Night falls swiftly in Parr’s Landing in late October. The sunlight is there, then it’s gone.
It’s not that night comes unannounced, but rather that the announcements themselves manifest in a rapid sequence of shifting light and temperature fluctuations that might be missed by someone not born and bred in the north country. By late afternoon, the sky is already darkening to orange and pale violet, with bands of dark blue and black hunkering down behind the line of trees and cliffs ringing Bradley Lake and Spirit Rock, and the biting, hyperborean wind blowing in off Lake Superior chills everything in its path.
At night, Parr’s Landing breathes in its population and doesn’t exhale them until the morning.
Morgan Parr, who was used to Toronto’s perpetual neon twilight, found the sudden darkness both intimidating and oddly enchanting.
She’d waited for Finn at lunch, and was surprised by how much she missed him when he didn’t show up. After school was over, she walked from Matthew Browning over to the primary school in the hopes of finding Finn and walking home with him, but he wasn’t among the crowd of kids milling about after the bell.
Disappointed, she walked home alone, aware of the change in the light even at four-thirty in the afternoon.
At Parr House, she found the impossibly thin Parr’s Landing phone book in a drawer of the marquetry cabinet in the foyer and looked up Finn’s phone number. There was only one “Miller” in the book, an “H” on Childs Drive. She copied down the address on the small yellow pad of paper by the telephone and pocketed it, then went upstairs to do some homework. By dinnertime, it was nearly full dark.
As she descended the staircase from the upper hallway, Morgan noted that even with the night pressing against the other side, the baronial stained glass windows in the foyer seemed to catch and hold whatever light existed, seeming to burn with a singular lambency all their own, even at night. At Parr House, it seemed to Morgan, even the encroaching darkness was subject to the whims of Adeline Parr.
For once, dinner around the long dining table was more or less civil. Adeline seemed sanguine, as though her excoriation of her son and daughter-in-law the previous night had fed some ravenous private hunger, filling her up and leaving her full and bloated. She asked perfunctory questions of Morgan, easy-to-answer questions about school and how she liked the town. Morgan noticed that Adeline didn’t raise the topic of Finnegan Miller, nor did she ask if Morgan had met any new friends. Morgan doubted this was accidental, but far from being disappointed by her grandmother’s lack of curiosity about her social life, Morgan was relieved by it. It meant at least one fight was not going to break out again over dinner.
For his part, Jeremy seemed entirely lost in his thoughts. Judging by his face, Morgan guessed they weren’t very happy thoughts. Morgan worried about him. She wasn’t sure what exactly had happened to Jeremy growing up here—the specifics had never been discussed with her, nor did she have any indication that questions about his past at Parr House would be welcomed by her uncle—but she sensed that they had not been easy years.
Her mother, on the other hand, seemed to be in a genuinely good mood for the first time in weeks, certainly since they’d arrived in town. Christina smiled encouragingly at her daughter as she answered Adeline’s questions about her day, adding a few comments of her own—comments that Adeline, for once, neither disputed nor mocked. Morgan dared to hope that the evening might well pass without any sort of incident, but it was early yet.
“I met someone very interesting today,” Christina said brightly to Jeremy. “At the Pear Tree. A professor, from Michigan.
“A professor? Really?” Jeremy brightened. “In Parr’s Landing? What on earth was he doing here?”
“He didn’t say, really,” Christina said thoughtfully. “He mentioned something about his father passing away. His father worked here some years ago. He’s Native,” she added. “He knew all about the Landing and the Wendigo legend. It was fascinating.”
“An Indian?” Adeline said. “An Indian professor?” Her mocking laughter rang out from the head of the table. “Christina, you’re so gullible. A man could tell you anything and you’d believe it, wouldn’t you. And you met this . . . ‘professor’ at the café in town, did you? Why were you speaking to strange men in cafés, Christina? I should think you’d know better than that, considering.”
“What was his name?” Jeremy asked, desperate to keep the conversation between his mother and his sister-in-law from going in the direction it was most certainly headed. “Did he say where he taught?”
Christina smiled gratefully at Jeremy. Before Adeline could say anything else, she said, “He said his name is William Lightning. He teaches at Grantham University. It’s somewhere in Michigan. I think he told me where, but I don’t remember.”
Both Christina and Jeremy expected another sharp rebuke from Adeline—were braced for it, in fact. When she said nothing, they looked to the head of the table. The colour had drained from Adeline’s face.
“Mother,” Jeremy said. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Jeremy,” Adeline said, her voice was faint. She fumbled for her water glass, and then took a few sips before shakily putting it back down. “Christina, what did you say his name was?”
Christina looked quizzically at Jeremy who returned her look blankly, as if to say, I have no idea. “His name is William Lightning. Why?”
“You said his father passed away, did you?” Her studied casualness seemed entirely at odds with her pallor. “Did he mention what his father’s . . . what he taught?”
“I think he said his father was an anthropologist, too. His name was something Osborne. He was part of some archaeological excavation here in the fifties. As I said, Billy—Dr. Lightning—said his father just died. Why, did you know him?”
“I believe we may have met when he was here in 1952 for his dig,” Adeline said. Still deathly pale, Adeline seemed to have regained some of her composure, though her voice sounded unusually brittle, even robotic.
Adeline placed her napkin on the table and pushed her chair away. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some correspondence to attend to this evening. Please don’t dawdle over dinner in my absence. It’s not helpful to Beatrice when you make extra work for her by tarrying.”
Jeremy sighed. “For that matter, we wouldn’t want to risk enjoying Beatrice’s cooking by ‘tarrying,’ much less endanger ourselves by digesting it properly, Mother.”
Instead of lashing back as was her usual wont, Adeline got up from the table without a word and walked out of the dining room. She looked straight ahead. They heard the sound of her high heels on the marble foyer and the sound of the door to Adeline’s study being shut. Then, silence.
“What the hell was that?” Jeremy asked in complete mystification. “What just happened? What did you say to her?”
“I have no idea,” Christina said, equally baffled. “Did I say something that offended her? She just walked out.” Christina turned to Morgan. “Honey, did you notice anything strange about your grandmother just now? Did I say something weird?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan said. “It looked like something hurt her feelings.”
“She doesn’t have ‘feelings,’ Morgan,” Jeremy said dryly. “And if you offended her, Christina, good for you. I don’t know how you did it. For a minute there, it was almost as if she had a heart. Which, as we all know, is bullshit.”
“Mom,” Morgan said tentatively. “Would it be all right if I went out? I mean, since Grandmother is . . . well, you know . . . not here for me to ask permission?”
Christina raised her eyebrows. “Where do you want to go, honey? It’s late, and it’s dark.”
“It’s not that late,” Morgan said. She showed her mother her watch. “It’s just a little after seven. I want to go and see if Finn is all right. He wasn’t at school today.”
“You don’t know the town very well yet, Morgan. It’s only been a few days. Why don’t you go and see him tomorrow afternoon?”
“Mom, please! I’ll be back in an hour or so. I just want to make sure he’s OK.”
“Do you even know where he lives?” Christina wasn’t sure if it was the notion of Morgan wandering around Parr’s Landing at night that bothered her, or the fact that she was going to see some local boy Christina hadn’t even met yet. You sound like Adeline right now, Christina chided herself. It didn’t take you very long to start worrying about ‘townies,’ as though you weren’t one yourself.
“I looked up his address in the phone book when I got home today,” Morgan said. “It’s not far from here.”
“Then why don’t you phone him?”
“Come on, Mom,” Morgan said, her voice brimming with teenage scorn. “If I were going to the library to study, you wouldn’t be saying a word. I walked around Toronto at night and you weren’t worried about that. What do you think is going to happen to me here? I’ll only be gone for an hour. I want to take a walk, anyway. I’ll just knock on his door, say hi, and come right back.”
Jeremy said, “Do you want me to drive you, Morgan?”
“No thanks, Uncle Jeremy. I really want to take a walk. I’m fifteen, you know,” she said. “I’m practically an adult.”
Christina sighed. “All right. But be back by nine, OK? And we won’t tell your grandmother where you are, or what you’re doing.” Now it was Morgan’s turn to sigh. “All I’m doing is going for a walk, Mom,” she said. “It’s no big deal, really.” Morgan kissed her mother on the cheek and practically danced out of the room.
“Take a sweater!” Christina called after her, but the front door had already swung shut. Christina hoped Adeline hadn’t heard it. She didn’t relish another lecture on propriety from her mother-in-law. But there was no sound from Adeline’s study. If she’d heard Morgan leave, she gave no indication of it.
“What do you want to do?” Jeremy said. “Shall we watch TV? Do you want to go to O’Toole’s and have a drink? Or go for a drive?” He seemed unsurprised by either Adeline’s departure, or Morgan’s, as though vicious hostility and unexplained behaviour shifts were simply a matter of family life. Jesus, Christina thought. No wonder Jack wanted out.
“Let’s go for a drive,” Christina said brightly. “Let’s go for a drive, all the way back to Toronto.”
Finn was lying sprawled across his bed rereading his Tomb of Dracula comics, trying to recapture some familiar joy in them, when his mother knocked on his door and told him there was a girl downstairs in the living room asking for him.
His cotton pillowcase was soaked and his eyes were red and sore. He hadn’t been able to eat much at dinner, which was already a sombre affair, since neither he nor his parents could forget that there was no furry black presence lying in the doorway where the dining room met the kitchen, front paws folded in front of her, head resting on paws, amber eyes watching the table in case her master dropped any food.
Even the story about the visit to the police station to report the discovery of the bag of knives failed to rouse much of a conversation. When Finn’s father said that hunters probably left the bag, there seemed to be a tacit, general agreement to let it go at that. No one wanted to talk about blood and slaughter up at Bradley Lake with Sadie missing.
As to Finn specifically, the emptiness of that doorway cut him so deeply that he’d had to excuse himself from the table, feeling he might be sick.
His parents excused him and he went up to his room to read, but the familiar images struck him as harsh and garish tonight. If Finn had been older, he’d have realized that he was receiving his first abject lesson in the cruel architecture of love and loss, and how no depicted horror— even in The Tomb of Dracula—could ever hope to match the awfulness of a real one, but he was just a twelve-year-old boy who loved a dog that was missing.
What was the point of being able to turn himself into a bat, or mist, or live in a ruined castle in Transylvania without Sadie sleeping next to him? What use was a crossbow, or a silver compact, or a crucifix in fighting Dracula and his minions without his best friend bounding ahead through the bush on one of their pre-dawn walks out by Bradley Lake, fetching her red ball and bringing it back to him as though it was the most precious token of love imaginable?
“What, Mom?” He leaned up on his elbow. “What did you say?”
“I said, there’s a young lady downstairs to see you,” Anne said. “She said her name is Morgan Parr, and that she’s a friend of yours.”
“Morgan is here?” he said, surprised. “She’s downstairs?”
“She seems a little old to be a friend of yours, Finnegan,” Anne added. “Which one of the family is she? How old is she?”
Finn sat up and wiped his face with his sleeve. “I don’t know how old she is. We sometimes walk home from school together,” he said, finessing the truth a little bit, knowing that his mother would be happier if Morgan were his age. “She just moved here, from Toronto. She lives at Parr House with her grandmother. Her mother lives there, too.”
Ah, Christina, of course—Christina Monroe. That was her name, at least back then. The one that got knocked up by Jack Parr and ran off to Toronto under the cover of darkness. That one. The tramp. So, not a real Parr after all, a shotgun Parr.
Anne Miller, who was not in the habit of gossiping, or thinking ill of other women, immediately regretted her mean-spirited bitchiness, even in thought, and rightly decided it was beneath her. All the girls had crushes on Jack Parr, truth be told, so no girl that landed him would ever be immune from the jealousy. Besides, she chided herself, it was all a long time ago. And it wasn’t this girl’s fault, anyway.
Anne noted that Finn had brightened since the news that Morgan Parr was downstairs waiting for him. Until Sadie came home, or was found, she’d be happy for anything that would take her son’s mind off his lost dog.
“She’s very pretty,” Anne said. “She looks like her dad. I knew him in school.”
“I guess,” Finn said, blushing. “Her dad’s dead, anyway.”
Anne blanched. “Jack’s dead? When? How?”
“I don’t know,” Finn said. “Don’t ask her about it, OK? I don’t think she wants to talk about that stuff. At least not yet.”
“Well, don’t just sit there,” Anne said, recovering. “Put some cold water on your face and come downstairs and greet your guest like a gentleman. We don’t want her running back and telling Mrs. Parr she visited a barnyard.”
Finn rolled his eyes at his mother. “She’s not like that,” he said, suddenly protective of Morgan. “Mom, please just— I’ll be right down, OK?”
He went down the hallway into the bathroom and closed the door. Anne heard the water running and the sound of splashing as Finn washed his face.
She went downstairs to tell Morgan that Finn would be down directly, and to offer her a soft drink while she waited. When Morgan smiled and thanked her politely, she felt even worse for her churlish thoughts about Christina Monroe and Jack Parr.
What an awful, awful day, she thought. First Sadie, then that horrible hockey bag, now this news.
Anne decided that another rum and coke—a strong one this time— might hasten sleep and bring it to a close a little sooner, which would be just what the doctor ordered.
“Your parents are nice,” Morgan said as she and Finn sat in the basement drinking Cokes. “Especially your mother. She asked me how I liked the town. I told her I liked it a lot, but it was hard to get used to.”
She glanced around as she spoke. On the fireplace mantle there was a framed photograph of a much younger Finn on the edge of a lake with his arms around a wet black Labrador retriever shaking water from its fur. Curling trophies, likely his father’s, flanked the photograph. Morgan took in the fake wood panelling and the wet bar, and the hockey and travel posters on the wall, thinking how nice it was not to be at Parr House where everything seemed to be a brittle antique, including her grandmother—to be in someplace normal for the first time since leaving Toronto.
“They’re OK,” Finn said, shrugging. Then, thinking better of it, he said, “No, they’re great. My mom, especially, yeah. I like them. Do you like your mom?” He mentally kicked himself for asking such a stupid question. “I mean, you probably do, right? Everyone likes their mom.”
Morgan laughed, but not unkindly. “Yeah, I love my mom. My uncle Jeremy, on the other hand, probably doesn’t love his—my grandmother is a bit hard to take sometimes. She’s a bit mean. She wasn’t really happy about you and I becoming friends, I guess.”
Finn sounded indignant. “How come? What’s wrong with me?”
“It isn’t you,” Morgan said. “It’s anyone from here. I think she’d like to think of me as this princess or something, and that I shouldn’t be associating with the peasants, which is how she sees the people who live here.”
“Well, she owns the whole town,” Finn said scornfully. “Of course she’d think like that. How come she let you come here, then?”
“She doesn’t know I’m here—and I can’t stay long.” Morgan looked at him more closely. Finn’s eyes were red and swollen. He looked as though he had been crying for hours. “Where were you today?” she asked gently. “I didn’t see you at lunchtime, or after school. Is everything OK?”
“My dog ran away. Her name is Sadie. I woke up this morning and she wasn’t in the yard,” he said simply. “She’s lost. I cut school early to go look for her. I went to Bradley Lake and looked all over, but I didn’t find her.”
“Oh, God,” Morgan said. “I’m so sorry, Finn. I didn’t know. Why didn’t you come get me when you got home? I would have helped you look.”
“It’s OK,” he said. “I didn’t want to get you into trouble. I almost got into trouble myself for cutting school but . . . well, something else happened this afternoon.”
“What do you mean?”
Finn looked towards the stairs leading to the living room where his parents were watching television. “If I tell you a secret, will you swear to keep it?”
Morgan shrugged. “Sure, I guess so. What is it?”
“No, don’t say ‘I guess so,’” he said urgently. “You have to swear.”
“OK, I swear.” She forced herself to keep from smiling. “What is it?”
Then he told her about the bag of knives and hammers he’d found at Spirit Rock.
Billy was pulling into the parking lot of the Nugget when he saw the flashing lights of the police cruiser coming towards him from the opposite direction. No siren, he thought mirthlessly. I guess they don’t think I’m a high-speed chase risk. Then, Enough is enough with this harassment by these goddamn yokel cops. The cruiser pulled sharply into the spot next to Billy’s allocated parking spot, the light still flashing.
He parked his Ford XL smartly and opened the door. The two cops— both of them this time, which surprised him—were already waiting for him beside their cruiser. The younger one actually had his flashlight out, shining it at the truck.
Billy put his hand up over his face, blocking the light. “Sergeant Thomson, would you please ask your colleague to put the light away? I’m not going anywhere and, as you can plainly see, I’m me. There’s no need for it.”
Thomson turned to Elliot and said, “Constable McKitrick, I don’t think we need that light on Professor Lightning.” Then back to Billy, “I apologize, sir.”
If Thomson’s intent in calling Billy “sir” and apologizing had been to reassure him, it had the opposite effect. In Billy’s experience, the only thing more ominous than a redneck cop being verbally abusive was a redneck cop being ostentatiously polite.
“What is it this time, Sergeant Thomson?” Billy said calmly. “What are you charging me with? Driving a Ford? Being an Indian driving a Ford? Staying in a motel in your town? Or maybe having dinner at O’Toole’s, which is where I have been all evening? It surely wasn’t speeding—and that was a paragon of parking I just did.”
The younger cop—McKitrick—didn’t smile, but Thomson did, however wanly. “Dr. Lightning, I wonder if you’d be so good as to accompany us to the police station for a word?”
“We’re having ‘a word’ right now, Sergeant Thomson,” Billy snapped. “Why do we need to go to the police station to do it? I’ve done nothing wrong. There’s no reason for me to go to the police station with you. As I explained to Constable McKitrick earlier today, I’m getting very tired of this harassment, and am prepared to take action to make it stop.”
“There’s been a . . . development,” Thomson said. “It relates to your story about your father’s death, as well as some other things. I’d really appreciate it if you’d come along with us and help us clear some things up. It won’t take any time at all, I’m sure. But we’d like to talk with you.”
“I think not,” Billy said coolly. “I think I’ll decline.”
“Sir,” Thomson said, this time with an edge, “if you don’t come along with us of your own volition, I’m prepared to arrest you. I don’t want to, but I will.”
“Arrest me? On what charge?”
“Please, Dr. Lightning,” Thomson said. “Trust me, I’d rather just speak with you down at the station. But I will take whatever measures I need to ensure that happens.”
“What are you going to do,” Billy demanded, “make something up? Some trumped-up charge?”
Thomson merely shrugged. “Would you please come along with us, Dr. Lightning?”
“You’re both going to hear from my lawyer about this,” Billy said in a cold fury. “The minute I get to a telephone, I’m calling Toronto.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Dr. Lightning, and we’re a long way from Toronto. Now,” Thomson said, opening the passenger door for Billy, “if you please—just a chat.”
At the police station, Thomson showed Billy the hockey bag. It was zipped closed, with no hint of its contents visible. He watched Billy’s face closely for a reaction, but none was discernible, other than a calmer version of the same irritation he’d shown in the parking lot of the motel.
“I’ve never seen that before in my life,” Billy said. “What on earth does it have to do with me?”
“It was found up by Spirit Rock this afternoon by a boy looking for his lost dog,” Thomson said. “Constable McKitrick brought the boy back to town. Do you know what we found in inside?”
“I have absolutely no idea what you found inside it, sergeant,” Billy said. “Nor—and I know I’m repeating myself here, so forgive me—do I have any idea what any of it has to do with me.”
Thomson opened his desk drawer and withdrew a clean pair of latex gloves. He put them on and unzipped the bag. He withdrew the manuscript and held it up for Billy to see.
“Do you know what this is, Dr. Lightning?” Thomson said quietly.
Billy leaned forward in his seat and peered at the papers Thomson held in his hands. He looked confused for a moment, then he blanched. If the confusion was some sort of act, Thomson thought, it was a damn good act—better than any he’d seen, anywhere. When Billy spoke, his voice was hushed.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“You recognize it, do you, Dr. Lightning?”
“It’s my . . . it’s my father’s manuscript.” As Billy stared at it, the look of bafflement on his face was replaced by one of dawning horror. “Is that blood on those pages?”
“I think so,” Thomson said in a neutral voice. “Blood, some mud. Grease. We haven’t had it tested yet—it was just found this afternoon. Do you know what else we found in the bag?”
Billy shook his head. Thomson beckoned him over and opened the flaps of the hockey bag. The stench that rose from the interior of the bag was thicker and greasier than it had been even a few hours earlier. Thomson felt his stomach lurch. The hammers and knives gleamed dull brown and silver in the overhead light of the police station.
Billy looked inside the bag, then vomited into the trash can next to Thomson’s desk. When he had finished retching, he stood up and steadied his hand on the side of the desk. “May I have a glass of water, please?”
“Elliot?” Thomson said. “Would you mind?”
“Those hammers are archaeological tools,” Billy said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Those are the kind of hammers we used here in 1952. I told you, it’s Weal. He’s here in Parr’s Landing, like as I said. Now will you believe me?”
“Dr. Lightning, the problem is this—Richard Weal is dead. Those couldn’t be his tools, and he couldn’t be in Parr’s Landing. He died in a car crash earlier this year, in Toronto.”
“Not possible,” Billy said, shaking his head. He took the glass of water Elliot brought him. “It’s not possible,” he repeated. “That’s the manuscript that was taken from my father’s desk. The one I told you about. Those are Richard Weal’s tools. What else could it be? I knew he was going to come here. You’ve got to search for him. I told you. He’s here.”
“Dr. Lightning, I spoke with the investigating officer in Toronto myself. They found his identification near the wreck. It looks like it was a suicide.”
“Did they identify the body?” Billy demanded. “How did they identify the body? Dental records?”
“There weren’t any dental records,” Thomson admitted. “The body was burned beyond recognition, but the police were satisfied it was Weal. So, as far as we’re concerned, certainly officially, he’s dead. Which means that we have a problem. Can you see what that problem might be, sir?”
Billy laughed harshly. “You think I . . . You’re joking, right? You think that bag is mine, and that those are my tools, and I . . . what, drove across northern Ontario with a copy of my father’s manuscript in a hockey bag doing God knows what, carving people up, then walked into the Parr’s Landing police station and introduced myself to Constable McKitrick? Are you serious?”
“Would you give us a sample of your fingerprints, just to clear this up?”
“Absolutely not,” Billy snapped. “After the way I have been bullied and harassed by Constable McKitrick practically since I arrived, and shanghaied into coming in here tonight with implied threats of arrest, I’d have to be very stupid to fall for that one. I’ll be telephoning my lawyer in the morning. When you send the contents of that bag to a fingerprint lab, you’ll find that I haven’t touched them. I’m going to raise such a holy stink that you’ll be lucky to find work as security guards in the Northwest Territories.”
“Dr. Lightning—”
Billy ignored Thomson, cutting him off in mid-sentence. “Now,” he said, “if there’s nothing else, I’m going back to the motel. In the morning, I’m going to go look for Richard Weal, with or without your help. Unless he was working with some sort of accomplice—which I doubt—he’s here in Parr’s Landing.”
Without waiting for a response from either Thomson or Elliot, Billy walked out of the police station, letting the door slam behind him.
Thomson and Elliot were both silent. Then Thomson spoke.
“I think we have a problem,” he said slowly. “I don’t think it's Lightning’s bag. I don’t know whose bag it is. But I think he’s telling the truth.”
“Too much of a coincidence, Sarge,” Elliot said stubbornly. “And you said this Weal was dead, so who else could it be?”
“I don’t know,” Thomson admitted. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but it’s about time we called Gyles Point and told them about this. In the meantime, Elliot, do not bother Dr. Lightning in any way. We need to let him cool off a bit.”
“But Sarge—how can it not be Lightning? I mean, we have evidence—”
“For God’s sake, McKitrick, for once, just listen and do as I’m telling you!” Thomson was practically shouting. “We have evidence of something having happened, probably something bad. But it doesn’t directly implicate Lightning except for the fact that it’s his father’s manuscript. If anything, it supports his goddamn theory about what happened. It supports his theory that Weal came back here to the Landing, just like Lightning said he would. Now, would you please, for the love of Christ, just leave him alone until we get some fingerprints, at least? Lightning isn’t the only one who needs to cool off here. I don’t know what sort of bug you have up your ass about this guy, but don’t let it get in the way of you doing your job—the right way. You have a lot to learn about police work, son. Don’t go off half-cocked and make us look like back-country idiots.”
Elliot stared. He’d never heard Thomson raise his voice before. He felt himself blushing and he lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I understand.”
Thomson softened. “Look, Elliot, you’re a good cop. You have a lot going for you. I understand how you’re feeling right now about this. You did good, bringing in the bag. No one is going to forget that when this gets solved. But the rest of this has to go by the book. There’s too much riding on it. I’m going to call Gyles Point and get this bag off to the lab A S A P.”
“Yes, sir, I understand,” Elliot said again. “By the book. I’ll give Lightning some space.”
“Good man,” Thomson said. “Now, go get some sleep, Elliot. I have some calls to make.”
Just before midnight, Finn was lying in his bed when heard a soft scratching at the back door. He sat bolt upright in bed and listened. The scratching came again, this time accompanied by a soft, familiar whining sound. Finn’s heart leaped in his chest. Sadie! It’s Sadie! She’s come home!
He threw back the covers and ran to the back door. He fumbled with the latch, opened the door wide, and looked down. By the back yard lights, he saw a familiar shape huddled by the door.
“Sadie! Sadie! You’re home!” He shouted for his parents. “Dad! Mom! Sadie’s home! Come quick!” He heard muffled voices from upstairs, then the sound of his parents’ feet on the hardwood floors, then pounding down the stairs.
“Finn, is she back?” his mother said breathlessly. “Is she home?”
Finn’s rapturous joy rendered him incapable of any speech other than his dog’s name, repeated like a mantra. “Sadie! Sadie! Sadie!”
“Finn, bring her in,” his father said. “Why is she still out there?” Hank Miller reached out for Sadie and tried to pick her up. The Labrador yelped in pain and cowered back. His hand came away slick with blood and fur.
“Dad, don’t hurt her!” Finn cried. “Be careful!”
“She’s hurt,” Hank said. “She’s been in some kind of fight, I think.” Then, to the dog, “Here, Sadie, come. Come inside, girl.”
The Labrador looked fearfully behind her, and then scooted into the house, dragging her left leg behind her slightly as though it were broken, or sprained. Once inside, she collapsed on the floor beside the back door, lying on her side and breathing in shallow hitches.
Finn bent over her and gingerly explored her fur with his fingertips. His parents stood back as though they instinctively understood that their son was the authority in this case.
When he inhaled sharply, the sound he made releasing it reminded Anne of a punctured birthday party balloon. Both she and Hank leaned in to see what Finn was looking at.
Sadie was covered with bites. Finn counted two, three, four clumps of matted fur and blood along her thick neck and flanks. In those places, the fur had been torn away, exposing the ravaged pink flesh beneath. The bite marks were about two inches apart and, to Finn’s inexpert eye, looked deep and nasty.
“Mom, she’s been bitten all over,” Finn said, horrified. “She’s been in a fight with some animal or something. Look! It’s horrible. Sadie,” he crooned, petting her head. “It’s all right, girl, you’re home now. It’s OK. Shhhh, it’s OK.”
“Be careful, Finn,” Anne said. “She might be . . . well, whatever animal she fought with might have been rabid.”
“Rabies doesn’t work that way, Anne,” Hank said. “It’s not that fast acting. We’ll take her to the vet tomorrow and check her out. She’s had all of her shots this year, so she’ll be all right, I’m sure. Finn, see if you can get her to come upstairs where there’s some proper light. Anne, get the first aid box. It’s in the medicine cabinet. There’s some hydrogen peroxide there. At least we can clean these cuts and bites a little bit.”
“Don’t hurt her!” Finn screamed.
“Hydrogen peroxide doesn’t hurt, Finn,” Anne said soothingly, putting her hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see. And in the morning, we’ll get her to the vet and get her checked out.”
Finn put his fingers in front of Sadie’s muzzle and rubbed his thumb against them, a familiar invitation to her to follow him, one that usually implied treats.
Sadie, if you get up and follow me now, I’ll give you anything you want. Please, God, Finn prayed silently. Make my dog better. Please let her get up and follow me.
He heard the sound of Sadie’s tail thumping weakly against the floor before he saw it. Sadie rose shakily to her feet, tail swinging from side to side, and slowly followed Finn upstairs.
In the kitchen, Hank swabbed her bites with hydrogen peroxide. His wife and son noticed the gentleness with which he ministered to the injured dog, and it surprised even him, truth be told. It wouldn’t be till much later, when he was in bed with his wife sleeping next to him, that Hank Miller would weep his own tears of relief at Sadie’s return—modest tears, to be sure, because men didn’t cry, at least not in front of women and children, but he’d been a boy once, too, and he remembered what it was like to love a dog the way only a twelve-year-old boy really can.
Anne brought a crocheted afghan downstairs from the cedar chest in their bedroom and laid it on top of Sadie to keep her warm during the night. She kissed Sadie’s muzzle and said, “Good night, sweet dog.” Anne wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and stood up. She cleared her throat. “All right, Finn. Back to bed. Sadie will be all right here by the stove. In the morning, I’ll drive her over to the vet clinic right away, I promise.”
“Can I come, too?” Finn pleaded. “Please? Even if I miss the morning part of school? Please?”
“Of course you can, honey,” Anne said. “She’s your dog. She’d want you there.”
Hank turned off the overhead light. Sadie lay her head on her paws. Her breathing was still shallow, but it slowed as they stood in the doorway, then became deep and regular in peaceful sleep.
When Finn heard the sound of her leg twitching on the floor in the way it did when Sadie was dreaming of running, he sighed in relief and silently reassured God of his intention to honour his part of the deal he’d made, as long as God honoured His.
It was well after midnight by the time Elliot stopped at O’Toole’s on the way home from the police station. He needed a drink, but more importantly he was hoping for a chance to speak with Donna Lemieux and make things right. But the only person behind the bar tonight was a supremely pissed off Bill O’Toole, the owner.
“I don’t know where she is,” he fumed. “She didn’t open tonight, and she didn’t call. She won’t answer her goddamn telephone. I couldn’t get Molly to take her shift tonight because she’s off for the week visiting family in Wawa. So guess who that leaves? Me, the owner, washing glasses and tending bar. Well, we’ll see if she still has a job when she waltzes back in here. We’ll just see about that.”
Elliot doubted very much that Bill O’Toole meant a fraction of what he was saying about firing Donna, who was the primary reason—besides the liquor—that men came to O’Toole’s in the first place.
“Maybe I’ll take a run by her place and make sure she’s all right,” Elliot said to Bill O’Toole, thinking to himself how unlike Donna it was to miss work. Sleep late, yes. Be pissed at Elliot, yes—take a number. But she wasn’t an irresponsible eighteen-year-old girl; she was a divorced adult woman with a carved-in-stone survivor’s work ethic.
Bill paused. The notion that anything could be wrong with Donna clearly hadn’t occurred to him. “You don’t think anything’s really the matter, do you?”
“Dunno, Bill, but it’s worth checking out,” Elliot said gruffly. “You didn’t go over there yourself, I take it?” Elliot knew full well that he hadn’t, and felt a flash of remorse that he was taking out his own guilt over last night on Bill O’Toole.”
“No, I just figured she . . . well, I don’t know what I figured. It’s not like Donna, is it, Elliot? You think she’s OK?”
“Tell you what, Bill,” he said. “I’ll check on her. If you don’t hear back from me, you can just assume that she’s under the weather. If something’s wrong, I’ll give you a call, I promise.”
Bill looked at Elliot with relief. “Good deal,” he said. He took a bottle out of the beer fridge behind him and proffered it. “One for the road, Elliot? On the house?”
Elliot shook his head. “Another time, Bill.” He winked. “I’ll let you know about Donna. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
When he pulled into Donna’s driveway, the first thing he saw was that the house was completely dark. Not even the porch light had been switched on, something Donna, like most people in Parr’s Landing, did reflexively once night fell. The house, set back from the street—ordinary in every possible way—tonight had the aspect of a cenotaph.
Elliot rang the doorbell. He heard the cling-clang of it on the other side of the door. Somewhere in the back region of the house, likely the kitchen, he heard what sounded like the plaintive mewling of a hungry cat. Elliot hated cats as a rule, but this one—Samantha—he had grown fond of over the course of his visits to Donna’s bedroom. Nice cat. Hungry, it sounded like. Donna would never, ever neglect feeding Samantha, whatever else she might or might not do.
The image of the bag of bloody knives and hammers from Spirit Rock suddenly flashed through Elliot’s mind in a crimson streak.
He reached for the doorknob and turned it. The door was unlocked and swung open. Switching on his flashlight, he played the beam over the empty living room. On the wall adjacent to the doorway, Elliot located the light switch and flicked it up and down. Nothing. He stepped over the threshold.
“Donna?” Elliot called out softly. “Donna, it’s me. It’s Elliot. Are you here?”
The darkness and silence seemed to mock him. The sound of Samantha’s mewling came from the next room, louder than before.
Elliot crossed the living room and stepped into the kitchen, his flashlight beam playing in front of him, picking up objects here and there without illuminating the room as a whole. The kitchen was immaculate, the sink dry. He tried the light switch on the wall. It was dead here, too.
He played his light along the floor. Samantha sat in front of the stove, silent now. Her eyes reflected back in the light of his flashlight. “Samantha,” Elliot whispered. “Where’s Donna?”
Behind him, the sound of something falling over, but muffled, as though from a near distance. He spun, shining the light in front of him. It found the closed door leading to the basement. Elliot strained to hear, but there was no further sound. Beads of sweat dotted his upper lip and gathered along his hairline and under his armpits.
Elliot thought of the Wendigo legends of his childhood—the stories of cannibalism and Indian witchcraft and malefic spiritualism associated with Spirit Rock. He remembered the expression on Finn Miller’s face when he first looked into the hockey bag and saw its gruesome contents. The blood on those knives still smelled sour, he thought. They weren’t used that long ago, and they weren’t washed.
Tucking the flashlight under his arm, he drew his gun with one hand and turned the handle on the cellar door with the other.
“Hello?” The loudness of his own voice startled him. “Is anyone down there? This is the police. I’m armed.”
Elliot listened for an answer. Receiving none, he stepped down into the cellar, taking the stairs one at a time. The darkness here was even deeper than it had been upstairs where there had been at least the tangential glimmer of lights from the street, or from neighbourhood porches.
Like a grave, Elliot thought. Then, he rebuked himself: Don’t be such a moron. You’re a cop. Get your shit together. He licked the sweat off his upper lip and continued his descent till he reached the bottom of the steps and stood on the floor of the cellar.
Playing his light along the walls, Elliot identified the hulking shape of the washing machine and the dryer below a wooden shelf of laundry detergent and miscellaneous odds and ends. The beam of light passed through dusty jars of jams and preserves on the opposite wall, the light transfixing the glass, the contents of the jars casting red and gold and green shadows against the stone walls.
He half-turned, shining his light on the alcove leading to the area off the main part of the basement, the place where Donna kept the enormous deep freeze that had been her husband’s pride and joy. Slowly, he walked towards the freezer, then stopped in his tracks. The contents of the freezer were spread all over the floor around it, as though someone had been so desperate to find whatever was inside that they’d tunnelled through the frozen meat and packaged vegetables to reach the bottom.
Elliot cocked his gun, the click ricocheting loud and sharp against the stone walls of the cellar. He approached the freezer, opened it, and shone his light inside.
“Donna . . .” Elliot breathed. “Jesus.”
Donna Lemieux was curled up on the bottom of the freezer in a foetal position. She was wearing the same jeans and pink top she’d worn the previous night when he’d left her house. The clothes were stiff now, and frozen. Her skin was blue with cold, and ice crystals blossomed like white flowers in her long hair. It seemed impossible that her body had been able to fit into the confined space without broken bones and dislocated joints, but there was no evidence of any breakage or dislocation. Her body had merely folded like a puppet in a shoebox, fitting itself to the rectangular confines of the empty freezer as though it were a single bed.
Then, Donna Lemieux opened her dead, frozen eyes and sat up.
Elliot jumped back, startled by the sudden flurry of movement. Instinctively, he swung his gun in her direction, resisting the urge to fire just in time, and cursing himself for his stupidity in aiming a loaded gun at an obviously injured woman.
Donna crawled out of the freezer in a sequence of crab like movements that disoriented Elliot, because they seemed to occur almost too quickly for his eye to follow. Then, suddenly, she was standing directly in front of him, and her hands were on his shoulders.
“Donna, are you all right?” he said. “Jesus, you gave me one fuck of a shock. What the hell are you doing down here?”
“Elliot, you came back. . . . I knew you would.”
“Donna, let’s get you upstairs where it’s warm,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Then we need to get you to a hospital. What happened to you? What are you doing here?” The coldness of her body burned through his windbreaker, and only then did he realize that there was something very, very wrong, besides the obvious wrongness of finding the woman you couldn’t get it up for last night—until you fucked her in the ass—sleeping in a deep freeze in the basement of her house. It felt as though he had his arm around a frozen carcass in the meat locker of an abattoir.
There’s no oxygen in that freezer, Elliot, and no way to open it from the inside. Remember the kid when you were in the third grade, the one who suffocated to death because he was playing in his parents’ deep freeze and couldn’t get out? Something’s wrong here, Mr. Cop. So much for your instincts.
“Donna?” He pulled back. “Donna, how did you—”
She reached out, snakelike, and grasped his arm in a grip that made him wince and suck in his breath. Her eyes weren’t blue, as they always had been. Now they were a deep dark red, the same garnet colour as the full jelly jars when he’d shone his light through them moments ago.
Donna took his other arm and pinned him to the wall. “Elliot, I want you to love me.”
Though Elliot could see her lips move, the sound of her voice seemed to be coming from inside his head, not from her mouth. It rippled through his body, liquefying his arms and legs, crumpling him to his knees, then to the floor.
The part of his mind that governed fight-or-flight tried to inform Elliot that he should scream—wanted to, in fact—but he didn’t have access to that part of his brain. It was as though something outside him had identified it, isolated it, and cut it off from being able to communicate. Elliot floated on a cloud of luminous red mist and infinite space full of flickering points of light.
His knees buckled and he fell backward. The base of his head struck the concrete floor and he saw fireworks at the contact.
“I only ever wanted you to love me.” Donna’s voice shivered in his brain. “You never did. I always knew you didn’t. Will you love me now? I want you inside of me, Elliot.”
Elliot felt the blood thundering through his body. His cock was harder than it had ever been, straining painfully inside his uniform pants. Donna straddled his crotch and ground her pelvis against his erection. His limbs were paralyzed, but he’d never been more sexually aroused in his life. He tried to think, to focus, but his brain was disconnected from every other part of himself, and his body was on fire with sensation. The universe was composed of Elliot, his engorged cock, and Donna Lemieux writhing on top of him, suddenly the most desirable woman—the most desirable creature, male or female—he could imagine.
“Donna,” he whispered. Tears ran down his cheeks. “Donna . . . please . . .”
When she placed her lips against his neck, the pressure of her sharp teeth behind her frozen lips was the most erotic sensation he could imagine. Even the sharp pain of those teeth slicing through the soft skin below his jawline only stung for a moment, then the pain was replaced by spreading heat he felt at every extremity. Seconds before he lost consciousness, his body was wracked by the most shattering orgasm of his life.
His last thought before blacking out was that he was sorry Jeremy wasn’t there to see this proof that he really was a normal guy, and that the past really was past.
Finn wasn’t sure what woke him. The iridescent green hands of the clock on his night table read two a.m. The clock itself ticked softly and the house was deathly quiet.
Instinctively, he put out his hand beside his bed and felt for Sadie’s head. Then he remembered that she wasn’t there, that she had been lost, then come home, and was now sleeping in the kitchen. He was suddenly possessed of a powerful need to see with his own eyes that she was there, that their reunion hadn’t been some sort of fantastic dream that would leave him heartbroken when he realized it was, in fact, just a dream. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for the light switch and turned it on.
Sadie was sitting a foot from his bed staring at him, silent, unmoving. At her feet was the red rubber ball.
Finn realized that she’d dropped it there. The sound of the ball hitting his bedroom floor was what had woken him.
He rubbed his eyes and stared at his dog.
Sadie’s posture was not the posture of the broken thing that had limped in through the back door a few hours earlier. The hydrogen peroxide had clearly done its work, because the bite marks in Sadie’s fur were already healing, even fading. Finn doubted there would even be scars, at this rate. Maybe God really had been listening tonight when he prayed for his dog’s life to be spared. He tried to remember the terms of his part of the bargain, but realized that, whatever they were, he’d honour them.
“Sadie, are you feeling better?” he whispered joyously. “You’re a good girl. Sadie’s a good girl!” Almost as an afterthought he added courteously, “Thank you, God. I appreciate it.” Finn patted the bed beside him, their time-honoured signal for Sadie to jump up on the bed for a cuddle, or a sleep. Sadie didn’t move. “Sadie, come up! Come up!” Finn said, more loudly. He patted the mattress again. “Come up on the bed!”
Sadie lay down at his feet, keeping her distance from him. When he reached out to pat her paw, she made a sound low in her throat, somewhere between a whine and a growl. Finn pulled his hand back in shock.
When he did, the Labrador’s tail swished back and forth, as though she were telling him she would lay there beside him, but warning him not to touch her. Sadie had never, ever growled at Finn. Not once.
“What is it, Sadie?” he said, alarmed. “Are you still hurt?”
Swish, swish, swish.
“Fine, Sadie.” He was somewhat mollified by the tail-wagging, which said to him that whatever else was wrong, she still loved him, and was likely still feeling the pain of her ordeal. He’d see how she was tomorrow— she was going to the vet tomorrow, anyway, to check out the bites. Would his parents ever be surprised at how much better she was looking. Maybe they wouldn’t even need to go to the vet, after all. Miracles were obviously at play, and Finn had a personal investment in them.
He switched off the light and fell back asleep to the comforting sound of Sadie’s soft breathing from the place on the floor from which she never once moved all night.