Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle

by Jeffrey Round

  Dan had no idea what to say to his son to console him for his loss, for the encroaching edges of life bearing down on him. He was also terrifyingly grateful it had not been his son who had been killed, though he could scarcely bring himself to think this. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so helpless.

  Kendra came back on the line. “Danny, he’s too upset to talk.”

  “Should I wait?”

  “No. I’ll get him to call back later when he’s feeling better.”

  “Okay. Tell him I love him.”

  “All right.”

  Dan held onto the receiver until the line went dead. He went back to the TV and turned it on, waiting for the news.

  There was a new receptionist behind the glass at Martin’s office, though she wore the same blank look as her predecessor. Martin didn’t mention the change and Dan didn’t ask.

  The topic most on Dan’s mind was the death of Ked’s friend, Ephraim Adituye, a bright kid seemingly with everything to live for. Martin nodded in understanding. He’d heard the news reports. The entire city was reeling from the killing — not the first of its kind in recent memory.

  “How are you feeling about this?” Martin asked solemnly.

  Dan sat crumpled in the chair. He shook his head, bewildered by the question. How would anyone feel? Shocked. Angered. Vulnerable. At last, he said, “In a world where kids get shot by absolute strangers … why is it I scare my own son? Why is that?”

  Martin stared without answering.

  “I saved a kid the other day,” Dan went on. “And I had to break the law to do it.” He hadn’t intended to say anything about Lester, but there it was. Dan waited for Martin to write this down, but he simply sat there.

  At last, Martin said, “Why did you have to break the law to do it?”

  “Because his parents would have destroyed him. Because in order to save him, I had to keep him from his family. Some people would call me a monster for doing that.”

  “Some might call you a hero for making a moral choice.”

  Dan looked up. “I’m not sure it was a choice. Something needed to be done to save him.”

  “Why do you need to save people?” Martin asked.

  Dan shook his head. “That’s what I do — I save people. From themselves. From their shitty lives. From the world.”

  “You save them or you locate them?”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  Dan had come here to talk about the death of a fourteen-year-old boy and all that Ephraim’s death said about a corrupt and seemingly pointless world. He hoped this wasn’t about to become another meaningless conversation. Neither he nor Martin spoke for a full minute. Martin had never let him sit in unbroken silence for so long.

  Martin cleared his throat. “Is there anything else you’d like to talk about today?” he said at last.

  Dan shook his head. “Actually, no.” He stood and reached for his coat, then paused at the door. After a moment, he turned back to Martin. “I don’t think I’ll be coming here again.”

  Martin looked down at his sheet. “I’ll have to fill out the report,” he said.

  Dan nodded. “It’s what you get paid for.” He stood there trying to think of something to say. He thought Martin looked scared. Had he never had a patient walk out on him before?

  Martin looked up again. “Did you ever think of saving yourself for once?”

  “Am I supposed to have an epiphany on that one, Martin?”

  Martin stared, blinking his incomprehension. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe you are. Supposed to have an epiphany. Maybe that’s what you need — an epiphany to tell you how to save your own life. Something to tell you that it’s worth saving.”

  “And what exactly would that be?” Dan heard the anger surge in his voice. “All you ever do is ask questions, Martin. Don’t you ever have any fucking answers?”

  Martin stared until Dan felt uncomfortable. He leaned forward. “What’s the one thing that matters most to you?” Martin asked. “Whatever it is, hold fast to it.”

  Dan had a sudden glimpse of this pathetic little man returning to his empty house and his lonely life every single evening for the rest of his days. A man who had no friends and who suspected the motives of everyone he met. A man who probably had never been happy and who had once turned to his profession hoping it might save him from himself, only to discover it couldn’t save anyone. All his hope dying with it.

  “I’ll do that.” Dan turned the handle and the door opened. The lights were off in the waiting room. “Thank you, Martin,” he said. “I’ll see myself out.”

  Craig stayed with him all that long month of no drink, no news. A month of Dan thinking about who the man had really been. Father, teacher, lover. Remarkable by any account, despite his undeservedly sad ending. Dan tried to imagine what might still remain of him — a soul, maybe, or just some essential spark if you were less inclined to go in for sentiment. Whatever it was would have been hovering over his sons, if it wasn’t busy haunting his wife in some spooky supernatural capacity. Somehow, that last thought appealed to Dan.

  Ed called Dan to his office the day after he informed Martin he would no longer be attending the weekly therapy sessions. Dan had his resignation letter ready.

  “You’re my best investigator, Dan. I was going to tell you it was time to stop that nonsense anyway. Won’t you give this another think?”

  “Not at present, Ed. Sorry.”

  Whatever the future might hold, he told himself, he was going to get in a whole lot of jogging. He might even welcome a lascivious proposition or two, though none came his way. Sobriety was having a strange effect on him.

  Though Ked was still at Kendra’s, Dan was making the effort to see more of him. Even Ralph began to weary of all the walks he now received, turning his head when Dan opened his arms wide with a “What do you want, boy?”

  The rain was coming higgledy-piggledy down the windshield, a composition in silver and grey, liquid and changing. Enigmatic codes, scribbles darting across the screen, with the wipers batting the way. Then maybe you are. Supposed to have an epiphany. Then maybe you are. Supposed to have an epiphany. Martin’s words came back to him, insistent, keeping time with the wipers. The bright effervescence of October, that final burst of summer-not-quite-over, had led to the dreariness of November’s bride-stripped-bare before slipping into December’s oncoming winter-never-ending. By the time Dan reached the wind-riven shores of Prince Edward County, the rain had turned into wet, sloppy flakes that splatted against the windshield all along the Loyalist Parkway.

  Ted had telephoned unexpectedly, asking for Dan’s company. Not his help, but his company. His strength: “I can’t do this alone. Will you go with me?” He’d put off confronting his mother till he had a bit more solid ground — meaning drug-free time — under his feet before tackling her. But now he felt ready. Sunday.

  He’d chosen the weekend when both she and Thom would be at Adolphustown closing the house down for the winter. Perhaps subconsciously he’d wanted to confront her where the crimes against his father had been perpetrated. To face her on her own turf. Never a wise decision, Dan thought. But it was Ted’s choice.

  Dan had agreed to accompany him. It was odd how straight men turned to him as though he were innately more competent than them. Or maybe it was so they could finally stop pretending to be competent and let someone else do the job for once.

  They met at a café in downtown Picton. Not the Murky Turkey. Better for both of them to avoid even the hint of temptation, surrounded instead by sandwiches and bright little pastries and coffee, sweets and caffeine still being the only socially acceptable addictions.

  Ted looked clean, far better than when he and Dan had last met. He confirmed it had been six long, difficult weeks. But with the knowledge that he could pull himself through came the strength of self-confidence. He was finally starting to feel better for it. He smi
led. He seemed in remarkably good spirits for a man who was about to blow apart his entire family. Though in some way or other he’d been preparing for this moment for most of his adult life.

  He pocketed his cell phone as Dan walked in. He’d been talking to Thom, he said, trying to prepare his brother for what was coming. At first Thom hung up in disbelief, but he called back within minutes. He was ready to hear the truth. And Ted had delivered it. Give him till one o’clock, Thom said. They would confront her together. Ted agreed.

  “It took me a while to convince him. I think it was harder for him to believe our father was gay than that he’d killed himself. I don’t think I would have believed it either, but for the diary.” He shrugged philosophically. “He found it particularly hard to accept the story about the assault charges. I assured him Magnus had witnessed the altercation and that he was still very much alive to tell the tale.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “He was in a rage. It wasn’t loud, but I could tell. He fumes quietly, my brother. We’re both practised at repressing our emotions. We’ve always been a family of liars, especially when it comes to our feelings, and damn good at it too. I think the legacy goes back to our grandfather, if not well before that.”

  Dan remembered standing by Nathaniel Macaulay’s grave outside the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in the long shadows of morning. A man whose intolerance and prejudice had reached so far as to touch the lives of his own grandchildren, long after his death. Was that the Presbyterian idea of immortality?

  “Can I ask something…?”

  “Shoot.”

  “On the last page in the police report, you were quoted as saying your dad was a liar. What did you mean by it?”

  Ted gave a bitter laugh. “My father showed up at home right before he disappeared. I hadn’t known he was coming and I was thrilled to see him. It was my birthday and I thought he’d come for that. He came into my bedroom. I remember he was crying. He held me a long time and said he was coming back to us and that everything was going to be the way it had been. But he never came back again, and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t keep his promise.”

  Dan nodded. “Not much of a birthday present.”

  Ted looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

  “Sure you don’t want to rethink this?”

  “No — I can’t.”

  They finished their coffee and got ready. Ted wanted to stop for cigarettes. He couldn’t give up every addiction, he told Dan with a smile. That would still give him time to get to the ferry and over to the house while Thom did whatever he needed to prepare himself. They stepped out into the whiteness of a flurry. Dan hesitated on the steps of the café before heading for his car. He watched Ted head out, shoulder to the wind, waiting till he drove off.

  Dan started up the engine, the wipers taking right off again, picking up the old refrain: Then maybe you are. Supposed to have an epiphany. Then maybe you are. Supposed to have an epiphany. Craig Killingworth’s face bobbed up and down like a sideshow clown at the midway, a moving target in the Shoot-’Em-Up galleries. In the background, Dan imagined Ted’s father-in-law, Nathaniel Macaulay, holding a gun to his shoulder and squeezing the trigger again and again.

  Dan slowed the car as he approached Glenora. No line-up. He glanced across the water where the ferry was just reaching the far shore. There was still time. He found himself turning around and heading back up County Road 7 to Lake on the Mountain. He thought of its subterranean aquifers travelling hundreds of miles unseen, only to emerge again somewhere strange, mysterious and unexpected, like a father’s love for his child.

  The lake suddenly came into view. Dan pulled into the empty parking lot. The sleet was bashing against the windshield, insistent, like something trying to pound its way into his brain, thousands of little pieces of a giant puzzle flinging themselves at him, getting closer and closer but not quite reaching him.

  After all these years, he thought, it was strange how the past still held sway over the present, like hands reaching out from the grave. An old man’s prejudices had stained and perverted his grandson’s lives, and a father’s diary that had lain unread for more than twenty years was about to destroy his family. From this day forward, Dan promised himself, he’d think more about the here-and-now. Donny was right — he’d been caught in a dead man’s world after all.

  He sat looking over the Bay of Quinte, with its breathtaking views. If he tried, he could probably pick out the Killingworth mansion on the far side hidden by its copse of pine trees. Were Craig Killingworth’s remains out there, his final resting spot somewhere just offshore from his wife’s cheerless estate? What had gone through his head in those final moments as he stood saying goodbye to all the things he was giving up? How did you say goodbye to your life, letting go of everything that mattered?

  What is the one thing that matters most to you? Whatever it is, hold fast to it. Martin’s words again. Thank god for Kedrick. In all those years, his son was the one thing that had kept Dan’s head above water — at times only just above, but still. Dan had promised himself nothing would ever come between him and Ked. Even alcohol hadn’t made him break that promise. So there was hope, he knew. There would always be hope, so long as love remained. Then what had happened to Craig Killingworth, a man who claimed his sons mattered more to him than anything, even life itself? Why hadn’t he chosen to live for them?

  Something … something … something was driving at him, ticking at the back of his brain with an insistent rhythm. Whatever it was, he couldn’t ignore it. It held there, waiting for him to find it.

  Dan recalled his momentous meeting with Ted a month earlier as he’d unravelled the secrets of the past, unlocking the mysteries of the long-dead. It’s my birthday, Ted had said, just before going out the door. Time to start living.

  Dan thought back. It had been the day after Halloween, making it … November First. The date Craig Killingworth had planned to leave town twenty years earlier. The same date on which he’d disappeared forever. If Dan were ever to leave Ked, for any reason on earth, it wouldn’t be on his son’s birthday.

  Or any other day.

  Because a man who loved his children that much could never abandon them, not even for a pact to begin a new life with another man. Earlier that day Craig Killingworth had said his real goodbyes, to his friend and lover, Magnus Ferguson. Magnus hadn’t known it at the time, but he’d suspected something was wrong when he spoke with Craig on the phone in the morning. So he’d gone to the house and helped him pack. Craig had always been fussy about his clothes, he’d said. A fussy man, who got cranky about packing….

  Dan looked down at the cell phone resting on the passenger seat. Yes or no? he asked himself. Yes or no? It had to be … yes! He picked it up, flipped it open with one hand and dialled. Yes! Yes! It screamed at him now. Why? Why hadn’t he seen it in all this time?

  Saylor answered. Dan spoke quickly, trying to convince the Picton cop that what he was saying was really true this time. Because he’d just grasped the one thing that was bothering him in all this mess. Despite the apparent suicide letter to Magnus, despite the eyewitness reports and the numerous sightings following Craig Killingworth’s disappearance, leaving just a trace of hope that he might still be alive somewhere, something had been nagging at him. Because despite even what the diary said, he’d felt it in his bones … the one thing out of place in all this sordid sadness.

  He’d finally found the unexpected: a suitcase. Standing empty behind a door in a police file, but packed earlier that day according to Magnus. It was the one thing awry in the report. A man had packed his suitcase to go away. Why would he bother to unpack it if he was going to kill himself? Dan’s instincts had been right all along. Ted said his father had come back to see him the day of his birthday. He would never have left on his son’s birthday after promising Ted he was coming back to stay: I’m going to give her what she’s always wanted. By the time you get this, I will be a dead man.

  Craig
Killingworth hadn’t decided to kill himself. He was a dead man because he knew he couldn’t live without his sons. That meant for the rest of his life he would have to endure whatever his wife had in store for him. He’d unpacked his suitcase — because he’d finally made up his mind to return. Just as he’d promised Ted.

  Grief. A powerful word beginning with a soft utterance and ending in a feather’s caress. There’s no way to say it without beginning and ending in a sibilant whisper. Intake of breath or out, it’s still the same — like a verbal palindrome. Craig Killingworth had felt its pull, soft and seductive enough to make him sacrifice himself. He’d given in to its drowning embrace, giving up what he wanted most — his freedom — for what he couldn’t live without: his boys. In doing so, he’d lost both. There wasn’t a prayer or lamentation or elegy in the world that could convey, in words or music, the tragedy that this had brought about. There was nothing that could revoke or undo the senseless horror of what had happened to him: If I can’t have you, nobody will!

  Craig Killingworth had unpacked his suitcase that day and then sat down and written his letter to tell Magnus the truth, a truth that even he hadn’t fully comprehended: that he wasn’t leaving. Not because he’d decided to return to his family, but because he would be dead by the end of the day. He couldn’t have known that he was setting his own death in motion when he got on his bicycle and took the ferry to Adolphustown to tell his boys and his wife that he was coming back to live with them.

  Terry Piers said that Craig Killingworth hadn’t returned on the ferry with his bicycle. But someone had. A boy. The same boy Magnus had seen riding a bicycle up the hill to Lake on the Mountain. A dutiful son removing the evidence that his father had been there that night.

  She was pure evil, a woman who destroyed to suit her own ego. She’d even enlisted her son to help her. Murder: the one unforgivable sin. Because she had taken away something she could never replace: her husband’s life.

  At least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I’ve destroyed her in return. Had Ted known all along what he was doing?