by Adam Carter
Carl listened to my words and slowly nodded. “Polinski’s dead, Lauren. I think we went over this already. He’s not shuffling around the astral plane waiting for someone to avenge his soul. He’s dead, he doesn’t care about any of this any more. I get that you want to do something good for him, I really do. But you’re not a detective and you’re only going to get yourself hurt.”
“You don’t care about me getting hurt,” I laughed. “You just don’t want me in your way.”
“I don’t want you in my way, you’re right,” he said in a flat tone which always told me he was angry. “But don’t tell me I don’t care about you. And yes, I know we’re not together. You always thought I was callous and cruel, you always treated me like I was some bogeyman trying to scare you. I protect people, Lauren, it’s what the police do. So yes, I always tried to protect you.”
“You slap around your authority,” I snapped. “That’s why you’re in the police, Carl, and don’t give me any bull about being there to help people. You love nothing better than to pull out your badge and flash it around. Make everyone see who Mr Bigshot is. Best thrill in your life is when you make people afraid of you.”
“Fine, so I’m such a bad guy. Let’s talk about you now.”
“No, let’s not.”
“Oh no, we might as well get all this out in the open. No sense in doing things by half, Lauren. I have to be in control of everything, you say? Well at least I don’t have to be right about everything.”
“I do not have to be right about everything.”
“So I’m wrong about that as well?”
I opened my mouth but no words came out. I realised whatever I said at that moment would be misconstrued so I didn’t see much point.
“You always corrected me on everything I did,” he continued.
“Well you should have done them right then.”
“You kept telling me how to do my job better.”
“So why come home and go on about it?”
“Normal couples tell each other how their day went.”
“Normal couples don’t care about all the details.”
“Normal couples care.”
I was seething by this point. Once again he had managed to twist my words to make it sound as though I was the one in the wrong. It was a tactic of his I had almost forgotten and it wasn’t something I had missed.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, slightly calmer now.
“What?”
“Polinski. Why are you looking into it? Because I asked you not to. That’s what you said.”
“I ...” I realised that had indeed been what I had said.
“So you’re trying to prove me wrong again?” he asked. “Lauren, we don’t always have to fight. We don’t have to be at one another’s throats every time we see each other.”
“Or we could just stop seeing each other.”
“Believe me, it was an accident I bumped into you yesterday.”
“An accident you thought you could use to your advantage by getting me to do your dirty work.”
“I’m trying to solve a murder.”
“So am I.”
“Well you shouldn’t.” He sat back in his chair and I could see how angry he was now. It alleviated some of my own aggression, knowing how far I had pushed him. I told myself I hadn’t meant to push him that far, that I hadn’t meant to push him at all; but it was a lie. We both knew I had fully intended for him to get as angry as he had, and we both knew what Carl was saying was true.
I would not have admitted that to him for all the vodka in Russia.
That particular choice of words made me decide the only way the two of us were going to get along on this was if we stopped talking about ourselves and started talking about the case.
“I’m here whether you want me or not,” I told him, “so we may as well pool what we have.”
“I could arrest you for obstructing the course of justice.”
I laughed in his face.
“Fine,” he said testily. “What do you have?”
“Really?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I tell you everything I’ve found out and you run off with it.”
“I’m officially and legally investigating this crime, Lauren. If you know something, you’re obliged to tell me.”
He had me there. “I spoke with a woman named Rowena Silvers. She said she was Polinski’s bit on the side.”
“Really?”
“You don’t know about her?”
“His neighbours didn’t mention her.”
“I think he liked to maintain an image.”
Carl shrugged. “What did she say?”
I briefly filled him in on what I knew about Nathan. The vague description, the even vaguer reason for his being at the shop. Carl listened throughout, and when I was done said, “She may have been lying.”
“Maybe. But even if she was, she’s a living human being who might know something about what happened.”
“I’ll try to pick her up.”
“Then you’ll need some vodka.”
“I meant pick her up to talk to her.”
“You’ll probably still need some vodka.”
I could see by his expression he was not certain whether I was joking with him, and I smiled to break the ice. “Look, Carl, we shouldn’t fight.”
“I don’t know, we’re so good at it.”
I laughed without even meaning to, and suddenly there in that car I remembered why it was I’d put up with Carl Robbins as long as I had. For all his faults he was a good man trying to do the right thing. And on occasion he could even make me laugh.
“So, where were you headed anyway?” he asked.
“The shop.”
“Then you’ll bump into Lewis.”
“Who’s Lewis?”
“Detective Lewis. He just got assigned to the case. Maybe someone above me is taking this seriously after all.”
“Is it usual practice to have two detectives assigned to the same case?”
“Maybe they don’t think I’m up for it,” he replied without making any attempt to answer the question.
“Don’t ever think that, Carl.” For all he used to bore me with tales of his day, for all I used to grow fed up with his every word about his work, Carl was damn good at his job. The suggestion that he did not put one hundred per cent into his work was ludicrous, and it irked me to think that anyone could claim otherwise.
I realised of course I had taken to defending him and it made me smile to think that there was something of our old relationship left. Not love, maybe not even the ability to like one another; but certainly there was still respect.
“Whoever this Lewis is,” I told him, “he’s not half the detective you are.”
“Which means you’ll be able to control him.”
I actually even found that amusing.
“There was something I wanted to ask you, Carl. Something you might know.”
“Well there’s not much point in asking me something I wouldn’t know.” He said this as a joke, but with Carl nothing was ever a joke. I did not make an issue of it though: he knew full well his jokes annoyed me when he was being pedantic with them and it was an argument not worth dredging up. Not when we were getting along reasonably well at least.
“How easy is it to get a gun?” I asked.
Carl’s expression changed immediately. Any trace of humour was gone and he even looked a little afraid. “Lauren, you can’t possibly be thinking about getting a ... You’re in over your head, aren’t you, Lauren?”
“What? No, I don’t want to shoot anyone. I don’t want a gun at all.”
“So why are you asking me for ...?”
“Jesus, Carl, why do you always think the worst of me? It was something Wentworth said about guns. I figured if it was reasonably difficult then it probably means Mr Polinski was innocent.”
“Back up: who’s Wentworth?”
It was something I had been trying to avoid, although now the ma
n’s name had come up there was nothing I could do about it. Lying to Carl was never an option: I’ve never seen keeping the truth from someone as lying, by the way. So I found I had to explain about Wentworth as well. Surprisingly Carl had never heard of him, which meant he had not bothered to go too deeply into Mr Polinski’s background. He didn’t know Wentworth, he didn’t know Silvers ... It made me wonder just what Carl had been doing since the murder.
“You’re getting into this very deep,” Carl said, and while there was a note of recrimination to his voice I was thankful he did not tell me to stop anything. I think if he started telling me what to do again I was liable to belt him one.
“I’m being careful,” I said, although that wasn’t true at all. “Carl, I have your number. If it gets too much I’ll call, all right?”
“By that point you might have a few holes in you.”
“You just told me there was no danger to your job.”
He pulled a wry face without even smiling at all. “Just don’t take any risks, Lauren. I’ll run the name Nathan through whatever contacts I have, but I think the description sucks.”
“Hey, I just gather the information. It’s up to the police to decide how to deal with it. That’s what you said you want, right? Me handing over all the information I have.”
“I’m just ...” He did not finish the sentence. He knew telling me one more time he was just trying to protect me would not go down too well. “Just look after yourself, Lauren,” was what he settled for. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Yeah, think how much work another murder would cause you.”
I spoke glibly and instantly regretted it. Our differences did not matter, because here we were on the same side. In theory there was nothing we should have been arguing about, but our problem was always reality.
Carl stepped out of my car and I fastened my seat-belt, wishing I had said something differently, wishing I wasn’t so guarded around him all the time. We had always sniped at one another, but just because we were both doing it didn’t make it right. As I pulled away I glanced in my mirror to see Carl standing at the kerb. He looked pensive, almost afraid, and I realised then how much he still cared for me. It wasn’t just that he was trying to protect me, it wasn’t that he was doing his job to the best of his ability. For all he hid his emotions, Carl still cared. And I couldn’t with all good conscience claim I didn’t still care myself.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Other Detective
Mr Polinski’s shop was closed. Mr Polinski’s shop was never closed.
Standing before it, staring through the windows at the empty shop, I felt a hollow feeling of how wrong the situation was. The shop had always been a vibrant hub of the community, a place of gossip and laughter. Now all I could feel was emptiness and darkness. I could see the rows of fresh fruit which would soon be spoiling, and the bread which would in a few days start to go mouldy. Mr Polinski was always very particular about stocking up on fresh produce. He did not like for his customers to ever have a bad experience. I knew the thing which would have upset him most about his death would be in letting down so many customers. It seemed sacrilege to his memory to not open the shop on his behalf, but Carl was right. Mr Polinksi was beyond caring what happened in life.
“Miss Corrigan?”
I turned at my name. There was a man approaching slowly. I had never seen him before, and appraised him quickly in case he was carrying a gun or something. He was aged somewhere in his thirties, with short dark hair and a kind face. He was dressed in what he likely thought was smart casual but which I would have termed scruffy urchin. He reached into an inside pocket and I tensed, although what he produced was a badge.
“Detective Lewis,” I said, realising I probably should have expected that.
“Call me Alex,” he said in a friendly tone which made me want to continue calling him Detective Lewis. I did not immediately dislike the man, that wasn’t it at all. I just tend to be put on my guard when strangers are friendly to me. “Carl said you’d likely be dropping by.”
I did not know whether that meant Carl had phoned him in the last ten minutes or whether he had known me so well that he knew I would be running around in circles. Either theory infuriated me, and I almost pitied Detective Lewis if he pushed me hard enough for me to take it out on him.
“You know,” he said, “ordinarily I wouldn’t be talking to you about the murder. I’m only doing this as a favour to Carl and even then I’m not sure about this.”
I suppose I should have been thankful for his honesty, although I had almost expected some sleazy line about putting aside his reservations for such a beautiful woman. Even after having talked to him for only a minute I could tell he was the type of man to say such things. That he hadn’t said anything like that should have made me happy, but just made me self-conscious that he didn’t find me attractive.
“Did Mr Polinski have anyone working for him?” I asked, not wanting to just hand him information if I could make him think he had given it over voluntarily.
“You mean the kid who vanished?”
“Do you have a name?”
“No. Do you?”
“No.” I did not hesitate. Carl would of course tell him the name, but at that moment I wanted Lewis to think I was entirely ignorant. Sometimes with men it’s best to let them think they’ve reached their own solutions to problems. Or at least that was the way it always worked with Carl.
He looked at me carefully. I held his gaze, held my breath without even realising it, and finally he simply shrugged and looked back to the shop. “You want to go inside?”
I had not been inside the shop since the murder and shuddered. There had always been a lively atmosphere in the shop, so much life that it would seem strange walking in there and finding only silence.
Lewis seemed to sense my concerns and unlocked the door. “Entirely up to you,” he said and walked inside.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to work out whether Carl had been right in everything he had said. Maybe I didn’t want to solve this murder because I cared about Mr Polinski; maybe I really did just want to do this to get on Carl’s nerves. Otherwise I would be in that shop looking for clues.
Slowly releasing the breath, I took a step forward and gingerly pushed open the door.
Whatever I had expected, I did not see. I knew the shop was a crime scene and as such that the evidence could not be disturbed. I had visions of the walls being spattered with blood, a body lying off to one side covered by a drape. At the very least I expected a chalk white outline detailing just where Mr Polinski had fallen, or that I would retch at the stench of blood and death hanging in the air. But there was nothing like that. Just a shop empty of people. It was eerie just how much the atmosphere was the same. I expected the beaming face of Mr Polinski to appear from behind the counter at any moment and ask me whether it was a pound of plums I wanted or two.
“You all right?”
My eyes snapped around to where Detective Lewis was leaning against the counter. “You look a little peaky.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I think the youth working here was the one who shot Mr Polinski.”
“And you’re probably right. Unfortunately we won’t know until we’ve been able to ask him; and he’s made himself scarce. If we had a name to go on, that would be something at least.”
I knew he was baiting me, but I’d never much liked eating worms. Besides, I didn’t have a surname and there were far too many Nathans in the world for him to be able to instantly narrow it down.
“You’re a regular here, right?” Lewis asked.
“Yes.”
“So you’d be able to give a description of this kid?”
“I never saw him.”
Lewis digested this. “Which means he likely worked in the back. Storage or whatever. But why would someone pay for an assistant that just hung around out of sight?”
I had already been through all of this with Carl, although Lewis’s
wording made me stop and think. “Out of sight? Maybe there’s something there. Maybe there’s ...”
“Shh!”
I don’t like being shushed at the best of times. Lewis was frowning, his eyes were narrowed and stalking through the shop, so I figured he was either being weird or he thought he had heard something.
Without a word he began to stealthily move towards the back of the shop. There was a door upon the back wall which I had always assumed led to some form of storage area, and carefully did Lewis place his hand upon it and push.
It was dark in the room beyond the door, but Lewis went in anyway. I followed, keeping as low as he was, and it was far from pitch so my eyes adjusted within seconds. There were rows of shelving space, boxes piled upon the floor, and crates packed away tidily. There was nothing amiss that I could see, although Lewis pressed on regardless of what I might have thought.
We walked the length of the room, which was larger than I had expected. The shelves were packed tight in some areas, but even behind these there was no room for anyone to be hiding. If Lewis honestly thought there was someone lurking back there, he was delusional. I did not say anything, however, for if Lewis was Carl he would have blamed me for losing his quarry if I said even one word. While I waited for Lewis to decide he was chasing shadows I thought about the old “returning to the scene of the crime” thing. Surely he could not expect for Mr Polinski’s murderer to just randomly turn up at the shop again, just at the same moment that the two of us arrived.
Something fell several metres from us, the sound reverberating through the dark room. I tensed and I could see Lewis looking earnestly in that direction. I had brought with me nothing along the lines of a weapon, and suddenly wished Mr Polinski sold a line of crowbars or something.