by Sam Wiebe
Utrillo was the oldest, early fifties, and seemed determined to keep up the same level of enthusiasm as Carnahan and Ross. The baby-faced Ross had a bronze complexion, a plastic smile. Carnahan had the hair of a Lego figurine.
“Dave was out on surveillance detail,” Jeff said. “Which is why he’s dressed like a homeless person.”
I was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and a flannel overshirt. What I normally wore. I grabbed a powdered donut from the centre of the table and sat behind Jeff. “You got to blend in,” I said.
“Carny was asking about the Salt case,” Jeff said. On the legal pad in front of him he’d written PATRICK CARNAHAN—SENIOR VP and put two asterisks next to the name. He tapped the sheet.
So I told them the story of the Salt case. I’m a good enough raconteur when I want to be. I impressed upon them the horrors of finding the decomposed corpse of a teenager. That’s what they wanted, the gory parts. I elaborated. I embellished. My audience oohed and aahed and ughed when I told them about the second corpse, the abductor Chester Breuning, bowels voided, neck crushed flat by the heavy rope.
“Know what?” Carnahan said. “That would make a great, great movie.”
“A guy finding two bodies?” I said.
“Well you’d have to add some story to it. Like maybe it’s your kid and you swear revenge.”
“Ooh ooh ooh, you know who’d be great in that—playing you?”
“Seventies Redford,” I said.
“Liam Neeson.”
“I’d watch Neeson in anything.”
“And you know who could play Jeff here—”
“How ’bout Jackie Chan?”
“How ’bout Jet Li?”
“How ’bout Bruce Lee?”
“How about Bruce Li?”
Laughing as it got ever more ridiculous. Jeff laughed loudest of all.
When they were gone I said, “Don’t ever make me do that again.”
“You think it’s fun for me?” Jeff said. “If shit were sushi everyone would eat it.”
The shoebox was by my feet. I stooped and picked it up.
“He didn’t mention it,” Jeff said, “but Ross set the Winnipeg dates. You fly out next Wednesday.”
“There are other things going on.”
“Yes,” Jeff said, “which take up time, I’m very aware. But this is serious money and they asked for you personally.”
“Who? Carny? Your good pal the Carn-meister?”
Jeff folded his hands. “There’s this invention called money,” he said. “And it doesn’t grow on trees, but it seems to grow in the pockets of assholes. And to get hold of it, sometimes you need to—”
“Become an asshole yourself?” I said.
“—put up with things. Like insults. Like distractions. I put up with you running your cases.”
“Case.”
“That’s my albatross. And fine. It’s important to you, I respect that. But there’s got to be some”—he circled his wrist, searching for the word—“reciprocity. You have to be reciprocal.”
“I can’t spare four days from this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I know I’ve been a bit remiss,” I said. “I know you’ve had to pick up the slack. I appreciate that. But let me solve this. I can solve this.”
“Maybe,” he said. “She’s been missing for thirteen years.”
“Eleven.”
“Does it matter if it’s next week or the week after? And if you do find her—say it all works out happily, and the girl is alive and well in some hippie artist’s colony on Sechelt—can you tell me honestly you won’t find another case that has to be solved right now?”
He stood up and stacked the dirty coffee cups on the table inside each other. Light brown coffee sloshed out over the rims. I watched the rivulets run over the countertop, toward the edge, until Jeff caught the liquid in his napkin and swept it back to where it could be sopped up.
“Can you not see, Dave, that you keep doing the same thing, again and again, and each time expecting a different outcome?”
“There’s no other way,” I said.
“You lack perspective,” Jeff said. “You care too much. I was like that. This Winnipeg trip’ll be good for you. Get you out of the city for a while. You’ll get to see the Coke can. Will you do it?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“All right.”
“Jeff?”
“Dave.”
“If I go, I’m not going to see the Coke can.”
Jeff said, “I think they have a zoo.”
—
Around four Marie stopped by to take Jeff to an early dinner. Evidently they’d reconciled. I called the Waverley and learned that Dolores Gunn had the night off and would be back tomorrow. I didn’t leave a message.
I phoned Martz next, asked him to introduce me to his friend in Sex Crimes.
“You insist,” he said. “But she’s an eight and a half and you’re, well, counting your personality I guess I could give you a high four.”
“Ha ha.”
“And without your personality, a low six.”
“Don’t you have an old woman to tase, Ryan?”
We’d meet Jane Henriquez tonight at the Alibi Room on Alexander and Main. I gave Martz the names I was interested in. After more zingers from the Policeman’s Big Book of Humourless Jokes, I put the phone down.
Dolores Gunn. Chelsea’s coworkers and friends. That left the diary. Before I opened it I set it down on the empty desk and drank a glass of water. And I thought about what Jeff had said. He’d spoken the truth. But then I wasn’t convinced that being true and being right were exactly the same thing.
I’d come this far. I opened the book.
But I didn’t read it. I turned the pages and looked at the scraps of paper and paraphernalia tucked away. There was no discernible order to the pieces. Yet each piece was a memento of a life—a ticket stub from a Canucks game, a bar bill from the Commodore, scrawled directions from Kazz’s apartment to a West End restaurant long since demolished. Several pictures of Kevin, school photos mainly, one of him with Pavel Bure. And a folded sheet of writing paper torn from a coil-bound notebook.
The paper listed cars and vague descriptions of men. BLUE PRELUDE ASIAN 30S BIG GOLD WATCH. BLUE CELICA WHITE BALD BLUE EYES. PLATE LDG XXX. One simply said BLUE VAN MULLET.
A bad date list, either Chelsea’s or one passed on to her. The women would keep track, swap stories of abusive or violent or stingy johns. Problem clients, predators. In an environment neglected by the outside world, those women had developed their own mechanisms to protect themselves and share information.
It was something to take to Henriquez.
I wasn’t ready to dip into Chelsea’s thoughts. I looked up Dolores Gunn’s home number instead. On the fifth ring someone picked up.
“I don’t know this number.”
“My name is David Wakeland. I’m—”
“Don’t know you.”
“—a private investigator working—”
“Don’t. Know you.”
“—for the family of Chelsea Loam. Can we—”
“I don’t talk to strange men on the phone. Sort of a rule.”
“It’s important.”
“You want to talk, come see me at the Waverley. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“You sure we can’t speak now? I could come to you, your place, your terms.”
“Walk in my place, limp out. I told you no strange men. Those are my terms.”
“See you tomorrow, then.”
—
The Alibi Room had squeezed into a building that had once held the Archimedes, which had been frequented by cab drivers and the occasional off-duty cop. The patrons of the Alibi Room were younger, had more money and better taste in beer.
I expected Jane Henriquez to be Latina. In point of fact she was an Amazonian blonde, almost milky pale, and her family was from Salamanca and Copenhagen. Martz was smitten. In a well-cut pantsuit and gl
asses, her hair trimmed short, Henriquez dressed to offset men’s attention and failed. Like all sex crimes cops, she had the hollowed-out stare of someone who’d gazed too often at things that can’t be unseen.
“Ryan mentioned that you’d been in contact with Sharlene Nelson. How is Shay?”
“She’s been a help,” I said.
Henriquez seemed surprised. “Out of the goodness of her heart?”
“I’ve been paying her.”
“Her habit’s deep. Any money you give her is going straight for narcotics. Be aware of that.”
“I don’t control how she spends her money,” I said.
“No, only how you spend yours. I’m just stating a fact. Did you two want to eat? Because I really don’t like the vegan choices here.”
“How ’bout nachos?” Martz said.
I handed Henriquez the sheet of notebook paper I’d discovered stuffed into Chelsea’s diary. She unfolded it, studied it.
“A bad trick sheet,” she said. “An old one. Where’d you find this?”
“Among Chelsea’s things,” I said.
“Chelsea Loam, Charity.” Henriquez stared at the sheet. “She’s been on the missing list over a decade. This just surfaced now? I’d like to know where you found it.”
“Tucked into her diary.”
“You have her diary?”
I nodded.
“I think you should turn it over to me. Or Missing Persons.”
“Yeah, I could take that,” Martz said. He’d been studying the menu.
“I’m not prepared to do that right now,” I said.
When the waitress came by I ordered nothing. Henriquez ordered nothing. Martz ordered nachos and a pitcher of Fat Tug. When asked how many glasses, Martz said three.
“This diary,” Henriquez said. “Does it mention who might’ve killed her?”
“Not by name. The book’s in shorthand. And anyways, we don’t know she’s dead.”
Henriquez looked skeptical but didn’t argue the point.
“I think VPD’d have a better chance decoding it,” she said. “Which is not a slight against you. We simply have more specialized personnel.”
“None taken, but the diary stays with me for the time being.”
“Do you really want to impede a police investigation?”
“Show me there is an investigation first.”
Martz said, “That’s not fair.”
“To hell with fair.” I caught my voice rising above the noise of the bar. I said, more quietly, “Everywhere I go I hear from people who don’t want to talk to you. Think that’s coincidence? You’ve alienated the people you should be protecting.”
Neither said anything.
Exhaling, I said, “I need some sort of overture from the VPD right now.”
“Like info on those women you mentioned,” Henriquez said.
“As a start.”
The waitress brought Ryan’s pitcher and set glasses in front of us. Henriquez put her hand over hers, blocking Martz’s pour. I let him buy me the pint.
“Different professional standards,” Henriquez said. She sipped her water. “Lillith Jeffries, Lila, died twelve fourteen oh eight, cardiac arrest linked to cocaine and amphetamine use. Kirsty Clarkson, Casey, died nine seventeen oh nine from a GSW, linked to an unregistered firearm in the possession of Lonnie Clarkson, her husband. Charge of second-degree manslaughter laid. Kimberly Sung, died eight six of two thousand eleven, body recovered from Vancouver harbour. Note left on her bike, a Kawasaki Ninja, found parked in the middle of the Burrard Bridge. Witness saw her jump.”
She’d stared straight at me while reeling off the list. No papers in front of her. No emotion in her pale blue stare.
“No links between the deaths?” I said.
“Overdose, domestic violence, suicide. Unconnected.”
“All dead.”
“The odds of survival don’t favour sex trade workers,” Henriquez said. “I did locate Marjorie Vee, birth name Milos Vrenna. She works at Spirit Bear Coffee up at SFU and she told me she’d be willing to talk to you.”
“Appreciated,” I said. “Can you run those descriptions on Chelsea’s bad date sheet, tell me who these men are?”
“The records on dead women are easier to pull compared to those of living men. Does this at least earn me a look at Chelsea’s diary?”
“This book is my only edge,” I said. “If I learn anything I’ll share it. But I’m not comfortable putting it in police custody at this time.”
“Then this has been a waste for me,” Henriquez said.
“Not a total waste, hopefully,” Martz said.
“Why not share? Why not have as many people looking as possible? Isn’t it a bit egotistical for you to insert yourself as a custodian between this evidence and the proper authorities?”
I said, “If you’re asking do I have an interest in this, abso-fucking-lutely. Maybe it’s only ego, but there are things at play I can’t talk about.”
“Self-serving if not self-aggrandizing,” Henriquez said. “Can you at least try the proper channels?”
I tapped the table, on which rested the date sheet and my notes on the four friends of Chelsea Loam.
“Think what you just said,” I told her. “Five women. One is still upright. What does that say about the proper channels?”
“You’re not suggesting a conspiracy,” Henriquez said.
“I wish this was a conspiracy. I wish you’d told me all these women were killed in the same way, by the same person. The idea this is all the work of a lone, frothing supervillain would make me ecstatic. I envy conspiracy nuts. The idea there’s a master plan would be a comfort—because there is no plan, no one at the helm. How are you s’posed to get in the ring against entropy?”
“It’s a very nice speech,” Henriquez said.
“My point, I hand the book over to you, things take a certain course. I lose my only foothold and I assume certain risks. Maybe it’s got to be like that, but I’m not certain it does. Not yet.”
“Risks?” Henriquez asked.
“Risks. There’s a couple guys out there. If they knew about the diary they’d probably want to take a gander themselves.”
“So this is about self-preservation.”
“It’s about finding a way through,” I said.
“You don’t have the right—”
“No, just the means.”
I’d exhausted my goodwill. I got up to leave. Henriquez followed me out. Martz, naturally, followed Henriquez. On the pavement Henriquez said, “You’re not the only one who cares about this situation. I’m in the trenches every day.”
“What trenches?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand there’s a couple guys I got to worry about.”
“Because they’re stronger than you? Because you can’t be sure what motivates them or how they’re going to treat you?”
“That’s right.”
“Now imagine that’s forty-nine percent of the population,” Henriquez said, “and you can perhaps begin to understand how these women felt.”
18
THE NEXT MORNING I left my flat in East Van with a Thermos of tea and the diary. I bought fresh rolls and raspberry compote at the Farmer’s Market at Trout Lake. It was a Saturday. The absence of clouds and the sweltering heat gave the city a listless feeling, already palpable in the late morning sun.
I walked down Commercial Drive toward the waterfront. I enjoy the Drive, with its conglomeration of misfits, its restaurants, ethnic hair stylists, funky cafés and Legion halls. I like Black Dog Video and I like Cafe Deux Soleils, where on a warm night you can walk by and hear amplified snippets from the open mic poetry slam (stare at yo’ dick, stare at yo’ dick) and in the morning you can see children playing on that same stage as their mothers breakfast. I like the barbershops and ristorantes that hint at the Drive’s history as Vancouver’s Italian enclave. There are good sushi joints and the best espresso.
; But Commercial blends into the industrial waterfront, and a left brings you onto Hastings or Cordova. Past the needle exchange and the bad hotels backgrounded by the towers of finance that loomed so ominously in AK-47’s drawing. I passed West Coast Reduction and nameless storehouses and watched a Chinese woman gather cans and bottles strewn across Oppenheimer Park from last night’s debaucheries.
My destination was Victory Square, with its coliseum seating arranged around the cenotaph. I chose an unoccupied stretch of concrete, parked myself and poured some tea. I people-watched. I sent a homeless man on his way with two of the rolls. I contemplated cigarettes, since I hadn’t brought my own.
Only when I couldn’t think of further distractions did I open the diary.
It’s difficult, for me at least, to feel sympathy for anyone who constantly gets laid. That probably says more about my own peculiar blend of shame and lust and self-pity than about the other person. There is a feeling, being a man who’s never had all the sex and love he’s wanted, reading the perspective of a woman who felt smothered by an overabundance of those things, of wanting to say, at least you have that. At least you are connected to others, even if it’s not in the way you’d prefer. At least at least at least.
And yet she was in torment—even I could see that. Caged by her habit and her sex in a cycle of trading one for the other. Caged by her love for a damaged son and a damaging boyfriend. Caged by an endless line of men all wanting their own needs quelled, willing to pay, quite willing to see her disappear once their cocks had deflated.
And her own blindness to it all—her inability to see that Kevin was lost to her, that Kazz was doing the opposite of looking out for her. That her descriptions of tricks, with their eccentricities and hang-ups and grotesque or irregular bodies, only fronted a stultifying sameness. As if each required something different. But then maybe they did.
Back from a date with C.P. Met him at one of A.K.’s parties. He came up to me and asked about butt sex, the etiquette of it. He said when he was a boy he’d done it to another boy and wanted to see if it was different with a girl and would pay. Now writing this on the toilet trying to get the rest of his gunk out of me. Can still feel his tongue rough like a cat’s on my bum. Laughed about it with Kazz. He says I should put a camcorder in my purse so we can watch and laugh about it later. He says there might even be $ in it. I told him if he wanted me to be a film star I could always go back to JJ’s. He dropped the subject.