Oliver waved to Lori. “And a fine, misty morning it is. You know Morgan, of course?”
“Sure.” Lori nodded at the other detective, and looked around. “There’s not much to see.”
Morgan said, “Nope.” He sneezed and wiped his nose with his fingers. “This one is stone cold. If there were any traces left, they’re gone now. Rain would have washed everything away.”
“He was found there.” Oliver pointed at the wall to their right. She gestured to both ends of the alley. “Taking your chances walking down this alley, especially at night. There aren’t any security cameras in the area. Hardly any lights. We figure he was gonged late last night, early this morning. Maybe when the bars closed. We were just about to check to see if anyone remembers him at the locals.”
Lori was wishing she had brought an umbrella. She was getting soaked, even though they were standing partly under shelter. “Let’s get out of this,” she said.
They moved around the corner and under a restaurant awning.
“Nick and I think this might be connected to our two murders.” Lori looked at the other two detectives.
Ryan Morgan was a beefy man with a florid face; his nose was red with the cold. “Why?” he asked.
“Just over there is Danny’s,” she said. “A gay hangout. Both our victims were customers there. This Kinsky might have as well.”
“You think he’s gay too?” asked Oliver.
“It’s a good bet, isn’t it? Maybe he drank at Danny’s last night and was targeted, and then ambushed walking home. Or maybe he was heading to his car.” She pointed over Morgan’s shoulder. “There’s not much parking outside Danny’s. On a Saturday night, a space would have been impossible to find. But there’s a lot right over there. If Kinsky parked in that lot, he would have walked back through this alley to get to his car.”
Morgan said, “It’s possible. I’ll run his name and see what kind of vehicle he has.”
“There’s a faster way,” said Lori. She held up a key ring with a Honda key attached. “Kinsky’s keys. I’ll check the lot and find out if his car is there.”
Oliver nodded. “We’ll hit up Danny’s then, and see if it’s open yet. And if they remember Kinsky being there last night.”
Lori took out Kinsky’s wallet from her pocket. “Here’s his driver’s license. If he was there, somebody might recognize his picture.” She handed it to Morgan. “I’ll meet you there.”
Lori started pressing the button on Kinsky’s key ring when she was within a hundred yards of the parking lot. It wasn’t until she was actually standing on the sidewalk in front of the lot that a car’s horn started blaring. A silver Honda Civic in the second row had its lights flashing as well. Lori killed the horn and lights and took a quick look inside and then hurried over to Danny’s.
Morgan and Oliver were talking to the manager at the bar when she arrived. Shaking the rain from her jacket, she took a seat on a barstool.
Morgan looked at her. “Well?”
“Found it. Honda Civic, and it’s in the parking lot, right where we thought.”
“Where you thought, you mean,” said Oliver. “Lori, this is Guido Moretti, the manager. He was just telling us that he remembers Kinsky being here last night.”
“By himself,” said Moretti. “That table right over there, I think.”
“Did he leave by himself?” asked Morgan.
Moretti looked doubtful. “I really couldn’t say. I didn’t notice.”
“You know he was here and by himself, but not whether he left alone? Why not?” Morgan looked sceptical.
Moretti shrugged in a very Italian gesture. “We got busy. It was Saturday night and one of my waiters didn’t show up. We were all run off our feet.”
Oliver asked, “How come you remember him so well? You were pretty definite he was here.”
Moretti shrugged again. “He was here a long time; hours, I think. And he was blond. Noticeable.” He looked curious. “Why are you asking about him? Is he in trouble?”
“You could say that,” said Morgan. “He was stomped in an alley when he left here last night. On his way to his car.”
Moretti looked horrified. “Stomped?”
“Mugged,” said Morgan. “He had the shit beaten out of him. Fractured skull. He may not make it.”
“So we’re wondering if you saw anybody taking an interest in him while he was here,” said Oliver.
“We were busy,” repeated Moretti. “I didn’t notice anyone.”
“What about the rest of your staff?” asked Lori. “Who was the bartender, for example?”
“Last night was Dean,” said Moretti. “He’s here already today, too, so you can ask him.” He disappeared for a minute and came back with the bartender and a young woman. “This is Suzette – she was serving last night. The other two aren’t on today.”
Lori smiled at Dean Barber. “We meet again. We’re wondering if either of you recognize this photo.” She pushed the license towards them.
The waitress nodded and said, “Sure, he was sitting right over there. Good tipper.”
The bartender said, ”I don’t recognize him. Unless he was sitting right at the bar here, I likely wouldn’t, though. We were crazy busy.”
Lori nodded. “Okay.” She took the photocopied sketch of the muscled man out of her pocket, unfolded it and put it on the bar. “This is the drawing we made from Craig Buleman’s description of a suspect we need to talk to. Was he here last night? Either of you see him?”
Dean said, “No. But it’s the same thing. Unless he was at the bar, I wouldn’t likely have noticed him.”
Oliver looked at Suzette. “How about you?”
The waitress looked doubtful. “Maybe. There was a guy in the corner. It might have been him. He had a hat on, though…” Her voice trailed away.
Sue pressed, “Did you notice when he left?”
Suzette said, “Early, I think. ‘Cuz I remember, that table in the corner had a couple of noisy drunks in it later on.” She turned to Moretti. “Remember, Guido? You had to go and talk to them.”
Moretti nodded. “Yes, that’s right. I don’t remember seeing this guy at all, though.”
Morgan said, “Back to the blond man – his name is Olaf Kinsky, by the way – was he a homo?”
Suzette looked at the detective with distaste but all she said was, “Yeah, I think so. He had that way of talking, you know?”
“But you didn’t notice anyone paying special attention to him? Checking him out?” asked Oliver.
“No. No, I don’t remember.”
“Alright,” said Oliver. She turned to Moretti. “We’ll need to talk to the other servers.”
“I’ll get their names and phone numbers.” Moretti disappeared behind the bar.
The three detectives stood up. “Pretty much a dead end,” said Morgan.
“I don’t know about that,” said Lori. “We know Kinsky was here, we know he was gay, we know he was beaten up. We can assume it was because he was gay that he was attacked. Put that together with the other two, the two murders, and we can be pretty sure we are looking for someone who hates gay men. And thanks to Suzette, we think the man we’re looking for was here last night.”
Moretti came back with the information they needed. “I hope you catch him,” he said.
The three detectives left Danny’s and went back out into the rain, which had slackened somewhat.
“We will catch him,” said Oliver. “Especially if Kinsky wakes up and gives us his story. Including a description.”
Somehow Lori doubted that would happen.
sixty-four
Air Canada was doing a good job, thought Drumm. So far. He’d had other flights with them when things had gone badly wrong, his luggage had been lost and their staff had been unhelpful, but this trip so far had been smooth sailing. He settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. There was no passenger beside him so he had plenty of room to stretch his legs.
His mind slowly relaxed
and he found himself thinking about his previous visit to Timmins. He and Emily had done a driving tour of northern Ontario. They had stayed in Wawa and headed over to Chapleau where they toured its little museum. Timmins was their last stop and they stayed a couple of days, using the city as a base to explore the surrounding countryside. Mostly he found the area depressing; its trees and rock and gold mines did little for him.
Drumm smiled as he remembered the end of their stay in the city. They were hoping to see animals, bears especially, but were disappointed. On their last night, following the advice of a waitress in a restaurant, they drove to the city dump, located some miles south of town.
“Good place to see bears, especially in the evening,” their server said. “You can just drive in.”
So they headed to the dump and drove in through the gate and spent some time driving around the huge complex. They saw no bears, just a seedy-looking man rummaging through the mounds of trash.
Drumm had driven back to the entrance only to find the gate shut and locked. He thought the situation was rather humorous, but Emily was not amused.
“It’s getting dark, there are bears in the area and we’re stuck in a fucking dump!” To top it off, they had left their cell phones in the hotel for some reason he could no longer remember. Emily was claustrophobic and Drumm could see she was starting to panic. He tried to calm her down but she could hardly listen to him. She got out of the car, wriggled through a gap under the fence and went out on the road where a passing car stopped for her. Drumm joined her a minute later. They were driven back to the city where their driver, a friendly middle-aged man, flagged down a passing recycling truck. They got an ignominious ride back to their vehicle.
Drumm had been too embarrassed to reveal he was a York police officer. He contented himself with saying, “We live in York. Where, I want you to know, not everyone is as stupid as we are.”
The truck driver had unlocked the gate and then used his radio. They could hear his supervisor advising him to make sure the tourists were out and not to come back.
In his seat, Drumm opened his eyes and snorted with laughter. As if they would ever go near the Timmins garbage dump again. The woman across the aisle looked at him, startled. Drumm turned his laugh into a cough and stared out the window.
A short time later, his flight landed and he was able to switch on his cell phone. He saw that he had missed two calls from Lori. He waited until he was inside the terminal before he phoned her for an update.
“It’s almost certainly the same man,” Lori said.
“Any chance Kinsky will wake up?”
“It doesn’t look good,” said Lori. “But if he does, I’ll be right over there.”
“Better post a guard, too,” said Drumm. “We need to talk to Kinsky, if and when he wakes up. Even in a coma, he’s the best lead we’ve got.”
“You think the killer will go after him again?”
“Let’s make sure he can’t,” said Drumm. “And keep the story from the media. We don’t need any more bad press at the moment.”
“I’m thinking we should do the opposite,” said Lori. Her voice sounded tinny in Drumm’s ear. “Release it that Kinsky died. It would help protect him even more.”
Drumm had been walking while he was on the phone and he was now standing in front of the car rental counter. “Let me think about that, Lori. I’ll call you back.”
Sarah Smillie lived in what passed for downtown Timmins, in an older apartment building. She buzzed him up to her second floor unit and was waiting for him in her doorway when he exited the elevator.
“Come in, Detective. I’m dying to hear what this is about. You were mysterious on the phone.” Sarah Smillie was a young woman with long, blonde hair and a ready smile. Dressed in tight blue jeans and a bulky patterned sweater, she was tanned, fit and healthy. Everything a teacher should be, Drumm thought. He estimated her height at about five feet two.
He accepted her offer of a seat on a kitchen chair, declined a drink and studied Sarah Smillie. She had a friendly face, brilliant blue eyes and a wedding band on.
“Ms Smillie, are you still a teacher?”
She smiled at him. “Please, call me Sarah. No, I gave it up. And before you ask, it’s because I just couldn’t do it.” She laughed. “I’m a bit of a free spirit. And free spirits aren’t exactly welcome in the school system.”
There was certainly truth in that, thought Drumm. “But surely you could have adjusted? After all, you would be giving up a good salary, benefits, twelve weeks vacation…”
“Don’t remind me!” She laughed again. “Rob and I talked about all that, believe me.”
“Rob’s your husband?”
Sarah nodded. “He works for Hydro; he’s out on an emergency call just now. Rob was transferred up here nine years ago. It was good timing, because I had just reached the conclusion that teaching wasn’t for me. So I resigned and we moved up here.”
“You like Timmins?” Drumm couldn’t imagine living up here.
Sarah shrugged. “I don’t mind it. Rob likes it more – he hunts. And he’s a fisherman too.”
“And what do you do?”
“I have a small business I run.” She smiled. “It’s called Sarah’s Serendipity. It’s a combination of fitness training, meditation and personal coaching. It keeps me busy and out of trouble.”
“You enjoy that sort of thing?”
Sarah smiled brilliantly. “I love it! And it beats the hell out of staff meetings and standardized testing.”
Drumm could only agree with that. “Ms Smillie, like I said earlier, I wanted to talk to you about Arthur Billinger.”
Sarah’s face took on a sad expression. “I was upset when you told me about him. I grew to like him a lot. Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
“He was beaten to death in his home.” Drumm gave her a few more details. “I’m here because I understand you two were friendly.”
Sarah stared at him. “Well, we were, but it was such a long time ago! Why on earth would you want to talk to me?”
Drumm said, “We’re following up every lead we can. To be honest with you, I still don’t have a very good sense of what Arthur Billinger was like.”
“But surely you’ve talked to his friends? And family?”
“He had no family to speak of. And his best friend is dead, too.” Drumm decided to leave Daniel Levine out of the conversation for now. “Billinger was gay. Did you know that?”
“Sure. What of it?”
Drumm ignored this. “I understand you two walked the picket line together when you were on strike. September, 2001, I think that was.”
Sarah was staring at him. “For God’s sake! Yes, we did. But how can that possibly be of any interest to you?”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, it seems like an odd match-up – a young, female and a much older, gay French teacher. How did you two come to be walking together?”
“You expect me to remember? I have no idea. It just happened.” Sarah stared off into the distance. “I wasn’t the most popular teacher in the school, that’s for sure. People weren’t lining up to be with me.” She smiled at the memory. “Art and I ended up together, somehow, that’s all I can tell you. We hit it off, though, and then we walked together most of the time.”
“What was he like?”
Sarah laughed. “We must have been a funny sight! He was so tall, and I am vertically challenged, as you can see.”
“You hit it off, you said. What did you talk about? I know it’s been ten years, but maybe you can recall a little bit?”
Sarah frowned. “Let’s see. It was so long ago!” She stared off into space, then back at Drumm. “I’m drawing a blank. But what possible good can it do to know what we were talking about?”
Drumm sighed. “Probably no good at all. But someone killed him, brutally killed him. Someone badly wanted him dead. I was hoping you might know who.”
“Me! How could I know?”
“Maybe Billi
nger said something to you while you were marching back and forth. People have hours to talk; they chat about all kinds of things.” Drumm looked carefully at her. “Think hard, please. Did he ever mention having a disagreement with anyone? Or talk about people he didn’t like?”
Sarah thought. “No, I don’t think so.”
Drumm persisted. “Did he mention anyone who disliked him? A principal, maybe, or another teacher? A student, perhaps?”
Sarah shook her head. “No. Well, let me correct that. If he did, I don’t remember.”
Drumm was feeling defeated. It had been a long shot but he’d still been hopeful. He shifted in his seat, ready to leave.
Sarah said, “I remember one thing we talked about. It was about extra-curricular stuff. It was one of the reasons I decided to give up teaching. There was pressure on all of us to do something after school, something extra for the kids. Like coach volleyball or whatever.” She smiled ruefully. “I wanted to run a meditation group. Help the kids discover their inner selves. I was told in no uncertain terms I couldn’t do it. And I believe I ranted to Art about it.”
“I see. So what did you do instead?”
Sarah laughed. “I helped with the girls’ basketball team. As useless a fifth wheel as you’ll ever see. All I knew about basketball was that the ball was round.”
Drumm smiled. “What about Billinger? What did he do?”
“Art?” Sarah thought for a few seconds. “He ran a homework club, I think.”
“A homework club? You mean he gave extra help to students before school?”
“Or after. Yeah, that’s what he did.” She frowned, remembering. “You know, there’s something…” She stared at him. “There’s something about that homework club. It’s funny how memories come back. Later on in the year, after the strike was over, I mean, and we were back at work, I heard something about Art. I’m just remembering that now.”
A Striking Death Page 18