Killers

by Laurence Gough

  Parker’s door was locked. He knuckled the glass and she leaned across the seat to let him in.

  Willows hurriedly got into the Pontiac, shut the door, rubbed his hands and held them out to the blast of hot air coming from the dashboard vent.

  “Cold out there, huh?”

  He nodded.

  Parker said, “The preliminary autopsy report’s being dictated even as we speak. There’s no doubt in the coroner’s mind that Roth was murdered. Somebody drowned Roth in the aquarium and then dragged him outside and dumped him in the whale pool.”

  “Was Roth beaten before he died?”

  “It’s impossible to say. Having a leg ripped off was the least of Gerard’s problems. The killers really scrambled him. He suffered internal damage the coroner described as cataclysmic. Given a choice, he said he’d rather try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

  Willows said, “We’ve got to have another chat with Iris. She’s plenty big enough to slam-dunk Roth. And she’s already told us she knew he was cheating on her. She must have resented his sexual antics and the tight financial control he kept over her. Roth had a master key to the aquarium complex. He probably kept a spare at home. Even if he didn’t, Iris must’ve had ample opportunity to make a copy of the original.”

  Parker said, “Okay, she’s a suspect.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Yeah, I do. But let’s not be so quick to rule out the rest of the world. What about Sweeting?”

  “Drowning sounds perfect for him. He wouldn’t have to get his hands dirty.”

  “Or maybe he and Iris did it together. It’s a long haul from where Roth was murdered to where he was found. Getting him all the way from the shark tank to the whale pool would be a tough job for someone working alone — man or woman.”

  Willows said, “True, but that’s where the missing dolly comes in.”

  Parker nodded, acknowledging Willows’ point. Five identical dollies had been rounded up by Constable Lambert. All five were liberally sprinkled with fingerprints but devoid of any traces of flesh or blood or other evidence indicating that the dolly might have been used to transport a naked corpse. Naturally not all the aquarium’s staff had agreed to be voluntarily fingerprinted.

  There was general agreement among the staff that a sixth dolly was missing. A hunt was underway.

  Willows told Parker about Homer Bradley’s decision to assign two more teams of detectives to the case.

  Parker said, “Good, that’ll give us the time we need to concentrate on the two people who knew Roth best — his wife and Anthony Sweeting.”

  “And Susan Carter,” said Willows. “Who performed the autopsy?”

  “Christy Kirkpatrick.”

  “Yeah?” Willows didn’t try to hide his scepticism. Christy Kirkpatrick was notorious for the rigidity of his scheduling. Nobody butted in for free.

  Parker said, “I had to get on the phone — he was standing there listening in — and use my credit card to buy him a pair of tickets to the Canucks-Kings game. It cost me almost sixty dollars, Jack.”

  Willows smiled. “Bill me.”

  “Count on it.” Parker was no hockey fan, but in order to get Kirkpatrick to fit Roth’s autopsy into his crowded schedule she’d also had to promise to accompany the old goat to the game. Willows owed her more than he knew, but she’d make sure he found out about it, sooner or later. She turned off the ignition, opened her door and got out of the Pontiac.

  Sweeting was expecting them, and they were already late.

  As they walked down the sidewalk that skirted the east wall of the aquarium complex, Parker said, “How do you want to handle this?”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “Not really. I think we better go easy on him — he seems like the kind, you push him too hard, he’s going to roll up into a tight little ball and hibernate.”

  Willows averted his head, grinned at a snow-clad azalea bush. Parker was always telling him to behave himself, keep a smile on his face and his hands in his pockets. But the reason the partnership worked so well was because the two of them instinctively attacked from radically different angles. Whether Claire knew it or not, she was the sugar coating on his poison pill.

  Parker pushed open the glass door numbered five. She held the door for Willows, smiled at the receptionist lurking behind the curving wall of blonde oak veneer. The receptionist reached for her phone. She said, “You’re here to see Dr Sweeting?”

  Willows said, “Save your nickel — he’s expecting us.”

  He and Parker walked briskly down the sombre, beige-carpeted hallway to Tony Sweeting’s office. The door was open. Sweeting was standing by the window, watching a fat man in coveralls balance precariously on a stepladder as he strung Christmas lights on a small spruce tree overhanging the concrete retaining wall.

  Parker knocked lightly on the doorframe.

  Sweeting turned, saw them and smiled. He said, “I thought you’d forgotten me.”

  “Never,” said Parker, returning his smile.

  Sweeting indicated the man on the ladder. “I should send somebody out there to give him a hand, shouldn’t I, before he breaks his stupid neck.”

  Willows said, “Go ahead. We’ll wait.”

  Sweeting started towards the telephone on his fish-shaped desk and then made an abrupt gesture of dismissal. “Ah, to hell with it. Qué sera, sera. You’re absolutely sure Gerard was murdered?”

  Parker said, “We’re sure.”

  Sweeting’s shoulders slumped. He went over to his desk and collapsed in the leather chair. He said, “I saw his picture in the Province. It was a real shock, let me tell you. Brought it all home, know what I mean?”

  Parker nodded.

  “Who’d want to kill him?” said Willows.

  “I have no idea.”

  Willows said, “Why not? I thought you and Gerard were friends.”

  “We got along. As I said earlier, Dr Roth did good work and I respected him for it. However, I thought I’d made it clear that we were far from the best of buddies. I mean, he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a warm person. He certainly didn’t confide in me.”

  “Did he have any close friends that you know of, anyone at all?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “There was no one here at the aquarium that he was close to?”

  “Not a soul.” Sweeting hesitated. “You’ve talked to Susan, I suppose?”

  Parker said, “Dr Carter?”

  “Yeah, Susie.”

  “We spent some time with her.”

  “Couldn’t she help you?”

  Parker hesitated.

  Willows said, “Do your recall where you were Friday night?”

  “You mean — when Gerard died?”

  “Was killed,” said Willows, correcting him.

  “I spent the entire night at home.”

  “With your wife.”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Boon companion? Significant other?”

  “I was alone.”

  Willows said, “No kidding, I didn’t know people still did that.”

  “Just me and my shadow.” Sweeting yanked open the top drawer of his desk. He twisted the foil wrap from a roll of breath mints, popped several into his mouth and chewed furiously. “Am I a prime suspect?”

  “Certainly not,” said Parker.

  “Unless,” added Willows, “there’s a motive floating around that we don’t know about.”

  “I had no reason to kill Gerard.” Sweeting balled up the foil and placed it carefully in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. He said, “Let me amend that. What I should say is that I had no more reason to kill Gerard than anyone else who knew him.”

  Willows said, “Well, to tell the truth, I’m not too surprised.” He smiled. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who’d bump someone off just for the fun of it.”

  “That’s very gratifying. Would you like a breath mint?”

  “Not while I’m working
, thanks.”

  Sweeting smiled at Parker. “You two must have a lot of fun together.”

  “An awful lot of fun,” said Parker, smiling back.

  Willows said, “You saw Dr Roth virtually every day, isn’t that true?”

  “Unless he was in the field.”

  “Did he do much field work?”

  “Not really. He’d be gone, at most, two or three months out of the year.”

  “Had he been on a field trip recently?”

  “Not since late August.”

  “Three months ago.”

  Sweeting counted it out on his fingers. He nodded.

  Willows said, “Had you noticed a change in Dr Roth’s behaviour during the past few months?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, for example — did he seem unduly depressed?”

  “Not from my perspective. Unduly cheerful, maybe.”

  “He was a happy fella?”

  “He was so happy, he could’ve been in love.”

  Willows went over to the window and looked out. The lights had been plugged in and the man in the coveralls was leaning far into the tree, making minor adjustments. There were only four colours — red and green and yellow and blue.

  Parker said, “Dr Roth didn’t seem tense, or agitated in any way?”

  “Well, at times, sure. It’s the twentieth century, right? But most of the time he was pretty much a smile in his eyes, song on his lips kind of guy.”

  “Would you be aware of it, if Dr Roth wasn’t getting along with another member of your staff?”

  “I think so. In fact, sure, why not?” Sweeting devoured another breath mint. “Gerard would have given me an earful if something was bothering him. As I’ve said, he was an aggressive personality.” Sweeting ate another mint. “I’d even go so far as to say he was most content when he was upset about something.”

  Parker said, “You’re telling me he liked to sail when the wind was up.”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “But nothing was bothering him — that you know of — when he died.”

  “That’s true, I guess. Although if you’re referring to the actual moment of death, I bet all sorts of stuff was nagging at him.”

  Willows turned away from the window. He said, “We’d appreciate it if you kept this discussion confidential, Dr Sweeting.”

  “Can’t say I blame you.” Sweeting gobbled the last of the mints.

  Parker said, “Are you sure you were alone the night before last?”

  “Fairly sure.”

  Parker softened her voice. “Dr Roth’s death has been a terrible shock to you, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “Pretty stressful?”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Would you mind telling me what medication you’re taking?”

  Sweeting fumbled in his jacket pocket, came up with an orange plastic vial. “Valium.” He kept digging. “And these cute little blue and white babies. Which I do not hesitate to highly recommend, especially when washed down with a shot of single malt.”

  Outside, the fat man shouted an oath and disappeared into the spruce tree.

  “Oops!” Anthony Sweeting gave Parker a slack-jawed, foolish grin. He slumped in his chair. His eyes sagged shut. He began to snore.

  Parker said, “Now what — Susan?”

  “Yeah, let’s talk to Susan. If she’s coherent.” Willows popped an imaginary mint in his mouth, chewed with great relish.

  “May I have one of those?”

  “Unfortunately, that was the last one.”

  Susan Carter’s office door was locked. Willows hit it with his fist but got no response.

  Parker said, “Step aside, Jack. Let me show you how it’s done.”

  “Want me to hold your purse?”

  “No, but I’d appreciate it if you held your tongue.”

  Parker slapped the door hard with her open hand, as if it were a recalcitrant witness. There was no response. Frustrated, she rattled the knob.

  Willows said, “Still locked, huh?”

  At the receptionist’s desk they learned that Susan Carter was ill and not expected to return to work for several days.

  Willows said, “Whatever she’s got, I wonder if it’s contagious.”

  “Nowadays,” said Parker, “isn’t everything?”

  Chapter 18

  There was a payphone next to the dreary, crumbling ruins of the old monkey house, now occupied by a band of wallabies. Chris couldn’t understand why the Parks Board had bothered to acquire the animals. To his mind they were nothing but pint-sized kangaroos, lethargic, lacking in charm, morose and pathologically introspective.

  He thought for a humiliating moment that he’d have to bum a quarter from Robyn, but luckily found some loose change in his jeans pocket.

  In Vancouver, the telephone company has the heart and soul of a dehydrated walnut, and a policy of refusing to provide outdoor pay telephones with phone books. The official rationale is that vandals torch the books, using them to fry the phone booths. But the truth is, that like any large bureaucracy, they take great satisfaction from inconveniencing their customers.

  Chris fed three nickels and a dime into the phone’s maw, dialled up an operator and asked for Susan Carter’s number.

  The operator asked him for an address. Improvising, Chris said he’d lost it, chuckled grimly into her ear.

  He was told an address was required.

  Chris told her to hang on a minute, gave her the address of the warehouse in Gastown where he’d gone to audition.

  No Susan Carter there.

  He tendered the address of the Subaru dealership where he and Robyn had bought her car. No Susan there, either.

  Chris gave the operator the address of a public health clinic on Fourth Avenue.

  Still no luck.

  He started to give her his dentist’s address. Robyn reached past him and disconnected. His nickels and dime jingled merrily into the coin return slot.

  Collecting his change, Chris said, “What’s up?”

  “My blood pressure. Is this how you like to spend your time, wasting everybody else’s?”

  Chris said, “Hey, relax. I was just trying to get my money’s worth — I didn’t know they gave refunds!”

  Robyn laughed despite herself.

  Chris said, “Joy joy. Happy happy. Smile and the world smiles with you. Frown and you frown alone. Know what we need?”

  “Tell me, big boy.”

  “A phone book. And I’m pretty sure I know where we can find one.”

  “You do, huh?”

  Chris nodded. He assembled his face into a sneaky, underhanded look, got it right the first time.

  Playing it straight, Robyn said, “Maybe you better show me what you’ve got in mind.”

  “Can do, babe.”

  In a hurry to get out of the park, Chris took the shortcut that skirted the miniature train and rose gardens, then eased into the turgid flow past Lost Lagoon. In the grey light of day, the Christmas tree on the fountain had a sad and bedraggled look about it.

  Robyn said, “They should use brighter lights, lots of tinsel.”

  “And put an angel on top.”

  “If they can find one.”

  As soon as the Subaru’s cabin warmed up, Chris pulled off his black leather gloves with the rabbit fur lining.

  He rested his hand lightly on Robyn’s thigh.

  She slapped him lightly. “Cut it out.”

  “You want me to put the leather back on, that what you’re saying?”

  “No, I’m saying I want you to pay attention to the road.”

  In an off-key voice, Chris sang, “I’m a trucker and I don’t mean maybe, rather ride the road than fondle my baaaby…”

  Robyn guided his hand back to her jean-clad leg. “Just stop singing, okay?”

  “For now,” said Chris. “Until I can free up this other hand.”

  Back at the apartment, Chris made lunch while Robyn p
erused the phone book. There were no listings under the name Susan Carter, but there were eighteen S. Carters, six of whom lived in the city.

  Robyn dialled the first number. The phone rang three times and then a young-sounding woman picked up, said hello. Robyn said, “Is this the Susan Carter who works at the aquarium?”

  Yes, it was.

  Robyn hesitated. Now what? She hadn’t given it much thought, actually.

  Susan Carter wanted to know who she was talking to.

  Robyn tried to think of a name — any name but her own. All she could think of was Smith. Mumbling like a fool, she said she was a reporter.

  Susan Carter hung up.

  From the kitchen, Chris shouted that lunch was on the table.

  Susan lived in the West End, on Davie Street. Robyn circled the address with a black makeup pencil. A tinny, computer-generated voice emanating from the phone advised her to hang up and please try to call again. She disconnected.

  Chris had made toasted-cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Robyn sat down at the table. She watched him crush a handful of Stone Wheat Thins, drop the crackers into his soup and poke them under with his finger.

  He bent over his bowl, began to eat.

  Robyn picked up her spoon. She balanced it on the rim of her bowl.

  Chris said, “Something wrong with the soup?”

  “No, it sounds delicious.”

  “Add milk, stir well and heat carefully. What could go wrong?”

  Robyn shrugged.

  Chris lowered his head over his bowl. He said, “So eat up, before it gets cold.”

  Robyn pushed away from the table. She went over to the sink, pulled open a drawer and chose the sharpest knife that she could find. Chris continued to burrow into his soup. She sat down at the table and quartered her sandwich.

  “Sorry about that.” Chris grinned. The soup had stained his teeth red. A scarlet rivulet dribbled down his chin.

  Robyn kept chopping up the sandwich, cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces.

  Chris said, “Now what?”

  “I talked to her. I mean, she spoke to me.”

  “Yeah? What’d she say?”

  Robyn tried her soup. It was surprisingly good.

  Chris said, “You mutilated my sandwich because the murderous bitch said something rotten to you, am I right?”