Robert Knightly: Bodies in Winter

‘His mother’s dead and his father lives somewhere out west.’ She turned away from me, lifting the lid on the crock pot to release the fragrance of simmering vegetables.

‘Mrs Lodge,’ I asked, ‘do you know any reason why somebody would want to kill your husband?’

She laughed out loud. ‘How about one of the monkeys who spit on us whenever we came in or out of the courthouse?’

‘You mean the protesters?’

‘Yeah, the protesters.’

‘Anybody else? Anybody specific?’

‘No, but Dave was worried about the possibility of revenge. Definitely. He mentioned it to me a number of times in his letters and-’

‘We’ll need to see those letters.’

Ellen stopped short, her eyes rising to mine, then jumping away. ‘I didn’t keep them,’ she admitted after a long moment. ‘I mean, they weren’t love letters or anything like that.’

‘Can you remember what he wrote?’

‘Besides how he was worried?’

‘Yeah, besides.’

Ellen shrugged. ‘The usual stuff. How tough the screws were. How bad the food was. How he was trying to stay positive.’

‘But you don’t remember anything specific?’

‘Hey, you’re not listening. Me and Dave weren’t all that close, not after seven years. In fact, we were on the outs before he ever went away.’

‘Then what did he say that led you to believe he felt threatened?’

‘He said there were prison rumors that Clarence Spott’s old crew had a contract out on him. Personally, I didn’t take it all that serious, but the guy you wanna talk to is Pete Jarazelsky. You know who I’m talking about?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Pete Jarazelsky was stationed at the Eight-Three, same time as Dave. He got sent upstate a few years back for knockin’ over a warehouse. What I understand, they were pals. They told each other everything.’

‘And Jarazelsky’s still in prison?’

‘That’s what Dave told me last night. Dave said he was worried about Pete. You know, now that he wouldn’t be there to watch Pete’s back.’

From outside, a chorus of small sharp voices rose in song: I’m a little teapot, short and stout… Ellen Lodge took another look at the soup, then shut off the crock pot.

‘Gotta let it cool,’ she said. ‘Some of these kids, they don’t even know how to use a spoon. They stick their whole face in the bowl. One of them gets burned, I’ll never hear the end of it.’

I think she meant the remark as an exit line, but I wasn’t taking the hint. Over the years, I’ve mastered the art of passive-aggression. I’m the Rock of Gibraltar and the only way to move me is to answer my questions.

‘Now, you said your husband asked to live here until he got on his feet. Did he have a job lined up? Any prospects?’

‘Not that I know of. He told me he was gonna look up his old buddies at the Eight-Three, see if they’d help him find something.’

‘So the stay was open-ended?’

‘The stay?’

‘You told me your husband was going to stay with you until he got back on his feet. If he didn’t have a job lined up, he might have been with you for months.’

Outside, the children broke into widely varying renditions of ‘Frere Jacques’. Ellen listened for a moment, then said, ‘Lemme take out these sandwiches and the juice, get the kids started. If you don’t mind.’

‘Hey, children have to eat. I understand. But just so it won’t be a total loss, would it be alright if my partner and I look through your husband’s room? In case there’s something up there we need to ask you about.’

I watched Ellen Lodge’s reaction closely. In my experience, even cooperative citizens don’t want cops roaming through their homes unaccompanied. But Ellen continued to replace the caps on the children’s tumblers. ‘It’s the bedroom in the back,’ she told us without raising her eyes from her work. ‘Look anywhere you want.’

Adele and I took Ellen Lodge at her word, exploring every inch of the room, even checking beneath the mattress. In a bureau drawer, three pairs of newly purchased socks and an unopened three-pack of Jockey briefs nestled in a corner. On the floor, a plastic bag held a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of dirty socks. On the night table, a few toilet articles — razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, deodorant, nail clippers — were scattered next to the lamp. Beyond those items, we found nothing.

We came downstairs just in time to make the acquaintance of Ellen’s helper, Sonia Ramirov. She told us that she hadn’t known her boss was even married until Lodge had made his appearance that morning. Then she rushed back to her charges.

For the next ten minutes, I studied Ellen Lodge at work. Though she was patient throughout, cajoling here, firm there, it was obvious to me that she needed more help. What was equally obvious was that she was running an unlicensed, shoestring operation, providing a service to working-class couples who couldn’t afford the real thing. I might have used that against her — Adele would already have done so — but I tend to hoard my ammunition.

Eventually, Ellen left the children in the care of her helper, then returned to the kitchen. Her timing, as far as I could tell, was arbitrary. After closing the door, she went to the sink and rinsed her hands.

‘You’re very good with the kids,’ I told her. ‘They respond to you.’

She threw me a sharp look, and for a moment I thought she was going to become angry. Then her look softened, the weariness flooding back into her eyes. ‘Me and Dave,’ she told us, ‘we wanted to have kids, but I never got pregnant. A year before he went away, I practically begged him to go with me to a fertility clinic. Big mistake. Dave broke appointments, showed up drunk, threatened the doctors. It was a nightmare.’ She shook her head. ‘So, where were we?’

‘Well, there’s a question that occurred to me while I watched you with the kids out there.’ I smiled sincerely as I hit Lodge with the sharpest arrow in my quiver. ‘You told us your husband had been threatened, that he believed somebody was out to kill him.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So why weren’t you worried about having him in your house? What with the kids and all.’

Ellen Lodge never did answer the question. Instead, she began by insisting that she hadn’t taken the threat seriously, then shifted, without prompting, to a pair of grudging admissions. Beneath her genuine and justified anger, she did have some feelings for her husband. And maybe she was just a little bit lonely.

I let her explanations stand, turning her to Lodge’s movements from the time he arrived at her home. Her responses were vague. He’d come in around four o’clock, while she was still burdened with the kids, and had gone directly to his room upstairs. After the kids left, she and Sonia had begun the clean-up and the preparations for the following day, which included shopping for supplies and for the meal they would prepare. It wasn’t until eight o’clock that she finally got around to her husband and a Chinese take-out dinner. By that time, she was so tired she could hardly think.

Over dinner, Dave had talked about old friends neither of them now had, about Ellen’s raw deal, about how he’d turned things around in prison, about his intention to live a good and sober life, a life of atonement. Ellen had listened, perhaps sympathetically, but if she’d expressed any opinions of her own, she couldn’t remember them.

They’d finally retired to separate bedrooms at ten o’clock. Ellen had fallen asleep immediately, then risen at six-thirty to get ready for the children. What with all the rush, she’d barely remembered that Davy, as she called him, was sleeping upstairs until the phone rang at nine o’clock. The call was for her husband, from a man whose voice she didn’t recognize, and she’d summoned Davy to the phone without giving the matter a lot of thought. A few minutes later, Davy had gone back upstairs to fetch his coat before leaving the house.