The Boy Must Die (15 page)

“Just coffee, Mom.”

Justin lowered himself into his chair and scowled at the oozing cluster of orange triangles. He sighed. Maybe Yianni would cut a deal. Perhaps give him another week if he could show up with a few dollars on Saturday and maybe a gift. But what? A bottle of whiskey? He knew Yianni would want something more.

Aileen Moore came into the dining room carrying a cup of steaming coffee and the phone.

“It’s for you.”

Justin hesitated before speaking. His mother sat down opposite him and lit a cigarette.

“Go on, dear. I won’t listen in.”

The voice on the phone was quiet and hesitant.

“I really need to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Let’s say it’s very serious, Justin.”

“Look, Karen, you agreed. You gave back the ring.
We
agreed. . . .”

“I know. But something’s happened. It’s important.”

“Look, I’ve got a lot of. . . .”

“Can you pick me up for coffee? Please, Justin.”

Justin sighed. Thinking over how his life was going, he figured
Karen’s crisis, if that’s what it was, could not add much more of an edge to his own problems.

“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

When he finished his coffee, Justin listened to his mother try to persuade him to cut the back lawn, but he managed to put her off for a few hours. He took the Olds and drove along Baroness for twelve blocks, then went east onto a side avenue. Cars swooshed by him, their sound punctuating the litany of words echoing in his head:
cash, Yianni, cash, police
. Karen’s house sat at the end of the street. Justin slowed the Oldsmobile as new words and accusations broke into his consciousness:
You deal to minors. What if the police ask about Darren and Cody?

The front porch of Karen’s bungalow needed paint, and the pillars holding up its arched roof were leaning. The Oldsmobile’s engine whined as Justin pulled to a stop. Karen ran out the front door and down the crumbling concrete steps. She was wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt, and her hair was tied back in a scarf as bright as a school banner.

“Let’s get out of here.” Karen slid into the front seat of the car.

Justin jammed the Oldsmobile into drive.

Downtown, at McDonald’s, Karen sat with her coffee and started to cry.

“I’m pregnant.”

“What? You’re not!”

“Is that all you can say?”

“God, fuck, Karen.” Justin leaned in closer to her damp face. “You told me you were on the pill.”

“I was. Sometimes my timing is off. It was an accident.”

“Oh, great.” Justin leaned back. He began tapping his fingers on the top of the booth table. “You told your father, didn’t you?”

“I had to.”

“You had to? What do you mean?”

Karen started weeping again. She reached for Justin’s hand, but he pulled back across the table.

“What do you mean, Karen?”

“I told my mom, and she told him.”

“Great. This is just great.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We?”

“Poppa will kill us. He’ll kill you for sure if you don’t do something.”

“Like what, for Christ’s sake?”

“Please keep your voice down, Justin.”

“Like what?” Justin whispered.

“Marry me.”

“This is not the fifties, Karen. You ever heard of abortion?”

“I can’t do that.” She covered her face with her hands.

Justin unfolded a paper napkin and handed it to her. “Here. Go on.” Karen wiped her eyes. “I can’t. I love you, Justin.”

“You can’t do this to me, Karen. Not right now. And besides, we agreed to break up, remember?”

“You love me, don’t you?”

Justin shifted. He wanted to get up and walk out and let the air and the warm sun wash him clean. He liked Karen and had been dating her for a year. But he didn’t love her. She was a pretty girl, and they’d had wonderful, hot sex, but it stopped there.

“Poppa will kill you, Justin.” Karen’s voice was low and ominous. She had straightened and was looking at Justin head on, her brown eyes staring directly into his face.

“Is that a threat? Are you trying to scare me? Let me tell you, here and now. We’re going to do something about this, and I don’t mean buying a wedding ring. You understand? It’s your fault. You fucked up and got pregnant. You fucked up telling your parents. You’re going to do what I want now, you hear me?”

“Don’t be so sure, Justin.” Karen’s voice had deepened with feeling. “Don’t be so sure my father won’t bring the wrath of Jesus down on your head.”

Justin leaned forward and placed his face in his hands. “You have to help
me
, Karen.”

“How do you mean?”

“I need money.”

“Not again. You run up debts faster than anyone in the world.”

“Don’t kick me when I’m down.”

Karen lowered her voice. But her tone was cold and disbelieving. “How much this time?”

“Over five.”

“God help you.”

“It’s from Yianni Pappas.” Justin looked at Karen’s face.

She lifted her chin in a gesture of disdain. “How could you?” she whispered.

“I’ve been selling dope, too.
And
I got a call from some fuck detective who wants to talk to me about that Sheree Lynn asshole who lives next door. He wants to question me about those two losers, Darren and Cody. The police found Darren’s body in her basement on Saturday morning.”

Karen’s face had turned white.

“But you had nothing to do with them.”

“I sold those two losers dime bags, Karen. They were underage.”

“Okay, but you didn’t know them at all, right? You are not responsible for what happens to them.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Those kids paid me with stolen money. I’m sure of it. The police could arrest me for selling to minors. I’d have no way to pay off Yianni then. You never know with Yianni. He could go after my mom. He could torch our house.”

“Justin, calm down. You know I don’t have anything to give you. Have you tried the bank?”

“Fuck the bank.”

“Please keep your voice down.”

Justin shut his eyes and leaned back and felt like he was choking. He slammed his fists on the table and stood up so violently he knocked his coffee cup to the floor.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing Karen by her wrist.

He drove Karen home. They did not speak. Justin was dizzy:
Now you’re going to be a father
. He waited as she climbed from the Oldsmobile, and he watched her cross the street and go into the bungalow. Her gentle walk prompted an old feeling. One of love. He had always liked her sweetness, and now she was being forced to act in a cruel and angry manner. “Karen, I’m sorry,” he whispered. He started the engine and drove and drove until he found himself, half in a trance, his body in a cold sweat, by the rushing waters of the Oldman River. He sat stock still, his hands on the steering wheel.

So this is the new day, he thought.

It would be a bitter weekend. He rolled down the window. If only he could rise into the warm air and be free. Justin knew he must think and plan. He realized that now, above anything else, he had to keep his wits clear, his whole self alert.

Billy led Mrs. Morton into a ten-by-twelve interview room, a dumpy short woman in a pair of purple slacks and a cotton jacket. She carried a straw purse and had a soft colourless face and an air of defeat about her as strong as the odour of her cheap perfume. She entered not in fear but with a wooden obedience, like a dog trained to heel. Through the glass window in the adjacent interview room, a space covered in white soundproofing tiles with a table, two chairs, and a camcorder, sat her son. At fourteen, Blayne Morton was huge, over two hundred pounds. His dough-like face had guarded slits for eyes, and his hair was the colour of lime Jell-o. The mother took her seat as if she had no choice.

“We’ll tape you first, Mrs. Morton,” said Billy. “That’s the camera. You don’t need to be afraid. You remember Mr. Barnes, the counsellor from the junior high? He has joined us and is here to help you, if you wish. I have a few questions. All I want is the truth, Mrs. Morton.”

Counsellor Barnes was a thin man with a closely cropped beard, a bald head, and neat brown clothes. He told Billy he’d been pruning his garden. Billy saw at once the man was used to helping others; he had a placid voice and manner.

“You ready, Mrs. Morton?” Barnes asked. “The Inspector won’t take up much of your time. I know how upset you must be.”

She sat still and passive.

“Tell me,” Billy said, sitting down across from Mrs. Morton, “about Blayne. What you found this morning.”

“For two years, my Blayne’s been like that. Two years I’ve seen him doin’ those things. I don’t know why he does them. He says he’s told to by a power. Since his dad left, my Blayne likes to sing in that voice. Oh, he reads that book, too. I got it here, Inspector. See, it looks like the Bible. But it’s like no Bible I ever seen. He sings, and he takes those matches and puts them on his skin. Says he wants pain, says he needs pain so he can hear the voices.”

Billy took the book from Mrs. Morton. It had a red cover, a pentacle embossed in gold. Billy flipped open the first pages. There were spells and drawings. He checked the cover. It was another edition of Darren Riegert’s book,
Thanatopsis
.

“Was Blayne up all last night, too?”

“Oh, yes! Singing and rocking. Been almost two days now. Friday, I guess, he started. No, it was early Saturday morning by the time I got home, real late, from work. I’m a cleaner at the government building on Burdett. I found him in the front room. I couldn’t sleep. I was so tired, but I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid to leave him. Afraid he might hurt himself bad.”

“What time was that? When you got home and found your son?”

“About one. I get a cab home ’cause it’s so late.”

“Did you sit with Blayne?”

“Oh, yes. I tried. He needs protection, Inspector. He needs the hospital again.”

“You said you tried. What happened, Mrs. Morton?”

“Yes, sir. I truly did. But I fell asleep. I wake up around seven, that’s seven on Saturday — real late for me — and he’s on the floor rocking, curled up in the corner. Like he was at the hospital.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Say anything? He kept singing is all. No, maybe he said, ‘He
betrayed me.’ That was it. I couldn’t hardly hear him. ‘He betrayed me.’ I reckon he was talking about his dad.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about him other than his cigarette wounds? Were there any different markings on his clothes or his hands?” Billy suddenly found himself picturing Blayne Morton as he sat in the next room, his face and hands speckled with blood and black paint, unaware of what damning evidence he was wearing in full view.

“No. My Blayne is a clean boy, sir. He was wearin’ what he’s got on. In there. He looked tired is all.” She looked towards the window and saw Blayne in the next room. “Like I said, he was on the floor. I got him up. I fed him. He slept all day. All Saturday. He slept in the clothes he has on. Then last night, he started again. He went all night, like I said.”

“Did you stay up with him, Mrs. Morton?”

“I tried. I couldn’t sleep much ’cause he kept singin’, so I asked him. I said, ‘Blayne, who betrayed you, who?’ And he wouldn’t say. So I got up early this morning. I watched him a couple of hours, and after lunch I put him and me into a cab. I kept thinking about what Blayne was saying. Maybe somebody hurt him? Betrayed him, hurt him somehow? I was scared. I figured I should come here. So I brought him. That man — Sergeant Dodd — he said I could wait with him till you got back.”

“One more thing, Mrs. Morton.”

A brief sigh of relief came out of Mrs. Morton’s mouth. Billy handed her a tissue so that she could wipe her nose. Out of his pocket he slipped the Polaroid of Darren in his leather jacket and placed it on the table in front of her.

“Have you ever seen this before, Mrs. Morton?”

She peered at the photo, and her mouth opened slightly. She flicked her eyes up to Billy’s, then lowered them again, cutting his face from her view. Her hand clasped the side of the table. “You get this from Blayne?”

“From a friend of Blayne’s. A boy called Darren Riegert.”

“The dead boy?” Her face fell.

“From his mother. She said Blayne gave it to Darren. Do you recognize it?”

“All I know is Blayne has a camera takes these kinds of pictures. I’ve seen lots of them in his room. He likes Valentines, too. One time he bought a red box for himself. Kept it to himself in his room.”

“All right, Mrs. Morton. That’ll be fine for now.” Billy helped her stand up. “I want to talk to Blayne now. I want. . . .”

“He’s tired, Inspector. You want me to be with him?”

“Well, for now I think it’s best if I talk to him on my own. I’ll be careful, Mrs. Morton. I’ll just ask him a few questions.”

“Yes, all right.” The woman walked towards the door as if she’d been commanded to start moving forward. Counsellor Barnes then led her from the room. When he came back in, Billy was writing notes. “She’s in the lobby. What’ll you do with him, Inspector?”

Blayne remained staring at the tiles in the adjacent room. He was so still that it was as if he’d been put under a spell. “Dodd, can you call an ambulance, please. I think it’s best this boy be taken to the psych ward for observation. Can you get the chief to fill out a deposition? Just for one night. The mother can go with him.”

“Happy to.”

“I need to talk to him, Mr. Barnes. At least, I need to see what he can tell me. I want to thank you for helping us out. Giving us names and calling up people like you did.”

“You’re welcome, Inspector. What do you expect to get out of Blayne?”

“Hard to say.”

Opening the door to the adjacent interview room, Billy noticed how suddenly Blayne Morton reacted. He started blinking quickly. He unfolded his hands and lay them flat, palms down, on the tabletop. He looked up at the ceiling.

“Blayne, my name is Billy. I want to talk to you for a minute. Can I come in?”

Blayne Morton began to sing softly, rocking his torso back and forth. Barnes stood at the door and signalled to an officer in the hall. “Can you wait just outside?” said Barnes. “We may need you.”