The Boy Must Die (23 page)

“The boy had a book with him.”

“Yes, I saw it in the photos. What was it?”

“
Thanatopsis
. A book on Satanic ritual and spells.”

“You can find it in all those awful head shops.”

“We found a knife on the property, too. In the garden. Our coroner thinks it could be the one used to score the boy’s body. Also, there was a large tape player found in the bushes near the house. Darren Riegert had been strung up. But we have doubts. The blood splatters on the tape player lead us to think the boy was standing on it, cut, and then. . . .
Strung up.
What a horrible way to describe a hanging. But I suppose lynching is an uglier word.”

“I’m afraid all I’ll be able to give you is a wild guess,” Madelaine Van Meer said forcefully.

“Anything you tell me will be helpful.”

“Well, first off, I’d say the hanging of the Riegert child was too showy for a cult. Somebody was trying awfully hard to make you take notice.”

“How so?” Listening to her explanation, Billy noticed for the first time the woman’s accent. It fell somewhere between South African and Australian.

“The pentacles on the walls. Not typical of cult rituals. Most of the time, in organized cults, the signs and symbols are on clothing or in tapestries or tablecloths. Things that can be quickly stored. Locked into a drawer, you see, so there’s no trace. Most cults are secret societies. It’s not like the cinema, Inspector. Cult groups in small towns usually want to remain anonymous.”

“Same for the candles, too?” Billy asked. “The circle on the floor, placed under the body?”

“There should be candles in holders. Easy cleanup, you see. Cultists may be odd, but they are also tidy. If it were a group of young teenagers on drugs, I could understand the candles and the painted walls, but that kind of activity is not occult. It belongs more to the realm of heavy metal and Satanic music nonsense. Same with bloodletting and wounding. A sacrifice is not uncommon, however, in several cults. Some poor cat, unfortunately. Or if an animal is not available, cultists will often use fake blood for effect. This boy’s chest bears the mark of a vicious game.”

Billy let her words sink in.

“Sometimes, but this is rare, Inspector, blood is let to glorify a leader, a tin-pot dictator. Usually a white male, middle-aged, invariably divorced. Followers are adolescents, for the most part, who obey his every whim. Many teenaged cult victims are passive, even willing, participants.”

“Willing?”

“They want someone to make decisions for them. To lead them.”

“Do leaders ever indulge in torture?”

“Hanging is uncommon. Flagellation occurs from time to time. But as I said, this boy’s wounds seem more a part of a cruel game.”

Professor Van Meer stood. Walking behind her desk, she opened a
black leather purse, reached in, and pulled out a small spoon and a kiwi. With the edge of the spoon, she deftly cut off the top of the kiwi and started digging into the green flesh, as if it were a hard-boiled egg. “Please excuse me, Inspector. I missed breakfast. If I don’t eat this, I’ll faint away.” She smiled, chewed a large scoop of dripping fruit, and sat down again. Professor Van Meer took a few moments to eat.

Billy looked around at her desk. A silver frame held a photo of a boy of sixteen with the same red hair and the same small mouth.

“Do you have children, Professor?”

“Two. My daughter married a stockbroker, of all people, and lives in Tokyo. Paul is studying history and archaeology here at the university. His prof last term was Randy Mucklowe, who I heard was living with the woman who rents the place where these boys were found. I’m not very fond of Randy.”

“How well do you know him?”

“Not well, I confess. But he’s slick. He’s good at finding his pots and his spearheads, but I for one know he’s untrustworthy when it comes to funds and stipends. Last year he was caught out. Claimed expenses for tools and other items he needed for his lab that he hadn’t actually purchased. My son says I’m crazy to think the way I do. Paul adores the man.”

Professor Van Meer dried her hands with a tissue. She began shoving back her chair.

Billy could see she was ready to dismiss him.

“If you wanted to punish someone, Professor, say a boy you were fond of, a boy you knew did not feel for you as you felt for him, how would you go about it? How would a tin-pot dictator think?”

“Good heavens, Inspector. I am not one to. . . .”

“Hypothesize for me. Given what we’ve seen in these photos. Could this mutilation, this showiness, be the work of a cult leader who has been betrayed? Jilted?”

Professor Van Meer settled into her chair. “Jealousy being the motive, perhaps?”

“Yes. Sexual rejection is a powerful motive for revenge.”

“I might persuade the boy to go through a test of his loyalty to me,” she said, her blue eyes intense.

“What might that entail?”

“An act of daring.”

“Like what?”

“Like walking on the ledge of a high bridge. I did a study on a California group called the Cult of the Serendipity that regularly demanded acts of physical abuse. All self-inflicted. Burns, cuts. . . .”

“Like Darren’s markings? Could that carved pentacle on his chest be a sign of such a test?”

“Hard to say, Inspector. The thought processes of cultists are unpredictable.”

“But within the realm of possibility?”

“Within the realm, certainly.”

Billy leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“I have a long shot for you. A crime never solved. Maybe a crime connected to the Darren Riegert case but one that I think might be associated with a ritual of some sort. A challenge sport perhaps.”

Madelaine Van Meer crossed her arms and threw back her head. “Carry on,” she said.

“Do you remember, about eight years ago, an incident on the Peigan reserve? A hanging of a young boy found with his legs and arms tied up. The body hanging. . . .”

“From a basketball hoop! Yes, who wouldn’t remember such a thing? Especially a mother. My son, Paul, once played the Peigan Chiefs in that very gymnasium in a junior high school provincial tournament.”

“What do you think motivated the showy nature of that hanging?”

“Hatred. Racial hatred. No doubt of it. Certainly not cult.”

“But what if, as you said, this was part of a dictator’s dare? What if Ervin Born With a Tooth had been challenged to show his strength? A macho male gesture. Or, like in the old Sun Dance rituals, when the Blackfoot braves would be pierced with sticks and cords tied to their chests.”

“Really, Inspector. You have a morbid imagination. And you are jumping to enormous conclusions.”

“Why not? I believe I have to jump, as you say, to stir things up.”

Madelaine Van Meer smiled. She paused for a moment and reflected, allowing silence to come between her and Billy. Brightening, she looked at Billy straight in the eye.

“You know, Inspector, I just thought of something. It’s a jump, as you’d put it. But there’s someone here, right on campus, who could tell you a lot more about that particular hanging. He was, in fact, directly involved with the mother of that unfortunate Peigan boy. The man was her boyfriend at the time, so we were told. He works in the plant here on campus. I can call him over for you if you’d like.”

“What is his name?”

“Hill. Perry Hill. He’s our head janitor.”

Madelaine Van Meer stood up and walked into the reception area of the office. She found a number and dialled. She asked to speak to Perry Hill and then waited. “Yes,” she said and hung up. She came back into the office. “Perry must be ill. He hasn’t shown up for work today. There’s no answer at his home. I hope nothing untoward has happened.”

“Can I get his current address and home telephone number?”

“They’re listed in our department files.” She marched back into the reception area and with her fountain pen copied down Perry Hill’s address and home phone number on a file card. “He’s a quiet sort,” Madelaine Van Meer said, handing the file card to Billy. “A bachelor. In my opinion, he drinks too much. But he’s always on the ball here.”

“I appreciate your time, Professor,” Billy said.

“You are very welcome,” she said, smiling back. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Do you have any suspects? Am I allowed to ask you that question?”

Billy smiled politely. “Right now I am withholding judgement.”

“Inspector, from what I saw in those pictures, this could be the work of a vicious bully. And a violent one.”

“Like your tin-pot dictator?”

“Possibly worse.”

The U.S. border guards took apart the back seat last. They unscrewed the floor bolts, lifted the seat forward. The guard with the handlebar moustache ran his hand around the seams of the leather. The other guard, a young Native woman wearing shell earrings, shone a flashlight over the floor and up the back of the seat.

“Sir?”

Reluctantly, Professor Randy Mucklowe uncovered and pulled out the spare tire. All the shovels, mesh sifting screens, stakes, and tarps lay in an ordered line beside the van. Chief Mountain customs was supposed to be smooth and quick, thought Justin, nothing more than a routine check of passports and a cursory inspection of the van’s storage area. Now, this Tuesday morning, the dig schedule was being delayed. The clock on the wall inside the customs bureau read 10:08, and the atmosphere was tense.

“I have the permission papers here. Everything is above board, I assure you.” Randy’s voice rasped with impatience. “I explained the other morning to the guards on duty then.”

“Regulations, Professor.” The guard with the moustache spoke in a flat but polite manner. “Indian land is government-status land. We’ll need to search you every time you come into the States and when you leave. And I’ll need a photocopy of your site report, as you know. I’m sorry, but international peace park rules for your kind of work require us to take some extra time.” The guard flashed a quick official smile.

Professor Randy Mucklowe nodded and sighed.

Justin was thinking about Cara Simonds and the way she’d been so kind last night before dinner. He promised himself he’d call Karen this evening and talk to her once again about the baby. I want to be free, he thought, gazing at the bright morning air and the green woods.

“Thanks, Professor,” said the Native guard. “We’ll see you again this
evening. Remember, we’re on summer hours and short-staffed. So we’re closing this year at nine-thirty, not ten as in the past.”

Randy signalled to everyone to repack the van. “We’ve got about half an hour before we hit the logging road and the site gate.”

The van pulled out and began to pick up speed on the narrow two-lane. Justin and Cara sat in the back seat, their bare thighs touching, a large folded canvas umbrella lying beside them. The Montana country was as broad and breathtaking as the valleys the van had left behind in Waterton Lakes on the Canadian side of the border. The van tilted and leaned into the sharper curves of the narrow two-lane, and Justin felt his stomach lurch. On either side of the highway, he saw shadows. Deep rows of Douglas-fir resisted the shafts of sunlight breaking through the mid-morning mists. Without meaning to, he laid his hand on top of Cara’s. She did not pull away, and as the van slowed for the next curve, Justin took hold of Cara’s hand. He smiled as Cara pointed to a cleared sloping meadow where a pond sparkled and hundreds of cattails stood stiff in the shallow water.

“You feeling okay?” Cara asked.

“A little car sick,” answered Justin.

Randy and David Home started to talk about Blackfoot history. The two-lane rose onto a broad promontory. Spreading east, the enormous plain lay calm, the grass flatlands shimmering green and yellow. David spoke of the spirit guides and the long rides of the Blackfoot warrior-hunters. “They called this the land of the shining mountains,” he said.

Justin closed his eyes to the huge broken towers and spires of stone, like a wall rising from the flatlands. His stomach was worsening, and he didn’t know how long he could hold on before being sick. At least having Cara beside him gave him some comfort.

The van drove past sun-dappled woods of trembling aspen. Looming above the road now was Chief Mountain. The shale front of the peak was deeply creviced with caves and crenellated outcroppings that cast black shadows. Scree of small stones and boulders sloped in a curve like a giant bowl from the base of the mountain to the bordering
tree line. Randy honked the horn and slowed the van. “Hold on,” he said and turned the steering wheel hard. The van pulled onto the shoulder and bumped up to a chain stretched between two whitewashed fence posts. Black letters on a wooden sign warned trespassers: NO ENTRANCE — SACRED LAND. To his surprise, Justin realized that the physical presence of the great mountain demanded respect. For the first time, Professor Mucklowe’s lectures made sense. Here were the walking grounds of the gods, the vision quest woods of the ancients.

Justin worked himself forward in his seat to look through the windshield. A man wearing a grey Stetson, his black hair pulled into two tightly knit braids, leaned on the chain barrier. He was smoking a homemade cigarette, his sunglasses reflecting the rows of pines. Justin watched him stub out his cigarette in the small stones by the barrier. In the abrupt silence that arose as the van’s engine was cut, the crew stayed still in their seats, fixated on the man’s stance.

“That’s Sam Heavy Hand,” Randy whispered.

How odd, Justin thought. Randy had no reason to lower his voice. He had explained at one of the prep sessions that Sam was very influential among the Blackfoot. A man of few but important words. Sam, he’d said, was the youngest elder in the Blackfoot council in Browning, Montana.

As Sam moved towards them, his features reminded Justin of the distant face of Chief Mountain itself — weathered and darkened by the sun. His huge right hand rose to tip the rim of his Stetson in silent greeting. His equally thick left hand reached towards the handle of Randy’s door and pulled it open. Randy scrambled out of the driver’s seat. The two men walked a few steps, said something to each other, and then embraced.