by Jon Redfern
Upstairs, Billy went to see Butch, but he was not in his office. The officer at the reception desk told Billy the chief had a last-minute meeting with the police board at the Lethbridge Lodge. He would be back later, after an hour or so. Billy stood still for a moment.
“I understand.”
“I can give you the Lodge number, sir. If you wish.”
“No thanks. That’s fine.”
The day was wearing on. Billy’s stomach rumbled. His bum knee was beginning to ache, and he took a moment to return to Butch’s office and find two Tylenols. A few minutes later, he entered interview room B, where a young man was waiting for him.
“Justin Moore?”
Justin thrust out his hand. Billy took in his clean-shaven face and nervous manner. He asked the young man to sit down; the camcorder was activated. Billy explained the context of the case and the problems he was having with finding hard evidence. Justin Moore listened attentively; Billy noted his polite demeanour.
“What I need from you, Justin, are facts as well as your memories.”
“About those two boys?”
“We can start with them. Did you ever meet them?”
“I saw them in the yard, and sometimes I watched them waiting on the front steps of the house for Sheree Lynn.”
“Did you ever speak to them?”
“No. I knew their names because Sheree Lynn told my mother who they were. My mother was very upset about those boys being there.”
“Why?”
“She knew they were troubled kids on welfare. She was afraid they’d break into our house.”
“Were there break-ins?”
“No.” Justin sat up straighter in his chair. He took in a deep breath. Billy noticed Justin fidgeting with his hands. There was also the constant shuffling of his feet.
“How much do you know about Sheree Lynn Bird?”
“She rents my Aunt Marion’s old house. I knew the two boys stayed there once in a while. We heard the boy, Cody, had drug problems. Sheree Lynn told my mother all this. I know Sheree Lynn lost her job. Her boyfriend is one of my professors at university. Is that enough? Sheree once asked my mother if she could have Aunt Marion’s dump painted, but Mom said we couldn’t afford it.”
“How often did you talk face-to-face to Sheree Lynn?”
“I said hello to her. Not much, really. Though she was very friendly. She liked to flirt, Inspector. She’s very hot. She came on to me once. Wanted me to come over to the yard and sunbathe with her. She wanted to go topless, she said. I was tempted, of course. But. . . . After that, she gave me the cold shoulder.” Justin said these words looking up at Billy, trying to act the buddy, his manner relaxing as he sat back in the chair.
“Where were you Friday night last?”
“At home.”
“With your mother?”
“We were watching TV. She went to bed early, and I stayed up and watched a video.”
“Did you see anything unusual next door? Anyone coming or going?”
“Not that night. I don’t really pay much attention to that place. I mean, I used to see those boys and Professor Mucklowe. Except that one time. About a year ago, maybe, or even earlier. They sometimes had parties. There was loud music at night.”
“What kind of music?”
“Rock, heavy metal sometimes. My mother was threatening to call the police half the time. But the music usually stopped around eleven, so we let it go. Last November, I think. It was a warm night, unusual for that time. I remember looking out the kitchen window and seeing Cody dancing naked on the back lawn. Something heavy was playing. He was falling down and crying out like he was having a nightmare, but he was fully awake.” Justin’s eyes were focused on the tabletop. He was relaxed, his voice calmer than when he started.
“What did you assume was happening?”
“He was out of it. High.”
“This was the only time you saw this type of behaviour?”
“Yes, but there was more.”
“How do you mean?”
“Cody was acting wild. I was glad my mother was asleep on the other side of the house. I remember seeing Professor Mucklowe. He came out on the lawn. He was half naked himself. Wearing his undershorts only. He grabbed hold of Cody. Cody and he began to act like they were dancing or fighting. It was dark but light, too, because of the clear sky. It looked weird to me. Weird.” Justin stopped for a second.
Billy waited. “Fighting or dancing?”
“I guess fighting. Randy held Cody in his arms and led him back into the house. That was it.”
“You ever see anything like this again?”
“No, Inspector. But I always figured there was some weirdness in that place.”
“In what way?”
Justin hesitated. “It’s just a theory. Something between those boys and Sheree Lynn. I don’t know. I never saw anything, but I always felt it was weird for those boys to sleep there.”
“You think they were having sex?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But what were you thinking, Justin?”
“Sex, maybe. Drugs and sex. I never saw anything, though.”
“What video did you see?”
“On Friday night?”
“What was its title?”
“It was a classic. My mom had rented it. Black-and-white, about some people stranded in a lifeboat.”
“Can you give me the name of the video store?”
“Not a problem, Inspector. Mom always rents from our neighbour-hood place around the corner.” Justin gave Billy the name and his mother’s membership number.
“Can you remember what time you went to bed Friday?”
“Late. Two or two-thirty.”
“What did you do Saturday morning?”
Justin sat up. He began to fidget again, his feet shuffling under the table.
“I went downtown, did some shopping.”
“At what time?”
“I think around eleven or so.”
“What did you buy?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I went to the mall, then I went to Boorman’s to look at shirts. But I couldn’t find anything I liked.”
Billy thanked Justin. The other two neighbours from Ashmead had neither seen nor heard anything Friday night and knew little about Sheree Lynn or the boys. Going over his notes afterwards, Billy underlined Justin’s statement about Cody’s naked dance and Mucklowe’s appearance in the garden. The idea of sexual misconduct was intriguing. He made a note to talk to Sheree Lynn and Randy the next time he saw them.
Walking out to the parking lot, Billy wondered momentarily if he’d made the right choice to come in from the ranch and join up with Butch on the case. After all, he had written off his former life as a homicide detective seven months ago, the day he’d signed his buyout and retirement forms at head office in Vancouver. Why not phone Butch tomorrow and tell him the weekend had been fun, but from now on it was Butch’s show? The lines and demarcations had been drawn, the vector of the investigation had been charted. Johnson was bright. Dodd was thorough at least. What good was he, really, as Butch’s “second pair of eyes”?
But Billy stopped. He looked at the light-filled sky, the open land of Arthur Yamamoto’s country. Billy reminded himself of his promise to his father. A promise made when he was twenty, after the two of them had tearfully met for the first time and embraced each other as lost father and son. Billy remembered the very words he’d said later to his half-brother, Toshiro, words that had inspired him to forgo sleep, suffer long hours, work back-aching nights on stakeouts: “I became a policeman because of the injustice done to our father.”
Billy found he had tears in his eyes.
“For Christ’s sake,” he whispered.
He unlocked the door of the Pontiac and rolled down the window to let the breeze cool the stifling interior. Waiting, he stared at the distant line where the earth met the sky. He found solace in the horizon, straight as a ruler’s edge. He imagined the sky
changing colour as the setting sun softly brought on the night. Five minutes later, Billy drove out of the police station parking lot and onto Dawson. He drove slowly through the city. Its streets were busy at the end of the afternoon, with half-tons and vans full of families finishing their Sunday shopping at the big malls. When he was a teenager, the city was deserted on Sundays, the streets empty of cars and people, the store windows with drawn drapes in accordance with the laws prohibiting the sale and the show of material goods. Then, the churches were full. Chimes played from steeples from ten in the morning until one in the afternoon.
Turning onto Dufferin, Billy passed a huge open pit of gravel and torn tree stumps where the old St. Michael’s hospital once stood. He drove on and noticed the new paint job on the strip mall with its Mormon bookstore and the flower shop that bordered the parking lot of the regional hospital, a large new building with an enormous glass atrium filled with trees and a small pool. Hospitals look more like hotels these days, he thought. He rode up the elevator to the psychiatric ward, where Blayne Morton had been taken for observation. He arrayed the questions in his mind. Who tied up Darren Riegert? Did you force Darren to stand on the boom box? Who placed the note in Darren’s mouth?
As Billy walked with the nurse into Blayne Morton’s hospital room, he sensed he was getting further entangled in the net of supposition. Blayne Morton may have had a motive. It was the most prominent fact in the case so far. In front of him, the boy lay strapped into a bed behind half-drawn curtains. The nurse pointed to Blayne’s immobile face, his thin shut lips.
“Today, Inspector. Whoa! Was this kid wild! Started yelling and hitting out at every wall in sight.”
The nurse was short and thin with bright eyes and a sharp high voice. Peeking out of the upper pocket of her uniform was a pack of menthol cigarettes.
“He grabbed my smokes right out of my pocket. Nearly took off a layer of my skin to boot.”
Billy asked the nurse what sedative the doctor had prescribed and about its short-term effect.
“This kid’ll be out another ten hours, sir. Doctor said he must be kept under strict observation. I’d be glad to call you at headquarters if and when he wakes up. I’m sure he’ll tell you his life story by then.”
“Thanks,” Billy said. He opened his notebook. “Mind if I write down a few things? I do this for my records. I won’t take more than two minutes.”
“Be my guest,” said the nurse.
Billy described Blayne’s state and the time of day and the type of sedation he’d been given. He noticed the chart report by the door of the room, the one with Blayne’s vital information. “Has he been in before,” Billy asked, “for similar treatment?”
The nurse led Billy into the hall and up to the nurse’s station, where she punched in Blayne’s first and last names and a code number. She waited a second, then ran her finger down the information glowing on the white computer screen. “Twice before. Once for an overdose of aspirin and Valium. Last December he was in and was sedated for three days. Violent behaviour. The attending doctor at first prescribed an antidepressant.” The nurse looked up. “I remember this kid, now. He was really upset that time in December. We couldn’t get a straight answer out of him.”
“Can you remember what kinds of things he was saying?”
“Stuff about the devil. He kept saying somebody was at peace. That death is the true life, nonsense like that. He lied about his own name and had crying tantrums. I recall he threw a bedpan at another patient, and we had to move him into a single room with a lock. After the three days, he came back to normal, right as rain.”
“Did you ever think he was putting this on? That he was playacting?”
“No. And I’ve seen a lot of distraught people here, Inspector.” The nurse interrupted herself by coughing and then clearing her throat.
“Teenagers on drugs are frequent detainees.”
“But Blayne was not on drugs the second time. Or was he?”
“No, you’re right.” The nurse checked the screen again. “No, he was clear.”
Billy fished for one of the file cards Butch had given him, penned his cell phone number, and handed it to the nurse. She read it over, filed it on her desk on a steel spike, and then shook Billy’s hand.
“Pleasure to meet you, Inspector,” she said with a warm smile.
Billy counted the numbers as the elevator went down. So Blayne had a similar reaction at the time of Cody Schow’s death? The phrase “at peace” was uttered then as it was in the interview earlier today. At both times, Blayne was sober, too. These facts would bear keeping in mind.
Randy Mucklowe sat perched on a stool in his kitchen drinking whiskey. Behind him, Sheree Lynn Bird was making herself a cup of herbal tea. He’d arrived home from Montana, and as soon as he’d got in the door Sheree had started whining and complaining about the break-in at Satan House. He had held her for a moment, pretending he cared. But Randy’s mind was on Sam and the gold masks. And, above all, on the money they were worth, seven hundred thousand dollars. What did Satan House and Darren Riegert matter now? In a few days, he and Sheree Lynn would be in Vancouver. If they stuck to the plan, there’d be more cash than either one of them had ever seen.
Randy took a long sip. He reached for the bottle and refreshed his drink. Sheree Lynn pulled up a stool beside his and placed her hand on his arm. She drank her tea in silence. How the hell can I get rid of Sam? he wondered. Randy felt he’d gone as far as he dared in showing patience. Heavy Hand was going to ruin everything. Robert Lau had agreed to pay one hundred thousand for each mask, and he was not a man you’d want to surprise or mislead. Lau was ruthless, cautious. Randy believed once Lau had his hands on the precious gold, he’d pay up in full, though he would not welcome Sam’s meddling.
Sheree Lynn remained quiet. By the time she’d finished her tea, she seemed ready to share Randy’s concerns. He told her about what had happened earlier that day in Babb, Montana, and she said, “All right, so we can work around Sam.”
But could they? Sam had stolen the masks from the lab in the university. He had hidden them and guarded them for almost a year. Randy felt a tinge of conscience as he thought about this. At the same time, he faced the yearning and fear he always had when he hatched a money plot. He fervently believed it was his God-given right to claim these masks for himself. After all, he had put his whole life into finding and preserving artifacts. He had found more of them and written more on their history than any other human being. What had he received in return? A bit of minor glory, maybe, but nothing tangible.
The phone rang. Randy didn’t move. “Should I get it?” said Sheree Lynn.
“No. Let it ring.”
“It might be the inspector.”
“It can wait.”
Randy sat still. His ex-wife had been pestering him again about alimony payments. Wasn’t it enough he’d liquidated his RRSPS and moved to a cheap two-bedroom apartment? He drained his glass and reached for the bottle as the phone rang again.
“Goddamn it!”
He threw his glass into the sink. It thunked heavily before breaking against the stainless steel rim.
Sheree Lynn put her arms around him. “Honey,” she said.
He pushed her away. “Let me alone.” Randy walked down the hall to the room he used as his den. He shoved open the door. “What’s the Goddamn use?” He went to the balcony and stepped outside. He needed air. When he turned to go back in a few seconds later, he saw Sheree Lynn at the far doorway. He paused, keeping his eyes on her nervous smile. It was like an order to him to gather his thoughts. He must not lose control of the situation. He knew he must control her as well and make sure she felt protected and wanted. Sheree Lynn must never be threatened by anyone to give away the secrets they now shared. Her beauty, as always, gave him much pleasure and in fact had a calming effect on him. It was true what his colleagues had said, even as they mocked him: she was a prize, a trophy, a woman worth suffering for.
“Come on,” he
now said, walking towards her. “If you have something to say, say it.”
She stayed by the door, her arms folded. Her manner was hesitant, as if she were flirting. “Do you realize,” she said, “that you hurt both of us with your anger? I know Sam is trying to trip you up. But be patient, honey.”
Her voice soothed him. He came closer to her. “You’re right, as always. We can work this through.”
Even as he heard his own voice, Randy could see Sam Heavy Hand’s arrogant grin.
Doubts brought on by the day’s investigation had not blocked out Billy’s mounting anxiety over his usual Sunday visit with his half-brother and sister-in-law. Since Arthur’s funeral, Sundays had been set aside by the two men as times when they could both go through Arthur’s estate. Billy dreaded the day, the silences that always fell between him and Toshiro as they cleaned up their father’s rooms or read over documents for probate tax and the insurance money Arthur had left for the two of them.
The late-afternoon wind was blowing hard from the west as Billy pulled into Toshiro’s front yard. The Pontiac clicked across the interlocking bricks of the driveway. Billy wanted to honk the horn but decided it would be better to park quietly in front of the white metal garage door and go and ring the back bell. Toshiro’s house was on a new street in the town of Coaldale. It was a two-storey kit house built facing east with a Spanish-styled roof and coffee-coloured stucco covering its exterior. The backyard opened onto ploughed land. The yard grass stopped in a straight line between Toshiro’s property and the flat farmland once used to grow sugarbeets.
“I’m here!”
Billy bent his head forward going down the narrow basement steps. The concrete floor was painted a dull grey. The smell of dust and closed-in air made Billy think about the hanging of Darren Riegert. He looked up at the pipes and joists. This heating conduit was thick enough to bear the weight of a 130-pound teenager.
Toshiro poked his head through a small door by the furnace. “I’ve got the boxes in here.”
Billy followed his older brother into a small neat windowless room.
Toshiro had placed four cardboard boxes and a leather suitcase on a paint-splattered wooden workbench.