Black Wood Read online

  “You can keep asking me,” Charlie replied. “Doesn’t mean you’re going to get an answer.” He stopped kicking the straw and looked up at her. “Why did you come after me?”

  “You were waiting for me.”

  They were like two kids, dancing around each other, each knowing what they wanted to say but unwilling to be the first one to say it.

  “I’m curious, okay?” Samantha said finally.

  “About what?”

  “About a lot of things. Who you are, why you hit me ...” Charlie dropped his head when she said this, just as he had done in the coffee shop. “Why you got into that fight with Dale.”

  “Why does anyone get into fights with Dale? Dale’s a bully. He’s always picking on people.”

  “Your turn,” Samantha said.

  “To what?”

  “I told you why I came out here. You tell me why you were waiting for me.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Same reason, I suppose.”

  “Oh no, you don’t get off that easy.”

  “You know why,” he said.

  “Do I?”

  “I wanted to know why you walked over to me in the café. Why would you do that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re Miss Perfect and I’m the town freak. And I’m going to be in court for assaulting your boyfriend.” He paused. “And you.”

  “I just told you. I was curious about you.”

  “Why would you be curious about me?”

  “Jesus, a bit insecure there, aren’t we?”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” he said, his voice raised for the first time.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. It was a joke.” There was silence for a moment and then Samantha said, “Alright. So, we were both curious. Now we’ve met. What now? Curiosity satisfied?”

  Charlie stopped leaning against the gate and started to walk around the shed. “I’d like to see you again,” he said. He had his back turned to her and it sounded like he had to drag the words out.

  “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “No.” His answer was instantaneous.

  “Usually when guys say they want to see me again, they’re asking me out.” Samantha’s voice was mischievous. The same quality to her voice that I had heard the day with Dale in the Black Wood.

  “I’m not asking you out on a date,” Charlie said. More forceful this time.

  “What then?”

  He turned to face her again. “Nothing, just ... this. Talk maybe.”

  “You know we can’t meet up in public.”

  “I know.”

  “So where?” She gestured around her. “Somewhere better than this, I hope.”

  “The saw mill?” Charlie said. “Tomorrow night?”

  “Okay,” I heard her say, and I took that as my cue to leave.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Samantha calls again and says she needs to meet me. Says it’s important. We meet at the place on West 4th. It’s becoming our little spot. The fact is, I’m quite enjoying this. With the obvious exception of the nasty blackmail stuff.

  When she arrives, she throws her coat on the chair and calls to the waiter for a coffee.

  “He called again this morning,” she says, before she even sits down. She looks flustered. I can see that this whole thing has got her spooked.

  “What did he say?”

  She glances around, and her voice drops to a whisper. “‘If you want the body to stay buried, I want twenty thousand dollars.’”

  “Is that it?” I say. “No instructions on where to meet?”

  “No.” She reaches into her bag. “I need a cigarette.”

  “You can’t smoke in here.”

  Without looking at me, she lets out a noise of disdain and jumps up out of the seat.

  “Outside,” she says.

  I follow her as she sashays her way through the tables and out onto the street. She walks like one of those runway models. Outside, the morning rain showers have passed, and the sun glistens off the wet streets. She fidgets inside her bag again and puts on her sunglasses. She seems instantly more at ease. I imagine if she could live behind her sunglasses, she would.

  “It’s not a lot, is it?” I say.

  “What?”

  “Twenty thousand.”

  “It’s a lot to me.”

  “Of course, but I mean, under the circumstances, you’d think he would have asked for more.”

  She lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag. As she exhales, she says: “He knows I’m not rich, obviously. He knows twenty grand is the most I can afford.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Well, let’s look at where we are. We now know that he’s a blackmailer.”

  She gives me a withering look. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “I’m just examining the facts, Samantha. So, we know he’s a blackmailer. We know he knows there is a body, but we don’t know if he knows the circumstances surrounding it.”

  “Jesus, my head hurts already. What does that matter anyway?”

  “It matters a lot. He may know that there’s a body, but does he know how we’re connected it?”

  “He’s blackmailing me ... of course he knows I’m connected to it.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t say anything, did you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In that first conversation ... you didn’t admit to anything?”

  “No.”

  “So, as of yet, he doesn’t have anything that directly ties you ... or me ... to the body.”

  The wind blows down West 4th street and she pulls her coat tight around her. “Jesus, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” She stubs out the cigarette. “Look, I like your ‘glass half full’ act here but it’s not much comfort to me. We were supposed to be the only people that knew what happened that night. Now, it turns out we’re not.”

  “Well, apart from Charlie, there were two others there.”

  “You think it’s one of them? Or both?”

  “I find it hard to believe. I mean, why wait all these years? Why not do it straight away after? Besides, they were implicated too. I don’t see what they’d have to gain.”

  She opens the door. “I need something to drink,” she says, heading back inside.

  Back at our table, she sits in silence, nursing a glass of Pinot Grigio.

  “Look,” I say. “What would happen if we just did nothing?”

  “What, you mean call his bluff?”

  “What’s he gonna do?”

  “Presumably, go to the cops and tell them about the body.”

  “And what are they going to do then? Dig it up? How? The Black Wood’s not there anymore. It’s a shopping mall.”

  With the mention of the Black Wood her face changes. Her expression goes from one of annoyance or impatience to something else. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was a look of scheming.

  “Have you seen it?” she says.

  “No. The last time I was there, they were talking about building it.”

  They had talked about building a shopping mall in Concord for many years. After the saw mill closed down, Concord was one of those recession towns. There were towns like that all over America in the 1980s. Some managed to attract other industries or businesses to the area. Some went the tourism route. But there was very little to see in Concord, so tourism wasn't an option. Instead, the Chamber of Commerce decided what was needed was a shopping mall. A big shopping mall – one that would pull in crowds from all the neighbouring towns.

  And they tried for years to get it built. They came close on numerous occasions. But the problem was that they wanted to build it on the Black Wood. Of course, it made sense. If they were going to build a huge shopping mall, then they needed a huge area, and the biggest area in Concord was the Black Wood. Environmentalists kicked up a huge stink. They talked about the various indigenous species the Black Wood housed: th
ey talked about the fact that the trees dated as far back as Moses. And so on. The thing was, most people in Concord didn't give a damn about birds and insects. They wanted to make a living. So, eventually, the mall was built.

  “That was years ago,” I say. “So, they dug up the Black Wood and if they had found the body then, we would have heard about it right?”

  She nods.

  “And now it’s buried under three feet of cement. You honestly think they’re gonna listen to some crazy guy talking about a dead body under the shopping mall and just dig up the whole place looking for it?”

  She sits in silence for a moment, her finger tracing a line around the rim of the wine glass. I can almost see the wheels move behind her eyes.

  “Why did you go back?” she says.

  “For my father’s funeral. Ten years ago.”

  “Have you been back since?”

  “No. My mother moved in with her sister in Idaho after that. So there was never any reason to go back.”

  She looks at me, with those seductive eyes.

  “But you could,” she says. I start to see where this is going.

  “Go to Concord?”

  She nods. “You could find out if anybody knows anything.”

  “I don’t know about that, Samantha.”

  “You’ve been back there. I haven’t. I mean, I could go but if I show up there, it’s gonna look weird. People will wonder why, after twenty years, I’m turning up in Concord asking questions. And if there is any mention of a body, people might put two and two together. It won’t look weird if you go back there though. You go and check out the mall.”

  “I’m not sure about this ...”

  “Hey, I wasn’t the one who was so good at ‘observing’, remember?” She mimics quotation marks with her fingers when she says ‘observing’.

  “All right, fair point,” I say. “But I don’t even know where to look. What am I gonna do?”

  “Just nose around, see what you can find. See if anyone’s talking about anything. If there’s nothing, maybe you’re right, maybe he is bluffing.”

  And – once again – Samantha gets her way.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The old saw mill had once been the main employer in Concord. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, and even my own dad – for a while when he was young – had worked there. That’s where the Black Wood came from. It had once been hundreds of acres of forest land that over the years had been chopped down to supply the mill. Eventually, 75% of it was chopped down, before the economic climate changed and the mill closed. So while what was left of the Black Wood was big, it was nothing compared to what it had started out as. Rumour had it that the owner had sold the saw mill to some big retail corporation and they were going to build a mall there. But it never transpired. Now, it was just a hangout for kids cutting school, and the odd hobo. But to go out to the saw mill, you had to be specifically heading there. There was nothing else around; if I was caught observing them there, the jig was up.

  They had arranged to meet at eight o’clock. I knew I couldn’t follow them there; they probably wouldn’t go together anyway. I figured it would be better if I turned up a little later, when they were already there. There was less chance of them seeing me, and I could hang back out of sight. I was right. When I arrived, there was a dim light in the smashed window of what looked like one of the old offices. I couldn’t get close enough to look in; I had to crawl up underneath the window in case they saw me. Crouching underneath, I could hear their voices.

  “Why did you want to meet?” I heard Charlie say.

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Did you not want to?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. I just don’t know why after ... what with your parents and everything. You could get into so much trouble.”

  “I don’t care.”

  I inched up to try to see inside. The glass was caked with years of dirt and it was hard to focus on what was in the room. There was some kind of light inside, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

  “Is that why you want to talk to me?” Charlie said. “Because your parents told you not to?”

  “No.” She sounded offended. “I don’t talk to people just to piss off my parents.”

  “But I’m not just people, am I?”

  “Why do you keep asking me this? It’s like you don’t want to be with me.”

  “No, it’s not that at all. I like you.”

  I could make out their outlines now. The writer in me could picture a satisfied smile creeping into the corners of Samantha’s mouth.

  “I suppose I just want to know more about you,” she said. “Everyone I know is so nor— ... they’re so strait-laced.”

  “So, you wanna know about the Freak?”

  “I never called you that.”

  “I’ll bet you did.”

  “Well, I’ll bet you called me names, too.”

  “I guess we’re even,” Charlie said.

  My eyes were becoming accustomed to the near dark in the room. I realised that the light was a flashlight that was placed on the desk between them. They sat at either end of the desk.

  “So, what do you want to know?” Charlie went on.

  “I don’t know ... where do you live?”

  “Gastown.”

  “I didn’t think anyone still lived out there.”

  “They don’t. That’s why it’s cheap. That’s why we live there.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “My grandfather. He took care of me after my parents died. But he’s old now, and he needs looking after.”

  And so, the mystery of the old man was solved. It was hard to picture Charlie the freak looking after his grandfather.

  “What happened to your parents?” Samantha said.

  “A car accident.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I heard it was a drunk driver.”

  “Yeah, that was my dad. He was, like, five times over the limit. They didn’t have a chance. Wrapped the car around a pole.”

  “Shit. Sorry.”

  “What about your parents?” he said. “What are they like?”

  “They’re dicks.”

  I heard him laugh. It was the first time I’d ever heard Charlie laugh.

  “I suppose that’s mean. I guess they’re not dicks, they’re just ... they’re just like every other parent. They want you to do whatever they think you should.” She paused. “Should I not say that?”

  “Why?”

  “Because your parents are dead, and mine are alive, and I shouldn’t be taking them for granted ...”

  “Nah, fuck that. My parents were dicks too. They got boozed up and drove their car into a fucking pole.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh.

  “When I said you were different, I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” she said. “I think that was the reason I wanted to talk to you. I hate this fucking place so much ... I just want to get out of here. My parents ... they think I’m going to go to college and then come back and work at my Dad’s firm or something. They’re crazy. My dad wants me to re-sit my SATs ... can you believe that?”

  “Why? Did you do bad?”

  “No.” Now she sounded really offended. Samantha wasn’t like the other airheads; she got great grades. “He thinks I could do better. Get into a better college. What he means is, get into a better ‘law’ college. As if. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I know you’re from here, but it’s like you’re not. I mean, you live in a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, you don’t go to school. You’re just different.”

  “You used to think that was a bad thing.”

  “How do you know what I used to think?”

  “Well, didn’t you?”

  “Maybe, I did. But maybe I was stupid and I didn’t know any better. What do you expect from a fifteen-year-old? What was I going to think? The same thing everyone else in school thought.”

  Charlie shrugged. “I know. I do
n’t care, really. I wanted to know why you were talking to me, but I don’t care about the rest of them. I’m not even there anymore ... it doesn’t bother me.”

  “Are you pissed you got kicked out of school?”

  “No.”

  “But I thought you did good in school?”

  “I did okay, but what was the point at the end of the day? I wasn’t going to college. Who’d take care of my grandfather? Besides, I couldn’t afford it.”

  “Maybe you could have gotten a scholarship.”

  “My grades weren’t that good. I’m better off. I can go get a full-time job, start earning some real money.”

  Samantha moved in closer to him, her shape covering the light from the flashlight, so all I could see was two back-lit dark shapes.

  “Why do you think people treat you like that?” she said, suddenly.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re ... a freak.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m a freak.”

  “I don’t think you are either.”

  The dark shapes moved closer to each other. It was like some kind of shadow theatre, black figures dancing on the glass in front of me. Their faces hovered within inches of each other for a moment and then met. They kissed. I could hardly believe it.

  Then, Charlie broke away, saying, “I really should go. My grandfather ...”

  “Yeah. Me too.” I moved as quickly as I could back to where I had stashed my bike, and cycled back into town, the image of their locked lips in front of my eyes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  And that’s when the excrement entered the frying utensil.

  Every small town has a grapevine – a network of gossips and curtain-twitchers. Concord was no different. And the most informative branch of the Concord Grapevine was situated in John Shade High School. Anything worth knowing about anyone in town made its way eventually to the halls of John Shade High. Such was the case with Sam and Charlie. They had only met that couple of times when the tongues started wagging and the questions began to be asked. It turned out a bunch of teenagers having a beer session at the mill had seen them leaving. And to teenagers, secret meetings at the saw mill meant only one thing: an illicit love affair. Or to put it in their vernacular: they were boning.