Caught by Lisa Moore Read Free Book Online Page B

back. We were all at a bar and my now-wife came up and told us. Told Rochelle and me right in front of everybody. Made a scene. Brought up did I want these kids to have a father. In front of everybody she told us twins.
    I was married two months later. We’re trying to make a go of it, the mother and me. But I’ll tell you what. He just shook his head.
    Slaney didn’t answer him. But the dog shuffled around and dropped its jaw on the man’s lap.
    There’s a nationwide search, John Gulliver said. You’re big news, my friend. Billy the Fucking Kid, excuse my French.
    Slaney didn’t answer.
    The bees escaped, he said. Last summer. They get it in their heads.
    You got them back? Slaney said.
    I just had to wait for them to settle down somewhere, he said. Then I snuck up on them with a net.
    Slaney thought again about trust, the comfort it afforded. The opposite of trust was doubt. They were the two choices.
    He imagined trust and doubt as twins joined by a fused skull, eye to eye, the two of them, trust and doubt, in the dark forest yelling at each other: Put up your dukes.
    Or trust was a door in your head you let fly. You came to a decision.
    Whatever is out there: bring it on.
    And doubt was the wind that slammed everything shut. Don’t stay in one place. Don’t settle. That was the doubt. Hearn had not gone to prison. He had jumped bail.
    Four years for Slaney, Hearn had lit out. And Hearn was having a good time. He’d made some false ID for himself and gone to university. He was studying English literature with the intent of becoming a professor. It’d taken four years for him to get the second trip together. Hearn was certain the cops had no idea where he was.
    There’s the phrase they say in court: element of doubt . Slaney remembered the definition of element from his grade nine chemistry book. It meant something pure.
    Doubt was a pure and indestructible thing. The cops had been waiting. The whole bloody town had been waiting for them when they came in off the water, four years ago, with two tons of weed on board.
    This time, Hearn had implied, there would be no cops.
    All of this had come to Slaney second-hand. Harold had an old girlfriend who knew someone who had passed word on from Hearn. Unbeknownst to Harold’s sister, Sue Ellen, Harold was in for the long haul. Forever. He could get information in and get it out and that made his stays there profitable despite the fact that he was of a smaller build.
    Slaney had to believe there was a connection between people. He had to believe trust was pure too. It was worth fighting for. He trusted Hearn. He could say that out loud. It would be better that way. And he had no choice. Trust lit up on its own sometimes without cause, and there was no way to extinguish that kind of trust.
    John Gulliver stopped for gas and some snacks for the road. He said he was going all the way to Montreal and he was happy enough to take Slaney with him. Said he even knew a place in Montreal where Slaney could stay. He’d drive through the night. He filled the tank and went into the convenience store to pay and when he came out Slaney was gone.
    Patterson
    Patterson sweat. He was clammy in the creases of his skin, an ill-smelling dampness where his clothes grabbed at him. At the end of the day a mild stink enveloped and appalled him. Once, one of the secretaries had crinkled her nose.
    His shirts strained, a tiny bird-beak around each button. The knees of his pants twisted up, cutting off circulation. The arms of his jacket like the blood pressure cuffs they used in hospitals. His blood pressure was through the roof.
    His sweat had a smell so singular he half loved it and was, at the same time, felled by the shame.
    Patterson had flown into Nova Scotia that morning and rented a car, checked into a Holiday Inn. He’d seen a men’s clothing store on the way to the bar. The sign said QUALITY APPAREL FOR GENTLEMEN . He’d thought a few new shirts when he was on the way back. He was