Glen Hoggarth

  Noise traveled up the hallway. Bedroom furniture getting knocked around: wood struck plaster then metal banged against wood. Glen regretted putting Doris through a pointless search. Really, it was a rotten thing to do. But claiming to have forgotten his watch in the bedroom was the only ploy he had been able to think up to slip back inside the house. This way they would have an opportunity to talk.

  Doris streaked past the kitchen on her way to the front door. She caught sight of Glen in mid-stride and stopped and turned—face pasty and ill-looking, a child-specter's eyes.

  “What—?”

  “I let myself in,” Glen said.

  “What’re you—?”

  “I think you and I should talk.”

  Doris crumbled to her hands and knees and began to bawl—a woman demented with grief, composure shattered, the tips of her hair whisking the tiles. Her sorrow and rage blasted the kitchen like some animal's throaty howl. Glen was too stunned to move at first, the sight of the human wreckage too much to absorb; a hailstorm of fragmented, nonsensical visions pelted him, distracting him from the wretchedness before his eyes. He saw Doris in her fluffy robe as a theater curtain that had slipped its rungs and hit the stage floor with a clothy thrumpf; he saw her as someone lamenting a lover who'd perished in a faraway war, then as a maidservant scrubbing the linoleum with the hem of her dress—an image out of some Dickens classic he had once read in university. He sat immobile in his chair, shocked and just watching.

  Then Glen dove forward and gathered Doris in his arms. They at once tipped over, into and onto one another, grappling like a pair of drunks. Finally, standing on their knees, they embraced. Doris’s crying was replaced by mucousy snorts as she ranted: No sleep for nights on end. Fear of prison after years in captivity already. Nobody to turn to. All alone.

  Russell's death. No idea how it'd happened.

  “It wasn’t murder!” she screamed.

  “No, no.”

  “I couldn’t have.”

  “I know. Shhhh.”

  “I'm not bad.”

  “You're not, of course”—but Doris had to be insane. She had visited him at home, and met him yesterday in a coffee shop, with Russell’s death looming over her all the while. At times she had believed Russell had heartlessly ditched her. Other times she had convinced herself that he'd jumped into the Fraser River and drowned in the powerful currents. One way or another, Russell was gone, out of the picture. He had abandoned her.

  Glen wanted to say the sweetest thing—I will always love you. Instead, he asked Doris in a sober tone, “What have you done with the body?”

  She hesitated. “He’s in the freezer.”

  Chapter 19

  A pajamaed Doris lay snoozing on the floor—right there on the well-swept, diligently mopped tiles. If the floor was too cold or hard there was no sign of it. For going on four hours Doris hadn't stirred an inch, not even to switch sleeping positions. Her cherubic feet—the part of her nearest Glen—gave off a waxlike sheen, and her toes, plump as grapes, curled in on themselves. Her shoulders rose with every breath she huffed.

  Glen sat watching at the kitchen table. Occasionally, he noticed Doris's mouth quiver and her chin twitch. She's determined to talk and keep on telling her story.

  They had already hugged and made up. Glen had made breakfast. After eating, he asked Doris to clarify some of the things she had mentioned while in tears earlier. He hoped for specifics about Russell, but soon Doris was recounting the whole story, starting from way back in preadolescence. Glen listened, patiently allowing Doris to sketch her portrait of herself. Every sentence uttered was a pencil stroke on the page.

  Within minutes he had learned who Doris was. Five or six years back, she had been the scared young woman at the center of a huge media storm. Once, he had watched her give a short interview on national TV. But he never followed her story closely, so the weight Doris had put on since then, as well as the long, beautiful hair, had veiled her identity from him. On the outside, at least, she was a completely different person.

  And on the inside? Doris had survived—well, yes and no, to a degree. She had been robbed of a big chunk of life. Robbed of her mother and father. Psychologically tortured and, as a result, robbed of any connectedness with the people around her. Now she was holed up in a small house in the suburbs. Sometimes she dressed up to mimic someone who was well-adjusted and had it all together. Sometimes, when her fears set in, she maimed or murdered the men who by chance wandered into the sphere of her life.

  He got up to check out the rest of the house. To look for more clues that could help him get to know Doris better. At the end of the hallway: the bedroom where a cooking pot had nearly smashed his head open. Had Doris's first swing hit its mark, he might have suffered a serious injury—a fractured skull at the very least. The room had since been upended in Doris's half-crazed search for his watch. The queen-sized bed had been yanked out from the wall, both the covers and sheets stripped cleanly, and the mattress dislodged. One of its squarish corners drooped off the bedframe and onto the ivory-colored carpet.

  Three steps inside the door, the bedside table stood on its head. Its three wooden legs spiked up and outwards, causing it to resemble a little man guarding the room.

  Glen moved to the room next door. A dozen or more shopping bags covered the floor, along with several stacks of glossy card boxes, all of which still contained their purchases. It was like stepping into the storeroom of some posh boutique. To the right of the doorway, one box had been left with its top yawning open, and several brightly patterned blouses lay in tangled disarray inside—first tried on, then judged either too baggy or too tight, anyway a bad fit, and finally discarded. This was Doris's changing room.

  Jesus! All these expensive clothes. Doris had to be flush, Glen thought. Money was coming in from somewhere which enabled her to maintain her make-believe—the warped lie of herself that she showed the world outside the front door.

  Did she have a job? It just didn't seem likely.

  The third room: the big, yellow daisy sprouting from a many-colored hillock was really a sun hat crowning a mound of fabric. Holy fucking shit! The room was one enormous laundry basket overflowing with different kinds of clothing thrown together in anthill-like piles. Slacks, blouses, jackets, dresses, and boots. In a trough of assorted garments blocking the closet, a red summer dress—in fact, the one Doris had worn to his place—lay balled up in a cabbage-sized clump. Glen envisioned Doris, the second she stepped through the front door that day, letting the dress drop to her ankles then kicking it to the side. No need to wear the same thing twice.

  One room to store newly bought attire, another to dump what had already been worn. How many months of clothing did these two rooms represent? Glen had trouble guessing.

  Doris was like a theater actress who stepped in and out of outfits for the character she wanted to play, or scene she was about to enact. Something was seriously wrong with her, Glen thought, this woman he had fallen madly in love with.

  “I’m in way over my head,” he murmured, heading to the front door.

  But of course you are.

  Glen skirted the house to the shed out back. That was where Russell’s corpse lay at rest inside the deepfreeze—entombed with the frozen peas and corn. Jesus, how ridiculous! He had a hard time picturing Doris hauling his friend's body from the house and lifting it into the deepfreeze. She had to be very strong. But he had seen those sturdy legs of hers.

  Opening the deepfreeze to view Russell's body took more courage than Glen possessed. He couldn't make himself look, despite how a close friendship demanded such an gesture. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the cement floor and stared for a while at the large white box that now served as a make-do sepulcher. Of course, I'm in shock, Glen told himself. I'll experience my sorrow and loss later. After a few days. All in good time.

  Russell spoke. “Aren’t you going to tell anybody? You’re not going to let her get away with it, are you? There’s a police station three
blocks away.”

  “I don’t think she meant to do it,” Glen replied.

  “Fuck. So?”

  “She lost her head for a minute.”

  “And that’s the end of it? You can't be serious.”

  “What don't know what to say to you.”

  “Go to the police. You have to.”

  “But you have to wonder what real good that's going to do.”

  “You do. I don't.”

  “That's right, I do,” Glen replied.

  “You don't think she's capable of killing again?”

  “I don't know for sure. Neither do you.”

  “She almost killed you—obviously, she's capable. She's fucking capable.”

  “She's a lot calmer now. Our talk helped.”

  “Look, just go to the police. Don’t become an accomplice.”

  “I can't do that. I can't call the cops.”

  “Great, let her know she can do it again.”

  “But I doubt that's what she's thinking.”

  “And you're this great judge of character,” Russell said. “Remember Justin, how you screwed up there? If you don't turn her in you're only letting her know what a dupe you are.”

  “She feels horrible about what she's done.”

  “She'll feel horrible about the next guy too.”

  “Can't you show a little compassion?”

  “Glen—fuck!—this is me we’re talking about.”

  “She’s had a hard life, an unspeakably horrible life.”

  “I had a life too. What about my life?”

  “Do we really want to add to her misery?”

  “We want to do something. Get justice for starters.”

  “Turning her in wouldn't be what's right. It'd be cruel.”

  “I can't believe it. You’ve known her two days but pick her over me?”

  “There is no more you, Russell.”

  “No more me, eh? There never was. Not to you.”

  “What's that suppose to mean?”

  “Just what I said. God, why are we even having this debate?”

  “The sad fact is, you're no longer … a factor.”

  “I'm the murder body. Not a factor, whaddaya fucking mean?”

  “But locking Doris up would kill her too.”

  “So now what? You become fugitives—you of all people?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I can really picture you running from the police. What a joke. You'll last a couple days then end up in prison with your sweetheart.”

  “She's put her trust in me.”

  “Jesus, you're dense. She's using you.”

  “All she's ever needed was somebody to trust.”

  “And you're that pathetic somebody?”

  “Well, I won't betray her. Abuse, betrayal, all that's now over.”

  “She must feel so safe.”

  “She beginning to.”

  “You're going to go to prison. Good, I'm warming up to the idea.”

  “I’ll miss you, Russell. Our camaraderie.”

  “Keep it. Fuck you!”

  “Russ, I have to say good-bye.”

  “I'm an insect to you. Always have been.”

  “It’s not true.”

  “A fucking insect.”

  Chapter 20

  After nightfall, Glen returned home. Once there he entered the basement apartment for the first time since Justin Wheeler rented it a year ago. And what a year it had been, too. Lots of lows and then a high, finally. He recalled the cream necktie Justin had worn the first day, the two of them shaking hands, and the note of optimism. He had considered himself fortunate to have found a tenant so quickly. In retrospect, however, he should have rented to somebody else—to that outdoorsy couple who had driven in from the Interior, the two biology students. In the end, Justin had led to Bill Decker. What a headache that bastard had been.

  Glen discovered Justin's belongings in the bedroom closet. Some odds and ends plus dozens of books neatly boxed up. One book was a history of Han dynasty China; another about the Great Famine during Chairman Mao’s time. There was also a book on ancient bamboo manuscripts containing large photographs on high quality paper. Altogether, these books had to be worth hundreds of dollars but their presence came as no surprise, not in light of Justin's original intention to re-rent the apartment at the start of the upcoming school year. Glen hadn't the vaguest notion if Justin still planned to do that.

  Beneath the bed was a worn out backpack. Sure enough, Bill Decker had also left stuff behind: a few textbooks, a Mandarin-English dictionary, a set of keys, and a handful of pens bound together with an elastic band. Glen recognized a pair of ratty sneakers his ex-tenant had sometimes worn. So those two swindlers would both be back eventually, if just to try to pick up their possessions. But their gullible landlord would be nowhere to be found.

  Glen bid farewell to the basement apartment and everything that had happened there over the past year. Now he planned to collect some clothing, the money, and go—best to hurry back to Doris straightaway. He feared she might regret putting so much faith in him. Sure, she had calmed down some by the time he had left and seemed stable enough, but she could hardly be blamed if doubts arose. One scenario particularly frightened Glen: afraid he might return with the police, Doris panics and takes flight on her own. How would he track her down then?

  Upstairs, Glen scooped coffee into the percolator and added water. He plucked a teaspoon from the cutlery drawer and placed it next to his cup, then removed a long carving knife without really grasping why. To take with him to the ranch? Because he would never let the police, or anybody else, touch a hair on his lover’s head? Possibly, since that was a vow he had already made to himself. Or, maybe the knife was simply protection. What if Doris attacked him again?

  Even though, even though—yes, Glen felt death would be preferable to a life without Doris. To die at her hand would be a mercy compared to going back to the way things were. Definitely, the time to change course had come and gone. And as for Russell, right now it felt more as if his friend had simply perished in a car crash, or died of cancer or something: in any case, with no strings attached. Russell was no more, gone for good, and Doris warm and alive in his embrace. Shit! Now was hardly the time to indulge in a lot of thinking.

  The coffee on its way, Glen retrieved a shoe box from its hiding spot high up in the closet opposite the back door. He set it on the kitchen table beside the knife. From beneath a layer of nuts and bolts, nails and washers, he dug out two thick wads of bank notes. This constituted his emergency funds, his secret stash of cash. Roughly five thousand dollars in total, which he began counting out on the tabletop, note by note.

  “I'll have some of that,” the voice said. “Some of the coffee you're making.”

  The light cast forth from the kitchen fell short of the speaker's feet, instead illuminating the television set and the living room curtains to the right of her. Glen stepped into the doorway, walling off some of the light fall and leaned against the doorjamb; his windpipe tightened and his chest seemed clogged with a mass of cobwebs. Martha had been spying on him the whole time.

  “Come to think of it, never mind,” she said, “I had some on the plane and another cup would only upset my stomach. Coffee doesn’t agree with me much anymore.”

  “I'll gladly make you one. It's not a problem.”

  Martha didn't bother replying. She loathed reiteration.

  “How long have you been sitting there?”

  “I've been resting after my flight.”

  “When did you get in?”

  Another pause—this line of conversation was also doomed. Cut the ridiculous small talk and let’s get down to business, Martha was implying with her short silences. “I've been sitting here watching my son,” she said. “Watching my son in action—a man of action, as they say. You move quickly when you set your mind to it. But then you were born in the year of the rabbit, am I right? You'll be hopping fast when it matters most.”


  Derision was one of the eyeteeth in Martha's fangs. Go fuck yourself, Mom, Glen thought. But for the moment, caught off guard as he was, he faltered; he'd been torn from one imperative, the need to hurry back to Doris, to another: Martha obviously not going anywhere.

  “I hate to embarrass you with the question, but what are you up to Glen? Where did all that money come from—for one thing—and where is it heading? Are you taking a trip?”

  “I’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Why? It’s my business.”

  “Naturally, you don't require my approval to do anything you want. But I'm not sure the same applies to my money,” Martha said evenly, secure in the knowledge she never lost these parleys with her son. “I'm the one who earned it, after all.”

  “These are my savings—personal savings.”

  “And what plans are you presently hatching for them?”

  “None of your business. Like I said.”

  “Glen, don’t get defensive.”

  “Then don’t ask—”

  “You knew I'd eventually be coming to check up on you. And you've been withholding something from me, judging from the suspicious behavior.”

  “Not suspicious. I'm just doing things my way this time.”

  “So tell me, exactly what things,” Martha asked, “and how are you proposing to do them? Stop forcing me to ask all these damned questions.”

  “Go right ahead and stop asking them then. Believe me, you have my permission,” Glen shot back—God, hadn't he used the exact same retort a thousand times as a teenager?

  Obscure except in outline, Martha straightened up in the chair.

  “You're hurt. What happened?”

  You couldn't fool mothers. She had noticed the hints of pain in her son’s movements: the aching shoulder and hip. But her concern only served to remind Glen of Doris, whom he pictured staring out the window and wondering if a squad of RCMP was about to charge into the front yard. It wasn't right to leave her in the lurch and make her worry.