Ice on the Grapevine

by R. E. Donald

"Sounds about right," said Hunter. He had passed by at roughly the same time the day before.

  "That's a reasonable place to stop for supper, I guess."

  He couldn't argue with that. "I wonder what Williams was doing there?"

  "Shopping?" she ventured. "Something he couldn't buy on our side. Maybe drugs? You said he might've been into drugs."

  "More likely he was selling something, if he and his buddies had a hydroponic garden somewhere. But what would that have to do with Ray and Sharon? They'd just crossed the border themselves." Hunter scratched his jaw. He hadn't shaved, only taking enough time to wash his face and grab a cup of coffee when he left Yoncalla. "Unless they met by accident." He sighed. "I wish those two would talk."

  "You find out anything yesterday when you made the pick up?"

  "Just that somebody painted graffiti on Hanratty's walls that had something to do with animal rights."

  "And the victim was into animal rights?"

  Hunter shrugged lightly as he spoke into the phone. "Either him or his roommates. We don't know enough about him yet."

  "I found out last night that he was a scumbag."

  "A scumbag? What kind of a scumbag?"

  "I don't know. Is there more than one kind?" When Hunter didn't say anything, El continued. "That's the opinion of the bar manager at Fraser's Dock. I got the dead guy's equipment, like you said."

  "Thanks, El. Hang on to it. I'd like to deliver it to his studio myself when I get back."

  El told him she'd managed to line up a return shipment from L.A., and that it would be ready on Thursday morning. "You should have your load off in Anaheim before noon tomorrow, so that gives you the rest of the day to fart around. Think you can get in to see Ray again?"

  "I'll see what I can do."

  Back on the highway, Hunter was impatient. Usually he enjoyed daylight driving, relaxing deep in the driver's seat and enjoying the strong pull of the big diesel and the steady hum of tires against the asphalt. He enjoyed the feeling of getting somewhere, noting with pleasure the mileage signs that signaled his progress. He liked to peer at the farms and the small towns he passed, imagining a life there far different from the life he himself had led, a life with an old-fashioned family, a simple life built on physical labor and lifelong relationships. No suicides. No divorces. No ex-wife's new boyfriends. But today, he found Ray's problem more compelling than daydreaming about happy imaginary lives. Hunter had been a bulldog as a detective, and he hadn't shed the habit along with the job. He wanted to solve this case. He wanted to know who was guilty. Even if it was Ray, he wanted to have that sense that he'd unraveled the knot, uncovered the truth, in some way closed a loop that needed closing.

  "Talk to me, Ray," he muttered, passing the exit for Yreka, California. "Talk to me."

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  Hunter arrived at the warehouse in Anaheim at nine thirty on Wednesday morning, and was lucky enough to find a warehouseman ready to start unloading his trailer. The man was dressed in white, like a chef, and had an infectious smile, teeth yellow compared to his uniform, but brilliant in contrast to his black skin. "James" was embroidered in red above a buttoned pocket.

  "A burn baby load again, huh?" James said, taking a look at the bill of lading Hunter handed him. "Han-RAT-y in BURN-baby, Canada." He put the waybill on a clipboard and hung it on a hook beside the door. "Here's the beef, man," he called to a younger, thinner warehouseman who rounded the corner of the cold storage locker.

  "You get these shipments every week?" Hunter asked.

  James shrugged. "Mebbe once or twice a month."

  "Were you here for the load that arrived last Monday?"

  "'Deed I was. That one created some excitement, let me tell you. Next thing you know, the police was here crawlin' all over it."

  "They find anything?"

  The black man shrugged. "Who knows? Held us up all Tuesday morning, goin' over everything with their little magnifying glasses and vacuum cleaners. Half the stuff woulda already been shipped outa here if they hadn't made us hold onto it. The boss was some mad about the hold up, I'll say that." He tossed the last sentence over his shoulder as he headed for the forklift.

  Hunter watched him unload, nudging the big tines of the forklift under a skid, lifting it just enough to pull it out a foot or two, away from the other skids, then running the forks in deep and lifting the skid well off the floor. One by one, he transferred the skids from the truck to the warehouse floor. The other warehouseman slit the shrink wrap with a single deft pull of his knife, then peeled it off and away before moving the skid into the cold storage locker with a second, smaller forklift. James turned off his motor while he waited for the other man to catch up, and Hunter leaned against the frame of the forklift to talk to him.

  "Say, chief..." Hunter glanced at the warehouseman's chest and corrected himself, "James, did you talk to the drivers who made the delivery last week?"

  "Sho' did. I like those two, the big guy and his woman. They's nice easy goin' folks compared to some of the tight-ass drivers come in here." James grinned and jabbed Hunter lightly on the shoulder with his fist. "They's quiet and polite, just like you."

  Hunter smiled. "They're friends of mine."

  James nodded his head thoughtfully and added, "I could tell they was grievin', but they still had a smile for me, still had a good word, you know what I mean?"

  "So they were upset about something?"

  James frowned, nodding slowly. "Grievin'. I figure they was grievin'."

  "How's that?"

  "Well, they was standin' just over there. The young lady, she kept watchin' him close like, like she was real worried about him. The big guy wasn't sayin' nothin'. When I stopped my motor, just like now, I heard her say, Ray, honey, we's got to talk, kinda pitiful like, like maybe he was mad at her for something. That's what I figured at first, anyways. But he didn't look mad. She started to ax him something, or tell him, I wasn't sure. What happened... she started sayin'. What happened..., but that's all what come outa her mouth before he shushed her, gentle like, then when he didn't know I was lookin', he gave her a long hug." James sighed.

  "Just kind of put his arms 'round her like he was comforting a little kid. She pressed her face into him like she was cryin' on his chest, and he kissed her on the top of her head. It weren't none of my bidness, so I never said nothin', I just pretended I never saw it. Looked to me like somethin' bad had happened, and they was grievin' over it, both of 'em. Then, a'course, next day the police was all over the shipment here, made a pile a trouble for us, let me tell you."

  "Did you tell the police about the drivers?" Hunter asked.

  "Nope. The police never axed, and I never woulda said nothin' if they had. Them two was grievin', ain't no bidness of the police."

  El was preoccupied. Twice during the morning she forgot to get back to a holding phone line, resulting in a late pick up and one very pissed off shipper. Things slacked off a bit around eleven o'clock, so she pulled the envelope containing Greg Williams' tapes and photos out from under her desk and called a friend at United Terminals.

  "Hey, Paddy, could you do me a favor? Could you check a couple of phone numbers in the Criss-Cross and see if you can come up with an address for me?" She read off the two numbers under Greg Williams' name on the outside of the envelope.

  Her buddy came up with two addresses, one in a residential area in southeast Burnaby, the other on Still Creek, in an industrial area. It wouldn't hurt, she figured, to drive by and take a look at these places, see if anything clicked into place. Hunter would be pleased, she thought, if she had some of the legwork done before he got back from California. When the lunch truck arrived, she bought a sandwich and a bottle of juice, asked Wally to man the Watson office while she was gone, then headed out the door, with no specific plan in mind.

  The residence, presumably Williams' home, was an older three-story house, not far from Kingsway's commercial hubbub and traffic. The house could have used a handyman's
touch and a few thousand dollars worth of exterior renovations. It seemed to be divided into suites, since there were two doorbells and mailboxes at the main door, which was on the front porch, and what looked like a separate, ground level entrance at the side of the house. The address she had been given applied to the ground level door. El drove past once, then circled the block and drove past again. From the road, she couldn't see anything at the back of the house, nor were there any large windows at the front of the house, so she couldn't even tell if there was anyone home.

  She parked a couple of houses away and was just about to get out of the truck when she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw an athletic figure in navy blue pants and shirt, possibly a uniform, stride down the sidewalk from the direction of the door. Briskly, he crossed the street, got into a nondescript Ford, and drove away.

  El swung the pickup's door shut again and sat there a moment, considering. The man could have been a cop, but he wasn't wearing the tan uniform of the RCMP. Maybe he was a fireman, or just a security guard on his way to work. She hadn't seen him standing at the door as she drove past, so he must have been around the back or even inside. Could he have been a gas or hydro-electric employee? Not likely. A visitor to the home, friend or relative of Greg Williams or his wife? Maybe. Which would mean someone was home.

  Curiosity got the better of her, and, taking a clipboard with her as a small measure of disguise, she walked purposefully up to the door and knocked. There was no answer, so she knocked again, banging with her fist. "Hello! Anybody home?" she called in her best foghorn voice. Still no answer, so she rattled the knob and was surprised to find the door unlocked. She stuck her head in the door and hollered again, "Hello there! Anybody home?” There was silence.

  She wondered if Hunter had been mistaken, or if she had heard him right. He'd said that Williams had a common-law wife, but this apartment was a mess, not typical of a woman at all, in her experience. Books and papers were spread all over the living room floor beside a plank and brick bookcase, and the bare wooden frame of a futon couch was pulled out from the wall, the futon itself propped crookedly behind it. CD's and CD holders were scattered like a deck of cards in front of a black metal stereo stand. She heard water running through the pipes, as though a toilet had flushed. "Hello?" she called again. When there was no answer, she walked across the living room, picking her way through books and sheet music to a small kitchen.

  The kitchen, too, was a mess. At her elbow, a ceramic cookie jar in the shape of a teddy bear was lying on its side, threatening to roll off the counter, so she righted it before it occurred to her that this was no ordinary lived-in mess. Cupboard doors were open and drawers pulled out, their contents dumped on the counters and the table. The apartment had been tossed. Either the place had been burgled, or someone had been looking for something. She thought back to the figure she'd seen leaving the property, and began to wonder if it had been a cop. Maybe he'd been called in by a neighbor reporting the break in. In any case, she didn't feel comfortable being here.

  "What the hell am I doing?" she said aloud. Carefully, she lay the cookie jar back on its side the way she'd found it and took one last brief look around at the mess, then headed for the door. She was half the way down the sidewalk when a small Honda pulled up against the curb and a young woman with spiky red hair got out. Standing at the driver's door and leaning across the roof of the car, she looked El up and down through narrowed eyes and asked, "You looking for somebody?"

  El lifted up her clipboard, glanced at the blank waybill on top, and said, "Yeah. I'm supposed to pick up a box of personal effects to ship to Winnipeg. You know anything about it?"

  "From who?" the woman asked, not hiding her suspicion.

  "Uh... ." El glanced at the clipboard again. "It just says 7135 Elwell."

  "You're on the wrong street." From her tone of voice, the woman might as well have added, "Stupid".

  "Oh. No wonder there's nobody home." El saluted, smiled innocently, and continued walking. "Thanks, eh?"

  The woman continued to stare at her until she'd turned onto the sidewalk. "Elwell's that way." The voice scraped like a rasp against the back of El's neck.

  El stopped, looked over her shoulder. She'd had enough of this woman, whoever she was. "No shit?" she said, not expecting an answer, and not getting one. Checking her rearview mirror as she turned the key in the ignition, El could see the woman still watching until she drove away.

  "I'm hoping to see Ray again while I'm here."

  "I'm the detective collecting evidence against your buddy, not his social director," said Russell into the telephone receiver. "Talk to his lawyer." Hunter Rayne's call had come just as Russell had finished going over the notes he had taken during his last phone conversation with the RCMP.

  "I'll be seeing Mr. Feldman later," said Rayne, "but if you've got a few minutes, I'd like to talk to you first."

  "I'll give you three." Russell checked his watch, then leaned back in his chair, stretching his back. "So. Talk."

  "I'm in your building. I thought maybe we could sit down together. Maybe I could buy you a coffee or something."

  "Why?" Russell said before he realized that he could answer his own question. He had a niggling feeling about this guy, a feeling that Rayne's interest in the results of this investigation went beyond concern for a friend. He might have more of a stake in it than he was willing to let on. Why not give him a chance to say or do something that would tip his hand?

  "I was working on the investigation with Al Kowalski of the Burnaby RCMP on the weekend. I'm might have some information you can use."

  "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

  "I'm on the side of the truth."

  Russell doubted that, but agreed to meet him in the parking lot, and as he shrugged into his suit jacket, he shook his head at the irony of it. This guy figured that he could help his buddy Nillson by helping Russell and the RCMP? There was something wrong with that picture. The man was either absurdly naive, or consummately devious. According to Russell's earlier conversation with Al Kowalski, Rayne had been a first rate detective, a dedicated one, and highly thought of in his department. Then why the hell did he quit? Why would anybody quit being a detective to become a fuckin' truck driver?

  "You won't tell me why you wanted to become a trucker, so tell me why the hell you wanted to quit being a cop?" Russell asked when the two of them sat down across from each other at a table in Starbucks.

  Rayne's jaw stiffened and he nodded slightly. "It was just time," he said, their eyes locking.

  Russell waited for him to go on, but he didn't. "And now," he suggested, "you're tired of being a truck driver and want to be a cop again, right?"

  The trucker ignored the comment, asking instead, "Have you talked to Al Kowalski in the last couple of days?"

  "Yeah. I've talked to Kowalski."

  "He told you about our experiment with the trailer?"

  "Yeah. What does it prove?" Russell stirred the whipped cream and powdered chocolate into his cappucino.

  "It proves that the drivers wouldn't have heard the man calling for help if he'd been locked in there accidentally, or by someone else."

  "We've been over this, Rayne. That story would be a hell of a lot more credible if it had come from your buddy himself... at the same time he reported finding the body."

  The trucker nodded his head in reluctant agreement. He poured sugar into his coffee. "I saw them in Oregon the day before and they were relaxed and happy. According to a man in the Anaheim warehouse, when they arrived to deliver the freight they were visibly upset. I still believe they didn't know he was in the trailer until it was too late." When Russell responded with a shrug, Rayne asked, "Anything on the padlock?"

  "No damage, no sign of tampering, if that's what you're asking, which is another reason why it's hard to swallow your version of events." Russell wanted to let Rayne do most of the talking. Without being too obvious about it, he wanted to goad him into saying something Russell could use agai
nst him or his friends. "Yeah, somebody could have picked the lock or Nillson could have forgotten to secure it at the border or something. If that's the case, why don't your innocent friends say so? It's not up to me to come up with their defense."

  "No, but like any good cop, you're anticipating their defense so you can plug the holes in your investigation before the case comes to trial."

  That was almost a compliment, and Russell was pleased in spite of himself. "So if you've thought this all out, how do you explain the fact that Sharon Nillson knew the victim and didn't admit it?"

  Rayne sipped at his coffee, put down the cup. "Scared to admit it, is my guess."

  "Hah. Weak."

  "What about the car?"

  "What about the car?"

  "The car was found some fifty miles inside the United States border. The Nillson's trailer was loaded in Burnaby. I don't see how the location of the car supports a case against Ray."

  Russell laughed, licking whipped cream off his upper lip. "You got your nerve, you know that? Why the hell should I share the prosecution's theories with you? You're about to toddle over to visit Feldman, and help him shore up his case with information you expect to pick up from me?"

  Rayne wore a little smile, as if he had a secret, but Russell could see his jaw working. He could tell that his jab hit home, that he was pushing Rayne's buttons.

  "I can understand your frustration," said Rayne. "It can't be easy for you, with your witnesses a thousand miles away. You have to rely on what the RCMP tells you."

  Russell was surprised that there was no sign of anger in the trucker's voice. "I hope to remedy that soon," he said.

  "That's good. That'll give you a better feel for the victim, interviewing the witnesses directly. If you're like me, your gut instincts work better when you're face to face."

  "You got that right. And I've been face to face with Ray Nillson and his wife a couple of times now," said Russell. "My gut's pretty sure they did it."