Fifth Son

by Barbara Fradkin

  Sullivan’s tone was the essence of calm authority, and Green watched the McMartins gradually uncoil. While they went in search of clothing, Green put in a quick call to the Boisvert house. There was no response. He told himself it was early yet, barely four o’clock, but by now the alarm bells were deafening. He asked Sullivan for the keys to the Impala.

  “Stay here until the OPP has things under control,” he said, grabbing his raincoat. “Then meet me over at the Boisvert house. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  * * *

  The Boisvert farm looked deserted as Green raced down the muddy lane. The minivan was parked out front, and there was no sign of trouble, but when Green climbed out of his car and crunched up the gravel, he heard frantic yapping from inside. There was no answer to his ring, nor to his knock. The door was unlocked, but when he tried to step in, he was confronted by a snarling, snapping flurry of fur. Quickly he withdrew, but not before he’d glimpsed the torso and lower limbs of a body sprawled in the hall. Slamming the door shut against the dog, he dialled 911 and snapped out orders for police and ambulance assistance.

  Afterwards he dashed around the exterior of the house, checking for intruders and peeping in windows until he was able to see the entire scene. Daylight was already fading under the iron gray sky, but he could just make out the body of Isabelle face down on the floor with a dark pool spreading across the floor beneath her head. With a curse, he ran back to the door.

  “Chouchou, it’s okay,” he soothed, holding out his hand, but the dog launched itself at his fingers. Steeling himself, he burst through the door and rushed at it with a menacing roar. It scrambled backwards into the kitchen, its tiny nails clicking on the tile. He slammed the kitchen door shut, flicked on the hall light and turned to Isabelle. Quickly, he checked her pulse and breathing. She was warm, her pulse strong and steady. He allowed himself to breathe again. Softly, he called to her. No response. Louder. Still nothing.

  The hair at the back of her head was matted with crimson blood which had pooled beneath her in a glistening stain, but he could see no active bleeding nor any fragments of broken bone. Her colour was bleached, but her breathing was steady. She’ll be all right, he thought to reassure himself as he removed a knitted throw from the couch in the living room to spread over her. Then he dialled 911 again to update her condition before doing a quick check of the rest of the house. It was standard procedure, but he knew it was pointless. The person who’d done this was long gone.

  When he returned to await the ambulance, the rest of his detective instincts belatedly took over. He phoned for a forensics team and a quick survey of the scene. The door to the basement was open and the light was on at the base of the stairs. Isabelle lay in the kitchen, near the basement door. She had been struck from behind, probably when she was emerging from the basement, and had pitched forward into the room. Tom had either hidden in the kitchen behind the open basement door, or he had followed her up from the basement.

  Green fished some nitryl gloves from his pocket, slipped them on and ducked down the basement stairs. The boxes from yesterday were gone, but otherwise the basement looked undisturbed. No signs of a struggle except for a heavy cast-iron pan lying at the base of the stairs. Leaving it in place, he climbed back upstairs and knelt to check on Isabelle again. She was still out cold, but this time her eyelids flickered slightly. He felt his spirits lift further, but as his worry dissipated, a fresh anger took hold.

  He should never have let the bastard go! Tom Pettigrew had played them all for fools, and in the brief time he had been in town, he’d cut a swath of destruction and deception a mile wide through the lives of relatives and innocent strangers alike. A swath of destruction that had not ended yet, not as long as a bewildered, mentally disabled boy was hurtling through the darkness in the back of a stolen pick-up truck.

  As Green sat on the floor at Isabelle’s side, he sifted the silence for the sound of approaching sirens and cursed the delay of the long country drive. Then he glimpsed a small white corner of something peeking out from under the door next to the kitchen. It looked like a piece of paper. Curious, he opened the door to discover a closet packed with boxes, brooms and a vacuum cleaner. On the floor lay a folded piece of paper which had apparently slid under the door and lodged against a box. He retrieved it and brought it into the hall light.

  Unfolding it, Green discovered it was a sheet of grimy foolscap, covered in a large, untidy scrawl and creased as if it had been folded and unfolded countless times. There was a date at the top. June 17, 1990. Green’s heart leaped. A voice from the past!

  Dear Benji, Happy B-day! Congratulashuns! You’re a big man now, twenty-one, hansum as the devil and you even bought your self a set of wheels! How about driving down to the big TO and taking your old brother out for a nite on the town? I no Im not much to brag about but the truth is I miss you man. People yused to call me the tuff one and Derek the sensitive one but the truth is I loved him more than anything. He was my big brother and he was sposed to be ar shining egsample. Hell, Dad tried to drive that into me offen enuff. I hope hes eased up some, at least on Robbie. I died when Derek did, thats the truth. Mabee its keeping the secret all these years. Mabee if we had it out in the open and had a proper buriel for him, mabee I coude get over it. But I found the body, man. And I was the one that had to catch that fucking lunatic and lock him up. I no you dont like to think about it all. Us setting the fire and making sure every goddamn bit of blood and brains was burned. but I keep thinking hes not at peace. Ar eny of us? Im sorry, I was just going to wish you an happy birthday, not tell you my sad sack life. Ill get by, I always do. So—

  Green’s heart hammered as he deciphered the page. The note was unsigned, but he knew it had to be from Tom; it was written in the same illiterate scrawl as the letter to Sophia. He re-read it, turned it over, searched for more pages, but there were none.

  The paper shook in his hand, and bile rose in his throat as he absorbed the enormity of the horror laid out on the page. If ever there had been a doubt that Derek was murdered, this piece of paper shot that doubt to hell. Here was the confirmation of what he’d feared, yet it was ten times worse. Not only had Lawrence murdered Derek, not only had the parents covered it up by committing Lawrence to a mental hospital and fabricating Derek’s departure to the States, but they had co-opted their remaining sons to dispose of the body and help in the cover-up. Sons who were little more than boys themselves, forced to set a fire that would obliterate all traces of their brother.

  Green thrust himself to his feet, forced his shaking hands to slip the note into a plastic evidence bag. He wanted to scream his outrage, beat someone, hold his own children tight and promise them he would never, ever, do this to them. Pity blurred into the anger he felt at Tom. No wonder the man had never recovered. No wonder he had confronted his father as he did, seeing not a frail cripple in the wheelchair but a tyrant who had not understood how trauma and secrecy could shatter a young mind.

  Green turned to look out the kitchen window. In the distance, he saw red flashing lights streaking towards the scene, and he felt a wash of gratitude. At least the living would be taken care of. Daylight was fading, but he knew immediately that something was wrong. Where the shed had been, where two days earlier he had groped around in the tangle of raspberry canes and burnt timber, there was only a pale patch of gravel filling the hole. The hole where Derek’s bones had almost certainly been buried.

  A normal house or barn fire would never burn hot enough to incinerate a body, no matter how hard poor Tom and Benji tried. Derek’s bones would still have been there, scorched and jumbled by the elements, but now they were scattered God knows where. Who the hell had ordered that? Tomorrow he would have to find out where the fill had been taken. Every last little trace of debris would have to be painstakingly excavated and each nugget of material brushed clean, all under the watchful eye of the coroner and a forensic anthropologist.

  Green knew just the person he had to call. If there was any
thing left of Derek down there, Dr. Peter Cole from the Museum of Civilization would find it.

  * * *

  Darkness had settled and a cold, relentless rain drenched the last of the emergency vehicles as they drove up the lane to the highway. Green stood in the kitchen window watching the blurry red line of tail lights wobble into the distance. Behind him, he heard the monotone voice of Lyle Cunningham making his preliminary videotape of the crime scene. Cunny insisted on utter silence during the taping so that some officer’s black humour would not end up broadcast all over the courtroom, and he was already incensed enough about the mess of blood, muddy footprints and puddles of rain water created by the emergency workers attending to Isabelle. Now she was safely on her way to hospital, still semi-conscious but stable, and all that remained was for Ident to piece together what had happened.

  That was not going to be a surprise, Green thought. Without even bothering to be careful, Tom had simply tossed the cast-iron pan he had used to hit Isabelle down the basement stairs before he fled the house.

  The last of the vehicles had just turned onto the highway when a bright pair of halogen beams streaked into view and swung into the lane. As it drew near, Green recognized Sandy’s red truck. Green grabbed his raincoat and ducked out into the rain to intercept him before he added further chaos to Cunny’s scene. He held up his hand just as Sandy opened his cab door to leap out. In the passenger seat, the interior light illuminated a big man with a bull neck and a John Deere baseball cap, whom Green recognized as Sandy’s fishing companion in his office photo. Both men looked tense and angry.

  “What the hell happened!” Sandy demanded. “Someone in town said Isabelle was attacked!”

  “She’s been taken to hospital, but she’ll be all right.”

  Sandy strained to see around Green towards the house. “Was it Tom?”

  “I prefer not to speculate,” Green replied.

  “What the hell does he want! The bastard’s kidnapped Kyle, and I know he broke in here yesterday.”

  Rain traced icy streaks down Green’s back, and he clutched his collar closed. “Again, we’re still investigating, but we have no evidence that your stepbrother was abducted deliberately. He just happened to be there.” He squinted at Sandy thoughtfully in the glare of the cab light. “Tell me, Sandy. Your mother and stepfather were pretty upset to think clearly. What do you think Kyle would do once he realized he’d gone from home?”

  Sandy glanced at the other man questioningly. “Probably stay put, don’t you think?”

  Green took the opportunity to reach across Sandy to offer his hand to the stranger. “Inspector Mike Green.”

  “Phil Scott.” The man crushed Green’s hand in a massive, calloused grip.

  Green addressed both men. “So you figure he’d stay with the truck?”

  Sandy nodded. “It would be familiar. Everything else around him would be strange, and when Kyle is scared, he hides. So he’d probably try to stay out of Tom’s sight.”

  “That means he wouldn’t try to seek help, say from a gas station attendant?”

  “Not unless he knew the guy.” Sandy sighed. “My mother’s been so paranoid about strangers taking advantage of him that she’s put the fear of God into him. He’s quite a good-looking kid, and so sweet natured...” He paused, an awkward shame creeping over his face. “Jeb told me what my mother said about your daughter. I’m sorry, that was a cheap shot. I know how crazy Kyle was about her. Living out here on the farm with all his spare time spent on chores, he doesn’t have many friends, and he just lit up when she started working in his class. I think it was good for him. I mean, he may be disabled, but whether Mom likes it or not, someday he’s going to want a sexual relationship.”

  To his own surprise, Green was appalled. He knew Hannah was far from virginal herself, but now that she was not just an abstraction, he found himself reacting as all fathers did. As he’d seen Sullivan react a hundred times when the boys came sniffing around Lizzie. Over my dead body.

  No doubt that was Edna McMartin’s reaction, but Green cast about for a more palatable phrase with which to voice his disapproval. “A natural parental concern, I think.”

  Sandy shrugged. “I suspect she’s more worried about losing control of him.”

  “And about what the church yaps would say,” Scott chimed in. “Don’t underestimate that. All the tight-assed bitches in the communion line and all.”

  Even though Edna was not the warm and cuddling type, Green thought the commentaries unduly harsh. Life had not been gentle with her. “But he does have the mind of a child,” he said. “And it’s normal she’d worry that someone would use him.”

  Sandy ceded the point reluctantly. “Still, she’s got years of trouble ahead if she doesn’t take her head out of the sand. Why do you think he was hiding in the truck? He’s been giving her a hell of a hard time over missing school. Crying, temper tantrums... So she’s been pretty tough on him.”

  A stance that no doubt is tearing her apart now that he’s gone, Green thought. How easy it was to do the wrong thing as a parent, and how quickly that misjudgment can come back to haunt you. In the hopes of sparing Hannah confusion, he’d stayed out of her life when her mother moved across the country and married another man, but now she was making them all pay in spades. Sometimes he wondered if the debt could ever be paid. Probably not.

  * * *

  The Shabbat candles flickered cozily across the white table cloth Sharon had laid on the table in the dining room, and the extended Green family was gathered together for the first time all week. But try as he might, Green could not get into the spirit. His thoughts were still trapped in the horror the day had revealed and in his unresolved fear for those involved— for Isabelle, Kyle, even desperate, battle-scarred Tom. He’d left instructions that he was to be notified the instant Kyle and Tom were found, and he found himself straining for the sound of the telephone.

  The kitchen was still in pieces, so that night the take-out fare was cheese blintzes from Vince’s Bagel Shop nearby. The rest of the family was digging in with noisy alacrity. Tony was gleefully spreading sour cream all over his high chair and Modo had positioned herself strategically underfoot, ready to lick any overflow that came within reach. Sharon was celebrating the prospect of two days off with an unaccustomed second glass of white wine.

  Green’s father Sid was seated across from Hannah, his pale watery eyes fixed on her as if he wanted to drink in every nuance. She was the spitting image of her dead grandmother, Sid’s wife, and even after four months, the very sight of her made him clap his hands in ecstasy. Now, every Friday evening when Green picked him up at his seniors’ residence to bring him to dinner, Sid was waiting at the front door, with a light in his eyes and a lift in his step that belied his frailty and age.

  For Hannah’s part, Sid was the only family member besides Tony who could make her smile. But not tonight. Tonight she was picking at her food, pushing her salad around her plate and nibbling at the edge of a blintz. She said nothing, and not even the antics of her brother and the dog raised a laugh. Green noticed that she’d taken out half her earrings, and her eyelids were devoid of glitter. He remembered her unexpected presence at home that day and Edna McMartin’s allusions to her clothing, and his detective mind clicked into action.

  He eyed her thoughtfully. “Hannah,” he began, testing the waters with a careful toe, “has Kyle been away all week?”

  She shrugged. “So?”

  “I had occasion to speak to his mother today. In connection with my case,” he added quickly when he saw her mouth open in protest. “Has she been keeping him home?”

  Hannah didn’t rally a smart retort, merely pushed a lettuce leaf across her plate.

  “She seems a bit overprotective,” he ventured. Still Hannah said nothing. Sharon glanced at Green quizzically but had the wisdom to keep quiet. He tried again. “Old-fashioned too, like many rural people. I suspect she’d be pretty formidable if she decided to tear a strip off the school.�
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  “Spit it out, Mike,” Hannah said without looking up from her lettuce. “You want to ask if I’ve been kicked out of my placement.”

  “No, I...” He paused. Detective instincts seemed to run in the family. “Yes.”

  She lifted her thin shoulders in a small, disinterested shrug. “Well, fuck it. Fuck her. The kids liked me, and Kyle was happy in school for the first time ever. The parents have a leash on him so tight, he’s afraid to do anything. It’s their problem, Mike. They don’t see he’s a normal kid who wants to do normal things.”

  He deftly avoided defending the parental point of view. To Hannah, the freedom to be was a sacred right. “Have they taught him any street smarts? Would he know what to do if he was lost?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  She had finally looked up from her plate, and her eyes were shrewd. Detective instincts certainly do run in the family, he thought, as he debated how much to tell her. Finally, he explained that the McMartin truck had been stolen with Kyle hiding in the back. She lost all defiance and looked for the first time like a frightened sixteen-year-old.

  “This is all your fault! I knew taking that crucifix back was a bad idea! They’ve been really mad at him about it, and really mad that he tried to lie about it. It’s like they don’t trust him any more. I bet he was just trying to get away from her eagle eye. And now—oh my God, he won’t know what to do! Is this asshole dangerous?”

  He didn’t tell her what he really thought, that he had no idea what Tom was up to or capable of. He shook his head and risked giving her hand a quick squeeze. Hannah hated to be touched, but in this instance, she seemed too pre-occupied to object.

  “The man just wants to get home to Toronto,” he said. “Anyway, we’ve got police on all the highways. The OPP is sure to catch him any minute.”

  She searched his face for a moment with an appraising gaze. “I did tell him once, when we were doing a life skills activity in class, that if he was ever lost, he should look for someone in uniform. I hope he remembers that.”