by Mike Cranny
“Not really.”
“How long do you think Fricke is going to wait before you’re back running investigations?”
Lee shrugged, sat down in a chair close to the wall, thoughtful.
“I really couldn’t say.”
Archie scanned the corridor, looked to the back door and waited. The events of the previous evening were starting to take shape and he hoped Lee would come on board. Lee preened his eyebrows with the little finger of his left hand.
“Who else do you have? Who’s the team?”
Archie grinned.
“So far just you and Patsy Kydd.”
Lee harrumphed, said, “Amazing.”
“Considering who else is down at the station, the fewer the better. Know anything about her?”
“She’s a forensic anthropologist. She dropped out of a PhD program and ended a long term relationship.”
Archie said, “Great,” without sincerity.
“She’s got every guy’s attention at the station.”
“No comment.”
“Not mine,” Lee said.
“No, I guess not.”
“You got a lot of information out of her even so.”
“Women like to tell me things.”
Jim Stone appeared in the doorway. He shot Lee a glance, looked at Archie and raised his eyebrows.
“What is it, Stoney?” Archie said.
“The coroner is on her way. Cal Fricke called and told me to tell you that he wants you to keep Ray Jameson informed.”
Archie said, “Shit,” just as Ray Jameson came in, heavy boots loud on the wood floor. He was a long lean whip of a man with a grim, dark face. Like always, he acted like he was in charge, or ought to be. He scarcely looked at Donaldson’s body. He turned to his partner, Chad Reddin.
“This is a big case for a new detective,” he said
Jameson’s voice grated more than usual. Reddin nodded.
“Like you say, Ray.”
Archie said nothing, letting Jameson say what he had to say, and then hopefully he would tire of the sport and go someplace else.
“Want us to look around for you there, Detective Stevens?” Jameson pushed the needle in a little deeper, hoping for a reaction. “Me and Reddin can get things set up right for you. You could even go home, or to the bar. You can take numb nuts here with you.” That was directed at Lee. “I got some time. I can wait for the coroner. I’ll do you the favour.”
Archie pretended to look off in the distance. He turned back and looked at Jameson.
“Were you saying something, Ray? I wasn’t paying attention.”
He noted the change in Jameson who was not relaxed now, not dominating like when he first came in, pissed off.
“Fuck you, Stevens. I try to be nice and what do I get. I should’ve been harder on you when you were a kid, should have run your sorry ass up to juvie. People like you don’t appreciate nothing.”
Archie grinned, shook his head — nothing else to do.
“Whatever you say, Ray.”
If he was going to let Jameson get to him he might as well go home now. They had a long history. A lot of people figured Ray had let Archie’s father die in the accident that killed him. Archie had once wondered that too but he doubted it had happened that way. Billy Stevens had to take responsibility for his own death. Archie had decided long ago that he had no attachment to his old man and his death had never really been an issue for him. He and Jameson just didn’t like each other, and that wasn’t going to change. Besides, it rankled him the way Jameson treated Lee who was a far better cop than Jameson would ever be.
The coroner’s van arrived and, a moment later, Priscilla Ito bustled in tailed by her young assistant. She congratulated Archie on his assignment, greeted Thomas Lee warmly, ignored Jameson, and went to the body, pushing aside the fingerprint guy enroute.
Jameson lingered, his attention on Ito and her assistant, watching them as they worked. When they had finished, Archie gave his okay and Ito removed the body. Jameson went out then, following Ito with questions. Reddin took a quick look around and then followed. But the tension Jameson generated lingered. Ito returned with forms that needed to be filled out and signed. Lee took them from her.
“I can do these.”
Archie nodded.
“We’d better talk to John Robbie, sooner rather than later.”
“I’ll get a patrol car to go to his place, see if we can pick him up this morning.”
“Get Delia to put out a bulletin on him right away.”
“Okay.”
“If Robbie’s involved, that could mean Bill Tran is worth talking to as well.”
Lee shot him a look. Bill Tran meant big trouble. Archie hoped his face didn’t give anything away. Lee probably knew that Archie knew both John Robbie and Bill Tran from the old days. Thankfully, Lee didn’t pursue it. He sighed, took the paperwork to Donaldson’s old desk and sat down to work through it.
Archie left him to it. He went back and watched as the body was loaded onto the gurney.
With the body gone, he had a few more things to check out before he went in to town to get the results of the autopsy. He’d looked for hard copy nautical charts at the dive shop; Nick should have had a stack of them but there wasn’t a single chart in the shop and he wasn’t sure why that would be the case.
It bothered him that Jameson’s visit had affected him — in spite of his best efforts. He tried to refocus, to get his mind off the sense he had of being where he shouldn’t be, of being an interloper. It was something he had struggled with for most of his life and accounted for much of his bravado — and the chip on his shoulder. And it fed the deep, deep anger that followed him like a cloud.
CHAPTER 4
Archie pulled himself out of bed and stumbled through his borrowed apartment to a designer kitchen that was light years from what he was used to. He needed coffee but had forgotten to buy it, again. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything in the kitchen to eat or drink, no food in the fine birch cupboards, nothing in the fancy two-door fridge, nothing. Not that there was much point to stocking the place, or getting used to it. He’d be gone in a few months when the lease expired.
He picked up a glass that looked cleaner than the others on the counter and filled it with cold water from the spout in the fridge door. As he drank, he looked over the rim at his reflection in the black mirror of the kitchen window and mentally interrogated the image.
In the night he had woken wishing Streya Wainright was still with him but she wasn’t, and wasn’t going to be. It was unusual for him to regret, especially where women were concerned, and he wondered if it was because he was getting older. He put the glass down, gave his reflection the finger and turned away. Then he walked down the hall, went into the bathroom with its heated floor and started the shower.
An hour later, he was back on Nick’s side road. He finished the egg bun he’d bought at Avril’s Donut House, tossed the crumpled wrapper over his shoulder, and gulped the last of his coffee. The empty cup joined the garbage piling up behind the passenger seat.
The ongoing drizzle irritated him more than usual. He growled against the fact that he still needed his headlights at eight in the morning. His people had lived in this one place forever and some adaptation to the grayness, to the cold and wet, should be in his genes. Instead, he stayed moody from November to April. Hell, he didn’t even like seafood that much.
Soon he was out of the trees and into the open. He drove down the bank and into the parking lot at Donaldson’s Dive Adventures for the third time in twenty-four hours. He parked outside the now complete perimeter of caution tape.
Patsy Kydd walked towards him smiling. He put his hands into his jacket pockets, hunched his shoulders against the drizzle and looked past her to the horizon. She stood waiting for him to say something, her smile fading away.
“I thought Thomas would be here by now,” he said.
“He took some more tire impressions and then he decided to g
o get coffee. He’s been up most of the night.”
Archie couldn’t think of anything to say so he gave her something to do.
“Take a walk around. Look for anything that seems out of place.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing since six this morning?”
“Did you move anything?”
That made her flush.
“I’m either on this case or I’m not.”
“You’re new.”
He was aware of the irony of that statement even before it was out of his mouth.
“I know I’m new, but I’m not stupid,” she said.
She touched the brim of her ball cap in mock salute and stalked away, hands deep in her pockets, shoulders back. He watched her until she disappeared behind the boathouse and drove the idea that she had a nice ass out of his mind.
He focussed now on the case and thoughts of motive and means. He’d learned that Donaldson’s laptop computer was missing and wondered if it might be significant. He walked past a scud of white plaster where Lee had taken tire impressions and continued on.
The drizzle switched to rain as he wandered — big, bitter-cold, November drops. He took a short-cut over a low, grassy bank that gave him a different view of the shop and the property it sat on. He hadn’t gone ten feet when he saw the dark shape under a knot of blackberry canes, a diving glove that somebody had dropped. He walked to the brambles, took out the forceps he carried in his jacket pocket, hunkered down, stretched, reached past the canes, squeezed, and drew the thing back. He stood up with it just as Lee pulled into the lot.
He waited, rain streaming off the peak of his hat, while Lee got out of his car, tight in his buttoned up Burberry with his natty fedora clamped on his head. Lee walked quickly. He handed Archie the cup of coffee he’d been carrying. Archie took it and held up the glove by his fingertips.
“This get missed?”
Lee shrugged, the rain rapidly darkening the shoulders of his coat.
“It happens. Patsy should see this too.”
Lee called Patsy on the walkie-talkie and then mumbled something about going inside. They walked through the rain, up the steps and into the shop.
Inside, Archie placed the glove on a countertop. It lay like a dead thing on the dirty glass. The two men waited, not speaking. Patsy, dripping wet, joined them moments later. She looked at Archie, somewhat accusingly he guessed, which made him think about how much more comfortable he was at doing things alone.
Lee put on violet-framed reading glasses, leaned forward and peered at the glove like a casino box-man examining suspect dice. He put his own small hand near the big glove.
“Big hands like the victim’s,” he said.
Archie nodded.
“It could be Nick’s glove. Probably is.”
He watched Patsy study the glove. Suddenly she reached out and squeezed the neoprene.
“There’s something in here,” she said. “It’s flat — like a medallion or a coin. If nobody has any objections, I’m going to turn this thing inside out.”
She picked up the glove and turned back the cuff. The rolled edge of something metallic appeared. She slid a slender finger and thumb into the little pocket sewn into the gauntlet, pulled out a thick gold coin and held it up to the light.
“This might be important.”
She grinned at him as she handed it to him. He held it by its edges, turned it over and looked at the markings on both sides. The coin was unlike anything he had seen, more like a commemorative piece than real currency. It had stars and astrological symbols on one side and a single big star and foreign writing on the obverse.
“Doesn’t look like any coin I’ve ever seen,” Lee said.
“What’s the writing?”
“A Scandinavian language, I’d say,” Patsy said. “Not German or Dutch — I know what they look like.”
“Bag it up and take it to the lab. Find out everything you can about it.”
“It might be nothing in terms of the murder,” Lee said.
“Let’s keep this to ourselves for the moment,” Archie said.
“Why do I have to keep it secret,” Patsy said.
“Because I asked you to.”
“You want me to break with procedure just because you…”
Lee intervened, trying to break the tension before it had a chance to build any further.
“It’s early. I don’t think it’s unusual to pick and choose at this stage.”
“Exactly,” Archie said.
Patsy shook her head. She fished a plastic bag from her jacket pocket, put the glove in and labelled it with a Sharpie she’d taken from her pocket. Then she put the coin in another bag, and labelled it.
“Okay?” she said.
Before he could answer, she spun on her heel and walked past him out into the rain. As she was leaving, Stoney appeared in the doorway, his poncho streaming water.
“We found a computer in a ditch up the highway,” he said. “Might be the one you’re looking for.”
“Good if it is.”
Exactly where a stolen computer fit in wasn’t at all clear to Archie, but he hoped he’d find out. In the meantime, he had to get the results of the autopsy that should have started already. He left Lee and Stone to their work and walked back out to his car, thankful it had stopped raining.
He drove past where the deer carcass lay. It looked like coyotes had been there; a lot of it was gone. By the time he got to the highway, he needed his sunglasses. The brighter light made him feel better and less pessimistic. He was hungry again. The Satsuma Café was on his way to the morgue where the autopsy was being held, so he’d have enough time to stop and get a bite. There was a chance he might run into Streya but he’d take it. The food at the Satsuma Café was much better than any other place enroute. He drove down the hill, took a left on Admiral and pulled into the parking lot.
He picked a table on the outdoor terrace, close enough to one of the propane heaters to feel the warmth and sat down facing the boat basin. A waitress in a down vest showed up a minute later with a menu. She looked surprised to see Archie. He knew her, one of the Lindeman girls from Beecher Bay.
“How’re things, Natalie?” he asked.
“Streya isn’t here today, Archie.”
“I just want lunch.”
He wondered why his love life should be everybody’s business.
“Lunch I can do.”
She took his order for coffee and a clubhouse sandwich and went back through the swinging door into the restaurant. When she was gone, he took out his notebook. He still liked the old-fashioned notebook better than the devices most of his colleagues seemed to carry these days, which was funny because he was younger than most of them. Soon, he was making notes, deep in thought. He didn’t hear the person come up behind him and was surprised when the seat opposite him was suddenly occupied.
Arnie Bulkwetter was the manager of the larger of the two marinas in town. Archie had worked for Bulkwetter for a while; back when Archie was a teenager. He figured Bulkwetter probably still owed him pay from those days, but the man’s way of accounting had been more like Three-card Monte than anything else and Bulkwetter always came out ahead. Like always, Bulkwetter started talking right off, oblivious to the fact that Archie was busy.
“That’s some deal about Nick Donaldson,” he said.
“What do you mean, Arn?”
“You know — the slashed throat and all.”
So far as Archie knew, nobody had even notified Nick’s next-of-kin. Certainly, the details of the murder were not supposed to be out for public consumption. He asked Bulkwetter how and what he’d heard, but Bulkwetter just laughed.
“For Christ sake, Archie, this is Harsley. There are no secrets here.”
Archie said that while that was likely true, he wasn’t about to talk about any ongoing cases.
“Sure, sure,” Bulkwetter said.
The Lindeman girl brought Archie’s order. She shot Bulkwetter a distasteful glance.
Archie picked up the sandwich and ate; then he sipped his coffee, studied the other man. Bulkwetter also seemed to be studying him.
“He was supposed to call me,” he said.
Archie put the sandwich down on the plate. The gas heater hissed loudly in his ear.
“Who was?”
“Nick. We were going to do some fishing together.”
Archie picked up his sandwich again. He was listening.
“When was that?”
“A few days back.”
“And you didn’t hear from him?”
“No, but there was nothing unusual there.”
“So you and him fish together much? I didn’t know that.”
“I’m usually too busy but, yeah, sometimes.”
“Once in a while you do or more often than that?”
“Marina stuff keeps me occupied, so not often.”
“So why are you telling me about a fishing trip that never happened?”
“No reason.”
Bulkwetter was a talker but there was more to it than that.
“Anything else you can tell me about Nick, about who he was hanging with? What he was up to?”
“Nah. You know Nick. Not overly talkative.”
“You see John Robbie around anywhere?”
“No, but I know what you’re thinking,” Bulkwetter said.
“What’s that?”
“That maybe he killed Nick. That he’s always short of money. That he’s got connections with Bill Tran through Bonnie. Tran’s a son of a bitch — as we all know.”
“I just asked if you’d seen him. I don’t suspect him of anything, but I would like to talk to him.”
“I bet you would.”
Archie took another bite of his sandwich.
“Why do you say that?”
“He’d be the guy.”
Archie said nothing. Bulkwetter stirred in his seat.
“Weather stinks,” Bulkwetter said. “Ho hum.”
He looked past Archie towards the harbour.
Archie was too tired to play games with Arnie Bulkwetter, but he had an idea that the man might know something useful. Playing hard to get might be the only way.
“I’m trying to eat my lunch, Arn. I got work to do myself.”