Free The Boy by Betty Jane Hegerat Page B

contemplated by a herd of cattle—black Aberdeen Angus and white-faced Herefords—now lining the fence on the town side of the graveyard, I made my way into a section that felt less tended, less visited. Here there were more single graves, many occupied in the early forties by young men shipped home from the war. Finally, with a sense that I was closing in, I pushed through a tangle of lilac and caragana bushes into another section. I found myself wanting urgently to be the one who found the Cooks.
    I almost tripped over Josephine Cook’s grave. Mother of Robert Raymond Cook. The slab of concrete that delineated the casket underneath was chipped and flecked with rust. Creeping charlie and chickweed had choked out the grass in this shady corridor. The headstone was small, unpretentious. Josephine Cook 1915-1946. Perhaps Ray Cook gave thought to being buried next to Josephine some day, owned the adjoining plot which seemed to be vacant. But who would have envisioned the size of the grave necessary to bury his entire family?
    A quick scan of the surrounding area and my eyes were drawn to a slight rise perhaps twenty yards away. A headstone larger than any around it, two big slabs of concrete. I couldn’t help wondering morbidly how many coffins were used, how the bodies were divided.
    Seven names, one date of death. In touching contrast to the repeated formality of “Robert Raymond Cook” in my reading, the names of his family were carved here in their diminutives: Ray, Daisy, Gerry, Patty, Chrissy, Kathy, and Linda. Ever Remembered, Ever Loved. Someone had left a nosegay of wild purple asters against the stone. The blossoms were wilted, but given the heat of the day, relatively fresh. The fate of this family was so much part of the lore of the area, anyone wandering through the cemetery might have paused to leave the flowers. Then too, there was extended family—Ray’s, Daisy’s, someone among them who’d chosen the words for the epitaph. Someone who remembered all seven. Who?
    With his father’s remarriage and the quick arrival of five more children—all of them born between 1950 and 1956—Robert Cook gained a new family, but he spent little of the next ten years in their midst. His life played out with dizzying speed: jail at fourteen, sole survivor of his family at twenty-two, dead at twenty-three. Sixteen months from his arrest for the murders to his execution. Sixteen months without family. According to Dave MacNaughton, Cook’s lawyer, after the murders not a single member of the extended family made contact with the boy who had been known as Bobby. No one came forward to choose a final resting place for the infamous grandson, nephew, cousin. Robert Raymond Cook left instructions for the donation of his eyes. One wonders if the doctors who performed the transplant knew what those eyes had seen. Cook’s body became the property of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine. There it ended. No grave.
    You went to the graveyard to convince yourself that this story was dead and you could let it go?
    No. We just happened to be in the vicinity,
driving back to Calgary after a weekend in Saskatoon. I thought I might regret the missed opportunity later.
    What was missing? You saw the picture of the graves. What more could there be?
    Nothing, really. But I wanted to be reminded that there were bodies, real people buried there.
    And? Are you any closer to letting them rest in peace?
    Well, I may be getting closer, but I think you’re becoming as curious as I am about Daisy and young Robert. Or you will be once you get back to those clippings Brenda saved.
    Ah, yes, Brenda. And now we meet Josephine? Is that where we’re going with this graveyard chapter, back to the dead mothers?
    It seems like the logical direction.

Roads Back
    Josephine Grover was eighteen years old when she married Raymond Albert Cook in Hanna, Alberta, in 1936.