Ice on the Grapevine

by R. E. Donald

  Hunter laughed softly. "El's one of a kind."

  Alora Magee looked at him sideways again. "You really like her, don't you?" she said, slipping the photo back into the envelope.

  He crossed his arms, leaned back against the Blue Knight's fender. "You don't waste any time getting personal, do you?"

  She looked embarrassed, and it surprised him.

  "Just kidding," he said. "Yes, I like her. We're good friends." He had on occasion admitted to himself that over the last few years El had become his closest friend. He felt the familiar shadow pass over his heart as the image of Ken Marsh came to mind, a friend whose death had never ceased to haunt him with guilt and regrets. Ken had been the closest friend he'd ever had, and he didn't expect to have another friend like that again. He pushed Ken's image away. "I make it a rule to stay on the good side of any woman who weighs more than I do," he added, and immediately regretted it. He felt as if he were betraying El.

  Alora laughed. "Swears like a longshoreman and is built like one too, huh?"

  He was grateful to her for seeing it that way. "And proud of it," he added with a grin.

  "You know, many people would have said swears like a trucker, rather than a longshoreman. I would have..." She openly looked him up and down. "... until today." Before he had time to speak, she said, "Let's go eat," turned on her heel, and walked away.

  Russell had been just about to put on his jacket and head home. Not home, exactly. He figured he had time for a quick workout and a shower, then he was planning to pick up a bottle of red wine, maybe even a Stonestreet cabernet, change into something sexy, and go to Jennifer's for pasta. She was only in town for the night, and had invited him over for linguini putanesca with capers and anchovies. He was looking forward to a fine spicy evening for the first time in two weeks. He didn't know when Jennifer would be back again, so he was prepared to make the most of it.

  Then the phone rang. A shooting in a high school parking lot during a junior league baseball game on the school diamond. "The DOA's a sixteen year old kid," said the officer on the scene.

  "Fuck!" said Russell, slamming down the receiver. "Fuck! Fuck!" He shrugged on his jacket and headed for the car.

  He drove to an upscale neighborhood in Glendale, a high school that Russell had quarterbacked a football game at almost half a lifetime ago. The coroner's investigator was already there. "Glad you could make it," he said, glancing up from where he squatted next to the victim. The boy's body was slumped against the rear wheel of a car, one arm clutched to his stomach. His shirt was a collage of colors, under laid with dark circles of blood that stretched from underneath his chin to the crotch of his jeans. "No mystery where this homicide occurred," said the investigator, bracing his hand on one knee to get to his feet. "C'mon guys. Let's finish with the pictures so I can look under his shirt."

  The photographer moved in, and Russell and the investigator stood aside.

  "You're the detective handling the Iceman homicide, right? I heard you've got someone in custody. How come the body's still in our cooler?"

  "The deceased is from out of state. There's a hold up getting the official I.D."

  "What kind of hold up?"

  "The RCMP says the position of next of kin is in question. The wife reported him missing, but the brother says she's got no right. Common law relationship," explained Russell. "Gross, huh? Fighting over possession of a corpse." He made a disgusted face, then noticed a beckoning gesture from one of the first officers on the scene, who had been canvassing the crowd for witnesses. As Russell walked toward the police cruiser, he noticed a TV news truck pull into the parking lot and swore under his breath.

  "Couple of kids witnessed the shooting," said the officer, meeting him half way and pointing to the back seat of the cruiser. The cop glanced over toward the body, then snorted and shook his head, as if he still couldn't believe what he was seeing.

  The two girls in the back seat of the police car, slender and pale and wearing tight-ribbed sweaters and blue jeans, held each other and whispered back and forth as Russell approached. He sat sideways on the front passenger seat with the door open, listened to what they had to say. Evidently the victim, who they referred to as Pellegrino, had been a bully, and earlier that week had stolen a Bulls cap from a younger student named Ashton.

  "So, like, Marnie has this big crush on Ashton..." Here Marnie covered her face and slouched further into the seat. "... so we were, like, following him to see where he was going when he left the game, but, like, we didn't want him to see us or anything, and he was acting real nervous, like, looking over his shoulder and stuff, and he went over there behind that truck, and didn't come out again." She pointed to a truck parked next to the car where the body was. "I guess because it was parked beside Pelligrino's car."

  So they'd hung back, waiting to see where Ashton was going, and finally Pellegrino had come out to his car, stuck the keys in the front door. Pelligrino had turned around, as though Ashton had said something, but the girls couldn't hear what, and then they heard the shots and saw Pellegrino grab his stomach as if he'd been kicked. "He had, like, this real surprised look on his face, and then he walked a couple of steps, then fell back against the car. We just screamed." They hugged each other tighter. Marnie started to cry.

  "So you didn't actually see this Ashton do the shooting."

  "No, but we knew he was there."

  "Did you see him after the shooting?"

  "No. We just started to run, you know?" She glanced out the open door, did a double take, her eyes widening. "Look! There's Ashton with his dad."

  Russell looked through the windshield of the police cruiser at a small group of people who had approached a uniformed officer. A boy of about fourteen, tall and slender with a square jaw and a blond shock of hair falling across his forehead, stood downcast beside an older man wearing the pants of an expensive suit with a light windbreaker, as if he'd come home from work and not had time to change his clothes. With one hand, the man gripped the boy by the elbow.

  "Here's Detective Kupka now," the uniformed officer said to them as Russell approached, then turned to Russell and spoke in a low voice. "This is Mr. Everett Slocum and the boy is his son, Ashton. Mr. Slocum caught his son trying to sneak a .38 back into its hiding place in the closet. When confronted, the boy confessed to shooting the victim. He said the victim had stolen his ball cap." Russell saw that Slocum was holding a Bulls cap in his free hand. The boy stood meekly at his side, his shoulders drooping in a posture of complete resignation.

  The kid reminded Russell of himself at fourteen. He remembered how his gut had twisted when a Neanderthal senior had taunted him after a fumble his first time on the field. Cupcake, he called him. That Cupcake is a loser. Cupcake is a bum. Cupcake has butter on his fingers, get that pansy off the field. If he'd been unlucky enough to have had a gun, he would've shot the bastard. He couldn't help feeling sorry for the boy. Why had his father brought him here? He should have contacted a lawyer.

  Before he had time to ask any questions, Russell heard a man's voice from behind his shoulder. "Don't say anything, Everett. Don't let Ashton say anything."

  Russell set his jaw and spun around. It was Feldman.

  "What the fuck are you doing here?" Russell asked.

  "My client," said Feldman to Russell, nodding toward the boy, then addressed the boy's father. "I called as soon as I got your page, and Lisa told me where you were. I wish you'd waited to talk to me before you brought him down here." To the boy, he said, "Ashton. How's it goin', buddy? I'll be your attorney. I'll try to make things as easy as possible for you, but you're going to have to go through some very unpleasant moments until we can get you remanded to your father's custody. Stay cool, and don't talk to anybody about what happened. Nothin' but your name, rank, and serial number. Got that?" He punched the boy lightly in the shoulder. "That's my man."

  "There are witnesses. I already know what happened," said Russell. "Did you bring the gun?" he asked Slocum.

 
Slocum looked to Feldman.

  "Wait here a moment, Everett," he said, laying a hand on the man's shoulder. "I'd like to talk to the detective first."

  He guided Russell about twenty feet away. "Everett Slocum is my neighbor," he said. "In his distress, he followed his first impulse to bring his son here and make a clean breast of it. The boy needs help, not punishment. You'll get the gun. You don't need to bully them to get their cooperation. Above all, we don't want this to turn into a media circus, so I'd appreciate it if you could escort the boy out of here immediately, with as much compassion as you can muster. He's not a criminal. He's just a kid who was bullied to the breaking point."

  "Shit, Feldman," said Russell. "You out of your mind? You're screaming police brutality and all I did was look at the kid." He saw Feldman's glance take in the TV van. "Say, you really lucked out. Two media cases in the space of a month. You must be on cloud nine."

  Feldman shook his head, a crooked smile on his face. "Believe what you want, Russell. These people are my friends, and not a damn thing about this incident is lucky, not for me, not for him, and not for the victim." He turned to walk away, then swung back with a frown, and added, "I don't know what kind of sophomoric grudge you've got against me or why, but have the decency not to let it affect how you behave toward that poor kid."

  Fifteen minutes later, the crime scene unit in place and doing their job, Russell escorted the boy, Ashton Slocum, to a waiting police cruiser. Another TV news van had arrived, so there were now two cameras following their progress, microphones thrust toward Russell's face. Keeping his head down, he hurried the boy past them and ignored questions from the reporters. When the boy was safely secured in the back seat, Russell waved the cruiser away and headed toward his own vehicle. The cameras and microphones had disappeared, and as he stepped into his car, he saw why. Jeff Feldman, looking impeccable in his Armani suit, was giving them a sound byte.

  "Asshole," muttered Russell. Who was Feldman calling sophomoric? Russell's evening was ruined. He'd be tied up for hours. Jennifer was leaving for Vancouver again tomorrow and God knows when he'd see her again. He was genuinely sorry about the kid. It wasn't his fault that he had a publicity seeking legal weasel for a neighbor.

  Russell burned rubber leaving the scene.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  Alora secured both deadbolts, then the chain latch. She looked at her watch. It was only eight fifteen. Good. An early night. She could go to bed with the new Connelly novel she'd been looking forward to. Right. Good thing the evening had ended early. Sure. That's what she tried to tell herself.

  She had been prepared to like Hunter Rayne. Right off, she'd liked his voice over the telephone. Then when she heard from Elspeth Watson that he was a retired RCMP detective and was investigating Sharon's case on his own time, purely out of friendship, she'd wondered at first whether he was just a busybody flake, but from the way El and Sharon talked about him, she'd soon begun to picture him as some kind of Lone Ranger, a crusader for justice and the rights of the downtrodden. Yes, she'd set herself up. She'd let her imagination turn him into a hero, a possible savior, not only for her client, but for herself.

  When he said the Nillsons were each saying nothing in their own defense in order to protect the other, she'd kidded him about being a romantic. Hah. Who was she kidding? As it turned out, she was the romantic one.

  She kicked her sandals off into the closet, nudged them straight with a bare toe, then stripped off her tailored shirt and shorts, replacing them with sloppy cotton sweats. She had honestly believed that Hunter Rayne liked her, too. He was friendly and warm. They'd talked about the Nillsons, about California, and about the mountains in British Columbia. They'd compared notes on their respective professions: lawyering versus driving up and down the interstate. He told her he was divorced and had two grown daughters, and she told him she was single and disillusioned with dating so she was trusting her future love life to fate. Had she sounded desperate? She meant to sound nonchalant, and thought she'd succeeded. They'd laughed about it, anyway.

  Alora padded barefoot to the kitchen, pulled a club soda from the fridge and mixed it with orange juice and ice. The drink in her hand, she slid open the door to the balcony, stepped outside and leaned against the railing. This was all the tiny balcony was good for, leaning against the railing and sipping a drink. Although the sky was still pale, with a broad streak on the horizon the color of cantaloupe, the lights of the city had begun to stand out, shivering in the dusk. She'd moved to the high-rise after the dog died. She felt safe from her ex-husband here, but captive, like Rapunzel in the tower, waiting for someone to rescue her from her prison of fear. Maybe she would let go of her fear if there was a man she could trust to protect her. Maybe she was desperate.

  She went back inside and picked up her book, then settled into the corner of the sofa, her feet tucked underneath her, but she didn't turn on the light. They had been finishing their wine, snug in the candle glow, leaning on their elbows into the flow of talk that washed back and forth across the table. She felt comfortable with him, sure of his good will.

  "That's a beautiful ring," she said. "Can I see it?"

  "I can't take it off without soap," he said, tugging on it gently to make his point.

  She reached her hand across the table with a come hither wiggle to her fingers. "I just want a closer look," she said. "What is that stone? I've never seen one reflect the light like that. It's magical."

  "It's a star sapphire," he said, laying his hand flat on the table.

  She picked up his hand, feeling a small thrill at the warmth of his skin. She turned his hand this way and that in front of the candle, admiring the play of light inside the round stone. "Nice," she said, looking up at him, but not letting go of his hand.

  "Thanks," he said, gently pulling away. Pulling his hand away, and pulling himself away.

  "You really are old fashioned, aren't you?" she said.

  He cleared his throat to reply, but only shrugged. Pulling away, further away. Sitting up straight, and looking around for the waiter, and signaling for the check.

  Alora put her drink on the side table and clicked on the light. She opened the book and stared at the first page. He thought she was coming on to him. He must have. And maybe she was, but why did he pull away? Was it something about her? She chided herself for being so sensitive. It's about him, obviously. He could be involved with someone else. Maybe he has some kind of rule, a code of ethics that doesn't allow him to get involved with women outside of his hometown. They talk about sailors having a girl in every port. What about truck drivers? He wouldn't be like that.

  Alora sighed. Yeah. What about truck drivers? In the past five years she'd dated two medical doctors, two marketing executives, one college professor and even a judge. Why on earth had she even entertained the notion of getting romantically involved with a man who drives a truck for a living?

  "A moment of insanity on my part," she said aloud. "Thank God the man had the good sense to pull away."

  It was not yet nine o'clock in Burnaby, and sunset was still half an hour away. El Watson had parked her Ford pickup, twelve years old and robin's egg blue, on Still Creek Avenue about a block away from what Greg Williams had called Whistlestop Studios. She'd already driven past the address, and discovered that the building which housed the studio was set back from the street behind another warehouse, and that her pick up would be conspicuous parked in that lot at this time of day, now that most of the businesses were closed. She clicked a thumbnail against a front tooth, considering her course of action.

  She had gone home after work, fed and walked the dogs, then fed herself and tried to watch TV. She couldn't sit still, her mind doing loops around the implications of what she'd seen at Williams' house earlier in the day. The fact that the place had been turned upside down was a critical development. With Ray and Sharon both in jail in California, how were the police going to explain away the fact that someone else was more than a little int
erested in the dead man's possessions? Even if evidence proved that the man had died in the Nillsons' trailer, it didn't necessarily follow that they were the ones who put him there.

  She had sat on the couch, the dogs fighting over her lap, and stared at the phone, willing Hunter to call. She wished he would keep his cell phone activated on the road so that she could call him, but he said he didn't make enough money to allow his dispatcher that convenience. Well, shit, she’d decided, shooing the dogs off her lap. If she couldn't talk to someone about it, if she couldn't do something about it, she was going to bust just sitting around home. At least she could stake out Williams' studio and try to find out more about the guy. So here she was.

  El turned the key and the Ford shuddered back to life. Musicians probably wouldn't pay much attention to a dirty pickup truck parked in an industrial section. Hunter had made it clear that he wanted to be the one to deliver the equipment she'd picked up from Fraser's Dock, so she wasn't going to screw things up by going inside, but what if she just parked close enough to have a view of the door? She decided to go for it.

  She drove into the yard in front of the building and backed the Ford up to one of the doors in the adjacent warehouse, a spot that was already in shadow. There was an old Chevy Blazer, a metallic brown, parked outside the ground level door of the studio, and the lights were on upstairs. She turned off the ignition and slumped down in her seat. Through the open window of the truck, she could hear the thrum of a base guitar and the rhythmic thud of drums, broken now and then by a frantic tattoo, but she could see nothing except what might have been the top of someone's head moving around, then dropping from sight and reappearing. The drummer? It told her nothing.

  The first hour went by excruciatingly slow. The daylight disappeared, and she felt more secure in the darkness. She tried to think of what Hunter might do, but had to admit that she didn't have a clue. Maybe it came from years of experience, but Hunter always seemed to know what to do, and made it sound like common sense. Uncommon sense was more like it. Some of the drivers gravitated to him for advice, others found him downright spooky. She looked at her watch. If the musicians were to leave, should she follow them? Should she sneak around the back onto the railroad tracks to see if she could get a better view? She rummaged under the seat for a flashlight, turned it on but it was dead. Scratch that idea. Instead, she popped the top on a can of Coke and placed it on the console beside her, then tore open a bag of ripple chips. Between crunches the sound of thunder, she could hear the fizzing of the cola, and the soft ebb and flow of the music from the warehouse, and the distant swish of traffic on Highway 1, and her own slow breathing, and she fell asleep.