Black Rock

by John McFetridge

  “We better find out.”

  “I can ask Buck-Buck.”

  Carpentier looked at him and Dougherty said, “Danny Buckley, that’s what we call him,” and Carpentier said, ”Oh, Buckley, Buck-Buck, yes,” and Dougherty said, “Yeah, but really it’s because of his buck teeth, that’s why he hates it so much.”

  “And why you use it.”

  “Yeah.”

  Carpentier said, “Before you talk to him you should probably talk to Ste. Marie, see what he says.”

  “Who?”

  “Detective Ste. Marie, the Social Security Squad.”

  “Oh right, narcotics.”

  “And the mob stuff,” Carpentier said, “and the undercover operations.”

  Dougherty nodded and didn’t say anything, and Carpentier said, “Tell him I sent you.” Dougherty said okay, but he still wasn’t sure how it would work.

  Then Carpentier said, “Bon,” and started walking half a block until they were at the corner of Favard, and he stopped and looked up and down the street. “This street goes back to Wellington?”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, that way back to Marguerite Bourgeoys Park and up by the park or you can go along here the other way and then up one of the other streets, Ash or Charon or all the way to Sepastapol.”

  “So, if Brenda Webber left that store and was going to meet her friends behind the school there, she would have walked along here and presumably …” Carpentier held his hands out and turned around a little, looking up and down the streets. “If she got into a car here someone might have seen.”

  The school was on one side of Favard but the other side was lined with three-storey row houses like every other street in the Point, and Dougherty said, “Yeah, like Mrs. Wilburn, who’s looking at us right now,” and he pointed to the window of a house on Favard, the drapes moving a little.

  “Would she tell us?”

  “Maybe if we ask nice.”

  “All right,” Carpentier said, “then maybe I better do the talking.”

  Dougherty looked at him and Carpentier smiled a little and said, “I’m kidding, l’anglais, relax.”

  He did do most of the talking, especially after Mrs. Wilburn called Dougherty “Little Eddie,” and asked him if he wanted a piece of toffee.

  Once Carpentier mentioned Brenda Webber, though, Mrs. Wilburn had very little to say. No, she hadn’t seen her that night; yes, she knew her, of course, from church. Although Brenda wasn’t there very much these days.

  “What about strange cars,” Dougherty said, “driving around?”

  “Like Jackie Murphy’s? So loud.”

  “Someone you don’t know,” Dougherty said.

  “Maybe.” Mrs. Wilburn shrugged. “I don’t know everyone who drives by.”

  Carpentier said, “No, of course not,” and then he thanked her and he and Dougherty left.

  Outside on the street, Carpentier said, “You think the guy who picked up Brenda live in the Point?”

  “I was just thinking that all these streets are one way and dead end here, or on the other side of Wellington at the Grand Trunk line. You have to know your way around.”

  “And people here notice strangers.”

  “Yeah.”

  Carpentier nodded. “This Bill, the other women, he knew them before he killed them. It makes sense.”

  “But where would Brenda have met him?”

  “Maybe he sell her the hash, the other women they all use drugs.”

  “Yeah, I’ll talk to Buck-Buck.”

  Carpentier nodded. “Bon. We should go and talk to Detective-Lieutenant Desjardins, fill him in on this and the other one, Sylvie Berubé.”

  Dougherty almost said, “Who’s that?” before he remembered the reason he was out with Carpentier in the first place — the murder of the other woman, the one who also had a bedsheet around her neck. He’d been feeling pretty good about the way this was going, but now he was thinking again how the detectives seemed to remember everything, every detail, and he was feeling out his depth.

  They walked back to the car and Dougherty drove them to Bonsecours Street, Carpentier going over everything again: the last time Brenda Webber was seen alive at Boss’s store, the girls she was supposed to meet behind the school, the route she would have taken. Then he talked about the other murders, the three women downtown and now another one further into the east end. By the time they got to the station, Dougherty was even more confused by the details than he had been before, and Carpentier could tell. “Don’t worry,” he said “You take it one thing at a time. When we get back to the homicide office, you read all the files.”

  When they got there the homicide office was empty, and Carpentier told Dougherty half the squad was working on the terrorists, chasing down leads about stolen dynamite and machine guns. Then he said, “That’s why you’re working this.”

  Dougherty called Sgt. Delisle at Station Ten and he was told to get back right away.

  “Another bomb,” Dougherty told Carpentier when he hung up. “On the McGill campus.”

  Carpentier said, “Duty calls,” and Dougherty said, “But I have to talk to Detective Ste. Marie about Danny Buckley and the hash, who sold it to Brenda?”

  Carpentier shrugged a little, looking like he’d heard all this many times before. “Go and work your shift, find the bomb.”

  Dougherty said okay and walked out, leaving Carpentier alone in the homicide office.

  chapter

  four

  The call had said the bomb was on campus but didn’t say which building. Dougherty drove his Mustang back up the hill and turned off Sherbrooke and stopped at the Roddick Gates, the security guard waving him to back up. Dougherty leaned out the window showing his uniform saying, “I’m on duty.”

  The security guard said, “So what, turn around and go up McTavish to the Physical Plant on Dr. Penfield. That’s where all the cops are.”

  Dougherty said, “Can I cut through campus?” and motioned to the road circling the big lawn spreading out ahead of him, and the guard said, “Okay, park in front of Dawson Hall. You can cut through the arts building.”

  “I know the way,” Dougherty said.

  As he drove through campus he saw a few people standing at the doors to a new concrete slab building that looked to be over ten storeys, taller than the chemistry building beside it, Dougherty couldn’t remember the name. He parked by Dawson Hall and walked up the steps of the arts building, looking back over the big lawn and Sherbrooke Street beyond and realized he’d wanted to come in this way because it was coming in the front door. He hadn’t wanted to go in through the Physical Plant — there wasn’t a sign that said tradesman’s entrance, but that’s what it was. He’d been to the arts building once before, looking for admissions back when he thought he might fill out the form. But he’d ended up leaving the campus, too intimidated to even ask anyone where admissions was.

  This time he walked up the steps and into the Arts Building and found the place pretty much empty. He walked past rows of offices and through the halls that connected the building with the Physical Plant and came up on the dispatcher’s office from behind.

  The Physical Plant he knew from when he was a kid, working Saturday mornings with his father, running phone lines on campus. They’d start and end in the Plant, a building it was unlikely any student had ever been in.

  Dougherty stopped at the dispatcher’s office and realized his hands had been balled into fists and his jaw was clenched. He took a breath and relaxed when he saw the other uniformed cops standing around smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee in the break room.

  One of the cops said, “Hey Dog-eh-dee, nice of you to join us,” and some of the others laughed and Dougherty said, ”Yeah, you’re having trouble holding up that wall by yourself.”

  A young cop said, “I was hoping there’d be more studen
ts here, hippie chicks looking for free love,” and the dispatcher said, “It’s June, idiot, school’s over.”

  “No summer school?”

  Dougherty stepped up to the window to the dispatcher’s office and said, “Where’s Vachon?”

  “He was in Otto Maass and then Burnside Hall, and now I think he’s in the library — most of the buildings are closed.”

  Dougherty remembered the chemistry building was called Otto Maas and the new concrete slab was Burnside Hall, some kind of science building. Then he said, “We’re just waiting?”

  The dispatcher shrugged.

  Dougherty motioned to the alarm board beside him and said, “What’s going on?”

  The board was covered with square buttons: all of the bigger buildings on campus were listed and beside each name the buttons were marked intrusion, fire and flood. A few of the buttons were lit up and paper clips were stuck into them. The dispatcher said, “The alarm goes off, usually when some student is late handing something in and shakes the door. You stick the paper clip in to stop the buzzer but the light stays on.”

  Dougherty saw that all the lit-up buttons were intrusion, and he said, “So what do you do?”

  “Send the foot patrol; he resets the alarm.”

  “But some buildings are unlocked?”

  “Yeah, there are some summer classes.” He shrugged again and said, “There are some chicks here.”

  “But what if it’s in one of the locked buildings?”

  The dispatcher said they’d have to check them all, and Dougherty said, “How many is that?” Before the dispatcher could answer, one of the cops in the break room said, “Delisle arrive,” and everybody straightened up as the Sergeant came up the stairs, saying, “Mettez vos patins, les boys.”

  The first one he saw was Dougherty standing by the dispatcher’s desk and he said, “Okay, Dougherty, you and …” he looked around and waved a couple of cops out of the break room saying, “… Champoux and Deslauriers, go to the Redpath Building — the museum not the library,” speaking English as he looked back at the dispatcher, saying, “A lot of the buildings are Redpath.”

  “The library and the museum,” the dispatcher said. “Redpath Hall, too, I guess, but that’s sort of the same as the library.”

  Delisle said, “Sort of,” and looked at Dougherty. “You know where is the museum? Meet the foot patrol, he has the keys.” Then Delisle went into the break room and started speaking French to the other cops, handing out assignments.

  Dougherty looked at the dispatcher. “Where is it?”

  “Go out to Dr. Penfield,” he said, pointing down the stairs to the front door of the Physical Plant, “turn left and turn left again. It faces in towards the campus, the big lawn. You can’t miss it, it looks just like a museum.”

  Walking downhill along Dr. Penfield Avenue, Dougherty said, “If we have to check all the locked buildings, too, we could be here all day.”

  “All week,” Champoux said. “How many buildings they got?”

  Deslauriers said, “If only the school was open,” and Dougherty realized he’d been the guy looking for hippie chicks and free love.

  When they got to the Redpath Museum, a building that did look like a museum, there was a security guard waiting by the door. Dougherty said, “Okay, we’re here, unlock the door.” The guard, sixty or seventy years old, a commissaire, retired military, turned to the door and started going through the many keys on his big key ring.

  Deslauriers said, “No rush,” and laughed and then he said hello to the half dozen or so students who had suddenly appeared at the bottom of the museum’s steps.

  One of the students, a male voice, said, “No pigs on campus.”

  Deslauriers said, “What?”

  More students had walked up now and another male voice repeated, “No pigs on campus,” and the others started saying it, too.

  Dougherty turned and looked at the students, then back to the security guard and said, “Come on, let’s go. We better find it before it finds us.”

  The guard finally got the door open and Dougherty led the cops into the building while the students chanted, “No pigs, no pigs!”

  Inside Deslauriers said, “You’d think they’d want us to find the bomb,” and Champoux said, “And maybe stay away from the buildings.”

  Dougherty said, “They can’t help it. They see the uniform, it’s moths to a flame. Okay, let’s spread out and work our way up, it’s probably in an Expo 67 flight bag, a blue one, but look for anything, any bag or package. And check all the garbage cans.”

  The middle of the building was open all the way to the top, at least three floors, and a huge dinosaur skeleton stared down at the front doors, where the cops were standing.

  Champoux said, “Have you ever seen one?” and Dougherty said, “I think it’s a T. Rex.”

  Champoux said, “No, a bomb?”

  “Of course, haven’t you?”

  “Not close up.”

  “Well, don’t touch it. You’ll hear the ticking from the alarm clock. They take the minute hand off and put a bolt through the face of the clock with a wire on it. When the hour hand hits it that completes the circuit and it blows.”

  “So,” Champoux said, “we hear the ticking, we get out.”

  “You hear the ticking, you call me.”

  Then Dougherty made his way to the row of exhibit tables on his left while Champoux and Deslauriers walked to their right. They covered the whole first floor and found nothing and then went up the stairs to the second storey, the balconies that overlooked the main floor. Still nothing.

  When they got back to the front doors, the security guard was still standing there and Dougherty said, “Is that it?”

  “There are offices in the back.”

  Dougherty said okay, and then looked at Champoux and Deslauriers and said, “You might as well go back to the Physical Plant, see where we’re going next. I’ll check the offices.” The two cops said that was a good idea and were out the door before Dougherty could say anything else.

  The security guard led him through the building, saying, “This place isn’t open as much as it used to be. There used to be a lot of high school classes through here, but now they say that costs too much so this place is going back to more scientific research.” He unlocked the door to the offices. “Here you go.”

  Dougherty nodded and walked into the hallway. There were a few doors on each side, all unlocked, and he searched each office, in the garbage cans and the desk drawers but didn’t find anything and didn’t hear any ticking.

  Outside it was starting to get dark, and as the guard locked the front door to the museum Dougherty surveyed the campus and saw a couple of cop cars parked in front of buildings but not much activity.

  The guard said, “I’m supposed to be doing my rounds now.”

  “Okay, well, I guess we’re done here.”

  Dougherty walked back along Dr. Penfield Avenue, now lined with cop cars, and he recognized Vachon’s unmarked station wagon. The Physical Plant was crowded with cops. Dougherty found a spot by the dispatcher’s desk and leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette.

  In the break room, Vachon was telling a story about a bomb in a post office, how they found it because the ticking woke up the night watchman.

  Then Sergeant Delisle came down the hall from the security captain’s office, saying he’d just got off the phone with the Chief and that was it for the search. “We’re done here, let’s get back to work.”

  The dispatcher said, “You checked everywhere?”

  Already cops were streaming out of the building as Delisle told him, “As much as we can. The call said the bomb would go off at five o’clock. It’s almost nine now — it was probably a hoax.”

  “Probably? But there could still be a bomb?”

  “It’s doubtful,” Delisl
e said.

  Vachon came up behind Delisle and said, “Still, if anyone sees something, call us.”

  “What do you mean, anything?”

  Vachon shrugged. “A package, a bag, anything. Sometimes it’s a flight bag, a little suitcase, sometimes it’s wrapped in a garbage bag and taped.”

  Delisle said, “You’ll hear the ticking,” but Vachon said, “No, maybe not. Maybe the clock broke and that’s why the bomb didn’t go off. Could have been overwound.”

  “But the bomb,” the dispatcher said, “it could still be live?”

  “Oh the dynamite, sure,” Vachon said, “so don’t touch it, call us.”

  “Great.”

  “There probably never was a bomb,” Delisle said. “We get these calls all the time.”

  Vachon said, “Bon, c’est tout,” and turned and left. Delisle followed, then stopped and turned back and looked at Dougherty. “Constable, I almost forgot.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Detective Carpentier called, he wants you to go with him to the funeral tomorrow.”

  “What funeral?”

  “In the Point. He says don’t wear your uniform, wear a suit.”

  “A suit?”

  “You still have your confirmation suit?”

  Dougherty said he didn’t think it would fit, and Delisle started down the stairs to the front door, saying, “But you’re still starting your shift at four, so don’t be late.”

  “So, is the funeral overtime?” Dougherty said, but Delisle was gone. The dispatcher, looking at his still-lit alarm board, said, “I don’t think he heard you.”

  Dougherty wore black pants and a dark blue sports coat, a white shirt and a tie — the same outfit he had worn to the banquet at the Expo 67 opening ceremonies for the construction workers who’d built the pavilions.

  But there were a lot of confirmation suits and dresses at the funeral — every teenager in the Point was there, and pretty much every adult, too.

  Dougherty and Carpentier stood at the back of Grace Church and listened to Reverend Barker say a lot of nice things about Brenda Webber. He even made a couple of jokes about how she was “taking full advantage of her teenaged opportunities,” and Dougherty thought that was pretty gutsy, to not whitewash everything in the face of such a tragedy.