Blue Moon (5 page)

My anxiety vanishes, replaced by total bafflement. “What do you mean
dead?
I was told everything had been settled. He promised not to talk “

Mr. Romanelli looks at me slightly aghast, as if dealing with a recalcitrant child. “Things are never quite that simple, Mrs. Dick. Your estranged husband would have talked sooner or later, and I was instructed to prevent that from ever happening. In fact, I have been ordered to keep you quiet, but I don't have to worry about disposing of you because you're going to help me dispose of the body. You are an accessory to murder.”

I feel myself trying to cry. Sorrow and grief try to assert themselves, but in their place is only numbness. Perhaps it is the instinct to survive.

“What are we going to do?,” I finally ask.

“I knew you were too smart to waste valuable time. We're going to dump the torso, and I'll leave the remaining parts of the cadaver to your devices. Perhaps you can burn them at your house on Carrick Street?” He then explains that the boys were short of space in their car, hacked the arms, legs and head off the body in order to transport the remains to the customary dumping ground at Fort Erie. But it turns out that all the fellows are desperately needed at once in Niagara Falls and won't be able to take even a short detour en route. Therefore, I have been summoned to assist Mr. Romanelli.

“In fact, Evelyn, there's a couple of hundred bucks in this for you if you do as you're told.” He tells me to drive along the Mountain towards Albion Falls. Half a mile beyond the Silver Springs Riding School, he orders me to stop, gets out, places the bag on the ground, and then uses his glove-covered hands to shake the torso loose. He then pushes it down the ledge and gets back into the car. My stomach is wrenching, now completely out of control. He pays no heed to my distress. “The rest of the body is your problem, my dear,” he informs me. I drive him into the city and drop him off at the Royal Connaught hotel on King Street, drive home, steer the huge Packard down the driveway, and start a fire to incinerate the parcel.

Suddenly, my mother hurls herself out of the house—it is now about eight or nine. “That car's too large for the driveway! Get it out of here!” She never seems to notice the putrid stench from the fire. She is frightened by the distinct possibility the car will become stuck in the narrow path between my house and my neighbour's. She was probably more angered by the fire and the resultant odour than by the presence of the car, but she concentrates on the car. Complaining about the smell might lead to embarrassing revelations.

After telling her to mind her own business—she is a guest at
my
home, I remind her—I back the Packard up, drive to the gas station and pen an apology to the car's owner: “My little girl, Heather, was in a bad accident last night, and I had to drive her to Emergency. I'm leaving five dollars to pay the cleaning bill for the damage to the upholstery. I'm very sorry about this.”

That is the story of the infamous torso murder as far as I had anything to do with it. Even back then, I could not remember in any coherent fashion what had occurred, the resulting muddle explains in small part the secret behind the conflicting stories I told the police—each variant containing a sliver of a “truth” I myself could never put into any coherent whole. Now, when I no longer have to be concerned about what happened, I relive the story every night.

Some nights, I arrive at the Incline and no car awaits me. I wonder if I have arrived too late and John has been killed because of my tardiness. I wait ten minutes or so, get out of the car, walk across the road and begin searching for John and Mr. Romanelli. Perhaps I have misunderstood what the Italian told me, have gotten muddled about the meeting time or meeting spot? I stray into the wood, a strange mixture of dry brown brush and vivid green leaves are highlighted against the darkness. Suddenly, I hear a whimpering sound at my feet, look down and see a headless torso contorting itself on the ground.

On other nights, my wanderings take me to a deserted house with a weak light emanating from within. I walk around the building, which contains no windows. Suddenly, I spy a beam of light coming from where two rafters do not quite meet. I look through the opening into a room in which the only furnishing is an altar on which a torso is placed—suddenly, blood erupts from it.

At other times, a door miraculously appears and I can enter the room easily. Soulfully, I approach the torso, kneel and begin some sort of prayer. Then I become aware of a hidden, dangerous force in the room. I want to escape, but the walls of the room have become seamless. There is no exit.

Once, just entering the forest, I stumble across two figures near the ground. As I approach, I see John's body outstretched on my mother's lap. My mother, swathed in blue, looks up at me. At first, she smiles hesitantly and then her face becomes malignant in its rage. Another time, I come across John and my father blocking my way. I am suffused with happiness, but my husband looks at me warily and walks away. My shrivelled little father's face glares at me angrily and screams: “Whore!”

In my dark wood, no companion ever emerges from the darkness to guide me.

10 July 1942
.
The baby—a girl—came slithering out. A very aquatic-looking creature encased in see-through plastic covering. Effortlessly. One big push and swoosh. She was there.

My mother grabbed her quickly, as if she were afraid I might assert some sort of proprietorial right. “A healthy baby,” she informed me, her voice filled with an equal mixture of disappointment and despair.

“Let me see her,” I moaned.

“Not yet, Evelyn. You must save your strength,” my mother bossed me. The burr in her voice firmly enunciated.

20 June 1943
.
The next baby was blue, a deep grey blue. She hardly
moved. Even when she came from me, she showed no effort. The nurse looked at her sadly. “Not still-born, dear, but she might as well be.” She died four hours later.

5
September 1944
.
The last baby was filled with energy, a wonderful lobster red. Energy emanated from him. He gasped the air as if he owned it.

The proud father of these babies was Mr. White, Commander, Captain and, then, finally—near the end of the war, Admiral White. In those days, I was Mrs. White. Evelyn MacLean was my maiden name.

White is a difficult, perhaps impossible person to describe. When I met him, I was only 21, he almost 40. I had gone with my friend, Rosie, to the Tivoli on James Street. The film was a revival of
Sweethearts,
the first three-tone Technicolor picture and the first time the romance between Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald was given a contemporary setting. I remember seeing MacDonald's bright red hair and deep green eyes for the first time. The couturier, Adrian, dressed her in pale pink shades throughout, except when she is clad in a gold sequined gown when she sings the title song with Eddy.

After the movie, we were trying to decide what to do next. Did we know anyone who would buy us a drink at the bar across the street? Not likely. We did not want the night to end, so enthralled were we by the rhapsodic, happy-ever-after glow the film had given us. We could wander over to King Street, to see if anyone was hanging around the Capitol, the other large movie theatre. In the midst of our discussion about what we wanted to do, a middle-aged man interrupted us: “Do one of you young ladies have a light?” I handed him mine. He lit his cigarette and asked if we were from Hamilton. We both owned up to that, although I informed him that, unlike Rosie, I had not been born there.

Under the garish lights of the facade of the Tivoli, the stranger reminded me of FranchotTone, then a great matinee idol. He had that actor's high forehead, the steely, intense eyes and refined good looks. He was definitely too old for me. I was more attracted to the glow emanating from Tyrone Power or Errol Flynn types. I never much cared for the mustachioed Don Ameche or the mature look of a
Charles Boyer. I was fascinated by romance, by the prospect of meeting a man who, after a whirlwind courtship, would whisk me away to a glamorous-sounding place,

I did not expect the stranger to have much interest in us, but he asked if we were free to have a drink with him, perhaps in the bar at the Royal Connaught, where he was staying during his leave. He then explained that he was in Hamilton on navy business—mumbled something about security arrangements at the harbour—and did not know anyone in the city. The words “navy” and “security” having caught our rapt attention, we readily agreed to go along with him.

Golden-haired Rosie was a big, bouncy girl, someone who laughed easily and raucously. She was not what anyone would call beautiful, and she lacked what I was supposed to possess in abundance—allure or sex appeal. In reality, I was more shy than Rosie, had never “done it,” whereas my companion had years earlier eagerly investigated the bodies of several boys from Cathedral High when the two of us were at the Loretto Academy.

At the bar, our new companion identified himself to us as Norman White, born in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. He had been in the navy most of his adult life. After high school, he had attended the naval academy at Annapolis, graduated a midshipman, and in only seven years had risen to the rank of commander. He hinted—but did not directly tell us—he was involved in espionage, merely assuring us he was doing liaison work with the Canadian navy in order to safeguard one of Canada's crucial ports, the conduit of much-needed steel for the Allied cause.

Any young woman would have been impressed. My problem was that I careened, displaying how very much in his sway I found myself. Rosie and I only had one drink and then told the Commander we would have to be on our way. He offered us a lift, but, fearing the parental disapproval that would have been showered down upon us, we told him we would make our way home by the streetcar which conveniently stopped in front of the hotel. He walked us out, waved us a gallant good-bye, walked back to the entrance and then turned around again just as our car pulled out.

Romantic allure. That's what I think Norman White exerted over me. The next day I could not keep my mind on my studies. After work finished that day, I told Rosie I was going to walk over to Eaton's to
shop; my mother needed some wool and various other odds-and-ends. Not terribly excited by my mission, Rosie did not offer to join me. Instead of heading for the department store, I walked two more blocks beyond it until I reached the hotel. I had no other plans. I did not have the nerve to phone Norman's room. I guess I must have been hoping to run into him. And, of course, that's exactly what happened.

He emerged from the front of Connaught just as I reached it. “Evelyn, how heavenly to see you again!”

My face blanched, so startled was I to see him and by his welcome. Not knowing exactly what to say, I hesitated. But I need not have worried. He asked if I was free. “You must be out shopping. Are you finished?” In retrospect, this was a foolish question since I was not carrying a shopping bag. I agreed with him that I was indeed free, and we wandered to a tea room a block away.

As soon as we had ordered, he observed how much like Hedy Lamarr I looked. The resemblance had not gone unnoticed by me: I was an avid reader of
Photoplay
and had seen all of the Austrian-born star's films. The navy was not really a subject of conversation that day, although Norman mentioned he would be in Hamilton only for two more
nights.
He asked if I had a sweetheart or a “boy chum” I was close to. I assured him that was not the case. “Have you ever had a boyfriend?” He seemed upset when I told him no. Finally, he asked: “You've never had a physical relationship with a man?” I blushed, admitting that was the truth of the situation. After a brief pause, he whispered, “Would you like to? With me?”

To be honest, I wasn't interested in such things. I was enthralled by romantic love, but I had never been inclined to perform the kind of acts of which Rosie had spoken with unconcealed relish. For me, Hollywood and all its attendant culture about the glamorous lives of the stars was enough sex for me. Mr. White put me on the spot. If I said no, I would be closing myself off from a potentially interesting arena of human activity; if I said yes, I might be able to learn about such things from a real gentleman. So I said yes.

After he snuck me into his room that afternoon, things went very slowly at first. From Rosie, I had heard such expressions as “petting,” “climax,” and even “orgasm.” In cruder moments, she had described “hand jobs” and “blow jobs.” Mr. White was clinical in an extremely professorial way once we were seated on the sofa in his room. His
penis was uncircumcised, he informed me, was medium size in length (seven inches) but extremely thick (such width being a special source of pleasure for his various partners). We kissed a bit and then Mr. White undid his belt, unzipped his fly, and proceeded to show me his “member” (another word he used frequently to describe his penis). He then asked me to take it in my mouth. I remembered Rosie had told me that boys with “big dicks” always cautioned her to be careful she did not allow her teeth to graze their instruments. When I confessed this knowledge to Mr. White, he nodded sagely in agreement. In addition, he instructed me to place the tip of my tongue under the cap of his penis—this would give him additional pleasure. I proceeded to “eat” (Rosie's word) my partner, but I was not prepared for the sour, salt-tasting phlegm which eventually filled my mouth.

Only after that dire event did we remove our clothes, move to the bed, remove the bed covers and slip under the sheets. Mr. White explored my vagina with considerable detail, poking his fingers into it assiduously. Very disappointed that I did not become wet, he asked me if I would play with his penis with my hands. I did this and he soon came to another climax. I was happy the white liquid was not deposited in my mouth this time. After about two hours, I told Mr. White I had to get home and would take the streetcar. He assented but made me promise to meet him the next day at the same time. I muttered something about not being sure I was what Mr. White wanted, but he assured me I was his darling girl and very much wanted to see me again.