Lion's Head Revisited

by Jeffrey Round

  “I have to go,” Dan said.

  “Go where?”

  “To the Bruce Peninsula.”

  “What? Wait for me. I can help you, whatever it is.”

  Ted moaned. Nick turned to the unconscious young man. “Come on, Teddy! Come back.”

  “This can’t wait,” Dan said.

  “All right, go. I’ll take Ted to the hospital.”

  Dan headed for the door. A siren sounded in the distance.

  Nick’s voice called after him. “And don’t turn your goddamn phone off this time!”

  “I won’t,” Dan yelled back.

  “Don’t do anything dangerous. I’m not done with you yet.”

  That I can’t promise, Dan thought.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Human Code

  A TEACHER HAD WITNESSED the death of a student. Years later she still dwelt on it, believing a second student had been involved and that the blame had fallen on the wrong shoulders. Somehow she had been alerted to the existence of that former student, now grown up. And the pieces tumbled together. For whatever reason, Theda McPhail had decided it was time to do something about it.

  Dan was halfway up the parkway when his phone buzzed.

  “We’re at the hospital. We got him here in time,” Nick said. He sounded both exhilarated and exhausted.

  “How is he?”

  “Hard to say. He’s alive. I gather he’s got a ways to go before anyone will say he’s out of danger.” He paused. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m on my way up to the Bruce.”

  “I know that. Why?”

  It was his interrogator’s voice.

  “I think Janice is there with Ashley and Jeremy. And possibly Sarah. That call I took was from Theda McPhail’s neighbour. She remembered the name of a student who was involved in the death of a fellow classmate. It’s Kathy. That’s Janice Bentham’s real first name. I think whatever happened was what got blacked out of Janice’s record because she was underage.”

  “And what does that have to do with the kidnapping?”

  “I don’t know yet. But it sure makes Janice look good for Theda’s murder. And I think they might be trying to leave the country. When I was at Janice’s yesterday, Sarah Nealon showed up. She said she’d been beaten up by Elroy James. That was when Janice tried to convince me that Eli and Elroy took the money.”

  “But now you don’t believe it?”

  “What if Janice arranged the kidnapping to pay for Jeremy’s treatment? If she’s capable of murder, she’s capable of this. And she certainly felt entitled to her mother’s money. Eli told me she let him take the blame for things she did. I think she’s doing it again.”

  “Are you saying she killed him?”

  Dan paused. “I don’t think so. But clearly she didn’t know he’d kill himself. She said, ‘This isn’t how it was supposed to be.’ I didn’t know what she meant then. Now I do. I’m going to try to stop anything else from happening.”

  “Call the local police. It’s their jurisdiction.”

  “They’ll never find them.”

  “Wait! We can have Sarah’s ankle bracelet tracked if she’s with them.”

  “She wasn’t wearing it last night. She must have cut it off.”

  “Shit! You can’t do this on your own! You said she has a gun.”

  “I’m already on my way. Just do me one favour. Find out what’s blocked by the court order.”

  “Dan — wait for me! I’ll come up there with you.”

  “Ted needs you. He has no one else, remember? You have to be there for him.”

  “Damn it!”

  “What’s that? I can’t hear you. Hello?”

  He ended the call.

  He headed north, his AC blasting all the way as four lanes dwindled to two, one highway connecting to others all the way across the lonely continent, like the unfathomable skein of relationships in Jeremy Bentham’s drawings, the invisible ties connecting one person to another.

  Ahead the sky was a curious washed-out colour, like an over-exposed photograph, as though the heat had singed the air. Dan thought of Jeremy Bentham’s ravaged eyes while he was having his meltdown. It had been like seeing through his skull to all the terrifying things that trapped him in there.

  But if Janice had faked the whole kidnapping, how had she kept him hidden all that time? Then it hit him: the face without eyes Jeremy had drawn in his book. Marietta’s father is blind, Janice had said. He’d felt all along that Marietta and Ramón were involved. Her parents must have looked after him until, with a little help from PI Dan Sharp, Janice convinced her mother to give her the ransom money. She’d used him very skilfully. And she very nearly got away with it.

  Because if everything had gone according to plan, the money would have just conveniently disappeared. Because there were no kidnappers. And because no one was supposed to die. Not Eli Gestner or Theda McPhail. But somehow, somewhere, a retired schoolteacher had seen her former pupil and remembered something from the past. A terrible secret.

  He recalled Janice’s story about chasing away the bear. She would do anything to help her child, including pretending to kidnap him to raise money or killing a woman who might speak out and separate them.

  He headed for the cottage first, but he already knew they wouldn’t be there. Someone had notified the local OPP. A cruiser sat outside the door. Nick, Dan thought.

  He turned around and drove off before he was seen. A quick check on Cemetery Road showed no trace of Janice and Ashley’s vehicle. He was halfway to Horace’s farm when he thought of the old trail to Gun Point.

  He found their car parked at the foot of the trail. They would have to go up first to reach the campsite on the far side. If they were really intending to take a boat out of the country, that is. In his worst-case scenario, he saw three bodies lying at the bottom of a cliff. No — only two. She would never kill Jeremy. But Ashley and Sarah, yes, if she was desperate.

  As he climbed, the trees became taller and denser, the shadows darker where the sky was blotted out. Despite the shade the heat was oppressive, the air sticky. He passed a good-looking man in hiking gear coming back down the trail, nylon rope coiled over his shoulder. Rock climber, Dan thought.

  A blue blaze indicated a right-hand turnoff to some spectacular view. He hadn’t time for views. Ferns edged the path alongside clusters of tiny pink orchids. Bluegreen lichen scarred and puckered the rocks. He trudged along, gripping the face of a boulder as he slid through a narrow cleft where a wall of limestone had fractured along intricate horizontal lines. It appeared man-made, as though only human hands could have achieved such precision.

  He’d gone back to talk to Clarice Bentham briefly the day after he and Janice left with the boy. It had felt like unfinished business. He was thinking there was something he needed to tell her, when, in fact, it was something she needed to tell him. Should have figured it out, he realized, berating himself for his blindness as he kept up the climb.

  Clarice had greeted him with an icy gaze. She’d opened the door herself. Maid’s day off. He apologized for intruding. She invited him in, but didn’t offer him a drink. Not a cordial visit, just a perfunctory wrapping up of business. He’d helped her daughter walk away with a cool million and her newfound grandchild, after all. Though all he’d ever promised to do was return Janice and Jeremy safely, as far as he was able.

  “Sometimes I would look at that beautiful face and wonder if she was capable of feeling,” Clarice told him. “I said to her once, ‘Sometimes I think you’re not even human.’”

  They were Ashley’s exact words to Janice when they were arguing over whether to take Sarah with them to keep her safe.

  “You must have noticed her strange ways,” Clarice said as they walked down the hallway. “How she was never comfortable with people. Like they might figure out she wasn’t one of them. There was something different about her.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “When someone displeased her, it was l
ike she thought they deserved to die. You could see the anger seething, all that resentment beneath the skin. But she found the code and buried all that.”

  “The code?”

  “The human code. It was a remarkable study of a human being. Whenever she wanted something she was all smiles, until she thought you couldn’t see her. Then the mask came off.” She shook her head. “What’d she do?”

  “Do?”

  “I always knew she’d do something. Step out of line. Break the mould and get found out.”

  No, he wanted to say. I’m not here for that. I came here to apologize for how things ended between you and your daughter. But he hadn’t read between the lines. Please fight for your grandson. Only you can help him now.

  “Despite everything,” she said, “I still love my daughter beyond reason. Just as I’m sure she loves that boy. You may not understand it.”

  “Why is that?” he asked, thinking of Kedrick.

  “Being a man, I mean.”

  “Ah. Because men don’t feel as much, you mean.”

  “Not having given birth, how could you? It’s only natural.”

  “I see.” He let it pass.

  “Did Janice tell you I introduced her to Ashley?”

  Dan shook his head, another surprising piece of the puzzle.

  “I thought you would have recognized her in the posters.” She nodded to the gallery of framed photographs. He remembered how he’d felt there was something familiar about the face. He recognized her now.

  “Ashley was my poster girl for a while. Of course she looks wildly different without make-up. I hired her as a stenographer, but I saw her potential and sent her off to a modelling studio. I thought she’d be grateful, but she wasn’t.”

  “Is that why you stopped speaking to Janice?”

  “One of several reasons.”

  “The other being Jeremy?”

  “Yes. If I hadn’t introduced them none of this would have happened.”

  He was nearing the top now. His thighs strained as he leapt over a log and nearly slipped. Somewhere near here was where Janice had fallen, stumbling through the woods till she came to Horace McLean’s farm. Had it not been for that, it would have been relatively easy for her to get back to the car and drive within cellphone range to report a missing four-year-old. Setting the gears in motion.

  Nevertheless, she’d fooled them all. Though Dan had suspected something was going on, he hadn’t fully understood it. Not until now. All of this is about revenge, he should have said, should have realized. It’s not really about your son and it’s only secondarily about the money. This is about you getting back at the people who hurt or disappointed you.

  “I grew up poor,” Clarice told him as she saw him to the door. “I used to think money was the most beautiful thing until I learned the value of love. Too late, it seems. La belleza cuesta.”

  Beauty costs.

  Almost without warning, he reached the promontory, stepping out between the trees to a sudden expanse of sky. His vision blurred. It was alarmingly hot. The view was like something in a dream: the blue bay with a single sail in the distance, the silence like a vacuum. Horace was right. From here it would be easy to board a boat and slip across to the States by night when no one was watching.

  He saw the rope knotted to a stump and stepped closer to the edge. The orange nylon fell straight down, disappearing where it was swallowed up from view. He felt dizzy. His heart pounded from the climb. Getting out of shape, he told himself.

  His cell beeped with an incoming message. Way out in the middle of nowhere, it had picked up a signal. Below, surrounded by forest, there had been no way for anyone to get through. Up here, everything was open and uninhibited.

  He dialed his voice mail, waiting impatiently as it asked for his password then finally picked up somewhere, wherever messages were stored.

  “For fuck’s sake, Dan!” Nick breathed hard. He was angry. “I looked up the records. You’ve got it wrong! There were two kids. A girl named Kathy and a brother who died. His name was —”

  He didn’t hear the rest of Nick’s message. The phone went flying from his hand, clattering across the rocks and over the edge of the cliff. There was an unexpected red mist as he fell to his knees. Only it wasn’t mist. It was a fine spray of blood. His own.

  He tried to turn. The exhilarated expression, hair flying in the wind.

  “It’s a rough climb.”

  The branch struck him across the side of his face. Too late, he raised his hands as he fell against the rock. A foot kicked out, once, twice. A third kick and he was over the edge. He had barely time to grab the rope. It burned through his hands. The pain was excruciating, though the fear was worse. His howl echoed over the valley. But if there was no one to hear, what good would it do?

  Her face leered down at him. “Are you a bird? Can you fly?”

  She stamped at his fingers, bringing her boots down again and again while his hands danced and flew from side to side to avoid being struck. She caught him on the next blow. His left hand went numb; he couldn’t feel to grip.

  He let himself slip farther down where her feet couldn’t reach, but she made up for it by wielding the branch, smashing at his fingers and head. He wouldn’t be able to hold out long. The best thing was to let himself slide all the way down. Then again, that might just be making it easier for her. All she had to do was untie the knot and let him fall. The unending flight. Only it would end, in a crunch of bone and sinew hitting rock and bleeding out.

  He looked down and saw with a start that the rope extended just a dozen feet below. There was no escape. He clung to it, feeling strangely disembodied. Part of him watched himself clinging from above, while another part wondered how long he could manage to hold on.

  She struck again with the branch, her face an enraged snarl. “I think you’re trouble. I see through everyone.”

  “You think you can see through me?”

  “I see it all. The insecurities, the hurts and aches. The old wounds. Family troubles. It always comes back to families, doesn’t it?”

  She was smooth and cool on the outside, but wired within. Something coiled and waiting to strike out.

  “What about you?”

  “I’m invisible. No one ever sees me for what I am.”

  Clarice Bentham was right. She was alien in some way, though she was good at hiding it. She’d learned how to behave like a human, but it didn’t make her one. Her eyes searched him, as though he might reveal something she needed to know. A key. A code.

  “Where are the others?”

  She cocked her head.

  “Not far.” She seemed to be listening to something just beyond the edge of the cliff. “Can’t you hear the screaming?”

  “No.”

  Her look was pitying, as though he were missing out. “That doesn’t mean it’s not real. It’s just on another level of existence.”

  The sun was behind her. It blinded him when he tried to look up.

  “What are they screaming about?”

  “They’re saying someone is going to die.”

  She was right. There was a crackling in the air. He heard it in the cries of the gulls: Death! Death! She stood there looking outward as though seeing something that wasn’t there.

  He recalled Horace’s words: You’ve got the lions on your side.

  “Theda McPhail was your teacher,” he gasped out. “She kept coming around the house because she wanted to talk to you.”

  “Yes,” she sneered. “She was the same Mrs. McPhail I remembered from school. ‘How are things at home? How are your studies going? If you ever need to talk, just let me know.’ She was tedious.”

  “And so you killed her too.”

  “Stupid. She invited me in. I strangled her. I had to. She figured it out. I’m Kathy.”

  “She knew you killed your brother.”

  “You’re smarter than I thought. That’s too bad.”

  “How will you explain killing me?”


  “It was an accident. You tried to rescue me. You fell.” She turned and looked off as though seeing something in the distance.

  “It’s happening,” she said.

  When he looked up again, she had moved off. For a second, he thought she was going to leave him there. Not so.

  When she returned, she held a good-size rock in her hands, hefting it over him. He steeled his grip, determined to hang on. Everything blurred in the heat waves sizzling around them, the monotonous whine of cicadas buzzing through his brain.

  As she raised her arms a voice rang out. Biblical, retributive. An Old Testament voice. Both prophet and warrior.

  “Put it down, Leah,” Dan heard. “Leah — put it down!”

  Then a crack followed by a scream as Horace shot the woman Dan knew as Ashley Lake.

  They’d been standing in the hallway. Dan was listening to Clarice speak, waiting for the right moment to leave.

  “She was like a butterfly given new wings. I knew she’d come from a broken family, a disaster of a family. Suddenly she was adored. She was wanted by everyone. For five years she was our poster girl. I gave her every opportunity. But she wasn’t grateful. ‘You owe me,’ she said when I told her we had to find someone new. ‘I am the reason your products sell.’ As if a face could make a success of anything without hard work and effort behind it.”

  Clarice turned away from the poster Dan had only just recognized as Ashley Lake. She was luminescent. A creature of light, insubstantial. Horace’s angel.

  “Five years is a long time for a model. I kept saying it wasn’t the end for her. She’d made a bit of money and could do whatever she wanted with the rest of her life. But she hated me for letting her go. After that I never had a moment’s peace with Janice. Ashley took every opportunity she could to cause trouble between us. We were no longer mother and daughter, but bitter enemies. I knew Ashley was only after the money, so I kept it from Janice.”

  “She manipulated Janice to get back at you.”

  “Manipulated doesn’t cover it. She was a monster. She destroyed relationships. First with me, then with Dennis. When I let her go from Clarice Magna, she went straight after Janice. Pretending to care. Helping look after Jeremy while driving us apart. Ashley doesn’t even like children. I doubt she ever loved anyone but herself for one moment. It was all for the money. I could see that, but Janice couldn’t.”