Flashback (16 page)

'Yeah. I told you. Like, most of us were just out for laughs. But he was looking to make some money. I mean, he's bad.'

'So are you. You killed a woman's dog, pushed her down, and then went and trashed a store. Is that your idea of a laugh?'

He bit his lip. I kept the flashlight on his face, even though it was starting to grow light around us. He probably wasn't aware of it in the glare. After a moment he spoke, in a trembly voice. 'I didn't want to. Really. But the kids were on my case. They said I shouldn't be the leader. Cy knew about cars. He had more guts'n me. When he came back he should take over. I had to do something heavy.'
 

'She'd had that dog twelve years. It was a member of the family just about, and you prove something by whacking it with a club. I ought to walk out and leave you here.'
 

'Don't do that!' He almost screamed it. 'Don't leave me here! I'll make it up to her. I promise.'

'I can't let you off.'

He gave at that point and wept like a baby for about a minute. I turned the light off and stood up. George's treatment had worked, maybe better than it needed to. The kid had started out with a low opinion of himself and now he felt like a hole in the ground. But I was a half-inch further ahead in the case.
 

'Where's the wagon now? The one you drove to the Harbour in.'

'I don't know. The guys were going to pick me up later, like, after I'd had a beer. Like, even killing the dog didn't impress them. They dared me to go in the bar in Murphy's Harbour. They said I wouldn't have the guts to go into your town and break the law again. I had to do it. They went off somewhere. They were going to come back for me and then we were going home.'
 

'You keep saying "they". Who do you mean? Was Cy back by then?'

'Yes. He was driving. He said he'd pick me up after and we'd all go home.'

That gave me a first entry to my search for the mysterious Cy. 'So Cy set up a rendezvous with you, before he left?'

'Yes. He said to pick him up at the Honey Harbour road. He said he knew a guy there who would buy the car.'

Honey Harbour is close to the motel where I'd found the old Ford. Probably he'd returned the car to Hanson and then walked the half mile back down the highway. I asked him, 'What does this Cy look like? What was he wearing?'
 

He gave me a pretty thorough description and I noted it and then asked my last question. 'Where's home?'

'I live in Toronto but I'm staying at Wasaga Beach. That's where we were all from, What must've happened is the guys came back and found out about you busting me and they took off there with the car.'
 

'Let's go.' I stood up and moved out, using the light for the first part of the way to check on the trail I'd left. Within a couple of minutes we were back at the roadway and I left the light off and marched briskly back to the car.
 

He kept up with me, taking the occasional little extra step to stay alongside. I threw him a question. 'What does your dad do?'
 

'He doesn't live with us. My mom's a lawyer. She's gonna kill me.' He was calm again now but frightened down to the soles of his feet. 'She's big on animal rights. Always talking about fur coats and experiments and stuff like that. When she hears what I did, she'll hit the roof.'
 

'And then you'll feel almost as bad as Mrs Horn did yesterday. That's almost fair. Add in a couple of hundred hours of community work and you'll be close to paying back what you owe.'
 

'Oh God,' he said and then nothing.

We reached the car and this time I sat him in the front. He didn't need any further humiliation. He'd grown up overnight.

He showed me where they had found the wagon. It was a lonely section of road, half a mile from the lake shore and with no cottages around it. I knew there was a cluster of them at the bottom end but this wasn't in my jurisdiction and it was still too early to stir up a bunch of holiday-makers. I decided I'd tell Holland and let the OPP men make a canvass to see if Jeffries and the woman had been down there. Probably not. Jeffries and Moira Waites had most likely changed cars here. And that meant they could be anywhere at all.
 

As I headed back to Murphy's Harbour I thought about Freund. He needed help. He wasn't goint to get it from his mother. She'd provide expensive legal counsel for him to hide behind but he'd never be free in his own head unless he stood up for himself now.
 

'Listen,' I said at last. 'I know the woman you hurt. She's a good person. I figure if you went to her and apologized she'd drop the charges against you.'
 

'Go and see her?' His mother had done a job on him. He sounded terrified.

'If you face up to her you're facing up to what you've done. It'll be over. Otherwise you're going to feel like a dork every time you look in the mirror.'
 

He didn't speak for a long time. Then he said, 'All right. Could you take me there, please?'

'Sure. She lives on the Reserve.'

His head whipped around. 'You mean she's an Indian?'

'Didn't you notice when you were shoving her over?'

'No. I mean, she looked just like anybody else.'

'Right.' I said. He had a lot to learn and Jean Horn would be a good teacher. I said nothing else until we pulled up in front of their neat little bungalow. It's not fancy by city standards but it's tidy and Jean has as much garden as she can squeeze out of the sandy soil. It was full of tomatoes and corn and cucumbers and Jean was out there weeding, the puppy gambolling around her feet.
 

She stopped and looked up as I drove in. 'Recognize her?' I asked and Freund nodded, gulping quietly.

'Her name is Mrs Horn. Go and talk to her.'

I sat there while he got out and went up to the gate, moving slowly, gathering his courage. She straightened up and looked at him without speaking. He went over to her, inching carefully between the rows of vegetables, watching his feet at every step. Then he stood in front of her, his back to me so I couldn't see his face. I watched Jean. She said nothing for a long time then bent down to pick up the puppy and I saw Freund make a swipe at his eyes with his sleeve. She handed the puppy to him and he stood stroking it, letting it lick his face.
 

After a minute or so Jean took the dog back and set it down, then came over to the car. I got out.' 'Morning, Jean. Whaddya think? About the charges?'
 

'If I charge him, he's got a record,' she said. 'Forget it.'

I stuck my hand out to her. 'Thanks, Jean. I know where George gets his heart from.'

She shrugged and shook hands. 'He says he wants to make it up to me. I don' want his mother's money.'

'Looks to me like the house could use some painting,' I said 'And I know Peter would sooner be fishing.'

She laughed out loud. 'Guess where he is now?'

'Have the kid do it. He'll feel better for it.'

'I'll ask him,' she said. 'I got some coffee on. Had breakfast?'

'Not yet.'

'Come on,' she said. 'An' let Sam out, if the puppy won't rag him too bad.'

I let Sam out and she put the puppy down and it went crazy with delight, circling and yapping at Sam, trying to get a game started. I rubbed Sam behind the ear. 'Go on,' I said and he knew he was off duty and played with the puppy as if it were his kid brother.
 

Freund had come out of the vegetable patch and he came up to us. He looked a little more comfortable but without any of the smugness he'd shown the night before.
 

I looked him in the eye. 'Mrs Horn has agreed to drop all charges,' I said. 'But there's a condition attached.'

'I don' mind,' he said eagerly, then, 'Thank you, Mrs Horn. I was a jerk.'

'Yeah. Well how are you with a paintbrush?' I asked him.

'Never tried,' he said, surprised.

'This is where you learn. The house needs painting.'

'I'll get the paint,' Jean said. 'I don't want money off you.'

'When can I start?' He looked as if he'd just won the Oscar.

'After breakfast,' she said. 'Come on. You need to wash up as well an' I'll put some alcohol on those scratches.'

He turned his head away for a moment, composing himself. 'Thank you,' he said.

I went in after them and Jean brought the puppy inside so that Sam could get a rest. He needed it. A puppy will wear out any full-grown dog the way a toddler can wear out an adult, I thought, and pondered my own future. Life was going to be busy.
 

We washed up and Jean painted the kid's scratches with rubbing alcohol and she made a big breakfast. It was a treat for me as well. Fred had been watching her weight the last month or so and meals had become fairly spartan around our place. She had offered to cook me other things but I'd said no, and hadn't done it myself because I know she's got a good appetite of her own and I couldn't expect her to stay on a diet if I was living it up.
 

At around seven I drove back to town, leaving the kid with Jean Horn who was going to start him scraping the house before painting. He had a couple of days' work ahead of him and he looked very pleased with the prospect. He said he was going to ring his mother first, before she left for her office. Apparently he was supposed to be staying with friends at Wasaga Beach. The friend was some college kid whose own parents commuted to the cottage at the weekend, so there had been no panic about his being away overnight. But now it was time to check in and let his mother know what was happening. He wasn't too pleased with the protest but I figured it would be easier than it had been to confront Jean Horn.
 

The bait store was open and I had a word with Perrault, then checked the rest of my properties, looking for break-ins. We don't get many, even in summer when the town is swollen to five times its size with holiday-makers, but this morning we had.
 

The back door of the grocery was open. It hadn't taken much. The door must have been the same age as the rest of the building and was dried out and brittle. Somebody had put their shoulder into it and forced the rusty old hinge screws out of their sockets.
 

I told Sam 'seek' and sent him in ahead of me, knowing it was an unnecessary precaution. The break-in had been done overnight no doubt and the guy was long gone.
 

Sure enough, the place was empty. The cash register had its drawer hanging out, as it was always left overnight and the safe in the front window was in place. Nothing seemed disturbed but I rang the owner and waited until he showed up five minutes later.
 

He looked around and swore, then checked to see if anything was missing. 'If it's candy it was kids,' he told me. 'But I don't see kids busting the door in. They just shoplift.'
 

'How about food?' I asked him. 'Any of that gone?'

He looked at me, eyes narrowed. 'I'll check. Hold on.' I followed him as he went around the food section, a tiny deli counter and a display of cheeses in the dairy case.
 

'Yeah,' he said at last. 'There's a coupla salami and a box of good Cheddar gone. And some bread. How did you guess that?'

'There's an inmate on the run from Joyceville,' I told him. 'I've got an idea he's up around here somewhere. It could be him.'

It was Kershaw, I figured. He had found his way to Murphy's Harbour and I wondered when he would find his way to me.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 9

 

 

There wasn't much to go on. The store has so many people through it that there was no way Sam could pick out the shop-breaker's scent. I tried it anyway, letting him sniff where the man must have stood to rifle the two food counters and he did it, then led me to the owner who was standing at the back door, checking the damage. I tried Sam again at the back door but he couldn't pick up a scent, so I gave up.
 

The owner was angry. 'Sonofabitch. Twice in two days. My insurance is gonna go crazy,' he said. 'Lookit. Forced the door right off the goddamn hinges.'
 

'Get a steel door put in,' I advised him. 'I'll try to find this guy and if and when I do you can go after him for damages. But he won't have any money or he wouldn't have been stealing food.'
 

'You're right. Dammit. I'd sell this place if anybody'd buy it off me. Hell, Chief. This is too much. You gotta keep a better lid on things. Two losses in one day. That's not why we pay a police chief.'
 

'If it makes you feel any better, I've caught the kid who did the swarming yesterday, He's over at Horns', painting their house. He said he'll make the damage good.'
 

'Well, I guess that's something,' he said grumpily. 'Sorry I sounded off.'

'Sorry about the crime wave. But I know who I'm looking for. If I find him I'll get him to pay for the damage.'

'Yeah. OK.' He waved me off. 'I know you do a good job. It's just I'm thinkin' why me? OK?'

'OK. See you later, Jack.'

I called Sam and went out to check the rest of the properties. Nothing had been touched. I was especially careful around the liquor store. Kershaw hadn't been the one who got the bottle of Scotch the night before and after five years inside he would want a drink. But the locks were all in place, so I drove down to the station and went in.
 

The phone rang almost immediately and I picked it up. 'Murphy's Harbour Police.'

'My name is Mrs Freund, may I speak to an Officer Bennett?' No please.

'I'm Bennett, Mrs Freund.'

'My son just phoned. I find he's been coerced into doing manual labour for some family of Indians.'

There were so many things to argue with that I didn't bother. 'Did he tell you why?' I asked politely.

'He said he'd got himself into trouble and the woman was letting him do this for her instead of preferring charges.'

'Did he tell you the nature of the trouble?'