Cornwall and Redfern Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (43 page)

“What's going on here?
People are sitting on their roofs.” Tony rolled down the passenger window and stuck his head out. “They have shovels and cases of beer. I love this town!”

After Tony interviewed Mike Bains, he insisted on accompanying Neil to talk to Mrs. Brickle. “I want to see the mastermind behind the senior citizen marijuana dessert ring you busted last summer,” was how he put it. They had finished up at her house on Sandpiper Street a block over and were headed back to the station via Morningside Drive.

“They're shovelling the wet snow off so their roofs don't collapse. It's quite a social affair in this town.” He slowed so Tony had a better view.

“Geez. It's been raining all day. Look at that trio. Two drowned crows and a duck.”

“That's Cornwall's house.”

“Slow down, man. So, that little yellow one in the middle is Bliss?” He craned his neck. “That looks like Fang Davidson. I wonder who the other guy is.”

Neil put his foot on the brake and looked across the street. “Charles Leeds.”

“Almost half of our suspects on one roof. A cop's dream. Let's get out and shake them up.”

Neil pulled away from the curb. “I have a better idea. Let's get some coffee and discuss today's interviews.”

Tony reluctantly closed the window. “Aren't you anxious about your lady sitting on a roof with two men? Either one of them could be our killer.”

“Nothing I say will have any effect on Cornwall's course of action. On anything.”

He felt Tony's eyes appraising him, and waited for it …

“Hell, why don't you just marry Bliss and be done with it? Then you two can duke it out in one room where you can't hide or run away from each other.”

“It's not that simple, Tony. Both of us have … issues.”

Tony snorted and turned down the heat. “I forgot. You're already married.”

Neil's fingers tightened on the wheel. “Look who's giving marital advice — a man who's been married three times.”

As he hoped, this distracted his friend. “Stop exaggerating. I've been married twice. I don't count the Vegas wedding. It wasn't legal because Tiffany was already married. And we were stinkin' trashed the whole weekend.”

“Sure.”

“And don't mention ex-wives in front of Glory.”

Neil turned his head. “She doesn't know your marital track record? I told you, Tony, it's not right to blow into a town, sweep a lonely woman off her feet, and then blow out again with the next wind. Glory Yates is a decent person and deserves better.”

“Keep your shirt on, dude. I've been honest with Glory. We really connected. I don't plan to do anything to hurt her.”

“Who do you think you're talking to? You've left a string of broken-hearted ex-girlfriends all over the province.”

“Well now, just maybe I've turned over a new leaf. You'll just have to wait and see.” Tony spied the Tim Hortons sign coming up. “Swing in here. I need a double-double fix and a couple of Boston creams.”

While they waited for their drive-through order, Neil tried one more time. “Just keep two things in mind, will you?”

“I didn't know you could count that high, but go ahead.”

“First, before you do something stupid, remember Glory is on the Police Services Board. And right now she's my only ally. Mike and Andrea Bains are gunning for me because of my relationship with Cornwall. And the fourth member will vote any way the mayor wants as long as his driveway is cleared of snow for free.”

“Noted, bud.” A Boston cream doughnut disappeared into Tony's mouth. He offered the second to Neil, who shook his head. “Still won't eat doughnuts in public? You are one weird copper. A disgrace to the uniform. So, what's the second thing, as if I need to hear it again?”

“Just be careful where you lay your head while you're in Lockport.”

Except for Lavinia, the station was empty. “Everybody's out on patrol, Chief. I left the house-to-house reports on your desk, but I read them myself. Nobody in the area saw or heard anything unusual Saturday night to early Sunday morning when Sophie Quantz died. Zilch.”

“Okay, thanks, Lavinia.” In his office, he and Tony took off their coats and opened their coffees. “Let's hear what Mike Bains had to say.”

“In a word: nothing. He didn't notice Faith in particular at the graduation affair. According to him, he spent the evening chatting with the chaperones, most particularly Miss Emily Czerneski, who is conveniently dead. According to this paragon, he didn't imbibe a drop of liquor or engage in salacious behaviour of any kind. He didn't see anything unusual except his classmates acting like a bunch of jungle apes.”

Neil laughed. “Are those his exact words?”

“No, I'm paraphrasing. He didn't say this either, but he doesn't like you one little bit.” Tony pulled his notebook out of his pocket and opened his laptop. “I'll type this up while I remember every useless word the phony little bastard uttered.”

“Did you run into the formidable Mrs. Bains?”

“She was present while I interviewed her husband, reminding me that she is his lawyer. Confirmed he was with her in bed during the time Sophie Quantz was shot in the head at the church.”

Neil read through the pages of house-to-house interviews. Lavinia was right. Four reports of nothing. “Did he admit dating either Faith or Sophie?”

“Sophie. Briefly, just before spring break in March. He was very careful not to besmirch Sophie by saying she was available to everyone, especially in front of his wife, but he managed to get the point across.”

Neil turned on his laptop. “While you're documenting the Bains interview, I'll do the Brickle one.”

“Not much for us there, either. Another suspect with no useful information, and no alibi for early Sunday morning. Lives alone. No one to corroborate she stayed in all night.” Tony looked up. “Did you see Mrs. Brickle's hands? They're so twisted with arthritis, I doubt she could hold a gun, never mind affect a perfect head shot.”

“I agree. She goes to the bottom of the list.”

Tony looked up. “We have seven suspects for Sophie Quantz's murder — as long as you insist on including Bliss — and not one of them has an alibi worth shit. Davidson, Leeds, and Bains are all alibied by their wives. Archman, Brickle, Quantz, and Bliss don't even have that.”

“Well, Cornwall does, as a matter of fact …”

Tony's eyes fastened on him, and he elaborated. “We were together. All night.”

“So, you're Bliss's alibi. Are you prepared to swear in court that she was with you the entire night? She couldn't have skipped out, shot Sophie Quantz at St. Paul's, then returned to bed without you noticing?”

“Not unless she drugged me. So far, motive eludes us and we have no murder weapons. Faith was struck on the head. Sophie was shot, likely with a .32 handgun. One thing: Faith was struck on the left side of her head, near the front, indicating a right-handed assailant. Earl Archman is left-handed. So he says, and we'll check that. I can't see a man in his physical condition hoofing it around the block, climbing the stairs to the choir loft to shoot Sophie. He'd go to the bottom of the list except he's nervous about something.” Neil clicked the Save option with his mouse. “The other five suspects are right-handed.”

“We got fuck-all,” Tony observed. “On anybody.”

Neil's phone rang. “Reiner,” he mouthed to Tony. After the first few words, he pressed a button. “You're on speaker, Ed. Tony Pinato is with me.”

“I just got a call from the Forensic Pathology Unit about the bones. I didn't expect to hear anything for months, but this …”

They listened without interrupting.

“… this is something they thought important enough to let me know — they found fetal remains among the bones.”

Neil's fingers tightened on his cell. “Any chance of a DNA match?”

“They're faxing an interim report on the findings. A DNA match is possible regarding the fetus, once the lab confirms the skeleton is Faith Davidson and we provide them with DNA from the father. I'm sorry I missed it when I packed up the bones for transport.”

“Not your fault, Ed. Thanks for letting us know.”

He disconnected and looked at Tony. “We probably just narrowed our suspects down to the five men on our list.”

We met at my house
at eight o'clock sharp. After one look at Rae in her pink T-shirt and yoga pants, Chico and Fang tried to talk her into coming with us. I ixnayed that. “She was only in grade school when we graduated, so she has no part in this.” Rae was twenty-six and they needed to keep in mind they were both married with ten or twelve children between them.

We headed out in separate vehicles and, at eight-twenty, stood in the barren wasteland that used to be the student parking lot behind the gymnasium of the old high school. The rain had changed to sleet, which coated the cracked asphalt with a thin slick of ice. I stood well away from Chico.

Police tape whipped in a wind that couldn't make up its mind whether to blow west off the lake or south from the U.S., where a major winter storm was brewing. Neither choice boded well for a town caught in the crosshairs.

“Somebody broke through the tape.” I had wanted to do it myself.

“That was me.” Fang took a final drag off his cigarette and threw it away. “The cops released the scene a few days ago, so me and Larry carried out anything worth a few bucks. There wasn't much. Better turn on your flashlights.”

He pulled on the metal door of the gym and it swung open on creaking hinges. Inside, the darkness was absolute. We aimed our beams straight ahead but they illuminated nothing but an expanse of dusty flooring and a few trash bins.

“I took out the folding tables and chairs.” Fang lit up another, not so legal, cigarette. He took a couple of drags, then handed it to Chico, but when he in turn offered it to me, I passed. My two experiences with the stuff last summer — inadvertent and not my fault — convinced me I was allergic to the stuff.

“Hold your lights on me.” I tipped over a trash bin and jumped back as paper plates, napkins, plastic utensils, and something with a long tail skittered across the floor.

The noise was deafening in the empty space as the metal bin rolled out of sight.

“What are you doing?” Fang shouted. “Somebody will hear.”

“Nobody is around to hear.” I dumped the other two bins, then kicked aside the garbage. It was so old, it didn't even smell. “I'm looking for clues. I don't see anything, though.”

“I think the cops would have checked through the trash, Bliss.”

“Look,” I said to Fang, “before we continue with our experiment, I want to go into the locker room where Faith was found. I'm not doing it out of morbid curiosity. I must have gone in there at some point during the three hours we were held prisoner that night. Maybe if I see it again, something will come back to me. You guys can wait here.”

“I'll come with you.” Chico's voice was a little shaky, but I appreciated the support. “We were all running back and forth between the girls' and boys' locker rooms.”

“Call me when you're done.” Fang's footsteps echoed on the wooden floor. “I'll be in the parking lot.”

Chico walked so closely behind me, I had to jab him in the stomach with my elbow. The exit door to the hallway stuck and it took our combined strength to force it open. By now, I was sure my idea was a foolish one. How could I summon up memories from that crazy, noisy party? Now the school was cold, dark, and empty. All life had departed long ago.

The door to the girls' locker room was propped open. We stood shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the cracked tile floor. Silence surrounded us. One of the items
not
on my bucket list is an hour in a sensory deprivation tank, and this place fit the bill. Chico sucked on the joint and the smell of weed added to my stomach jitters.

The beam from my flashlight swept across scarred benches and lingered on the dreaded common shower stall. I spent many a self-conscious moment in that shower, hoping the other girls wouldn't make jokes about my inadequate boobs. Yeah, lots of opportunities for traumatic high school reminiscences here, but nothing from grad night.

My flashlight dimmed as I turned it toward the bank of lockers to our left. Chico's elbow brushed against my shoulder and he added his powerful torchlight to my feeble one. Naturally, he had the biggest, heaviest, brightest flashlight Canadian Tire could provide. Side by side, we inched closer.

Fifteen four-foot lockers comprised the row. I couldn't remember which had been mine. Every door hung open. Fang and Larry would have begun their search for booty at the lockers closest to the door, and stopped when they found Faith. The police completed the search.

We stopped about midway along the row. Only a small dark stain on the floor distinguished the locker from the others. Inside, the same stain covered the bottom. I knew where it came from, but refused to think what it had looked like through fifteen years of changing temperatures, insects, and rotting flesh. And the roses that had wilted then became part of Faith.

“That's not right.” Chico's voice startled me. “Faith was a nice girl. She shouldn't have been killed and left in there all these years.” He threw the roach to the floor and crushed it under his heel.

“No, it isn't. Somebody we know threw two bouquets of roses on top of her body, slammed the door closed, and hoped she'd never be discovered.” I was never going to forget this place. I would always think of it like it was now, as Faith's tomb. Even demolition wouldn't banish the bad energy. When I got old, I had to make sure I didn't end up living in the retirement home planned for this site.

“Come on, Bliss. Let's get out of here. I won't remember anything now, not after seeing this.”

In the gym, I called out to Fang, and he reappeared from the parking lot, a fresh doobie dangling from his lips.

I dropped my tote and whipped out a blanket, candles, a bottle of tequila, and three plastic glasses.

Chico shuffled in place. “I'm not drinking that stuff. Did you bring any beer?”

“No beer. And you don't have to drink the tequila.” I borrowed Fang's lighter and set out a dozen tealights in a wide circle. In the centre I spread the blanket. “Sit.”

“You better not be summoning up any demons,” Fang chortled nervously. “I have to be home by eleven or Leanne will hang my balls on the Christmas tree.”

“Charming image.” I lit a large pillar candle and placed it in the middle of the blanket, then poured an inch of tequila into three glasses. “Everyone knows that the sense of smell is directly connected to the memory synapses of the brain. Pick up a glass. We'll close our eyes and inhale. Remember we're in the gym on the night of our high school graduation …”

“I think she's bat-shit nuts,” Chico whispered to Fang, accepting a drag of the joint. But he sounded more relaxed than in the locker room, so maybe the weed was a good idea.

“Shhttt.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled. Nothing magical happened. I waited. Still nothing. I opened them again, disappointed that my experiment wasn't working. Backlit by the surrounding candles and illuminated from the front by the larger central candle, my companions looked far different than the seventeen-year-olds who were so eager to leave their childhoods behind.

I had sat like this, yoga-style, under a table, with two bottles — or was it three — of tequila, tipping the liquid into proffered pop cans and punch glasses. The music thumped, the other eleven grads — since Lionel Petty refused to come home from Victoria — milled around, their feet and legs passing back and forth …

Shitballs on a cracker. No wonder I couldn't recall any details from that night. It wasn't that I was plowed on tequila — okay, I was — but I couldn't see anything from under the table. Crap. I could sniff all the tequila I wanted. It wouldn't help. And maybe I didn't even go to the bathroom.

“Anything?” I asked my companions. By candlelight, they looked more relaxed, considering we were sitting on a frigid wooden floor in the dark, in an abandoned building. Chico aimed his flashlight at the ceiling. “Didn't we have a glitter ball?”

“Bliss has it. She stole it from me.” Fang took a long drag and stuck his nose back into his tequila. He must have forgotten his aversion, and downed the entire glassful, which was a smidge more than a shot.

The sounds of his choking and spitting resounded from the empty spaces around us. “God damn, that's awful.” He spat some more.

“I told you to smell it, not drink it, idiot.” I poured a drop more into his glass.

“I don't need to smell any more. I don't remember anything out of the ordinary.”

I jumped on that. “So, memories of that night are coming back to you?”

“Yeah, I guess. The music, the fucking disco ball flashing and spiralling. It turned my stomach. I thought I was going to puke and went to the bathroom in the locker room.”

“Did you see anyone coming or going?”

“Everybody was in and out of the locker room. Even some of the girls came in with us. Big joke, girls in the boys' locker room. There were probably boys in the girls' locker room. At one point, Mrs. Czerneski came in and made us all go back to the gym.”

I thought about that. “Not Mr. Archman?”

“Not that I know of. I think he was trashed, too. He spent the whole night watching the clocks over the basketball hoops and taking nips from his flask. Hope it was something better than tequila.” He spat again.

“Stop spitting! Do you remember Mr. Archman talking to anyone in particular?”

“How should I know? I wouldn't have noticed him at all except I was watching the clock, too. God, what an endless night. Too bad I can't remember if I enjoyed myself after that.”

This was a waste of time.

“What about Kelly Quantz?”

“What about him? He never took his eyes off Sophie, as usual. He was so pathetic. In love with a girl who dated everyone except him. He finally got her, though.” Fang re-lit the joint, then passed it to Chico. “For a while, at least. This whole thing sucks.”

Chico played his flashlight aimlessly across the ceiling. “So, where's the disco ball now?” He spoke quite proficiently around the joint hanging from his lip. I sensed he was no stranger to the demon weed.

“It's in the greenhouse. You'll see it on the fourteenth of this month. Don't forget that date. Now, can we focus, gentlemen?”

“My ass is frozen numb,” Chico complained. “I can't remember anything except something to do with the disco ball. Let's get out of here.”

“Not yet,” I snapped. “Keep sniffing, both of you. Chico, you keep mentioning the disco ball. What about it?”

“Hey.” Fang sat up straight. “Chico was on a step- ladder. Mr. Archman made him get down. I remember him yelling. The ladder was over against the wall, and me and Larry salvaged it. It's a twelve-footer, good quality …”

The double doors at the far end of the gym swung wide, sending a current of cold air across the floor. The garbage fluttered and scattered into the shadows. Footsteps hit the floor with a heavy cadence. Beyond the pale flickering of the candles, the darkness shrouded the intruder's approach. The deliberate footfalls were familiar, and awareness of his identity touched me seconds before he reached the light.

In those few seconds, I snatched the joint from Chico's mouth, squeezed the end to extinguish it, and tossed it over my shoulder, where, I hoped, a drug-savvy cop wouldn't bother to look for it to test for DNA.

The candlelight framed blond spikes, like the crest on Beelzebub's head. Hands resting on his gun holster, he asked, so mildly the blood froze in my veins, “What the
fucking
hell
are you three up to now?”