Death Spiral (18 page)

“When you said I’d killed twelve people earlier today because I’d shot down twelve planes, some of those planes had crews of two or three. One had a crew of six. Just to let you know who you’re talking to.”

“You’re a hero.”

“Because I had to be. We’re the same in that way. You and me. Both haunted, too.”

Duncan ran a huge hand through his sweaty hair. He scratched at his head. He began to wander around the room.

“I’ll be your wing man, Duncan. I’ll watch your back. I’ll keep you safe. But in order to do that I need to know what happened.”

“Nothin’ happened,” Duncan said.

“You went home and got two more boots and walked through the bush twice again. That happened. And then you burned them, and all your blood-splattered clothes, too, maybe in that stove in the shop. That happened. And you hid the axe in a special place.”

Duncan blundered into the kitchen table and came to a stop. He hung his shaggy head down. “My mother keeps me safe. She keeps me safe.”

“Duncan, why did Basil have to die?”

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Because. He was putting bad thoughts inside my head.”

“What kind of thoughts?”

Duncan lifted up his face and looked at Wilf, his eyes as wide and bewildered as a child’s. “The kind you go to Hell for. But I didn’t. Not even when he came up the stairs, not even when he laid down on my own bed. I was scared, though. I was scared to move, Wilf. But after a while he went away and the next morning I got up and I said to him, “Guess what? We’ve got to go over to Cline’s bush and mark out some trees today.” That’s what I said because I had to teach him I wasn’t like that, I wasn’t like that at all, and then when we got into the trees I grabbed his scrawny neck and I began to beat on him. I was just goin’ to show him that I was just like everybody else, he could act any way he wanted, it didn’t mean nothin’ to me. And he was lyin’ on the ground and I got a boot on his chest and I had the other one squeezin’ down on his hand and I got this feelin’. It was like runnin’ through the dark, it was like being really, really drunk, it was like seeing Carole, even. And then I knew I was going to do what I’d been thinkin’ about doin’. Thinking about it! Oh Mommy, I took up the axe! ”

“Duncan,” Andy said. He was standing by the kitchen door. He’d come in so quietly and Wilf had been so riveted to Duncan, he hadn’t noticed him.

Duncan hadn’t, either. He swung around.

Andy pulled a service revolver out of his coat and pointed it at Duncan’s head.

“Wilf, call the station. Where’s your phone, Duncan?” He took his eyes off Duncan just long enough to glance around and in that instant Duncan crashed through the kitchen window. It was the fastest move Wilf had ever seen.

“Oh Jesus, shit!” Andy yelled and disappeared back out the door.

Wilf looked through the shattered window. He could see Duncan staggering off toward the shop, picking up speed, plunging out into the deep snow, wading out into the moonlight.

Andy knelt down on one knee and took a long careful aim.

Wilf waited.

Andy lowered the revolver. He turned around to the gaping window. “He’s heading for his own woodlot. Call down to the station!”

Wilf looked around the kitchen. He could see a phone hanging on a wall just inside a hallway and half-hidden by newspaper clippings. He hurried over and picked it up.

“Number please,” Nancy Dearborn said at the other end of the line.

* * *

Ted Bolton and Charlie Wilson arrived from the town’s police force and soon afterward an OPP cruiser came tearing into Duncan’s yard.

Wilf stood to the side and listened to Andy explaining to a pissed-off detective that he’d just learned that night from Wilf McLauchlin, the fellow with the cane standing right over there, that he had an important piece of evidence pointing to Duncan Getty, and so he’d decided to act as quickly as possible, he was a Sergeant of Police after all. With that, Andy gave Wilf a desperate look over the detective’s shoulder.

Andy became part of the search team. Wilf went home alone.

He drove slowly into town, eased the car into the garage and turned off the lights and the motor. He sat there for a moment. He didn’t want to go into the house, he didn’t want to face his father.

He got out of the car, crouched down in front of the wooden crate and felt under the rags for the circle of ice. It was still there.

The detective out at Duncan’s had introduced himself. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you before this, Mr. McLauchlin. I met your father the other day.”

“I know,” Wilf had replied.

“So this evidence Sergeant Creighton’s referring to, something about an impression left in some ice?”

“That’s right.”

“And could you tell me just how you came across this piece of evidence?”

“If you want to see it, it’s in my father’s garage.”

The detective had stared hard at Wilf for what seemed like a long time. “Tell you what. We have to round this fellow up. Why don’t I drop by first thing in the morning?”

“All right,” Wilf had replied.

Wilf put the rags back in place and climbed into the passenger side of the car. The car was cooling off. Soon it would be below freezing. A familiar sensation. It was always cold in his Spitfire. And when he’d return to base and pull off his flight suit, his body would be gleaming in all its naked glory bathed in sweat.

Anxiety. Continually rolling the plane from side to side, watching three hundred and sixty degrees. Death could come from any direction. Anytime.

Wilf tried to stay off his bad hip and stretch his legs out. He couldn’t. He closed his eyes. He could feel the roll now. Back and forth. Back and forth. He could see the countryside passing far below.

Twelve kills. Maybe twenty-five men in all, though some had parachuted out. He’d been tempted to swing around and strafe them to bloody ribbons. Oh god, how he’d been tempted.

Twenty souls, say, in total. Twenty. An unthinkable number. Better to think in planes. I killed a plane today.

And the water was churning and Adrienne was holding the old man’s legs up as high as she could manage and she was screaming down at his startled eyes and his hair was floating under the water and the last bubble of his life was climbing up toward her, and Adrienne’s feelings were climbing too, an ecstatic shuddering climb, a soaring infinite release.

Wilf knew this. It was just as Duncan had said.

Duncan and Adrienne had felt the same thing.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The train swung away from the river and moved into the city, rattling over rusty overpasses, beside factories, past rows of houses with wrought-iron staircases and balconies, and finally came to a steaming halt in a large downtown station. Wilf gathered up his overnight bag.

He was supposed to be in Toronto, at least that’s what he’d told Carole and his father, but instead he’d only disembarked there long enough to switch to another train. He was in Montreal, three hundred and fifty miles further east.

Wilf walked over to the first public phone he saw and checked the address. It was the same as the information operator had given him a few days earlier: Dr. Michael Chasson, Orthopedic Surgeon, 355 rue Sainte-Catherine. He wondered about calling Michael now. He’d intended to put through a call when the operator had first looked up the phone number but within a heartbeat he’d changed his mind.

Don’t give him a warning, he’d thought to himself.

Wilf closed the phonebook, climbed a long flight of stairs and looked around for a cab.

It had been a week since Duncan had been arrested. He’d spent the night hiding in his own woods, as if no one would look for him there. It was a simple enough job to follow his tracks at first light. When he’d finally been flushed out from where he’d been hiding, he was so cold he could hardly move.

Andy had told Wilf all this, and Wilf and Carole had made love later that same day, in Cabin Three alongside the frozen river. If the first time had been exploratory and gently escalating, the second had been the opposite, urgent and careening. He kissed her so hard Carole could taste blood in her mouth and his eyes seemed not so much full of a reasoned passion but panic. She had to hold him to her as tightly as she’d ever held anyone in all her life, pressing his face down against her face, refusing to give him any space until his body struggled and shuddered against her for the final time, until he slowly grew still, pressing her down into the thin mattress, his body suddenly as heavy and motionless as lead.

She stroked his hair then and she forgave him his craziness. He’d gone out to Duncan’s in the middle of the night and he’d found out the truth. About the man in the woods. About the severed arm. Everything that was terrifying and awful. She could see Duncan standing below her in the light from her bedroom window and she clung to Wilf in the dark of their little cabin and she kissed his ear and she made a vow to herself not to think about her wrinkled clothes or the continued lack of a condom or anything.

Over the next few days Wilf seemed embarrassed about what had happened but they didn’t talk about it. He had to endure being questioned by two detectives from the Ontario Provincial Police as well as by his father, who found himself defending Wilf’s vigilante actions once again and fighting to prevent him from being charged with unlawful interference in an ongoing investigation. At the end of the week the legal questions were still hanging in the air and so it didn’t surprise Carole at all when he announced a three-day trip to Toronto to arrange a place to stay. It didn’t surprise her, but it hurt.

They did talk about Duncan, about how Duncan had said she’d asked him that very same question. Had he hurt the man in the woods?

Wilf wanted to know how that had come about and so she told him.

“After we’d talked? You were all alone in your backyard with Duncan Getty?”

“I still trusted him,” Carole had said.

The cab pulled up to a new blue-glassed building cramped between two stately and very old ones. Dr. Chasson’s offices were in Suite 204. Wilf took the elevator and stepped into a waiting room full of people with various limbs wrapped in casts and holding onto large envelopes that Wilf knew contained their x-rays. Suddenly he felt right at home.

“I wonder if I could see Dr. Chasson,” he said to the middle-aged receptionist who looked harried and whose eyes seemed to be set slightly too close together.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. But I’m a patient of his. A hospital in France. During the war.”

“You have to have an appointment.”

“If he knew I was here I’m sure he’d take a minute.”

“I’m sorry. But as you can see, Dr. Chasson has overbooked himself and he has to be at the hospital by two.” She made a tight smile, not unlike the ones Wilf remembered Dorothy Dale making. Her phone rang. “All I can do for you is to suggest you make a future appointment.”

“I’m just in town for the day.”

She picked up the phone. A door at the far end of the room opened and a patient on crutches swung out followed by a tall man wearing a faded lab coat. Wilf could see that Chasson was still sporting his extravagant and, according to rumours that had circulated among the nurses, infamous handlebar moustache. “Who’s next?” he called out.

“Captain,” Wilf said.

Michael Chasson looked Wilf’s way. At first there was no sign of recognition and then his eyes came sharply to attention, there was a slight hesitation and he smiled. “Well, I’ll be back in the army again. Wilf McLauchlin!”

“Hi, Doc.”

“Look at you. How are you?”

Wilf spread out his one arm. “I’m fine. Perfect. You did a great job.”

“Mr. Ducette is next in line, Doctor.” The receptionist was holding her hand over the telephone and looking more than a little fierce. “I’ll give this gentleman an appointment.”

“Joy, this is Wilf McLauchlin.”

“How do you do?” Joy sighed deeply.

“RCAF. Fighter pilot.” Chasson grabbed Wilf’s hand and then apparently not satisfied, gave him an energetic hug. “Just one moment, Monsieur Ducette.
Un moment, merci.
An old friend. I’ll just be a moment. Everyone. Thank you.” He ushered Wilf into his office and closed the door. “Jesus, McLauchlin, it’s good to see you!”

“Same here.”

“Damn it all. It’s been what, two years, I guess.”

“Almost.”

“So how are you feeling?” He put both his hands on Wilf’s bad shoulder and then ran them slowly down his arm. “I mean, really?”

“I have some pain now and then. It comes and goes. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Where?”

“Just in my side here.”

“Above your hip?”

“Just above. It’s nothing.”

“And everywhere else is fine? You’re feeling well? I mean, generally?”

“Everything’s fine. But I didn’t come here for an examination. I wanted to ask you a question. I should have phoned first. I apologize.”

“Why apologize? Are you kidding? We spent enough time together.”

Chasson walked over to his desk and lit a cigarette.

“You and Dr. Windemyer.”

Chasson smiled. “Chuck the Chopper.”

“And lots of other docs.”

“And a ton of patients, unfortunately. We were all in that mess together.”

“And nurses.”

Chasson smiled. “And nurses.” He held out his cigarettes.

“No thanks.” Wilf took a deep breath. “Michael, I want to ask you about my eyes.”

“You’ve got the wrong doctor, Wilf.”

“But I knew where you were practising after the war. I couldn’t remember about the others.”

“Chuck’s in Melbourne. Jason Charles, your eye doctor, he’s in Vancouver.”

“You were with me all the way through, though, from when they flew me out of Germany until I left for England.”

“I suppose I was.”

Wilf eased himself down on a chair. “I’ve got lots of questions.”

“Have you?”

“Why was I in isolation?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was in a room of my own for over two months. They said they wanted to keep me as still as possible because of my eyes. I said I’d keep myself as still as a rock in the general ward. I was going crazy, I needed company.”

“It was because of your eyes, Wilf. And it worked.”

“You were operating on me all through that time, though.”

“Had to. You would have smelled real bad, otherwise.”

Wilf had to smile. “There’s something else, Michael. That last sortie of mine. It was on April the seventh, and you know I’ve always assumed I was found on the day I was shot down. But I wasn’t.”

Chasson leaned on the edge of his desk and regarded Wilf through a cloud of drifting smoke.

“I was found by some American troops on April the tenth, the day before those same troops stumbled on to Buchenwald. You’ve heard of Buchenwald.”

“I’m not following.”

“There’s a gap of three days. I was lying in my smashed-up plane for three days only a mile or two from Buchenwald. Unconscious. Bleeding. No treatment. No water. I couldn’t have lasted that long, I would have been dead.”

“Obviously you weren’t.”

“Michael, why was I being held in isolation?”

“I told you why. And you know why.”

“There’s more to it than that. Isn’t there?”

Chasson butted out his half-finished cigarette. “Look Wilf, I’d like nothing better than to spend more time with you, but you’ve seen that circus out there. Are you in town? Can I get in touch with you?”

“I want to see my medical records. All of them.”

“Who’s looking after you?

“Doc Kerry. He’s in the military hospital in Burlington. I’ve seen the records he’s got. They’re mostly orthopedic and there’s only a few.”

Chasson walked back to the door. Wilf stayed sitting stubbornly where he was.

“I think you’ll have to talk to the War Office in Ottawa then. If I were a betting man, and I am, I’d have to say the chances are slight that they’ve kept all the medical records of every casualty in all the services over five years of war, but if they have they’d be up there.”

“I was wondering if you could help me do just that. They’d listen to you before they’d listen to me.”

“You’re the patient.”

“You’re the doctor. We could do it together.”

Chasson reached for the door. “How long are you in town?”

“I could stay a few days.”

“Knowing the military it’ll take a lot longer than that. Tell you what. Give me your phone number. There’s a pad on my desk. I’ll call if I have any news.”

Chasson swung the door open. “Monsieur Ducette, come in now please.
Entrez
,” he called out.

* * *

“Good afternoon. McLauchlin and McLauchlin,” Carole’s voice came down the line.

Wilf hesitated.

“Hello?” Carole said.

“Hi.”

“Oh. Hi.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“Good. I got back late yesterday.”

“I know. Your father told me.”

“I was going to call but I made the mistake of going upstairs and lying down first. I guess I was more tired than I thought.”

“Well, I’m sure you were busy in Toronto.”

“Yeah. Well, no.”

“No?”

“I didn’t stay with my friends. As it turned out. I got a room in a hotel instead.”

“For three days?”

“ I didn’t feel like the usual college stuff. I guess.”

“Oh.”

“Dad left today.”

“I know.”

“For Windsor. Until the end of the week. Litigating some property case. He was hired on at the last minute.”

“I work here. I know.”

“Carole?”

“What?”

“I don’t suppose you’d catch a cab and come up here. Would you? I mean, after work?”

“Why?”

“I’ll make you supper.”

“And then what?”

“We can talk. I’d like to talk.”

“If I take a cab up there everyone will know.”

“I’d come and get you but I’m a bit shaky. I don’t know why.” Wilf was standing in the upstairs hall. He tried to control his voice. “I’m not having that great a day. I don’t think I can drive.”

It was only three thirty in the afternoon but Carole took it upon herself to close the office early. Fifteen minutes later she was rapping on the loose window in the side door.

Wilf came down the steps. He was smiling and looked normal enough. He opened the door.

Carole came in on the landing, a sprinkling of snowflakes on her hat and coat. “It’s snowing,” she announced.

Wilf took off her hat and kissed her.

“Did you lie?” she said.

“About what?”

“About not feeling well?”

“No. I might have exaggerated a little.”

“If someone calls the office or drops in you can explain this to your father.” They kissed again and she could feel her body leaning up against his. She couldn’t help it.

Wilf helped her take off her coat, hung it up for her and led her along the front hall.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Carole said.

They started up the stairs.

As soon as Wilf led her into his room he realized, not for the first time, that his bed looked like a kid’s bed. It was a reddish-brown colour and the finials were as big as bowling balls. His father had bought it for him when he’d turned thirteen and was just entering high school. And it seemed too narrow for two people. And he’d forgotten that when he’d dragged himself out of it shortly before noon he hadn’t bothered to pull up the covers.