Death Spiral (31 page)

Adrienne O’Dell was standing by his hospital window. Duncan Getty was sitting in a chair. Scarfe Telfer was leaning by the door.

And then Michael Chasson’s face came into view.

“Wilf, you can see,” he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Wilf could see the boy like a small gentle light being carried through the dark. He could see a shadowy figure at each end of the cage sliding downhill toward the river. Hear the sound of Ralphie’s hounds, their baying ringing through the frosty air. A change in tone. More excited, higher and sharper now.

The answer was there. The boy floating in his criss-cross of shadows. Amongst the trees. In the moonlight. Somewhere.

Wilf turned to look at Carole. She was still asleep, a worried expression on her face as if a row of figures weren’t quite adding up or an important file had gone missing. Morning light was creeping in through the window.

She opened her eyes. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know.” Wilf looked at his watch. “Not quite seven.”

Carole groaned and rolled away.

They stayed in bed until eight and had just finished their breakfast when Andy came down the lane in his old Ford, having managed to piece it together somehow.

“I have to go somewhere,” Wilf announced, seeing the car pull up. “I’ll be back soon.”

Carole was standing at the sink washing dishes. “Where?”

Wilf crossed the living room and opened the front door. “Here’s Andy now.”

“But where are you going?” Carole came out of the kitchen, drying her hands and looking anxious.

Wilf started to pull on his coat. “I have to go out to his Uncle John’s to pay for the use of the truck. And there’s another farmer that lives near there. We thought we might drop in on him.”

“Why?”

“I’ll be right there!” Wilf yelled out the door. “It won’t take long, Carole,” he said.

“But why?”

“Well, it’s just that Andy thinks that this farmer might know something about the boy in the cage.”

Carole stood there clutching her tea towel. “Your father wanted to speak to you. Remember?”

“I just have a few questions. The boy deserves justice, Carole. Don’t you think?”

Carole shook her head as if she didn’t know what to think. She walked back into the kitchen.

Wilf waited to hear the encouraging clatter of dishes. He didn’t hear a thing.

* * *

“How much do I owe your uncle?”

They’d crossed the bridge at Glen Morris and were approaching Uncle John’s farm from the upriver side.

“You don’t know anything about farmers, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“He’d be insulted if you tried to pay him. He wouldn’t accept it because you’re a friend of mine. And if he didn’t know you, he’d overcharge you. That’s just their way.”

Wilf looked across the fields toward where he knew the river had to be but all he could see were the tops of trees. Mostly pine, some hardwood, a few standing dead and stark against the sky.

“What are we going to say to him?” Andy was beginning to look a little less aggressive than the previous night.

“To who?”

“Kelly.”

“That we’re on a secret mission to locate poultry cages. We want to see if he has any poultry cages.”

“Jesus. The OPP would have asked about that already, and anyway every farmer around here has poultry cages.”

“Okay. Then it might be suspicious if he doesn’t have any.”

Andy rolled his eyes.

“Just tell him that we’re doing a follow-up. You are, anyway. In case he’d thought of something since the OPP were talking to him yesterday. Kelly knows you, doesn’t he? He knows you’re a cop.”

“He doesn’t know me. I don’t know him.” Andy slowed and turned into a rough narrow side road. “That’s Uncle John’s field on the right. Jerry Zakowski’s farm is on the left over there. Kelly’s land is closer to the river. I don’t know how much he has. Maybe twenty-five acres in all.”

Wilf had to brace his hand against the dashboard. “Where’s this road lead?”

“Nowhere. It goes past the Kellys’ a hundred yards or so and stops.”

“Why don’t you know him? You know everyone else.”

“No chance to know him, I guess.”

“They didn’t mix in?”

“No.”

Andy turned down an even bumpier lane and pulled up at the side of a small, unpainted clapboard house. There were several ramshackle outbuildings scattered about, including a henhouse, but no main barn.

Wilf looked around. “What does he grow here?”

“I don’t know. Vegetables.”

“He keeps chickens.”

“Everybody keeps chickens,” Andy said.

A man was standing by a board fence holding a dusty pail in his hand. He looked toward the car as it pulled up. Wilf could see some pigs rooting around behind him. A great pink snout was sticking through the slats. The man put the pail down and began to walk toward the car.

“Okay. We’re just following up on the OPP,” Andy said, opening his door. “Let me do the talking.”

Wilf got out of his side of the car. The air smelled of all sorts of barnyard things. He looked toward the approaching man. Before the farmer could get within twenty feet Wilf knew he’d seen him before.

“I’m Andy Creighton from the town police. Just helping with the OPP investigation. This is my associate Wilf McLauchlin.”

The man’s eyes looked ravished from sleeplessness and whatever hair he had left was standing up in thin grey tufts. “Daniel Kelly, pleased to meet you.” Though he smiled just slightly he didn’t offer his hand.

Another farming trait, Wilf wondered. Probably, because Andy hadn’t offered his hand to the farmer either.

“Sorry to hear about your wife,” Wilf said, though he wasn’t supposed to do any talking.

Mr. Kelly nodded. He looked off. “I still can’t grasp it.”

Standing there in an old flannel shirt and caked rubber boots and staring across a rutted, half-frozen field, the man looked absolutely wrung-out, Wilf thought.

“We were just wondering if anything might have occurred to you since yesterday,” Andy spoke up. “About that boy we found in the cage.”

Kelly looked back at Andy. His eyes blinked. He seemed to be trying to bring Andy back into focus. “No. I didn’t know anything about it yesterday. I don’t know anything more about it today. Damnedest thing, boys.”

“It is,” Wilf said and turned to Andy. “It’s not all that far from here, is it? Where Ralphie found him?”

The treetops along the valley had become a row of tall pines just beyond Kelly’s buildings. They were all leaning easterly from years of prevailing winds. The river was down below somewhere.

“Not too far. About a half-mile downstream.”

“Makes no rhyme or reason,” Kelly said to no one in particular.

“What’s that?” Andy said.

“Theresa’s death. That she should go before me.”

“I saw you last night,” Wilf said.

The man turned his washed-out eyes on Wilf and held them steady.

“At Reverend Cooney’s.”

Daniel Kelly nodded. “I just can’t get over it,” he said.

* * *

Andy and Wilf drove back into town. Andy got off at the garage at the one end of Main Street where he could spend some time with the usual crowd that gathered there on a Saturday morning. Wilf got behind the wheel.

They’d agreed that it was worth another trip out to Cooney’s, though Andy would have to stay behind because Cooney already knew that he was a cop. Wilf would report back, and in the meantime Andy would hide out from Linda.

Wilf sped out along the highway toward Kipple Road. It seemed to take no time at all. He turned onto the gravel road, rattled along, then aimed the old Ford up into Reverend Cooney’s laneway and came to an abrupt stop.

The Reverend was nowhere in sight. Wilf could see Josh limping toward him though, wrapped in the same long coat he had on the night before and looking just the same too, perhaps he hadn’t even bothered to go to sleep.

Wilf struggled out of the car.

“Morning,” the boy said, settling down on his bad ankle at a distance and looking like some ragged bird.

“Morning. I was wondering if I might have a moment with your father.”

“Why?”

“I was moved by the meeting last night. That’s why. Quite taken up by the power of it all. I would really appreciate seeing your father.”

Josh held out a dirty hand.

Wilf reached into his pocket and pulled out a two-dollar bill.

Josh’s eyes lit up. He shuffled forward. “He’s in the temple,” he said, plucking up the bill.

“Up there?” Wilf pointed his cane toward the implement shed.

“We’re putting in more benches.”

Wilf limped up the slope toward the open doors. Josh limped along behind him. The march of the lepers, Wilf thought to himself.

The Reverend was building some extra seating behind the hay wagon, tiering it up on a series of old planks and oil drums.

“Expecting a larger crowd?”

Reverend Cooney turned around from his work. He smiled. “You were here last night.”

“Standing at the top. Back row.”

“I never miss a face.”

“Amazing.”

“You’re from the law office in town.”

“I am. And I have something of a private nature I’d like to ask.” Wilf looked back toward Josh who was lurking in the aisle.

“Why don’t you find us a few more boards?” The Reverend called out to him, “I believe there’s some left in that pile behind the barn.”

“He’s paid for a blessing,” Josh said. “Two dollars.”

The Reverend stepped off the seat and onto the bed of the wagon. “Then a blessing he shall receive.”

The boy turned and limped out the doors.

“A hard-working son you’ve got there, Mr. Cooney.”

“The Reverend Cooney, actually, not that I make a big fuss about it. And yes, he is my great joy. His affliction is my great joy.”

“How is that?”

“Because I cursed God. Why should I have a crippled son? Why has the Almighty imposed this on me, I cried out. But then, as God had planned, my son became the joy of my life and I knew that I had sinned and I knew that I had been, to the very bottom of my soul, a coward. Afflictions are how we find God’s love in this life. Isn’t that a wondrous thing?”

“No gulf too deep,” Wilf said. “No distance too far.”

“That’s the mystery of it, isn’t it? That’s the wonder. If you like, I’ll pray for you now.”

“That’s not why I’m here. It’s not that.”

“No?”

“I have a question for you. You know Daniel Kelly, don’t you? He has a farm not too far from here.”

Cooney’s face clouded over a little. “What about Mr. Kelly?”

“He collapsed last night right about where I’m standing.”

“He received the Holy Spirit last night.”

“You should know that I’m working for the police.”

“I see.” Cooney took a step backwards.

“And they seem to think that that dead boy you’ve been speaking so eloquently about has something to do with Mr. Kelly and his late wife. They’ve sent me out here to ask you what you know about the Kelly family. In the strictest of confidence, of course. Tell me what you know, and if there’s no criminal culpability on your part I’m sure you won’t be in any further trouble.”

The big man stared down at Wilf, his blue eyes blazing now. “Mister, I stand in amazement that anyone, much less a lawyer, would approach a man’s minister and ask him to divulge anything at all. Don’t you know you’re treading on sacred ground? Don’t you know that what happens between a man, his God and his minister is a sacred trust?”

“But you’re a janitor,” Wilf said.

Cooney’s handsome face went cold. He strode back across the wagon and stepped over the gap and onto a board suspended precariously between two oil drums.

“Why are you running away?”

“Who’s running away? I have work to do.”

“We talked to the Grey County Children’s Home. You’re not a Reverend anybody. You don’t have any degree, licence, training. And you were fired for bothering the children. For being a bloody nuisance.”

Cooney picked up a hammer and looked around for something to hit.

“How many people do you think are going to come out here when they find out the truth about you?”

“And what is a piece of paper but a piece of paper?” Cooney shouted out. “When a man is a lightning rod for God! When a man is ablaze with the Spirit! When a man is Truth! How far do you suppose people will come to see him, to touch and be touched, to be healed?” Cooney began to drive a large nail into a board. “They will come from miles and miles and miles.”

“How far do you suppose they’ll come from when they find out you knew all about that boy in the first place. Knew who had put him there, knew exactly why, but you were keeping it a secret just to drum up attention to benefit yourself?”

“Why don’t you leave?”

“Because you’re covering up a murder, Mr. Cooney. That’s serious business.”

Cooney was working on his knees. He stopped his hammering and looked back at Wilf. “The man told me something in absolute trust and faith.” He looked around the implement shed, the tiers of benches, the painted sign that read
NEW HOPE CHRISTIAN CHURCH: THE REVEREND GENE C. COONEY PRESIDING
. “Why are you trying to ruin everything? Why don’t you leave the poor man alone?”