Evil Eye

by Michael Slade

The tyke was on a trike plummeting out of control. She had escaped from a hillside yard where her mother stood screaming at the gate. The sidewalk slope was too steep for the muscles of her legs, gravity spinning the pedals so fast her feet were thrown off. The tricycle had jumped the curb from sidewalk to road, hurtling the child toward the flashing railway lights below.

  As Nick swerved up the loop above Fool's Crossing, he glimpsed the train and trike on a collision course. Gearing down, he wrenched the fuel throttle and plunged down the grade. The Harley roared by traffic stopped at the crossing as an Idaho tourist snapped a photograph. Five feet from the tracks, Nick passed the trike, which was crushed a moment later under the train. It was no heroic, he was going that way, but as the hog zoomed by Nick hooked the child, tearing her from the seat while leaving a shoe behind. Once the train passed, tyke now on his hip, he rode her home as the tourist snapped another photograph.

  4 Tm proud of you," his mom said when she arrived

  home from the hospital. She pinned the newspaper photos by her bed: one of the rescue, the other the aftermath. Encircling the kid like a boa was Nick's tattooed arm, bared to where his jean jacket frayed at the shoulder. Nick's hair was tangled like the roots of a tree, and bugs were squashed on his stubbled cheeks and jaw. The caption under the photos read Here comes the fright Nick—as with Kidd, studying Nosy's scrapbook eighteen years later—wondered if that referred to the incident or him.

  A week later, his mom left a pamphlet in his room. With it was an RCMP recruitment form, and a note: / can get you in.

  What the hell? Nick thought. Fame is better than notoriety.

  Leaving Nosy Parker's home to cross Mary Hill Road to the murder scene, Rachel sensed binoculars following her. Though the street was still blocked at both ends, that hadn't stopped gawkers from assembling, or media crews from lugging in cameras and mikes. Running their gauntlet of insistent questions, Kidd parried with 'The investigation is progressing." Strung tree to tree like a boxing ring, yellow tape with black words caution police do not cross cordoned off Dora's house. As Stekl arrested a youth for violating the warning, Kidd angled around the porch to the back door, where she cinched plastic bags over her shoes and tugged latex gloves onto both hands.

  Rachel was about to enter when a black cat crossed her path, hindering her by scratching the scratch marks lower on the door. Allergic to cats, Kidd shooed Dora's pet away.

  The Identification techs inside were sheathed in "monkey suits," white overalls with attached hoods and boots, their hands double-gloved to ensure they didn't leave prints through the thin latex. Moving about the house, they looked like ghosts. One videotaped the crime scene in VHS. Another photographed it in 35mm color, except dusted prints, which were shot in black and white. Hairs and fibers, blood spatter analysis, tool marks, footprints, measurements: each Ident tech had a job. Outlined in tape across the floor from the door to the body was a

  "path of contamination" for Rachel to use, the route already cleaned of clues so it could be "tainted."

  Kidd gazed down at the corpse.

  "Bludgeoned with a blunt object," said the senior tech. "Standing at the sink when she was clubbed from behind. Blow caved in the back of her skull. Her body bounced off the sink to fall back faceup on the floor. Head twisted sideways and blood poured out. Careful you don't track through the pool."

  "Find the weapon?"

  "Missing from the house. Killer took it with him when he fled."

  "Break-in?"

  "No. Every entrance is secure with no tampering. No jimmy marks, dust scuff, glove smudge, fingerprints, or nothing."

  "She let the killer in?"

  "Near as we can tell."

  "And was washing dishes when she was clubbed?"

  "Apron and rubber gloves make that a safe bet. And blood pattern backs it up."

  "Someone she knew," Kidd said, "who took her by surprise. Blows about the face often indicate a killer related to the victim. The more severe the beating, the closer the relationship. The window above the sink reflects the room behind. The image of a stranger would cause her to turn in fright. She knew the face behind her and didn't see the club."

  "Whoever it was, my guess is she fed him pumpkin pie."

  Kidd flinched. "Why?"

  "There's a casserole in the oven uncooked. Must be dinner. The dishes in the sink were used to prepare but not eat a meal. Except for two small plates and dessert forks."

  He led Kidd along the path of contamination to the fridge on the other side of the kitchen. A pumpkin pie sat on the lower shelf within, cut into six wedges with two Vs missing. Letters were gone from the words "Happy Birthday" in whipped cream.

  "You cut a birthday pie for the person having the birthday," said Kidd. "Is there a man's overcoat drying in the house?"

  "No. Should there be?"

  "Casserole completed, she's washing dishes at the sink when Birthday Boy drops by. They have pie together for afternoon tea. Cups in the sink?"

  "Two," said the tech.

  "Finished, she adds the dishes to the others. When her back is turned, she's clubbed from behind. Perhaps she thought the killer was going to dry. Anything found to dispel that theory?"

  "The opposite," said the tech.

  A counter lined the rear wall of the kitchen, serving the cast-iron stove and modern cooking range. The tech pulled open one of four drawers beneath to withdraw a large brown envelope. December 1993 was written on front. Inside were three bills stamped Paid, several early Christmas cards, and a typed but unsigned letter.

  Careful of prints, the tech held up the letter for Kidd to read:

  December 2, 1993

  Mother—

  It's taken my lifetime to uncover your whitewashed secret. Discussing it face to face on my birthday seems fitting. I'll call on the 7th.

  GUILT

  "Nicholas Craven, you have a Smartie stuck up your nose."

  How the candy got there, he had no recall, for the childhood recollection didn't go back that far, but as Nick trudged down the Hill to Colony Farm, the torch offered by Kidd sweeping the misty path, a vivid memory of Mom stabbed him.

  "Silly boy," she scolded him, tilting back his chin, him seated on the table with her kneeling on the floor, as she tried to hook the candy-coated chocolate with her nail.

  Though he was only four, it seemed just yesterday, steam from the kettle wafting up his nose, Mom employing hot air to melt the stubborn blockage, until something sticky ran down his lip.

  "Look," she said, holding up her hand-mirror.

  The Smartie was red. "Blood!" sobbed Nick. Then he began to wail.

  The memory faded with Mom cuddling him. . . .

  If only he had stayed for pie and a second cup of tea, he'd have been here to protect her when the psycho chanced by, but no— Sip sip. Thanks, Mom. Quick in and out —he didn't want to miss the opening of the bar, so he left her to celebrate his birthday alone by falling victim to a nut.

  As Nick tromped down Mary Hill, tears streaked his cheeks.

  Only now when Mom lay dead in his childhood home did he fully appreciate all she'd done for him, toiling dawn to dusk to keep his early life secure, but taking the time to create "adventures" on her days off. No, he couldn't run to her now and say "You're the best, Mom." Opportunity lost.

  "Close your eyes and sniff, Nicholas. Finest smell in the world. Mmm," she said. This was their "Adventure in Bakeryland," standing by the huge ovens in McGavin's on Broadway, smelling the loaves of brown and white and Danish pastries baking, Mom having marched into the manager's office to confide her son hoped to be a baker, so could they look around?

  "Close your eyes and listen to the bottles clink," she said. This was their "Adventure in Coca-Colaland," Mom having marched into the bottling plant at Cornwall and Burrard to say her son hoped to be a beverage dispenser, so could they look around? The guy whose job it was to sit staring at passing bottles all day to ensure they were clean for filling had fallen asleep. As they went by, Nick snapped hi
s fingers like he imagined hypnotist Reveen would do.

  Then came "Adventure in Lumberland," a mill on the Fraser, "Adventure in Dairy land," when dairies were still in town, "Adventure in Frontier land," a drive to Fort Langley, "Adventure in Smellyland," a trek to the Steves-

  ton docks, and, best of all, 'Adventure in Newspa-perland. "

  The Sun Tower at Pender and Beany is a Vancouver landmark. "Skip" O'Rourke, a Luddite who retired when computers spoiled the action, and the man to whom the Headhunter sent photos of cutoff heads on stakes, was news editor in the early sixties. "So you want to be a reporter?" he said to Nick, puffing cigar smoke down at the boy the height of his Guinness belly eyeing his Popeye tattoo.

  Nick nodded.

  They were touring the editorial room, a collection of reporters' desks supplying the rim, a U-shaped table around the slot. Manning the slot till page proofs came down, a copyboy scowled at this possible usurpation of his future job.

  "It's quiet now," the Skipper said, "because we've put the three-star to bed. If you'd come on deadline, this would be a madhouse."

  Plunk! A cylinder dropped from the pneumatic tube. Withdrawing the proofs, the copyboy flattened them on O'Rourke's desk.

  The Skipper grabbed a sheet of yellow copy from a basket. "That suction tube sucked this story up to the linotype room where it went into print/' He gave Nick a moment to read:

  SALMON DERBY IN PICTURES, PAGE 17

  A sleepy chinook, fat, sassy, and happy with life, yawned and hastily gulped his breakfast Sunday.

  Too hastily.

  With one munch, there in the cold, clear, predawn waters off Seal Rock, that fat fish, all 28 pounds 12 ounces of him, had become Exhibit A in The Sun's 25th annual Salmon Derby . . .

  "These proofs that just came down are what will go to your home. ,y

  "Why do we see errors in the paper?" asked Nick.

  "They're typos, son. We don't have time to catch them all."

  Ts that a typo?" Nick said, pointing to the proof of the front page:

  SALMON DERBY IN PICTURES, PAGE 17

  A sleepy chink, fat, sassy, and happy with life, yawned and hastily gulped his breakfast Sunday . . .

  Some typos you can live with — and some typos you can't. The cigar dropped from O'Rourke's mouth, spewing sparks. "Holy shit! Stop the presses!'' he yelled. Till his teens Nick planned to be a newspaperman. All that excitement. What a job!

  Memories of Mom kept pace with his tears as Craven lugged his burden of guilt across Colony Farm, down the path from Mary Hill Road and along the top of the dike, the Cheshire cat moon—a grin but no face—and Kidd's torch the only light, the outline of an old silo beyond the ditch to his left, a corrugated sewer pouring water into the trough, the route just two ruts underneath his feet, with old fencing of crooked posts and rusty wires right. On both sides, invisible wings flapped over the fields of marsh.

  Midway in, the route was blocked by the Coquitlam River, dike meeting dike to form a T. The tributary was twenty feet across and shallow enough for a fugitive to wade. Along the back of the field on the opposite bank, Colony Farm Road stretched from FPI to the scene of the deputies' murders, then on to the Lougheed Highway. Nick followed the river dike left.

  If only he'd asked certain questions at Minnekhada Lodge, like where the absent Coquitlam Members had been called out to, he might have rushed here to ensure Mom was protected.

  But no, instead he'd swapped traffic ticket tales with Rabidowski.

  Some son.

  Ahead, the pale moonlight sheened a spooky bridge, like the relic in Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Made of crisscross timbers, the skeletal span was weak, and minus both on-ramps, hadn't felt traffic for years. The only way to traverse the river without getting wet, Nick scaled the supports bracing this end to wobble his way across, then climbed down the buttresses on the far side, cutting his right palm on a nail in the awkward descent.

  Sucking the wound, he floundered up the opposite dike.

  A short hike downstream brought him to Riverside. Behind the grilled windows of the FPI facility for the criminally insane, human monsters glared at him. Now as the Mountie turned back along Colony Farm Road, heading upstream to glean everything known about the psycho who clubbed his mom from the cops investigating the earlier murders, Nick faintly heard gibbering laughter escaping from the asylum.

  He who laughs last laughs loudest.

  West Vancouver

  Who says you can't have it all?

  Twelve miles as the crow flies west from Coquitlam and Colony Farm, in her home atop Sentinel Hill, Gillian Macbeth stood naked before the living-room mirror. Good-bye fair figure, she thought.

  Inherited from her father. Gill owned a string of Caribbean hotels, from which she split the profits with on-site managers, earning money to burn without having to work. Like her mother, the first female pathologist in the Commonwealth, who died from hepatitis, a risk of the job. Gill was perhaps the best forensic sawbones in town. Unmarried and forty, she'd worked out a relationship with a younger man that offered sizzling sex without ties that bind. And now. just in time to thwart her biological clock. Gill Macbeth had found out today she was pregnant.

  Gill gave the mirror a thumbs-up, which the mirror gave back.

  The twin reflected by the glass was handsome, not pretty. People told Gill she looked a lot like Candice Bergen, auburn hair, emerald eyes, seductive mouth. Her figure was strong enough to match her lover stroke for stroke and leave him exhausted, yet graceful enough that she still turned heads on the street.

  "Nice bod," Gabby said, cocking his head.

  She wagged a finger at him. "Cheeky boy.*'

  'Tour cheeks," the West African gray parrot mimicked.

  So intelligent was the bird that he spoke with the abil-

  ity of a seven-year-old child. Gabby shared his solarium-cum-aviary with a green-winged macaw named Binky. Binky was conceited because he cost twenty-five hundred dollars. Gabby was jealous of Gill's beau and wanted her all to himself.

  "Music, maestro," Gabby said, in the mood to party from the way he paced his perch.

  Gill moved toward her CD collection.

  "Fuck Bach," the parrot opined by way of critical comment.

  "Easy, Gab, or I'll wash your beak out with soap. The Killer it is," Gill said, "if that will shut you up." The piano pump of "Great Balls of Fire" filled the room. She hoped for the sake of her nerves Gabby wasn't about to sing.

  Gill slid back the glass door between the dining room and outside deck where a pool and hot tub overlooked English Bay. Matching how she felt tonight, the city lay at her feet. Gill cranked a knob and the hot tub bubbled, then closing the door on Gabby's karaoke session, she padded through the chill night air to sink into the steam. Like the child in her womb, the tub was a womb to her.

  Relaxing, Gill recalled the night she first shared the tub with Nick during the Ripper case.

  Their toes played footsie under the water as Gill said, "How do people react when you say you were born in Medicine Hat? That's one step up from Moose Jaw."

  "I'll have you know Medicine Hat is a very cultured place. Where were you born? Holetown, Barbados?"

  Gill laughed. "A little south. So where's Medicine Hat?"

  "Crossing from Saskatchewan into Alberta, you pass through dry short-grass country where wheat farming gives way to cattle ranching, then descend an incline into The Hat, which Rudyard Kipling described as a town 'with all Hell for a basement.' "

  "It's the Bible Belt?"

  "It sits on natural gas. Still, the town's not without its supernatural legends. Story is a gust of wind caught the magic hat of a Cree medicine man during a battle with the Blackfoot and sent it flying into the Saskatchewan River. The Cree saw it as a dire omen and fled."

  Mouth open, Gill tilted her head back to catch some

  of the rain. The wind was blowing so fast the city was stripped of its pollution. "Your turn. What do you want to know about me?"

  "W
hy am I here? We're hardly two of a kind."

  T'm bored by predictable men and you puzzle me."

  "1 think Vm straightforward."

  "Dream on, retro man. I see this picture in the paper of a Hells Angel with a kiddie tucked under his arm, so I ask myself why a man like that risked death to save the girl."

  "She was in the way and blocked my arm."

  "Why'd you become a cop?"

  "To legally beat people up."

  'Crack on the head. Broken fingers. Joke's on you."

  "My dad was a Mountie. So was his dad. It all began when my great-grandfather won the VC at Rorke's Drift in the Anglo-Zulu War."

  "Is that why, gun blazing, you kicked in Tarot's door? I think you're addicted to danger and thrills."

  "Don't see why that interests you."

  "So I'm not puzzled later. The way you're going, odds are you'll end up on my slab. Glean the facts now, and I'll know why you died."

  Nick laughed. "Spider woman. Madame Defarge."

  Gill ran her foot up his submerged calf. "I'm not looking for ties. I'm looking for excitement. I want to Whitewater raft and skin-dive for treasure. I want to downhill race and zoom on a chopper. I want someone wild to electrify me in bed."

  "And I thought ou lived to curl up with a good book."

  Gill paddled across the tub and slithered up his chest. "Tell me your secret. What drives you?"

  "My dad shot himself the day I was born, and I don't know why."

  The glass door sliding back dissolved the memory. Gabby stopped singing "Milkshake Mademoiselle" to warn, "He's not for you, Gill. His nose is too big."

  Nick didn't know she was pregnant yet.

  Her back to the door, Gill asked, "How was the Red Serge Dinner?" She turned to add Strip off your clothes and join us, Dad, but what she saw in Nick's eyes made her shiver in the hot tub.

  Rorke's Drift, Africa Wednesday, January 22, 1879

  "Hold that door!" Lance-Sergeant Craven shouted to Private Williams through the cacophony of race war battle. With his own bayonet he hacked frantically at the internal wall.