The Reluctant Detective

by Finley Martin

  He took careful aim, and he gently squeezed the trigger.

  48

  “Who the devil are you? And what are you doing on my bridge?”

  Captain Ryan McKillop was short, sturdy, and direct. He had muscular forearms and thick fingers. He had just walked onto the darkened bridge of the Arctic Growler and seen Ben Solomon standing in the shadows. He didn’t seem the least bit timid in Ben’s presence even though Ben was much larger.

  “Detective Sergeant Ben Solomon, Captain. I’m here as part of an investigation. We have reason to believe that a person connected with a major crime will arrive in this area tonight. Mr. MacLaren agreed to let me stand watch here to see if he showed up.”

  “You have ID?

  “I do,” said Ben and flashed his badge.

  “Lemme see that again,” McKillop said.

  Solomon pulled out his badge again. McKillop took a close look and said, “Charlottetown Police Department?”

  Solomon nodded.

  “Summerside has its own police force. What are you doing here?”

  “Our investigation began in Charlottetown and unexpectedly led us here.”

  “Have you contacted local authorities?”

  Solomon shook his head. “No, but the law allows some latitude when dealing with an ongoing crime, and this is one of those situations.”

  “You have a warrant?”

  “We don’t need one. We were invited to come aboard.”

  “I see,” McKillop said. He thought for a bit and added, “Well, I’m going to un-invite you. This is my ship, and this is private property. So unless you have a warrant or some assurance from the Summerside police that you’re not pokin’ your nose into things that don’t concern you, then you’ll have to find some other place to conduct your investigation. I’ve got a ship to get under way.”

  Ben nodded and left the bridge. A nasty gust of wind whipped at the door. It drove a stinging rain before it. He made his way down several ladders to the main deck.

  The captain had been more obstinate than Ben expected under the circumstances, but McKillop was right. He had no authority aboard the ship. Still, that didn’t stop Ben from wondering if Captain McKillop might be hiding something himself. Maybe he and MacLaren had some crooked business on the side. Or maybe each of them had their own little scheme going. His cop instinct said it was one or the other, but it was unlikely he would ever know the truth. He had enough things to worry about as it was.

  First of all, where was the Client? Solomon had been waiting on the bridge for two, nearly three hours. The Client knew MacLaren was there. So what had happened? Had something more important come up? And if so, what could stop the Client from pursuing a million-dollar purse? If there was some change of plan, he couldn’t imagine what it would be. If the Client had headed for MacLaren’s house, Anne would have called, but she hadn’t. Nothing made sense. It was clearly time to regroup, he thought, as he started his car and pulled away from the wharves.

  Maybe Anne has an idea. If not, we’ll call it a day.

  Ben turned the windshield wipers to high speed and eased off the accelerator. Even at that, it was difficult to see as he drove up the street to MacLaren’s house. He rubbed the sleeve of his jacket against the windshield to clear a film of condensation. It was a poor night for driving. A miserable end to the Canada Day celebrations. And most of the population of the Island must have agreed. The streets were empty. No late-night partiers stumbling home. No drivers on the road – except him, of course – and one other car which passed.

  He drove two more blocks before he reached MacLaren’s house. He saw a light burning in a downstairs room.

  That’s peculiar, he thought. Anne wouldn’t be that careless.

  He found it even more peculiar that the front door was wide open, the house had been torn apart, and a dead man had bled across the library floor.

  All of these things were unsettling, but not finding any trace of Anne was alarming.

  49

  The 9 mm slug burned by Anne’s ear like a vicious hornet. The Client’s first shot had been dead-on-target, but the branch of a tree deflected the bullet. He had no time for a second shot before she disappeared behind a neighbouring house and limped down the street.

  Anne had sprained her ankle when she’d jumped from the porch roof to the ground. She couldn’t run. It ached with each step, but her only option was to work through the pain and make the best time she could. She had to reach Ben at the waterfront before the Client caught up to her.

  As miserable as it was, the weather helped. The moon hadn’t risen; the rain pelted down; and her clothes were dark. If she wasn’t moving, she was barely visible. Nevertheless, it was also a cold rain, and she could feel the chill of it creeping into her bones.

  The waterfront was five or six blocks away. Half of that distance was through a residential neighbourhood. She hobbled through that area, keeping off the street, sticking to lawns, backyards and alleys, whenever she could find them. If she thought she heard a car or saw the flicker of headlights, she tucked herself alongside a house or a street-parked car.

  After that, however, the terrain changed. She crossed a couple of commercial streets with closed stores and empty shops. Even at night, though, the business district was well-lit. So Anne took her time to navigate through it. Two slow-moving cars approached. Then another. She waited for each to drop out of sight before she crossed the last street.

  Ahead of her now lay five hundred yards of clear, open land. At the end of it, she discerned the outlines of warehouses and buildings on the shore. Sounds carried easily, but dully, over the rain-swept expanse. A ship’s whistle blew and, somewhere, a tractor-trailer geared down and rumbled onto broken pavement. Several spur roads, truck staging compounds, idle fields, and parking lots separated her from the dock where the Arctic Growler was tied up and where Ben Solomon was standing watch. She surveyed the best route she could take to get there. Then she began a slow, guarded advance.

  As Anne neared the warehouses, she heard noises – the clanking of forklift blades, the beep beep as one of them backed up. Shouts from labourers and the plosive blast of air brakes cut the air. The sounds came from an early morning shift at the third warehouse, the one farthest from the Arctic Growler. Anne drew in as close as she could so that, from a distance, she would look like just another worker. From there she slunk through shadows to the next warehouse and, past that, to the edge of the last one.

  Anne rounded the corner of the last building. When she did, her hopes plummeted. The shipping berth was empty. The Arctic Growler had sailed. Only her stern lights and the lights of the pilot tug glowed against the black of the night about half a mile offshore. The ship had gone and, to her dismay, so had Ben.

  Anne looked forlorn standing alone in the rain in front of the empty berth of the departing ship. She turned around slowly and stared through the darkness for anything that offered a possibility of shelter or safety. Nothing seemed promising. Then she heard a car start and turned toward the sound. It came from a parking area fifty yards away. Its headlights came on, and the car slowly wheeled around. It flashed its lights twice. Then twice more. It was a signal.

  It was Ben.

  Anne waved her arms excitedly above her head and limped toward Ben’s car.

  Then the car picked up speed rather quickly. Anne froze. Something about its sound and shape struck her as odd.

  She realized that it wasn’t Ben’s car after all.

  Anne panicked, turned, and ran. She ran back toward the warehouse. The sound of the car grew nearer and louder. It picked up speed and was closing in on her so quickly she couldn’t outrun it.

  The nearest corner of the warehouse was just yards away. The near side of the building had no loading platforms, exterior stairs, or open doors. Nothing to hide behind. Yet she continued towards it like a frightened rabbit, unab
le to see anything but the desperation of flight as a route of escape.

  The engine roared as the Client stomped the accelerator. The car tires lost some traction on the wet cement and the car fishtailed slightly. Anne took a split second to glance behind her and, just before the car would have struck her, she lunged sharply to the right. The Client couldn’t turn into her without colliding with the corner of the building. So he cut the wheel left. His car shot by her and followed the long wall of the warehouse. He hit the brakes and fishtailed again on the slick pavement. The right rear side slid into the side of the building. The aluminum siding shrieked as the car grazed it and, as the back side rebounded off the wall, the front end swung in, hooked itself, and spun the vehicle twice before it came to rest.

  Anne scurried around the end of the warehouse, her heart thumping. Her clothes, sopping with rain, felt leaden, just as they had in so many of her bad dreams. Her eyes darted about for a hiding place or an escape, but the area between the first and second warehouses was unbroken cement from the parking lot behind her to the dock’s end ahead. No place to hide. No cover. Not even a short stack of pallets.

  Then she heard the squeal of Client’s car, but it wasn’t backing up. It sped on to the far end of the wharf. Anne guessed that it would circle and return through the slot between the two warehouses.

  Anne would be an easy catch there. So she backtracked to the marine slip where the Arctic Growler had berthed. The water in the slip looked black and oily, but she didn’t hesitate. She swung herself over the edge, made her way down one of several steel ladders fastened to the dock, and slipped into the frigid water.

  The Client’s car was nearer now. Then the sound of it faded.

  Anne remained low in the water listening for traces of sound. Only her head broke the surface. Her hands gripped a ladder rung near the waterline. Everything around her looked black as if she were in some pit. She pictured herself in her own grave, and then shoved that image out of her head.

  Once again the sound of the Client’s car grew closer. It stopped, and the motor shut down.

  Anne stared into the blackness. Only a trickle of brackish light revealed ripples in the water, ripples the wind had kicked up. She drew herself as close against the ladder as possible. She tried to force herself into the space between the ladder and the concrete wall behind it. She was small enough, she thought, but only one shoulder would slip through.

  Then she noticed her hands, gripping the bottom rung. They were pasty white. White enough to be noticed. Her face would be, too, she realized. So she pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands and hoisted the neck of her sweater up over her face. Then she submerged until only her nose and the top of her head were above the waterline.

  She heard a shuffling of leather soles on the wet, gritty cement.

  Anne chanted softly to herself: Don’t move… Don’t move… Don’t move…

  The footsteps stopped when they passed overhead.

  Don’t move… Don’t move… Don’t move…

  The footsteps continued in a measured pace along the edge of the marine slip. The sounds faded to nothing. A long time passed, but they returned again above her head.

  Please God help me… Please God help me…

  Then the sound of the Client’s presence faded entirely.

  Please… Please…

  Anne couldn’t recall how long she remained in the water after that. It could have been minutes. It could have been half an hour. Her terror had imprisoned her there. She listened attentively for footsteps, but she heard none. She felt light-headed. She felt tired. She listened for footsteps, and soon she couldn’t recall why they were important. The cold was important. It had been very cold. Not so much now, though. And she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten into the water. Maybe she’d fallen off the boat. The water tasted funny, too. Not like the water in Dit’s pool. And Dit’s pool had lights. She liked that pool. She looked around. She didn’t like it here. She didn’t want to be here anymore. And she couldn’t recall why she was here.

  She swung herself around to the front of the ladder and climbed. As soon as she pulled her body above the waterline, though, she felt as if she were carrying a second person on her shoulders. Her arms grew rubbery. Her fingers had little feeling in them. Her legs had been sapped of strength.

  Climbing the ladder eight feet to the top of the slip was taxing. Halfway up Anne had to stop. She rested. At the end of her rest she struggled to recall where she was. She hung onto the ladder, unsure of where to go, until she heard the rev of a car engine and saw the flash of headlights pan across the dock.

  That would be… she thought, but she couldn’t remember the name of the person she expected. In spite of that, her mind registered that thought as a pleasant one and one which spurred her to mount the last two rungs of the ladder.

  Anne grabbed the handhold on top and rolled herself onto the cement deck. She crawled forward a few feet. Then she pulled herself up and staggered toward the lights.

  “Ben! What are you doing here?” She seemed surprised. She attempted a laugh. Then

  Anne collapsed in Ben’s arms.

  Ben carried her to the car and laid her in the back seat. He popped the trunk and retrieved an emergency blanket. As he bent over to wrap the blanket around her, a muffled shot rang out and put a hole through the rear passenger window over Anne’s head and just missed his.

  The shot had come from the far side of the first warehouse. The shot had been a good one – too good – and far too close a call. Whoever took it knew what he was doing, Ben thought. Then he pulled out his service revolver, lay flat on the pavement behind his car, and waited. If he’s that good a shot, maybe he’s got a big enough ego to think he hit me.

  A few minutes later, the Client fired again, two quick ones, and shattered the front passenger window. Ben waited. From a prone position beneath his car he had a clear view to the Client’s position next to the warehouse.

  “Right now, the sonofabitch is thinking I’m dead or unarmed,” Ben muttered under his breath, “… and if I don’t make a move, he’ll have to.”

  Patience is a virtue, he thought, a hunter’s virtue, and he waited for the Client to take the next step.

  Ben’s car faced the marine slip where the Arctic Growler had been berthed. The engine was running. His headlights pointed toward the spot on the slip from which Anne had emerged. The warehouse lay to the right, mostly in darkness. Two other warehouses lined up beyond it. A wide paved road linked them and turned up to connect with the main highway. Ben and Anne had been ambushed just above where the road turned up.

  Ben looked diagonally across the bend in the road at the spot from which the Client’s shots had come from and tried to gauge what the Client might try next. The blaze from Ben’s headlights had cut off a flanking move by the Client to his left. A move to the right was more probable. If he crossed the road he’d be exposed, but a quick run would put him into the shallow ditch on the other side. After that was a rough field. A bit of brush, clumps of grass. Little cover for him.

  In time, the Client became bolder. Ben saw his head poke from behind the warehouse. The Client crouched and looked like he was on the verge of breaking out and heading for the field, but something stopped him.

  He heard something. Ben heard it, too. The rattling of a truck’s diesel engine winding up rpm’s. The truck had pulled out from behind the third warehouse, lugging a heavy load. It was slow to pick up speed, and it was rolling toward them.

  As the tractor-trailer passed the warehouse, the Client leapt out and followed close along the passenger side of the truck, using it as a shield. When the truck made the turn, the Client fell back behind the corner of the trailer. The truck’s lights enveloped Ben’s car and blinded him.

  Ben couldn’t hear the volley of gunfire from the Client’s pistol over the roar of the diesel, but he heard the sharp clank of the b
ullets hitting the hood of his car and striking the engine block. He hastily repositioned himself and returned fire. Then he heard a squeal of air brakes and saw another flash of lights. The truck roared by. Ben was still blinded by lights, but the firing had stopped.

  Cautiously he looked out, his eyes slowly adjusting to the glare. Twenty yards ahead a second truck’s headlights faced him. That truck had stopped. A man’s silhouette stumbled toward him. Ben raised his gun.

  “Police! Hands up! Drop your weapon!”

  The silhouette’s hands raised in the air.

  “I didn’t mean to hit him! He came out of nowhere,” said the silhouette pointing with a quick jab of its hand toward the crumpled body under the truck’s front bumper.

  “Okay, okay! Get back into the cab! And stay there until I tell you otherwise.”

  The truck driver, his hands still in the air, lowered them slowly and climbed back into his rig.

  Ben redirected the barrel of his gun toward the body of the Client and walked toward it. The Client’s automatic lay next to his right hand. Ben kicked it to one side. Then he bent down and checked the body. No bullet holes. He’d missed. The second truck had done the job for him. Ben thumbed through the Client’s wallet. Then he heard Anne cry out from his car.

  “You okay?” he shouted and rushed back to Anne.

  “I think so. What’s happening?”

  “The good news is your troubles are over. The not-so-good news is you’ve got hypothermia, but you’re going to be fine.”

  Anne tried to get up. Ben pushed her back down.

  “Just rest,” he said firmly, “and keep that blanket around you.”

  The blast from the truck’s air horn was deafening at such short range. It startled Ben. He jumped and, doing so, he knocked his head on the car’s door frame. The driver yanked the air horn chain again. The horn blasted, and he held the chain down.

  Ben saw a silhouette standing in front of the truck. He heard a small, sharp report, and a slug struck the open car door he stood behind. Ben fired twice. The silhouette wavered and fell to the ground. It moved. He fired again. Then it moved no more.