Serpents Rising (21 page)

She spat at me but I was too far away and her spittle landed on the carpet at my feet.

Appleton was able to turn his head partly toward me. “Go … now.”

“You said —”

“I said go now. Please.”

It was a plea. I turned and left the house without looking back. The hate-filled words of Kathleen Appleton followed me out the door.

“Don't come back! You or your sluts. I want you all to die!”

And Appleton's voice. “Kathleen, don't. Kathleen, listen to me.”

I drove a few blocks in the Impala and pulled into a parking area for a city park. I was shaking — violently. Part of it was my own anger, the loathing I felt for everything about Richard Appleton. And part of it was knowing I had lost control, that I had done exactly what Cobb and Kelly Nolan had warned me not to do.

But the biggest part of what I was feeling had more to do with Kathleen Appleton than it did with me or what I'd done.

I'd had lots of confrontations with unpleasant interviewees over the years, some of them women. But I'd never encountered the kind of hate, the near insanity that was Kathleen Appleton in those minutes. Maybe some of it was a protective reaction to my going after her husband. But there was something more.

Someone appears to be attacking someone you care about, you do what you have to do to prevent it from happening. This went well beyond that — this was hatred in its pure, uncut form, not just for me but for the young women her husband had victimized.

I leaned my head back on the seat of the car, closed my eyes, and took several deep breaths, trying to get my heart rate back to something near normal and to ease the throbbing inside my skull.

I'm not sure how long I sat, not moving. But eventually I sat up, forced my eyes to focus on the park. I realized the car was still running. I shut it off, pocketed the key, and stepped out into what had become a wet Vancouver day. Not rain exactly but a steady mist-drizzle.

I started forward, into a small neighbourhood park that was populated by trees with very wide trunks and a kids' play area that sat almost in the middle of the trees. As I moved under the protective umbrella of the trees, I felt my body relax. And I tried to think, to make some kind of sense of what had taken place on West 14th Street.

Was I any closer to finding my wife's killer? I wasn't sure. Appleton's reaction to my accusing him of starting the fire seemed to be genuine surprise, maybe even shock. Could he not have known about the fire? Maybe. If he hadn't known Donna's married name, and there was no reason why he should have known it, then he could even have read about the fire and not realized that the person who died there had been one of his victims.

So, maybe. But this was a man whose performances had broken down the defenses of six high school girls.

I stood staring at a long, twisting slide that seemed to be the centrepiece of the old-fashioned playground. It was metal, a throwback. This play area even had monkey bars, my own favourite when I was growing up.

I thought about the simplicity of life as a kid and wondered if Donna had spent as much time in parks like this one as I had. So much I didn't know about her, and never would.

“My wife is not a crazy person.”

The voice came from behind me and I spun around to see Richard Appleton, without either coat or hat, standing in the rain looking at me. He was holding a paper bag. My first thought was
gun
and I knew without looking around that Appleton and I were the only people in the park, maybe the only people outdoors for blocks. If it was Appleton's intention to shoot me, I'd made it easy for him.

“I was hoping I might be able to catch you so I set off as soon as I was able to settle Kathleen. I figured it was a longshot, but when I saw the Impala parked on the street …” he gestured over his shoulder, “I'd watched you pull up to the house so I knew what you were driving.”

I nodded, not sure what I was supposed to say.

He spoke again. “She is damaged but she is not crazy. As horrible as what those girls must have gone through because of me, Kathleen's suffering has been every bit as awful. I guess believing that the girls were somehow at fault, blaming the victims, is her way of coping with something that is unimaginable to her.”

I took a step toward him. “If you're looking for me to sympathize or to forgive you, Appleton, you're wasting your time. You're the worst of scum and I don't give a shit that you caused your wife great pain. I care only about
my
wife and the pain you caused her.”

“I'm not looking for sympathy or forgiveness.”

“Good, that'll save us both some time.”

“You said Donna died. In a fire.”

I didn't answer.

“And you believe I may have set that fire.”

“Did you?”

Shake of the head, slow at first, then more emphatic. “I did not. I realize you have absolutely no reason to believe me but I did not murder your wife. What possible reason could I have for doing that?”

“I can think of a couple of possibilities. Revenge, for one. Donna was the one who got the others to join her in exposing you. Maybe your wife's not the only one who blames the victims. Or maybe you didn't want to kill her — just teach her a lesson, get back at her for what she did to you. It's interesting that the fire was set
after
you got out of prison. Means, motive, opportunity, Appleton. Check, check, and check.”

He shook his head. “I could not seek revenge on someone for doing what was the right thing to do — even if it was to my detriment.”

“Words. The basic tools of the seducer, the molester, and maybe, in this case, the killer too.”

“You're wrong, Mr. Cullen. I did not set fire to your home. I did not kill your wife.”

“And then, of course, there's
your
wife. Seems to me, based on what I saw at your house, that she would be more than capable of exacting revenge on … let me see if I can get this right … ‘those slut teenage whores.' And I think the other phrase was ‘I can't wait until they're all dead.' Sounds like someone who would at the very least celebrate something terrible happening to those girls and at worst could make that something terrible happen.”

Appleton, for the first time, became animated — even agitated. “What you saw back there was a woman who has been under enormous stress for a long time. I did that to her and it's one more thing I will never forgive myself for. But Kathleen is not capable of the kind of violence you're talking about.”

I watched him for several seconds. “What do you think would have happened if you hadn't held your wife back? She looked to me like a woman who was very much capable of violence in the right set of circumstances.”

“She was coming to my defence.”

I nodded. I had, after all, come close to smashing Appleton's face to a pulp.

“Maybe that's what it was. The question then is what was she protecting you from … the truth coming out? Seeing her husband go back to jail, this time as an arsonist and a murderer?”

“I swear to you that neither Kathleen nor I murdered your wife.” There was a tremor in
his
voice. Emotion maybe — or the actor again.

I wiped rain from my eyes. “The other girl who died … who was she?”

“Her name was Elaine Yu. She was living in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, at the time and I'm not sure but I think she was killed in a car accident. I never heard the details.”

I watched the rain, hard now, running through his drenched hair and down his face.

“Appleton, I want you to know this: I'm going to keep searching and digging if it takes me the rest of my life. If I find out that you, or your wife, started that fire, I'll be back. And nothing and no one will stop me.”

Several seconds passed, then one small, almost invisible nod.

“One last thing,” I said. “There were four girls at Northern Horizon and there were two at other schools. Was that all of them?”

The rain fell harder and for several seconds our eyes were locked onto each other, neither of us saying anything. Then as his lips barely moved, words came — barely formed, hard to hear, hard to understand.

But I did hear. I did understand.

“There was one more. She was my stepdaughter — Kathleen's daughter.”

I had no words to respond with. I walked past Appleton, out of the park and toward the Impala.

I
'd been home for almost three hours. I'd finished two rye and Cokes to go with the two I had on the plane. I'd started on a third but it had been sitting on the table in front of me since I'd poured it a half hour or so before. The ice had melted and the Coke had lost its colour and its allure. Great Big Sea had given way to the Downchild Blues Band on the stereo.

My cell phone had rung six or eight times since I'd walked into the apartment and I had yet to answer it. I wasn't sure there was anything anybody had to say that I needed to hear right then.

I now knew what had happened to Donna in her grade eleven year. But I wasn't any closer to knowing who had killed her or why. Maybe the fire had nothing to do with Appleton and his sexual predation on seven young girls. Or maybe it did.

Was it a stretch to think that a man who could do what he'd done to those girls was capable of worse? Likely not. I'd known of cases where convicted criminals threatened revenge on judges, lawyers, witnesses — everyone involved in the case against them. And I had known of a few who tried to carry out those threats with varying degrees of success.

So it was possible that Appleton had killed Donna out of a desire for revenge. And I supposed the same logic could apply to Kathleen Appleton. Despite her husband's protestations, what I had seen in that house was a woman who was dangerous.

And arson wasn't like looking into someone's eyes and shooting or stabbing or bludgeoning and watching them die. You could start a fire and be far away from the scene when your victim's life ended. The kind of murder that might be favoured by a woman?

And how did the fact that one of her husband's victims was her own daughter impact the thing? Wouldn't that have focused any need for revenge on him? Or had Appleton's silver tongue somehow managed to paint himself as the victim even as he seduced his step-daughter?

Was Kathleen Appleton's faith in her husband so great that she could choose him over her daughter? That kind of misguided fanaticism had existed throughout history so it was certainly possible.

And there was the note. The kind of vicious cruelty and hate that would enable someone to send a note like the one I had received one year after Donna's death was evident in the face, the voice, and the actions of Kathleen Appleton when I accused her husband of starting the fire.

Yet, for all of my cop show dialogue —
means, motive, opportunity
— it somehow didn't feel right. I wasn't sure. I wanted to be sure and I wasn't. Richard Appleton was a predator. His wife was a whack job. Hard to argue either point. But coldhearted, coldblooded killers?

I just didn't know.

I picked up the untouched third rye and Coke just as Donnie Walsh and the rest of Downchild were wrapping up “Cruisin'.”

I stood at the window and watched the street lights coming on throughout the streets of Bridgeland.

I set the drink glass back down — still untouched. I didn't feel up to a run but I needed to get outside — walk for a while. Think. I pulled on a down-filled jacket, toque, and mitts, expecting the worst, and took the stairs down to the main floor, stepping out into the dry cold the Canadian prairies are noted for. I shoved my hands into the jacket pockets, turned right when I reached the sidewalk, then left at the bottom of the little hill that led up to my apartment, walking aimlessly and without purpose. I turned again and was opposite the park at 9a Street. There were no kids in the playground there and no one else walking. Too late. Too dark. And too damn cold.

I stepped off the curb and started across the street toward the park.

I heard the car before I saw it, looked up at the roar of an engine that was loud and close…. too close.

The car roared by and I instinctively jumped back, lost my footing, and almost went down. When I'd recovered I turned to … what … yell? Extend a middle finger? Get a licence number to report an idiot driver? I didn't do any of those things. Instead I stared after the car, watching it disappear, tail lights racing into the night.

Dark, maybe blue, hard to say, not a recent model. Big car.
Car
, not the SUV that was the vehicle of choice in this neighbourhood. I saw the back of a head, only one. The car and its lone occupant disappeared around the corner.

A warning? About what? The MFs didn't likely see a need to send a message since I hadn't been a part of the Blevins thing for a while, and wasn't all that critical to the investigation anyway. Using me to warn Cobb to back off?

Or was it one of the Appletons having beaten me back to Calgary, wanting to scare the crap out of me?

The real answer, of course, was that a bad driver, likely fuelled by a liquid stimulant of some kind, had buzzed me, carelessly but probably unintentionally. Might not have even seen me, noticed me at the last second, was as scared as I was.

The night was even colder than I'd thought. I decided to cut short my walk, stopped in at a Lebanese takeout, bought a takeout sandwich and salad, headed back in the direction of Drury Avenue and my apartment, checking the street periodically for wayward vehicles coming in my direction.

Back in the apartment, I transferred the sandwich and salad to a plate and set it on the counter. I poured myself an orange juice and was pulling Broken Social Scene out of its case when the cell phone rang again. I glared at it, willing it to explode. When it didn't, I picked it up, noting that I had seven messages.

“Hello.” I hoped my tone of voice would let the caller know that I preferred shawarma to anything he or she had to tell me.

“It's Cobb. Just checking to see how you're doing.”

“I've made a pretty good start on getting drunk but I seem to be losing steam.”

“You sound like someone who's losing steam. You okay?”

“Not so much.”

“I take it you found the teacher.”

“Yeah, I found him. And his wife. Charming couple.”

“I'd like to hear about it. Plus I'm hungry. How about I come by in twenty minutes?”

“I'm not in the mood for company.”

“Well, get in the mood. I'm on my way.”

He hung up. I looked at the phone. “You know, Cobb, you're really starting to piss me off.”

I surveyed the room. It wasn't that bad, nothing that twenty minutes of tidying couldn't adequately deal with. I started with wrapping the sandwich and salad in separate cellophane packages and setting both in the refrigerator. I changed my mind on the music and Stan Rogers provided the accompaniment for my cleanup.

The knock on the door came after seventeen minutes and halfway through “Northwest Passage.” I hadn't finished the tidying but it wasn't bad — good enough for Cobb on short notice.

I went to the door, pulled it open. Cobb stood, legs apart, grin on his face, like John Wayne arriving in Nome, Alaska, with a prostitute in tow. Except there was no one, prostitute or otherwise, standing next to him.

“Get your coat. I left the car running and we're going for something to eat.”

I looked at him for several seconds, decided against arguing. Two minutes later we were heading down the front steps of the apartment.

He hadn't been kidding. The Jeep was running and it was warm inside, a good thing on a night when the thermometer seemed intent on exploring new depths.

“Feel like Chinese?”

“Yeah, sure. Anything.”

We'd gone only a few blocks when Cobb's cell phone played the first few bars of Pachelbel's Canon in D. Different ring tone from what I remembered. I hadn't taken Cobb for a classical guy.

“Cobb,” he said. And nothing else. He listened for thirty, maybe forty seconds, ended the call, reached again for the gearshift.

“Change of plans. We're still going to eat but Chinese is off the table.”

“Jay Blevins?”

“I'll bring you up to speed on that over dinner. This is related … somewhat.”

He didn't say anything more, at least not to me. He pulled over to the curb, tapped away on his cell phone for a minute or so. Texting. I resisted the urge to glance over, see if I could spot anything on the screen. Instead I looked out at Lukes Drug Mart, a Bridgeland landmark since sometime in the fifties.

A pause, silence, then more tapping. Cobb set the phone on the dash, put the Jeep in gear, and we were back in motion.

I sat back, let the heat fold itself around me, and continued to look out the side window. There was more snow than when I'd left and the people on the streets looked like figures from a Christmas card. Lots of scarves, bulky coats, and quilted ski jackets, gloves, some mitts. I realized I'd forgotten my own gloves.

Neither Cobb nor I spoke much and I didn't pay a lot of attention to our route until we pulled up in front of Kane's Harley Diner. I could see into the restaurant. Quiet night. People tend to stay at home when it's minus twenty with a wind chill ten degrees south of that.

“Home sweet home,” I said.

Cobb said, “Yeah,” shut the car off, and got out. I stepped out onto the curb.

Obviously the phone call and the texting had something to do with our being here. I figured he'd tell me when he was ready. We hurried into the diner, Cobb as eager as I was to get out of the cold. Or maybe he had another reason for wanting to get inside in a hurry.

There was one middle-aged couple in a booth I hadn't been able to see from the street and a guy at the counter reading the paper and drinking coffee. Empty plate on the counter in front of him. Pie maybe.

I looked at Cobb and he pointed to a circular centre table with four chairs that seemed to be the focal point of the restaurant. I followed him to the table. Since the place wasn't busy I figured no one would object to our taking it. Not that Cobb would have altered his plans even if there had been an objection. He wasn't wired that way.

We sat down, waited. Davy came out from the back, spotted us, and came slowly toward us, his body language screaming his lack of enthusiasm. Olympians can run 800 meters in less time than it took for Davy to cover the dozen or so steps that separated us. He arrived at our table and looked at us like he'd never seen either of us before.

“Evening, Davy,” I said.

A barely discernible nod as he handed us two menus, then turned to leave.

“You have a special tonight?” Cobb said.

Davy stopped but didn't turn around. “Chili.”

Cobb said, “Bring us two specials. And two beers. We won't need glasses.”

Davy made the trip back to the kitchen with what could be termed lightning speed — at least in comparison to what I'd seen as he came toward us.

I said, “Davy doesn't seem happy.”

Cobb nodded. “Holiday season blahs.”

“Must be it.”

“I hope you're okay with chili. I seem to remember you telling me once you like it. I didn't want him hanging around our table.”

“Chili's fine.”

“So tell me about your trip to sun country.”

I told him about my meeting with Kelly, the revelation about the abuse, and finally my encounter with the Appletons. I rolled it all out at once, paused only when Davy brought our food and two cans of Coors Light. Cobb watched me, seemed almost to be studying me as I talked, but didn't interrupt or ask me anything until I finished.

And not even then, at least not right away. We ate chili for a while. I piled mine on the toast Davy had brought with the chili; Cobb kept the chili and the toast apart from one another. To each his own.

Halfway through the chili, Cobb stopped eating, wiped his mouth with a serviette, and looked up at me.

“I'm sorry Adam, I really am. All this has to be tough for you.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“You think Appleton is capable of setting the fire?”

I paused before answering. “I've thought about nothing else since that afternoon. And the truth is I don't know. If he was capable of doing what he did to those girls I'd say he was capable of setting the fire. But being
capable
of doing it doesn't mean he
did
it. I just don't know.”

“How about the pitbull wife?”

“Same answer. Maybe even more capable if she thought her husband was under threat. She might do anything if she freaked out like she did with me. Thing is he wasn't under threat. This was after the fact. He'd done his time. For all intents and purposes the whole thing was over.”

“Except for revenge.”

I nodded. “Except for that. And I don't know if either of them could kill with revenge as their motive.”

“Either or both.”

“What?”

“Just thinking out loud. It's possible that they were acting together on this thing.”

I thought about that over a mouthful of chili and toast. “Maybe, maybe not. She didn't strike me as Lady Macbeth. And there's the X factor in all this — he molested her daughter. I haven't got that figured out at all.”

“You mean why she's side by side with the son of a bitch when she should be trying to poison his birthday cake.”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head, which I took to mean it made as much sense to him as it did to me.

We sipped our beer and I told him about the narrow miss with the car.

“You get a look at it?”

“It was dark so it was tough to get a good look. It was a big car, dark colour.”

“What do you mean,
big
car?”

“Like those boats people use to drive before we knew about climate change.”

“So an
older
big car.”

“I'd say so, yeah.”

“You saw the Audi at the warehouse. Any chance…?”

I shook my head. “Notta. Not in the same league. I don't know what this car was but it wasn't the Audi.”

“And you didn't see the driver?”

“Uh-uh. Back of a head, that's all. I wish I could tell you for sure it was the MFs or that it wasn't, but I can't.”