The Quiet Man

by James Carol

  ‘Maybe Cathy arranged that.’

  Winter shook his head. ‘No way. Gifford’s neighbour said that Cathy was nowhere to be seen when the movers came in. But usually if you’re moving out you arrange for your ex to make themselves scarce while you retrieve your belongings. These are your prized possessions. You’re going to want to make sure they’re safe.’

  ‘Why do you think he was so angry? I mean, it’s not like he loved her.’

  ‘Again, you need to look at this from Gifford’s perspective. Cathy’s dealing with all his basic needs. When she left that must have been a massive inconvenience for him.’

  ‘Like when he was a kid and his parents died.’

  ‘Exactly. And that’s the second reason. All of a sudden he’s ten years old again. He’s basically being forced to live through his parents’ death for a second time. That’s where this whole series of events started. That’s Ground Zero. Revisiting it is not a place he wants to go. He was unstable before this happened, but this pushes him over the edge.’

  ‘And he starts killing.’

  ‘And he starts killing,’ Winter agreed.

  ‘I keep thinking about those pairs of photographs in the attic. He’s clearly fascinated by emotions. Where does that fit into things?’

  ‘I think that goes back to when his parents died, too. Ten is the no-man’s land of childhood. You’re not quite a child any more, but you’re still a few years away from being a teenager. It’s an age where adulthood has never seemed further away. Imagine how much worse it was for Gifford. His father’s dead and his mom’s in a coma. Day after day, he’s sat by her bed with well-meaning people continually asking if he’s all right. He knows that they expect him to feel sad, but he just doesn’t get it. And he’s in a hospital. Wherever he looks there’s grief and despair and this confuses him even more. He knows that the nursing staff are talking about him behind his back. He knows that his lack of emotion makes him stand out. This would frustrate him but there’s nothing he can do. He can fake the happier emotions, but these new darker emotions leave him puzzled.’

  ‘And when Cathy walks out all of this comes back to haunt him. Only this time he’s older and that puts him in a position where he can go and find answers.’

  ‘That’s the theory I’m working on.’

  They both went quiet. For a time the only sound was the low, continuous thrum of the Cessna’s engine. Winter looked out the window at the blue sky stretching all the way to the horizon. His thoughts were chasing each other and getting nowhere. In a situation like this, it was best to stop chasing. He turned to Anderton.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when we get there.’

  56

  A sharp finger poked into Winter’s arm and his eyes sprang open. For a brief moment he couldn’t work out where he was. Then he got it. He was in Sobek’s Cessna, heading to Idaho. He peered out the window. There were still plenty of trees down there, but there were also signs of civilisation. Houses were grouped together to form small towns and villages. Roads cut through the landscape like long grey scars. From nine and a half thousand feet Idaho looked vast and uninviting. He put his headset back on and repositioned the microphone.

  ‘We’ll be landing soon,’ Anderton said.

  Winter glanced at his watch. ‘An hour and fifty minutes. We’re ahead of schedule.’

  They started the final descent. Ahead and to the east, a large lake shimmered in the sunlight. The further the Cessna descended, the bigger the lake got until they were flying right over the top of it. They banked to starboard, kept turning and turning until they were back over land. The runway was straight ahead. A large, long area of trees had been cleared away and the ground flattened out to create a crude landing strip.

  The plane dropped lower and the landing strip grew until it seemed to fill the whole windshield. And then the wheels hit the ground and the plane was bumping and jostling and bouncing. Winter gripped the edge of the seat to steady himself. Anderton gripped his arm. The plane slowed some more then came almost to a standstill. Dan taxied over to where a row of planes were parked up and cut the engines. Winter took off his headset. His ears were still buzzing, his bones still vibrating.

  ‘We’ll be about an hour,’ Anderton said to Dan.

  ‘No problem. I’ll be here waiting.’

  They climbed down from the Cessna and walked over to the admin building. The border agent who’d been called in to process their paperwork was as serious and efficient as the woman who’d checked their passports at Boundary Bay. He looked at everything twice, then welcomed them to the United States and wished them a good day.

  Anderton had phoned ahead and there was a car waiting when they got back outside. The car had come in from Coolin, a small town down on the bottom tip of the lake. They drove out of the lot onto Highway 57, a two-lane road that ran south to north, following the shoreline. Coolin was to the south. Nordman was north. It only took five minutes to drive there. During that time they saw only two vehicles. A car and a truck, both going south.

  They turned off the highway and were back in civilisation again. Or as close to civilisation as they were going to get. There was a small general store and a scattering of homes. Two centuries earlier a group of settlers had decided to call this home. The place was picturesque enough but Winter had to wonder what they were thinking.

  Cathy lived near the edge of the lake. Her house was half the size of the one she’d shared with Gifford. There was more land, though, maybe twice as much, the boundary marked with trees. Like Gifford’s house, this one was made from wood that was so dark the building was almost invisible. There was a Dodge Ram parked out front. The side panels of the truck were streaked with mud and dirt and the tyres had deep treads. It was the sort of vehicle you’d want if you were living this far into the middle of nowhere. The weather was pleasant enough today, but three or four months from now it would be a different story. When the snow started falling you’d want a vehicle like this.

  Anderton turned to the driver. ‘Can you wait here, please?’

  ‘Sure.’

  By the time they’d got out and closed the back doors, the driver already had his cell phone out and was checking for a signal. He’d kept the engine running so he could take advantage of the air conditioning. Winter followed Anderton up to the front door. She knocked and stepped back. No one answered. There was no answer the second time. Or the third. She frowned. Winter glanced over his shoulder at the Dodge.

  ‘The car’s here, which means that someone’s got to be in.’

  ‘What if she’s got a second car? What if after she got the call from the Vancouver police she decided that she had pressing business that need to be tended to in Texas? Or Rio? Or somewhere else that’s a thousand miles away from here?’

  Winter shook his head. ‘Look at the house. The wood needs retreating and the paint on the window frames is peeling. This isn’t a two-car household.’

  ‘So where is she?’

  ‘Maybe she heard us arrive and she’s hiding in the cellar.’

  ‘In that case, you’d best get to work with your picks.’

  ‘Before I do that, maybe we should take a look out back. You don’t live out here in the boonies because you want to spend your life stuck indoors. A day as beautiful as this, it would be a crime to stay inside.’

  There was a well-trodden dirt path that led all the way around the perimeter of the house. The land at the back of the property dropped away gently toward the lake. A line of tall Douglas firs partially blocked the view, and beyond that there were glimpses of the water sparkling in the sunlight.

  One part of the yard had been cultivated to create a large vegetable garden. The vegetables were grouped according to type. There were beans on long sticks, lettuces, potatoes, cauliflowers. The chicken run was made from offcuts of wood. The wire was bent and misshapen. There were seven well-fed chickens scrabbling around in the dirt and pecking for corn. Another area had been
cordoned off to create a sty. Two piglets were lounging in the cool mud.

  The dirt path carried on down to a gap in the treeline. A golden retriever suddenly bounced out from between the trees. It spotted Winter and Anderton and came skidding to a halt. Every muscle was taut as though it was getting ready to attack or retreat. Cathy appeared on the path a second later. She saw them and stopped dead. She looked ready to run as well. She was dressed in worn, ripped jeans and a red plaid shirt. Her hair was tied back in a single braid that reached just below her shoulders. She was slim, fit and tanned.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ she called out.

  ‘We just want to talk to you’ Anderton called back. ‘We’re investigating the murders in Vancouver.’

  ‘I already spoke to the police there. I told them I couldn’t help.’

  ‘Couldn’t or wouldn’t?’ Winter called out.

  She looked at him. Her eyes were suspicious and a little fearful. ‘I want you to get off my property.’

  Winter walked over to the dog and told her to sit. She glanced uncertainly at Cathy, confused about what was happening. Winter ordered her to sit again. This time she obeyed. He crouched down and gave her a scratch behind the ears. To start with she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t take long to win her over.

  ‘What’s her name?’ he asked.

  Cathy hesitated. ‘Roxy.’

  ‘She’s beautiful.’

  Cathy said nothing.

  ‘She looks young,’ he said. ‘What is she? Three? Four?’

  ‘She’s almost four.’

  ‘So you got her just after you moved here. It was part of your new start, right? How long had you been planning on leaving your husband?’

  Cathy stiffened and all the suspicion left her eyes. There was just fear there now. Winter stayed crouched down to make himself as small and unthreatening as possible.

  ‘Cathy, we just want to talk. That’s all.’

  ‘I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.’

  ‘I understand how hard this must be, but if it wasn’t important we wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she whispered.

  ‘Billy has already murdered four women,’ Winter said. ‘If we don’t stop him then he’s going to kill again and again and again. Now I realise how upsetting this must be, us just turning up like this. All you want to do is forget and move on, and here we are dragging you back into the past. But here’s the thing, no matter how bad you’re feeling right now, it’s nothing to how you’ll feel when Billy kills again. Because when that happens you’re going to have the guilt to deal with as well. It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself, a part of you will always be wondering if they died because you refused to help us.’

  Cathy still hadn’t moved. She was staring at Winter like she wanted him to disappear. She’d be going over everything he’d just said, projecting into the future and not liking what she saw. He reckoned it would take thirty seconds to come to a decision. In the end it took twenty. Without a word she started walking toward the house. Halfway along the path she gave a whistle. Roxy gave him a quick I-gotta-go look, then stood up and bounded after her. Cathy didn’t say anything as she walked past Anderton. She wouldn’t even glance at her. Head down, she marched toward the house, Roxy trailing at her heel. Winter walked over to Anderton.

  ‘Well, she hasn’t told us to leave,’ she said. ‘On that basis, I’m figuring she’s going to talk.’

  ‘And I’m figuring that we should go after her before she changes her mind.’

  57

  They caught up with Cathy on the back porch. The table she was sitting at was made from weatherworn wood. There were four chairs around it, all made from the same wood. Winter sat down opposite Cathy and Anderton took the seat on the left. Roxy was curled up in a tight ball in a shady spot beneath the table. There were two pairs of rubber boots standing by the back door, one large, one small. The small ones looked to be Cathy’s size, which got Winter wondering about who owned the larger pair.

  Cathy was gazing at the trees at the far end of the yard, and the glimpses of water beyond. The air here was so much cleaner than in the city, the light sharper, the colours brighter. The whole scene was tinged with golden sunlight. If those long-ago settlers had passed through here at this time of the year, then their decision to stay suddenly made a whole lot more sense. There was no offer of a drink. No nod toward hospitality of any sort. Cathy just wanted them to say what they needed to say, and for them to get the hell out of her life.

  ‘How certain are you that Billy killed those women?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s no doubt whatsoever,’ Winter replied. ‘He did it.’

  She didn’t say anything for a while, just stared at the trees while she tried to process this. ‘You’re probably wondering why I stayed with him so long? I mean, how could I? He’s a monster.’

  ‘Except he wasn’t a monster, was he?’

  ‘Not really. And definitely not at the start. This might surprise you, but Billy has a great sense of humour. That was one of the things that attracted me to him. He seemed to know exactly what to say to make me laugh. And it wasn’t just me. I saw him do this with other people, too. It helped with his work. He could put anyone at ease.’

  ‘But you suspected that something wasn’t right about him?’

  ‘Again, not at first, but later on, yes, there was something. That’s why I left him.’ She paused. ‘I still can’t imagine him killing anyone, though. He’s just not capable of doing that.’

  ‘Isn’t he?’

  ‘No, he isn’t.’ There wasn’t much conviction in her voice. It was as if by saying it aloud, she would be able to convince herself of something that she knew was a lie.

  ‘How did you meet him?’ Anderton asked.

  Cathy smiled sadly. ‘This is going to sound pathetic but I met him on a dating site.’

  Anderton returned the smile. ‘That doesn’t sound pathetic at all. A lot of people use dating sites nowadays. I mean, it’s tough meeting a decent man, right?’

  ‘Except there are no guarantees that you are going to meet a decent man. There are just as many assholes on the internet as there are in bars and clubs. More, probably.’

  ‘You thought that Billy was one of the good ones, didn’t you?’

  Cathy nodded. ‘I was convinced of it. On our first date we went out for coffee. There was an instant connection. We had so much in common. He had a great smile, too. I remember getting home and convincing myself that he wouldn’t call. I had his number and I decided that I’d give it three days. If he hadn’t called by then, I’d call him. He phoned the next day and asked me out to dinner. Four months later we were living together. Six months after that we were married.’

  ‘Tell me about the wedding.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell. We got married at City Hall. It was just the two of us. Well, us and some random guy we pulled off of the street to act as a witness. No family because neither of us really had any. You probably know what happened to Billy’s parents, and his foster parents had retired to Florida. He doesn’t have anything to do with them these days. There was some sort of falling out, but he wouldn’t talk about it. As for me, my dad walked out before I was born and my mom died of ovarian cancer when I was twelve.’

  ‘And after you were married you went to live in Argyle Street?’

  ‘That’s right. The first six months were great. The house needed decorating so I was focussed on that. And I was in love with Billy so I chose to ignore the danger signs.’

  ‘What signs?’ Winter asked.

  ‘He started getting clingy. Little things to start with, but after a year or so it started getting worse. He’d want to know what I was up to and where I was going. If I went out he’d want to come with me. There would be times when I’d be watching TV or reading a magazine, and I’d turn around and catch him staring. At the start of our relationship I liked it when he paid me attention, but this was getting weird. I felt like I was being suffo
cated.’

  ‘He took photographs of you, didn’t he?’

  Cathy grimaced and rolled her eyes. ‘Like I already said, the attention was nice to start with. And he was a photographer. It’s what he did for a living. To be honest, I would have been more upset if he hadn’t taken my picture. I mean, why would he take pictures of everyone else and not me? But it got to the point where there was always a camera pointing in my face. Obviously it wasn’t all the time, but that’s what it felt like.’

  ‘He hung the pictures up in the house,’ Winter said. ‘Lots of them.’

  Cathy’s eyes widened. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘We were there earlier. There were marks where the picture hooks had been.’

  ‘The first time he put up one of my pictures I was flattered. It was the best photograph anyone had ever taken of me. And then another one appeared, and another. It eventually got to the point where they were in every room of the house. Do you have any idea how creepy it is to have your own eyes following you wherever you go?’

  ‘You clearly weren’t happy in the relationship,’ Anderton said. ‘Why didn’t you just leave?’

  Cathy laughed but there was no humour there. ‘Believe me, I tried.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘One night we had a big argument. I can’t even remember what it was about. Something stupid and unimportant, no doubt. Anyway, we were in the kitchen and I suddenly had this moment of clarity. What the hell was I doing here? I wasn’t happy. So I told Billy I was leaving. His response was to tell me he was going to kill himself. And then he grabbed a knife. Before I could stop him, he ran it up his arm. There was so much blood. It seemed to be everywhere. I couldn’t believe what he’d done. I mean, how crazy is that? I grabbed some towels and used them to stem the bleeding. By the time the paramedics arrived Billy was unconscious. I really thought I’d lost him. When he came back around, he told me that he loved me and couldn’t live without me. He didn’t come out and say that he’d do it again if I left, but the implication was there.’