The Boy Must Die (37 page)

“Yes, sir.”

Hawkes waited while Billy pulled up his mask and moved to within two feet from the edge of the metal gurney. Then he pulled back the creases of muscle and epidermis to reveal the dermis, the underlayer of skin on the neck.

“You see? A soft ligature made of that binder twine could not have done this kind of damage. Here.”

Billy leaned in for a closer look.

“These deep purple spots are hand marks. Middle-finger impressions. This boy was strangled manually. The force of the hand was on the thyroid. Here.”

Billy drew his pointer finger along the trachea, his rubber-covered nail rubbing against blue, Jell-o-like flesh.

“Press down,” said Hawkes. “The hyoid bone and cricoid cartilage are crushed.”

Billy felt it was like running his finger over a mass of broken pebbles.

“Here, look.” With one quick movement, the coroner slipped his arm under the shoulders of Justin Moore’s corpse and flipped the body up onto its left side. “Come round.” Hawkes had already peeled the epidermis on the back of the neck to show similar handprint bruising on the underlayers. “These are thumbprints.” The blue-purple markings were oblong, wider, singular, side-by-side. “This kid was strangled by hand from behind.”

Hawkes let the body down slowly. He yanked off his gloves, tossed them into a metal can by the gurney, and lifted his mask. Then, out of a nearby box of fresh gloves, he pulled on another pair, the faint puff of antiseptic powder floating above his hands.

“How’s Dodd?” he asked.

“Dodd?” shouted Billy. He heard coughing from the hall.

The door to the morgue swung open, and Bolling stuck his head in and grinned: “He’s tossed his cookies, sir. I’ll need to fetch a pail.”

“We’re almost done, Inspector. You don’t need a smoke break, by the way?”

“No. Gave up five years ago.”

“I did, too, much to my regret.” Hawkes’s eyes twinkled, and he raised his thin eyebrows in a kind of lurid flourish. He then moved to the end of the gurney, examining the soles of Justin Moore’s feet, raising his legs to peruse the inner thighs and scrotum. Walking back, he
pulled a spool of waxed white rope from a drawer underneath the catch trough of the gurney. He began by tying the wrists, finishing with a tight double knot. “You know limbs can wander in various stages of rigor mortis.” After tying up the ankles, he cut the rope and replaced the spool and the stainless steel scissors in the drawer.

There was a knocking on the door to the morgue. A dispatch sergeant leaned in. “Dr. Hawkes, it’s your wife on the phone.”

“Good Christ, man, I am in surgery! What does she bloody want?”

“She wanted me to tell you tea would be spoiled if you were not home within the hour.”

“Thank you, Briggs. Tell her I am aware of the time. I will call her back shortly with the usual apology.”

The door closed. Hawkes looked up at Billy, his face reddened, and he pulled down his mask with an impatient breath.

“Don’t get me wrong. I promised Greta years ago that I would not perform. . . . Well, you can see the best-laid plans of coroners aft go astray.”

It had taken forty-five minutes in total, a relatively brief analysis, but Billy felt satisfied that Hawkes had completed a first-rate autopsy. While Hawkes described in detail the conclusions he had drawn from his observations, Billy took out his notebook and followed along. He jotted down and paraphrased the coroner’s words in a series of short, one-line notes. Later, he’d combine these with his notes and observations from the crime scene.

Dodd was upstairs lying on a couch in the officers’ small lounge next to reception. He groaned and opened his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It happens, Dodd.”

“I can’t take the stink, Billy.”

“I have a couple of questions. Can you sit?”

Dodd pushed himself forward and rolled up.

“What about the background check on Pappas?”

Dodd stood. “Follow me, sir.” They walked into reception and over to the desk where there was an envelope. “It’s a printout.”

“Tell me, what’s on it?”

“We couldn’t find any data on Pappas in our city file, as you know. But Johnson said she’d heard Pappas was into loan sharking. No proof, only rumours. Pappas keeps his store clean. So Johnson says let’s go into the horsemen’s files just for fun. At first we found nothing. Except that there was a notation from the last three days. Sometimes it happens when a new name is entered in the
RCMP
roster. We called it up and got lucky. That’s what’s in your package there. Last night, Friday, Pappas was in Calgary. He was arrested at 11:30 for assault. He attacked a man in the cocktail lounge of the Palliser Hotel. The man’s family is pressing charges. Pappas has a brother in Calgary, but he wasn’t able to come up with bail. Pappas nearly beat the man to a pulp, the report indicated. His prelim hearing is set for Monday.”

“There’s his alibi. Jail.”

“Seems so, sir.”

Billy and Dodd walked back to the lounge. Dodd was looking better. He went out, came back with two coffees, and sat down opposite Billy, who was reading over his autopsy notes. “Justin Moore was strangled from behind,” said Billy. “By a pair of very strong hands.”

“Murder, then.”

“Murder.”

“So why the black paint and binder twine?”

“The perpetrator may want us to think there is more. That the hanging is to show something else. But how does it connect to the other hangings? Or should we even be thinking there is a connection?”

Billy’s head was aching, and his knee throbbed with mild swelling. The familiar sensation of impatience and frustration rose in his gut. Another wall. Another twist in the
koan
. He walked into reception, where the clerk had a message for him. “You’re to call that number, sir.” Billy picked up the phone and dialled. It was Dodie, Patsy Hanson’s neighbour.

“Oh, Inspector, I’m so glad you called,” she said. “Patsy’s gone to hospital.”

“What happened?”

“She tried to slash her wrists. About an hour ago. I took her there myself. I’ve had second thoughts since you left.”

“Go on.” Billy didn’t try to play down his rising impatience.

“Patsy told me a few nights ago, she was drunk again, that she was so angry with Justin she wanted to kill him.”

“What night?”

“Wednesday, I think.”

“Did she ever say anything like that before?”

“No. I think she was really hung up on Justin and was in shock. Patsy takes all her affairs too seriously. I am sorry I’ve bothered you. I’ve made a worse mess of things.”

“Is Patsy in the regional or in emergency?”

“Emergency. To be honest, she didn’t do a bad job on herself this time. I’ve seen much worse, believe me.”

What to make of this? Billy wondered as he hung up the phone. Time, it seemed, had accelerated. So many connections were being formed, and yet vital questions were not being answered. The patterns of reason, the shapes of the
koan
, were still murky and unreadable. He walked back towards the computer room. Sitting down by the door, he noted Patsy’s whereabouts, then thought about Sheree at home alone.
Damn. And Mucklowe? Where the hell is he? How were Moore and Riegert connected?

Billy found Bolling, Dodd, and Johnson out in the reception area a few moments later. The dispatch constable had paged Billy.

“Chief Bochansky wants to take you all to the El Rancho for steaks and for a review of the day,” said the constable.

It was six o’clock by the time Billy climbed into the Pontiac and followed Butch’s cruiser down Galt Avenue and then over to Magrath Drive, where the El Rancho Motor Hotel stood out from the rows of strip malls and burger joints lining the four-lane that cut across the eastern edge of the city. The hotel had been built in 1952 and was a paragon of Fifties Moderne. Its lobby was paved in red fieldstone; the
front-entrance canopy was an inverted dish studded with small light-bulbs in imitation of a Las Vegas casino drive-through. The huge El Rancho sign boasted a neon cowboy, another nod to Vegas, the hat in white lights, the jeans and shirt outlined in blue and red blinking lines of illuminated glass.

Settling into the red leather plush of the half-moon booth, Butch ordered whiskies for the table and then without glancing at the menu told the maitre d’, a man dressed in a powder blue tuxedo, that it would be sirloins all ’round.

“Cheers,” Butch said, raising his glass when the whiskies appeared. They ate their medium-rare steaks in silence as an electric guitar twanged Garth Brooks tunes in the background. Over coffee, Billy called the meeting to order, starting with Dodd. Sergeant Dodd pulled out his notebook and began, first clearing his throat and taking a sip of water as if he were about to deliver an after-dinner address.

“Mud sample from basement steps. Taken at. . . .”

“Cut to the chase, Dodd. Where did it go?” ordered Billy.

Dodd looked slightly hurt at the sudden interruption. Billy noticed they were all weary from the day, from the week’s work. Butch was particularly flushed, partly from the whiskey. But Billy needed to edge all of them towards a greater awareness of the panic he felt growing in his own mind. An uncertain fear that the killer might never be caught.

“I called the lab at the research farm, the one at Coaldale. Dr. Gore said he’d be able to place the sample in the Alberta area by Monday morning.”

“Where do you think it’s from?” prompted Billy. He was tapping his fingers.

“I figure up near Pincher Creek or Waterton. A lot of red shale canyons and scree formed from that kind of stone.”

“Move on,” signalled Billy.

Dodd grabbed another sip of water before continuing.

“Blayne Morton is in the regional detention centre for juveniles. Since last Tuesday, he’s been under observation. Friday night, he remained
in the centre even though his mother had come and asked if he could come out on a weekend pass.”

“He slept there, I presume,” Billy said, his eyes now heavy from the big meal and whiskey.

“Yes, sir.”

“Mucklowe?”

“I phoned the apartment. . . .”

“For Christ’s sake, Dodd!” Billy slammed his fist onto the table and rose. “Why the hell isn’t Mucklowe here?”

“Hey, buddy,” Butch cut in.

“The professor is a key player. He’s a suspect, for Christ’s sake. We’re running out of time. This is not a bar brawl we’re talking about. Where the hell is the
APB
I asked for? That’s a priority. I needed him three hours ago, and instead I get a bunch of guys sitting around in a lounge having a fucking dinner party.” Billy’s fatigue caught in his throat, and he took a quick gulp of water.

The others sat stone still. Butch was about to speak when Billy started again. “We have to speed this up. Key evidence like Riegert’s clothes is still missing. Mucklowe’s off counting stones or fled the country, for all we know. Johnson, I want you to get onto the horsemen
now
and have them call locals in Waterton and the other
RCMP
units in the area. Have them drive over to Mucklowe’s cabin and hold him for questioning if they have to.”

Johnson leaped to her feet, grabbed her cell phone, and moved away from the table.

“The rest of you are on twenty-four-hour call. No time off. All phones to be active, and everyone ready to go at a second’s notice. You can get a few hours sleep, but expect to be up early.”

Butch stood. He looked white with exhaustion. “Okay, buddy. I’ll stay up the first shift. Dodd, you and Bolling get home and get a few hours.”

“Bolling, what have you got?” asked Billy, his voice still strained.

“A cabby named Myron Monk, works for Prairie Cab, says he was in the area of Ashmead and Baroness around midnight, maybe later. Saw a
van parked out in front of the Moore house. He remembered it because it was pretty battered around the fenders, and he thought it looked out of place in the neighbourhood. Didn’t get a plate. Said only that the colour was light, maybe white. The lights on Baroness are shaded, he says, by overhanging leaves. Says he has a hard enough time finding houses with the dim streetlights.”

Johnson returned. “The horsemen got Dodd’s earlier call. They couldn’t locate Mucklowe at his cabin. They’ve put another man on it and are out looking, asking neighbours if anybody has seen him. The unit in Cardston has also been put on alert.” Billy nodded. Johnson flipped open her notebook and continued without taking a breath. “We found dog urine in the basement and one distinct thumbprint on the doorknob of the back porch. Hair and prints, and a small blood sample, were on the razor blade found in the shaving kit. The sample matches the blood type of the Moore cadaver. As for the fragments we found by the steps, they are a rare white shell found only in the southern United States. Other fragments were mother-of-pearl.”

Billy paused, thinking.

“Keep in contact. Bolling, go to headquarters and draw up warrants for Mucklowe and Sheree and anyone connected with the dig. Find out where David Home is, and keep on the line with the horsemen. We need to locate a man called Sam Heavy Hand. Mucklowe may know where he is. Call on Sharon Riegert first thing in the morning. She may know more than she’s letting on. And don’t, for Christ sake, let Sheree leave town. Butch, call Royce now and have him do surveillance on the Mucklowe apartment. Send a night constable to Satan House, too.”

All rose from the booth, threw down a few extra dollars for a tip, and moved through the smoky bar to the side parking lot.

“Listen, buddy,” said Butch. “You look bushed. Get some sleep. I’ve got a guard on Satan House. I’ll go by the Mucklowe apartment myself and see what’s up before I put Royce on duty. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You remember what Cara Simonds said about the masks she and Justin found?” Billy said. His mind was racing. “How did Randy get a
hold of them? I read about a robbery of a set of gold and shell masks taken from the university in Montana. And I suspect the mother-of-pearl we discovered in the fragments in the garage is from those masks.” Butch blinked and strained to listen. “Justin needed money,” Billy continued. “There’s our motive. Justin’s clothes were stuffed in a garbage can, and we find broken bits of mother-of-pearl in amongst the folds. Randy and Justin have been on a dig. Just how much is Randy mixed up in this? And Sam Heavy Hand?”