by R. E. Donald
"Fucked up?"
Chad Williams sighed again. "Useless. His idea of working was planting his ass on a stool and playing the fucking guitar. That whole scene stinks. Bars, late nights, booze, drugs... hanging out with drunks and losers. It's no way to live, man." He took another deep breath, squared his shoulders. "So how did it happen?" Then he shook his head and repeated, "That bitch! She could've left me some kind of message. That fucking little bitch."
Al told him what they knew. "Do you have any idea what your brother would have been doing inside a meat trailer?"
"Hah! That's some kind of irony for you! My dear brother, since he met his little Paki princess, had become a holier than thou vegetarian. Made me sick. He hangs out in skuzzy bars, smokes enough dope to curdle his brains, and then he has the nerve to tell me it's barbaric to eat steak."
"Was he some kind of activist?"
"Activist? Like, did he parade around with signs and throw paint on fur coats?" Chad Williams rolled his eyes. "Wouldn't put it past the Paki and her friends, but not Greg. All Greg was passionate about was his music. Damn that bitch! She got him started on the vegetable kick. My wife invited them over for dinner when he first shacked up with her, and the bitch turned up her nose at the whole meal. Had my poor wife in tears. Wasn't much point in even talking to him after he got hooked up with her."
"When did you see your brother last?"
Chad shrugged. "Couple, three weeks ago. I gave him three hundred bucks."
"Why?"
"Cause he needed it, that's why. I told you he was a fuck up, couldn't make enough money to even pay his rent. I told him it would be the last time." Chad rubbed the back of his neck. "I'll have to call Mom. Shit. I'd better go pick up his stuff, fast. I hope that bitch keeps her hands off of it. Mom would probably like some of Greg's things, keepsakes, you know?"
"Have you ever heard of Hanratty Wholesale Meats? Know anyone who works there?" asked Al.
"Not that I can remember. Jesus! Between her and those night crawler buddies of his, his stuff's going to disappear in no time."
"Have you ever seen either of these people?" Al pushed the coffee cups aside and placed mug shots of Ray and Sharon on the table.
Chad studied the photos, then shook his head. "Not that I can remember," he repeated.
"Do you know of anyone who might want to hurt your brother?"
"Besides me, you mean?"
Al raised his eyebrows.
"I would've liked to beat some sense into him," said Chad. He clenched his jaw and shook his head, slowly, his eyes closed. "... but I sure didn't want him dead."
"What next?" asked Hunter as they got back into Al's car. "Hanratty's?"
"I was showing the morgue picture around there yesterday morning at about the same time Jagpal came in to the detachment to report Williams missing, before we made the I.D."
"And?"
"Nobody had ever seen Greg Williams, fresh or frozen." Al backed the car out of the parking spot, nosed it out of the lot.
"Anything about activists?"
Al shook his head. "Didn't come up, and I didn't ask." He paused. "Funny, isn't it? how she doesn't want anybody calling him her husband. Tom Fong says she told him the same thing. Living with a guy for two and a half years makes him more than a boyfriend or a live- in lover, if you ask me."
"Maybe it's a culture thing," suggested Hunter. "What was your read on the interviews at Hanratty?"
Al accelerated across Boundary Road on an orange light and headed east on Lougheed. He shrugged. "One or more of them could have been lying, but there was nothing solid. I guess we'll just have to keep on shaking the tree, see if anything falls out. I'll put an APB out on Williams' car. When and if it turns up, that could point us in a new direction. With any luck, right outside of our jurisdiction."
Hunter nodded, watched the new buildings along Broadway slide by until they'd turned right and headed up Gilmore, past the Home Depot. "I'll let you know if I see anything suspicious."
"Huh? Where?"
"At Hanratty's," said Hunter, "when I'm picking up their next load."
"I knew you'd come in handy somewhere along the line. When's that going to happen?"
"Monday afternoon. And then I'll be on my way back to California."
"Well, I'd better make use of you over the weekend, then. I'll give you a choice between checking out the victim's previous employers and tracking down his band buddies. What's your pleasure? Skuzzy bars or weirdo musicians?"
Hunter tilted his head back, looked quizzically at Al. "Are you asking me to do some actual investigating?"
Al sighed. "Have you any idea how many open files I've got sitting on my desk? The only reason I freed myself up to do this right away is because it's fresh and maybe we can get lucky and turn up a hot lead. You think I'd be letting a civilian in on this if I could pull manpower from the detachment?"
"Thanks." Hunter snorted softly.
"Hey, no offense. You're not just any civilian. You were always a better detective than I was, and I'll be the first to admit it. But it's not kosher..."
Hunter nodded. "I know. I appreciate you letting me in on it. I'll take the skuzzy bars."
"Now, when I asked you to check them out, I figured... Like I said, it's not exactly kosher." Al pulled into the detachment parking lot. "If you start asking questions, you can't exactly say you're on police business."
"Impersonate a police officer?" Hunter smiled. "Never."
"Well, how... ?"
"I'll just see if I can scare up some witnesses that are worth your time to interview. How's that?"
"Yeah." Al grinned as he reached for the ignition. "It's probably better if I don't know how."
CHAPTER
NINE
After he left the detachment, Hunter fought his way through Friday night traffic across the Second Narrows bridge to the place he called home. It was a one-bedroom basement suite in a forty-year-old house owned by two elderly brothers. Because it was on a hillside, like most of the homes on the North Shore, the basement was only underground on one side. Hunter's suite had a sliding glass door that opened into the back yard, a shady moss-infested lawn that sloped down toward a stand of tall cedars. Between the cedars you could glimpse the changing face of Burrard Inlet, blue with glistening wrinkles on this sunny summer day, but gray and motionless as slate on countless others.
His rooms were filled with heavy air, so he left the door open as he dumped his bag of clothes onto the floor. The laundry room, on the other side of a door off his living room cum kitchen, he shared with his landlords, a doctor and a scientist, both retired. He changed into shorts and a tee-shirt, found a can of Kokanee in the fridge, and carried it outside. The cool grass felt good to his bare feet, and he had already settled his bum into a lawn chair before he remembered that he hadn't checked his answering machine. "It can wait," he decided, taking a long cold slug of beer.
"You're back. I'll bring your mail." Hunter looked up and over his shoulder to see his landlord, Gord Young, standing on the main floor sundeck. The old doctor saluted, then disappeared. A minute later, he lowered himself into a lawn chair next to Hunter, dropped a stack of mail at Hunter's feet, and popped open a beer for himself. Gord was in his seventies, but still had plenty of hair that wasn't gray. He wore baggy shorts, and a threadbare tee-shirt with faded bicycles across the chest above the words BICYCLE STANLEY PARK. "How was your trip?" he asked. "Short one this time, wasn't it?"
Hunter thought about it. He'd only been gone a week, but it seemed like two. "Long enough," he said. "Ever seen a frozen corpse?"
"A few," answered the doctor. "Back on the prairies."
Hunter's phone started to ring. He shrugged apologetically, snugged his beer into a nest of grass at his feet, and scooped up his mail before he went inside. It was Sharon's lawyer, Alora Magee.
"Ms. Watson gave me your number," she said. "She said you might be able to help." Alora had that same professional but friendly manner of speaking as Chris did whe
n she talked to someone on business. Cheery, but just slightly aloof. Hunter's ex-wife worked for a big real estate firm, in the legal department.
"Help in what way?"
"Sharon Nillson isn't talking. I like to try to be a step ahead of the prosecutor, find out what we're up against in time to go on the offensive, as it were. Ideally, I'd like to know what they're going to find out before they do. So far Sharon's given me exactly nothing to work with. Ms. Watson said you'd been talking to the police in Burnaby."
"Ms. Watson? Did she let you call her Ms. Watson?"
Alora laughed. It was a genuine laugh, not just a polite one. "I guess you know the answer to that already," she said. "El, then. From the sound of her, I suspect she'd have your head if you ever tried to call her Ellie. Did you find out what they have against Ray and Sharon, other than the evidence from the trailer?"
"They're still trying to get a fix on the victim. He was a musician just barely making enough to live on. No record. No history of trouble. I might know more over the weekend." Hunter had answered the phone at his desk in the small cubbyhole that served as his office. He sorted through his mail as he spoke. A couple of bills, ad mail and an auto club magazine. "Do you want me to call you if I find something out?"
There was a hesitation. "I'll be away," she said, "in the mountains. How about if I call you on Monday?"
"I'll be on the road," he told her. "On my way back to L.A."
"Really?" she said, sounding pleasantly surprised. "Well, it's early days yet. It won't hurt to wait a day or two for information. Maybe we could get together… ?" She let it hang like an unfinished sentence. "Oh. El said she was sending something down for Sharon next week. With you?"
This was the first Hunter had heard of it, but it sounded like something El would do. "Probably."
"So we'll have to get together anyway. How about dinner? Will you be here Tuesday?"
"Wednesday," he said, which was fine with her, so she named the place and time.
He thought she was about to hang up, but instead she said, "I've been thinking about what you said."
"What did I say?"
"About the fact that you wouldn't be able to defend a client who was guilty." She paused. "It's fundamental to the legal profession, I guess. Somewhere along the line, we have to ask ourselves, are we in it for money or for justice? And if we're in it for justice, why aren't we just as interested in getting justice for the victim as for the accused?"
"It's the system. You do the best you can within the framework of the justice system."
"I guess you know the system pretty well yourself. El said you used to be a detective."
Hunter stiffened, tossed a piece of ad mail into the waste basket beside his desk. "Yes," he said.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is, I wish I could believe - truly believe - that Sharon is innocent. Right now, I just don't know."
After he hung up, Hunter debated going straight back outside to join his landlord and finish his beer, but there were messages on his answering machine, so he pushed the button. All three messages were from his daughters, Janice and Lesley, one from each of them just saying Hi! Catch you later! but in the last message Lesley invited him to the Sunday barbecue. "It'll be just cazh, nothing fancy. In case you're worried about it being Mom's birthday, you don't have to bring a present or anything. Maybe just wine. But it's been eons since we've seen you so it would be nice if you could come." She rang off on a cheery, "See you Sunday, Dad!"
"You know, Gord," Hunter said to his landlord as he sat back down and picked up his beer, "as comfortable as I am living at your place, I miss the responsibility of being - I don't know - part of a team." He wasn't being totally honest. He missed his family, and sometimes, like now, it hurt like hell, but he couldn't say that, even to Gord. He took a sip of beer. It was warmer and flatter than before the phone call, but still good. "You know something I really miss?"
"What?" said Gord, pushing his glasses further up on his nose. His cat, a Siamese, trotted across the grass from under the laurel hedge, the skin under its belly swinging like an empty fur sack, and rubbed up against his bare legs, then Hunter's.
"Cooking on the barbecue," said Hunter, reaching to pet the cat's head. "My wife would make the potato salad and whatever, my daughters would set the table, and I'd cook the steaks. And I was damn good at it, if I do say so myself." The cat tried to bite him but he pulled his hand away in time. He had no illusions about Sunday. At best, he would still be only a guest. He smiled wistfully, then finished off his beer.
"You're hired," said Gord. "I've got two rib eyes in the freezer."
"Great," said Hunter. "I need to keep in practice."
They grinned at each other, but Hunter could read it in the old man's eyes. They both knew that it just wouldn't be the same.
Friday nights used to be fun.
Russell was still at his desk when the night crew came in, the Iceman file open on the desk in front of him. If it weren't for the filming of that damned TV pilot in Vancouver, he and Jennifer would probably be sitting over martinis somewhere in Santa Monica right now, getting ready for a two hour meal with a good cabernet, followed by good sex at Jennifer's apartment. But she was out of town, and he'd been out of circulation for so long now, he didn't know who else to call. He stroked his tie thoughtfully. It was interesting that he was even considering that option. Until recently, he'd assumed that he and Jennifer were on the verge of making the big leap: a house, a minivan, and babies. The whole enchilada. Something had changed. Maybe they just weren't spending enough time together.
He reviewed the coroner's report for the umpteenth time. Bruising on the neck. Someone had used force on the victim, and that somebody had to be both skilled and strong, especially if he'd had to hoist an unconscious Greg Williams into the back of the trailer from the ground. The husband could have done it alone, but if the wife did it, she had her husband's help. Either way, it didn't look good for Ray Nillson. Russell smiled as he thought about the little surprise he had in store for Nillson on Monday. Another visitor. A very persuasive one.
He closed the file and scooped up his keys. It was frustrating being here in L.A. county when so much of the investigating had to be done in Vancouver. He didn't trust the Mounties. Not that he thought they were dishonest, or even incompetent, just that he knew he could do a better job. This case was clicking for him. Maybe, with Merv away on vacation for the next two weeks, he could talk the boss into letting him spend some time up in Canada, following up leads generated by the RCMP. No question about it, the Iceman was his case. Merv's vacation had been timed perfectly, now if only he could get closer to where the answers were bound to lie.
Russell headed out to his car, not sure where he would go from there. The sun was already low in the sky. He was hungry, and could use a drink. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he flipped open his cell phone. He'd call a couple of buddies, see if anything was shaking. Maybe he'd even call his Mom and Dad. If worse came to worst, he could pick up a video and a six pack, and order in a pizza, home alone.
The first bar Hunter hit on Saturday afternoon was the farthest away from home, Fraser's Dock, the place where Greg Williams played the last gig of his life. Hunter had been warned about the manager, the sensitive guy who'd been sorely pissed off at Williams for dying and missing his Friday night gig. The Fraser River sparkled with the July sunlight, and two dirty gray river gulls fought over what was left of a hamburger bun in the parking lot. Hunter pulled his Pontiac in beside an old Cougar with oversized rear tires.
It was dim inside, quiet at this early hour, except for the sporadic clack of billiards coming from the far corner. A burly young man with a thick neck whose dark beard was only slightly longer than his close-cropped hair was fiddling with the connections under the levers that delivered draft beer.
"What'll you have?" he asked, a smile in his voice if not on his face.
Hunter hesitated, decided to order a beer. "Pale Ale would be good," he said, nodding toward
the acrylic head of one of the levers. "You the manager?"
The young man nodded, filled a pint glass and clunked it on the counter.
Hunter took a sip. It was good, cold and good. He slipped a photo of Greg Williams out of his shirt pocket and laid it on the bar. "You remember this guy?"
The manager glanced at the photograph, snorted. "Picker. He wasn't all that good, but the chicks liked him. Who are you?"
"An investigator."
The manager's eyebrows rose.
"Helping the police with their inquiries," he added.
"They told me the guy's dead. He was whacked?"
"That's what we're trying to find out. You see him talking to anybody here?"
"Just the chicks."
"Any in particular?"
The man scowled, hesitated briefly before he said, "Just the locals, come in here to flirt, dance a little. He didn't stick around after his gig, though. Left alone."
"No fights, no arguments?"
Another hesitation. "Nope."
"Ever see either of these two?" He showed separate photos of Sharon and Ray.
The manager shrugged. "I don't recognize 'em, if that's what you want to know. In this business, I might've seen 'em half a dozen times, but with all the customers in and out of here, who can remember?"
Hunter handed the man one of Al Kowalski's cards. "If you think of anything that might help the police, please give Corporal Kowalski a call."
The manager barely looked at the card, slipped it in his shirt pocket. "What about all his shit? I've got all his fuckin' amps and speakers takin' up space in my office."
"Hang tough for a couple of days, chief. I'll have someone pick it up."
Hunter managed to visit five drinking establishments on Saturday night, left five pints of beer - minus a few good swallows - sitting on polished bars, and learned that Greg Williams was a competent musician but no star, although he managed to attract a regular crowd of female fans. Nobody seemed to remember Sharon or Ray. That night Hunter left his clothes lying on the bathroom floor. They reeked of smoke, and so did he.