The Dells (28 page)

Janey was tireless, lean and muscular in bright, sweat-stained Spandex that fit her like scales on a snake.
She wore a microphone headset, into which she whooped encouragement and shouted instructions as she kicked and punched and spun, and the music pounded. When she saw Shoe through the glass wall, she waved and held up both hands, fingers splayed. Shoe acknowledged with a nod, then retreated to a nearby waiting area, where he leafed through fitness magazines, the contents of which consisted mainly of ads for dietary supplements, complex exercise machinery, and expensive exercise clothing, until Janey's class ended.

As her class headed for the showers, Janey came into the waiting area, mopping her neck and upper chest with a towel. She smiled up at him. “Hey, Joe.” Her colour was high and she was breathing deeply and slowly. An artery pulsed in her neck.

“Have you got a couple of minutes?” Shoe asked.

“For you, sure,” she replied. She paused, then added, “Did you hear about Marty Elias?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Can you believe it? What's the world coming to?”

“I don't know,” Shoe said. He'd heard a report of Marty's murder on the car radio, but the police hadn't released Marty's name, “pending notification of next of kin.” How had Janey heard about it? He asked her.

“One of the girls in my exercise class is married to a cop who works out of the local station. It's just around the corner.” He was relieved she hadn't heard that he and Claudia Hahn had found Marty's body. “Give me a minute to grab a quick shower and change,” Janey said. “Then I'm all yours for the price of a drink.”

She touched his arm, as if for reassurance that he was really there, then went back through the exercise room, where a slim young Asian man in a white judo
gi
with a black belt was arranging exercise mats. A group of about two dozen boys and girls between the ages of five and fifteen, wearing
gis
with belts of various colours, trouped
into the room and began helping him. Shoe watched them work out for a few minutes, then felt a gentle touch on his back and turned. Janey was wearing a short skirt, flared slightly to accommodate her muscular thighs, and a snug, stretchy top with a scooped neckline. The tops of her breasts were dusted with fine freckles. Her hair was still damp from the shower and slicked back, emphasizing the shape of her skull and the starved-orphan gauntness of her face. Was there such a thing as being too fit? Shoe wondered.

“All set?” he asked.

“Yep,” Janey said. She slung a nylon sports bag over her shoulder and took his arm, pressing her breasts against him. The message couldn't be clearer. “Where would you like to go?” she asked.

“Anywhere's fine with me,” Shoe said, as they walked toward the exit. “As long as it's not the Jane Street Bar and Grill.”

“God, no.” She ducked through the door as he held it for her. “Don't tell me you've been there.”

“I was looking for Dougie.” He gestured toward his father's car, parked in the lengthening shadow of the building.

“As good a place as any to start, I suppose.” In the car she said, “Head south. There's a decent pub not too far from here. So,” she said, when they were underway, “why are you looking for Dougie?”

“I want to ask him a couple of questions.”

“Nothing too hard, I hope.”

“Any idea where he might be?”

“It shouldn't come as any surprise to you that I don't keep track of his whereabouts. In fact, the less I see of him, the better.”

“Living in the same house must make that difficult.”

“Yeah, but fortunately he isn't around much. Neither
am I, between the gym, my bands, and my teaching gig.”

“You said yesterday you taught marketing,” he said. “I always imagined you doing something more adventuresome.”

“Such as?”

“When you graduated, you told me you'd got a job as an airline flight attendant.”

“I did? Really? I thought about it, I suppose — I guess it seemed like a cool job — but I ended up in advertising. Close to twenty-five years. Not exactly, um, adventuresome, but it had its moments. Had my own company until — well, it's a long story and I don't want to bore you with it.”

“Tim Dutton said something about losing your advertising business in a dispute with your partner.”

“I suppose you could call it a dispute,” she said. She sighed. “What happened was, five years ago my business partner, who I also happened to be married to at the time, ran off with his bimbo of an assistant, most of our clients, and what was left of our cash reserves after he'd talked me into upgrading our image and moving into a new space that was costing us ten grand a month. I divorced him, of course, and sued to recover the money he'd stolen, but by the time the dust settled, I'd lost all my clients and I was over two hundred thousand in debt. Don't ever try to declare bankruptcy when you owe money to lawyers. It's not a lot of fun.”

She pointed through the windshield toward the parking lot of a tidy little strip mall set back from the road. Shoe turned into the lot.

“Patty Dutton's a snob,” Janey said, as Shoe manoeuvred the Taurus into a parking space. “But I feel sorry for her, married to Tim. He was fucking Marty, you know, right under his wife's nose. Rumour has it his business isn't doing too well, either, and he's in hock up to his eyeballs. Wouldn't surprise me if it went toes up soon.”

“Tough on the employees.”

“Tell me about it,” Janey said. “I had twenty people working for me when I had to close up shop. Tim isn't his old man, that's for sure. I don't know how he's managed to stay above water as long as he has. It must drive the old man crazy, seeing Tim run the business he built into the ground. Old Bart ran a pretty tight ship, but he cared about the people who worked for him. The only person Tim Dutton cares about is Tim Dutton.”

The pub was cool and quiet, except for the occasional roar from the people watching a soccer match being played on a big-screen TV in a corner. Janey led him to a table at the far end of the room. The waitress knew her by name.

“Hiya, Janey. The usual?”

“Yeah, Dee, thanks,” Janey said.

“And what can I get you, big fella?” the waitress said to Shoe, dropping a pair of coasters on the scarred tabletop.

Shoe asked for a half-pint of Double Diamond. There was a large array of single malts lined up behind the bar, and he was tempted by the Lagavulin, but this was neither the time nor the place for a sixteen-year-old malt whisky.

“Here's to old times,” Janey said when their drinks arrived, lifting her gin and tonic.

Shoe sipped his beer.

“I'm probably going to regret asking,” Janey said, “but what did you want to ask Dougie about anyway?”

“The police are looking for Joey Noseworthy.”

“Joey? Why? Jesus, they don't think he killed Marty, do they?”

“They want to talk to him about Marvin Cartwright.”

“You mean they think Joey killed him? That's nuts. They were friends.”

“So I've recently learned,” Shoe said. “Nevertheless, Joey is the prime suspect in Cartwright's homicide.”

“What's it got to do with Dougie?”

“Joey can't account for his whereabouts at the time of Cartwright's death, but evidently he was in Dougie's bar on Thursday night until between eleven and twelve, until Dougie threw him out.”

“You're kidding. Joey's always been a little crazy, but I didn't think he was suicidal? He's lucky Dougie didn't kill him. Well, good luck.” She drank, ice rattling.

“Marty told me that you and Joey were lovers.”

“Did she? Well, I guess you could say Joey and I had a kind of love-hate relationship. It was a long time ago. After you and he had fallen out. You and I had broken up — again — and, well, I guess we both sort of missed you in our own ways.”

“What about more recently?”

“I haven't seen Joey in three or four years,” she said. “Not since I went bankrupt. Before that, he'd give me a call sometimes when he was passing through and we'd get together. He crashed at my place once or twice, too, after my ex took off.” She shrugged. “Things led to things.”

“Were you and Marvin Cartwright lovers?”

“No,” she said, with a sigh. “I told you, I hardly knew him.”

“Where were you around the time he was killed?”

“You're not serious. You're asking me if I have an alibi?”

“Yes, that's what I'm asking you.”

“Well, for your information, I was in Hamilton with one of my bands. Stayed overnight in a hotel. Alone, if you must know, but I can show you the receipt. I didn't get back to Toronto till around noon on Friday. Satisfied?”

“Yes, but don't lose that receipt. The police may want to see it.”

“C'mon, Shoe, don't spoil the mood. Drink up. You've hardly touched your beer. Aren't you having fun?” She waved at the waitress and pointed to her empty drink glass.

He raised his glass and took another sip of beer. Janey was lying to him about her relationship with Marvin Cartwright. It may not have been sexual, but he was sure there was more to it than she was admitting. There was no point in pursuing it. He knew from experience that if Janey didn't want to talk about something, she wouldn't.

“Just a few more questions, then we'll talk about anything you want.” The waitress brought Janey's second drink. “When was the last time you saw Marty?” he asked when the waitress had gone.

“About a year ago, I guess. She came to the club for physiotherapy when she sprained her shoulder at work. I hadn't seen her since she dropped out of high school, so we came here for a drink and to catch up. Now there was someone who'd had an adventuresome life, maybe a little too adventuresome. Did you know she used to be a stripper?”

“She mentioned that,” Shoe said.

“She also lived with a vice cop in Vancouver for a while, until he killed himself.”

“She told me she'd lived with a cop,” Shoe said. “She didn't tell me he'd committed suicide. What else did you talk about?”

“Mostly she wanted to talk about Joey. She was hoping she could get him to settle down. I wished her good luck with that.”

“What can you tell me about Joey's relationship with Marvin Cartwright?”

“Like I said, they were friends from back when we were kids, but Joey didn't talk much about growing up. He didn't have a happy adolescence. Hell, who did?”

I did
, Shoe thought.
Mostly
.

“I know they played chess a lot,” Janey said. “He told me Marvin thought he could've played professionally if he'd applied himself. I didn't know there was such a thing.”

“What about later? Joey told me he ran into Cartwright fifteen years ago when he was working at a provincial park in Prince Edward County. He stayed with Cartwright whenever he was in the area.”

“Joey told me they'd reconnected,” Janey said, “but I think as far as Joey was concerned, Marvin was just another source of a ‘hot and a cot,' as he put it.”

“Did you ever have any contact with Cartwright after he left the neighbourhood?”

“No.”

“Did Marty?”

“I don't know.”

“Janey, be straight with me. How well did you know Marvin Cartwright?”

“I didn't know him any better than you did.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Tough.” She shook her head. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

“What did you expect to find when we broke into his house?”

“I didn't expect to find anything. I just wanted to see if you'd do it.” She tossed back her drink. “You've asked your questions. It's my turn now.” She started to signal the waitress, but changed her mind. “Let's talk about the good times we used to have, Shoe. We used to have some pretty good times, didn't we? Before — well, never mind that.”

“Before what, Janey?”

“Forget it. C'mon, tell me what you've been doing with your life. You don't look like you've put on an ounce since you were eighteen. I'm not surprised, if that's the
way you drink beer. You married? You aren't wearing a ring, but a lot of men don't. It cramps their style.”

“I'm not married.”

“Ever?”

“No.”

“Haven't turned queer on me, have you?” She winked broadly.

She couldn't have been more obvious if she'd been wearing a sign around her neck. Was he tempted? No more than he had been by the Lagavulin.

Janey chattered on, uncharacteristically, about “the old days.” The problem was, she didn't seem to remember them the same way he did. It was as if she were talking about two people Shoe didn't recognize at all. The boy she spoke of was smarter and more confident,
cooler
than Shoe had ever been; the girl was sweeter and more innocent; and the times were good and full of promise, not the dark and uncertain teenage years Shoe remembered. She ordered another drink.

“How come we stopped seeing each other?” she asked, when the drink came. “We were pretty good together, weren't we?”

“When we were together,” he said.

“What do you mean? We were going steady.”

“That's not the way I remember it,” he said. “You had lots of boyfriends.” Including, evidently, Joey Noseworthy.

“Okay, maybe there were a few others, but no one I liked as much as you. And it wasn't like you didn't have other girlfriends. What about Mandy or Candy or whatever her name was? The one with the glasses and the teeth.”

“Sandy? I went out with her once, and only after you and I broke up for the last time.”

“Maybe I'm not remembering it the way it really was,” she said, hazel eyes bright and moist. “Maybe
I'm remembering it the way I wish it was. You and me against the world. It was a little like that, wasn't it, Shoe? The local hero and the girl from the wrong side of the tracks.”