Serpents Rising (19 page)

She shook her head and stared down at the carpet.

“So you all had him for social?”

Kelly shook her head. “Not Donna. He helped with our school musical that year. He had been a musician, was even in a couple of bands that I'd heard of. He even had the records; I know, I listened to them. Anyway, Donna was really musical, I guess you know all about that …” I didn't answer. “… And it was when she was rehearsing for the musical that he …”

A minute or two passed. Kelly fished another Kleenex out of a different pocket and dabbed again at her eyes. I was able to hold my coffee now and took a couple of sips.

“You said something about the cops.”

Kelly nodded. “Donna wanted to go the police right away. The rest of us didn't, begged her not to. We told her that we couldn't live with it being out there. One of the girls said she'd commit suicide if it became known, and I think she meant it. Donna must have thought so too because she let it go.

“And then two years later we heard that he'd been arrested at another school. At first they said all that would happen is he wouldn't be allowed to teach anymore. That's when we went to the police; this time all of us agreed. We wanted to see the bastard in jail. And that's what happened. He went to jail for … I heard six years. I don't know if he served the whole sentence. I didn't want to know anything more; I just wanted to forget it.”

“I'm sorry, Kelly.”

She shook her head. “No, it's okay, really. And
I'm
okay … now. I know you had to try to find out everything you could after what happened to Donna.”

“Was this in grade eleven?”

“Uh-huh. How did you know?”

“As I was looking at some of Donna's stuff it seemed to me that there were some changes in her that year.”

She nodded again. “In all of us. We were depressed. Our grades went down, even Donna's. The counsellor spoke to each of us, she said she'd noticed we seemed less excited about school and life and was there anything bothering us. But, of course, none of us said anything about what was going on.”

“You said it happened again two years later. Some of you must have been finished high school.”

“We stayed in touch. Funny, isn't it — when you're in school you promise all your friends that you'll stay in touch, be friends forever, all that stuff, and the only ones I stayed in contact with were …” She paused, sipped her coffee, stared off for a long moment.

“Anyway, when Donna heard that he did it again at the other school, she got hold of all of us. I guess she sort of spearheaded the thing.”

There were sounds of a baby fussing coming from the monitor.

I stood up. “Listen, Kelly, I don't want to take up any more of your time. I know you're busy.”

Kelly stood, smiled. “I'm afraid I haven't been a very good host. Would you like me to warm up your coffee, or get you some fresh? I can go get her and then —”

I held up a hand. “You've been a fine host. I appreciate your seeing me. I know this hasn't been easy. Just one thing more …”

“Yes?”

“What was the teacher's name?”

She hesitated and looked away, the smile gone.

“Kelly, it won't be hard for me to find out. It would just save time if you'd let me know his name.”

“What are you going to do?”

I shook my head. I didn't have an answer to that question.

“He didn't set fire to your house, I absolutely know that.”

“How do you know that, Kelly?”

“What he did to Donna and to all of us was wrong. It's like that phrase — we were ‘robbed of our youth,' or maybe it's ‘robbed of our innocence.' Anyway, he did that and I'll never stop hating him for it. But he wasn't someone who could kill anyone … I just know that.”

I nodded. “I get what you're saying, but I guess I need to find that out for myself.”

“I don't think I can —”

“Kelly, you mentioned that I would know about Donna's love of music. Truth is, I didn't know that. I never heard her play, sing … not ever. As near as I can figure, Donna stopped playing music after that year.”

She looked down. “Oh, God.” It was a whisper.

“I need to know the man's name.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked again.

“I don't know. I … don't know.”

I looked at her and she met my gaze, gave the slightest nod.

“Appleton. Richard Appleton.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“I don't. Honestly, I don't. I guess I never wanted to know.”

“Thanks, Kelly. You better see to the baby.” The noises were getting louder over the monitor.

I started for the door.

“Adam.”

I turned back to face her.

“Don't do anything you'll regret … please.”

I tried for a reassuring smile.

“Yeah.” I stepped out into the Arizona heat feeling as cold as I'd ever been in my life.

I
'm not sure how long I walked or even where. I was in a pleasant residential area and a lot of the houses had kids playing in yards. On porches.

Families.

Angry thoughts. Anger at Richard Appleton for what he'd done to Donna and at least three other girls. Anger at a school that either didn't pay enough attention to see it happening or saw it and turned a careful, blind eye, concerned more with preserving the reputation of the institution than the safety of its students.

Anger at a school principal who must have eventually been aware of what had happened at her school but had said nothing to me. Although, to be fair to Delores Bain, she may not have known the names of Appleton's victims. The courts are careful about protecting the identities of underage victims and I couldn't say for sure that that protection wouldn't have excluded even the school principal from knowing their names.

Appleton's sentence had been six years. Whether or not he'd served all of it, it wasn't much. Yet that's what the court felt was sufficient punishment for what he'd done to those girls' lives.

It
wasn't
sufficient. Not to me.

My wandering had taken me to a mini-mall and I stepped into a Fry's store to get a coffee and think about what I was going to do next.

I took the coffee to a faux-leather chair not far from the coffee bar and sat beneath a TV where a right-wing politician was telling an interviewer what was wrong with America and how he was the only person on the planet with the will and the intelligence to fix it. Or words to that effect.

I found the remote and turned the sound down and then looked around, I guess as an afterthought. The only person watching was an old black man who couldn't have weighed a hundred pounds. He was sitting at a counter with a newspaper in his hands.

“Sorry,” I told him, “if you're wanting to listen —”

He held up both hands and grinned at me. “That's all right, brother, I think he's an asshole too.”

I smiled at him and nodded. Took a drink of coffee.

I replayed my conversation with Kelly in my mind. And I thought about what I was going to do next.

Don't do anything you'll regret
. That's what she'd said, almost pleading with me. Regret is what you feel when you do something wrong. Was it wrong to want to see the man who had betrayed the trust of teenage girls over a decade before? Was it wrong to want to decide for myself if he was capable of hating one of his victims enough to want to kill her? Or want revenge for her part in putting him behind bars?

I set the half-finished coffee on an end table that stood to the left of the chair, picked up the remote, and stood up. I walked over to the counter where the black man was working on a coffee of his own.

I handed him the remote and gestured at the TV. “He's gone now. It's safe to turn up the volume.”

He chuckled and took the remote. “Yeah, I guess it is at that.”

I stepped out of the store and saw a cab at the curb, moved forward, and opened the back door on the passenger side. I leaned in. The driver twisted to look at me, raised his eyebrows.

“You have a trip?” I asked him.

He took a few seconds to decide. “No.” He shook his head.

He didn't make a move to start the car.

“Does that mean the cab is available?”

A few more seconds before a grudging nod. Apparently the economic woes of the United States hadn't touched this particular cab driver.

I climbed in, gave him the address of the hotel, thinking he'd also be pissed off at the length of the trip and the size of the impending fare.

He said, “Sure,” and seemed reasonably content although I noticed he turned off the air conditioning in the car.

Maybe that was his
I'll show the bastard
mechanism. Or maybe it was cool enough already. Maybe.

Back at the hotel I ran up to the room, showered, and changed, then went back down to the lobby. There was a business centre in one corner of the lobby and no one in it. I let myself in with my room key, settled at one of the three Samsung computers, and Googled Richard Appleton.

I found a news story in the archives of the
Calgary Sun
. The story was dated November 22, 1995. An adjacent story reminded me that the date was thirty-two years to the day after the death of John F. Kennedy.

Not a lot of detail but the basics were there, written in the tabloid style of that newspaper.

Creep Teacher Nailed and Jailed

Forty-six-year-old former high school teacher, Richard Appleton, has been sentenced to six-and-one-half years in prison following his conviction on six counts of sexual interference with a minor. The assaults took place over a four-year period at three different schools, two of them high schools and the third a junior high school.

The father of one of the victims who cannot be named under the provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act told the
Sun
that he was happy to see justice prevail. “If we get one more predator off our streets even for a while, that's a good thing.”

Appleton's lawyer, Christopher P. Hart, told reporters his client would almost certainly appeal the conviction. “We are, of course, disappointed by the jury's verdict. My client is the victim here. It appears jurors were swayed by the testimony of alleged victims who clearly had a vendetta against a teacher with glowing credentials … this is false accusation of the worst kind.

I stopped reading and went to the next post, a
Calgary Herald
story, same time-frame, same kind of story, different quote from a different parent — a mom this time — and only slightly less inflammatory language.

There was a Wikipedia piece that said even less than the two stories from newspapers.

I stared at the computer for a while, then pulled my cell phone out and called Cobb.

“How's the Arizona sunshine?”

“I need your help on something.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. I guessed that he was surprised by my abruptness.

“You learn something?”

“A little,” I said. “I need to find someone, a guy named Richard Appleton. Used to teach school in Calgary. Private school at least part of the time. Went to jail back in '97, or maybe '98. Got six-and-a-half years — don't know how much he served.”

“You think this guy torched your place?”

“I don't know, but I need to talk to him.”

“What'd he get sent up for?”

“Sexual assault.” I paused. “Students.”

“I'll call you back.” Cobb was gone.

I went back to the computer. There were pages of Richard Appleton references, most of them about an Australian hypnotist-entertainer by that name. I didn't find anything more about
this
Richard Appleton beyond several smaller references to the sexual assault case in other newspapers.

My cell phone rang. I touched the screen, said, “Yeah.”

Cobb's voice — all business. “Appleton went to jail in late 1998. Served most of his time, the last part in a halfway house.”

“And now?”

“Looks like he's living in North Vancouver, at least that's the latest I could get on him. Runs a business called School Daze. It's a printing company that produces high-school yearbooks.”

“You've got to be fucking kidding. This guy is still going into schools?”

“Unless you can produce and print a yearbook without going into the school, then yeah, that's what's happening.”

“Jesus.”

“So what now?”

“Like I said, I want to meet him, talk to him.”

“Okay, but don't do anything dumb.”

Second time I'd heard that particular piece of advice. “Anything new?”

“Not yet. You coming back here?”

“No, I've got business at the coast.”

He gave me the address, a couple of phone numbers, and I hung up, dialled the airline. Changed my flight.

The Sylvia Hotel isn't fancy but it's one of my favourite places in the world, mostly because it was one of Donna's favourite places in the world. It's an official heritage building, built in 1912 by a man named Goldstein who named the place after his daughter. It looks out over English Bay. Donna and I had spent hours in the lounge overlooking the ocean and on the beach across from the hotel gazing out at the Pacific Ocean and some of the ships that navigate its thousands of miles.

This stop at the Sylvia was different. I'd arrived mid-morning, checked in, changed, and gone for a run along the beach past the towering magnificence of Stanley Park. After a shower and a lunch of smoked wild salmon chowder and a Keith's IPA in the hotel restaurant, I had moved to the lounge for a rye and Diet Coke. I was flipping through the pages of
Mr. Got to Go
, a children's picture book based on a real story of a stray cat who moved into the Sylvia one day and simply refused to leave. Donna and I had read it together the last time we were at the Sylvia — maybe in this same booth.

Remembering the advice of the wise Kay Towers about the importance of Kyla in any plan I might have to move forward with Jill Sawley, I'd bought this copy at the desk for Kyla.

I put the book down, pulled out my cell phone. The lounge was empty but for one grizzled old guy sipping what looked like a Guinness on the other side of the room. He was wearing a Blue Jays ball cap and a T-shirt that said, “Sailors do it in waves.”

Catchy.

I dialled the first number Cobb had given me. A man's voice answered. “School Daze. How can I help you?”

“Hello, this is Rich Maxwell calling. I'm the teacher-advisor for the yearbook committee over here at … uh … Oceanside Junior High. Our student committee met last night and decided they'd like to look at an alternative publisher from the firm we've had in the past. One of the other teachers had heard about you folks and I thought I'd give you a call and chat with you about our book. Perhaps I could come by your office, Mr. —”

“There isn't an office, per se. My wife and I are the company and we work out of our home. When were you thinking you'd like to come around?”

“Well, the kids are chomping at the bit to get going so sooner rather than later would be my preference. I'm tied up in class until 3:15 but I could zip over there right after school — say about four o'clock.”

“Well … I … suppose, yes, I think we could make that work.”

“Great. Thanks for fitting me in and I do apologize for the short notice. If you could just give me the address and … uh, my colleague mentioned your name, I think, but I can't remember. Sorry.”

“It's Richard Appleton.” He gave me an address on West 14th Street in North Van and told me that he and his wife lived near the North Vancouver City Library. I glanced down at the address Cobb had given me. It matched.

I told Appleton I'd see him at four and hung up, fairly satisfied with my performance but nervous as I considered what could happen when I got to the house on West 14th Street.

I thought about another drink but decided it wouldn't do for the yearbook advisor at Oceanside Junior High to have liquor on his breath. I ordered a coffee and picked up
Mr. Got to Go
for one more reading.

I eased the rented Impala to the curb and sat looking at the home of Richard Appleton. It was a nice house but not ostentatious. Tans and browns for the siding and trim. Flower beds on both sides of the front steps. A silver Buick LeSabre, early- to mid-2000s vintage and looking brand new, sat in the driveway. A small magnetic sign was visible on the driver's side door. It read, “School Daze, Your One-Stop Yearbook Supplier.”

I was nervous but not scared. I'd done interviews with lots of tough guys in my life so it wasn't like I was thinking about the danger of my impending meeting with Richard Appleton. If there was anything to fear it was me, what I might do if I snapped. I'd been storing up hate for the man inside that house since I'd heard about the sexual assaults on his students. If it turned out that he was also the person who had set fire to my house — and killed my wife — all bets were off.

The man who opened the door and smiled at me was not a tough guy, at least he didn't look it. Early fifties, a little overweight, I could see that he'd once been handsome; he wasn't far from that now. My height, brown hair, a long slender nose, wide mouth with straight, very white teeth, solid chin. But it was the eyes that I guessed were a big assist in winning over the hearts of young girls. They were a remarkably deep blue and accented by long, little boy lashes. The eyes knocked at least ten years off his age.

He reached out a hand, and said, “Mr. Maxwell, a pleasure. Please come in.”

That was the second thing about Appleton that girls, even women, would have found attractive in the extreme. He had a voice that most radio announcers would have killed for. Sam Elliott without the drawl. It was impressive on the phone, more impressive in person.

He stepped back and I moved inside, found myself looking at a short woman with mousy blond hair, not unattractive but not in the same league as her husband. While they were both in their fifties, he looked to be forty-something and she'd gone the other way — sixty-ish. She seemed friendly but not over-the-moon cordial. Her eyes were guarded. She was looking in my direction but not
at
me. Something — my admittedly biased guess was that it was being married to Richard Appleton — had taken a toll on this woman.

We were in the living room and Appleton gestured toward an arm chair that looked like it had been designed by someone aiming for comfort. I sat and decided the designers had achieved their goal. Appleton sat across from me on one half of a sofa that matched the chair I was in. Mrs. Appleton did not sit.

“This is my wife, Kathleen. She's also my business partner. Can we get you a tea or a coffee, Mr. Maxwell?” Appleton asked.