Flashback (5 page)

I was lucky. They have two inspectors and I'd struck the one of them who had experience in detective work. He asked the right questions and I was able to fill him in within a couple of minutes. He said he would send a car to the store and break the news to the husband, as well as checking to see if Moira Waites had arrived. He would keep me posted on developments, and send his own crime team down to examine the car and take over the investigation.
 

Dr McQuaig came back with his flask and I put the plastic evidence bags into it and had McKenney fill it with ice. It could go to the Parry Sound detectives when they arrived, one less headache for me. Then I headed out to make a house to house canvass around the lake to try and uncover any witnesses to the car's going into the water.
 

I started around the corner from the funeral home, in the town itself. Town is overstating it a little. Officially we're an incorporated village, the lowest form of urban life. We have a Main Street with the bank, bait store, grocery, liquor/beer store, a Chinese restaurant specializing in hamburgers and a cluster of houses, most of them taking in summer guests, and a couple of side-streets of houses which also rent rooms to tourists. The rest of the village is straggled around the shoreline of the lake, every fifty yards or so.
 

Main Street is wide with the Lakeside Hotel and Marina on the water and a bridge over the lock. It's an unmade street, dusty in summer and lined with parked cars and with a knot of kids listening to music and giggling together. Remembering the two hassles from the morning, I stopped to talk to the kids. This was the early teen crowd, at the age when self-confidence only comes with numbers, before they get to the pairing-off stage. The girls were more forthcoming than the boys who all acted supercool. A couple of them had seen the swarming at the bait store but they didn't know any of the kids involved in it.
 

'They're not from around here, Chief,' Debby Vanderheyden told me. 'Like, we wouldn't do something like that.'

Her friends all giggled and said 'Oh no' with mocking innocence, all a joke. They wouldn't need to swarm a store, I thought, all of them already knew who they were. Gangs are made up of losers looking for a sense of belonging.
 

One of the bolder girls asked how my wife was and they all giggled again. It was hard for them to imagine how an old guy like me had caused a pregnancy.
 

I asked them to call the station if they saw any gangs of kids in town. It was good insurance, they would rather watch me tackling the situation than see another store ripped off. It wasn't that they were so very law-abiding, they just weren't sure what the cool reaction was when a gang came to town.
 

Gilles Perault was busy and I lingered with him until he had time to talk. He wanted to discuss his swarming but I slowly got him around to asking if he knew if anyone had been out fishing the night before. The occasional dedicated man will go out after dark for pickerel and there was a chance one of them might have seen the car go into the lake. Gilles told me he'd check and I left town to drive up the east shore, knocking on doors.
 

It was sleepy mid-afternoon time. The trees were buzzing with cicadas and the heat was enough to soften the bones, sending most vacationing adults for a siesta.
 

I called at a dozen or so houses, talking to the occasional group of swimming children but getting no help and causing a little embarrassment at some places where guys came to the door yawning hugely and explaining that their wives were lying down at the moment. Nobody had heard anything the night before.
 

Sam was on the verandah at my place and he bounded down to the car to greet me, wagging his tail and keening low in his throat. I took a moment to fuss him, then went in. Freda met me at the door.
 

'Time to go, old sport,' she said. 'My water broke about an hour ago. I called the doctor and he said I should head up to the hospital.' Her face was a little pale but she seemed confident and I put my arm around her.
 

'I'll get your bag.'

'It's in the kitchen, behind the door, ready for a flying start.' She sounded as cheerful as ever, but she doesn't panic easily so I didn't waste any time. I just grabbed her bag and led her out to the police car.
 

'Really? You're taking me in that?' she laughed. 'The nurses'll think I'm a charity case.'

'Not a chance.' I didn't feel much like joking. All I had to do was stand around while she did the work. 'This thing's got a siren. If the stork picks up speed, I can still get you there on time.'
 

I tossed her bag in the rear seat and put her in front, handing her the seat-belt which she put on carefully. Then I told Sam 'Keep' and left him in charge.
 

The same bunch of kids on Main Street saw us together and instantly worked out what was happening. Some of the noisier girls called out good wishes and Fred waved. Now we were on our way I asked her about the pains and she told me there weren't any. 'But my water's broken. That's why he wants me up there.'
 

'Is that normal?' I had been to Lamaze classes with her through the winter but I was too close to this birth to be objective.

'Later is better but it's no cause for alarm.'

She sounded relaxed and I reached out my hand to squeeze hers. 'Hang in there, have you there in half an hour. Just keep me posted on the pains.'
 

'It's a bit like your tooth stopping aching when you head for the dentist. Nothing's happening.'

'That's a comfort. I like leaving tricky jobs to the experts.'

She didn't say much and I concentrated on my driving, pushing the speed to the limits of safety, overtaking everything in front of me. One doddery old guy didn't look in his mirror to check my flashing lights behind him and I gave him a quick squirt of the siren which scared him out of his coma. He pulled right on to the shoulder in a cloud of dust and sat there while I accelerated over the top of the hill in front and lost him.
 

We came into Parry Sound twenty minutes later and I eased into the last space in front of the Emergency door at the hospital. Fred wouldn't let me get a wheelchair and we walked in arm in arm. The nurse on duty glanced at us oddly, wondering if a mercy call had turned into a romance. 'My wife's water has broken, Dr Rosen is her doctor, he said to come in.'
 

She pushed a form at me. 'Fill this out, please.'

'Not until she's taken care of,' I said and the nurse shook her head pityingly and said, 'Fathers,' but she got a wheelchair and whisked Fred away. 'Your husband can come and see you when he's been a good boy and filled out the form.'
 

I squeezed Fred's shoulder and waited until the nurse came back, then filled in the form, thanking my stars that I'd moved back to Ontario after my service in the US Marines. I love the States but hospitals there cost an arm and leg. Here it's all paid for.
 

Twenty minutes later I was up in an examination room with Fred, waiting for her doctor to get in from the golf course, it was Wednesday after all, his half day. He had spoken to her from the clubhouse, Fred told me, where he'd come in from the first tee to answer his pager. I guessed he'd lingered to hit a few balls but he was there in ten minutes, a small, young guy with round glasses and not much of a tan.
 

He whisked me out of the room to examine her, then came out to report. 'It may be some time,' he said and immediately went over my head with details of dilation. 'Are you attending the birth?'
 

'I've taken the classes but honestly the idea scares the hell out of me. I don't want to be in the way.'

'Thank God,' he said earnestly. 'Some of the fathers are a royal pain in the ass.' He gave an apologetic half-smile and went on, 'You won't be needed for a couple of hours anyway. Why don't you talk it over with your wife? Then, if you've got anything else to do come back at— 'he checked his watch—'let's say six o'clock.'
 

'Thank you, Doctor.' I went back in to see Fred who was being moved out to a pre-natal room. I walked with her as far as the door. The nurse left us there for a moment to talk, tactfully heading off somewhere else.
 

'Look, Reid, you don't have to be here, you know,' Fred said.

I stopped and gave her a quick kiss. 'I'm all trained up to help, wouldn't want to waste all that knowledge.'

'Yes, you would,' she said firmly. 'Why don't you head out for an hour or two anyway? If you come in with me now you'll have to gown up and you're stuck here for the rest of the time.'
 

I weakened, very easily. 'Well, I have to check with the local people. I didn't tell you before but a Parry Sound woman has drowned at the Harbour. I should talk to the police here.'
 

'
Vaya con Dios
,' she said and waved me away.
 

The nurse must have been hovering. She was back in a moment, all brisk. 'You can come inside but you'll have to change.'

'I'm coming back later.' Fred was with me on the decision, so why did I feel like I was retreating under fire?

The OPP constable on duty at the Parry Sound desk was a fishing buddy of mine and he stuck out his hand and asked after Fred. 'In the hospital, the doctor says to come back at supper-time. Figured I'd check on the Carolyn Jeffries investigation.'
 

'The inspector's in his office. Come on through.' He flipped up the hinged section of the desk and opened the gate.

'Thanks, Mike.' I went through and tapped on Inspector Dunn's door. It was open and he was on the phone. He waved me in. 'Chief Bennet just walked in, I'll put him on,' he said. He handed me the phone. 'S' arnt Holland, he's at the Jeffries' store.'
 

'Thank you.' I took the phone. 'Hi, Bill, Reid Bennett. What did you find out?'

'Hi, Reid.' Bill Holland is a good detective although he hasn't had much homicide experience. 'I was just in the store. There's a kid working there, says she hasn't seen hide nor hair of the Jeffries since yesterday. She came in and opened up like always, nobody there. First time ever.'
 

'Do they live over the store?'

'No. Got a place on the water on the edge of town. The girl, her name's Peggy Lindhoff, says she's rung the house, no answer. First time she's ever had to open up on her own. She figures something's wrong.'
 

'Let me explain. The owner of the stolen car says his wife had big eyes for this Stu Jeffries guy. She was a good friend of the wife but her husband led me to believe that she liked the husband a lot.'
 

'You sayin' they might have killed the wife so they could be together?'

'It's possible, but according to the husband, who's a lawyer, his wife and the Jeffries couple were all kind of hippy. They'd have shacked up together or something like that if they had hankerings. Not the types for a crime of passion.'
 

'Well, it's strange. This clerk says the Jeffries were always there ahead of her. She's not a partner or anything, only helps out in the summer, says they're nice people.'
 

'I don't know much about them, except that the other woman's husband doesn't like any of them, including his wife.'

There was a pause and Holland said, 'Guess I should drive down to their house, see if there's any sign of life or if the car's still there. No matter what anybody thinks, this Jeffries guy and the Waites woman could've offed the wife and left for parts unknown.'
 

'I'll come down there and meet you. Where is it?' He told me and gave directions and I hung up and spoke to the inspector. 'I'll go over there. I'll need the husband to identify his wife's body. It's at the funeral parlour in Murphy's Harbour.'
 

'OK.' Dunn stood up. 'On the face of it, it sounds like a triangle. Even hippies get jealous, least these days they do.'

The Jeffries house made Waites' description of their lifestyle seem appropriate. It was small and neat with artfully contrasting blue shutters and a big well-kept garden. There was a bright yellow VW beetle in the driveway.
 

Holland was waiting for me, in his car. He's a typical old-time copper, big, running to fat, wearing a neat suit that looked like it came with two pairs of pants. He got out and shook hands. 'Hi, Reid, how's the wife?'
 

I told him and we opened the gate and walked up to the gingerbread porch. There were potted geraniums all along the sill and a set of oriental windchimes hanging silent in the stillness.
 

The door had an old-fashioned ratchet bell and Holland cranked the handle on it a few time. Nobody answered. There was no sound from inside. A woman in a big sunhat was watering her flowers in the next yard and Holland sauntered over to talk to her. No, she hadn't seen the Jeffries that day. 'Are they in trouble?' she wanted to know.
 

'No, ma'am. This is a social call,' Holland lied easily. He came back to the verandah. 'This is a pain,' he said.

'There's a cagebird singing in the house,' I said. 'People like this would've set it out here this morning if they'd gone to their store.'
 

'Y'reckon?' He looked at me thoughtfully. 'Guess you're right. An' if they're not, they could be long gone while we're waiting around here for them to come back.'
 

I bent and flipped the doormat over. A key lay under it. 'How convenient,' Holland said. 'Lemme see that a minute.'

He took the key and tried the door. It opened and he stepped inside and called 'Hello, Mr Jeffries. Anybody home?'

The cagebird fell silent and I stepped in after him. The house was tiny inside but beautifully furnished, not expensively but with real style, antique Ontario pine everywhere, contrasting with bold modern paintings and good prints. We glanced into the two rooms off the centre hall. One was a dining-room, the other a sitting-room with a big bookshelf and an expensive music system. The birdcage was hanging in the window and I could see from the door that the water container was empty. That seemed out of character with the rest of the house and I followed Holland through to the kitchen. There were unwashed dishes in the sink, dinner dishes, and a glass baking pan with some dried-out greenish stuff still in it. Holland looked at the mess. 'Two plates. They didn't all eat together.'