The Boy Must Die (6 page)

Justin followed Yianni into the office, where Yianni sat down at his desk. Watching this short frightening man gather the flattened fifties and twenties into a pile, Justin remembered what one of his college friends had said. “Yianni lives for money, Justin. He gets off on hurting people, too. He’ll push any button he can to get his thrills.” Each time Yianni flicked one of the bills and folded it into a wad, Justin felt his neck tingle.

“This is the last time you come here without full payment,” Yianni then said, folding the wadded money into a green leather wallet. “You understand? I don’t want a little loan to get in the way of me liking you.”

“Yes. Okay.”

“Now, kid. You get to the bank. Or to your rich uncle. Or to a rich sugar-momma you can fuck for a loan. Low interest. You get my six thousand and come back here next Saturday. You bring me the cash, full payment, you have a Coke, I count the bills, we celebrate with a joint. Am I right?”

“Sure. Yes, Yianni.”

“Am I right?”

“Yes. You are right.”

“Until next Saturday.”

Justin turned and reached for the door handle.

“Wait a minute, kid.”

Yianni opened a cupboard and lifted out a small Ziploc bag. In it were clusters of green marijuana flakes. One of Yianni’s dime bags.

“I don’t do this very often, kid. ’Cept for my preferred clients. You
are special, Justin. Here. Take it.”

“No thanks. It’s okay, Yianni. . . .”

“Come on, kid. Don’t hurt my feelings. You don’t want a gift from an old friend? It’s on the house. You can’t say I never cut you a deal when you was buying from me. Remember?”

“Yes, Yianni.”

“So take it. Give it to your ex-girlfriend. Fuck her and have some fun.” Yianni dropped the bag into Justin’s open hand.

“Now get your ass out of here.”

Outside on the street, Justin noticed the sky for the first time that morning. Empty. Clear. “A bit of time,” he whispered. He began to shake and went to pull up his collar as if he were wearing a heavy coat.
Think, think.
He felt the dime bag in his pocket. It wasn’t more than fifty bucks worth, not even to that kid who hung out at Sheree Lynn’s. He didn’t want to think about the barrier tape, the police cars outside Satan House.
Poor Auntie Marion would’ve freaked if she knew everyone called it that.
He remembered Cody. Dead in the basement last December. Justin wondered why the police had never questioned him. Thank God. Selling dime bags to the two boys was definitely illegal, but Justin still needed more than a few small dope sales to pay off Yianni. Who could he ask for a real loan? He started to run towards the Oldsmobile. His legs were like rubber. The street gave off waves of heat, and he stopped for a moment. In front of him was Boorman’s Men’s Store. Justin spotted a red silk tie in the display window. “Why not?” he whispered under his breath. And without hesitating, he walked into the panelled showroom of the store with its neat shelves of folded shirts and racks of suits. A well-dressed older man walked up to him.

“Hi, how much is the red tie in the window?”

Before the man had time to answer, Justin’s stomach contorted. It was like a signal, a warning. Justin blinked, broke into a sheepish grin. “No, it’s okay,” he blurted. Turning, his neck hot with shame, Justin mustered his courage and strolled out purposefully. Once more in the brazen sun, he froze on the sidewalk, his back to the display window. His
stomach cut into him again. Oh, yes, his mother had always
said
he was a spendthrift, a compulsive, just like his father. Oh, yes, he knew he couldn’t resist buying something he liked no matter what the price. This was the very disease, the blind need to spend, that drove him towards a man like Yianni. Justin had always known it. But today was the first time he really
felt
it, and it was like being hit by a bucket of ice water. “It’s all Yianni’s fault,” Justin said. But he knew that was a lie. At this instant, all he wanted to do was hide. All he felt was an urge to cry. Running blindly off the sidewalk and into the traffic, he dodged a couple of honking cars and sprinted down the streets until he reached the place where he’d parked. Inside, he locked the doors and suddenly broke into huge sobs. “I’m sorry, Dad.” And then he leaned his head against the steering wheel, the horn bleating like a frightened animal.

Two blocks north of the parking stall where Justin Moore sat with windows closed against the June sun, Billy Yamamoto quickly glanced at his watch. The spindly green hands read 12:29. He and Butch were now driving up Ashmead Street, and Billy was finishing off a Colombian he’d picked up from Mac’s coffeehouse. Through the windshield, he admired the canopy of leafy cottonwoods and the immense vault of the sky. “Glad you’re here?” Butch asked. He waited for Billy to answer, and coughed. “This city,” Butch went on. “I’ve been cruising around for almost forty years. Stays the same, but it changes every time I get a chance to look.” He nudged Billy with his right elbow. “You okay?”

“Yes.” The city
was
different: smaller, cleaner than Billy had remembered it from high school days. What a change from the Pacific coast. No bouncing rain day after day. The air here did not cut through your skin and make you feel you were rotting from the inside out. Passing the clapboard houses along Ashmead, Billy pictured the nights years ago when the two of them as teenagers had gone joy riding up and down this street. One night very long ago, they’d driven to a dance at a dilapidated hangar in the city’s old Flying Club, and a couple of rednecks had started pushing Billy around, calling him Chinky and Jap. Butch had
stepped in, raising his championship fists to defend his friend.

Butch had been leaner then, shoulders harder from daily workouts, his face framed by tight cropped red hair, his callused knuckles a reminder he was western Canada’s junior amateur middleweight boxing champ.

“Fill me in on Sheree,” said Billy.

“I’ve met her only once before. Investigating the Cody Schow hanging. Youth care worker, got downsized, according to her boss at family services. They weren’t too keen to give out much more information. She and her boyfriend seemed pretty close. He’s a professor at the university.”

“How’s he connected to the Cody Schow case?”

“He was there with Sheree, in the house, staying over when the first body was found in the basement.”

“They were
in
the house?”

Butch nodded.

“Sound sleepers?”

“They both claimed they heard nothing. Sheree Lynn said she always left the back door unlocked. . . .”

“Even after the Schow suicide?”

“Seems so. She says the kids came and went. Half the time she never knew if they were out or in.”

“How did she know this Schow boy?”

“Before Sheree left family services, she met Schow and the Riegert kid. Her job was to assist the head psychologist looking into allegations of abuse brought forward by the boys’ school. Riegert and Schow followed Sheree to her house one day, what we call Satan House now, Marion Bartlett’s old place on Ashmead. According to her, they asked if they could see her and be counselled. We questioned Riegert after the Schow suicide and found that Sheree often let the two of them sleep over. She made them meals once in a while.”

“How many times did you talk to the Riegert boy?”

“Just the once.”

“And your impressions?”

“Shy, withdrawn, unhappy.”

“Suicidal? Any follow-up done on him after the Schow hanging?”

“Not much. We contacted the school counsellor, and he kept close watch on the boy for a month or two but never reported back to us with any matter of concern.”

“How about Sheree? Did she report anything? Was there any need for intervention or further counselling?”

“I spoke to her a few times. She claimed Darren had adjusted well. I had doubts. Hell, the cable
TV
people grabbed hold of the story. They went nuts, calling the house a drug hangout, a nest of Satan worship. The local school boards even put out a bulletin warning parents to keep their kids away from Satan House. I was surprised no one trashed the place. Darren, though, got through the mess, so I let the matter go.”

“This morning, did Sheree offer any theory about how or why Darren ended up dead in the same basement as Cody Schow?”

“No. She wasn’t too clear on anything. Her boyfriend, Randy, was with her again trying to calm her. She was pretty broken up.”

“Who found the body?”

“The boyfriend.”

Billy paused.

“I asked Dodd about Sheree Lynn. He blushed.”

“I’m not surprised.” Butch grinned.

“Surprised?”

“You can judge for yourself, my friend.”

Butch steered the Ford cruiser to the curb in front of a tall white mansion covered in peeling paint. Satan House sat east-west on Ashmead Street. Two tree-lined avenues, Baroness and Dufferin, stretched southward from Ashmead. Their old-money homes had three storeys, big fences, and back gardens that butted up against each other. Satan House had a pitched roof with two identical A-frame dormer windows. Stucco and wood slatting decorated the upper half of the once-proud façade, while on the first floor bay windows with cheap curtains bordered the front door. Billy remembered the place as a grand home on a select
street. There had always been flowers and a clipped lawn. Stories, too, about the rich eccentric Bartlett spinster who lived alone and refused entry to all visitors. A long pillared porch once skirted the ground storey. All that was left was the line of its former roof running across the slatting like a crusted scar.

As Butch was about to switch off the engine, a compact woman with curly brown hair emerged from the front door of the house. She marched towards them carrying a black briefcase and a 35mm Nikon slung over her right shoulder. Billy noted her powerful stride as she crossed the dirt yard. The fullness of her breasts was evident beneath her uniform jacket. She passed around a small group of people gawking at the fluttering barrier tape. At the passenger window of the cruiser, she peered with blue eyes into the shadowy interior. Butch lowered the window.

“Afternoon, Chief,” she said. “We’re wrapping up.”

“Meet Billy Yamamoto. Constable Gloria Johnson.”

Johnson extended her hand and with a firm grip shook Billy’s.

“Billy was chief homicide detective with the Vancouver city police force for twelve years,” Butch said. “He’s agreed to join us on the investigation, if you have no objections. In fact, I want Billy to take charge of what we’re doing here since he has offered us his time.”

“Fine with me, sir,” said Johnson. With quick eyes, she looked Billy up and down.

“What have you found, Johnson?” Billy asked.

“We’re done with the dusting and the rest of the photos and the site sketch, sir. I got up and took a look at the overhead pipe. Lots of rust. Tommy — he’s our medic — got blood samples from the floor. We also went around the neighbourhood like you suggested, Chief. No one home at one place. But Mrs. Aileen Moore, who lives with her teenage son next door, claimed she saw and heard nothing. The neighbour on the other side is bedridden, and his nurse said she sleeps in the basement and can’t hear street noise.”

“What did the teenager see?” asked Billy.

“Pardon me?” Johnson replied, her voice rising a little as her lips
parted in a sudden smile.

“You said a Mrs. Moore lived next door with her son. Did he see anything? Did you meet him?”

“Actually, no, Inspector. At the time, Mrs. Moore said he probably was still asleep.”

“He may have been up in the night though. Or in late. Get their number and have the son come down to the station. Just routine. Get a hold of the nurse again, and the other neighbour, and have them come down, too.”

“Sure thing.”

Johnson smiled again. Billy liked the way she spoke. He liked the way her face took on colour when she smiled.

“Can you leave behind your kit, Johnson? Billy and me’ll need tweezers and Ziplocs.”

“And gloves.”

“And gloves.”

“She’s yours, Chief.” Constable Gloria Johnson lay the briefcase down on the sidewalk by the cruiser, then took out a couple of large envelopes. “Got the prints here. I’ll take ’em over to the lab. And do some cross-checks with the Schow case.”

At first glance, Gloria Johnson had seemed older than she was. Billy gazed now at a woman no more than twenty-five, a staff constable with an important job, forensics being only one part of it.

“You may need some more consent-to-search forms, Chief. They’re in the kit, too.”

“Thanks, Johnson.”

“Better go gentle with her, sir. She’s still shaky from this morning. And the attack. Her professor boyfriend had to go off for a meeting. I gave him permission to leave. He’ll be back as soon as he can since he knows you need to talk to him again.”

“What attack?” asked Billy.

“Chief, you want to, or shall I?”

Butch coughed. “Go ahead.” Butch pulled out a pack of cigarettes for
the first time since he’d been with Billy and lit up. He lowered the window on his side of the car and blew the smoke into the open air.

“The mother, this morning, when she got here, caused a ruckus. She’s a hard one. We were chalking off the scene when she comes screaming down the basement stairs. Right, Chief? She was crying. Tommy and me had to hold her back from tearing the body down. Then Miss Sheree appears. All polite and trying to comfort. The mother goes at her. Spits in her face. Calls her a bitch.”

“Thanks, Johnson.”

“Did she get near the body?”

“No. She was restrained by Tommy. There was no tampering from her or her male companion. Quite a lad he was, eh, Chief?”

Butch nodded, then thrust open the driver’s door.

“Come on.”

“Nice meetin’ you, sir,” Johnson grinned.

“You, too,” Billy smiled back.

“You be back after lunch, Johnson?”

“If you need me, Chief.”

“On your way back, drive over to Professor Mucklowe’s apartment. Check up on his story this morning. Talk to the landlord.” Butch turned to Billy. “Mucklowe claims he and Miss Bird were talking to the landlord before they got here. Tap on a few doors around, see if anyone’s home for lunch who may have seen them earlier on.”