Reluctant Detective

by Finley Martin

  A poster on the wall identified the night class activities and the rooms in which classes were taught. Basic yoga and advanced yoga were in the gym. Photography was in room 241 on the second floor. Anne passed the gym doors and took to the stairs. She wanted to see the photography class in case she needed a good excuse for being in the building. Darby’s rule number two: Always have a solid cover story. Outside room 241 was a small placard: Photography, Laurie Creed, Instructor. She peeked through the small pane in the door.

  “Looking for photography?” asked the voice behind her.

  “No,” said Anne turning around. “I’m with The Guardian. Here for a photo story on yoga.”

  The voice had come from a tall, lanky red-head. Under the fluorescent lights her hair was orange and frizzy, her face and bare arms deeply freckled.

  “I’m Laurie Creed. Yoga’s downstairs in the gym. If you finish early, come up. The class would love to hear some tips from a pro.”

  “Thanks. But I’m more of a pressed-into-service amateur, if you know what I mean.”

  “Well, if you change your mind…,” said the redhead, as she strode into the classroom.

  The gym was large and served as recreation centre, lunch room, assembly hall, and theatre. Both yoga classes shared the area, but each instructor organized activities at opposite sides of the gym. Basic yoga class included about twenty-five students. They dressed in a rag-tag collection of denims, sweatpants, and beach gear; most of them moved clumsily, and several giggled incessantly whenever they broke position. The advanced class, twelve or fifteen in number, performed more like a precision drill squad and dressed the part as well.

  Robert Somerville had positioned himself in the centre of the advanced group. For the first several minutes of class, they sat quietly and meditatively on their mats. The Lotus position. Then the instructor said something, and each member of the group slowly, deliberately, and uniformly evolved from one asana to another, like a ballet in slow motion.

  Anne changed lenses and took a few shots of Somerville’s group through the glass panels of the double doors. Then she moved down the hallway to a second gym entrance and took a few more shots.

  Anne watched the class for almost an hour until their routine concluded, and they took a break. Many brushed past Anne on their way out the door. A few others remained and chatted amongst themselves and sipped on juice packs or bottled water. Somerville stayed in the gym, too, eventually drifting toward his instructor. From their body language, Anne thought the two of them seemed more comfortable with each other than the relationship between yoga master and disciple called for. They stood a bit too close, their facial expressions were those of people sharing confidences, not techniques or chitchat and, at one point, he touched her shoulder in a rather tender way. Anne clicked another picture.

  “Get anything good?” asked the voice behind her.

  “The usual,” said Anne turning toward a flourish of orange hair. It was Laurie Creed again. “Just finishing up a roll. Random shots. See what turns out.”

  “Leave a few snaps. There’s a better news story outside,” said Laurie waving an awkward arm toward the main door. “Cops are outside now. Go see. You might make page three instead of page twelve.”

  A swirl of adult students, wanting outside, created a bottleneck at the door, and Anne found herself jostled in the press of them. Just like recess at elementary school, she thought.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked a woman who stumbled against her.

  “Vandals,” said the woman. “I believe they’ve damaged some cars.”

  The red and blue lights of a city police cruiser pulsed like a quickened heartbeat and illuminated a small group of people at the back of the parking lot. A car horn bleated hysterically and added to the anxiety of those who had gone outside. Twenty or thirty of them wandered through the rows of cars, looking for their own vehicles. Doors squeaked and banged. Dome lights fluttered on and off.

  Anne’s camera beat a quick rhythm on her thigh as she hurried to her own car. It was on the outer perimeter of the lot, the closest spot she could get, given her late arrival at the school.

  “Mine’s all right,” said a girl responding to Anne’s inquisitive look. The girl was returning from her car. “I had all my groceries in there, too,” she said with relief.

  Anne smiled back, but her heart was thumping. Even in the shadows she saw a shattered window on the driver’s side of her car. Splinters of glass covered the front seat. The empty camera case was overturned. The blanket was on the floor. And the valise was gone.

  A wave of panic swept over her. She felt faint. She gripped the top of the rear door for support. Then she eased herself down. She crouched there, staring at the empty spot where the valise had been, not wanting to believe that it was missing, not wanting to accept that she had failed miserably, and not wanting to face the realization that she had sunk into a great pool of trouble.

  “Check your vehicles,” said the cop. “If anything is missing or damaged, give me your name and phone number. Notify your insurance company. If you want, you can fill out a police report tomorrow at the station. Okay?” He spoke to two confused women with violin cases and collapsible music stands who had asked what they should do. Then he continued his walk along the winding road of the parking lot, and shone his flashlight at each car he passed.

  “Are you all right? Ma’am?”

  His penlight sent a sharp, narrow beam at Anne. Her head turned round, she flinched, and covered her eyes. The cop shifted the light toward the ground and walked over to her.

  “You okay?”

  Anne nodded.

  “Did they take anything?” His light spilled across the broken car window.

  Anne stood up and smoothed her clothes. The camera strap tugged at her shoulder. She felt a glint of rage creep into the back of her mind. Then it disappeared.

  “No,” she said. Her voice sounded calm and deliberate. “I had my camera with me. They must have seen the empty case and…” Her sentence slipped away.

  “Don’t worry, lady. Insurance should cover yer window. They can replace that in an hour. You want to fill out a report?”

  “Who does things like this? Did anyone see what happened?”

  “Kids probably. Young punks. Some guy popped outta the school for a smoke and heard glass breaking.” The cop paused for a moment. Then he continued. “Musta been your car. The other cars were jimmied. Anyway, he hollered… they took off… out the back access road… past the stadium.”

  “Will you catch them?”

  “Not likely. The fella couldn’t ID the car or see who was inside. So unless we catch ’em with stolen goods…” The cop shrugged. Then he continued his flashlight investigation down the line of cars.

  Anne rolled down the broken window. The glass that remained in the track grated and scraped as it dropped into the hollow pocket of the side panel. She picked up the shards of glass on her seat and dropped them on the floor. Then she took the blanket and brushed off the finer pieces. She shook the blanket out, folded it over the seat, and got behind the wheel.

  Anne drove away, not along the route she had come in, but along the back access road and past the stadium, the same route the thieves had taken. She had no realistic hope of finding them. They were long gone, but, after she intersected upper North River Road, she crossed over the Ellen’s Creek Bridge on a whim and turned down toward Lewis Point. She had no reason to go there other than her feeling that aimless driving gave her the illusion of purpose. And this quiet, affluent neighbourhood with broad avenues and little traffic would give her an undisrupted opportunity to think. That offered at least a shred of hope and maybe, just maybe, she thought, she could hammer out an idea or two that might lead her out of this mess.

  After half an hour of driving around in circles, Anne reckoned that her thinking followed the same pattern. What do I really
know, she thought. Practically nothing. The cop thought that the thieves probably were kids. Who they were was anyone’s guess. Maybe Ben could get a list of suspects from the juvenile division. Likely a long list, though. Then again, the cop said that the doors were jimmied. That takes a bit of skill. Maybe that would narrow the list. Most likely they’re familiar with Central High and the night school schedule. Could be a current student. Could be one that had quit, too. Either made sense. But getting a list from Ben, even if that were possible, would take some time and, by then, the money would be impossible to trace. Too many ifs and maybes.

  Anne pulled the car over, took out her cell phone, and tapped in her home number.

  “Hi, Jacqui. Whatcha doin’?”

  “TV. What’s up?”

  “Homework done?”

  “Mom,” she said with astonishment, “tomorrow’s the last day of school! Well, half-day anyway,” she corrected herself.

  “Sorry, honey. Guess I’m not thinking too clearly. What goes on tomorrow?”

  “We get report cards. Maybe some special treats in home room. Then there’s usually some activity in the auditorium. Movie or sports competition. Fun stuff.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Wanted to let you know that I’ll be late tonight. Okay? We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “Hot date tonight?”

  “Aren’t you the bold one?”

  “Didn’t answer my question, Mom.”

  “The hottest thing I’ll see tonight is a bowl of chili at BJ’s Diner.”

  “Have you ever considered getting a life, Mom? Everyone’s doing it.”

  “I don’t have time for a life. I’m a mother. G’night.”

  Anne had a smile on her face when she hung up. Then she shivered. The chill of night rolled in waves through the empty window frame. Her hand reached for the heater switch and turned it way up.

  A life would be good, she thought.

  14

  The gleam of a streetlight illuminated a startling tattoo extending the entire length of Sean McGee’s right arm. On it, a grinning skeleton rode a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Eagle wings spread from the sides of the machine, and the road on which it sped transformed from a pavement of aces and eights into the trunk of a rattlesnake which circled Sean’s wrist and bared its fangs on the back of his hand. Sean turned his Chevy Super Sport north onto North River Road, and suddenly the snake on his arm struck at the skinny frame of the passenger alongside him. Sean’s backhand cracked across the side of Carson White’s head.

  “For crissake, man, what’d I do?” Carson cringed against the door to get away from him. His hands grabbed the leather suitcase between them and braced it as a shield from more blows. The big ring on Sean’s finger caught him on the temple. Carson could feel a welt rising.

  “You dumb fuck! You dumb fuck! I told you to jimmy the doors, not break windows. How much attention can one dumb fuck create?” The Chevy’s engine was roaring. Sean glanced at the speedometer. Then he quickly took his foot off the accelerator and slowed down.

  “I saw a camera case in there and the door wouldn’t give. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

  “You couldn’t think… you couldn’t fuckin’ think! You don’t make noise. That’s what ya fuckin’ do. You coulda popped doors for an hour and no one woulda caught on.”

  “Do ya think that guy saw us?” asked Carson, half afraid that his query would draw another smack from Sean.

  “He saw somethin’. That’s why he hollered. And you can bet he called the cops.”

  There was a long silence between them. Sean turned onto University Avenue and headed back toward the centre of town. University Avenue was busy with traffic and bright with street lights and fast-food storefronts. Carson was about to ask Sean why he decided to take this busy street where people could see them, but he held his tongue.

  As if he had read Carson’s mind, Sean muttered, “If you sneak along back streets, the cops take note of ya. Here…,” he said with a sweep of his hand, “it looks like ya got nothin’ t’ hide. That’s how ya think.”

  Sean turned again off University Avenue toward Carson’s house. There was another long silence until Sean pulled along the curb half a block from the kid’s house.

  “And ya never got the camera from that last car.” It was a statement, not a question, and Carson felt a coldness in Sean’s voice.

  “No. The case was empty.”

  “So ya took that suitcase instead.”

  “Yeah. There could be lots of valuable stuff in there.”

  “Well, I’ll tell ya what I’m gonna to do, kid. I’m keepin’ the stuff in the trunk. You keep the suitcase. That’s gonna be your cut. Then tomorrow, maybe, you can impress your little girlfriends with the half-dozen used panties and the greasy lipsticks you’re gonna find in there. Or maybe you’ll really hit the jackpot with some salesman’s sample kit of floor tiles.”

  “But…”

  “Get out!” Sean reached over, but the kid already had opened the door and one foot was on the ground. Sean shoved the suitcase, and it tumbled after him.

  Sean hit the gas pedal. There was a short screech of rubber and his car sped off.

  Carson’s house was only five buildings away. Even in that short distance, though, Carson felt very conspicuous. A sixteen-year-old toting a suitcase in the middle of the night. If there were eyes on the street, then he was sure that they were staring suspiciously at him. He kept alert for the sound of footsteps on the sidewalk, the rattle of a doorknob, or the creak of a floorboard. But it was late. Likely, no one was about.

  Carson lived with his parents. They rented a small wood-frame home built in the ’40s. Next to it was a small detached garage with a sagging roof and a twist in one wall. Carson tugged on the door handle, but it stuck. A hefty pull popped it open, and the switch inside the door lit a 25-watt bulb in a socket dangling from a rafter.

  It cast a dim light, but it was enough for Carson to see what lay inside the suitcase.

  Anne Brown felt a headache growing between her temples and a queasiness knotting her stomach. Her thoughts had run dry, and now they began repeating one another in a convulsive loop. All this was getting her nowhere, she thought.

  She started the car and drove off, dumbly following her headlight beams homeward along nearly empty city streets. Once home, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she had nowhere else to go and no other leads to pursue. It was a chance occurrence. Bad luck, she could hear herself telling the client over the telephone, but somehow she could not imagine an understanding, patient response. Nobody can shrug off a million-and-a-half dollars. Equally bewildering, she could not put a face to the voice which had called her on the phone so few hours ago and, when people can’t put a face on their fears, imagination paints what it will.

  He’s going to be pissed, she thought. Maybe even violent.

  Anne’s thoughts turned to her daughter, Jacqueline, home in bed, perhaps dreaming of her last school day of the year. Ambient light from a half-drawn shade drew out the soft textures of whites and rose from the furnishings of her room. Her head alone peeked above a hand-stitched quilt and the snug cotton sheets covering her small four-post bed. A vanity stood against a second wall. A CD player lay nearby, a jumble of disks and cases scattered across the floor. A computer table and a lightly filled bookcase took up the third wall near the door, and posters of rock bands and pop singers squeezed a collection of dolls and stuffed toys into corners of the room. In her mind Anne could see Jacqueline’s chest rise and fall, softly and easily and regularly, like gentle rollers sweeping across a windless Northumberland Strait, and suddenly she missed Jacqueline very much – too much to go home yet.

  Anne’s tires chirped as she hit the brakes, and they squealed noisily as she spun the wheel and swung her car into a U-turn. Anne’s car intersected the Perimeter Road north of the city and in le
ss than five minutes she had turned into the industrial park where she was supposed to leave the suitcase full of cash. Then she reached the empty lot where the truck trailers were staged, drove her car between them, and turned off the headlights. She got out of the car and pretended to put something between the rear wheels of the middle trailer, just in case someone was spotting the drop-off. Then she got into her car and drove off.

  She took a circuitous route through the industrial park, looking for cars or trucks where no vehicles should be this time of night. There were none. Then two blocks away she pulled into the parking lot of a call centre. The call centre ran a night shift, and the lot was half-full. Anne snatched the camera from her car and crept slowly among the shadows between buildings. She hid herself in the darkness between the brick front of Kelly’s Marine Engines and a squat, cinder-block utility building. The truck trailers now stood forty yards away, farther than she would have liked, but anything closer would have given her no cover. Then she drew herself up into a ball, nearly invisible, and waited.

  June evenings cooled quickly. Often they were damp. And Anne grew chilly as she waited. At 12:10 a white and green security car made its rounds. Its spotlight moved randomly here and there. As it did, Anne withdrew her pale face deeper beneath the dark hood of her sweatshirt and concealed the whiteness of her hands in her pockets. At 1:10 it made another pass. Exactly twenty minutes after that, a Ford pick-up truck pulled between the truck trailers and stopped. A figure stepped out. He wore a ball cap, a lined sports jacket, work pants and sneakers, but the silvery light of the city’s night sky drained any colour from the scene, and any distinguishing features of his face dissolved in blends of grey.