by Mike Knowles
“It was filled yesterday,” she said after she hung up the phone. “You were right.”
Dennis smiled. He was going for a cool grin and hoping it didn’t show as relief. “I was.” He nodded goodbye and walked out of the office. He was a fucking detective. Thing might have looked bleak for a minute, but he pushed through and solved the case. He was a lone wolf. A hunter of men. Dennis howled to himself in the stairwell as he hustled to the car.
29
Woody still wasn’t answering his phone. It was four o’clock, and Dennis couldn’t wait on him anymore. It didn’t matter anyway; he didn’t need to mention Os to Jerry. Dennis dialled the detective sergeant and smiled wide when he picked up.
“What?” Jerry said.
“It was the neighbour, Jerry, not some gang. The fucking neighbour. While Woody and Os were looking up bullshit leads, I got our killer. I know where she is too.”
“Un hunh,” Jerry said.
“You hear me, Jerry? I said I know who did it and where she is. This thing is as good as solved.”
“Good stuff, Dennis. Good stuff.”
“You don’t seem to share my enthusiasm about this.”
“What? Oh no, I do, I do. It’s just that shit has really hit the fan here and I got bigger issues than your case.”
“Bigger issues? You can’t be serious. We’re talking a murdered cop here.”
Jerry interrupted. “Os is dead. Woody looks like the shooter.”
Dennis felt his heart race. He had told Woody that Os had killed Julie. Could he have gone and shot him for it?
“Why the hell did he do that?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that a neighbour heard the shots and called nine-one-one. I’m almost at his house now. Oh, fuck me!”
“What?”
“The news is already here. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Dennis ran his hand over his head. What the hell had Woody done? He had said he didn’t believe Dennis. How did he wind up killing Os? Dennis wondered how much shit was going to come down on him for giving Woody the wrong idea. Every cop would hate his guts. Holy shit, it was bad. He needed to deny everything. “Woody’s just passing the blame,” he’d say. “I didn’t think Os did anything. I knew it was the girl all along. Woody’s just gone crazy, and he’s looking to take down the guy who did his job.”
Dennis needed to close his case if he was going to be able to deflect whatever Woody told everyone.
“I’m going to get Lisa,” he said.
“Who?”
“Jesus! Julie’s killer, Jerry. I’m going to get her right now.”
“Yeah, do that. Maybe telling the press about that will slow down the shitstorm that’s going to come from this. Listen, do your thing, I gotta go.”
Jerry hung up on Dennis, leaving him alone in the car with only one thing to do. Drive out to Port Glen and bring back a killer.
The hour and a half it took to get to the lakeside town was a shitty drive. The sun went down at five and it started to snow a minute after that. The flakes were large and they stuck to the windshield in between the strokes of the wiper blades. The roads became slick and Dennis slid every time he applied the brakes. His mind wasn’t on the road. He couldn’t stop going over the different ways he was going to catch it for screwing up so bad. If people ever found out that he let Lisa get away with having the baby next door, he’d be finished. No one would ever trust him to handle a big case again. Worse, if people found out it was his fault that Woody shot Os, he’d be a pariah. He remembered his father and his friends talking about a cop who ratted out his partner. The whole force turned on him. He ended up getting shot during a robbery when backup didn’t show. The guy lived, but he walked with a limp on his way to early retirement and a new career. Dennis was too old to change jobs. He had at least another twelve years before his pension would kick in and he could find a cushy security job. He needed a fucking miracle.
Dennis found the drug store in Port Glen easily enough. The huge store was part of a nationwide chain, and the brand-new building that had been erected to look like every other drug store across Canada looked out of place next to the older buildings that populated the rest of the town. Port Glen was a summertime destination for people seeking beach time and cottage fun. In the winter, only a few thousand locals stuck around. Dennis found a spot next to the entrance and walked into the store. The pharmacist was an old man in his sixties with thick glasses and shaky, blue-veined hands. Dennis flashed his badge and told him what he wanted.
“You’re not from around here,” the pharmacist said.
“Obvious, is it?”
The old man laughed. “I’ve been here a long time. I know most of the faces.”
This was something Dennis had hoped to avoid. He was in someone else’s backyard, and he should have let the locals know he was down to play. But talking to the locals would have cost him time and answers, and Dennis wasn’t willing to give up either. No amount of red tape was going to help him cover his ass. He needed something everyone could get behind: an arrest. “What about Lisa O’Brien? Do you know her face?”
The pharmacist thought about it. “Can’t say that I do.”
“She filled a prescription here yesterday. Tall, around five-eight, red hair, glasses. She may have had a baby with her. Did you see her?”
The old man thought about it and then slowly shook his head.
“I want to talk to the person who did.”
The pharmacist crossed his arms and furrowed his brow. “I’m afraid I can’t just give out that kind of information. There are laws about—”
Dennis felt his shoulders tense at the thought of another argument about doctor-patient confidentiality. “The woman who filled that prescription is a murder suspect, and she’s also suspected of kidnapping an infant. I don’t have time to debate pharmacist-customer confidentiality.”
The pharmacist’s eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses. Dennis wondered if he had pushed the man too far. He was about to try to appeal to him in a subtler way when the pharmacist uncrossed his arms and went to his computer. He pushed his glasses down his nose and tilted his head back so that he could use the bifocals to see the computer screen.
“Spell the last name.”
Dennis did.
He slowly typed the information with his index finger. “Picked up the prescription yesterday. Paid cash. No, wait. We delivered it yesterday.”
“Delivered?”
“That’s right. I remember this. We didn’t have the medication here; we had to get the drugs from another store. She didn’t want to wait, so I told her we would deliver it. You sure you’ve got the right person? She seemed pretty nice.”
Dennis agreed. She did seem nice. The crazy bitch fooled him good and caused a whole hell of a lot of trouble. “I’m sure. Where’d the delivery go?”
The pharmacist went back to the computer. “Four Emerald Avenue,” he said.
“Thanks. Do you think you could keep quiet about this?”
“Son, I’ve been quiet about a lot of things for a lot of years. One more secret shouldn’t be much of a problem.”
In the car, Dennis entered the address into his phone and used Google Maps to learn what he could about the area. He was surprised to find that Google Maps had street view images of the road. The shots were from the summer and probably a few years old, but they gave him the lay of the land. When he had learned everything he could, he set the phone up to provide directions and started the car. There was already a bit of snow accumulation on his hood—the storm was getting worse. He turned the car around so that he was going in the right direction and followed the app’s robotic sounding instructions, making several lefts and one right to get onto Emerald Avenue. The road was stocked with small rental units. Each rectangular building had maybe two bedrooms and probably only one bathroom. All of the buildings were dark except for
the second from the end. Number Four Emerald Street had a Dodge Neon parked in the driveway. Dennis could tell that the car was green from the light spilling out of the front windows of the cottage.
Dennis parked on the road and watched the building for a few minutes. The car was covered in snow; it hadn’t moved in hours. No one crossed the front windows of the cottage while Dennis watched.
Sitting in the car, Dennis couldn’t help but wonder what Lisa would say when she opened the door and found out that she had been outfoxed. The feeling of anticipation was better than sex. He was smarter than her, better than her, and she was going to find that out. She had no idea what she was up against.
Dennis got out of the car and felt his foot crash through a layer of ice and slip, up to his ankle, into a cold puddle. His shoe filled with water and he tried to steady himself on one foot. His balance was terrible, and he fell against the hood of the car. The sedan squeaked as the old shocks took his weight. Dennis paused for a second and sighed. He turned his shoe over and the water fell out in one large vomit. Dennis put his wet sock back in the shoe and started walking across the snow-covered lawn to the front door. Each step pulled his sock farther and farther down into his shoe. By the time Dennis got to the door, his sock was over his heel. He ignored the annoying feeling under his foot and rolled his shoulders. He wanted this to be perfect. He said his line once to himself. “Bet you thought you’d never see me again.” It sounded cool. Dennis decided to pull his gun out. He’d aim the pistol nonchalantly from the hip, like Bogart, when he said the line. Lisa would see the gun and know that he would not be fucked with anymore. He lifted the gun so that it was parallel to his hip and rang the doorbell. He heard the sound of the bell through the door and felt his heart pick up. The porch light came on and the door slowly opened.
Dennis said, “Bet you thought you’d never see me again,” but the line had none of the impact he was hoping for because it wasn’t Lisa who answered the door—it was Os. Dennis took a small step towards the immense figure and saw that the backlit form matched Os in dimension, but not detail.
The guy holding the baby said, “I’m sorry?” Then, his eyes found the gun and he took a step back.
Dennis put a hand out to assure him everything was okay, when he got a sudden migraine. He clutched his head and fell to his knees. The guy at the door yelled, “Lisa!” and then Dennis passed out.
30
Dennis came to twice. The first time, he heard a loud clatter and felt his hand shoot forward like a dog was tugging on his sleeve. Did Lisa have a dog? The question went unanswered as everything went dark again.
The second time he woke up, Dennis heard an argument. There was shouting, swearing, a baby crying, and one massive headache. Dennis felt the back of his head and noticed that his hands came away wet. Had he been in the water? When he looked at his fingers, his brain stopped skipping and began running properly again. He realized that the huge lump on the back of his head was bleeding badly. He was face down on the porch, lying next to an oar. Dennis figured out the four-foot-long paddle was the source of his headache and the sound it made hitting the porch was the reason he woke up the first time. His gun was gone, meaning there was no dog.
Dennis pushed up off his stomach and got to his feet. The world was still spinning and he fell straight back. His body hit the frozen bushes and shrubs below the porch and the greenery cushioned his fall. There was a loud sound of snapping as the vegetation broke under his weight. Dennis got to his knees a second time and stayed there a little while before crawling back to the open front door.
“He’s a fucking cop,” the guy who wasn’t Os was careful to cover the baby’s ears when he yelled. “Why would you hit a fucking cop?”
“We don’t have time to argue, baby. We have to kill him and dump his body in the lake.”
“Kill him? Are you nuts, Lisa? He’s a cop. We’re in enough trouble already. We can’t just kill someone. We have Emily to think of.”
“I’m doing this for Emily,” Lisa said. “He won’t let us be together.”
“What? Why? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Not her baby,” Dennis said from the doorway. He had made it to his feet and stumbled forward to the kitchen until he was able to brace himself against the door frame. The sound of his own voice hurt his head, and he put a hand to the back of his scalp, hoping that the pressure would stop his skull from splitting open.
“Shut up!” Lisa yelled. She held up the gun, and Dennis saw the business end for the first time in his life.
“You named her?” Dennis said.
“Her name was always going to be Emily,” Lisa said.
“Your baby or Julie’s was always going to be Emily?”
“What is he talking about, Lisa?”
“Nothing,” she said to the man holding Emily. She looked back at Dennis and said, “Shut up. This is my baby.”
“I think we both know it isn’t, honey.” Dennis tried to force a tough smile, but he threw up on the floor instead.
Dennis looked up from the mess on the floor to the man holding the baby. The porchlight had given his skin the same hue as Os’s, but inside Dennis saw that this man’s skin was lighter. Like Os, he had a shaved head and the dimensions of a linebacker, but he was six inches shorter than the cop Dennis knew—another illusion created by the porch steps. “You seem like you need an update,” Dennis said.
“Shut up,” Lisa said again.
“No, Lisa,” the man said. “What is going on here?”
“You been with her long?” Dennis asked.
“We were tight a while back, then we broke up. I just found out I’m a dad the other day.” Despite the situation, the guy couldn’t hide a proud smile.
Dennis shook his head. “Not yours,” he said.
“Shut up!” Lisa yelled.
“She killed the neighbour and took the kid from her.”
“I did not. I’m her mother. She’s mine.”
“Is this true, Lisa?”
Dennis didn’t give her a chance to answer. “Didn’t you hear the Amber Alert?”
“Yeah.” The bald guy whirled towards Lisa. “Wait, were they talking about Emily?”
Lisa didn’t say anything. She was too busy sighting the gun on Dennis.
“Lisa, do you hear me? Is this true?”
“She’s mine.”
“Holy shit! This is why you wouldn’t let me take her to the hospital. I begged you, but you kept saying no. It’s true isn’t it?”
“She’s mine.”
“The kid sick?” Dennis asked.
“She’s not eating, and she’s got a fever.”
“Rough delivery will do that apparently,” Dennis said.
“What?”
“Lisa cut the kid out herself. No midwife, no anaesthetic, just a crazy bitch with a knife.”
“Oh my God, Lisa, you didn’t.”
“You bastard!” Lisa was crying, but her teeth were bared and the gun was aimed right at Dennis’s head. She looked feral and deadly.
He turned his head, not wanting to see the bullet coming, but it never did. When Dennis looked back, the bald guy was in front of him.
“Give me the gun, Lisa. It’s over. Emily needs to go to the hospital,” the bald man said.
“She’s mine.”
“She’ll die!” he yelled. “Our baby daughter will die unless you do something. If she’s yours, act like it.”
Lisa broke out into loud sobs, and the gun hit the floor. The bald guy dragged the gun back to Dennis with his foot.
“Thanks,” Dennis said.
“I have to get Emily to the hospital,” he said.
“Take her—I’ll catch up.”
The bald guy took another look at Lisa and then hustled out the door to the Dodge Neon. Dennis went to a knee and slowly picked the Glock up off the
floor. The act of standing just a little made Dennis want to be sick again, but he held everything down. He stood up and let Lisa see the barrel of the gun pointing at her from his hip.
“Bet you thought you’d never see me again,” he said.
“You already said that.”
The Dodge in the driveway started. It needed a new muffler. The sound of the car was loud in the silence. Dennis waited until he heard the Neon’s tires crunch on the gravel before he spoke again.
“Put your hands up.”
Lisa kept her hands down.
“I said, put your hands up.”
Lisa slowly complied.
Dennis had her turn around and walk back towards him. The less moving he did, the better. He cuffed her tight enough to make her gasp at the metal biting into her flesh and shoved her forward towards the kitchen table. Dennis pointed to a chair and she took it. She had to sit leaning forward so that her hands didn’t get sandwiched between her back and the chair.
Dennis got a small plastic ice pack out of the freezer. He winced at the pain of the cool pressure at first, but soon relaxed as the ice numbed his head. He didn’t want to call 9-1-1. The local cops would take over and edge him out of his arrest. No, he was going to drive her back into Hamilton himself so he could deliver her into booking. Word travels fast up the blue grapevine. Within a day, everyone would know who solved the case.
“What’s going to happen to my baby?” Lisa asked.
Dennis thought about it. “Foster care probably.”
“What?”
“Mother is dead, thanks to you. Grandma is time-travelling every few hours in a nursing home. And if what I heard this afternoon is true, the father is dead too.”
“My baby,” she said.