Come, Thou Tortoise

  I just assumed they’d be home.

  While we wait, I read my Victim Impact Statement out loud to Judd. Who cries.

  I jump up and stop his swing. Oh no. That wasn’t my intention.

  You’re going to kill these people, Judd says, wiping his eyes with a blue mitten.

  Okay, that is my intention. But not to make you cry. I hug his head. He lets me.

  My VIS talks about how my dad loved Christmas and elections. How, because of the Tilleys, not only is my dad dead and deprived of his democratic right to vote, but we are all now robbed of our potential immortality because Walter Flowers was a ground-breaking scientist who was this close (and here I will mark off a tiny space between thumb and forefinger) to figuring out how to keep us all alive forever, barring accidents and murder (pointed look at Gill Tilley, who was driving).

  The immortality part may be an exaggeration, I tell Judd, folding the statement.

  It is starting to get dark. We crunch through the snow to a back window where there are no curtains. Judd lifts me up. Through an archway I can see the tree.

  Is there a dent in it.

  My dad would not approve of all that tinsel on his murder weapon. Holy hell. I start laughing.

  Judd lowers me.

  I turn around and lean against the house. I can’t stop. He puts a mitten over my mouth. A car has pulled into the driveway.

  I hear a woman call out, Reenie, take your Dora inside.

  A little girl with mittens dangling and corkscrew curls comes racing around the corner of the house. She notices the boot prints first. That lead to her swing set. She has been planning a quick swing before dinner. Now she turns her head, slowly. Judd waves the hand that is not over my mouth. Reenie (short for what, Sabrina, Marina, Irena) Tilley’s eyes get very wide and I know I will not be able to read a VIS that turns her tinselfied Christmas tree into a cudgel decorated with clumps of my dad’s hair and skull and brains. That is not the kind of brave I am.

  She screams.

  My shoulders sag. Judd drops his hand. Gill Tilley comes running around the corner.

  He is so not a killer. Look at him. Hi, I say.

  Hi.

  He is not even suspicious. He smiles a bewildered half-smile that is more like, welcome to my yard, than, who the hell are you, potential home invaders.

  We were just admiring your pink siding, says Judd.

  Gill glances up at the house.

  I wish I had not thought the word brains, plural. Because now they are all over that tree in my imagination. Which is of course not possible. My dad’s head was not split open. Or was it. Do I need to know.

  No.

  And it is probably not even the same tree. The Tilleys would not keep, and decorate, a tree that had killed someone. They would not put their daughter’s new Dora the Explorer doll under such a tree. They are not that morbid. Think of the girl’s hair for Chrissakes.

  We get in the van.

  That was a complete waste of time, I say.

  No, I don’t think so.

  I crumple my Victim Impact Statement.

  The thing about clue-finding mode is that you cannot turn it off. I look out the window and there, parked in the Tilleys’ driveway, is the pickup truck. I walked right by it without seeing it. Hang on, I tell Judd.

  The truck is a Ford, an old one. Navy blue with square headlights. I make one complete revolution and return to the van.

  Okay, says Judd.

  Okay.

  We are on the Harbour Arterial when I say, Shouldn’t there be two side mirrors. I mean, you have two side mirrors.

  Judd glances at me.

  The Harbour Arterial has metal strips embedded in the pavement that make your tires beat like a heart as you drive over them. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  And would a tree hanging out the back of that truck be level with a medulla oblongata. Thump-thump. I’m just asking.

  Depends on the height of the medulla oblongata, says Judd.

  I nod. Thump-thump.

  Should I turn around, he says.

  I nod.

  As a rule I am against people who throw out their Tannenbaums right after Christmas. But today I will make an exception. We head back through Mount Paler and within fifteen minutes we find a Christmas tree lying prostrate on the curb.

  Is this a good idea, says Judd as we load it into the van. Maybe we should pause and think about whether this is a good idea.

  I look at him. Okay.

  So we sit in the back of the van with the tree between us and gather our thoughts. Why would this not be a good idea.

  Maybe because you are about to cross the line between investigation and re-enactment.

  I nod. I study my list. Yesterday I was out of local suspects. But now Gill Tilley has been added. Granted, he is a suspect in a different case. Or is he. I’m confused.

  I fold my list.

  Warm enough.

  Yeah. I breathe deep. Smell the tree.

  It smells amazing.

  Judd tells me how when he was a kid he once rescued a Tannenbaum that was blowing down the street the day after Christmas. His parents let him keep it. Even though Christmas trees, you know, are not kosher.

  You rescued a Tannenbaum.

  It was still green and alive, he says. Just thirsty.

  Did you put lights on it.

  Did I ever.

  I stare out the back of the van. It’s dark. I don’t know what to do next is the problem. I mean, we can go back to the Tilleys’ and we can put that tree in the back of their truck and we can imagine it sneaking up on my dad’s head from behind. And I can look closely at the missing mirror. And maybe Judd can stand next to the truck for scale. Because his medulla oblongata is about on a par with my dad’s. And maybe Gill Tilley will come out of his pale house and realize that we are not just admirers of his siding. He will realize what we are up to. And even if he says, Look, your dad was whacked by a side mirror, not a Christmas tree, or He was whacked by both, or Yes, the Christmas tree is a little higher than a medulla oblongata but your dad was on a snowbank. And I didn’t realize the tree was hanging out of my truck in murder-weapon stance. I didn’t bloody realize. It was an accident. Accidents do happen. They do.

  I know they do.

  Even then, I will be no closer to solving anything.

  Let’s go home, Judd says.

  Can you clarify what you mean by home.

  Room 203.

  What about the Tannenbaum.

  I’ll take it to the store.

  Because no way could we throw it back on the curb.

  All remaining suspects are non-local. Still no word from Uncle Thoby. I take a deep breath and decide to call Grandmother. I mean, what can it hurt. I push the numbers. No answer. Nothing. Just like when I call Toff.

  I slump forward on the bed.

  Did you dial the country code, says a weary voice.

  I sit up. Hello.

  This is the operator.

  There are still operators.

  The country code, she says. And she sounds fed up, like she has witnessed all my failed attempts to call England and has finally thrown up her hands and intervened.

  Um. The country code. I don’t think I’ve ever dialled a country code, no.

  Well, that’s your problem.

  I have a low IQ, I tell her.

  I’m sorry to hear that.

  I don’t expect her to be there. Only I sort of do. And she is. She sounds winded, like she has just climbed stairs, but otherwise fine.

  Hello. Who is this. Speak.

  What do you say at such a moment. Oh, I thought you were at death’s door, in a coma, or at the very least playing solitaire in a hospital bed. But here you are at home. Hiking up stairs. What a stroke of luck. I’m so glad. By the way, where is your least favourite son. The one who is still alive. Have you seen him. Did you spend Christmas with him.

  What have you done with him.

  She now lives in London. Her eyesight is bad. She has a
nurse who apparently does not answer the phone. I remember my dad saying she had to sell the Clue-board house because it was too much to manage. When was the last time I spoke to her. I don’t even remember. There have not been many calls between St. John’s and London. I wish I’d written up an agenda.

  It’s Audrey, Grandmother.

  Silence.

  Catch your breath, I say, upbeat.

  I don’t need to catch my breath.

  You sound—

  I just knocked over a table.

  —huffy. So how are you.

  Still alive.

  Oh. Good.

  Now, whom do you wish to speak to. Not me apparently.

  Oh boy.

  Uncle Thoby, I venture. Is he there. Have you seen him.

  Who.

  Okay, this is bad.

  Uncle Thoby, I repeat.

  Long pause.

  Listen, whoever you are. I am confused. I am old. I am too old to remember what you ought not to know.

  Right. Well, if you see Uncle Thoby, will you have him call me.

  Of course. I will write that down.

  The bed is unmade. I crawl under the covers. This has to be one of the worst feelings in the world: being under the covers in jeans. Get up and take off your jeans then. No.

  Okay, here is a worse feeling: that Grandmother and Toff are the only family you have left. That the people who matter, the people you love, have been disappeared, and the people you hate, and who hate you back, are your family.

  What I feel now is that the fight I have been imagining between Uncle Thoby and Toff is real, but that Uncle Thoby has already lost it. And that the mystery I have been trying to solve is the wrong one, but the real one, or ones, so far exceed my deductive/detective powers that not only will I never solve them, but I will never recognize them as mysteries that need to be solved.

  I am too old to remember what you ought not to know. What the hell.

  I remember one night when Toff and Grandmother were staying, I woke to a house that had only them in it. Uncle Thoby was at the Civil Manor. I knew that. Toff was sleeping in his bed in the basement. I could hear Grandmother snuffling in the guest room. But where was my dad. My dad was not in his room.

  I went downstairs.

  I asked Wedge, Have you seen him.

  Wedge bit his nails.

  I took a flashlight from the kitchen cupboard and crept down the basement steps. I could hear Toff breathing stupidly. I shone the flashlight around the room. On the walls there were five NO SMOKING signs. Courtesy of yours truly.

  It was not yet a plane. It was just an embryo of a plane.

  I shone the light on Toff. He was sleeping on his back with his beard laid over the covers. Ugh.

  No sign of my dad.

  I went back to his bedroom. I checked under the bed. I began to get scared. I began to cry into the heat vent. Where was he.

  Where are you.

  I went back to my own room and crawled into bed. It still smelled of the Lysol I had used to disinfect the Toffness. I pulled my blanket with the galloping horses over my head and tried to think about galloping. How one day I would do it and no hoofs would touch the ground. Finally I slept.

  The next morning my dad was in the kitchen, being unsuccessful with the coffee filters, as per usual.

  Could you. He pointed at them.

  No.

  I felt like kicking him. Instead I pushed my face into his stomach.

  What’s this about.

  I stepped on his foot, which had only a sock on it, hard.

  Ow.

  I had a montage last night about being an orphan.

  His hands came down lightly on my head. Oh sweetheart, he said.

  I call Verlaine. I tell her I saw the people who killed my dad but they were not killers.

  Silence on her end.

  I tell her I am no closer to solving the mystery.

  Which mystery, Audray.

  Exactly. Which mystery. There are so many. I tell her what Grandmother said.

  Can I make a suggestion.

  Okay.

  Go find him.

  Wedge.

  Your uncle.

  You mean get on a plane. I mean get on a plane.

  Down I go. I pause halfway and sit on a step. Tighten my ponytail. Gird my loins. Carry on down into the plane in the basement.

  It looks the same. Empty seats. Painted oval windows. Beverage cart parked in the aisle. The only change is a new pilot’s chair. The new chair swivels. I stare into the distance as Uncle Thoby envisioned it. All those other planes, far away but on our path. I turn some knobs. Noli me tangere.

  I swivel and face the empty seats. Wedge, I call. Because maybe he will miraculously appear, running towards me with his hands in the air.

  This is your pilot speaking. Um. Where are my passengers. Where are you, Wedge. Uncle Thoby. Dad. Where.

  You don’t solve a mystery by adding information. You solve a mystery by subtracting what you think you already know. You just subtract your assumptions one by one until you are left with the truth. Then you ask again, Where are you.

  And from the most unexpected corner will come a voice. Over here.

  I open the beverage cart door. Bottles, bottles, everywhere. In every drawer. Empty and sideways. Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry.

  Poor, oh poor Uncle Thoby.

  Somewhere there is a bag. Uncle Thoby told me there was a bag of my dad’s “effects” in the basement. I didn’t know what this meant. Apparently “effects” are what my dad was carrying and wearing at the time of the collision. The CRYNOT bracelet was in this bag. The night I arrived Uncle Thoby had to look through the bag for the bracelet. Why did I make him do this. So I could call Darren Lipseed and listen to him tell me that there are degrees of dead.

  The bag of effects is tucked under an airplane seat. Stowed away. A carrion bag.

  Don’t look inside. Just reach in. Wet. The clothing is still wet. I pull my hand out. How is that possible.

  It hasn’t been that long.

  Yes it has.

  No it hasn’t.

  I reach back in. Grope around for my dad’s wallet. Will it be there. Yes. Because this was something we were supposed to iron out but never did. The effects were never ironed out.

  I take the wallet, stow the bag, and head down the aisle to the bathroom. I need to throw up. I need to lean over the toilet and throw up. The stopwatch around my neck gets in the way. Get out of the way. I’m going to throw up now. Oh, sorry. Finally, after having ingested soap and WD-40 and gallons of coffee and God knows what else, I’m going to throw up.

  But I don’t. No doubt most people would throw up when confronted with a bag of their dad’s effects. Most people would throw up when they entered the last storey of the house and made their dad really dead in it. But whatever I’ve ingested is not throw-up-able. Or maybe I am just not a thrower-upper.

  I sit down on the bathroom floor. The stopwatch counts forward but it can only count so far before returning to zero and starting again. Over and over. It moves forward in circles. I’ve got my dad’s watch and bracelet and wallet. I’m going to England. Make me brave, plane in the basement. Make me curious.

  Through the door I can see Uncle Thoby’s bed and under it, among other things, what looks like three pizza boxes. The D-434 lights. Well, that’s one mystery solved.

  The bed has the look of a bed that has not been slept in for a long time. And I wonder, while I was not sleeping at the kitchen table, was he not sleeping down here in an airplane seat.

  Poor, oh poor Uncle Thoby.

  Subtract what you think you know.

  I get up. Beside the bed there’s a framed photograph of my dad. The quality is not good. It’s a Polaroid. The frame has one of those inner borders that makes a tight oval around the face like an airplane window. My dad looks irritated about the oval. But also full of love for me. Because I took this picture. I know I took it. He’s reading. At the bottom of the oval I can see the
white of a page.

  When did I take it.

  I took lots of pictures with that camera. For a while I was all about Polaroid.

  Where is he. I try to see beyond the oval. This picture has been here for years and I have never looked beyond the oval.

  Something I’ve learned: You can take a picture out of a frame. As a kid, I would never have done this. Once a picture was behind glass, it lived there. To take it out, you had to go behind the picture’s back. And behind the picture’s back was complicated. There was a mechanism and how did it work. You weren’t smart enough. You would probably have to use a weapon, like with the Rubik’s cube, and pry the whole thing apart. But while you would gladly take a weapon to the Rubik’s cube, you would rather not take one to your dad’s back, or Uncle Thoby’s back.

  But that was silly. A weapon is not required. Yes, each frame is different. Some are velvety with tabs that swivel. Some are cardboard with little nails you have to pry up. But whatever they have, you can figure it out. A frame is not si difficile as that.

  After removing the back, you will probably find other layers of stuff before you reach the picture. Crinkled cardboard, maybe, or some very thin foam. A glossy picture of a yellow Lab that came with the frame. Or a folded piece of paper that has text on one side and on the other a crude map of Wednesday Pond with an arrow pointing at your house. A note in your childish handwriting. A plea not to crash. A plea to write back. Because you knew that if someone got this message, you were alive. We were alive.

  The other side is the first page of an article. “Slow Mortality Rate Accelerations During Aging in Mus musculus Approaches That of Humans.” Author: Lionel de Tigrel. Well, he is one of the smaller authors. Probably if you look closely at any article, Lionel de Tigrel is one of the authors.

  Moving right along. I peel the picture away from the oval. My dad is sitting in an airplane seat.

  Well, that is hardly surprising.

  But he is not sitting in the plane in the basement. The seats are not the same. The seats in the basement are blue with black diamonds. The seat in the picture is without diamonds.

  He is on a real plane. I took this picture. Remember. But how did it get here. I left it on the plane. I left this letter and two pictures in my armrest.

  Where is the other picture.