Corkscrew

by Ted Wood

  We all laughed, and he fumbled in his jacket pocket and came up with the shells and thumbed them into the chambers. Kennedy turned back to me. "Take the women in your car. We've got the guy in ours. Take them right down to the station for questioning."

  "Questioning for what?" the girl roared.

  Kennedy turned to look back at her. "Talk nice to me. I just want to check your social calendar, see if you want a date."

  She swore again but got into the car. Kennedy and I put the other girl beside her. She was beginning to come around. She sat up and mumbled. I opened the trunk and called Sam to get inside. He did, as he's trained to, and curled down, but I left the lid up and got into the front. Carl turned to look at me. "Jesus, Reid, who taught you to do what you did to that man?"

  "My father. He was a commando with the Canadians at Dieppe."

  "It was devastating," Carl said.

  "It's a last resort," I told him. "I've never had to do it before."

  The girl in the back half screamed, "You bastard!" She reached over, flailing to hit me. I stopped the car and got out and opened the rear door.

  "You're going to the station for your own protection. That's all, but one more move out of you and you're handcuffed. You understand? Makes no difference to me. You can come quietly, or you can fight. Either way, you're coming, because you're not safe out here."

  "You bastard," she said again, and burst into tears. I got back into the car and pulled away slowly, being careful for Sam's sake. Carl wanted to talk, but I glanced at him and shook my head, so he shut up. I was feeling angry with myself. There was a time when I took pride in my strength and my ability to handle bad situations. Now I just think of them as tools I have to use in my trade. Nights like this I wish I'd taken up flower arrangement instead of police work.

  The bikers weren't in town, and there was no obvious damage, no excited citizens on the street, so I guessed they'd gone right through to regroup and make their plans for a comeback. The comeback was a certainty. Bikers pride themselves on being outlaws. They wouldn't sit still for the defeat we'd handed them at their campsite.

  The OPP man at the station came and opened the back door when I pounded on it. He was looking tense. "Oh, it's you. I heard the bikers drive by a couple of minutes back. I was wondering if it was one of them."

  "Got some company for you," I told him. "Bring them inside."

  He stood aside for the women. Wendy was the first, moving slowly. I wondered how much weed she'd smoked. Then the angry girl, propping up her friend. There was only one chair out in the corridor behind the station, so I sent the OPP man to bring in two more, then sat the women down and waited for the detectives to arrive.

  They pulled in a minute later and delivered their biker to the front desk. They didn't know the protocol I'd set up about using the back door for prisoners. The biker was awake now, staring about him like a crazed steer. They had handcuffed him behind his back. He roared suddenly, "I'm deaf. I can't hear nothin'. Who hit me? Which of you sonsabitches hit me?"

  "Bring him out the back. We'll stick him in a cell," I instructed, and Werner steered him through the counter flap and out to the cells.

  The woman from the tent screamed when she saw the blood on his head and ran over to grab him, but he shook her aside. I had to admit he was tougher than a lot of men I'd fought beside.

  Werner searched him, removing another knife, then his boots and the heavy, studded belt he was wearing, and steered him gently into the cell. He unsnapped the handcuffs, and the biker sat down on the board bunk that runs along the side wall, rubbing his wrists.

  "He needs a doctor," Kennedy said.

  "Yeah," Werner said. "Book him first; here's his ID. He tossed the man's wallet onto the table, and Kennedy picked it up. "Jack Halloran, born 1954," he said, reading the name and coded number from the license. He turned to the OPP constable. "Get a make on him, will you?"

  "What'd you figure, assault with a deadly weapon, threatening, attempted rape?" I asked.

  "Yeah," Kennedy said. "All o' that good stuff, plus whatever else we can dream up. He's a real beauty. I'm glad you put him down."

  The biker was looking at us, slowly studying our faces, trying to place us. He looked at me the longest. "It was you," he said. His voice was ugly, unmodulated. He couldn't hear himself and had no control over the sound. I felt sorry for him, almost.

  Werner said, "I'll get that camera from the car." He left and Kennedy said, "This is getting heavy. I'll call the inspector. We don't need reinforcements so much as a little high-priced management here."

  He went out and I followed him, leaving Carl and the woman alone in the back. The constable was using the phone, and he thanked the person at the other end and hung up, his excitement showing in his eyes. "You picked up a real rounder," he said. "Got a sheet long's your arm. Wounding, attempted murder, robbery. He's only been out of the pen for six months. Did his time out West."

  "Swell," Kennedy said, picking up the phone. "Any warrants outstanding?"

  "Nothing, Sarge." The constable looked downcast. He'd been expecting praise. His work wasn't usually this exciting. He looked at me, but I was feeling drained, and my face must have showed it. I sat and waited, not speaking, while Kennedy made his call.

  He went through the usual succession of waits and finally spoke to the duty inspector. I wondered who it would be. Not Anderson, I hoped. He should be off duty by now.

  "Yes, hello, Inspector," Kennedy said. "We've got a problem at Murphy's Harbour. Yeah, on top of the homicide and that guy who went off the rock. Yeah, we ran into a bunch of bikers. One of them was assaulting a woman. It got nasty. We had to draw our weapons, and one of the bikers was hurt. The local police chief, Bennett, he was helping. He put the guy down. I'd like some advice on—"

  I could hear the voice rising at the other end of the line, cutting off Kennedy in midsentence. He waited, shifting from one foot to the other. Then he said, "No, I'm goddamned if I understand, Inspector." He stood up, holding the telephone away from his ear, his eyes blazing with anger. I could hear the telephone voice burbling out of the receiver. Finally, Kennedy said, "I'd prefer to get it in writing, Inspector, but until you get here, I'll do like you say. Yes, I hear you. Leave them alone. Right? Right. Thank you."

  He hung up the phone very carefully, as if he were afraid he would break it over the edge of the table if he didn't keep control of himself. "Sonofabitch," he said. "Can you credit that? They want me to leave the bikers alone. Stay away from them. They hadn't even dispatched the guys I'd asked for."

  Chapter Fifteen

  We'd all been policemen for too long to throw any tantrums. Kennedy sat down and swung his feet up on the desk. Werner laughed. I shrugged and sat on the stool behind the counter.

  "Sounds as if they've got something going down with the bikers, maybe a drug bust," I said.

  "Could be. That's the only reason I can see for getting a hands-off signal," Werner agreed.

  "I'm not sure what it means," Kennedy said. "Except that I'm going home. We'll come back in the morning and get on with our investigation of the homicide."

  He was making sense. There wasn't anything more we could do before the C.I.B. made a proper investigation of the Corbetts' cottage. We were stymied. I just set the record straight. "Okay, so what happens in the morning?"

  Werner ticked off the steps I'd considered on his fingers. "First, get the C.I.B. guys to check the cottage. Second, talk to the doctor about this Spenser guy who went in the lake, see what he found out. Third, talk to the biker squad, see if they can follow up on what this gang has to do with this whole deal." He yawned. "Meanwhile, I'm going home. I've earned my dollar today."

  "I'd like to talk to the Corbetts about their grandson," I said. "Maybe they already know he's hanging around with bikers, maybe not. Either way, we can find out if he knew about the key to their place, which might explain how come it was wrecked without being broken into and might also tie the kid to the killing of the Spenser boy."
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  "Makes sense to me," Werner said. "Can that photographer of yours have the prints for us by morning? When we've got that bootprint blown up, we can start looking for the guy who was wearing it."

  Kennedy yawned. "Yeah. And something else I forgot to mention in the rush to look at at that cottage. Your doctor doesn't think that Spenser drowned in the car. He wants an autopsy on him. He thinks he sees a puncture mark on the wrist. Says the guy may have been stuffed full of something that knocked him cold, stopped him breathing."

  "And the neighbor heard a motorbike pulling away from there," I mused aloud. "All the pieces are together in one bag here. We just have to fit them together."

  "Looks that way," Werner said. He sat down again, sprawling wearily into the spare chair. "The bikers come to town. The kid dies. Then the dad. Then we find that blond kid in a biker porno movie."

  "It could be that Spenser was tied in with them," I thought out loud. "He was involved in film, just lecturing. Then there was that picture of him outside the Corbett place, with some blond inside the door. I figured it was a woman. But it could have been Reg Waters."

  "You saying Spenser was gay?" Kennedy asked. His long face was pulled into a frown as if thinking cost him physical effort.

  "Not necessarily. Maybe he was brought in because of his knowledge of film technique. Maybe the bikers had something on him. Caught him with a woman, supplied him with coke. I don't know. It doesn't take much to tie up a guy in a public position like his."

  "Any clown can point a camera at something these days," Werner objected. "They advertise those video cameras everywhere. Why'd anybody need an expert to show them what to do?"

  "Beats the hell outa me," Kennedy said. "But it's still tight, isn't it? We got the Spensers, the Corbetts, and the bikers all in one town and all hell breaks loose."

  Werner stood up. "It's gonna make a lot more sense when I've had a few hours' sleep. Let's go home, Bert."

  Kennedy stretched. "Best idea you've had since eight this morning. Think of it yourself, did you?"

  I stood up with them. "Just one thing. We can't leave the Spenser woman on her own. How about you run her to your station and somebody else can take her down to Toronto?"

  Werner laughed. "We're the OPP, not Greyhound Coach."

  "Come on. She's on her own except for my friend. Don't make me sleep over there tonight."

  "Yeah, makes sense, I guess," Werner said. "There wasn't a policewoman on duty, and you can't leave a guy with her all night."

  "I guess not," Kennedy said. "If she goes and jumps off that rock, we'll be here a goddamn month."

  "What about the women out back? What happens to them?"

  Werner looked at me. "Let's see if they can get home. Maybe one of them's got a boyfriend." He turned to the constable, who was soaking up every word. "Can I count on you to take a good statement from the one we helped?"

  "Sure, Sarge, no sweat. What happened?"

  Werner filled him in, and he nodded and asked, "An' what about the biker in the cells? You think his buddies are gonna come back here for him?"

  Kennedy groaned. "That bastard. I forgot about him. I guess he oughta see a doctor. We're charging him with attempted rape, assault, resisting arrest, threatening, weapon dangerous to the public peace." He glanced at me. "Anything else you can think of?"

  "Not offhand. But I figure we should keep him inside. In the hospital, probably. I don't want him bailed out and back here. These guys don't take a thing like this lying down."

  Werner swore. "Sometimes I wonder why I didn't join the goddamn fire department. They just put the fire out and go home. We're stuck tyin' up loose ends till hell freezes over."

  "If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined," Kennedy told him. "Reid, maybe you'll stay in charge here, will you? I'll send a car over to take the biker to the hospital in Sundridge. You supervise the statements and laying the charges against the biker. Then call it a day. We'll talk to you in the morning."

  "Sounds fair. Be sure to send Freda back here when you get to the Spenser place. I want to keep an eye on her, with these bikers around."

  "Just an eye?" Werner laughed. "You're getting old, kiddo."

  He raised one arm to me, and Kennedy nodded and they left, slouching wearily toward their car and a few hours' sleep before getting back on the treadmill at eight a.m. The OPP constable said, "So, okay, Chief, what about the biker?"

  "Let's talk to the women first, get that one sorted out," I suggested. "Bring them and the photographer in, please."

  He went out the back for the others, and I sat down in front of the office typewriter. The three women came in angrily. The sleeping beauty was awake now, hung over from whatever she'd taken, spitting fury.

  "Why're we being kept here?" she started.

  "Sit down, please."

  She spluttered, but they all sat. I spoke to Carl, who was standing behind them. "Carl, can you print up your photographs, please, give us enlargements on that boot print and anything else that looks important? We'd like them in the morning, if you could manage it."

  "A pleasure," he said. He looked strained and nervous. I guessed the events of the day were digging out the old memories of his own loss and the crime he had committed afterward. He nodded to the OPP man and headed for the front counter. "I'll have them to you in the morning, eight o'clock."

  "Listen, you don't have to wait for me. The constable will run you up to your house."

  Carl protested, but I could see how tired he was. I nodded to the OPP man. "Could you do that, please. This gentleman will show you where he lives."

  They left, and I swung my chair to face the women. "Here's what's going to happen. I need a statement from you, Wendy. I want to hear what happened in that tent. After that, you're free to go. If any one of you can round up a ride home, that's fine. Otherwise, you can walk out of here or crash in the cells. Suit yourself."

  Sleeping Beauty swore. "I'm not stayin' in no goddamn tank. Gimme the phone."

  She picked it up and phoned, long distance, waking up somebody called Chuck. They had a brief shouting match while I wound a statement form into the typewriter and started questioning the woman I'd rescued. "Okay. What happened in that tent?"

  Wendy opened her mouth to speak, but the second woman beat her to it. "Don't you say nothin'. These guys'll drag you into court; then Jack 'n they'll get mad at you. Least's'll happen is you won't have no job. An' you could wind up dead."

  It worked. The girl looked at me, then at the floor, then mumbled, "Nothin' much happened. Like, it was a party 'n I got scared, but I don' wanna make no complaint or nothin'."

  "You're already involved," I argued quietly, but she shook her head.

  "Maybe. But I don't wanna say nothin'."

  "All right, then. Why don't the three of you sit over there on the bench and wait for your ride."

  I was weary myself. It didn't make much difference to my case whether she spoke or not. I had enough eyewitness evidence, of my own and from the other policemen, to make the case against the biker. I took the statement form out of the typewriter and put in an arrest form. Then I sat and thought about the charges against him. All the charges Werner had mentioned, plus forcible confinement. I listed them all. The crown attorney could drop any he didn't care for once we got the case to court. All I wanted was to have enough on paper to keep the biker in custody overnight and to prevent his pulling the same stunt that Murdoch's buddy had pulled. I didn't need any more complaints against me for excessive use of force.

  The three women were talking quietly, a low conversation full of the hissing that comes from starting every sentence with "I says to him." It was almost peaceful, and I was typing out my charge contentedly when the phone rang. I picked it up and said, "Murphy's Harbour Police."

  It was Freda. I recognized her voice but not her tone.

  This wasn't the breezy woman who had made me laugh since morning. She was scared. "Reid, somebody wants to talk to you," she said.

  I sat
up very straight and listened as the phone rustled from hand to hand and a man's voice said, "Bennett. We got the broads, both o' them. You do what we say or they're in big trouble."

  Chapter Sixteen

  I felt as if I were falling. The sounds of the room faded in and out with a solid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh that jolted my eardrums. I could see the faces of the bikers, the way they had laughed when one of them chased a terrified woman. And now they had Freda and Spenser's widow.

  The same voice said, "You listenin', Bennett?"

  "Yes, I'm listening."

  "Good. Now I tell you what you're gonna do, or these two're gonna wish they was dead."

  "I said I'm listening."

  The man at the other end chuckled. "Yeah, I figured you would," he said. "Now you took some stuff from our tent."

  "Some tapes and a camera," I said easily. "Yeah, it's all here."

  "We want it back," the voice said, and before I could answer, he went on. "An' somethin' else. We want somethin' out of a house in Toronto."

  "How can I get that?" I made my tone angry. I've been in hostage negotiations before; you have to keep them off balance. Everything has to seem like a favor; otherwise, they don't bother bargaining at all.

  "Just do it, brother," the man said. He didn't sound menacing. He didn't have to. My imagination was racing ahead of him. I could see Freda, warm and beautiful, a butterfly surrounded by roaches.

  "I'll think of something. What is it you want?"

  "Good," he said. "Now you're talkin' sense. What we want is a file cabinet. It's gray metal. Got two drawers in it, legal size. Y'unnerstan'?"

  "Where is it?"

  "It's in the basement at two-twenty-seven Marlborough Drive, North York." He turned aside to speak to someone else. I didn't catch the exchange, but after a moment he came back on. "That's the Yonge, Finch area." I knew. It was the Spenser house. I'd taken their address earlier. I wondered why the bikers were asking me to bring the cabinet to them. Were they afraid of going to Toronto? Were they pressed for time? I acted stupid, looking for anything that would help me find them and get Freda away. "It's gonna take me three hours to drive down there, three hours back. Hell, you could do it quicker yourself."