Leaving the World (64 page)

‘
Kelly’s parents, Michelle and Morgan Franklin, are devout Christians and say that their religious faith sustained them through the ten days when Kelly went missing. Once-time members of the Assemblies of God church in Dundas, they are now stalwarts of the Life Tabernacle in Hamilton.
’

The Assemblies of God church in Dundas. How’s that for happenstance. And why did they leave the church?

The article continued:

‘
In the wake of Kelly’s return, the Franklins and the police have remained very tight-lipped about what they know about her alleged abductor. Though rumors have been rife in both Dundas and Hamilton as to the name of this individual, there is another school of local thought that Kelly was so traumatized by what happened that she couldn’t identify her abductor, and/or that the Franklins have been paid a substantial sum for their silence.
’

But who would pay them such a large sum? What organization would be willing to hand over a big settlement in order to keep their name out of the press – especially as their name would be linked to a child’s disappearance?

I Googled Dundas Assemblies of God church. Up popped their website – all smiling faces and words of praise. I found the link for ‘
Dundas Assemblies History
’ – and there, in their list of former pastors, was the Rev. Larry Coursen, with his dates of service: December 2002–May 2004. A short tenure. And when did Kelly Franklin go missing? April 2nd 2004. And when did Larry Coursen get dispatched to Townsend? I dug back into my file and found this detail listed on a printout from the Townsend Assemblies website: June 2004.

So Coursen parted company with the Dundas Assemblies not long after Kelly Franklin went missing . . . or perhaps right after she showed up alive again. But then this wall of silence enveloped the case, during which time, Coursen was conveniently dispatched to a nowhere town in the Alberta badlands.

I typed in ‘
Telephone Directory Information
’ for a Franklin, M. in Hamilton, Ontario. There were three. I scribbled down their numbers, then dug out my cellphone and started calling.

‘Is this Kelly’s mom?’ I asked on the first try.

‘Wrong number,’ the voice on the other end said – and hung up.

But the second number hit the jackpot.

‘Is this Kelly’s mom?’ I asked.

‘Who’s this?’

The voice was loud, raspy.

‘My name’s Nancy Lloyd. I’m a journalist with the
Vancouver Sun
.’

‘I ain’t talking to no reporters. All that was years ago.’

‘I’m aware of that – and I genuinely apologize for bothering you at home. It’s just . . . I’m certain you’ve read all about Ivy MacIntyre’s disappearance . . .’

‘I’ve got nothing to say about all that either.’

‘I understand. However, I do note that you and your family were once members of the Dundas Assemblies of God church. Did you know that Ivy MacIntyre’s family were members of an Assemblies of God church in Alberta, and that your former pastor – Larry Coursen – is now their pastor out here?’

‘I’m not talking about him,’ she said, sounding angry.

‘Why not?’

‘Because that was the deal.’

‘What deal?’

‘Now you’ve made me shoot my mouth off.’

‘Did someone – some
organization
– do a deal with you to say nothing about Larry Coursen?’

‘I ain’t answering no more of your questions.’

‘How much did they pay for your silence?’

‘That’s my business,’ she said. The line went dead.

I sat there, my head reeling. Coursen had abducted Kelly Franklin. Then he either let her go or . . . might she have escaped his clutches? Then what? She’s so traumatized by whatever he did to her during those ten days that she can’t identify him? Or she identifies him and he has a solid alibi? Or she returns home and retreats into herself, to the point where she has to be institutionalized and can’t identify her captor? No, scratch that last idea. She must have been able to point the finger at Coursen. Perhaps when she told her parents, their first reaction was to phone the Assemblies of God big boys – who moved in quickly to dampen down the scandal and ensure that their pastor didn’t get his face on every front page in North America.

And was Kelly Franklin still institutionalized all these years later?

Another quick Google and I came up with the following
Hamilton Daily Record
item: ‘
Abducted Girl Falls Foul of the Law Again
’.

It was dated September 23rd, 2007 and stated that Kelly Franklin, ‘
the girl who was mysteriously abducted three years ago
’, had been arrested at a local Woolworths for sniffing glue and becoming sick thereafter. The story recounted how Franklin, aged fourteen, already had a rap sheet for shoplifting, aggravated assault of a woman police officer and vagrancy. When she walked into the Woolworths in Hamilton she found the aisle which sold epoxy glue, opened four tubes into a plastic bag, then proceeded to place the bag over her mouth and inhale deeply. She was at this for several minutes before staff found her, delirious and incoherent. The police were called, but she became violently ill and started to choke on her own vomit. Fortunately the assistant manager at Woolworths knew CPR and managed to clear her esophagus and avoid asphyxiation. She was rushed to a local hospital where she was reported to be in a stable condition.

A subsequent article – dated six weeks after this one – noted a court hearing where Kelly Franklin was sentenced to be detained in an institution for young offenders ‘
until it was determined that she was no longer a danger to the community or herself
’.

There was nothing further on her after this, leading me to surmise that she was still incarcerated.

You son of a bitch, Coursen. You destroy that girl’s life and get your church to pay her family hush money. Then you get transferred out west and two girls go missing in the very town in which you operate and your church does nothing. Maybe because – as I quickly discovered through further use of a search engine – their families weren’t affiliated with Townsend Assemblies. Then, when Ivy MacIntyre goes missing, you frame her poor fool of a father, a man who couldn’t control his temper or his boozing, and therefore was an easy target. The perfect fall guy
.

I gripped the sides of the computer table, trying to keep my rage and distress in check. I wanted to call Sergeant Clark and reveal everything I had just discovered. To do so, however, would be to risk getting picked up for breach of my Alternative Measures. Best to say nothing right now. Best to . . .

I checked my watch. It was just four p.m. I called the local car-rental place and asked them if they had any vehicles ready to be borrowed. They told me they could fix me up with a Corolla in fifteen minutes. I paid for the many hours I had spent online. I said goodbye to the slacker dude who was still absorbed in some goth website. As I headed towards the door his response to me was: ‘Happy trails.’

I doubted this trail would lead to anything happy.

Half an hour later I was edging my way through the usual rush-hour automotive crawl. The days were getting longer now so I had light with me during the hour it took to edge my way out of all those endless sub-developments and hit open country. I played the drive-time program on CBC Radio 2 – and clicked the radio off when the hourly news rolled around at five and six p.m. I wanted to hear no more about the case. I just wanted to get to Townsend and then . . .

Well, I really didn’t have a clue what I was going to do next. Drive up to Coursen’s house, knock on the door and confront him with the fact that I knew about his antics with Kelly Franklin back East and was going to expose him to the world? He’d be on to Sergeant Clark in an instant. Then the Franklins, bound by the hush money they’d been paid by the church, wouldn’t be able to finger Coursen. And I’d end up with a criminal record for, yet again, wasting police time.

No – confronting Coursen was definitely out. But tailing him and seeing what he did with his time outside of church . . . well, that might yield something.

The problem was, how to follow him and not be seen? In a small town someone from outside the community, driving around in a car which (damn it) had a big Avis sticker across its trunk would be immediately spotted. Given that I already had a bit of notoriety in the local restaurant and with Coursen himself . . .

So I had no plan, no idea what I was even looking for. All I knew was that I had to find a way of getting to tag along on any ‘errand’ Coursen might be making in the vicinity.

Why was I so certain that he would be making such errands? Just instinct, along with the growing notion that if he kept Kelly Franklin alive after abducting her . . .

Yes, but she was released – or, more likely, got away – after ten days. Why would Coursen keep Ivy alive for three weeks?

Then again, what did he say to you last week during your interview?

‘She’s not dead
.’

Unless he had taken care of that bit of business in the wake of George’s suicide. After all, what was his comment on the afternoon news?

‘
Tragically one must assume that she is dead
.’

Because you’ve rendered her so?

I reached Townsend by seven and drove straight over to Coursen’s church. A stroke of luck. The parking lot was full and the church lights were on. From the shouting and roaring coming from within they were probably handling snakes and talking in tongues. A sign near the church entrance advertised this: ‘
Monday Miracles Tonight at 7 p.m!
’

There was certainly another ‘miracle’ awaiting me. Larry Coursen’s Land Rover – immediately identifiable thanks to its
Preacher Man
vanity plate – was parked in its usual place. No one was in the lot so I was able to drive over to it and peer inside. Nothing unusual about it, except that the passenger seat in the front was filled with old newspapers and empty paper cups from McDonald’s and Burger King. The back seat had DVD boxes scattered everywhere. I could make out the cover that adorned all the DVD cases: a big smiling Larry Coursen, his hands raised heavenwards, above which was the title: ‘
Everyday Miracles With Larry Coursen!
’ I tested the door and discovered it was unlocked. This was Small-Town Canada – and in Small-Town Canada everyone left their doors open. Immediately I went around to the hatchback trunk and pressed the handle. It too opened and I saw that there were two dirty blankets. I also noted that this vehicle didn’t have an enclosed trunk; rather, a canvas awning was pulled across the roof of the cargo area. Suddenly an insane idea clouded my head. Were you to stow away inside, you wouldn’t be locked in. You could simply detach the awning and escape. Without further thinking, I decided to pursue this.

I closed the trunk door and returned to my rented vehicle. I was about to leave it in a corner of the lot but then realized that this was not a very bright idea. Once the parking lot emptied after the Monday Miracles show, my rental would be left behind. Coursen or one of his staff might wonder why this one car remained. And upon seeing the Avis rental sticker on its trunk . . .

Well, the rental car could be easily traced, resulting in me being picked up by the local sheriff.

So I drove out of the parking lot and down onto Main Street. There was a medium-sized supermarket at the far end of the street. It was open until ten p.m. I gambled on the fact that the local law wouldn’t snoop around this parking lot after hours and left it in a corner far away from the street. I checked my watch. It was 7:45 p.m. The Monday Miracles had to continue for another hour at least – and I would need a good fifteen minutes to walk back to the church. It was cold tonight – minus twelve according to the dashboard digital readout. I pulled on a wool-knit hat and kept my head bowed low as I hiked back up to Townsend Assemblies of God. But the streets were empty. I passed no one. I checked my watch again as I reached the church. 8:04 p.m. From inside the church came the electrified voice of Larry Coursen: ‘We know you’re there, Jesus! We know you’re right inside this church, filling us with love!’

This last word was pronounced with an extended wail. It was followed by shrieks and howls from the congregation. I glanced around the parking lot. Not another person was in sight. Under cover of all that high volume of religiosity I walked quickly to Coursen’s vehicle. I pressed the handle. I grabbed the blankets that had been stuffed into the back of the trunk space. They smelled old, musty – and were cold to the touch. I slid into the trunk, then had to work at lying flat while reaching out with my left hand and attempting to slam the trunk door behind me. It took three tries – but, after watching it nearly catch twice, I yanked extra hard and the trunk slammed closed. I was in. As the awning was covering me, I was also in darkness. I had to shift around a great deal to find a fetal position that was even moderately comfortable. When this was achieved I reached into my jacket pocket and turned off my cellphone. Then I checked the time again. 8:12 p.m. It wasn’t just dark in the car, it was also cold. I pulled on my gloves. I zipped my jacket right up to my neck. I covered myself with the thin, putrid blankets. I waited.

An hour went by, during which time I found myself frequently thinking:
What possessed you to pull such a deranged stunt?
At least twice in that first hour, I was on the verge of disengaging the awning, climbing over the back seat, out a side door and vanishing into the night. But just when the cold and the dark and the fear were about to defeat me I heard voices outside and cars starting up.
Too late, too late. You’re stuck now
.

I checked my watch again. 9:14 p.m. But no sign of the Preacher Man. Cars continued to leave the lot. Then at 9:43 p.m., there were footsteps outside, followed by voices.

‘The thing is, Carl,’ Larry Coursen said, ‘if Brenda keeps phoning me day and night, someone’s gonna put two and two together. I mean, every time I walk into the door of my house Bonnie is ripping me a new asshole, telling me she’s gonna expose me blah, blah, blah. The denial thing – the line that Brenda is so suffering she keeps having to call me – will only go so far. So you’ve got to go talk to Brenda again and make it clear that silence is golden here, that she doesn’t want trouble from me. Tell her, once things calm down, I’ll be around again. You cool with that?’