Water's Edge

Chapter XX

Hippies, Hælsings & Hector

I left as quickly as I could after that. My head was banging, and I could tell that although Particular had respected me before I had lost my way, he found me annoying now. I couldn't blame him.

How many threads were there to tug on now? I had got so lost in my grief and who was hiring me I had completely forgotten about the dead. Winthrop Suggitt had taken me on a wild goose chase around Soames. The hippies were arsonists or dead. And there was a secret cult somewhere but I couldn't read the professors handwriting.

I had, in all of this, forgotten the boy. Hector. Poor lad. Dead and forgotten. I wondered when his funeral would be. I couldn't keep stumbling from clue to clue like this, they'd want answers soon. And nothing had been written off as impossible yet.

I needed something clear cut. Some trace on the body, some witness to the crime. But everyone was either squeaky clean or dirty in all the wrong ways. It could still be Joseph Quintana for all I knew, but I would be surprised if a man who sobs during his arsony had the ability to commit murder. Wren? The cultists? How many times would it turn out to be a cult hiding in the woods?

"You left your bloody car again!" Gordon approached and plonked my own keys in my hand. I checked the Zodiac, and my gun and papers were all present and correct, "I'll need paying extra if you keep abandoning her!" I gave him a look and he raised his hands in mock surrender, "Only joking. It's an honour to have you here."

I didn't hear the rest, I had locked myself in my room. I took a long shower, turning it up as high as I could. The steam would set me right. I'd burn the grief out of me. I'd read the muck at my feet like tea leaves and find out who did it. Winthrop?

Why would someone have it out for an ex-mayor and a Canadian environmentalist? Who kills such a prominent kid at dam? What was Dobson up to on a Thursday? It seemed the hot water had raised more questions, but at least I could think clearly. It was like removing the scum off a pond and seeing all the bodies bobbing on the bottom. What connected them? What were they worshipping out in the sticks?

I laid on the bed and peered at the rabbit on the ceiling again; the stain seemed to have grown. I flicked on the radio, tried to get a nap at least.

"The funeral of Winthrop Suggitt will be held tomorrow morning at St. Andrews. We remind those who will be attending that the church has been moved away from the Humber after extensive flooding. Winthrop Suggitt, widower, mayor, and marathon runner in his youth, is having a public ceremony, having out lived the rest of his family."

Tomorrow. That would give me time to look into the main thread, the most important. I had been brought here for that poor kid, and I was going to do it for him. That's what mattered. Hector.

I changed into fresher clothes and brushed as much smell from the jacket as I could; I went nowhere without it. I checked the tin, I had prerolled 12—I had to earn these though. No more hippies. No more distractions. The hangover would even have to wait, like a freight train parked in a tunnel.

I needed to know who HectorWharton was.