Black Water

by Rosemary McCracken

  I sucked in my breath.

  Ted closed his eyes and clenched his hands on the table.

  “The Critchleys’ baby is taken from his carriage,” Soupy said. “And Ted’s son is found dead in his crib. You mean—”

  Lainey looked at her son. “After Lyle’s funeral last week, I went upstairs with Bruce. He changed his shirt in his room, and I saw the port-wine birthmark on the back of his neck and down his back. The same birthmark Lyle and Edna’s baby had, though it’s darker now. Those marks generally darken after infancy.”

  Soupy’s eyes nearly bulged out of his face. “Bruce is the Critchleys’ son?”

  Ted ran a hand over his forehead. “As soon as I saw the baby, I knew he wasn’t our kid. They both had blue eyes and fair, fuzzy hair, but he wasn’t our kid.”

  “Man, I can’t believe this!” Soupy said.

  “Vi was out of her mind with grief,” Ted said. “The only thing she could think of was to get her baby back. We lived in one of the second-floor flats across the street from Kresge’s. From our living room window, Vi saw the baby carriages on the sidewalk.”

  “One of those babies was mine.” Lainey turned to Soupy. “Charlie. When Edna’s son went missing, I thought, ‘That could have been my Charlie!’ ”

  “Charlie’s my older brother,” Soupy said to me.

  “Vi took our carriage across the street,” Ted said in a flat voice. “When no one was around, she put Edna’s baby in it. She wouldn’t have taken Charlie, not with his dark hair. She took Edna’s son because he was fair, like our boy. And she knew that Edna was bottle-feeding him, just like she was.”

  His face collapsed. “I’ve been over this so many times in my head. If only she’d called me when Bruce died. If I’d been there for her, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “You should have taken the baby back to Edna and Lyle as soon as you found out.” Lainey’s eyes bored into him. “Do you know how much Edna suffered? All those years, she had no idea what had happened to her child. She wondered if he was still alive. And it turned Lyle into a mean old drunk.”

  He bowed his head. “I had to protect Vi. She would have gone to jail, and that would have driven her over the edge. I couldn’t let that happen.” He looked up at us. “She was a good mother. She loved that baby. Both those babies.”

  Lainey threw him a scornful look. “So you ran away.”

  He looked longingly at her. Pleading for forgiveness, I thought. “We couldn’t stay here. Edna and Lyle would have recognized their boy as soon as they saw him. I’d been applying for jobs at the Toronto newspapers and I’d been offered one the month before. But Vi refused to leave Braeloch so I turned it down. Now I told her we had no choice. We had to get away. Luckily, the editor at The World still wanted me.”

  “What happened to your son’s…body?” I asked.

  “The ground was still frozen.” Ted looked down at his hands. “But the ice on the lake at my cabin was breaking up. I weighted him down with stones and put him in the lake.”

  “In the lake?” Lainey cried. “He didn’t get a proper burial.”

  “No.” Ted croaked the word out.

  “The turtles and the fish would have eaten him in no time,” Soupy said.

  We sat in silence for several moments. How could Ted and Vi have got away with kidnapping a child?

  “Healthy babies’ blood types weren’t recorded back then,” Lainey said. “We filled out a government form with our names, our address and where our baby was born, and a few weeks later a birth certificate arrived in the mail. When the baby got his shots, the family doc wrote them down in a little booklet. Vi would have given her booklet to her new doctor in Toronto.”

  She looked at Ted. “Did Dr. Sloan send Bruce’s medical records to Toronto?”

  “The Toronto doctor didn’t ask for them,” he said.

  “So Lyle Critchley Junior grew up as Bruce Stohl,” Lainey continued, “with a birth certificate to prove it.”

  “Lyle found out who Bruce was and he confronted you, Ted.” I felt a flicker of fear as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

  He jerked upright in his chair. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Lyle must’ve seen Bruce’s birthmark, with the two of them working at the church,” Lainey said. “Maybe when Bruce mowed the lawn last summer.”

  Ted gave us a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Wasn’t summer. It was just a few weeks ago, after Father Brisebois went into hospital. Bruce took a shower in the rectory and came downstairs without his shirt.”

  His shoulders collapsed. “I should’ve left Vi in that nursing home in Toronto.” His voice was filled with bitterness and regret. “Bruce only came to Braeloch to be near her.”

  “When did Lyle speak to you?” I asked.

  “Came to the house one evening.”

  “What happened?” I had to keep him talking.

  “I denied everything, of course. Then Lyle said he was going to the police and they’d have a DNA test done.”

  “But he didn’t.” Of course he didn’t. If Lyle had told the police, Ted would have been their prime murder suspect.

  “My guess is he hadn’t got used to the idea that Bruce was his son. Those two rubbed each other the wrong way. Like chalk and cheese.”

  “But it was only a matter of time till he told the police,” I said. “And Bruce.”

  His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “I knew from Maria Dawson, our copy editor at The Times, that Lyle went to an AA meeting in Lindsay every Thursday afternoon. He drove down with her husband, Ross. After the meeting, Lyle and Ross usually had a bite to eat before they drove back home, and Maria could work late Thursday nights when we put most of the paper to bed. But Thursday two weeks ago, Maria came down with the flu. I sent her home at noon, said I’d finish up what I could that evening and put the front page together in the morning.”

  “You and Maria were the only ones who worked late on Thursdays?” I asked.

  “Right.”

  “A perfect opportunity,” I said.

  “Damn right it was.” His eyes blazed. “I drove out to Highway 123 with two cans of gasoline, parked behind the old Anglican church that closed down last year. It’s a few properties up the road from the Critchley place and there’s a bike path behind the buildings. A cold front had moved in, but earlier that week we’d had a thaw with lots of rain. The asphalt on the path was clear of snow, and so was Lyle’s drive. There was even a strip of bare asphalt behind the garage where I waited for him.”

  Ted met my eyes. Now he was a penitent seeking absolution. “I just wanted to scare Lyle enough so he’d back off. I splashed gasoline on the garage and opened the door. It wasn’t locked. When he pulled into the driveway, I set fire to the building. But he drove right into the garage. There was a great whoosh of flames and the entire building was ablaze. I didn’t think it would go up so fast.”

  He held a hand over his face.

  I was afraid his mood swings—anger, defiance, remorse and back again—would erupt into violence. He was unraveling.

  “You didn’t try to get him out?” Lainey asked.

  “I couldn’t. The garage was an inferno. The heat was ferocious.”

  I pictured the building alive with flames. I hoped the smoke had got to Lyle quickly.

  “It wasn’t enough for you to take his child and ruin his life.” Lainey’s voice was filled with fury. “You had to kill him too. And brutally.”

  “It’s not what I intended.” Ted spoke in a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t expect him to drive into the garage.”

  “Then why did you open the door?” Lainey asked. “Then you closed it on him. The door was down when the firefighters arrived.”

  Ted closed his eyes. “I panicked. I didn’t want him to come out and find me, so I pulled down the door.”

  Lainey stared at him for a few moments, her mouth partly open. “You locked him in there.”

  “No. I just pulled down the door.”

  “You
might as well have locked him in,” Soupy said. “The metal handle on the door was probably too hot for him to hold.”

  “You started the fire after Lyle was inside the garage,” I put in. “If he’d seen flames, he wouldn’t have driven in. You meant to trap him in there.”

  “No, you’re wrong. I never planned…”

  “It was cold-blooded and calculated,” I said.

  The angry Ted was back. “Yes, I did plan it that way.” His voice rang out. He pounded both fists on the table. “He threatened me. He wanted to ruin my good name.”

  He stood up. “And what are you going to do about it?”

  Soupy was about to go over to him, but Lainey held him back.

  “You want to tell the police?” Ted said. “You think they’ll believe you? It would be my word against yours. My word! The word of the editor and publisher of The Highland Times. You have no proof, no witnesses.”

  He was at the door. “Go ahead. Call them. I dare you.” He slammed the door behind him.

  I pulled out my chair away from the table and motioned for Soupy to get up. “Call the police,” I said to Lainey.

  She reached across the table and gripped my wrist. “Let Ted go.”

  Something in her eyes made me sink back into my chair. We heard the van start up outside and drive off. I turned to Lainey. “The police need to know about this.”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll tell them what he said and let them handle it.” She shrugged. “What could we have done here? Tackle Ted and tie him up like a hog?”

  “Yeah, Mom, that’s what we should have done,” Soupy said.

  “Let’s go to the detachment now,” I said.

  Soupy rose from his chair. “C’mon, Mom, I’ll follow your car. Pat can ride with you.”

  Lainey crossed her arms over her chest. “No. I’ll go with your father tomorrow.”

  “Mom…”

  “You think Ted will run off,” she said, “but that’s not very likely. Everything he’s got is in Braeloch. The newspaper and his home. And Vi.”

  She stared at me. “And he’s not dangerous. The only person that man’s a danger to is himself.”

  She was wrong. Ted had killed Lyle. He was a violent man.

  The expression on her face told me that nothing I could say would change her mind about going to the police. I’d forgotten to take my cell when I went out to the house that morning. I looked longingly at the phone on the wall.

  “Don’t even think of using that phone.” Lainey swung around to Soupy. “And don’t you give her your cell.”

  Soupy put a hand in his jacket pocket.

  “I said no!” she said.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” He tossed me his car keys. “Take the Porsche, Pat. I’ll stay here with Mom in case Ted comes back.”

  She turned to Soupy. “He wouldn’t hurt me, really he wouldn’t.”

  Soupy and I didn’t say a word.

  “That’s not the Ted I knew.” She raised her hands to her face.

  She was weeping as I closed the door behind me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  My sense of foreboding grew with every mile on the drive back to town. Ted had killed a man to safeguard the secret he’d been hiding for decades. And now three more people knew the secret, and they knew that he had killed Lyle.

  The house we were staying at on Black Bear Lake was at the end of a long drive. Perched on the edge of a lake. With no neighbors around. Would Ted pay us a visit?

  I considered moving my household to the Winigami for a few days, but that idea did not sit well with me. I was tired of running from intruders. I gripped the steering wheel as I approached Braeloch. I drove down Main Street and headed for the police detachment.

  The woman at the reception desk smiled at me. “What can we do for you today, Mrs. Tierney?”

  I asked for Inspector Foster and I was told that he had returned to headquarters in Orillia.

  “Sergeant Bouchard is out on a call, but I’ll try to reach him,” the woman said.

  I didn’t trust Bouchard, but I had no choice. “When do you expect him back here?”

  “I’ll tell him you want to speak to him. What’s the problem?”

  “Tell him I know who killed Lyle Critchley. Can you try to reach Inspector Foster as well?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  The woman kept smiling. She didn’t seem to be taking me seriously.

  “I’ll check back with you in fifteen minutes,” I said.

  There were no pay phones in the reception area. I was about to head over to the branch to use the phone, but the rectory was closer and I thought Celia might still be there. From the street I saw a light on in the rectory kitchen. I found the back door unlocked.

  I made a beeline for the phone on the kitchen wall and punched in Foster’s cell number. “I have to talk to you,” I said when he answered.

  “What happened?” He must have heard the fear in my voice.

  “Ted Stohl—” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bruce in the hall and I couldn’t continue. “I need to talk to you in person.”

  “Tel Stohl, who runs the newspaper,” Foster said. “What happened to him?”

  “Can you come to Braeloch?” I glanced at Bruce. “I think there might be…trouble.”

  “Trouble? You attract trouble, Ms. Tierney,” he thundered over the line. “Tell me what is going on.”

  Bruce stood listening to my end of the conversation.

  “It’s…awkward at the moment. It’s about—” I turned my back to Bruce, hoping he was out of earshot. I lowered my voice as much as I could. “Lyle Critchley.”

  “Is someone with you now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that person a threat?”

  I looked back at Bruce. “No, but I need to talk to you in person. Now.” I enunciated each syllable, praying that Foster would understand the gravity of the situation. “Can you come to Braeloch?”

  He sighed. “I’ll be at the detachment in an hour. Where are you now?”

  “The Catholic church rectory.”

  “Go over to the detachment. I’ll try to reach Sergeant Bouchard.”

  “What’s happened to my father?” Bruce asked as soon as I was off the phone.

  “Nothing’s happened to him. Where’s Sister Celia?”

  “She went back to your place with Farah and Tommy. Who were you talking to just now?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I punched more numbers into the phone.

  “Keep the doors locked,” I told Celia when she picked up the phone at Black Bear Lake. “Don’t open up for anyone. I’ll be at the police detachment for a bit.”

  “What’s going on, Pat?” she asked. “I thought the bikers had been rounded up.”

  “It’s not the bikers.” I looked at Bruce. “Can’t talk right now.”

  “What don’t you want me to hear?” he asked when I put down the receiver. “It’s something to do with Dad.”

  I hesitated, and that was all the affirmation he needed. He disappeared down the hall and returned wearing his parka and tuque. “I’m going over to The Times.”

  “Bruce, why don’t you—”

  He went out the kitchen door. I grabbed my handbag and followed him. Ted was a dangerous man, and I didn’t want Bruce to get in his way.

  He was about to sprint ahead, but I grabbed his arm. “Bruce, don’t!”

  He jerked his arm free. “Dad must be in serious trouble if you called the police.” He paused. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “But there’s nothing you can do.”

  “How do you know? Maybe there is something I can do.”

  Deep down, Bruce was still a young boy who wanted to connect with the father who had raised him.

  “And don’t tell me to leave it to someone else,” he said. “I’m sick of people telling me that.”

  I couldn’t stop him, but I thought I might be able to keep him from harm if I stayed with him. Just how, I wasn’t sure but I had to try.


  “Okay,” I said, “but I’m going with you. We’ll take Soupy’s car.”

  In The Times building, Bruce led the way to the newsroom on the second floor. He went over to a middle-aged woman who was seated in front of a computer.

  “Is Dad around, Maria?” Bruce asked.

  “I haven’t seen Ted all afternoon,” she said, “and we have a paper to put out.”

  I followed Bruce outside and placed a hand on his arm. “Come out to the house with me. Celia will have dinner on.”

  He pulled his arm away. “Dad must be at home. I’ll check there.”

  I knew I couldn’t dissuade him. “All right.” I opened the Porsche’s passenger door for him. “Let’s go.”

  Pine Avenue curves up the hill behind Braeloch. The higher it goes, the swankier the homes become. The street ends at a park that overlooks the town. We pulled up in front of the last house, an elaborate building of stone and glass and stained wood, fronted by a multi-level deck.

  Ted’s van wasn’t in the drive.

  “Bruce—”

  He scrambled out of the car and up a flight of stairs to the main door on the second level. I was right behind him. He raised a hand to rap on a glass door, then changed his mind and turned the handle. I followed him into a large room with a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the lights of Braeloch. The room was dimly lit, and much of it was in shadow.

  Bruce walked across the room. “Dad?”

  I hung back as he went through the house, but his calls received no answer.

  “I’ll check the basement.” He clumped down a flight of stairs. “Dad?”

  A minute went by before he hurried back up. “There’s a gun-storage cabinet down there where Dad locks up his hunting rifles. It’s open and one of them is gone.”

  I had to warn Celia and the Campbells that an armed Ted Stohl might be headed their way. I also needed to alert Foster and Bouchard.

  “Bruce, would you wait outside?” I asked. “I need to use the phone.”

  With my gloves on, I lifted the receiver of a telephone on an end table and made my calls.