by Ted Wood
We took everything out and searched all the internal pockets and compartments but there was nothing there. An innocent piece of luggage that had belonged to a woman with nothing to hide. It gave us no clue.
We repacked the case and checked the dresses hanging in the closet. There was nothing in them but the labels from some womens' store in Toronto. I folded them into the suitcase and we searched the body. It proved once and for all that he had killed Waites. In the pockets we found ID in the names of Jeffries along with six hundred and eighty dollars cash and then, in another pocket, all Waites' credit cards. We looked at one another without speaking when we pulled these out. Waites' murder was solved, but I wasn't going to quit looking until I found Moira Waites and knew who had driven Carolyn Jeffries off the rock into the lake.
In the bottom of his right-hand pocket we found the suitcase key and we opened it up. It had an immediate bonus for us, a neat little zippered briefcase inside on top of the clothes. Dupuy took it out and looked at me knowingly. 'Maybe now we'll have something.'
I was anxious to examine it but he played the senior officer, opening it and taking out a manilla folder. He frowned at the cover. 'Street boy,' he read. 'What the hell does that mean?'
'It's likely the name of Ms Tracy's movie.'
He looked at me disbelievingly and opened the file. I was trying to read over his shoulder and he tilted the paper towards me a fraction to make it easier. I saw that the top sheet was a financial statement of some kind, columns of figures and names.
'Breakdown of projected costs,' Dupuy said. 'Jesus, how much does it cost to make a movie?'
I wanted him to hurry up. Maybe he knew more about figures than I did, most people do, but I was deeper into the case than he was, I would see something important faster than he. But he read it through with painful thoroughness, then passed it to me. I sat on the bed and re-read it. The various cost projections were itemized. Script, lead actors, a million dollars allotted there, no wonder Hanson had been so anxious to get the part, balance of cast, location costs, wardrobe and on and on. Nothing useful. A total cost of 6.3 million.
Then Dupuy handed me the second page. This was a summary of the fund-raising efforts. She had assembled only five million dollars, including a promise from the Canadian Film Development Corporation, which had a question-mark pencilled against it. There was also a pencilled note at the bottom. '1 mill, possible on delivery.'
'What's that mean?' Dupuy asked.
'Beats me. Maybe it's a film term of some kind, or maybe it means she has to deliver something to get the million.' I was baffled, as he was. None of the people or companies listed had any significance to me. 'I'd just say that if she can't find another one million three hundred thousand dollars, the project's off.'
Dupuy had spent his career in small towns but he was not a dull man. 'They raise this kind of money routinely, don't they?'
'My wife's the expert. She says it's always a struggle and Ms Tracy told me she's having problems with the production. That means money, I guess.'
'Still doesn't tell us anything,' he said. 'This is just business, this guy Waites was a lawyer, it figures he would have business stuff with him.'
'What are the other papers?'
He leafed through them. 'Names, presumably of people she plans to hit up for the money. List of actors. Then there's some kind of story, says "treatment" on it.'
He took his time reading through the papers, passing them to me very slowly. None of the names rang a bell. They were mostly individual names, together with their companies which were again simply collections of names, no indication what the companies did, although I could tell from the addresses in Toronto's Bay and King Streets business area that they were all prestigious outfits.
Then he handed me the next sheet, a production summary. It had a listing which began with the director and the technical people and most of these slots had names inked in. Then came the cast and the first inked in name was Eric Hanson.
'This doesn't gibe with what she told me in hospital today,' I said. 'Hanson's name is inked in. She said he wasn't getting the part and that's why he attacked her.'
'She could have changed her mind,' Dupuy said tentatively.
'Sure, she could. But when you figure he's been acting out the part of bad boy in my jurisdiction, you wonder whether he was paying her off for the part.'
'Does that make sense?' Dupuy shook his head. 'Do guys go to that kind of length to get parts in movies?'
'Anything short of killing, if the part's big enough.'
'Well—' he breathed a long sigh—'your wife's the actress, not mine. Maybe you know. Anyway, read this.'
He handed me the last item, the treatment. I read it through quickly. It involved a teenager who got tangled up in a gang, starting with a disaffected group of kids in a high school. They carried out swarmings and a couple of beatings and then graduated to drug sales. The boy started having second thoughts and when he was told to commit a murder he tried to get out. With the gang after him, he hid out in an apartment belonging to a woman in her thirties. She and he have an affair and she straightens him out and he moves in with her.
'Pretty kinky stuff,' Dupuy said.
'It could appeal to women without a guy in their lives.'
'Are there enough of them to make a picture sell?' His small town background was showing now.
'Toronto is down by the head with single women. It's a good idea, they can enjoy watching someone their age end up with a young stud with a heart of gold. I figure this Tracy woman is pretty smart.'
'If she's so smart, how come she hasn't raised the money she needs?'
'Beats the hell out of me,' I admitted. 'But it's routine as far as I know. What interests me more is that the plot kind of matches up with the actor, Eric Hanson, and the way he moved in on Ms Tracy. That much is true to the script.'
'You think he killed this guy?' he flipped his hand at the body that we had been walking around as if it were some piece of furniture.
'My bet is Kershaw, but Hanson is big enough.'
'I'll call Holland and get him to ask Tracy about all this,' Dupuy said. 'And I'll have them collect the body, then we can finish looking at this stuff and close up until the morning.'
'Right. You want me to go on looking through the case?'
'May's well.' He left with the folder and I crouched by the case and dug deeper into it. It was full of clothes, all of them casual but expensive, but I remembered the cocaine we had found in Waites' room and I shook out each item to make sure it didn't have a package concealed inside it. None of them did and I got to the bottom of the case without finding anything.
I crouched there for a while longer, looking at the case blankly. Nothing useful, except maybe the file on Tracy's movie. And yet I had a feeling that there was more. There had to be. A man had been killed for this case. It had to contain something important. There was only one angle we hadn't checked, and one quick way to find out if I was right.
I went outside and called Sam. He bounded over to me and I fussed him, then calmed him and led him into the room. He looked over at the body but gave no reaction and I played the last card I had. I've trained him to be a one-man police department. Even though I don't get many drug cases I worked with the OPP dog trainer on developing his nose for drugs. Normally he doesn't react to anything he's not told to, but now I gave him his cue.
'It has to be a good solid hint,' the trainer had advised me. 'Like, normally we put a different collar on a dog when he's sniffing drugs, that alerts him. But you can do it with a command word. But make it unusual. Don't say anything ordinary.' So I held up one finger to Sam and used the code word, a memory of my own past. 'Mei Kong.'
He stiffened and turned away, searching. He sniffed the body on the floor, then left it and turned his attention to the pile of clothing, beginning to growl low in his throat. Finally he reached the suitcase and began to bark, furious now, scratching at the bottom of the case with his front feet as if he were tryi
ng to dig a hole through it.
Behind me I heard the door open and I turned to see Dupuy in the doorway. 'What the hell's going on here?' he shouted angrily.
'A new twist,' I told him. 'My dog has just shown me there's a stash of drugs hidden in this suitcase.'
CHAPTER 14
I told Sam 'Easy' and bent down to rub his head and let him know I was proud of him. It had been months since I'd tested his drug-sniffing skills, but he had performed as if he did it every day and given us something new to go on.
Dupuy was unconvinced. 'You sure about this?' He was examining the case. 'This thing looks perfectly normal.'
'Must be a hidden compartment,' I told him. 'It needs examining by the drug squad.'
He picked the case up and shook it, holding it up by his ear, an instinctive, useless test. 'Doesn't look like it,' he said again. I took out my pocket knife and probed the bottom of the case. It was lined with a paisley cloth and the surface underneath was firm, aluminium probably. 'Want me to cut it?'
'Why not? The owner won't complain.'
I put the case on the floor and pressed on the tip of the knife blade. It gave, easing through the thin metal. I started sawing back on it, cutting a slit on the inside of the lid. White powder leaked through the crack. 'Here it is.' I showed him and he shook his head in disbelief.
'How in hell did they pack that thing? It looks like it went in there when the case was made.'
'Maybe it did. I don't know. But it's there. What do you want to do now?'
'I figure we wrap up here and I'll take this back to the station.'
'We should watch this place tonight,' I said. 'The guy who killed Jeffries may come back to get this.'
'I know,' Dupuy said impatiently. 'I'm going to leave a man here. Can you hold on until he arrives?'
'Sure. Soon's the body's gone I'll lock up, turn out the lights and sit out of sight somewhere, watching.'
Dupuy bent over the case. 'The guy who was chased off must have known this was full of dope.'
'Which means he must have been tight with Waites.'
'Maybe your idea is good after all,' Dupuy said carefully. 'Maybe Waites' wife knew about the dope as well and was going to blow the whistle.'
'That's a solid motive for killing her.'
'Maybe.' We looked at one another, thinking hard. He was beginning to see the case the way I did. Like me, he felt flooded with useless information. We had everything except answers.
I thought for a moment. 'Sergeant Holland should be told about this now, while he's having a talk with the Tracy woman.'
'I guess I'll go see if he's there yet,' Dupuy said. 'The meat wagon's on its way. Can you stay here till then?'
'No problem. Then I'll wait for your man to arrive. Tell him to flick his lights twice so I'll know it's him.'
'I will. And thanks.' He left Waites' clothes piled where I had folded them and took the suitcase with him, closing it carefully first. 'Talk to my guy before you leave.'
'Right.'
He walked out and I sat on the edge of the bed, stroking Sam's head absently. There were so many connections staring us in the face. But how did they fit? This latest angle, for instance, the drugs. Dupuy was right, the way the case was filled made it very professional. But who was behind it? The suitcase belonged to Waites. Had he known about the drugs? Or had they been put in there before he bought it? And when had he bought it? And why was it with him in Murphy's Harbour? And why had Jeffries taken it when he killed Waites? Had he taken it just for the clothes it contained, or had he known it was packed with dope? And where had Waites been taking it in the first place?
I thought about that aspect for a while. We're further from Montreal than from Toronto, so he couldn't have been intending to ship it there. On the other hand, we're closer to Sault Ste Marie where there's a crossing into the States. Perhaps Waites had intended to send it over the border there. But why hadn't he done so already? He'd been in Murphy's Harbour almost a week. And that was when I had another idea, the reciprocal course. Maybe he had arrived here with a clean suitcase and someone had filled it for him. Maybe he had to sell it in Toronto. Maybe the stash in his golf shoes had been some kind of advance payment for his involvement.
That raised the question of who his supplier had been. He was tight with Ms Tracy. But if she were the source, surely her contacts would have been in Toronto. That was where she spent ninety-nine per cent of her time.
I was roused by the sound of a vehicle outside and then a tap on the door. I called, 'Come in,' and the door opened to admit a couple of ambulance men. 'We're here for the body,' one of them said. He was young and elaborately casual, his hair cut bowl fashion, long on top, almost shaved at the sides, out of character with the formality of his uniform.
'He's here.' I pointed and they brought in their stretcher and stood looking down at the dead man. 'Well, thank God he ain't heavy,' the other one said. He was older, with the red face and explosive skin of a heavy drinker. 'Last call we got was this heavy old broad up three flights of stairs. Goddamn near killed me getting her down.'
'You're lucky this time,' I told him. 'Try not to scuff up the chalk mark.'
'No problem,' the young one said. He wrinkled his nose. 'Jeez. How can you guys work in a stink like this?' I said nothing and they rolled the body on to the stretcher and left, joking back and forth to show what hard nuts they were.
I switched off the light and left the room, driving my car around the back of the unit, out of sight of the road, then took Sam and went out to the front of the unit, close to the entrance. I made myself comfortable with Sam beside me, waiting. No cars passed. At this time of night the side-road was used only by the locals and they were in bed. At last a car approached, from the direction of the highway. As he pulled in he flicked his lights and he pulled in at a vacant spot down the front of the unit.
The driver turned and wound his window down as I approached. There was enough starlight for me to see that he looked young. A uniformed man, I guessed, press-ganged into plainclothes stakeout work in his own car. He spoke first. 'How're you tonight?' the tough-guy mask of a green copper.
'Good. You? You know what's on?'
'Yeah. The inspector briefed me.'
'Good. We want this guy, if he comes back.'
He looked at me contemptuously, without speaking. Who the hell was I to tell him anything? He was chewing gum, I noticed, and I hoped he could handle the job. The man we wanted might come back on foot and if this guy got bored and turned on his radio Kershaw or whoever it was would be spooked.
I asked him to call his office and let them know I'd left, then collected the car and drove back up to the harbour. It was after midnight but there were still cars parked in front of both drinking spots so I looked into both places. The crowd had thinned in each of them but there was no sign of Kershaw or Hanson. I checked all my properties one last time and waited in the car for half an hour, until the bars both closed and the last customers drove out then took one last trip to the station to check for messages.
There were a couple of Faxes and about a yard of entries on the teletype which I read first. Nothing new. More details of the case, the descriptions of Kershaw and Moira Waites and Hanson and the make and number of Ms Tracy's Mercedes, all issued by the Parry Sound dispatcher.
I went over to the phone to check the Fax machine and while I picked up the messages I pressed the preprogrammed button to get the OPP. The desk man told me that Sergeant Holland was talking to the inspector and put me through. I glanced at the Fax messages as I waited. The top one was a circular, inviting me to save big bucks on a new Chevrolet. I crumpled it up as Dupuy answered.
'Bennett?'
'Right, Inspector. I wondered what Bill learned from Tracy.'
'Nothing,' he said. 'Let me put him on.'
There was a rustle as the phone changed hands, the distant burble of voices in the room and then Holland said, 'She'd gone, Reid. Signed herself out.'
'Dressed in what? She w
as naked when we brought her in.'
'She called the Salvation Army. They brought her in some clothes.' Holland was thinking now. He obviously hadn't analysed the details before this.
'Where did she go? She didn't have either money or a car.'
'The Sally Ann captain gave her a few bucks. She took a cab from the hospital. We're following up on it now but she's gone like a wild goose in winter.'
'There's a bus for Toronto at midnight. Gets to the highway here around quarter to one. I guess you checked that. Other than that she must have taken a room someplace.'
'We're checking but we've only got one man on patrol, the other guys are on the road block.'
'Did the doctor have anything to say about her condition?'
'Just one thing. Apparently you'd asked him to take a blood test for drugs. He didn't find anything.'
'Did he say she was faking the coma?'
'Wouldn't commit himself on that one.' Holland humphed tiredly. 'Gave me the usual medical double-talk, that the degree of loss of consciousness did not tally with his experience of her kind of injuries. Nothing we could take to court.'
'You need me to come up and help? I'll check her house first.'
'There was a muffled consultation and then Holland said, 'No. The inspector says we all need a break. She's not a suspect. I was just going to talk to her for background. He says the hell with it, we'll chase her up tomorrow.'
'Suits me, it's been a long day. I'll take a ride by her house on my way home, though.' I realized how tired I was, finding to my surprise that I had sat down without thinking about it and was leafing through the other Fax sheets as I talked, hardly seeing what I was reading.
Holland made some answer but a word in the next Fax sheet caught my eye and I missed his comment. The word was 'Kershaw'. I said, 'Hold on a second, there's a Fax here might help.'
I read it quickly. It was from my sister's house. She had installed a machine so she could work at home sometimes when the kids were off school. The message was from Elmer Svensen.