Thicker Than Water (A Leo Waterman Mystery) (19 page)

It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon before word came and we finally got under way. By that time, the bacon and eggs were doing backflips in my tract, and I would have
gladly walked back to Seattle on my hands, just to feel like I was doing something useful. Mercifully, the drive to Billy Bud’s place was short.

Fifteen minutes after we crossed the Burrard Street Bridge, we were rolling through what the locals called Kitsilano, a little village-like area on the far side of English Bay. Billy Bud’s manor house stood gray and imposing on a dramatic outcropping of rock, offering a sweeping view of both the Vancouver skyline to the east and the ominous Strait of Georgia to the west.

I don’t know why. Maybe I watched too many gangster films, but I was expecting a
Godfather
scene, where you pull up to a locked gate guarded by sixteen fat guys in fedoras, and, after being inspected like a week-old eggplant, you’re reluctantly allowed inside the family compound. Not so with Billy Bailey. The gate was open and the massive circular driveway empty as we rolled to a halt. What I imagined had once been the stable and the carriage house was now a ten-car garage.

“Used to belong to William Cornelius Van Horne,” Roddy said as we stood looking out over the dark, roiling water toward Vancouver Island. He sensed we didn’t recognize the name and helped us out. “Former chairman of the Canadian Pacific Railway,” he explained. “Same fellow who built the Banff Springs Hotel.” He swung his hand in an arc. “This used to be Corny’s little urban
pied-à-terre.
”

Looked to be about twenty thousand square earth feet in the Scottish baronial tradition. A great chunk of concrete, faced with stone, standing sentry over the water. Were it not for the trio of security cameras chronicling our every move, it would have been easy to feel as if we’d somehow been transported back to the early twentieth century.

The front door swung open on massive wrought-iron hinges. A brunette in her midthirties stood holding the door in one hand. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said. “Mr. Bailey is expecting you.” She spoke with an air of detachment, as if, as far as she was concerned, our visit held scant appeal. Great cheekbones and the kind of blue eyes that made men forget about what happened the last time they’d looked into eyes like that more than compensated for whatever she lacked in warmth.

She wore one of those soft, fuzzy sweater suits so popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The sort of clothes that suggested rather than shouted. The robin’s egg–blue wool skirt was a couple of inches longer than current fashion but looked real good on her. A single strand of pearls completed the look and accented the firmness of her throat. Albeit retro, all in all a very put-together and alluring package.

We followed the swaying blue skirt down a seemingly endless expanse of flagstone, past what they probably called “the great room,” with its panoramic view, soaring ceiling, and stone fireplace large enough to roast an ox with the hair on. All very tweedy and heath and moor and calls to “let loose the dogs.” I felt like I was in a Basil Rathbone movie.

If Billy Bud had once been the prince of the counterculture, he’d gotten over it in a big way. No hookahs or patchouli incense. Nary a paisley shirt or Birkenstock sandal in sight. No, this was strictly lord of the manor stuff, all oak-paneled walls and glassy-eyed animal heads staring down at us as we doggedly trekked through the house.

After what seemed like a mile and a half, our tour guide stepped aside and shepherded us inside an expansive room. I glanced over my shoulder as we crossed the room. Rather
than going back to whatever she’d been doing prior to our arrival, she remained standing in the archway. I got the impression she didn’t think our visit was going to last very long and was saving herself a couple of thousand steps.

The room was a gorgeous Victorian library, floor-to-ceiling beautifully bound books, with a rolling brass ladder to provide access to the more lofty tomes. One of those rooms where the books were all gold-embossed matched sets and you couldn’t imagine that anyone had ever pulled one out to read.

Billy sat behind a half-acre mahogany desk with his fingers laced in front of him like an attendant schoolboy. He was a good-looking man. A little older than me. Fifty-something with a thick head of hair parted neatly in the middle and swept back over his ears. Big brown eyes and a little bow of a mouth that made him look thoughtful and perhaps even a bit sensitive. He pushed himself to his feet as we entered the room.

“Ah…Inspector Roddy. So nice to see you again.” “Sergeant,” Roddy corrected. “Detective Sergeant.” Billy Bailey waved a dismissive hand. “By all means consider yourself promoted,” he said magnanimously. “A man of your talents and obvious charisma…”

Billy rambled on at some length. I had to swallow a smile. Having had vast personal experience annoying the authorities, I could see right away why Billy Bud was so unpopular with Canadian law enforcement. Not only had Billy made them look inept for a quarter of a century, but he’d had a good time doing it as well. The kind of guy who kicked your ass and then made sure you didn’t forget about it. Just
the sort of attitude guaranteed to piss off serious-minded authoritarian types. Trust me, I’ve been there.

Interrupting Billy’s monologue, Roddy introduced us as “detectives from Seattle.”

Billy smiled a welcome and then gestured expansively toward the man standing on his right. “You remember Mr. Spearbeck,” he said.

Spearbeck was another matter altogether. Looked like they’d flown him in from Las Vegas. The kind of guy who looked good in a sharkskin suit and narrow tie, both of which he probably wore to bed. He stepped out from behind the desk, as if running interference for his client. He rested a bony hip on the front corner of the desk, leaned back and inquired whether or not this was an “official visit.”

“No,” Roddy said immediately. “These gentlemen have a bit of a problem…a missing person’s problem. They were hoping you might be of assistance.”

“Always glad to be of assistance,” Bobby said affably.

“Who’s missing?” Spearbeck wanted to know.

I told him. The ramifications of a missing member of the Seattle law enforcement community were lost on neither Billy nor his attorney. Not only wasn’t it the kind of case that would eventually go away, but it was the sort of case that made for particularly bad public relations in a civic-minded society such as Canada.

“And how is it you imagine Mr. Bailey might be of assistance?”

I jumped in. “Because the events surrounding Ms. Duval’s disappearance involve a couple of characters named Jordan Koontz and Lui Ng.”

Amazing how those names seemed to stop conversations. Billy Bailey wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. He noticed that I’d noticed, looked away and folded his arms protectively across his chest.

Billy’s politician’s smile never wavered, but the corners of his eyes tightened slightly. I’d seen that look before, seen it in my father’s eyes more times than I could count. The look of parental disappointment. The sad expression that said I hadn’t quite turned out to be what he’d been hoping for, and thus, for my old man anyway, the even sadder certainty that his predator genes were about to skip a generation.

It was almost as if he’d have preferred I’d had some sort of disability. Had I been a dimwit, well, that just would have been the luck of the draw; he could have lived with that. That I was reasonably articulate and in full control of my faculties, and still didn’t have any interest in carrying on the family fleecing business, was beyond his most fevered imaginings.

A thick and awkward moment passed before Spearbeck broke the silence. He chose his words carefully, as lawyers are paid to do. “We have no connection to either of those gentlemen.”

“Mr. Bailey’s son, Junior, certainly has,” Roddy said.

“Young Mr. Bailey handles his own affairs,” Spearbeck said.

They went back and forth for several minutes, debating what sort of involvement and therefore what responsibility could reasonably be laid at Bill Bailey’s door.

“Do you recall a provincial policeman being shot in Dashwood?” Roddy segued.

“When was that?” Billy asked.

“Several months back.”

“We might,” Spearbeck interjected quickly. “What of it?”

“A gentleman named Trevor Collins wounded a constable in a dispute over a boat repossession.”

“And this has what to do with us?”

“We take attacks upon our officers quite seriously,” Roddy said.

“I’m sure you do,” the lawyer said.

“And rightly so,” Billy added. “A healthy respect for law enforcement is the cornerstone of civilized society. Any society…”

Sounded like Billy was prepared to go on at some length, but Roddy cut him off. “Considering the nature of his offense, Mr. Collins was remanded on a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bond.”

“And?”

“In less than twenty-four hours, the destitute Mr. Collins was back on the street.”

The lawyer opened his mouth to speak, but again Roddy kept talking.

“We have it on good authority that it was young Mr. Bailey who put up his bond.”

Billy opened his mouth to say something but a quick glance from his attorney encouraged him to swallow it.

“That used to be your old stomping ground, didn’t it?” Roddy pressed.

“Excuse me?” Billy said.

“Over there on the island. Over by Dashwood. That’s where you lived before…” Roddy swept a hand in a grand ironic gesture. “…before all of this.”

Neither of them said a word. At this point they weren’t even willing to talk about where Billy Bailey used to live, which told me that the conversation had reached the point
of diminishing returns. These guys weren’t going to tell us anything useful. Billy had invited us over for the sheer fun of it. He wanted to parry and banter, to revel in his triumph over the forces of darkness. And then we spoiled the party. Touched a nerve right out of the gate. Ruined everything by bringing up his ne’er-do-well son, the royal idiot as it were, whose ham-handed criminal career was a very real threat to his father’s political ambitions.

This was one of the rare instances where being a private investigator had it all over being an actual cop. Despite the obvious manpower and technological advantages enjoyed by modern police departments, policemen adhere to a fairly exacting protocol. They need probable cause. They need warrants. They have to be polite and not step on anybody’s toes unless they can prove they are lawbreaker toes, and even then they have to be careful about how they go about their business, lest their quarry get off on some crappy little technicality.

Not so the PI. When things don’t seem to be going anywhere, a private eye can start turning over rocks to see what’s on the other side. He can annoy people on purpose, show up at the same places over and over, and ask the same questions until somebody snaps and something breaks loose from the log jam.

I was deciding who to insult about what when I was upstaged by the echoing sound of a raised voice, followed by the distant boom of the two-ton front door.

I snapped a look back over my shoulder just in time to see Miss Panty Girdle abandon her post at the library door and hustle off toward the racket.

Another shout, much closer this time, seemed to set everyone in motion. Spearbeck bumped himself off the corner of the desk and straightened his tie. Billy Bailey folded his hands in front of him like he was praying.

A moment passed, and then I heard two voices entwined in conflict. I could hear the sound of their feet scraping the flagstones as they approached. “Like I give a fuck,” the male voice said.

He came barging through the door like a black squall, throwing an angry hand in the air, speaking directly to Billy Bailey. “You ought to teach that twat some manners,” he said.

Junior Bailey couldn’t have been more than a couple of Oreos short of three hundred pounds. A corpulent corpuscle in a hideous purple suit, he looked like a Cuban headwaiter who had been held hostage in a doughnut shop. Except for the rosebud lips, he bore little or no resemblance to his father.

“Bitch forgets she’s the hired help,” he said.

I snuck another backward peek. Her cheeks were burning, but her ice-sculpture veneer remained intact.

“I told him you were engaged, sir,” she said.

Billy unlaced his fingers and showed a “not to worry” palm. “It’s fine, Evelyn,” he said. “Would you excuse us please?”

There was something about the way he begged her pardon that told me they were sleeping together. Just a tad more concern for her feelings than the standard employer-employee relationship called for. The kind of compromise a man makes only when his dick is involved.

She managed a thin, insincere smile and headed for the hall. She flicked a surreptitious glance my way as she eased
by. I flicked back. She pretended not to notice and instead raised her nose an inch and a half and picked up her pace. I had no doubt that Billy would suffer for this little indignity at some later date. No doubt at all.

Junior lumbered back and forth in front of the desk, looking us over like a general inspecting the troops. “These the cops?” he asked his father.

Junior had one of those Jersey City tough guy walks, like his balls were so big he had to walk around them. You could tell he spent a lot of time practicing in front of a mirror, strutting and hitching up his pants.

He pointed at Roddy. “Yeah,” he said. “I remember that one there.”

“These gentlemen have some questions regarding Jordan Koontz and Lui Ng,” his father said evenly. Despite the moderate timbre of his voice and the bland facial expression, Billy Bailey looked like a man sitting on a wasp’s nest.

“What about ’em?” Junior asked.

“You know a guy named Brett Ward?” I tried.

“Never heard of him,” he said immediately.

It wasn’t that he was a lousy liar; it was that he was too arrogant to try, as if he thought it was more important for us to know how little he thought of us than it was to bother with any tawdry attempts at deception.

“That’s funny,” I said. “Your friends Koontz and Ng spent the last week or so down in Seattle looking for him.”