by Giles Blunt
It wasn’t a vow she had to keep long. The driver’s-side door opened and a man got out—a really tall man. He had to have been hunched down for her not to see him. His face was covered in a black woollen thing with holes for mouth and eyes.
“Come here.” There was something long and metal dangling from his hand.
Sam ran.
His steps were right behind her, his stride matching hers. “You didn’t see anything,” he said. “You didn’t see anything. You don’t know anything.”
Something nicked the back of Sam’s coat. She kept running, forcing her legs to move faster. She thought about making a dash for the trees—he might have more trouble keeping up there—but she stayed right in the middle of the road, praying for headlights, a car, people.
He wasn’t behind her anymore. She heard the car start, and his headlights threw her shadow the length of the road to the top of the rise. Then her shadow began to shrink. She feinted left, ran right, the darkness of the trees.
She wasn’t going to make it. He was going to run her down. She stopped and dodged left, the car cutting her off. He was out and after her again.
Legs, lungs, heart, all straining at their physical limits. She simply could not run any faster. Her street came up and she made as if to go by it, then took a sudden right. Her house was the third on the right. She ran past it to the fourth, the fifth, dodged right again, and then she was in Cal Couchie’s backyard. Sweet old guy, but about two hundred years old and stone deaf.
Sam ran back to her own backyard. Her keys were in her hand. She couldn’t hear the man behind her anymore. She could stay in the darkness of the backyard and scream for help, but that might just bring him right to her. She pulled out her mother’s cellphone and hit 911. It rang three times before someone picked up.
“Emergency services, location please.”
“1712 Commanda Crescent. A man is after me.”
“Can you speak up? I didn’t hear you.”
“Oh, God. 1712 Commanda Crescent. Send someone now. He’s going to kill me.”
She shoved the phone back into her pocket and peered around the corner of the garage. No one.
She made for the side door and he came from around the front, black and featureless. She wouldn’t make it to the house. She veered back to the garage and got her key into the lock and got the door open and inside and turned the lock again as he slammed into it with a noise like thunder that made her scream. It didn’t come out as a scream but like a noise her cat might have made. He wouldn’t be able to bust through that door—that was only in the movies, right? Doors don’t break that easily.
There was a splintering sound, and she remembered that long thing he’d been carrying. A crowbar.
It was dark in the garage, but she was afraid to turn on the light. She felt her way around to the far side of the car. Not locked, thank God. She opened the passenger door and the dome light came on, just enough of a glow to make out her father’s workbench, the shapes of hammers and saws and wrenches.
That splintering sound again.
She shut the car door and moved through the dark to the workbench and got up on it, damaged knee screaming. She felt on the wall and pulled down the crossbow, felt to her right for the leather quiver. She got behind the car and fitted an arrow into the groove, and wound it back until the loud click told her it was cocked. The Vixen had an automatic safety that she now pressed into the Off position.
Sam saw it in her head before it happened. She knew how it would look—dark silhouette against the glow from the moon and the street lights. After that he would find the light and he would kill her.
The door crashed open. The dark shape. Sam stood up and released the arrow. The man doubled over and made a sound like he was puking. He fell back, got up, staggered, fell against the garage. Then his footsteps—uneven, dragging—moving away.
She waited behind the car. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She’d seen squirrels breathing like that when Pootkin stalked them.
After a time she heard a distant siren, and closer, the sound of voices and car doors slamming. The squawk of a radio.
Flashlight beams playing over the surfaces outside, and then a man’s voice, cautious, saying, “Police. Police. Hello?”
A cop’s face and hat flashed in the doorway and disappeared again.
“I’m going to have to ask you to put down that weapon, miss. Now.”
“Did you catch him?”
“We have an individual in custody.”
“Tall bastard with a mask on?”
“He also has an arrow sticking out of his liver. Now put down the weapon and step to the front of that car and place your hands on the hood. I’m not asking.”
Sam looked at the bow. She didn’t even remember doing it, but there was another arrow in the bow and it was cranked all the way back.
19
CARDINAL HAD BEEN IN BED BUT NOT asleep when the call came. He got out of bed and got dressed and drove up the hill to City Hospital. The shock of moving from the warmth of his bed to the cold of a December night was still reverberating in his bones when he found the patrol officer waiting for him outside a recovery room.
“Girl claims he’s the guy did the murders out at Trout Lake. He denies it up the wazoo, of course.”
“Where’s the girl now?”
“Down in emerge with PC Gifford. Bad cut on her knee, but you know how it is with emerge—if you’re not dying, you’re there for eternity.”
Cardinal had to get by the nurse on duty in the recovery room.
“This man has just come out of surgery,” she said. “You can’t be cross-examining him.”
“Just a couple of questions,” Cardinal said.
She led him past a row of beds, all but two of them empty. “Five minutes,” she said. “I’ll be timing you.”
The man on the bed was hooked up to an IV and a pulse monitor, but other than that, he looked in pretty good shape. His blond hair needed a wash, but his powerful shoulders, where they emerged from beneath the sheet, looked wider than the pillow he slept on.
“Troy Campbell,” Cardinal said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you again.”
Campbell opened his eyes and contemplated Cardinal with medicated calm. After a while he said, “I didn’t touch that girl.” His speech was slow but clear. “And she shot me with an arrow. She perforated my spleen. I plan to press charges.”
“Troy, you want to tell me again where you were Thursday night? Keep in mind that we already know where Randalll Wishart was.”
Campbell’s features maintained their contemplative cast. “I was at work that night. Ask my supervisor. We have a time clock that’ll show I clocked in.”
“So you weren’t in fact at home with your buddy Randall.”
Campbell shook his head, making the pillow rustle. “We have a TV at work.” He lifted his hand and encountered the handcuff that secured him to the bed frame. He squinted at it for a good thirty seconds. “You’re kidding, right?”
—
PC Gifford, standing outside Exam Room 3, gave Cardinal the particulars. “Samantha Doucette. Eighteen years old. Art student up at Algonquin. Her mother and brother are in the exam room with her. Mother won’t let her out of her sight. Got a pretty tall tale, if you ask me.”
“The doctor in there with her?”
“Yeah, they must be about done by now.”
The doctor came out and Cardinal identified himself. “How’s she doing?”
“She has a deep laceration to her left knee. Wouldn’t have been so bad except she didn’t get it treated for so long.”
“So it didn’t happen tonight.”
“No, no. Days ago. But she’ll be fine. I stitched her up and gave her a scrip for ampicillin.”
Cardinal went in and identified himself to Sam and her mother. The girl had put on a fresh pair of jeans and was shoving the others into a shopping bag. Her brother was entranced by an iPod or some other cyber-drug.
“I wa
nt to stay,” Mrs. Doucette said.
“Your daughter’s eighteen,” Cardinal said. “I need to talk to her in private.”
“She should have a lawyer.”
“Officers at the scene are satisfied that she was responding to an attack. I don’t anticipate charging her with anything—provided she tells me the truth.”
“Of course she’ll tell you the truth. Why would she do anything else? Don’t worry, honey, I’ll be right outside.”
When her mother and brother were gone, the girl sat on the edge of the exam table. “She doesn’t know the real story. She just thinks I was attacked by a complete stranger out of the blue.”
“And that’s not what happened, is it?”
The girl folded her arms across her chest and stared at the floor, shaking her head.
“You were coming home from work, is that right? Where do you work?”
“A restaurant. Part-time. I’m a cook.”
“Don’t tell me,” Cardinal said. “Bistro Champlain.”
“That’s right.” A puzzled look crossed her face. Her features were small, perfectly formed, and she had a dark-eyed intensity that without too much effort on her part might cause a married man to lose his head.
“Okay,” Cardinal said. “Why did this man attack you?”
“Because of what I saw. In the Trout Lake house. Not saw—heard.”
“You’re talking about the couple that was murdered.”
“Look, I admit I was in the house, okay? I steal stuff once in a while and the place looked empty. But I didn’t have anything to do with any killing. I didn’t know any of those people. I was checking the place out when I heard voices, and I hid.”
“Where’d you hide?”
“Under a bed.”
“How’d you break in?”
“What?”
“How’d you break in, Samantha?”
“The back door. I used a credit card. So I heard these voices and I hid under the bed. It sounded like the guy was trying to sell them the house, pointing out all the good points and stuff. I figured they’d be there a few minutes and then go, but then there were gunshots. I thought, That’s it, I’m outta here. So I smashed the window and climbed out.”
“How’d you smash the window?”
“I used a chair. I swung it as hard as I could.”
“Which is how you cut your knee. Climbing out.”
She nodded. “I jumped out and ran. He came after me. My car was a little ways up the road.”
“At the hydro turnoff?”
“Yeah. I got to it and he actually shot at me. He hit the car a couple of times and I took off. I don’t know if he got my licence plate or what. I lost my phone when I jumped and I’m pretty sure he has it. I’ve been getting calls.”
“What kind of calls? Threatening?”
“Hang-ups. He stays on the line awhile but doesn’t say anything.”
“Do you know for a fact these were from your cellphone?”
“The number was blocked. But who cares what phone he used? You’ve got him locked up, right? You better. He cuts people’s heads off, for God’s sake.”
“The man who attacked you is under guard and handcuffed to a hospital bed—you don’t have to worry about him right now. But listen, Samantha, only part of what you’re telling me is true. I know you hid under the bed, and you ran like you said. And damage to your car matches our findings at the scene. But I also know about Randall Wishart, so you don’t have to hold anything back in order to protect him.”
Her eyebrows went up, her dark eyes went perfectly round. “I’m not protecting anybody.”
“Samantha, I know you’re not a thief. And I know you didn’t break into that house with a credit card. You went out there with Randall, who of course has a key.”
The innocent expression vanished. She looked at him with dark, implacable eyes.
“Wishart got a friend to cover for him, in case his wife found out. Troy Campbell? To say they were watching the game together. But it turns out Troy was actually at work that night.”
Cardinal waited. Eventually she said, “We didn’t have anyplace else to go. We didn’t take anything or hurt anything. Randall was super careful about stuff like that. Even the bed—we put a blanket over it so it wouldn’t get messed up.”
“I know you did. A blue blanket.”
“It sounds bad. I know it sounds bad. But it isn’t like that. Do you know what it’s like to be in love and not be able to see each other?”
“Why don’t you tell me.”
“It’s horrible. It’s agony. I hate it. Everybody else gets to go places together, do things together. Kiss. Hold hands in public. Whatever they want. Even couples that aren’t that happy together. But here we are, crazy about each other, and we have to skulk around like criminals and wait until some special opportunity comes up. We get to see each other like every three weeks or so. I can’t even call him hardly. And he can’t call me too often either.”
“You ever wonder why Randall doesn’t leave his wife?”
“He’s going to. He just doesn’t want to hurt her, and he’s waiting for a good moment. He has to be careful—I mean, he works for her father and all. It’s not like it’s something he can do right away.”
“Samantha, you’ve been through a lot, but I’m afraid I have to tell you something that’s going to upset your life even more.”
The dark eyes lost their implacability. The black eyebrows went up again, and suddenly she was a kid and Cardinal wished he could protect her from what he was about to say.
“You’re right that the man who attacked you wasn’t a complete stranger. It wasn’t out of the blue. But it wasn’t the man who chased you out at Trout Lake.”
“It was. He kept saying, ‘You didn’t see anything! You don’t know anything!’ Who else is going to come after me with a crowbar, for God’s sake?”
“Well, you’re right—it was definitely because someone doesn’t want you to testify. Someone who knows where you live. Someone who knows what time you got off work. Someone who knew you’d be taking the bus home.”
“I told you—the guy has my cellphone.”
“Which might give him your name and address.”
“The other stuff too. Champlain’s number is on there.”
“What’s it listed as? ‘Where I work on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, from six to ten p.m.’?”
“What are you getting at? I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Will you please just tell me?”
Cardinal could hear the rising panic in her voice, the same panic he had heard in her phone message. She gripped the edges of the exam table, and her mouth opened as if she would say more—something that might stop this horrible cop from ruining her life. But some other emotion—perhaps her sense, not yet acknowledged, that dread was about to be transformed into grief—made her lower lip tremble and the dark eyes fill, and Cardinal could not remember the last time he had seen a human being so vulnerable.
20
“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET DOWN?” Nikki said. She was hanging by her knees from a tree branch. She was high enough that, even upside down, her face was a foot higher than Lemur’s. He was looking up at her, shaking his head in his solemn way. A frigid breeze blew across her belly where her jacket and sweater had fallen open.
“Cover yourself up,” Lemur said. “Your stomach. Don’t show yourself like that.”
“Perv. You getting turned on?”
“It’s not our way. You’ve heard Papa talk about modesty.”
“You just don’t like to look at girls cuz you’re a faggot.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Chill, Lemur—I’m just kidding.”
“Don’t call me names. I don’t call you names. We’re here to respect each other. You’re not gonna get a lot of that outside the family, and neither am I. Not yet, anyway.”
Nikki didn’t like that talk of respect. The only thing people had ever respected about her was her ass. So
on as they saw her face, it was a whole other story. She pulled herself up so that she was sitting on the branch. The sensation of all the blood now draining from her head made her woozy. She looked up to where she had climbed to loop the rope over a high branch. “I can’t believe I went up that high. I haven’t climbed a tree since I was a kid.”
“You’re thirteen years old. You still are a kid.”
“You’re three years older. Big deal.”
“Toss me the rope, then come on down.”
“I told you, I don’t know how.” She let the rope go and it slithered down through the branches.
“Just swing down and hang from the branch by your hands.”
“Uh-huh. And if I break my ankle? Papa will kill you. You’re supposed to protect me.”
“You’re family, Nikki—I will always protect you. But you have to be self-reliant, too.”
Still holding tight, Nikki slid back and down until her heels caught on the branch so that she was swinging under it, clinging almost upside down from hands and ankles. She let go with her ankles so that she was stretched out full now, hanging just from her hands, the cold bark biting into her fingers. She let herself dangle, feeling the stretch all the way down to her toes. Cold air on her stomach again. She wanted Lemur to touch it. Eight months with this weird family and she still had no idea how to be with a male who didn’t try to fuck her. Lying down in the dark, they couldn’t see her stupid face.
“You’re showing yourself again.”
“Don’t be such a tard. I’m hanging from a fucking tree.”
“You have to take care for yourself, Nikki. Watch your language, too. You can’t be using the F-word. Men have strong desires.”
“You don’t. Not for girls, anyway.”
“Don’t start with that again. I’m trying to be nice to you.”
“I know all about men’s desires,” she said from between upstretched arms. “I bet you all had a good laugh about it when Papa took me in that night.” She let go. Her feet hit the ground hard and she staggered backwards.
