by Alex Barclay
‘It’s just so poignant that Jesse Coombes would think to tidy this place,’ said Ren. ‘It’s like … fuck. He’s a teenage boy, he should be out having fun with his buddies, instead of creeping around here in the middle of the night to keep his anger problems under control because his father is a dickhead.’
They stopped at the grave with the most prominent headstone and read the inscription.
Fr Daniel O’Sullivan
1st Chaplain of Evergreen Abbey
b. 1877 d. 1959
I am at peace.
‘He has to be Irish,’ said Ren. ‘Not to buy into clichés, of course.’
‘Of course …’ said Janine.
‘I once dated an Irish guy,’ said Ren. ‘It was all liquor and sex.’
‘We’re in a cemetery …’
‘He was a total depressive, though,’ said Ren. ‘And I couldn’t compete with his mom. He called her mammy. It freaked me out. I broke it off with him before she came to visit. He’d see us side by side and know she was The One.’
Janine laughed.
They walked to the back of the cemetery. ‘Oh,’ said Janine, pointing. ‘Maybe Jesse Coombes didn’t quite succeed in fully taming that anger of his.’
Close to the corner, a gravestone had been broken, parts of it scattered about.
‘Surely he knew we were going to come check out his story,’ said Ren.
‘It might not have happened on the same night,’ said Janine. ‘Because Kohler would have mentioned if he saw a desecrated grave during the search.’
‘Good point,’ said Ren.
They both put on gloves and picked up the pieces of the gravestone.
‘Jigsaw time,’ said Ren.
‘Finally, work and play have collided.’
‘Every time I’m around work and play collide,’ said Ren.
‘What was I thinking?’ said Janine.
They laid out the pieces of stone on the ground behind the grave.
‘We’re missing bits,’ said Ren.
‘Well spotted,’ said Janine. Deadpan.
‘OK, we’ve got an E, L, E and a b. 1940,’ said Ren. ‘And an R, D. And a d. 1957.’
‘And a BA and a b. 1957.’
The rest of the inscription was impossible to read or gone. Ren stopped.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. She turned to Janine. ‘Jesse Coombes talked about a baby’s grave. Baby Ward. Look – there’s a b. 1957 and a d. 1957. A baby who died at birth? And … the mother … the letters …’
Ren pulled out her phone.
‘What is it?’ said Janine.
‘I need to call Eleanor Jensen,’ said Ren. ‘Hi, Eleanor, it’s Ren Bryce – do you have access to the admission records of the abbey? Like, when it was an abbey, originally?’
‘There’s an old file cabinet here,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’ve never really poked around in it too much.’
‘Could you look up Delores Ward’s details?’ said Ren.
‘Is there some kind of problem?’ said Eleanor.
‘No,’ said Ren, ‘it’s just something I need to find out. I’m putting you on speaker with Janine Hooks from the Sheriff’s Office.’
‘OK, hello,’ said Eleanor.
‘Delores Ward wasn’t very forthcoming when we spoke about where she came from,’ said Ren. ‘Nothing untoward. I just really need to know if she’s from Butte, Montana.’
Ren could hear the rattle and scrape of a filing cabinet being opened and the clacking plastic of the tops of the file folders.
‘OK, I’ve got Ward,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’ve got it …’ She paused. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Delores Ward, born in 1940, doesn’t say where. Came here to the abbey in 1957 … used to be one of “Ma’s girls” … Ma was one of the madams, the brothel keepers on Colfax. Oh. Well, that can’t be right …’
‘What?’ said Ren.
‘There are medical files here,’ said Eleanor. ‘Oh …’ Her voice had plunged an octave. ‘Oh … it says here Delores Ward died in 1957 in childbirth. Daughter, Baby Ward, stillborn on the same day.’
Ren and Janine stared at each other.
‘Thank you,’ said Ren. ‘Please keep this confidential, Eleanor. I’ll get back to you.’
She hung up.
‘Oh my God,’ said Ren. ‘Whoever is in that cabin, stole the identity of some poor lady-of-the-night who died in childbirth. Why?’ Why? Why?
Ren and Janine jumped back into the Jeep.
‘But what’s Delores Ward got to do with Jesse Coombes?’ said Ren.
‘Only one way to find out,’ said Janine.
As they drove, the sky darkened, as if a switch had been flicked. Ren sped up the driveway to The Darned Heart. Outside the main building, groups of kids and adults were standing around. Two security men were in a huddle with Kristen Faule.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ said Janine.
They ran up to Kristen Faule. ‘What happened?’ said Ren.
‘They got into a fight,’ said Kristen. ‘Conor and Jesse. Conor’s gone.’
Janine called the report in to Kohler.
A boy in a ranch staffer T-shirt appeared in the doorway with Jesse Coombes beside him, holding a bloodied towel to his head. Jesse looked over at Ren and Janine.
He pushed the staffer to the ground … and ran.
56
Ren and Janine sprinted after Jesse, following him down the hallway toward Kristen’s office.
‘Jesse!’ said Ren. ‘Stop! Put your hands where I can see them!’
He kept running.
‘Jesse!’ said Ren. ‘You don’t want to do this. You really don’t want to do this. You’ll be in bigger trouble.’
He started to slow.
Do the right thing, Jesse. Do the right thing.
Jesse stopped. He turned around. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Rinse, repeat.
Jesse Coombes did not have the physique for fighting, nor the face, nor the demeanor. Nothing about the cuts and bruises looked right. He didn’t even seem to know how to hold himself as an injured person. He was almost hovering on the chair.
‘Jesse, where is Conor?’ said Ren.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jesse. He was tilting his head up, so his good eye was facing her. The other was swollen shut.
Ren slammed her hands on the table. ‘Where is he, Jesse?’
‘I told you, I don’t know.’
They both looked up as rain began to pour down on the skylight above them.
‘How was he when he left?’ said Ren. ‘What was his state of mind?’
‘He was angry,’ said Jesse. He looked away. ‘I told you. Conor’s always angry.’
‘About what?’ said Ren.
Jesse wouldn’t shift his gaze from the floor.
Ren turned to Janine. ‘We’re not getting a lot here, Detective Hooks. Would you mind staying with Jesse, while I go talk to Mrs Faule?’
‘No problem,’ said Janine. ‘Go ahead.’
Kristen Faule was standing outside the room with one of the young residents beside her, another boy of around Jesse’s age.
She turned to him. ‘Could you give us a moment, please?’
He walked a little way down the hallway.
‘What’s going on?’ said Ren.
Kristen leaned in. ‘Conor Gorman’s in a lot of trouble. Even more so, now, after what he did to Jesse. We found out three days ago that Conor desecrated a grave in the abbey’s cemetery—’
‘That was him …’ said Ren.
Kristen nodded.
‘How do you know that?’ said Ren.
‘He didn’t do too great a job of washing the dust out of his hair, off his sneakers … washing the hammer he used, putting it back properly in the tool shed …
Isn’t that Covering Your Tracks 101?
‘We tried to contact Robert Prince,’ said Kristen, ‘but we couldn’t get hold of him because he’s away on business and isn’t taking calls. We did get in touch with Ingrid Prince who said she would
fly in from New York yesterday afternoon and pick Conor up last night. We decided to terminate his stay here.’
Wow.
‘Did she come?’ said Ren.
‘She called last night to say that she was delayed,’ said Kristen. ‘She was packing up the house in Golden and said that she would come by in the morning instead. This morning. She still hasn’t showed.’
‘Do you think Conor was happy or reluctant to leave?’ said Ren.
‘I … don’t know,’ said Kristen. ‘He seemed neutral on the topic. Apathetic.’
‘He’s a smart kid,’ said Ren. ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that he didn’t make more of an effort to hide what he had done?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ said Kristen. ‘I put it down to an angry outburst – hot-headed lack of thinking, more than anything.’
‘So, what happened between him and Jesse?’ said Ren.
‘That’s why I brought Kyle. Kyle, can you please come speak with Agent Bryce? Thank you.’
The boy walked over.
‘Nice to meet you,’ said Ren. ‘Can you tell me what you saw?’
‘Conor and Jesse got into a fight in the men’s room,’ said Kyle.
‘Do you know why?’ said Ren.
‘It was, like, different things. Conor was giving out to Jesse about what he did to the cemetery—’
‘What Jesse did?’ said Ren.
‘Yes,’ said Kyle.
Ren and Kristen glanced at each other. Shouldn’t it have been Jesse giving out to Conor?
‘Then Jesse was calling Conor a liar,’ said Kyle. ‘He pushed Conor, he told him he had betrayed him again, he said that’s all anyone does. He told Conor that he was fucked up, that he lied to him, he’d used him, and he’d promised he wouldn’t leave. Conor said it was none of Jesse’s damn business what he did with his life.’ He paused. ‘They were talking about a phone. Conor was going crazy about that.’
The confiscated cell phone.
‘Is there anything else you can think of?’ said Ren.
‘No,’ said Kyle. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you know where Conor might have gone?’ said Ren.
‘No,’ said Kyle. ‘I don’t really know Conor.’
‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘Thank you.’
‘Please wait down the hallway, Kyle,’ said Kristen.
‘I’m going to go back in to talk to Jesse,’ said Ren. ‘If you hear anything, please report to me immediately.’
‘I will,’ said Kristen.
Ren stuck her head into the interview room and called Janine to the door to quietly fill her in.
They went back in to Jesse and sat down opposite him.
‘Can I get a drink?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Ren. ‘OK, Jesse – you were overheard saying to Conor earlier that he betrayed you “again” – what did you mean by that?’
‘Just that he was leaving the ranch,’ said Jesse. ‘He’s my only friend. I need a friend right now … with my dad and everything …’
‘Were you trying to stop Conor from leaving today?’ said Ren.
‘He attacked me,’ said Jesse. ‘Anyone who was there saw that.’
‘And why did he do that?’ said Ren.
‘Just because I asked him about leaving,’ said Jesse. ‘He’s been acting really weird. Since you interviewed him … it was like you’d given him a really hard time or something – I don’t know. He came out of there mad.’
‘We did not give him a hard time,’ said Ren. ‘I can promise you that. Quite the opposite. We offered our condolences about his Aunt Laura. We were respectful. We were trying to gather information for our investigation, and he thanked us at the end. I’m having a hard time believing that he could have walked away from that interview angry.’
Jesse shrugged. ‘I’m just telling you what I saw. He didn’t say that you had given him a hard time – that was just my understanding of it.’
‘From now on, I need you to stick to the facts,’ said Ren. ‘Your understanding of events might not reflect the reality, OK?’
Jesse nodded.
‘Why was Conor talking about the cell phone?’ said Ren. ‘I’m presuming that was the one we got today from Kristen Faule.’
Jesse went very still. ‘Yes. He wanted to use it, but I told him I didn’t have it any more. I had let him borrow it a few times before. The Saturday before his aunt was killed, I heard him talking to her about Robert Prince, about fraud, about Robert probably going to jail, about how it was Conor’s chance to leave the ranch, to start a new life …’
‘So you did think he was planning to leave,’ said Ren.
‘Yes,’ said Jesse, ‘but I swear to God, I didn’t do anything …’
‘Did you see his Aunt Laura as the person who would take him away from you?’ said Ren.
Jesse frowned. ‘No. It sounded like Conor wanted to leave. It didn’t sound like anyone was forcing him.’
‘You burned the journal two days later, you burned the photos of Conor – are you sure that wasn’t because you were mad at him?’ said Ren.
‘No – he was leaving, he said he didn’t need the photos any more,’ said Jesse.
‘Why did Conor run away today?’ said Ren.
Jesse shrugged. ‘Because of what he did to me, how he would be in trouble because of the grave … and I guess he doesn’t want to go back to the Princes.’
57
Janine’s phone started to vibrate. She took it out. She leaned in to Ren and whispered. ‘It’s a New York number … I think it’s Carolina Vescovi. I’m going to step outside.’
‘Sure, go ahead,’ said Ren.
She took out her phone and texted Everett.
Boy at ranch lent phone to Conor Gorman, says he heard him talking about Robert Prince and fraud – Kohler processing phone records. Any updates? Also, where is RP? Anything on flight records?
Ren turned back to Jesse. ‘I need you to think where Conor might have gone.’
‘Conor could go anywhere,’ said Jesse. ‘He doesn’t give a … he doesn’t care.’
‘OK,’ said Ren, ‘tell me the rest. You fought in the restroom …’
‘Yes,’ said Jesse. ‘And then we were out in the hallway … and out by the stables.’
‘And then what happened?’ said Ren.
Her phone beeped with a text from Everett.
On the case. Will call pleasantly.
‘We shouted at each other a little more,’ said Jesse, ‘and that’s when he punched me in the face. He split the skin. He stormed off. I couldn’t see. There was blood pouring into my eye.’
‘Jesse – did Conor say he was annoyed at you for tidying the cemetery?’ said Ren.
‘Yes, but I don’t know what it had to do with him. I mean, he trashed it – he’s the one people should be mad at. I don’t get it.’
Then it hit her. Tidying it up was the issue. When Jesse tidied up, he uncovered the headstones, including the one that revealed Delores Ward’s secret. For Conor to have gone and broken that exact headstone is a little too coincidental, meaning that Conor knows Delores Ward … and perhaps he owed her a favor or was expecting one in return. But why? What could a woman like Delores Ward have done for Conor Gorman?
Outside in the hallway, Janine picked up the call from Carolina Vescovi.
‘I’m sorry for getting off the phone so abruptly,’ said Carolina.
‘That’s OK,’ said Janine. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘I … I … guess I never believed that people could bury a memory like this,’ said Carolina. ‘But … but I had,’ she said. ‘That woman in the photograph. She was … I was eight years old. I remember I was in the restaurant, we used to live above it. I was supposed to be in my room, but I had snuck down and I was playing in the coat check. I was sitting on the floor underneath where the coats were hanging down from the rail. And … a man came over to me and he started talking to me. He crouched down, told me how pretty I was. I remember him reaching out, rubbing
my cheek. It was horrible. I was terrified. And then, this beautiful face appeared. This face right here in front of me. Viggi Leinster. But she looked as terrified as I was. And she put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. I remember her beautiful red nails and how her knuckles turned white. She said to him, “Come on, now, honey. Our table is ready.” He looked really angry. When he was out of the way, this woman reached out, took my hand and pulled me up to standing.
‘She said, “Sweetheart, you run along up to your house and never, ever, come down here on your own again. And if you see that man again, you make sure you don’t talk to him.”’ Carolina paused. ‘A couple of nights later, I saw him again. I was looking out the window in the back courtyard. And I saw my father roaring and shouting at him. It was Walter Prince. It was only when I saw her face that I connected the two.’
Janine’s heart was pounding.
‘I spoke with my mother about that time,’ said Carolina. ‘She said that Viggi Leinster kind of burst onto the scene on the arm of Walter Prince. There was a huge age gap that no one spoke of, but Mom reckons that Viggi couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. I couldn’t believe it, but you know … when you’re young, you think everyone is so much older than they are. Apparently, she used to tell people she was going to be an actress. Silver screen or no silver screen, this girl shone, my mother said.
‘No one had heard of Walter Prince in New York and, at first, they passed themselves off, not as husband and wife, but as father and daughter. How creepy is that? They lived in a beautiful apartment, they led a glamorous social life, they hosted parties. They were popular people. Anyway, eventually, their secret came out. But all it seemed to do was make them even more exotic. And then? She was gone, and he was gone. I’m saving the worst till last. The reason there are no statements from my parents in the police report is because they were paid off by Walter Prince. Everyone in the restaurant that night was paid off.’
‘Even the kitchen staff, busboys?’ said Janine.
‘Yes,’ said Carolina.
‘One of them said that Viggi was having an affair with a man called Angelo Marianelli,’ said Janine.
‘I can tell you for sure that was not true,’ said Carolina. ‘Angelo Marianelli was gay. Closeted, but I know my parents knew.’