Читать книгу The Defilers - Deborah Gyapong - Страница 3

Chapter 1: Consuming Fire

The day my life began to unravel, I was driving my police car through Nova Scotia’s first snowstorm of the season with Constable Will Bright directing me from the passenger seat. The call came in as we pulled into the Irving Gas Station parking lot. Someone had firebombed a house while a couple and two children slept inside.

How long had it been since I’d felt that adrenaline rush? It was still intoxicating. I became the old Linda, hyperfocused, intent on rescuing those children and catching the bad guys. Don’t get in the way of my fix. My foot pressed the gas pedal into the rubber mat and the car skidded onto the highway. The slippery road, fog patches, and big wet flakes drifting onto the windshield demanded concentration. Besides, it was still dark. The sun wasn’t even up yet.

Will hung onto the handle over the passenger door. “Watch you don’t hydroplane.”

Ignoring him, I switched on the flashing lights. “How far is this place?”

“A half hour.”

I swore under my breath. At least Dispatch had advised us a couple of volunteer fire departments were on their way.

By the time we fishtailed into the clearing the sun had struggled up behind heavy clouds. Half the house was a roaring inferno and the other billowed black smoke. No one trapped inside could have survived.

Orange flames licked at the grey Nova Scotia sky through the peaked roof and crackled through heat-shattered windows. The blaze cast a lurid glow on the wet snow plastering the surrounding forest. The fire fascinated me, consuming me as if I myself were on fire. Big snowflakes drifted down, creating dots like static on a TV.

I burst out the driver’s door and splashed through ankle-deep slush to the trunk. Will plunged around from the passenger side. When I opened the trunk he smacked into me, all two hundred plus pounds of him, and bumped me aside causing me to accidentally bite the inside of my cheek.

“Hey!” I sputtered, tasting the rusty tang of blood.

Will rummaged through the trunk, grabbed a battered video camera, and swung the strap over his shoulder.

Before mouthing off any more I clamped my jaws shut and searched for body bags on the muddy snow. Be a team player, Linda. The smoke’s acrid haze stank of burning asphalt shingles but, thankfully, not burning human hair or flesh. I brushed my stinging eyes with my forearm.

Will prodded my shoulder. “You’ve got crowd control.”

I spun around.

He tossed me a roll of yellow police tape and then slammed the trunk shut.

We slogged toward the red fire engines parked helter-skelter in the clearing. A dozen firefighters in yellow helmets sprayed streams of water onto the blaze.

Will headed toward the fire chief, a short wiry man standing next to one of the pumper trucks. I decided that Will’s “orders” to string tape could wait until after the chief had briefed us both.

“Someone threw a cocktail?” Will shouted over the roar of the diesel engines.

“Yup, that’s what the man said.” The chief nodded in my direction. We hadn’t met, but my navy blue uniform parka and Royal Canadian Mounted Police cap were introduction enough. I wore the yellow roll of police tape like a giant bracelet.

A red-hot beam collapsed throwing a cloud of glowing cinders into the air. The interior shimmered a gaseous yellow, the posts and beams glowing like a red skeleton. A ripple of excited shouts passed through the small group of spectators. Sharing their awe I peered through the smoke, wondering if the perpetrator was admiring his handiwork.

“A couple and their two kids were in there!” the chief shouted. “It could’a been real bad!”

About ten feet away, a man with a faded quilt draped over his shoulders held hands with a small girl who was leaning against his thigh. Next to him a woman rocked a chunky toddler in her arms. The baby stared at me over her shoulder. The cold had turned its round cheeks bright red. When the man laid his arm across the woman’s shoulders, she shook it off.

“Is that them?” I gestured with my chin toward the family.

“Yup!” the chief shouted. “The man says someone threw an incendiary device through that window.” He pointed toward the inferno. “There are some footprints in the snow. I’ve tried to keep my men away from them.”

Will leaned so close to my ear I could feel the warmth of his breath. I flinched and stepped back, trying to disguise the flinch as a stumble. He raised his lopsided eyebrows. He stepped toward me again and leaned into my ear.

I forced myself to stand still, even though my stomach seized and my heart thumped.

“Can you handle crowd control by yourself?”

“Of course.” I squinted. Does he think I’m a rookie? He was the same rank – constable – and probably didn’t have any more years in than I did, so he had no right to order me around, except for the fact that I was new to the detachment.

Will sloshed backward. “How about stringing that tape before the ‘evidence eradication team’ tramples any more footprints.”

I saluted. “Yes, sir.”

Will and I had met for the first time that morning. He struck me as overly conscious of his good looks as well as patronizing. Bitter experience on the job had taught me to be cautious around male RCMP members. Bitter experience back in my native Boston had taught me to distrust men, period.

I strung police tape from tree to tree, creating a barrier between the firefighters and the spectators. Wet sooty snow settled like grey lace on the shoulders and bare heads of the men, women, and children I herded behind the tape. Many wore red or green padded work shirts or stained nylon parkas with their sweatpants or shiny polyester slacks.

A steady trickle of newcomers arrived to gape at the fire. I assumed they came from the nearby settlement of South Dare, an appalling stretch of dilapidated shacks and trailers a hundred yards beyond the edge of the clearing. When, after a long upward climb through rocky brush land and scraggly forest, our police car had hurtled through this hellhole toward the fire, Will must have noticed my astonishment because he said, “Welcome to the Mountain. They didn’t tell you about this when you signed up, did they?” South Dare looked like Appalachia or something from the Third World. The settlement both fascinated and repelled me. So did its residents.

A man with the wide-set eyes and flat nose typical of fetal alcohol syndrome ducked under the tape and sauntered toward Will. Following him, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Get behind the line, sir.”

The man’s brown eyes glistened with resentment. I gestured with my head and prodded him until he shuffled back under the tape. Power and the hint of danger heightened my senses, making me feel alive instead of numb. The inner flames I craved leapt up again. If only I could keep them from burning me out. Keep the flames, but under control like fire in a wood stove.

A van swished into the clearing. Eight or nine women wearing identical green parkas poured out of the vehicle.

“The Ladies’ Auxiliary is here,” one of the firefighters said. Under his yellow helmet sweat beaded his ruddy face. “Get yourself some coffee, hon.”

Hon! I wanted to roll more than my eyes – his head! – but I resisted. “Thanks. Maybe later.”

The women placed a big stainless steel coffee urn and plates of sandwiches at the back of the van. The locals tromped over to the food. Despite the snow few children wore hats or mittens, their ears and little hands red with cold. When had any of them eaten a decent meal?

I sloshed over to the man draped in the comforter. His untrimmed beard seemed to drag his long face down, and his wiry greying hair bushed out like an Old Testament prophet’s. Tall and lean, he stood six inches taller than my five foot eight. Will was searching the bushes between the burning house and the woods. I half expected him to barrel over and shove me aside as soon as he saw me doing an interview.

“This was your house, sir?” I slipped my notebook from the bulletproof vest under my parka. It took the man a moment to tear his eyes away from the fire. I could feel the heat on the side of my face.

“Yes.” He turned and his penetrating brown eyes seemed to bore right through me. I averted my eyes as a papery ash settled on my bare hand. When I tried to brush it off it disintegrated into an oily smear.

I searched my pockets for a tissue. “May I get you and your family some sandwiches? Coffee?”

“Someone’s bringing us something. Thanks, though.”

His deep voice rumbled. He told me their names: David and Anne Jordan.

“I’m Constable Linda Donner from the Sterling RCMP detachment. Are you all okay? Any injuries?”

Anne shook her head and bit her lip, tears clumping her eyelashes together.

I turned to David. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“About 6:30 this morning I heard glass breaking and a man shouting.”

“You were both upstairs?”

He shook his head. “No, I was in the kitchen. Anne was.”

“Did you recognize the voice? See anyone?”

Anne shook her head. “I was in the back bedroom with the baby.” She handed the squirming toddler to David who threw him fireman style over his shoulder.

“Where is or was the kitchen?”

The girl leaning against his leg began to cry and so did the baby. David handed the baby back to Anne, and picked up the girl whose light brown hair clung to her high rounded forehead.

He pointed to the right, near the scorched family car. “In that addition by the laneway.”

“The fire started there, on the opposite corner, right?”

“Yeah, in our parlour. I ran in there and found flames shooting up around a wine bottle lying on the rug. I tried to roll up the rug, but the flames were too high. Then the chesterfield burst into flames and so did the curtains.”

“Chesterfield?” My eyes darted over to see if Will was watching me. He was filming the crowd.

“The couch.”

A wet snowflake landed on my notebook paper, blurring the word “wine.”

“Describe the bottle. Was it broken?”

“Not broken. A regular green wine bottle full of kerosene with a rag stuck in the neck. A Molotov cocktail, I guess.”

“Kerosene? How did you know?”

“I could smell it. I ran upstairs, grabbed my daughter. Anne took the baby and we climbed out the back window over the woodshed. Once everyone was safe, I dashed into the kitchen to call the fire department and grab the coats and boots we kept by the side door. That’s when I heard gunshots.”

I wrote on the damp page. “You see anyone?”

“I was still indoors. My wife saw something.”

He flung his free arm over Anne’s shoulder.

She jerked away from him. “I heard noises like firecrackers going off and saw a flash of light off in the woods.”

David and I locked eyes. He knew his wife’s jerking away like that didn’t sit well with me. His stare was like an X-ray of thoughts and feelings flitting through my soul that I could barely see myself. He gave me the creeps.

“Who did this to you?”

“I don’t know.” He finally looked away.

Anne glared at him, trembling, her eyes bloodshot, her brown hair hanging in tangled wet strings. “You know it’s one of them. Tell her.”

The little girl in David’s arms shivered, a tiny furrow in her brow, her lower lip trembling. Her nylon parka was soaked. I had to get the family out of there. A group of men wearing dirty padded shirts and hostile expressions pressed around us.

I shoved past them, shepherding the family toward the police car. The men followed. Their filthy clothes, misshapen bodies, and expressions of hostile defiance matched the sickening squalor of South Dare.

Anne clutched my arm. “They never wanted us to start a church here. They threw rocks at us when we drove through. They came into our house when we weren’t home. They made threatening phone calls. They poisoned our dog.”

I waved my hand toward the road. “The building on the corner with a fresh coat of paint? That your church?”

“Yes.”

“These people want to give South Dare a bad name,” interrupted a pot-bellied man in a dirty red work shirt. The deformed fingers of his left hand were fused together like a lobster claw. “You cops only come this way to harass people. The pastor, he set fire to the house hisself.” A murky light flickered in his eyes.

Still holding the little girl David stepped toward him. “Gordon, why do you say these things? What have I or my family ever done to you?”

Gordon averted his eyes and stumbled backward.

David’s lanky hand grabbed his arm. “We’re here because we want to share God’s love with you. That’s all.”

Purple-faced, Gordon shoved David into me. I lost my balance and toppled against one of the men who pressed around us. The men began shoving Anne and David, shouting curses. Focused on protecting the Jordans I planted my feet in the snow, and time slowed down. I whipped out my baton. The men howled in surprise at how effectively I could deal painful blows, even while showing restraint.

“Please leave us alone!” Anne cried. “Haven’t you done enough?”

David slung his arm around his wife again. Her shoulders went rigid at his touch. The man in the red work shirt leered at her obvious discomfort, revealing yellowed decaying teeth. I pushed the men aside and prodded the family forward to our police car. We didn’t have far to go.

Gordon ground his pot-belly against me and tried to heave me aside.

“I’ll have some questions for you in a moment.” I gestured with my head for him to leave. His warm sour breath filled my nostrils. The other men pressed around us. I breathed in slowly and focused.

“Hey, hey!” Will shouted. “Calm down, folks. Come on!” His affable crooked grin beamed at the locals as he waded through the crowd. Maybe he thought his charm disarmed them, but Will stood a head taller than almost everyone except David, and his size probably intimidated them. My legs twitched and the rushing sound in my ears began to fade.

Will laid his huge hand on the little girl’s wet head. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

David nodded, wiping the blood off his mouth. When Will clasped Anne’s shoulder she began to sob. He chewed his lip, his hand still resting on her, seeming uncertain what to say. Are they Will’s friends? Why didn’t Anne recoil from his touch?

Will and I ushered the Jordan family through the crowd, which had doubled since our arrival. To my relief two more RCMP cars rolled into the clearing.

“Pervert!” someone behind us shouted. A man spat a long string of tobacco juice toward David, splattering the snow with brown splotches.

“Someone slashed our tires.” David waved his hand toward an old maroon Chevy with singed paint and flat tires. “Margaret said she’d give us a ride to Cornwallis Cove, so we don’t need to go in your car.”

Margaret, a dark-haired woman wearing thick glasses, unlocked the doors of a green station wagon and helped the children inside. After David had made arrangements to come to the detachment the next day, Margaret drove away.

Will grabbed my shoulder and leaned into my ear. “I told you to look after crowd control, not start a riot!”

Flabbergasted, I staggered backward.

Will’s blue eyes iced me. “Do you want to get us killed?” He wagged his finger at me. “Take your cues from me, understand?”

I brushed his finger out of my face.

He leaned forward, eyebrows raised. “Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.” Jerk.

Will put me back on crowd control, though now he had a few more of us to order around.

Gordon slipped under the police tape. He waddled toward Will, who was taping a weathered baseball bat caught in the singed twigs of a bush not far from the house. Others followed him.

I slipped up behind Gordon and grabbed his damp shirt. “You can’t stand here.”

South Dare men surrounded us, all wearing the same smirk, the same unblinking stare, the same contempt for my uniform and gender. They repulsed me and seemed to sense my reaction. Be careful. Don’t let revulsion colour your judgement.

“On the other side.” I held the tape up high enough for Gordon to duck under, my heart pounding, trying my own version of an affable grin on him. When he wouldn’t budge I reached out and dug my fingers into a pressure point between his neck and shoulder. He winced with pain as his knees buckled. There, that’s more like it.

I smiled, my eyes squinting. “I’m interested in what you said over there.” Letting go I ducked under the tape ahead of him. He followed and so did his buddies.

“What’s your last name, Gordon?” I wrote his first name in my notebook.

Rubbing his shoulder with his claw-like hand, his eyes glistened with resentment. “Dare. Gordon Dare.”

“Who wanted the pastor out badly enough to burn his house down?”

“I told ya. He done it hisself.”

“Why do you assume we did it?” interrupted a younger man with brown hair cut short and spiky in the front and dangling to his shoulders in back.

“Just a minute.” I sounded defensive. My emotions wouldn’t leak out next time.

The younger man shoved his face inches from mine. “You don’t care if the pastor’s a child molester?” His breath stank of chewing tobacco. The men around him murmured and nodded, reddened faces twisted with hatred.

Turning to the spiky-haired man I flipped a page over in my notebook. “Your name, sir?”

“Lonnie. Lonnie Dare.” Tobacco juice dribbled out the side of his mouth.

“What did you say about a child molester?”

“You want us to do your job? Forget it!” Lonnie spat a wad of tobacco into the muddy slush.

I sloshed toward a group of women standing inside the police tape who scattered like a flock of chickens. I approached another group. Some of the teenaged girls had pretty faces, but women only a few years older had bent spines and large coarse-looking hands. A couple of women had dyed their hair platinum blonde, but one was missing chunks of hair from her scalp. No one would talk to me.

My stomach knotted. I’d blown my chance to redeem myself in Will’s eyes. Surveying the crowd I plotted my next move.

For every adult there seemed to be four children. A boy, about six or seven, squatted and defecated like a dog next to the police car. Will nearly stumbled over the child pulling up his pants. Ignoring the steaming pile Will tousled the boy’s hair. Soon, several of the children were hugging Will’s legs, making it difficult for him to move.

I herded the kids away and prodded and pushed them behind the police tape, back to their miserable lives.

A blue Toyota wagon swerved into the clearing. My neighbour and new friend Catherine Ross, editor of the weekly Sterling Spectator, jumped out of her car, her designer haircut and stylish leather jacket making her look like a model from a plus-size catalogue.

Snowflakes and ash began to settle on her swept-back curls. “The Jordans okay?”

“Yeah. Someone just drove them to town.” I glanced at her vehicle. “You can’t park here.”

She raised a small digital camera. “Let me take some pictures first, okay?”

I shrugged. Catherine took pictures of the dying flames. A number of beams had collapsed and glowed red hot, while those jutting toward the sky were charred black. The burning house now made me feel desolate and exhausted. I craved another rush of adrenaline.

“This is so weird. I was inside that house yesterday.” Catherine aimed her camera at Will. “You’re working with Constable Bright, eh? You lucky dawg.”

“Why were you here?”

“To talk about David Jordan’s new church.” Catherine slipped her camera inside her jacket to protect it from the still-falling snow. “I’m not surprised this place burned down. Trouble seems to follow him.”

“Seems to me he asks for it,” I mumbled and immediately regretted saying it. I wasn’t used to having civilian friends. Friends, period.

Catherine dropped her jaw in fake disbelief. “How did you know?”

“Choice of neighbourhood.” I widened my eyes and grimaced. “What is South Dare, the set for Deliverance?”

Catherine laughed. “I always think of that movie when I come out here. Some of them even look like the banjo player.”

“Tell me about it. This is his hometown.”

When I reviewed my notes later at the detachment some questions nagged me. Why would a white-collar guy like David Jordan endanger his family by living in South Dare? Why did the locals have such animosity? And what was up between him and his wife? I couldn’t rule anything out at this stage. I’d longed for a file like this, but my previous detachment back in British Columbia had been so big, everyone specialized. No matter how hard I tried to get ahead I always got stuck with traffic control, or busting prostitutes and johns, or worse, counselling battered women or rape victims.

The inner flames burst into life.

The firebomber was mine.