Terror on the Way

by Ron Finch

  “I assume the five of you are here to see me because you wish to come up with a solution that could involve a punishment other than incarceration for the eight young men,” said Judge Bernard. “A crime is a crime, and there must be a penalty,” he continued, “but I understand that, because of the labour unrest in the town, and the involvement of the Army, there is a climate that demands that the punishment must be seen as very reasonable.”

  Judge Bernard had only been in the Chaseford area a couple of years but Chief Petrovic had been impressed before by his insight and understanding of people.

  “What do you propose?” asked the judge.

  Chief Petrovic nodded at George Manners. Manners stood, addressed the judge as Your Honor, and proceeded to outline their idea for 2-year suspended sentences for the eight local factory workers. When George Manners finished his request for the judge’s consideration, he sat down. Then they all waited patiently for the judge’s response.

  “I think that’s a very reasonable request,” said Judge Bernard. “These men are being treated individually; they are being given a very fair sentence that involves a penalty and compensation with the only provisos being that they fully cooperate with the police, and further, that they do not commit any criminal offense during the time of their suspended sentence.”

  “Can I speak to the newspaper editor yet, Your Honor?” asked Chief Petrovic.

  “No, you are all to keep this a secret. The young men will be spoken to by legal counsel prior to their trial. At the conclusion of each trial, I will pass sentence publicly.” He paused, and, looking around at them, added, “Remember, it’s a secret. I will not be happy with you if I find out any of you have released this information. Under the circumstances, I hope to finish with this business by the middle of December. You are free to go.”

  I WAS UP BEFORE 7 O’CLOCK. Before turning out the light last night, I had read the list of House Rules that Aunt Muriel had posted on the walls of each of the rooms she rented out.

  Rule 3 read, ‘Breakfast is at 7:30 sharp. Please be prompt.’ It wasn’t followed by an ‘or else’, but anyone who had met Aunt Muriel knew there would be consequences for breaking any of her rules.

  So, I was at the breakfast table before 7:30. When I arrived, Ursula Donaldson was already seated, engaged in a conversation with Aunt Muriel while they sipped their early morning coffee.

  As I sat down, Aunt Muriel looked at her watch, noted the time, and then turned and smiled at me. So far, I hadn’t picked up any demerit points.

  Aunt Muriel said, “Nancy.”

  A woman I had never seen before came from the kitchen carrying a tray containing plates with bacon, eggs, and sausage. She returned a minute later with another tray that had a large plate of toast, three glasses filled with apple juice, and three small dishes containing strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry jam.

  Aunt Muriel introduced me to Nancy, indicating that she was the next-door neighbour, whom she employed for breakfast preparation any day that Aunt Muriel had guests.

  It was an excellent breakfast. I had momentarily forgotten about the man whom Aunt Muriel had mentioned to me the previous evening; the one that she had asked to leave on account of his chanting.

  “What happened to that strange man that was here last week?” said Nancy. “You know the man I mean; the one with the funny eyes that would chant at night.”

  “He arrived here last Monday, November 20,” said Aunt Muriel, turning to me. “He was a strange character. He didn’t smell too bad, and I felt kind of sorry for him. Remember, Ursula? You saw him. He wore that cloak. I thought perhaps he was a priest who had lost his way. I don’t make many mistakes, but I made a mistake with him. He was gone by Wednesday.”

  “Do you remember when he asked you if you knew Jason,” said Ursula to Aunt Muriel.

  “It was a little stranger than that,” said Aunt Muriel. “He asked me if I knew who Jason was. I didn’t know what to say, so I just told him I didn’t know any Jasons. He seemed disappointed in me.”

  “Anyway, he’s gone,” said Nancy.

  “Do you have any idea where he went?” I asked.

  They all looked at me curiously.

  “Is he a relative of yours?” asked Aunt Muriel in her most inquisitional manner.

  “No, he just sounds like an interesting character. Because of his appearance and his chanting,” I said.

  “I think he’s in the neighbourhood nearby,” said Nancy. “I saw him when I went shopping on Saturday.”

  DETECTIVE WILLIAM FREDERICKS had already placed another chair at the side of his desk by the time I’d arrived.

  “That’s your landing spot,” he said with a smile. “I hope it’s a big enough space for you. I dumped the important documents I had temporarily stored there on Friday. Into two large garbage pails.”

  “That gives me lots of room for my notebook and a coffee,” I said.

  “Do you have any ideas about how you could help today?” he asked, getting straight to business.

  “I do. But I’d like to know first if you got any response to the article in the paper. Did you get any leads?”

  “Nothing yet; except for a couple of what I would call screwball ideas from people that have contacted us before about seeing imaginary people or animals in the streets.”

  “What’s happening with your investigation right now?” I asked.

  “We started a door-to-door canvas of boarding houses in the area near Ethel Water’s boarding house.”

  “That makes perfect sense,” I said. “The killer apparently has been moving across the country, so he probably is residing in some kind of temporary housing. A boarding house makes the most sense.

  “I was thinking that today I would contact boarding houses in the vicinity of my wife’s aunt’s boarding house because of something I heard this morning.”

  Immediately Det. Fredericks became interested, “What did you hear?” he asked.

  “Lots. There were three women talking at me while I was eating my breakfast.”

  Det. Fredericks smiled. “Keep talking,” he said.

  “One of them mentioned that someone had seen a man wearing a hood in the neighbourhood on Saturday.”

  “That’s helpful,” he said.

  “I have a more frightening piece of news,” I added.

  Det. Fredericks leaned toward me, anxious to hear.

  “I think our man may have stayed at Aunt Muriel’s boarding house last Monday and Tuesday.”

  “Good heavens,” Det. Fredericks said loudly. “What happened?”

  I went through the conversation I’d had at breakfast almost verbatim. When I’d finished, Det. Fredericks said, “You and I had better start going door-to-door in that neighbourhood as soon as we can.”

  “I’LL START ONE STREET over from the police station,” said Det. Fredericks. “Why don’t you go to your aunt’s house and work your way toward me.”

  “She’s definitely not my aunt,” I said.

  “Sorry, your aunt-in-law,” replied Det. Fredericks, grinning.

  About an hour later, after I had knocked on my fourth door, I took a little break and went to a small park nearby. I sat down under a tree where I was not easily visible and tried to reach Berman.

  It didn’t take long.

  “Berman, is the man I’m looking for nearby?” I asked.

  “Signal weak right now,” Berman responded. “Often weak in afternoon. He must go somewhere. He always around after dark.”

  That wasn’t the news I wanted to hear, but it didn’t mean I should end my search. I knew if I found the right boarding house I could come back later in the evening.

  I visited another three houses with no success, although I did get advice from women at two houses. They both said almost the same thing. “The best place to find the person you described is probably the church.”

  It made me stop and think. Maybe this person wearing the cassock was affiliated with one of the recognized churches?

&nbs
p; I could see Det. Fredericks coming down the steps from a house about a block away. It was getting close to 5 o’clock, and at the last two houses I had interrupted people who had started preparing supper. I thought there were probably only four houses in the next block that were renting out rooms.

  So, I crossed the street and went to the second house down. Like a lot of the other houses, it had a small sign in the window that read Room to Rent. I knocked at the door and an attractive, freckle-faced woman in her mid-forties greeted me.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name is Elaine Wilson. Are you looking for a room?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.” I showed her my badge. “I’m looking for a man that dresses a bit like a priest. Do you have anyone staying at your place, or have you seen anyone in the neighbourhood, wearing a cassock or a similar type of robe?”

  She paused and looked up at me and said, “What has he done?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to frighten her by telling her that she had a demonic murderer staying in her house, and I had to maintain police confidentiality. I opted for temporarily ignoring the question. “The man I’m looking for chants,” I said. “He was asked to leave his previous accommodation because he was disrupting the peace and quiet of the other tenants.”

  “That man may be staying with me,” she said. “He came and knocked on my door last Thursday. He seemed pleasant, and he could afford to pay in advance, but his eyes looked distant. I decided to give him a chance. He hasn’t been a problem. He is often gone for most of the day, but he is always back by nightfall.”

  “Okay, thank you, that helps. I’ll be back later. I’ll have a police constable come and stay with you until I return. I’ve been trying to catch this guy for a while, but he always disappears on me. If you see him first, please don’t tell him I was here.”

  “I won’t say anything to him about your visit if I see him,” said Elaine. She was now obviously upset but knew I wasn’t going to tell her anything further.

  As I walked down the front steps of the house, I saw Det. Fredericks heading up the front steps of the house about sixty feet from me.

  “Hey, Bill, hold on,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  He came back down the steps of the house he had been approaching and we met on the front sidewalk in front of Elaine Wilson’s house.

  “What did you find out?” he said.

  “I just struck it lucky. I gave the woman that lives here a description of the man we’re looking for and she said he’s her tenant. He’s not home right now, but according to Mrs. Wilson, he usually turns up around dark.”

  “Can you arrange to have a constable come over and stay with Mrs. Wilson while you and I put together a plan to capture this killer?”

  “I was thinking the same thing myself, Detective.”

  Thessalus

  THESSALUS’S MOTHER had raised him by herself.

  He knew nothing about his father. His mother had always emphasized to Thessalus that he was important and had a special role to fill in the history of the world. She told him the name Thessalus had been reserved especially for him. She said the gods would not allow her to reveal his quest – it was something that he would discover as time went by – but once he knew the purpose of his life, he was to pursue it no matter what obstacles should come his way.

  Thessalus Redd and his mother Medea led a tenuous existence. For as long as he could remember, Thessalus and his mother had lived in a summer kitchen that had been added onto a farmhouse on the outskirts of Vancouver. They worked in the fields and did other chores to earn some food and a place to sleep. When he was 19, his mother died. She left him a large trunk that she said had belonged to her parents. As she’d died, she’d told him that he must fulfil his quest.

  The man who owned the farm said that, because of the hardships caused by The Great Depression, Thessalus would have to leave. Seeing that Thessalus was concerned about the trunk, the farmer said he would keep the trunk safe at his farm and Thessalus could return at any time to retrieve it. Thessalus had never looked in the trunk, but now that he was leaving, he knew that he must. Buried underneath some clothing and other mementos was a brown cassock. Immediately, he knew he was meant to wear this robe on his mission.

  The farmer wished Thessalus well and told him he hoped his journey would be successful. Those words comforted Thessalus. He knew he was starting his quest. So, wearing his brown cassock, and carrying a small bag of apples that the farmer had given him, Thessalus ventured into downtown Vancouver.

  At first, he was frightened. The city seemed to be full of people who were angry and hungry. One day, in the spring of 1932, he got caught up in a march of thousands of unemployed workers and squatters demanding food. The march had been organized by the Relief Camp Workers Union.

  Thessalus didn’t know what was going on, but he did know he was hungry. When the police charged the demonstrators on foot and horseback wielding clubs, Thessalus was one of the unlucky ones. He was knocked senseless to the ground. It was only by good fortune that he wasn’t trampled by the horses.

  Shortly after this traumatic event, Thessalus was plagued with severe headaches and began having visions. He knew this was part of the plan. He knew that the visions and circumstances would eventually reveal his life’s purpose to him.

  Shortly after Christmas, in December 1932, Thessalus attended a medieval exhibition at the Museum of Vancouver where many artifacts were displayed. As soon as Thessalus Redd saw the 12-inch rondel dagger he knew that it belonged to him and that it would be required for his mission.

  Just before closing time, he put it under this cassock and walked out the door. No one stopped him because it was the will of the gods that he do so.

  In April of 1933, Thessalus experienced a major revelation. It was a warm spring evening and he was walking through a park in Vancouver when he came upon a troupe of amateur players performing a play. At first, he’d been entranced by the costumes, but soon he became caught up in the play. When the play was over, he helped the players load the few props they had into the back of an old Ford truck. While they were working, in answer to his questions, the leading man, who played the role of Jason, explained to Thessalus that the play was called Medea. He suggested that Thessalus visit the local library to read about Jason. He shocked Thessalus when he said, “You may learn something about yourself.”

  Thessalus knew it was a sign. The play was about his mother. He now suspected that his mother had murdered his father. The suggestion from the actor who played Jason was significant. Thessalus’s researches at the library helped him better understand his life’s mission. He discovered he was Jason’s son. He knew he had to avenge the murders committed by Medea. His mother wanted him to atone for her sins. Only one big question remained to be answered: Who was he destined to kill?

  Over the next few weeks, Thessalus’s severe headaches became worse. These headaches would incapacitate him; but when he fell into a deep sleep to escape the pain, the dreams would come. Sometimes they were so real, he didn’t think he was dreaming.

  Sometimes his dreams made no sense. He had one dream quite often: he was in an electrical storm and the lightning flashes revealed women in robes with the letters E&W on them.

  He spent time at the library trying to find a connection between the letters E&W and Jason. Then early one morning in late June, before dawn, he woke up after the dream and understood what it all meant.

  Jason meant two things: it was the name of his father; and it stood for July, August, September, October, and November.

  His destiny had been revealed to him. It made perfect sense. Why hadn’t he seen it before? He was to use his dagger to sacrifice five women, one in each of the months revealed by the letters of Jason’s name. The women’s names must start with the letters E and W.

  Later that morning, while searching for something to eat, the gods produced the final piece of the puzzle. Beside some garbage pails at the mouth of an alley,
Thessalus found a train ticket to Calgary. His mission had begun.

  Monday, November 27th - Night

  BY 8 O’CLOCK, IT WAS quite dark. The night was overcast, and Det. Fredericks and I were having tea with Elaine Wilson in her kitchen. A constable was parked in the street across from her home.

  Det. Fredericks turned to me and said, “Is he coming back?”

  “I was just wondering that myself,” I said. “He always comes back around dusk, but we’re well past that time now.” I turned to Mrs. Wilson. “I know he hasn’t been here long, but has he ever been out past dark before?”

  “No. He made quite a point of telling me he must be in before dark,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, turning to Det. Fredericks. “Do you mind if I go down to the corner store? I’ll only be a few minutes. Is there anything I can get either of you?”

  “We’re fine,” they said, nodding.

  I NEEDED TO CONTACT Berman. I knew I couldn’t do it with them present, so I used the old ‘going to the store’ excuse.

  I walked partway down the block, far enough that they wouldn’t be able to see me, and in the shelter of a tree I contacted Berman. He was almost immediately present.

  “Do you know where the man in the hood is?” I sent.

  “Nowhere near you,” he sent back. “At Union Station.”

  He’s leaving town.

  I thought frantically for a moment; then I had a plan.

  “THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG, Joel,” said Det. Fredericks. “You’re out of breath. Did you run all the way back?”

  “I didn’t even get there,” I panted. “I think I saw him. Did he have a suitcase or bag with him when he came in?” I said to Mrs. Wilson.

  “I’ll take a look in his room right now,” she said. “When he arrived, he was carrying a large bag. Something like a sailor would carry.”

  She was back in a minute.

  “There’s nothing in his room,” she said. “He’s gone.”