The Boy Must Die (22 page)

Patsy walked to the door leading to her bedroom. “I don’t want to lose you.” She smiled, allowed her face to show a fleeting look of triumph. Justin moved back by the table, folded his arms across his chest, hoping his plea would work. If it did, all his problems would be solved, and he could go to the mountains feeling free. All his money problems, that is. “How long does your dig last?”

“Starts tomorrow. We get back in four days. Friday the fifth. Mucklowe is putting us up at his cabin in Waterton Lakes, and we’ll be crossing the border every day to get to the Chief Mountain site in Montana.”

“And Yianni? When does the bastard want his cash?”

“Saturday morning. And he means it. Saturday or else.”

“Let me see what I can do.” Patsy walked into her bedroom. She spoke to Justin from there. “I won’t be a minute. Meet me in the front hall.”

The hall had a long table and a view of the lawn. Justin waited by the front door, glancing at the ceiling, hearing Patsy humming to herself in her bedroom, opening drawers, closing closets. She came out in less than five minutes wearing a pair of jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt. She had pinned up her hair and put on lipstick. Is she going to take me to the bank? Justin wondered. She handed Justin a small box.

“Open it. It was a gift from my father many years ago. I want you to have it.”

Justin lifted the blue paper lid of the box. A small rabbit’s foot with a chain of brass lay on a bed of white tissue paper.

“It’s for good luck. It’s also a sign of trust between us, Justin. I know I’ve been angry with you. I know I can sometimes lose my temper. So I want to make things right. You have to promise one thing, though.”

“Anything.”

“You haven’t heard me out yet.”

“Okay.”

She stepped closer, placing her hands around his neck. Gently, softly, but he could feel her strength.

“Promise me you will come to me Friday night. Right after the dig. As soon as you get home. Promise me you will stay with me for the whole night. If you do, we’ll go to Yianni together. And I’ll pay him off. Then the two of us can work something out. Start over.”

Justin lifted his hands to hers. He held them and kept his eyes on hers.

“I promise, Patsy. On my life. But how do I know I can trust you?”

Patsy’s face went blank. She stiffened, indignant.

“You have no choice. You want the money, you prove to me how badly you want it.”

“If I come, will you have the cash?”

She said nothing, just smiled. Justin pulled away.

He turned the box in his hand. It was clear he had no choice.
Can I be sure?
Patsy liked to play games. She loved to tease and taunt, to say one thing but mean another. She opened the front door. And smiled again. Justin walked to the Olds without looking back at her, knowing he had
come close. Very close. He started the engine. Patsy was draped against the open door. Justin raised his hand, and she waved back. Driving down Parkside, he did not feel anything but numb disappointment and fatigue. At the stoplight, he lifted up his hands from the wheel and looked at them. They were still empty.

He drove for a while, brooding, until he found himself by the banks of the Oldman River. He pulled the Olds into a stand of trees and got out and walked to the edge of the water. How easy it would be to fall in,
to let the current take me
. He pulled the rabbit’s foot from his pocket and hurled it into the far rapids.
To hell with Patsy.
And yet she did say she’d pay Yianni off. She had money, she liked sex, she was risking a lot. So why wouldn’t she come through?

Still, Justin needed a backup. Someone he could rely on if Patsy decided to slam the door in his face. But who? He crouched on the bank of pebbles and listened to the murmuring water.

Who?

The sun was still high in the west when Cara Simonds drove out towards the Rockies, her car following Mucklowe’s Chevy van. Justin slumped in the front seat. He had not bothered to phone Karen, though he knew she’d be anxious to talk. He stared ahead at the black road, peering into the light as if his eyes were full of grit.

“You don’t look too happy, Justin,” Cara said, making her voice sound as soothing as she could. “Is there anything wrong?”

“Can I trust you, Cara?”

“You know you can, Justin.”

“I need money. I need to borrow some money to pay off a debt to a loan shark named Yianni Pappas. He’s threatened to kill me if I don’t pay by this Saturday.”

“Oh, Justin, I’m sorry. I wish I could help you.”

“Do you?” Justin sat up.

“I don’t mean money, Justin. My mom has been sick for a while, and my dad is unemployed. I’d rob a bank for you if it’d help.” Cara smiled.

“I am serious, Cara,” he said, his voice becoming gloomy.

“I believe you, Justin. But I really don’t have any money. Have you tried going to the bank? Maybe the manager or your mother’s banker could help.”

“I’m afraid not. My dad left us with a lot of debt. My mother’s job hardly pays for groceries.”

Cara drove in silence. Justin slid down in his seat again. She meant well, he figured, but she didn’t really believe him. He liked being with her, close beside her; the smell of her hair and perfume made the afternoon seem brighter. He looked up now at the broad stretch of Highway 5. Four lanes winding through farm- and ranchlands south to the small town of Cardston. Justin glanced at the passing fields of green and the shallow coulees trickling with small streams. Soon Cara was talking about school and the upcoming dig, trying to get his mind off things. Justin wanted to talk about her. He began asking about her mother, her family, if she was seeing anyone at the moment. She told him about her last affair, how it was over. Definitely over. As the light changed, clouds gathered slowly, their tufted undersides turning pink and gold. Cara pointed to the ditches alongside the road. The first blooms of July filled gullies and slopes with waving patches of yellow buttercups and wild lupine.

With cooler air rushing in the open windows, Justin recognized the region of foothills bordering the mountains. The sun was slowly descending, and he felt his dark mood returning. Randy stopped ahead at the entrance to Waterton Lakes Park. He bought two passes and walked back to Cara to hand one to her. “We’ve made good time, Cara,” Randy said. He returned to his Chevy van and drove in through the park’s entrance, with Cara following up a long curving hill to where the mountains came into full view. The vast spill-plain of the Blakiston River lay below them full of wildflowers. Justin did not feel elated. He saw only long afternoon shadows. Cara slowed to gaze at the purple hue of the shale peaks.

“Isn’t that pretty?” she said as they drove on.

Justin looked up. A hotel painted brown and green and looking like
a cross between a tipi and a Swiss chalet sat on a knoll facing an immense fiord. The mountains formed a corridor, each side a cragged line of immense stone shapes that rose from the edges of the emerald water. Cara said she wanted to take pictures when the dig was over. Justin couldn’t understand her awe. The slopes of fir trees seemed to him desolate and lonely places where a man could lose his directions and starve to death. Waterton village buoyed his spirit a little. It looked cosy and clean, the stores with brightly lit windows. The village was spread over the sand delta of the Cameron River. Running parallel to the main street was the emerald lake’s beach of smooth white stones.

When they finally reached Randy’s cabin, the sun was turning the bushes of wild rose and fragrant kinnikinnick a cool evening blue.

“Your rooms are behind the kitchen,” Randy announced.

The crew unpacked the Chevy van, hauling indoors the grocery bags and the luggage. Randy took out the tarps with the digging gear and locked them in a small wooden shed sitting in tall grass behind the cabin. The cabin itself had low beamed ceilings. The walls were of varnished plywood. The air inside smelled of cut firewood mixed with wild sage. Justin looked through the bedrooms. Old metal-frame beds were covered with red Hudson’s Bay blankets. Back in the living room, he stood by the stone fireplace and examined an old buffalo skull over the mantel. Hanging in one corner of the room, above a wicker table, was a pair of beaded moccasins. “Those belonged to my grandmother,” Randy explained. “She was a friend of a Blackfoot artist named Two Horse. He gave them to her as a birthday gift. Made by his wife.”

Cara cooked dinner. She boiled corn and made a pie. While she was setting out plates, Justin went alone to his bedroom. It was the smallest room in the cabin, with a single bed, a sash window, and a wicker chair. He tapped in the number on his cell phone and sat on the bed, hunched over.

“What? Okay, okay. You’ll be fine.”

Justin rose. He turned so quickly Cara had no time to back out of the doorway, where she was standing in her apron. Justin covered the
speaker part of the cell phone. “Cara! Please!”

Cara ran towards the kitchen. A moment later, Justin appeared in the doorway by the stove. Cara lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to. . . .”

“That was my mother,” Justin said, lying. Karen had been crying. She’d said she was afraid to be left alone. All she thought about was Justin and the baby. “She panics,” he went on, “when I go away. Ever since my dad died, she. . . .”

Cara rushed to Justin and held him. He let himself be calmed by the warmth of her circling arms. “I’m okay,” he said to her, whispering in her ear. “She’ll be okay, too.” Cara pulled back. Her eyes and lips are beautiful, Justin thought. He leaned close and kissed her. When he looked into her face again, she was blushing. “How about some supper?” he said. Cara smiled and let go of his arms. Stepping backwards in the direction of the kitchen counter, she kept her eyes on Justin’s. She opened a cupboard, pulled out a brass bell, and rang it loudly.

“Dinner, everyone.”

She and Justin carried the platter of corn to the dining area. Randy had moved a table outside to a covered stone patio, where he and David Home were sitting in a couple of plastic lawn chairs, their bare feet up on stumps of wood, their right arms lifting bottles of pale ale.

After supper, Randy suggested the crew get settled and prepare for the next day. By eleven, the cabin was quiet. Justin undressed and took a bath. He leaned back into the warm water. Through the wall, he could hear Randy’s voice rising and falling. He was on his cell phone, and he sounded angry. Justin leaned his head closer to the thin wooden partition. “Tomorrow. Yes, like we said, Sam. Don’t fuck with me.” Then a pause. Randy seemed to be punching in another number. His voice was softer now. All Justin heard were scattered words as if Randy were calming someone who was upset.

Later, in the hallway, his waist wrapped in a towel, Justin bumped into Cara. She was in her bathrobe. The upper folds slipped open, and Justin saw the full shape of her white breasts. Cara blushed and pulled
her robe closed. In the dim light, Justin felt a sudden urge to hold Cara again, to untie her robe and slip his hands over her warm body. But he hesitated, and a shiver ran through him.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m just tired.” Justin walked by her, his eyes looking down at the floor as if he were in a trance. He stopped and without turning back said “Thanks for dinner.”

“You’re welcome. Anytime.”

Billy Yamamoto had been awake most of the night mulling over memories of his father. Back and forth between the kitchen and the bedroom, he was still pacing when the sun rose. He dressed, made coffee, and went to sit on the back porch. The raked stones in his honour garden sparkled with dew. After breakfast, as he drove east along Highway 3, his mood lightened. He stopped for a second coffee in Monarch. The chittering of black-winged swallows in a Russian olive tree held his attention longer than he’d planned. Ten miles later, passing by the turnoff to old Fort Kipp, Billy went over the details in the Satan House case. Darren Riegert’s tied-up hands, the rocking of Blayne Morton, the Polaroids, the boy’s possible motive. And the problem of Woody Keeler.

It took Billy fifteen minutes to find the turnoff to the west side of Lethbridge. He was not familiar with the new highway and its conduits. He carried in his mind the old two-lane, the old single bridge across the Oldman River. It took him another five minutes to drive through the parking lots of the University of Lethbridge to find the building he wanted. The campus was once prime farmland made arable by Mormon settlers who’d built irrigation canals fed by the river.

Inside the low sandstone structure that housed the psychology department, Billy walked down hallways past locked classrooms. Would offices be closed as well? He felt relieved when he saw an open door and a sunny reception area in the office of the cult expert he’d made an appointment to meet. He was only a few minutes late: 9:03 by his watch. Professor Madelaine Van Meer turned out to be a pretty, pert woman in
her mid-forties. She had red hair and a small mouth. An expensive silk scarf lay carelessly about her neck. She gave Billy a firm handshake.

“You want to know if this dead boy was a member or a victim of a cult,” she said. “Am I right?”

Professor Van Meer ushered Billy into her inner office, its windows facing east towards the city’s skyline. She asked him to sit down in a chair surrounded by bookcases.

“Yes,” Billy answered. “I need to know if there is any connection between cult activities and this latest hanging.”

Billy took from his briefcase the crime site photos showing Darren Riegert’s body and handed them to Van Meer. He noted how the professor’s small mouth twisted as she looked deep into the details of each photo. When she sat down opposite Billy, he said to her, “As you can see, there seems to have been foul play.”

“And pentacles on the walls. And candles,” she added, handing back the site photos. Professor Van Meer folded her elegant hands. “Anything else?”

“There was a note found in the boy’s mouth. It had three words on it:
Mene Mene Tekel
.”

“Belshazzar’s feast. Book of Daniel. A warning phrase. One often found, oddly enough, in the lyrics of heavy metal bands.”