A Green Place for Dying

by R. J. Harlick

  “Damn it, Meg, I told you I didn’t want to miss him,” she hissed as we stood on the threshold with the eyes of the bar’s few clients focused on us.

  “Relax, he’s a biker. I doubt he’s a clock-watcher. Besides, he said he had to do something first, so it’s probably taken longer than expected. Let’s have a beer and wait. I’m sure he’ll be along shortly.”

  I walked over to an empty wooden table, its heavily shellacked surface marred by scratches, cigarette burns, and the ringed outline of the previous occupant’s glass. I sat down.

  LaFayette’s wasn’t exactly a sophisticated establishment like O’Flaherty’s. More like a holdover from the sixties, when bars were never called pubs and men could be men without fear of female onlookers, who were relegated to closed-off areas for women and escorts only. Certainly the current clientele was all male, as in elderly male, which was why our sudden arrival had caused a stir. We were probably the highlight of their day. Even the barman was of a certain vintage. This all made me feel decidedly young and nubile. I expected this bar was a holdover from the days when the ByWard Market was simply an ordinary market and not the fashionable destination it was today.

  The barman confirmed that J.P. hadn’t arrived, though he did mention that the biker was a regular. He often came with some of his buddies. But as long as they behaved themselves, which they did, the barman was happy to have them as good paying customers. Besides, their presence had deterred a fight or two amongst the other patrons.

  Over the hour Teht’aa and I waited, the empty room remained empty, the number of patrons static. Whenever an elderly gent left, another one replaced him. For the most part they sat in their loneliness sipping their pint and watching the football game on the overhead TV. They only acknowledged each other with brief nods.

  I tried J.P.’s cell several times using the bar’s pay phone, but after several unanswered rings, it went to voice mail. The first time, I left a message telling him we were waiting. I didn’t bother with the later tries.

  Finally, after finishing our meagre dinners, mine a soggy fish and chips and Teht’aa’s a chicken salad sandwich, we decided there was no point in waiting any longer. He wasn’t coming. After leaving a message with the barman, we headed out the door.

  “I guess we might as well go back home,” Teht’aa said despondently. “There’s no point in hanging around Ottawa.”

  “I think Will said something about you having to identify your father’s suitcase. We could do that before we leave and maybe drop back at the bar afterwards in case J.P. finally shows up.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that. I’d totally forgotten about the suitcase. I think Will said it was at police headquarters.”

  It was now almost eight o’clock, and dusk was turning to night. Bar LaFayette was tucked away on a side street on the fringes of the bustling Market. I could hear crowd noise from the top of the street, but we were headed in the opposite direction, towards the car parked several blocks away.

  I was a bit worried about Sergei. Although I knew he would’ve spent the time comfortably asleep in the back seat, he would be hungry by now. And he’d want to go to the bathroom. Although I’d let him out when we’d arrived in Ottawa, it was almost four hours ago. So we hurried along the almost empty street, past a couple of darkened stores and a number of houses, also dark but for the odd one with light filtering through curtained windows.

  While we were crossing an intersection, I happened to glance down the cross street and noticed a motorcycle parked at a meter, its chrome gleaming under the streetlight. I ignored it, before realizing that there was something familiar about it.

  “Teht’aa,” I said. “I think that’s J.P.’s bike.” I walked towards it. “Yes, I’m positive it’s his. I recognize that tooled leather saddle with the high back and those handlebar fringes.”

  The Harley was cold to the touch. “It’s been here for a while.”

  “So where is he?” Teht’aa asked.

  “Maybe he’s in one of these buildings?” I skimmed my eyes past the darkened facades of nearby storefronts to a brightly lit apartment building halfway down the block that showed more promise. But short of banging on every door, there was no way of knowing if J.P. was inside.

  The sudden blaring of country music startled us both. It came from the laneway behind us. It stopped for several seconds then started up again, repeating the same tune.

  “That sounds like a cell phone ring to me,” Teht’aa offered.

  “Let’s take a look.”

  I started down the dark alley with only the faint rays of a streetlight to guide me. The phone stopped then started back up again. It played a few bars of what I now recognized as a Johnny Cash song then stopped once more.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” Teht’aa whispered from the sidewalk.

  A low moan seemed to be coming from where I could see a black shape against the lighter grey of the ground. “Come here, Teht’aa. Someone’s here.”

  A faint odour drifted in the closed air of the alley. A slightly metallic odour. The music rang out again. It came from the dark object. Light glinted off metal. A faint movement. Another groan.

  “Teht’aa, I think they’re hurt. See if you can flag down someone on the street to get help.”

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the outline gradually emerged of a person sprawled on the ground. “Are you okay?” I asked, leaning over. Then, realizing it was a stupid thing to ask, I said, “Hang in there. We’re getting help.”

  The person moaned and whispered something.

  I knelt down to get closer. My hands touched a warm sticky liquid. Startled, I jerked them away. The darkish liquid dripped from my fingertips. Blood! And a lot of it, judging by the pool at my knees.

  The man, for I knew by now he was male, whispered again.

  I placed my ear over his face and recognized with a start the eye-patch and the scraggly goatee.

  “Oiseau vert,” J.P. rasped, then another word I couldn’t quite make out, then he went still.

  Chapter

  Thirty—Five

  I was leaning over the motionless biker trying to detect signs of life when the alley was filled with brilliant white and flashing red light. J.P.’s single eye stared sightless through its paleness. Blood drenched his Diables Noirs T-shirt where his chest should be moving.

  “Drop your weapon!” a female voice shouted from the street. “And move away from the body.”

  Weapon? Sirens approached. I started to get up.

  “Drop your weapon immediately!” she shouted again. “And stay on the ground.” I detected a nervous quaver in her voice.

  “But I don’t have one,” I yelled back, wanting to turn around, but afraid to. I could almost feel the barrel of her gun pointed at the centre of my back.

  “Put your hands up and lie face down on the ground.”

  On the body? No way. With my hands in the air, I shifted my weight away from J.P. and the blood and lay as directed on the filthy ground of the alley. It stank of oil, rotting garbage, and blood. Footsteps crunched over the gravel towards me. The sirens came to a stop.

  “But she was just trying to help this person,” Teht’aa called out as my arms were jerked behind my back and manacled together.

  “Get up,” the cop ordered.

  I struggled to stand, but with no free hands it was difficult and the cop made no effort to offer a helping hand. By propping myself against a wall I managed to inch up onto my feet. While another uniformed officer watched over me, his hand on his open holster, the female officer patted me down. Fresh-faced and young, she was obviously nervous, almost as if this were her first crime scene.

  “No weapon,” she called out to her partner.

  Paramedics brushed passed me with a stretcher to reach the dead biker.

  “I told you I didn’t have any,” I said, trying to keep the anger from my voice. “Could you remove these handcuffs. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “What were you doing here?” she
snapped as she pulled her police cap further down her forehead in an attempt to appear tougher.

  “I heard a noise and went to check.”

  After performing a cursory examination, the two paramedics pronounced J.P. officially dead and walked away, taking their medical equipment with them. They didn’t even bother to cover him up, just left him lying forgotten in his own blood against a brick wall that curiously was covered in a painted scene that seemed to mock the killing. Giant multi-coloured flowers and butterflies gyrated above his head and green grass rippled behind it.

  “You’re covered in blood. How do I know you didn’t kill the guy?” the female cop demanded.

  “I got covered trying to help J.P.” The second I blurted out his name, I realized my mistake.

  “So you know the dead man, do you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. But when I came down this alley, I didn’t know it was him.”

  “What’s your connection to the Black Devils?”

  “There isn’t any. This man happens to be the brother of a friend of mine.”

  “We’d better take her to the station,” her partner said.

  “Wait, I was just trying to be a Good Samaritan,” I insisted. “I’ve got nothing to do with his killing or his biker gang.”

  “I can vouch for her,” Teht’aa said from close behind me. “We were just passing by when we heard his moans.”

  “And who are you?” the young cop demanded.

  “I’m her friend. Neither of us have done anything wrong.”

  “We’ll take her to the station, too,” the male cop ordered.

  “By what right?” Teht’aa demanded.

  “By right of law. We are conducting a criminal investigation into this man’s death, and you and your helpful friend here,” his lip curled in a sneer, “are being brought in for questioning as material witnesses.”

  “I demand a lawyer,” she shot back.

  “You can make your call at the station. Looks like we got us a wild one here, Constable. Cuff her too.”

  And so we found ourselves crammed into the hard back seat of a police cruiser, unable to sit properly with our arms clamped behind our backs and a metal cage separating us from the two cops in the front seat. An entirely new and decidedly unwelcome experience for me, although not for Teht’aa.

  000

  By the time we’d managed to convince them we were telling the truth, we’d been harassed by a barrage of questions and innuendos. We’d been locked alone in separate windowless interview rooms with no other furniture than three metal chairs and a scratched metal table. If my chair hadn’t been bolted to the ground, I would’ve thrown it at the two plainclothes cops, so frustrated was I by this charade of an interview.

  Realizing co-operation would end this farce faster than hostility, I told them everything I knew about Marie-Claude’s brother and our aborted meeting at Bar Lafayette. I even mentioned Fleur and the other fifteen missing aboriginal women, five of them dead. I voiced my fears that a serial killer might be at work and raised the possibility of a link to the Black Devils. But all I received from the two cops were noncommittal shrugs and blank stares.

  I decided not to mention J.P.’s last words. I figured they were for me alone and not for police consumption. If at some later point I learned they were pertinent to solving his murder, then I would pass them on. But not now. I wanted first to find out what green bird meant.

  However, the minute I mentioned Eric’s name, the bald cop, who’d said very little thus far, muttered to his hirsute partner, who’d carried out most of the onslaught. “Yeah, he’s supposed to be some fuckin’ Indian bigwig. Upstairs is riding our ass to find him.”

  Turning to me, he fired his opening salvo. “What do you know about him, lady?”

  “I know he is an upstanding citizen of his community, who commands considerably more respect that you would with your racist comments.”

  I thought he was going to hit me, but the other cop intervened. “Sorry, miss. He didn’t mean it. Just got a little carried away. Now answer the question.”

  Swallowing my anger, I described Eric and his role in his community. I detailed his last known movements prior to his disappearance and itemized the places he’d failed to arrive at. Finally, I told them about his investigation into the missing women with the suggestion that it might be related to his disappearance. I didn’t tell them about the Welcome Centre for fear of causing the Centre unwarranted grief, if the link was as innocuous as the women thought. The two cops were no more forthcoming on their thoughts about Eric and my theories than they were about the missing women.

  At one point a nondescript man in a crumpled suit carrying an aura of authority opened the door and asked the bald interviewer to come outside. “Yes sir, Inspector Green,” he said and hastened away.

  A short while later I was released with the proviso that I must make myself available should they need to question me further. It was another hour before they let Teht’aa go, I later learned, because of her previous convictions for drug possession and aiding and abetting a jailbreak.

  Behind her she dragged a wheeled black leather suitcase. “Dad’s,” she said. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I can’t stand the stink of pigs.”

  “Shshhh,” I whispered, glancing frantically around the lobby to see if anyone had overheard. By the time I turned my attention back to her, she was out the door. I scooted after.

  Chapter

  Thirty—Six

  The cops might have brought us to the station in their government-issue limousine, but they weren’t about to take us back to where Eric’s Jeep was parked. That left Teht’aa and me to find our way in a city neither of us knew well. Before I’d had a chance to ask anyone about finding a cab, Teht’aa had charged out the door. I had no choice but to race after her. It took me two blocks of running to catch up. Propelled more by her outrage than any sense of direction, she’d headed along a street bordered by a raised highway, which I realized with a sinking feeling was the Queensway, a major highway that cuts through the middle of town.

  “Slow down, Teht’aa,” I shouted between gasps. “You’re going in the wrong direction.”

  “I don’t give a fuck,” she flung back without a backward glance and continued walking rapidly as Eric’s wheeled suitcase bumped along the pavement behind her.

  “Well, I do. I’ve got to rescue Sergei. Throw me the keys.”

  The dog had been alone in the car for a good six hours. Though he’d probably been sleeping the entire time, his bladder would be close to bursting and his stomach very empty. Fortunately, with the night’s cooler temperatures and the partially open windows, the interior would have been comfortable enough for him.

  She raced on, ignoring my request.

  “Stop, Teht’aa. I need the keys. Otherwise Sergei’s going to pee all over the back seat of your father’s car.”

  When she didn’t respond to my threat, I stopped trying to catch up to her. Her mind was clearly elsewhere.

  Still, I tried one last time. “If you don’t give me the keys, I’ll have to break a window.”

  At that point an empty cab drove by. I waved frantically. It came to a halt beside Teht’aa, who completely ignored the black sedan and strode onwards. I ran up to it and jumped inside. Before racing off to find the Jeep, I asked him to slow down beside the angry woman. I powered the window down.

  “Teht’aa, jump in,” I called out.

  Her head never wavered a fraction in my direction and her eyes remained fixed ahead. From the glassiness of her gaze, I wasn’t sure if she was paying attention to where she was going. Unfortunately, we were approaching an intersection, and the light was red. I feared she wouldn’t stop.

  “Sound the horn,” I asked the cab driver.

  She jumped at the sudden noise, then as if suddenly realizing where she was, she stopped just as she was about to step off the curb. She turned a dazed look in my direction.

  “Meg, is that you?” She shook her head almos
t as if she was trying to clear it. She glanced around. “Where are we?”

  The light turned green. A driver behind us blasted his horn.

  “Quick, jump in.”

  As I slid over to the far side, she slung her father’s suitcase into the middle of the backseat, climbed in beside it and banged the door shut. The car behind us honked again. The cab driver took off.

  “I’m so sorry, Meg. I was so mad, I just had to get out of there.”

  “I know, no need to apologize.” I could understand her anger, if they’d treated her with the same thinly disguised racism they’d revealed to me. “You didn’t happen to notice the name of the street where you parked the car, did you?”

  She shook her head. “Nope, I just know it’s a couple of blocks from that bar.”

  “I find for you, ladies, no problem.” A flash of white lit up the cabbie’s dark face. The spiralling notes of a Middle Eastern singer trilled from his radio.

  The lights sped by as we drove along the almost empty streets of the downtown core. Other than the odd dedicated worker or curious tourist, the closed office towers and darkened stores served more to keep people away than attract them during the night hours. People only began to appear as we neared the Market, where the pubs and some of the restaurants were still bursting with noise and light. I stiffened at the sight of a number of motorcycles parked near the central Market building but relaxed once I realized the bikes were predominantly recreational.

  The cabbie was right. It took him no time to find Eric’s Jeep on one of the nearby residential streets. In fact, it was the only car parked on that side of the tree-shrouded road. Sergei barked as we drew alongside and shoved his nose out the narrow window opening. Leaving Teht’aa to pay the cabbie, I leapt out and hastily opened the door.