Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  “I can’t get you a beige Caprice,” said the brunette, “but we’ve got a red one all gassed up and ready to go.” She was wearing a name tag, a small rectangle of black plastic with white letters. But she’d pinned the tag on upside down, and so far Felix hadn’t been able to get a good look at it. She smiled at him. “Would red be okay, Mr Newton?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Felix. “The car has to be beige or brown or maybe dark blue. No bright colours, isn’t that what I said?”

  Still smiling, the girl turned away from him and resumed her attack on the keys of the computer terminal.

  Felix sighed. He used the edge of his credit card to play a tune called impatience on the Formica countertop. His mind drifted. He wondered what kind of job Junior had done of cleaning up his British Properties rancher. A lousy one, probably. Felix looked at his watch, at the liver spots on the back of his hand. All the spots were similar, but no two were identical. There were lots of them, though. He brought the credit card down a little more vigorously on the counter. The girl jabbed at her keyboard.

  Seen from a certain angle, she seemed remarkably familiar. He guessed she was in her early thirties. If he’d ever used her, it would have been a dozen or more years ago. And in a bit part, not a major role or he’d remember her name. Despite his advancing age, he had a memory like a whole fucking herd of elephants.

  But there was something about the line of her neck, the angle of her jaw…

  Only one way to find out. Felix stepped back from the counter. He broke into a little sideways shuffle, threw his arms wide and burst into song.

  Would you like to be an actress

  Would you care to be a star

  People everywhere would know you

  No matter who and where you are

  You only live once, my sweet

  Why settle for the role of “fan”

  When it’s so much nicer to be

  A leading lady in

  The arms of a leading maaaaaan!

  “What a wonderful voice you have,” said the girl. The big kiss-off. Felix’s feet stopped moving. He let his arms fall to his sides. What was he, auditioning?

  “Your name tag’s upside down,” he said.

  The girl got up from the computer terminal and came over to the counter. She unclipped the black plastic rectangle, refastened it. Her name was Shirley. “How about a cream-coloured Ford,” she said.

  “I wish my secretary was here,” said Felix. “She’s really much better at making these decisions than I am. Is it a four-door model?”

  Shirley nodded. “Would you like to take a look at it?”

  “Is the ashtray clean?”

  “Absolutely spotless.”

  “If it isn’t, do I get a complimentary ballpoint pen or some glassware or something?”

  “I can give you a complimentary pen right now, if you like.”

  “You’re conceding the ashtray’s going to be dirty?”

  “No, Mr Newton. All I’m saying is that if you want a free pen, I’d be happy to give you one.”

  “You mean, if that’s what it takes to get me to accept the wrong colour car.”

  Shirley gave him yet another smile.

  “I do a lot of business with Hertz,” said Felix. “This is the first time anything’s gone wrong. I’ve been recommending you to my friends for years, and now this. What am I gonna tell them, huh?”

  “Tell them you talked us out of a valuable free pen,” said Shirley. She slapped a standard contract form down on the counter, starting writing. “How much insurance would you like?”

  “The max,” said Felix. “I like to live right on the edge, so why not be prepared for the worst?”

  Felix could see Shirley thought he was a kidder, kind of dumb, just another old fart in the wind. Suddenly he was exhausted. The song and dance had taken a lot out of him, more than he’d realized. Misha was a crummy driver but he was going to let her handle the Ford. The way he felt now, three hours on the turnpike could kill him. And anyway, he needed his rest. There was a lot to do in Vancouver. This guy Mannie Katz seemed to have gone to sleep on him.

  Felix signed the Hertz rental form, and stuck Shirley’s pen in his pocket. It looked good there, the chrome clip gleaming brightly against the dark blue cloth of his conservatively-cut suit jacket. He held out his hand for the keys, and when Shirley handed them to him, managed to give the tips of her fingers a friendly little squeeze.

  Chapter 20

  A gust of summer wind had finally blown Mannie Katz’s rayon shirt and bile-green twenty-dollar suit out of the fork of the tree he’d tossed them into on the night of the murder.

  Furth’s radio call had been responded to by a second squad car, two unmarked vehicles, the crime lab van, and Homer Bradley’s bone-white Chrysler Cordoba. Bradley soon had half a dozen uniformed men thrashing through the shrubbery. They were looking for evidence, but all they’d come up with so far was a few empty beer bottles and an old candy-bar wrapper.

  Bradley talked to the girl in the yellow bikini while his two homicide detectives, Willows and Parker, watched Mel Dutton take dozens of photographs of the crime scene. Over the years, Dutton had developed a certain style. While he worked, he never stopped moving. The power winder of his Nikon whirred and clicked ceaselessly as he circled the dark and crumpled pile of blood-stained clothing. Every time he took a picture it was from a slightly different angle. The white glare of his flash probed into all the folds and creases of the cheap suit, the thin white shirt, the unbelievably loud tie.

  A pair of steel-rimmed glasses lay half out of the breast pocket of the suitcoat. The lenses briefly reflected a matched pair of miniature Mel Duttons; then he triggered his flash unit and the crouching, distorted images were wiped away in a sudden burst of light.

  When he was satisfied that he had enough shots of the clothing, Dutton stepped back several paces and switched to a 135mm telephoto lens. He arched his back and began to photograph Mannie’s undersized shoes, which were still dangling by the laces from a branch about thirty feet up.

  “We’re going to have to bring in a hook-and-ladder,” said Willows.

  Parker nodded in agreement. She’d watched Chris Lambert try to shinny up the trunk, slide back down and ruin his pants. “You want me to make a call?”

  “Not just yet. We might as well wait until Goldstein finishes up.”

  Jerry Goldstein was from forensics. He was the department’s whizz kid, a tall thin man with curly blond hair and oversized horn-rimmed glasses that kept sliding down his nose. Goldstein had been standing diffidently off to the side, staying out of the way while Dutton did his job. Now that Dutton was through, he knelt to open a battered aluminium suitcase, and removed his fingerprint kit. He dusted the glasses first. They were clean. He put them in a plastic ziplock evidence bag, and tucked the bag away in a corner of his suitcase. The buttons on the suit were plastic. Goldstein dusted them down one by one. He picked up several partials. Experience had taught him that none of the prints would stand up in court, even as corroborative evidence. But he saved them anyway, because experience had also taught him that when it came to corroborative evidence, you could never be sure what would be accepted in court.

  Crouching, Goldstein used the tip of his Bic pen to explore the stiff folds of the suit. Dried blood flaked away like patches of rust. He went through the pockets, and found a quantity of lint, two dimes, an American quarter, a partial roll of breath mints, and a hundred-dollar bill that was saturated with dried blood. He dropped the lint and coins and mints into several evidence bags, and waved the bill at Willows and Parker.

  “Got something for us, Jerry?” said Willows.

  “Take a look at this,” said Goldstein.

  In the few small areas of the bill that had not been soaked with blood, the paper was crisp and new. Willows could faintly see many criss-crossed lines, thin scars, indentations where the bill had been folded over and over again.

  “A hundred’s a hell of a lot to pay a street
hooker,” said Goldstein. “But it’d make real good bait.”

  Mel Dutton had wandered over. “Depends what you’re paying for,” he said. Parker smiled at him, and he hastily added, “That’s what I hear from my pals in vice, anyway.”

  “What I’d like to know,” said Willows, “is why the killer walked away from a hundred-dollar bill?”

  “And forty-five cents and most of a package of Certs,” added Goldstein facetiously. The girl in the bikini was watching him, and he’d felt he had to say something. He smiled at her, and she looked away.

  “You through yet?” said Bradley, peering over the girl’s shoulder.

  “That’s all for now,” Goldstein replied. The field was of interest only because it was where the bits and pieces of the puzzle were collected. It was the lab work that fascinated him, because that was where the pieces were fitted together, and the puzzle was solved. He put the hundred-dollar bill in yet another evidence bag, locked up his gleaming suitcase. The girl was watching him again.

  “Whatever you find,” said Willows quietly, “I’d appreciate it if you called me first.”

  “Sure,” said Goldstein. “No problem.”

  Bradley had finished with the girl in the bikini. He caught Willows’ eye, and motioned him down the slope, in the direction of the beach. Willows nodded. “I’ll meet you back at the car,” he said to Parker.

  “What’s he want?”

  “I don’t have any idea. If I find out, I’ll let you know.”

  Willows followed his superior through the trees, the soles of his shoes slipping on the treacherous carpet of dead fir needles. By the time he came out of the trees, Bradley had crossed the narrow strip of asphalt that circled the park, and was lowering himself on to the sun-warmed granite of the sea wall. The six-mile long wall of stone had been built by a parks board employee named James Cunningham. There was an annual footrace around the park to commemorate his achievement. Willows knew about the race because his wife had run it, as had both his children.

  Bradley took out a cigar, and lit it. He glanced up at Willows, who was standing next to him, and then turned to contemplate the beach.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “So far,” said Willows.

  Bradley chuckled appreciatively, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

  The bows of the freighters in the outer harbour were pointed towards the beach, which meant an outgoing tide was dragging at their anchors. Willows wondered what it was like, being a seaman. His attention was diverted by three small boys who were kicking a brightly coloured ball along the shoreline.

  “Tell me what you think,” said Bradley. He patted the block of granite beside him. “Sit down, Jack. Make yourself comfy.”

  Willows moved a few feet upwind of the cigar smoke, and sat down on a stone. His legs dangled over the edge. At this part of the park, there was a wide expanse of sand between the ocean and the sea wall. There was no danger of erosion from winter storms, and so the wall was only a few feet high. One of the boys was running down the beach with the ball in his arms, closely pursued by his two friends.

  “The killer must have planned to steal the Econoline van,” said Willows. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been carrying the alligator clips he used to hot-wire the damn thing.”

  “So what does that tell us?”

  “It was premeditated murder. Murder in the first degree. Twenty-five years when we catch him. No chance of parole.” Willows drummed his heels against the granite wall. “I think he killed the kid, dumped the van, walked right past where those three kids are playing, and went for a swim.”

  “A backstroke getaway. In the nude.” Bradley grinned. “I like it, Jack. You got the film rights all wrapped up?”

  “I think we can assume he had a bathing suit on under his suit. You notice his clothes, Homer?”

  Bradley spat a shred of tobacco out of his mouth. “I was busy with the bikini. What about them?”

  “They were cheap, outdated, disposable. All he had to do was walk into the ocean, wash off the blood, swim a few hundred yards along the shoreline, and walk out. Who’d pay any attention, even if someone did happen to see him?”

  “After he takes his dip, then what?”

  “He’s got another set of clothes waiting somewhere along the beach, or in a parked car. He towels himself off, changes, drives away.”

  “Roll credits?”

  “We’re supposed to catch him first, Inspector.”

  “Oh yeah, right.”

  Bradley heard the hiss of roller-skates on asphalt. He looked up just as a black girl in a red and white striped bathing suit shot past him. The girl was skinny as a barber’s pole, and had her hair arranged in stiff braids that stuck out from her forehead like antennae. Bradley couldn’t help smiling. Much to his surprise, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled back at him, gave him the sweetest smile he’d seen in years. He was so stunned he almost dropped his cigar.

  “Parker and I went down to the morgue and examined the body,” said Willows. “There were seventy-odd puncture wounds, Inspector. The killer slashed himself into a frenzy, and it just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because up to a point, the killer seems to have planned everything very carefully, been very cool. Then it breaks down. Why buy those magazines so close to where he picked up the kid? Why steal a fifty-cent roll of breath mints when he could afford to buy them? We got a very good description of him from that Chinese woman. Why did he take the risk?”

  “Guys like him take risks all the time. It’s what they get off on.”

  Willows reached down and pulled off one of his brogues. He wriggled his toes. It felt good. He noticed that his shoe was scuffed, and that the heel was badly worn. It occurred to him that he was starting to let himself slide, that there must be other signs of his descent. “There’s something else,” he said to Bradley.

  Bradley’s cigar had gone out. The match made a brittle sound as he dragged it across the granite. He exhaled with pleasure and said, “What’s that, Jack?”

  “The guy who killed the kid almost certainly murdered that girl I found in the creek up past Squamish,” said Willows.

  Bradley gaped at him. The smile from the girl on the roller-skates, and now this. The day was full of surprises.

  Willows told Bradley about the vending-machine photograph he and Rossiter had found in Naomi Lister’s white shorts, and how the shorts had also been left in the fork of a tree. He told him about the blue Smurf tattooed on her arm, and about the wedge of flesh that had been cut out of the arm of the boy in the morgue, the trace of blue at the perimeter of the wound. Bradley listened carefully, not saying a word. His cigar went out again, unnoticed. When Willows had finished, Bradley immediately said, “I want you to call Squamish. Get the Mounties to wire down her picture and anything else they’ve got.”

  “I’ve already done it,” said Willows. “It should be on your desk by now.”

  “We’ve got to get moving on this,” said Bradley. The words rang hollow, as they invariably did. He frowned at the harbour, as if the view displeased him.

  Willows took his other shoe off, and both his socks. He stuffed the socks into the shoes and rolled up his trousers, let himself drop from the sea wall to the beach. The sand was very hot. “We’re looking for a short, paunchy bald guy who walked out of the ocean somewhere between here and English Bay, sometime between sunset and eleven o’clock, which was when Parker made her call. Roughly a two-hour time-span on a warm night in the middle of August. What would you say our chances are, Inspector?”

  “Maybe Goldstein’ll come up with something.”

  Willows bent and picked up a shard of glass that had been half-buried beneath the sand. “You see the weapon?”

  “What about it?”

  “Maybe you could put Farley Spears on it for me, see if he can track it down.”

  “Yeah, sure. Anything else?”

  “Naomi Lister’s father said she’d been living he
re in the city for the past year or so. Parker and I are going to try to make contact with some of her friends.”

  “Fine,” said Bradley.

  “We thought we’d concentrate on that angle of the case pretty much to the exclusion of everything else,” said Willows carefully.

  “Sounds good to me, Jack.”

  Willows picked another piece of glass out of the hot, dusty sand. He saw now that the pieces were from a Coke bottle. In the distance, the three boys were chasing the brightly-coloured ball back up the beach towards him. Their voices were high-pitched, unformed. As they drew nearer, Willows noticed that the oldest of the three was about the same age as his son. The boy had that same lithe, hard body, the ungainly grace of movement. His hair was brown, too, although a little darker than Sean’s. Willows idly wondered what colour the boy’s eyes were. Sean’s were dark blue, like Sheila’s. Brown was dominant, of course, and since the separation, Willows had come to resent that minor genetic quirk. Unreasonably, he wished their child had looked a little more like his father.

  He clinked the two broken pieces of glass together, moved them around to see if he could make them fit.

  There was entirely too much vandalism nowadays. The bottles were worth a dime each at any corner store, but even if they were worth a dollar, it probably wouldn’t make any difference. A beach full of broken glass. Just another symptom. The world his son would inherit was changing fast, and not for the better.

  Chapter 21

  Something over there to his left. Crouched down low. Staying in the shadows, circling slowly around behind him.

  Mannie rolled over on his side. Evasive action. He fell off the chesterfield, out of his dream. His eyes popped open. He sat up, stunned, breathing heavily through his open mouth.

  The sound of the telephone filled the house.

  He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock in the morning. On the coffee table in front of him an empty wine bottle and a cardboard bucket full of chicken bones and congealing fat sat at eye-level. He blinked. There was an old black and white movie on the TV, but no sound. He burped and scratched his stomach. Except for his jockey shorts and his socks, he was naked. The telephone kept ringing. He pushed himself to his feet and went to answer it.