Waller ran as fast as he could to the North Perimeter exit.
Chapter Seventeen
June 19, 1985
10:17 p.m.
Mahoney thought the dinner had gone well. Diana had earned a fiscal assist for ordering the chicken parmigiana, which just happened to be on special. They left the restaurant a little after 10 and a little too full for afters in the neighbourhood. Mahoney noticed the commotion on Wellington Crescent. It looked like a jaywalk gone bad, judging by the bus, the cops, the ambulance, and the sheet-covered body in the street. Diana thought it strange that whoever was under that sheet hadn’t used the nearby crosswalk. Mahoney helped himself to a pair of Ray-Bans that were lying in the street. He had just missed stepping on them.
Hump Day would have to wait. Diana had an early morning meeting at her office, something to do with a competitive advertising push from the paging company she worked for. The panic regarding cellular and its first-of-July launch date seemed very real, even if radio silence for such telephony in Manitoba would be the norm for the foreseeable future. She explained the nuances on the drive home, how the pager made more sense for business professionals. “You get to decide when you want to call them back instead of having to answer and deal with it right away. I mean, what if you don’t have all your notes and stuff with you when they call?”
Mahoney addressed the obvious. “What if you just turn the thing off?”
Diana smiled. “Yeah, I guess you could do that too.”
Mahoney dropped off Diana at her apartment after two solid minutes of grope and tongue at the curbside. He pushed the throttle as expected, as he headed south on Main Street through the CP Rail underpass. The Hot Rod sounded even better than the last three times that evening, a sound that had elicited a “give’r” from Diana on the way back to her apartment. Mahoney figured it was the two glasses of red wine. He took the car back through the downtown, mirroring his route through the French Quarter. There was one thing that seemed out of place as he rolled into his driveway. The Saint Bee stink appeared to have the night off.
Mahoney backed the Camaro into the garage. He was about to lock up for the night when he noticed something in the back seat. Shit. Probably forgot her purse. He opened the passenger door and pushed the seatback forward. But it wasn’t a purse. It was a two-toned Adidas gym bag, sky-blue with white handles and accents. He retrieved it and waited for the fluorescent fixture above the workbench to come to life before he unzipped the bag.
The first thing he noticed was the item on top, an item that any tow-truck driver would be familiar with. The Slim Jim lockout tool was modified, cut down as a custom build for a locksmith or a well-heeled thief. It had obviously never been part of a tow-truck driver’s gear. The metal had minimal scratches. The rubber handle wasn’t stained with grease. Someone had loved this Slim Jim. Someone knew how to use it.
The next item was a summer weight leather coat, rich brown in colour, with just the right amount of wear. Mahoney checked the tag: size 36. It would never fit him. He checked the pockets. A pair of Carrera shades in a soft sleeve, a chrome Cross pen and pencil. A small coiled notebook had been jammed into a high-end leather boat shoe. Mahoney opened the book and was shocked. It was all about him: what he did, the Hot Rod, Diana. Diana McRae. Fuck, he hadn’t even gotten around to asking her last name, and here it was, in a book, in a bag, in his car.
The fluorescent light over the workbench started to flicker, quickly joined by the rest of the fixtures. Mahoney turned slowly towards the Camaro. The Supertuner radio dial was flickering and self-tuning again. He wanted to run, but his legs hardly held him up. He gripped the workbench, wondering which news story from the recent past would be first up on tonight’s broadcast. And then: what if the radio can tune into the future too?
The broadcast started in the past. Way in the past. At least eight different voices came in and out, all saying, “We interrupt this program for a special news bulletin.” Mahoney released his choke hold on the workbench and moved closer.
The flickering of the dial stopped. A voice came from the speakers. “Are you sitting comfortably?”
Mahoney blinked. It sounded like the intro to that Platinum Blonde song — the one that didn’t suck.
The voice repeated. “Are you sitting comfortably?”
Mahoney opened the passenger door of the Camaro. He lowered himself into the passenger seat, slowly, cautiously. He didn’t feel he had a choice in the matter. He stretched his legs into the footwell.
The voice asked a third time. “Are you sitting comfortably?”
Mahoney tilted his head back to answer. He wasn’t enthusiastic. “Yes.”
The passenger door slammed shut. “Then we’ll begin.”
Mahoney was truly hoping for Platinum Blonde at this point. The fluorescent tubes started to swirl overhead. Different colours started to pulse through the tubes. Mahoney thought it looked like a low-rent version of the crazy light show in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The entire garage was humming. The overhead door was vibrating. Tools fell off the workbench onto the floor. Mahoney closed his eyes tight. Then it stopped. The garage went as dark as a moonless night. That’s when Mahoney heard a new voice. “You can open your eyes now.”
Mahoney resisted at first, then slowly opened his eyelids. The Hot Rod was filling with small nodules of soft light, some swirling, some floating, some blinking like summer fireflies. The light was everywhere, not resembling a shape or trying to become one. Mahoney watched in awe as the lights started to move towards the driver’s seat, the swirling becoming more intense. The swirling arrived at its crescendo, with a blinding burst of light that made Mahoney look away, hoping that the flash wouldn’t consume him. He closed his eyes again. The new voice spoke again. “It’s all right, Steven. I’m here now.”
Mahoney felt his left eyelid flicker open first. He started to move his head ever so slightly to the left. His peripheral saw the being first. It was a woman. He turned his head to face her. He looked upon a strange, shimmering woman, with green eyes that looked more like moving kaleidoscopes than the common iris. Her red hair seemed to be floating, the way that Mahoney had seen other women’s hair float while splashing in pools or grabbing at their bikini straps underwater at Grand Beach in junior high. There was no water in the car. The hair moved as though there was.
Mahoney didn’t know what to say to the being in the driver’s seat. He knew he had to say something. He felt the words forming in his mouth. “So, uhm, you’re the girl living in my radio?”
The woman smiled. “I haven’t been a girl for a long time.”
Women, thought Mahoney. I’m always saying the wrong thing to them. He regrouped. “Uhm, sorry about that. You’re the woman living in my radio?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
The woman smiled. “I’m not living anymore, that much I know. I was recently, then I wasn’t. I know it sounds . . . strange. I don’t know what this is. I just know that I can’t leave this place. Not yet anyway.”
Mahoney was starting to put two and two together. “So, you’re a ghost?”
The woman’s kaleidoscope eyes fluttered as she laughed. “I guess you can call me that, if you like. I don’t know if you’re supposed to call a ghost by her name or not. This is all so strange. I don’t feel dead. And, yet, I don’t feel alive either.”
Mahoney remembered the name of the woman who had been found in the Camaro. “Heather Price. They said your name wa — I mean, is Heather Price.”
“Yes,” said the woman. “That sounds right. Heather.”
“Do you remember how you got here?”
Price’s expression went blank. Mahoney thought she might be remembering what had happened. If she was, she didn’t share everything. “I remember the water. It was cold, so cold. It, it woke me up.”
Woke you up? Mahoney remembered the morning o
f June ninth. He had told himself that he didn’t want to see who was in the car. He knew that he had seen glimpses of her body in the car, heard the handcuffs being cut, heard the body fall out, heard her insertion into the body bag. He didn’t want to remember. It was clear that he had.
Mahoney looked at Price. She was still off in a faraway place. He didn’t know how to broach the subject, though he felt that there were probably certain things that you should or shouldn’t say to a newly minted ghost. He tried to remember the prompts from the Ouija board instructions of his youth. He decided that simple yes-or-no questions might be the best course of action. “Heather, do you remember how you got into the car?”
“No.”
“Do you remember driving the car?”
“No.”
So far, so good. Mahoney decided to up the ante. “Heather, do you remember killing yourself?”
Mahoney knew he shouldn’t have asked the question the second that he said it. The inside of the car grew darker, more sinister. The next thing he saw was a less-spectral Heather Price, inside the Camaro’s former black interior, handcuffed to the steering wheel. The car was filling up with water, a water that he didn’t feel, a water that wasn’t making him wet. She was panting frantically in between screams, trying to free herself from the handcuffs that had secured her to the steering wheel. She kicked. She pushed on the top of the steering wheel rim, bending it forward, somehow catching the headlight switch in her furious efforts, an action that ensured that she would be found. The water rose to her neck, then covered her face. She hadn’t taken enough of a last breath. Mahoney watched as she convulsed, her last screams muffled by the silty-brown water of the Red River. Then she was still. She had deep wounds on her wrists from trying to escape the handcuffs, her blood slowly mixing with the water. Her eyes were wide open. Her hair was moving just like it had when he had met her some 10 minutes before. Small bubbles were coming out of her nose and mouth. She turned her head to look at him. She blinked, revealing nothing but the whites of her eyes. Her lips spoke the answer to his question. “No.”
Mahoney grabbed the door handle, falling out of the car onto the floor. He moved as fast as he could to the rear of the car, which seemed to be the safest place at the time. He couldn’t see Price through the back window. He did see the radio dial flicker. The speakers were broadcasting the bits and pieces of the quickly scanning dial. It was stopping on various news stories. There was a familiar theme. Mahoney got the gist after the sixth mention.
“The Winnipeg Police said . . .”
Chapter Eighteen
June 20, 1985
5:30 p.m.
Mahoney hadn’t expected traffic to be light enough for him to make it downtown during the rush hour parking ban. He had been circling the Public Safety Building for 15 minutes. He was hoping to speak to Detective-Sergeant Patrick Milroy, though he wasn’t exactly sure how to find him or know what he would say to Milroy if he did find him. He practised a few scenarios while crawling down King Street in his Plymouth.
“Uh, Detective Milroy?” Dammit. Detective-Sergeant. “I’m Steve Mahoney. I pulled that car with Heather Price in it out of the river.” Mahoney didn’t like how it was sounding. He tried again, a little less formal. “Hey, Milroy. Mahoney. I don’t think that girl in the car offed herself. What do you think about that?” A little too ballsy, Mahoney thought. He then said it the way that would get him into the wacko ward at the Health Sciences Centre right quick. “Detective-Sergeant Milroy. I believe the woman who died in my car is now haunting it, and she doesn’t know if she killed herself.” Yeah, that totally works.
“Who the fuck are you talking to?”
Mahoney looked to the right. The windows were down on his Plymouth, as were most cars in the rush hour scrum. The driver of a Red Patch Taxi was looking at Mahoney the way that most people look at someone who is completely nuts. Mahoney didn’t know what to say. “Uh . . .”
The Red Patch driver asked again. “I said, who the fuck are you talking to?”
Mahoney figured out the best answer to be left alone. “The Lord. And God bless you.”
The cabbie shook his head. Mahoney decided to roll his introductory speeches around in his head for the time being. Mahoney eventually found a spot near the Call Box Lounge, the cop bar across from the Public Safety Building parkade. He was about to jaywalk to the police department entrance when he heard a familiar voice. “You want a ticket for that, Tow-Job?”
Mahoney turned to face the voice. Detective-Sergeant Patrick Milroy had just come out of the Call Box Lounge. He was trying to light his cigarette, cupping the combustion away from the stiff breeze. The spark wouldn’t take. “Hey, I was just going over to . . .”
“It’s a good thing there are no uniforms around,” said Milroy. “I think that was the last time I carried a ticket book. And you’re a little late if you’re paying a ticket. The office closes at 4:30.”
“It’s not a ticket,” said Mahoney. “I’m actually looking for you.”
Milroy looked up from his cupped hands, his unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Me? Whatever the fuck for?”
Mahoney realized that all his practice speeches had left him. He decided to wing it. “Uh, you remember that car in the river, right?”
“Yes Tow-Job, I remember. What about it?”
“Well, I bought it.”
“Why? Are your mom and dad cousins?”
Mahoney explained. “I have the same car, got its roof crushed.”
“Roof crushed? Wow, you must be one shitty driver then, eh, Tow-Job?” Milroy chuckled to himself as he attempted a re-light. He stopped. “Wait a minute. Roof crushed. Was that the CAMAROWW at Kildonan Park?”
Mahoney was surprised Milroy would even know about that. “Yeah, that’s my old car. Tree branch smashed it.”
“Was that an actual SS, or did you just slap on the badges like most Camaro assholes?”
This cop is a car guy? Mahoney relaxed a little. “It’s a real SS. Well, it was an SS. Now all its guts are in the car from the river.”
“Well, I guess you saved it then, kinda.” Milroy started walking south on Princess. “My car’s on Elgin. I don’t bring it out most days, usually take home one of those fucking K-Cars they bought for the plainclothes. But it’s finally getting nice out.”
Mahoney turned the corner and saw Milroy’s car, a red 1970 Buick Wildcat coupe, topped with a black vinyl roof. Milroy started spouting the specs. “I rebuilt the 455, put a shift kit in the Turbo 400. It’s got a 12-bolt Posi, front discs, and cop tires. Some banker in Fargo had it. The way it moves now, some bank robber would love it.”
Mahoney gave the Buick a proper car-guy once-over. The Wildcat wasn’t his thing, but he could certainly respect anyone who spent the time to build anything up, even if the car seemed a little old-man. “What’s it putting out?”
“About four hundred horses,” said Milroy. “The torque is nuts on these things. I can leave a strip for about half a block, if I feel like being a complete idiot.”
Mahoney remembered why he was there. “Listen, I gotta ask about the Camaro.”
“What about it?”
“How do you know for sure it’s a suicide?”
Milroy finally got his cigarette to light. He drew in a long drag, exhaling before he answered. “You realize you’re asking a cop this question, right?”
“I know. It’s just . . .”
“It’s just what?”
“It’s just, what I mean is, uh, the girlfriend.”
“What about your girlfriend?”
Mahoney realized he had discovered a way to ask without asking. He built on the story, thinking Diana would be stoked that he’d called her his girlfriend, if he ever told her about it. “Well, she’s just a little weirded out by the whole thing, that someone died in it and all.”
“What did you pay
for it?”
“Twelve bills.”
Milroy snickered. “Wow, you must really like Camaros!” He took another quick drag before he continued. “Look, as far as we’re concerned, it’s a straight-up suicide. There was water in her lungs. You don’t get water in your lungs unless you try to breathe it. She cuffed herself in, rolled into the river, swallowed a couple of gallons, and it was done. Probably took less than a minute till it was all over.”
Mahoney decided to keep using the girlfriend angle. “Well, the girlie watches a lot of those detective shows. All the new ones. Even old ones, like The Rockford Files.”
“And?”
“Well, she wondered . . .”
“Wondered what?”
“If it wasn’t actually a suicide. Just made to, you know, look like one.” Milroy’s expression went deadpan. Mahoney worried he’d gone too far. “So’s I tell her she’s watching too much TV.”
“That’s exactly what I’d tell her,” said Milroy. “Look, Tow-Job, I’ve seen way too many dead bodies. I’ve seen suicides, death-by-misadventure, auto-erotic asphyxiation, even a full-on electrocution at a hydro substation. Real life isn’t like TV or the movies.” Milroy took another drag before he made his summation. “Every dead body tells a story. The chapters are the little bits and pieces of evidence that we find when we investigate. As for the girl in your car, there wasn’t anything that pointed in the other direction. Besides, I don’t have the luxury of going Hollywood cop on this stuff. If I thought every suicide was a murder, I’d never get a chance to investigate a murder that needs investigating. Let’s say you’ve got 10 pieces of evidence. If seven of those pieces point to suicide, you call that puzzle solved.”
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