Death Spiral (33 page)

Now it was the next morning. Duncan continued to sit in his tree and stare wide-eyed toward the cottage and think of Carole. And sometimes he had to cling to a branch just to keep from falling down.

* * *

Wilf got out of the car in front of the garage and waved at Andy.

Andy was talking with some friends. He walked around the grease pit and came out into the sunlight. He smelled of whisky.

“What’s up?”

“Where’s the padlock?”

“What padlock?”

“The padlock that was on the cage that kid was in. Where is it?”

Andy stared at Wilf and didn’t like what he saw. “Don’t tell me you’ve got the key.”

“I’ve got the key.”

“From who? How the hell did you manage that?”

“Where’s the cage? Where the hell’s the lock, Andy?”

“The OPP have it.”

“Where?”

“In our storage room. But just for now. They’ll be taking it away.”

Wilf was already hurrying back down Main Street.

Andy caught up to him. “I’m off duty.”

“That’s good. You smell like the Arlington Hotel. Can we get in without being seen?”

“Ted just drove by in the cruiser.”

“Where’s the Chief?”

“I don’t know.” Andy looked nervously along the street. “How did you get the key? From Cooney?”

“No. From Kelly.”

“Kelly? Jesus, you didn’t go back there, did you? Wilf? Tell me you didn’t break into his house.”

“I didn’t break into his house.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ! He wouldn’t keep that key around anyway. He wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“How many keys do you get when you buy a padlock? You get at least a spare one, right, just in case you lose the first one. And who ever remembers where they put the extra key?”

“Me! If I was committing a murder!”

“But it wasn’t exactly a murder. At least not a fast one. It was slow. And it wasn’t planned. At least not by him.”

“Then why bother with Kelly? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The boy had to come from somewhere, he had to have a mother. And Kelly has a daughter. She’s out there right now.”

Andy came to a halt. “Kelly has a daughter?”

“Cooney told me everything. It was her child. She hated it. And it was her decision to starve it to death. What we’re hoping for is that in all his upset and confusion Kelly forgot the spare key.”

“He has a daughter?” Andy said again, as if he were truly amazed.

The office was empty.

Andy gave Wilf an all clear sign and went back into the station. By the time he’d unlocked the storage room and was pushing the door open, Wilf was right behind him. The small room was windowless and narrow and cluttered with an assortment of stolen or abandoned bicycles and tricycles, a car tire, a kidnapped lawn ornament, a store mannequin, a wheelbarrow.

Wilf made his way to the far end. A space had been cleared away and in the harsh glare from the overhanging light he could see the wire cage again. “She hated him.”

“I know.” Andy came up beside him. “You already said that.”

The padlock was still closed and dangling down from the latch on the door. Someone had cut a large hole in the back of the cage to take the body out.

Andy fished out a handkerchief. “Use this. They’ve already brushed everything for fingerprints but why be in deeper shit than we already are.”

“I only have one hand.”

“Right.” Andy held the handkerchief around the padlock while Wilf pulled a key out of his pocket. He tried it. It didn’t fit.

“We’re screwed,” Andy said.

“I have two more.” Wilf tried another one. The key slipped in and turned. The padlock sprung open.

“Mother of God,” Andy said.

They raced back out into the country, Andy driving and Wilf telling him what he knew about Kelly’s daughter, how she came home for her mother’s funeral, stayed long enough to deal with her son, in a manner of speaking, and now she was getting ready to leave again. And he told him what had happened to her when she was twelve years old.

Andy’s expression began to change. “I don’t know about this. Do you think we’re doing the right thing?”

“Think about it. She sat in that house for over a week and didn’t lift a finger. Neither did Kelly. And then, when her son was finally dead she stripped off all his clothes.”

“This is so godawful, Wilf. She was only twelve.”

Wilf watched a tree come up, race by.

The sun was so bright he could hardly see.

Another one came up. Raced by.

“She’s older now,” Wilf said.

They came to the muddy side road. Andy braked and turned into it and then swung into Kelly’s lane. They were halfway to the house when Wilf said, “The truck’s gone.”

Andy made a bouncing U-turn in the yard. “We should have passed them on the way here if they’re heading for the train station. Unless they left right after you did.”

“Or drove straight west and took the highway into town. Or went somewhere else.”

“You told me they didn’t see you when you were searching the truck.”

“They didn’t. As far as I know.”

“Shit,” Andy said.

A passenger train was just pulling out from the town’s station when they careened into the parking lot. They sat there watching the caboose begin to traverse the bridge that spanned the larger of the two rivers. Dark smoke was trailing up into the blue sky far ahead of it.

Wilf looked at Andy. “She won’t be hard to find. She must have a job somewhere. A place she stays.”

“Do you see Kelly’s truck anywhere?”

Wilf looked around. “No.”

Andy stared out the windshield. “You know what I think? I think I better hand that key over to the OPP.”

“We could take one more drive out, just in case he came in on the highway and we missed him.”

“I don’t think so.”

“The OPP are going to ask you how you came by it.”

“That’s easy. I’ll just say you stole it. It’s stolen property.”

“Right.”

“Trouble is, you’ll be in a bigger mess than you already are.”

“Do what you have to do, Andy. That’s okay.”

Andy sat there considering his options. Wilf expected to see him begin to pat himself down, looking for his cigarettes, but instead he said, “You know, I think I do remember seeing her out there. Years ago.” He shook his head. “This little kid.”

Andy turned the car around, drove out of the parking lot and headed out of town. After what seemed like a slow and reluctant ride to Wilf they finally reached Kelly’s lane again. The truck was standing in the yard. Kelly was sitting on a kitchen chair on the front porch as if he were expecting company.

“I have a bad feeling,” Andy said. He pulled the car up near the truck. He and Wilf got out.

“Hello again, boys,” Kelly called over to them. His one arm was slung over the back of the chair as if he needed support. His eyes looked freshly bruised. His hair was still standing up in patches. “I guess this is one of those days.”

“What kind of day is that, Mr. Kelly?” Andy said as he and Wilf walked up to the edge of the porch.

“The kind of day where men’s souls are tested.” Kelly turned his watery eyes on Wilf. “You were in my house. That’s illegal.”

Wilf glanced at Andy. Andy’s face seemed as wretched as Kelly’s.

“The Great Almighty was using you today, young man,” Kelly continued on, “whether you know it or not.”

“Oh?” Wilf replied.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you a few more questions,” Andy said.

“I was halfway to town before I remembered. You see, God has His own way.” Kelly was keeping his eyes on Wilf. “Did one of those keys fit?”

“You tell us,” Andy said.

“I’m going to have to ask you boys a favour. I’m going to have to ask you to look deep in your souls. And think about a little girl who was much much too young!” Tears as big as dimes began to roll down Kelly’s cheeks.

Andy was beginning to look like he’d rather be in his car, rather be anywhere on earth than where he was. “You had a legal obligation to give a minor under your care the necessities of life and to protect him from harm. That’s the law.”

“Yes. I know that. But you don’t understand. There were two lives at stake. I couldn’t save both. I had to choose. Choose between my own daughter and that boy. God help me!” Kelly seemed to go deathly pale. He began to slide off the chair.

Andy reached up to steady him.

“My daughter!” the man cried out. “My daughter!”

“It’s all right,” Andy said, trying to get him back on the chair.

“No. It’s not all right! It’s not all right at all! She was misused. By this half-wit, this half-monster! When she was twelve years old! Oh God!”

A curtain in an upstairs window fell back into place as softly as a bird landing. Wilf saw it.

“We kept it a secret,” Kelly was going on, “as anyone would have done, and when she gave birth to this helpless little creature we looked after it. Of course we did. But when Theresa died, you see, he wouldn’t eat anymore. He wouldn’t drink. We couldn’t do anything for him. And how could we take him anywhere for help? What questions would people ask? What would people say? It would have been the ruination of my daughter’s life!”

Wilf began to move away from the porch.

“I tried to do the right thing and my mind’s coming apart. Just leave. Leave us alone.”

“There’s nothing we can do.” Andy was sounding apologetic.

Wilf turned the corner and limped along the side the house. He stepped up on to the porch. When he pushed open the door the suitcases were nowhere to be seen.

He walked down a hallway. He began to climb a narrow flight of stairs. Before he reached the top he could see her through an open door. She was sitting on the edge of a bed watching him. The suitcases were on the floor beside her. Wilf moved closer. He could hear Kelly weeping. The bedroom window was open and the curtain stirred in the breeze.

“It was time to release that poor boy. It was time to set my daughter free,” he was moaning.

Wilf stopped at the door. The woman’s dark thick hair was fanning out all around her. Her eyes were gigantic and luminous in the curtained light.

“Hello,” Wilf said.

She didn’t reply. She didn’t move.

“How long did it take your son to starve to death?”

“Not long enough.”

“Reverend Cooney told me he didn’t have a name.”

“He didn’t.”

“You could have made that train today.”

She kept her eyes on Wilf’s eyes. “What would have been the point of that? You had the key.”

Kelly’s voice was sounding as close as if he’d somehow levitated himself and was just outside the open window. “We did everything we could. Theresa and I. She loved him. She called him Paul. Took him for walks. Babied him. We didn’t keep him in that cage all the time, you know.”

“He had a name,” Wilf said.

“So did I,” the woman said. “Listen to him. All he’s proving is how hopeless he is. To forget that other key.”

Her father was whispering now, whispering in through the window. “The cage was only there to hide him and to control him when someone happened to drive in the lane. We cared for him, we weren’t bad people.” He began to weep again.

“Do you think he’s crying for me? He’s crying for himself. He thinks he’s truly damned. Any moment now he’ll start talking about my walk down by the river again. And those awful men. And that imbecile. And the very air will cry for him. All his pain.” She leaned forward a little. “He is damned, you know?”

“Is he?”

“No one has ever heard what you’re about to hear. Ever.”

“All right,” Wilf said.

“He was crying just like that when he told my mother that story. And it was almost true. Except that there were lots of walks down by the river. Not just one. Except that there was no drooling imbecile. There was only my father.”

And it seemed to Wilf that all the faint light in the room was falling into her eyes. And all the light in the house and all the light in the world. And it seemed to him that any hope he’d held that everything would be magically revealed if only he could find the secret to the boy in the cage was simply laughable. There was no light and he would never know.

He took one last glance at her face, flayed by her experience and lost beyond all the telling of it, and he turned away and barely able to see where he was going stumbled along the hall and back down the stairs. By the time he reached the side door he knew what he was going to do and it seemed to him that he should have known right from the beginning. It was so obvious now.

He crossed over to Andy’s car, climbed into it and turned the key. He could hear Andy shouting at him. He spun the car around and headed out the lane.

And he already felt free.

He raced out to the gravel road that ran past John Moss’s place, turned on to it and headed in the opposite direction. He began to look for a substantial tree. A small turn of the wheel, one moment of flight and then nothing. What could be more wished for than nothing? It would end what he’d brought home inside himself, it would end the plague. Wouldn’t it? Who could argue with that? Not the town. Not his father. Not Carole.