The Defilers. Deborah Gyapong

arm. “We’re here because we want to share God’s love with you. That’s all.”

      Purple-faced, Gordon shoved David into me. I lost my balance and toppled against one of the men who pressed around us. The men began shoving Anne and David, shouting curses. Focused on protecting the Jordans I planted my feet in the snow, and time slowed down. I whipped out my baton. The men howled in surprise at how effectively I could deal painful blows, even while showing restraint.

      “Please leave us alone!” Anne cried. “Haven’t you done enough?”

      David slung his arm around his wife again. Her shoulders went rigid at his touch. The man in the red work shirt leered at her obvious discomfort, revealing yellowed decaying teeth. I pushed the men aside and prodded the family forward to our police car. We didn’t have far to go.

      Gordon ground his pot-belly against me and tried to heave me aside.

      “I’ll have some questions for you in a moment.” I gestured with my head for him to leave. His warm sour breath filled my nostrils. The other men pressed around us. I breathed in slowly and focused.

      “Hey, hey!” Will shouted. “Calm down, folks. Come on!” His affable crooked grin beamed at the locals as he waded through the crowd. Maybe he thought his charm disarmed them, but Will stood a head taller than almost everyone except David, and his size probably intimidated them. My legs twitched and the rushing sound in my ears began to fade.

      Will laid his huge hand on the little girl’s wet head. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

      David nodded, wiping the blood off his mouth. When Will clasped Anne’s shoulder she began to sob. He chewed his lip, his hand still resting on her, seeming uncertain what to say. Are they Will’s friends? Why didn’t Anne recoil from his touch?

      Will and I ushered the Jordan family through the crowd, which had doubled since our arrival. To my relief two more RCMP cars rolled into the clearing.

      “Pervert!” someone behind us shouted. A man spat a long string of tobacco juice toward David, splattering the snow with brown splotches.

      “Someone slashed our tires.” David waved his hand toward an old maroon Chevy with singed paint and flat tires. “Margaret said she’d give us a ride to Cornwallis Cove, so we don’t need to go in your car.”

      Margaret, a dark-haired woman wearing thick glasses, unlocked the doors of a green station wagon and helped the children inside. After David had made arrangements to come to the detachment the next day, Margaret drove away.

      Will grabbed my shoulder and leaned into my ear. “I told you to look after crowd control, not start a riot!”

      Flabbergasted, I staggered backward.

      Will’s blue eyes iced me. “Do you want to get us killed?” He wagged his finger at me. “Take your cues from me, understand?”

      I brushed his finger out of my face.

      He leaned forward, eyebrows raised. “Got it?”

      “Yeah, I got it.” Jerk.

      Will put me back on crowd control, though now he had a few more of us to order around.

      Gordon slipped under the police tape. He waddled toward Will, who was taping a weathered baseball bat caught in the singed twigs of a bush not far from the house. Others followed him.

      I slipped up behind Gordon and grabbed his damp shirt. “You can’t stand here.”

      South Dare men surrounded us, all wearing the same smirk, the same unblinking stare, the same contempt for my uniform and gender. They repulsed me and seemed to sense my reaction. Be careful. Don’t let revulsion colour your judgement.

      “On the other side.” I held the tape up high enough for Gordon to duck under, my heart pounding, trying my own version of an affable grin on him. When he wouldn’t budge I reached out and dug my fingers into a pressure point between his neck and shoulder. He winced with pain as his knees buckled. There, that’s more like it.

      I smiled, my eyes squinting. “I’m interested in what you said over there.” Letting go I ducked under the tape ahead of him. He followed and so did his buddies.

      “What’s your last name, Gordon?” I wrote his first name in my notebook.

      Rubbing his shoulder with his claw-like hand, his eyes glistened with resentment. “Dare. Gordon Dare.”

      “Who wanted the pastor out badly enough to burn his house down?”

      “I told ya. He done it hisself.”

      “Why do you assume we did it?” interrupted a younger man with brown hair cut short and spiky in the front and dangling to his shoulders in back.

      “Just a minute.” I sounded defensive. My emotions wouldn’t leak out next time.

      The younger man shoved his face inches from mine. “You don’t care if the pastor’s a child molester?” His breath stank of chewing tobacco. The men around him murmured and nodded, reddened faces twisted with hatred.

      Turning to the spiky-haired man I flipped a page over in my notebook. “Your name, sir?”

      “Lonnie. Lonnie Dare.” Tobacco juice dribbled out the side of his mouth.

      “What did you say about a child molester?”

      “You want us to do your job? Forget it!” Lonnie spat a wad of tobacco into the muddy slush.

      I sloshed toward a group of women standing inside the police tape who scattered like a flock of chickens. I approached another group. Some of the teenaged girls had pretty faces, but women only a few years older had bent spines and large coarse-looking hands. A couple of women had dyed their hair platinum blonde, but one was missing chunks of hair from her scalp. No one would talk to me.

      My stomach knotted. I’d blown my chance to redeem myself in Will’s eyes. Surveying the crowd I plotted my next move.

      For every adult there seemed to be four children. A boy, about six or seven, squatted and defecated like a dog next to the police car. Will nearly stumbled over the child pulling up his pants. Ignoring the steaming pile Will tousled the boy’s hair. Soon, several of the children were hugging Will’s legs, making it difficult for him to move.

      I herded the kids away and prodded and pushed them behind the police tape, back to their miserable lives.

      A blue Toyota wagon swerved into the clearing. My neighbour and new friend Catherine Ross, editor of the weekly Sterling Spectator, jumped out of her car, her designer haircut and stylish leather jacket making her look like a model from a plus-size catalogue.

      Snowflakes and ash began to settle on her swept-back curls. “The Jordans okay?”

      “Yeah. Someone just drove them to town.” I glanced at her vehicle. “You can’t park here.”

      She raised a small digital camera. “Let me take some pictures first, okay?”

      I shrugged. Catherine took pictures of the dying flames. A number of beams had collapsed and glowed red hot, while those jutting toward the sky were charred black. The burning house now made me feel desolate and exhausted. I craved another rush of adrenaline.

      “This is so weird. I was inside that house yesterday.” Catherine aimed her camera at Will. “You’re working with Constable Bright, eh? You lucky dawg.”

      “Why were you here?”

      “To talk about David Jordan’s new church.” Catherine slipped her camera inside her jacket to protect it from the still-falling snow. “I’m not surprised this place burned down. Trouble seems to follow him.”

      “Seems to me he asks for it,” I mumbled and immediately regretted saying it. I wasn’t used to having civilian friends. Friends, period.

      Catherine dropped her jaw in fake disbelief. “How did you know?”

      “Choice