12 Rose Street (32 page)

“I’m looking for a young man named Eli,” I said. “I think he might work out here.”

Sarge kept his eye fixed on me, waiting for further information. “I don’t know his last name,” I said. “He’s a bodybuilder, about my height. He’s nice-looking but he has a serious case of acne.” Sarge continued to stare. “Bad skin,” I explained.

Sarge cleared his throat. “I know what acne is.” His voice was rusty, as if he seldom used it. “Pimples,” he added.

I nodded. “Can you help me?”

His gaze hadn’t wavered. He was waiting me out. I reached into my bag for my wallet, found a twenty, and lay it on the counter.

Sarge was quick. He slapped his hand over the twenty, drew it to the edge of the counter, and pocketed it. “Eli hasn’t been in for a while,” he said.

“Has he been in since Labour Day weekend?” I asked.

“One day’s pretty much the same as the next around here.”

I pulled out another twenty. “I failed to pay Eli for a job he did. I want to give him what I owe him. Can I leave you my name and number?” Sarge took my twenty and pushed a pad across the counter towards me. When I’d written my contact information, I pushed the pad back. He looked at what I’d written without interest. “Somebody told me Eli’s working at a garage out of town,” he said. I put another twenty on the counter. “The garage is in Southey.”

“Got it,” I said. “If Eli comes in here, please let him know I can help him.”

For the first time, Sarge looked at me with interest. “Why do you want to help him?”

I met his eyes. “Eli came to me. He believes in justice. So do I.”

Southey was a town fifty-five kilometres north of Regina on Highway 6. The population was a shade over seven hundred, so finding the A-1 gas station wasn’t difficult. A-1 was painted the same black with yellow trim as Da Silva’s gym. It wasn’t much of a stretch to surmise that the gym and the gas station had the same owner. I put my money on Sarge. Eli was in the bay hunched over the engine of a Honda. His one-piece uniform was black and his name was stitched in yellow over the breast pocket. The owner of Da Silva’s and A-1 clearly believed in one-stop shopping.

When Eli realized I was behind him, he turned, raised his hand reflexively to cover his cheek. “My uncle called. He said he thought you’d come. He says I should talk to you because we need help.”

“We?”

“My uncle and me both. Graham Meighen is ruining my uncle’s business. Da Silva’s has always been an ordinary gym. A place where guys – mostly bodybuilders and guys interested in boxing – can work out without paying a lot. We don’t have fancy equipment – just the basics, dumbbells, barbells, weight-lifting benches, some punching bags. Nothing to attract ladies like you.” He gave me a shy smile. “Anyway, Da Silva’s has always been a gym for guys who live paycheque to paycheque and everybody was as happy as guys like us ever are. And then Graham Meighen came along. He’s rich. Nobody could figure out why he was training in a gym like ours. After a while everybody got used to him being there. That’s when he started offering some of us jobs.”

“What kind of jobs?”

Eli raised his arm and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Grey area jobs – the kind where you get paid under the table. At first there was nothing illegal, but when the jobs started to get iffy, some of us tried to turn him down. That’s when Meighen told us he’d been keeping track. He had recordings of us agreeing to do jobs. He said he’d send them to the police.”

“So people went along with what he suggested.”

“Mrs. Shreve …”

“Joanne …” I said.

Eli nodded. “Joanne, most of the guys who come to Da Silva’s didn’t finish high school. And here’s Graham Meighen, a pal of the mayor and everybody else who’s important in this city, asking us to do jobs that we’re nervous about. One of our guys who’d done work for Meighen in the past tried to stand up to him about a job he was offering that definitely did not pass the smell test. Meighen started spouting a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo and convinced our guy that if he didn’t do the job, Meighen would turn over evidence to the police that would land the guy in jail.”

“And so your friend did what he was told,” I said.

Eli nodded. “He did and after that, everyone fell into line. None of us wanted to do the stomping, but Meighen said the man was already dead and he was a thug who deserved what he got. Then he waved what he called our ‘rap sheets’ at us and told us our choices were to stomp on the dead guy and get paid two grand apiece or refuse and end up in jail. We didn’t think we had a choice.” Eli’s eyes were downcast. “The man
was
dead when we did it, but I don’t think he’d been dead long. After it was over, I went home and checked online. Wikipedia says rigor mortis starts about three to four hours after death.”

“And Cronus didn’t show any signs of rigor mortis?”

Eli shook his head. “No.”

“Did Meighen give you the red kerchief?”

“He said the dead guy had gang connections and that if we did it right, the cops would assume it was gang-related.”

“And you did it,” I said.

Eli nodded miserably.

“You have to go to the police, Eli, but for the time being just sit tight. Graham Meighen is dangerous. I don’t want you or your friends getting hurt. I’ll talk to Zack about your legal position, but I think if you cooperate with the police, we can sort this out. If Graham Meighen gets in touch with you about another job, tell him no. If he tries to coerce you into doing whatever he wants done, tell him you have a lawyer, and he should talk to her.”

“Do I have a lawyer?”

“Well, in about twenty minutes you will. Her name is Maisie Crawford. You’ll like her. She plays lacrosse.”

It was past four when I left Southey. Jill was supposed to have called me at three, but there was no message on my phone. I’d tried her cell before I left, but there was no answer. Forgetting a promised phone call wasn’t like Jill, and the vision of Graham Meighen’s hands on her throat frightened me. When I got back to Regina just after five, I drove straight to the Hotel Saskatchewan.

As I walked down the hall towards Jill’s suite, I passed a woman with a housekeeping cart. When she noticed that I’d stopped in front of Jill’s door, she joined me. “Would you mind asking Ms. Oziowy if she wants me to do her room? I’ve knocked on the door, but she’s not answering. I heard voices in her room earlier – loud voices. And then that man she’s seeing came out. His hair was messed up and his face was very angry. When he ran past me, he knocked me over. He didn’t stop. He just kept running till he got to the elevator. Ms. Oziowy’s a nice woman. She always gives me something extra for taking good care of her. I called hotel security but nobody’s answering.”

I felt a chill. I knocked and called Jill’s name, but there was no response. “I have a key,” the woman from housekeeping said.

“Use it,” I said.

The housekeeper opened the door. Jill had never been tidy, and the living room looked much like every other room Jill had occupied: coffee cups on the windowsill; sections of the morning paper dropped as she had read them on the floor; a blanket, a pillow, and a tin of olive body butter on one of the loveseats; and on the matching loveseat a room service tray holding the remains of a Greek salad and an empty wine glass. Standard Jill.

But when I walked into the bedroom, my heart clenched. She was lying on her back on the bed. It had been years since I’d seen Jill naked. When we were changing into our swimsuits with the kids, they were always were fascinated by Jill’s freckles. Jill told them that the Freckle Fairy usually just scatters a few adorable freckles across a child’s nose, but that she had been chosen to be “the lavishly freckled one,” so the Fairy had dumped a whole basket of freckles on her.

I ran to the bed. “Call 911,” I said to the housekeeper. I felt for a pulse in Jill’s neck. The pulse was thready, but it was there. Suddenly, I was very cool. I knew what had happened, and I knew what I had to do. Graham Meighen had tried to kill Jill, and my job now was to make sure he paid for what he’d done. I longed to cover Jill’s broken body, but this was a crime scene and I knew enough about the chain of evidence to know how easily it can be contaminated and dismissed in court. I couldn’t let that happen.

I had to make certain the case against Graham Meighen was airtight. I took out my phone and snapped a dozen pictures of Jill from every angle and then I photographed the bedroom and the bathroom. I didn’t know what was important so I just kept taking photos.

As the
EMT
crew was securing Jill on the stretcher, the woman from housekeeping took a rosary from her uniform pocket and placed it in Jill’s hands. The crew was carrying the stretcher out when Debbie and her colleagues arrived. I bent and kissed Jill’s forehead, then turned to Debbie. I didn’t waste time on preamble. “Arrest Graham Meighen,” I said. “Find him and lock him up.”

Debbie’s eyes locked on mine. “You’re sure he did this.”

“Absolutely.” I turned to the woman from housekeeping. “Could you tell Inspector Haczkewicz what happened here this afternoon?”

The housekeeper had been stunned by the violence that had been done to Jill, but her account of what she had heard and seen was clear and her description of Graham Meighen was dead on. When she was finished, she told Debbie her name was Annetta Kopchek and gave her contact information. Debbie thanked her and said that she could get on with her day but that the police would be in touch.

I walked Annetta to the door. “Thank you for your help,” I said. “And thank you for giving Jill the rosary.”

“I always carry an extra one,” she said. “I see many sad things in my work.”

When I went back to the bedroom, Debbie was staring at the tangled sheets of the bed.

“What Meighen did to Jill was inhuman,” I said. “I could see the marks of his fingers on her throat. His teethmarks were on her breasts. Her vagina was bleeding and her face was broken. He must have kicked it after he finished raping her.”

“Jesus,” Debbie breathed. She spoke to a young constable standing by the door. “Get out an
APB
on Graham Meighen. The constable nodded and hit speed-dial on his cell.

“Now, Jo, tell me what you’re doing here.”

The police team was moving purposefully through the hotel suite, dusting for fingerprints and bagging evidence. As a female constable began taking photographs, I remembered my own pictures. I took out my phone and handed it to Debbie. “I knew the
EMT
would want to get Jill to the hospital, so I took these before they came.”

Debbie’s face hardened as she scrolled through the photos. “You’re right,” she said. “Meighen’s an animal.” She pulled out her paper notebook and pen. “We need to talk, but let’s get out of here. We’ll just be in the way.”

There was a small couch against the wall facing the elevators, and Debbie and I sank into it. “Zack’s expecting me any minute. I’d better let him know what’s happening.” Zack offered to meet me at Regina General, and I didn’t dissuade him. When I got to the Emergency Room, Zack was there with a takeout bag from Orange Izakaya. “I’m guessing you’re not in the mood for eating, but I know you get wonky when you’re hungry, so do your best. Taylor made us a thermos of Japanese tea.”

The food from Orange Izakaya was always good, but that night my stomach was heaving. Taylor’s thermos of tea helped and I was able to eat enough to feel my strength returning.

We’d just finished when a doctor came in. He was young, as increasingly all doctors seemed to be, and nerdy in a very winning way. He looked as bushed as I felt. “I’m Mitch Nagel-Zeller, Jill Oziowy’s doctor,” he said. “You must be her friend, Joanne.”

I nodded. “How did you know my name?”

“You were the only person Jill wanted us to call,” he said.

Relief washed over me. “She’s able to speak?” I said.

He nodded. “She’s very lucky. Her attacker choked her, and choking can have devastating results. We don’t know how long Jill was without oxygen, but she doesn’t appear to have suffered brain damage. Her speech is clear; she’s lucid.
Her coordination is fine. There’s no numbness in her extremities. That’s the good news.”

“And the bad news?”

“The rape was brutal. Her vagina is badly torn up. Her assailant must have raped her with some kind of metal instrument. Given the nature of her injuries and the fact that the assault took place in a hotel room, my guess is that he used the ice tongs from the bar.”

My intake of breath was audible. Zack clutched my hand and held it tight. The doctor continued. “Mercifully, for the moment, Jill doesn’t remember what happened,” he said. “She remembers the choke hold. After that, nothing.”

“The physical harm is treatable?” I said.

“Yes, we’ve patched her up. Joanne, the problem will come when she starts to remember what happened – and she will remember. She’ll need someone to keep an eye on her. Ideally, it would be us, but we haven’t got the space or the personnel to spend 24/7 with a patient who’s not in any imminent physical danger. Does Jill have family?”

“A stepdaughter, but she’s in New York City, and she and Jill aren’t close.”

“Then arrangements will have to be made,” the doctor said.

Zack held out his hand. “I’m Zack Shreve – Joanne’s husband. We’ll take care of it, doctor.” I shot him an anxious look. I wasn’t ready to have Jill in our home, but Zack had a better plan. “We’ve used the services of a company that provides nurses for people who need short-term but focused nursing care. It’s called Whitman Convalescent.”

Dr. Nagel-Zeller checked his phone. His decision wasn’t hasty. When he looked up, his expression revealed nothing. “Whitman appears to be excellent, except their nursing staff is largely male. Given Jill’s recent experience, she might not be comfortable with a male nurse.”

I stood. “May I ask her?”

“Of course. She’s eager to talk to you too,” he said. “Don’t stay long. We’ve given her something for pain and she’s starting to drift a little. Joanne, if she brings up the rape, let her talk about it.”

Jill was still in one of the curtained-off cubicles in emergency. It was painful to look at her. She was in a hospital gown. Her nose was swollen, and the harsh overhead lights threw every bruise and abrasion into sharp relief. It was impossible to ignore the marks Graham Meighen’s hands had left around her neck.