Chevy Stevens - The Other Side

“We got them!”

“Oh, sweet Jesus. Are they okay?”

“They’re good,” he said. “A little shook up, but good.”

“Where’s John?”

Billy filled me in on the rest. The Campsite Killer wasn’t going to hurt anyone ever again.

A couple of days later, I was released from the hospital. Jeff picked me up.

“I’m going to Kelowna,” I said.

“Want me to come with you?”

“No, thanks, I’m going alone.”

He nodded, understanding. He always knew when I needed space to figure shit out on my own, and I had a few things to think about. A lot had happened in the last month.

We flew over to Vancouver. I stopped at my house long enough to change my clothes, jumped in my Tahoe, and headed out to Kelowna.

Mark hadn’t been able to make bail. They brought him in, still in cuffs. He eyed me as they undid them, no doubt wondering who the hell I was and what I wanted. As a young man he’d been big, with huge forearms from hours working as a faller. I remembered a crew cut and a mean face with thin lips and cold blue eyes. I also remembered him drinking beer with my father while they watched the hockey game, his gaze lingering on my mother as she moved around the living room. Now he had a beer belly and the flushed face of a drinker, but his arms were still big and his face still mean.

I introduced myself, then said, “Do you remember me?”

His hooded eyes stared out at me. “Nope.”

“You were friends with my father. Tom McBride.” He kept his face blank, but his head tilted back, on guard. “You’re Tom’s kid?”

“Yes. I heard you got yourself into a bit of trouble.”

He tightened his mouth, one of his meaty fists clenching. “The bitch is lying.” Yeah, yeah, the bitch is always lying.

“The bruises on her body tell a different story.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why you here?”

“I want to talk to you about my mother’s murder.”

“Yeah? Ask your dad.”

“I’d love to. You know where he is?”

We stared each other down. Finally he said, “No idea. He stopped talking to me before she was killed.”

“Because you were seeing my mother and he didn’t like that. Your wife didn’t like it much either.”

He shrugged. “I strayed. Your dad was no saint either. Had a real bad temper.”

“Seems like you might have a bit of a temper too, Mark.”

“What are you getting at, lady?”

“Where were you the night my mother was killed?”

“I already told the cops—I was home, with my wife. She vouched for me.”

“She did, didn’t she? Of course, back then she thought you were coming home to stay. I wonder if she remembers things a little differently now.”

He leaned back slightly in his chair. “She’ll remember things the way they happened.” His tone was cocky. “I was at home.” His mouth curled up in a smile. “So was your daddy.”

“We’ll see.”

I called Doug the minute I was out of the building. “I think you’re onto something. He’s being cagey about that night. Is the wife still around?”

“Far as I know. I think she’s even in the same house. Want me to talk to her?”

“Thanks, but I’ll do it. Just give me the address.”

Eileen Braithwaite’s house was falling apart, the weeds and grass knee-high, the deck crumbling, a blue tarp covering most of the roof. I didn’t see a car in the driveway, but I could hear a TV blaring inside. I knocked loudly.

A dog started yipping and toenails scrambled on the floor. A haggard-looking woman opened the door: early seventies, long white hair, dressed in a faded jogging suit. The suit hung on her, like she’d lost a lot of weight recently. A small white dog was going nuts at her feet. Smoke from her cigarette curled up around her.

“Yeah?”

“I’m Staff Sergeant McBride and I was hoping to speak with you about your ex-husband.”

“What did the scumbag do now?” She squinted at me. The dog barked. She gave him a little shove with her foot. “Give it a rest, Louie.” Louie shut up.

I said, “I’d love to come in and talk about it.” She hesitated, then opened the door.

I perched on the edge of her couch, which had been floral at some point in its life, but was now faded pinks and browns. She eased herself down on a La-Z-Boy, a full ashtray of cigarette butts on the coffee table. The dog, who also looked yellowed with age, settled in her lap, giving me a warning growl. I told her what her ex had been picked up for.

“Asshole was always too quick with the fists.” She opened her mouth, pointed to a missing tooth.

“You never reported him for abuse when you were together?”

“Back then, you didn’t rat out your man. Now…” She waved her hand in the air. “Everyone’s running to the cops and their shrinks, whining about their problems.”

“You split up for a while, back in the seventies.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes squinted again, wondering where this was going.

“He was seeing another woman,” I said. “Virginia McBride.”

She leaned back in her chair, tense. “He was, but he came back home.”

“And you took him back no questions asked?”

“We had kids, mouths to feed. He was a good provider.” Never mind that he beat the crap out of her, and no doubt her children too.

“The night Virginia died, you said he was here with you.”

She stubbed out her cigarette, lit another, taking her time and watching me through the smoke.

“That’s right, I did.” She sounded belligerent.

“Now, with the benefit of time, is there anything else you can remember about that night, maybe him getting up while you were sleeping, maybe you thought he came back to bed…?”

I wanted to show her that I was willing to work with her on this. I could see her weighing her options, what was in it for her, why it mattered to me. Any minute, she’d ask. And she did.

“Why you want to know all this? Thought you got him for something else.”

“His woman, she might change her mind in a day or so, then he’ll move on to another one. Do the same thing. Bet it was real hard on you when he started fooling around with Virginia. You home with the kids, him over there having a good time. Bet he made a lot of promises when he came back, how sorry he was, how things were going to be different. You just had to help him out with this one thing—because he was innocent, right? The cops were going to pin it on him, then he wouldn’t be able to look after you and the kids. But he skipped out anyway. How long did it take him to find another single mother on the side? A year? Two?”

She sucked hard on the cigarette, blew the smoke out in a gust of air. “Six months.”

“Six months. And for that, he gets to go free, to walk around, no headaches, no problems, no nagging wife, because you did him a favor. But what did he do for you?”

She took another drag, nodding her head.

“He’s a mean son of a bitch,” she said. “A real charmer, and then he’ll turn around and hurt you for looking at him funny. If he gets out and finds out I talked to you…”

“If you talk to me, he’s not getting out.”

She scratched a breast, gave a hacking cough, and sighed. “I’m dying.”

Surprised, I didn’t say anything. She continued, “Got cancer, too far gone. Too much smoking.” She stared at the cigarette for a moment. “His favorite time for one of these was after sex.”

And there it was, the thing I’d forgotten all those years. The snap of a lighter, the smell of cigarette smoke filling the air. My father didn’t smoke.

“What really happened that night?”

“He was here, then he went out, said he had to go talk to her, said she’d called him crying and he had to end it once and for all, she was getting all crazy on him. He stumbled home around midnight, climbed into bed stinking of beer and sweat. Next day we hear about the murder. Said he figured your dad must of come in later, but he’d get blamed for it.”