Beach Strip

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “I’m not saying that’s what he did,” Hayashida said. “I’m saying that’s what it looks like he did.”

  “How …” I shook my head and started again. “How crazy does somebody have to be to do that?”

  “You’d be surprised.” It was the patrolman behind the wheel. All I had seen of him so far was the back of his neck. “Last month, out near Grimsby? Had a guy lie on the railroad track, right in front of the wheel of a boxcar on a freight train waiting for a signal to change.” He twisted to look at me. The back of his neck was his best feature. “Lot of people who live near the tracks, they saw this guy. Couple of them ran out to stop him. Pulled on his legs and everything, but he hung on. Other people tried running up to warn the engineers, but the train was half a mile long, and before they could get there the thing started moving. Took his head off clean as a butcher’s knife.” He turned back to his report.

  “I talked to him,” I said. “Or at least, he talked to me. Just before he did it.”

  “Did you see him?” Hayashida said. “The man you spoke to?”

  “No,” I replied. “I told you I didn’t.”

  “So it might have been someone else.” Hayashida turned to Tom Grychuk. “How often are you here?”

  Grychuk sounded as though it were an effort to speak. “Six nights a week. Six to midnight, every night except Sunday.”

  “You’re sure the man under the bridge is the one you’ve been warning away the last few days?”

  Grychuk answered without taking his eyes from the lake or his hand from his chin. “Looked like him. I mean, same shirt, I recognized that. Same size. Not a big guy.”

  “You called him Charlie,” I said to Grychuk.

  “Called who Charlie?” the detective asked.

  “The man. Under the bridge. He called him Charlie. Did you know him?”

  Grychuk looked at me as though I had revealed some personal secret about him. “I knew him to see him, that’s all.”

  “But you called him Charlie.”

  “That’s what I do when I’m pissed off at somebody and I don’t know their name. I call them Charlie.” He looked at Hayashida. “I don’t know his name.”

  “What is his name?” I asked the detective. “Who is he?”

  Hayashida thought that over for a moment before looking down at his notebook. “The ID in his wallet says he was Wayne Weaver Honeysett. Shows an address on Hutchings Lane—”

  “That’s near here,” I said. “Down the beach strip, near Tuffy’s, isn’t it?”

  Hayashida nodded. “Somebody’s there now, searching for next of kin.” He looked at Grychuk. “How old would you say this man was, the one you kept chasing away from the bridge support?”

  Grychuk shrugged. “Maybe fifty. Around there.”

  “Height?”

  “Five five, five six.”

  “Weight?”

  “He was skinny. I’d guess 130 pounds. Maybe less.”

  Hayashida nodded. “It fits.” He looked at me. “Does that sound like anyone you know?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “But he knew you. You said he knew your name, and that he knew what happened to your husband.”

  “Maybe he knew who killed Gabe.”

  “What happened was, Gabe killed himself.” It was the thick-necked cop.

  “That’s what you people think,” I said.

  “I’ve seen the report, Mrs. Marshall,” Hayashida said. “In fact, I worked on it myself, the forensics and all. It looks pretty clear.”

  “You knew Gabe.”

  “Yes, I did. We didn’t work together, but—”

  “Do you think he could kill himself like that?”

  Hayashida took a deep breath, scratched his head, and smiled without humour. “One thing you get used to in this job is surprise. You get so used to it that after a while, nothing surprises you, if that makes sense.” He looked at me, the smile gone. “But you’re right. Gabe Marshall was maybe the last guy I could imagine killing himself.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for that. Now how about this. You’re saying you believe my husband killed himself less than a week ago, and now this poor man under the bridge, who told me that he knew what really happened to Gabe, because he saw it all, you’re saying he killed himself too?”

  “You don’t know it’s him.” It was the uniformed cop behind the wheel, watching me in the rear-view mirror. “You talked to some guy, but you never saw him. Doesn’t mean it’s the one who put his head under the bridge, let it come down on him.”

  “Hey,” I said, “I know it was him, and I know he damn well didn’t kill himself. And neither did my husband.”

  That was too much for the cop, who had the bulk and attitude of a bear, and he turned and pointed a finger at me as though it were a weapon. “Look, lady,” he said, “you’re gonna have to stop jumping to conclusions and shooting your mouth off about things you know nothing about—”

  Hayashida set a hand on the cop’s arm, but not before I exploded at him. “You arrogant bastard! You didn’t see my husband dead on a blanket, you didn’t talk to the guy under the bridge, and you didn’t stumble over a headless body, either. I’ll jump to any conclusion I damn well want to, and I’m not a lady, you prick—I am Gabe Marshall’s widow!”

  I demanded that Hayashida open the door for me. I needed to breathe fresh air. Once he did, I walked quickly away from the car, my hands clenched into fists. The cop was saying something to Hayashida about getting me back in the car, but nobody was getting me back into that car, and nobody was going to talk to me that way.

  “Mrs. Marshall.” Hayashida had followed me. “I think we’ve got all we need now. Would you like a ride home?”

  “No,” I said. “But maybe you can walk with me. It’s only two blocks.”

  “YOU LIKE LIVING DOWN HERE?” Hayashida was beside me, walking past the parking lot that had been the amusement park. Flames from the steel companies flared across the bay, and the transport trucks kept rumbling on the high bridges over our heads.

  “I love it,” I said. “Gabe loved it too.”

  “Some of us couldn’t believe it, about your husband. Cops have been known to do that. What Gabe did, I mean. But it’s usually uniformed guys, younger cops who start drinking too much or let the job get to them. Or older guys who’ve got nothing more to look forward to than a skinny pension. But not a guy like Gabe Marshall.”

  “Why not a guy like Gabe Marshall?”

  “Because he always seemed, I don’t know. Too grounded, I guess. Relaxed, contented. Liked his work, liked his life. That’s who he was at work. What was he like at home?”

  “He was relaxed, contented, liked his work, and liked his life. That’s why he didn’t kill himself.”

  “But he did.”

  “Bullshit.” I started to cross Beach Boulevard.

  “He did, Mrs. Marshall.”

  “You can believe it.” Hayashida had fallen behind, and now he was walking briskly to catch up. “The whole damn police force can believe it, but I don’t, and I never will.”

  “Mrs. Marshall—”

  I had picked up my pace. Hayashida was still behind me. “That man, back there under the bridge, was going to tell me something. I know it. His words scared me so damn much I came home, and when I went back not thirty minutes later, he was dead. And you’re telling me that he killed himself too?”

  I was at the foot of the steps leading to the front door. I began looking for my keys.

  Hayashida stopped at the end of my walk and called my name again.

  “What?” I turned to look at him, the key in my hand.

  “Somebody will probably want to talk to you tomorrow. It won’t be me. Is there anything I can do for you now?”

  “Yeah, there is.” I pushed the key in the lock and twisted it. “Walk through my house and make sure there’s no man inside, would you?”

  “I HELPED PREPARE THE REPORT.” Hayashida was sitting across from me at the kitchen
table, both hands around a cup of black coffee. “About Gabe.”

  “The one that says he committed suicide.”

  “And the forensics report too, the lab tests. They all fit.” He stared into the coffee as he spoke. “He’s alone, some witnesses arrive within minutes of hearing the shot, the gun is there, recently fired, the coroner did a paraffin test and found gunshot residue on Gabe’s hand, and the bullet … forensics confirms it came from his gun.”

  “How do they know that?”

  “You compare the one that … the one that killed Gabe …”

  “The one they dug out of his brain.”

  “Yes. Look, we worked on the forensics, Mel Holiday and I. We took the sample here, completed the form, sent it off to the lab in Toronto—and those guys are good, by the way. They compare both projectiles, put them under a microscope—”

  “And match up the rifling marks. I know all that stuff. I watched Law & Order. But nobody explained how a guy, and I mean Gabe, winds up with his gun in his hand and naked, out on the beach.”

  Hayashida looked embarrassed. “There have been some ideas kicked around about him being naked there.”

  “Because he was waiting for me to show up and get naked with him. Do you want pictures, or will a simple Anglo-Saxon word do?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “Yes, it is. Who waits on a blanket in the bushes for his wife, his girlfriend, his lover, whoever, to come along, with a loaded gun in his hand—a gun that Gabe wouldn’t even put together in the house? Gabe would take the damn thing apart in the car and carry it into the house like that, and put the ammunition clip back when he was in the car again. He hated carrying a loaded weapon, on duty or off. And he never carried one off duty.”

  “I know, I know.” Hayashida nodded his head in sympathy. “But you heard Sadowsky back there—”

  “Who?”

  “Constable Sadowsky. Serge Sadowsky. We were sitting in his patrol car. You heard him say that people who are determined to do what Gabe did, they’re unpredictable. They become obsessive, they change their patterns of behaviour.” He glanced at his watch, took a long swallow of coffee, and stood up. “It’s tough, I know,” he said, looking at me. “I’ve never gone through it, having somebody close to me kill themselves. But I’ve been there when we told their wives or husbands or kids or whoever, ‘Hey, your mom or your dad or your kid committed suicide,’ and they usually don’t believe it. How can they? You know what they say? They say the same things you’re saying. ‘He didn’t do it, he couldn’t do that, he seemed so happy.’ That’s what they say. Eventually they come around, because they spot the pattern or see the clues they hadn’t recognized before.”

  I stood up and followed him out of the kitchen toward the front door. “Thanks,” I said. “For checking out the house for me. Did you look under the bed upstairs?”

  Hayashida grew serious. “No.” He began to climb the stairs, rather eagerly, it seemed to me. “You want me to?”

  “Forget it,” I said. “There’s so much dust that anybody hiding there would’ve choked to death by now. And thanks for talking about Gabe. I’m the only person who doesn’t believe he committed suicide, and it’s taking me a while to accept it.”

  Hayashida took a step toward the front door, then looked back at me. “Actually, you’re not the only one.”

  “Who else?”

  He looked away, considering the question. Then, “You know Mel Holiday?”

  “Of course I know Mel.” Of course I screwed Mel, was how the words echoed in my head.

  “He’s starting to feel like you do. He’s telling some of the guys at Central that maybe Gabe didn’t kill himself, that maybe we’re not looking hard enough to prove he didn’t. He thinks Gabe was killed by somebody Gabe was investigating, or maybe somebody Gabe had put away or had charged. Keeps saying we’ve gotta keep digging. He says we’re overlooking something, somebody, that Gabe had been investigating on his own. A drug dealer they found shot in an alley, a couple of guys running a car theft ring, maybe Mike what’s his name, he’s with the Mafia. He’s telling Walter Freeman, you know Walter? He’s telling Walter to start looking at that.”

  “And nobody believes him?” I leaned against the stair railing. “Mel’s trying to get you guys to listen to him, and nobody believes him?”

  “It’s like …” Hayashida began. Then, “It’s not impossible, I guess, but there has to be proof, and so far there’s nothing. Just his opinion and yours. But I’ll hand it to Mel, he keeps digging. He’s following the forensics, asking for more tests, and pissing off Walter Freeman. You okay?”

  I told him I was okay.

  He pointed to the deadbolt. “Make sure that’s in place.”

  “HELLO?”

  It had taken six rings, but I was damned if I was going to sleep without talking to him. “Mel?”

  He paused as though trying to decide if that was his name. “Josie?”

  “Yeah.” I wanted to hear his voice. “You know a detective named Hayashida?”

  “What about him? Jesus, Josie, it’s nearly three o’clock.”

  “He just left here. Hayashida, he just left my place—”

  “What’s going on?”

  “He walked me back from the lift bridge. A guy died there tonight.”

  “On the bridge?”

  “Under it. You’ll hear about it when you go in today. I think he knew something about Gabe, this guy they found under the bridge. Nobody else believes me, but he wanted to talk to me when I went there with Gabe’s ashes—”

  “Gabe’s what?”

  I was tired. I was tired because it was almost sunrise, I was tired because I felt I had burned off every ounce of adrenaline in my body over the past few hours, and I was tired of trying to explain the world as I saw it to a bunch of men who called me “lady” and wanted to watch me from the garden shed and look under my bed. “Forget it,” I said. “I’ll explain later.”

  “So why did you call me?”

  “Because Hayashida told me you don’t believe Gabe committed suicide. He didn’t, did he, Mel?”

  “Maybe he didn’t.” His voice changed, and I could picture him lying back in his bed. I knew that bed. Once. I knew the apartment. A high-rise in the far end of the city. A balcony facing west at the sunsets. An Ansel Adams print on the wall in the living room. A brass bed. “I’ve got the same doubts you have. He was doing some stuff on his own, talking to some rough people. People who could do something like this.”

  “Thanks, Mel.” I waited, listening to his breathing. Then I said goodbye, hung up, and climbed the stairs to bed.

  13.

  With planning that’s not typical of me, especially when I’ve gone to bed after three a.m., I unplugged the telephone before falling asleep, and it was mid-morning when I woke to the sound of someone hammering on my front door.

  I rolled out of bed and slipped on a green silk robe Gabe bought me last Christmas. Passing the mirror, I paused long enough to fluff my hair, wipe the sleep out of my eyes, and wish I had time to cover various wrinkles, but the thump-thump-thump on the front door resumed.

  “Just a minute,” I shouted down the stairs, and when I reached the door I opened it without checking to see if it was Mel or a newspaper reporter or a door-to-door religion salesman. It was none of them.

  He was about thirty years old, with hair that looked as though it hadn’t been washed since he’d shaved, which may or may not have been this year. He was wearing a denim shirt and grease-stained overalls cut off below the knee. Whatever part of me wasn’t being offended by the sight of him was recoiling from the smell of him. I tried to close the door, but he was already attempting to push it open, his eyes as large as Ping-Pong balls and just as bouncy, looking over my shoulder, off to the side, down at my robe, and into the house. “Where’s Grizz?” he started asking. “Grizz, you in there? Grizz, I gotta talk to you.”

  I screamed, “Get out! Get out!” He kept pushing against the door befor
e stumbling once, regaining his feet, and stepping back, but he kept one strong arm on the door, preventing me from closing it.

  “I gotta see Grizz,” he almost whispered. “Please, okay? Please tell Grizz I gotta see him.”

  “I don’t know any Grizz,” I said, “and if you don’t get the hell out of here I’ll call the police!”

  “Come on, lady …” Now he looked more hurt and confused than frightening, more panic-stricken than angry. He looked away and bit his lip, and when he removed his arm from the door I slammed it, slid the deadbolt in place, and walked to the living room window, where I watched as he turned and stumbled down the steps. He wandered off toward the canal, stopping once to look back at the house. If he comes back, I told myself, I’m calling the police.

  I didn’t need to. The telephone rang almost as soon as I plugged it back in, and I nearly jumped out of the damn robe. It was Mel. “I called twice this morning,” he said. “I was about to ask a squad car to check and see if you were all right.”

  “Well, I was and now I’m not.” I told him about the man in the denim shirt, demanding to see Grizz.

  “Who?” Mel asked.

  “He kept asking for Grizz,” I said. “Who the hell’s Grizz?”

  “There’s a guy …” Mel began. Then, “I’ll tell you later today, maybe tonight.”

  “Tell me now, damn it.”

  “Not here. Not over the telephone. I’ll meet you at Tuffy’s at noon.” His voice changed, became softer. “Jesus, Josie, what you must have gone through last night. I read Hayashida’s report. Maybe you should think about staying with your sister for a while, go out to Vancouver.”

  I told him I wasn’t going anywhere, but I wouldn’t mind a few more patrol cars passing by at night.

  MY FATHER SOMETIMES SANG AN OLD COWBOY SONG whose lyrics said something about a new world being born at dawn. You do not understand that idea until you encounter horror in the darkest moments of the night, the world that exists half-dead or temporarily so around three a.m., and a few hours later walk into a bright summer morning by a lake that’s all sapphires and diamonds, with people and dogs playing on the sand and cotton-ball clouds sailing across the sky. Nothing as brutal as what I had witnessed beneath the lift bridge could have happened on a planet like the one I entered through my garden door that morning. It must have happened in another world, one that’s in endless darkness. The world on the beach strip that day was born with the dawn, like the new world in the song my father sang.