On the night of December 18 Rils insisted they go to Nevin’s to get some money he’d heard about.
They went through the back streets and over a rickety fence. It was said later that Nevin woke up when the fence creaked – or he woke up shortly after that. No one knew who was in the room first.
It was after three in the morning. A small, sparse Christmas tree sat on the dresser, and outside the fog lay thick on the snow.
The thing that was remembered by Rils later, during his statement to police, was that when they came in, Nevin sat up and fumbled to put on his glasses and smiled suddenly.
“Did he know who you were?” the police asked.
“He must have,” Rils said. “Or he knew who Jerry was.”
“Did you know who he was?”
“I’d seen him at Lucy’s one day. I heard he had money.”
“And what did he say to you?”
“He didn’t speak. He just looked at us as we went about the room. We were opening everything we could get our hands on – he didn’t have much there.”
“And this was at three in the morning?”
“This was after three in the morning, yes.”
“What did Mr. White do?”
“Nothing,” Rils said. “He just looked about as we worked – have you got a smoke?”
“Who had the shotgun?”
“I had the shotgun.”
(At first Mr. Rils stated that Jerry had the shotgun.)
“You had the shotgun.”
“I had the shotgun.”
“Why didn’t you like Mr. White?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t like him – did not like that man.”
As best as Mr. Rils could explain it, Mr. White was innocent, and he didn’t like him. There was an innocence to his very nature that wasn’t exactly good or bad. His innocence fell into a different category – it came from an unreasoned idea of his own importance: the importance of his socks, his shoes, his toothbrush.
“And this is what you didn’t like.”
“Something like that,” Rils said.
“And Jerry said to him that you had come to borrow some money.”
“That’s what Jerry said, that I’d come to borrow some money.”
“And what did Nevin do?”
“He only smiled and nodded – and said the only money he had was for his little girl.”
“How much was in the tin box?”
“One hundred thirty-two dollars.”
“That was all – there was no ten thousand dollars?”
“There was one hundred thirty-two dollars. I’d been told there was a lot more.”
“By Jerry?” the police asked.
“No, not by Jerry.”
“What did Nevin do then?”
“It was Jerry – Jerry wouldn’t take the money –”
(In his first statement Mr. Rils suggested that it was he who didn’t want to take the money.)
Rils stated that they turned on the light and Nevin was sitting up in the bed in his underwear. He was very thin, and he kept shaking his legs back and forth because he was cold, and he had red bumps on both knees. He had pictures of a girl all over his room, which Rils later found out were Hadley. Nevin coughed and began looking for a cigarette. He rolled one and told them that he hadn’t had a drink in four days.
“Pardon me now?”
“Did he tell you or Jerry this about his drinking – that he hadn’t had a drink in four days?”
“Oh – I don’t know – he told Jerry, and Jerry said: ‘That’s good then – that’s good –’”
“And then what did Jerry say?”
“Jerry said he didn’t want his money.”
“And what did you say then – did you respond to that?”
“I said we’d take the money.”
“And Jerry grabbed your hand.”
“Well, he had a strong arm.”
Rils said that Nevin also had a pack of loonies – about nine of them.
“He told you you could take those?”
“Yes, he did.”
“What did he say when you threatened to tape the shotgun to his throat.”
“I never did that.”
“Well, you stated earlier that you did. You stated on January seventh that you had threatened to tape the shotgun.”
“Oh, that. Nevin said he was sending the money to Hadley – and if we wanted money from him we would have to wait – he didn’t seem scared anymore.”
“That’s when Jerry told you to leave.”
“Yes – told me to leave.”
“And that’s when you decided to kill Jerry Bines.”
Rils didn’t answer this. He simply restated that they left the apartment intact, and took no money. That he was broke and cold and lonely and, not having been able to sell his jewellery, he felt it had been a wasted trip.
“Why did you hit Mr. White?”
“I wanted him to confess.”
“To confess what?”
“To confess that he had a lot of money – everyone said he had a lot of money – all the street talk was that he had a lot of money – so I was surprised.”
“Do you think Jerry was simply trying to keep you from robbing Ralphie Pillar?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what was Mr. Bines doing when you were hitting Mr. White?”
“He was looking out the window as if this had nothing to do with him. He seemed to have removed himself from it entirely.”
(There were some questions asked about Nevin’s ex-wife, Vera Pillar.)
“And what did Mr. White say?”
“He said he would not give the money to us because it was for his daughter. I never thought he would be brave.”
“And that’s when Jerry told you to stop hitting him?”
“I don’t remember –”
“But on January seventh you stated that.”
“Well, maybe – maybe not – I don’t remember what Bines said most of the time.”
The reasoning the boy followed was that Jerry was trying to save everyone. His reasoning was romantic. But, lying in bed at the cottage in mid-July, he would think it all over. Jerry hadn’t wanted to steal the tractor-trailer, but he had been forced into it. (The boy did not know how Jerry had been forced into it, but he only reasoned he was.) After they had stolen it he refused to sell the cigarettes and a fight occurred over it between him and Buddy.
Then, to atone for Joe Walsh – the man who was his uncle – he made friends with Ralphie. To atone for his son he gave the wheelchairs, and tried to get his son to Halifax as soon as possible.
Andrew’s uncle was far more cynical. He said that Bines knew Rils was coming, so he made friends with anyone he knew who would be able to give him an alibi – he made a big deal of everything so people would know about his boy. It was part of his histrionics. And he told his story to Vera, which was a way to impress her, about how he wanted to change.
“He worked like that there all his life,” the boy’s uncle said.
What the boy wanted to find out was about Buddy’s death.
“Well, Jerry would use you whenever he could,” his uncle said. “And he had Rils and Buddy steal the trailer – but then he got worried about it. There were too many ways to get caught. Bines liked to use people and cause trouble. It isn’t right to steal – but all Buddy wanted was his money–”
The boy liked the other idea, that Jerry was protecting Joe Walsh.
Andrew’s uncle wasn’t fascinated by this at all.
“But it was Percy Rils Bines had to worry about,” his uncle said. “You can’t steal a tractor-trailer from an uncle who brought you up and have grand feelings –”
The man had another theory – that Jerry did not know who the tractor-trailer was going to be stolen from.
This is the theory that had surfaced in the last few months. That Jerry tried desperately to get Joe off the hook because Rita was ill. It seemed a nice thought to the boy.
His uncle countered this by saying that Jerry had a more perfect solution. Take no responsibility for it – pay no money for it, refuse to help move it, until Joe Walsh was charged with it, and they would be home free. If Buddy and Rils were caught he would not be implicated. And if Joe was charged, he could then manoeuvre about and be friends with Buddy and Rils once more, and make his estimated profit of thirty thousand dollars.
“The idea that Jerry was protecting someone like Joe is a good story – the truth is always somewhere else.”