Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  As he turned the corner, Campbell watched his shadow wrap around a salt pillar and then dissolve into darker recesses. Campbell waved his flashlight about slowly, and lo and behold, there he was, curled in the fetal position in a shallow, waist-level bowl of a space. Campbell’s mind got to work.

  Bridgewater approached, as did Laforet, both casting more light on the subject.

  “Any idea how long he could have been here?” asked Campbell.

  “Hard to tell. I think the cold, the dry, and the salt would have preserved him well. I’ve read some cases.”

  “Maybe his clothes can tell us something,” said Campbell, prodding away with his fountain pen.

  “Have fashions changed that much among these men?” muttered Laforet. “And they could be hand-me-downs.”

  “True,” said Campbell, standing back. “But doesn’t this remind you of something?”

  Laforet raised his own flashlight and panned the area slowly. “No, should it?”

  “Those saints, preserved and stuffed into niches in holy sites, or cathedrals.” Campbell was indulging his imagination, starting to think that it might be some necessary ingredient to solve the case.

  “Is there a patron saint of salt?”

  “Of salt miners,” said Campbell. “Kinga of Poland.”

  Laforet gave Campbell a sideways glance.

  “For my confirmation I received from one of my aunts her book of saints, canonized and beatified. Kinga was beatified. A wedding ring …”

  “Mm.” Laforet was unpacking his camera. “Bridgewater, can you possibly get your hands on some lights, preferably on stands?”

  “Way ahead of you, doctor.” Bridgewater disappeared into the darkness with his lantern and returned pushing, with some difficulty, a flatbed cart. On it was a folded piece of canvas and a couple of battery-powered lights with stands. “I thought these things might come in handy,” said Bridgewater, and he proceeded to set the stage.

  Campbell wanted to get right to work on his initial observations. He removed the man’s hat. It was something like a pith helmet but not quite. “So far no obvious indications of a blow or such.”

  “But the discolouration, the contortion —”

  “An uncommon kind of decomposition, for sure.” Realizing it could be just as easy to get lost in his thoughts as it was in these galleries, Campbell straightened up and said, “I suppose it might simply be a matter of checking the missing persons files.”

  “How does one usually come to be missing?” asked Laforet.

  “When one has lost oneself,” said Campbell, gently moving his hands over the victim, “and the newspapers and the mail starts to pile up.”

  “Go on.”

  “And then there are the cases where one chooses to go missing.” Campbell stepped back and took in the entire scene. “Someone took great care here.”

  “But why?” asked Laforet.

  The lights were growing hot.

  “I haven’t a clue,” said Campbell.

  Laforet stared at the body and stroked his beard for a moment before getting to work. He pulled the collapsible monopod out of his bag, mounted the camera, and started taking pictures. The light wasn’t ideal, but he managed to maintain a steady hand.

  “Now look …” Campbell continued, leaning over the body again, “he was tucked in … the folds in his clothes … in his trousers behind his knees … and behind his elbows.”

  Laforet handed his camera apparatus to Bridgewater and stepped closer.

  “What do you want to do?” asked Campbell.

  “My first choice,” said the doctor, “would be to start the examination right here.”

  “And your second?”

  “To take him up, as is,” he said, looking over at the flatbed, “cradled in that canvas.”

  Campbell took another look at the surroundings. “Consider where we are, what it took for us to get here. Bridgewater, is there any other way to get to this part of the mines besides that elevator?”

  “Those passages are sealed up tight, filled in as it were.”

  “Are you sure of that?

  “That’s part of my rounds. I visited both of them tonight, and they were still closed up, tight and dry.”

  “And the operator who brought us down, would he be the only one allowed … capable of using the lift?”

  “Many of us have been instructed on how to use it, for safety reasons.”

  “Why not seal it off all together?”

  “I’m sure the company has its reasons.”

  “How often do you make these rounds?”

  Bridgewater cleared his throat. “That may have been a bit misleading, sir. This area isn’t normally my purview.”

  “What do you mean?” said Campbell.

  “Normally —”

  “How often?”

  “Every other day we’d send someone down the elevator shaft with a flashlight. He’d look to make sure there wasn’t any water, and then he’d come back up and report. A week or so ago they asked me to do a more thorough inspection. I was given a map, and on every shift, I was to take a section and give it the once-over. I know what you’re asking, and this is the first time I’ve ever laid eyes on this …”

  “We’ll call it a chamber,” said Campbell. “Let’s get down to it.”

  Bridgewater moved the cart closer and then unfolded the small stretch of canvas.

  Campbell was looking closer again. “How old do you think he was?”

  “Difficult to tell. The hair …” Laforet carefully pulled the leather-like lips back with his pencil, splitting them, “… his teeth; midtwenties …?” The doctor opened his bag, found his shears, and gently cut up the length of the exposed coat sleeve and then the shirtsleeve. He set the shears down on the canvas and went for his magnifying glass, focusing on the victim’s upper arm. The flesh was splotchy yellow, white, purple, and black, but he could still make out some ink.

  “Ninety-nine,” he said and straightened up. “Ninety-nine what?”

  Campbell took his own glass out of his coat pocket. “The Essex Scottish Regiment,” he said. “This body has been here at least since the war. When you examine it, you might find the injury that sent this man home. Now we have something. You don’t recognize this man, Bridgewater?”

  “No, but …”

  “But what?”

  “They come and go. Some learn quick it’s not for them.”

  “I’ll need the name of your supervisor. We’ll be starting here, looking for names of anyone who may have failed to show up for work, pick up his pay packet, that sort of thing. I’ll check with missing persons.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Campbell stepped away, pacing again.

  “What is it?” asked Laforet.

  “I’m not quite sure,” said the detective. He was examining the jagged ceiling. “But I think that’s it for now.”

  “Take his legs then,” said Laforet, “and lift him — gently — on three. Bridgewater, you lift his back and I’ll lift his head and shoulders. Ready … one, two —”

  They lifted and set the body onto the flatbed, split boards set on rusty wheels.

  “There’s no blood,” said Campbell, examining the now-vacant niche.

  “No, no there isn’t,” said Laforet.

  “Look at this poor soul,” said Campbell. “What do you see?”

  “I see all of the people he trusted with his life.”

  “Is that always the way you see them?”

  “Yes,” said Laforet quietly, reflectively, “yes it is.” He carefully gathered the canvas closer around the body.

  “Bridgewater,” said Campbell, “can I ask you — and this is off the record — you do have accidents down here, don’t you?”

  “This, sir,” he said, pointing at the flatbed cart, “is our ambulance.”

  “I see.”

  Campbell and Laforet together had to grip the bar handle of the cart, because one of the wheels was a little wobbly and they were pushing a
n off-kilter weight. Bridgewater lit the way. He greeted the operator, who had been waiting patiently. The detective and the doctor squeezed into the cage and the three of them arranged themselves around the cart. The chain started again, taking up the slack at first and then lifting the cage off the ground.

  They made their slow, jerky ascent. When the cage door opened, Laforet set his bag on a corner of the cart so that he and Campbell could push it out of the elevator and toward the nearest unoccupied loading platform. They were approached by a supervisor, still shouting orders over his shoulder at a few workers who appeared to have misjudged the gap between the back of a truck and a platform, and were trying to figure out how to move the vehicle without either crushing or letting drop sacks of what was presumably salt. Campbell had to shout louder than the supervisor.

  “Excuse me, I say, excuse me,” he said, still manoeuvring the cart alongside Laforet.

  The supervisor, attention shifting back and forth, now fixed his eyes on Campbell. He looked not a little miffed, perhaps tired of juggling his priorities.

  “Detective Campbell of the Windsor police. Can you or someone call Janisse for an ambulance and tell them to get here right away? And have someone stand on the street and wave them in, otherwise they’ll never find us.”

  Without a word, the supervisor marched off, giving the workers a moment to regroup and catch their breath.

  Campbell was debating opening the canvas and resuming his examination of the body, but stopped himself. He knew what fresh, humid air might do to a cadaver.

  “We need to get him to my lab as soon as possible,” said the doctor.

  “May I follow?”

  “Not this time.”

  “Shall I drop by tomorrow morning?”

  “I’m sorry; I have a full day. I’m putting him on ice,” said Laforet. “I have a practice, you know. I’m not at the beck and call of the Windsor Police Department.”

  “I know, but … I thought —”

  “Come by the house.”

  “Your house?” said Campbell.

  “My house, Saturday morning. Make it eleven; I have to go to the markets and my butcher gets very impatient with me if I’m not there before a certain hour.”

  ACT TWO

  — Chapter 3 —

  ALLEY CATS

  Friday, August 3

  “Whoop,” said Jefferson, smacking Linc’s shoulder, “we’re done here.”

  Linc was bent over the engine of a parked car, relieving it of its spark plugs, when Jefferson, acting as lookout, spotted a blue uniform down the alley. The badge was a couple blocks away but he had a pair of legs on him — of the running variety.

  “Hold on — I almost got it.”

  “No time — c’mon.”

  “Got it.” Linc straightened up, brandishing a spark plug like it was a holy relic. Then he spotted the cop — “Where’d he come from?” — and his smile quickly faded.

  “The cop shop, where else? C’mon, Linc — run, run like hell.”

  Linc and Jefferson had reputations in this quarter as petty thieves who also liked to steal cars, take them for joy rides, and leave them on other people’s front lawns. The boys — and they were boys, fresh out of the Technical School where they met in one of the machine shops — had been thrown into the deal when McCloskey bought Border Cities Wrecking and Salvage. They came highly recommended. But before they were signed up, McCloskey thought it was only fair to brief them on the new business model. The two had gone into a huddle that was just for show; they didn’t have to think twice. The work sounded exciting, and also highly lucrative.

  Right now they were zigzagging through a maze of alleyways lined with picket fences occasionally broken by parking spaces and make-do garages. They tipped ashcans, broken furniture, and anything else they came across into the path of the fleet-footed cop. Linc fell behind at one point and in a split second had to leap over a busted, mouldy old dollhouse that Jefferson had just tilted over. They couldn’t go leading the uniform to the salvage yard; McCloskey would have their heads. As serious as all this was, they grinned like it was just a tickle. This was their style.

  Linc, all huffing and puffing, could feel a stitch in his side, but he pushed on and caught up with his partner in crime. He glanced back and could see the cop gaining on them.

  “Why don’t we … split up?”

  “Because we … got nowhere … else to hide,” wheezed Jefferson.

  They were almost there when the neighbourhood rag-and-bone man crossed the alley with his horse and wagon and spotted the boys, stopping cold.

  “Damn,” said Jefferson.

  “Over?”

  Jefferson hesitated, gave it a think, and said, “Under.”

  “Okie.”

  The scavenger watched with one eye closed. Jefferson went under the wagon while Linc went under the horse. The mare was still fidgeting, and one hoof grazed Linc’s belly. The boys came out the other side with only minor scrapes. They got to their feet and over the moustachioed man’s curses, Jefferson panted, “Under the cart … the cart’s what I meant. That animal … could have kicked your head off.”

  “He’s still running,” said Linc, ignoring Jefferson and spying the cop. “Did this guy medal in Antwerp?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jefferson, “but let’s keep on; he’s getting too close.”

  “Don’t move,” Linc hollered at the collector with his hands around his mouth.

  An eight-foot-high wooden fence separated the salvage yard from the alley. It was crowned with coils of barbed wire like it was the field marshal’s headquarters. It was more like the field marshal’s supply depot. The fence had been modified recently so that if someone shouldered three of the vertical boards hard enough and in the right place, a latch would pop and the fence turned into a gate.

  The boys were beyond huffing and puffing and were now wheezing like thirsty radiators. Stealing more glances behind them, they made sure the cop wasn’t on their heels.

  “Wha’d Gorski say? … On the right … or left?”

  “Left,” said Jefferson.

  “Sure?”

  “Yeah … I got it.”

  Jefferson poured it on and went shoulder first, full on into the three boards on the far left, bounced off them, and landed flat on his back in the weeds and gravel. It was like running into a brick wall. Linc saw that, didn’t slow down, and ran straight into the three boards on the right. The latch released. He regained his balance, eased open the gate, and helped Jefferson to his feet. The two slipped in and slammed the gate behind them.

  Inside, Jefferson stopped and bent, his hands cupping his knees, trying to catch his breath without vomiting. Linc peeked through a strategically placed hole in the fence. “I think we shook him,” he said, before turning to his friend. “So it’s the boards on the right … right?”

  “Yeah, remember that.”

  “Me? I should remember that?”

  Jefferson wiped his forehead on the inside of his sleeve. He didn’t need the jabs. “C’mon, let’s check in.”

  The yard was a small fortified compound in the middle of a growing working-class neighbourhood. McCloskey thought the little clapboard houses would serve as a nice buffer. The L-shaped building — a small office fronting Mercer Street and a workshop trailing behind — had a secret basement where the crates were packed, crates containing a mix of auto parts and contraband liquor destined for service garages scattered across Detroit. There was no evidence of this lower level outside or inside the building. It was accessed through the floor where the office joined the workshop. Ropes and pulleys hanging from the rafters now handled the booze from below as well as the engines and transmissions from the yard.

  The yard was the slaughterhouse. Rows of waist-high, open-ended bins with slanted corrugated metal roofs lined the perimeter, and in the middle of it all were usually two or three cars in various stages of disassembly. Glass shards and unidentifiable bits of automobile were scattered on the ground. The rust-c
oloured dirt smelled of motor oil and gasoline. The boys traipsed through and entered the workshop, kicking their shoes against the door jamb before entering, as if it made a difference. The workshop was only slightly cleaner than the yard.

  Shorty, Gorski, and Mud were sitting around the long workbench, sharing sections from the Border Cities Star over coffees.

  “Boys,” said Shorty, “take a load off.”

  “In a minute,” said Linc.

  “We need to walk this off first.”

  “Don’t tell me — a dine and dash?” guessed Gorski.

  “Was it worth it?” asked Shorty.

  Linc reached in his jacket pocket, pulled out half a dozen spark plugs and set them on the workbench.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s the take.”

  “That’s it?” said Shorty. “The take from what?”

  “Gee,” said Gorski, “pearl diving, were you?”

  “Old habits die hard,” said Jefferson. “Linc can’t pass a car without stripping it of its plugs.” He looked over at his friend. “The thrill of the game, right?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” said Linc, sensing the opinion in the room was still that he and Jefferson were, as they overheard McCloskey recently say, punching below their weight.

  “Boys,” said Shorty, “when are you going to start thinking a little bigger? These are high school pranks. Hey … were you two running from a cop?”

  Linc and Jefferson exchanged looks.

  “No,” said Jefferson. “It was a dine and dash, just like you said.”

  “Yeah? How close did he get?” said Shorty.

  “Three blocks,” said Linc.

  “How close did he get?” repeated Shorty.

  “We checked when we got inside the gate and we didn’t see him.”

  “Honest,” insisted Linc.

  Gorski gave Shorty a look that said, I told you these guys wouldn’t be worth it.

  Mud sat tight and ran his fingertips along the edge of the workbench, not saying anything, just listening.

  “Jack here?” asked Jefferson.

  Linc looked at Jefferson.