Free A Murder of Crows by David Rotenberg Page A

dealer’s money paid for—watching the news on Fox when he got the call from his son, who was a detective on the Toronto police force.
    Seaside, Florida, is the crème de la crème of planned communities—rich planned communities. Every house was designed by the central design team. All the houses are named and had the names of the owners proudly displayed on brass plaques hanging from their front picket fences. Several had an added sign that said Be Nice or Go Away.
    It was Garreth Senior’s gift to himself after forty-plus years of honourable service on the Toronto Police Service—most in homicide. Honourable that is until the day—almost four years ago now.
    He had awoken that day thinking about Decker Roberts. He remembered having a beer with his soft-boiled eggs. And another with his toast. But still, Decker Roberts’ image was with him, and the image of that little girl who bled to death in the snow. By noon when he stumbled on the Vietnamese drug dealers he was rollicking drunk and it seemed like destiny that he appeared at the exact moment when the money was changing hands.
    He’d never been so scared in his life. He’d also never seen so much of what his father would have called cash money. He was on autopilot—the booze was in control. No, fuck that—Decker Roberts was in control. The money was in his hands before he knew it. Thenit was in the safe beneath his bed. Then in the Bahamas bank—now in his Seaside house.
    The phone was ringing. For a moment he couldn’t identify the source of the sound—was he having a fire, or was it the damned carbon monoxide alarm? Then he remembered—it was his phone. It rang so seldom.
    â€œWe found his son, Dad.”
    â€œDecker Roberts’ son?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œHe just crossed the border at Blaine, Washington.”
    â€œAnd Mr. Roberts Senior?”
    â€œWe’re not sure. Last we knew he was out of the country—somewhere in Africa.”
    â€œWell, perhaps the boy knows his father’s whereabouts.” The idea hung out there for Garreth Junior to comment on, but he didn’t. “Do we know where the young Mr. Roberts is heading?”
    â€œDad?”
    â€œCome on, Son! If you tracked him to the border you know where he’s going.”
    Garreth Junior sighed then gave him the address of the Wellness Dream Clinic just north of San Francisco.
    â€œWacko California stuff?”
    â€œSounds like it to me, Dad. You going to check this out?”
    Garreth Senior thought of an old film— Hud or Hush or something else beginning with an H that was about a killing in one of those weird-assed places—then asked, “Do you really want to know?”
    â€œNo. Actually I don’t.”
    â€œFine, then we never spoke. One more thing.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhat’s the young Mr. Roberts’ name?”
    â€œSeth. Seth Roberts.”
    â€œBook of Seth,” Garreth Senior said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œOkay.” He drew a long breath then asked, “How are you, Dad?”
    Better, now, he thought, but said, “The same. I’m the same.”
    â€œHey, you know I’m worried about you.”
    â€œAre you, now?”
    â€œYeah. This thing with this Roberts has become an obsession with you. You know?”
    Garreth Senior hung up the phone.
    He stepped out onto his screened-in porch and felt the thick warm night.
    Decker Roberts.
    So Decker Roberts had produced a child. A devil’s seed.
    He’d met Decker Roberts almost forty years ago. It had been a raw January day outside a fancy house in the Glencairn district of Toronto, before the big synagogue was built and the area became an enclave of Orthodox Jews. When WASP Toronto was still fighting a defensive action against encroachment of Jews of any sort. Decker Roberts was four or five years old. And cold. And frightened. And