The Guardians (35 page)

    High
school ended with a prom I didn't go to, a graduation ceremony I was asked to
leave for shouting "Loser!" during the valedictorian's address and a
football game Grimshaw lost, during which we gathered in Carl's Ford at
halftime. As soon as the next day, we were heading in different directions.
Randy to attend drama school at a community college in Peterborough. Carl to
hitchhike out to Winnipeg to see an uncle of his we'd never heard of. And Ben
to stay in his attic bedroom, watching.

    Though
I'd applied to a handful of universities and had even been accepted to a
couple, I decided to move to Toronto, find some work busing tables and try to
become someone else. It was a plan that my parents only halfheartedly objected
to. "Your room's always here," my father assured me, his face rounded
in a show of generosity, as if he might have otherwise turned it into a massage
parlour or dog kennel. He figured I'd be back. And while he wished me well, I
believe there was some part of him that would have liked me to stitch together
a life in Grimshaw as he did, be more contentedly defeated like him.

    "Get
ready to have your skulls explode," Carl said, lighting up.

    The
smoke blotted out the sun, the school, even the sound of fans cheering another
of the visiting team's touchdowns.

    "I
guess we should talk about it," I said.

    "I
don't think we have to," Carl said.

    "I'm
talking about
not
talking about it. With anyone. Ever."

    "I
think we're pretty clear on that," Randy said.

    "I
hope so. Because there's no statute of limitations on kidnapping."

    This
took a minute to sink in.

    "Let's
make a pact," Ben said.

    Randy
turned to him. "You mean we should drink each other's blood or
something?"

    "Just
a promise."

    "Okay.
We promise."

    "No,
we have to say it," Ben clarified. "And we have to
hear
each
other say it."

    We
all nodded at this.

    "What
do we have to say?" Randy asked.

    "We're
the Guardians," I said.

    Nobody
seemed to have heard me. Except Ben.

    "Okay.
On three," he said. "One, two—"

    We
all said it. Three words that cleared the smoke from our faces, and we could
see who we were.

    I rip
through my wallet to find Barry Tate's card and call his number at the cop
shop. Yet when his voice mail picks up, I'm frozen. Barry asks for
"complete details" to be left in the message, but what are those? I saw
a missing girl's boyfriend looking at a house. No more than that.

    "If
this is urgent," Officer Tate goes on, "press zero and your call will
be transferred to 911."

    
Is
this urgent? My heart certainly thinks so, taking runs at my ribs.

    "Hi,
Barry. It's Trev.
Trevor.
Sorry to bother you—gosh, I don't
think
this should bother you—but there's something I'd like to report. I left my cell
number with you, right? Okay, so see you around."

    I
hang up.

    
Trev?
Gosh? See you around
?
What could Barry possibly think when he hears
that? I know what
.
That poor guy with the shakes is losing his shit
.

    I get
dressed and head downstairs. The house is quiet. A good thing, because I don't
want Betty McAuliffe to catch me running out of here with my shoes in my hands.

    "Coffee
only takes a minute."

    She's
standing in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

    "Gosh,"
I say for the second time in this new, going-downhill- fast morning, "I
didn't know you were up."

    "Heard
you bumping around."

    "Sorry
to wake you."

    "Didn't
say you did."

    The
two of us wait. Or it's just me waiting, feeling for a way out the front door.

    "I
wanted to ask," I say. "Did you happen to see my Dictaphone around
anywhere?"

    "Dicta-who?"

    "It's
a little recording machine. Seem to have misplaced it."

    
"That's
what you were doing up there. I thought you were on the phone for hours on end.
But you were talking to yourself."

    "I
suppose it's a little strange, isn't it?"

    "It
sounded a lot like Ben to me."

    "Well,
if you happen to see it . . ."

    "So
you can keep up your observations," she says with an unreadable smile.

    "I
wasn't making observations."

    "No?
That's what Ben told me
he
was doing."

    Mrs.
McAuliffe starts back into the kitchen, but I stop her by speaking a name.

    "Roy
DeLisle."

    "Is
that a question?"

    "I
suppose he
is
a question."

    "The
boy who ran away. Is that who you mean? Years and years ago. The way he
disappeared after that terrible business with the orphan girl."

    "Elizabeth
Worth."

    "My
goodness. You know all the names."

    "Ben
passed along a little local history to me."

    Betty
rubs her hands together, as though lathering soap. "He went to the library
sometimes. 'Research' is all he'd say when I asked what he was reading up on. I
shouldn't be surprised it was that awful story."

    "I
guess that's why everyone calls the house across the street haunted."

    "They
do?" she asks, and though at first I take her disbelief as a joke, a lie
so unbelievable it was never meant to be swallowed, her face tells me nothing
either way.

    "I
grew up here," I go on eventually. "We all did. But I never heard
anything about it."

    "Why
would you have? Those were things that happened half a lifetime before you were
born."

    "Still,
you'd think someone would mention it. I mean, she was raped. She was
murdered."

    "That
could only have come from your parents. And you were our
children.
It's
our job to prevent you from hearing things like that for as long we're
able."

    "Until
it just goes away."

    "If
you're lucky," she says, and shrugs. "Small towns are good at
forgetting. They have to be."

    I
consider walking over to Sarah's place and asking if I can stay. Not just for
the night or two she has already offered, but for as long as she'll let me.
I'll do the cooking and cleaning. And as much of the nighttime fooling around
as she and the Big P allow.

    But
having Sarah say no to such a proposal might push me over the edge into
full-blown Benhood, and this worries me more than the idea of Roy DeLisle
taking my hand as I walk.

    "Trev!
Over here!"

    It's
Randy, waving at me from the Queen's dining-room table he shares with Carl.
Because they are who I've walked to, not Sarah. By the time I sink into the
chair next to Carl, the waitress arrives to take their order.

    "You
hungry?" Carl asks me.

    "I'll
have what you're having."

    "Steak
and eggs?"

    "Perfect."

    "Hey,
man, it's your credit card."

    After
my coffee cup is filled, I tell them about my discovery in Ben's room. The
whole Roy DeLisle file. And how old Paul Schantz was the man looking after him
when the bad things happened. I don't include any of my own thoughts about the
commonalities between Elizabeth Worth and Heather Langham, Roy and the coach,
how they all have been rooted to the Thurman house. They are thoughts I can
read passing over their faces as I speak.

    "He's
got a name," Randy says when our food arrives.
"Roy.
I wish I
didn't know that."

    "It's
like a lousy song that gets stuck in your head," I say.

    "Worse,"
Carl says. "There's no music in it."

    
You've
nailed it, Carl
,
the silence that follows seems to say
. Whatever
he is, the hoy is the opposite of music
.

    "There
was this too," I say, pulling out my wallet and letting Heather's locket
spill onto the table.

    Carl
and Randy stare at it. Less shocked than stilled by the anticipation of some further
action to follow, as if the chain might rise up and snake around one of our
throats, squeezing out our next breath.

    "That's
Heather's," Randy says.

    "Ben
had it."

    "How'd
he get it?" Carl asks.

    "No
idea."

    "Wait.
Just
wait
a second," Carl says. "When we piled the dirt on her
she was
wearing
that thing."

    "I
know it."

    "So
somebody had to have gone down there to get it before the cops found her. Gone
down there to
dig her up."

    "I
don't see any other way."

    "Who
would fucking
do
that?"

    "I
can answer that," Randy says. "One of us. We were the only ones who
knew where she was."

    "And
the coach," I say.

    "But
he was tied up," Randy says. "And he didn't know where we put
her."

    "Unless
One of us told him," I say. "Unless he talked one of us into letting
him go long enough to do it."

    "You
mean unless the boy talked one of us into it," Randy says.

    Carl
lurches back in his chair and straightens his back, the gesture of a man
fighting a sudden attack of heartburn. "What are we saying here?"

    "More
went on in that cellar than we thought," Randy says. "Which is saying
something."

    "Here's
my question," I say. "Why didn't Ben ask which one of us did
it?"

    "Maybe
he knew and kept it secret," Randy says. "Or maybe he didn't want to
know."

    "Or
maybe he was the one who did the digging," Carl says.

    Another
silence. After a moment, I pick the locket up and return it to my wallet. We
sip our coffee. Do a lousy job of pretending the last two minutes hadn't just
happened.

    Once
the waitress has come and gone, filling our cups, I tell them about seeing Gary
Pullinger standing outside the house this morning.

    "Sounds
like they have their man," Randy says.

    "He's
under arrest?"

    "Not
yet. But they've had him in and out of the cop shop, putting the screws to
him."

    "If
he's still walking around, it shows they don't have enough," Carl says,
draining his coffee.

    "What
would they need?"

    "A
body."

    Once
more, our thoughts steal our voices away.

    "I
called the police," I say after a while. "Left a message with Barry
Tate. He's on the force here now."

    "Hairy
Barry?" Carl says.

    "The
very same."

    "You
sure that was a good idea?"

    "It
didn't feel like I had a choice."