sleep.”
“What was he saying?” Elliot asked.
“Emory said he couldn’t really make it out, but that it sounded like Latin.”
“Latin? You mean, the language?”
“More specifically, Ecclesiastical Latin.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Ecclesiastical Latin is a form of Latin that deviates from classic Latin in that it’s marked by certain lexical variations. It’s also the form of Latin used in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. It can be found primarily in theological works and liturgical rites.”
Thomson looked doubtful. “All of that from some muttering in the middle of the night? In the middle of the road outside this motel?”
“Emory’s undergraduate and Master’s degrees encompassed religion, history, and ancient languages, sergeant. His PhD work with my father was an extension of the work he was doing on his studies of the early Church in Canada and its cultural impact. Also, he was a devout Catholic.”
“Assuming it really was Latin-and I’m sort of doubting it, to be honest-did this fella know what Richard was saying? Could he make anything out?”
“Oddly,” Billy said, “he did think he caught one phrase-he thought Richard said ‘
“Which means what, exactly?”
“It’s from Psalm forty-two, verse seven. It means ‘Deep calleth unto deep.’”
“You said he was a regular ‘Christer,’” Elliot said. “Maybe it was something he heard in church sometime?”
“Richard was a Methodist, constable. His undergraduate degree was in English Literature. He didn’t speak Latin at all.” Billy paused. “He said something else, according to Emory. It sounded like ‘
“Sorry, Dr. Lightning-this means what?”
“Roughly translated, it means ‘Wake me.’”
“He wanted Emory to wake him up?” Elliot said. “So he asks in
“It didn’t appear that he was speaking to Emory, based on what Emory said about it the next day, when he told my father and me what had happened.”
“All right, never mind all that,” Thomson said impatiently. “It doesn’t signify one way or another, does it? Did he remember anything about the sleepwalking the next day?”
“No. He said he’d had some peculiar dreams, but he had no memory whatsoever of the sleepwalking. He also laughed when Emory asked him if he knew Latin. He said the only Latin he knew was Pig Latin. He said he felt a lot better than he had the day before. So we went to the site and went back to work. It was a good day-bright, sunny. Not hot, but pleasantly warm. Richard seemed to be in a terrific mood, at least to start with.
“As the day progressed, though, Richard became a bit listless and irritable. He snapped at Emory a couple of times for no good reason and, at one point, threw a shovel. It didn’t hit anyone, of course, but it was so out of character for Richard that we all noticed it. I think at one point my father may have wondered if Richard had been malingering the previous day-you know, storming off and pretending to have gotten lost because he was angry about something he wasn’t being honest about-but he was mostly concerned about Richard’s behaviour being so out of character for such a good-natured young man.”
“Drugs? Could it have been that he was doing drugs? It sounds to me like he might have been on some kind of dope,” Thomson said.
“I already told you, sergeant,” Billy said, “Richard was a straight arrow.”
“OK, this is all very interesting, Dr. Lightning, but I’m going to have to ask you to get to the point. Why are you telling us about something that happened twenty years ago to some graduate student who doesn’t live here in Parr’s Landing? And what in the name of sweet biscuits does any of this have to do with why you’re here? Or with your father?”
“Let me finish the rest of my story, sergeant, and I’ll tell you.”
Thomson sighed deeply. “Very well,” he said. “Go on. But please, get to the point soon, Dr. Lightning.”
“Do you know why we had to leave Parr’s Landing, sergeant-I mean, we, the crew?”
“Some sort of medical problem, I recall hearing. Some sort of accident?”
Billy said, “There was indeed an accident, but it wasn’t the sort of accident one normally associates with a dig. Richard attacked and nearly killed Emory a week later.”
Elliot glanced at Thomson as if to say,
“After the sleepwalking incident,” Billy said, “Richard became more and more withdrawn. Emory told my father that he slept badly. He tossed and turned all night, and occasionally spoke in his sleep.”
“What did he say?” Thomson asked. “Do you remember?”
“Emory said that not much of it made any sense. Except one night, Richard woke up screaming that he was buried alive. Emory said he was drenched in sweat. He had apparently thrown his covers all over the floor of the motel room and was flailing his arms like he was trying to dig himself out of a hole.
“The next morning-again-Richard had no memory of the event at all. He got very angry with Emory. Richard accused Emory of lying just to confuse him. By that time Emory had started to be afraid of sharing the motel room with him. He told my father he wanted his own room. My father was initially reluctant to accede to Emory’s wishes, not only because it wasn’t in the budget, but also because he was afraid that such a drastic action would just make it worse. Richard, you see, didn’t believe any of this was happening. I think on some level, he believed we’d all been playing a joke on him since that first day he wandered off.”
“So, what finally happened?” Elliot asked. “You said he almost killed the other fella, this Emory?”
“We’d been out on the site all day, that last day,” Billy said. “Richard had apparently had another bad night and not a lot of sleep. He was sullen and withdrawn. It was a hot day, too, that day-really hot, very humid. There were a lot of bugs, black flies and the like, that we hadn’t had to deal with over the course of the dig up till that point. The sort of weather that makes people jump out of their skin at a moment’s notice when someone looks at you the wrong way. Everyone’s shirts were plastered to their backs before noon, but there was no wind and the bugs were a nightmare, so we kept them on and just… well, endured.
“When my father announced that we were breaking for lunch, Richard gathered up his things, as he had been doing since the first day since his bizarre experience with the quasi-amnesia, and prepared to go off and eat his lunch alone. My father objected. He insisted we all eat together as a group.”
“Why?” asked Thomson. “After all that had gone on? Why would he antagonize him like that?”
“Dad might have been trying to see what sort of a reaction it would provoke in Richard. I know my father was growing increasingly concerned about Richard and had spoken to both Emory and me privately about sending Richard back home to Toronto to get some help, and finishing up the dig as a trio.”
“What was Richard’s reaction?”
“He became furious. He accused my father of overstepping his bounds and taking advantage of his status as Richard’s professor in order to ‘control’ him. His rage was completely out of sync with either my father’s request, or anything else, including how irritable we all felt in that heat. My father insisted again, and for a moment Richard looked at my father as though he wanted to murder him. It looked to me as though Richard would attack him. Emory and I both stood up at the same time. Richard looked at all three of us, and then stalked away into the bush, towards the cliffs, without looking back.
“Emory said, ‘I’ll go after him. Let me see if I can talk to him.’ My father said, ‘No, I’ll do it. It’s my responsibility.’ But Emory insisted, saying that it was obvious that Richard was furious about my father taking a paternalistic role in this situation, and that perhaps talking to someone closer to his own age would be less threatening. So he took off into the bush looking for Richard.”
“What happened when he found him?” Elliot asked. “I mean, I’m assuming he did?”
Billy took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. “Yes, he definitely found him. But first, we found Emory. When he wasn’t back in half an hour, both my Dad and I had a bad feeling about it, so we went to find him. We did, about half a mile from the camp. It wasn’t hard-we just followed the sound of his screaming.”
Again, Elliot found himself asking, “What happened?” But this time, he sounded less like an interrogating
