Stanton- The Trilogy

by Alex MacLean

  “I can’t wait to see Brian’s face.”

  “Me too.”

  Melissa lifted a strand of hair out of her eye. “The street here is pretty quiet. We also have a big backyard.” She paused, her jaw tensing. “You’re coming over for cake and to watch him open his presents, aren’t you? Tom won’t mind.”

  Allan looked into her face. How awkward would that be? To sit inside the home of his ex-wife’s new lover while Brian blew out candles and made a wish and opened his presents just as he had at his home in Halifax. Like it or not, this new man was not only part of Brian’s life now but of Allan’s as well. Allan knew he had to shed that jealousy, that primal desire for competition, all for the good of his son.

  “Okay,” he said. “Yeah.”

  Melissa’s gaze turned soft, sad somehow. Without another word, she moved aside and let him in. As Allan followed her through the vestibule into the house, he forced himself to stop looking at her, to glance around.

  The home was larger than it appeared outside. The entrance doorway opened into a living room with almond walls, plush furniture, and an upright piano. The walnut finish on the piano gleamed and gave off a lemon scent of polish Allan could smell from where he stood.

  A half wall with white columns divided the room from the kitchen, and Allan saw a man in there, shirtsleeves rolled up and red tie loosened, clearing dishes off the table. He was thin with smooth gray hair and a diplomat’s face. When he noticed Allan, he paused a moment, then set the dishes on the counter and came over.

  “Tom,” he said, extending his hand. “Tom Godfrey.”

  Allan accepted it, gave it a firm shake. “Allan Stanton.”

  Tom stepped back a foot, appraising him.

  “So, I hear you’re a police officer. No,” he pointed an index finger, “an investigator.”

  Allan felt his backbone tense. He wondered what else Tom had heard.

  Finally, he gave a curt nod. “Yes.”

  “You must see some things on that job, what?”

  “At times.”

  Melissa cut in, “Al doesn’t like to talk about his work.”

  Tom blinked. “What? Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Allan waved it off. “No problem.”

  “I’ll get out of your hair. Nice meeting you.”

  “Likewise,” Allan said.

  He watched Tom return to the kitchen and begin stacking dishes on the rack inside the dishwasher. Then Allan turned to Melissa, who stood leaning against the hallway doorjamb.

  “Nice fella,” he said.

  Melissa made her voice tired. “I told you he was.”

  “Good to Brian?”

  “Yes.”

  Allan felt a deep, quiet pain in his heart. “Good.”

  Melissa gave him a look of pity, then swung her head around the doorway and called down the hall. “Brian?”

  From the back part of the house came Brian’s voice. “Yeah?”

  “There’s someone here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  Melissa snickered, shook her head. “Just come and see.”

  “Is it Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  Allan heard a door open, the scamper of feet on the hardwood floor. Brian appeared in the doorway wearing gray track pants and a graphic tee with the words Let the game begin across the front.

  “Dad,” he beamed, excited.

  His son seemed taller, Allan realized, since he’d last seen him in the fall. His chestnut hair was a bit longer too.

  “There he is.” Allan scooped him up, and Brian clasped his neck.

  Face to face, they smiled at each other.

  “How’s my Little Man?” Allan asked.

  “Good. I missed you, Dad.”

  “I missed you too.” Allan glanced over Brian’s shoulder to see Melissa staring at the floor, a wounded look on her face. He cursed the day he’d given her permission to bring their son up here.

  “Who’s looking after Buddy?” Brian asked.

  “Our neighbor, Bob. Do you remember him?”

  Brian frowned a moment. “Yeah.”

  “How was your day at school?”

  “Good. We played freeze tag in phys ed.”

  Brian wriggled to the floor and tugged Allan’s hand. “Come see my room.”

  He led his father down the hallway to his bedroom. It was decorated similarly to his room in Halifax. Action figures of Toronto Maple Leafs players adorned his dresser—Phil Kessel, Luke Schenn, Terry Sawchuk. A huge Maple Leafs flag hung over his bed. There were toys and cars all over the floor.

  “Do you like it, Dad?”

  “I do. It’s very nice. A lot like your old room.”

  Brian laughed, looking around at his stuff. “Yeah. You and Buddy should move here to Toronto. Then we can visit like we used to.”

  With a heavy heart, Allan sat on the edge of his bed. He tried to smile.

  He said, “I’m going to make sure we see each other more often.”

  Brian paused, watching his face. “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Allan watched his son run over to his closet and pull out a soccer ball, turn with it in both hands, a hopeful spark in his eyes.

  “Want to go outside and kick the ball around, Dad?”

  Allan stood up. “Sure, let’s go.”

  They passed the ball around in the backyard, played keep-away and chase the parent where Brian tried to follow Allan while dribbling the ball in front of him and not looking down at it. For the first time in what seemed like forever, they were father and son, laughing and enjoying themselves.

  They played until the golden hour, when the sun hung just above the horizon and fired its rays straight across the land, backlighting trees and houses and lengthening their shadows.

  Allan checked his watch: 8:35, well past Brian’s bedtime. He knew Melissa didn’t want to spoil their time together. That’s why she hadn’t come out yet.

  “It’s getting late, son,” Allan said. “And you have school tomorrow.”

  Brian made a pouty face. “I know.”

  He sagged his shoulders and dragged his feet through the grass toward the ball. The look of abandonment in his eyes broke Allan’s heart. He went to Brian and knelt to one knee, kissed him on the forehead, and gave him a hug. Then he leaned back, clasping Brian by the hands.

  “I’ll come back again tomorrow to see you,” he said. “Think of some things you want to do and we’ll do them. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Brian smiled a little. “I will, Dad.”

  “I love you.”

  “Me too.”

  Brian picked up the ball and carried it to the back porch. Allan watched him climb the stairs.

  “Goodnight, son,” he called over.

  Brian stopped at the door, turned around, and waved. “Goodnight, Dad.”

  As his son disappeared inside the house, Allan smiled to himself. He left the yard and headed back to the hotel.

  Life felt like it was beginning again for him.

  10

  Halifax, June 8

  6:43 p.m.

  The inscribed plaque above the double doors read: Taceant colloquia. Effugiat risus. Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. Let conversation cease. Let laughter flee. This is the place where death delights to help the living.

  Delights? Audra had always raised an eyebrow at that. A strange choice of words to say the least. How could there be anything delightful about death or the morgue? Coming to this cold, ominous pace was her least favorite thing to do.

  On the other hand, she loved solving a puzzling murder, catching the bad guy, and bringing some measure of closure to the victim’s family. Certain parts of the job required a level of dissociation, the ability to distance yourself from the carnage and not get lost in the tragedy. It was the main ingredient to a lasting career in homicide.

  Now matter how grisly or brutal the murder scenes were, they never bothered her as much as the morgue. That was another monster entirely. She’d witnesse
d what went on behind the closed doors—bodies laid out on stainless steel tables, stripped of clothes and dignity, and then opened up and emptied of parts like a worn-out vehicle at a salvage yard.

  It made her wish she would die nonviolently at a ripe old age in wrinkled skin and a soft bed. Maybe even watching a vibrant red sunset at the edge of the open Atlantic with just a smattering of clouds that caught the sun’s fading rays.

  Audra flashed her badge at the on-duty guard and entered a corridor walled in beige cinder blocks and floored in matching vinyl. She passed shut doors leading into the X-ray room, the cooler, and the gross specimen storage room.

  The facilities were rented, just like Coulter’s office on Spring Garden Road. Gossip had a new state-of-the-art medical examiner’s facility being built in another year or two, possibly in Burnside, to the tune of $12.9 million.

  With each step closer to the autopsy suite, the tighter Audra’s stomach became. She paused a moment outside the door to brace herself. Then she stepped inside, and an unpleasant cocktail of odors struck her senses. She put a fist under her nose, taking shallow breaths. Despite many trips to this room over the years, she’d never gotten used to the smell, and it varied every time. On this evening it ranged from the vinegary smell of formalin to that of the recent autopsy—blood, meat, and feces.

  The exhaust fans combined with the spider plants and peace lilies placed around the facility to help filter the air helped only a little.

  Audra spotted Coulter on the far side of the room, still in his scrub suit. He was hunched over a steel counter lined with small formalin jars. Each one had a tissue cassette sealed inside that held a sliver of organ for later microscopic inspection. Bigger jars sat on the end of the counter, the largest one having a human brain suspended from a string.

  On an adjacent table were paper bags of different sizes, manila envelopes, jars, and a long cardboard box. Audra knew the items contained everything gathered at the autopsy—the axe, specimen collections, duct tape from the body, as well as the sheet used to wrap it in. Through the viewing glass of a nearby drying cabinet, she saw Todd Dory’s bloody T-shirt and jeans hanging inside.

  Eric Lefevre was rinsing off the dissection table with an overhead sprayer. Water, tinged with blood, swirled around the built-in drain, gurgling through the pipe as it flowed away.

  Audra stayed in her spot by the door, not wanting to venture any farther. Neither man seemed to notice her standing there, so she yelled a “hey” to get their attention.

  Eric looked over with a surprised smile and shut off the sprayer, threw a nod at her.

  Coulter turned from the counter. “Detective Price.”

  “You wanted to show me something, Doctor?”

  “Yes, I did.” He screwed the lid onto a jar he had in his hands and set it down with the others. “Something I found interesting.”

  “A clue?”

  “Evidence another weapon might’ve been involved in the crime.” He held up an index finger for emphasis. “Involved, not used.”

  Audra frowned. “Okay. You’ve piqued my curiosity.”

  A grin twisted the corners of Coulter’s mouth. “Good. I thought you’d like to know as soon as possible.”

  He stripped off the double layer of latex gloves and tossed them into a biohazard bin. He scrubbed his hands at the sink then led Audra outside, across the corridor, and into the cooler, a small room with a bank of nine hatch-like doors filling the back wall. The refrigeration system chilling the bodies gave off a low hum.

  Coulter opened hatch number four. A white sheet covered the body inside; only the feet stuck out. Audra could feel the cold draft flowing out of the vault, and she buttoned up her jacket against it.

  Coulter double-checked the tag attached to the big toe and pulled out the drawer. He lifted the corner of the sheet and folded it down to reveal the mangled face and neck of Todd Dory. With the blood washed away, Audra saw the true extent of the damage—gaping wounds in the skin with the bone and muscle and severed vessels exposed underneath.

  Coulter pointed to the left cheek. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

  Audra leaned in to see a circular bruise an inch below the eye, dusky purple in color.

  “Muzzle stamp,” Coulter said, “imprinted in the skin.”

  “From what?”

  “Twelve-gauge shotgun. Diameter is roughly eighteen point five millimeters, and that’s the standard bore measurement in most of them.”

  Audra blew out a slow breath. She straightened up, her lips tight. She crossed her arms, and the fingers of her left hand drummed her right elbow as she racked her brain.

  “That possibly answers a nagging question I had at the crime scene,” she said.

  “Which is?”

  “How’d the suspect get the victim to comply? But now this information opens another question—”

  Coulter cut in, “How many people were involved?”

  Audra looked at him and nodded. “Exactly.”

  “I can only say the axe was used to commit the murder and, in all likelihood, by one person. Were there others at the scene?” Coulter shrugged. “I don’t know. The attack was swift and over very quickly. A lot of rage was involved.”

  Audra held his tired eyes. Jealous rage, maybe?

  “Did you swab the imprint?”

  “I did. It was positive for GSR. That’s how I was certain.”

  Audra lowered her gaze to the floor, kept it there for a bit, her jaw muscles bunching under the skin. So the shotgun had been fired before and not cleaned afterward. She wondered if the suspect was a recreational shooter or if the gun had been purchased or stolen from someone who was. Many lawful gun collectors in Nova Scotia had been targets for theft in recent years. Some of those stolen guns had made their way into the drug and crime markets and were partly to blame for the soaring rate of shootings in Halifax.

  Audra looked up. “Were there any signs of a struggle on the body?”

  Coulter shook his head. “Only wounds, other than the ones that led to death, were the abrasions on both wrists caused from the ties. He was a normally developed, well-nourished male. No evidence of natural disease. Loved the tattoos.”

  “Had lots, huh?”

  Coulter covered the face again with the sheet. “Took us fifteen minutes to document them all.”

  “Wow. And he obviously bled to death.”

  “Exsanguinated, which led to hypovolemic shock. There was grave damage to the jugulars.”

  “Time of death?”

  “My estimate is nine to twelve hours prior to taking the liver temperature.” Coulter pushed the drawer back inside the vault, closed the hatch. “That would make it anywhere between one and four.”

  Pausing, Audra chewed on the inside of her mouth. “Did the axe give you a hard time?”

  “No, it levered out rather easily. The condition of the skull surprised me. I was expecting more damage. The outer table was clean cut, but the inner table was fractured. I found bone chips in the brain.”

  Audra smirked, gave a small shake of her head. “I don’t know how you do your job, but I’m glad we have you. When can I see your report?”

  “I’ll get my prelim to you later tomorrow.”

  Audra held out her clenched hand, and she and Coulter fist-bumped. “Great job, Doctor. Thanks again.”

  With that, she left. She took the elevator to the main floor of the Health Sciences Center and walked outside, surprised at the mass of black clouds that had overtaken the sky. The moist feel of rain hung in the air. Her watch read 7:29.

  She crossed the parking lot to her car, fished her keys from a pocket, and hit the trunk-release button on the fob. She kept a bottle of Cida-Rinse sanitizer inside her portable homicide kit. Taking it out, she squirted a dab of gel into her palm and rubbed it all over her hands until dry.

  Then she closed the trunk lid and hopped into her car. She drove to headquarters on Gottingen, where she went upstairs to her office and ran Wendy Drummond’s husband
, Justin, through the computer. She found one assault charge tagged to his name. Back in the summer of 2008, he had had words with another man outside the Dome nightclub and an altercation ensued. Justin was dealt one year of probation and ordered to pay $1,500 restitution to the man he assaulted. Since then, he’d been quiet.

  Audra leaned back in her chair with a sigh. Could this case be as simple as a jealous husband killing his wife’s lover? Was he even aware of the affair? Did the inclusion of the shotgun suggest multiple suspects? Did one person hold the gun on Todd Dory while another tied his wrists to the chair and taped his mouth shut? Why the axe? What significance did the word “corpse” have?

  Audra stared out the window across the office, watching Halifax slowly vanish in the growing dusk. Specks of rain appeared on the glass and began rolling down in long sinews.

  Many hours could be spent here, running names through the computer and compiling a list of criminal associates of Todd Dory. But Audra needed to see her daughter, see what the hell was going on with her.

  She loved this job, but there was a fine line between work and family. If push came to shove, her family took precedence. She’d seen too many failed marriages, too many broken families caused by the demands of this job. She didn’t want to wind up another statistic.

  Logging off her computer, she headed out.

  Much of the drive home was shadowed by the murder case. There would be a lot of legwork tomorrow. Recanvass the neighborhood around the crime scene. Hope those people missed the first time might have some information. Track down the two remaining members of the Black Scorpions.

  Audra turned her car onto Ogilvie and coasted down a quiet street edged with maple trees whose full branches hung overhead like a canopy. Her home, built in the forties, was a two-story square on a postage-stamp lawn. Eight years ago, she and her husband, Daniel, had taken out a second mortgage to renovate the house from top to bottom.

  The living room window flickered with the cast of a television. A light burned in Daphne’s bedroom upstairs.

  Audra parked behind Daniel’s car and got out. She went into the house through the back door and kicked off her shoes, thankful to finally be out of them. Voices came from the living room. She peeked through the glass panels of the French door and saw Daniel snoring on the couch, the remote grasped in his hand. A ball game played on the television at low volume. The Blue Jays and Rays by the looks of it. José Bautista was at bat.