The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn Read Online Free PDF Page B

Tarpley and Maureen Gault in,” I said to Angus. He seemed frozen in front of the screen. “Their luck ran out. You know that stretch of the Trans-Canada, where it happened, Angus. Normally, during a blizzard they could have counted on those hills south of Chaplin being deserted. There wasn’t anything to connect the two of them to your dad, so they might have gotten away. But there was a car from Regina going back from the funeral. The driver spotted the Volvo by the side of the road and pulled over; she called the RCMP on her CB radio. Kevin and Maureen had started back to where they’d left their car on the grid road just south of the highway. The RCMP didn’t have any trouble catching them.”
    “Good,” he said.
    I took a long swallow of beer. Kevin and Maureen had finally appeared on screen; the officer taking Kevin from the car put his hand on top of Kevin’s head to keep him from hitting it on the doorframe. It was an oddly tender gesture. I remembered the bloody mess of my husband’s head and swallowed hard. Kevin and Little Mo were wearing matching jackets from their high school; I could see their names on their sleeves. He was wearing her jacket, and she was wearing his. Kevin and Little Mo, cross-dressing killers. They disappeared inside the courthouse, and the screen went black.
    “More?” asked Jill.
    “I have to go to the bathroom,” Angus said.
    “Are you okay?” I asked. He caught the anxiety in my voice, and his eyes flashed with anger.
    “I’m fifteen years old, Mum,” he called over his shoulder as he walked out of the room.
    “Fifteen,” Jill said, “capable of handling life.”
    “He seems to be doing a better job of it than I am at the moment,” I said. “When I saw those faces, I wanted to smash in the screen.”
    “I’m glad you restrained yourself,” Jill said. “Smashing this set would pretty well have put an end to my rise up the Nationtv corporate ladder.”
    “I’m serious, Jill. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be dredging up the past. I don’t know why Angus is convinced he has do this. And something else … I have a letter from Kevin Tarpley.”
    Jill’s body was tense with interest. “Can I see the letter?”
    “Be my guest,” I said. “Come over to the house after we’re through here. You can take it with you and put it in your memory book. It gives me the creeps.”
    “Jo, I think you’d better hold on to that letter. I have a feeling the cops are going to want to see it.”
    “They’d be wasting their time,” I said. “There’s nothing there but a warning to listen to God’s truth and not to put my trust in rulers.”
    Jill looked thoughtful. “It could be worse,” she said. “I wasn’t going to mention this, but your letter wasn’t the only one Kevin Tarpley sent out before he died. Apparently, there were two more. The inmate in the cell across from Tarpley’s says that Kevin spent most of the last week of his life writing those letters. It was slow going for him because he was barely literate, but – get this, Jo – Kevin told his fellow inmate that he had to get the letters out to save the innocent and punish the guilty.”
    Suddenly, I felt cold. “Who else got letters?”
    “The prison people don’t know.”
    “Don’t they keep records of the mail the inmates send out?”
    “They do,” Jill said, “but it seems these letters went out with a man they call ‘the prison pastor.’ ”
    “Kevin mentioned him,” I said. “His name is Paschal Temple.”
    “Right,” said Jill. “And he doesn’t know who they were addressed to. He was doing God’s work, Jo. He just dropped the letters in the mailbox and trusted the Lord.”
    Angus came back into the room. He’d been crying. His eyes were red and his hair was slicked back, wet from where he’d splashed water on his face.
    “Why don’t you get yourself another Coke,” I said. It was as close as he would let me come at that moment, and he got the