by Gerald Lynch
“But you said he was very short? The abductor sounded closer to six feet.”
He was leading me.
“True. But couldn’t the abductor — Foster, say — have been Bob Browne’s accomplice? They’ve both threatened me lately. In fact, when I think of it, physically, the man with the dog could well have been a disguised Foster. I’d thought there was something familiar about him, and he was a good distance away.”
“Then why would Browne set up his own accomplice, Foster, in your Caddy?”
“Bob Browne may have wanted to discredit Foster, who could name him, and to implicate me through my Caddy. I still don’t know why. But Browne could have used a teenage hooker to lure Art, just as Art claims. Bob Browne does have a way with kids. And he needs money.”
Beldon again pinched the bridge of his nose, but this time held it thoughtfully. “Slow down, Lorne. What about,” he checked his notes, “Frank Baumhauser? He also matches the abductor physically.”
“Don’t waste your time on Frank. Of that I am absolutely sure.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me: “Deborah Carswell?”
“Debbie is capable of anything, except this. She’s a physical meltdown. With the TCA committee, we’re talking the unusual suspects.” I laughed like a jackass.
“Forgive me for asking, but are you on medication?”
I wouldn’t lie: “Just some Valium and just these past two days.”
“I’m no doctor, but I think you need to watch that, Lorne.”
“Hmm.” I’d have told anyone else to fuck off.
“What about the other woman on the committee?” He was thumbing pages.
“Alice Pepper-Pottersfield? Same as Frank: don’t waste your time. And a woman, of course.”
“So much for the unusual suspects then. All the same, I’ll have their alibis checked.”
“You forgot Larry and Gary Lewis, owners of Troutstream’s Twin Bros. Builders.”
He smiled small. “In fact, Lorne, until Foster was arrested, and before you said that about Bob Browne just now, the Lewis brothers were my prime persons of interest.”
“Really? You play things pretty close to the chest, Detective Beldon. Believe it or not, the Lewises also threatened me last night.”
“Threatened you? How? Why?”
“Nothing specific, just vaguely, but seriously enough.”
“Because of the playground contract?”
“No, but they definitely threatened me.”
“Yes, but why?”
“Well, they sounded upset over some imagined insult I’d given them.”
“And had you?”
“No.”
“Well, who told them you had?”
“I don’t know.”
“…Okay then, that’s all for now, I have to go.”
“Are you going to interrogate Bob Browne and the Lewis brothers? At least that should make them back off.”
“Interrogate?” Again he smiled, the prick. “Maybe. But backing off’s not what’s wanted, Lorne. If it turns out as I expect, that Dr. Foster is not our man, then more than ever we need the perpetrators to think themselves secure, so as to lure the abductor or abductors out into the open.”
“I see.”
He deliberated with himself for a moment, then: “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I think we may be onto something here even crazier than it looks. Some sort of extortion scam that got way out of hand, say between Twin Bros. Builders and Bob Browne, scamming money from your Deborah Carswell and the TCA. How Foster and you and the children would come into that, I do not know, yet. Other than that you interfered with the Lewis brothers’ contract and seem to…well, Lorne, not to put too fine a point on it, you do seem to have a talent for pissing people off. But I want you to do me a favour, okay?”
“What can I do, Kevin?”
“Visit your colleague Foster.”
“No way.”
“Lorne, you are going to visit Art Foster and act as though you believe him. Talk and talk and talk, relax him and watch for slip-ups, just as you did with the father of the poisoned girl. And here’s why you’re going to do it: Foster’s the connection to Bob Browne, and Browne is the link all the way from your poisoned girl to the TCA.”
“The guy forces himself on a teenager in my car? He could well have abducted my daughter in some sick game? No way. Can’t you monitor his phone calls or something?”
“Maybe, but for now the best way is you visit Foster. Not today, continue to lie low today. Screen any phone calls and don’t go out. Tomorrow morning visit Foster. Find out what you can about this friend of a friend you told me about who contacts Bob Browne. That name could get us somewhere quickly.”
He was turning again to leave. I said, “There’s something else I should tell you, Kevin.”
His shoulders hunched like he’d been poked between the blades. He turned and stared down at me: “Give.”
I let my gaze drift towards the front door, wished I were taller. “Well, I’ve heard that Shawn was seen talking to a man in a white van about a week ago.”
He looked quizzical for only an instant. “A white van?… Wait a minute, Lorne. Look at me. I’ve heard, was seen. Name names. This is your life, not some fucking mystery movie of the week!”
“I don’t want to involve anyone else…especially Alice Pepper-Pottersfield. But she saw Shawn talking to a man in a white van.”
“Is that all of it?” Cold now, the operator, in the zone.
“No. Alice thought she saw the same man talking with Bob Browne in one of the playgrounds. A tall slim man.”
Yet more coldly, or so it sounded to me: “Why did she tell you this?”
“She inadvertently witnessed the Lewises threatening me last night.”
He reflected for a moment, as his colour rose.
“Why the fuck would you keep that from me, Lorne? A stranger who matches the description? And Bob Browne involved again? For Christ’s sake! We are investigating the abduction of your daughter here, you know!” He was near shouting, realized it, and whispered harshly, “This Alice could be a big help and you’ve been steering me away from her! Don’t do that. These neurotic middle-aged women often see things, and somebody could be setting her up, using her as the go-between.”
“Neurotic? Alice is not middle-aged.”
He squinted. “Look, I’m not here doing dick-work on a cheating spouse.”
“Whoa, nothing like that! I love my wife. I just promised Alice I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Lorne, where are we, back in high school? Why would she make you promise that?”
“She’s an illegal immigrant. She said she’d have gone directly to the police if not for that.”
“She did, eh? And she hangs out in playgrounds to watch Bob Browne work?”
“No, she just happened to be walking in the park. Alice knows nothing about what happened with Shawn, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I smirked. “When you meet her, you’ll see how absurd your suspicion is. And when you do talk to her, as I know you will, reassure her that it has nothing to do with her immigrant status, uh, please.”
“Of course,” he said. And when he was satisfied I had no further revelations: “You’ll visit Art Foster first thing tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.”
He gave me a lingering look — bemused tolerance I did not like — closed his notepad and turned away.
I followed him to the front door, but before we could open it Owen startled us, shouting from the head of the stairs, “There’s a picture of the Slasher on my phone, he looks like some surfer dude! They say he was a soldier, a Canadian soldier! They keep connecting him with Dr. Foster. Unreal! But, like, no talk of a girl or anything. That’s good, right?”
Kevin said, “The Slasher has nothing to do with your sister,
Owen. Shawn’s going to be found just fine. What else on the Slasher? When was he arrested, before or after Dr. Foster?”
Why was Beldon looking disappointed?
“Before, it sounds,” Owen answered. He straightened and was returning to his room as he called, “I’ll, uh, monitor the feed, Detective. It’d be on the TV too down there, even CNN now, I’ll bet! This is good news, right? I mean, now there’s no way that sicko’s been messing with Shawn.”
“No way, Owen, not a chance!” Beldon twisted his mouth and turned away. I stepped behind him out onto the baking stoop.
He stared off through the distorting heat waves rising from the dark roof across the street. “Owen’s been worried sick about that possibility, you know.”
I gestured small surprise with my open hands. “We could turn on the TV?”
“You do that, Lorne. But first you find a way to talk with your son.” And as he strode to his car, “Damn,” he said again.
Puzzled, I watched and waited. But he didn’t wave from inside his big maroon Crown Vic. As he drove off, the distinctive yellow compact of an Ottawa Citizen reporter pulled up at the curb, as if it had been waiting for Beldon’s departure. While shutting the aluminum door, I spotted a blue minivan with the CBC logo on it. Shouldn’t they be hanging out at the detention centre or court or somewhere waiting for the Market Slasher?
Where was Veronica? I wanted to investigate developments next door but couldn’t with the media alighting like this. Fucking Jack and Trixie and their mentally challenged son, Jake. Great timing on the abandonment, Trixie! Per usual.
I turned the deadbolt on the inside door. The house was cool and quiet. Early in the day though it was, I needed a drink, and a beer wouldn’t cut it. My prized bottle of Macallan single malt, just a shot. No more Valium… My Caddy! How could I have forgotten it? Foster, you traitorous shit!… But I would visit him and I’d have to give an operating-theatre performance to hide my hatred.
The doorbell rang only a few times. Owen kept to his room. When I peeked out the front window, second drink in hand, I saw three vehicles along the curb with their reporters inside and windows rolled up. The Tanzanian Marathoner loped by, forever falling forward, head wagging back and forth between the media vehicles and my house.
Next time I looked, only two vehicles.
Then none.
Then three back slowly cruising, casing the place for signs of life. I guess, thanks to pervert Foster in my Caddy, I could still compete for local media attention with the Slasher. At least Art wasn’t a serial killer.
Just one more Valium.
Chapter 9
To meet the media my way, I decided to wash Veronica’s Golf. Feeling no pain, as they say. Veronica herself had still not returned from next door, so I might also get her favourable attention doing her the good turn.
The world was a bright doldrums, with the day’s heat still brain-baking. At least I’d remembered my shades this time. But the whole neighbourhood was shut up, with A/C compressors humming their suburban song of themselves. These are the latter days of Alice Pepper-Pottersfield’s Troutstream-through-the-ages dreamscape, the dream turned nightmare. An abandoned electromagnetic wasteland: as if everybody’s been whisked off by aliens…to a planet where the children remain umbilically attached to both parents till they, the kids, begin to grow their own offspring; then the new grandparents behind the parents wither away and fall off like the old black cords they’ve become. Perfectly self-replicating families on the planet Suburbamor: Daddy grows the boy and Mommy grows the girl, only two per family. No one ever leaves home. Story of our suburban lives.
Yes indeed, the Scotch felt to be fizzling from my pores, the diazepam suffocating my most active synapses. Crazy time.
Only one reporter was a persistent nuisance, a spiffy lad in red bow tie and suspenders who introduced himself repeatedly as something called “videographer Donny Kynder from the A-Channel.”
“What’s the A-Channel channelling these days, assholes?”
I don’t think he believed his ears, for he just kept insisting on “the public’s right to know.” I wetted him but good as I snaked the hose across the top of the car.
By four o’clock there were no more reporters and I was prepared for the sight of me on the evening news. After the arsenic-poisoning case I’d had more than enough of the fourth estate: distorters at best, falsifiers most often. The way they edit, my hose and bucket could be eliminated and I made to look like some Dr. Hyde, foaming from the mouth and flailing at the camera. (Voiceover): Dr. Lorne Thorpe, distraught father of the abducted girl and friend of the accused, Dr. Art Foster, maintains his own innocence, though as can be seen here, he is rabid…
I was on my knees buffing the wax off the front chrome of the Golf, working from driver’s side to passenger’s, enjoying the peace of mind car washing always delivers (though it’s much more relaxing with my vintage Caddy). My shirt was pasted to my back from working in the lung-stuffing heat. But the chrome soon dazzled and even in shades I had to squint against the sun’s reflected brilliance.
Then something felt wrong to my experienced hand: an imperceptible slope to the bumper, or what passes for a bumper these days. Earlier while washing I’d found a smudge of white paint on the passenger’s corner, from bumping the wall at work last Friday. It had come off with just the soft brush attachment. Everything had looked perfectly normal then. But now the bumper appeared somehow…damaged. I compared the passenger’s side with the driver’s, rapidly back and forth, like a dog getting the scent. There wasn’t even a scratch, yet I just knew in my heart that damage had been done.
I patted the little Golf and brought my hand to my streaming forehead. I made a fist and slammed the innocent bumper. I saw myself standing in my parking spot at CHEO, touching this very corner of the car, relieved that no damage had been done. The hairline crack in the wall must have been there before, surely. In my mind now I followed that crack up, saw it passing through the parking level above, widening ever so slightly as it went, through emergency, branching past reception, where Tamara stood in ironic command, through the Catholic quiet room and that mural of Jesus with the children, gaping …about to bring down the whole building!
Jake Kilborn burst from the neighbours’ front door. He took off running, his elbows tucked and pumping, away from me. He was headed for the farther neighbours’, I hoped, foolishly, because I knew Jake enjoyed nothing so much as running pointlessly in circles, always in the biggest allowable and most perfect circle, right back to where he’d begun. The amazing perfection of his circles was all poor Jake had been gifted of the savant.
Otherwise he was just your average Down’s Syndrome boy-man who made himself at home everywhere in Troutstream. Young enough mentally to hog all the children’s toys at the community centre, Jake was yet old enough to be allowed one beer at the Lighthouse Bar & Grill. He had been dubbed Troutstream’s unofficial mayor, “Hizzoner Jake,” and annually led the Troutstream Fun Fair parade.
Now, there are all sorts of Down’s kids, as many different as normal kids, of course. I’ve encountered quite the range at work (Down’s kids are susceptible to leukemia) and the majority are loveable human beings, needless to say. But not so Jake, which must be said. And as with most unlikeable children, this was not Jake’s fault. His mother, Trixie Kilborn, had managed through a genius for system manipulation, special pleading, intimidation, and liberal bullying to turn Jake into what is best described as, unfortunately in the words of Troutsteam’s parkland rats, “a stupid fucking retard.” With her demands even for a high-school diploma for Jake (Jake could neither read nor write, Jake couldn’t speak intelligibly) and well-paid employment upon “graduation,” the statuesque Trixie had singlehandedly set the cause of inclusiveness back fifty years in Troutstream.
To take but one example (lest I be thought even worse than I am): Trixie had long insisted that Jake be allowed to serv
e as an altar boy at our church, Holy Family. Fine, the fittest place for a shining example of Catholic tolerance and inclusiveness. But Trixie would not budge when, despite a call from the bishop himself, participation at Communion fell sharply at those masses where Jake served. It tried the mettle of even the most Christly tolerant to see Jake picking his nose and eating it before, during, and after “helping” the priest serve the Communion feast (he invariably clipped communicants with the paten, though that could be tolerated). Jake would stand in the sanctuary facing the congregation and auger his nostrils for minutes at a time, head tilted back and face distorting like some corpulent dentist self-drilling. He would curiously examine what snot he got, then slurp it off his finger with a proficiency I’ve seen matched only in porn movies.
Completing the circle of his run, Jake swung towards me, leaning inward, in that skiing style he had of covering space rapidly on his stumps. Because Jake expected and received much loving attention, I dropped my head and pretended to busy myself with the finished task. I wouldn’t look up but heard him halt a few feet from me. I could even smell him. I guess abandoned Jack was not used to caring for the grown boy’s needs. I’ll grant Trixie that.
He just stood there huffing adenoidal noises. Then: “Go see Wy, go see Wy, go see Wy!”
“What? Oh, Wy. But not now, Jake. Shawn’s not home and Dr. Thorpe wants to be alone.”
I could hear gurgling mucus in his breathing. Then: “Gonna tell Mom you made fun of me!”
That was Jake’s one other gift. Instead of the Down’s kid’s legendary musical aptitude, Jake was not only “able” at running perfect circles but also something of a savant at sensing any weakening of tolerance and of correcting it with the threat of telling his fearsome mom that he’d been made fun of.
I glanced up: “Where’s your dad, Jake? Is Mrs. Thorpe still in your house?”
He stood for a moment with that contemplative look on his face like he might swallow his nose. I reminded myself to be careful, Jake was notoriously powerful. But he did the other thing where he snorted and hugely pursed his mouth. Then enlightenment: “You’re making fun of me! Go see Wy, go see Wy, go see Wy!”