The Boy Must Die

by Jon Redfern

  I grabbed Justin. Tore his cell phone from him. Got hold of his backpack and swung him around. We both heard the noise. The crunching sound. ‘Oh, shit, I’m sorry, Randy,’ he said. I tore off the backpack, opened it, the bits and pieces of that lovely golden mask falling onto the grass. The rye rose in my throat. Justin tried to run. The pack was on the ground, by the steps. We struggled, stepping on that goddamned barking dog. I was afraid we’d wake the whole bloody street. Justin bolted. I caught him by the collar. He turned, and I hit him on his mouth. I could hardly see straight. Then he ran into the garage behind his house. A light was on. He was falling over bags and clay pots. He reached for a garden hoe, and I knew I had to stop him. My hands were quivering. I clasped his neck from behind. I didn’t mean to hurt him! I wanted to slow him down, to talk to him. I held on hard. He kept trying to pull away, swinging the hoe, his voice hoarse and coughing. And then he fell to the floor, the hoe clanging down beside him, scraping the edge of the car.

  Right then I knew I’d killed him. The dog ran into the garage and began barking again. I escaped and shut the garage door, trapping the dog and the body. By the steps, I spotted the backpack and the broken mask, and it was as if the golden eyes spoke to me, as if they were the only things that mattered in the world. I searched in the grass, picking up the larger pieces of the broken mother-of-pearl. ‘You’re all right,’ I whispered, as if the golden eyes could hear me. I took the backpack into the garage. The damned dog was lying by the body, whimpering. I went to the dim light, opened the pack, pulled out all the broken pieces, and placed them on the bench. I then threw Justin’s things into the garbage pail by the bench. I sat the pieces of the broken mask inside the pack and left the garage, closing the door. The dog was moaning inside.

  I ran to the van and climbed in. No one would find the pack here, I thought, under the seat. But where was Sam? There was no time. I was running scared. I knew Sam would tell. I knew if he arrived and found the body in the garage, Sam would figure it was my fault, and he would betray me to get all the masks. I leapt from the van and ran back to the garage.

  The dog ran out, wagging its tail. Lifting the still-warm body, I looped Justin’s heavy arm over my shoulder and began dragging him from the garage. I’ll take him to the river. I thought I’d drown him in. . . . But no, he would be found. The body would surface by the new dam. No, I’ll pretend he’s been murdered by the same sadist who. . . . That’s it, I thought! I was running crazy now. Make Justin’s death look like the death of Darren Riegert. Make it look like a sadist cult murder. Maybe, when they find him, I can tell the police it was Sam who did it. So I dragged Justin through the gate. Carried him on my shoulder down the basement steps. I went into the room where there was binder twine and the pipe. I wanted to tie back the hands, the same way I did with Darren Riegert’s body. It was such a coincidence, you see. A perfect setup. No one would suspect me or Sheree. They’ll think it’s a murder, I kept saying, reassuring myself. I lifted the body and tied it to the pipe. But then the body slipped. It fell onto the hard concrete. The temple cracked against the floor. I picked it up again; I tied it with a double knot. I ran into the other room.

  There I found a brush, a can of black paint. I dashed back to the body. I took my jackknife and cut the T-shirt away. Threw it on the floor. Pulled the rest of the torn pieces and shoved them into my pockets. Must look like a killing, must make the police run in circles. I painted the chest and the penis black, painted the floor with a pentacle. It was like I was in a dream. I put the paint can away and took the brush and the knife and ran up the stairs and out to the van.

  It struck me then that Sam must have had an accident. Or, worse, that he might be back at the cabin. He might have taken the masks for himself, back to Montana. Frantic, I knew I must drive in the night straight to the cabin so Sam wouldn’t steal my fortune. It took me an hour. Down Number 5, through Cardston. By the time I hit the foothills, I figured Sam had cheated me for good. But at the turn to Mountain View, I saw the red lights flashing, I heard Crow yelping. Sam’s old truck was turned upside down in the deep ditch. . . .”

  MONDAY, JULY 8

  The minute Billy walked into reception on Monday morning, at nine o’clock sharp, he sensed the day would bring him no surprises. A cool grey lid of sky lay low over the plain. The Rockies no longer fringed the horizon, lost under a thick fuzz of rain-heavy cloud. Butch sat in his office. This morning he was dressed in a blue shirt with a red tie. “Well, buddy,” he began. “A few choice items for you to take a gander at.”

  Butch handed Billy a green china mug full of steaming coffee. “First, you now have your own official mug. Green for Yamamoto. You keep it in here next to my own personal collection of mugs.” Billy took a sip. The coffee was black and tasty and fragrant. “Come with me,” Butch said. He led Billy down the hall, through a set of swinging glass doors, and into the records room crowded with filing cabinets. “Professor Mucklowe’s deposition is here, in this file folder, in case you want to check facts.”

  Billy handed the file back to Butch. “I’ve checked it already, last night.”

  “Patsy Hanson called today. She is back home. She wanted to know when Justin’s funeral was going to take place. I understand Mrs. Moore is with a sister and that the family wants to keep the affair strictly private.”

  “Understandable.”

  Butch grinned. The walk back to the office took five minutes because Butch stopped at reception to talk to the dispatch sergeant. Billy spent the time thinking about Randy’s van and the items he had located under the seat. Randy had panicked. Yet his confession fell together into a whole. Finding the paintbrush and the knife had been the clincher. But then, moving back in time, Billy wondered how the painted body of Justin Moore related to the wounds — the cut wrists and pentacle on the chest — on Darren Riegert. Billy knew Justin Moore’s body was desecrated in Randy’s alcoholic stupor, yet Darren Riegert’s mutilation was still bothersome. Butch cut into his train of thought. “Billy, catch you thinking there? Come on, we’ve got some paper pushing to do.”

  It had been months since Billy Yamamoto had sat down at the computer and gone through the endless forms and depositions and report formats required by a city force to close a homicide case. Now the sense of closure and satisfaction this complicated process engendered rushed backed. He was glad of it. No reason to doubt his faculties and his thoroughness. Billy and Butch sat down in Butch’s office with the door closed. The site photos from both the Riegert and the Moore cases were spread out on the table by the computer. All the dispatch time logs and sergeants’ reports and their own personal handwritten notebooks were opened and sequentially checked and reread for consistency and pattern. Two hours were then spent reviewing the confession and statement tapes of the witnesses and suspects. Billy watched both Sheree Lynn’s and Randy’s tapes for key statements, hints of anything that might reveal a hidden truth the investigation team might have missed. It was not unheard of. Facts stared you in the face, and you didn’t see them. But all was in order. Three mugs of fresh brew later, Billy and Butch had completed the forms and written up their joint report. Billy leaned back in his chair as Butch logged off.

  “We’ll never really know about Darren, will we, buddy?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, was there someone with him when the wrists were scored and the pentacle cut into his chest? Hawkes claimed the cuts were pre-mortem, so Darren was bleeding and in pain before he was hanged. I don’t know. From what we learned about him, he didn’t impress me as the type to self-mutilate. Not like your rocker-and-roller with his cigarette scars.”

  “Who knows? Look at the kid’s home life, Butch. The mother’s abusive boyfriend. What level of pain did that kid put up with all his fourteen years? Maybe the cutting was part of his own personal ritual. Look at the photos again of Cody Schow. The noose tie is almost identical. And we know Cody was suicide. I mean, it was deemed that for lack of any contradictory proof.”

  T
he two men rose, stretched, opened the door of the office. Butch notified the dispatch sergeant that he and Billy were out for lunch for an indefinite period. Walking into the grey air of the day, the men shrugged their shoulders and shivered. Two days of stifling heat turning to spring-like weather was not untypical for July. A moment later, they were in Butch’s cruiser, heading down Dawson and turning onto Bond, where Mac’s coffeehouse stood on the corner, its red sign over the front door swinging lightly in the cool breeze.

  Butch drew into a space beside the back entrance. “You want to stay on stipend for a time?” he asked, pressing the button so that all the windows rolled up.

  “I’m on call. That’s part of the deal, isn’t it?”

  Butch grinned. “You’re the one in charge, Inspector. Let’s get a couple of Colombians and a cinnamon roll, buddy.”

  Butch and Billy climbed out of the cruiser.

  Funny, Billy thought, how things come full circle. And then he walked beside his old friend into the cool, coffee-laden air of Mac’s.