“Are you thinking about leaving XCCW?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? BCW is a springboard for the big time. They have connections with ROH, TNA, New Japan, even NXT. When I get on with them I’m set.”
“So it’s a done deal?”
“Just about. They’re very interested in signing me as soon as my contract with XCCW expires next month.”
“Wait a second,” Rya said. “If this is true then why did you lie?”
“Grasby,” I said, finally piecing it together. Stormy nodded emphatically.
“If he knew I was in negotiations with Border City he’d go ballistic. They’re his main competition on the east coast and he absolutely hates them. A wrestler named Chet Wilson tried to leave XCCW for Monster Pro Wrestling in Edmonton six months ago. When Grasby found out, Chet’s car was suddenly stolen and his apartment was mysteriously set on fire. The poor guy went bankrupt and lost everything.”
“There’s no mention of this in Grasby’s record,” said Rya.
“You don’t get it, do you?” pleaded Stormy. “He’s crazy vindictive. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to ruin me if he found out I was leaving.”
“Did Johnny know?” I asked.
“I wasn’t going to tell him until our deal was official. But by then it didn’t matter.”
“Our deal?” Stormy smiled sadly.
“It wasn’t just my contract that I was negotiating. BCW is hurting bad for female talent. I used that to my advantage so they also agreed to take Johnny on as a jobber.”
Now it made sense. Melvin. The fights. The death threats. Stormy hitched Johnny’s wagon to her star only to find out the man she loved had betrayed her.
“Is there a chance that Grasby could have found out about your negotiations with Border City Wrestling and that’s why Johnny was murdered?” Rya asked.
“Then why am I still here?” Stormy replied. “Besides, Eddie and I were extremely cautious. And I’m pretty sure if Grasby knew about our meetings he would have taken out his frustration on the other wrestlers just like he did after the last time with Chet.”
“So you really don’t have any idea who killed Johnny?” I asked.
“I wish I did,” she said softly, choking back tears.
Rya proceeded to ask Stormy several follow up questions about her relationship with Eddie Grist and Border City Wrestling. When she finished I said goodbye to Stormy and followed Rya out into the hallway where Inspector Cornish was waiting with two uniformed cops by his side.
“Officers, please escort Mr. Ounstead off the premises immediately.”
The cops swooped in and grabbed me roughly by the arms. Since I’ve never been one to take kindly to being manhandled, I slipped my arm out of the first officer’s grip and shoved the other cop away from me. The cops drew their batons and were about to go to town when Rya jumped in between us.
“Enough!” The cops backed down. Rya glared at Cornish. “Richard, what is this?”
“I want him out of here.”
“Did you not just see what he did in there?”
“I saw exactly what he did. Because of him we now have no suspect and a Crown Counsel en route that’s going to be mighty pissed we wasted his time.”
“But Richard — ”
“I don’t want to hear it, Shepard. This is your fault for bringing him here in the first place.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I said, irritated with Cornish’s bureaucratic concerns. “Stormy is innocent. That means the real killer is still out there. You need to be working the case, not wasting time worrying about whether or not some hotshot prosecutor might have to make an extra stop for gas.”
Cornish got in my face. With his bristly mustache, small knot tie, and hands on his hips, he reminded me of an angry high-school principal who had caught me smoking in the boys’ room.
“Do you really think I’m going to stand here and let you tell me how to do my job?” he hissed.
“My friend is dead,” I said solemnly. “I’m just trying to do right by him.”
“You mean like you did with your buddy Max Conkin?”
Hearing that name felt like a dagger to the heart. My pulse quickened. My breath shortened. I swayed slightly on my feet as I fought off light-headedness. I glanced at Rya, who was looking at me uncertainly. She had no idea what Cornish was talking about. Cornish smirked, knowing he had scored a blow.
“Oh, yeah,” he continued. “I know all about you, Ounstead. I know why your wrestling career ended and I know what you did before resurfacing here in Vancouver.”
I pulled myself together, not wanting Cornish to think he had unnerved me more than he already had. “Are you referring to my stint as a performer in Puppetry of the Penis, Inspector? Because I still have connections and you strike me as the kind of guy who likes to play with himself.”
One of the uniformed officers let slip a chuckle. Rya sighed and shook her head. Cornish stabbed a finger in my chest and glared at me with fire in his eyes. “Solving your friend’s murder can’t make up for the past, smart ass. Stay away from this investigation. Otherwise I will come after you with everything I’ve got and won’t let up until you’re serving time for obstruction and your daddy’s little pub loses its goddamn liquor licence.” I looked to Rya for support. There was none.
“Get out of here, Jed,” she said.
It wasn’t until I was outside the precinct that I remembered my truck was back at the café. A crisp breeze swept stray blood red autumn leaves past my feet while I stood on the sidewalk. I zipped up my jacket, buried my hands in my pockets, and started walking back toward Commercial Drive. The city was quiet and other than the sounds of distant traffic and the crunching of foliage under my feet I was alone with my thoughts. By the time I had walked three blocks I had made up my mind about my next move. The only thing I was uncertain of was whether or not what I was about to do would be considered an indictable offence.
NINETEEN
I called Declan to see if Billy was at the pub. Apparently the kid hadn’t been around since Grasby’s thugs had laid a pounding on him. I had given Billy enough rides home from the gym to remember where he lived. His apartment complex was located on the outskirts of Yaletown, next door to a 7–11 and right below the Granville Street Bridge. I searched the directory until I found his unit number. He sounded surprised that I was there but buzzed me in right away. Billy’s studio apartment was pretty basic, his furnishings consisting mainly of a futon, plasma TV and enough Xbox games and medical textbooks to open a store on eBay.
“How you holding up?” I asked, as I stepped over an empty pizza box into the living room. Billy tenderly touched his ribs and avoided eye contact.
“Okay, I guess.”
“Good. Because I could really use your help.”
“For what?” I told Billy my plan.
“You’re joking,” he said, when I had finished.
“I’d do it myself if I could. But I need someone qualified.”
“I’m not qualified to do that!”
“You’re close enough.”
“I don’t think so, Jed.”
“Tell you what. You do this, I’ll make you my full-time training partner.”
“For real?”
“I do a push-pull split four days a week. If you work out with me and stick to the diet plan I give you I guarantee that in three months you’ll be stretching out every one of your T-shirts.” Billy touched his ribs again, thinking it over. After a moment, he smiled.
During the car ride Billy fidgeted with the passenger seat controls, visor, heating, and rear window de-mister. By the time he reached for my radio I had had enough.
“Settle down, bub.”
“Sorry.”
“Something on your mind?”
“No
. I don’t know.” Billy crossed his arms and we drove in silence for a minute. “Can you really help me get bigger?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you think maybe you could show me a few self-defense moves too?”
“Sure.”
Billy nodded approvingly. “It’s just, you know, after the other night — ”
“I know.”
“I don’t care about being a tough guy anymore, Jed. I just want to be able to protect myself.”
“Good for you, kid.”
We neared our destination and I pulled into a pay parking lot.
“It’s not like it is in the movies, is it?” he asked.
“What?”
“Fighting. In real life it happens so fast.”
“Wasn’t exactly glamorous, was it?”
“No. It was just . . . scary. And it hurts like hell. Is it always like that?”
“Every time.”
“So then why did you piss off guys who would come looking for trouble?”
I parked in a stall and turned off the ignition. It took me a moment before I came up with an answer. “Because I’m good at it.”
We got out of the truck and walked inside. The city morgue is located underneath Vancouver General Hospital, the second largest hospital in the country. I happened to be all too familiar with the hallways of the medical facility, particularly the leukemia and bone marrow transplant wing. I had spent many late nights there with my mother, watching her endure one failed treatment after another before finally succumbing to her disease in the comfort of her own home.
We took the elevator down to the morgue level and I readied the item that I would need next. One of the perks of being a cop’s son is that you have access to certain things a normal civilian would not. Like a former police officer’s badge, for example.
“VPD Homicide,” I announced, as we approached the bookish morgue attendant behind a desk. Seeing my pop’s golden badge, the attendant instructed me to fill out the sign-in sheet. I obliged, except I wrote my name as Inspector Dick Cornish and dotted each lowercase “i” with a big girly heart.
Billy shivered as we followed the attendant inside. The cold sterile air filled my nostrils and smelled strongly of disinfectant. The body of a deceased middle-aged man rested on a slab in the centre of the morgue, his upper torso exposed and revealing a freshly stitched Y-incision. We followed the attendant through a maze of stainless steel until we reached a chrome gurney in the rear corner of the room. The attendant pulled back a sheet to reveal the scaly remains of Johnny’s pet snake Ginger.
“Jesus,” groaned Billy, shooting me a look of uncertainty.
“Ugly looking thing, isn’t it?” said the attendant.
“We can take it from here, thanks,” I said, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. The morgue attendant shrugged and took the hint. Once we were alone with Ginger I gave Billy a nudge.
“Autopsy time.”
“Necropsy.”
“What?”
“Autopsies are performed on humans. It’s called a necropsy when you examine an animal or reptile post-mortem.”
“Billy, I don’t care if it’s called the Funky Cold Medina. Let’s slice this snake open and see if we can figure out how it died.” Billy grimaced and dug a small surgical kit out of his messenger bag. He opened the kit and withdrew a scalpel handle to which he then fastened a new blade.
“I’m going to need you to stretch it out,” he said, putting on his own pair of gloves. I did as I was told and gripped Ginger by her throat and tail, utilizing my long wingspan as I pulled the snake taut. Billy made his incision about ten inches down from my hand, on the upper torso where the snake’s body became meatier.
“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Billy.
“Stomach contents,” I replied.
“Do you even know where a snake’s stomach is?”
“Above its middle there,” I said, pointing. “Just don’t cut too far to the left or you’ll hit its gallbladder.” Billy stared at me bewilderedly.
“How do you know all this?”
“I googled python anatomy earlier. Got a picture on my phone and everything.” Billy shook his head.
“You better get me really ripped,” he said, resuming cutting.
Ten minutes later Billy had successfully opened up Ginger. He used several retractors to spread her scaly skin and began probing through the reptilian innards with the aid of a hemostat and forceps. We used the picture on my phone as a reference and were eventually able to identify the snake’s stomach. Billy made an incision into the pinkish sack and we immediately found something unexpected. Ginger’s stomach was full of strips of tin foil and a variety of brightly coloured pills. Dozens of cherry red, lime green, and electric-blue tablets, some partially digested, were bunched together in clumps.
“What the hell?” said Billy.
I picked up several of the tablets and examined them closer. Each one was either inscribed with an R or WY logo.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” I said.
“What?”
“This is yaba.”
“Yaba?”
“It’s a type of methamphetamine.”
“How do you know that?”
I clutched the tablets in my fist. “After I left professional wrestling I did a little backpacking. Spent a lot of time in Asia, particularly Thailand and the Philippines.”
“You were doing drugs?” he asked, the disappointment evident in his voice.
“I was finding various ways to numb myself,” I replied. “And if you knew what had happened to me you might not be so quick to judge.”
“Sorry, Jed.”
I held up a purple tablet between my thumb and index finger and showed it to Billy. “Yaba is very popular over there,” I continued. “It’s a meth-caffeine cocktail that’s especially favoured by the rave and techno crowd. In recent years it’s made its way into some party scenes in LA and Northern California, but up until now, I’ve never heard of it being in Vancouver.”
“So what’s a bunch of rare methamphetamines doing inside your dead friend’s snake?” asked Billy.
“That’s the million dollar question, bub.”
Just then the morgue attendant marched in, flanked by three hospital security guards and a woman in a tan uniform. Upon seeing Ginger lying dissected upon the gurney, the woman shrieked and ran toward the reptile.
“You sick bastards!” she screamed. “What did you do?”
“Calm down, lady,” I said, pulling out my pop’s badge. “My colleague here is a herpetologist and we’re performing an official necropsy on this reptile as it pertains directly to a murder investigation.” I gave Billy a knowing nod, and was quite pleased with myself for correctly using the term necropsy. He wasn’t as impressed.
“You can save the bullshit,” said the morgue attendant. “We already know you’re a couple of phonies.”
Billy’s face went white. I did my best to stay in character. “There must be some misunderstanding,” I said, as the hospital security guards unfastened handcuffs from their belts.
“This woman is from the SPCA,” said the attendant. “As per their request, she placed a call to the Vancouver Police to inform them she had arrived at the morgue to collect the reptile’s remains. Imagine their surprise when the cops heard that one of their officers was already here, to see a dead snake that has already been examined and ordered to be disposed of.” The morgue attendant grinned with smug satisfaction. The SPCA woman glared with disgust and the security guards puffed out their chests.
I held up the red and green tablets I still had in my hand. “Any chance you guys like to party?”
TWENTY
For the second time that day I was in a police interrogation room. Except this time I was the one
in the hot seat. It really does make a difference. After twiddling my thumbs for an hour Rya entered the room and took a seat across from me. She stared at me for an eternity, waiting for me to say something. I didn’t.
“Are you sure your pro-wrestling name wasn’t ‘Shithead’ Jed Ounstead?” she finally asked.
“Pretty sure.”
“You know you’re fucked, right? I mean, there’s nothing I can do for you now.”
“You could dial down the profanity. It’s not very ladylike.”
“What the hell were you thinking, Jed?”
“I was thinking that it was about damn time somebody got off their ass and tried to make headway on your murder case.”
“You impersonated an officer of the law in order to gain access to the city morgue where you proceeded to violate the remains of an animal.”
“Reptile.”
“Whatever! How the hell does what you did help my case?”
“Did you hear about the pills in Ginger’s stomach?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“They were methamphetamines.”
“Bullshit.”
“Get one of your drug recognition experts to examine them. They will ID them as yaba, a type of meth that up until now has been a pretty uncommon find in Vancouver.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you start coordinating with your Gang Crime and Drug units ASAP. I’m willing to bet whoever took Ginger was in possession of a large quantity of yaba and that the snake accidentally ingested the meth and overdosed. That’s why the kidnapper panicked and rushed the ransom exchange with Johnny.”
Rya fiddled with her watchstrap while she considered what I had said. After a few moments, she responded. “How do you know that the kidnapper didn’t intentionally kill the snake by feeding it the meth?”
“Because there are a hell of a lot more easy and cheap ways to bump off a reptile.”
Rya leaned back in her chair as she absorbed the information. “Even if you’re right, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re screwed. Cornish is absolutely livid and — ”
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