Maybe he should just let him stew in his own juices, Shoe thought. He knew he couldn’t do that, though. It wasn’t an option. His brother was in trouble and Shoe would do whatever he could to help him find his way out of it, whether Hal liked it or not. But Hal wasn’t making it any easier.
“You lied about not leaving your office till midnight on Thursday,” Shoe said. “You were caught on video taking a company car out of the garage a little before 8:00 p.m. and returning a few minutes after midnight.”
“So I went for a drive.”
“The park attendant at the Dells picked you out of a photo array.”
“Like I told you yesterday,” Hal said. “He’s either mistaken or lying.”
“Why would he lie?”
“Okay, so he’s mistaken. I wasn’t there.”
“I want to believe you, Hal, but the police have enough circumstantial evidence to get a warrant to seize your clothes and shoes, fingerprint you, and compel a DNA sample from you.”
Hal shrugged. “If you say so.”
Shoe struggled to keep his anger under control. He wanted to take his brother by the shoulders, shake some sense into that thick head of his. He came very close. He came even closer to simply turning and walking away.
“Look at me, Hal,” Shoe said. Hal turned his head, but his eyes were deeply hooded, almost unreadable. Shoe asked the question anyway. “Did you kill Marvin Cartwright?”
“What’s the point in denying it,” Hal said, looking away as he said it. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“Hal, if you tell me you didn’t do it, I’ll believe you.” Would he? Could he? The evidence against his brother, circumstantial as it was, seemed almost overwhelming, but if Hal swore to him that he hadn’t killed Cartwright in those woods, Shoe would do his best to take him at his word, to ignore the nagging doubt in the back of his mind. After all, when all was said and done, Hal was his brother. But what if his best wasn’t good enough?
Hal finally looked at him, and what Shoe saw in his brother’s eyes was like a knife in his soul. Hal must have also seen something in Shoe’s eyes.
“You think I killed him, don’t you?” he said.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” Shoe said.
“The great and powerful Shoe,” Hal said with mock astonishment. “Wrong? Can it be?” He waved his hands in the air above his head. “Repent all ye sinners, the end of the world is nigh.” He dropped his hands and returned to sorting screws and anchors.
There were footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, Rachel and Maureen came into the workshop. With bitter, mocking heartiness, Hal said, “Ladies. Join the party. My brother has just accused me of murdering Marvin the Martian. How ’bout that, eh?”
“Joe!” Maureen gasped, face registering shock.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” Hal said. “I’m not buying your act for a minute. What about you, Rae? I can’t remember the last time you were at a loss for words. Surely you must have something to say? Cat got your tongue?”
Shoe said, “This isn’t helping, Hal. Tell me you didn’t kill him and I’ll accept it.”
“But will you believe me?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Rachel snapped. “Of course we’ll believe you.”
Maureen turned to Shoe. “Why would Hal kill Mr. Cartwright?” she asked.
“This ought to be good,” Hal said.
“I don’t know that you did kill him, Hal,” Shoe said. “Look at it from the point of view of the police. They have a witness that places you with Cartwright a few hours before his death. They have proof you lied about not leaving your office.”
Hal threw up his hands. “Well, there you go, then. Open and shut. I did it.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Hal,” Maureen said. “What’s wrong with you? Just tell him you didn’t do it. He’ll believe you.”
Hal hunched in silence over the box of screws and anchors.
“You did it, didn’t you?” Rachel said. “You stupid, stupid bastard.”
Maureen sobbed, “No. Please, Hal. Tell her you didn’t do it. Tell me you didn’t. Please.”
Hal’s face crumpled and a sob broke in his chest.
“Oh, god,” Maureen moaned, hunching and clamping her arms across her middle as though she had been punched in the stomach. She slumped to the hard concrete floor. Rachel knelt by her, wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “Why? Oh, god, why?” Maureen sobbed.
Hal put his face in his hands, breathing heavily and noisily through his nose. Then he raised his head from his hands. He looked from Maureen to Rachel to Shoe. His eyes were tormented, like those of a coyote caught in the steel jaws of a leghold trap, too weak and close to death to chew a leg off to escape. He looked down at Maureen.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Maureen moaned. Hal lifted his gaze to Shoe. Don’t make me do this, his eyes pleaded. Please.
Shoe’s throat was tight, as if he were being strangled by an invisible hand. He desperately wanted be somewhere else, anywhere but in that cramped, musty space, surrounded by the useless devices of his brother’s life. Black & Decker wasn’t going to be able to fix this mess, he thought, as tears rolled down his brother’s pale, sagging cheeks.
“I didn’t go there with the intention of killing him,” Hal said, forcing the words out, voice strained almost to breaking. “God, if only … ” He shook his head. “He was obsessed with the idea of atonement. Of making things right with everyone he’d failed. His mother. Ruth Braithwaite. Joey Noseworthy. Janey Hallam. Me. And … ” He hesitated, took a deep, unsteady breath, then let it out. “And Marty,” he said.
“Marty?” Rachel said. “What does she …?” She paled. “Oh, shit.”
“He told me I had to go to the police and tell them about — about what happened, that it was the only way I could atone for — for what I’d done. And that if I didn’t, he would. I … ” He looked at Maureen. “We’d have been ruined, Moe. We’d have lost everything.” He fell silent for a moment, eyes half closed. “I tried to talk him out of it,” he said. “Make him see reason. But I couldn’t get through to him.”
“So you beat him to death with a goddamned tree branch,” Rachel said, with savage intensity.
“I didn’t mean to. I’d picked up a branch to use as a walking stick. It was in my hands. I hit him with it. And just kept on hitting him until — until I thought he was dead. I couldn’t let him destroy our lives because of a silly mistake I’d made thirty-five years ago.”
“A silly mistake,” Rachel repeated bitterly. “Is that what you call it. Goddamnit, Hal. She was just a little kid.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Hal said. “I — ”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Rachel snapped, cutting him off. “You can’t rationalize pedophilia.”
“I’m not a pedophile,” Hal cried. “Jesus, Rae.”
“What do you call it, then?”
“I didn’t molest her. Not — not like you’re thinking. I was sneaking a smoke in the woods when I saw her collecting bugs in a peanut butter jar. ‘It’s not safe to be in the woods alone,’ I told her. When she asked me why not, I said, ‘That teacher from the junior high school was raped near here.’
“‘Mr. Cartwright said a friend of his was hurt by some man,’ she said. ‘Was that her?’ I said I supposed it was. She just shrugged and continued down the path toward the old tree across the bend in the creek. I followed her. Just to keep an eye on her. When she got to the tree, she turned to me and said, ‘Do you want to play a game?’
“‘What kind of game?’ I asked.
“‘Give me some money and I’ll show you my weewee,’ she said.
“I was totally dumbfounded. Dougie Hallam had told me he’d given her money to masturbate him, but I hadn’t believed him, any more than I’d believed him about Janey. But then she giggled and I realized she was just teasing me again.”
“What do you mean, again?” Rachel said.
Hal shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I tho
ught I’d teach her a lesson. I asked her, ‘How much?’ She said, ‘Five dollars.’ I said, ‘For five dollars you’ve got to do more than show me your wee-wee. How about you pretend my thing is a lollipop?’”
Rachel made a sound of disgust deep in her throat. Maureen looked as though she were going to throw up. Shoe just wanted his brother to stop talking, but he seemed compelled to continue.
“She didn’t want to do it, of course,” Hal said. “She offered to let me touch her, but I said for five dollars, I expected more than that. She finally agreed to masturbate me and let me touch her vagina. ‘Gimme the money,’ she said.”
“‘Uh-uh,’ I said. ‘You first.’ I showed her the money, but I wouldn’t give it to her. She looked scared.”
“No shit,” Rachel said.
“I wanted her to be scared,” Hal said. “I was trying to teach her a lesson.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Rachel said disgustedly. “I’m sure you’ll start to believe it.”
“It’s true,” Hal said.
“So what happened?” Rachel said. “When she refused to comply, you molested her — to teach her a lesson. You sick son of a bitch … ”
“That’s enough,” Shoe said. He did not want to hear the answer, even though the truth was clear enough from the expression of shame and misery on his brother’s face. “Cartwright caught you,” he said.
“Yes,” Hal said. “He came howling out of the woods like a wild man and grabbed me. He wasn’t big, but he was quite strong. He threw me down and accused me of statutory rape. I told him it wasn’t what he thought. I tried to get Marty to tell him we were just fooling around, but she took off. He pulled me to my feet asked me if I could think of any reason he shouldn’t report me to the police. I said I hadn’t really done anything. That only made him more angry. I begged him not to tell the police, that they’d think I was the Black Creek Rapist. I was terrified he did too, but he said he knew I wasn’t. He wouldn’t go to the police, he said, on the condition that I promised never do anything like that again. I swore to him I never would. And I never did.”
Rachel helped Maureen up. She stumbled toward the stairs, leaning on Rachel. Hal struggled to his feet, wobbling unsteadily, supporting himself with a hand on the workbench.
“Moe, I’m sorry.”
Maureen stopped, stood with her back to him shoulders hunched. “It’s too late for apologies,” she said. She turned. Her face was pale and loose, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.
“Maybe you’re right, but I’m going to try anyway. I — I’m sorry, Moe. For everything.”
Her mouth twitched and her eyes shone, but otherwise she did not speak or move or show any sign of having heard him.
“Moe, I — ”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it. It’s not enough, Hal. It’s too little, too late. You can apologize all you want to, but it’s not going to fix things. It’s not going to change anything.”
He tried to go to her, but he staggered back against the workbench. “God, Moe, you’ve got no idea what I’ve been going through lately.”
“No, of course not. For god’s sake, Hal. You killed a man just to save your reputation and your fucking job.”
Maureen turned and went up the stairs, Rachel helping her, despite her injured feet. Hal slumped onto the stool, looked at Shoe. Tears welled in his eyes and Shoe felt something he hadn’t felt for his brother in a long, long time.
“I can’t bear the thought of losing her,” Hal said. “I don’t think I can live without her.”
“You’re going to have to learn how, I think,” Shoe said. He went to his brother, took his arm. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Hal nodded meekly and let Shoe lead him up the stairs and into the living room, where he slumped onto the sofa.
“Do you think I could have a glass of water?” Hal said.
Shoe went into the kitchen, filled a glass at the sink, and took it to Hal. Hal gulped greedily, spilling water on his shirt. He finished the water and put the glass on the coffee table, carefully placing it on a coaster. He sat back, squirmed, and passed wind softly into the sofa cushions. He smiled crookedly at Shoe.
“What should I do, Joe?”
“I don’t know, Hal,” Shoe said. “I wish I did.”
“I don’t want to go to jail. I have some money. I can go away. Is that what I should do?”
Shoe shook his head. “Even if you could get away,” he said, “how long do you think you’d survive as a fugitive? I don’t want you to go to prison, but running isn’t the answer. You may have to reconcile yourself to spending a few years in prison.”
“Fuck,” Hal said dully.
“Yeah,” Shoe said. “That sums it up pretty well.”
Hal smiled weakly. “You didn’t kill Dougie Hallam, did you? Did Janey kill him?”
“I killed him,” Shoe said.
“I don’t believe you, but if that’s the way you want to play it … ” He shrugged. “God knows why, though. I never did understand you, this compulsion you have to protect people from themselves. Did you expect gratitude from the likes of Joey Noseworthy, Janey Hallam — or me? I don’t think so. All it’s ever brought you is grief, hasn’t it?”
“Not always,” Shoe said.
chapter fifty-eight
Rachel and Maureen came into the living room, but Hal didn’t look up as he spoke.
“After he caught Marty and me, I did everything I could to convince him that he hadn’t made a mistake by not going to the police. I ran errands for him and did his yardwork. I got to quite like him, actually. He was a nice, kind man, despite how his mother treated him. Marty didn’t report the incident either, but her parents must have sensed something was wrong and called the police, figuring she’d been another victim of the Black Creek Rapist, which was just what she let her parents, the police, and everyone else in the neighbourhood believe.” He looked at Rachel. “I’m sorry she’s dead.”
“Did it occur to you that the police might not have believed him?” Shoe asked.
“Yes, of course,” Hal replied. “Even so, if allegations of child molestation had been made public, it wouldn’t have mattered if I was innocent or not. It would have cost me my job and hung over my head for the rest of my life. It would have killed Mum and Dad.”
“They’re made of sterner stuff than that,” Rachel said.
“How did you get your car out of the Dells?” Shoe asked.
“I knew Dougie Hallam had keys to the gate,” Hal said. “So I called him on my cell. He came and let me out, but of course he wanted to know what I was doing in the park after closing. I told him some lame story about parking there to watch the sunset and falling asleep. He realized the truth as soon as he heard about Cartwright’s murder, of course. Naturally, he saw it as an opportunity to blackmail me.” He looked at Shoe. “You did me a favour by killing him.” He looked at his watch, then stood up from the sofa. The effort left him momentarily breathless. “I’m late for an appointment,” he said.
“If you’re still thinking of running,” Shoe said, “you should know that the police are watching the house.”
Hal went to the living room window and peered out.
“You probably won’t see them,” Shoe said.
“What should I do?” Hal said. “Maybe if I went out through the backyard.”
“They’ll be watching that route, too,” Shoe said.
“I know a little about the law,” Rachel said. Her second husband had been a lawyer, Shoe recalled. “If you save them the cost of a trial and cop a plea, a good lawyer could probably get you off with manslaughter, diminished capacity, or something. You’d get ten, twelve years, most likely less. You’d be out in four or five.”
“Five years,” Hal moaned. “I’d rather take my chances and run for it.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Rachel said. “How much money do you have? A couple of hundred thousand? How long do you think it would last? You’d be destitute in four or five years. Living on
the goddamned street. Hell, maybe even dead. A few years in prison and you’d be free to resume your life. Besides, if you run, you’ll never see Mum or Dad again.”
“Better that than what it would do to them seeing their eldest son going to prison for murder.”
“It’s always about you, isn’t it, Hal?” Maureen said. Without waiting for a reply, she left the room and went up the stairs.
“Rae’s right,” Shoe said. “I know five years seems like a long time, but if you try to run, you’ll only make matters worse. Even if you did manage to get away, you’d be sentencing yourself to life in a different kind of prison.”
“I don’t want to go to jail.”
“No, of course you don’t. Who would? But it’s time you grew up, Hal, and started taking responsibility for yourself. There’s a saying some criminals have: do the crime, do the time. My advice to you is to do the time, Hal. Then you can put it behind you and get on with your life.”
“Easy for you to say,” Hal said.
“No,” Shoe said. “It’s not.”
chapter fifty-nine
Maureen came out of the house as Shoe was getting into the Taurus. He wanted to check on his parents. Rachel was in the house with Hal, who was trying to make up his mind what to do. A few metres up the street from the house sat an old station wagon with fake wood side-panels, a man and a woman in the front seat, trying to look as if they belonged there. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye,” Maureen said.
“I’m not going to abandon my brother,” Shoe said. “I’ll have to go home to Vancouver for a few days, but I’ll be back.”
“You’ll stand by him,” Maureen said. “You’ll do everything you can to help him get through this.”
“Of course,” Shoe said.
Maureen looked at the ground between them. “I don’t think I can do that,” she said. “Not now, not after what he’s put me though. Maybe if I still loved him … ” She looked up at him. “Do you think I’m being horribly selfish?”
“You’ll do what you have to do,” Shoe said.
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