by Jon Redfern
Cara put her arms around Justin’s shoulders. She led him into the dark living room and sat down beside him on the couch, her arms embracing him. “You’re shivering,” she said, holding him tighter. Justin breathed in Cara’s warmth, the smell of her perfume.
“Come on,” she whispered. He stood up with Cara’s help and walked to the bedroom. Cara had her right arm around his waist. When she kissed him lightly on the mouth, he didn’t struggle. When she stroked his hair, he shut his eyes and allowed her touch to soothe him.
“Come here, Justin.”
He lay down beside her. The bed springs creaked. “Oh, Justin,” Cara whispered. She laid her hand on his neck and stroked him. Justin breathed out, his heart calming. He let Cara caress him, and in doing so he let go of his fear.
Billy’s disappointment tasted bitter. Maybe he was tired; maybe he’d been expecting too much too soon. After all, Blayne Morton had a motive, and there was the Polaroid of the naked Darren Riegert to orchestrate a conviction. But now Billy was asking a man called Axel Preis to repeat what he’d told him not two seconds before. The light in the small green office was too bright and stung Billy’s eyes. The smell of fuel from the buses in the garage next door seeped everywhere, a pungent sweet odour of motor oil and rubber.
“I know the kid well. He’s always riding up and down my route — Number 43 — down Ashmead, out to the mall, Loblaws, and round to city hall. Can’t mistake him with that head of his. He’s big. I see him pretty near every night and after school. Looks lonely. Never asked him his name. Friday, he was walking up Ashmead around 10:45. I knew it was him ’cause of the green hair. I figured, he’s out walking tonight. I honked a couple of times at him before he saw me and ran to Stop 17 on the route, right next to the soccer field off Ashmead and Baroness. He looked pale. That camera was with him. Seems to take it everywhere.”
“Are you sure of the time, Mr. Preis? Please be as accurate as you can. This is very important.”
“I can see that. My timetable says be at Stop 17 by 10:45. I checked the old town clock. It’s pretty accurate since they replaced the innards. Read 10:42. I checked my watch, 10:43. Out a minute. Why the boy was out so late, I can’t say. He got on at 10:45. We rode around together almost a couple of hours until he got off at his stop, by the mall. No one got on, it was him and me. His stop is a good sixteen blocks or more from Ashmead, where the house you told me about is situated. I checked in to the bus barn by 1:00, on the dot.”
“Sign-in sheet is here, Inspector,” said a man whose name tag announced he was a supervisor. The sheet read 1:01. Billy wrote down the men’s names and the times they gave him and asked that they contact him in the morning so that a formal statement could be made. Billy then received a photocopy of the time sheet and the name of the bus route and the bus driver’s name. He remembered his own deduction of the time of Darren’s death from the appearance of the tied arms and the advance of the rigor mortis: from 11:30 to midnight. And, too, Coroner Hawkes had estimated a time frame of one hour, from 11:30 to half past midnight. Tommy the medic’s first thermometer readings, he recalled, verified his own hunch. So Morton was at the site but definitely before the hanging. Why was he there with his camera? And who else, then, participated? Billy realized even in his late-day fatigue that he must force a confession from the boy once he was out of sedation. He had to engineer it so Blayne could not escape in his rocking game.
As soon as he got home, Billy fried up eggs and sausage. Right after he washed the dishes, he brought in the chairs from the porch, wary of a thundercloud that was rolling in from the southwest. Soon rain was pelting the roof, and gusts of wind were slapping and rattling the doors. The storm swept by after a loud half hour of cracks and rumblings, and then calm returned. The air was moist with the perfume of wet sagebrush. At the kitchen window, Billy stared at the dripping firs still in their burlap sacks. He hadn’t unwrapped them and planted them in the honour garden, and with the last two days of heat, they had begun to yellow and die. He promised he’d go first thing tomorrow morning to the nursery. He tried to centre himself. Feeling uneasy and upset about Blayne Morton would not help him sleep tonight. The air and his dinner had revived him a little, and he decided to follow a hunch he’d been nursing ever since getting home.
He called dispatch. When the sergeant answered, Billy told him to get Butch to meet Billy at the regional hospital. “I’ll call the hospital to double-check on the boy in the meantime,” Billy explained. He hung up, found his notebook on the kitchen table, looked up the hospital number, and was about to dial when the phone started to ring.
“Sir, I just got a call from Chief Bochansky. He’s already on his way to the hospital. Blayne Morton escaped from the ward. Chief wanted you to know. I told him you had just called. Dodd has gone to get Morton’s mother. Seems the kid struck one of the night nurses and ran out of the hospital in his bed gown.”
“All right.”
“And he yanked out his iv. The nurse said he used it as a weapon.”
“All right, sergeant.”
“Chief said he’d meet you at the hospital.”
He grabbed his raincoat. Moments later, the highway shone yellow under the median lights. When Billy pulled into the emergency entrance of the regional hospital, the driveway was partially blocked by two city police cruisers. A lone man directed traffic and told Billy to leave the lane clear for ambulances. Once inside, Billy searched for Butch. He asked the info desk people, even though he knew where Butch had gone. He rode up in the elevator to the ward where Blayne Morton had been kept. Nurses were trying to divert inquiring patients and curious visitors away from the police activity; Billy could hear Butch’s voice bellowing orders from a room down the hall. Then he saw Mrs. Morton sitting on a chair by the doorway to Blayne’s room, her head bent forward with the same obedience and exhaustion as the first time he met her. She raised her head to him as he approached.
“Inspector. Oh, sir, my Blayne. . . .”
She fell silent as Butch came to the hospital room’s doorway.
“You break the speed limit getting here?”
“Anyone hurt?” asked Billy.
“The night nurse, a Miss Morgan, may have a broken nose. She’s been taken to emergency.”
“How did it happen?”
A woman in a nurse’s uniform appeared in the doorway from behind Butch.
“Are you Inspector Yamamoto?” she asked. Her voice was gentle, and Billy was reminded of the nurse who’d tended his father.
“Yes, I am.”
He followed her into a narrow room across the hall, where she closed the door behind them.
“I’ve told this to your chief already. It’s best if we come in here out of earshot of Blayne’s mother. As far as we can ascertain, Blayne pulled out his iv needle and somehow pinched off the flow line of fluid. When we did a cursory check on him an hour ago, he looked placid and sedated. He must’ve retaped the needle under the adhesive to make it look as if he were getting the liquid. His sedative had worn off by mid-afternoon, but he seemed so quiet. When Nurse Morgan went in to check him after nine-thirty, he was waiting for her.”
“What happened?”
“We think he hit her first, to catch her off guard. And then he pulled out the iv needle, popped it from the rubber conduit, and waved it like a knife. He ran out past all of us at the station so fast I couldn’t believe it. Morgan was yelling, but by then Blayne had taken the back stairs. Security reported they saw a young man in a patient’s gown running through the west parking lot.”
“Did he seem woozy, or was he staggering when he ran out?”
“Come to think of it, he moved very fast. I didn’t see him in the room with Morgan, but when he burst into the main hall by our station, he was carrying the iv. I shouted at him, and he simply ran. He was a good runner, Inspector. I was frankly surprised at his strength given he’d not eaten for a day and had been on sedatives.”
Billy thanked the nurse. He handed her a file card with
his name and the police station’s number on it.
“Here’s my temporary business number. Call me there if you have any other information for me. Especially when Nurse Morgan is ready to talk.”
The head nurse opened the door and followed Billy back into the hall. As he went to join Butch in Blayne’s room, the woman sat down with Mrs. Morton and put her arm around the frightened mother’s bent shoulders.
In the pale green institutional room, Blayne’s bed was mussed, and there were spots of blood on the pillowcase. Butch explained the blood was from the nurse Blayne had struck. “Chief?” A young nurse wearing glasses hurried into the room. Butch rose from his chair. The nurse spoke quickly: “Blayne Morton was spotted running down the hill to the country club. The clubhouse was broken into no more than ten minutes ago, and the cash register was smashed. There’s a man waiting for you down there. He says he saw our young man in a blue hospital gown heading for the river.”
Dodd suddenly appeared in the doorway, panting. “Just got here, Chief.”
“Yes, Dodd, I see. You and Billy come with me in my cruiser. Billy, leave the Pontiac here.”
Five minutes later, Billy, Dodd, and Butch were in the cruiser driving down Cutbill, then turning onto South Drive past the Mountain View cemetery towards the hill leading to the country club. Butch had turned on the flashing cherry light but not the siren. At the hilltop entrance to the club, Butch cut the cherry and put the cruiser’s headlights on high beam. The road was wet, the grass and scrub shiny from the rain. Billy remembered the Lethbridge country club as a small nine-hole course laid out beside the Oldman. By the time Butch had reached the bottom of the winding gravel road, Billy realized the course had changed. The old gateway made of wood was gone; in its place was a stone marker with copper letters announcing the name of the club. The low wooden clubhouse had been torn down. The fairways had been widened and were now lit for night golfing with floodlights that created short shadows over the grass. The cruiser wound its way on a freshly paved blacktop to a parking lot in front of a glass and copper-roofed building crowned with a metal balcony.
“Times are good for golf nowadays,” joked Butch.
Billy got out of the cruiser and followed Dodd and Butch into a broad carpeted lobby. The walls of the new clubhouse were of polished pine panelling with a wainscot of fieldstone. Two trophy cases held shelves crammed with silver and brass figures swinging tiny golf clubs.
A man in blue dress slacks got up from a chair beside the broken cash register. He was in his early eighties, a trim strong-jawed man with a firm handshake. “Cy Rankin,” the man said.
“Inspector Billy Yamamoto.”
“Here’s the till. The lad didn’t get a penny. The float and the day’s cash were locked in the safe downstairs.”
“How are you, Mr. Rankin?”
The man broke into a laugh and raised his right hand in a dismissive gesture. “He missed me,” he said. “Was that a syringe he was waving around?”
“A broken iv,” answered Butch. “He was under observation at the regional hospital and somehow broke out of the ward.”
“He sure cleared out of here fast,” said Rankin.
“In which direction, Mr. Rankin?” asked Billy.
“Well, sir, I didn’t see exactly,” Rankin apologized. “I think he went towards the ninth hole, over that way, southwest. He made for that staircase, and by the time I got up from the floor, I saw him crossing our parking lot in that direction.”
“Dodd, you head out towards the ninth hole. I’ll go due west and take the flashlight from under the seat in the cruiser. Dodd, you’ve got yours with you?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
Butch added, “Mr. Rankin, I need only a few more moments of your time. Use caution, men. It’s dark out there, and he’s had a head start.”
“He can’t go far,” Rankin added. “We’ve put up a big barrier fence now in the brush beyond the fairways. We needed to separate the club’s land from the nature walks down by the river. I don’t know where the lad can get to, frankly. He’ll have to lie low or circle round and get over and back up the hill you fellows drove down.”
“Butch,” said Billy. “I’ll go to the fence and then cut back towards the hill.”
“Good, buddy.”
“Dodd, you do the southwest and then trail back behind the clubhouse. The boy may be leading us on a goose chase by now.”
“He’s losing blood, though,” said Rankin.
“How so?” asked Billy, stopping in mid-stride.
“Well, sir, he cut his hand pretty badly on that till. He was determined to smash it open with his bare fist. He took a mug, and the glass shattered and cut his palm. I wouldn’t want to be running too far without tending to a wound that size.”
Billy reached the parking lot and immediately looked at the silent trees and heard the rush of the nearby river. Taking a two-battery flashlight from the cruiser, he shut the door silently and stepped beyond the shadow of the trees running parallel to the eastern edge of the river. On the wet splashy grass under the outdoor lights, he walked with care until he was behind the bare foundation of the old clubhouse. His flashlight shone around the edges. Would he see evidence of Blayne’s fresh footprints? Billy crouched. No prints, no drops of blood. Up the crumbling steps of the clubhouse, he aimed his light over the perimeter. Only broken cement and glass and tall uncut wild oats. Circling the low walls, Billy kept his eyes on the ground until he’d come back to the place where he’d started. Could the boy see him? Billy swivelled to the left. In the distance, Dodd was running along the chain-link fence that bordered the fairway.
The humid darkness, full of smells from the river, was unsettling. He pointed his flashlight and marched towards the western section of fence and low bush, and then he turned right. Across the fairways lay shimmering blue-white streaks from the floods. The bush border sat low, Caragana and dwarf willow. The false daylight of the floods could easily reveal the pale blue of a cotton nightgown. Up ahead, Billy heard rustling. He moved towards the sound. Steady, he warned himself. A ball of ruffled feathers exploded from the willows in the shape of a prairie hen. Billy watched the bird fly up into the dark. He moved on, almost jogging, keeping close to the fence and the border between the bush and the mown fairway. Panting, he slowed, clicked off his flashlight, and stood very still. He thought he heard footsteps at the bend ahead.
The fairway here dipped into a shallow dale. Tall elms and cottonwoods loomed over the caraganas. The light from the floods was muted, softer. Pools of darkness nestled beneath the tree trunks. Suddenly, there was a faint rush of pale blue, the shape of a figure. It stooped in a crouch and dashed due north from the fence. Billy quickly moved to his left, using the deeper shadows as camouflage. He trained his eyes on where the figure might run next. By a large broken stump, he caught his breath. It had been a while since he’d been involved in a chase on foot, and his knee was aching badly. He looked up. Blayne Morton made a break for it, scampering onto the fairway, guarding his wounded hand close to his chest.
“Blayne! Stop!”
Blayne veered off into the trees again. Billy almost twisted his left ankle turning to pursue the boy on the rain-slick fairway. His stomach tightened. Sweat beaded his forehead. Won’t be easy to grab him. The ground slid with broken twigs and divots of soggy mud.
“Come on, Blayne! You’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Fuck you!”
Billy clutched the flashlight and half-knelt, ready to leap. But where was he? Caragana swayed, leaves hissed.
Blayne sprang from the brush like a cougar attacking a fawn. A thin jagged stick clawed at Billy’s head. Billy ducked, raised his arm to shield against the rushing of the makeshift club. Down it came. Billy’s shoes slipped. Again and again the thin hard stick broke skin, brought a warm sudden flush of blood. Blayne trampled bare muddied feet on Billy’s kicking legs.
“Hey, Blayne!”
It was Dodd’s voice hurtling out of the dark.
&n
bsp; “Blayne!”
Blayne drew back. Billy sat up, blood running down his right cheek. The boy was limping, sliding, trying to dash away from the huge frame that barrelled down on him. Dodd tackled. Billy lay back and pulled in hot breath, and through his pain heard Dodd speaking to the crying Blayne, his words coming gentle and kind.
Half an hour later, the nurse in the emergency ward finished taping gauze to Billy’s wounded forehead. Butch sat across from him, perched on an empty gurney. “You should have that cough looked after,” the attending nurse said pointedly to Butch. She rolled her rs with a Glaswegian accent. The nurse yanked open the white plastic curtain, and Butch helped Billy get up from the bed. “Careful now,” the nurse said as the two men shuffled into the small patient lounge, its green walls as ugly as its green leatherette couches. A TV blared at one end. Billy could see the lights of the hospital’s parking lot through the window. He winced as he touched the gauze and felt the hot streak of pain on his temple.
“I think once he’s quieter and been bandaged for that cut from the beer mug, we should go and interview him. He’s backed himself into a corner and knows it.”
Dodd appeared in the doorway.
“Morton’s back in the ward, sir. Abrasions to his left foot from the ground at the course. The nurse says his cut is deep, so they’ve frozen his hand and put in stitches. Blayne says he’s not willing to talk.”
The TV caught Billy’s eye. As if expecting what he saw, he sighed. On the screen were the faces of Sharon Riegert and her boyfriend, Woody Keeler. A reporter held a mic to Sharon’s mouth. She stood defiant, in front of the police tape strung across the front steps of Satan House. Her blouse was bright red, and her hair was crinkled in a fresh perm. Woody was dressed in a white shirt and sparkly bolo tie.
“Those bastards.” Butch coughed.
Woody Keeler whined, “The police have done nothin’. Our Darren was number two.”
“Somebody’s killin’ our babies,” Sharon announced directly to the camera.
The reporter walked around to the back door of Satan House, pointing to the basement windows, explaining where the Darren Riegert hanging had taken place.
