Corkscrew (11 page)

The breeze was cool out on the water, and the few mosquitoes that had started to gather at dockside dropped away. It was the time of day I usually head out to fish for pike, and a couple of regular fishermen waved to me in a puzzled way when they saw I was still in uniform.

The divers were working off Wolfgang's big inboard/outboard. It was flying the red/white "Diver below" flag, and in case anybody around hadn't learned what it meant, he had a big double-sided sign on the deck: "Keep Away. Diving."

I slowed and waited about forty yards off his stern until he saw me and called me alongside, indicating the path he wanted me to take. I came up slowly, and he reached over and took the bow line and secured it. I tied my stern line to his rear mooring cleat and got into his boat.

"Nothing yet," he said. "But they've only been in the water fifteen minutes. They're over there." He indicated a spot about halfway to the rock. A stream of bubbles was crinkling the surface of the water. They moved slowly ahead, toward the rock.

"It's deep here, right?" I asked.

"One of the deepest spots in the whole lake." He nodded. "If somebody put the boy here, they didn't expect him to be found for a while."

"Fisherman's luck," I said.

A powerboat came south through the narrows, pushing a three-foot bow wave as it raced toward us. The driver saw us and veered off, not slackening his speed, and we bounced on the wake.

"Dumb bastard," Wolfgang said automatically. "Kids. They don't consider anybody."

We stood looking at the stream of bubbles for a couple more minutes; then the stream split, one side turning toward the west. After a moment the second half of the stream turned after it.

"They've seen something," Wolfgang said. "Look, they've stopped." We waited another thirty seconds, and then a small orange float popped up to the surface and bounced there.

"That's it." He started the motor and pulled in the anchor rope; then we inched toward the buoy. As we approached, a head bobbed up next to it, black and slick, with the diving mask pushed up on top like the mouth of some strange aquatic mammal. He waved to us and pointed down. Wolfgang motored up close enough to talk, then put the engine in neutral and called down, "What've you got down there?"

The man pointed down again. "I think this is what you're looking for. It's got yellow rope on it with a loop, about yea big." He made a circle of his middle finger and thumb, opened slightly. It looked as if the loop were about four inches in diameter.

Wolfgang looked at me, and I nodded. "Could be it. What's it fastened to?"

The man shook his head and pointed to the hood over his ears, then swam closer and clung to the side of the boat. I leaned down to him and asked him again. "What's the rope tied to?"

"The guts of an old engine block. No pistons or sump or crankshaft, just the block."

Wolfgang reached down and shook his hand. "Well done," he said heartily. I nodded, and Wolfgang glanced at me and grinned. "How about that, Chief. Good work, huh?"

"Fantastic. Thanks," I said. "Can you bring it up for me?"

Wolfgang turned to the diver again. "How heavy is the engine, roughly? Fifty kilos?"

The diver nodded. "Yeah, a hundred pounds, I'd say." He waited while Wolfgang looked at me for guidance. "Great work," I told the diver. "Can you get a rope through it and we'll hoist it in?"

"Gimme the rope," he said. Wolfgang stooped and unshackled the anchor rope, handing the end to him. "Tug when you're ready," he said.

The diver held the rope in his left hand, adjusted the mask with his right, and then sank out of sight, trailing bubbles.

Wolfgang looked at me. "I have a little brandy in the medicine chest for when the divers come up. Would you like some?"

I grinned. "That's my kind of first aid, Wolfie. But no thanks. I have to go and talk to some kids who were here at around the time it all happened. It wouldn't do to breathe firewater on anybody."

"You decide." He turned back to the rope, feeling it carefully through finger and thumb, like a fisherman waiting for a rainbow trout to start mouthing the bait. Then it jumped in his hand, and he said, "So, let's pull."

We worked together, feeling the strain even under the buoyancy of the water. "This thing weighs a ton," he said. Sweat was forming on his forehead in beads, and he dashed it away with his forearm.

"Yeah, let's not scratch up your boat. I'll get in the police boat and take it. Okay?"

"Yeah. I'll come with you." He supported the dead weight on the line while I climbed down into the cedar-strip. Then I took it and he joined me. Together we horsed the engine the rest of the way in, scraping it lightly against the side of the boat until I could lean down and hold it away from the hull while we struggled it in.

"There," Wolfgang said. We sat each side of it, me in the stern, him in the middle seat, looking at it. "Looks like a Ford V8," he said. "Out of a truck, something."

"Yeah," I said. "And it's in good shape. This is out of somebody's workshop. There's not a speck of rust in it."

"See." Wolfgang waved his arms expansively. "Now you have a nice shiny new clue, maybe with fingerprints."

"Good. I need one."

He was triumphant, savoring the pleasure of finding the block so quickly. "Maybe this one will solve your homicide," he said, and grinned. I grinned back. I hadn't told him it was a homicide, but you didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that much for yourself.

I asked him if his guys could spend a few more minutes checking around down there for the kid's camera. It was a long shot, I told him, and he agreed, getting technical on me. The weeds were bad, but they would do what they could.

I thanked him, and he got back into his own boat. I changed my plan and headed back to the marina. The Levines would have to wait. I wanted to get this block under cover until it could be fingerprinted. It was the first real key to the case. Anyone could have used the Corbett boat to dump the body, but this block had to have come from somewhere. If I could identify its source, I would be a whole giant step ahead. It had come from a shop; otherwise, it would have been rusty. How many people would have had a V8 engine block handy? Not as many as know how to hot-wire a cruiser. I ran through a mental list of possibilities as I drove. It was a car or truck motor, not a marine engine. That narrowed my scan considerably.

By the time I got to the marina, the big light was already burning, turning the purple shadows of dying daylight into bright blue-tinged visibility. In it I saw the OPP cruiser parked to one side of the marina, and next to it the two-year-old Cadillac that belonged to the town reeve. I wondered if there had been some scare about the bikers while I was gone, and I didn't slow as much as I usually do when entering the dock, but the motor reversed neatly for me and brought me in to the mooring without a bump. I ordered Sam out at dockside, then pulled forward into the boathouse. I would have the OPP crew check for prints in the morning. For now I would drive up to the Levine place and take statements.

As I came out of the boathouse, locking the door carefully, the reeve came up with another man. I recognized him at once. He's the OPP inspector in the district that embraces ours. We've crossed swords once or twice, and I could see by the smug look on his face that his visit wasn't meant to make me feel comfortable.

I nodded to the pair of them. "George, Inspector."

The reeve cleared his throat nervously. "Hi, Chief. Inspector Anderson has had a complaint about you."

Now it was Anderson's moment, and he milked it. "A very serious complaint," he said slowly, pitching his voice low.

I straightened up to my full height, any man's reaction under threat. Anderson was shorter than me, and he bristled a little harder. "What kind of complaint?"

"Brutality." He dragged the word out to its full length, loving it. "You knocked down a man with your stick and kicked him in the testicles."

I couldn't believe him. "You could be talking about a fight I had with one of those bikers, but you've got your facts wrong. I didn't hit him with the stick or kick him. But I put him down. I had to."

"Oh, I'm sure you have a story," he said primly, "but there's no justification for violence. I'm here to tell you that you're suspended, pending a hearing."

Chapter Nine

Anderson was smiling like a bad poker player with four aces. I spoke slowly. "Who laid this complaint?"

He composed his face. "A citizen, on behalf of James Murdoch, who is in the hospital in Sundridge."

I remembered the other biker, crouching by Jas as he lay and groaned. I'd expected violence, but he'd been smarter than that. He'd attacked my livelihood instead.

The reeve spoke. He sounded apologetic, for however much good that was going to do me. "I'm sure there's an explanation, Chief."

"There is, but Inspector Anderson doesn't want to hear it," I said carefully.

Anderson leaped on that one. "Oh, yes, I do. You're a regular police officer, a little unconventional, I'm told, but you'll get the same hearing as any other policeman." He waited, and when I didn't answer, he prodded, politely. "What happened?"

"I had occasion to visit the camp where the bikers are staying overnight in connection with the homicide investigation I'm conducting. This Murdoch character insisted on fighting. I had no choice. I didn't hit him with my stick. I defended myself against a chain and a switchblade. I put him down and never touched him from the moment he hit the deck."

Anderson glowed. I could almost see him swelling. "And, of course, you arrested him for assault with a deadly weapon."

"Oh, sure. Just the same as you would have done, single-handed against a whole gang of bikers." I turned away in disgust. There it was. I had failed to work by the book. It made no difference that the other bikers would have jumped me, maybe even blown me away with their sawed-off shotgun if I'd tried to take Jas in. I hadn't followed the procedures, and it would cost me my job. It was that simple.

Anderson thundered out the question. "Where do you think you're going, Bennett?"

"I know where I'm going, Inspector. Back to the station to turn in my badge. You can notify me who's taking over the investigation and I'll brief him. Then you can tell me when the case against me will be brought before the police commission and I'll attend."

He was still talking, and the crowd of vacationers that had formed quietly around us, at the edges of the pool of light from the marina, were soaking it all up. "You'll do as you're ordered," he said.

"Why? I'm not working here anymore, am I?" Sweet reason itself. So why did I slam the door of the car after I'd placed Sam inside and got into the driver's seat? I had the same sense of disgust, at authority and at myself, that had driven me out of the Toronto Police Department two years before.

I drove out, past the people who were crouching to peer in at me, anxious for a glimpse of news in the making. Behind me in the mirror I saw the reeve get into his car, and then Anderson got into the OPP cruiser on the passenger side. That much was good news. He had someone else with him, somebody to take over the search for whoever had killed young Spenser.

Fred's car was at the station, with another OPP car parked alongside it. I got out of my cruiser and locked it, then went inside. A young OPP constable was operating the radio. Fred was sitting on a bench in front of the counter. She jumped to her feet when I came in. "Reid, what's going on? Some man came in and told me you weren't in charge anymore. He put this officer on the phone."

"I've been suspended," I said. She gasped, and the young constable got to his feet and came to the counter. "I'm sorry about this, Chief. The way I hear it, some hairy goddamn biker laid the charge. I dunno why anybody would believe one of them over a copper."

"Thanks for your concern." I smiled formally and started emptying my pockets of police material. First thing to go was the plastic ID from my wallet. Then I took out my notebook and stood at the counter, entering the details of the engine block found by the divers. Fred was a good enough actress to know when the best line is silence. She stood and waited for me to finish.

When I'd brought my book up-to-date, I told the constable, "There's the investigation details so far. I also want to talk to the detective who takes over from me."

The door opened behind me, and Anderson came in, along with a sergeant I recognized. I ignored Anderson and said, "Hi, Sergeant Kowalchuk, isn't it?"

He stuck out his hand. "Yeah, Wally. Sorry to be here under these circumstances, Chief."

"You taking over the investigation into the Spenser boy's death?" I asked as we shook hands, and Anderson pursed his lips.

"That's none of your concern," Anderson said before Kowalchuk could answer. "You're off the case. Go home."

"What a professional," I said, smiling at him. "Throw away all the work that's been done just to treat me like a naughty boy."

He began to speak, but I cut him off. "A real copper works from facts. Your man hasn't got any. I have. Now why don't you drive back to your nice, comfortable office and start preparing the book you're going to throw at me while Sergeant Kowalchuk gets on with some police work."

Anderson knew he was out of line. He drew himself up to his full five foot ten, his cheap summer suit darkening and lightening as his movement changed the creases around the chest. "Sergeant Kowalchuk, you're in charge. If you want to talk to this man, that's up to you. I'll send the detectives out as soon as I can. In the meantime, take his ID and his gun."

"No dice," I told him, and he stopped in midturn, a double take from a silent movie.

"What did you say?" he spluttered.

"The gun is personal property. I had to buy it when I took this job, and I'm licensed to carry it within this jurisdiction. The ID you can have."

"Check for sure that he has a license for it," Anderson told Kowalchuk. "If he hasn't, take the gun."

He left, and Fred broke her long silence. "Who the hell is that guy?"