The Boy Must Die

by Jon Redfern

  “Here is your mother’s stuff.”

  Toshiro handed Billy the small battered suitcase. The fasteners were made of brass. The corners were broken and dented.

  “Dad kept this all these years?”

  Toshiro didn’t answer. He walked over to a stack of shirts and coats piled on top of a wicker basket.

  Here were Arthur’s clothes. Billy was thinking how worn they seemed with their frayed cuffs. How lonely they looked. Toshiro began sorting. He did not look back at Billy. At the funeral, Toshiro had acted in the same silent way. Billy knew the barrier between him and his niisan, his older half-brother, would remain impenetrable. Toshiro lived in his own private country, a landscape of bitter regrets and petty jealousies. Billy moved beside Toshiro and began lifting and folding the old clothes. “Do you want to keep any of this?”

  Toshiro nodded. “I can use the tweed coat.” He picked it up and put it on the paint table nearby.

  Nata came into the room. She and Billy got along well. Very often it was Nata who would speak to Billy on behalf of Toshiro. “I’m making tea,” she said. There was a sweetness in her tone.

  After an hour, the clothes were sorted. Billy told his brother he wanted nothing. Just his mother’s suitcase. Toshiro offered him a few snapshots of Arthur taken when he was a young man. Billy shuffled through them. “I’ve never seen these before.”

  In one of the sepia-coloured snaps, Arthur looked tired. Despair seemed to hang in the air around him, and his forlorn face brought pain to Billy. How vulnerable and innocent had he been? For the first time, Billy felt an odd yet very real connection between his memory of Arthur and his feeling for Darren Riegert. He looked at another snap. It was a shot of the dirt road leading away from the farm where Arthur had worked. By the road stood a frail, dark-haired girl: Setsuko, Arthur’s sister. Billy glanced through the snapshots once more before placing them carefully in his upper-right jacket pocket.

  Then he and Toshiro closed the boxes, turned out the light, and went upstairs.

  “Take care, brother,” Billy whispered. He then turned without seeing his brother’s reaction and walked quickly out the back door and towards his Pontiac. Billy opened the trunk, placed the battered suitcase in it, and slammed the lid shut. He drove away in silence.

  Fields of barley to his right and left took on the pale mauve of the late-day sun. Passing into the city of Lethbridge, he drove off the ramp onto Burdett, took the turn past Galt Gardens and the old railway station, then continued north towards the central police station. As he drove into a parking spot, Billy could hear the rush of cars going down the old brewery hill towards the new subdivisions crowding the west bank of the Oldman River. He walked into the reception area and down the hallway of locked offices. The door to Butch’s office was the only one open at this hour. Butch was leaning against his filing cabinet stuffing paper into a folder.

  “I got a message from Professor Mucklowe,” Butch said. “On the com system. Here.” Butch walked to his desk, flipped on his com attachment, put the phone on speaker, and clicked a couple of code numbers on the touch-tone keyboard. Randy spoke: “I figured I should call you. I’ll be in Montana for a week on a dig up at Chief Mountain. I’ll be taking the student crew down with me to the site. Thought you should know my cell number — 456-7889 — just in case you needed to talk. Sheree Lynn is staying at my place at least for the next few days. I assume you wanted us to keep in touch. Sorry for this voice-mail message.”

  “That was nice of him, eh?”

  “Seems eager to let us know where he is.”

  “You off home?”

  “I plan to come in early tomorrow morning. To go over files.”

  “Finally got the police board to grant you a week-by-week honorarium. As a consultant. Dodd will have the numbers for you Tuesday. You see the Morton boy again?”

  “Yes. He was heavily sedated. He’d been violent and disoriented when brought in. I found a third Polaroid.”

  “So I heard.”

  “The same subject, a red Valentine heart. It’s actually a picture of a chocolate box. But it was stuck in the book from the crime site.”

  Butch gathered up papers from his desk, and the two of them walked to the parking lot. Gusting breezes lifted their hair and flattened their pants against their thighs. The wind was promising hotter weather for Monday morning. Butch climbed into his cruiser. “I’m helping out Lorraine at her store first thing tomorrow in Fort Macleod. Big tourist day. But I’ll see you later in the morning, buddy,” he said and drove off. Billy got into the Pontiac, fastened his seatbelt, and backed out of the parking space. He rolled down his window. The riddle, the koan, will turn and turn, he thought as he lowered the sun visor against the slanting rays in the west.

  From the police station to the main highway was no more than a three-minute drive. Billy’s Pontiac coasted down the brewery hill, passing under the huge iron High Level Bridge. Heading west on Highway 3, he drove over the Oldman, which cut between the greening coulee hills, its churning waters the colour of milky tea, then northwest through Kipp and Coalhurst, and onto the old Crowsnest Trail towards home. Pulling into the ranch, he shut off the engine. Still waiting for him by the front porch were the fir trees in burlap bags and the sacks of white stones. In the evening sun, the raked yard in front of the clapboard house and the gentle lift of the fields seemed to generate light on their own. Farther on, the butte of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump shimmered in the dying heat.

  After supper, Billy put on a light sweater and strolled out to the concession road. Evening was his favourite part of the day. To him, the changing sky had a mysterious order all its own. Clouds banked in the west, turning grey then gold, long soft-edged wind clouds hovering in the dying light over the cragged wall of the Rockies that ran up from the Montana border to the south. A white-tail buck sprinted across the gravel, its tail held up like a feather duster, then pranced over the gentle rise towards the butte. When he returned to the house, Billy walked around checking windows, locking the kitchen and the front doors.

  He sat on the sofa in the parlour and closed his eyes. Quiet harmony: acting through not acting.

  The koan floated like a petal on still water.

  No fingerprints. The single link? His mind turned. He imagined Harry Stone sitting across from him, feet up on the edge of his desk as they used to do on night duty, the harbour of Vancouver twinkling outside the squad room windows. Harry liked to go over the day’s business. “Let’s add it up, Yam,” Harry would say, cupping his hands behind his head. Billy would sit forward, flipping through his notebook.

  “We got Blayne Morton.”

  “Possible nut case,” Harry said. “He’s hiding something with that playacting. A sad, mean bully. And bullies like to pick on losers — like Darren. Maybe Morton was into that Satan crap. Who knows? He may have been in love with Darren. Maybe taking his picture and cutting him up was a kinky kind of sex game they had going.”

  There was certainly a motive for Blayne’s behaviour and witnesses to his treatment of Darren before the crime took place. “But watch yourself, Yam. Three Polaroids won’t get you a conviction. You need hard evidence: an item that places Morton at the crime scene in the right time frame.”

  “And we have Woody Keeler.”

  “Well,” said Harry, “don’t push that issue yet. You figure he’s a violent jerk? Of course he is. But a killer or torturer? Sure, the nicest old ladies poison their husbands. But what’s his motive? Or is he a psychopath who needs no other motive than the pleasure of getting off on his victim’s screams?”

  Billy reflected on these ideas before glancing at the clock on the fireplace mantel. The close silence reminded him of the quiet in the basement rooms of Satan House. The quiet of a tomb. What about the cult connection? The candles on the floor? The markings on the walls? These were still worth investigation. He would review files on Monday, then on Tuesday find more on Blayne Morton and Woody Keeler. Perhaps a visit to Mrs. Morton with a search warrant.


  Billy turned out the light. He stretched and, as he left the room, smiled.

  “Night, Harry.”

  MONDAY, JULY 1

  Billy bent over the sacks of white stones he’d brought home four days before from the Canadian Tire nursery. He hauled the sacks to the patch of dug-up earth for his father Arthur’s honour garden. It was designed as a dry space, in the Zen tradition, and was kidney-shaped, the smaller end having a cairn of fieldstones arranged to represent mountains. Planted opposite the cairn was a dwarf pine. Billy ripped open the sacks and on a top layer of pressed sand raked the white stones first into separate mounds and then into long patterns of parallel lines. For an hour, he dug and arranged stones, standing back once in a while to make sure his patterns were even. By 7:15, his muscles were sore, but he decided to keep on working. He tore open the last sack. Like heavy snow, the white stones scattered, their polished sides catching the early light. He spread them, and with the handle end of the rake he drew swirls and eddies.

  Stone imitating water. The perfect Zen paradox.

  During breakfast, the phone rang. It was Lorraine Bochansky asking him if he could come to her store in Fort Macleod. She needed a favour. “Of course,” Billy said. He rinsed the dishes, took a quick shower, and was on the road before nine o’clock.

  Fort Macleod lay ten kilometres along the Crowsnest Trail due east of the Naughton ranch. The log stockade on the outskirts of the town was a replica of the first outpost of 1874 built by the Northwest Mounted Police. Main Street boasted gas lamps and renovated storefronts. Lorraine Bochansky’s antique store was a narrow single-storey building wedged between the bank and the old-time livery stable. Its cramped quarters were stuffed with camel-backed sofas, roll-top desks, imitation Tiffany lamps, and the occasional four-poster.

  “Hi, there,” said Lorraine. She was pointing to a walnut cabinet on the back porch. The cabinet’s smooth varnish and flawless grain were half hidden under a blue plastic tarp.

  “Looks heavy enough,” Billy said as he came up the steps.

  Lorraine Bochansky had short brown hair and wore hoop earrings. She was just under six feet, and her face was a mass of freckles. When she talked, she stood with her hands on her hips. “Butch put his back out this morning, climbing into the tub.” Lorraine clicked her tongue. “I warned him. ‘Stress builds up,’ I said. You bend the wrong way, and in a second you’re flat on your back. You’re a doll, Billy, helping like this. Tourists flock here on the holiday weekend, as you can imagine. I think this darling cabinet will be snapped up in no time.”

  Billy helped Lorraine fold the tarp, and then he placed a small dirty carpet under the rounded feet of the cabinet. Lorraine removed the bottom drawers, and Billy grasped the edge of the carpet. Only four feet to cover, but the porch was rough and slanted.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  The two of them slid the cabinet into the main area of the store.

  “We did it,” Lorraine cried happily. She hugged Billy, then went to her small office to turn on the automatic coffee machine.

  Outside, Fort Macleod was waking up: boys flew by on bicycles, a dog pranced to the window and pressed its wet nose to the glass. Billy threw himself into a large wing chair, dust puffing from the sagging cushions. On a table, beside him, was a bunch of bills and papers that he carelessly picked up and began to peruse, his eyes glancing at prices and phone numbers and short descriptions of various pieces. The smell of coffee wafted into the brightening gloom of the store.

  “I still like it,” he said.

  “What?” asked Lorraine, bringing Billy a mug of fresh coffee.

  “‘Keepsakes’ . . . the name you gave the place.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “What is this stuff, anyway?”

  “Invoices, bills of lading, info sheets.”

  “No, I know that. But what is this stuff from the border?”

  “Let me see. I got this at Chief Mountain. I had to show my licence when I declared a sofa, and customs handed me a whole raft of these descriptions. All to do with contraband, missing artifacts. As a member of the Antique Dealers Association of North America, I often get bulletins. I guess the border people are particularly sensitive this time of year with the high volume of traffic.”

  “To all dealers,” Billy began. He read out loud one of the four yellow sheets with official government letterhead: “Found a year ago on the Cutbank Ranch, Montana, seven gold and shell masks. Decorative, religious objects believed to be ceremonial dating from late 18th century. Pueblo in origin. . . .” Billy took a sip of his coffee.“Shall I read on?” he asked.

  “Please do, I rarely glance at those things since most of them don’t really apply to the store.” Lorraine was now preparing the cash register and lighting scented candles to place in the darker corners.

  “Masks were sold by the Blackfoot community by order of the Montana Court of Appeals to the University of Montana. Subsequently stolen, they are believed to be in custody of the felons. Masks are five inches long by six inches wide, oval, flat not convex (see illustration), with incised mouth configuration of mother-of-pearl mounted under a two-inch strip of beaten Mexican gold with eye-shape cut outs. Valuable intact.” Billy paused. “Sounds like a find.”

  “Well, I’ve never seen them. The woman I dealt with in Montana said the masks were dug up by her neighbour. He was charged with theft under the Antiquities Act in the States. That’s why the matter went to court. Imagine finding such a treasure on your own land and then being labelled a thief.”

  “But then the goods were stolen by a real thief, so it says here. From the university. Why were they there?”

  “Placed by the government as part of a new Native museum. I hear the masks are very lovely.”

  Billy finished his coffee, folded the bulletin, and put it back on the table. He rose from the wing chair. What mattered now was to get his day going.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  Lorraine accompanied Billy to his car.

  “How long has it been now, if you don’t mind me prying, since you and Cynthia divorced?”

  “Nine years.”

  “And you’re still a lone wolf, aren’t you?”

  Billy didn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Coffee’s always on,” she then said, cheerily, “if you ever want to stop by.”

  “Good to know. I’ll call Butch when I get to town.”

  Thirty minutes later, Billy was at the station in Lethbridge, the halls quiet except for the dispatch sergeant answering a query on the telephone. He called Butch, but he was probably still sleeping. Billy found the Morton file. He copied down the address and phone number. Then he called the psychiatric ward at the regional hospital and spoke to a night nurse who was just going off duty. The boy had spent a quiet night, and he was still mildly sedated. His mother had not come by, nor had she appeared earlier that morning. She was expected soon.

  Crossing reception, Billy went out to the station parking lot and searched for his city map in the tumbled mess he called his glove compartment. Mrs. Morton lived in a new subdivision in the southeast part of the city; Billy remembered it from his high school days as bordering the old stadium. The Pontiac sputtered a little as he drove down Dawson; by the time he turned onto Magrath Drive, the engine had settled. The new Loblaws signalled the street, and it took Billy only a minute before he found the small three-storey apartment building with the red front door. The superintendent, a tall Sikh woman with grey hair, accompanied Billy to Mrs. Morton’s apartment and waited as he rang the doorbell. There was no answer. “She goes to her sister’s once in a while, I believe,” the superintendent said.

  “Do you have an address for her?” Billy asked.

  “No. The woman lives outside of the city on a farm, and Mrs. Morton goes by bus.”

  Billy drove back to the station. He went through the file on Mrs. Morton once more, phoned the company where she worked as a cleaner, and was greeted by a recorded
message saying the company was closed for the holiday. Putting the file back, Billy went to dispatch and asked the sergeant to draft him a search warrant. Then he went to the canteen, found it closed too, and climbed back upstairs to Butch’s office. He began reading through other files and reviewing the taped statements of Bird and Mucklowe. Rubbing his bum knee, he was starting to feel frustrated and fearful. Evidence was not turning up. There were petty delays. He sat back. At least he’d done good work on his father’s honour garden. The other bother was yesterday’s visit with Toshiro. But let that go, he thought. Don’t let anger get between you and him. Toshiro is the only connection you have left to Arthur.

  Billy stood and stretched his arms. He wondered if Butch would be back to work by tomorrow. Time was running out.

  “Damn,” he whispered. He sat down on the carpet, pulled his aching knee forward into the lotus position, and began to meditate. Let it come, let it float. . . .

  Justin Moore paused in the open doorway. The brightness of noon sun shining into the hallway reminded him just how early he had awakened this morning. The wall facing the open door showed an Inuit print. A coloured bird dancing on a man’s head.

  Justin thought: Maybe Randy can help me. It won’t hurt to try.

  He heard laughter.

  “Hello?”

  “Is that you, Justin?”

  Professor Mucklowe’s voice came from somewhere down the hall. Justin walked towards it.

  Maybe he can give me a loan.

  The living room lay to Justin’s left. It was a large empty square with one chair and beige wall-to-wall carpet. A glass cabinet stood by the window like a lonely monument in the echoing space. Its top shelves displayed Professor Mucklowe’s collection of amulets and arrowheads. “The Plains Indians,” Professor Mucklowe once said in a lecture, “have sown the prairie earth with their artifacts: spear tips, arrowheads, hatchets.” The dining room was also empty. Where’s his furniture?

  “There you are, Justin. I was afraid you’d forgotten about our meeting.”