The First Chapter of 'One Dead Sister'

Kris Redner grabbed the edge of her seat to avoid being thrown into the aisle as the number 97 bus swung out of the Lincoln Fields station and onto the Ottawa River Parkway. The big red and white articulated roared into the night, the lights of the city on the right and the river on the left, flowing like liquid pewter under a full moon.

After 17 years of living in downtown Toronto, it amazed her that there were still such vast open spaces right in the middle of Ottawa. It didn’t even feel like a city. For just a minute, Kris thought, it was like being a teenager in the Ottawa valley again, camping rough along the river.

She could live without the congestion of Toronto, but she did miss the subway that took her straight from work to her condo at Yonge and Sheppard. Now she had to ride the bus. She could have bought a car, but then she’d have had to pay as much again to buy a space in Colin’s condo building. Who wanted a parking space in a building where they didn’t even own a condo?

Riding the bus made Kris feel like she’d gone back in time to some other era. The 1970s, maybe, but without all the good music and dope. At least this bus was air conditioned, helping to cut the heavy early August humidity.

It was 11:30 p.m. It had already taken her 15 minutes to get from the Ottawa Citizen building only a few kilometres away and it would be nearly midnight by the time she got home to the condo she and Colin were sharing in the Byward Market. Another late day, another scramble to get a column that measured up to what they expected from her. In Toronto, it had been easy to turn the daily drama of crime and the courts into a newspaper column three days a week. Between the gangs and the parade of inept losers going through the courts, she had never been short of raw material. Here in Ottawa, it was different. She’d found the crime boring, the biggest things small. People got all excited about a home invasion that wouldn’t even make the news in a real city. And she hadn’t yet established the web of connections at the courts that would tip her to the good stuff, if there was any.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if the paper wasn’t running big promotional ads calling her “Canada’s queen of crime,” picking up a phrase from some puff piece Macleans did two years ago, when she was at the height of her career, covering the Jamestown gang killings like the story was a good mystery novel. The promotional stuff had been Colin’s idea. When he had been brought in from Toronto as editor after the ownership change, he’d insisted that Kris come with him as his star writer. They had been in the up phase of their relationship then. It had been hard to say no. Six months later, her decision didn’t look as good. The paper was too small, the town was too small and her relationship with Colin was turning into a dead end.

At least today had been somewhat better than average. There had been a drug killing in Vanier, the French quarter just east of the Rideau River. Kris was learning to be grateful for Vanier. It provided more than its share of stories. In this one, the victim was a small time dealer who lived in a shabby little strip motel on Montreal Road. The police were working on the theory that he had ripped off his supplier. Whoever had killed him certainly had a powerful grievance. They’d crushed the poor bastard’s testicles with pliers. There had been some debate with the desk about whether to include that detail in what the night city editor always called “a family newspaper.” Kris had managed to get it in, using the implied clout of being the woman sleeping with his boss. It wasn’t her favourite method of persuasion, but you played the cards you had.

Kris shifted her purse on the seat and once again felt the bulk of the odd item that she had pulled from her mail slot just before leaving work. She extracted the bubble-wrapped envelope from her black leather purse, which was big enough to carry an Uzi. She hadn’t paid that much attention to the envelope when she had picked it up, but now she was intrigued. Good things came in anonymous brown packages.

Kris tilted the envelope to read the postmark in the artificial light of the bus. The ink was smeared but a single word jumped out at her as if it were written in 48 point type. Osborne. It was her hometown in upstate New York, a place of many memories, most of them bad. It had been 20 years since Kris had left Osborne, vowing never to look back. The murder of her sister, the death of her father, the descent of her mother into alcoholism; all that had been pushed down into the dark mental cavern where she kept memories she didn’t want to deal with. Now, she felt those memories climbing to the surface again.

Kris exhaled and set the envelope down on the bus seat beside her. It was time to think rationally. Osborne was old news. She was no longer the scared teenager who had fled in fear for her life. In her mind, Osborne was some kind of gothic place of doom, but she was sure that in reality it was just another pokey little Adirondacks tourist town. Surely there was nothing there that could harm her. Osborne had done about as much damage to her as it was possible to do, but she had survived.

The smart thing would be to throw this envelope into the garbage unopened, she thought. Why allow her past to intrude into the present?

She could tell by the feel of the item in the envelope that it was probably a videotape. How could that possibly hurt her? She eased open the gummed end of the envelope and pulled out the tape. It was dusty and scratched, like it had been kicking around for years and had been recorded on multiple times. Who still used videotapes, she wondered? The information on it must be old and the person who sent it didn’t have the technical capacity to convert it to a disc, she decided.

Kris put the tape back in the envelope and put the envelope in her purse. Colin had a video player for his collection of vintage Second World War movies. Maybe she’d take a look at it when she got home. For a person in the newspaper business, curiosity was like an itch. Sooner or later, she knew she’d scratch it.

She turned her attention back to the bus. One of the few benefits of public transit in Ottawa was that it gave her a chance to eavesdrop on the criminal element, who seemed to constitute the majority of the customers late at night. What kind of criminal was so bad at his chosen line of work that he still had to ride the bus, she wondered? Still, it was a place to pick up possible stories. Last week, two kids had sat in front of her talking calmly about a guy they’d stabbed at their school like it was nothing. The whole thing had been covered up by the school administration. It was small potatoes, but it made a decent column by Ottawa standards.

The prospects were limited tonight. The only other passenger on the bus was a black guy, maybe 20, dreads, muscle shirt, pants hanging off his ass. The look on his face said he was either stoned, or just lost in thought. In Toronto, she would have been wary of him, alone in a subway car late at night. She relaxed when she saw the University of Ottawa backpack at his feet. Probably an accounting student who watched MTV.

Kris looked out the window at the dark night beyond but could only see her own reflection in the bus’s smudged glass. She still thought of herself as young, but what stared back at her was a somewhat hard-looking 39-year-old with bags under her blue eyes and short black hair that hadn’t been combed since yesterday. But what did she expect, after a 15-hour day and pounding out 1,100 words on deadline? She didn’t have time to fuss about her appearance. It didn’t seem to bother Colin.

Colin. Now there was a problem. What had she been thinking? The new Citizen editor was the most blatant stickman in the newsroom, and she’d gotten tangled up with him. Colin Legover as the women at work called him back in Toronto. Colin usually scored with some girl reporter fresh out of Ryerson, not someone who had been around the block, like Kris. She could see why the others would fall for his British accent and his war stories, but what was her excuse? She detected bullshit for a living.

Still, Colin had a kind of seedy charm that she found intriguing. The British did decay well. She once compared him to a heavier Ralph Fiennes. She could see he was flattered that she thought he looked like an actor, but wounded by the word heavier. His own description of himself as “wiry” would be challenged by any good editor.

Kris had taken up with Colin after a long night, too many martinis, and the crash of a short relationship with a terrifically boring stockbroker. The man actually wanted to talk to her about derivatives, whatever those were.

She had been after nothing more than quick sex with a colleague she had mistakenly believed shared her philosophy about romance. Any man was good for a weekend. Some were even good for a week. After that, it was time to start looking. She thought of it as chain smoking, lighting a new lover while the old one was still warm.

She had assumed Colin would see things the same way, but it turned out that all four of his marriages were sincere. The man simply loved to be in love, and now she couldn’t get rid of him. Kris was fairly sure that they would have broken up by now if they had stayed in Toronto, but when it was announced that he got the job in Ottawa he had asked her to come with him, not just as a lover, but as a colleague. Then they had moved in together because Colin had bought a condo downtown. Probably not a smart move, Kris could see now, but it had made some kind of practical sense at the time. Now, she’d have to find a graceful way to dump him and it was complicated by the fact that he was her boss.

The bus was downtown now, passing through the silent Centretown streets where the government office towers emptied out promptly at 4:30 each day. It seemed impossible for something to look cold on such a hot night, but the central business district felt like winter at all times of the year. It was a colourless world of concrete and dirty glass. There wasn’t a soul on the street. The buildings were small by Toronto standards, but still big enough to make a person feel insignificant.

The bus pulled to a stop on the Mackenzie King Bridge and Kris got off. It was only two blocks to the condo on Rideau, but she didn’t enjoy the walk in the daytime, less so at night. Those two short blocks, she thought, illustrated Ottawa’s confusion about what it was. To her right, the Desmarais Building formed the edge of the University of Ottawa campus. It was a modern, bright slice of curved glass. Ahead of her she could see the 24-storey condo tower that she called home. It was a utilitarian concrete tower without even a touch of imagination. Beside it, a twin was being built, the construction crane looming over the building. In between was a series of 19th century buildings that were as tired and dirty as their inhabitants. Like bad meat in a fresh sandwich, they spoiled everything that was around them. The Ottawa Mission was the number one home for the homeless. It occupied a four-storey stone building and a shorter red brick building next door.

As Kris walked by the Mission, she braced herself for the usual reception. There was always a gauntlet of drunks leaning against the front of the building, bearded men in someone else’s old clothes who still thought it made sense to whistle at her and make comments about various parts of her body. What did they think, she was going to be attracted to them?

Kris reached into her purse and put her hand on her container of pepper spray. She was used to dealing with criminals on a daily basis, people who were far more dangerous than these losers. But the criminals knew she was a reporter. To the guys leaning against the red brick wall of the Mission, she was just meat on the street.

There were only three of them tonight. The rest must be under the bridges partying with their pals. Kris kept her eyes straight ahead. She could have chosen to walk on the other side of the road, but she was damned if they were going to make her do it. She knew how to handle herself, if it came to that.

As she passed them, Kris could smell sweat, cheap wine and cigarette smoke. Only one looked up. The other two kept studying the sidewalk, lost somewhere in their past. The one who was alert enough to notice her removed a greasy Montreal Canadiens’ ballcap and said, “evening,” like they were on a small town street somewhere. God knows, maybe he thought they were.

Two minutes later, Kris was in the lobby of the condo building, waiting for the elevator to take her to the 15th floor. The lobby was a cool expanse of gleaming pink granite, scrupulously clean and a world away from the life just around the corner at the Mission. The place wasn’t really her style, but Colin loved it. It was right around the corner from all the restaurants in the popular Byward Market and you could see Parliament Hill from the living room window if you craned your neck just the right way.

The elevator door pinged open and she stepped in, then was swept up and away from the life on the street. Kris supposed she should be more sympathetic to the guys from the Mission, given her own family’s history of abusing drink. Maybe they reminded her too much of her uncle. After things had fallen apart in Osborne, she had sought refuge at his place up near Killaloe in the Ottawa Valley. Martin Redner had been off the grid in just about every way possible. It had been a long three years.

As Kris entered the condo, she was met with the usual silence. Colin was out glad handing at social events almost every night. It was a relief in a way. She had never grown quite used to living with someone, especially not in 1,200 square feet. He’d likely be home within an hour, having had a few beers too many and ready for sex. He was good at it, she had to admit, but sex wasn’t at the top of her list after a long, hard day.

As she looked around the condo, Kris got a fresh reminder of what chaos her life had become. The white leather sofa was covered with unread copies of the Sunday New York Times. A bag of trash she hadn’t had time to get to the chute sat beside the kitchen garbage can, and a pizza box gaped open on top. Yesterday’s dirty dishes were still stacked in the sink. Neither she nor Colin believed it was their responsibility to clean up and they were in a bit of a standoff.

The place could really use some fresh air. Kris cranked open the living room window, but the early August air was heavy with humidity and the stink of diesel. Some genius had figured that 18-wheelers should go right through the centre of downtown and they ground their way by the condo all night. She closed the window again, and turned up the air conditioning instead.

She dumped her purse on the black granite kitchen countertop, pulled out a package of Matinee Extra Mild and lit one. She was trying to cut down on smoking, but it was her first cigarette of the day, if you counted the 24-hour period that had just begun at midnight.

She opened the fridge. Seven Sleeman’s Cream Ale, a dozen eggs and a litre of milk. She twisted the cap off one of the Sleeman’s, drained half of it and put the bottle down on the counter. Turning the kitchen tap on full cold, she stuck her head under and soaked her face and hair in the cool water until she felt both numbed and cleansed. Then she unbuttoned her white short sleeve blouse, removed it, and used it to quickly dry some of the water from her hair. Tossing it over a kitchen chair, she sat on the living room’s red and black Persian rug and turned on the TV. The main item on CNN was another suicide bomb in the Middle East.

Kris knew she probably shouldn’t watch whatever was on the videotape from Osborne, but she also knew that she eventually would. Might as well get it over with. She retrieved the tape from her purse and turned on the VCR. The picture was grainy and indistinct, the lighting inadequate. It appeared to have been shot in a basement, probably of an old house. There were stone walls and a room so large that its extremities disappeared into gloom. The bottom of a staircase was visible on the right of the screen and now she saw the legs of people coming down it. Two men, then a woman in a dress, then another man.

The camera must have been on a tripod, because it didn’t follow them as they moved to the left of the screen. They momentarily went out of the frame, then one of the men said, “Bring her over here, line her up.”

She could still see only the lower halves of their bodies, but someone adjusted the camera, moving it up. Now three men were visible. They had black ski masks over their heads. They looked like they were about to hold up a bank, but the masks didn’t exactly go with the rest of their clothing. One wore jeans and a T-shirt, the others khaki chinos and plaid shirts. They looked like two preppies on their way to college. One was tall and almost too thin. The other was stocky and barrel-chested. His shirt strained at the buttons.

The girl had on a white uniform, the sort a waitress or maid would wear. Her hands were tied behind her back and a black gag bit deeply into her mouth. She had long dark hair, but Kris only got a quick side glimpse of her face.

Now only the two preppies were visible as the camera panned to the left. They led the girl to a battered-looking wooden table and pushed her roughly onto it, face down. One of the preppies took a length of heavy rope and wrapped it around the table and her upper body, pinning her firmly in place.

It didn’t take much imagination to know what was going to happen next, Kris thought. Some crank had sent her a porn tape. If it had come from Canada, she’d have dismissed it as a prank by some cop who was angry with her, maybe a crude way of telling her what she deserved. But from Osborne? Was it a guy who had lusted after her in high school, googled her and wanted a kinky thrill? No, that didn’t make sense. People did some weird shit, but she hadn’t exactly been the hottest girl in high school. Why would anyone even remember her now? And yet, someone had.

Kris was tempted to pull the tape out and throw it in the garbage, but she decided to let it run. There had to be a point to this.

The taller of the hooded preppies said, "who’s first?" The other reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin.

"Heads or tails?”

"Heads.”

The shorter, stocky one flipped the coin in the air and caught it deftly.

"Tail. I win,” he said. That line brought a laugh from the other two. She was getting the impression the shorter one was the ringleader.

He turned to the girl and lifted the skirt of her uniform, ever so slowly. He then swiftly ripped her panties off and threw them on the basement floor. The other two clapped. The shorter one then momentarily disappeared from the camera and returned with some kind of stick or switch. With what appeared to be a practised motion, he flicked it and laid a hard blow on the girl’s buttocks. Her body jerked up spasmodically and she gave a muffled cry.

This was no porno pretend. This was real.

Kris had had enough. She began to fast forward the tape. If only the girl had been able to do the same. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Suddenly the apartment felt cold and she felt exposed without her shirt.

The fast forward gave the action a jerky, silent movie look that would have almost been comical, if it hadn’t been so evil. Once the first preppy was finished with the switch, he took the girl from behind, then his friends took a turn. The one with the jeans was last. Low man on the totem pole. Kris guessed that their ages were about what the clothing implied. Late teens or early 20s.

As the last boy finished, she slowed the tape to normal speed. Having acted out their fantasy, the three seemed unsure what to do next.

"Now what?" one of them said, turning toward the camera. She thought it was the one in the jeans, but the sound was indistinct.

Turn the camera off,” said the shorter preppy. This was much clearer and his tone implied that he was used to being obeyed. Then he paused, as if thinking.

"No, first this," he said.

He reached down and untied the gag, saying to the girl "Smile for the camera, and tell us how much you enjoyed it."

He twisted her face toward the camera and the girl let out a scream that hit Kris like an electric shock. It was immediately followed by a scream of her own, a howl that seemed to start deep in her guts.

The face on the screen was that of her sister, Kathy Redner. Died August 14, 1981. Osborne, New York. Age 14.