Helix: Plague of Ghouls (20 page)

“Oh, her,” the principal said. He sat forward, steepling his fingers in a most avuncular fashion. “Before I was transferred here, I worked at Oxley Collegiate downtown, and I got to know a lot about Sydney. Lord knows, they brought her into my office often enough.”

“Always into trouble?”

“Always the source of trouble,” the principal explained. “Since elementary school, she’s been bullied non-stop. Broken home, both parents in and out of jail I don’t know how many times, foster care, poverty, running away, drugs, alcohol, the works. She was teased night and day, but she just kept coming back to class, just to spite them all. Twice, we had to call an ambulance for her. That’s how bad it got. But what was I supposed to do, suspend forty to fifty students every year? She was at the centre of a dangerous situation. And I know,
I know,
it wasn’t her fault, but I had to remove the common denominator, for her safety and the safety of the school.”

“So you arranged for a transfer?”

His walrus moustache twitched. “I strongly advocated that she try alternative methods of education. Just two years ago,” he added, proudly, “the Board of Education established a new Adult Ed centre. Beautiful facility, right downtown. Easy access by city bus, within walking distance of a youth shelter. Perfect for her.” His smile diminished.

“But she never went.”

“She refused. She said it was too close to Pritchard Park. Last I knew, she dropped out of school entirely. Honestly, Mr. Two-Trees—”

“Dr. Two-Trees.”

“Doctor,” the principal said. “If I were you, I would see if she’s gone to the Reserve and moved in with another one of her boyfriends. If she’s not there, she’s probably hitchhiking to Toronto, or Vancouver, or whatever. All I can say is, I doubt anyone here at Elmbury North would have seen her around. These kids . . .” He seemed to peer through the walls. “They’re not her crowd, you know?”

“Any chance she hangs out with jungle punks?”

The principal laughed. “I can assure you, Mr . . .
Dr.
Two-Trees, there are no jungle punks in
this
school.” His eyes narrowed. “Jungle punk is the poor man’s solace.”

NEW SIGNS AT
the corner of the parking lot were branded with a stylized millwheel. One sign pointed toward “Historic Downtown.” Another pointed west, reading “Sisters of Mercy Museum, 12 km.” A third pointed north-east, in the direction of “Oxley Collegiate.” The school didn’t have a student parking lot, and all the guest spots had been filled. Two-Trees parked three blocks away and hoofed it through “Historic Downtown.” Many of the storefronts were new; tourist traps with “Real Maple” and “Authentic Native Art” rubbed shoulders with a Jug-o-Juice and an Indigo bookstore. All the concrete streetlights had been replaced with faux cast iron posts made to resemble Victorian-era gas lamps, street parking had been relegated to alleyways, a bike lane had been painted on both sides of the road, and a banner strung across the street advertised the “12
th
Annual Elmbury Oktoberfest” a week too late. But the town did look a lot cleaner than Two-Trees had remembered.

There were video news reporters standing on one corner. The journalist had her back to the south, while she spoke into a microphone. Two-Trees made a point of crossing to the other side of the street to avoid being caught on film. Once he was in the clear, he stood at the side of the road and watched other passersby taking cell phone footage of their own. Behind the reporter was the big, blue and white sign, reading “Pritchard Park.” He couldn’t hear her, but Two-Trees could read her lips when she inclined her head gravely and said, “
A skull.
”

Elmbury North High and Oxley Collegiate were two opposites of the socioeconomic spectrum. The kids acted the same way—rough-housing between classes, gossiping, talking at the tops of their voices—but at Oxley there were fewer smart phones, and the kids’ shoes weren’t as clean. Here, there
were
Jungle Punks, and punks of every other stripe, too. The girls had dyed their hair in neon colours and wore cuts they’d regret in ten years. Most of the boys advertised their musical tastes by the shirts they wore. One wore a shirt with a tilted yellow happy face, with “Backdoor Access” and “Quitcher Bitchin” written around the edge; at Two-Trees’ smiling glance, the young man quickly zipped up his hoodie and slammed open his locker. Two-Trees spotted a girl with glasses and loose braids, wearing a plaid shirt. He asked her where the front office was. She stared at him as if transfixed by a fear of strangers. Another young man shouted over the ringing of the class bell that Two-Trees would have to follow the hall to the end and turn left. Two-Trees thanked him. Students evacuated the hallway, leaving only a single, shoe-squeaking straggler to zoom down the hall and slide through a closing door as if he was stealing home base.

It took twenty minutes, lots of photo ID, and a phone call to DS Buckle before Two-Trees had won over the vice-principal. The principal was too busy on calls and meetings to chat with him. Even then, vice-principal Laura Maurelli seemed determined to be rid of him.

“We’re all on edge right now,” she explained. “You can understand.”

Two-Trees wiped his nose. He hadn’t realized that Styroforma was so close to the school, but judging by the air quality, they must have been directly downwind. “All the more reason to chase down as many leads as possible, as fast as possible.”

“These kids,” Maurelli began. “They’re all pretty broken up since Sydney went missing.”

“She’s a student here?”

“Was,” she answered. She had severe cheekbones and striated jaw muscles, as if she made a habit of substituting steel cables for liquorice twists. It was a Wyrd habit of his, to notice these things. “I’d had high hopes for her. I thought she’d beat the odds.”

Maurelli scraped fine, short auburn hair behind a small ear.
A military cut
. Her hair was chin-length at the front but clean shaven above the collar at the back, and it accentuated the angularity of her face. She might have been forty-five at the outside, a smoker, well-dressed for such an inner city school, left-handed, and by the look of it, unmarried. On her desk, she had pictures of two dogs—an aged Shih Zhu, and a brown mutt nearly twice its size. She had pictures of boys too, both high school aged. Two-Trees hoped they were related, because—he shuddered at the thought—it wouldn’t be the first time a teacher showed too much affection for under-aged students of the opposite sex. The rest of her desk was cluttered with printed emails, class assignments, a collective agreement, and two newspapers. In her hand, she held some of Two-Trees’ renderings of Head B’s facial reconstruction.

“No, I don’t recognize any of them,” she said. “Jesus, you’d think the cops would be more worried about finding Sydney, instead of trying to figure out who died.” Maurelli took the top printout and slapped it to the bottom of the flopping stack of papers in her hand. “I mean, God, it’s not like this kid is going to get any deader. At least with Sydney there’s still a chance we can find her and keep her alive. I’ve been out of my mind, worrying about her.” She flipped to the next printout.

Her eyebrows pinched together, and jaw muscles jumped. Her muscles relaxed, and the lines between her eyebrows faded. She’d seen something. Lines appeared again, and she quickly shuffled the new top page to the bottom. It had been one of the variant pictures of the morbidly obese boy.

“So Sydney did drop out of school?” Two-Trees asked.

“Dropped off the radar by mid-September. It’s a long story.” She didn’t seem inclined to tell it. “She’d been bullied for years because of her parents. One of them was murdered, or so we think.”

“But she was only reported missing a few days ago.”

“A couple of her more
responsible
friends came to me and said that she’d stopped coming by. She’d been living on the streets for months, ever since about February this year. Her friends did what they could to spot her some cash, food, whatever they could sneak out of the house, and give it to her here, at school. She passed Grade Eleven by the skin of her teeth, but she was really committed. Driven, you know? Dumb as a post, but she worked hard, especially considering her living situation. I really thought she was going to do all right this year.” She tossed down the papers in a flutter. “But what the hell do I know? I did everything I could, too, as much as the school board would allow. Then some dickhead parent complained that I was showing favouritism and lodged a formal complaint, and now I’m on notice. One more complaint in the next six months, and I’m out of a job.”

“Wow. That
was
a dick move.”

“Ugh, don’t even get me started.” She paused and tapped the printouts on her desk. “Is there a number I can reach you at?”

“Sure.” He apologized for his cell number being long distance, as it was a Winnipeg exchange. “Send me a text and I can call you back locally.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She sat at her desk and straightened the printouts, as if the conversation was officially over and he was free to leave. “We’ll make copies and have the teachers and counsellors take them around. None of them look familiar to me, but who knows, maybe you’re right. Maybe one of the students will recognize a face.”

Two-Trees cleared his throat and took a step closer to her desk. “If it’s all the same with you . . .”

She closed her eyes and raised her hand, as if she didn’t want to see where he was going with this new train of thought. “These kids are stressed out. Police have been in and out of these doors every day for a week, asking questions, pinning kids down. Half of them have called in sick. And can you blame them? Having you in here haranguing them with questions will only make matters worse. I’ll show them these pictures, and once I have information for you, I’ll call you.”

Straight to the point then. All right.
“There’s another reason why I came here today.”

“Great. What is it?”

“I think one of your students is a witness to a murder. I need to find him before the police do.”

She laughed.

“I think he’s scared, and he’s got more than one life to be worried for. And thanks to a little indiscretion on his part this morning at a pharmacy, the police are going to be looking for him. If he’s a witness, if he ends up in police custody . . .”

Her eyes were as dark as his, and they never seemed to blink.

“Do you watch a lot of TV, Mr. Two-Trees?” she asked.

“
Doctor
Two-Trees, thanks, PhD forensic anthropology, specializing in the identification of human remains.” He rubbed his forehead. “Eight years ago, a man stabbed his wife at a crowded dinner party, then had to figure out what to do with the witnesses. Would you like to know why I was called in?”

She didn’t answer.

He pointed to the newspapers on her desk. “The murder in question might be gang related. Believe me, a gang is more resourceful than a pot-bellied plumber with a petite carver.”

She pursed her lips and cleaned a molar with her tongue.

“That means we have to rely on three resources
we
have left: speed, technology, and community.”

She looked away.

Two-Trees persisted. “The boy I’m looking for robbed a pharmacy this morning, and chances are his face was caught on surveillance cameras. If he’s local, it won’t take long for someone to recognize him. A charge of petty theft is just what the police need to bring him in without making it look like they’re questioning a witness. Do you follow?”

She nodded. “Then the police should do their job. In person. With a warrant.” She tapped his papers on her desk. “In the meantime, next time you want to bully me into showing you around my school, bring a badge and a warrant. Because for all I know,
Doctor
Two-Trees, you could be the resourceful guy who’s out looking for witnesses to harass. Have a nice day.”

Two-Trees stood taller.

He actually liked this woman.

“I’m going to be all over this town,” Two-Trees said. “Asking questions, showing those pictures,
looking
for people—especially young ones. Especially this one.” He reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a folded Missing Persons notice. “And if I find any information,” he said, “I’ll let you know.”

She looked at the picture of Sydney Mission, then at him, then back at the missing persons report. Her cheek looked like a tightly strung harp.

“I’m the one who called that in,” she said. “It took three days for them to put it on the news. Three
days
.” She put her hands on her hips. “I called the newspaper editor eight times after the police filed the official missing person’s report. Yesterday, at the end of one of those calls, I put myself on mute. They thought I’d hung up. ‘Just another Indian runaway,’ the editor said. Heard it as loud as thunder. ‘Just another Indian runaway’.” She crossed her arms like she was cold, and she drummed her fingers on her collarbone. She was thinking hard.

“She’s not from Waabishkindibed, is she?”

She seemed surprised at his fluency.

“No, and that’s what drives me mad!” she said. “Her mother’s boyfriend is from the ’Bed. Was. Whatever. No one knows where he’s gone.”