Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  “Jacket’s caught on something.” Leyton used the pike to stab at the water.

  Parker heard the snap of rubber. Hollis was busy with the surgeon’s gloves.

  “Got him.” There was a note of triumph in Leyton’s voice, as if he’d hooked a particularly large fish.

  The body rose swiftly towards the surface. Willows held the stretcher.

  “Roll him over.”

  The man was wearing jeans and a bright yellow rain slicker. Leyton and Hollis slid the body on to the swim grid. The throat looked as if it had been slashed, but Willows knew it was the soft tissue that went first, so you couldn’t be sure. Behind him, the door to the Uniflite’s head slammed shut. He looked for Parker but couldn’t find her.

  Curtis started taking pictures. He’d been right about the body; it smelled like nothing else on earth.

  It wasn’t until they’d eased the corpse into the stretcher that Willows saw the wide overlapping bands of clear plastic tape over the mouth. The tape had lost much of its viscosity, was unravelling. He stared across the water. It was on the far side of the bridge, less than a quarter of a mile away, that they’d found the bloody shot-up Pontiac and the heel marks in the gravel leading down to the water.

  He wondered how quickly he could get the coroner’s office to do the autopsy, file the report. Goldstein had hair, he had blood. There was a chance the .25 calibre bullet was in there somewhere. If they could match it to the spent casing ...

  Parker came back on deck. She stared at the body, glanced across the water towards the bridge. “Think there might be a connection?”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice,” said Willows.

  Curtis and Leyton got down on the swim grid, unrolled a yellow bodybag of rubberized canvas. They were both wearing gloves and masks. The body shifted fitfully in the chop. Curtis held his breath, got a grip beneath the armpits.

  Something was bothering Parker but she couldn’t think what it was. She glanced up, towards the endless stream of traffic that hummed a dirge on the bridge.

  “You okay?” said Curtis.

  Parker nodded, but she wasn’t so sure.

  The air smelled clean and pure and the sky all above her was a rich, flawless blue. And that was it — what was on her mind. The weather was all wrong.

  A day like this, it should have been raining.

  18

  The city morgue is on Cordova Street, conveniently located just around the corner from 312 Main. With its arched doorway and facade of orange brick highlighted by orderly rows of white-painted mullioned windows, the morgue remains an attractive building despite its grim function and the years of accumulated dust that lay upon it like a shroud.

  The morgue’s front entrance — the door used by the living — is painted bright red. Parker pushed the door open and stepped aside.

  “Thank you,” said Willows.

  “My pleasure.”

  Parker pressed the elevator button, but Willows had already started up the stairs.

  They reached the third floor and walked down a long, wide, brightly-lit corridor. This time Willows got the door. They entered the operating theatre, a large, square room with a floor of glossy blue tiles, walls that were lined from floor to ceiling with the refrigerated stainless steel drawers that serve as temporary coffins for the permanently down and out.

  In the center of the room, a pair of zinc tables stood directly beneath a huge industrial skylight made of cast-iron and frosted glass. The tables were exactly thirty-six inches wide and seven feet long.

  A corpse lay on the nearest of the tables; Willows went over and flipped back the sheet. A girl with bright blue eyes and color-coordinated hair shaved within an inch of her skull stared up at him.

  The pathologist, a short, dark man named Brahms, turned away from the sink. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to her,” he said to Parker.

  “Then there isn’t much point in telling me about it,” Parker replied.

  Willows flipped the nylon sheet back over the corpse. He eyed the rows of stainless steel drawers. “Where’s my floater?”

  Brahms turned back to the sink, yanked a handful of paper towels from the dispenser. “We did the preliminary this morning. Finished a couple of hours ago.” He dried his hands, tossed the used towels overhand into a metal wastebasket beneath the sink. “The report’ll be on your desk by tomorrow morning. Want the highlights?”

  “Please.” Willows took out his notebook, flipped it open to a fresh page, tried to write down the date and discovered that his pen was out of ink.

  Parker fished through her purse, found a Bic.

  Brahms cleared his throat. “Your victim was shot at least four times, minimum of two weapons. He was hit once in the thigh, once in the gluteus maximus, a.k.a. ass, and twice in the head. Both head shots struck him in the left temple and exited above the right ear. The one he caught in the ass hit the femur at a sharp angle and lodged in the knee joint. That bullet and the one that got him in the leg were recovered and have been sent to the lab. At least two weapons were used. The one from the thigh was small-calibre. The round I dug out of his knee is probably from a three fifty-seven Magnum or a forty-five. Big, a cannon.”

  “He was dead when he went into the water?”

  “You betcha. Either head shot would’ve killed him instantly.”

  “What condition were the bullets in?”

  “The one that hit him in the thigh was in excellent shape. The second bullet was pretty banged up, but I’d say you should be able to make a comparison. Why, you got a gun?”

  “Not yet,” said Willows.

  “This was the shooting that took place down by the Granville Street Bridge last weekend?”

  Willows nodded.

  “You didn’t find anything in the car?”

  “A hole in the roof.”

  “The hair was badly burned. A searing effect was noted. We found evidence of stippling.” Brahms glanced at Parker, as if unsure that she knew what he was talking about.

  Stippling was an effect of shooting at point-blank range; pinpoint hemorrhaging due to unburned powder and metal shavings being driven into the victim’s flesh.

  Parker was watching Willows take notes, the knuckles of his right hand white with pressure as he wielded her Bic pen. Willows stopped writing. He looked up. “What else?”

  “The body was in pretty good shape, considering. At a depth of five or six feet the temperature of the water around here doesn’t change much, it’s fairly cold all year round.”

  “Alcohol?”

  “His blood level was point five. He’d had a few, but he was sober.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  Brahms shrugged. “The left hand was pretty bad, some kind of marine life had made a meal of it. The right hand was better, most of the skin was intact even though there was a lot of wrinkling.” He grinned. “You ever spend a couple of days soaking in the tub, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

  “My line of work, I’ve never felt that dirty.”

  Brahms frowned. “To get a decent print, what we had to do was tie a string around the end of the thumb and fingers close to the knuckle joint, then use a hypo to inject water under the skin, fill out the finger. Ever seen it done?”

  Willows shook his head.

  “Tricky,” said Brahms. “One of your techs rolled the prints. Guy named Saunders. Mel Dutton was with him. Set up some lights and snapped a couple rolls.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Maybe an hour ago, little less. He’s putting on weight, Dutton. Looks a little older every time I see him.”

  Willows handed the Bic back to Claire Parker.

  “One more thing,” said Brahms. “The victim’s palate and tongue were badly lacerated, as if he’d had a sharp chunk of metal in his mouth, or maybe been punched.”

  “Find anything?”

  Brahms shook his head. “The mouth had been taped shut, but the tape came loose in the water.”

  Out on the street, as the
y walked back to 312 Main, Parker took a deep breath, filled her lungs with air. The mix of exhaust fumes and windblown grit seemed comparatively refreshing, after the cold and clammy atmosphere of the morgue.

  Dutton had left a memo taped to Willows’ telephone. He’d had a problem with the prints and he and Saunders had taken them to the more sophisticated facilities at the Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit on West Seventh.

  Willows phoned CLEU. Saunders had come and gone. He tried Mel Dutton’s number. No answer. Eddy Orwell and Farley Spears wandered into the squadroom. Spears held a handkerchief to his nose. Orwell was drinking a diet Pepsi. Spears sneezed, loudly blew his nose. Orwell saw Parker and ambled over to her desk.

  “Hear you finally got a victim, that shooting down by the bridge.”

  Parker picked up her phone, started dialling.

  Farley Spears sneezed again.

  Orwell drank some Pepsi, jerked a thumb at Spears. “Guy waits until he’s infectious, then he comes back to work.”

  Parker gave Orwell a look, as if he was something she’d found swimming around in her drink. He gave the Pepsi can a squeeze and wandered down to his desk at the far end of the squadroom. Spears said something to him. He glanced over his shoulder at Willows, as if worried about being overheard.

  After a few minutes, Orwell and Spears approached Parker.

  “What is it, Eddy?”

  “Mel told us a couple slugs were recovered from the body, and one of them was from a forty-five.”

  “So?”

  “There’s a guy in the interrogation room, a chartered accountant. Picked him up about twenty minutes ago. Got a call from the White Spot on Georgia. Guy opened his briefcase to get his newspaper, waitress noticed he had a gun.”

  “Jack,” said Parker.

  Willows looked up from his desk. Parker motioned him over.

  “Picked up a chartered accountant with a forty-five calibre Colt stainless,” said Orwell. “Thing is, the guy claims he found the gun in the can at a nightclub over on Richards.”

  “When?” said Willows.

  “Last Saturday night,” said Orwell. “Think there might be a connection? Wanna talk to him?”

  “Where’s the Colt?”

  “Lab’s got it.”

  “Good work, Eddy.”

  The phone on Willows’ desk started ringing. It was Mel Dutton. He told Willows that the floater had been identified; his name was Oscar Peel. Dutton had Peel’s address, if Willows was interested.

  “Bless you,” Willows said.

  Spears hadn’t even been thinking about sneezing. He gave Willows a bewildered look.

  “Let’s go,” Willows said to Parker.

  “What about the accountant?” said Orwell.

  “Don’t count him out, Eddy.”

  Orwell waited until Willows and Parker had left the squad-room, and then turned to Spears and said, “Are we supposed to hold the guy, or what?”

  “Maybe we should tell him his number’s up,” said Spears, and sneezed several times in quick succession.

  Or was he laughing?

  “What’s so funny?” said Orwell, his face bunched up like a fist.

  “Everything,” said Spears, and wondered if he was going into remission.

  19

  The main branch of the city’s public library is on the corner of Robson and Burrard, right downtown. The building is five storeys high — pre-formed concrete and big sheets of green-tinted glass.

  Paterson knew what he wanted, but had no idea how to get it. He strolled by an unarmed guard in a natty gray uniform, made it past the library’s swing-gate security system and walked up to a counter that had a sign hanging above it that said INFORMATION.

  A plump woman with frizzy blonde hair listened carefully as he explained what he wanted, then directed him to the Sociology department. The librarian at Sociology was tall and thin, in his mid-thirties. He was wearing glasses with gold wire frames, a lemon-yellow shirt, neatly pressed brown pants, a brown tie decorated with gold horses.

  “Excuse me,” said Paterson. “Do you keep a clipping file on narcotics?”

  The librarian nodded. A strand of mouse-brown hair fell across his forehead. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Do you have anything on heroin?”

  “Yes, we do. I’ll need your library card, or two pieces of identification.”

  Paterson didn’t own a library card, but he had a driver’s licence, Visa.

  The man disappeared behind a row of gray metal filing cabinets. A few moments later he reappeared carrying a buff-colored nine by twelve folder. He accepted Paterson’s licence but ignored the credit card. The file was marked in bold typeface:

  FOR REFERENCE SOCIOLOGY DIVISION VPL

  NOT TO BE TAKEN FROM THIS ROOM

  “Do you have any related files?”

  The librarian nodded. “We have clippings on Crime, Narcotics, Youth and Drugs ...”He adjusted the knot of his tie. The gold horses winced. “Would you like to see the file containing the subject headings?”

  “Maybe later. Thanks for your help.”

  He took the folder over to a nearby table and sat down. The flap of the folder had been glued shut and then the folder had been sliced open along its length. He opened it and shook out a double handful of clippings.

  The clippings varied in size from half a page or more to less than a hundred words. The smallest of them were glued to quarter-sheets of used computer paper. Each article was stamped in red ink with the name of the source newspaper and publication date. He noticed that they were all current. Presumably another file was kept for backdated clippings. If he needed to, he’d ask the librarian, see if he could squeeze a few more words out of him.

  He pulled his chair a little closer to the table and went to work. A little over an hour passed before he found what he was looking for, a file from the Vancouver Sun in which a man named Gary Silk was found not guilty in County Court of possession with intent to traffic.

  The drug was heroin, and the amount was large — a little over two kilos. It was the second time Silk had gone to trial, the second time he’d been acquitted.

  There was a picture of Silk on the courthouse steps, flanked by his team of lawyers. He was smiling into the lens and looked like he was about fifteen years old, capable of anything. Near the end of the article it was noted that he lived in the city’s Point Grey area, in a million-dollar house on Drummond Drive.

  Paterson read through the rest of the clippings. There were half a dozen more articles on Gary Silk, all of them predating the trial. Paterson wrote down Silk’s name and the name of the street he lived on. Then, on the spur of the moment, slipped the clipping file with Silk’s picture into his shirt pocket.

  He returned the folder to the desk, retrieved his driver’s licence and went outside to the rank of public telephones. There was no listing for Gary Silk in the telephone book, not on Drummond Drive or anywhere else in the city. He dropped a quarter and tried information. No luck. He went back to the information counter and, in general terms, told the blonde-haired woman what his problem was. She directed him to the City Directory, a thick volume which contained all the addresses in the city, the streets listed numerically or alphabetically, East side and West.

  Paterson looked up Drummond Drive. There was no listing for Gary Silk but there were nine addresses on the street that had been listed either as ‘vacant’ or ‘no return’.

  Paterson wrote them down, double-checking to make sure he got it right.

  Now what?

  He went outside, turned to face the bustle of Robson, fondly called Robsonstrasse by the locals, because at one time the ethnic mix had been predominantly German. The street was still colorful and charming, the city’s most pleasant walk. But the developers were moving in, rents were doubled and tripled as leases expired, new buildings catered to more affluent tenants. Shops that had once specialized in Bavarian sausages smoked on the premises now sold overpriced, mass-produced Italian leather goods. The stree
t was in decline.

  Paterson watched the swirl of the lunch-hour crowds along the sidewalks. He’d never felt like an outsider, but he felt like an outsider now.

  There was a portable hot dog stand behind him, a white-painted plywood box with two oversized wheels, protruding wooden handles. The thing looked like a pregnant rickshaw. He ordered a hot dog with everything, a cup of coffee.

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Just cream.”

  “That’ll be two dollars and twenty-five cents.” He gave the kid a five, stuffed the change in his pocket without counting it. He bit into the hot dog, sipped at his coffee. He was licking the last of the mustard from his fingers when it came to him.

  Death and taxes.

  You couldn’t own property in the city without paying for the privilege.

  Next stop, City Hall.

  Paterson’s footsteps echoed on the terrazzo floor of the central foyer. There was a circular information desk in the middle of the foyer. He had arrived during the lunch hour, and the desk was deserted. A cardboard sign next to a white pushbutton telephone said:

  FOR INFO PLSE ENQUIRE CITY

  CLERK’S OFFICE 3RD FLOOR OR PHONE 7276.

  Paterson picked up the phone and dialled the four-digit number, explained his problem to a woman who directed him to the Tax Department. He asked for directions and she asked him which way he was facing, then told him to turn around.

  “See the sign?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  The line went dead. He cradled the phone. The Tax Department’s sign hung over double glass doors on the far side of the foyer, directly in front of him and no more than thirty feet away.

  The department was housed in a large, open room. Paterson lingered in the doorway, getting his bearings. There was a color-coded ‘police yardstick’ taped to the door frame. He entered the room, walked towards a woman standing behind the nearest of the two cashiers’ wickets. The woman’s head was bowed over a thick sheaf of pink paper. She glanced up as he drew near, smiled and said, “Can I help you?”

  Paterson told her in general terms what he needed to know. There was a slim gold pencil tucked above the woman’s ear, nestled in her hair. She removed the pencil and used it to point diagonally across the room. “See the woman in the white dress?”