A Lesson in Love and Murder (27 page)

Merinda's crowbar was at the ready, but they found the door to the G entrance open as David Ross had promised in a telegram he'd sent earlier that day. En route Merinda had a chance to repeat her golden moment deductions to Benny, who listened intently. On one point they were in complete agreement: Jonathan would have to somehow make the explosives faulty.

Once inside, they saw a patriotic splurge of red, white, and blue cascading from the high dome of a ceiling. The building seemed to thrum with energy left over from the thrilling first day of the convention. Even without illumination, the dangling electric lights reflected a sheen of sparkle off the metal chairs and cement floor. Seat sections were marked by bold signs, and Benny and Merinda looked across to imagine the men Ross said he had pressed into service last minute stationed there with Jonathan's faulty bombs.

Above the main floor was a raised balcony level, jutting out and held by stout pillars. So many aisles, Merinda noticed, so many easy places to flit in and out. Her exploration moved upward to the
crisscrossed beams and metal wiring, the half-moon windows snubbing out the full moonlight.

Benny was close beside her. He took the place in stride, hands behind his back, shoulders erect. At this moment, Jemima might have said something along the lines of his cutting a dashing figure.

David Ross was a man obsessed, running his fingers over the dark columns, proudly caressing them. A man whose mind held the circumference of a world imagined. Ross was intoxicated with his ideas and promises for the next day.

It took Merinda a few moments to draw his attention back to the task at hand. She rapped her walking stick on the tile. “David!”

“It's glorious, isn't it?” He reached into his breast pocket and handed them each a reporter's pass. “There are two seats at the front reserved for you. You'll be directly in my line of sight.” He turned to Merinda, and his eyes sheened. “I want you there at the last moment. You who have done so much to restore my confidence in our plan. A woman willing to cross into a new life. You're invaluable to me!”

Merinda almost felt sorry for Ross. As Benny measured the length between their marked spots and the door and yelled a few things about compensating for the obvious law enforcement, she stared at David's profile. His beliefs were misguided. His idea of action more so. But he had confidence in her, and she couldn't help but feel a bit guilty at the thought that she was going to betray him.

She went through the motions, following Ross and Benny as they handled the explosives, Benny touching each one so gingerly that Ross chuckled. “First time for everything, eh?”

Benny nodded, and they moved to the next target.

“They'll be moving in soon,” Ross said as the third and final explosive was positioned and their steps echoed in the broad Coliseum while night dragged on outside. He gripped Merinda's elbow and led her to the exit that would see to their fast escape the next day. “Roosevelt always ends his speeches with something memorable. As soon as the first hint of applause begins, I'll flick the match. You and Benny will be armed to ensure no police get in our way as we forge a path.”

“It's rather kind of you to let the fellow finish his speech before you blow him up,” Merinda said dryly.

“Let them have hope,” David said. “It's a cruel thing. But it can act as a temporary balm.”

Benny saw Merinda to the Palmer. Their walk back from the Coliseum was silent. No playful banter. No flirting.

“People walk through life so complacently.” Merinda finally broke the silence. “They never have the zest or passion that David Ross lives with every single day. I keep thinking… if he could only channel it for good.”

Benny nodded. Merinda echoed everything he'd thought about Jonathan over the past weeks spent tracing and tracking him.

Once she was safely inside the hotel, he splurged on a taxi to his own guesthouse, deciding that a few hours of sleep were needed before he set to finding Jonathan and looping him into the plan.

Ironically, the instant he opened the door, he found Jonathan sitting at the small table.

“You tracked me here?” Benny said with a laugh.

“I always know where you've been in the city. And the lock on the door doesn't work.” Jonathan shrugged.

“A footprint?” Benny asked.

“A footprint beside another footprint. Those other prints always punctuated by a walking stick.”

“Merinda Herringford.”

“She's quite something,” Jonathan said easily.

If Benny had known that the curtain between him and Jonathan was drawing shut forever, he would have found a way to freeze the moment in time. But like so many moments where one cannot see their fleeting brevity or that they are poised on the brink of finality, he merely existed in the present. In the mix of elation, hurt, and anger therein.

Benny laughed suddenly. “No! I can't just sit here and talk to you like this and fall into the easy camaraderie we had before. I keep seeing blasts that left innocent corpses in the streets! That young officer Jones! All of the fear you instilled. I can hardly believe it. And all for what?”

“Don't you see? Something that starts as a seed of an idea can grow into something terrible. Ben, it twisted into something I didn't recognize. But it was too late.”

Benny seized the moment for truth. “I just want to understand. We wanted to align ourselves with authority. To be redcoated men!
Maintiens le droit!”

“Every night when I left the barracks, I saw a world that hadn't decided what it wanted to be,” said Jonathan. “I read the papers from Toronto and even here in Chicago, and I saw how authority can corrupt. I wanted a chance for all of us to live equally. For women and children to find safety. For men of any rank to find value. Even in our little world, we were held under the thumb of those who had ascended the ranks. The Canadian military is still run by men who can purchase commissions. I didn't want a world like that. I wanted to find a way to pair all of the grandest things about the Force with an opportunity for reform. I met a fellow at the gaming tables, and while he was a little rough around the edges, his heart was solid gold. I needed a friend. Then he introduced me to Ross and I had another friend.”

Benny cleared his throat, hoping his cousin didn't see the flash of hurt in his eyes. “You had me.”

“I couldn't talk to you about this! Ben, you worshipped authority and fell straight into line. You would blindly defend the uniform forever and into any danger. I needed someone who could help me try out a new voice. Of whom I could ask questions. And once I had a taste of anarchy, a chance to submit to something of my own choosing and not a logbook or an inspected kit, I found my calling.”

“A calling that let you tie your signature into wires that would kill dozens,” Benny spat. “You betrayed me every time you flicked the flame and set off an explosion.”

Jonathan shook his head vehemently. “You know I didn't murder those people. Ross took the signature, and it got out of hand!”

“Then why didn't you leave?”

“I had pledged myself to this higher cause and purpose. I couldn't just go back to Riverton to break my mother's heart. I couldn't turn myself in at Regina. I felt I had to see it through to the end.” He smiled sadly. “I believed it would all straighten itself out and come back to what it was: a glorious idea.” Jonathan's eyes pleaded. “Then I needed to stay to find a way to end Ross forever. He was bandying about putting my signature on things. I would never be free of him. I knew they would send you for me, and I knew that you would find me. Who uses a Turk's knot to tie off a wire? Some part of me always wanted you to find me. Even before I consciously knew it. Thus, the trademark.” Jonathan scratched the back of his neck. “But I knew you wouldn't believe me.” There was a rare ripple of vulnerability in Jonathan's voice. “And that's the worst part of all, Ben. Losing your opinion of me.”

“I didn't want to believe you would hurt anyone. I tried to hold out no matter what they said of you. I knew you better than everyone. But it became harder and harder to convince others. I still stubbornly thought there was some mistake.” Benny stopped and examined his cousin: same bright eyes, though smudged with purple circles from exhaustion, and same features that made the girls snatch a second look. “But then even I had no choice. I saw those knots, and I knew them as well as a fingerprint. Your fingerprint. And I was losing my faith in someone I had always believed in.”

“You were always more grounded, Ben. It was easy for you to believe in Grandfather's God. I always wanted to find the next perfect voice.”

“And you found a perfect war.”

“Everything's a battle,” Jonathan said. “Chicago in particular interested me because of Roosevelt. He has his own battle. They sing a song—all of his throng—‘Onward, Christian Soldiers!'—and they wave their banners and follow him. Everything is a battle. Even a belief in God.”

“A battle?”

“Some people are wired to immediately find a cause greater than themselves. Others take a little more time. You always believed in Grandfather's stories. You subscribe to the rules of the Force. My mind keeps railing against them. I kept wanting to find some loophole.”

Jonathan broke off, and Benny wondered for the first time how two people so close could be so, so different. “I need you to come with us tomorrow and make sure none of the three bombs that David planted will actually go off.” He took a small map he had drawn and passed it over.

Benny wanted to sustain the moment and let the world slip by. Talk to Jonathan, lighten the mood, slip into the past. Save him! Yes, he wanted to save him. Take him out of this guilt and misdirection and make him see that it would all be set to right again. Then he could slip back into the way things were.

“It will all turn right, tomorrow,” Benny decided with cautious optimism. “I can prove now that you weren't the mastermind behind these slaughters, and we can work out some kind of reduced sentence.” He thought for a moment. “You came and found me. You turned yourself in. You helped stop a massive explosion. That has to hold some weight in court.”

Jonathan held up his hand. “I can't get out of this one. I've dug myself in too deep. They'll cart me off to the gallows the minute you point in my direction.”

Benny shook his head violently. “I won't let them. Then we'll run for it. We'll go to Europe.”

Jonathan chuckled. “Are you listening to yourself? Royal Northwest Mounted Police fugitive of the law? You always get your man, Ben. You've got him.”

“I wanted to find you. Not arrest you. Now I wish I had never found you.”

“I know.”

“I would do anything if it meant giving you a chance, Jonathan.”

“I'm the albatross around your neck, Ben.” Jonathan chewed his lip.
“But it has to be you,” he muttered after a painful silence. “At the end. Turn me in. Just you. Tomorrow, after we foil Ross's plan.”

“I want you to have the chance of a life, Jonathan. You'll serve your time and lay low for a while. Don't you want to make your way back to the old homestead? Get out your compass? Track a few lynx? You'd love the Yukon. My cabin there is small but cozy, and you see all the seasons! Winter there is crisper and whiter than anywhere else. Pure, somehow.”