the man who stopped people's hearts - chapter 1

I was alone in the office. My new boss, Harold Marley, had left for Grainger earlier in the day, and Helen, his wife, had gone home just before lunch to nurse a bad cold. She had taken the office key with her.

The slush and ice on the sidewalks were a reminder of the late November blizzard that had hit town the Saturday before. I had driven six hours that day with the weather forecast on the car radio getting worse with each broadcast. I had wanted to make it to Hartnell Point before the storm hit, but had failed. The last ten miles had taken me just over an hour.

Molly had been nervous in the back of the car and Sue had climbed into the back seat to comfort her. Molly was six and was less than happy about the move. A new home, a new school in a small town instead of the city she was used to, and all of it happening just before Christmas. There had been some tears.

It was approaching dusk. I felt a lack of traction beneath my boots, it would have been easy to slip. I knew where The Forks was. Driving in on Saturday I had come to the division in the road and been completely unable to discern any right of way. It turned out The Forks was a merge.

I was halfway down the street when I realized I hadn’t brought the camera, which was lying on the coffee table by the front door. I hesitated a second or two considering whether I should go back and get it, but decided against it. I wasn’t even sure I could work the thing anyway.

Walking briskly, it occurred to me that even If I had gone back to the office there was no danger that another reporter would beat me to the scene. One of the things a small town had over the city.

As I approached the division I could see a crowd gathered in the middle of the road. Figures were framed in car headlights that illuminated the area from all sides. At first I thought there had been a multiple collision, but as I drew near it was clear that most of the cars belonged to the onlookers. People were milling around, stamping their feet in an attempt to keep warm. I noticed a few to my left were crying. They probably knew whoever was hurt.

“Did someone call the ambulance,” a voice said.

Nobody answered, although several people broke from the huddle as if intent on doing something. It was one of those times when people either want to do something, or feel incapable of doing anything.

I could hear crying now, someone was in a lot of pain. I edged my way through the crowd surprised that it gave way to me as easily as it did. I thought once more about how this was so different from the city. There, my edging would have needed to have been considerably more aggressive to have achieved similar results. As I stepped into the clearing at the center of the group the crying intensified, the victim beginning shouting out loud.

“Oh my God! My God! My God!” the voice shrieked.

The victim, whom I could see now, was a middle-aged woman, and by the look of things the vehicle had run across her lower body. Her legs lay motionless at an unnatural angle and there was a slowly growing pool of blood on the ground. Two police officers nearby kept the crowd at a distance.

“Oh no! Oh God no!” her voice went on.

As I fought with an unsettling queasiness in my stomach a quiet voice to my left said, ‘Walter’s here.’

The effect on the crowd was amazing. A silence suddenly came over the assembly. I looked at the faces around me. Everyone had stopped moving now, oblivious to the cold. What they knew about Walter clearly separated them from me. I rubbed my hands and breathed into them. I turned to a woman next to me and was about to ask the obvious question, but her eyes met mine before I could get the words over my cold lips and they dismissed my question even as it formed. What was happening here was something local. Something not to be shared indiscriminately with a stranger. Later, I would find out about the spare key to the office door that everyone knew resided at Len’s shop. Those things a stranger could know. But this was not like this. I could not know about Walter, not now, not here on the street. That’s what the woman’s look told me. This knowing was meaningful, it had a weightiness to it that spoke of great power, it could not be shared with just anyone. I tried to blink away my fanciful thoughts just as Walter Dennison emerged from the crowd. Slight of build with graying hair and a face quite undistinguished he moved quickly to the woman on the ground. He had come in a hurry taking no time to grab his coat, he wore only a heavy sweater and corduroy trousers.

He knelt close to the woman and spoke quietly to her. I was still too far away to hear what was said. Next to me, a young woman turned to the man beside her and began to cry. The cold of the November evening nipped at my neck and hands. I pulled a scarf from my pocket and wrapped it at my neck.

“Is he a doctor?” I asked a woman close by.

She shook her head and walked away.

I returned my attention to the figures on the ground. The woman had quieted some now although sobs could still be heard now and then. As I moved closer she raised her head and looked into the eyes of the figure crouching at her side. I saw her face fully for the first time. It was painted with agony, a face that knew further pain lay ahead. I heard the ambulance approaching and with some relief whispered the words “At last” to myself. I was about to turn toward the sound of the siren when the woman suddenly pulled herself up slightly and took a deep breath. Looking directly at the crouching man I saw her lips move, then she closed her eyes. Walter grasped her around the upper body embracing her and hiding her from the onlookers. Around me the crowd stood with heads bowed as though in prayer, and for a brief moment it seemed the whole crowd held its breath. I could hear another siren somewhere in the distance, but here, all about me, there was stillness and quiet. I glanced around at the eerie sight. At least a hundred people now were gathered in the roadway and on the sidewalks around The Forks. A hundred people with heads bowed, motionless, silent. For a moment the whole scene resembled a still photograph. Then the crouching figure stood up leaving the woman lying quietly on the street. As the crowd began to stir he turned slowly, gave a quick glance at the police officers, then melted into the crowd.

Moving to Hartnell Point was not a career move. I had been raised in a small town in Western Canada but had made my way to Vancouver as soon as I finished high school. By the time I went to college I had already acquired the writing bug.

My mother tells the story that I was writing before I was walking. This is because I was still crawling when I came across Dad’s old typewriter in the corner of the sitting room and began to pound on the keys. The clicking of the keys must have amused me because it became my favourite toy. Apparently, when Mom and Dad would like a bit of relaxation time away from me, they would sit me by the old typewriter and I would click away merrily for as long as they would let me.Whatever the reason, I did enjoy writing. I wrote about everything, creating voluminous journals. My essays at school became the standard everyone else’s work was compared to. I wrote articles for the school magazine and submitted regular articles to local church newsletters and even the newspaper. There was never any question in my mind that writing would feature prominently in my chosen career. As a journalist student I did very well, apart from the fact that I did not like assigned topics. This fact was probably the reason I decided to free lance when I graduated.

I made a pretty good living this way and was content to get by. As long as I made the rent on time and could afford to fill my stomach, I was happy. Then I met Sue.

Sue was a primary school teacher I interviewed for an article on the local school system. I was so taken with her when we met that I kept losing track of my questions, and her answers for that matter. The interview was becoming somewhat of an embarrassment as I fumbled about trying to keep focused when Sue said, “Maybe we would be more relaxed later, over coffee.”

I stared at her blankly for a moment and then stammering, agreed wholeheartedly. There isn’t much more to say about that, other than we realized that we both enjoyed caffeine far too much and that we were crazy about each other.

Molly was born a year later and I stayed home with her while Sue continued to teach. It was the practical thing to do, and apart from the caffeine and the craziness, we were both pretty practical people.

As Molly grew and Sue and I became more parental, conversation turned to matters such as Molly’s best interests. Sue and I were both from small towns, Sue was from the Maritimes, and despite the fact that we had exited the rural setting as soon as we could, we now started thinking that maybe the big city was not the place to raise a child. We agreed that I would become the primary money earner, but that it would be better if I could get something more regular, I remember the words guaranteed income being spoken several times.

Once the decision was made to move east, I began to send out some feelers to see if there was any work I could get, of a more stable nature. An old friend of Sue’s from New Brunswick pointed us to Hartnell Point, and Harold Marley.

Harold Marley was a product of ‘Old Money’. This was the term used locally to describe those families who had made fortunes in the distant past, and through careful investment become financially independent. The origin of the wealth that Harold Marley had inherited was largely unknown. Some speculated that it may have been less than honestly come by, but how the money was acquired in no way reflected upon the esteem in which Harold was held by those near and far, and for several generations, at least, the dynasty had been involved in completely legitimate pursuits.

One of those pursuits involved the Hartnell Point Scanner, a weekly newspaper that had been originated by Harold’s great grandfather, James Marley. It was rumored that James made his inheritance to his son conditional upon the continued production of this publication. Whether that was true or simply folk-law I could not say, but, it was the continuance of the newspaper that brought me to Hartnell Point as editor and senior reporter; a title that did not reveal the fact that I was the only editor and full time reporter.

Harold contributed much of the business and political news displayed in the paper. This information he gleaned from his large network of acquaintances locally, and others in Grainger, the main town in the area. I was to provide just about everything else, helped by a significant number of local volunteer and freelance writers. I was also to oversee the actual layout and production of the weekly newspaper.

The Hartnell Point Scanner had its main office on the main street of Hartnell Point. The definition of main street, named Carroll Street, but never called that by anyone, seemed to be derived from the fact that it was the primary point of access and exit from the small community and contained eighty percent of the businesses located in the area. Of the remaining twenty percent the Marley Print Place was easily the largest business. The Marley Print Place was located a few miles outside of town on the Grainger road and housed the Scanner’s print presses, as well as providing a surprisingly technologically sophisticated printing service to individual and business customers as far away as Braughton. Next to the capital city, Braughton had the largest population of any town in the province.

The crowd had completely dispersed and the ambulance was on its way to the hospital in Grainger before I started back to the office. I made a half hearted attempt to speak to some of the members of the crowd while the woman was being lifted into the back of the ambulance, but truth is, I was confused. At some level I knew that no one was going to answer the questions that were still forming in my mind, and as a result, I didn’t even find out who the woman was and where she lived. I felt like a complete idiot as I trudged up Main Street. I thought about Harold and how I would explain to him that I had gone to the scene of an accident, been present when a woman died, and failed to get the most basic of information about the situation. To be frank, I thought to myself, if I was Harold Marley I would have some serious reservations about my new editor come reporter.

As I passed the office window I could see it was still empty. Harold hadn’t returned. I wondered if I could just deny any knowledge of the situation. ‘I mean, if the young lad hadn’t popped his head through the door I might never have known about the accident, I rationalised. Pushing open the door I walked past the table where the camera lay, and dropping my coat on the sofa went to the rear of the office where the coffee maker was. The last brew had gone on around two that afternoon, it was now approaching five o’ clock. Still, I needed the stimulant effect right now. I took the liquid black with three sugars.

I was still considering my embarrassment when the telephone rang. At the other end of the line was Harold telling me he had been delayed in Grainger at a meeting.

“Just lock up when you leave,” Harold said. “By the way did I tell you about the spare key at Len’s barber shop?”

“No,” I replied.

“If you make it in first tomorrow use that key. Len knows your name.”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes,” said Harold. “Oh! I heard there was an accident in town tonight. June Potter was killed. Quite a big event for your first day.”

“Right,” I said hesitatingly.

There was an expectant silence on the line as my mind combed through the possible responses. I realized I could never tell a lie over such an issue, not even to hide my own hideous incompetence. As I mentally prepared my excuses, Harold spoke again.

“Look, I have to go,” he said. “You can fill me in tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure” I said. “No problem. See you then.”

I put down the telephone and sighed. I was at the scene and knew nothing, and my boss was in a different town and knew the name of the woman who was killed.

“This is not good,” I said out loud to myself.

The one thing that I found quite impressive, however, was the amazing speed at which the news had traveled. Clearly I had a lot to learn about communication in a small rural township.