“No,” he says, with that charming smile of his, “but I’m willing to try something new.”
Good job, Charlie. It goes quicker if you cooperate.
While Dad brings over the boiled water to fill each cup, Mom dunks a bag in each one but holds onto them, checking her watch and letting them steep. Tea is a ritual, a process that requires time and patience, and I think that’s why she insists on it for these heart-to-heart discussions.
“Charles, the police told us the fire was an accident,” she says.
He nods.
“And your cigarette started it?”
“Yes,” he says.
“And that’s it?”
“Yes,” he repeats.
She pauses, watching him, waiting.
I can see him trying to read her, but she’s deadpan. Unlike when I was questioned, he keeps his mouth shut and smiles.
“Nothing else you want to add?”
“Nope,” he shakes his shaggy head.
“Charles?”
“Yes, Mrs. S.?”
“Anthony already told us.”
“Oh.” He doesn’t look at me. “Okay.” He points to the tea, “It’s been two minutes. Can I have mine now?”
Mom looks at her watch, surprised that he’s aware of this fact. Maybe she’s also realized that he’s not going to be as much of a pushover as I am. She relents and hands over his cup.
“If it was only a stupid mistake…” She pauses, hoping he’ll bite.
But he merely nods and takes a big gulp of tea. “Wow, this is pretty good—”
Mom cuts off his compliment. “Did you start the fire on purpose?”
“No,” he answers quickly.
“Charles?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Are you two up to something?”
“No.” Now his answer seems a little too quick.
Mom turns on both of us now. “We know someone’s missing around here. We’re not oblivious to that fact.”
Shit.
“If you two are involved in anything to do with that, then that’s it for both of you. Do you understand?”
I’m surprised to hear us both quickly respond “Yes.”
“But if you’re telling the truth—” She seems to be going over it in her head. “And the officers did say it was an accident…”
“You have quite a list of priors, Charlie,” Dad interrupts, “and by picking you up, we have now taken responsibility for you, to make sure that you’re safe and that we can manage your visit without causing any more problems for the police—”
“Or us,” Mom interjects.
Charlie casts his eyes down at his cup. “I understand.”
“This is your one chance. Can you be a good citizen of Shepherdtown?”
Charlie takes another long sip. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all we ask.”
“Okay.”
“Nevertheless, no more wandering, no more unnecessary visits to town, no more run-ins with the law. You are on lockdown until further notice. Do you understand?”
I’m sure Charlie has never before been told these words by a parent and I don’t know if Mom fully understands what she’s asking of him. I hope Charlie understands that my parents are doing this because they care about him and that he fully appreciates how much shit he’s in. Although he can disappear like a ghost in a city full of delinquents, he really stands out here.
“I get it. I’ll keep things on the down low.”
“Good. Now take your teas and go outside.”
I stand, but Charlie takes the pot of hot water and tops up his cup. Mom and Dad stare at us and I want to go, but now Charlie has something to say.
“I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. S., for everything. I do appreciate all that you’ve done. I really do. Needless to say, the idea of parental concern has never been really front and centre in my life, so I’ve never really known what it’s like to let anyone down before.”
Mom’s face softens and she reaches across the table to squeeze Charlie’s hand. “Okay. Go on, you two. We’ll call you for lunch.”
chapter 53
Charlie and I go outside. Heather’s still tanning in the chair, seemingly asleep, but I know better. She’s heard everything. We move past her and walk down to the shore with our cups of tea.
Charlie sits on a log, keeping himself at a distance from the water, while I drop down on the dock facing him.
I expect us to sit in silent consideration for at least a minute, but Charlie doesn’t wait.
“So, you’ll never guess who I met in jail?”
“Charlie!”
“What?”
I point toward the cabin, “After everything you just promised?”
“But Shepherd, we can still talk.”
I lower my voice. “You just lied to their faces.”
“So?”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Of course it does,” he says. “And I know you feel bad about it.”
“Definitely,” I say.
“Good, because you should.” He slides closer to me. “Now, guess who I met.”
“No.”
He sighs, annoyed, but my lack of interest doesn’t stop him from blurting, “Little Joe! I know, right?”
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even need me for this conversation.
“Charlie, we aren’t doing this.”
“Why not?”
“Because you just told Mom and Dad—”
“Nothing. I said I understood what they were saying, that I’d stay on the down low, and that I won’t wander far from the cabin. I get all of it.”
I get where he’s going with this. “But you didn’t promise not to talk about it.”
He taps his nose.
Even if I said I wanted no part of this, he wouldn’t listen. And if I give him this, he’ll find another way to bend the rules. Once he sets his sights on something, there’s no end until he finds the answers he’s looking for. Either I sit on the sidelines, or I do my best to keep him out of trouble. And yet somehow I think that he actually believes he’ll be able to keep the agreement he’s made with Mom and Dad.
“Fine,” I sigh. “Who’s Little Joe?”
“Terry’s buddy? The guy who got arrested.”
Right. I remember Charlie telling me about him after our visit to Donnie’s. Then I realize. “Wait, did you actually go to jail just to meet him?”
He picks up a stick and digs in the sand. “See, he was the guy who probably had some answers—”
“You went to jail on purpose?” I can’t believe it. “Do you know how insane that is?”
“It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”
He’s right.
During our search for Sheri, Charlie had himself tossed in jail so many times that Detective Gekas eventually had to kick him out.
“You aren’t normal,” I say.
“Pffft,” he scoffs. “Terry was trafficking.”
“What?”
“Little Joe got him the job. He would go across the lake once a month and meet up with some people. He’d give them the cash from sales in a bunch of coolers and they’d give him the drugs for the next shipment in an identical set. Then he’d exchange the drugs with the dealers for cash, then rinse and repeat.”
“Holy shit.”
Charlie nods.
“Little Joe was pushing the stuff to kids, and I’m guessing the goons that showed up at Donnie’s after he was arrested might be from the front end of that delivery system.”
“But why?”
“Tying up loose ends?”
I realize what he’s getting at. “Are you thinking they murdered him?”
Lake water filters up from below the sand to fill the chann
el Charlie’s dug. “Maybe. When it comes to drugs, it’s usually about money. Terry tried to get more, they wanted to give less, who knows? But maybe he pissed someone off and they dealt with him.”
“But no one will figure that out until a body washes up on shore.”
“Who says they dumped him in the lake?”
“What? You think they buried him?”
“Why not? He disappears and there’s fewer questions.” He looks out at the long stretch of shoreline. “Trouble is, with this current, Terry’s body could be anywhere.”
That’s when it dawns on me. “I might know where to start.”
chapter 54
I confirm with Mom and Dad that it’s okay that we take a walk and, not surprisingly, they don’t agree too easily.
Mom interrogates me, “How far?”
“Just around the cabins.”
“No more, no less?”
“Yes!” I catch my excited tone and dial it back. “I’ll take Ollie with us.”
Dad stops reading his book. “Let them go. The worst that can happen is they get eaten by a bear.”
Charlie scrutinizes Dad’s face. “Are you serious, Mr. S.?”
Dad lifts his book to cover his face, not answering. I’m sure if I pulled it down, he’d be smirking.
I glance back at Mom and she makes up her mind. “One hour.”
“Deal.”
chapter 55
I really didn’t want to tell Charlie about my conversation with Diane. I’m positive he’ll take the hour Mom gave us and get us into even more trouble. On the other hand, letting him follow this lead might just shut him up and maybe we’ll figure out what happened to Terry. Who knows? Maybe I can even go back to relaxing at the cabin and being a normal teenager again, doing whatever it is we do—playing sports, hanging out with friends, talking to girls—not chasing murderers and having dead girlfriends.
Ollie tugs me along, happy to join this adventure with us. I barely have to lead him—he appears to know exactly where we’re going.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you talked to her, Shepherd?”
“I don’t know? Maybe somewhere between you being tossed in jail, me telling my parents that they had to bail you out, then the two of us being grounded, it sort of slipped my mind.”
“And your mom was convinced there was more to the story.”
I hesitate, then confess. “I may have told her you had a joint, not a cigarette.”
“What!?” he explodes.
“You didn’t give me many options, man!” I defend myself. “I couldn’t tell her what we were really up to—and she sure wasn’t going to buy that story you gave the cops.”
“Actually, Shepherd, I’m just impressed you lied so well.”
With all my blunders during Mom’s cross-examination, I never considered that I might’ve actually pulled it off. Unfortunately, lying to my folks doesn’t make me very happy.
“Yeah, well, hanging around you does that to a person.”
“You’re welcome.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
We walk up to Diane’s and hear the sound of metal clanging. We move around to the back to find the old woman perched precariously on the bumper of her truck. She’s under the open hood, her arm shoved into the machinery of the engine.
“Lost my damn socket wrench!” she shouts at us. “I don’t suppose one of you has long enough arms to get it for me?”
Charlie points at me. “I think this tall drink of water is your best choice.”
“Again, what century are you from?” I mutter.
“I’m timeless, man,” he muses as I begrudgingly hand Ollie’s leash over to him before helping out.
Diane adjusts her angle and points. “If you try reaching up from below, that’d be great.”
I drop to the ground and crawl under the front of her truck, dirt and pine needles digging into my back. I’m sure my shirt will no longer be white by the time I’m done.
“So, Tony mentioned that this missing guy, Terry, was one of your old students,” Charlie says.
Through a crack between the engine and something I think is attached to the front axle, I can make out her smile. “Yup, quite the troublemaker he was.”
Charlie gets to the point. “And he used to bring your medication?”
She points me to a ledge near the back, under the engine, but answers him. “Yes, he was kind. Didn’t always charge me, and when he did, I always thought he was asking less than full price.”
“Did he come over often?”
“No, only once a month or so. That was enough.”
I feel around the contours of the engine block, my fingers sliding along sharp edges and gears. I’m sure I’d break something if any of them were moving.
“Did he only come around to deliver stuff?”
Diane’s face drops and I can tell her guard is going up. “His business wasn’t any of mine.”
Ollie crouches down to see what I’m doing. I touch the smooth, loose edge of Diane’s wrench and flick it with my middle finger. It tumbles down beside my head.
Charlie presses her, “Did he come by when he was making a pickup?”
Diane sits up and the shadow she cast above me vanishes. I barely hear her answer. “Terry was always good to me. No need for you boys to go digging around out there.”
Out where? Where was Terry going?
Charlie shuffles his feet beside the front tire. “Diane, this is important. Do you know where he went on his route?”
I drag myself from under the truck, grabbing the wrench to hand it to her on my way out. Her face is tight and uncertain and I know she’s struggling with how best to answer.
I offer, “If it’s somewhere close, we want to see if we can find anything.” I don’t really want this, but I know Charlie won’t let it go unless we try.
“The gossips around here will drag his name through the mud,” she hesitates. She twists the wrench in her hand, mulling over her answer. She glances at us, scanning our faces, deciding if we can be trusted. “But you two have been so kind, bringing my pain relief.”
I can feel Charlie’s eyes on me—I hadn’t told him that I’d given her the other baggie of pot.
She’s lost in memories now. “He was a troublemaker, always making dumb choices, but he was a good boy. He only wanted to be liked. One time he came to me, asking for gas for his boat—he had run too low to get across the lake. The tank was too heavy to carry back, so I loaded it on my four-wheeler and took him to his boat. He was anxious about me staying around for long. He asked me to leave.”
The scritch scritch scritch of the wrench stops and she leans against the bumper. “I’m not sure what he got himself into, but I fear the worst for poor Terry,” she says with genuine concern.
Charlie asks, so gently it surprises me, “Where did you take him?”
“Old Fire Tower Road, north of here.”
I know the place.
chapter 56
Diane offers us her four-wheeler to drive out to Old Fire Tower Road—it’s too far to walk and it definitely breaks the limits of our house arrest. I urge Charlie to come back to the cabin with me so we can get permission.
“You know they aren’t going to let us go,” Charlie says.
“They might,” I reply, but he can probably hear how unconvinced I am.
“They’re already suspicious of everything we’re up to,” he says, building his case.
“Maybe we can tell them we just want to check the place out. You know, like an adventure—”
“You and me and an adventure probably doesn’t work out in a way that would make your parents happy.”
Charlie’s got a point.
“Shepherd,” he says finally, “I’d rather ask forgiveness than permission.”
I’m prett
y sure that’s how he generally operates. I weigh the options. Pro: we might find one more piece of the puzzle that is the missing man. Con: I burn pretty much all the trust I’ve built up with Mom and Dad over the years.
But I do want to see an end to this. I don’t want to admit it to Charlie, but I really want to know what happened to Terry. And when I think about it, there’s no apparent danger in going to Old Fire Tower Road. Plus, this far from town, there’s probably not much Charlie could do to make matters worse—unless he starts another fire and burns down the forest.
Still, I feel a swirl of nausea when I say, “Come on, let’s do this. The longer we think about it, the later we get back.”
Charlie hops on and takes the wheel. I unhook the leash and drag myself onto the atv. “Drive slow so Ollie can keep up.”
“Are you kidding? He’s going to love this run.” I think Charlie’s as excited by this ride as Ollie.
At least some of us are.
chapter 57
I guide Charlie down the backwoods path that leads to the fire tower. It’s about four kilometres away, cutting through the bush. The spruce and birch rise high and close above us, shading the forest floor from the sun with a soft green veil. As we get further from the cabins, the tall trees fall away, and small aspens and chokecherry bushes build into a thick, tangled mass.
Ollie keeps up with us for most of it and we only have to stop whenever he veers off the path to chase a fresh scent. After a little bit of calling, he pops back out of the trees, usually ahead of us, ready to find the next new thing, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth.
We drive until the forest opens wide and young pine trees that are only half the size of the trees surrounding them appear.
“What happened here?” Charlie yells over the roar of the engine.
“Forest fire, maybe twenty years ago. This is the edge of where it burned.”
The path winds along a hill and we manoeuvre up the tight switchback road. At the top, the metal base of the old fire tower rises into the sky. Beside it is a log cabin, but the whole area is locked up tight with a chain-link fence that has barbed wire at the top.
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