The Dead List (16 page)

Pringle seemed to ponder. “How exactly does that work? It’s sexual assault, right?”

Sophie Peterson looked at the other two officers. “The call never happened.”

The three of them knew the law very well. You can’t drop a sexual assault charge; it has to be investigated. But, if the call was never received, and a report wasn’t filed, then there was no need to pursue the matter further.

“It’s what the two wives want.” It wasn’t a question. Sophie was resolved to respecting the women’s wishes.

Drake looked at the man in the back seat, gaping up now, his nose pressed against the closed window, a glimmer of hope in his bloodshot eyes and ruddy face.

Pringle shook his head and sighed heavily. “In the old days we’d take the two of them out to the park and have a more personal discussion.”

Sophie agreed. “Normally I wouldn’t be in favor, but tonight I wish we could make an exception.”

Drake looked up at the house, the woman was staring out the window, still lost. He felt an uneasiness as he remembered a night two years ago, a night that began his new life. “Let’s go get them. Soph…I mean, Officer Peterson, can we at least have a chat with them? Just a chat?”

After a moment’s contemplation, Sophie called Mr. Anderson over from his front steps while Drake brought Mutchins over to join them. Pringle stood at the entrance to the house and watched the street, while Sophie and Drake backed the two men up against a wall around the side. It was private, where the neighbors couldn’t see what was happening.

Drake poked two fingers on each of the men’s shoulders, straightening them up. “Keep your heads up and listen to me. This is very important. In fact, it might just save your lives.”

He felt a burning in his chest as he remembered the night it happened – the night in Ireland. With the heel of his hand he pushed each man hard toward the wall. His Scottish accent slipped through the practiced Canadian as he spoke, but he didn’t care. “You, and you.” He ignored the smell of alcohol coming from them. It didn’t matter now. He took up as much of their personal space as he could. “I want you to each remember a word. Say it after me. Con…Sent.” When the response wasn’t immediate, he barked like an old sergeant major. “Say. It.”

The two men said it together, in a loud voice. “Consent.”

He gave another push against each of their chests - more Scots inflection coming through with each word. “Do you understand what that means?”

Tears streamed down Anderson’s face, and spit came from Mutchins as they spoke. “Yes. Yes.”

Anderson stammered first. “We messed up. It was the booze. I know it was.”

Mutchins kept saying the same thing. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

“Consent. You touch no one without it. Understand?” Drake clenched his fists by his sides, remembering a night.

A light came on in a backyard next door. Sophie Peterson stood beside Drake, their shoulders touching. The two men looked at her as she addressed them. “You are now officially on the list. If there are any reports of illicit sexual activity within one hundred miles of here, we will be knocking on your doors and pulling you into the station. And next time we won’t be quite as considerate.” She tilted her head toward the houses on the street with their lit-up windows. “If this happens again we’ll wake up your neighbors and let them know that a sexual predator lives here.”

Sophie moved off to the side, and Drake stepped back just in time. He shook his head. “Aww, really, did you have to do that? Get out of my sight.”

Fortunately it missed both of them. Anderson covered his freshly urine-soaked pants with his hands and quickly walked between the two police officers.

Mutchins looked down again. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Sophie pushed Mutchins toward her partner as Anderson quickly scampered past Pringle upstairs. The deadbolt locked loudly as the door closed behind him.

“We’ll take Mutchins home. At least his pants are dry.” She stopped and looked at Drake. “That got you rattled, Drake. It didn’t sound like you. Even your voice sounded different.”

It’s an art form to go unnoticed – be invisible – and Drake had become very good at it. He disguised his Scottish accent and never volunteered any history. And most people never asked. He’d discovered that the majority of people are too busy dealing with themselves to ask the little questions. When he first got to the station there had been initial inquiries from other staff members. Is he single? Where is he from? Can he do the job? Once the questions were answered, or went unanswered for long enough, people moved back to their more important pursuits – themselves. Sophie Peterson was one of the few who was different. She’d always watched him with an inquisitive eye.

He told a little bit of one of his secrets. “I was involved in a situation.”

She opened her mouth to ask.

“No, not here, not on duty. It was a darker day, much darker. It was personal. This brought it back.”

It had been personal, hadn’t it? If it wasn’t, then it wouldn’t have been worth it. Nobody would have had to die.

“Well, I’m glad you were here.” Sophie Peterson became the senior officer again. “Thanks, that was good work.”

When he was back in the unmarked car sitting beside Pringle, Drake could still feel the heat in his chest. He put his hands on the steering wheel and pushed back, straightening his shoulders. The two drunk men had screwed up, but they were just drunks who went too far. It hadn’t been fair to equate them with what happened in Ireland. That was a different situation, but then you can’t always control the shadows.

Pringle pulled the seatbelt around his big frame. “Okay, now where were we before we were interrupted? Oh yes, you were going to introduce me to a six-foot-five, three-hundred-pound ex-murderer…”

Drake left Ireland and came back to life – back to Hope. “Attempted murderer.”

“Pardon me, attempted murderer, who heard a bang on the road outside his house a few nights ago where a man was killed. No lights and no sound I think, Officer Drake. Don’t you agree?”

Drake pulled the car away from the curb, heading once again to Cobalt Street.

Ten p.m., and half of the houses on the street were lit up like Christmas trees. Even before they got out of the car, the policemen could hear the sound of a child crying, and then from somewhere down the road a voice threatening the child’s parents if the noise didn’t stop.

Sinister lights shining from porches and backyards gave the residents hiding places among the shadows. This was how the street would have looked two nights ago. It wasn’t possible that nobody saw what happened. Somebody must have seen something.

There was no need to knock on the door. Tommy was sitting on the front steps, sipping from a bottle of beer. His lady friend danced in front of him, a joint hanging from her mouth, and music, heavy on the bass, thumped at a low volume from inside the house.

Tommy smiled. His long legs stretched down three stairs.

His girlfriend turned suddenly. “Less than, Mr. Policeman, and no intent to sell. This is for recreational usage only. Look it up.”

“Where’s your backup, Drake? Do you need to radio them in? Are you here to lock me up?” His beady little eyes darted back and forth as he sized up the two officers, all the while holding on to the bottle of beer.

Drake stayed impassive. His face showed no surprise when Tommy addressed him by his name. Tommy Davis was a couple of leagues up from the boys who found the body. They were transparent, but Little Tommy was a player. It was in his best interests to remember who Officer John Drake was.

He took off his hat and leaned back against an upturned garbage can that was sitting along the pathway. Pringle folded his arms and stood at the gate.

“We’re not here to arrest anybody, Tommy. I was hoping you’d be able to elaborate on what you heard two nights ago. We’re having a bit of trouble figuring out what happened over there. You said you heard a bang.”

A long stare, and then he tilted the bottle level and sipped from his beer. The woman stopped dancing and giggled while taking a toke from her joint.

“Come in.” He moved fast for such a large man and was at the top of the stairs in seconds, holding the door open. Pringle began to follow them. “Nah, the little guy can stay here. Trina will keep him company. Don’t worry; I just want a friendly visit.”

Drake squinted. Three short, red blinks flashed as he followed the large mass of muscle and hair into the house. Somehow the music had been turned off as soon as Tommy entered. The rooms were surprisingly tidy. Stainless steel appliances gleamed from behind the big man in the kitchen. In the living room, a large sofa sat in front of a coffee table with a glass top, and two expensive-looking leather recliners were nestled in the corners of the room. All of the furniture paled in comparison to the television. It took up most of the wall and was as large as a small movie theater’s screen. Drake couldn’t take his eyes from it.

“My pride and joy, Drake. Isn’t it a beaut? Every time they come out with a new model I trade in. I have a deal with the wholesaler.” His laughter was high and shrill like a schoolboy on helium.

“It’s huge. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The drapes were drawn across the front window, but the front door was still open. Pringle laughed at something Trina had said to him.

Tommy stood in the hallway between the kitchen and living room. After watching Drake for a moment he began to speak in his high, whiny voice. “Do you know what I am, Drake? I’m a businessman. I run a business that sometimes ventures into grey areas. And I’ll tell you something for nothing. Like any businessman I value information. And that’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it.” He was trying to be something that he wasn’t. He waited for a reaction that didn’t come. Then he kept going. “So I may have some information that you can use, but if I give you this information I’d like to know that you’ll do something for me.” He paused again, keeping his eyes on Drake. He’d practiced his speech. “Am I making myself clear?”

Drake scanned the rest of the room while Tommy spoke. There were paintings on the walls of nude men and women in various suggestive poses, and electronic equipment stacked on top of each other on a shelf below the television. Tommy kept standing in the hall, partially blocking his view of the kitchen. He snapped his fingers at the empty air between them. “Over here, Drake. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

From behind one of the pieces of equipment mounted under the TV, a wire ran up the wall. It was almost invisible. Someone had taken great care to paint the wire the same color as its background. Drake’s eyes followed it up the side of the room, then along the ceiling. The almost-invisible wire ended at a smoke detector that was mounted on the ceiling just above Tommy’s head. The little red light on the smoke detector was constant, but when he first stepped in it had blinked three times. Drake met Tommy’s gaze and smiled at him. Cupped into Tommy’s hand was a small, thin device.

“Push it, Tommy. Let’s see what it looks like.”

Tommy raised his closed hand and pointed it toward Drake, holding it steady. Pringle bounced up the stairs and stood in the doorway.

Slowly, Tommy opened his fingers and pushed the remote control. The TV came to life. Drake was projected onto the screen; a small counter in the bottom corner showed the time of day and amount of minutes the device had been recording.

“For the record, no, I am not interested in any type of information exchange. I am here to ask, once again, if you saw or heard anything that relates to the incident on the street outside your house the other evening.”

Tommy scratched his beard with the end of the remote control, not answering – staring at the screen now instead of looking at Drake.

“I’ll take that as a negative.”

Suddenly the big man turned off the set. “Visit’s over, smart guy. Go play cops and robbers somewhere else.”

When they reached the gate Tommy’s squeaky voice yelled into the yard. “Inside.” Trina was up the stairs and behind the closed door in less than three seconds.

Pringle spoke first as they sat in the vehicle. “Good catch. He was gunning for you. It’s lucky you spotted the camera. I’m not sure I would have seen it. What made you look?”

“I had an uncle who taught me a bit about wiring when I was younger. A smoke detector doesn’t have a wire running back to an electronic box, but a camera does.” Another lie. Nobody had to know that he had a little experience with explosive detection. Bombs had wires too.

It seemed to be enough to satisfy him. “Okay, so we got nothing from him. I think he does have intel though or he wouldn’t have tried to barter. I’m just not sure what he knows. So off to geriatric-land now?”

“I think it’s too late. We don’t want to attract too much attention to the old guy. Things like that get noticed on this street.”

“Good call again, Officer. You’re a natural at this. So I need to settle for dual attempted wannabe rapists and a man-mountain who tried to make a movie of us. That’s all I’m getting from Hope this evening?”

The big man had a charm about him, and when Drake needed him he was right at the door, ready to back him up. He wondered if Banman would have been there or whether he’d still be standing at the gate.

“That’s all I’ve got for you.”

He pulled the car out onto the road and drove through town. As they passed the Legacy pub Pringle turned toward him. “Man, there are a lot of pubs in this town.”

“Pubs and churches – it’s a town with a personality disorder.” Drake laughed at his own joke. He was still tired from his night spent staring out his apartment window, and it had been a very long day.

“Is there anywhere a guy can get a drink in this town without running into potential witnesses that are involved in an ongoing murder investigation? We’ve logged enough overtime tonight. Why don’t we ditch the company car?”

One drink couldn’t hurt; surely he could stay awake for just one. Besides, who knew what might be waiting for him in his mailbox tonight. “There’s Twisted Dick’s cabaret. They sometimes have live entertainment, but I think it’s bingo night tonight.”