Erasing Memory

by Scott Thornley

“Define run-in.” She moved her chair back slightly.

  “He slammed my shoulder from behind and—I don’t know, I guess some long-ago training I thought I’d forgotten kicked in.”

  “Uh-huh.” She moved her chair another inch or two away.

  “I applied blunt force to his testicles and then broke his nose. You want an espresso?”

  “No.”

  MacNeice got up and left the cubicle. When he returned, espresso in hand, she said, “Did you arrest him?”

  “No. I even gave him my hanky. If I had arrested him, he might have had a good case for being assaulted by a police officer.” He leaned against the desk.

  “You know, I had a funny feeling about your going there alone.” Aziz seemed angry.

  “I’m okay. Really.” MacNeice put his cup down.

  “One cowboy on this team is already in the hospital.” Aziz’s voice was steely. “Let’s do this thing together from now on—seriously.”

  “I wasn’t—Okay, you’re right. No more going solo. Actually, I lucked out. Madeleine called it in and there were two cruisers there before it got really weird. Shall we go over to Marcus Johnson’s place?”

  “Yes. And Petrescu senior, did you see him?”

  “I did. It was fairly brief, as he was exhausted.”

  Aziz grabbed her jacket off the back of the chair and stood to leave. As MacNeice stepped aside to let her pass, she looked down at his hip. “That’s the first time I’ve seen you carrying your weapon.”

  “Well, pilgrim, I felt naked without it.” It was bad John Wayne, intended to break the tension.

  “Right. Very funny, Clint Eastwood.”

  “John Wayne.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Right.”

  THE HOUSE WHERE LYDIA’S BOYFRIEND lived was a wide, stately brick Victorian, not especially attractive but beautifully maintained. A translucent curtain backed the tall oval cut-glass door with dark oak trim, and beside it were individual doorbells to four apartments. Marcus Johnson’s name wasn’t listed beside any of them. Through the curtain they could vaguely make out a figure coming down the hall towards the door.

  “Mrs. Hausser?” Aziz asked, when the woman opened the door.

  “Just Miss. How can I help you?” She wasn’t unpleasant, just precise.

  “We’re police detectives. This is Detective Superintendent MacNeice and I’m Detective Inspector Aziz. We’re looking for Marcus Johnson. Does he live here?”

  “He did. Come in, come in.”

  “When did he leave, Miss Hausser?” MacNeice asked as they stepped inside.

  “Yesterday—rather abruptly, though his month was paid up, so I cannot complain. He said he was going home because his mother was dying.”

  “Did he leave anything behind?” Aziz asked.

  “He didn’t have much, but what he had, he took—except for his bicycle, which is in the garage, and a knapsack he said belonged to a friend. He asked me to keep it until he could come back for it and the bike.”

  “We are currently investigating the death of a young woman, a close friend of his. Have you looked inside the knapsack to see whose it is?”

  “No, it’s not my place to do so. I can tell you there’s a cellphone inside, though. It has gone off several times in the last couple of days.”

  Aziz reached into her bag and took out a photograph of Lydia Petrescu. “Did you ever see him in the company of this woman?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say where his mother lived, or when he’d be back?”

  “No, though once I saw a letter addressed to him and it was postmarked … what was it … Wawa? Yes, Wawa. I thought it was such an interesting word—Wawa, like a baby crying—that I remembered it. I believe it is somewhere up north.”

  “Did he have a phone in his apartment?”

  “There is a phone, but you know these young people don’t use land lines. They’re always texting and talking on cellphones. He never activated the line.”

  “Do you mind if we look at his apartment, Miss Hausser?” MacNeice asked.

  “I don’t, but I have already cleaned it, Detective, and I have a young woman coming to see it. I thought it was she when the doorbell rang. What has Marcus done? Is he in trouble?”

  “No, we just need to speak with him. Can we take a look? We won’t be long,” MacNeice said. “And we’ll take the knapsack when we leave. It will help with the investigation.”

  “Come along, then.” She opened the door to her apartment and a smell of flowers wafted out into the hall. “Wait here. I’ll get the key.”

  “What is that lovely smell?” MacNeice asked.

  As she walked towards the fireplace mantel, Miss Hausser turned and smiled at him, revealing a gold tooth on the left side of her mouth. She disappeared behind a dark oak door. In a moment she came back with the key and the backpack, handing it to MacNeice. “That’s lily of the valley from my garden,” she said. “I’m so happy you noticed. I have the key, so come, come.”

  They followed her upstairs and into the small front apartment. She had indeed cleaned it. There was a bay window, and on each of its three sections, an accordion-fold blind was lowered exactly to the crosspiece of the bottom pane. In the bedroom, leaning on the mantel of a disused fireplace, were two photographs: one a close-up of a bouquet of white lilacs, and the other the back of a violin with its mirrored and complex grain and delicate shadows. Both were framed in cheap black wood.

  “These are his images,” MacNeice said.

  “Yes, they are. So you know his work. I think he’s very talented, yes. When he was leaving, he said to me, ‘Keep these—they belong here.’ I have a large stand of lilacs in the garden and he was always out there when they bloomed. Pointing his camera so close, it looked funny, but he’s good. Good.”

  “Yes, he is. He has a wonderful eye for light and form. Are you going to leave them here for the next tenant?”

  “No, no. Goodness, no, I will take them downstairs to my apartment. But they do look so pretty here, yes?” She looked at the prints and then up at MacNeice, who nodded.

  The doorbell rang and Miss Hausser turned away from the fireplace.

  “Thank you, Miss Hausser, for showing us the apartment,” MacNeice said. “Here’s my card. If Marcus Johnson gets back in touch, please tell him we’re interested in hearing from him.”

  “Yes, certainly,” said the landlady. Then she volunteered, with a worried frown, “He looks rough, but he’s a good boy, Marcus.”

  NINETEEN

  —

  ON THE WAY BACK TO DIVISION, Aziz tried to start Lydia’s laptop but found it needed a password, so she closed it up and put it back in the knapsack. They dropped off the computer for Ryan, the new IT kid, to figure out and arrived at their cubicle just as MacNeice’s telephone rang.

  “I’ve spoken to Dr. Hadley, the guy who owns the beach house.” It was clear from the background noise that Swetsky was walking along a busy street. “You’re gonna love this. The reason he didn’t come forward earlier? He hasn’t been declaring the revenue he makes from renting the cottage—it’s all been cash.”

  “But from the pristine shape the cottage was in, it looks like he hasn’t even been renting it.” MacNeice was at his desk looking through the backpack; he handed the cellphone he found to Aziz. “Hang on, Swets.” He cupped his hand over the phone.

  Cellphone in hand, Aziz was leaving the cubicle. “I’m going to ask Ryan to download all the messages on the cell, in and out,” she said, “so we can review its contents along with all the laptop files and emails.”

  MacNeice nodded and went back to his call. “Go ahead.”

  “Exactly right, Mac. When I pushed him on that, he said he’s only rented it five times—four for what he calls rendezvous, between his stockbroker and a girlfriend, and once to a guy.…” The sound of music blaring in the background obscured his voice.

  “I missed that last one. He rented it to whom?” MacNeice picked up his pen and turned
to an open page in his notebook.

  “A kid who wanted to treat his girlfriend to a real romantic night on the lake after her graduation from college. He said he didn’t remember the kid’s name but he was a tall, lanky, good-looking kid with a big mop of hair. He paid fifteen hundred cash and offered a premium of five hundred dollars for the short stay, which the good dentist accepted.” The street noise on Swetsky’s side of the conversation ended with the thunk of a car door closing.

  “Did he know how the kid found out about the beach house?”

  “Yeah, the kid told him that the stockbroker’s girl was a friend of his. I’ve made two calls and I’ve got her number. Her name’s Sarah Vachon—she’s a bartender at the Boogie Bin on James Street. Got a pen handy?”

  MacNeice wrote down the number. “Thanks, Swets. See you later.”

  Aziz swung around in her chair, but he was already dialling. “Who are you calling, boss?”

  “A bartender,” he said. It rang several times before he heard a sleepy voice say, “Hullo?”

  “Sarah Vachon? This is Detective Superintendent MacNeice of Metro Homicide.”

  “No shit?” She sounded as if she thought it might be a prank call, but then she asked, “What do you want with me, Detective?”

  “You know Dr. Michael Hadley?”

  “Ah, no, I don’t.”

  “Right. But you do know a friend of his and you did have several sleepovers at Dr. Hadley’s beach house, am I correct?”

  “So what?”

  “Sarah, we can do this over the phone and be pleasant to each other, or I can have you picked up and brought downtown and we can be rude to each other. Which would you prefer?”

  “Let’s be nice. What do you want to know? Did I fuck his friend? Yes, I fucked his friend.”

  “Sarah, I don’t care what you did at the beach house. I want to know what you know about Marcus Johnson, an art student and photographer.”

  She fell silent. As MacNeice waited her out, he looked over at Aziz and raised his eyebrows. She in turn raised hers and held up several notebooks and music scores from the backpack, whispering to him, “All music, all the time.”

  “He’s not in trouble, is he?”

  “Johnson?”

  “Yeah. And what’s he told you about me?”

  “Nothing, Sarah. We just found out that you knew him and we’d like to know more about him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because we believe he knows someone who was killed Friday in that very same beach house.”

  “Fuck! I wondered about that the minute I heard someone was offed at the lake. It’s all over the TV.”

  “Can you tell us about Johnson? We understand he’s a student at the art college, and we’ve seen several of his images that suggest he’s quite talented.”

  “He showed you the nudes of me?”

  “No, Sarah, none of you.”

  “I don’t give a shit if he did, ya know. He’s an artist—maybe a fucked-up artist—but I’m proud of those photos.”

  “Why is he fucked up?”

  “Oh, shit.… He comes from up north—Wawa. He’s a rough piece of work—oh boy, is he ever—not violent, just … What’s that great phrase I heard on Oprah the other day? … Oh, shit.” The line was reduced to static as Sarah tried to remember. “Right—Marcus has no moral compass. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “I think so, Sarah—he’s a bit reckless and adrift?”

  “Yeah, adrift. A talented fucker who’s adrift—yeah, that’s Marcus. He was beaten as a kid or something, and then his mother left and he was dumped with a grandmother. I grew up about a mile from him. He ran away at fourteen, lived on the streets here and was doing dope and graffiti and stuff when some youth worker from downtown started tracking his tags.”

  “That’s his signature, right?”

  “Yeah, and he was great. So this guy takes a liking to him and before long Marcus is presenting a portfolio of drawings and photographs—some of me, but not the nudes—at the art college. He gets accepted! Man, we drank ourselves silly that night. I was training to be a bartender and I mixed up a wicked jug of margaritas.”

  “Did he ever mention someone named Ruvola?”

  “Well, sure. Ronnie supplies weed to most of the north end. I never met the guy but Marcus is tight with him. You see Marcus, unlike me, was never really heavy into alcohol; he prefers the buzz he gets from weed, says it helps him creatively. Like, each to his own, eh?”

  “Did he ever tell you about a girl named Lydia Petrescu?”

  “Did he ever! She’s the violinist from uptown, right? He said he was in love with her, that he’d done the best work ever with her.” There was a pause in which MacNeice could almost hear Sarah make the connection. “So it was her at the lake, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s no fuckin’ way Marcus would have killed her. He’s a lover, not a fighter. I know that firsthand.”

  “We don’t believe he killed Lydia, but we are trying to find him. Can you help us?”

  “All I know is that big old house he stays in—nice place, with a front room and fireplace.”

  “He’s moved out. Do you have a cellphone number for him? We were told he went back to Wawa to be with his dying mother.”

  “Ha! That’s rich. Marcus’s mother died about eight years ago, and anyway, he hadn’t seen her in years.”

  “I’m not surprised to hear that. And his cellphone?”

  “Dead. I tried it yesterday.”

  “Sarah, if there’s anything else that occurs to you, anything at all, I’d appreciate a call. Will you promise to do that?”

  “Absolutely. What’d you say your name was anyways?”

  “MacNeice.” He asked her to write down his cellphone number, and once he was satisfied that she had, he said goodbye. Then he gave Aziz a rundown of the call.

  “So was he in on it, do you think?” he wondered. “Why did Ruvola and not Johnson rent the boat? Was Gibbs in on it? How much did he get paid?” MacNeice went to the whiteboard and added Johnson’s name next to Gibbs’s and Ronnie Ruvola’s. Two dead men, MacNeice thought.

  “If he paid the doctor, why didn’t he rent the boat?” Aziz looked up at MacNeice, who was drawing a line between Ruvola and Johnson.

  “Maybe because the money he was spending wasn’t his own. Even though this kid’s an art student with no moral compass, he’s smart enough to insist on a division of labour—he rents the beach house and provides the girl and Ruvola rents the boat and handles the logistics.”

  He wrote down Gregori Petrescu with two happy faces beside the name—the bodyguards—and added a dotted line back to Johnson.

  “Lydia would have trusted her boyfriend to take her out on the lake—a romantic conclusion to a wonderful day.”

  Behind her, Skype came to life on Aziz’s computer and Bozana appeared in the rectangle on the screen. She was in front of a large window; beyond it was nighttime in Europe. “Dahlink!” she said in a mock Schwarzenegger accent. “What have you gotten me into? Although I must admit your case is a welcome distraction from what we’re doing at the moment, which is mostly legal and human rights issues surrounding the Romany—Gypsies, that is, not Romanians. I want to know where you are with this before I tell you where I am.”

  Aziz moved to one side so MacNeice could take centre frame. “Hello, Bozana. Well, I’ve met the son, Gregori Petrescu—he’s here for his sister’s funeral in the company of two bodyguards.”

  “One of whom is nursing a broken nose and tender gonads,” Aziz added.

  “Ouch,” said Bozana.

  “We’ve also discovered that her boyfriend, who is likely the father of her unborn child, was the one who took her to the cottage, though whether he was involved in her murder or not, we don’t know. The girl’s father dodged a question about his past but left the door open to answer it tomorrow.”

  MacNeice watched as Bozana stood up from her desk and disappeared from the frame. Her voic
e carried on. “Okay, I’m not going to burden you with geopolitics, but there were constant tensions between Romania and Bulgaria during the Soviet era. The Bulgarians were pro-Moscow and the Romanians were testy, barely manageable by the Kremlin. Though they sit across the Danube looking at each other, they have nothing in common and have always been suspicious of one another.” She came back into frame carrying stacks of reports bound in dark covers. “Christ, these are heavy.”

  “I want you to know that we deeply appreciate your help with this.” Without thinking, MacNeice had placed his right hand on his heart as he spoke.

  “At some point—and thank you for that—we’ll have to get official. There are avenues, protocols and intergovernmental agencies who, if they knew about our little chats, would be very upset.” When she sat down, only her face was visible above the stack. “But for now, and even if this is the last thing I can do, let me give you an overview of what Mr.—or rather Dr.—Petrescu senior was up to under the totalitarian government of Ceausescu.” Looking up from the pile of paper she said, “You might want to make yourselves comfortable—it’s a bit of a slog.”

  MacNeice rolled back to get his notebook and, returning, nudged closer to Aziz to be in camera range. Bozana looked up, smiled and picked up the first of the documents.

  “In the 1980s the foreign policy of Romania was opposed to perestroika while the Bulgarians, under Zhivkov, were all for it. Zhivkov, however, was more concerned about what he called chemical pollution of the Danube by Romania. He didn’t know the half of it. Dr. Petrescu was the leading microbiologist in the ministry responsible for chemical plants along the Danube.”

  “He wasn’t military?” Aziz asked.

  “No, but his wife was a childhood sweetheart of Nicolae Ceausescu. Petrescu was promoted right out of university to a ministerial position, the rumour goes, so that Ceausescu could be closer to his wife. It was also said at the time that the only reason Petrescu left Romania”—she looked up at the camera—“was that Ceausescu had impregnated his wife. The timing of the child’s birth suggests that your victim was Ceausescu’s daughter, not Antonin Petrescu’s.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” MacNeice said.