Ice on the Grapevine

by R. E. Donald

  Teresa sat back down, pressed her legs together and hugged herself. The soft click of computers and busy sounds of office machines and voices came in through the open door. John Doe files? Files of unknown dead people? She pushed that idea from her mind, and thought again about Hellen.

  When Teresa was looking for a place to live in Burnaby, she'd answered Hellen's ad on the student bulletin board for a roommate. Hellen was renting a two bedroom basement suite in her aunt's house at a very cheap price, and was looking for someone to share it with. They'd both been students at BCIT, and although Hellen was a couple of years older, they got along very well. Teresa was shy, and Hellen quite outgoing, a lot wilder than any friend Teresa had before. Living with Hellen taught Teresa so much about life, things she would never have learned in her parents' house. Their arrangement went on quite comfortably for almost two years, and then Hellen met a drummer named Max and started spending a lot of nights with him. Max introduced Teresa to his guitar player, Greg. It wasn't long before Hellen moved in with Max, and Greg moved in with Teresa, and that was how it had been for two and a half years. Then Max and Hellen broke up, Teresa didn't know exactly why, and Hellen moved back to her old room. Teresa couldn't say no. The house belonged to Hellen's aunt, after all.

  Teresa closed her eyes and nodded to herself. Yes, she'd have to find a new place for her and Greg to live. It didn't work, living with Hellen. Teresa just wasn't... what? Modern? Progressive? Western? In any case, Teresa wasn't comfortable with it. What did they call it? A menage a trois? No. Three was a crowd.

  Officer Tom Fong closed the door softly behind him and walked back to the desk, but he didn't sit down. When she looked into his eyes, Teresa's stomach dropped like a stone inside her body, and her mouth went dry.

  "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Jagpal," he said.

  Russell Kupka switched the phone from one ear to the other, held it in the crook of his neck as he massaged his left arm. He'd been through his spiel half a dozen times already this morning, been put on hold, asked to repeat himself, transferred without warning, and cut off, and he had long ago lost all patience with the buck-passing pencil pushers in the U.S. Customs and Immigration bureaucracy. A voice came on the line again, at long last, and he switched the phone back to his left side, picking up his pen with the right. "Who am I speaking to?" he asked. He wanted names, so that he could map his trail in case he got lost again.

  "Donohue, U.S. Customs Inspector at Pacific Highway border crossing. And you are... ?"

  "Detective Russell Kupka of the L.A. County Sheriff's Office, Homicide Division."

  "Okay, Detective Kupka. My colleague has briefly described your problem, but would you be kind enough to go over it again so I can be sure I understand it correctly?" The man's voice was brisk and businesslike, so much so that Russell dared to hope that his quest was over.

  "I'm investigating a possible homicide. For purposes of that investigation, I have to know whether or not a given trailer was opened and the load examined by U.S. Customs and Immigration at Pacific Highway on the night of July 14th of this year. If records are kept, I would like to have copies of those records. I would also like to interview the customs officer who handled the clearance, to see if he can provide any information about the trailer and its contents, or the drivers who crossed the border with the load. Can you help me?" Russell held his breath.

  "I'm your man," said Donohue. Russell grinned with relief. "I've got the records right here. Now give me just a couple of minutes to read through the paperwork, see if I can refresh my memory. This is a pretty busy border crossing, and it's not easy to remember one load out of hundreds."

  "Take your time," said Russell. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, "Yes!" Yesterday the trucker had mentioned the possibility of a man stowing away in the Nillson's trailer without their knowledge, either when it was loaded or perhaps at the border, so Russell had decided to follow up on that possibility. He'd already talked to the shipper in Burnaby, and all of their employees were present and accounted for. He drew a little truck on his notepad as he waited, listening to the dry shuffle and crinkle of papers over the line.

  Less than a minute later, the customs inspector's crisp voice said, "I won't be of much help, I'm afraid. Looks like it was pretty routine. Meat's got to be reported to Agriculture, but the paperwork was all in order, and I guess there was nothing suspicious about the load or the drivers, and it didn't come up on the computer as a random check, so there'd be no reason to examine the freight closely. The examination wouldn't have been much more than a rubber stamp, if you know what I mean. Friday's a busy night, so we don't spend much time on routine loads if we can help it."

  "But the trailer was opened?"

  "Uh. The paperwork says it was." The customs inspector sighed. "Off the record, Detective, let me put it like this. It's supposed to have been, but I wouldn't swear to it that it was."

  "What are the chances someone could have entered the trailer without you and the drivers seeing it."

  'Anything's possible but it's a secure area. I'd have to say highly unlikely."

  Russell nodded at the phone line. "Good. Fine. That's what I needed to know. You remember anything about the drivers? Anything suspicious?"

  "I'm sorry..."

  "A husband and wife. The woman's blond, forties, brassy, if you know what I mean. The husband's a big guy, kind of dopey looking. They had a little dog with them. Does that help?"

  "A dog? A husband and wife team with a little dog? You know," continued the customs officer, his voice thoughtful, "I think I do remember the drivers. Not that there was anything suspicious about them, but maybe I do remember them."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yes. Yes, I do," he said more emphatically. "There are getting to be more and more husband and wife teams, so that doesn't particularly grab my attention anymore, but what was interesting about this couple is that the husband is an American citizen and his wife is a Canadian, still maintains her Canadian address. I wasn't sure if I should let her through. Had to send her into the immigration office. There's a rule - I don't know if you're familiar with it - that says a foreign driver can't haul freight between American points. It's called cabotage. Same thing applies in Canada. That means the wife can't haul a load from, say, Seattle to Los Angeles, and the husband can't haul a load from, say, Vancouver to Toronto. We talked about that, how they're stuck with hauling loads to and from Canada." There were a few seconds of silence. "She said she's applying for her green card," he added.

  "Anything about them strike you as suspicious? Did they seem nervous?" asked Russell.

  "No. Like I said, if they'd acted suspicious, I would've made a close inspection of the load. As far as I can recall, they seemed pretty normal. Friendly." The agent paused again. "She was the more talkative of the two. He seemed pretty quiet."

  "That's them all right. Thanks, you've been a great help. If you think of anything they might've said or done that was out of the ordinary, might point to them being nervous or paranoid, worried about something, could you give me a call?"

  "Mind telling me what's going on?"

  Russell paused. The guy had been so cooperative, he hated not to reciprocate. "They're suspects in a homicide," he said. "So far, the evidence is pretty circumstantial. We haven't uncovered a motive yet."

  "I see. Yeah. Sure, I'll give you a call if I think of anything."

  Russell spelled his name for the customs agent, and gave him his telephone number, then hung up with a smile on his face. Merv, who was out picking up donuts for himself and a bran muffin for Russell, had only one more day to interfere before he left on vacation, and then Russell was on his own. The Iceman case would make his reputation, he had no doubt about it. Now he had one more piece of the puzzle to work with. He might not know where it fit yet, but if that little lady was applying for her green card, that meant she had something to lose, didn't it? The way everything had been falling into place for him in this case, it wouldn't be long... />
  "Detecting. I love it!" he said, grinning at the foxy young clerk he ran into at the coffee machine. She looked impressed, gave him a once over and a slow smile that told him she liked what she saw. He did, too. She had skin the color of coffee ice cream - his favorite flavor - and legs worthy of a statue by Michelangelo. Russell wondered how long Jennifer was going to be away this time. "How long you been working here?" he asked the clerk. "Got any plans for the future?" His question was ambiguous, and he intended it that way.

  "Future? Like, ten years from now or did you maybe mean this weekend?" she asked coyly, then ran her tongue along the rim of her coffee cup. Ooooh, she was good. Very good.

  Before Russell could answer, he heard his phone start to ring. "Catch you later," he said, touching her lightly on the arm. He sure liked the way she smiled. But by the time he got to his desk, Merv had picked up the phone, a brown paper bag with a grease spot in one corner hanging from his other hand.

  "Yeah. Uh-huh. Just a sec." Merv dropped the bag on Russell's desk and scrabbled around with both hands for pen and paper, the receiver almost swallowed up by his chins. As he juggled the phone and a notepad, his hat fell off, hit the edge of the desk, and landed upside down on the floor. Russell didn't volunteer to pick it up. "Okay, go ahead," said Merv. "Yeah. Uh-huh."

  Russell waited impatiently, came just short of snatching the phone out of his partner's hand. "What?" he mouthed, but Merv waved at him to be quiet. Russell took a careless sip of coffee and burned the roof of his mouth. "Shit," he said, grinding his teeth.

  "Great. Thanks for the information. We'll be in touch." Merv finished making a few notes after he hung up the phone, then turned to Russell with a smug look on his face. "We've got an I.D. on our Iceman," he said.

  My Iceman, you asshole! Russell wanted to correct him. Instead he asked "Who was that on the phone?" through clenched teeth.

  "Your RCMP buddies from Burny... Burno..."

  "Burnaby," said Russell, not hiding his impatience. He reached for the note pad - his note pad - that Merv was holding. When Merv wouldn't let go, Russell snatched it out of his hand.

  "Seems like our Iceman is some kind of musician. A guy named Greg Williams, just reported missing this morning by his common-law wife." Merv rushed to say it aloud before Russell could read it, as if that gave him some kind of Brownie points. "The vic's from there, all right. He's from Canada."

  Russell glared at him, but it didn't stop Merv from saying what he said next.

  "Like I told you, Cupcake, this isn't our case. The Mounties already admit they'll have to do a lot of the legwork on it. If you're smart, you'll ship the whole file off to Canada and save the L.A. County taxpayers some money."

  Russell smiled grimly, and poured what was left of his coffee into his partner's pork pie hat.

  "Bullshit!" El planted her fists on either side of her thick waist and glared.

  The square faced man in front of her scratched his belly and looked at the floor, then rubbed his jaw with grubby knuckles. He was trying to explain to her why he'd been late for an appointment delivery at a major grocery warehouse.

  "I was there in plenty of time, I tell you," he repeated, just inches short of a whine. "They're the ones screwed up, taking a long goddamn coffee break so they ran out of time. They're trying to blame it on me."

  "Give it up, Dunc. They called me right at two to find out where you were." She looked him up and down, taking in the grease stains on his pants, the mud caked on the seams of his steel toed boots, and the scraggle of chest hairs exposed above the top button of his work shirt. She wondered if he ever dressed up for his wife.

  The driver's eyes were skittering around the warehouse, trying to avoid hers. He readjusted his Mack Trucks cap and took a deep breath, as if he were about to try again.

  "Don't fuck with me, Dunc. Don't ever fuck with my loads like that again. If you're running late, you get on the horn to me, right away. You make sure I know it before the customer does. Understand?" When he didn't answer, she lowered her head and deepened her scowl. "Understand?"

  "Yeah," he muttered.

  "Now you're gonna have to wait til Monday to get outa here. Your goof-up just cost you that load for San Fran. It's got to go tonight, and I'm not gonna let you leave town until you've kept your end of the bargain on this load, and there's no way we're gonna get another appointment until Monday morning."

  "Fuck."

  "Yeah, fuck," she said. "I'm sure as hell not gonna absorb the cost of another delivery just because you fucked up. Where were you? Stuffing your fat face at Arby's again?" The man pissed her off. He ate like a pig but wasn't really fat, just an average sized beer gut. He wasn't a small man, but she weighed more than he did.

  The driver muttered something unintelligible just as the phone began to ring. El waved him away in disgust and headed toward her office. "Call me this afternoon and I'll tell you what time you're rescheduled for. And this time, Dunc, BE THERE!" she bellowed over her shoulder as she yanked open the door.

  The call was from the grocery warehouse. They needed Dunc's load for next week's sale, so they had made a switch and could accept it at two this afternoon. El dropped the phone and was heading out to tell Dunc the news when she heard a rig gear down to turn into the yard. She looked out the window and there was Hunter Rayne's navy blue Freightliner. "All right! The Blue Knight!" she said, then rushed out to the warehouse to grab Dunc before he had time to leave.

  She was back on the phone listening to a driver bitch about his schedule when Hunter walked in the office door with the little bundle she'd been waiting for. "Yeah, yeah," she said into the mouthpiece. "I'll see what I can do." She nodded at Hunter and rolled her eyes. "Leave it with me, Jack. I'll try to get you back in time gotta go now bye. Hi, Skookums!" She threw down the receiver and held out her arms.

  Hunter's eyebrows rose and he drew back, feigning shock. "Skookums?"

  "Not you, you idiot. How's my little princess?" She took the dog from under Hunter's arm and gave it a brief cuddle, then held it at arm's length. "Awfully tiny, isn't she?"

  Hunter nodded. "It's a she? Here I've been having man-to-man talks with it all the way from Buttonwillow."

  "Of course, she's a she. What do you think, with a name like Peaches?"

  Hunter shrugged.

  El turned the dog this way and that way, frowning. "Awfully small, compared to Peterbilt, eh?"

  "That's what I thought."

  They both regarded the dog intently for a few seconds, then Hunter seemed to lose interest.

  "Have you heard anything more from California?" he asked.

  "Not from California, but one of Her Majesty's finest was here this morning. He said he knows you. Left a card." She rested the dog on one pillowy hip as she rummaged around in the paperwork on her desk and found a business card. "Kowalski. Ring any bells?"

  "Al Kowalski? Sure."

  "Good. Maybe you can get him to give you the inside poop."

  "What did he want to know?"

  "He showed me a picture of the dead guy, to see if I knew him."

  "Did you?"

  "No." El stroked the dog's ears and looked down into its glittery black eyes. After having volunteered too much information to that American cop, she hadn't been sure how much to say to the Mountie and had decided to err on the side of caution, so two or three times she'd just told him sorry, she couldn't answer his question. "Other than that, I pretty much just gave him the facts about the shipment, gave him copies of the paperwork and stuff. But I told him I didn't think Ray could hurt a flea. Are you going to be able to get them out of jail?"

  "It's not up to me," said Hunter.

  As useful as it was when there was a problem to solve, Hunter's calm pragmatism could be infuriating. "But you can do something, can't you?" she said. His expression told her she should know better, but she wasn't prepared to buy that. "Well? Can't you?"

  With a faint smile and narrowed eyes he asked, "What makes you think Ray couldn't have done it?"
/>
  El frowned, taken aback. "You can't think he did it."

  "I didn't say that I thought he did it. I just don't know him well enough to bet my reputation that he didn't. Do you?"

  El's frown deepened and she thrust out her jaw. Hunter did that a lot, put things in a new perspective, and it always took her by surprise. "Yeah, I guess that's what the neighbors always say about serial killers, isn't it? Old Wayne was such a quiet pleasant guy, yadda, yadda, that kind of shit." She eased into her captain's chair, the little dog squirming until she'd settled it comfortably on her belly. She scratched under its chin and it closed its eyes, looked like it was damn near grinning with pleasure. "Aw, look. Look at her smiling. Isn't she cute as a bug? But, goddamn it! Ray IS a nice guy. We had a couple of heart to hearts, me and him, before he met Sharon."

  Hunter leaned his elbows back against the counter, looked her in the eyes like he was waiting for more.

  "You know how shy he is, eh? Especially with women," she continued. "I'd almost bet he was a forty-year-old virgin before he met Sharon, wouldn't you?"

  Hunter shrugged. "Does that make him harmless?"

  "I guess not. Maybe it makes him a nut. What do you think?"

  "I don't think it makes him a nut. I've only met Sharon a couple of times, but she seems nice enough. Pleasant enough."

  "Yeah, she does. You always worry, though, with a guy like Ray. He's such a mark, you know? It'd be so easy for a woman to take advantage of him." The dog squirmed, tried to scramble up her chest. She let it go and the dog was immediately in her face. "Oh, you're such a cutie! That's your mom we're talking about, isn't it? How could she be a bad lady if she's your mom, eh, Peaches?" said El, swinging her head from one side to the other in a hopeless effort to dodge the quick tongue. "You're such a cutie, aren't you, you little mugwump?"

  "How well do you know her?"

  "Same as you. I only met her a few times before they got married."

  "You see her more now that she's teaming with him, I guess."