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While Theo and Nary were experiencing the curse of the black, furry Greek grandmother, Bean was in Saskatchewan searching for references in the local print and electronic media to local charity groups. After several days, she had found nothing that provoked her curiosity and decided to travel to Alberta.
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Chapter 17
A day after her examination of the destroyed copter transport, Jak was sitting on a bar stool in the Walks Like a Duck pub in Watertown, New York. She had decided to take a long look at the cottage where Princess Freya had disappeared, mostly because she was so close to it. Afterwards, she dropped into the pub where Bean had found her most handsome man, just curious to see what a pub with the name Walks Like a Duck would look like. She had been expecting a great deal of duck paraphernalia, but it was only a regular pub. No walking ducks were on parade. The bartender was chatting with another patron just two stools down. With only two customers in the pub, he had nothing else to do. Jak was sipping her drink; the guy in the checkered shirt was busy talking to the bartender. Jak wasn't listening; she was mentally reviewing what she had found in the cottage with the escape proof bedroom. She had been let into the cottage by the New York Safe Haven recruiter – the man who had kidnapped Princess Freya in Canada and had brought her to Waterton.
Jak had looked closely at the bedroom. The skeletons were long gone, as was the door. Safe Haven's recruiter had told Jak that he had taken that door off immediately after he had discovered the bodies. He didn't want that door closing on him while he was inside. That's what had happened to Brute and Pissy. He didn't know if that closed door had been by accident or by design. Jak didn't know either. The princess was beginning to surprise her. Perhaps the kidnapping experience had changed her for the better. No matter how Brute and Pissy had ended up locked in the bedroom, Princess Freya had walked out of the cottage carrying the Safe Haven security transmitter with her. Did she receive help? Jak saw no sign of that.
Jak didn't find anything in the bedroom that was important to note. It was a very pleasant little girl's bedroom. Nice clothes, lots of toys, and plenty of picture books. Picture books were scattered on the sofa in the living room. The living room was a little messy with unwashed cereal bowls. Jak found empty beer bottles in the laundry room and even more empty beer bottles in the living room.
Jak had uncovered nothing unusual in that cottage so long as you didn't count the sexual toys in the master bedroom. She did find a dead snake on the floor in Maddy's closet, which would not count as unusual. It had been stomped on. Snakes were all over this little island; this one must have been attracted into the cottage by the heat. Jak found nothing else remarkable inside or outside the cottage.
Back to present time. Business was still slow in the duck-walking pub and Jak had drunk all the wanted. She started to slide off the barstool. "I heard that it had been a crime of passion," the bartender was saying.
"What's that mean," the other patron asked.
"Good old Happy won't be sleeping with any more women."
Jak stopped in mid slide and returned to her drink nursing position.
"You mean if he somehow came back to life."
"Yeah. He was cut up where a man wouldn't want to be cut up. The grave was deep. Old man Peterson's dogs have good sniffers though. They were digging away the soil when Peterson caught up to them. Happy hadn't been buried all that long."
"Is Chet leaking any information?"
"You know Chet. Active murder inquiry and all that. He has everybody in the station walking around with sealed lips. Don't know why. Everybody would know why Happy was killed."
"Plenty of potential suspects."
"Lots of married man in the county would put Happy in that grave if they had proof. Lots of fathers of teenage girls could have reasons to see him gone too. Somebody finally found some proof."
"Happy did spread himself around. He had that manner; could charm his way into the pants of any woman around here. And did, if the rumours are correct. That's why he was always happy, I guess."
"He was last seen here in the pub, you know."
"Really?"
"He was chatting up some stranger; a tall thin girl. Short black hair. Not overly attractive."
"That wouldn't have made any difference to Happy."
"Did they leave together?"
"Nah. She sent him away from her table and left."
"Happy struck out?"
"Who would have guessed?"
What have you done, Bean?
There's an expression from ancient times. If it walks like a duck, and if it talks like a duck, it's gotta be a duck. Bean talked like she was promiscuous, she acted like she was promiscuous, but in this little community in New York, she hadn't walked like a duck.
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Chapter 18
Benedikta Ekelund had been born and raised in northern Scandinavia. Her father, a barber, had left Scandinavia for a holiday and had returned with a wife. This caused quite a stir in the little community – not because everybody had thought that he'd die a bachelor, and not because of the whirlwind romance. The stir, perhaps better rephrased as outrage, was because he had married a woman who carried the pestilence. She wore a head covering that revealed little more than her face and she said little to anybody who might be bold enough to talk to her. Her knowledge of the Scandinavian language was rudimentary, at best. When she appeared in the community, she wore heavy dark clothes and walked head down two paces behind her husband. Her skin colour, such as anybody could see, was tinted. Her hair colour, again as much as could be determined, was black.
Black hair is not uncommon among Scandinavians. The stereotypical Scandinavian is blonde and blue-eyed, but other colours of hair and eyes are common. But only the pestilence carriers wore those strange clothes and practiced the strange religion. Nobody ever saw the barber's wife practicing her religion, but everybody knew that she did. That's the way those people were.
The presence of a contagious husband and a contagious wife in Scandinavian communities was becoming more prevalent in the 2060s, but marriages between pure Scandinavians and pestilence carriers was virtually unheard of. Such marriages weren't outlawed by law; but they were outlawed by social ... let's call it... disapproval. Had it not been for Benedikta's father being the sole barber in town, the family would have starved. Her pestilence-carrying mother, an established doctor in her homeland, tried to find work in that field. She ended up cleaning the offices of the few doctors who preferred living in remote communities. The community could have used another doctor, especially a female doctor, but nobody came to her home after Dr. Akilah Ekelund hung up her sign.
Benedikta was born in that community in May 2067 and was raised in her mother's religion. Her mother, seeing how the community had reacted to her own presence, tried to ease her daughter's way. A scarf over her daughter's head was essential, but otherwise Benedikta wore the same clothes as her classmates. She grew up speaking perfect Scandinavian and, in time, perfect English. Had it not been for the scarf that completely enclosed her hair, Benedikta could have passed as a pure Scandinavian. She had Sven's skin colour and Akilah's black curly hair.
But Benedikta's classmates never accepted her. She was different, partly because of her strange religion. Everybody knew that pestilence carriers were the reason that it had rained during Scandinavia's Midsummer celebration the last five years. That rain had ruined the coffee crop. Foreign pestilence carriers could not appreciate the importance of coffee and the Midsummer celebration to Scandinavian society.
Benedikta was also physically different – tall, gangly, and awkward from the beginning. Neither parent knew which family member gave her the height. Her classmates figured she got her height by stealing newborn children out of their prams and eating them. At least that was the rumour going around town. Actually, the Ekelunds ate and enjoyed the same food as everybody else in the community, with th
e one-time exception of when they had tried Surströmming and did not enjoy it in the slightest. One of their neighbors had sent Mrs. Ekelund a can of this delicacy with a note welcoming her to the community. They had made the mistake of opening it in their house and the inside had reeked for weeks.
While Benedikta could not be considered an attractive teenager, she did have beautiful hair. Nobody outside the house ever saw that hair. But her religion's restrictions on hair covering applied only to trips outside the home. Inside the home, Benedikta would walk around with her long curls flapping around her ears, and she would comb it, and try forming it into different hairdo styles. Exactly like her classmates did. She wasn't talking non-stop about boys, but she did have the young teenage girl affliction known as I have to change the way I do my hair now.
As to the rest of her appearance, without the hair, Benedikta could have passed as a boy. She was as tall as the tallest boy in the school and she was developing the athletic lope that natural athletes fall into when their body growth permits. She tried to join the school's athletic teams, but was denied because her scarf was too dangerous. She might whip her head around to catch a basketball and the wicked end of the deadly scarf could put out somebody's eye, for example. Neighbours also wondered if she had a weapon hidden underneath the scarf. These people hid weapons in their hair, you know.
Benedikta's mother did not require her to respect all of the religion's clothing expectations as she entered her teenage years. She did expect modesty though. "You cannot expect men to control their urges," she would say to her daughter repeatedly. "It's up to women to dress in such a way that male urges are not aroused. Those girls who are being raped – that's happening because they are inviting it. Keep your body hidden. Do not flirt; do not move in a way that will attract a man's gaze. Do not look at a man directly – he may be unable to control himself if you do."
The mom's comment about girls being raped? That hadn't happened in their small community, but they had heard reports of it in the city to the south. This was the city that held the middle school that Benedikta would be attending soon. Benedikta and her mom had travelled to that city to buy school clothes that would be suitably modest. Her mom passed judgement on what Benedikta brought to her. Pairs of slacks and jeans were fine. But if she wore a dress or skirt, it had to reach to her ankles. Blouses were fine so long as only the top button was undone. If the blouses were short sleeved, she had to wear a sweater over it. Or she could wear a long sleeved blouse. They bought several scarves – bigger ones now because Benedikta had let her hair grow and she needed more cloth to contain it. The scarves had beautiful colours. Otherwise, Benedikta wore browns, dark blues, and blacks.
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It was late summer 2080 when Benedikta received approval from her parents to take the solar bus into the city. She'd practice bussing, walking to her school and then finding her way around it so that she wouldn't get lost on her first day. Finding the school had been one of the reasons for the previous shopping trip. Today's clothes had been chosen carefully. A long skirt because it was much too hot for jeans. A short sleeved blouse. The heat was such that her mom relented on the sweater. Her dad gave her enough money for the trip there and back and for a gelato as well. He also slipped his shaving knife into the right pocket of her skirt. "To help you feel safe," he said.
Benedikta had played with that knife as a child. She'd hold it in her hand when it was closed and flick it open with a simple wrist action. Then she'd close it and do it again. Her dad kept it very sharp so that his customers would be pleased with the close shaves that he gave them. She hadn't played with it for years, but he was right. She did feel safer with it.
The school was three blocks away from the bus stop. Benedikta turned the wrong way when she got off. She knew that she had made a mistake two blocks into her walk because she should have been able to see the school by then. Rather than going back to her starting point, Benedikta visualized a map of the area. She believed that the school was somewhere inside a three block square. If she went to the end of this block and turned right and walked three blocks, and then turned right and walked three blocks... she'd see it eventually. In her confusion and increasing dismay at being lost, she hadn't noticed that some of her curly black hair had slipped out from inside the scarf.
Benedikta noticed the three teenage boys after she had made her second right turn. They were just lounging on the stoop of some old building. This block was full of old buildings. The boys were looking at her as she approached. Benedikta kept her head down and did not return their stares. But she did put her right hand into her pocket.
As she went to pass the boys, they blocked her way. If a neighbour had been looking out a window, she would have seen two of the boys each take Benedikta's shoulder and steer her into the nearby alley and out of sight. The third boy stayed in front of her, talking. Being charming. Telling her how pretty she was, asking if she'd like to have sex with him. A person close enough to that alley would have heard Benedikta say No.
The charming boy was persistent. He knew it would be better if she agreed; he was usually quite successful at this. He asked her if she would like to open up her blouse a little – it being so hot. She said No. She emphasized it several more times to other suggestions. When it was obvious that charm wasn't going to work, the boy in front of her nodded at his buddies and they grabbed her in a way that they thought would keep her contained. The boy in front stepped out of his shorts and underwear. The boys holding Benedikta should have grabbed her hands, not her breasts. She looked at what was approaching her, brought her right hand out of her pocket, flicked her wrist, and yelled No again. Then the knife slashed through the air.
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The police chief had arrived at the scene. A male teenager was lying dead on the pavement. He had bled to death from a knife wound. The two other teenagers who had purportedly been in the alley were long gone. The resident who had heard the screams of the young man and called the police had given her statement and left. "I saw her standing over the body, holding the bloody knife. I didn't see or hear anything else."
"It's clear what happened here," the chief declared to the other police and medical personnel at the scene. "I'll deal with the girl, you medics shift that body out of here. Constables, go back to your beats."
The chief took Benedikta to his office, sat her down in front of the desk, and asked her to tell him exactly what happened. She did, emphasizing that she had said No several times and that the boy had undressed in preparation for raping her.
"But he didn't rape you," the chief stated for the record.
"He was going to," Benedikta insisted.
"You don't know that. He could have changed his mind. There was no rape."
"But the other boys grabbed my breasts and held me so that I couldn't move."
"The alley was slippery. They probably didn't want you to fall and hurt yourself. As to grabbing your breasts... why would you care? You have no breasts to speak of."
Benedikta didn't know what to say.
"What did happen was you killed a young man in the prime of his life. That's murder. You intended to kill him. You knew what you were doing with that knife."
"But..."
"You're going to jail for a long time. Starting today."
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The chief picked up a brief case and took Benedikta down a number of hallways, past some heavy doors, and eventually they came to a row of empty cells. He put her in the last one and followed her in. "You might as well get used to being in a cell."
Benedikta backed up against the wall. She was white and shaking. "I was defending myself."
"Against something that didn't happen. You killed a man." He saw Benedikta's eye looking at the open cell door. The chief stepped over and closed it. "But I may have a way to save you from jail," he offered.
Benedikta didn't say anything.
"The government has a program for criminals who are guilty of a major c
rime. Sign a confession of your guilt and the government will allow you to join the armed forces. You may enlist under an assumed name if you wish. For murder, you would normally serve a minimum of ten years in prison. You may serve that time in the military if you wish. Otherwise, you're going to jail. Those are your only two choices. What's it going to be?"
"Military," she managed to say when he opened the cell door to leave.
The police chief opened the briefcase, pulled out a paper form, and set it on the briefcase in front of her. He had a pen in his shirt pocket that he gave to her. When she reached the section for age, he explained, "You have to be at least fifteen years old. How old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"You look older. Put in fifteen. You'll pass."
...
"What does Genetics mean?"
"In the line for father, put in Scandinavian. In the line for mother, put in Scandinavian. Obviously, that's not exactly true but the military won't let people like you in otherwise. You're white enough to pass."
When she had finished writing the confession and had signed it, she gave the paper back. He looked it over and nodded. "I have to fill out a form too. I have to confirm that you are healthy. I do that with a physical exam. I'll do it here. Now."
Benedikta recoiled against the wall.
The police chief grabbed the mattress on the cell's bed, placed it on the floor, looked up at her, and tapped the mattress twice to indicate where he wanted her.
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Chapter 19
After the police chief had finished with her, he escorted Benedikta to the military recruitment office and left her sitting on a hard wooden bench – still dazed. The military wouldn't let her go home to say good-bye to her parents. Too many of these capital crime recruits wouldn't come back if they were allowed to leave. But they did let her write a letter that they would post. Benedikta wrote that she had been given an opportunity to receive her education at a military school and this would allow her to join the military as an officer later. The people wanted her and were willing to give her a free education. She had to leave right now and she'd be in a different part of the country for her schooling. She'd write when she could.