“Did he say who beat him up?”
She shook her head, but the crimson nails dug deeper, as if to suppress her unvoiced fear. “He talked about wanting to help people, maybe be a minister, but the kind that preached the true message that Jesus gave. Not the tight-ass, unforgiving types his family liked. But he didn’t know where he could go. We’d had a couple of talks before about how his parents wanted him to be an engineer, but he wanted to help people. Build spiritual bridges, he said. Not physical ones.” She blushed at the unfamiliar sound of the words from her lips. “Derek always had his head in the clouds.”
“Doesn’t sound like enough reason for a beating, or for tears.”
“Well, I think there was a woman too. That he loved, but couldn’t have.”
Green perked up. Maybe the mysterious “S” Derek was supposed to run away with. “Any name?”
“No, I just got the feeling it couldn’t work out.”
Green eyed her thoughtfully. She had relaxed slightly and was trying to smooth out the dents she’d made in the vinyl, but she still seemed spooked. Something about Derek’s beating and Tom’s jealousy troubled her. Because Lawrence had intercepted the note about catching the bus, perhaps she had never learned the full depth of Derek’s feeling. Could it be that she was just now putting the signals together?
“Do you think that woman might have been you?” he asked. “And that Tom suspected it?”
She looked shocked. “Oh Jeez, no! I mean...if Derek liked me, he never let on.”
Despite her pretense at shock, Green wasn’t convinced. “But you thought Tom gave him the beating because of you, right? Is that why you broke up with him?”
She looked up from her fingers to give him a reproachful frown, as if he was making her face possibilities she preferred to avoid. “Tommy saw us talking in the woods,” she muttered. “He saw me put my arm around Derek. He freaked out. I don’t know if he beat up Derek, but his freak-out scared me enough that I thought ‘I need to get out of here’. So I told Tommy it was over and then I asked my parents to put me on the first plane over to Italy.” She smiled. “Believe me, they were only too happy. Nona Vincelli was already fixing up the bedroom in Orvieto.”
Green’s instincts were screaming. Whatever the true extent of Sophia’s and Derek’s relationship, the final fateful days before the tragedy were slowly coming to light and the mystery of the stolen notes was falling into place. Tom—wild, dangerous Tom—had been in love with Sophia and insanely jealous of his older brother’s friendship with her. Then Derek was beaten up, Sophia suspected Tom was responsible, therefore she broke up with him. Lawrence stole Tom’s letter begging for a second chance, and Sophia left town, leaving a desperate, vengeful Tom blaming...who? Derek, who had stolen her affections? Or Lawrence, who had thwarted Tom’s attempt to win her back?
A number of questions remained unanswered. Namely, had Tom known that Lawrence stole his letter? Who had actually beaten up Derek, and who was the real object of his love? But one thing was becoming increasing clear, Green realized with a shiver of foreboding. Of all the members of the family, Lawrence was not the one with the most rage and the most compelling reason to murder Derek. Tom was.
Eighteen
In the bright autumn sun, the Riverview Seniors’ Home looked less desolate, and even the stench of manure from the field across the road had dissipated in the crisp, dry air. Green swung the car into the parking spot next to the main entrance, marked Nursing Supervisor, and leaped out before the engine had even shuddered to a stop. As he sailed through the front door, he prayed that, like his own father’s, Reverend Taylor’s memory for what had happened twenty years ago was better than for what he’d said five minutes ago.
During the drive over, which had taken ten minutes even at his record-breaking speeds, he had tried to refute his new theory, but the more he considered it, the more horribly plausible it became. According to the letter he’d written Benji, Tom had been the one to discover the body. How simple it would have been to kill Derek himself and lay the blame on crazy, defenceless Lawrence?
Knowing Tom, it was probably not a premeditated killing but an explosion of the rage he was famous for. But when he’d found himself covered in blood and Derek dead, he’d thought up the perfect way to conceal his crime. Why should he ruin the rest of his life for one brief moment of blind madness, when Lawrence was already beyond the hope of a normal, fulfilling life? Treatment in a mental hospital was no less than he needed and deserved anyway.
Green could almost hear Tom’s infamous, self-justifying excuses rushing to his aid. No wonder he had been so quick to identify Lawrence’s body as Derek, thereby heading off any further inquiry into Derek’s disappearance twenty years ago. No wonder he had been desperate to find the letters he’d written to Benji and to prevent Green from talking to his father. “Gom”, the father had said. Did the old man know something? Suspect something?
And most telling of all, the theory also gave a much more compelling motive for Tom to murder Lawrence. Not to avenge the death of Derek and the ruination of all their lives, but quite simply to shut him up. Which showed just how deadly Tom really was, and the lengths to which he would go to protect himself.
Green’s pulse hammered with excitement. The theory was all circumstantial, based on hints and suppositions, and there were few people still around who might know what had happened back then. His instincts told him Taylor was one, if he could ever get at the memories Taylor had jumbled inside.
As it turned out, that was not as difficult as Green had feared. Taylor had just finished his afternoon rest period and was freshly dressed in preparation for his daily walk. Green caught him just putting on his old-fashioned brimmed hat. His blue eyes were bright, and he actually remembered who Green was.
“Nice day,” he remarked, swinging his cane. “You fancy a turn outside, boy? Hate to miss one of the last fine days of fall.”
Taylor walked with the gait of an old military man, shoulders squared and eyes straight ahead, but his stride was short and his progress slow. Green was able to stroll comfortably at his side and concentrate on a wise choice of words.
“I need your recollection of events twenty years ago, Reverend.”
“That should be no problem, my son. Twenty years ago is clear as crystal.”
“The Pettigrew family. If you recall my visit last Monday, one of the sons—turned out to be Lawrence—died in your church yard.”
“Lawrence, eh? Pity. Always wondered what happened to the poor lad. He was ill, you know, hearing voices and seeing angels all over the place.”
“I’m told you helped him. Gave him chores and even let him have a key to the church. Is that correct?”
“Lawrence only wanted to help. Poor boy got so confused when they took him over to that other church. I promised him he’d always have a place in my church too. Although I never expected him to—” Taylor blinked. “Oh, dear.”
“To do what?”
“To jump to his death. I thought I was helping.”
“I’m sure you were. But I have more bad news, sir. It seems highly likely that twenty years ago, instead of leaving for California, the oldest son, Derek, was murdered and his body concealed by the family.”
Taylor made an odd sound, half-moan and half-grunt. He lurched forward, forcing Green to dive for his arm. Holding him steady, Green gestured to some nearby Muskoka chairs sitting in a cluster around an empty fish pond.
“Perhaps we’d better sit for a moment, Reverend.”
“Eh?” Taylor straightened and shrugged off Green’s hand. “Nope, have to finish my walk. Have to keep the legs strong and the mind sharp. Derek dead? Dear, oh dear.”
“I understand he’d been going through a bit of a personal crisis the last year or two. Thinking about his future, not sure what path he should follow. Did he confide in you?”
Taylor swivelled his head carefully to study Green, his eyes shrewd beneath his bushy white brows. “Who you been talking to, boy?”
Green was surprised at the accusation in the man’s tone. His sixth sense stirred. There was something more to this story, and he hated having no idea what it was or how to get at it. He decided to take a wild guess.
“The Pettigrews were an extremely traditional family. I know they disapproved of your liberal views and moved over to a stricter—” He groped for words in the unfamiliar landscape of Christian allegiances.
“Narrow-minded. Un-Christian,” Taylor snapped.
“Yes. You said you continued to help Lawrence, and I’m assuming you continued to help Derek too. I think he used you as a sounding board to help him sort out what he was going to do. I’m not criticizing you for that, believe me.”
“Plenty did. Norm Pettigrew did. Told the whole town I was leading his boys down the path to perdition. People are what God made them, Detective. The only sin is in condemning them for that.”
Taylor had become dangerously red, and he tottered on his spindly legs. This time when Green took his elbow to steer him to a chair, he did not protest. He sank into the wooden chair as if his legs had given out, and Green was surprised to see tears in his eyes. His intuition that there was more to this story grew stronger.
“You’re not just talking about Derek’s change of career choice, are you, Reverend?”
“It was a big dilemma for the lad,” Taylor continued as if Green hadn’t spoken. “He’d been raised on the Bible, felt its teachings deep in his soul.”
“What teachings?” Green persisted.
“Eh? Oh, the straight and narrow and all that—”
Taylor placed a peculiar emphasis on the word “straight”, and with that hint, out of the blue an idea came to Green. It was novel and unexpected, yet brilliantly apt. “Are you saying Derek was gay?”
Taylor didn’t reply, but he flinched as if retreating from the bald truth, and in that retreat Green had his answer. “That’s it, isn’t it? He confided that to you, and you didn’t condemn him. Is that what the father couldn’t stand? Is that why he took the family from the church?”
Taylor shut his eyes and leaned back in the chair, suddenly shrivelled and old. “How could I condemn it, son? That would be to condemn...” He stopped short of what Green suspected he was about to confess. Instead he opened his eyes to study Green helplessly. “Yes, I helped him. I listened, I interpreted the gospel to him, I tried to help him reconcile his two great loves—his love of God and his love of his fellow men. He tried to fight it, you know. As so many do. He met a young man at the university, but it took him a long time to admit what they felt for each other. After that broke up, he didn’t come back to talk to me for a long time. He tried women, he tried celibacy, but you can’t deny your nature.”
“Do you know if he was involved with anyone at the end?” Taylor nodded. “He came to see me. He looked like he’d been in a bar brawl. Said his father had caught them together and beat him up. Norm is a big man and had about fifty pounds on him, but Derek was very, very angry when I last saw him. He told me that was the last time, and if his Dad ever came at him again, he was going to give it back.”
Taylor’s anger energized him, and he sat up straight, his brows quivering. “By the love of Jove, if that boy’s been murdered, I wouldn’t look past Norm Pettigrew if I were you!”
* * *
When Green climbed back into his car outside the seniors’ home, it was past two o’clock, and his mind was reeling from mental overload and physical starvation. There was yet another message on his voice mail from Superintendent Jules requesting—no, demanding—his update. Green punched the delete button with a curse. Before he briefed Jules, he had to figure out what he himself thought.
Was it possible that Norm Pettigrew had killed his own son? A man who strapped his boys’ hands when they masturbated, a man who invoked the wrath of God and the threat of hell to keep his boys in line? It was Norm who had beaten up Derek on the day Sophia met him in the woods. In Norm’s world view, Derek’s homosexuality would have constituted a mortal sin, an affront against his own authority as moral leader of his household and a threat to his vaunted stature in the community. To Norm, the sight of his son in the arms of another man would have been an abomination.
How much greater would his outrage have been if a few days later he’d discovered Derek was running away with his lover in open defiance of his orders? Had he intercepted the note and known what ‘our place’ meant? The shed, of course! Where all the boys went to get away, where perhaps Derek had been waiting for his lover that day, only to come face to face with his father instead. And where, in the argument that erupted, this time Norm had found a weapon more lethal than his fists.
Green raced over the scenario in his mind, probing it for flaws. He felt he was getting close. The concrete details of the crime were filling in, the niggling inconsistencies ironing out. The theory explained Tom’s hatred of his father and his comment “after all he made us do”. If Norm had made Tom clean up the bloodbath he himself had caused, and forced him to support the lie that Lawrence was to blame, no wonder Tom could barely stand the sight of him.
As exciting as this new theory was, however, there was one large, gaping flaw in it. Lawrence’s death. For while Norman would have been sufficiently strong twenty years ago to overpower Derek, there was no way that the frail old man Green had met in the hospital was capable of chasing Lawrence up the tower to his death. A major flaw, for sure. But it was not essential that the same person killed both Derek and Lawrence. Perhaps Tom hadn’t known his father killed Derek and had lived all these years with the belief that Lawrence had ruined all their lives. It still fit his character to go off the deep end at the sight of Lawrence.
Two plausible scenarios for Derek’s death, two possible killers. Twenty years of deception, anguish or wilful amnesia. But even if the excavation uncovered Derek’s bones, even if the OPP caught Tom and brought him in for questioning, how would they ever get at the truth? After twenty years, any physical evidence that had actually survived the fire would have been degraded by the elements.
Except Lawrence’s airtight tin can and the unidentified bloody fingerprint. That pesky little piece of evidence that refused to fit anywhere.
Green reached for the phone excitedly. Lyle Cunningham and his partner would be out at the excavation site, but with any luck, someone else in the Ident Unit would be slaving over samples in the lab. Sure enough, Sergeant Lou Paquette’s booze-ravaged voice growled through the wires after the third ring. His first reaction upon hearing Green’s request was a flat no, but Green was ready for him.
“This is shaping up to be a major kidnapping-double homicide, Lou, with both us and the OPP in on the search. Before I call Superintendent Jules to update him on our progress, I want to have all our bases covered. We can’t wait till Cunningham’s free; I need to know ASAP if the guy we’re pursuing is a killer as well as a kidnapper. I need to assess degree of risk and advise the OPP if they should call in their Tactical boys.”
The mention of all the high-powered interest did the trick. With dark references to Cunningham’s displeasure, Paquette agreed to take Norman Pettigrew’s fingerprints at the hospital and compare them to the bloody print on the note.
“But you break the news to Cunny,” he added as a parting shot. “You know what a control freak he is.”
I will, Green promised as he hung up. Later. He had to eat, but even more crucially he had to brief Jules. The man had scattered enough messages around that he could no longer be ignored. And to judge from his tone when Green reached him at home, his patience had already been well exceeded.
“Thank you for your promptness,” Jules said, deadpan. “I am still technically in charge of this division, Mike, at least until Monday. And you’ll find Barbara Devine is keen to be kept informed.”
More than keen, Green thought grimly. As he outlined the current state of the case, he eased the Impala into gear and backed out of the Nursing Supervisor’s parking spot. A man of normally few words, Jules did
n’t say a thing while Green summarized his quandary about the lack of evidence and witnesses to differentiate the two possible suspects.
“What about the boy?” he asked when Green finished.
“Kyle?”
“No. The youngest son.”
“Robbie?” Green was taken aback, for Jules must have retained every word he’d uttered. The man still had a mind like a surgical scalpel. “He was only eight when the first homicide occurred.”
“Eight-year-olds can remember,” Jules said. “Besides, I understand he’s been calling all around downstairs demanding to know what’s going on.”
Green winced in dismay. Events had unfolded so fast over the past twenty-four hours that he’d forgotten all about Robbie Pettigrew. He left the man sputtering over the telephone about Tom absconding with his money, but that infraction was trivial compared to the ensuing cascade of catastrophes Tom had wrought. Robbie would have seen the news of Isabelle’s assault, Kyle’s abduction and the massive manhunt in the country side. The poor man deserved an explanation before he also learned about the search for Derek’s body in the front yard of his childhood home.
“I’ll phone him right away,” Green said. He had to pull off the road to look up Robbie’s number, but was lucky enough to catch the man on his first try. It proved already too late to cushion the shock.
“What in the name of God is going on, Inspector!” Robbie cried at a voice level to shatter glass. Green jerked the phone away several inches. “I just got a call from Jacques Boisvert! He wants to annul the sale, he’s threatening to sue. What’s this about my brother being buried in the yard? I’ve been standing by the phone waiting for your call for hours. I’m going crazy, Green!”
Green suppressed a weary groan. This was a complication he didn’t need, and a phone call wasn’t going to suffice; the man deserved better than that. Besides, as Jules had pointed out, eight-year-olds sometimes remembered things. Even if they didn’t know it.
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