by Jon Redfern
“Did the station clear this with you, Chief?” asked Dodd.
“Do they ever?” answered Butch. “Goddamn it!”
“And here,” the reporter intoned. “Here’s where this boy spent his last frightened hours. Who is mutilating our young people? Is there a serial killer loose in our. . . .”
By the time the reporter had finished posing his questions, Billy was on his way down the hall and into the elevator. His head throbbed. Suddenly, he felt brutally tired. His shirt was dirty, and he smelled. And he wanted more than anything to meditate and clear the mounting frustration and impatience out of his system. Butch had followed him. They stood silently as the elevator door opened. A constable greeted them at the nurse’s station.
“He’s in here, Inspector. Chief.”
Blayne Morton sat propped up on a freshly made bed in a room the size of a large closet. The hospital’s counsellor was present and explaining to Blayne, cautioning him as a minor, the procedure about to take place. A constable in a city police uniform stood guard. Blayne’s nightgown had been removed, and he was wearing a pair of jockey shorts and a T-shirt. His left foot was bandaged, and Billy saw the line of fresh red stitches stretching across the centre of his right palm.
“When can I get outta here?” Blayne shouted.
Billy calmly pulled up a chair and sat down. Butch placed himself by the door after dismissing the constable. As he had entered the room, Billy had proposed a strategy. Butch would observe yet say nothing. He was to move only if Blayne attempted to jump from the bed or hit out at Billy, who would do the interview.
Billy crossed his legs.
“So?” Blayne’s voice was surly and bored. “So?”
Billy knew this particular interview would require a careful combination of tact and pointed questioning. Blayne was now an official suspect. The confession must bring out his true motive and reveal who else was in the basement that night. Billy sensed that Butch had doubts about the boy. He himself believed Blayne would talk. What he wasn’t sure of yet was exactly how much Blayne knew. A cardinal rule for an interrogation: allow the interviewee enough room, but always play the game in a cool deliberate series of moves. Billy raised his head and stared at Blayne. Touching his own bandaged head, Billy let his eyes fall on Blayne’s wounded palm. Blayne’s eyes followed Billy’s gestures. Billy then calmly folded his hands in his lap.
“You mad at me or somethin’? Say somethin’.”
Blayne sat up straighter in the bed. He wasted a minute plumping his pillow. Billy watched his halting arm movement. Noticed the dark circles under the boy’s eyes. Even though he was a juvenile, Blayne would be charged with break and entry, with brandishing a weapon, with assault of a police detective and hospital personnel.
“I’m not scared of you,” Blayne said, his voice suddenly sounding timid.
Billy responded quickly. He answered Blayne in a flat official tone, told him of his charges, of the possibility of his going to prison. Or a psychiatric hospital. Billy spoke automatically, defining each crime the boy had committed and its possible legal consequence.
“Fuck you.”
Billy again folded his hands in his lap.
“Don’t fuck with me!” Blayne shouted. Billy recognized the false defiance in the boy’s voice. Blayne sat back and started to pick his nose deliberately. He pulled up his knees and sniffed loudly.
Billy spoke again, but this time in a more conversational voice: “I can help you, Blayne, if you help me.”
Blayne pretended he hadn’t heard. “What?” He spat the word from a spoiled pout.
“I can arrange for you to go to a detention centre, to participate in a program there, if you cooperate. And tell me the truth.”
“About what?” Blayne sat forward.
“About Darren.”
“That asshole! I got nothing to tell.”
“How well did you know him, Blayne?”
“I didn’t. He was in my class. He and that other loser, Cody.”
“Do you know Sheree Lynn Bird?”
“Where’s my mother? I want my fucking mother!”
“Answer the question, Blayne,” the counsellor said, entering the interview for the first time.
“Fuck you!”
Butch cleared his throat and made a signal to Billy. He got up and crossed to the door and joined Butch in the hallway.
“Buddy, I’m not happy.”
“What’s the problem?”
“That kid is a goddamned weirdo. You think we’re going to get anything truthful out of him? We are wasting our time in there.”
Billy stood quietly for a second before he answered Butch: “I want to try to set up a pattern of questions and answers. I want to head us in the direction of the time frame around Darren’s hanging and mutilation. For all we know, Blayne may be innocent. He left the site a good half hour before Darren’s estimated time of death. But he is hiding something, Butch. I may be wrong. He could have witnessed the whole thing and be too afraid to tell.”
Butch did not react immediately. He shoved his hands into his pockets, then checked the late hour on his wristwatch.
“What we need,” Billy continued, “are the yearbook and the tie box.”
The two men walked to the central hall and crossed into the main nurse’s station in the psychiatric ward. Billy didn’t want to leave Blayne alone for too long. Butch picked up the Ziplocs Billy had brought with him to the hospital. They went back towards Blayne.
“I’ll stand sentry again,” Butch said. “You nod to me when you want the Ziplocs to appear.”
Billy decided to be more direct with the boy when he went back in. He didn’t like to disagree with Butch, but he needed to make this call.
“Butch, we are going to go in there and talk honestly to the kid about the contents of the bags. I don’t see any use in playing hide and seek. The boy knows we’ve gone out to talk and plan, so let’s just go in, play it straight, and see what he says.”
Billy didn’t expect Butch to agree so quickly, but he said he was fine with the plan. Not a man to pull rank or press his own way of doing things, Butch acquiesced if he thought there was a better, clearer way.
They walked in without saying a word. Billy sat down with the Ziplocs and began where he had left off, without making any apologies for leaving or any explanations for coming back with a bag full of Blayne’s things. Blayne sat forward and watched as Billy produced the yearbook and the tie box. Butch stationed himself by the door again, leaning in to watch the boy’s reactions. As Billy opened the tie box with the pictures of Darren Riegert, he turned the lid of the box over so that the Valentines were visible. Blayne was frozen and pale with surprise.
“My fucking mother give you those?”
“Were you with Darren Riegert on Friday night at Satan House?”
“No fucking way. Those are my things, you fucking shit. How did you get them?”
“Your mother gave us permission to search your room, Blayne. I found them. I thought we needed to get them to help us find out who hurt your friend Darren.”
Blayne burst into tears and with his free hand snatched the tie box with Darren’s pictures off the counterpane. He held the box close to his chest. After he sobbed for a second, he gulped in a few halting breaths and started to rock, to sing and chant in the same voice Billy had heard him use at the police station. This is his coping pattern, Billy thought. And his diversion tactic. Billy knew he must break through it.
“Blayne,” Billy said, “if you want, I can take you to the funeral home where Darren is now. We can drive you there. Maybe seeing your friend can help your memory a little.”
“He wasn’t my friend,” Blayne said, his voice now pushed down far into his throat as if he were afraid of his own words. “I loved him. He said he’d be my friend, but he always hung out with that asshole Cody. I would’ve treated him good. I stole that leather coat for him. He said he liked me. . . .”
“Do you remember when you took this picture, Blay
ne?”
Billy was holding up the Polaroid of Darren standing naked and surprised in the Satan House basement.
“When did you last see Darren, Blayne? Look at me, Blayne, and tell me the truth about Friday night.”
“I saw him at school in the morning, and he said he was going out that night, and he said if I wanted maybe I could come, but then he said he’d changed his mind. He said I should stay away from him. I wanted to go and have a beer or something with him. He sometimes stole beer from his mother, and once we smoked up and drank behind his house. So I went to his house on Friday, and he was there, but I didn’t go and ring the bell. I waited for him out back because Darren always left his house by the back door. He came out late in his black boots and had his book with him, and I wanted to talk to him, but he was looking so bad, like he was mad or something or real busy to get somewhere. I followed him up Ashmead for a while, and he kept running ahead like he was needing to get somewhere. I knew it was no good.”
Blayne put down the Polaroids and covered them with a corner of the hospital bedsheet.
“Did you follow him all the way to Satan House?”
“No.”
“Tell the truth, Blayne.”
“I followed him up to the soccer field, and I saw him go into the backyard, you know by the garage there. And I thought he was just goin’ there like always, like he said he did, to go there and sleep instead of stayin’ home with his mom.”
“And then? Blayne?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Who hurt Darren, Blayne? Who did you see there?”
“I didn’t know who he was meeting. I thought he had another friend and they were going . . . so I waited and went around the other side of the house and went to the back door. I heard him down in the basement, chanting. I wanted to see who was there. I had my camera, but when I got down there it was dark, I musta scared him, he was naked in the little room. He was so mad when he saw it was me. He started telling me to fuck off. He said he hated me, and he never wanted to see me again. He picked up a knife. It was big. He said he’d cut me, but I didn’t see nobody else there. I ran up the stairs. I went around by the window, by the backyard, and I looked in, and it was dark, and I couldn’t tell what Darren was doing. He was naked, and he had his boom box, and I knew that asshole Cody’d taught him some spells, so he was getting stoned I guess. I thought that lady would come down, the one living there, so I ran. I went home. . . .”
“You said you thought Darren had another friend. Can you give me a name?”
“No.”
“Was there anyone besides Cody who Darren hung out with?”
“No. He didn’t have no girlfriend neither.”
“Did Darren ever talk to you about his friends? Anyone he liked or didn’t like?”
“No. . . . Yes. There was a man. An older man. Darren said he was scared of him.”
“Can you describe this older man?”
“I seen him only once, maybe twice. He drove a big green half-ton. He waited for Darren after school.”
“What did he look like? Can you remember what he was wearing?”
“No. I just remember his green half-ton. It’s long, and he was always in the driver’s seat. Darren said he was a friend of his mom’s boyfriend.”
“Why was Darren scared? Did Darren tell you anything about the man?”
“Yes. Darren said this guy was going to keep him in line. Like he was a teacher or something. Darren told me the asshole wanted to discipline him. Discipline, discipline, that asshole kept saying. Like Darren was his son or something.”
“You never met the man, never talked to him?”
“No.”
“Tell the truth, Blayne.”
“I wanted to tell the guy to fuck off.”
“You never met him, then?”
“No.”
“How do you know he said ‘discipline’? Were you by. . . .”
“I was walking on the street. Darren got in the truck, and the asshole started yelling at him . . . like he was real mad. And he burnt rubber. Darren said he had to do what the asshole said or else.”
“Did Darren ever show you his bruises?”
“From the rope? Yeah. He said his mom did it, but. . . .”
“But what? You think someone else hurt him?”
“Maybe that guy in the truck, maybe once Darren had a bruise on his chin, and he said, once, the guy hit him by accident. I don’t remember. Darren said it happened a couple of times. He never liked to say the guy’s name.”
“You’re sure you don’t remember his name?”
“Yes. No.”
“Did you walk home on Friday night, Blayne?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you walk or take the bus?”
“I took the bus . . . Old Charlie, he’s always on that route. I call him Old Charlie, he’s a big guy with a funny way of talking, like he was a general in the army, he drives fast, too. Always making sure you sit in the right place. No assing around on the bus, he says.”
“Is that when you went home and started singing and rocking?”
“No. Yes. I got home, and I got stoned. My stupid mother was home late from work, so I started in then.”
Blayne broke down again. Billy handed him a tissue, but Blayne batted it away. He grabbed the box of Polaroids and slid down as best he could with his injured arm under the sheet. He began humming to himself, staring forward. His eyes lifted towards the ceiling of the room. Billy stopped the interview by standing up and gathering the yearbook and the Ziplocs into his arms. Outside the hospital room, Billy checked his reactions against those of Butch.
“Seems on the level,” Butch replied. “We have nothing else to go on, mind you. So we might as well ride with this confession, if you want to call it that. That poor kid is a screwup for sure.”
With his head aching, Billy walked into the lounge and wrote down the salient points of Blayne’s story. So Perry Hill was connected. Was there a circle of adults abusing this child? No wonder these boys were frightened. Butch came in, sat down beside him, and yawned. He looked furtively at his wristwatch.
“You know, Butch, you’ll have to keep Blayne on ice for at least another twenty-four hours.”
“I’ll call Dodd before we go.”
“And now we’ve got another angle on Perry Hill,” Billy said. “We’ll have to get after him tomorrow no matter what.”
WEDNESDAY, JULY 3
Billy slept until 9:30. His knee was aching badly, so he spent a few minutes on stretches and light massage. Following instructions brought home from the hospital, he then changed his gauze and dabbed his head wound with antiseptic. After coffee, he dressed in a dark suit and tie. Butch arrived in the Pontiac, and the two drove to the Zabusky Brothers Funeral Chapel in Lethbridge to join Dodd at Darren Riegert’s memorial service. It was a package deal — plastic flowers, a Unitarian minister, a closed pine coffin on a rolling bier with large rubber wheels. Only Sharon Riegert stood in the front row. Behind her was Mr. Barnes, the counsellor from Darren’s junior high school. Billy had asked Sheree Lynn Bird not to attend. Sharon Riegert had made it clear she never wanted to set eyes on the “witch woman” again. Butch and Billy stood in the back row, the chief looking at the fake ceiling beams and the blood-red aisle carpet. Billy kept thinking about Blayne Morton’s confession, particularly the part about the man in the green half-ton, the man Billy believed was Perry Hill. Now they had to establish Hill’s whereabouts between Friday night and Saturday morning. Was it possible Woody’s friend was at Satan House? Was Hill what Madelaine Van Meer might call a “tin-pot dictator”? And what about Woody Keeler? Why hadn’t he shown up for Darren’s funeral? After the last words were spoken by the minister, Billy went outside and phoned Johnson. He told her to drive over first to the Riegert house to see if anything was amiss. Was Keeler drunk? Was he even at home? She would then proceed to contact Perry Hill, if the warrants had turned up anything related to Darren.
It was past one when Billy stood aside to watch Sharon Riegert follow her only son’s coffin out of the chapel. A blue velveteen cloth hung over the sides, and two attendants from the funeral home solemnly wheeled the bier into the acrid sunlight. Sharon stood shivering by the hearse, her eyes shaded by her right hand. She was wearing old jeans and a pink polyester jacket. Her hair was tightly curled from her recent perm. She avoided Billy’s gaze as she passed, but he could see her eyes were half shut as if she were sleepwalking, the pall of despair a familiar one. The hearse drove away, and Billy followed Butch’s cruiser to the station.
There Billy was told Johnson had called in. The Riegert house was closed, and Woody Keeler was out. The stained blanket from the bed of Perry Hill’s truck had been seized and sent to the lab. Hill’s house had been searched, but there was no evidence of Darren’s clothes.
Butch brought in coffees. Billy’s head throbbed.
“You think this Perry Hill is pulling something?” Butch asked.
“He’s been on a bender, but his place is clean. Blayne’s confession implicates him, although you and I know it could be circumstantial.”
“Point taken. I don’t know if you’re up to this, but we’ve got a visitor here from Brocket, an old horseman. I’ve known Clive for twenty years. He doesn’t often come to me for favours since he’s strictly by-the-book RCMP. He arrived this morning as I was heading out to Darren’s funeral. Clive said he’d wait until we got back.”
“He got something on the Darren Riegert case?”
“I’m sure you noted boyfriend Woody’s absence this morning?” Butch’s face brightened with a grin that Billy read as one of vindication. “Well, Clive just told me Woody Keeler was arraigned by the horsemen as of ten this morning.”
“Which explains the closed front door at the Riegert house.”
“Pending charge is assault causing grievous bodily harm. A Peigan girl of sixteen had the unfortunate delight of meeting up with Keeler. Clive has the full tale. He wants us, here at the city force, to help him with a lineup since he’s got a feeling his case may be tied to Riegert’s. Clive’s next door in the records and dead-file room. I’ll check on our booking schedule. Why don’t you go on in and introduce yourself.”
