by Ted Wood
'In his room at the motel. Only the driver was missing and that could have been the murder weapon.'
George was thoughtful. 'You'd think he'd have enough moxie to get rid of them if he'd killed that woman.'
'That's the way I see it. The other thing is, he claims, naturally, that he doesn't know anything about the PCP in his room. There could be a case that whoever dosed him up with the stuff also left the clubs there to incriminate him.'
'That's what a good lawyer would claim. You'd never get a jury to convict on a case like that.'
'Yeah, well, that's why I want to know about Waites. If he's a criminal lawyer he knows his share of rounders, guys who might off his wife for him and stick the blame on this dumb kid.'
'But you said it was a woman from Parry Sound killed.'
'She and the dead woman are very much alike to look at. If my theory is right, a contract guy may have goofed.'
He digested that in a moment's silence, then asked, 'So where does this Marcia Tracy fit in?'
'She knows both men. No law against that. But she knows Waites well enough to drive him out to the highway when his car was recovered and she had dinner with the Hanson kid the same night.'
He was silent again, recalling his days at the marina, trying to recall Marcia Tracy. 'She the woman who owns the old Dalton place on the west side of the lake, half a mile down from the lock?'
'That's where she lives when she's here. I don't know anything about any Dalton.'
'Before you came to the Harbour, Reid. He was a banker. He was widowed and married again. He died in Toronto around ten years back. I remember it involved pills and there was some discussion about did he fall or was he pushed. I guess Marcia Tracy is his widow.'
'Different name,' I objected.
'She's a big F feminist, in case you hadn't noticed. Likely that's her maiden name.'
'Apparently she's big in the film business in Toronto. A producer. Fred says she's well known, a ballbreaker with a couple of husbands behind her.'
'What's the name of her company?'
'Northlands Productions, I don't have an address.'
'OK. I'll look into it. Some of it I can do myself but I'll get Bill Serrel to do any legwork. Remember him?'
'Hell, yes.' Serrel was a sixtyish ex-cop. On retirement he had gone to work for the Crown Attorney's office. He was a quiet, thorough man, inclined to spend too much of his lunch-hour in the beer parlour, but aside from that a sound guy. 'Tell him hi,' I said.
'Will do. I'm coming to the Harbour tonight. It's my mom's birthday tomorrow so I've begged a day off to add to the weekend. I'll bring what I can find out with me, unless I hit something vital. Then I'll call.'
'Thanks, George. I owe you one.'
'De nada. See you tonight, and give my best to Fred.'
I hung up and called my sister in Toronto. She was just heading out to her job as creative director at an advertising agency but she cheered with delight at news of the baby and put her husband on to say hello. He's a Toronto homicide detective by the name of Elmer Svensen. I played Cupid for them a couple of years ago when Elmer and I worked on a case together in Toronto and he met Lou, who was divorced. He made all the usual noises about the baby and then I had a word of shop with him.
'Ever run into a lawyer name of John Waites?'
'Yeah. Tough sonofabitch in court. You've seen him there.'
'Don't remember him. It's been three years, remember.'
'He's been around longer than that. I recall he was in on a case of yours two, three years before then. Junior counsel representing that bank robber you shot.'
'Kershaw?'
'Yeah, that's the guy. Took a woman hostage. You got your picture in the papers over that one.'
'That's the guy who skipped his guard on a day pass from the pen, right?'
'The same one. Crazy, eh? We lock the bastards up and the parole board says they can go to ball games with some dopey baby-sitter.'
'And Waites was his lawyer.'
Elmer picked up my tone. 'What's he been up to, Waites?'
I filled him in on the homicide and he clicked his tongue. 'You know, from this end, it sounds to me like Waites could've been paying somebody to off his wife only they got the wrong girl.'
'That's what I'm thinking, too. Any chance you could do a little checking for me, Elmer, See if she was rich or if he had a big insurance policy on her.'
'I can do that. Although you've already got a motive. A guy like Waites wouldn't want a divorce. Under Ontario family law he'd have to give her half of everything if they'd've split up. He's a high liver. He wouldn't want her cutting into that.'
'Well, he's not exactly living high, taking his vacation at Pickerel Point Lodge. It's pretty fancy by our standards up here but the Côte d'Azur it ain't.'
'I'll ask around,' Elmer said. 'Gotta go. Louise has got her hand on the doorknob.'
'Thanks, Elmer. 'Predate it.'
The next call I made was to Fred's parents. They live in the interior of British Columbia, which is three hours behind us on the clock. But her mother answered, sleepily.
'Good morning, Ann. It's Reid. I wouldn't have woken you up at four-thirty but there's great news. You're the grandmother of a beautiful little girl.'
'Oh Reid, that's wonderful.' Her soft West of England accent still persists after forty years in Canada. 'How's Fred?'
I gave her all the details and she asked all the right questions. Then I asked the ugly one. 'How's Harry today?'
'Still asleep, He had a bad night, Reid. God forgive me, I sometimes wish for his sake that it was over.'
'Maybe the good news will give him fresh heart.'
'I hope so. Look, it's impossible to travel right now. But as soon as you can, I hope you'll come out and see us. He'd love that.'
'Week after next unless something unforeseen crops up. Take care of yourself.'
'Bless you, Reid. I'll send Fred some flowers as soon as the store opens.'
That reminded me what I had to do: order some flowers and put an announcement in the paper. But it was too early to do either for another hour so I took my coffee into the living-room and sat on the couch. An hour later I was waking up, the full cup still in front of me. I got another cup and showered again and changed, then called and ordered roses at the Parry Sound florist's. I also placed an announcement in the paper. After that I put Sam in the scout car and drove down to Main Street.
Things move slowly in a resort town. The bait shop was open, of course. Gilles gets there at first light to be on hand for the early fishermen, but the grocery was just opening and the bank and liquor store employees were arriving for their ten o'clock starts. I stopped in to chat to Gilles, telling him that Hanson wanted to compensate him.
'I lost four rods an' five reels is all. I'll make up a bill,' he said angrily. 'But y'know, Chief, that young guy, 'e should do community service, 'im. Make 'im clean up in some place messy.'
'It could come to that. He's up on a couple other charges.' I was going to leave but he remembered Fred and I shared the news with him, which was a faster way of getting it around town than taking an ad in the newspaper.
It worked that way. I had trouble getting out of the station where I went to check the teletype. There was nothing on it about Kershaw. He was still at large but the phone rang continually with well-wishers. I managed to call Fred, who sounded strong and happy. I told her I'd be in at two o'clock and when I'd hung up I put the phone on the answering box, asking people to ring Parry Sound OPP if they couldn't reach me. I didn't want the air filled with congratulations and I'd be in touch with Parry Sound myself to pick up anything worthwhile. Next I took a quick run to the Northont Motel to see if the owner remembered any visitors to Hanson's cabin. He didn't and seemed glad of the fact. The cabin was locked and sealed with an OPP sticker, which had angered the owner even further.
I went back to the station and called Parry Sound to talk to Sergeant Holland. 'He's headed down your way, Reid,' the constable to
ld me. 'He's going to get a statement from this Waites guy whose car was stolen.'
'Waites is still here?'
'Guess he must be. That's where Bill's headed.'
'Thanks. I'll join him there.'
Pickerel Point Lodge was busy. Four couples were out playing tennis and other people were getting ready to take their boats out but they were all comfortable Mom and Pop types, not like Waites. A yuppie like him would have been as out of place here as an ocelot at a kid's pet show. Coming here had been a real concession on his part. Maybe he really had been trying to please his wife. And maybe she had been genuinely difficult to get along with. But had he set her up for a killing?
There was no police car outside, so I parked and got out, taking Sam with me. It was going to be Holland's investigation. I would just wait and work with him, making sure Waites didn't leave.
Mrs James was in the lobby and she told me that Waites hadn't been down for breakfast. There was a 'do not disturb' sign on his doorknob. I asked her to head him off and call me if he came down, then walked through the lounge and out to the back of the building. The lounge gave on to a broad deck with recliner chairs on it and a sandy beach in front. A couple of pleasant-looking young mothers were sitting on the deck watching their children play at the water's edge. To the right was the long wall of the building, cut off from the deck by a five-foot wooden fence. To fill time while I waited for Holland I went down the steps in front of the deck and walked around the building the long way. That was when I noticed the rope.
It was the primitive fire-escape from an upstairs room, a two-inch rope with knots every few feet. Normally it should have been coiled under the window of the room but in one case it was hanging down, reaching almost to the ground.
The bedroom window from which it hung was open wide. All the others were open part way with a fly screen in the open section. That meant that somebody had come down the rope. I guess I should have gone around to the front desk and asked whose room it was but I didn't take the time. Calling on old boot-camp skills, I grabbed the rope and walked myself up the wall to the room above. At window-sill level I paused, raising my head cautiously to look inside. Nothing seemed out of place but the bed had not been slept in. I grabbed the window-sill and heaved myself inside.
From the window I could see that the closet door was open and there was a man's suit was lying on the floor next to it, the pockets inside out. I took out my gun and advanced towards the door of the bathroom which was ajar.
The door opened at a push of my toe and I saw, in the mirror facing me that there was nobody hiding behind it. Still with the gun in my hand I moved into the bathroom, looking down around the door to check nobody was crouched there. Nobody was. But John Waites was lying face down in the empty tub, still dressed in the clothes he had worn to the funeral parlour. And spreading out beneath him was the rusting stain of day-old blood.
I holstered my gun and felt his throat automatically for a pulse. There was none and the body was already stiff.
The security chain was in place on the door so I unhooked it, then, carefully not touching anything else, I went back to the window and slipped back down the rope. A couple of kids were walking by towards the beach and one of them said, 'Hey. Neat-oh. I'm gonna do that.'
He headed towards me but I told him, 'Stay down, please. That's dangerous.' And as a safeguard I told Sam 'Keep' and left him there while I ran back to the deck and up into the lodge.
Holland had just arrived. He was talking to Mrs James and he looked up in surprise. 'Hell, Reid. I figured you'd still be in bed, you were up all night.'
'Waites is dead,' I said.
Mrs James gasped but Holland made to go out the way I had entered. 'No, he's up in his room. Somebody got out down the fire-escape rope. I climbed up to check and he's dead.'
'The key, please.' Holland held out his hand to Mrs James, who pulled a key from the pocket of her skirt.
'This is the master. What are you going to do?'
'We're going to check. Then I'll need to talk to your staff. Don't let any of them go anywhere before I've done that, please.' Holland was polite even in his urgency. 'Which room is it?'
'Two-oh-six. Come on.' I led the way and we ran upstairs and Holland unlocked the door.
'Did you take the chain off?'
'Yes. Whoever it was went down the rope.'
We went into the bathroom and looked at the body. Holland didn't even touch it. 'The blood's good and dry. I'd say he was killed last night sometime.'
'Looks right to me,' I said. 'How'd you want to handle this? There's a doctor in town but he's not a forensics expert. You want to call your own people?'
'This is your turf.' He was grinning. 'Like, fair's fair, huh? I wanted to talk to this guy but Murphy's Harbour isn't my jurisdiction.'
'Fair trade. You took the Jeffries woman off my hands yesterday. I'll take care of this one. But I could use some help.'
'OK. Compromise.' He straightened up and looked at me. 'I'll help you for a while, call our crime scene guy in, then you take over.'
I guess it was ironic, two cops more or less tossing a coin to see who investigated a homicide, but places like Murphy's Harbour fall between the cracks of the police system. I'm fine with most things but a homicide investigation takes a team and there was just Sam and me. If we were going to find whoever had killed Waites, I'd need support.
We started by calling for help, Holland phoned his office to send the crime-scene team. They're a small detatchment and their team consisted of one man, a jack of all trades. He would take the photographs, then dust for prints and, if necessary, vacuum the room for samples of lint that might have come from the murderer's clothing, although that would be hard to prove in court. Hotel rooms have so many people through them that a good lawyer can usually sway a jury on peripheral evidence like that.
To fill in the time until he arrived, we interviewed the staff. Nobody had seen or heard anything unusual but we established that Waites had ordered room service, an unusual request in such a small establishment at Pickerel Point Lodge. That had been at nine-thirty. He had ordered a bottle of Scotch, asking for Glenfiddich, but had settled for their bar brand, J. & B. The dining-room waitress who had taken the bottle and ice up was off duty until noon but Mrs James called her house. She was out but would come in to work as soon as she returned.
The Scotch order made me think, on two counts. To start with, Glenfiddich was Hanson's drink. Second, there had been no bottle in sight in the room. Perhaps the murderer had taken it with him. That suggested Kershaw as the murderer. He was on the run, cautious about going into public places like a liquor store, even if he had money. He would have taken the whisky without thinking.
After we'd talked to the staff we canvassed the other guests. The guy who had the room on one side of Waites was out fishing but the man the other side had heard nothing. He had gone up to his room and hit the sack early, around ten. Maybe by that time Waites was already dead.
And that was as far as we could go on a first sweep. Mrs James said she would have the other man call me when he came in from fishing, and that was it.
We went back up to the room and looked around, without touching anything, while we waited for the crime-scene expert. Two glasses had been used but the bottle of Scotch was gone. 'Should be some prints on these glasses anyway,' Holland said with satisfaction. 'Might be able to name the guy right off.'
'It could be this Kershaw who skipped on his day pass in Toronto,' I said. 'I found out this morning that Waites was his lawyer when he was sent up.'
'Getting even for the lousy defence?' Holland laughed.
'It's not that simple. If he'd been looking for Waites he would have stayed in Toronto, not come here. And if someone in Toronto had told him where Waites had gone, how did he know which room? Yet nobody downstairs saw anybody strange in here last night.'
Holland frowned, creasing his solid, single eyebrow. He looked like a puzzled chimpanzee. 'I thought his wife might've gone
back home. If she had, she could have told the killer, but I've got the Toronto police checking his address. She didn't come back overnight, I know that.'
We stood there, looking at one another blankly, trying to see if there was some connection we'd missed. My own early theory had died with Waites. I had seen a possibility that he had set up his wife to be murdered. The man had seemed angry enough for it. And then the man who did the job had gotten the wrong woman. The idea made sense right up until somebody knifed Waites. But there was a second possibility.
'How about this? Waites set somebody up to kill his wife. My guess is it's this Kershaw. As a lawyer, Waites could have known in advance when Kershaw would be getting a day pass. He arranged to set him up with a car parked somewhere close to the ballpark in Toronto. So Kershaw, or whoever it was, comes up here and kills the wrong woman. Then the guy turns up here to collect whatever Waites had promised to pay him. Waites gets angry and tells him he's killed the wrong woman and he's not going to pay. So the guy knifes him.'
Holland unfurled his eyebrow and nodded. 'Some kind of sense in that. We'll know for sure when Dave Stinson gets down here and fingerprints those glasses.'
'Guy like Kershaw would know enough to wipe the glass,' I said and Holland shrugged. 'For now, I like your idea. I'm going to get it on the air, see if we can round the sonofabitch up. He oughta be inside anyway.'
'OK. I'll wait here while you go use the phone.' He left and I stood at the door, looking over the room. There was a dent on the neatly made bed, as if someone had sat there with his back to the headboard, and the only chair in the room was facing it. Aside from that the only thing out of place was the suit on the floor with the pockets inside out. That didn't make sense to me. A professional criminal, even a bank robber, wouldn't have turned the pockets inside out. You do that only if somebody is wearing the pants. With a suit on a hanger you could check the pockets by scrunching up the fabric in one hand.
I checked the closet, pushing the door open wider with the back of my fingernails to avoid putting extra prints on it. It was empty except for a pair of golf shoes with trees in them. Waites had obviously been a perfectionist.