Flashback (6 page)

'Let's check upstairs.' I led now, up the polished stairs to the bedrooms. Both were empty and were neatly made. There was nobody there, even in the closets or the bathroom.
 

'Looks like they've been away all night,' Holland said. He scratched under his chin thoughtfully. 'But their car's still in the driveway.'
 

'The wife's body was in the Accord.' I thought out loud. 'And that bug of theirs stands out like a burning bush. If the other two were taking off somewhere maybe they rented another car.'
 

'I'll check that out,' Holland said. He was opening the drawers in the chest of the bigger bedroom. It was full of neatly folded men's socks and underclothes. 'If the husband was takin' off he was travellin' light. Did this Waites woman have a whole bunch of money maybe?'
 

'Didn't sound like it, to hear her husband talk. He said she married him because she needed a meal ticket.'

'Yeah, but maybe she's got a satchelful of his credit cards.' Holland was rolling the thoughts around in his mind.

'Could be. But she was a painter, not into shopping, according to the husband.'

'I'd like to talk to that sonofabitch,' Holland said. ' 'S he still at the Harbour?'

'Says he's leaving for Toronto when he can get a car. I've got his home address and phone if you want to call him.'

'Thanks.' Holland copied the information into his book, then closed it firmly. 'Come on, we're through here.'

We went downstairs and I unhooked the birdcage and took it with me as we left. 'Where you takin' that?' Holland asked.

'Leave it next door, give us a chance to talk to the neighbour.'

He grunted but we walked over to the fence and spoke to the woman who was still standing in the same place, obviously curious about us. 'The Jeffries have been called away,' Holland said. 'If you see anybody in there, could you give me a call, please, Sergeant Holland. Don't go over there, please, just call. And could you take care of their bird for them?'
 

'Of course, Sergeant.' She took the cage happily, a mystery of her very own, right next door.

She wanted to talk at length but Holland just nodded and beamed and we walked back to our cars. I took a minute to talk to him about the dead woman, mentioning the wound on the temple.
 

'Golf clubs?' he said. 'Likely ended up in the lake somewhere but I'll flag it at the station, see if anybody comes in with a set they've found somewhere.'
 

'Good idea. What's next?'

He yawned. 'Guess I should print the car you got out of the lake. Where's it at?' I told him and he said, 'Better get it up here in our pound where it's secure, be easier to get at anyway.'
 

He slumped into his car. 'Thanks for the help. I'll call if I hear anything.'

'Fine. I'll head back to the hospital, see if anything's happening.'

'Yeah. Good luck, hope everything goes OK.' He waved and left and I got into my own car and drove back into the heart of town. It was only five o'clock so I pulled in at a diner and ordered a burger and coffee. I wasn't hungry but remembered what they'd told us at the Lamaze classes: eat normally or you'll pass out in the delivery room. This was a duty.
 

The place was half full but I got a seat by the window and sat there looking out as I waited. The place next door was one of the better eating spots in town and I watched the first of the evening's customers drifting in. Most were holiday-makers, young groups of men and women laughing together, but as I was eating I saw a Mercedes pull into the lot. It jangled my memory and I realized it was the same model and colour as the one that had dropped Waites at the gas station. I would check the licence when I left, I decided, to see if I was right. I watched it and as its doors opened I saw that Ms Tracy was driving. She had a young guy with her and when he turned to speak to her I realized he was the leader of the gang I'd chased out of Murphy's Harbour earlier.
 

He was talking animatedly, giving the impression that he was very much in control of himself, sophisticated even, not like the angry gang member he had been that morning. He seemed older, more mature and, most important of all, he seemed to be courting Ms Tracy, acting with the eager agreeableness of a man trying to win over a new conquest.
 

I considered my options. My authority doesn't extend beyond the limits of my own bailiwick. If I went up to the kid here and asked him questions he could tell me to go to hell. Then he and Ms Tracy would leave before I could get a local guy to do the asking for me. I had to get something on him without his knowing.
 

I paid and tipped the waitress and went out to the parking lot. First I checked the licence plate of the Mercedes. It was the same one that Waites had ridden in, so he and Ms Tracy were friends at least. With that done, I went through the back door of the hotel. The kitchen was busy but one of the cooks waved and made a drinking motion with his hands. Did I want a coffee, beer, something? 'I'd like to talk to the manager or one of the waiters, can you call them for me, please?'
 

He went to the door with its glass panel and waved through it. A moment later a trim young woman in a smart blouse and skirt came through the door. The cook pointed at me and she spoke, smiling formally. 'Yes, what's up?'
 

'I'm here to ask a favour, please. Can you help me?'

'Depends what it is.' She was intrigued.

'There's a couple who came in three or four minutes ago, a woman around thirty-five, wearing a green top and a gold chain. There's a man with her, a little younger.'
 

'They're at table fourteen.' She cocked her head. 'You want to talk to them?'

'No, but I'd very much like to get the young man's glass or bottle if he orders a drink. Is that possible, do you think, please?'

I never majored in charm but I applied all I had. She frowned. 'Is this going to make me liable in some court case?'

'Nobody else will ever know, I promise, it'll help me in an investigation I'm conducting.'

'Stay here,' she commanded and clacked out of the kitchen on her high heels, skirt swinging to stir a man's heartstrings. I waited four or five minutes before she returned, wearing a white glove on her right hand, carrying a highball glass. 'I put white gloves on the waiter. The only prints on this are your guy's right hand.'
 

'Thank you very much. I appreciate this.'

I held out my left hand, flat, but she said, 'Hold on, we have plastic bags somewhere.' One of the kitchen staff brought her one and she slipped the glass into it and handed it to me. 'There. Hope it helps. If it helps your case any, he drinks Glenfiddich.'
 

'Glad he can afford it.' I hefted the bag with my left hand and touched the peak of my cap with the right. 'You've saved me a lot of work.'
 

'Your name's Bennett, isn't it?' she said.

'That's right. I'm from Murphy's Harbour.'

'I was down there visiting one time and my friend told me you were a tough cop, lived alone with a big dog.'

'That's Sam, my German shepherd. He's off duty tonight.'

'And you're working on a case?'

'Kind of. I'm also waiting for word from the hospital about my wife, she's having a baby.'

'Oh.' Her tone became brisker. 'Well, glad I could help.'

She tritch-tratched away and I left with my package, remembering how lonely it can be when you're single.

I debated whether to hand over the glass to Holland for comparison with the prints he found on Waites' car but decided against it. I would check them myself and let him have them later. Right now the fact that this kid had been a gang member might be completely irrelevant to the murder he was investigating. The only tie I could see was that both he and the husband knew the Tracy woman. I would call in on her later, I decided, and ask about the boy. Meantime I went back to the hospital, where I met Dr Rosen who shook his head at me. 'Your wife's fine. She hasn't started having contractions, but the baby's head is high so I'm keeping her in bed. If she's still hanging fire this evening I'll induce labour.'
 

'Is that normal?'

'I do it all the time,' he said. 'For now we've moved her to a ward. Why don't you go and see her?'

 

The hospital gift shop was open and they had a flowers for sale, locally grown roses, bundled by volunteers with more enthusiasm than skill. I bought a bunch anyway and went up to Fred's room.
 

She was sitting up in bed, reading a magazine. There was another woman in the bed next to her, sleeping.

Fred greeted me excitedly and repeated what the doctor had said. I went back to the nurse's station for a vase and put the flowers in water while we discussed what to do.
 

'You should go home and give Sam his supper,' Fred said firmly. 'I'm stuck in neutral right now. Nothing's going to happen tonight, they tell me. You can check around town like you do every night and call up at midnight.'
 

'I should be here,' I argued feebly.

'Sam is family too,' Fred said. 'You can't do anything here and he needs you.'

She was firm about it and relaxed. 'This is the most natural business in the world. And anyway, all I have to do overnight is sleep.'
 

'Well, I have to feed Sam, that's certain.'

'And check your properties,' she said with a smile. 'You know you always do, even on your day off.'

In the end that's what I did, thankful to be out of the hospital. My own stays have always been painful, both here and in Nam, recovering from wounds. I knew that Fred would be going through something just as hard, even though it was going to be great afterwards.
 

The light was fading and the kids had gone from Main Street and the village was settling down for a quiet night. There was music coming from the open windows of the Lakeside Hotel at the Marina and a crowd of cars filled the parking lot of the beer parlour below the bridge, where the blue collar drinking gets done, but there were no people on the street. They were home, eating supper and rubbing lotion on their sunburns.
 

 

Sam was off the verandah when I pulled in and he looked up and barked at me. He isn't excitable and I knew something had happened. I called him over and fussed him and then let him lead me back to where he had been standing. He took me to his find, a package in the red-brown coarse paper they use in butcher shops to wrap meat. This one had obviously hit the gravel of the drive and rolled a couple of times and I could see that it had been opened, the original brown tape torn, then refastened with scotch tape. I picked it up, feeling the squashiness that announced it had ham-burg meat inside. There was barely enough light left to examine it so I clicked my tongue at Sam and went into the house with him, carrying the package with me. I laid it on the countertop and slit it open with my pocket-knife. There was hamburg inside right enough, but it had been laced with a coarse white powder.
 

I let it lie there while I bent down to pat Sam's head as he looked up at me. 'Good thing you remembered your training, old buddy. This stuff's been baited.'
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 4

 

 

TV cops can identify poisons at a glance. I can't, I must have been away the day they covered it at the academy. But it figured to be nasty. If Sam had been less well trained it would have killed him. I wondered who had tried it on. The teen gang probably, getting even for their loss of face that morning. I saved the evidence in case I got the chance to prove anything, rewrapping the meat and marking it 'Evidence. Poison.' and drawing a skull and crossbones on the package. Then I bagged it and stuck it in the freezer to send to the forensics centre when I had a chance.
 

Sam watched me closely. Hovering over the meat until I came home had sharpened his appetite. But his training had stuck, and saved his life. So, as a special reward I defrosted a chunk of our own hamburger meat to give him with his chow.
 

When he'd finished I sat on the back porch and had a beer, trying to find a pattern to the day. So much had happened. A teen-gang had come to town, then the car in the lake, looking like it had been stolen by kids, vandalized. And most important, the dead woman in the trunk.
 

Was there a thread to it all? I couldn't see one, except for Marcia Tracy. She had turned up in both the puzzles. There was no reason why she shouldn't know both John Waites and the kid from the gang. It was just the timing of her involvement that intrigued me. I would have to talk to her, especially about the gang leader. He'd looked very different up in Parry Sound, dressed neatly, acting confidently, not like a rebel. How could he be two completely different people in the course of a single day? I needed to talk to him, not the way I would have had to on the street in Parry Sound, he could have brushed me off there, knowing I had no jurisdiction. No, it had to be a formal interrogation.
 

When I finished my beer I walked Sam around the property, telling him to Seek, his order to check for people hiding. He ran everywhere in the darkness, under the willows along the edge of the lake, out along the dock and into my boat, and into the woods on the far side of the road from the house. I was concerned about Kershaw on top of my other worries, but when Sam found nothing we drove back to the police station.
 

It was as I'd left it, except for a long roll of messages peeling off the teletype. I tore them off and skimmed them to see if Kershaw had been re-arrested. He hadn't been, but there had been a break-in overnight at a cottage in Orillia, about half the distance from Toronto to Murphy's Harbour. Not a startling event, but the perp had stolen some clothing, something a fugitive might have done, and the place was on the way to the Harbour.