The Boy Must Die by Jon Redfern Read Free Book Online Page A

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 hadstepped 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.