Alex Barclay - Harm's Reach

‘Oh, God,’ said Ren.

They took Ren’s Jeep to the cemetery. As Kohler had said, it was on a small plot of land that was recently tended. There was a mix of headstones and metal crosses standing over no more than twenty graves. The gate was padlocked shut and rusted. Instead, they walked around the side until they could find the missing fence posts that gave access.

‘It’s just so poignant that Jesse Coombes would think to tidy this place,’ said Ren. ‘It’s like... fuck. He’s a teenage boy, he should be out having fun with his buddies, instead of creeping around here in the middle of the night to keep his anger problems under control because his father is a dickhead.’

They stopped at the grave with the most prominent headstone and read the inscription.

Fr Daniel O’Sullivan

1st Chaplain of Evergreen Abbey

b. 1877 d. 1959

I am at peace.

‘He has to be Irish,’ said Ren. ‘Not to buy into clichés, of course.’

‘Of course...’ said Janine.

‘I once dated an Irish guy,’ said Ren. ‘It was all liquor and sex.’

‘We’re in a cemetery...’

‘He was a total depressive, though,’ said Ren. ‘And I couldn’t compete with his mom. He called her mammy. It freaked me out. I broke it off with him before she came to visit. He’d see us side by side and know she was The One.’

Janine laughed.

They walked to the back of the cemetery. ‘Oh,’ said Janine, pointing. ‘Maybe Jesse Coombes didn’t quite succeed in fully taming that anger of his.’

Close to the corner, a gravestone had been broken, parts of it scattered about.

‘Surely he knew we were going to come check out his story,’ said Ren.

‘It might not have happened on the same night,’ said Janine. ‘Because Kohler would have mentioned if he saw a desecrated grave during the search.’

‘Good point,’ said Ren.

They both put on gloves and picked up the pieces of the gravestone.

‘Jigsaw time,’ said Ren.

‘Finally, work and play have collided.’

‘Every time I’m around work and play collide,’ said Ren.

‘What was I thinking?’ said Janine.

They laid out the pieces of stone on the ground behind the grave.

‘We’re missing bits,’ said Ren.

‘Well spotted,’ said Janine. Deadpan.

‘OK, we’ve got an E, L, E and a b. 1940 ,’ said Ren. ‘And an R, D . And a d. 1957 .’

‘And a BA and a b. 1957 .’

The rest of the inscription was impossible to read or gone. Ren stopped.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. She turned to Janine. ‘Jesse Coombes talked about a baby’s grave. Baby Ward. Look — there’s a b. 1957 and a d. 1957 . A baby who died at birth? And... the mother... the letters...’

Ren pulled out her phone.

‘What is it?’ said Janine.

‘I need to call Eleanor Jensen,’ said Ren. ‘Hi, Eleanor, it’s Ren Bryce — do you have access to the admission records of the abbey? Like, when it was an abbey, originally?’

‘There’s an old file cabinet here,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’ve never really poked around in it too much.’

‘Could you look up Delores Ward’s details?’ said Ren.

‘Is there some kind of problem?’ said Eleanor.

‘No,’ said Ren, ‘it’s just something I need to find out. I’m putting you on speaker with Janine Hooks from the Sheriff’s Office.’

‘OK, hello,’ said Eleanor.

‘Delores Ward wasn’t very forthcoming when we spoke about where she came from,’ said Ren. ‘Nothing untoward. I just really need to know if she’s from Butte, Montana.’

Ren could hear the rattle and scrape of a filing cabinet being opened and the clacking plastic of the tops of the file folders.

‘OK, I’ve got Ward,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’ve got it...’ She paused. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Delores Ward, born in 1940, doesn’t say where. Came here to the abbey in 1957... used to be one of “Ma’s girls”... Ma was one of the madams, the brothel keepers on Colfax. Oh. Well, that can’t be right...’

‘What?’ said Ren.

‘There are medical files here,’ said Eleanor. ‘Oh...’ Her voice had plunged an octave. ‘Oh... it says here Delores Ward died in 1957 in childbirth. Daughter, Baby Ward, stillborn on the same day.’

Ren and Janine stared at each other.

‘Thank you,’ said Ren. ‘Please keep this confidential, Eleanor. I’ll get back to you.’

She hung up.

‘Oh my God,’ said Ren. ‘Whoever is in that cabin, stole the identity of some poor lady-of-the-night who died in childbirth. Why?’ Why? Why?

Ren and Janine jumped back into the Jeep.

‘But what’s Delores Ward got to do with Jesse Coombes?’ said Ren.

‘Only one way to find out,’ said Janine.

As they drove, the sky darkened, as if a switch had been flicked. Ren sped up the driveway to The Darned Heart. Outside the main building, groups of kids and adults were standing around. Two security men were in a huddle with Kristen Faule.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ said Janine.

They ran up to Kristen Faule. ‘What happened?’ said Ren.

‘They got into a fight,’ said Kristen. ‘Conor and Jesse. Conor’s gone.’

Janine called the report in to Kohler.

A boy in a ranch staffer T-shirt appeared in the doorway with Jesse Coombes beside him, holding a bloodied towel to his head. Jesse looked over at Ren and Janine.

He pushed the staffer to the ground... and ran.

Ren and Janine sprinted after Jesse, following him down the hallway toward Kristen’s office.

‘Jesse!’ said Ren. ‘Stop! Put your hands where I can see them!’

He kept running.

‘Jesse!’ said Ren. ‘You don’t want to do this. You really don’t want to do this. You’ll be in bigger trouble.’

He started to slow.

Do the right thing, Jesse. Do the right thing.

Jesse stopped. He turned around. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Rinse, repeat.

Jesse Coombes did not have the physique for fighting, nor the face, nor the demeanor. Nothing about the cuts and bruises looked right. He didn’t even seem to know how to hold himself as an injured person. He was almost hovering on the chair.

‘Jesse, where is Conor?’ said Ren.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jesse. He was tilting his head up, so his good eye was facing her. The other was swollen shut.

Ren slammed her hands on the table. ‘Where is he, Jesse?’

‘I told you, I don’t know.’

They both looked up as rain began to pour down on the skylight above them.

‘How was he when he left?’ said Ren. ‘What was his state of mind?’

‘He was angry,’ said Jesse. He looked away. ‘I told you. Conor’s always angry.’

‘About what?’ said Ren.

Jesse wouldn’t shift his gaze from the floor.

Ren turned to Janine. ‘We’re not getting a lot here, Detective Hooks. Would you mind staying with Jesse, while I go talk to Mrs Faule?’

‘No problem,’ said Janine. ‘Go ahead.’

Kristen Faule was standing outside the room with one of the young residents beside her, another boy of around Jesse’s age.

She turned to him. ‘Could you give us a moment, please?’

He walked a little way down the hallway.

‘What’s going on?’ said Ren.

Kristen leaned in. ‘Conor Gorman’s in a lot of trouble. Even more so, now, after what he did to Jesse. We found out three days ago that Conor desecrated a grave in the abbey’s cemetery—’

‘That was him...’ said Ren.

Kristen nodded.

‘How do you know that?’ said Ren.

‘He didn’t do too great a job of washing the dust out of his hair, off his sneakers... washing the hammer he used, putting it back properly in the tool shed...