Woman Chased by Crows (45 page)

“Place stinks.”

“That's Dylan,” said Adele.

(unintelligible)

“You know that? Stinks? Like rotten marmalade.”

“Kid won't wash up.”

“What kid? He's over forty! Jesus! Your legs broken? You can't turn on the hot water tap? Have a little respect for yourself.”

“Make an appointment; I'll get a Molly Maid.”

“That's Louie?” Stacy asked.

“Probably.”

“Never any place to sit around here.”

“Move some stuff.”

“No place to sit, nothing to eat or drink. You run a class operation.”

“You want food, look in the fridge.”

“Have you looked in your fridge, Louie?”

“There we go. It's him.”

“You know what's in there? You've got creatures living in the pork fried rice.”

(long break in conversation, sounds of things being moved, dropped to the floor, television turned on,
Jeopardy
audible in the background)

“
Jeopardy
. 7:30 to 8,” Stacy said. “We might get the date from the episode.”

“Yeah right: when did they ask the two-hundred-dollar question about Nairobi?”

“No. Seriously. That's the College Championship. You could track it down.”

“You watch that show? Probably get all the answers, don't you?”

“Mostly.”

(long silence)

“What the hell are they doing?”

“Watching Alex Trebek.”

“Fuck, how many hours of this we have to wade through?”

“You had a visitor, last week.”

“Here we go.”

“Yeah, it's a store. People come in.”

“You had a visitor up here.” (chair being moved) “My partner dropped by for a chat, didn't he?”

“Whoa. This is at least seven years ago,” Adele said. “Dylan's still a cop.”

“You got this place under surveillance now?”

“No. He told me. We're partners. We share information.”

“Sure you do.”

“Says he came by to ask about a pawn ticket from a crime scene. Pawn ticket for gold badge or something.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well?”

“What about it? I didn't have it. I said I didn't know what he was talking about. I said check my records.”

“Did he?”

“He looked. What's he gonna find?”

“Listen close. He had a pawn ticket. It had your name on it. It had a date on it. You lent that Abramov shit twenty bucks for a piece of jewellery.”

“Vassili.” Stacy was making notes.

“That thing. Wasn't jewellery, a little badge or something.”

“What happened to it?”

“He came around later, said he wanted to sell it outright. I gave him another twenty.”

“So where is it?”

“It's nothing to do with your thing.”

“Where is it?”

“It's safe. It's put away.”

“One more time. Where. Is. It?”

“All right. I'll get it. You don't have to start acting like King Kong.”

“Say what?”

“Just wait a minute, take it easy, wait a minute.”

(more silence, more
Jeopardy)

“He didn't like the King Kong reference.”

“Sounds like a dangerous man.”

Adele stopped the tape. “So this is at least seven years back.” She was working it out. “After the
DOA
in the park. After Paulie picked up the diamonds, went back the next day and got the blue one and the pawn ticket.”

“Which led him to Louie Grova.”

“And didn't tell his partner about it until after.”

“And Dylan isn't happy about it.”

“Why tell him at all?”

“Get him thinking, maybe?”

“Paulie's suspecting Dylan already. Of what? Killing Abramov?” She started the tape again.

“What are you doing out there, Louie? Fighting with the garbage. You're gonna lose.”

“I'll be there. Gimme a minute.”

(more noises, aspect change, Dylan has moved away from the mic.)

“Is that it?”

“What'd I tell you? It's nothing.”

“You dumb shit.”

“What? Couple of grams.”

“Eighteen carat?”

“Fourteen.”

“Probably eighteen. And what's this? Little crest. See that? You know what you got here. Sure you do. This is part of the chain. Any more pieces?”

“Vassi needed some cash.”

“Vassi, is it? Old pals by now. Worked out a secret handshake yet?”

“He wanted to go away.”

“Yeah, we'll that's too bad. He never made it out of town.”

(long silence)

“What do you care about a little pin? You got the biggest share.”

“Oho!” Adele liked that one.

“What's the matter with you? I don't care about this piece of crap. My partner smells misconduct. He's on the trail, asshole. He's a hound dog.”

“What's to find out?”

“There's nothing to find out unless you do something dumb, like get caught with any of this stuff around. Where's the rest of it?”

“I don't have any more.” (sound of slap, yelp) “I don't have any more. I wish I'd never seen any of it. From the start. What did I ever get out of it?”

“You did all right. You got your share.”

“Fucked my life is what it did.”

“I'm taking this.”

“Aw Jesus, Dylan . . .”

“Okay, O'Grady's identified, for the record.” Stacy made another note.

“. . . give me a break. At least give me the forty dollars.”

“Give you a couple of broken thumbs you get me jammed up. My partner comes around to see you again, you keep your mouth shut.”

“Don't you guys work together any more?”

“Mind your own business. He shows up again, you let me know. Don't wait for me to find —” (tape ends)

“Damn. Nothing substantive,” Stacy said.

“Maybe not, but interesting shit. Paulie was playing Dylan seven years ago. He tracked down Louie. Connected him to Abramov. Dylan had it right: Paulie was a hound dog. If he smelled something, he wouldn't let it go.”

Stacy printed “#1-seven years ago?-O'Grady/Grova” on the label and set it aside. “Ready for another one?”

“Maybe we should send out for a pizza.

Thursday, March 24

Around 3:30 a.m., Adele went into the bedroom, took off her cop shoes and crashed. Stacy stayed awake for another hour, cataloging and labelling, making notes and approximate timings, fast-forwarding and rewinding her way through the four ninety-minute cassettes. Six hours of random sounds, half-audible hockey games, reality shows, laugh tracks, long stretches of relative silence punctuated by bodily noises, tires squealing, sirens passing. The actual conversations (banal, vulgar and at least sixty percent unintelligible) totalled eighteen minutes and twenty-three seconds. Several of the main players were clearly identifiable: Louie Grova, on all tapes; Dylan O'Grady (all except 6); Sergei Siziva (tapes 3 and 5) and Yevgeny Grenkov (briefly, in the background on tape 3). The problem was that, in addition to being an inept audio engineer who had evidently hidden his microphone under a couch cushion wrapped in a sock, Darryl had neglected to number or date the recordings. Stacy had no way of pinning down whether the reference to Viktor Nimchuk on tape 3 took place before or after the reference to what might have been Paul Delisle's handgun on tape 4, or
when
the meeting between Dylan and Sergei Siziva on tape 6 happened. Evidently Darryl hadn't been on the job the night his stepfather had died, or for that matter, the day Sergei Siziva took possession of Paul's .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. Those tapes might have tipped the balance. Sadly, either they didn't exist, or Darryl was saving them for dessert. With what they had so far they could allege motive, indicate opportunity, deal with denials and interpretations, but without physical evidence, without a murder weapon, a blood trail, fingerprints, or something they could hold up for a jury to gaze upon, they'd have a hard time getting a conviction.

“You up all night?” Adele helped herself to a slice of cold pizza.

“I got a few hours on the couch. There's coffee.”

“What d'you think? Anything we can use?”

“What we have is a steaming pile of circumstantial, conjectural and conditional, and not one shred of irrefutable.” Stacy poured a cup of coffee for Adele, turning her head to avoid the whiff of pepperoni and cold tomato sauce. “Hard to build a murder case when all the prime witnesses are either dead, or have guilty knowledge.”

“Not quite the ‘nuke-ular weapon of mass de-fucking-struction,' is it?” Adele went to the window, sipped coffee and chewed leftovers, watched the southbound traffic building on the Don Valley Parkway below. A cruiser with lights flashing was weaving through the traffic flow, chasing someone. Adele watched until it disappeared from view. She snorted. “Darryl's gonna need a month at Betty Ford before we can put him on the witness stand.”

“I don't think we'd make it that far,” said Stacy. “We've got recordings, illegally obtained, from a questionable source, and who knows
what's
been done to them? Any half-decent lawyer gets them tossed pretrial.”

“Well fuck! Just for my own pathetic amusement, partner, give me the highlights.”

Stacy checked her notes, plugged in a cassette, reset the counter to zero and hit fast-forward. “This would have been good but the television's on in the room so some of it you can't hear.” She hit stop. “Dylan and Louie. I get the feeling it's in the stairwell because of the echo.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Keep it wrapped . . . want . . . your fingerprints on it.”

“. . . it yours?”

“Do what . . . all right? Hide it . . . your shithole.” (sound of feet clumping down the stairs to the street) “Shut your fucking mouth, forget all . . . when I want it back.”

“Like when?”

“Mind your own fucking . . .” (traffic noise, door closes)

“Okay, okay, I'm just saying . . . Motherfucker, Jesus, fuck fuck fuck.”

Stacy stopped the tape. “Sounded like Dylan was handing over Paul's gun.”

“Yeah, well
we
know it sounded like that, but like you say, worthless.”

Stacy popped in a new tape. Found the spot she was looking for. “This is Dylan and Louie again. Talking about where Nimchuk was staying. Maybe.”

“Where on the Queensway?”

“It's a motel. All he gave me was a number.”

“Give it to me.”

“He just wants to talk.”

“I'll call him.”

(aspect changes, another room, unintelligible exchange, door opening, voices faint but clear)

“He's afraid of you.”

“Nothing to be afraid of. What's he holding? He say?”

“He just wants enough to get away from here.”

“No problem.”

(outside door slams)

“So that happened
before
he stashed the gun with Louie, right?” Adele asked. “He had the phone number. No trick for an ex-cop to find out where it came from. He pays Nimchuk a visit at the motel, maybe picks up some jewellery, pops him, then comes back here to hide Paulie's piece. Does that add up?”

“Sort of. I'm playing them in the order they were in the box.” She cued up the next cassette. “Here's a good one except it sounds like Darryl recorded the first part on toilet paper. We've got O'Grady, Grova, Siziva and, somewhere in the background, Citizen Grenkov.”

(unintelligible, possibly in the kitchen)

“. . . going on?” (Dylan)

“This . . . to meet you.” (Louie)

“Yes, good ev . . . is Siz . . . , . . . gei . . . ziva.”

“. . . the moose?”

“. . . my protection.”

“. . . is?” (chuckles) “(unintelligible) to stay out . . . worth shit . . . tear him a new asshole.”

“. . . civilized, okay? Neutral ground. Mutual interests . . . in . . . differences.” (Louie)

“. . . listening. . . . a cold beer at least? . . . Fuck no, I've seen how you wash your glasses. You? Siz . . . what?”

(Random noises, a short exchange in Russian. Yevgeni's voice is recognizable. Sound of beer cans being popped open. Swallowing, burping.)

“Okay . . . called this . . . on your mind?”

“We . . . mutual interest. . . . tor Nim . . .”

“Who he?”

“. . . should. . . . not play games. I . . . he . . . happened in Montreal.”

“. . . Nimchuk . . . ything? . . . who gives a . . . anyway? Nothing to do with me.”

(Three minutes thirty seconds unintelligible. Possible move outside.)

“Wait a bit,” Stacy said, “it gets better.”

(
Closer to mic. Entering living room?)

“. . . a big man, and that makes you untouchable, you think. Yes?”

“That's not a threat, is it?”

“But, you admit, currently you have much to lose.”

“Careful Ivan. You don't want to piss me off.”

“When you were a policeman you had much more control over a situation, yes? You had a gun, a badge, a code I suppose. Now you are a public figure. You seek elected office. Your image is important.”

“Cut the crap. What do you want?”

“I believe we have mutual interests and can help each other get what we seek.”

“Get me another beer, Louie. And you, tell your big friend to sit down. He's not making me nervous, he's making me angry.”

(Brief exchange in Russian. Yev is heard grumbling.)

“I'm sure you don't want an altercation in this place, my friend, with all the secrets it might contain. We wouldn't want to attract the attention of the police, would we?”

(sound of a beer can releasing gas, chair sliding)

“All right, whatever your name is, I'm listening.”

“Viktor is worried about what might happen.”

“Happen?”

“To him. What might happen to him.”

“Why should anything happen to him?”

“Because of what happened to Vassili. That you will do the same to him.”

“I didn't do anything to this whoever.”

“Vassili.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Viktor told me about Montreal.”

“Un hunh. What happened in Montreal?”

“You and Viktor and Louie here. The woman.”

“Okay. I've heard enough of this. I don't know what you think you know but if it comes from Viktor Nimchuk it doesn't mean shit. So why am I listening?”

“He would like to make an arrangement. He has another of the blue stones you are interested in.”

“Yeah? What about you? What are you interested in?”

“Mine is a different colour.”

“You want the diamonds? Fine. More trouble than they're worth. What else?”