Flashback

Ted Wood

 

 

For Bill, Beryl and all the rest of the Aussie Woods

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1

 

 

Five kids were standing around an old Ford Fairlane on Main Street. I weighed them up as I jogged out of the trees on to the dusty road surface of Main Street. After three years as police chief in Murphy's Harbour I know every one of the locals by sight, and most of the regular visitors. This bunch was out of tune with the town and I jogged over to the wall of the grocery store in my running shorts and T-shirt and pretended to stretch against the wall while I weighed them up.
 

They weren't sporting any gang regalia, colours or the same baseball caps worn backwards but the way they lounged on the fenders of the car, smoking, showed they had something to prove.
 

Only one was an individual threat, the biggest, he could have been twenty or even older, the same height as me, six one, about 175 useful pounds, boxer's muscles although his face was unmarked.
 

One of the others was carrying a baseball bat and he looked the most knotted up. He was around sixteen, fair hair and a neat little rat tail tickling his neck. One of the smokers said something to him and he said something hard and flat in return and they all laughed, yukking it up like actors. Then he made his move, along the front street in my direction towards a mongrel dog tied by its leash to a post at the other end of the store.
 

He picked up speed and cocked the bat and I sprang. He was five yards from the dog, I was ten but I covered the ground in four strides. The kid stopped when he saw me coming but drew the bat back and stood ready to swing. He figured I would halt, out of range, and use my silver tongue. Instead I took the two extra steps and straight-armed him in the upraised elbow.
 

He sprawled backwards, dropping the bat. I grabbed it before one of the others could. They were on the move, springing away from the car, closing on me, shouting. Then the big one held his hand up and they stopped.
 

'Pretty tough, shovin' people around?' He was doing his best to sound rough but he had an educated voice.

'I'm the chief of police here. What's your name?'

He ignored the question, cocking his head to his claque. 'Some pussy town you got here, chiefy, if that's how you dress.'

The rest of them had surrounded me, sniggering. I was glad I'd picked up the bat. I had to keep control or be swarmed.

I reversed it in my hands, holding it like a rifle and bayonet, butt towards him, and moved in on him, fast. He backed off, which gave me whatever psychological advantage there was but the others were still around me. 'In the car, son, and head out.' I told him, not raising my voice.
 

'Or what?' he sneered, but he licked his lips.

'I'm counting three.'

He looked around at his guys and nodded and they started inching in again.

'One,' I said clearly. They were four feet from me now, all around.

'Two.' He stood his ground.

'Three.' I reversed the bat and slammed the handle down on his toe. Not a recommended move. It did no more than embarrass him, making him swear and hop on one toe. But it worked, making it look like I didn't need to do more than humiliate him. I whirled, to face the next biggest. 'Get him in the car and out of town or you're next.'
 

He tried to stare me down for a moment, then took the other guy's elbow. 'Come on, Eric, the hell with this place.'

The guy shook him off and hobbled to the car and I watched as he got into the passenger seat and sat there, glaring at me.

The other three scrambled into the rear of the car, one of them saying, 'You ain't seen the last of us.' Then the driver spurted away, spinning the car in a U-turn that tore a rut in the unpaved roadway and left a plume of dust as they roared back down the road towards the highway.
 

I heard a woman's voice saying, 'They were going to kill Ragamuffin.' It was one of our regular summer people bending over the dog which had roused itself at last and was standing, shaking off the dust it had gathered.
 

'Maybe not,' I said. Why sow anxieties? 'They're just kids.'

She's a fussy little woman, a widow in her seventies. 'Well, you sure showed them, Chief. Thank you.' She hoisted her grocery bag tighter under her arm and unwound the dog's leash from the post. 'Come on, Ragamuffin, let's go home.'
 

I glanced around the street. The usual crowd of youngsters was standing on the patch of dusty grass against the end of the bridge. It's the gathering place for teenagers, where the girls can giggle and the boys arm-wrestle and swear at one another in their newly broken voices. Occasionally I have to ask them to keep the music down to a dull roar, other than that they're harmless.
 

I went over to them and asked. 'Hi, did you know any of those guys?'

They didn't. Even the boys were glad to tell me that. Usually they're too cool to talk, letting the girls do it for them, but they were against the gang, strangers on their turf.
 

I nodded and left them, cutting my run short to go down to the police station which is south of the bridge, instead of crossing over and making my usual five-mile circuit of the water, both sides, both bridges. I wanted to let the other police know what was happening. Most of the towns hereabouts don't have police of their own, they depend on the Ontario Provincial Police, the OPP.
 

I called the Parry Sound detachment and alerted them, giving the licence of the Ford and a rough description of the kids. Then I checked the car's ownership. It belonged to a Walter Patton at an East Toronto address. I knew that Toronto has teen-gang problems so that didn't surprise me, but I wondered what they were doing this far north. Setting up a branch plant?
 

I hung up and sat for a moment glancing around my domain. Pretty good by the standards of cottage country. The office has a counter between me and the front door with a bench for the few people who linger long enough to sit down. There's the usual clutter of police posters and a rack of public information brochures on things like road safety and child abuse that nobody ever comes in to pick up. My side of the fence contains a desk with the original muscle-powered typewriter that was new when the office was built in the 'sixties. Behind the desk there's a stool that was once used by our civilian employee, the 'mister' in police slang. But he was let go a couple of years back when he got into trouble and the town's been too cheap to replace him since, so its seat is getting dull. Then there are a couple of grey filing cabinets, a teletype machine and, new this month, a Fax.
 

There were a couple of messages on the teletype. A wide load would be heading up the highway the following night. If possible, I should be at the highway entrance when it passed, routine. But the second one stopped me. George Kershaw, white male, forty-two years old, five-ten, had eluded the guard who had been sent with him on a day pass from Joyceville, a medium security jail. He'd skipped from Toronto, at the Skydome where he had been attending a baseball game. He was wearing a blue shirt and slacks, was unarmed but should be considered dangerous.
 

I tore the message off and clipped it on the board I keep for special news. I knew he was dangerous. I'd been the guy who locked him away, five years ago, in Toronto, where he had held up a bank, shooting the manager and taking a female hostage. My partner and I cornered him half an hour later. He'd used the woman as a shield, threatening to blow her away, his words, until I told him I'd shoot him through the mouth and he'd be dead before he could react. Then he shoved her away and dived, shooting at me but I hit him first, taking the fight out of him, He'd sworn at his trial that he would get me. A lot of them do that but I had a hunch he meant it. And I've put a few guys in jail since I've been here, so I was sure he knew where to come looking.
 

That did it. I stuck the baseball bat under the counter, on a ledge that contained a pile of accident forms and a six-pack of empty pop bottles. Then I locked the station, shoved the key back in the pouch on my shoe and headed home.
 

Freda was watering the garden when I got back. Wearing a big hat and the striped dress she had made for her pregnancy and usually referred to as 'the tent'. She was full term now and had been flagging for the last couple of weeks as the July heat picked up, but today she was full of energy, spraying the tomato plants.
 

'You're back early. Have a good run?'

'OK, as far as it went, but there was a hassle in town. Nothing serious, but I figured I should hold off on the exercise until later.' I put my arm around her shoulder and she gave me a quick kiss, buckling the brim of her hat against my forehead. Sam, my big German shepherd, got up from the porch and came down to greet me, looking a little aggrieved. He figures he's my shadow and was until Freda and I got together. With my wife vulnerable, I felt more protective than usual. That's why I'd left Sam with Fred when I went out. Fred? It's her own joking diminutive of Freda. Not many women could carry off a name like that without having cynics raise their eyebrows, but she's a charmer and the name fits her like the men's hats some girls wear.
 

She patted me on the shoulder. 'Right now a shower is a pretty high priority, old sport. Go for it. I'll make us a salad with some of this abundance here.'
 

'I'm in danger of ending up healthy,' I said, 'if this marriage lasts,' and ducked as she turned the hose on me.

We were eating lunch when the phone rang. I wondered if it would be one of our storekeepers to report the boys were back in town but it was a citizen with another problem. There was a car in the lake on the far shore. He'd noticed it while he was fishing off a rock.
 

Fred said she was going to read for a while, so I left Sam on watch in case Kershaw intended keeping his promise. I figured his presence would be enough to keep her safe and she didn't have to know I was worried for her. She had enough on her mind anyway. Then I drove off over the bridge at the north lock and down the west shore of the waterway, our section of the Derwent River system although this stretch is really a narrow lake.
 

I saw a crowd on the rock the fisherman had told me about. They were staring down and when I joined them I saw the car's rear end, a couple of feet underwater.
 

I asked, 'Is Tom Fielding here?'

A lean young guy with an expensive graphite fishing-rod said, 'I'm Fielding.'

'Thank you for calling in. When did you see the car?'

'About half an hour before I called you. I ran back home and telephoned. Is it stolen.'

'Can't say without seeing the licence plate, but it shouldn't be in there, that's certain. There's a car missing from Parry Sound.' I looked around at the crowd. Most of them would have been in bed before the car was even stolen, I figured, we get only a couple of TV channels locally. There's not much to do after dark but slap mosquitoes.
 

'Does any of you live close by?'

A woman nodded, she was about my age, late thirties. A looker but not working at it, lean, self-possessed, a cool, managerial type, I knew her by sight. 'That's my place over there.' She pointed to a white-painted cottage on the far side of the road.
 

'You're Ms Tracy, right?'

'Right.'

'Did you hear anything last night, Ms Tracy?'

She shook her head. 'No, but I was out until around twelve-thirty.'

As we spoke I was weighing up the terrain. The rock we were on sloped towards the water. One man could have pushed it into the lake unassisted. The splash would have been loud, but splashes aren't uncommon. My radio squawked and I held up one finger, 'Excuse me a minute, please.' I went back to the car and picked up the mike. 'Police chief.'