Accidental Deaths (A Willows and Parker Mystery)

by Laurence Gough

  Oikawa fluttered his eyes at Spears.

  Orwell said, “No, I’d never do anything like that!” Another huge chunk of sandwich disappeared into his mouth.

  “Amazing,” said Oikawa.

  Spears said, “Amazing but true. Ten bucks, Danny Boy. Pay up, pay up.”

  Orwell stuffed the last of the sandwich into his mouth, licked his fingers.

  Willows leaned back in his chair. Judith was yelling so loud he could almost make out what she was saying.

  Parker said, “There’s a place on Cambie, just below sixteenth. Romero’s.”

  “Italian? White paint, green trim?”

  Parker nodded. “How’s this sound — lasagna, a salad, bottle of red.”

  “Great, perfect.”

  “Six-thirty, is that too early?”

  “No, fine.”

  Willows cleaned up his desk, made sure the drawers were locked.

  Spears said, “Stick around. Soon’s Eddy gets off the phone, we’re gonna let him know about the extra roughage in his diet.”

  “I’m going to pass, Farley.” Willows jerked a thumb at the interrogation room. “When you leave, wake up the punk and send him home, will you?”

  “Sure thing, Jack” Spears turned his attention to Parker. “I got five bucks says Vancouver by three runs. Interested?”

  “How’d you know I was going to the game?”

  “Same way I knew Eddy’d eat a brown paper bag, and salivate over every bite.”

  Parker waited.

  “Because I’m a detective,” Spears explained as Dan Oikawa handed him a ten-dollar bill. Spears slipped the money in his wallet and pulled out a five, which he gave to Orwell.

  Orwell, still listening to Judith, folded the five in half without looking at it, stuffed the money in his pants pocket. “Hey,” said Oikawa. “Wait a minute!”

  “The bet was whether or not Eddy’d eat a paper-bag sandwich,” said Spears. “Well, he did it. And the fact that he knew what he was doing hasn’t got a thing to do with it. Case closed.” Oikawa glared down at Spears. “Don’t go all legal on me, old man. You guys set me up.”

  Orwell hung up. “Damn right,” he said, and burped loudly. He glanced up at Parker, smiling broadly, and then looked past her, the smile fading, his eyes turning cold. “What the fuck you want, kid?”

  Cherry said, “To use the phone, please.”

  “Got a quarter?”

  Cherry Ngo fumbled in his pants pocket, offered him a shiny new coin.

  “Put it on the desk.”

  The quarter spun on the metal surface, wobbled and lay still.

  Orwell pushed the phone across the desk. “Make it fast, kid.” Cherry punched seven numbers, spoke rapidly in Vietnamese.

  Orwell turned to Oikawa, raised an eyebrow. Oikawa shrugged. Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese. Orwell persisted in assuming that all those languages were more or less the same.

  Cherry listened for a moment, spoke briefly but with heat, and then slammed down the phone.

  Orwell said, “Break my phone, I’ll break your bones.”

  “May I go now?” Cherry said to Parker.

  Parker said, “Give me a few minutes to get out of here, Dan, and then take him down to the lobby and show him the way out, will you?”

  Oikawa nodded. “You outta here?”

  “Long gone,” said Parker, already heading for the door. Parker lived on the top floor of a three-storey block on West Eleventh, off Burrard. The street was narrow and, to avoid blocking traffic, parking was allowed only on the south side. Parker eased her battered Volkswagen into a tight spot halfway down the block, locked up, slung her purse across her shoulder and hurried across the street.

  Her apartment was hot, stuffy. She hadn’t drawn the curtains, and the late July sun had streamed into the apartment all day long, turning the place into a furnace. She had her hand on the latch to open the window and let in a little fresh air when a maroon Ford cruised past, a little too slowly. The driver was hunched down behind the wheel but she was high enough up so she got a fairly good look at him. He wore sunglasses but it seemed to Parker that his eyes locked on hers for a fraction of a second. Then the Ford accelerated hard, passed out of view. Parker caught a glimpse of a red and white sticker on the back bumper. She pushed open the window as far as it would go, took a breath of fresh air and then went into the apartment’s single bedroom and undressed. She wore a plain white blouse and conservatively cut dark blue jacket and matching skirt. Hidden beneath her work clothes were a silky black camisole, lacy black bra and matching panties. Why did she wear such feminine things? Why did she bother?

  She did it for herself, obviously, since there was no one else. Naked, she made her way towards the bathroom, and the long hot shower she’d been thinking about all day long.

  An hour later, sitting at a prime window table at Romero's, watching the crowds go by and toying with her wine, Parker found herself telling Jack Willows about the maroon Ford, describing how the driver was slouched down low behind the wheel, his sunglasses and long hair and the bushy moustache that looked like it’d been glued in place.

  Willows said, “You didn’t recognize him, but his bad posture rang a bell, is that it?”

  Parker shrugged. She wasn’t at all sure what the problem was, if there was a problem.

  She was a cop, had been a cop for five long years. During that time she’d put a lot of people away, and most of them hadn’t been too happy about it. Threats had been made. It was part of the life. You couldn’t afford to waste time thinking about it, not if you wanted to keep your head on straight. But there were times the paranoia crept up on you. Probably what she was feeling was just a little residual creepiness from spending the afternoon with a scumbug like Cherry Ngo.

  Probably.

  She held her glass up to the window. The wine turned a woman passing by on the sidewalk blood-red.

  Willows broke a crusty roll, reached for the butter and decided against it.

  Parker said, “You heard from the kids?”

  Willows topped up Parker’s glass, and his. The way things were going, if the lasagna didn’t show up pretty soon, they were going to need a second bottle, miss two or maybe even the first three innings. He said, “They’re fine. A little worried about flying all the way out from Toronto on their own, but they’ll be okay.”

  Parker nodded, sipped at her wine, tried to think of something intelligent to say. But if she had any brains, she wouldn’t have brought the subject up in the first place, would she?

  Willows’ wife had left him a little under a year ago, taking their two children, Sean and Annie, on a one-way flight to Toronto. Three thousand five hundred miles away. Made it kind of tough to work out the custody, arrange weekend visits. As part of the agreement, Willows was supposed to have the children every summer for the month of July or August, his choice. This year it was supposed to be July, but Sheila had thrown him a high hard one, switched the visit to August at the last moment, knowing full well that Willows would have court dates and a million other problems, hoping he wouldn’t be able to make the adjustment.

  The waitress arrived with the salads. A garden for Parker, Caesar for Willows. Parker noticed Willows also got a cute little bunny-dip, a quick flash of cleavage, if he cared to look. A handsome boy, Jack.

  Willows said, “What’re you thinking about, Claire?”

  Parker started, drew back. Hiding her blush behind her glass, she said, “Dessert, Jack. What else?”

  5

  As soon as Frank caught Parker’s Volkswagen in his rear-view mirror, he checked the rentals dashboard clock. 5:37. He made a note on the back of an envelope. The woman worked pretty regular hours, for a cop. Maybe it was a quiet week.

  He had it figured now, how to do the job.

  The street was lined on both sides with three-storey apartments. There was plenty of parking until around five, maybe a little earlier, and then the street started to fill up, people getting home from work.

 
; If he got there early, slotted the stolen Corvette in opposite her apartment and then pulled out when he saw her coming, drove about a hundred feet up the block and made a U-turn in one of the driveways, the timing would be just about right. She’d park in the spot he’d just vacated, right where he wanted her. If she was slow, he’d take his time. If she was quick, he’d goose it. Either way, it’d be easy enough to adjust the timing so he could swat her as she crossed the street to her apartment.

  He could’ve done her this time, if he’d been driving the Corvette. But even though he’d paid a hefty premium for collision insurance, the Hertz guy — fat, a crooked tie, lots of nose hair — wasn’t too likely to waive damage caused by a hit-and-run situation.

  No, best to use the Corvette. Park the Hertz maybe a block or two away. Hit her and ditch the sleek, shiny black look-at-me car in an alley and switch to the Ford.

  Then what? Back to the hotel, or should he check out before he went to work, put his new luggage in the Ford’s trunk and drive straight to the airport after he bumped the lady cop?

  One of the things Frank had learned during his life was that being hit by a car hurt like hell. He’d do his best to do it right, but it was a shame he had to do it at all. Parker was a lovely woman — a real looker. That shiny black hair framing the delicate, heart-shaped face. Terrific complexion. Great legs, a nice package. Her eyes, seen through the Bushnells, were probably her best feature. But mostly what attracted Frank was the way she carried herself, her posture and every step she took, the confident but feminine way she strode forward into her life.

  Back in California, Newt had gabbled away for hours about her, asked Frank a million questions about how he got shot in the stomach. Parker had been there at the time. And, of course, years earlier she’d shot Newt. It was weird, how selective Frank’s memory was about the night he’d been shot. Some parts of it he recalled with vivid clarity. Other bits and pieces of it he remembered not at all. Parker had been there when it counted, though. When the shooting started, she’d jumped right in. She was about all he and Newt had in common, when you came down to it.

  Too bad about her. Like they said, a waste.

  Vancouver was a big city. Reasonably big. One point four million, including the suburbs. The Hertz guy had told him that the airport handled about three hundred flights a day, eighty thousand people or more; that planes came in from all over the continent, Europe and the Middle East.

  There was no way the local cops could check everybody flying out of the city.

  But he’d never smacked a homicide detective before, so he had no idea how much they’d put into it. And there was the fact that she was a woman, the only female in homicide.

  Frank lit a cigarette. They’d put everything they had into nailing his ass to the wall. Bet on it. Count on it, or pay the price. He blew out the match and let it drop. There were two things he liked about rentals — you could drive the hell out of the car; if the thing fell apart, tough shit. Plus you could turn the car into a garbage can and not have to worry about cleaning up after yourself.

  Frank scanned Parker’s third-floor windows with the binoculars. The sunlight on the sheets of glass turned them burnt orange. Nothing. He turned the key, put the Ford in gear. There was no point in hanging around, drawing attention to himself. He pulled away from the curb. Behind him, a rust-acned ragtop black Cadillac came around the corner on two wheels. The car had fins on it that would make a whale envious. A vapour trail of blue smoke hung in the air. The brakes shrieked as the ugly car nosed into the space Frank had vacated only moments before. Well, so much for plan A.

  Frank drove the Ford back to the hotel, parked and locked — people’d steal just about anything nowadays — and went back up to his suite. His tiny white hope was waiting for him at the door with a freshly poured beer in a frosted glass.

  She said, “Surprised to see me?”

  Frank drained the glass. “What makes you want to know?”

  Lulu shrugged. “I dunno.” She was wearing Lycra again, a flashy skin-tight gold number with bold diagonal slashes of black that were straight lines on the flat parts of her, but arced in gentle rainbows of doom across her breasts, hips. Frank stared at the slash of black in her hair.

  “It washes out, Frank. I can do it right this very minute, if you want.”

  “No, it’s great … ” Kind of dark, really. But she was a woman. Entitled to her moods.

  There was a big plastic tub of ice and bottled beer on the table by the window. Frank had a choice of Asahi Super Dry, Beck’s, Heineken, Tsingtao, Steinlager, and half a dozen local beers. He grabbed a can of Kokanec Glacier Light and popped the tab. He liked the TV ads, that cute little white dog they took camping that’d cock his head at his owner when the guy realized he’d left the beer at home, then charge through the woods all day and night, dodge city traffic and find a way into the house through an open window or whatever, yank open the fridge door and snag a six-pack in his teeth, hotfoot it all the way back to camp and get told off for taking so long, then give the camera a good-natured look that wanted to know how he’d got stuck with such a dummy.

  Frank burped, apologized.

  Lulu said, “You like lobster? A crate just got flown in fresh from Halifax. Guy in the kitchen told me about it, I asked him to put aside six big ones, send them up at seven. Is that okay?” Frank drank some more beer. Lobsters were a mystery to him, mainly because he wasn’t too sure how to go about getting at the meat and hadn’t yet been prepared to risk making a fool of himself in public. Now the decision was being forced upon him. What parts were edible and what parts would make him toss his cookies all over his new Ralph Laurens? He decided he’d follow Lulu’s lead, do what she did, but let her do it first. He grinned. That was pretty much the way he’d handled the lovemaking, and that seemed to have worked out pretty well.

  Lulu said, “What’s so funny?”

  “Life,” said Frank, “when it’s going well.”

  Lulu checked her watch; a thin, dark-blue and gold disk studded with diamonds. “The food’ll be here in about three-quarters of an hour. Just enough time for a shower and … ”

  “What?” said Frank.

  “Use your imagination, and let’s see what you can come up with, okay?”

  As he stood in the shower, the water beating down on him, slowly washing away some of the tension he’d built up stalking Claire Parker, Frank wondered how much longer it could last. He’d knocked around a fair amount during the past twenty years. Never stayed in one place long enough to strike up a serious acquaintance. But Lulu was considerably different than what he was used to. She really seemed to like him. He didn’t care to dwell on why that might be. There’d be something she wanted from him, no doubt about that. If he was lucky, it’d be as simple and uncomplicated as a wad of cash. He tilted his face to the blast of water. It was all he could hope for, really — that her needs were predictable and easily met.

  He jumped as Lulu pulled back the shower curtain and stepped into the tub.

  She said, “Scare you?”

  “I scare easy.”

  “You work out, Frank?”

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “Where? In a gym?”

  “Wherever I happen to be,” said Frank.

  “Lift your arms.” She turned her head to the shower and filled her mouth, hosed him down, rinsing him off with a goofy smile that faltered when her eyes travelled down his body to the puckered scar tissue in the middle of his stomach. The wound obviously distressed her but, if she was going to play twenty questions, she’d have started by now. Frank liked that about her; that she could be curious and still keep her mouth shut. Women were better at that sort of tiling than men, maybe. They couldn’t be worse. He bent and turned off the shower. A few last drops splattered down.

  They ate in bed, sitting cross-legged on the sheets, using their fingers and teeth on the Nova Scotia lobster and wild rice, baby carrots and a spicy green vegetable that Frank didn't much care for but chewed and
swallowed with feigned

  enthusiasm because he didn’t want to make a fuss, washing whatever it was down with quick mouthfuls of icy-cold champagne.

  After dinner, Lulu showed Frank her family album; it was bound in scuffed red leather, with a brass lock and hinges. The book was the size of a small suitcase. She lugged it over to the bed and thumped it down.

  Frank had to move his knee so there was room. Lulu had lost the key so had to use a hotel corkscrew to pick the lock. There were six tiny black-and-white photographs on the first page, the edges scalloped, corners fixed in place with triangles of black paper.

  The first picture was of a naked infant lying on a rug in front of a fireplace.

  The second was of the baby in a wicker baby carriage with big overlapping wheels.

  In the third picture, the baby was sitting up in a crib, crying.

  The fourth snapshot was of the baby being baptized.

  In the fifth shot, the baby was nestled in the arms of a gigantic snowman with lumps of coal for eyes and a carrot for a nose, a rosebud mouth carved out of a slice of beet.

  In the last shot she was sprawled out in diapers on the hood of a ragtop TR4.

  “That’s you?”

  “Sexy, huh?”

  “What is that, a seventy-two Triumph?”

  “Daddy won it in a raffle. He had it a week and then the kid next door, Trevor Whyte his name was, he stole it right out of the garage. Took his girlfriend for a joyride down to the docks and lost control and drove into the side of a freight train at about a hundred miles an hour. They both burned to death. What a tragedy.”

  Frank nodded, but he wasn’t really listening because his mind was busy working out how old she was.

  “Trevor’s parents hired some fatcat lawyer and sued. So did the train company. They said Daddy shouldn’t have left the keys in the ignition. He was innocent but the legal fees ate up everything we had. I was four months old when he ran away. I haven’t seen him since and don’t expect I ever will.”