by Sky Curtis
Which was exactly where? I, Robin MacFarland, newly promoted crime reporter, had no idea where I was going. Wait. Didn’t Todd say he lived at King and Bathurst? In one of those new condo buildings? Perfect. I’d watched crime shows on TV. The place would be surrounded with yellow tape and police cars and maybe a fire truck or two. I’d look for them.
From where I was sitting beside the ramp into the Express underground parking, I was about five minutes away. But I was in a rush. I wanted to see the body. From the deep recesses of my memory I drummed up how my older brother had taught me to leave rubber behind. With a wide smile on my face I revved the engine while it was in neutral, thrust the gearshift into drive, and squealed my tires as I blasted off.
I was a crime reporter.
I nodded my head appreciatively, not bad I thought, as I drove my rattling Sentra along King towards Bathurst. I was so cool. Yes! I nodded and nodded, “Yes, this is good. This is so good.”
At the first light I came to I felt someone looking at me and whipped my head sideways to see. The driver in the car beside me was smiling sympathetically. Dammit, I thought, I must look like someone from another planet, nodding away. I stopped bobbing my head instantly. The light turned green, I revved the engine and leapt forward, burning more rubber. I’d show him!
Way to go, little Sentra! I patted the steering wheel. Maybe I should get a new car. A Mustang. No, a BMW. No, a Lamborghini. God knew I needed a new car. The Sentra was at least twelve years old. Maybe fifteen. The damn things lasted forever. Just like people with pacemakers. Those were the kiss of life. Besides, what sort of image did my beater give? Certainly not the one I wanted. But it worked and I was loyal. Besides, it was good in the snow. Maybe I’d keep it until next spring.
As I approached the corner of King and Bathurst I looked left and right. No police cars. No yellow tape. I went to the next block and turned left. Voila! A circus. Red and blue lights pulsated above three grey police cars randomly scattered across the street. A fire engine idled. A crowd was clotted at the base of the building and held at bay by a single uniform outside a taped off area, a young lad with apple cheeks peeking out from under the plastic peak of his cap. I pulled over to the curb.
Skittish nerve endings vibrated all over my body as I sat in the car. My brain seemed to be singing to me, dead body dead body, in a Lady Gaga kind of way. I took a deep breath and tried to centre myself with a very quick meditation. Once the sing-song chatter faded, I planned my moves. They would be crucial if I were to get past the cops into Todd’s apartment.
With eyes half closed, I scrupulously picked apart the journey from my car to his apartment in my mind. First, I would weave my way through the crowd, take my press card out of my pocket and sort of palm it so I could show it, but not allow the officer enough time to read it before I stuffed it back into the folds of my jacket. I would state my name with authority and then say “Toronto, mumble, mumble, investigations.” Hopefully the newbie cop would think I was from a Toronto facility of some kind. Coroner’s office or forensic whatever.
Who was I kidding? I had zippo knowledge of crime talk. I knew flower talk. I knew about the CPFDA: the Canadian Professional Floral Designers Association. And I knew construction talk: the WSIB, or, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. I didn’t know crime talk. Right now, the best I could do was come up with an appropriate wreath for the funeral of a builder. Everything else was simply bullshit.
But I had brought up four kids. I could do bullshit. I was not going to be a failure any longer. I was worthy of success. I’d swagger past the cop like I knew where I was going and head for the elevators. Then I would press Todd’s floor number and zoom up.
Shit. I didn’t know his floor number. Asking the doorman would give my charade away. So, I pulled out my phone and called Doug Ascot, my editor for this story. This crime story. It couldn’t be helped. I needed the number.
He answered on the first ring, not giving me time to muster up my in-charge, new-me voice. “Ascot,” he barked.
“Oh, hi, it’s Robin MacFarland, you know, Everwave, and now Todd Radcliffe’s death? Well, I’m at his condo and I don’t know his apartment number.”
“Neither do I. Figure it out.” Click.
Hmm, that was a good first out-of-the-office exchange with my new editor.
Figure it out, huh? A thought occurred to me and I Googled 411.ca on my phone. There it was! Two entries for Radcliffe. One was probably his wife’s. His, obviously, was the one on King Street and, hooray, it included his apartment number. I was in business and resumed my mental play-by-play. After getting to the elevator doors, I would push the up button and go to apartment 1403 where I would use the same trick with the guy guarding Todd’s door: walk with authority, a flash of my press card, pocket it, Toronto, mumble mumble, investigations. I’d get in.
I abandoned my banged-up Nissan Sentra under a no parking sign and stood on the sidewalk, gathering all my resources. I only had one chance to get this to work. I took my press card out of my wallet and put it in my pocket. My fingers curled around it as if it were some sort of rosary. One two three, go go go.
I shoved through the crowd, using my left elbow to jostle people out of my way. I pulled myself up to my full stature when I got to the rookie, flashed my press card so that it was shadowed by my palm, and, in my deepest voice, said “Robin MacFarland, Toronto, mumble, mumble, investigations,” deliberately throwing the words away as I tucked my ID back into my jacket pocket.
I could feel the cop hesitate for a second. Perhaps he was considering what would happen to him if he road-blocked the Coroner of Ontario, or the Director of the Crime Scene Investigators, or whoever I was. I met his gaze with a challenging look. Coming to a decision, he swung his arm expansively, smiled at me with a nod of recognition, silly boy, and let me pass.
Trying to look powerful and self-assured, I thrust open the eight-foot tall glass doors to the condominium building and floated on my thankfully quiet shoes through the propped open lobby door. I waltzed through the vestibule, past the security desk, and finally to the shiny polished steel doors of the elevator. So far, so good. Suddenly the elevator doors slid open and two official looking guys stepped out, a handsome bear with a cop haircut and a woodchuck with a scraggily pony tail. Both of them had dark bags hanging below their eyes, blue suits, and briefcases. I quickly skittered around them into the elevator with my head down.
I stabbed the door close button repeatedly, like a crazed chimpanzee. Get me outta here! Finally the doors shut. I allowed myself a small smile as my heart slowed. I was doing it! A sultry woman’s voice called out the floor numbers as I ascended. Finally: the fourteenth floor.
I stepped out onto lush forest-green carpet that was bordered with gold curlicues. It had a French provincial look to it. The walls were papered with white linen that had been seamlessly applied. Directly in front of me stood a satin-sheened mahogany table with antiqued brass handles on its centre drawer. A large off-white vase holding green ferns and gold autumnal flowers stood in the centre of the table, perfectly placed in front of a gold-framed mirror. This guy had been rich!
At the end of the hallway a door stood open. A low hum of muted conversation drifted down the corridor to me. My heart began to thud as I took a deep breath. Was I too old for this? I felt for the press pass in my pocket. Something funny was going on with my eyes. The edges of my vision seemed slightly grey. Glaucoma whizzed through my thoughts. No, it was nerves. Focus on the breath. Focus on the breath. I rehearsed what I needed to say at the door: I’m Robin MacFarland, Toronto, mumble mumble, investigations.
I purposefully strode to the open apartment door, planting my feet with deliberation in the soft green carpet. I was important. I was smart. I had authority. I would get by the cop guarding the door. With every step, I bolstered my ego. By the time I got there, old, fat, stupid, failure, Robin MacFarland was nowhere to be seen.
A
nd neither was a guard.
What? No guard? All crime scenes had guards, didn’t they? At least they did on Hawaii Five 0. On Law and Order. On The Mentalist. Why no guard? Did I have the wrong door? Was this just a regular door that had been left open by an absent-minded millionaire who had come home with his shopping, hands too full of Louis Vuitton to shut it?
I stepped to the right and jiggled the door with my foot so I could see the number on the other side. 1403. In brass electroplate. Yes, this was the place. What now? I stepped over the threshold, waiting for someone to stop me with a shout, but not a peep.
Todd Radcliffe’s foyer was floored in tiles of polished white marble. A shiny steel table stood against a crisp, white wall. On it was a potted white orchid, probably fake I thought. The arms of his rimless glasses were open, as if they had been tossed off in a hurry. His car keys lay close to the far metal edge of the table, as if they had been thrown down and slid across the smooth surface. I recognized the glasses from our sort-of date.
Suddenly I remembered his light blue eyes and long tanned fingers. I couldn’t believe he was dead. It seemed impossible. How was it that a human being who had lived and breathed just a few hours earlier, who had been so alive, so full of, well, in his case, so full of himself, now be dead? Even though I had a deep belief that the energy of life could not be extinguished, and remained forever in the universe, death still seemed so final.
I pinched the orchid flower to see if it was fabric. My thumbnail left a translucent half moon scar on the delicate petal. Oops. Real. My bad. And then I remembered. I had better keep my hands to myself. I didn’t want to leave fingerprints or, what did they call it? Trace. Trace evidence. Right. I pulled off the petal and put it in my pocket. Was that overkill?
Kill kill kill looped around in my head. Steady, Robin. It was only a dead body.
The door to his front hall closet was slightly ajar and I jostled it open with my elbow. It was virtually empty. Did he actually live here? Inside there was only one item of clothing: a navy blue blazer sitting tidily on a wooden hanger. The expensive kind of hanger that had an arch in it to protect the fall of the fabric. The rest of the hangers were the metal kind one gets from dry cleaners. They twanged together gently in the breeze created by me moving the door.
I inspected the blazer without touching it. This certainly appeared to be the jacket that had been slung over Todd’s chair when he had that froth on his lips from his coffee. Lips that I had wanted to lick. I stepped inside the closet to get a better look. Yeah, it was the same one. Getting braver, I fingered the material and saw that yes, the blazer did have gold buttons with the Royal Canadian Yacht Club imprint. No surprise there. Of course he was a member, “Mr. Sail Away.”
I mentally reconstructed the sequence of events. He had walked into his la-de-dah condo after his date with me, maybe elated at the prospect of dinner next Tuesday—not knowing I would have cancelled, maybe—and taken off his glasses, pitched down his keys, hung up his jacket. I was solving a crime! How great was that! I had to call Cindy. I dug out my phone and whispered hoarsely, “I’m IN!” as soon as she picked up. I knocked into the empty hangers in my excitement, causing them to rattle loudly and quickly tried to hush them with my hand.
“Who is this?” asked Cindy impatiently, as if I were a telemarketer. I knew she had caller ID.
“Me. I got into the crime scene. No trouble at all.”
“Who’s the cop in charge?”
“Don’t know yet. I’m still in Todd’s foyer. Well, in the front hall closet.”
“That’s not in. In is when you can see the body. Get out of the closet.” And this coming from Cindy.
“You get out of the closet.”
“I am out, stupid. Go find Todd.”
The body. Shit, I’d have to look at a dead body. I heard footsteps. “Gotta go.”
What if the person opened the closet door and saw me there, hiding? Wouldn’t look good. So I poked my head into the foyer and bent over, as if examining something on the floor. Who ever it was went into the kitchen area, off to the left. Close call.
I walked into the living room and stopped, dumbstruck. Holy smokes. What a place! Every time I saw a home like this I was bowled over. How could people live like this? It was too perfect. Floor to ceiling windows exposed a view of Lake Ontario. Everything was white: white walls, white leather sectional couch, a white shag rug, white orchids everywhere, white built-in book shelves, and white and grey art on the walls. I felt like a time warp machine had swooped me up and dropped me into the arctic. But where was Todd? Not here, stinking up this flawless room. Probably in the bedroom, which was likely through that doorway to the left. I looked around the room. Maybe it was the door to the right. A fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.
I walked towards the door on the left. Wrong. It was a den. In it stood two men dressed exactly the same as the ones I had seen earlier getting off the elevator; dark blue suits, white shirts, black shoes. Their scuffed briefcases stood on the carpet. They seemed engrossed in their conversation and paid zilch attention to me in the doorway. I scuttled backwards like a frenzied lobster into the living room.
I bolted through the door to the right. It would have to go to the bedroom. Two more cops, or I assumed they were cops, were coming out as I was going in. I slunk into the ensuite bathroom off to the left to let them by, closing the door slightly in front of me with the back of my hand. No prints. I could see through the crack that one was a female with blonde hair and a handsome square face on a solid body, and the other a pudgy balding fellow with yellowed teeth and a bulbous nose. They were talking about the best place to get sushi for dinner. Flirting? Maybe a couple? Blondie was playing with the buttons of her jacket as she walked by.
While I was in the bathroom, I quietly snooped. The vanity’s marble top was polished to a reflective shine. I would have to be very careful about fingerprints. Grabbing a couple of tissues from a box on the back of the toilet and placing them over my hand, I began poking around in earnest. There was nothing interesting in his medicine chest: some painkillers, a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of over the counter sleeping medication. The very barest of essentials. I opened and shut the drawers in his vanity. They were almost empty. Towels, a shaving brush still in its packaging. Gel. On the ceiling I spotted a disgusting bug crawling upside down. Was it a cockroach? Here? Couldn’t be. I took out my phone and snapped a picture.
The bedroom was the opposite of the living area. Almost black. The walls were painted a deep burgundy red, the floor was dark stained oak, and the chests of drawers, all three of them, were black lacquered bureaus, each one with carved pearl inlays of bonsai trees and geisha girls wearing red kimonos. A black satin bedspread covered the bed and on it lay Todd. He was on his back, fully dressed, looking almost like a holy man, his black hair tumbling around his head like a mass of tangled seaweed. His right hand was curled beside his throat and his light blue eyes stared opaquely at the ceiling. Had he strangled himself? How bizarre.
The reality of what I was looking at—a very dead body—sank in and I swallowed the bile that was rising in my throat. I started mouth breathing so I wouldn’t smell the dead mouse smell that was hanging in the air. I knew that smell from when the kids were young. Several times mice had escaped their cages only to get trapped and die inside the vent system of the house. I felt myself begin to panic as a wave of heat washed over me. A remnant from menopause. A bead of sweat was rolling down my back. How hot was it inside this room anyway?
I found the thermostat on the wall by the door and took a photo with my phone. It was set at thirty-five degrees Celsius. It wasn’t me; the room was hot. And I’d read Agatha Christie. I knew the murderer had probably turned up the heat to skew the time of death prediction. Didn’t fool me an iota.
He was dead all right. I stared at him for a minute with macabre curiosity. I’d never seen a real live dead person. A real live corp
se. Ha ha ha. I could feel laughter tugging at the corners of my mouth, bubbling inside my chest. I would NOT laugh. I hammered the giddiness back down my throat and focused on what I was looking at.
What on earth had killed him? There was no blood anywhere. Not a drop. I leaned over and examined the bedspread carefully. Nothing. And that hand business sure was weird. What did Cindy say were the four causes of death? Oh right. NASH: natural, accident, suicide, or homicide. Okay, Robin, think. Had he died of natural causes, say a heart attack, and the hand was undoing his tie so he could get more air? Was it an accident? Had he banged his head and was raising his hand to feel the lump and then died from a brain bleed? Had he killed himself with sleeping pills and was desperately reaching for life? Had he been murdered and was fighting off his attacker? I had no fucking idea.
I could hear muted voices. People were heading towards the bedroom. I tiptoed back beside the door just as the two guys who had been standing in the corner of the den walked into the bedroom.
Busted.
12.
THE TWO SUITS STRODE PAST ME into Todd’s dark bedroom, discussing the case in low tones. I could barely hear what they were muttering and perked up my ears. The tall one said, “It doesn’t add up. No forced entry. If someone knocked him off, he let them in. He knew the person.” The other was bobbing his head in agreement, clearly the underling sidekick. “And I doubt it was a burglary gone wrong,” the tall guy continued. “It doesn’t look like anything’s out of place. If it was a murder, it probably had to do with the lake water.”
They had walked right by where I was standing to the far left of the door by the thermostat. What luck. They hadn’t seen me. Could I skulk out behind them? Did I want to? I might miss key information. The younger guy was nodding like one of those dogs glued to a car dashboard and stated the obvious. “Yes, the TV is still there.” In the corner was a huge honking flat screen.