Stain of the Berry (11 page)

"Moxie wasn't paranoid," Cameron said, sounding a bit out of breath himself. "And she wasn't going crazy like Missy made it sound. Missy, and my mom and dad, don't like to admit it. They don't want to believe it or can't believe it, I guess. But those things, Mr. Quant, the things she talked about, they were really happening."

I stopped rubbing my bruised throat and studied the man. "You know this for sure?"

He nodded and stared at me with some kind of hope in his eyes. Hope for what?

"Can you tell me what kinds of things were happening to Moxie?"

Cameron nodded and for the next couple minutes, on that dark Moose Jaw street, he laid before me a gruesome tale, all in a fast-paced, jittery manner as if he couldn't get it out of his mouth fast enough. "He was hounding her, Mr. Quant. He would call her over and over and over again, at all times of the day and night, and then always hang up. At work. At home. She'd change her number but he always found it out somehow. He'd leave her stuff, like...like...like one time she found a pile of dog turd in front of her apartment door, and her building didn't allow dogs so it couldn't have been an accident. He was always watching her. She could tell. She could just feel his eyes wherever she went.

"And one time, he must have called 9-1-1 and sent the cops over, saying that someone in the apartment was being strangled to death, as if...as if...as if that's what he really wanted to do to her. Moxie really loved her car-an old convertible-and he musta known it 'cause he would do things like spray-paint her headlights black or pound nails into the tires. She had nowhere else to park it except on the street. She'd report the damage to the police but there was nothing they could do. One morning, she found it with the driver's side window smashed and the car was filled with gross rotting garbage. She finally had to sell the car. She cried so hard about that. And sometimes, she'd find these notes, stuffed in her purse or a coat pocket or a drawer at work. She'd get bills in the mail for stuff she never bought. He was driving her mental. She couldn't take it anymore."

My ears did a little twitch. "Notes? Do you know what these notes said?"

Cameron nodded again. "The one she told me about, it said, 'Boo.'"

Hello Kitty. I had in my possession another note, the one I found in Tanya's desk, with the same chillingly solitary word written on it. What was happening here? Was this some bizarre coincidence? A cruel joke gone wrong? Or were the deaths of these two women-once a couple-somehow tied together by this boogeyman?

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her. I believed her," Cameron told me. "I believed her and she told me stuff."

"Do you think Moxie and Tanya broke up because of what was happening? Maybe Tanya didn't believe her either?"

He thought about his answer for a few seconds. "Sorta, but not really. She and Tanya talked a lot about what was going on. I think at first Tanya wanted to believe it was just a string of bad luck. Who wouldn't?

But I think little things started happening to her too. They were getting really freaked out. Dad was right about one thing. Moxie did want to get out of Saskatoon. She was scared there,, She thought it was dangerous to stay in Saskatoon. She thought if she came home, she'd be safe. Tanya couldn't understand that and besides, she didn't want to come live in Moose Jaw. She didn't know anyone here or have a job or family here." The young man gave me a meaningful look. "I don't know if they split up so much as fear drove them apart."

"Did Moxie have any idea who was doing this to her?"

He shook his head. "No, and that's what was driving her 'round the bend. She couldn't think of who or why or how they were doing all this shit to her. Moxie was a really nice person. She was a really good sister." He stopped for a second to swallow a lump in his throat. "Everybody else liked her too. I can't think of who'd want to do this to her either. She was really scared, Mr. Quant."

I nodded my sympathy. "So she broke up with Tanya in March and moved back to Moose Jaw, in with your sister and brother-in-law?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know if she experienced any more harassment after she returned to Moose Jaw?"

He pasted his sorrowful eyes onto mine. "She's dead, isn't she?"

I was back in Saskatoon and in my office by 11 a.m. Wednesday morning, busily labelling and filling file folders. For each of my cases, I have a billing folder, a correspondence folder, a suspect folder and my personal favourite, a Herrings folder. In the Herrings folder I place information I have yet to follow up on or don't really know what to do with. Generally these are the bits and pieces I pick up or hear about during a case that usually end up meaning absolutely nothing, but, instead of allowing them to burrow around in my brain, I put them in the Herrings file, knowing I've put them someplace safe where I can revisit them whenever I need to (if ever). I was adding a few notes to the Culinare Herrings file when I decided to call upon Constable Darren Kirsch for a little help.

"Why do ya keep calling me?" Darren asked with a crumbly edge to his deep voice. "Don't ya know there are other police officers who could take your call?"

"I've grown accustomed to the sound of your voice," I drooled flirtatiously, just the way he hates it. I could almost hear his cheeks grow red over the phone line. "And I like to check in to see how you're doing from time to time."

"Well, I don't have time for girlfriend chatter, Quant, so you better have a crime to report-or better yet, a change of address, let's say to Timbuktu. If not, I'm hanging up."

I chuckled. I love Darren's wan attempts at keeping up with me in terms of caustic humour and sarcastic wit. The rigid, stick-up-the ass gene he got saddled with at birth, however, ensures he must always fail.

But I like that he keeps trying.

"Do you have any buddies in the Moose Jaw Police?" I asked, ready for business. "I'm wondering about a Moose Jaw woman, formerly a resident of Saskatoon, who drowned in the local pool."

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"Sad story, but why do I care?" Darren shot back, playing the tough-nosed cop that I suspected he really wasn't. I could hear him rustling papers. Ah, the never-ending paperwork of a cop. I missed it not.

"I'm wondering if maybe it wasn't an accident."

That stopped him. He took a deep breath and asked carefully, "Why do you wonder that?"

"The victim had just moved back home to live with her sister because she'd been having some harassment problems in Saskatoon. And her ex-lover just committed suicide. Her ex-lover. .." I slowed the pace of my voice here; I knew this would get him, after all, he was the one who got me involved in this case in the first place, "...was Tanya Culinare."

"The jumper from last week."

"Yuh-huh. The same."

He was silent, thinking. "I don't get it, Quant," he finally said. "Other than the two of them being friends once..."

I interrupted. "Lovers, Kirsch. These two women were a couple."

"Yeah, okay, I get it, lovers. But, why do you think the drowning wasn't an accident? Do you think the jum...Tanya killed her ex, then felt all guilty and offed herself?"

I wagged my head from side to side considering the theory. Not bad, but it somehow didn't sound right.

Something, something... "You know, Darren, I'm not sure. It just seems suspicious is all. Call it intuition.

These were two healthy, young women. They were connected. They were both experiencing some level of harassment." I didn't think the time was right to bring up the whole boogeyman thing. I did want his help after all, not to be laughed out of town. "And now they're both dead under abnormal circumstances. That just doesn't happen every day in Saskatchewan. I think it's worth some questions. I think it'd be a good thing if you talked to some of the blues in Moose Jaw and see what they can tell you about the investigation into Moxie's death, if there even was one. She'd just broken up with her lover, she'd moved back to Moose Jaw to escape harassment; she was fully dressed and all alone when she drowned; if I were a cop on the case, I'd have a million questions. Any scrap of informa..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill, Quant. I'm a detective too."

"So you'll do it?" I didn't want to play the "you got me into this" card quite yet.

"We'll see. Anything else?" he snapped.

"Did you want any gift suggestions for my upcoming surprise twenty-ninth birthday party?" My nose grew.

He hung up before I could give him my list.

Taking the chance that Alberta might actually be in her office, although she seldom is during regular working hours, I made the short trip from mine to hers with little hope of finding her there and a not-quite-formulated question on my mind. I was in dubious luck. Alberta, a plucky, plump, personality-plus brunette with a thousand faces, was in and open for business.

"Russell, sit down," she called out even before I'd reached the doorway of her one-room office. Her space is only slightly larger than mine but looks considerably smaller, what with all the crates and steamer trunks and decades-old hat boxes and upright wardrobe containers that fill every nook and cranny of the place like actors waiting to go onstage. I had no idea what was in them, and I had the feeling I wouldn't 49 of 163

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want to know. The room was dim, relying on the flickering artificial light from several antique floor lamps and one glowing crystal ball, which commanded a place of honour at the centre of a heavy, dark oak table that took up much of the free floor space. The air was thick and smelled of incense and ginseng tea.

Incongruously, Alberta was made up as a modern-day Carmen Miranda, replete with a fruit-adorned turban and a brightly coloured, spangle-trimmed getup that was just a bit too tight for her curvy figure.

Why? Why? Why? I want to ask that of Alberta whenever I see her bizarre neverthe-same-thing-twice attire, but instead I content myself with enjoying the always-entertaining view.

I did as I was told, choosing a chair meant for clients near the table, which was draped with a colourful collection of silky throws and across from where our resident psychic was seated, intently contemplating the shimmering crystal ball. I wondered if she had it wired for satellite TV.

"You want to know about something?" she asked, her breathy, deep, feminine voice sounding surprisingly normal in the paranormal atmosphere of her office.

"Well, yes, I...I'm not sure what I'm really looking for with this, but it's something that's come up a few times in a case I'm working on and I thought you might know something about it."

"Of course," she replied, showing no impatience with my go-nowhere prattle. "Go on."

"Have you ever...have you..." I rearranged my butt in the chair. "Do you know anything about...well...about...the boogeyman?"

Alberta's round cheeks flattened against her face and one eyebrow, plucked into a sharp arch, moved up her forehead near a bunch of Concord grapes dangling there. "Of course. Doesn't everyone?"

She stared into the depths of the crystal ball for a few seconds while it sat there mutely, glowing its otherwordly (or, more likely, Eveready-powered) glow. This is exactly the kind of psychic stuff she does that makes me squirm; I just don't know enough about her world and so it makes me uncomfortable, but I always try to be-well almost always-ready to listen with an open mind.

"It's...it's just something that's crossed my path a few times lately..."

"He's like that," she said.

Oh gawd, there actually is a boogeyman and Alberta knows him.

"When he's skulking around, preparing for his attack, readying himself to frighten you, to drive you insane, that's usually the first thing he does," she told me matter-of-factly. "He enters your mind like a burrowing worm: at first it seems like it's a dream or a nightmare, but actually it's more of a warning." Her black eyes pinned me down. "And when he's done with that, with all the teasing, well, then you better watch out."

I gulped, like a ten-year-old around a campfire. Pass the s'mores, please. "Watch out? Why? For what?"

She heaved her shoulders as if to say: if things have gotten to that point, it's already too late. "Once he has you," she told me, "he doesn't let go easily."

"You said he'll attack, scare you, but will he...kill you?"

"If you let him."

Okay. End of story time. "You're speaking in abstractions, right Alberta?"

"Albert Fish," she replied.

I shook my head to indicate I had no idea who or what she was talking about.

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"He was an American serial killer and cannibal who boasted about eating children in the 1930s. He was often referred to as the Boogeyman, but the name itself is much older and universal. A boogeyman can be a woman, but it's usually a guy if it's human," she said with a snort. "Or a boogeyman can be an animal, like a werewolf or monster under the bed. Or a thing, like anthrax or al Qaeda."

"So what you're saying," I said, desperately trying to apply logic to illogic, "is that the boogeyman can be any idea or figment of imagination that conjures up feelings of fear."

"Sure." Ah. Good. "Sometimes." Oh crap. "People like to put a face on what they fear, but the more they fear it, the closer it comes, ready to get them, hiding in the closet or under the bed or on the other side of the door."

"But it's not real. It's imagination," I insisted.

She shrugged. "Albert Fish wasn't imaginary. It's true, Russell, some boogeymen are abstractions, but others, I'm afraid, most definitely are not."

This is what I was afraid of. I never believed in the boogeyman as a child, and now I was having trouble believing that some boogeyman character was responsible for what happened to Tanya Culinare and Moxie Banyon. Bad luck, coincidence, sure, but the boogeyman? Nah. Yet if Alberta was right, there really could have been a boogeyman after Tanya and Moxie.