Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery (35 page)

Dan slowed the car as he approached Glenora. No line-up. He glanced across the water where the ferry was just reaching the far shore. There was still time. He found himself turning around and heading back up County Road 7 to Lake on the Mountain. He thought of its subterranean aquifers travelling hundreds of miles unseen, only to emerge again somewhere strange, mysterious and unexpected, like a father’s love for his child.

The lake suddenly came into view. Dan pulled into the empty parking lot. The sleet was bashing against the windshield, insistent, like something trying to pound its way into his brain, thousands of little pieces of a giant puzzle flinging themselves at him, getting closer and closer but not quite reaching him.

After all these years, he thought, it was strange how the past still held sway over the present, like hands reaching out from the grave. An old man’s prejudices had stained and perverted his grandson’s lives, and a father’s diary that had lain unread for more than twenty years was about to destroy his family. From this day forward, Dan promised himself, he’d think more about the here-and-now. Donny was right — he’d been caught in a dead man’s world after all.

He sat looking over the Bay of Quinte, with its breathtaking views. If he tried, he could probably pick out the Killingworth mansion on the far side hidden by its copse of pine trees. Were Craig Killingworth’s remains out there, his final resting spot somewhere just offshore from his wife’s cheerless estate? What had gone through his head in those final moments as he stood saying goodbye to all the things he was giving up? How did you say goodbye to your life, letting go of everything that mattered?

What is the one thing that matters most to you? Whatever it is, hold fast to it
. Martin’s words again. Thank god for Kedrick. In all those years, his son was the one thing that had kept Dan’s head above water — at times only just above, but still. Dan had promised himself nothing would ever come between him and Ked. Even alcohol hadn’t made him break that promise. So there was hope, he knew. There would always be hope, so long as love remained. Then what had happened to Craig Killingworth, a man who claimed his sons mattered more to him than anything, even life itself? Why hadn’t he chosen to live for them?

Something … something … something was driving at him, ticking at the back of his brain with an insistent rhythm. Whatever it was, he couldn’t ignore it. It held there, waiting for him to find it.

Dan recalled his momentous meeting with Ted a month earlier as he’d unravelled the secrets of the past, unlocking the mysteries of the long-dead.
It’s my birthday,
Ted had said, just before going out the door.
Time to start living
.

Dan thought back. It had been the day after Halloween, making it … November First. The date Craig Killingworth had planned to leave town twenty years earlier. The same date on which he’d disappeared forever. If Dan were ever to leave Ked, for any reason on earth, it wouldn’t be on his son’s birthday.

Or any other day.

Because a man who loved his children that much could never abandon them, not even for a pact to begin a new life with another man. Earlier that day Craig Killingworth had said his real goodbyes, to his friend and lover, Magnus Ferguson. Magnus hadn’t known it at the time, but he’d suspected something was wrong when he spoke with Craig on the phone in the morning. So he’d gone to the house and helped him pack. Craig had always been fussy about his clothes, he’d said. A fussy man, who got cranky about packing….

Dan looked down at the cell phone resting on the passenger seat.
Yes or no?
he asked himself.
Yes or no?
It had to be …
yes!
He picked it up, flipped it open with one hand and dialled.
Yes! Yes!
It screamed at him now. Why? Why hadn’t he seen it in all this time?

Saylor answered. Dan spoke quickly, trying to convince the Picton cop that what he was saying was really true this time. Because he’d just grasped the one thing that was bothering him in all this mess. Despite the apparent suicide letter to Magnus, despite the eyewitness reports and the numerous sightings following Craig Killingworth’s disappearance, leaving just a trace of hope that he might still be alive somewhere, something had been nagging at him. Because despite even what the diary said, he’d felt it in his bones … the one thing out of place in all this sordid sadness.

He’d finally found the unexpected: a suitcase. Standing empty behind a door in a police file, but packed earlier that day according to Magnus. It was the one thing awry in the report. A man had packed his suitcase to go away. Why would he bother to unpack it if he was going to kill himself? Dan’s instincts had been right all along. Ted said his father had come back to see him the day of his birthday. He would never have left on his son’s birthday after promising Ted he was coming back to stay:
I’m going to give her what she’s always wanted. By the time you get this, I will be a dead man
.

Craig Killingworth hadn’t decided to kill himself. He was a dead man because he knew he couldn’t live without his sons. That meant for the rest of his life he would have to endure whatever his wife had in store for him. He’d unpacked his suitcase — because he’d finally made up his mind to return. Just as he’d promised Ted.

Grief. A powerful word beginning with a soft utterance and ending in a feather’s caress. There’s no way to say it without beginning and ending in a sibilant whisper. Intake of breath or out, it’s still the same — like a verbal palindrome. Craig Killingworth had felt its pull, soft and seductive enough to make him sacrifice himself. He’d given in to its drowning embrace, giving up what he wanted most — his freedom — for what he couldn’t live without: his boys. In doing so, he’d lost both. There wasn’t a prayer or lamentation or elegy in the world that could convey, in words or music, the tragedy that this had brought about. There was nothing that could revoke or undo the senseless horror of what had happened to him:
If I can’t have you, nobody will!

Craig Killingworth had unpacked his suitcase that day and then sat down and written his letter to tell Magnus the truth, a truth that even he hadn’t fully comprehended: that he wasn’t leaving. Not because he’d decided to return to his family, but because he would be dead by the end of the day. He couldn’t have known that he was setting his own death in motion when he got on his bicycle and took the ferry to Adolphustown to tell his boys and his wife that he was coming back to live with them.

Terry Piers said that Craig Killingworth hadn’t returned on the ferry with his bicycle. But someone had. A boy. The same boy Magnus had seen riding a bicycle up the hill to Lake on the Mountain. A dutiful son removing the evidence that his father had been there that night.

She was pure evil, a woman who destroyed to suit her own ego. She’d even enlisted her son to help her. Murder: the one unforgivable sin. Because she had taken away something she could never replace: her husband’s life.

At least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I’ve destroyed her in return
. Had Ted known all along what he was doing?

The ferry was agonizingly slow approaching the dock. Dan waited in unbearable torment as the crew in fluorescent orange coats with fluty stripes slid open the gate and waved the cars off-ship before calling in the oncoming group. He felt the vibrating charge as his wheels hit the loading ramp, second-last to board. And then there was nothing to do but wait as the boat ploughed into the reach and plied the waves, carving its way through the jagged ice locking the passage.

His car sat next to a muster station with its yellow boogie board life preservers. Dan stepped out and looked over the side at the chunks of ice floating in black water. At this time of year he could almost have run across faster, if the ice would have held. His mind screamed for speed, but the boat kept up its steady crawl. Ahead, he saw the Royal Union flag waving them on to the Kingston side. The last gasp of the United Empire Loyalists. To his left, a sign read
MV Quinte Loyalist, rebuilt by Cartier Construction Inc 1992
. What had happened to the previous incarnation, Dan wondered, and why had it had to be rebuilt? He tried to keep his mind off what lay ahead. Whatever it might be was now out of his control.

The Killingworth estate sat undiminished by rain or time or encroaching cold, the pines still greenly watching his approach. It had eluded him before, but Dan knew now what the look of the house signified: death waiting.

Saylor had got there first. His car, door wide open, sat in the circular drive with lights flashing and the radio emitting useless sounds that went unanswered. Beneath the front window the garden was ravaged, plants torn out by their roots as though a demon wind had ripped things asunder.

Dan’s footsteps pounded a futile path up the stairs and across the porch. The front hall was stacked with boxes and containers. In the drawing room, the afternoon light still held its hushed somnolence. The furniture had been draped with sheets in preparation for closing the house down for the winter. Ironically, it looked as if the owners had gone into mourning.

The body was in the hall next to a bouquet of faded Monkshood, the delicately hooded flowers wilting as they thawed in the warmth. Lucille Killingworth lay across the carpet, her compact form neatly blending into its patterns and colours. She seemed to be camouflaged, as though the carpet were shielding her while she slept. As though she’d planned her death in advance to be as comfortable and well-coordinated as possible. A designer end. Suitable as any artist’s rendition of what death should look like. The effect was both comforting and eerie.

Ted was crouched on his haunches, watching. Saylor stood over him, regarding Dan with an air of regret. Thom had been detained upstairs in the bathroom, either not man enough to finish the job or so mentally destitute he didn’t realize he hadn’t accomplished it all yet.

Twenty-Eight

Cures

They’d been too late. Aconite has no known antidote, and chances were non-existent that anyone could have survived such a massive dose. Thom’s arrest for the murder of his mother was almost secondary to the shock that a twelve-year-old boy had poisoned his father and then got away with it for twenty years. He might find sympathy with a jury on the plea that his mother had encouraged him to kill his father, turning his young mind against him, but he would have a hard time getting out of the charge of murdering Lucille Killingworth two decades later. The fate of Daniella Ballancourt remained undecided, though Thom stuck to the story that he was innocent of any wrongdoing in connection with her death, and Dr. Bill McFarland, more than a good friend, stood firmly by his man in vouching for him. Dan was quietly surprised by Bill’s steadfastness.

He wondered briefly about Lucille Killingworth’s request for his help back in the fall. Had it merely been a ploy to find out about Daniella’s pregnancy, so she could truthfully say that he, Dan, had told them, if asked?
A woman knows these things
. She’d probably just wanted to be sure, in case the investigation turned up anything. Thom probably hadn’t known till Dan came by that afternoon. In a way, Dan felt sorry for him. What chance had he had with a mother like that? Then again, he’d had a good father. A very good father, who had loved him beyond all knowing. On some level, even the boy Thom must have known that. Shaken by what he’d done, the twelve-year-old had tried to destroy all remnants of his father’s memory, beginning with his horses, before retreating into a life of showy but mostly superficial physical accomplishments.

The pre-trial publicity kept the presses raging for a few weeks before other matters began to turn the tide of interest. All in all, the length of his sentence wouldn’t matter much to Dan one way or another.

Dan was backing out of his driveway when he heard the tear of metal against metal. He jammed on the brakes, got out of his car and looked back to see a ten-inch gouge running across his rear door. His neighbour’s car, unapologetically parked with a foot of overhang on his drive, hidden by the drifts, stood in the thin wintry sunlight.

Glenda came out of her house wearing an annoyed look. “That’s gonna cost you!” She ran over and saw that her own vehicle had sustained no damage. She turned meekly to Dan who stood glaring. She seemed to wilt.

“Sorry — I guess I was careless.…”

“How many times have I asked you to park your car so it doesn’t block my driveway?”

“Don’t worry, these things happen.” Suddenly, she was all charm. “I’m having a party tonight. You wanna drop by?”

“You’re trying to buy me off with a party invitation?” Dan demanded, more amused than insulted by her colossal lack of respect and consideration.

“There are going to be a couple of gay guys from my work. I’m sure they’d love to meet you.”

I’m not falling for this girly-girl routine,
Dan thought.
It may have worked on Steve and probably every other straight man you’ve ever flirted with, but it doesn’t work on me. That’s at least one advantage gay men still hold over straight men
.

“It’s a theme party,” Glenda went on, ignoring his glare. “It’s a come-as-someone-you-hate party. It’ll be fun.”

“Sounds like a riot,” Dan snapped, stepping back in his car. “Can I come as you?”

He left his damaged vehicle on the street and buzzed himself up to Donny’s condo. Donny stood just inside the door, grinning from ear to ear. He looked, Dan thought, suspiciously like a proud parent.

“Guess what Lester said when I asked what he wanted to be when he grew up.”

“No idea. I hope he didn’t say a machine or a porn star.”

“Neither of the above. Cut the kid some slack.” Donny gave Dan a withering look he saved for those few times when he wanted to annihilate with a glance.

“So, are you going to tell me or what?”

“He said — and I quote — ‘When I grow up I want to be
Miles Fucking Davis
.’” Donny was grinning. “Is that unbelievable or what?”

“That he wants to be Miles Davis?”

Donny nodded.

“Well, I guess a jazz superstar crackhead is better than just a crackhead.”

“Oh, fuck you, Snow White.”

Dan grinned. “So, is he good?”

“What — on the horn? I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Did you let him play a few licks?”

“Of course. I let him lean on my horn — after I dusted it off a bit.”

“And?”

Donny was evasive. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You know what good horn playing is. Either he was good or he wasn’t.”

“Well … I guess he wasn’t too good.
But!
Even Miles must have wondered what he was going to make of that piece of metal the first time he pressed it to his lips. I mean, can you imagine what Miles Davis was thinking as he raised a horn to his lips for the very first time?”

“An historic moment.” Dan waited a beat. “So, dare we hope that Angela Davis will inspire you to become a surrogate father to a needy boy with musical talent just waiting to be developed?”

Donny toed the edge of a counter. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I mean, we can’t just send him back to his parents. That would be … like a life sentence. Wouldn’t it?”

Dan nodded, waiting.

“And I guess I’ve kind of gotten used to having him around.”

“So…?”

Donny shrugged. “So, I guess … whatever.”

“Whatever? Just like that?” Dan said.

“Do you want me to say I’ll think about it?”

“Definitely not.”

Ked had been home a week. He was still on edge over Ephraim’s death, though the last few days had seen him returning to his old self. But he was changed, Dan knew. Older, sadder. Death had whispered in his ear then driven the knife blade in a little, under the skin. The experience would leave him marked, but not, Dan hoped, permanently damaged. Maybe it was too soon to be doing this. He went upstairs and knocked on his son’s door.

“Come in, Dad!”

Dan pushed the door open with his foot, avoiding the maze of clothes and school reports sliding over the carpet. Ked removed his earphones, his head still swaying to whatever unheard pulse he’d just been connected to.

“I need to speak with you about something,” Dan said, hoping his timing wasn’t completely off. “I’m thinking about going away for a while.”

Ked just sat there. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I’m thinking of going back to B.C. For a couple of weeks — maybe a little longer.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I know it’s been a difficult time for you, and I don’t want to do anything to upset you.” Memories of promising Ked never to desert him clouded his mind; was that what he was doing? He retreated. This was all wrong. “But anyway, it can probably wait.…”

Ked’s voice intruded. “What’s in B.C.?”

“Oh. Well. I was … I mean, there’s someone I met there I like a lot. I want to get to know him better. But of course my home is here — with you.” Dan watched closely, trying to read that inscrutable teenage face that seemed to follow him with X-ray vision, as though his son knew his deepest secrets.

“That’s cool.”

“What’s cool?”

“That you want to go to B.C. Especially if there’s someone you like.” Ked cocked his head. “Is he nice?”

Dan nodded. “Yes. He is. Thanks for asking.”

“Just checking up on you.”

“And anyway, it’s just a thought. I mean, I might not go —”

Ked fixed him with a stare. “Dad, I just want you to be happy. Have you ever been happy in your entire life?”

“What?” Dan looked intently at his son. “Of course I’ve been happy.” He stopped and thought about it. “Maybe not for a while, but I will be again.”

Ked sat watching him. “What makes you happy?”

“Did your Uncle Donny tell you to ask me this?” Dan said, suspicion clouding his mind.

“No.”

“Okay. Well, you make me happy, for one.”

“What else?”

Dan thought it over. Not much came to mind. Could he add Trevor to the list? What was he expecting of Trevor anyway? Salvation? Love everlasting? Supernatural sex? What happened when the sex slowed and the boredom quickened? When the perfect life became perfectly boring? The picture clouded. What would he do about the weight gain from not dancing or working out every other day and one too many hot chocolates before the fire? Or just from not having enough to get up and get done in the morning. These were precisely the kinds of things that destroyed relationships. And would Trevor still respect him no matter what tricks Dan came up with to booby-trap their rose-strewn path ahead? He was only now becoming aware of all the ways he sabotaged his own best intentions. Did he, Dan, even have what it took to make a go of things without fucking up, throwing up his hands, and moving on?

He smiled.
Listen to me,
he thought.
I’ve already moved in with him in my mind and we’re having our first fight, all without him even being there. Who says I’m not complex?

“I don’t know what else at this moment. It’s hard to say right now. It’s been a rough year for me too.” He shrugged and tried to cover his seriousness.

Ked watched him. “So just me? One thing?”

Dan nodded.

“Is that enough?”

“What do you mean?”

Ked looked around. “I mean … well, I’m happy living here with you, but Ralph makes me happy and I like playing basketball, and Mom makes me happy, and Uncle Donny too. There’s lots of things that make me happy —”

“And you think I need to have lots of things too?”

“Maybe you just need a few more.”

Dan watched his son watching him.

“I know you hate Toronto.…”

“It doesn’t mean I want to leave.”

“I’ll be fine if you do.”

Dan stared at him.

“Dad — I’m almost done high school. I just have a few years left, and then I’ll be going to university somewhere.”

Dan was shocked to realize it was as close in time as that. He tried not to let the surprise sound in his voice. “Where will you go?”

Ked made a face. “I don’t know. Geez! I haven’t even started to apply. The one I want to go to most is in B.C., though, so if you moved there —”

“Who said anything about moving?”

“No one.” Ked shrugged.

“Good, because I’m just going for a trip.”
And to try to talk someone into coming back with me,
Dan thought. Maybe his son was right. Didn’t he deserve a happy ending? Still, he couldn’t abandon Ked. Couldn’t, wouldn’t — it was all the same. For some things, there were no second chances. “I’m going, but I’ll be back. Don’t even think of trying to get out of doing the housework.”

He would not leave for now, though Ked was right — one day, he would. That didn’t mean Dan was stuck here till he died, however. Vancouver was only five hours away, and Air Canada had non-stop flights every day of the week. What more could you ask?

“Anyway,” Ked continued, “if I go to school in B.C., I might see you hanging out there.”

Dan snorted. “Hanging out? Is that what you think you’ll be doing in university?”

“Dad! Relax, would you?”

“I’m relaxed!”

“Yeah?” Ked eyed his father. “Okay, then. Let’s see you.”

Dan knew this would be hard to do without a drink, but he was only two months into his promise to Ked and he wasn’t going to break it. Six months wasn’t that long — not when you really thought about it. He felt himself dialling the number before he’d consciously made the decision.

Trevor answered. “Don’t tell me — you’re on a ferry that’s just pulling into harbour.”

“No, not this time.”

“Good. Because the place is a mess and I’d hate to think you were coming out here just to cheer me up. You don’t have some scheme to come and save me from loneliness or something, do you? I don’t need to be saved.”

“Not at all,” Dan said. “But I’ve been thinking a lot about how that gong sounded in the Japanese garden and how dark it gets there at night.”

“Does that mean you’re coming for another visit?”

“I’d like to.” Dan faltered. Words were failing him. “I’ve been thinking that my mind needs a break … before I start to hate everything here again. And it so happens there’s a seat sale on right now.”

“Fantastic!” Trevor jumped on it. “But I’m not pressuring you. I’d love to see you. Any time — I told you that. I’ve got the cure for whatever ails you.”

“Just so you know, I haven’t had a drink in two months, so I’m a total basket case, but a committed one.”

He was wrapping a box with a miniature Pride flag rolled up inside and a note that said, “I hope that’s enough colour for you.” Before he left, he’d drop it off at the office with a thank you note for Sally.

“I’m not selling the house or committing myself to anything … well, apart from spending the night with a cup of hot chocolate in front of your fireplace now and again. Preferably with lots of marshmallows.”

“You’re travelling 4,300 kilometres to have a cup of hot chocolate?”

“With
you
. A cup of hot chocolate with you. Any problem with that?”

Trevor laughed. “None whatsoever.”

“Fine. Then wish me luck —”

“Good luck.”

“— and I’ll see you soon. Can I bring you anything?”

“Yeah. Bring your tool belt. You can read into that whatever you like.”

Downstairs Ralph sat looking at him. “What do you want?” Dan asked, opening his arms wide. The dog leapt to the door and waited while Dan put the leash on him. Outside he trotted briskly along without pulling. He seemed to know where he wanted to go, as though he’d sniffed the wind, and it had told him something.

How do you gauge what lies ahead? How do you choose?

Sometimes,
Craig Killingworth had written in his diary,
I think the only things that matter are the choices we make, for better or worse, for right or wrong
. He had chosen the love of his sons and walked into the open arms of death. As sad and unfair as it was, nothing could change that. Craig Killingworth had let duty — an all-consuming duty of fatherhood coupled with a love for his sons — kill him. He’d tried to escape his fate and walked right into it. And here, twenty years later, Dan Sharp walked his dog across a bridge in one of the world’s largest metropolises, contemplating his future. His own choices. He, at least, could still make them. And they would be as wrong or as right as could be. There was no telling until he made them.