Milroy didn’t open with any pleasantries or phone books. He removed the photos from the file folder and placed them, one at a time, in front of Mahoney. The first photo was from inside the cab of Unit 32. It was littered with fast food bags, clipboards, and the repurposed night deposit satchels used to hold the cash. There was another bag, a zippered pouch that had been opened. Inside it were the smaller pouches of the mystery drug that Milroy had made Mahoney pick up, a drug that must have been the crack cocaine.
The next picture was the exterior of Unit 32. It needed some serious detailing. The driver’s door had seen some form of collision, judging by the mangled mess of the exterior mirror and the buckled door skin. It was more than just body work that was needed: something large and dark red had stained the white paint on the door, enough of a stain that the Hook Me Up lettering was almost completely obscured. Something happened to Waller, Mahoney thought. But what?
The next picture took in a larger scene. A red Mustang II was parked at the side of the road, with Unit 32 parked behind it. Beneath the mangled door was something covered with a white sheet, a sheet that Mahoney had also seen before while waiting to pick up the wrecks from fatal accidents. Waller . . .
The next picture was Waller up close. Mahoney couldn’t be 100 percent sure, as the head of the victim had been reduced to a mash of hair, blood, and something greyish in colour. Waller’s brains. There were wounds on his back, most likely from the mangled remnants of the exterior mirror supports. Mahoney had a feeling that if he looked away from the picture, Milroy would tell him to look at it, maybe jam it in his face to make sure. He put as many cuddly puppy thoughts in his head as he could, to keep from throwing up his morning Pop-Tart.
The next picture was of a car that was more Milroy’s style than Mahoney’s. It was a large dark green Buick coupe, definitely a ’71, as the rear shot of the car showed the trunk-mounted louvres that almost every GM car had in ’71. A second picture of the car showed collision damage on the passenger side, damage that must have occurred when the Buick slammed Waller into Unit 32. The third picture of the Buick showed the point of impact for Waller’s head, the inside of the fender. Nice cuddly puppies! Nice cuddly puppies! Nice cuddly puppies!
The last batch of pictures must have been inside the morgue at the Health Sciences Centre. There were five shots in total, all head shots of the recently departed. The first four looked like they had all endured hard miles on the road of life. Two of them had the jailhouse teardrop tattoos under their eyes. The last one was a fresh-faced kid who Milroy seemed to be the angriest about; the kid Mahoney had seen having a seizure at the Ex.
Milroy put the pictures back in the file. He placed them underneath his well-used copy of the White Pages. He put his elbows on the table, folding his hands in front of Mahoney. He wasn’t looking directly at Mahoney; he was looking at the folder of pictures and the phone book. Probably the phone book.
“That kid was only fifteen.”
Mahoney didn’t know what to say.
“You know, I’ve seen a lot of horrible things that people can do to other people,” Milroy continued. “Knives. Guns. Baseball bats. Hammers, from claw to sledge. There’s usually a pretty good story behind it. It may still send somebody to Stony Mountain for twenty-five years, but there’s always a story. Some are better than others. I’ve seen rooms that ended up looking like blood-filled wading pools because of a dime bag.”
Milroy moved his hand closer to the spine of the White Pages. Mahoney tensed himself for what was coming.
“It’s one thing when we’re pulling a body out of a rooming house on Redwood, or the Savoy, or the Sutherland. It’s not like it’s a big surprise to the family, even the neighbourhood. It’s just . . . the way it is. I can handle that. Doesn’t even make me reach for a Labatt’s Lite anymore.” His fingers curled tighter around the spine of the directory. “It’s when I’ve got to drive into the cul-de-sacs. The fucking suburbs. It’s the last place you expect to see a police car, even an unmarked one. And yet, everybody knows what it is. Everybody knows what it means. Do you know what it means, Tow-Job?”
“Uhm . . . no. No, I don’t.”
Milroy jumped up from his chair and swatted Mahoney with the White Pages, knocking him out of the chair. Mahoney’s head hit the opposite wall on the way down, adding a new blemish to the already damaged acoustic tile. He could hardly move with the handcuffs on. He felt something on his upper lip, perhaps blood from his nose.
Milroy squeezed around the table. He got down on his knees, grabbing Mahoney by his shirt. “It means I’ve got to tell somebody that they have to bury a kid who has no right to be buried, you drug-dealing piece of shit!”
“I’m not a dealer! I’ve never dealt anything!”
“Sure, you’re not! If it ain’t drugs, you must be pimping those underage girls in the back of the office. Your boss Ballendine is going away for a long time.”
“I’m not a pimp!” said Mahoney, snorting up the blood the best he could. “Wallbanger was the pimp. I’d pick up the girl if they asked, but I never dropped off! Ever!”
“Get up.” Milroy had moved back from Mahoney. He made him stand against the wall as he moved the chair back into position. “Sit the fuck down, Tow-Job.”
Mahoney did as he was told. Milroy continued.
“I hope you’ve got your resume up to date, ’cause Hooker-Me-Up Towing is dead as disco. Then again, where you’re going, I’d get your pretty-boy lips ready. Maybe you’ll play some football for the prison team. They’ll start you out as a tight end, then move you to wide receiver.”
Mahoney knew he had to spill something that would at least temper the next round of beatings from the detective-sergeant. Something that would get him to back off. Something that would change the conversation. “The Buick . . .”
Milroy leaned in. “The what?”
“The Buick, the one in the picture.”
“The Centurion? What about it?”
Milroy’s definitely a car guy. “It was stolen, right?”
That got Milroy’s attention, not enough to change his opinion of Mahoney. “Yeah, so it was stolen, so what? You’re the one who stole it.”
“I was with people last night. They’ll tell you.”
Milroy leaned back in his chair. “Sure you were, Tow-Job, and they probably crawled out from under the same rock you crawled out from.”
“The car was stolen from a dealership, wasn’t it?”
Milroy leaned closer. “So, you stole it from a dealership?”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Was it Commonwealth?”
Milroy looked at Mahoney. “Yeah, so what? You oughta know if you stole it.”
Mahoney knew he’d found his opening. “Look it up. You tell me when it was reported missing.”
Milroy was starting to look puzzled. He wondered why Mahoney was digging his own hole. He pulled a small coiled notebook out of his front pocket. He flipped to his most recent notations. “Communications logged a call at 8:15 this morning from Commonwealth, said they saw the car was missing this morning. We actually had a call at just before 8 from the garage where you dumped it.”
Mahoney decided not to argue Milroy’s guilt brush for the moment. “Who made the call? From the dealership?”
“What does that got to do with anything?”
Mahoney pressed. “What’s the name of the guy who made the call?”
Milroy checked his notebook. He looked at Mahoney. “What makes you so sure it was a guy?”
Mahoney went for broke. “It was Scrapneck, wasn’t it? Peter Scrapneck.”
Milroy still wasn’t giving in. He checked his notebook. He flipped it shut, stuffing it back in his pocket. “Okay, Tow-Job, tell me more. How do you know this Scrapneck?”
“I don’t. Wallbanger did.”
; “You mean Waller, right?”
“Right. I saw Scrapneck at Commonwealth with Waller.”
Milroy looked at him for a long time. He reached into his pocket for the notebook. He pulled a pen from the same pocket. “Keep talking, Tow-Job.”
Mahoney explained how he had seen the exchange between Jerry Waller and Scrapneck at the dealership. He told him about the Toronado, the one with the mashed-in trunk lid, and how it was already repaired for its TV close-up that evening on CKND.
Milroy scribbled furiously. “So, there’s coke in the trunk lid, right?”
“Not now, it’s already been moved,” said Mahoney.
“Moved where?”
“Wherever Scrapneck was turning it into crack.”
Milroy stopped writing. He put the pen down on the table. He looked at Mahoney.
“How can you possibly know all of this and not be involved?”
Mahoney thought about what to say next. He looked over at the phone book. He went for broke.
“Scrapneck killed Wallbanger.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“I don’t. And I’m pretty sure he had something to do with the girl in my car. The one you said offed herself.”
Milroy looked at Mahoney, hard, waiting for a guilty tell. It didn’t come. “You sure know a lot for someone who isn’t part of this.”
Mahoney agreed. “You’re right, I can’t prove it, at least not the way you or any cop wants to prove it. But I think I can help.” Mahoney went for the heart strings, knowing that doing so could mean a second reading of the White Pages, the close and personal kind. “I can help you get the guy before he kills another kid.”
Mahoney braced himself. The phone book swat didn’t come. Milroy looked down at his notebook. He flipped through the file folder of pictures, stopping at the picture of the late Braeden Westmacott. He put the file folder on top of the phone book. He looked at Mahoney.
“So, what’s the plan here, Tow-Job?”
“We need drivers,” said Mahoney. “And keys. And a phone call.”
“A phone call? To who?”
Mahoney smiled at Milroy. “Channel nine, cable twelve.”
Chapter Forty-Four
June 26, 1985
11:23 a.m.
Peter Scrapneck was wiping his nose clean from his bathroom bump when he heard the overhead page at Commonwealth Motors. He nodded at Lisa Bentley to send the call through to his desk. Dick Loeb had left for an early lunch. Scrapneck was hoping he could fire through a few bigger discounts on deals that were close to being written before Loeb got back.
Scrapneck pressed the flashing line two. “Sales, Peter Scrapneck speaking.”
“Hi, Mr. Scrapneck? It’s Andrew Bradley down at CKND. I’m the cameraman who does the commercials for you.”
Scrapneck had no idea why an Andrew Bradley would be calling him. “Uhm, okay. Something I can help you with?”
“Yeah, sorry about this. We had a problem with the master for the last commercial we shot.”
“What’s a master?”
“The tape. I’m afraid it got erased.”
Scrapneck wasn’t pleased. He said as much. “How the fuck did that happen?”
Bradley apologized. “I’m really sorry about it, but we’ve had a slow day so far, so I could bring one of the trucks down in a half-hour, re-shoot the spot for you. No charge, of course.”
“Damn fucking right it’s no charge!” Scrapneck felt a headache coming on — the headache of having to pull the cars off the line for the spot and getting the wash bay to move at something faster than the speed of smell. He stood up from his half-walled office. He quickly got the attention of one of the senior salesmen, Donny Fischer, as he held the phone to his chest.
“Hey, Fish! Over here!”
The salesman ambled over, a pair of reading glasses perched precariously on the tip of his nose. Scrapneck made gestures to him that could only mean to pick up the pace.
“What’s up, boss?”
“How many of the cars got sold from the commercial we just ran on CKND?”
Fischer gave a sly grin. “None of them. They’re all turds.”
Scrapneck pointed to the key cabinet. “Give the keys to the wash bay. CKND is coming down to re-shoot.”
“Fuuuuuuuuck.” Fischer headed towards the cabinet. Scrapneck continued his call. “Hey, hello? Bradley? Still there?”
“Yes, sir, I’m still here. Are we good to go?”
“Yeah, we’ll have the cars ready.” Scrapneck reached for his script from the last commercial. “It’ll be the same cars we did on Monday.”
“Got it. See you in a bit.”
Scrapneck hung up without any additional pleasantries.
Andrew Bradley hung up the phone in the production suite at CKND. He pressed the line that was flashing on hold.
“Okay, Mr. Milroy?”
“Yes, go ahead. Did you talk to Commonwealth?”
“Yes. I’m going to head there now.”
“Don’t go right there,” said Milroy. “Meet us at the Shell station at Portage and Maryland.”
“How will I know it’s you?”
There was a pause. Then Milroy answered.
“I’ll be next to a purple Camaro.”
June 26, 1985
12:09 p.m.
Steve Mahoney’s wrists were still stinging from his morning in handcuffs. The Coke Slurpee and Hot Rod meat stick that Detective-Sergeant Milroy bought him as a peace offering were going down quickly, maybe too quickly, if the grumbles from his stomach were any indication. He was still a little queasy from Milroy’s lights-and-siren ride to McTavish Street to pick up the Hot Rod. Mahoney thoroughly enjoyed the police escort to the rendezvous. He would have never dared to drive that fast in the city for kicks. Heather had yet to appear in the shotgun seat. He had a feeling that she would soon.
The four keys that Mahoney had requested from the detective-sergeant were lined up in their respective lock cylinders. The first set dangled in a dark green Buick Centurion, the one that had turned Jerry Waller into hamburger. The next was in Unit 32, its driver door still stained with the blood of the former Hook Me Up driver. The third set was in the lock cylinder of Jerry Waller’s Corvette, its top down as if ready for a sunny Wednesday drive. The fourth key was the spare, the one that the late Guy Clairmont had told Rick Scheer about for his Merkur that had been towed to the Hook Me Up lot. The final key was Mahoney’s. The rabbit’s foot swayed in the dash-mounted lock cylinder of his Hot Rod, the engine still giving of its heat ticks from the recent run. If good luck truly existed, he hoped it was in that bunny’s paw.
Mahoney looked over at Milroy. He was busy talking to the cameraman from CKND. An introduction was being made with a plainclothes officer that would accompany the cameraman as his assistant, in case Scrapneck made a break for it. Milroy made the necessary final nods with the cameraman and his new assistant. He walked over to Mahoney, pointing at the icy drink in his hand.
“Coke, right? I hear that shit will dissolve a nail.”
Mahoney looked at the Slurpee. “If it hasn’t eaten through the cup yet, I think I’m okay.”
Milroy smiled. He pulled his pack of Player’s out of his pocket and grabbed the last soldier inside. His Bic had died. He reached into the Merkur to punch in the cigarette lighter. He scanned the car’s interior.
“What the fuck is a Merkur, anyway?
“German Ford,” Mahoney explained. “I think it’s the same guts as a T-Bird Turbo.”
Milroy kept scanning. “Sure is an ugly fucker, or should I say fuck-ur,” said Milroy. He turned to Mahoney. “So, you think this stunt is going to make this Scrapheap guy spill?”
Mahoney smiled. “That’s what she called him.”
“That’s what who called him?”
“Never mind,”
said Mahoney. He didn’t have time to explain, especially since an explanation might immediately put the brakes on the whole operation.
Milroy turned to the rest of the plainclothes officers. They were actually uniformed rookies who had changed into T-shirts, shorts, and ball caps, trying their best to look like the typical dealership lot boys. “Everybody get in your cars and start ’em up. Remember, we’ve got a civilian cameraman and Mr. Mahoney here in his car. We’ll roll up the side street, come into the lot from the rear. I’ll badge the lot guys at the rear of the shop once I get confirmation that Scrapneck is out front for the TV. I’ll drive the first car in. It’s uh, it’s uh . . . hey, Tow-Job, what’s the first car for the commercial?”
“Should be a silver Concord.”
“Okay, silver Concord. As long as the guy doesn’t make me for a cop, we should be good. Everybody clear?”
The nods and hand gestures from the task force said that they were. Milroy got into his LTD and led the convoy.
Chapter Forty-Five
June 26, 1985
12:21 p.m.
Peter Scrapneck was in front of the dealership, having a smoke. He was taking a closer look at one of the new Cherokee models that had just arrived, a red Chief trim with black accents and white-lettered, off-road Michelin tires. It was a two-door, which would move slower off the lot than a four-door model, even more so with the stick shift that rose up from the floorboards. Somebody fucked up on this order. It was time for a new demonstrator. Scrapneck figured that he might even be able to buy it outright.
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