Authors: Carolyn Davidson
The town looked different somehow, its colours faded as though she was watching it being played on an old TV show. She felt brighter herself, her perception sharper. Her eyes saw the veins on the browned leaves on the pavement as though magnified; every step she took seemed to jar the sidewalk as if it would crack open.
Would anyone notice, she wondered. Would they think she was the old Trudy, walking down the street, unimportant? It was strange to think that she had been scared of them all, worried that they wouldn’t like her, hurt when they made fun of her. She was the strong one it had turned out, she was the one standing bright and bold while they all cowered in their homes and wondered who she was. It surprised her that even Tommy had lost his lustre. Now that she realised her own power Tommy had been revealed as no different from the rest of them, and when she saw him, pale and faded, tear streaked with his grief, she felt nothing but a faint repulsion.
In her mind’s eye Trudy pictured the fist-sized rock she had thrown into Georgian Bay, the blood it had been covered in dissipating into the large body of water, the rock sinking slowly to the floor to blend into the muddied bottom forever.
She had no idea it was so easy, she marvelled. The world was open to her to take from it what she wanted. She could do anything; there was nothing to stop her.
Entering the police station Trudy followed the receptionist down the hall to an interview room and settled unhurriedly into a chair as the woman left the room, closing the door behind her. Trudy watched the second hand of the clock tick by for a spell and then changed her stare to the mirrored window. She wasn’t in a rush, she had nowhere to be. Tapping her foot to the beat of the clock she forced herself to contain a smile. Helping the police with their investigation had turned out to be kind of fun, all things considered.
She hadn’t intended to become involved, but as she replayed the scene over and over in her mind that first day, like rubbing her thumb over a smooth stone that felt good to the touch, she realised that she couldn’t just let it go.
The intimacy of what had happened was too intense to give it to some random person to stumble upon Sarah’s body and report the details of what they found to the police. Or worse, for her body to go undiscovered. Trudy had imagined a province wide police search eventually giving up, with no one the wiser to how Sarah ended up. Not so pretty after all.
There was no way she was going to fade to the background, completely irrelevant again, to let it unfold without her having even the smallest part in it. So she had inserted herself into the action, the guileless civilian who found a shock on their afternoon stroll. It had worked out even better than she could have hoped; as the witness who found the body she had a sense of prestige, with the experts coming to her to ask her questions and get her opinion. The initial niggling concern that she was putting herself at risk had disappeared early on in as she realized they had no way of knowing who she was.
The door of the interview room opened and Trudy sat up in her chair, arranging her face into a helpful expression. The woman Inspector with the blonde hair came in, and Trudy’s sense of enjoyment increased. They had had a nice talk the previous week; she felt the Inspector took an interest in her outside of the questions she asked her about Sarah.
The policewoman faced her as she took a seat across from her and Trudy smiled, reminding herself not to appear too cheerful. The Inspector didn’t smile back, and after a moment of silence Trudy began to feel uncomfortable.
“You mentioned you were accepted at a nursing program in the city?” Susan asked her without greeting.
“Yes,” Trudy said slowly, surprised by the question. “That’s right.”
“It’s strange,” the Inspector told her, the one with the strange last name and the penetrating eyes. “I checked with both nursing colleges in the city and they don’t have a record of you.”
She paused while Trudy formed an answer. She hadn’t given the name of a nursing college she was sure, it could have been in any city. In the States as far as she knew, Trudy assured herself.
“And,” the policewoman continued before she could speak, “I had a look at your graduation year grades from the high school. No colleges I know are accepting students with D averages.”
Trudy felt anger well up in her chest. She had pulled up her grade average? She had been helping the cops and they turn around and nose in her business? The woman had been tricking her all along.
Bitch. Trudy wasn’t sure if she thought the word or said it out loud, but she knew she wanted to grab the lady by the shoulders and show her what she could do to her. “You bitch.”
*
Susan watched as Commissioner Rutlidge speared the last piece of steak from his plate, giving a groan as he leaned back into the plush seat of the booth at the Lion’s Head Pub. “They know how to cook a steak here,” he said when he had swallowed. “Makes the trip worthwhile.”
He gave a satisfied smile and Susan wondered to herself if there was a ring of truth in the joke he’d intended. She had her own suspicions as to the Commissioner’s reasons for his trip to Lion’s Head.
Something to do with the pictures that had been snapped by the media at the press release the previous hour. The much photographed shake of her hand, staged for the media cameras, both local and province wide, as the Commissioner congratulated the Wiarton detachment on their tireless work and swift result in bringing Sarah Harmon’s murderer to justice. “A testament to the force’s commitment to the citizens of Ontario,” the Commissioner had said, smiling for the cameras before leaving Susan to field the reporter’s questions.
Susan had noticed their local news man Jim Donaldson being elbowed out of the way by the city reporters and their larger crews. She was getting soft, she told herself, as she overlooked the reporter with the Toronto Star logo on his mic to motion for the harried looking Donaldson to ask his question.
That was in the past now, and at the moment the Lion’s Head Pub fireplace crackled behind the back of the Commissioner, the first time the pub proprietor had lit the hearth this season, now likely to accompany most meals until spring. Rutlidge’s driver was picking him up in twenty minutes to deliver him safely back to Thunder Bay, Susan reminded herself, and leaned back herself to savour a mouthful of the house lager.
*
Sarah looked up at the clear blue stretch of the sky and took a deep breath. She saw the white streak of an airplane make its slow trail through the blueness and smiled. It must be a sign.
It felt like she was walking in a dream these days. It was a dream that she would soon be absent from, except no one knew it. Life would move on as normal with just a cut out shape of where she used to be.
For her, there would be no more Tommy, with his eager eyes bright with the excitement of a future he had planned out for them, and no more Tom Senior staring at her with his hound dog gaze, pretending that it had all been a mistake, but waiting and pleading that it would happen again. And no more memories of the thing she had had carved out of her, the thing that could have turned into a person she sometimes felt like she met in her dreams, staring at her with accusing sky blue eyes.
She didn’t have much money, but what she saved from working at the library had bought her ticket and would get her set up when she arrived. She had no idea what Vancouver would look like and didn’t want to know. It would be completely new, and that was what she wanted. She could get a job waiting tables or something to begin, maybe even get a job teaching English overseas, she had her high school diploma. She would start fresh.
Sarah lifted her eyes to the blue of the sky again. Maybe things would be ok after all. Her breath was even as she approached the cliff’s peak. She would stop to rest for a moment there, enjoying the view from the lookout for the last time before beginning the five kilometer return run. The trail was quiet at this time of the day, and she started as a squirrel’s raucous chatter cut through the morning, almost losing her footing on the rocky path.
She slowed her pace as she reached the lookout point, and heard the sound of footsteps behind her in the spaces between her own foot fall. It wasn’t the even pace of a leisure runner but an uneven scrabble of someone in a hurry, and as she turned to see who was behind her she saw a shadow pass over her own.
Trudy wasn’t sure what she meant to do. To shove her, to scare her. To shake the uncertain smile off of her pretty face. She couldn’t remember how the rock got in her hand, but it was there, and when she hit Sarah she felt the jagged edge of the stone crash into her skull, and Sarah fell onto her knees in front of her.
And what could she do then, with Sarah looking up at her with those amber eyes, surprised and confused, and her smooth hair sticky with blood stuck to the side of her face. What could she do but hit her again and again until she was gone and her eyes weren’t looking at her anymore.
The smell of hot dogs on the grill mingled with crisp autumn air and the blue of the sky scattered with fast blowing clouds made a perfect backdrop for the community’s annual Thanksgiving festival. Gasps and claps of appreciation could be heard as a contender’s pumpkin vault was thrown an impressive distance, along with groans and good hearted laughter as another smashed to the grass mere feet from the vault. Children gravitated towards the nearby dirt track where a tractor race was taking place, small farm vehicles tearing around the raceway at remarkable speeds.
It was hard to believe that the farmer’s field which housed the festival was only a few kilometers from the cliffs where Sarah’s murder had taken place. With the perpetrator behind bars the community had fallen quickly back into its normal stride, and the murder, if not forgotten, wasn’t altering the good spirits of the festival goers.
Gary Driscoll strolled the farmer’s field at a leisurely pace, his arm draped around the shoulders of his wife, her arms in turn folded neatly over her rounded stomach. He breathed in the smell of freshly cut hay, something that always managed to bring him back to his childhood and bring with it a sense of excitement and wellbeing.
Noticing a familiar face in the crowd he called out to Emily Beckstead, and the couple slowed to talk with his colleague. Emily was with a man he hadn’t met before, not from the force from the look of it, and they exchanged greetings, Driscoll introducing his wife and Emily her companion. Emily’s smile looked carefree, and Driscoll was happy to see her look as young as the years he knew her to be.
Saying goodbye they continued their tour of the Thanksgiving festival, taking their place in line for refreshments, offerings of locally baked pastries or sausages browning on the grill. It was good to feel part of a community, Driscoll thought to himself, tightening his grip on his wife’s arm unconsciously, and to soon be bringing a new life to join its ranks. He knew there was some darkness tucked away in the corners of every neighbourhood, and the goal of keeping that darkness in check was the reason he had chosen the job, but in his heart he believed people were for the most part made up of good. He was a lucky man.
*
The afternoon wind had enough force to ruffle the surface of the lake, but wasn’t strong enough to cause concern for kayakers, not even a relatively inexperienced solo kayaker like Susan.
She had finally taken Alex up on his offer to use the pump house key to help herself to his kayak. It was a far cry from complete trust but it was a step, and there was something in the air that felt close to new beginnings.
Spring was supposed to be the season of new growth, Susan mused, but with the closing of Sarah’s case came time to step back and look at the world beyond the job’s demands. The simple details of observing the colourful crops on display at the farmer’s market or pulling a soft sweater over her head on a cool evening was enough to remind her that the world, far from perfect as it was, was full of new discoveries and possibilities.
Relaxing into the even splash of the oar blades entering the water, she took in the view she never grew tired of, that of deep blue water meeting rocky cliffs, and smiled.
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Nowhere to Run
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