THE WHITE RIBBON MAN
Copyright © 2018 Mary Lou Dickinson
Except for the use of short passages for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, in part or in whole, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or any information or storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Collective Agency (Access Copyright).
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
Cover design: Val Fullard
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The White Ribbon Man is a work of fiction. All the characters and situations portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Dickinson, Mary Lou, 1937-, author
The white ribbon man / Mary Lou Dickinson.
(Inanna poetry & fiction series)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77133-473-0 (softcover).— ISBN 978-1-77133-476-1 (pdf).—
ISBN 978-1-77133-475-4 (Kindle).— ISBN 978-1-77133-474-7 (epub)
I. Title. II. Series: Inanna poetry and fiction series
PS8607.I346W55 2018 C813’.6 C2018-901515-2
C2018-901516-0
Printed and bound in Canada
Inanna Publications and Education Inc.
210 Founders College, York University
4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3
Telephone: (416) 736-5356 Fax: (416) 736-5765
Email: inanna.publications@inanna.ca Website: www.inanna.ca
THE WHITE RIBBON MAN
a mystery
Mary Lou Dickinson
INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
TORONTO, CANADA
In memory of my brother, John Cosser
PART I
1.
Mid-November, 2000
ON A GREY MORNING IN NOVEMBER, sixty or so people, most members of the congregation as well as a few who looked like tourists, had gathered in a downtown Toronto church for the Sunday service. They sat on pews arranged in semi-circles in the nave, having arrived on bicycles or on transit or in cars from all over the city and as far away as Scarborough or Whitby or Port Credit. Some who were likely lost souls had been drawn to the church in search of a place of comfort, while others were attracted by the idea of joining a social activist community in which their voices might have an impact.
A woman in a tweed suit who had just taken a seat next to one of the regulars asked if she knew who the minister was. “No one has a collar on,” the woman commented.
Rosemary Willis gestured toward a man in blue jeans who was sitting with his arm along the back of one of the pews. David Stinson was not wearing a collar and Rosemary could see why a stranger would not recognize him as the minister.
Off to the side, a man with dishevelled hair, holes in his shoes and dirty fingernails, watched a woman put cups out near a coffee urn. He reached around her to take one, filling it from the urn. Methodically, and visibly keeping his shaking hands from spilling or dropping anything, he added sugar and milk and stirred the dark liquid with a wooden stick. Then he sat back in one of two easy chairs set along the wall outside of the circle and watched. He did not speak, even when someone spoke to him. Only when another man lurched through the door and went to stand beside him, did he say anything. The two men appeared to know each other.
“Are you from out of town?” Rosemary asked, posing the question because the woman did not look familiar and asking about the minister identified her as a visitor. “I’m Rosemary.”
Many tourists passed through the Church of the Holy Trinity, most vanishing at the end of the service without leaving any trace. However, Rosemary tried to remember to introduce herself and ask for names. She had learned this from watching Claire Withrow, an older woman who always made visitors welcome. Claire was friendly to everyone. She had the knack of being comfortable with strangers, something that Rosemary assumed came easily to her after the foreign postings Claire and her husband told the parish about whenever they returned to Holy Trinity between appointments abroad.
“Pennsylvania,” the woman said. She was staying at the hotel next door. Later in the afternoon she would go to the last workshop of a conference on urban planning and then fly back to Philadelphia. “I thought I’d like to try one of your churches,” she smiled. “This one is so close I could slip in easily.”
“We’re glad to have you here,” Rosemary said. “As a downtown church, we have visitors from many places. Close by and far flung. Are you an urban planner?”
“Yes,” the woman nodded. “The conference is an opportunity to meet people from around the world, although most of the people attending are from North America.”
Rosemary was suddenly distracted by a peculiar sound. She frowned, peering around to see if anyone else had noticed. It had sounded like a strangled scream, one that was muffled because it was not coming from the large space in which the congregation waited for the service to start, but from outside or possibly the basement. The woman from Pennsylvania did not seem aware of anything unusual. Rosemary had a sense of something odd in the air now, yet no one else seemed to have heard anything. Maybe it had been her imagination. There were so many noises coming from outside. In the square next to the church, people might be chattering loudly as they clustered around the fountain and, often, young men in drooping trousers were furtively exchanging drugs. Usually, everyone in the church simply ignored the background clatter, just as she had the blasting underground when growing up in a northern mining town. But this sound that she’d just heard was different from her childhood experience of miners setting off dynamite to get at the gold in the rock. It was more like the choked voices of mothers, daughters, fathers, sons on surface when there was word of an accident underground.
Rosemary began to notice that some other people in the church did appear puzzled. The coordinator for this particular Sunday had started to greet the people, but the service had not yet begun. The coordinator looked like she had stopped suddenly, seemingly waiting for something. Although they had begun many services with assorted distractions, she appeared unable to continue.
ON THAT SAME SUNDAY MORNING when the recent days of sunshine had most people still sporting light fall jackets, almost no one wanted to think winter was around the corner. Ardith Martin arrived in her wheelchair and headed toward the side door of the church, the one that had a ramp beside the stairs. Frequently late for the service, she felt better when she saw Patsy Burke carrying her son, Sasha, and a large bag across the courtyard. Patsy had told her she could still scarcely believe she had discovered a church that was inclusive enough for her. Ardith had nodded in agreement at that statement, having felt the same way when she herself began to attend this Sunday service downtown.
Patsy was glad to be there today for the potluck the congregation had organized for Claire and Harry Withrow after the service. She was just getting to know them and was sad they were leaving for a new home in Vancouver. She always looked forward to sharing some Jamaican food and had made some rice and peas for the potluck. Eating together was such an important part of her culture. She could almost taste some of her favourites—ackee and cod, plantains, curried goat, rice and peas. And, oh, for a good Jamaican fish fry!
Ambling toward Patsy and Ardith from the other direction was a man with long, greying, curly hair and a white shirt open at the neck. Rob Hawyrluk wore a large turquoise pendant on a long silver chain and scuffed white running shoes. He looked as if he were thinking about something so intently that she wondered whether he would see or hear them. All the same, Patsy waved at him. Like her, he was late for the service that, scheduled to start ten minutes earlier, might well not yet have begun. Nonetheless, she was surprised he was not hurrying.
“Rob,” she called.
He didn’t hear her and seemed lost in thought.
“Rob!” She tried again, juggling Sasha on her back.
“Patsy,” he said when he finally saw her. “Hey Sasha,” he smiled at the toddler. “Let me take that,” he added, reaching for Patsy’s large bag.
“Food for the farewell celebration,” she said.
He gestured at Ardith, who nodded back. He was one of Ardith’s favourite people, often listening to her when others simply gave up trying to understand her. She had so much she could tell them, but if they weren’t prepared to spend some time hearing her out, what could she do? She recalled the struggles she had getting the qualifications she needed to do the work she now did at the university around issues that arose in her community, issues that people with disabilities faced in every aspect of urban life.
Ardith noticed that Rob was also carrying a bag. He told them that he had brought some Asiago cheese and crackers for the farewell potluck.
“I’ll miss them,” Rob said. “Particularly Claire. She often stops to chat with me after the service.”
Ardith knew that others frequently ignored Rob, but she also knew that even though he sometimes came across as slightly off, he was bright and funny. She wished she did not splutter so much when she wanted to say something. It was so tiresome to have her words back up in her throat and to struggle with them so hard that her face might contort and make her seem a caricature that did not reflect at all who she was inside. At City Hall, she had written and filed notes, full accounts of her petitions and presentations that were included in the records. There was no doubt that councillors knew why she was there. She had influenced much planning around making the city more accessible and was respected for that now.
Patsy smiled genially at both Rob and Ardith. She knew that others frequently seemed not to see either of them. Claire was different. Patsy could hear the older woman’s soft voice with its gentle lilt asking, “How are you, Rob? Really, how are you?” She was interested in Ardith as well, always stopping to share a few words. Patsy thought both Ardith and Rob must get lonely when people did not grasp how warm and friendly they were under the outer trappings of their differences.
Rob had told Patsy about getting a cat since his partner died of AIDS the previous year. He told her he was less lonely now that he had Pilgrim to keep him company. “When I told Claire that I sometimes think I see Charles peering out through Pilgrim’s eyes, she didn’t flinch or ask about my medications the way my family used to when I still went to visit.” Those medications addled his brain, he had told Patsy and he’d stopped taking them years ago. He was fine. If he liked to think that a cat might embody his lost lover that was his business. Patsy had nodded. If he liked to wear pendants and read about abstract, obscure subjects on theological and philosophical issues, it did not mean he had a mental illness. He might sit on a park bench and read Schopenhauer or Kierkegaard or a mystery by John le Carré—one never knew what Rob might have tucked under his arm. But he hardly seemed mentally ill, Patsy thought, only a bit eccentric. One psychiatrist had told him he was schizophrenic. Just another label.
She’d shrugged, thinking he seemed quiet, but not unhinged in any way that made her uncomfortable. She noticed Ardith wheel herself up the ramp to the south door of the church. She would catch up with her later.
The east door opened onto a small courtyard with a fountain. A man who was likely homeless sat on the edge of the fountain wearing a shapeless, grey jacket that he might have taken from a Goodwill bin. It was hanging open. Soon he might wander into the church, even if it were in the middle of the service. He probably knew where to find the coffee urn so he could get a cup. A stone building next to him now housed offices for the church as well as the fundraising headquarters for a local women’s shelter. A woman read the plaque on the wall of the church and then the smaller one on the stone house before walking to the fountain and throwing a coin into the water. Small circles formed around the spot where the coin had landed and she watched it sink to the bottom to rest surrounded by a smattering of other coins.
From the west, a woman with a cane approached slowly. It was Claire Withrow. Patsy had gone to visit Claire after her hip operation and felt she had almost made a friend as she learned more about the older woman’s life. Since the operation, Claire had used a cane. She was tiny, had short white hair and wore a deep green suit today. Her husband, not with her at this moment, was not very tall either, although taller than she was. Patsy thought their size belied the strength that had carried them through many changes together. They’d lived in China when Mao Tse Tung took over. One of their sons was born there. Harry was a doctor and a missionary. His work might have been like that of Doctors without Borders, but in fact he’d gone as an emissary of his church. He and Claire had lived for long periods in foreign countries yet Claire had been quick to tell Patsy this church in the centre of downtown Toronto was as much home to them as any other place in the world because they had come back to it so many times, always knowing they would be welcome.
Patsy wondered why Claire had not gone around to the entrance with the ramp, but had noticed that the older woman invariably forgot until it was too late. So, once again, she went to the door she always used and Patsy saw her struggle from the ground onto the first step. Then Rob caught up with her and took her arm. He was a man with intense blue eyes who said very little. But Patsy knew when she looked straight at him and started to talk, that the distance always fell away. A certain warmth would creep into his eyes and the corners of his mouth would rise just enough to show he was pleased.
Toward the top of the stairs, when Patsy had caught up with them, Rob mentioned that Pilgrim now rang a bell when she wanted her food. “I hung it just inside the door,” Rob said. “And I showed her how to use it. Then I fed her. She picked it up quickly. Now she uses it when she wants to distract me.”
Both Patsy and Claire laughed. Rob always looked vulnerable. “A cat can be wonderful company,” Claire said.
Patsy remembered when Rob used to drink too much. Maybe he still did, but for a long time she had not noticed the smell of alcohol on his breath or any slight distortion in his movements. It was odd how someone she scarcely knew could be so known to her simply by being part of the same community. She thought Claire might really miss Rob. He tended to stay in the background, but was always there if needed.
“May God be with you, young man,” Claire whispered.
“Where is Harry?” Rob asked.
“He had to go to Ottawa for the weekend,” she added. “His brother isn’t well. And he wanted to see him before we leave for Vancouver. It might be a while before we can get back east again. He should be here before the end of the service.”
A FEW PEOPLE SQUIRMED AROUND to see if they could figure out where the strange sound had come from. Puzzled brows coming together, eyes darting over the space of the nave—all these gestures expressed their uncertainty about what they ought to do. Rob came through the door, but instead of going to sit in a pew, he started across the wooden floor toward the staircase to the basement. The minister was not far behind, perhaps realizing that Rob had pinpointed the sound from outside and that it was time to see where it had most likely come from. Then Linda O’Reilly, a heavy woman with dyed red hair, followed them down the stairs. Below was a washroom for women and, a little further along the corridor, one for men. They were small washrooms, each with two cubicles. Between them, in the hall, was a water fountain. The stairs were of the same heavy wood that extended throughout the church, but the floor in the basement was tiled. As Rob made his way down into the hall, a woman emerged from the first washroom.
Upon seeing Rob, the woman began to shudder. “On the floor,” she said in a shrill voice. “Feet … sticking out. Blood.” She was visibly shaken, her face was contorted, her dark leather purse had fallen or been left open. David Stinson, the minister, pushed past Rob through the door. His face looked as if he had to contain his own fear so as not to frighten anyone else. Solace in crisis situations was often some form of quiet meditation for him, impossible in these circumstances. Praying silently, his eyes fell immediately on a pair of feet in red heels stretched out from under the cubicle on the right. He made a low, guttural sound and then gingerly pushed the cubicle door open to reveal a woman face down on the floor with one arm flung off to the side. He thought she must surely be dead. There was blood on the floor and wall, and he felt bile rise in his throat. He turned to tell Rob and, seeing the other man clutch at his throat, remembered that, not long ago, Rob had watched his partner die of AIDS and be carried out of the house in one of those dark bags. He could tell that Rob was reliving that memory.
“Don’t let anyone else into the basement,” David said. “I’ll call the police.”
Rob backed away, looking relieved that David seemed to have taken charge. The minister walked along the corridor, looking reassuringly at the woman who was still standing there. She was still shaking.
He looked closely at her face for the first time, not sure if he’d ever seen her before. Then it dawned on him that she was someone who came from time to time to eat in the church cafeteria and that he had smiled at her recently in the lineup for food. He reached out and put his hand on hers to comfort her. As a man who had difficulty with feelings, this was challenging for him. “Do you know her?” he asked
The woman shook her head, glancing at David’s jeans as if unsure who he was. “I didn’t really see her,” she said. “I don’t know.”
David uttered some soothing words as he guided the familiar stranger down the hallway toward the stairs. He noticed the woman with the dyed red hair who had also come downstairs and he could not, in that instant, remember her name either. He did recall that she was often antagonistic toward him and questioned his stand on almost everything. She’d let him know he was completely unaware of a woman’s experience, and she’d talked about the hierarchy in the church, attempting to get him to change rituals and language. Oh yes, her name was Linda O’Reilly. Yes. She was in a group working on inclusive language, and she had been adamant that he was lacking some basic understanding. Sometimes it annoyed him because he had always supported the initiatives for change raised by this congregation. Although he had not understood why she had insisted that a group to discuss women’s relationship to the church be formed by women only. “How could you have such a discussion without men also?” he had asked her. “How could you work out the relationships unless everyone was at the table?” But he was not thinking about those details now, only that Linda could be difficult and that he wished she were not the one who had followed them downstairs today. Although right now she seemed to be waiting to do something —anything. Her usually loud voice was silent.
“Linda,” he said as calmly as he could, trying to stop his voice from quavering slightly as he nodded to the woman next to him. “Can you look after her?”
“What’s happened?”
“For now, just stay with her out here and try to comfort her. She’s made a terrible discovery.”
David left them together and rushed up the stairs. He was glad to be in blue jeans rather than wearing his vestments, although it occurred to him that this might not look right to the police who were, in his experience, generally a conservative bunch. He’d had lots of dealings with them. You had to if you were the rector of a large church in the core of a city. The constant exchange of drugs in the courtyard, the fights late at night, and the numerous and sundry crimes that took place on the very steps of the church sometimes meant the police were a frequent presence.
From the cafeteria door, he noticed that the service seemed to have begun. Oh good, he thought. They carry on, these people. They did not know what was happening, but they knew what to do anyway. Were they singing a hymn now? One perhaps written by a man in the congregation and set to music chosen by the young woman who was the music director. Polly Cartier could play the piano, the organ, the guitar, and the flute. The congregation was a talented one. There were times when he wondered how he had managed to secure this interim appointment. But had the bishop chosen him only because he was older, more conventional? He hated to think of ending his career as a sort of caretaker to a congregation for whom he was a mere figurehead. Occasionally they asked him to preach, but not very often. Still, this morning it was convenient, even useful, that he did not need to be concerned about more than the crisis that was unfolding.
A few people peered around, aware that the minister had left the congregation. They did not know what he had discovered downstairs but sensed that something was underway before he came up from the basement and then disappeared into the cafeteria.
At the telephone in the kitchen, David dialed 911. Once he’d had to call the fire department when darting flames with their flickering tongues had unexpectedly roused a piece of paper into a conflagration and almost consumed the cafeteria. It had been during a ceremony that was being held there. All the emergency numbers were now listed. This one, easy to remember, received the fastest response.
He visualized the body in the washroom with horror. He was fairly certain that the woman was not one of his parishioners. Had she already been dead during the earlier service that morning and gone unnoticed? He had no idea how to determine how long her body may have been there. Although he had certainly seen enough death in his day. He couldn’t count all the funerals he’d presided over as a minister during the course of his lifetime, all the calls he’d made to grieving widows and widowers, to grieving children and parents. All the grieving he had shared with his congregations. Usually, he would be called in to pray with someone as they were dying. He had been present during those final moment also more times than he could remember.
This was the first time he had discovered a body or was practically first on the scene. Who could she be? So many strangers from surrounding office buildings came to eat here. The woman who had found the corpse on the washroom floor was probably one of those office workers. The dead woman could also have been an office worker, walking around in those red leather heels, flicking her head so that her long hair made a swishing sound. Now she was a lifeless form—strands of her hair stuck together with blood—lying on the beige clay tiles in the basement of his church.
THE WOMAN WHO HAD MADE THE DISCOVERY in the bowels of the church was a pale shade of white, and every so often she started to shake again. When she opened her mouth to say something, it came out in a stream of incoherent syllables. Linda stood with her lips tightly clenched, not sure what to do either. To say that everything was all right would be ludicrous. There must be something that would calm the woman. Anything. Even a strong drink.
“My name is Linda,” she said, afraid that if she asked what had happened the woman would start screaming again. It seemed preposterous that accustomed as she was to dealing with emergencies and predicaments in which women found themselves, in this situation she felt helpless.
The woman looked at her blankly, but for a moment stopped shaking.
“David, the minister, has gone to call the police,” Linda said gently.
“I didn’t do anything,” the woman said, glancing around as if looking for a way to escape. Her voice rose again.
“No.” You probably didn’t, Linda thought. Without a clue as to what exactly was in that washroom, she didn’t think this woman would turn out to be a criminal.
“I came in to use the washroom,” the woman said in what was now a low voice, starting to tremble again.
Linda noticed that she was carrying a bag with the logo of a store in the Eaton Centre and that she was dressed in a burgundy skirt with a matching jacket. She might work in an anonymous cubicle beside the water cooler of one of the office towers or more likely was downtown for the day shopping, but it was early on a Sunday morning, so neither seemed likely. Under normal circumstances she might ask, Linda thought, but suspected this woman would have to face an interrogation that would further upset her as soon as the police arrived and that it would be circumspect only to try to calm her. As someone who generally knew all the community gossip, it was difficult for Linda to restrain herself.
“The legs sticking out,” the woman sputtered.
“Legs,” Linda repeated.
“Shoes. Red heels.”
This was bizarre, Linda thought, but she knew she could not go to look. She wondered how long she would have to wait with the woman, but also knew that it was important that both of them be here when the police arrived. You didn’t watch Homicide: Life on the Street, her favourite television series, without knowing a lot about police investigations, she thought. She knew it was an American show and that criminal investigations in Toronto were not really like those on TV, but all the same she would like to share this piece of information with the woman. Again she restrained herself. Not a customary role for someone who delighted in telling people what she knew about a host of things. Clever Linda. So her father had said when she was very young, marvelling at her red curls, pointing them out to the men he worked with who came to play cards on the dining room table. It had pleased Linda, but at the same time it had made her think that all he saw were the superficial aspects of her. He did not know that she watched all of them closely and often considered them fools.
“I need to go home,” the woman moaned.
“I don’t think we can leave,” Linda said. “The police will want to question both of us.”
Once again, the woman began to shudder. “I should have stayed in bed,” she said in a shattered voice.
Linda thought it might have been better if she had also done that. Having stepped into this day, her life seemed propelled in an entirely different direction than she could have anticipated. She felt like a skier going downhill at full speed who suddenly hits an unexpected bump and lands in an alternate reality. There must be someone dead in the washroom, she surmised, a woman in heels, otherwise there would already be a doctor or a nurse, more likely a paramedic, in attendance. Someone would be there, bending over her, checking her vital signs, offering reassurance. Who was the woman? Who would have wanted to see her dead? Somehow a body on the floor of a stall in a church washroom didn’t sound like suicide to Linda. She wondered if there was blood splattered all over, something to make it convincing that this had been a murder. This woman probably knew, but Linda was afraid of setting off another bout of shuddering, even screaming, and knew better than to speculate out loud.
Maybe someone had sexually assaulted her out in the courtyard during the night and dragged her inside afterwards. But the church would have been locked then. Had the murderer followed the woman downstairs to the washroom while the early service was in progress? It would not be too difficult. Not all of the doors opened into the nave of the church. You could enter from the east and go down those stairs without being seen at all. But how could it have happened without someone hearing something? Wouldn’t there have been screams from the woman? Maybe there would have been the sound of a man trying to drag a body along the hall and down the stairs, his heavy breath making a loud rasping sound.
Linda wondered if the woman was a member of the congregation or related to someone who was. There were many men and women who came to this church without their partners. The minister might not know her, even if one of his parishioners were her husband or boyfriend. The man who’d been wearing a white ribbon on his lapel flashed across her mind. An ordinary bloke who had been here on an earlier Sunday with whom she had spoken briefly. He had not come back, so he likely had absolutely zilch to do with this. And Rosemary, who had left with him that day, would never have left with someone the least bit unconventional. He must have been a friend of hers. All the things you surmise, she thought, but never ask, although she was not usually shy about doing so.
Or the murder could have happened the day before, she supposed. There were no activities in the church the previous day as far as Linda knew. This was something she had some knowledge of because of her role in the congregation as one of the wardens. In any case, the doors would have been locked. She wondered how the police would pinpoint how long the body had been there. Unless the killer had a key, it could not have happened during the night. That thought caused goose bumps on her arms. It would implicate people she knew very well. Like David. And the caretaker, Brent. She immediately rejected those possibilities.
Maybe the procedures the police used would turn up other evidence that would lead to a killer. That aspect of crime investigation intrigued her. Linda knew the methods carried out in the basement of the church would differ from those in Homicide: Life on the Street. There would likely not be as much drama. This was, Canada, after all, where life was more mundane. The crimes they showed on TV were not likely to be prevalent in a city and country where there were fewer guns and fewer murders than in America, even per capita.
Whenever she read an article in the paper about a woman who had been murdered, she often surmised that the husband or boyfriend would be arrested, and the press would then be full of comments from neighbours that there had been no signs, that he was such a helpful or congenial sort. How could it have been him?
Well, in any case, only after the police officers investigated this incident could it be called a murder, Linda thought. In Homicide, it was always a murder. That was the point. After answering crisis calls over long shifts, she always came home exhausted. Once home, she had no interest in answering her own telephone calls, so she would crash on the sofa in front of the television set. The crises she watched on TV were all fiction. The characters were not actual women whose husbands or partners had just beaten them, women whose voices she had just listened to. Nor were they women who were sexually molested as children. They were not the survivors of ritual abuse or women from war-torn countries who were tortured either. And the criminals in these TV shows were always caught and punished. Once or twice, Homicide had been too vivid for her and she’d turned it off. But the drama created by the exciting lives of the detectives and the politics of the police force fascinated her. She had loved that show. Maybe it was still running, maybe with different actors, but she had not watched television in months.
Now this, this was a nightmare—a body in the basement of her own church—and she wished she would wake up.