I shut her door, then raced around to the driver’s seat. The car started on the first turn of the ignition. As my hands clutched the steering wheel they began to shake so hard I had to squeeze the wheel tightly to bring the shudder under control. I turned on the lights, put the car in gear, reversed and, peering over the lights, steered it back onto the dirt track. We bumped along for fifteen minutes, Ivy saying nothing, me trying to keep the shock of everything that had just happened at bay. When there was a final bump and we hit tarmacadam, I remembered that Coursen had turned right here. So I knew I would have to turn left. But before I did I dug out my cellphone and a card that was in my wallet. A card with Sergeant Clark’s coordinates on it. His cell number was the last one listed. I dialed it. The phone must have rung nine times before he picked it up – and from the grogginess in his voice it was clear that I had woken him.
‘Sergeant, it’s Jane Howard.’
‘Who?’
‘Jane Howard.’
‘Jesus Christ, do you know what time it is?’
‘Four-thirty-one exactly. And you need to get into your car now and meet me in Townsend.’
‘What?’
‘I’m around ninety minutes from Townsend, so get into your car now. You’re going to meet me in front of the Townsend Assemblies of God church.’
Now he was fully awake.
‘You have really crossed the line now,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea what sort of trouble is in store—’
‘I want you there,’ I continued, ignoring him. ‘And I want an ambulance there as well.’
‘Why? So they can cart you away?’
‘I’ve got Ivy MacIntyre.’
A silence. Then: ‘You’re talking bullshit.’
‘You want me to drive her all the way to you in Calgary?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘You’ve got it in one, Sergeant. I am insane.’
Twelve
T
WO DAYS LATER
, I left the country. And Sergeant Clark even drove me to the airport – to ensure, as he put it, that I was ‘packed off out of town’.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here . . .
Townsend.
The road was empty and I arrived there in ninety minutes, stopping once at the only service station en route to avoid running out of gas and to buy several liters of water. As I paid for everything, the woman behind the counter – she couldn’t have been more than twenty – gave me the once-over and said: ‘You don’t mind me saying so, you look like you’ve had one rough night.’
I managed a crazed smile and said: ‘You have no idea.’
Then I went back to the car. Ivy was still curled up in a ball, her thumb in her mouth. I sat down beside her and opened a liter of water and told her she had to drink it. It didn’t take much coaxing. I lifted her head up and held the bottle as she gulped half a liter down without pause. The water seemed to revive her a bit. When she pushed the bottle away, she then immediately took my hands and pulled it back towards her, downing the remaining half-liter with great urgency.
Then we were off again, a passing road sign informing us we were one hundred and fifty kilometers outside of Townsend.
‘Once we’re there you’ll be with people who will look after you, make you better,’ I said.
‘You promise?’
The voice was small, hushed – but at least there was a voice there.
‘I promise,’ I said.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Eleanor,’ I lied. ‘And what’s your name?’
‘I told you already: Ivy.’
I smiled.
‘I know exactly who you are,’ I said.
She fell silent. Then, ten minutes later, she suddenly said: ‘He killed the other girls.’
‘He told you this?’ I said, trying not to sound shocked.
She nodded.
‘Was he talking about Hildy and Mimi?’
She nodded again.
‘Did he say where he buried them?’ I asked.
‘There’s a basement under the shed. He told me I was going there as well once he was done with me.’
She fell silent again. Then, around five minutes before we reached Townsend she said: ‘I’ve got to talk to my daddy first thing. I know he’s been so worried about me.’
I bit down on my lip and said nothing.
Light was perforating the blackened night as we crossed the town line. Upon turning down a side street towards Townsend Assemblies of God I saw what was awaiting us: two cop cars, an unmarked vehicle, an ambulance. I pulled into the parking lot – and Clark approached us. He was accompanied by Officer Rivers. Clark looked at me with hardened professional skepticism as I got out of the car. I just nodded to both of them, then opened the passenger door. As Clark and Rivers peered inside, Ivy simply looked up at them. I could see what they were seeing – the haunted eyes, the cuts and abrasions, the virulent sores around her lips, the ankle wound that was possibly gangrenous. Rivers put her hand to her mouth. Even Clark – Mr Professional Tough Guy – looked shaken, then immediately waved the medical people over.
Five minutes later, Clark was driving me back from where I had just come, a police car with two officers trailing us. Sunrise meant I could now discern the terrain through which I had already traveled. It was a two-lane blacktop traversing the loneliest stretch of geographic infinity I’d ever seen – bare flat plains which seemed to extend beyond all limits and enveloped you in that most terrifying of scenic prospects: a measureless void without boundaries. On my way back to Townsend I’d made a point of checking the odometer at that exact moment when I turned off the dirt path and back onto this paved road. So I could now tell Sergeant Clark that we’d find a turning off to the right exactly 153 km from the Townsend Assemblies of God church. As I mentioned this I touched my jacket pocket and felt a hard metal object contained within.
‘In all the confusion and excitement back there I forgot to give you something,’ I said. Then I pulled out Coursen’s gun.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Clark said, relieving me of it, weighing it in his right hand (while steering with his left), checking that the safety was on, then telling me to open the glove compartment and find a plastic evidence bag. There were around a dozen such bags in there, along with surgical gloves and other forensic debris. He asked me to hold open the bag as he dumped the gun into it. Afterwards he popped the lid of a storage compartment between the two seats and lay the gun inside it.
‘I think you’d best tell me exactly what happened,’ he said. ‘And I want to know everything, minute by minute.’
I did as asked. Clark didn’t interrupt me until I got to the end of it all.
‘And Ivy definitely confirmed that Coursen told her the bodies are in the basement?’ he asked.
‘I’m afraid so.’
He shook his head and said nothing for a while.
‘So he’s mangled and waiting for us.’
‘You bet.’
‘If we’ve got him for Ivy and Hildy and Mimi and can now reveal him to be the guy behind that hushed-up abduction in Dundas, what else might he have done over the years?’
‘I’m sure the two of you will have a lot to talk about.’
Before we reached the dirt track I informed Clark of something that had been formulating in my mind all the way back to Townsend.
‘When this story breaks in a few hours,’ I said, ‘it will be huge. And you must agree to one thing – in fact, I’m going to go so far as to say this is a non-negotiable demand.’
‘Nothing’s “non-negotiable” when it comes to a major murder investigation,’ he said. ‘But go on, tell me what it is.’
‘I am to remain completely out of it.’
‘You serious?’
‘Completely. I want no one to know about my role in all this.’
‘That’s going to be difficult.’
‘Find a way to make it not difficult, Sergeant. It’s the only thing I ask of you.’
He thought this over for a few moments.
‘You know what you’re turning down by choosing to remain out of the story?’
‘Yeah – instant celebrity . . . the idea of which fills me with horror.’
‘Even though it might also mean a fantastic amount of recognition? Hell, word gets out what you did, you’ll be offered book contracts, deals for the movie rights, not to mention a trip to Ottawa to get some bravery medal from the Governor General. But to hell with the glory . . . think of the money.’
‘I have thought of that. Just as I have thought about how every damn journalist would fashion the story around my . . .’
‘Loss?’ he asked, finishing the sentence for me.
‘That’s right.’
‘Well . . . human interest and all that.’
‘No – good copy and all that. And I want no part of it, Sergeant. You take the glory, just leave me my anonymity.’
‘I’ll have to talk to my chief about this. But I think he’ll be sympathetic.’
We hit the one hundred and fifty-third kilometer of the drive – and there, as I had gauged, was a blink-once-you-miss-it track.
‘This is the right turn,’ I said.
‘Good thing you clocked it,’ Sergeant Clark said. ‘Who’d even notice this?’
‘I sense that was the point.’
‘It’s going to be very interesting to discover how Coursen found this place – who rented it to him etc.’
‘As I said before: I’m sure the two of you will have many long conversations.’
But as it turned out I was completely wrong on that score – as the Rev. Larry Coursen had one more final surprise in store for us.
Police sedans do not handle well on unpaved roads. For the next twenty minutes we were tossed like peanuts along the dirt track. Clark didn’t like this one bit and his face became seriously peeved.
‘Should have taken Coursen’s goddamn Land Rover . . . except that would have been tampering with evidence.’
‘Almost there, I think,’ I said as the shack came into view.
By day it looked even more tumbledown, more forlorn and grim than I had seen the night before. We drove right up to its front door. The marked police car pulled right up by us. Clark conferred with the two uniformed officers, then turned to me and said: ‘Your role in all this is now finished. So if you wouldn’t mind waiting in the car . . .’
I wanted to object; to say that, at the very least, I deserved to see Coursen taken into justice. But I was too tired, too wound tight, to argue. So I leaned against Clark’s car as he signaled for the two officers to draw their weapons. He, in turn, drew his own gun. Then, positioning themselves on either side of the door, they waited while Clark also stood to one side and shouted: ‘Police! Do not move!’
No reply.
‘Coursen, this is the RCMP. We are coming inside. Do you understand?’
No reply.
The cops glanced at each other. Crouching down, Clark ran to the window. When he raised his head up to the pane what he saw made him turn white. He charged back towards the other cops, yelling at one of them to call for medical backup as he ran into the shack. The uniformed cop dashed to the squad car and got on the radio, while his partner went inside. Disobeying orders I walked towards the shack. When I got to the doorway I saw Coursen. He was still attached to the shackle – but he was lying face up on the mattress where he had raped Ivy. His throat had been slashed and there was blood everywhere. The knife which had caused this fatal wound was still half-clutched in his right hand.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ I said. Clark knelt down by the body to check for vital signs, then stood up and came charging towards me.
‘Did you know he had a knife?’ he said, his voice raised, the stress so clearly showing.
‘Of course I didn’t know—’
‘You found the gun—’
‘Because it was sticking out of his pocket. The knife must have been—’
‘You should have checked, you should have—’
‘I’m not a goddamn cop,’ I yelled back, my brain also reeling at the splatter canvas that was now Larry Coursen. ‘So don’t tell me I should have been doing your job when—’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ he said. ‘Just fuck right off.’
Several hours later, en route back to Calgary, Clark apologized for that comment.
‘I think I was a little out of line back there,’ he said.
‘Is that an expression of regret?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘You know something, Sergeant, for a Canadian you’re particularly foul mouthed.’
‘Blame my dad. A Detroit auto worker who headed across the border to Windsor when he met my mom and was offered a half-share in her dad’s GM dealership.’
‘So you’re a compatriot.’
‘Only temperamentally.’
‘Apology accepted then.’
‘Thank you. Now when we get to Calgary, we’re going to need to get you to make a statement. But I want my Inspector present for this – and he’s out of town until tomorrow – so how about letting the Province of Alberta spring for a hotel for you tonight?’
‘You could hold me in a cell overnight.’
‘This will be a slightly higher class of accommodation – and it also means your privacy will be protected, just in case somebody got wind that you might be associated with the case . . . though once you’ve had a night’s sleep I am going to try to convince you to let the RCMP “announce” your role in all this.’
‘Don’t bother.’
‘Being proclaimed a hero might do you some good.’
‘It also might do me some harm. No thanks.’
‘Sleep on it.’
‘My mind is fully made up on this one.’
‘Sleep on it.’
They checked me into the Hyatt that was located downtown. A woman police officer named Sharon Bradley brought me to my room, then said that if there was anything I wanted from my apartment she would send a colleague over there straight away. I gave her my apartment key and asked for a clean set of clothes, pajamas, the volume of
Paris Review Interviews
I was reading, my portable radio and my pills.
‘The pills are crucial,’ I said. Though I was now so tired that I was certain I could sleep through an air raid, I still didn’t know if everything I’d absorbed in the last twenty-four hours would play havoc with my psyche and deny me eight very necessary hours of sleep. The pills, on the other hand, would ensure the oblivion I craved.