Killers

by Laurence Gough

  The kitchen was spotlessly clean, except for the sink, which was full of dirty water. Impulsively, he walked over and dipped a finger. The water was cold and greasy, black with filth. He felt a chill run up his spine. To Willows, an unnaturally clean room was a red flag; it indicated a sanitized crime scene. He shrugged out of his overcoat, pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and plunged his hand into the sink. His groping fingers touched something that might have been a sponge. In the same instant, his mind registered the sprinkling of dark brown freckles on the underside of the spigot-style tap. He lifted the object out of the sink. It was a dog’s paw, and he had no doubt it had been chopped off one of Iris Roth’s Boston bulls. He put the paw down on the sink, shook water from his hand and scraped one of the freckles away from the tap with his thumbnail.

  The refrigerator throbbed and was still. Willows rubbed the freckle with a damp finger, watched it turn from brown to red.

  *

  Parker stayed close to the cottage’s shingled wall as she made her way around to the front of the building. Wide steps led to a low sundeck and quartet of french doors that opened directly to the living room. Through a gap in the curtains she could see a fire burning in the hearth. She climbed the steps and moved across the deck.

  She peered through the gap. Dark shadows and orange light flickered on the walls. In the corner of her eye she caught a quick, furtive movement. A pale oval seemed to float up to the glass, then drift away. She walked up to door. A perfectly round, fist-sized hole appeared in the glass at eye level. Her right eye filled with blood. She staggered, dropped to one knee.

  *

  In the kitchen, Willows heard a thrumming sound, as if someone had snapped a giant rubber band. Glass shattered. He ran towards the living room, slipped on the freshly waxed floor and cracked his head against a corner of the big cast-iron stove.

  Parker fired two quick rounds into the deadbolt. She yanked open the door.

  Willows was on his knees in the kitchen doorway, his gun in a two-handed grip, held steady on Iris Roth.

  Iris stood by the fireplace, sweating in the heat of the flames. She had the bewildered, off-balance look of a small animal caught in the lights of an onrushing car. She wore a heavy wool sweater, jeans and a pair of bright yellow knee-high rubber boots. In her arms she cradled a diver’s spear-gun loaded with a matt-black, yard-long metal shaft tipped with a barbed point.

  Parker’s stomach rolled over.

  Willows scrambled to his feet, crossed the room in two swift strides, scooped up the spear-gun and shaft.

  Iris said, “My God, I almost killed you!”

  Parker nodded. The spear had missed by inches; a sliver of glass had struck her just above her right eye.

  Iris said, “I’m so sorry.” She turned to Willows. “I… I thought she was Susan.”

  “Susan Carter?”

  Iris said, “Let me take a look at that…” She moved towards Parker.

  Willows said, “Stay right there, Iris.”

  Iris hesitated.

  Parker said, “I’ve got to get this cleaned up. Where’s the bathroom?”

  “I’ll show you…”

  Willows smiled. He said, “Just point.”

  Meekly, Iris pointed. Parker headed towards the bathroom. Willows holstered his revolver. He removed the shaft from the spear-gun.

  In the bathroom, Parker cursed softly.

  Iris sat on the couch. She fixed her eyes on Willows, waiting patiently for whatever was coming next.

  A tap squeaked. Willows heard water running into a sink. He balanced the shaft of the spear-gun on the ball of his thumb. Christ, he’d rather be shot.

  The tap squeaked again. A moment later Parker appeared in the doorway. She’d taken off her coat. There was a smear of blood on her blouse. Her skin was pale. A butterfly bandage pinched the flesh above her eye.

  Willows leaned the spear, point down, against a wall. “You okay?”

  Parker nodded.

  Willows had his notebook and pen in hand. He said, “When did you last see Susan, Iris?”

  “Last night. She told me…” Iris faltered. Willows nodded encouragingly. Iris said, “She told me somebody phoned her at Gerard’s apartment. He accused her of murdering Gerard. He told her he wanted twenty-five thousand dollars, and that if she didn’t pay him he’d go to the police.”

  If Parker hadn’t known Willows so well she’d have sworn he was buying it all, every word.

  Iris told Willows that Susan had told her the whole story — how she’d set up a meeting at Trout Lake, waited in the icy water and then shot the blackmailer with Gerard’s spear-gun.

  Parker said, “Why a spear-gun, Iris?”

  Iris shrugged. “She didn’t say. It was Gerard’s. I recognized it immediately. She chose it simply because it was available, I suppose.”

  Willows said, “You’re saying that this spear-gun is the murder weapon?”

  “Yes, of course it is! She was going to use it on me. Make it look like a suicide. We fought, and I was lucky enough to get the gun away from her. She ran outside…”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Last night, late last night.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Because she smashed the hell out of the telephone, that’s why.”

  Willows said, “I hate it when they do that.”

  Iris blinked.

  Parker said, “Why didn’t you get a neighbour to make the call?”

  “I was afraid to leave the house. I was terrified that she’d be waiting for me. You don’t understand, do you? She wanted to kill me.”

  The funny thing was, she’d actually believed it was Susan at the door. She’d been expecting her, in a way. The moment Susan had hit the water the little bitch had started swimming like a goddamn fish.

  Iris’s face seemed to darken, as if a cloud had passed over her. Her skin twitched and fluttered. Watching her, Willows wondered what had really happened. He thought it most likely that Iris and Susan had murdered Roth together, that both women had planned to set the other up for the fall. Susan was beautiful, and very clever. Younger than Iris, and quicker. But not quite as smart. The cold front was expected to last three more days. By the time they found Chris Spacy’s body it would be impossible to determine when he had died except within a very approximate time frame.

  Willows said, “Claire, would you mind getting me a glass of water?” He had a sudden urge to make a bad joke about the paws that refreshes, but managed to hold back. Parker gave him an odd look, nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.

  She was only gone a few moments, and as she re-entered the room she said, “Iris, I’ve been meaning to ask you, where are the dogs?”

  Iris glanced at Willows.

  Parker said, “What happened to the dogs, Iris?”

  Iris said, “She killed them.”

  “Susan killed the dogs?”

  “Yes.”

  “All three of them? What did she do, blindfold them, line them up against a wall and shoot them with the spear-gun?”

  Iris said, “I don’t know what she did to them — they just disappeared. Vanished! Why are you treating me this way?”

  Willows smiled at Parker, and she smiled back, both of them thinking about Barney, their conversation with Susan about stray animals in general. The photo on Susan’s wall of Elvis.

  Willows said, “You shouldn’t have killed the dogs, Iris. It was a mistake,”

  Iris was thinking so hard you could almost hear her. After a moment she said, “Susan killed the dogs, not me.”

  “Susan was an animal-lover. She wanted to be a veterinarian.”

  Sneering, Iris said, “That’s what she told you, is it?”

  Parker said, “No, Iris. That’s what Elvis told us, from beyond the grave.”

  *

  Parker called on Homer Bradley, to let him know he had a jurisdictional squabble on his hands. Bradley told her to hold her ground until a decision was reached as to w
ho could have Iris first. A couple of uniformed West Vancouver cops arrived, and then, all in a rush, the bloodhounds from Ident, a bunch of plainclothes guys in two-for-one suits, West Van brass and a fat woman in a cocktail dress who turned out to be an ME.

  Willows and Parker went outside to prowl around in the woods behind the cottage. Parker found Hot Stuff’s skull beneath an overgrown boxwood hedge, and then, not far away, a shredded plastic garbage bag and several scattered bones nestled in the roots of a cedar tree. The bones had been stripped clean of flesh. Parker said, “I bet she cooked him.”

  Willows stared at her. “And then what, ate him?”

  “Or fed him to the other dogs,” said Parker, “before she killed them.”

  Bradley phoned back. Parker took the call in the kitchen. He told her to give Iris up. The suburbanites could have her, for now.

  Willows went into the living room. Somebody had thrown another log on the fire. The salt trapped in the wood gave the flames a greenish tinge. Willows knelt and pulled the screen. Sometimes, with fireplaces or love, it was best to keep the sparks at bay.

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