’t work.”
“All right, all right. Let’s just hope we can get Gorman up to twelve thirty in his estimate when we have him on the stand.”
(Normie)
“Wow! This is a big house. It’s really nice!”
Jenny had invited me to her house after Four-Four Time, and Mum said I could go. She had to think about it for a few minutes, but she said yes. Jenny and I took the bus most of the way, then walked the last part of it. Jenny’s was one of those big white houses with a black roof, a door in the middle and windows on both sides. It had shutters on the windows, which I really like. It was huge inside with a big living room that you step down into. Jenny took me to her bedroom, which was painted a pretty colour of green with all the other stuff white or blue. But best of all was the bunk beds.
I said: “I always wanted a bunk bed!”
“Yeah, but you don’t have enough kids in your house. You can’t fill up the rooms like we can. You have to be in a different room from your big brother.”
“I know. But now that we have Dominic maybe he can have a bunk bed with me, when he’s big enough to get out of his crib.”
“Maybe. Or you should get more kids. Girls.”
“I wish.”
“So, what do you want to play? Dolls? Or hockey?”
“We can play hockey here?”
“It’s a big game that you put on a table. It’s down the basement. Laurence is probably playing with it.”
“Oh, can I see it?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
So we went to the kitchen and to the top of the basement stairs. Jenny said to be careful. “That’s where Mummy fell down and died.”
So we didn’t run, but they were just ordinary stairs made of wood. There was a little table near the bottom with a jug full of flowers and cards the kids had made, all for their mum, saying how much they loved and missed her. I felt tears coming into my eyes.
“It’s really awful when your mum dies,” Jenny said. “You wake up crying and wanting her to be there but she never is. Never. And your mum is the only person, except for your dad, that loves you no matter how many dumb or bad things you do. She loves you no matter what, and forever. Nobody else does that, except maybe when you grow up and get married. But even then, it doesn’t always work. Your husband may beat you up. So, anyway, that’s gone. I hope it doesn’t happen to you, Normie. But Daddy says she is still with us, looking over us like a guardian angel. He says dead people aren’t way up high in heaven; heaven is down here too, so dead parents and kids and the saints and angels are really all around us. So it makes me feel a bit better knowing she’s here even if we can’t see her.”
“Your dad must be really lonesome for your mum.”
“Yeah, he is. Sometimes he talks to her. ‘Peg! Will you do something about these kids? They won’t listen to me!’ And maybe she’s working behind the scenes because we usually settle down when he does that. They really loved each other,” Jenny said, “and they hardly ever had a fight.”
“They never had a fight!” That was Laurence. He came over from wherever he had been in the basement.
“I don’t mean a fight, Laurence, hitting each other and all that like they did in my old house.”
“Yeah, Jenny’s old family where she lived before, they fought all the time, with their fists and their feet. She was really little but she remembers because it was so bad.”
“And they used to hit each other with beer bottles!” Jenny added. “But our mum and dad here, Laurence’s and mine, never did that. They just argued sometimes. Especially about Corbett. Here’s the hockey game.”
It was humongous! It was a whole rink with pretend ice. It was white and it was on a big table. There were all these little hockey players that you could move with levers. One team was blue and white with a maple leaf on their uniform, and the other was red and white, with a big C.
Jenny pointed to one of the C sweaters. “Daddy calls that la sainte flannelle. It means the holy flannel, because this team, the Canadiens, are so holy in Montreal. And the other guys are the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
“Wow! This is great. My dad used to play hockey, but he says he wasn’t anywhere near the best player on the team. Let’s play a game!”
“We can’t. It’s busted,” Laurence said. “I’m trying to fix it.”
“Okay. Come on, Normie. We’ll do something else.” So we left the hockey rink. Jenny said: “The boys always end up breaking it. They’re too rough with it! But we can have a tea party. I have a tea set, but it’s only a kids’ set. We’re not supposed to use the real dishes, the old-fashioned ones, because they’re from France and they’re antiques. A man was here to look at them one time, and he said they are worth a fortune! But it’s really only the little kids who might break them. We won’t. So we’ll sneak them out and play with them, then put them back. They’re in an old trunk with some other stuff. There’s a huge set of knives and forks and teapots made of silver. And that’s out of bounds too because it’s really expensive. They’re not breakable, though, so we’ll get them out.”
We went to a separate room in the basement, where a whole bunch of stuff was stored: skis, skateboards, bicycle tires, and old cameras in leather cases that had the shape of the cameras.
“It’s in this closet.” Jenny got up on her tiptoes and reached up for something by the door. “Oh, this is good! Now I’m big enough to reach . . . the hidden key! I haven’t been in here since before last year, and I was too short. The key is for the lock on the trunk.”
She fumbled around a bit more till she said: “Got it!” She had a big grin on her face. “I’ll be able to play with this stuff any time I want to now!” She yanked the closet door open, and pulled a chain that made a light come on. There was a big blue trunk made of metal. Jenny knelt down and put the key into the brass lock on the trunk. She turned it, and then asked me to help lift the top up. I grabbed one end of it and she got the other, and we yanked it up.
“What?” Jenny screeched. “It’s gone! The stuff’s all gone! Somebody stole it!”
So we didn’t get to play dishes. Or hockey.
(Monty)
I had a long talk with Beau over the phone about his whereabouts the night of Peggy’s death. He told me again that he had been in Annapolis Royal for a three-day trial. I had already confirmed his presence at the grand old courthouse. But the proceeding had ended, in an acquittal for Beau’s client, at four thirty on the afternoon of January 15. He told me he had been planning to spend a third night because of the impending snowstorm, so he didn’t have dinner till mid-evening. Before that, he took his time walking and driving around admiring the town’s beautiful eighteenth-century buildings. Where did he stay? At the Bailey House. Where did he eat dinner on the fifteenth? The Garrison. Did he have a receipt for his meal? Of course. He was on his client’s expense account. But the client was not made of money, so when the storm still hadn’t begun by the time he finished his dinner of poached Atlantic salmon — poached as in method of cooking, not illegally fished, ha ha — he decided to cancel his room reservation and drive back to Halifax. It’s about a two-hour trip. The restaurant receipt gave a time of eight-oh-five when he paid for his meal. So this didn’t help us. If he had driven straight home, he could have been at the house before ten thirty, well within the medical examiner’s estimate of the time of death. But, wait, there was something else. He had stopped for gas on the way into Halifax that night. He would dig out the receipt if he still had it; otherwise, I could check with the service station.
Now, to the matter of expert evidence. Who did he like as a pathologist — not for his or her post-workday bar chat, but for an opinion on an accidental fall? Preferably someone local, so it wouldn’t look as if our theory was so off-base we had to search far and wide for someone to back it up. He suggested Ralph Godwin or Andrea Mertens. I would check them out.
In the meantime, we had arranged for Beau to have an escorted visit with his children at the family home.
Bright and early on Friday morning, we pulled up in front of the Delaneys’ house. We could see little faces peering out through the panes of the living-room windows. I couldn’t imagine what this must have been like for Delaney, coming to his own home with a court-ordered escort, even if the supervisors were me and Brennan Burke, dressed in our most casual clothes. Beau must have felt he was in shackles with all his neighbours looking on. In fact I didn’t see anybody around except the kids lined up in the front windows. I saw two hands come out and pull two small children away; there may have been a rule amongst the kids not to line up and stare at their dad, but the little ones couldn’t help themselves. Beau saw them and threw his arms open wide for an embrace. With that, the kids scrambled from the window; two seconds later, the front door was flung open and they all poured out. One little fellow tripped and landed on his knees. An older girl picked him up and shushed him before he started to wail. They all rushed at Beau and, depending on their ages, grabbed his legs, hugged him, or begged to be picked up.
I looked over at Brennan just in time to see him blink and turn away. It wasn’t hard to read his mind, which was operating on the same track as my own: what would all these children do without their father — where would they end up? — if events should conspire to take him away?
The little huddle of humanity made its way inside the house, and a tall woman with strawberry blond hair came to the door: “Come on inside. I’m Sheila Laing, Peggy’s sister.”
“I’m Monty Collins, and this is Father Brennan Burke.”
“Please,” Sheila said, and stood aside so we could enter. We followed her into the living room, which was painted a shade of ochre and had white mouldings. She directed us to a pair of armchairs, and we sat down. The furniture was comfy and well broken in; the only pictures on the walls were the children’s brightly coloured artwork. Beau was seated on the chesterfield with a child on each knee and others beside him and at his feet.
“Kids,” he said, “stand up and introduce yourselves to our guests.”
They got up and stood in a clump, and gave their names. In ascending order of age from about five to seventeen, they were Sammy, Kristin, Danny, Edward, Jenny, Laurence, Ruthie, Connor, Derek, and Sarah. There were redheads, blonds, brunettes, and everything in between, green, blue, and brown eyes, and various body types from rail-thin to comfortably padded.
“Tea, everyone?” Sheila asked.
Everybody said yes except two of the younger boys, who made a face and requested chocolate milk.
Brennan and I simultaneously rose from our chairs and trailed after Sheila when she headed to the kitchen. Supervision didn’t mean we had to keep the man in our sights every moment. We sat at the kitchen table. Sheila stood by the sink, facing us.
“If I thought for one minute that he killed my sister, I wouldn’t be here. With the children, yes. With him, no,” Sheila said to me.
“Of course. I understand.”
Brennan nodded in agreement.
“And I would fight tooth and claw to keep him away from the children. Or . . . I think I would. But that might do more damage to them . . . I just don’t know. They’ve already been through so much. Some of them especially, the ones who come from unspeakable backgrounds. They’re doing well here in the family, but who knows what this will do to them?”
Sheila cleared her throat, and got busy with the tea things and the chocolate milk. She gave us our tea, then took a tray to the living room. When she returned, she sat at the table with us and said: “You’ve got a good case in his defence, haven’t you, Monty?”
“I think so, yes. So far, so good.”
“What do you mean? Things could change?”
“Well, things can always change in the courtroom. But from what the Crown has given me, it looks good for us.”
“Jenny and Laurence are very keen on your after-school music program, Father Burke. They love it!”
“And we love having them. They’re very talented children, particularly Jenny. She’s progressing so fast on the piano that I’m thinking of taking her up to the church organ, and letting her have a go at it.”
“Oh, wouldn’t she love that!”
“I have to confess I don’t play the organ myself, apart from a few chords and the notes for the choir. But I know somebody who does play.” He looked at me. My son’s girlfriend, Lexie, is who he meant. “Maybe she’d be willing to come in once in a while and help Jenny out.”
“She’d be happy to,” I told him. And I knew she would. I made a mental note to ask her.
“How are the children doing, Sheila? First their mother’s death, then the charges against their father. From what you said earlier, it sounds as if some of them had a lot to deal with even before this.”
“Little Danny . . . I don’t know if you noticed his right arm?” We shook our heads. “He probably had his sleeve pulled way down. His forearm is crooked. That’s from a fracture he suffered at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend when he was eighteen months old. The mother was drunk and had a pillow over her head, hollering at Danny to stop that fucking screaming. A neighbour kicked the door in, and took Danny to the hospital. He was in bad, bad shape when he came to live with Peggy and Beau as a foster child. He was really coming around before Peggy’s death. Sarah and Jenny try to outdo each other to mother him now! Ruthie came from bad news too; well, several of them did. Laurence and Kristin were adopted as infants; they’re fine. Peggy gave birth to Sarah and Connor. They’re fine, too. Well, Connor went through a bit of a wild period, but nothing nasty. He eventually settled down. Anyway, about Ruthie. Her mother started writing to some sex offender in a Montreal prison; when he got parole, she ran away to meet him and never came back. After being left alone in her apartment at the age of ten, Ruthie wound up with her grandparents. Her grandfather took a great interest in her, especially when she reached puberty. When it was time for her first bra, the grandfather took her to buy it! He kept picking up all these lacy things, red and black, and making lewd remarks, to the point where the woman in the lingerie department called the store security. I guess nothing every came of that intervention, because Ruthie went home with him. Stayed with the grandparents for another two years. Two years of sexual innuendo, the old goat sticking his tongue in and out whenever she went by, and giving her scanty outfits for birthday presents. She was treated as nothing but a sexual object. The grandfather referred to her as a chick and a babe, and the grandmother called her a slut. You can see Ruthie is overweight. You don’t have to be Dr. Freud to know why she deliberately overeats, trying to make herself unattractive. Nothing subtle about it. But she has done wonderfully well since coming here. The children have been thriving. I hope to God they continue to thrive, once Beau has been cleared and comes home for good.”
We heard giggles coming from the living room, then shouts of laughter from Beau.
“And they have lots of fun with their dad!” Sheila said.
“If worse comes to worse — and I don’t think it will, Sheila — is there anyone who can take in all ten children?”
She shook her head. “Impossible. As much as people would want to, there’s nobody in the family who can take them all in. They’d have to be split up. How would any of us decide which children to take, and which ones would be dumped back into the system, into foster care?”
I didn’t want to picture the scene: children with bundles of belongings being torn from their home and their brothers and sisters. And their dad. When Beau left with us that day all the kids, with the exception of the two oldest boys who strove to put brave faces on, were in tears. Not just in tears, but weeping inconsolably. The little ones clung to him. All I could do was wave to Sheila, turn away and head for the car.