Corkscrew (10 page)

I laughed with him, and he said, "Nah, Di and the boys can catch some rays. Maybe if you need a hand I could pitch in—kind of a busman's holiday."

I looked down the telephone as if I could somehow lock eyes with him over the wire. "If you were single, I'd propose to you. That's the kindest thing anybody's said to me for years."

"See you around noon," he said, and hung up.

Chapter Eight

I left Fred still fussing about my bruise and drove to the Spenser place. Already time was tightening up on me. I had to visit the divers in an hour, then go on and talk to the Levine boat party. By that time the two men who had found the body would be waiting for me at the office. I needed to take an hour to get a formal statement from them. It would complete the book work, but it wouldn't solve the case. I'd already picked their brains. Their best leads had been the location and the presence of the Levine boat. Perhaps either one of these second rungs on the ladder of investigation would be helpful. I checked my watch. Time was running out. Dobos and his friend would be back at the station long before me. Talking to them was fairly routine. On impulse I lifted the microphone and called Fred. I guess the punch I'd taken had made her serious. She answered crisply in her own voice, and I told her I wanted her to get a statement from each of the men.

"I remember that," she said cheerfully. "You took one from me last time I was a guest in this hotel. And besides, I've played a policewoman on Night Heat since. Where do you keep the statement forms?"

I told her, gave her the rundown on the rest of the formalities she needed to know, and then hung up, grateful that she was there to help me carry the extra load. Not the holiday weekend she'd planned for, but she was a lively woman, always looking for new experiences. Taking the statement would delight her. She wouldn't let it get her flustered like some people might.

In the meantime, I would talk to the Levine party. I had high hopes for them. What I needed was a good description of the man in the boat. I was sure the body had been dumped from it and not from the other boats young Cy had seen around the narrows. Sam's nose had given me a lead that would otherwise have taken days to track down. If the kids could describe the man who'd been running the green cruiser they'd seen, I'd be halfway home.

I put that thought aside. There were other things to do first. I wanted to talk to Spenser, preferably apart from his wife, to try and find if there was any reason why the boy would have taken photographs of the Corbett place. And whether there was any special meaning to the photographs and letter he'd been carrying.

I drove over there and found the Spensers inside the cottage. The stepfather came to the door when I knocked, but his wife followed him when he said, "Hello, Officer."

She stood without speaking. Her eyes were red with weeping and held the thousand-yard stare I've seen in combat-fatigued buddies in 'Nam.

I took my hat off and said, "I'm sorry to have to intrude on you, but there are a few things I have to ask." Neither of them spoke, and I put the question as carefully as I could. "Perhaps if I could have a few words with each of you in private—would that be possible?"

She said nothing, but her husband licked his lips quickly and said, "I suppose so. If it will help."

I nodded at her and backed out. He followed me, and I walked slowly away from the cottage, down the slope over the thin grass and out on the rock that dropped off sheer into the black water.

He walked beside me, half turning his head my way, not sure whether to speak. I stopped, out of earshot of the house, and turned to face him. He met my eyes for a moment, then looked away, out over the lake, shading his face with his hand.

"I'm afraid that your stepson didn't drown," I said quietly.

He dropped his hand, gaping at me, horrified. "Didn't drown? But we saw him. Are you saying there's been a mistake?"

"Not a mistake in identity, but the doctor doesn't think he drowned. There are some marks on his face that indicate he was smothered."

"God." He gasped it. "Are you saying he was murdered?"

"It's starting to look that way, Mr. Spenser."

He turned away from me, balling up his fists, curling his arms, the helpless contractions of a man at the end of his ability to cope. I waited without speaking, and when he turned back to me, I could see tears in his eyes. "That's unspeakable," he said, spending the word like it was a silver dollar. It rang phony, but the guy was a professor, I reminded myself, and people always sound rehearsed when they talk about crime. It's as if they're preparing to be quoted in the newspaper.

I made a sympathetic gesture. "Yes, but I'm afraid it's true. And the doctor has asked that your son's body be sent to Toronto for an autopsy by the forensic specialists at the attorney general's department."

He worked his mouth as if he wanted to find enough saliva to spit. At last he said, "I can't tell her all this. Can you do it?" I stood, wondering at the state of his marriage that he would think a stranger better able to break the news. Then I nodded.

"I'll do it in a moment, but first I have a couple of questions to ask you, if you don't mind." He looked at me quickly, then away, the kind of look petty crooks give when you've locked them up for the umpteenth time. He was wary, and I wondered why. Had it been him in that boat at the narrows?

"They're pretty much routine, nothing you have to worry about. The thing is, I found a couple of photographs in his pocket and wondered if you had any comments on them."

He tried a hollow little laugh. "Photographs! He lived for his camera, that boy." Or perhaps died for it, I thought. We might know better if we found his camera with the new film in it. Maybe. Spenser held up his hands, palms toward me. "Anything I can do, I'll be glad to."

"Good." I took out the pictures of himself and David and gave him the one of the boy first. "Would you happen to know who this is?"

I was watching what I could see of his face, but he had pulled all his feelings inside and slammed the door. He looked at the picture without a flicker of feeling. "That's a boy called Reg something, a friend of Kennie's."

"But the picture's signed 'David,'" I pointed out.

He shrugged. "I know, but the boy's name is Reg. Kennie met him last year at camp. He was a counselor, I guess. He was also into photography, and the two of them struck up a friendship. They go—went, that is—on photo expeditions together."

"A counselor? That would make him older than Kennie, wouldn't it?"

"He's around sixteen, seventeen." Spenser shrugged. "Like I said, they were both into cameras. It was innocent enough."

I frowned. "Of course I'd thought it was innocent. Why would you have thought anything else?"

He almost roared the answer. "I didn't think anything else. It was two kids with cameras, plugging along together, taking pictures and developing them. Innocent. Of course it was." He shook his head as if the anger he was feeling could be spun loose, like water in your ear. "Christ, I only said that because you insinuated something about the age difference."

"I didn't mean anything sinister," I said. I took the photo back and handed him the one of himself getting out of the car. "Is this your apartment?"

He answered without looking at the shot. "We don't live in an apartment. We have a house, in North York." I didn't answer, and he glanced down at the photograph, and I saw the flicker in his eyes.

I asked him, "Where was this taken? Do you remember?"

He thrust it back at me angrily. "No, I don't remember anything about this shot. It's me, somewhere, in my car. Why Kennie would have taken a picture of me I don't know. Maybe he was doing some kind of kiddie investigative journalism, prying around getting candid shots. He picked me because I was a handy subject to follow."

"But you were driving, and he's too young to drive, so he couldn't have followed you and then taken your shot from across the street. He had to be waiting. That's why I asked if it was your apartment." I kept my voice almost apologetic, wondering why he was reacting this way.

"Look, he's—he was a teenager. You should know you can't keep tabs on teenagers. They're all over the place."

"He was only just a teenager. Just thirteen. Tell me, what was he like? Was he difficult? Was he into drugs or trouble of some kind?"

"Drugs." He looked me straight in the eye and spat the word out. "You're sick. That's the trouble with you cops. You live with garbage, and you expect nothing else anywhere."

He was closer to the truth than I like, but I persisted, anyway. "Mr. Spenser, I don't know anything about your stepson except what I've learned today. If he had some secret or other, some friends or habits that were out of the ordinary, I need to know. If he didn't, then I hope you'll excuse my asking. It has to be done."

He jammed his hands in his pockets angrily and pivoted away from me to look back at the cottage. It was the move of an angry, impotent man, pinned by something he couldn't handle. Finally he said, "You're right. I'm sorry. This is all very unsettling."

"I know. I only have two more questions for you." He turned again, trying to calm himself. "Go ahead."

"I found a letter he'd been writing. It was kind of a love letter, not addressed to anyone but obviously very sincere. Did he have a special girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend." He snorted. "No, he didn't have a girlfriend." He dragged the word out, making it a slur. "Except for this buddy of his, he was a loner, never asked anyone home, never went anywhere without a camera in his hand." He sniffed and softened his tone. "It's not easy being a stepfather, you know. I did my best with him. When I saw what kind of kid he was turning into, a little hermit, I bought him a camera, something he could maybe make some contact with, something to get him out of his room and away from the science fiction he was forever reading."

"Okay. Thank you for your help. Now, my last question. Did Kennie have anything to do with the Corbetts, across the lake, just north of the narrows?"

His headshake was genuine. "I don't think he knew anybody up here."

"Well, thanks again. Now I'd like to talk to your wife and ask if I can look through Kennie's things. That okay?"

He didn't answer. He looked down at the ground and scuffed one foot in the sand that showed through the grass like an old man's scalp through his hair. I paused and then moved away to the cottage. He followed me, walking slowly, like a truant being brought back to face the schoolteacher.

Kennie's mother was standing just inside the door. I knocked, then took off my cap and went in to speak to her. I saw her looking at the bruise on my face, but she said nothing, and as gently as I knew how, I broke the news about Kennie's death.

She gave a little shriek of horror, then gathered her strength and said, "Catch the man. Tell me you'll catch him and punish him."

"I'll do my best, Mrs. Spenser, and a lot of people will be helping." Spenser had come in behind me, and he moved past me to stand next to his wife and put his hand on her arm. It looked like a gesture that would drain her strength rather than help, but it was well meant, and she reached out and clenched her other hand over his fingers.

I took out the photograph signed "David" and showed it to her. "Do you recognize this boy? Kennie had this picture with him."

She looked at it, then at me. "You don't think he did it, do you?"

"I don't think anything. I'm just trying to tie up all the loose ends, that's all. If you know this boy, it will be something."

She handed the picture back. "That's Reg Waters. He has a camera, and he and Kennie were friends."

"But it's signed 'From David,'" I prodded.

"That was a joke. Kennie took the picture last month, after Reggie won the tennis championship at his club. He was up against a much bigger and tougher boy, so they were calling the match the battle between David and Goliath. I remember Kennie telling me about it."

"Thank you." I debated with myself whether to bring out the other photo, but I could see the tension in Spenser's face, and I didn't do it. She had enough on her plate already without my asking if she knew her husband was two-timing her, which was the most obvious reason for the way he was acting. Instead, I asked if I could look through her son's belongings. She led me to his bedroom. It was a typical rented bedroom, furnished with the least possible number of items.

She watched without speaking, clutching her husband's hand as I went through the boy's few belongings. There was nothing to help me. A drugstore envelope from Parry Sound with another set of photographs in it, the same variety as he'd had on the reel that Carl had developed for me. There were no more letters or anything else that might be useful. I finished inside ten minutes and thanked her. There was no need to remove anything.

"If you want to go home, it will be all right," I told them. "There's nothing more for you to do here. I'll contact you with any news as I get it."

She nodded, and Spenser growled that they would leave in the morning, and I nodded and put my cap back on and left.

I called the station and told Fred where I was going. She answered crisply in her normal voice. I wasn't sure if she was getting bored or just running out of accents. "Hi, Reid. Nothing new for you. A lot of people have called, but they were mostly just nosy, asking for particulars. I told them there was an investigation going on, like you suggested."

"Thanks, Fred. I'm afraid this isn't the weekend you'd planned. We don't get busy often up here, and they had to pick today. I'm sorry."

"Nothing's wasted," she promised. "After today I can audition for the Judy Holliday part in Bells Are Ringing."

"Stay away from casting couches," I told her, and she laughed and signed off.

I parked the cruiser by the marina and unlocked the little boathouse where we keep our beat-up old cedar-strip. The township had sprung for a new motor a couple of months earlier, a Mercury 25-horse that skipped the boat along at a good clip. It wouldn't take me too long to get up to Indian Island. Sam settled into the bow, and I backed out, past the cruisers where long, cool women were sipping long, cool drinks while their red-faced men talked routes and weather like hardened sailors. One or two of the women had that restless, bored look you see in singles bars. They looked me over with more interest than they were giving the conversations around them. I guess isolation will do that.