The Dells (42 page)

“No shit,” Rachel said.

“I
wanted
her to be scared,” Hal said. “I was trying to teach her a lesson.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Rachel said disgustedly. “I'm sure you'll start to believe it.”

“It's true,” Hal said.

“So what happened?” Rachel said. “When she refused to comply, you molested her — to teach her a lesson. You sick son of a bitch … ”

“That's enough,” Shoe said. He did not want to hear the answer, even though the truth was clear enough from the expression of shame and misery on his brother's face. “Cartwright caught you,” he said.

“Yes,” Hal said. “He came howling out of the woods like a wild man and grabbed me. He wasn't big, but he was quite strong. He threw me down and accused me of statutory rape. I told him it wasn't what he thought. I tried to get Marty to tell him we were just fooling around, but she took off. He pulled me to my feet asked me if I could think of any reason he shouldn't report me to the police. I said I hadn't really done anything. That only made him more angry. I begged him not to tell the police, that they'd think I was the Black Creek Rapist. I was terrified he did too, but he said he knew I wasn't. He wouldn't go to the police, he said, on the condition that I promised never do anything like that again. I swore to him I never would. And I never did.”

Rachel helped Maureen up. She stumbled toward the stairs, leaning on Rachel. Hal struggled to his feet, wobbling unsteadily, supporting himself with a hand on the workbench.

“Moe, I'm sorry.”

Maureen stopped, stood with her back to him shoulders hunched. “It's too late for apologies,” she said. She turned. Her face was pale and loose, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.

“Maybe you're right, but I'm going to try anyway. I — I'm sorry, Moe. For everything.”

Her mouth twitched and her eyes shone, but otherwise she did not speak or move or show any sign of having heard him.

“Moe, I — ”

“No,” she said. “I don't want to hear it. It's not enough, Hal. It's too little, too late. You can apologize all you want to, but it's not going to fix things. It's not going to change anything.”

He tried to go to her, but he staggered back against the workbench. “God, Moe, you've got no idea what I've been going through lately.”

“No, of course not. For god's sake, Hal. You killed a man just to save your reputation and your fucking job.”

Maureen turned and went up the stairs, Rachel helping her, despite her injured feet. Hal slumped onto the stool, looked at Shoe. Tears welled in his eyes and Shoe felt something he hadn't felt for his brother in a long, long time.

“I can't bear the thought of losing her,” Hal said. “I don't think I can live without her.”

“You're going to have to learn how, I think,” Shoe said. He went to his brother, took his arm. “Let's go upstairs.”

Hal nodded meekly and let Shoe lead him up the stairs and into the living room, where he slumped onto the sofa.

“Do you think I could have a glass of water?” Hal said.

Shoe went into the kitchen, filled a glass at the sink, and took it to Hal. Hal gulped greedily, spilling water on his shirt. He finished the water and put the glass on the coffee table, carefully placing it on a coaster. He sat back, squirmed, and passed wind softly into the sofa cushions. He smiled crookedly at Shoe.

“What should I do, Joe?”

“I don't know, Hal,” Shoe said. “I wish I did.”

“I don't want to go to jail. I have some money. I can go away. Is that what I should do?”

Shoe shook his head. “Even if you could get away,” he said, “how long do you think you'd survive as a fugitive?
I don't want you to go to prison, but running isn't the answer. You may have to reconcile yourself to spending a few years in prison.”

“Fuck,” Hal said dully.

“Yeah,” Shoe said. “That sums it up pretty well.”

Hal smiled weakly. “You didn't kill Dougie Hallam, did you? Did Janey kill him?”

“I killed him,” Shoe said.

“I don't believe you, but if that's the way you want to play it … ” He shrugged. “God knows why, though. I never did understand you, this compulsion you have to protect people from themselves. Did you expect gratitude from the likes of Joey Noseworthy, Janey Hallam — or me? I don't think so. All it's ever brought you is grief, hasn't it?”

“Not always,” Shoe said.

Rachel and Maureen came into the living room, but Hal didn't look up as he spoke.

“After he caught Marty and me, I did everything I could to convince him that he hadn't made a mistake by not going to the police. I ran errands for him and did his yardwork. I got to quite like him, actually. He was a nice, kind man, despite how his mother treated him. Marty didn't report the incident either, but her parents must have sensed something was wrong and called the police, figuring she'd been another victim of the Black Creek Rapist, which was just what she let her parents, the police, and everyone else in the neighbourhood believe.” He looked at Rachel. “I'm sorry she's dead.”

“Did it occur to you that the police might not have believed him?” Shoe asked.

“Yes, of course,” Hal replied. “Even so, if allegations of child molestation had been made public, it wouldn't have mattered if I was innocent or not. It would have
cost me my job and hung over my head for the rest of my life. It would have killed Mum and Dad.”

“They're made of sterner stuff than that,” Rachel said.

“How did you get your car out of the Dells?” Shoe asked.

“I knew Dougie Hallam had keys to the gate,” Hal said. “So I called him on my cell. He came and let me out, but of course he wanted to know what I was doing in the park after closing. I told him some lame story about parking there to watch the sunset and falling asleep. He realized the truth as soon as he heard about Cartwright's murder, of course. Naturally, he saw it as an opportunity to blackmail me.” He looked at Shoe. “You did me a favour by killing him.” He looked at his watch, then stood up from the sofa. The effort left him momentarily breathless. “I'm late for an appointment,” he said.

“If you're still thinking of running,” Shoe said, “you should know that the police are watching the house.”

Hal went to the living room window and peered out.

“You probably won't see them,” Shoe said.

“What should I do?” Hal said. “Maybe if I went out through the backyard.”

“They'll be watching that route, too,” Shoe said.

“I know a little about the law,” Rachel said. Her second husband had been a lawyer, Shoe recalled. “If you save them the cost of a trial and cop a plea, a good lawyer could probably get you off with manslaughter, diminished capacity, or something. You'd get ten, twelve years, most likely less. You'd be out in four or five.”

“Five years,” Hal moaned. “I'd rather take my chances and run for it.”

“Don't be stupid,” Rachel said. “How much money do you have? A couple of hundred thousand? How long do you think it would last? You'd be destitute in four or
five years. Living on the goddamned street. Hell, maybe even dead. A few years in prison and you'd be free to resume your life. Besides, if you run, you'll never see Mum or Dad again.”

“Better that than what it would do to them seeing their eldest son going to prison for murder.”

“It's always about you, isn't it, Hal?” Maureen said. Without waiting for a reply, she left the room and went up the stairs.

“Rae's right,” Shoe said. “I know five years seems like a long time, but if you try to run, you'll only make matters worse. Even if you did manage to get away, you'd be sentencing yourself to life in a different kind of prison.”

“I don't want to go to jail.”

“No, of course you don't. Who would? But it's time you grew up, Hal, and started taking responsibility for yourself. There's a saying some criminals have: do the crime, do the time. My advice to you is to do the time, Hal. Then you can put it behind you and get on with your life.”

“Easy for you to say,” Hal said.

“No,” Shoe said. “It's not.”

Maureen came out of the house as Shoe was getting into the Taurus. He wanted to check on his parents. Rachel was in the house with Hal, who was trying to make up his mind what to do. A few metres up the street from the house sat an old station wagon with fake wood side-panels, a man and a woman in the front seat, trying to look as if they belonged there. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye,” Maureen said.

“I'm not going to abandon my brother,” Shoe said. “I'll have to go home to Vancouver for a few days, but I'll be back.”

“You'll stand by him,” Maureen said. “You'll do everything you can to help him get through this.”

“Of course,” Shoe said.

Maureen looked at the ground between them. “I don't think I can do that,” she said. “Not now, not after what he's put me though. Maybe if I still loved him … ”
She looked up at him. “Do you think I'm being horribly selfish?”

“You'll do what you have to do,” Shoe said.

“You're disappointed in me, though, aren't you?”

“It has nothing to do with me. Hal needs you, Maureen. More than he needs me or Rachel or our parents. If you abandon him, he'll probably die in prison. But if you tell him you'll stand by him, he'll see it through, especially if he knows you'll be waiting for him when he gets out. Can you do that for him, Maureen?”

“If that's what you want me to do.”

“It has nothing to do with me,” Shoe said again, an edge on his voice that brought her close to tears.

A plain grey Sebring pulled up in front of the house, followed by two Halton County patrol cars. Hanna Lewis got out of the passenger side of the Sebring and her partner got out of the other. Four Halton County constables got out of the two patrol cars.

“Mrs. Schumacher,” Hannah Lewis said. “Is your husband here?”

Maureen looked at Shoe. “I can't do this,” she said. Shoe watched Maureen walk stiffly to her car, open the door, and get in. She started the engine. The brake lights flared and the backup lights lit as she put the transmission into reverse, but the car did not move. She sat with her hands on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead.

Lewis looked at Shoe. “We found Timothy Dutton,” she said quietly. “He was in the trunk of his Audi, wrists wired together and a .22 bullet hole in the back of his head. A witness saw a man with long grey or dirty blond hair set fire to the car then drive away on a motorcycle that burned oil. We have a bulletin out on Joey Noseworthy.”

“You'll understand if I don't wish you good luck finding him,” Shoe said.

“We also got the final autopsy report on Marvin Cartwright. He was a dead man walking, according to the pathologist. He had an advanced inoperable brain tumour. He probably didn't have more than a few weeks left. The pathologist reckons he must've been one tough son of a bitch to even be walking around, but likely a lot of what he said wouldn't have made a lot of sense.”

Shoe and Lewis both turned as Maureen shut off the engine and got out of her car. She looked at Shoe, then went into the house.

“My brother's inside,” Shoe said to Lewis. “He's waiting for you.”

Thank you to the following people for helping make this a better story: Alan Annand, Marc Cassini, David Hanley, and Mark Mendelson. Thanks also to Barry Jowett, Alison Carr, Marja Appleford, and the rest of the staff at Dundurn Press. I take full responsibility for all literary thuds, grammatical clangs, and factual and procedural errors. A heartfelt thank you, too, to Pam Hilliard, for her love, support, and endless patience. Lastly, I dedicate this book to my father, Hugh Fairlie Blair, who shared with me his lifelong love of the printed word. If there's a heaven, it's a library filled with books he's never read.