“Where the hell have you been?” Detective Mark Becker said as soon as I walked in. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen and the cats were twining around his ankles like fuzzy socks. George was sitting in his chair, calmly puffing on a pipe, his biggest one, the meerschaum that makes him look like Sherlock Holmes. He smiled and winked at me.
“Nice to see you too, Detective. Hello, George, darling. All well?” I breezed over to George and kissed him. I had decided, the moment I set eyes on Mr. Calm Policeman, that I wouldn’t volunteer any information. I would just bloody brazen it out, as Aunt Susan would say. Nobody asks where the hell I’ve been and gets away with it.
George reacted to my less-than-subtle demonstration of our “domestic partnership” with a little pat on my behind. Good old George, I thought. He’s playing right along with it. I stood behind him, using him as a shield and placing my hands possessively on his shoulders.
“What are you doing back here?” I said to Becker. “Worried that I stole some important evidence from the crime scene? A dog biscuit, maybe?”
“Cut the funny stuff, okay?” Becker said. “I know you don’t live here. Mr. Hoito has admitted that much. What I want to know is, where is Mrs. Travers? Have you got her hidden away up at your cabin?”
I snatched my hands from George’s shoulders and blushed heavily. I could feel George shaking with amusement. The pat on the behind had been gratuitous—a liberty, dammit. I would get him back.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
Becker sighed.
“Look, Polly. We went to the Schreier’s place. I know Francy Travers was there. I know you were there. You were both gone before we arrived, and you didn’t exactly say goodbye to your hosts.” I opened my mouth to tell another lie, but he kept on talking.
“I’ve been driving up and down the back roads looking for you two, and I don’t appreciate being made to look foolish.”
“You didn’t leave your partner at the Schreier’s, did you?” I said. “More than one of those squares of Carla’s and he’ll be going into sugar-shock.”
Becker’s mouth twitched a little, but he was still mad. “If you don’t tell me where Mrs. Travers is, Ms. Deacon, I’ll have to take you in for questioning.”
“Do you guys actually do that?” I said. “I thought that was just a TV-thing.”
“We do. You want to find out?”
“Would I get three square meals a day and a phone call?”
“The phone call’s definitely a TV-thing,” he said. “And we only have one cell and a guy puked in it last night. I can’t guarantee that anyone’s cleaned it up yet.”
Now, there’s a lot I’d do for a friend, but staying in a locked room with stale puke is where I draw the line.
“You win,” I said and sat down. Becker tried to, but he tripped on the cats, which were trying to climb up his regulation trousers. He stumbled.
“You must have had one of Carla’s squares,” I said. He just looked at me and didn’t say anything. “Okay, okay,” I said. “Francy’s up at my place, asleep with the baby. She’s not going anywhere—she’s exhausted. The baby, in case you were wondering, is fine.”
I got him with the baby line. He made a weary face and collapsed into a chair.
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad about that. It’s going to be hard for both of them, but we have to talk to her. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. She just needed to get away from, you know, the tension. It’s not every day your husband gets killed.”
“She tell you what happened?”
“As much as she can remember.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She sort of blanked out after… I suppose Eddie told you his side of it.”
“We have his statement, yes.”
“Well, after Eddie hit John, Francy says she sort of went away in her mind. Doesn’t remember going to the Schreier’s place. Doesn’t remember anything till I showed up. She asked me to help her. How could I say no?”
“Easy. Like this: No.”
“I’ll remember that next time you need a favour.”
“Polly, your friend Francy is the spouse of a homicide victim. There’s questions we’ve got to ask. Details. She wants to know who killed him, doesn’t she?”
I remembered Francy’s face as she told me that she would like to shake the hand of the murderer, but I didn’t mention it.
“She’s afraid you’ll think she did it,” I said.
“We have to suspect everybody at the beginning,” Becker said patiently, as if he were speaking to a child. “It’s the rules. Of course we suspect her. We suspect you. We suspect Mr. Hoito, here as well.”
“George? You suspect George? Why the hell would he murder John Travers?”
“Polly—” George said, but I was building up a head of steam and kept on going.
“George Hoito is the gentlest, most loving man in the world. He rescues baby birds with broken wings, for God’s sake. You’re wasting your time suspecting him.”
George patted my hand. “Thank you, Polly. That is the nicest testimonial I have heard in a long time.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, glaring at Becker.
“All Mrs. Travers has to do is talk to us, give us a reason to believe she didn’t do it, and she’s fine,” Becker said.
“What? What about innocent until proven guilty? I know that’s not just a TV-thing. I think it’s even in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Are you familiar with that document, Detective?”
George raised his hand like a grade-school kid asking to go to the bathroom.
“Excuse me,” he said, gently. “I’m sorry to interrupt the debate, but Francy and her baby are up there in a cold, dark cabin, alone. Maybe she would appreciate some company about now.”
“Oh God. That’s right. Let’s go.” We said it together. Same words. Same tone. Weird.
“Follow me,” I said. “George, can I borrow your flashlight?”
Ten
We prepared this banquet
to be eaten with our fingers—
no need to be polite.
—Shepherd’s Pie
Halfway across the field, I asked Becker where Morrison was.
“Paperwork,” he said.
“The kind that wraps around a jelly donut?” I said.
He laughed. He was carrying a flashlight of his own—a police-issue, beautiful black Maglight which can double as a club in a pinch, but he hadn’t turned it on. The sky was magenta, the kind of colour which, if you saw it in a painting, would make you think that the artist had been doing some serious psychedelic drugs. Drugs. Oh God. This was my worst nightmare coming true. A police officer was coming to search my cabin. What if he smelled it? What if he had the nose of a German Shepherd and went straight for the little sweetgrass basket on the bookshelf? What, oh God, what if I’d left my alabaster pipe sitting on my desk? I tensed up and tried to think of a way to get in there first, leaving him outside, to give the place a quick once-over.
I had left the oil lamp lit on the kitchen table, turned way down. I hated doing it, being a fanatic safety nut when it comes to fire (I own three fire extinguishers), but I didn’t want Francy to wake up in total darkness. She wouldn’t have been scared, I knew that. She had been on her own in the country enough for that to be a non-issue, but still, when there’s no hydro, there’s no comforting light at the end of a switch and fumbling around for a match in a strange place is no fun.
When we got to the door, I paused, thinking fast.
“Ummm, I’d better go in first,” I said. He looked at me like I was crazy. Duh. Why wouldn’t I go in first? It was my house.
“I mean, like, Francy sleeps in the nude, eh? And the cabin’s open-concept. I’ll just slip in and make sure she’s dressed, okay?” I was glad it was dark. My face was burning.
“You won’t slip out the back door and disappear into the woods, will you?” he said. H
e was kidding, I think.
“Not possible,” I said. “There is no back door.”
“Okay, then. Just don’t coach her, please. I won’t wait for long.”
“You got it, officer,” I said and walked in.
The lamp had gone out. I flashed the beam of George’s flashlight around nonchalantly, hoping Becker wasn’t peering in the window. Pretty stupid, really, coming in first and then pointing the light directly at my own mildly illegal activities, but there you have it. Cops. Paranoia. Dope smokers suffer from it and listen to it, or they get nabbed.
Luckily, the pipe was out of sight, and the place was such a pigsty that the sweetgrass box on the bookshelf was almost buried under a pile of stuff. No worries.
“Francy?” I said, softly. I re-lit the oil lamp and took it into the lean-to bedroom. The bed was empty.
“Francy?” I was being silly, seeing as there were only two rooms in the cabin and she was obviously not there. I realized then that the front door had been open, and I distinctly remember locking it when I left. Becker came in.
“Gone?” he said.
“Maybe she went for a pee,” I said. “Theres an outhouse.” I dashed outside, calling her name. No light from the privy, no light anywhere. The sunset was over, the sky was overcast and the trees surrounding the cabin blocked out what little glow was left in the sky. I went back inside. Becker was reading the note I’d left on the table. The sandwiches were gone.
He handed me the note and stared into my face, waiting for me to take the blame. He looked really, really pissed off. On the bottom of my note was a scribble from Francy.
“We’ll be fine. Thanks,” it said.
“Shit,” I said.
“That all you can say? Shit?” Becker said. “Where do you think she’s gone? Out there? It’s cold, dark. She has a baby with her.”
“I don’t know. Why are you asking me?”
“I’m asking you because you are plainly trying to engineer this situation.”
“Me? Why would I do that?”
“Damned if I know. Maybe you’re a control freak.”
“A control freak? Me? Geez, Detective Becker, are you ever a poor judge of character. I can’t even control my bladder,” I said. He would not be put off by lighthearted quips.
“If I find that you’ve arranged it so that she’s just hiding out there in the bush until I go away, I will personally charge you with obstruction of the law and haul your ass into jail,” he said.
“Are you threatening me, Becker?”
“Yes, Goddamn it, I’m threatening you, Polly, you infuriating little… Deacon.” We had been yelling. He stopped and we stared at each other for a tiny, electric moment and then fell apart laughing. Big laughs. The kind you only get once every few years. The more we laughed, the more we laughed, if you know what I mean. We’d stop, get it under control, and then catch each other’s eye and start snickering and then be laughing again. It was like a cool shower on a blistering day. It was wonderful.
When we finally pulled ourselves together, the air had changed, as it does after a good thunderstorm. I was thinking more clearly and maybe he was too.
“Hey, look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not being very fair. To be honest, this is my first homicide and I’m trying to do things right. You are, according to the book, a hostile witness, and hostile witnesses aren’t supposed to be so… well, never mind. Forget what I said.”
“You mean you’re not going to haul my ass into jail?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yup. You did.”
“Huh. How level-headed of me,” he said. “No, ma’am. No jail. But I would appreciate it if you’d be straight with me.”
“I have been straight with you,” I said. Well. Sort of.
“Why the big secret about where you live?”
“Oh, that. Well, I’m not supposed to be here. Zoning. Taxes.”
“Polly, I’m investigating a murder.”
“I know, but still.”
“What about running out on us at the Travers’ place? None of this would’ve happened if you’d just stayed put in the cruiser.”
“I don’t like staying put.”
“Obviously. What about taking off with Mrs. Travers from the Schreier’s?”
“Would you have stayed there? Really?”
He didn’t answer.
“Look, everything that happened today has been for Francy’s sake,” I said. “Her husband, who has abused her for years, goes berserk and her young friend Eddie beans him with a wrench. They get out of there and the next thing she knows I’m telling her he’s dead. Of course she’s running. I’d run too. You guys, you cops in uniforms, don’t have the best track record when it comes to domestic violence. She was scared. I was helping her. End of story.”
“But it’s not the end of the story. You didn’t arrange this little I-don’t-know-where-she-is act? She’s not out there hiding in the underbrush?”
“I left her sleeping off the horror, Detective.”
“Swear?”
“Look, if I had a Bible, I’d take an oath right here, except that it wouldn’t mean anything anyway. I could swear on Gray’s Anatomy, if you like.” I lifted the heavy book from the work-table where I’d been checking out the musculature of the human arm, prior to modelling a limb for the latest puppet.
He glanced around, seeing the chaos of my living space for the first time.
“What do you do up here, anyway?” he said.
“I’m a puppet maker.”
“Not much call for that in these parts, is there?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. I get an order every so often from the local municipal government looking for mayors. School boards looking for trustees. Police departments looking for chiefs. I keep busy.”
“Very funny,” he said. “Next time you make a police chief, call me. I’ll soften up the stuffing for you.”
“I’ll do that.”
“So, I’d better get going,” he said. “I’ll check her house again. She wouldn’t be off lost in the bush somewhere, would she? Maybe we should get together a search team.”
“Nah. She wouldn’t have left without someplace to go. She’s got Beth. Maybe she went back to the Schreiers.”
“Would you go back there, if you were her?”
“I’d rather stick a needle in my eye,” I said.
“Nice image. You’ll let me know if she shows up.” It was a statement, not a request. “You got a phone?”
“Nope.”
“Are you one of those anti-technology people?”
“Not really. I’m just poor.”
“Oh. So, send me a smoke signal if you hear anything, okay?” He gave me his card which read: Detective Constable Mark Becker, Ontario Provincial Police, Laingford Detachment.
“She can’t keep running forever,” Becker said. “She got relatives around here?”
“Not that I know of. She has in-laws in North Bay, I think, but they’re not close. Her mother lives in the States somewhere.”
“Would she head south?”
“Not a chance. Her mother’s completely insane, according to her. She came up here to get away, she said. Doesn’t talk about her family much.” What Francy had told me of her family had given me bad dreams for weeks. I wasn’t going to get into it with Becker.
“Well, tell her, if you see her, that we just want to talk to her, okay? No big deal. Just some questions. I know she’s grieving. Well, I’ve got a killer to find.”
“And you don’t think it’s her?”
“I don’t know what to think, Polly. Not yet, anyway.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“You’re going to be okay up here by yourself?”
“I’ve lived up here by myself for three years. Of course I’ll be fine,” I said.
“Well, lock your door, okay?”
“Yes, officer.”
“I mean it,” he said. “Someone was murdered last night, in case you’d forgot
ten.” I wasn’t likely to forget John’s dead eyes, like scummy boiled eggs, and the cavity of his ruined chest.
“I’ll lock my door,” I said.
“Good.” I watched his flashlight beam disappear back down the path to George’s, swinging from side to side. He was checking the bushes as he passed, still convinced that Francy was crouched somewhere, waiting. Cops. They never trust you.
When he was gone I went outside and spent an hour scouting around and calling her name, but I knew she was gone. Where, I didn’t know.
Later, I discovered that she’d taken off with half my stash. I didn’t begrudge it. There was a note. “Pay you back” it said, with a little happy face, so I knew she was feeling better.
I smoked a baby spliff and cracked open an Algonquin. The sweet smoke filled me, as it always does, with the urge to create. I picked up the arm limb I was working on and opened up a jar of modelling compound. The puppet I was building had not been commissioned. I was simply making it for my own pleasure, although I would probably take it in to the Artists’ Consignment Depot in Laingford when it was finished. My stuff usually sold reasonably quickly, and money was always tight.
I was sculpting this particular puppet, a marionette-to-be, using the kind of clay which air dries and takes paint beautifully. I was taking my time. The head was to be molded with clay on a base. The shell was ready, but the face had not yet come to me, and I didn’t want to push it.
I began absently layering dabs of clay onto the mâché arm-shape, not really thinking about what I was doing. An hour later, I gazed at a little clay arm with interesting, ropy muscles and Becker’s capable, slightly ugly hands. Then I looked at the unfinished head staring blankly from its stand and knew that I would model Becker’s face there.
If I had been a witch, I would have cackled, looked up a spell and searched the floor for one of his hairs. I’m no witch, but I cackled anyway.
Eleven
Tonight thinking about you
I gave birth to a goat-kid
tremble-shanked and shivering in the dark.
—Shepherd’s Pie
Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle Page 7