Ice on the Grapevine

by R. E. Donald

  The second time was slower and tastier, and the third time playful and less urgent. It was almost midnight when they shared a can of Budweiser from the mini bar, sitting cross-legged and naked on the bed. Russell studied her face. She was stroking his hairy calf as if it were a kitten, and smiling, like they'd just shared a good joke.

  He tucked his fingers in the fold of her leg, feeling the hard bulge of her calf as she flexed it. "Strong legs," he said. "You a runner?" He wondered if he'd made a mistake in asking. Thus far she'd made no move to get to know him, except physically.

  "Mountain biking. It's like pumping iron with your legs." She said nothing more, just plucked the beer from his hand and took a long pull. Russell supposed her silence meant she didn't care if he shared her interests, outside of sex.

  "Why did you come on to me?" he asked her.

  "You're a stud. What can I say?"

  "I mean..." Russell frowned, trying to figure out how to word it so he wouldn't sound too serious. Or too glib. "I get the impression you wanted to sleep with me because I was only going to be around for one day. Was that part of it?"

  "Maybe. Or maybe it's just that you're a stud." She ran her knuckle gently along his jaw line, then pulled his head closer for a tender kiss. She sighed. "You cain't lose was you ain't never had. Isn't that how the song goes?"

  He nodded, and it suddenly made sense. No long term relationship, no breakup, no heartache.

  "Why? You planning on coming back?" she asked.

  Her voice was hard to read. Russell wasn't sure what she wanted to hear. He'd gladly see her again, but he was afraid that wasn't why she was asking. He shrugged. "I don't know," he said, honestly. The phone began to ring. "This was sort of a one time thing. I mean, me coming to Vancouver."

  "Aren't you going to get that?" she asked. "Or would that be your wife?" She made a wry face, and Russell couldn't tell if her expression was self deprecatory, or mocking him.

  "I don't have a wife," he said as he reached over and grabbed the receiver. "Kupka," he barked, as if he were in the office.

  "Sorry, baby. Did I wake you?" It was Jennifer.

  "No, you didn't wake me." He uncrossed his legs and tucked them under the sheet, thinking as he did so how stupid it was to worry about his nakedness. It was just a phone call. Pat looked as if she was about to giggle, so he put a finger to his lips to caution her. She grabbed it playfully in her teeth.

  "I'm sorry about last night," said Jennifer. "You know how I hate drunks, though, Russ. But it's been eating at me all day, talking to you like I did. I was tired. I'm sorry."

  "That's okay," he said.

  "I left the shoot early tonight, because I want to make it up to you," she said.

  "That's not necessary."

  "I brought your goodie basket with me. It's lovely, Russ. Thank you. Champagne, caviar, grapes and brie, and... um... looks like melba toast. But they won't give me your room number."

  Russell's stomach dropped. "You're here?" He tried not to look at Pat, who had been fondling his fingers and was now staring at him curiously and intently. He had to turn away, putting his feet to the floor.

  "I'm in the lobby," Jennifer said. "Give me your room number and I'll be upstairs in thirty seconds."

  "Uh... just give me a couple of minutes, would you? I'll... I'll come down." He was afraid to look at Pat, but he felt the bed start to quake, heard muffled laughter.

  "I think we'll be more comfortable..." Jennifer fell silent as the penny dropped. "Is someone in the room with you?"

  Pat's laughter erupted out loud, and Russell slapped his palm over the mouthpiece of the phone. "Sorry," she gasped between giggles, brushing his arm with her bare breast as she slid off the bed and padded toward the bathroom. "It's just such a classic. It's like an old movie."

  Russell heard a click.

  "Jennifer?"

  Sharon couldn't sleep. Angie was snoring softly, and as hard as Sharon tried to shut out the sound, she couldn't. Her cellmate's presence was a nightmare in itself, and Sharon had grown to dread every second of contact between them: every word, every glance, every ugly gesture. Now even the sound of the woman's breathing was abhorrent to Sharon. Her only chance for oblivion, her only reprieve from Angie's intrusion into her consciousness, was sleep. Sleeping so much during the day made it harder to sleep well at night.

  During the dark hours of turning and tossing, acutely aware of every cough in the cell block and the occasional sounds of pee and running water, Sharon tried repeatedly to lose herself in fantasies of being back on the road with Ray and Peaches. She hugged her pillow to her chest, trying to imagine she was cuddling Peaches, trying to call up the hum of Ray's eighteen wheeler and the sound of his voice as he told stories of growing up on the farm, trying to drown out the soft snoring from across the cell.

  Finally, less than two hours from wake up, Sharon fell asleep.

  El arrived at her warehouse at five, as she usually did on Monday so she could have everything under control by the time the phones started to ring. After turning on the lights, she went directly to the lunchroom and started the coffee, threw her lunch bag into the fridge. Ever since she and Hunter had listened to Greg Williams' tapes yesterday, she'd been trying to get her head around what she'd heard. Ray Nillson's bride was some kind of prostitute, and had been part of a blackmailing scheme. Ray didn't deserve that. Ray was a straight-up guy with a heart as big as the Rocky Mountains. Surely he hadn't known about Sharon before he married her, had he?

  El collected the few faxes that had come in overnight and carried them over to her desk, threw them onto the pile that served as her in-basket. Beside her phone was the book on dogs Wally had loaned her, open to the page on Pomeranians. El paused, hovering over the picture, reading the description one more time. Peterbilt was much too big to be a Pomeranian, and besides, he was black, which was very rare for the breed. She'd been duped into paying for a purebred dog who turned out to be nothing of the sort. She felt cheated and it made her mad. If she could get away from the office, she'd pay a visit to that damn pet shop this afternoon. "If I don't get some satisfaction, I'll rip his face off," she muttered, slamming the book with her fist.

  Is that how Ray felt? If that scumbucket blackmailer Williams had told Ray that his wife was a whore and a junkie, wouldn't it have made Ray mad? It must have, she reasoned. If being sold a... a... whatever misrepresented as a purebred Pomeranian made her mad enough to want to stomp the pet shop owner, finding out the truth about his wife must have been ten times worse for Ray.

  As much as it troubled her, El had to admit it was just possible it could have made easy-going Ray Nillson angry enough to kill.

  For a moment Sharon didn't know where she was. She'd been in a deep, deep sleep, and waking was like fighting her way up from under water. Until she opened her eyes, all she knew was that she was lying on her stomach, her head on a thin pillow. First she saw the blue lines of the cotton twill mattress through the thin sheet, then the gray prison blanket, and she remembered.

  "Wakey, wakey, Princess. Rise and shine!" The voice of her cellmate grated against her senses like fingernails on a blackboard.

  "Shut up," she mouthed into her pillow, knowing that to say it aloud would have the opposite effect of what she wanted.

  "Prin-cess," Angie continued in an irritating sing-song voice that reminded Sharon of schoolyard taunts. "Oh, Prin-cess! See what I've got?"

  Sharon turned her head to the wall, trying to ignore her cellmate, but the edge of the Time magazine lying on the blanket caught her eye. Suddenly wide awake, she grabbed at the magazine, turned over and jerked herself to a sitting position. Angie was prancing in the middle of the cell in an undershirt and panties, holding up the photograph of Peaches.

  "See what I got?" she repeated, then lapsed into a distorted baby talk. "Cute widdle puppy dog, fuzzy wuzzy widdle puppy dog, does my widdle Princess miss her widdle fuzzy widdle muttsy?"

  "Give me that," said Sharon. It took all the willpower she could
muster to speak quietly, her voice quivering with the effort. Her head seemed on fire with rage. "Give me that picture."

  Angie held it out toward her, but when Sharon reached for it, she snatched it back and twirled clumsily away. Holding it out again, but further away this time, she started her demented cackling, like a cartoon witch. "Looky, looky! Princess is angry." Angie's voice changed again, became charged with hostility. "You fuckin' little bitch. You think you're so special. Well, fuck you. And fuck your precious little mutt." With that, she tore a strip off the photograph and tossed it toward the toilet.

  Sharon lunged. She came at Angie and straight-armed both hands against the woman's bony clavicles. Shock on her face, Angie staggered backwards, lost her balance. Her shoulder blades slammed against the wall as she fell, her head following with a thunk. Grinning viciously at Sharon from the floor, she began to crumple the remainder of the photograph in her fist, then threw back her head and began to cackle again. "Poor little princess."

  Sharon grabbed the woman's shirt and pulled her off the floor. "You had no right," she said, her voice low and shaking. "You had no right." She bunched the thin cloth in her fists, exposing her cellmate's tiny wobbling breasts.

  Angie's skeletal hands came up toward Sharon's face, her fingers heading for Sharon's eyes. Sharon shoved her away, and again Angie hit the wall. "Eyow!" she snarled, like a cat, and scrambled to her feet. Sharon brought her knee up toward the scrawny throat, caught her under the chin. Angie's mouth snapped shut with a click of her teeth, and she fell back again, hard, her head hitting the wall first this time.

  By this time, the prisoners up and down the cell block were whooping and hollering, cheering them on, although Sharon hadn't been even dimly aware of them until her cellmate fell silent. With a groan, Angie's skinny body curled itself into a foetal position on the floor, her hands tucked in against her flaccid breasts.

  Sharon snatched up the remains of Peaches' photograph and retreated to her bunk, where she sat, her chest heaving with each gulp of air, wiping the two halves of the picture against her nightgown, trying to clean them, trying to straighten them. Two guards appeared at the barred door, began to unlock it.

  "What's all the ruckus? What's goin' on here?"

  One of them walked over to where Angie lay, the other planted herself in front of Sharon, her hands on her hips. "I know Angie's a pain in the ass, but you just makin' more trouble for yo'self if you get physical 'bout it."

  The other guard spoke into her walkie talkie. "Get a medic down here, on the double. We got one out cold, and she's started breathin' funny."

  Sharon held the torn picture against her chest and closed her eyes.

  "You got these where?"

  "That envelope was left behind on the floor of my truck after I transported some equipment for Whistlestop Studios." Hunter repeated what he had told Al the first time, word for word.

  "And how did you happen to be transporting something for Whistlestop Studios?"

  Hunter smiled.

  "Right," said Al. "I guess, for the moment, nobody has to know that."

  "I suggest you play this one first," said Hunter, pointing to one labeled Yo, Bro!

  Like most of the others, the tape started with a confusion of noise, snatches of different voices, thunks and a rustling sound, possibly of clothing rubbing against the microphone. Fading in and out and in again behind it all was a country and western song. This went on for approximately thirty seconds, then a voice spoke clearly.

  "Yo, bro! What's happening, man?"

  "That's Greg Williams," said Hunter. Al Kowalski nodded, put down his coffee and leaned toward the tape recorder, both elbows on his desk.

  The tape continued. "Little brother," said a voice in greeting. "You having a beer?"

  "The cop?" Al raised his eyebrows at Hunter's nod.

  The tape went on with small talk, a few minutes about Greg's bar gigs, some mutual friends, and professional sports, then Greg Williams asked, "Those your new wheels in the parking lot? That awesome Cherokee Limited?"

  "Fine machine, eh? I took it off road last weekend. Beauty. Sheer beauty."

  "Must be taking a helluva chunk out of your paycheck. Donna give you a hard time about it?"

  "Bought and paid for, little brother. Free and clear." You could hear the grin in his voice.

  "On a cop's salary? What's your secret, bro? You win the lottery or something?"

  "Let's just say I came across a windfall, a nice little windfall."

  Greg's voice, more quietly. "C'mon, bro. I'm flesh and blood. You can tell me. How'd you ever come up with the scratch to buy that baby outright?"

  Chad's voice dropped, almost to a whisper, and Hunter could visualize the two of them leaning in across the table. "It's not strictly legal - kind of a gray area - but nobody gets hurt, you know what I mean? Me and my partner do a bust, right? Catch this guy cold with a nice stash of white stuff. He says, forget this ever happened, and you can have my stash. The stuff's got a street value of more'n a hundred grand. Me and my partner look at each other, then look back at the asshole dealer, and say, Forget what ever happened? He hands over his stuff, we sell it to another guy owes us a few favors, and voila! A new truck for me and a swimming pool for my partner."

  "Jesus, Chad! Aren't you afraid they'll figure it out, you having all that money all of a sudden?"

  "They don't know I don't have a rich uncle just died, or that my wife's aunt didn't just win a jackpot in Vegas, do they? They don't even know that maybe Donna doesn't have a bigger income than she does, do they? It's none of their business."

  "But you're a cop. Didn't you swear to uphold the law or something? You know, I, Chad Williams, do solemnly swear..."

  Chad snorted audibly. "After a couple of years of busting your ass to get the goods on these assholes, then seeing the fuckin' judges turn them back out on the streets with a fuckin' slap on the wrist, you're nothing more than a sucker if you don't try to get a piece of the action. We're no knights in shining armor; we're just mindless pawns in a game where nobody else plays by the rules. I'd have to be stupid not to take advantage of the situation."

  There was a pause, a clinking of glasses. "Here's to you, bro. You're a true entrepreneur." Then, "What would happen if they did find out?"

  "Let's not go there."

  "I'm curious, though. What would happen?"

  "I'd lose my job, spend a few years in jail, and probably end up losing my wife and kid to boot." A pause. "Like I said, let's not go there."

  The tape went on, back to small talk and jock talk and eventually Chad said, "Gotta go, little brother. My partner and his wife are coming for dinner, and Donna's waiting for me to bring home the steaks and beer." Soon after that, there was an abrupt end to the noise as the tape recorder was switched off.

  "Jesus!" said Al, clicking off the recorder. "Greg Williams was blackmailing his own brother."

  Hunter nodded. "Might be worthwhile showing his photo to some of the witnesses, see if he might have been the man seen arguing with the victim the night Sharon was there."

  "Sure. I could get the VPD to fax it over." He shook his head. "His own brother."

  "And there's more," said Hunter, glancing at the stack of tapes. "More tapes, and more people who wouldn't be sorry to see Greg Williams dead."

  "Who are they?" asked Al, reaching for another tape.

  Hunter beat him to it, handed him one marked Silver Spoon, one of the tapes he'd made a copy of the night before. He wanted to make sure Al had a few new suspects firmly in mind before he heard the tapes with Sharon's voice on them. "You'll recognize at least one of the men on this tape. Silver Spoon. And I'd sure like to know if you recognize the other voice. It seems familiar to me, but I can’t quite place it."

  Al whistled softly as the tape played. "Brantford, huh? Involved in a drug buy. If this was made public, it would sure as hell screw up his chances of becoming mayor, wouldn't it? Our little guitar player was playing with fire." They listened silently as the
tape continued, then came to an end, Williams reciting the date and location a couple of seconds after the first click. "Sorry. The second voice doesn't ring a bell with me, but Brantford's is hard to mistake."

  "Maybe I'm wrong," said Hunter. "You got time to hear the rest of them?"

  "What else have we got?"

  "The rest of the tapes involve men spending the evening with... well, with prostitutes from the sound of it. During the conversation the woman manages to get some kind of ID on the man, usually off his driver's licence, then gets him to admit to making a cocaine buy. By the end, Williams has a tape he can threaten the man with. From the sound of it, all the marks were married and well to do. They all had something to lose."

  "These women would definitely be worth talking to. Do we know who they are?"

  "There are two of them. One of them we don't know, but once again, the voice sounds familiar to me. With your permission, I'd like to try to track her down."

  "And the other one?" Al's phone started to ring, and he held up his hand to get Hunter to wait. "Kowalski," he said into the receiver.

  Hunter got up to pour himself more coffee. When he came back, Al was off the phone, and had begun tucking the tapes back into the envelope.

  Hunter sat down and sighed heavily. "The other woman was Sharon. Sharon Nillson," he said.

  Al stopped what he was doing, looked up at Hunter with a crooked smile. "So these tapes wouldn't have gotten your friends off the hook after all."

  "Reasonable doubt."

  "Might have worked."

  Hunter frowned. "What do you mean, might have worked?"