Blackfly Season

45

“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED to you?” Delorme wanted to know. “You look like hell.”

“I’m fine,” Cardinal said. In fact, he hadn’t slept. By the time he had driven all the way back to Algonquin Bay it wasn’t worth going to bed, so he had taken a shower, made some breakfast and driven straight back to work.

“Really, John. You look like you’ve got the flu or something.”

“Thanks, Lise. You’re making my day.”

Cardinal’s phone rang, and he snatched it up.

“Cardinal. CID.”

“It’s Terri Tait calling.”

“Can you speak up? I can hardly hear you.”

“It’s Terri Tait. I just … I’ve remembered some things. Last night. I had a nightmare and I got some more memory back. Are you going to be there in the next little while? Can I come and talk to you?”

“No, don’t come here. It’s not safe for you to go out. We’ll come and see you at the Crisis Centre.”

“I was really hoping to escape this place for a while.”

“I know, but it’s just not safe. So hang in there and we’ll see you soon.”

Cardinal hung up.

“Terri Tait,” he said. “She’s remembering more. And look at this.” He showed Delorme the locket he had signed out of the evidence room. “Terri’s father was a wing commander up at the air base. I want to show her this, because I’m betting this is her locket and these are her parents.”

Delorme took the locket and sprung the catch. “You mean she was shot in the same place where Wombat was murdered? Why would the guy go back to the same spot?”

“It’s not unheard of. Maybe it’s part of the ritual. Maybe she showed up where she shouldn’t have. Tell me what happened with the cave markings.”

Delorme filled him in on her talk with the OPP and her visit with Dr. Wasserstein in Algonquin Park. She told him about Palo Mayombe, its belief in human sacrifice, the macabre ways its followers sought to control the spirits.

“Dr. Wasserstein says it’s mostly practised in Cuba. Maybe a little in Miami.”

“Presumably it’ll travel wherever immigrants take it. You know what I don’t get?”

“What?”

“Here we have a guy who’s chopping off fingers and toes. Cutting off heads. I think we can be sure this isn’t something you just jump right into. You work your way up to it. You start with goats and chickens or whatever and then you try your first human and probably you mess it up, and then you try again, and then maybe it becomes your life.”

“You’re right. This guy, he should have a history. But we haven’t come up with any uncleared murders nationally or provincially that resemble Wombat’s.”

“Right,” Cardinal said. “But if this guy comes from Cuba or Miami, maybe there’ll be something in the States.”

“We don’t have access to their records.”

“I made some contacts in New York last year on the Matlock case. Let me give them a call.”

“Or I could try Musgrave. The Mounties share information with the States all the time.”

“We’ll do both. See who gets lucky first. But right now, let’s go see Terri.”

Terri Tait had finished her breakfast at the Crisis Centre—a bowl of oatmeal with the consistency of wallpaper paste. Down the hall, two women were quarrelling over a radio program, and on the second floor a young mother was wailing because her children had been taken away by the Children’s Aid Society; she’d been wailing since the previous afternoon.

Terri didn’t want to sit in the TV room with the other women. They were always watching the most wretched talk shows. She went back to her room and sat by the window, opening the sketch pad Dr. Paley had given her. She tried to draw, but she was too tense and her hand couldn’t control the pencil properly.

Terri couldn’t stand it any more; hell with waiting around for the cops. She tossed the sketch pad aside. She would get out into the fresh air for twenty minutes or so. If they showed up while she was gone and had to wait a few minutes, it would serve them right for keeping her cooped up here.

The layout of the city was beginning to feel familiar, but she couldn’t remember many individual street names: Main, Macintosh, Oak—that was about it. She followed the smell of water down to the lakefront. She walked along a brickwork path, with the waves crashing noisily a few feet below.

Early summer seemed to have retreated to spring. A massive dark cloud shaped like a rolling pin was lowering over the far shore, and she could see a deep grey cross-hatching of rain advancing over the waves. She had never seen so many whitecaps. She held one hand behind her head, trying to keep her hood on, but it wasn’t very effective. When the rain struck her face, it was icy cold. A seagull circled overhead and cried long and loud.

A good part of Terri was tempted to head back to Vancouver and just hope that whoever shot her would never see her again. But that would leave her brother at the mercy of his addiction and a madman. She’d struck out trying to find him by questioning dope fiends; they don’t respond well to questions. And so she was left with the cops. The trick was how to use them to save Kevin, without Kevin getting thrown in prison for trafficking. With what she was now remembering about Red Bear, Kevin might even get put away for much worse.

During the night there had been a crack of thunder, and she had sat bolt upright in bed with her heart pounding, sweat pouring off her. In the dream, it had been broad daylight, the sun blinding, sweat stinging her eyes. And in her ears, an annoying buzzing.

The noise took her behind the white cabins and into the woods. Close by, the crash of waves (yes, that could mean this very lake; not many lakes get surf like that), and farther off, a constant buzzing. She kept looking behind her; the sensation of someone following was strong, but whenever she turned to look there were only trees.

She came to a clearing and another cabin, white but covered with specks—specks that seemed to shimmer and shift in the sunlight. The windows were boarded up. The buzzing was much louder, and she could see now that the buzzing was from the swarms of flies that formed shifting veils over the cabin.

There was a noise from inside, and she shrank back into the woods. She hid behind a bush, hoping her red hair wouldn’t show. Red Bear came out, carrying a small hatchet. He looked around, almost as if sniffing the wind, then turned and closed the door. He crossed the clearing and came right toward Terri. She held her breath as he went by, twigs snapping under his feet.

When she was quite sure he was gone, she went up the cabin steps and opened the door. She choked on the stench and, at that moment, knew that this was not a dream; she knew, even in her sleep, that this was a memory she was reliving. She never could have dreamed a smell like that.

She left the door open for air, and also so she could see. She had no intention of staying longer than thirty seconds, just long enough to find out whatever it was that Red Bear was up to. Kevin was so hopelessly wired he couldn’t see anything wrong with Red Bear, or didn’t want to, but she had the sense of something deeply wrong with Red Bear from their first meeting. Those dead eyes. If she could show Kevin proof of what Red Bear was, then he would believe her, he would come home with her. Of course, she didn’t know exactly what Red Bear was, nor was she prepared for what she found.

That huge iron pot across the cabin. There were several long branches sticking out of it. Terri forced herself to cross the cabin and peer over the rim, holding her breath. The black, murky liquid looked as foul as a sewer, but she couldn’t see anything below the surface. She took hold of one of the sticks and gave it a stir. A hairy object bobbed to the surface and rolled over in a slow twirl, revealing mouth, nose and the place where eyes used to be.

She ran. She tore through the woods behind the cabins, hoping no one would see her.

Then she was in the “guest” cabin, throwing things into her backpack. Praying that Kevin would come back so they could both get the hell out of there.

The zipper on the backpack stuck. She was tearing at it with her fingernails when the door opened and Red Bear was standing there and she let out a scream. It was probably the only time in her life she had actually screamed—a sudden, sharp outburst. It was the scream that had woken her up, not thunder. She was sitting upright in bed, soaked with sweat, the memory of Red Bear and his charnel house playing before her eyes.

She was remembering more, now.

“I didn’t see anything,” Terri had managed to say. “I swear.” She had never heard such fear in anybody’s voice, certainly not her own.

“You will not phone anyone, you won’t be talking to Kevin, there won’t be any goodbyes. You pack your things and you will be driven to the airport or the train station. The driver will wait with you for the train or plane. Consider yourself lucky I don’t kill you. You can rest assured it is not a matter of mercy.” He pointed to the sky. “It’s a matter of the moon.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” she had said. “I swear. I won’t tell a soul.”

“Of course you won’t. That would be very bad for Kevin.”

Now the rain and the wind off the lake were beginning to get to her. She had come to a decision. The best way to help Kevin was to tell Detective Cardinal everything she knew; she could describe the camp, the white cabins, the islands in the distance. He would be able to figure out where it was.

She left the brick path and turned back toward town. Three or four kids were hanging out across from the World Tavern, where they had been the other night. She crossed the street toward them.

“You find your brother yet?”

It was the big kid, the one who looked down on heroin users. Well, who didn’t? She didn’t recognize the other three people.

“I thought I’d try one more time.”

“Man, I wish my family was that loyal.”

“Your family’s totally dysfunctional,” a nerdy-looking boy said.

“Exactly,” the big one said. “That’s my point.”

There was an older guy with them. Quieter. He looked at her with mild interest.

“Who you looking for?” he said. “I know everybody.”

Terri told him.

“Where’d you see him last?”

“In town here.” She thought it might be dangerous to mention the camp.

The guy shrugged. “I know a couple of Kevins. What’s he look like?”

Terri looked at him. His bony face showed curiosity, no big deal. He didn’t look dangerous. She described Kevin to him.

“Sure, I know him. In fact, I saw him this morning.”

“Where!”

“You know where the Chinook Tavern is?”

Terri shook her head. “Is it far?”

“Yeah, it is. You’d have to get over to Front Street and then catch a bus out to Trout Lake. Take you an hour, hour and a half. It’s a little complicated, too. Why don’t I just drive you there?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll find it.”

“It’s no big deal. I’m heading back that way now.” He checked his watch. “In fact, I’m running late. So if you want the ride, you gotta come now.”

He turned his back on her and headed across Oak Street toward a sleek, black car.

“Wait up,” Terri said. “I’m coming with you.”

She ran across the street and climbed in the passenger side. The car had one of those big engines that pushed you back into the seat with every acceleration. It smelled of leather and new carpet. As they drove through the downtown streets, the guy fired questions at her—where was she from, what did she do, had she been in town long? He seemed curious, but not pushy. A little nervous, maybe. Every once in a while, he reached up and rubbed at a small scar on his brow.