Dead Girl Found

by Warren Court

  “What do you want?” she said

  “I want to come in. Are you alright?”

  She left the door open and Armour entered her house. He’d driven around Port Dover for a bit after his discussion with Kenny, his mind racing. He knew all the while he’d end up here.

  Cathy went and sat on the bed, looking hopeless and dejected. Armour knelt in front of her but said nothing, just put his hand on her thigh. After a while she said, “He doesn’t mean to, he just got drunk. When he gets drunk he gets angry. I don’t know why.”

  “Your husband,” Armour said.

  She nodded. “I over-cooked the steak, it was overdone. Tough as a shoe, he said. We can’t afford steak very often, I should know better.”

  “He hit you over that? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Cathy, are you hurt anywhere else?” He put his hand on her arm and she pulled back.

  “He said it’s his right.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  She covered her eye with her hand. Armour looked around and saw blood on the mattress, the rumpled sheets.

  “Where is he?”

  “Gone. Work,” she said. “He was only home for a couple of days.”

  “You’re coming to the hospital with me.”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Then we’re going to the police station.”

  “Police, what will they do? Just stay with me.”

  He sat on the bed and put his arm around her. He saw the shot gun in the corner, wondered if it was loaded. He got up went over and cracked it, it was. He took the shells and put them on the mantle then went into the kitchen, opened the ice box, took out some bread and ham and made her a sandwich. He didn’t know what else to do. The fire was glowing embers and he filled the iron kettle and put it in its holder over the heat. As he tidied up, she curled up on the bed in a fetal position and watched him move about.

  “You should come home with me. I could look after you.”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “You have options. Good ones.” Then Armour thought about Melanie. Did he love this woman? Would Melanie understand and still be his friend? He remembered their kiss in her apartment. It had been nice, for a moment. But they had let a genie out of the bottle, could they put it back in?

  “I should go, Cathy,” Armour said after there was nothing left to do except change the sheets, but he would leave that to her to do.

  He sat on the bed again and put his arm on her. She was warm and sleeping quietly and woke with the sound of his voice.

  “I should go,” he said again.

  “Please stay.”

  “I can’t. It’s not right. You’re a married woman and if he comes home and finds me here…”

  “Please stay.”

  “I want to help you but you have to let me.”

  Armour got up and put his jacket on. He didn’t look back when he walked out.

  He paused at the gate. On the fence was a carving he’d seen it the first time he’d come on to her property but hadn’t really stopped to look. A symbol carved into the wood of the fence post, the blade of a knife with lines through it. He rubbed his thumb over it. It was hobo code. He took out his notebook and jotted down the symbol.

  On his way back home, Armour saw a truck stop up on the right and pulled in for gas. There was a white pickup with rusty wheel wells parked outside of a bar that was attached to the diner and convenience store portion of the truck stop. Armour filled his car, never taking his eyes off the truck. The door of the bar opened and country music spilled out and two young men came stumbling out, got in a car and drove off.

  With his gas tank full and paid for, Armour pulled across the road from the bar and parked in the shadow of a trailer. Hidden enough so he could just see the door of the bar and the pickup. He sipped a coffee he bought in the diner and waited. Hours went by and the coffee started working its way down to his bladder, but he stayed put.

  Finally, the bar seemed to be closing down. Armour could barely make out his watch which showed it was 1 a.m. A man emerged. It was the security guard from the steel plant, clearly intoxicated and carefully choosing his steps on the uneven gravel parking lot in front of the bar. He got in the white pickup.

  Armour waited for the man to get in his car and then started his Model T. The pickup pulled out slowly onto the road and headed back into town. Armour followed.

  The man did not drive fast, actually he drove exceedingly slowly and cautiously. He’s drunk, Armour thought, and doesn’t want to get in an accident or get pulled over by the police.

  The security guard took regional road three over to the Nanticoke road and turned south towards the Lake. Armour made sure to keep well back, the red lights of the pickup were half a kilometre ahead of him.

  Armour could see windmills on either side of him silently turning, their white blades gleaming in the moonlight. The man turned west onto Rainham road and Armour followed him through the hamlet of Nanticoke with farmhouses on either side of him. A general store, a mechanics shop all dark now at this time of night. Armour closed the distance somewhat as the man could easily loose him here. Armour saw him swerve over the center line more than once. He did a rolling stop at a stop sign and turned left onto Riverside Drive.

  Riverside Drive took them down to the shores of Lake Erie. There was a small dock and Armour could see several of the Noah’s Arc shaped fishing trawlers up on their stilts. In the distance was the defunct coal fired power generating station. Riverside drive snaked along the lake shore and there were houses and cottages on the shore side of the road.

  Armour smelt something familiar and to the right of him, on the inland side of Riverside drive was an enormous ESSO oil refinery. The smell reminded Armour of downtown Hamilton. He thought of these cottages and houses, right on the lake in an ideal setting surrounded by the odour of heavy industry and it was almost laughable.

  Armour saw the pickup make a turn into a driveway and saw the reflection of the lights on a stand of pine trees as it drove down to the lake. Armour slowed, pulled over and shut his lights off but left the car running. He counted to twenty, heard the hollow metal slam of the pickup’s door and then counted another twenty before slowly walking to the driveway. There was a house at the end of it right on the lake. On the far side of the driveway was a crude hand drawn sign. It said Paradise. Some Paradise, Armour thought, the smell coming from the plant across the road was nauseating.

  A light came on inside the house and Armour saw the security guard moving about. At the top of the driveway was a mailbox but no name on it. He opened it and there were several letters in it and he took them out. By the moonlight he could just make out they were addressed to Bill Powers.

  “Gotcha,” Armour said and left. He backed his Model T up a hundred yards, did a three-point turn and headed back home.

  26

  Armour was set up on Bill Powers’ lakeshore house by ten the next morning. The white rusted pickup was still there. Armour suspected Powers would be sleeping one off. He’d brought along a pair of vintage world war one binoculars and paused at the top of the driveway just long enough to make out the plate on Powers’ truck. BDN 455. He then motored further down the road and parked by a small brick building next to a deep gully that ran from the lake to the steel plant. He parked on the far side of it, putting the brick building between his car and Powers’ house.

  Armour sat there for a while. He had a couple of sandwiches, a metal thermos of coffee and another one of water. Powers didn’t resurface until noon and, with the help of the field glasses, Armour saw the security guard shuffle out of his house. He was hunched over. Armour could imagine the headache the man had. Armour remembered his own father’s late-night binges. How he had trouble shaking them off the next morning as the years wore on. Then one day his father just gave it up, only really drinking a glass of red wine at Christmas or New Year’s but no more partying into the wee smalls. Armour had c
ut back for the same reasons, finding the day after a night of heavy drinking to be a complete write off.

  He still enjoyed the occasional cocktail but, since his wife Bess died, he no longer went out. He had no one to go out with. Melanie was a home body and the only time the two of them enjoyed a drink was at her apartment. He made a mental note to invite her over for dinner soon, she had hosted him too many times in a row. Then he thought of that awkward kiss in her apartment. He was still confused over the feelings it had generated and feared she might decline the invitation.

  Armour started his Model T and let Powers get a kilometre ahead of him before he pulled out and followed. If the security guard was going to work he would make Armour once he took the cut off to the Eastman Lake Steel plant. Armour wondered why Powers hadn’t applied for a job at the ESSO plant across from his house or the large steel factory nearby. He remembered the sign on the road that indicated they were hiring. Talk about an easy commute. Maybe he had applied and been turned down. Guarding the rusting and defunct ELS plant was the only work he could find.

  Powers got back out onto Rainham and took it into Port Dover. He parked in front of a bank and went inside. Armour drove past and made a U-Turn in main street and parked, hoping the man’s hangover would dull his senses and he wouldn’t realize there was a nearly hundred-year-old car following him. It would be so much better if he was in Melanie’s car. But that would mean Melanie would have to come along and he didn’t want to involve her directly in this if he could help it. He’d sensed real anger in Powers when they’d had their first encounter out at the Eastman plant. Not just some frustrated bored security guard showing off by pointing a gun at a trespasser’s face, but real murderous anger. If Powers was the killer then that anger he saw was only the tip of the iceberg.

  The security guard came out of the bank in short order and walked down the main street. Armour pulled around a corner and parked in front of a hair dressing salon and got out to follow Powers on foot. He had the binoculars in his pocket. He was wearing the dispatch rider’s coat which had huge side pockets. A newsie on his head and slacks and comfortable walking shoes, Armour thought he was not too noticeable.

  It was getting colder and crisper now and everyone was wearing fall jackets and some toques were making an appearance. Armour kept a constant two block distance from Powers as he lumbered down the street.

  He stopped in front of a coffee shop but didn’t go in. Instead he went to a phone booth, the only one Armour could see on the street. He could see that Powers had a coin in his hand already and he quickly plopped it in and dialed a number. Armour put a telephone pole between himself and his subject and waited for him to finish.

  Armour used phone booths regularly. Never a pleasant experience, they usually reeked of urine and were littered with cigarette butts, garbage and sometimes condoms, their glass panels covered in soapy graffiti expletives. In Hamilton he had all of them mapped out from his place down to the library where Melanie worked and few on the other side of the mountain. But as Ma Bell phased them out, little by little their numbers dwindled. Detest the state of them as he may, he feared the day would come when they would be gone forever, another part of his world chipped away.

  Powers made a single phone call, no more than a minute then he walked back to his car. Armour turned his back on him and watched his progress in the reflection of the shoe store window he was standing in front of. Something he had read recently in that Cuban set mystery book.

  He waited until Powers got to his pickup and made a quick U-turn in the middle of main street like Armour had done earlier and drove off in the direction he had come from. Armour’s bet paid off. He ran full tilt back to his own car and just had to start it and pull out into traffic. Still the security guard’s car had probably a hundred times the power that Armour’s had and could easily lose him if he wanted to. Could lose him even if he was unaware that he was being followed.

  Armour floored it and his little engine groaned in protest but gradually picked up speed as main street in Port Dover was on a hill and he was going down it. He could see Powers three cars ahead of him. Powers crossed over the river and made for Riverside drive. The stores and businesses that lined main street were replaced with quaint country style detached homes and a school. He seemed to be headed back to either his house or to his work when he made a sudden right turn down a side street. Armour slowed up as he got to the corner of that street and a man behind him blew his horn. Armour ignored him and saw Powers’ truck roar down two blocks and then make a left turn and disappear.

  Armour pulled over to the side of the road. The car that was behind him roared by and the man gave Armour the finger. Seconds later the truck appeared again at the next corner. He had made a detour for what reason, Armour thought? He’s trying to see if anyone is tailing him.

  Powers waited at the corner one block up until it was clear to go then he pulled back out into traffic heading in the same direction back to his house. Armour let four cars get between him and the vehicle before resuming his tail. The pickup was fast, if he got on a stretch of road with no traffic and gunned it, Armour would lose him. He would be better on the motorcycle but it was loud and almost as conspicuous as the Ford. Armour had chosen his car for this caper and would have to make do.

  27

  Powers cruised along Riverside drive. There were some magnificent homes and the stench of heavy industry did not waft down here. Little by little, though, the homes petered out in wealth and prestige and were replaced by smaller homes with messy yards and unkempt lawns and the smell of industry started to fill Armour’s car. Just when Armour thought Powers was heading home he made a quick left turn and headed away from the shore. Armour kept on him.

  Powers got out onto Highway Six and floored it. Armour made it out onto the highway just in time to see the white pickup moving steadily farther away. Armour was pushing the limit at 90 kilometres an hour, Powers was easily doing 120. There were now a half dozen cars and a huge tanker truck between him and Powers and he was just about to lose sight of his target when he saw the truck take the cut off to the Eastman Lake Steel plant. Armour drove past it and looked down the road and saw the pickup disappearing amongst the tall pine trees.

  Armour pulled his pocket watch free and checked the time. It was 1.30 p.m. He had no way of knowing how long the man’s shift was but he guessed it would be probably no more than twelve hours and probably no less than ten. That would put Powers back on the road sometime between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. Armour had to decide whether to go home or do something else to occupy his time.

  He saw that the next exit had a sign for a gas station and took it. He pulled in and parked his car in front of the convenience store that was attached to the gas station to let his car cool down. While he was letting the oil settle back into the pan before he checked it, he went over to a phone booth.

  He was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t in as rough shape as the ones in Hamilton. It still had its phone book intact and attached to a chain. There was no refuse at the bottom of it and it didn’t smell like excrement. He would have to make note of this little gem as he suspected he would be coming out to this area regularly for the foreseeable future. He put in a loonie and dialed Melanie. An operator’s recording came over the wire, telling him he had to put more money in to make a long-distance call. Armour searched his pockets and came up with another dollar seventy-five in change and the call went through. Melanie thankfully was at home.

  “Armour, I’ve been trying to reach you,” she said in lieu of a hello. “Where are you?”

  “Just outside of Port Dover. I was following Bill Powers.”

  “What! You found him?”

  “You bet.”

  “Is that wise? Isn’t he dangerous?”

  “He’s at least sixty, Melanie.”

  “Armour, what’s that got to do with it? He might be a killer. Where is he?”

  “Right now, he’s at work. He’s probably got an eight or ten or even twelve-hou
r shift. He works as the security guard at the old steel plant. Place where he worked as a steel worker back in the 80s… when Burke went out to see him. I just watched him take the cut off to the plant.”

  “You know where he’s going to be for a few hours at least. I think you should come back to Hamilton, I have something to show you.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s what’s in your head. The spell.”

  Armour couldn’t pass that up. He promised Melanie he’d come straight there and hung up.

  28

  So, what is it?” Armour said when Melanie showed him in.

  “Here, it’s on my iPad. I book-marked it.” Melanie held the machine up for Armour to see, knowing he wouldn’t want to take it himself. To her surprise he took it out of her hands and sat down on her couch.

  On the iPad’s screen was a black and white photo. It was labelled as Scotch Line road 1994. In the ditch was the body of a girl, lying on her back in the muck, her mouth open wide in a look of horror. One of her arms jerked roughly up above her head. She was nude and Armour could see something wrapped around her throat. Probably whatever top she had been wearing. He knew that the Truscott girl had been strangled with her own top.

  “That certainly is gruesome,” Armour said. “Looks just like the Truscott girl but the date is wrong.”

  “There’s more. Here’s another shot.”

  It was from the same direction but zoomed out. A man in a light suit was standing on the opposite side of the ditch looking down at the girl. It was Burke. He recognized him from the photo in the Burke household. Beside Burke standing a couple feet away, his hands on his belt, a brown holster on it, was a very young Sergeant Kenny though he had no stripes on his sleeve. Rookie constable Kenny. In the distance behind him was the farm house where Cathy lived. His head started to swim. Was it a spell coming on? Then his blood started to rush in his veins.