by Mike Knowles
The nurse knocked twice and opened the door. Dennis guessed knocks had a different meaning at St. Joan’s. Outside the walls of the retirement home, a knock was a request. Someone knocked so that they could see if you were home. At the Arc, a knock was a warning. Tap, tap, incoming. Dennis doubted any of the residents were spry enough to get dressed if they were caught unawares by the two brief, light taps. Hell, Dennis bet most of them couldn’t even hear the knock.
Dennis followed the nurse inside and prepared for the worst, but there was no nakedness inside. Dennis walked past a bathroom to a sitting room that doubled as a bedroom. On a chair, watching the television, was a thin elderly woman with skin that looked like plastic wrap after a few minutes in the microwave. Bulky blue veins stood out on the woman’s hands, and bones were clearly visible in her arms and face. She stood to greet her visitors, and Dennis saw the dress she was wearing. It was a skimpy black thing that was cut low in the neck and high on the thigh. The dress looked old, the material faded, and it was baggy. When she turned and raised a shoulder in a horribly unsexy pin-up pose, Dennis saw that there was a large hump exposed by the backless dress. Miranda Owen, now five-foot-two, must have once been at least five-foot-six, judging from the shape her back was in.
“Miranda, this is Dennis Hamlet. He’s a detective.”
“Don’t be silly, Lucy. That’s William.”
Dennis gave the nurse a confused look and shrugged.
“You know him?”
“Of course, silly. He’s only been my neighbour for ten years.”
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Miranda said. “Sit down and visit for a while. How is your father doing, William?”
Dennis stepped forward and Lucy took his forearm. “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”
Dennis smiled wide at Miranda. “I’m just going to visit with an old friend, Lucy.”
Lucy let go, and Dennis sat down in the empty chair next to Lucy.
“Could you get us some tea?” Miranda asked Lucy. “I can’t seem to find the kettle.”
Lucy looked unhappy about it, but she said, “Sure, Miranda.”
Dennis watched her leave, and then he turned his attention to Miranda.
“To answer your question, Dad’s doing fine. Mom says he’s not around often enough, but Dad says he’s there much too often.” Dennis laughed at his own joke. It wasn’t that he thought it was funny, he was just pleased at how easily he could drop into a cover. Undercover sure missed out on him. Their loss was homicide’s gain.
Miranda put a veined hand on Dennis’s thigh and glanced at the door. “She’s gone and Julie won’t be home from school until after three. We have all afternoon together, Billy.”
“Billy?”
Miranda moved her hand up Dennis’s thigh and batted her eyelashes. “I still have that outfit you like. Do you want me to put it on?”
“Put it on?”
“You’d rather I didn’t try anything on?” The smile on Miranda’s face was as sexy to Dennis as a spider crawling on his neck.
“Why don’t we just talk for a while, Miranda?”
“Talk?” She looked disappointed, almost offended.
“Yeah, you know, there’s nothing sexier than the sound of your voice. Forget the ocean rolling in—your voice is the most romantic thing I know.”
“Oh, Billy.”
Dennis patted himself on the back. He was a natural.
“How’s Julie?”
“I told you, she’s at school. She just loves the first grade. Just yesterday, she read a whole book to me with no help. But you don’t really want to talk about her do you?”
Dennis thought about the question. If the old woman was really living out 1985 in the retirement home, was there anything he could ask her that could help? He thought about maybe just telling Miranda that Julie was dead. Maybe the news would shock her back to the here and now. Like a bucket of water would wake a sleepwalker. But what if telling her about Julie made her think the 1985 six-year-old was dead? Dennis searched hard for a question to ask, any question, but 1985 was a long way back. He couldn’t think of anything else.
“Miranda, I have some bad news.”
“Oh? Did your wife find out about us? I saw her watching us at Tom’s funeral.”
“Tom?”
“Having you there was a real comfort. I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true. You don’t know how hard it was for me. Our marriage wasn’t perfect—not even good—but burying him was just so difficult.”
“No, my wife didn’t say anything. How did Tom die?”
“That’s not funny,” Miranda said.
“I’m sorry. These days my mind isn’t what it used to be. I’m forgetting all kinds of things. It’s really quite scary. Please tell me again. I know if I hear you tell me with that voice of yours, I’ll never forget again.”
The compliment softened the old woman’s face, and she gave in. She leaned in close and Dennis met her halfway. “He shot himself in his squad car. Charlie, his partner, told me that someone shot him at a stoplight, but I know it isn’t true. Tom had tried before with pills; this time he made sure no one could save him. The department believed what Charlie said, and I didn’t argue. Charlie wanted to make sure I got Tom’s pension.”
“Was it because he knew about us?” Dennis asked.
“No. He’d been unhappy for a long time. He hid it well, but he couldn’t hide it from me. Sometimes he’d be laughing and dancing, and other days he’d refuse to get out of bed. He had been drinking more and more the past few years. There was less dancing and more anger. He was in so much pain. I think he just needed it to stop. To tell you the truth, so did I.”
“I’m sorry,” Dennis said. “Truly.”
“So what was your bad news?”
Dennis opened his mouth, unsure about how he was going to say it. He got out, “It’s about Julie,” when there was a brief double tap at the door. The nurse was inside the room before Dennis had finished turning his head.
“Tea time,” she said.
“Lucy, William has bad news about Julie. I hope Julie hasn’t been getting into trouble.”
Lucy gave Dennis a look that conveyed nothing but severe disapproval. “I’m sure she’s fine, Miranda. Julie is a good little girl. Right, William?”
Dennis thought about the benefits breaking this woman’s heart, and maybe mind, would yield. He wasn’t worried about hurting Miranda, he was a good cop and good cops asked the tough questions. But in this instance, there were no answers. That was why he decided to keep his mouth shut: there was nothing to gain—definitely not because it would have been too hard.
“The bad news is I’m going to be out of town for a while, and I won’t be able to take Julie for ice cream like I promised. Not now, anyway.”
“Oh, Billy, no. Julie loves your visits. I love your visits. I need them.” The hungry look in Miranda’s eyes made Dennis’s skin crawl.
“I’m sorry, Miranda, but work is hectic right now.”
“Well, then maybe Lucy should step out for a moment so that we can say our goodbyes in private.”
Dennis looked at Lucy and saw a smug smile on her face. She was enjoying this.
“Oh, that would be great, really great, especially with the outfit and all, but I have a . . .” What did people travel on in ’85? “I have a train to catch. I’m sorry, Miranda.”
Miranda teared up as Dennis backed out of the room. He waved from five feet away and then walked out with Lucy on his tail.
“I can’t believe you were going to tell her!”
“Relax, I didn’t.”
“But you would have if I wasn’t there.”
“Maybe,” Dennis said.
“That would have shattered her.”
“I didn’t tell her, alright? How long does she usually hang around in n
ineteen eighty-five for?”
“There’s no time limits on Alzheimer’s. She can wake up in eighty-five, eat lunch in ninety-five, and be sharp enough to beat everyone at Jeopardy after dinner.”
Dennis pulled free a business card. “I need you to call me the next time she’s ready to give Trebek a beating.”
Lucy put a hand on her hip, stuck out her lower lip, and raised an eyebrow. Dennis got the message loud and clear. Lucy was pissed off that he had almost told the old woman the truth, and now it was time for a little payback. What the hell was wrong with the women who worked here? Lucy wanted Dennis to beg her to help him. Fuck that. Dennis didn’t beg a woman for anything. She just needed a science lesson on the food chain.
“Listen close, Lucy. What I do in that room has nothing to do with what you want. I could tell her Julie is dead, Santa doesn’t exist, and that the Easter Bunny has rabies. I don’t need you to like it or approve. Now, I think I can trust you. You seem like you’re smart. So, if in the next day I get a call telling me that I have a window to talk to a lucid Miranda Owen, I’ll take it and I’ll be gentle. Any longer than that, and I’ll tell her no matter what. She’ll fall to pieces, and I’ll sift through the rubble for anything I can get.”
Dennis was proud of his speech. He couldn’t believe he rattled all that off without rehearsing it first. He was a mean cop who took no shit. He belonged back in the eighties, not with Miranda and her dress but with his dad and his friends.
Lucy looked away and balled her fists. They didn’t unclench when she looked back.
“I’ll call you when she’s in a better frame of mind, but not because you told me to. I’ll call because it will be better for Miranda to hear it with a clear head.”
“Whatever gets you on the phone,” Dennis said.
Lucy walked away leaving Dennis in front of 412. The door opened a second later. Miranda Owen was visible in the small crack of space between the frame and the door. Dennis saw the door slowly inch open and a lace teddy reveal itself. Miranda turned to the side and arched her right leg up on its tip toes. The pose was meant to show off her legs, but it just emphasized the bizarre hump on her back.
“You sure you don’t have a minute?”
Dennis looked at the ceiling. He took a deep breath and then looked Miranda in the eyes. “Sorry, baby, but I got a train to catch.”
He strode down the hallway acutely aware of how great he could have been if he had ever been given a chance to go undercover.
21
Woody felt good driving downtown. He was tapping his hands on the steering wheel and bopping his head to Britney Spears. He was even on key with the chorus when she demanded her baby to hit her one more time. He was back on his game. He pulled off Barton, onto Mary, and found Pho Mekong at the end of the street. Woody had never heard of the restaurant before, and now he knew why. The restaurant was tucked in behind a Food Basics grocery store at the end of a cul-de-sac and next to invisible from the main road running perpendicular to Mary a few hundred metres away. Pho Mekong didn’t look like much from the street. The sign was spattered with holes from rocks or bottles that had gone through the display. The g in Mekong was blown out, and whatever had gone through the plastic had wrecked the light bulbs in the last quarter of the sign. Woody pulled into the lot and took the handicap spot right outside the door. Several of the customers eating at the tables in the restaurant had no trouble reading what wasn’t written on the unmarked sedan, and they nudged their companions and gestured towards the car. When Woody got inside, the atmosphere in Pho Mekong was downright frosty. No one was talking at all as he stood on the entry mat and scanned the room. Ramirez had gotten quiet at the end of the meeting, but Woody had gotten him to speak up about Tony Nguyen. Apparently, he would stand out in the restaurant. He would be the only pudgy guy with a mullet and pencil-thin facial hair.
Woody’s gaze crossed the room once, then checked back on what he saw. The dining room was half full with the lunch crowd. It looked like a conscious decision was made to only use the right half of the dining room for lunch. The patrons were all Vietnamese, all of them were quiet and most looked to be labourers of some kind. On the left side of the room, two tables were occupied. One table had all four seats filled. Four teenagers sat staring hard at Woody. They each had spiked hair and colourful shoes. They each also had a jacket with a fur-lined hood over a t-shirt. Two tables away from the kids sat Tony Nguyen reading the newspaper.
Ramirez had been right—there was only one pudgy guy with pencil-thin facial hair in the restaurant. Tony Nguyen had a foot up on a chair, and Woody could see he was wearing Chuck Taylors. He had loosened the laces enough to let the thin strip of fabric underneath loll like the tongue of an overheated dog. His jeans were tight, and one of Tony’s hands was resting on his gut, tapping a tune with his index and middle fingers. Woody walked towards him, and one of the kids said something in a language Woody didn’t understand. The kid who spoke was closest to Tony and sat with his back to the window. His proximity and his warning made him the senior of the four. Woody gave the kid a once over and then looked back at Tony. The boss of the Yellow Circle Gang was no longer looking at the newspaper.
Woody took a seat in the chair next to the one Tony was using as a footrest so that he was diagonal to the man.
“If you want lunch, that side is for customers,” Tony said. The voice had very little accent behind it.
“You know I’m not here to eat, Tony.”
“You should try the soup. It’s delicious.”
“Maybe next time.”
“You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“Detective Woodward.”
“Maybe I should call my lawyer.”
“I’m not arresting you. I just want to talk to you. But if a lawyer would make you feel safer, by all means, call.”
Tony put the paper down and pulled his foot off the chair. His posture immediately improved and his gut stuck out less.
“So talk.”
“How’s business?”
“Working four clubs a week. Got a few gigs in Toronto next month. You and the missus should come out.”
Woody wanted to flinch at the mention of his wife, but his face stayed as still as a poker player bluffing on a pair of twos.
“I meant the other business.”
“Business is good all over, detective.”
“That true, guys?” Woody said, tilting his head so that he could see the eight eyes looking at him.
“They don’t speak English.”
Woody nodded. “I hear not many in your employ do. Makes it hard to keep tabs on a man when everything is done in another language.”
“Ain’t a crime.”
“No, it’s not. They legal?”
“You could ask. They won’t answer.”
“If I took them downtown they would.”
“You’d have to catch them first, and you don’t look to be in any shape to be running.”
“You’re probably right, Tony. You seem like a sharp guy. You really do. So tell me something. If the police were going to go after you, where would they start?”
“What, you want tips? Seems like cheating, no?”
“The kids are illegals, and they don’t speak English, so we couldn’t flip one of them. Where would we go? Any ideas?”
Tony shrugged, but Woody could tell that he had his interest.
“We can’t plant anybody in your crew because you use immigrant kids for most of your day-to-day work. Means we’d have to get someone higher up. Someone who’s been around you for a while.”
“Good luck with that,” Tony said.
“Alright, let’s play hypothetical. Let’s say I’m a lucky guy. Real lucky. The kind of guy you take to Vegas with you. I use my luck to flip one of your guys. What happens next?”
“Hypothetically? Nothing. You might be a lu
cky guy, but, me, I don’t bet on anything that ain’t a sure thing.”
“But we’re speaking hypothetically, Tony. Imagine the situation.”
“No.”
Woody nodded. Tony wasn’t rattled by a sit-down with a cop, and he didn’t seem freaked out about a detective asking about a snitch. He didn’t seem to mind taunting Woody either. Telling him he couldn’t catch one of the kids was as good as a dare, but Tony wasn’t going to get sucked into anything serious.
“Fine, forget hypothetical situations. How are things with your girl?”
“Which one?” Tony seemed pleased with his answer.
“The one carrying your baby.”
Tony laughed from deep inside his soft belly. “Which one? I got girls all over. And kids—I got more kids than girls.”
“How many?”
Tony shrugged. Woody put his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. The stretch exposed the butt of the Glock in the shoulder holster. Tony glanced at it then looked away. The four at the table were all eyes. One of the kids, the one sitting next to the talker with his back to the window, looked over his shoulder at a green Honda Civic. The kid across from him saw him look and kicked him under the table. Woody couldn’t see the kick, but he heard the impact and the saw the result on the kid’s face.
Tony looked at the table next to him and said something in Vietnamese. It didn’t sound nice.
“How many kids do you have?”
Tony said nothing.
Woody put his hands on the table and leaned in. “I could make a call and find out. We’re the fucking police. That means we know everything about you down to your shoe size. I’m here asking you because I want to hear what you have to say rather than read it in some report. You don’t want to talk, call that lawyer and kiss that green Civic goodbye.”
“I got eight kids,” Tony said.
“Fertile son of a bitch, aren’t ya?”
Tony nodded and smiled wide. He had a gold tooth where a white canine should have been.
“You know their names?” Woody asked.