He nodded and didn’t express his opinion one way or the other. She hadn’t worked with him long enough for him to have an opinion anyway. As long as she didn’t think she was a bad detective, that was fine.
“What made you take another look at the kid?”
“Something that happened last night… and then… I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I did a bit more research and thought that… I really didn’t take a hard enough look the first time. I didn’t get the full picture.”
“You think he had motive?”
“Not exactly.”
“We’re going to need motive.”
“Maybe.”
Cruz found the street without directions. Margie wondered if he had looked it up before. Maybe he had suspected the kid and had wanted to know where he lived. How feasible it was that he had walked to the park regularly. Maybe looking for gang associations in the area.
Margie led the way to the door. She again rapped hard, demanding attention. Sadiq might not be so happy to see her again. He might want to just ignore the knock at the door and pretend he didn’t hear it. Margie was impatient. “Mr. Paul!” She hammered on the door again. “I want to talk with you.”
Sadiq opened the door. His dark eyes took her in, then went to Cruz, standing casually behind her, one hand in his pocket.
“What is it? I thought we were finished.”
“I need to talk to you and Abdul again. Is he home?”
“No.”
“Will he be home soon?”
He looked around, frowning. “Yes. It is Friday. He will be home very soon.”
“We’d like to come in to talk to you.”
He reluctantly opened the door and ushered them in again. Margie looked around, experiencing again the starkness of the room, the warmth of the traditional objects that made it a home, however bare it was.
“You said that you and Abdul are from the Sudan.”
“Yes.”
“Are you his father? His biological father?”
“No.”
Margie looked at Cruz. It meant nothing to him yet, but it would.
“How did you come to be Abdul’s guardian?”
Sadiq sat down on one of the chairs. “Things in my country are very bad. Terrible things happen there.”
“There is a lot of war and unrest.”
“Yes.”
“And Abdul was orphaned?”
There was another hesitation. “Yes. Perhaps. It is hard to be sure. People disappear or are relocated. Families are broken up. They don’t always know what happened to each other. Abdul lost his parents.”
“How did he lose them?”
“Families get separated. His mother and sister were killed. His father… I don’t know. He fought. He could not stay in his village.”
Cruz turned his head suddenly and Margie realized that, once again, Abdul had slipped into the room and was standing there silently, without her even being aware of his entrance.
“Abdul. Come in. Sit down with your… guardian. We were just talking about you. About what happened in the Sudan.”
He pulled down his bandana but not his hood, looking at each of them anxiously. He moved around them to sit down with Sadiq, looking only slightly comforted by being close to someone familiar.
“When your mother was killed and your father was fighting, what did you do? Who took care of you?”
Abdul didn’t answer immediately. He stared straight ahead, unmoving. He didn’t fidget. He just sat there like a statue.
“I had no one,” he said finally. “Many children die. They sleep in the streets. Forage. No one takes care of them.”
Margie nodded encouragingly. “Is that what you did?”
“At first. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. But then I found out about the battalion. The Children’s Battalion.”
Margie’s heart beat harder. It was awful to think of what had happened to Abdul. Even though she didn’t know the whole story yet, her heart went out to him. She imagined Christina or another of the many children in her extended family orphaned in a war zone.
“In the Children’s Battalion, they would feed you,” Abdul explained. “Three times a day! As much food as you needed. We had bunks in the barracks while they were training us. We had clothing.”
“How old were you when you joined them?”
“I was ten. Not old enough to fight yet. I carried messages, acted as a spy. We had a network passing the information back to our commanders.”
Margie looked at Sadiq. He had made no attempt to stop Abdul from talking about what had happened.
“How did you come to be Abdul’s guardian?”
“Abdul was rescued by UNICEF and the UN. They put him through reeducation. Counseling. And they brought him and some of the other… refugees here. I wanted to help. I said I would take a child.”
“Were you a child soldier as well?”
Sadiq shook his head slowly. “My mother was. She was abducted and became one of their wives. She was fifteen when I was born, and escaped. She tried to return to her village, but she was shunned as a spy and a used woman. I grew up on the streets and in orphanages until someone sponsored me to come here.”
Margie swallowed. The story was told without emotion. Not something Sadiq was outraged about. Just the story of his life. How he had come to be there.
It was a fact of life in the Sudan. He and Abdul had both suffered loss and privation at an early age. It had affected them, caused changes to their brains. Maybe long-lasting. Maybe permanent.
She looked back at Abdul.
“You said that at ten, you were too young to fight. Did you become a fighter before you were rescued?”
Abdul stared down at his hands. “Yes.”
“You were forced to fight?” She thought of the pictures she had seen on the internet. Children cradling submachine guns. Empty eyes. Blank faces.
“They did not force me,” Abdul disagreed. “It was… what we were there to do. We had to defend our country. Our honor. It was our duty. We were glad to do it.”
“You killed people.”
“In a war, people die,” he said flatly.
“I know… but in most wars, children are not recruited to do the killing.”
He shrugged. “That is the way it was where I come from.”
Margie moved on. Abdul was not responsible for what he had done in the Sudan. They put a gun in his hands and trained him to use it. Even if he had joined the battalion voluntarily, he was not the one who was responsible for those deaths. The adults who recruited and trained him were the ones at fault.
“Do you like it here in Canada?”
He smiled, showing teeth. “Oh, yes. It is a beautiful country. And no war.”
“You like school?”
“Yes.”
Margie looked at Sadiq. She wondered if he would stop her. It didn’t seem like he would. He didn’t know what the laws were in Canada or how to react like a typical Canadian parent.
“Do you get scared?” she asked Abdul.
Abdul considered the question. He nodded slowly, looking down at his hands. “Sometimes.”
“I was with my grandfather yesterday. When there was a big bang and people yelling, he grabbed a knife from the table. When he was a child, he was often beaten. I don’t know what else happened to him. But he was afraid. He grabbed the closest thing he could use as a weapon to protect himself.”
“That is good,” Abdul said with a nod. “You must protect yourself. Even an old man.”
“Or a child?”
“Yes.”
“Do you carry a knife to protect yourself?”
“Yes.”
He turned his head, looking at her with those guileless, open eyes. Why would he feel guilty for carrying a knife? Why would he think it was wrong? He had been trained. He knew he had to protect himself. For most of his life, no one else had protected him.
“Can I see it, please?”
Abdul reached into the large
pocket of his hoodie and drew it out. Not just a jackknife like she might find at a department store or Scout shop. It caught the light as he held it out to her.
A folding combat knife.
Just like a soldier would carry.
Chapter Fourteen
Margie quickly pulled a glove on over her hand and took the knife from Abdul. She didn’t open it. She already knew everything she needed to. It fit the description of the kind of blade that had killed Robinson. Even if he had cleaned it well, it might still have microscopic spots of blood left on it, perhaps in the hinge. Cruz provided an evidence bag and Margie slid the knife into it.
“How did Mr. Robinson scare you?” she asked Abdul softly.
“I was walking in the trees. It helps me, walking where there are lots of trees. Alone, away from all of the people. I like Calgary, where I can live close to the park.”
Margie made an encouraging noise.
“He grabbed me and yelled at me. I didn’t know what he was going to do, why he was attacking me. I was just walking in the trees.” Abdul blinked a few times, thinking back. Replaying it in his mind. “I don’t know what happened. He did not have a weapon. I thought he would have a gun.” He shook his head, trying to make sense of it. “But he died. He fell on the ground.”
“Did you try to help him? To stop the bleeding?”
“No.”
“Did you try to talk to anyone else? To get the police or ambulance here to help him?”
“No.”
“You should have.”
“I didn’t want them to find me. I didn’t know if there were others—soldiers who had guns. I went back home. No one followed me. I went to bed.”
“Did you tell Sadiq what had happened?”
“No.”
Sadiq shook his head to confirm the point. “I did not know.”
“Did you know he carried a knife?”
“No.”
“Abdul, you’re going to need to come with us.”
Abdul looked down at the floor, sighing. “Am I going to prison?”
Margie’s eyes were hot, and there was a lump in her throat as she helped Abdul to his feet and closed cuffs over his stick-thin wrists. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, Abdul. We’re going to tell the authorities what happened. If it was up to me…” Margie trailed off.
What would she do if it were up to her?
What was the appropriate consequence for what Abdul had done?
How could they do him justice and still protect others from him?
Chapter Fifteen
Margie and Cruz relayed the developments to the rest of the team, gathered together in the briefing room.
“Robinson was probably telling him to stay on the pathway or to follow some other real or assumed park rule,” Margie suggested. “Abdul doesn’t even know what he said. Just that Robinson grabbed him and was yelling at him for something. I guess… he had a flashback or reacted instinctively, and before he knew what he had done, Robinson was dead on the ground.”
“He’s got to be a psychopath,” Jones said, shaking her head. “I was there when you talked to him the first time. I heard him say that nothing out of the ordinary happened at the park that night. I saw his eyes… there were no tells. Nothing to indicate that he was lying or avoiding anything.”
“I think… he didn’t act guilty because he doesn’t feel guilty about it,” Margie said uncomfortably. “Not because he’s a psychopath, but because that’s how he’s been trained and conditioned. He lived in an environment where he had to kill or be killed. Sadiq said he went through retraining, but clearly he hasn’t made the transition. Whether he ever can or not, I don’t know, but he doesn’t live in our world. A world where you expect to get through the day without any violence, without someone attacking or trying to kill you. Robinson attacked, he defended himself, and he survived. That makes it a good day.”
“He’s not going to get off of murder charges because he has a troubled past,” Cruz said. “He’s going to go away, and they’re not going to let him out for a long time.”
Margie knew Canada’s laws, though. At fourteen, it was highly unlikely Abdul would be sentenced as an adult. Especially not without any kind of connection to Robinson or evidence of premeditation. For a young person, the maximum sentence for first-degree murder was ten years, and for manslaughter was likely to be far less. The judge would recommend a rehabilitation program before he would be reintegrated into his community.
That was humane and wasn’t designed to punish him, but to help him. But he had already been through a rehabilitation program when he had been rescued from the Children’s Battalion. Would Canada’s efforts be any more effective in helping him to become a normal, contributing member of society and no longer a threat to others?
All too soon, he would be back at school with other children, walking free on the streets and trails again. Was there hope that he would understand the seriousness of taking a life in Canadian society and no longer be a threat to anyone else?
She closed her eyes and said a prayer in her head for Abdul. And for those he would touch in the future.
Epilogue
Over coffee, he read the article in the online paper one more time, studying Detective Marguerite Patenaude’s picture in the paper and rereading the few sentences that described the homicide Detective Pat was credited with solving. There were few details because of the involvement of a young offender who, of course, could not be named or identified. But there was enough there for him to understand what had happened.
Within days of moving into Calgary, Detective Pat had already solved her first murder. She thought she was so smart. She thought that she, as an affirmative action hire, could just waltz in and show everybody up.
He put his mug in the sink and filled it with water. Then he got into his car and drove to the house where Detective Pat lived with her teenage daughter. He parked across the street and gazed at the house. She had no idea what it was like to be him. She thought she lived in his world now, but she didn’t. She could turn around and go right back where she had come from.
He had plans for their Detective Pat.
He would see how she handled the next case.
Fish Creek Provincial Park
Fish Creek Provincial Park was established in the Fish Creek valley in southern Calgary in 1975 and is the second largest urban park in Canada, featuring over 100 km of trails for walking, running, and biking.
It offers Sikome lake, a man-made lake, for swimming. Boating and fishing is permitted on the Bow River and Fish Creek. There is an environmental learning center, a visitor center, aquatic center, and day use picnicking areas.
Most of the park remains in its natural forested state.
The Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society is a non-profit, volunteer-run organization which helps to provide visitor services and many essential functions around the park.
Author Note
The last residential school in Canada closed its doors in 1996. The effects of the abuses perpetrated in these prisons impacted thousands and continues to affect the Indigenous community today.
* * *
On May 27, 2021, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced the discovery of unmarked graves containing 215 children who had been residents of the Kamloops Indian Residential School using ground-penetrating radar. This was not an isolated incident, but part of a larger genocide that took place all across Canada. Other discoveries have been made and the tragic histories of the 139 residential schools that operated in Canada need to be exposed.
* * *
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report in 2012 made specific calls to action with regard to missing children and burial information which have not been honored.
* * *
How the government of Canada responds to this discovery and makes good on their many promises made to Indigenous peoples remains to be seen.
* * *
I have been concerned for a nu
mber of years about the intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools, living conditions on reservations, and discrimination faced by the Indigenous peoples in this land, and have written about some of these issues previously in Questing for a Dream. It is my hope that my writing can raise awareness and educate readers on both the history and the current conditions of those who have lived these experiences.
* * *
If you are also concerned about these harms, I would encourage you to write to your MP (if you are Canadian), encouraging the federal government to follow through on the calls to action made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the promises they have previously made with regard to such things as clean water, medical care, and keeping Indigenous families together.
* * *
You can also make a donation to a charity that benefits residential school survivors, such as the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.
In the Sudan and many other countries in the world, children are recruited to fight in wars and rebellions. UNICEF, United Nations, and others are working hard to put an end to these practices and to rescue and re-educate children who have been harmed by this practice. Many children have been rehabilitated and live happy, productive lives away from the wars.
For a first-person account of what it is like to be a child soldier, I recommend reading A Long Way Gone, the account of Ishmael Beah’s experience in Sierra Leone.
Did you enjoy this book? Reviews and recommendations are vital to making a book successful.
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