The Dead List (17 page)

Pringle shook his head. “No bingo. Keep trying – there must be somewhere else.”

“Well, there is the Cardinal out by the Best Western Hotel. Sometimes, they even restock the toilet paper in the men’s room.”

“I know that one. It was on my list. And it’s right beside my hotel. Lead the way, Officer Drake.”

The smell of stale cigarette smoke and old beer hit them as soon as they walked through the door. To one side of the bar, hanging lights were suspended low over the surface of several pool tables. Lights glowed over two of the tattered, green tablecloths – two men stood around each table. “Five oh,” was whispered somewhere, the universal code that a police officer was close by. One of the pool players smirked to the others as the officers stood at the door. Even in their civilian clothes the whole bar knew who had just walked in.

The corner booth at the Cardinal Lounge faced the bar, and from their vantage point they could see the whole place. In one direction, the smirking man and his friends were playing pool. Off to the other, there were mismatched tables with stained blue coverings, elasticized edges holding them below the surface. A woman sat at one of the tables, tenderly stroking her pint glass while at another a middle-aged man spoke on his phone while watching the waitress behind the bar. The waitress was ignoring him as she traced along the outline of a tattoo on the barman’s forearm with her finger.

Since moving to the little town, Drake had resisted his mother’s milk – The Balvenie, the Scotch whisky he’d drunk since he was a young man. He’d been told to give nothing away – and turn his back on old habits. Bottles of the whisky had called to him from every bar or liquor store he’d entered since his relocation. Once, he’d seen a bottle on sale for a ridiculously low price. He broke one of the rules and purchased it, hiding it in the back of a cupboard in the kitchen of his apartment. It still remained there – untouched.

There had been four mandatory nights out with the other officers since he arrived. The good, churchgoing officers of Hope detachment enjoyed their alcohol. Once there was a retirement party for one of the older officers, once for a celebration when Brandon Van Dyke became engaged, and twice Drake had been dragged along with some of the other policemen when they were intent on airing grievances without their supervisors present. Each time, the bottle of Balvenie winked at him from the shelf behind the bar, seductively covered with a light layer of dust. And each time he ordered either a beer or a glass of Canadian rye whisky.

The waitress was a husky, strong-looking woman. Standing a few feet from their table, she raised her palms at her sides and had an expectant look on her face. “Yes…”

Service with attitude included. No extra charge.

Pringle took control. “Two pints of whatever draft you have on tap, and two shots of CC?” He looked inquiringly at Drake.

The waitress moved her weight from one leg to the other as though she couldn’t wait to get back to touching the barman’s tattoo.

“Canadian Club, Drake, CC. Where’ve you been?”

“Yes, that works. Sorry, just tired, I guess.”

Without answering, the waitress rolled her eyes, twirled around, and headed back to the bar. Even with the lack of service, Pringle called after her and said thank you. If there was one thing Drake had discovered in the past year, it was that the Scots from home, and Canadians from his new home, had at least one thing in common – both groups of people were unfailingly polite.

The big man leaned forward. “Hopefully that’ll stop her from spitting in my pint.”

Pringle’s history was not what Drake had expected. He was married and had a three-year-old daughter. After discussing the futility they were experiencing with the investigation, Colin Pringle, as Drake learned he was called, spoke frequently of his little girl and his wife. It was a second marriage for him, and he was positive he could make this one work. The poor track record of policemen’s marriages and divorces was infamous, and he was determined that he would not become another statistic. He loved being a father and a husband and wanted to get the investigation completed so he could return home to them in Vancouver. Hotel life was not for him.

After two pints of draft beer, and two accompanying shots of Canadian rye whisky, Drake asked about Ryberg.

“I’ve worked with him on and off for the past ten years. He’s wired differently, but I like him. You’ve sat in on his interviews, what do you think?”

“At first I couldn’t follow what he was doing, but now I think I have him figured out.”

Pringle didn’t seem to want to talk about their superior, and abruptly changed the subject. “What about you. How did you end up out here in paradise?”

“Tried everything else, and then ended up here. It’s where they posted me after training. It’s not as quiet as I thought it would be.” It was the same vague answer he always gave.

Pringle drained the remaining half from his pint glass and signaled to the waitress to bring another. “Is quiet what you want? I don’t see that. When I watch you in our meetings, you look like you’re thriving on this. You should be out in the field with the rest of us.”

Drake considered what the man had said. He was right. He’d come here because he had to, but he was discovering that it wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want to be an observer on the periphery of life. He didn’t want to be like Michael Robinson, a man who had never really lived. He sipped from his whisky, getting used to the taste, trying with some difficulty to tell himself he preferred it to scotch.

“Something bugs me about the interviews we had with all of Robinson’s friends. I don’t know how to verbalize it. I just had this feeling at different times during the interviews, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.”

The waitress, a smile on her face after Pringle had given her a five-dollar tip, cleared away their empties and placed fresh drinks in front of them. Her bulging biceps stretched the sleeves of her T-shirt. She reminded Drake of the two women fighters he’d broken up earlier in the year during the pilgrimage of the movie fans.

Pringle waited until she left before speaking. “That’s those instincts our esteemed Sergeant Ryberg talks about. It might be nothing. I get them too, but…” He raised one of his big fingers in the air between them. “If it continues it might mean something. Remember, you can always check the recordings.”

He was right. All of the interviews they’d conducted at the station had been recorded and stored in audio and visual files. He could access them from any of the computers in the office. And he had his notes and the reports he’d made.

As the drinks continued, Pringle spoke about cases in progress and cases solved.

He seemed to be handling his liquor much better than Drake. Instead of slurred words he became more intense the more he drank. “My time is now. I’m tired of always being the bridesmaid. I want to lead an investigation. I’m forty-three years old. It’s time.”

Drake didn’t realize it had been a question until Pringle repeated himself. “It’s time, don’t you think it’s time.”

Drake readily agreed. “Yes, it is time. It’s high time that you led your own team, your own investigation.”

The pool players had gone, and there was one last man sitting at a table. When the barman flashed the dim lights of the bar on and off it came as a surprise to both Pringle and Drake. His booming voice could probably have been heard out in the parking lot. “Closing time. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

Drake couldn’t believe he was still awake. It had been a very long day.

“Right across the road for me, Drake. Don’t forget that you’re picking up Parker in the morning and bringing him in.” The big man got to his feet and stumbled briefly, but then he smiled and looked as though he was fresh and ready for the day.

The alcohol combined with the lack of sleep had made Drake quite intoxicated. It had been a long time since he’d drunk so much. With great effort, he placed his palms on the table and pushed himself to his feet, then passed his truck keys to Pringle. “Watch the driver’s door. You have to lift it on the hinge to get it to close.”

There was a complicated exchange as Drake said he’d take a cab home and then walk to the office in the morning to pick up a patrol car before driving out and collecting Parker at the car lot.

Pringle mock-saluted him. “I’ll deliver your truck to the office in the morning.”

Pringle waited at the front of the pub while Drake slid into the back seat of a cab that had been opportunistically waiting. As the taxi drove toward his apartment building, Drake instructed the driver to take the long way through the older part of town.

It was late – even for Cobalt Street. Most of the lights were out in the houses, but in one window a lamp burned. Conspicuously out of place – a new-looking red car was parked directly in front of Tony Hempsill’s house.

To no one in particular he said, “It looks like Tony has company.”

The driver half-turned toward him, still keeping his eyes on the road. “Did you say something?”

As he spoke he could hear the slurring in his voice. It amused him, and he gave a little laugh. “That’s a new car, or almost new. It doesn’t quite fit on this street, does it?”

The driver slowed down and pretended not to look. “It’s none of my business.”

The curtains were drawn, and the light from the lamp in the living room, the same living room Drake had sat in the day before, was barely shining through the window.

Drake squinted as they passed and tried to read the license plate on the red car. The tighter he squeezed his eyes together the less he could see. There were now three license plates in his skewed vision. He gave up and laid his head against the back seat.

When he got to the lobby of his building, he pulled a note from his mail slot. He held it in front of him and after several attempts of peering and lifting it up to the light he finally managed to read that the laundry room was being painted. There was no other mail. With his whisky bravado he took the stairs and spoke out loud, once again to himself. “Let them come. I’m tired.”

Tonight he’d sleep in his bed.

In the dream, he’s in Ireland and then it’s Hope, and then he’s in Ireland again. The landscape keeps changing. The girl is there, barely clinging to life, her mouth slowly opening and closing as she tries to speak. The words come from the walls, the ceiling, the air. It’s her, just like always, but there’s someone else this time. Michael Robinson is there too – alive, speaking to him.

“Look what happened. Look at me.” The split in Robinson’s head opens up, and a river of blood runs down the sidewalk.

The dead man’s lips don’t move as he speaks. “I never had a chance to live. Never.”

The girl now – the beautiful Irish girl with the dark eyes and greasy hair. She says “soldier” in her little-girl voice, as though the word is foreign, and difficult to pronounce. “I didn’t live, soldier-man. You didn’t save me.”

He knows it isn’t real. But he can’t turn it off. He yells at them. Both of them. Loudly. Emphatically. His life depends on it. “I tried. I tried.”

They’re in concert; their images take up his vision. Their voices taunt him. They’re one – together. “You couldn’t; you didn’t.”

He tries to answer, but he can’t. He grips at the sheets, tearing at them. The words will not come.

There’s a thumping noise below him.

He awoke to another voice under him, the thumping coming from the apartment below. He sucked in a breath of air, and lay on his back, staring at the nothingness on the ceiling. The noise below him stopped after one solitary comment – a profane relief that the yelling from above had stopped. The digital readout on his alarm clock said 4:30a.m.; the sun had not yet risen. He threw the covers away from himself and looked at the uniform hanging in the open closet of his bedroom. This time the dream was different. It wasn’t only the girl – the Irish girl. Now there was another dead body he was responsible for.

With no other business at that early hour, the taxi he’d called was waiting as soon as he reached the street. It was a different driver from the night before, and this man wanted to talk. In the seven-minute drive, he managed to tell him about the shift he’d almost finished working, his girlfriend, his boss, and an invention he was working on that was going to change his life and make him rich. There would be no more taxi-driving for him. The man did not wait for answers or comments. He just kept talking, his eyes glancing in the rearview mirror from time to time. Drake saw his own reflection staring back and looked down, hiding his red eyes and bleary face. It was a challenge to keep listening, but he knew that in his hungover state the short walk to the station would have felt like a marathon.

He could still taste the alcohol from the night before. It burned the roof of his mouth. Silently blaming it on the inferior Canadian whisky, he grabbed a large glass of water from the water station and tried to extinguish the flames in his throat. One of the night officers was leaning back in a chair, his eyes almost closed. He halfheartedly raised a hand in greeting as Drake walked in. The situation room was empty.

He commandeered one of the interview rooms off the main area and turned the computer screen toward himself. After fumbling around in the wrong folders, he found the correct files and opened the audio recordings of the interviews they’d conducted at the station. Frank Wilson’s name stared back at him. He opened the file folders he’d written on each interview subject and spread them in front of him too. Scanning his notes, he listened for a few minutes and then fast-forwarded, or paused the recording to replay an answer when it didn’t sound right. There was something there; he knew there was. He wrote key words on a blank sheet of paper – underlining them, tracing over them again and again. Wilson said Robinson seemed as though he needed a friend, yet he claimed to barely know him. He admitted he had forced Trevor to leave the group, but was reticent about Robinson’s opinion or involvement. Was he protecting Mike Robinson from something?

He struggled to figure out what was odd about the exchange. It was an uneasy feeling, and it kept coming back to him. He just couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He’d felt it when they interviewed Wilson, the old logger, and Rochfort, the factory owner. And it was there when they spoke with Parker, the man’s employer, also. It was like one of the gaps Ryberg talked about, but he couldn’t even tell where the gap was.