by Gerald Lynch
As he pulled me up, he grunted softly: “Yes, I’ve seen Bob Browne’s body. You should have waited for me. And yes, we. I’m stumped, I need your help.”
He took in the mess of the playground. “I’ll tell you something else and for now it’s strictly entre nous. Promise?”
“Promise.” And I gave my best Boy Scout salute.
He looked like he already regretted telling me. “The Lewis brothers did this damage.”
“Ah-ha! We have our boys! I knew it!”
“Put down your filthy finger, Doctor. They thought they were getting even with Bob Browne. They got his backhoe from where he’d been hiding it at your Troutstream Community Centre and did this, hoping to pin it on him.”
I bit strenuously into my knuckle. Eureka! “That was the diesel smell! At first I’d thought Alice Pepper-Pottersfield thought I’d thought she’d farted. But it was Debbie Carswell had let Bob Browne hide his equipment from the repo men in the centre’s big equipment room! Sympathetic Alice knew, of course. She may have thought my question about the smell was teasing her because I’d told the repo men where Bob’s equipment was hidden!”
Beldon made his pained sinuses face. “And that, I regret to say, is exactly why I need your help, Lorne. You know more than you think you know, which is just about always the case. It’s murder now with Bob Browne, so it won’t be long before the case is taken away from me, if I don’t solve it fast.”
He smile-frowned at me with the professional curiosity I myself use with patients I may need to distance myself from. “But are you crazy now, Lorne? Is that what this is all about?” He tapped his left temple. “Because if this isn’t a game and you really are cracked, you won’t be a help to anyone, not to your family or your friends and neighbours or to me. Or to yourself, obviously.” He grew a bit angry: “We’ll just throw in the towel and admit you to the Royal Ottawa and you can spend the rest of your days playing handball with your own shit!”
“Ha! Perfect! But I told you those Lewis boys were out to get me! And get Bob Browne! And get at me through Foster!”
He softened, squinted at me: “Lorne, you really cracked? Or is it still the booze and drugs?”
“You tell me.” I blinked hard, like something long and jagged was twirling around in my own sinuses.
He placed a hand on my shoulder: “I was by your house just now and Owen sent me to your neighbour’s.”
Going by his face, I must have responded physically to the psychic body blow.
“You have cause to be mad, Lorne. That Jack Kilborn, I recognized the type right away. All along everybody’s thinking it’s Trixie Kilborn who’s the cause of all their troubles. And she is, of course. But it’s the Jacks of the world who enable the Trixies to do their thing. In some sick way it satisfies his needs.”
The cool accuracy of his analysis had the effect of smelling salts. That, and him, his voice and very presence.
“But you have to forget Jack Kilborn for now, Lorne. We’re dealing with a sick criminal mind. And I need your help if we’re going to catch him, or her.”
He led me by the stethoscope to the smashed rubble of the jungle gym. We picked our seats with care. He lit a small cigar and let a dark cloud drift from his lips.
I shifted. “You don’t suppose one could contract arsenic poisoning through the arse, do you?”
“Lorne, it’s not unusual what Veronica has done. It’s temporary, I’m sure. It’s eminently forgivable, if you love her. And I’m also sure it doesn’t mean what you fear it means.”
“What about what I’ve done?”
“Sorry, I don’t follow…?”
I looked away as I told him about hitting Shawn.
“You weren’t yourself.” He made a decision, a selfish one. “How do you feel now? Are you strong enough to help me?”
Grateful for the distraction, I did an internal systems check. I felt incredibly weary and weak, wanted badly just to lie down again and this time do a Rip Van Winkle. “I guess so. For a while there I felt great, energized, manic. Now I feel dry and shrunken. But I’m not crazy, if that’s what you mean. I don’t think I was crazy, except when I hit Shawn. You have news, you said?”
“More bad news, I’m afraid, though not as bad as Bob Browne’s murder. The Market Slasher committed suicide this afternoon, just after you ran and I arrived to have a little talk with him. He tore up his own artery with a screw he’d been hiding.”
I lowered my head and shook it, whistled air from my lungs. “Two deaths now, a homicide and a suicide.”
He puffed on his cigar. “I had it all figured out. Sure Bob Browne was our man, a psychopath who believed he was Peter Pan, planning to teach Troutstream’s promise-breaking grown-ups a lesson by kidnapping the children to his version of the magic mountain under the Laurier Street Bridge or somewhere.” It was his turn to lower and shake his head.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Detective. But are you saying there’s no connection between the defaulted payments to Bob Browne and the missing children and Shawn? And so no connection to the Lewis brothers? And Foster’s arrest? We’re right back to square one?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m confident that everything’s connected and I have a couple of hunches, but that’s all. But I’m, uh, kinda stumped just where to turn next.”
It cost him to say that. He sort of drooped.
“Fucking Lewises,” I said. “I bet it is still them. Or they paid some thugs.”
“At least by stealing the backhoe and wrecking the playground, they’ve justified my harassing them earlier. Idiots, the playground was slated to be cleared anyway. For all I know, it may yet be them. I don’t think so, but one of my hunches involves paying them another little visit.”
“Fucking Foster.”
“Fucking Slasher.”
“Fucking Jack Kilborn.”
Kevin smiled small. “I still don’t know where Bob Browne lives. Or lived, I guess. Foster doesn’t know either. And he still won’t divulge his first contact for Bob Browne. He says he took a solemn oath — not his regular oath, I guess — but I’m going to get him to change his mind on that, and pronto, or have him made an accessory to murder. If all else fails, there’s the word on the street. He got around, your man Bob Browne, especially with the street kids. I’m gonna find out one way or another and when I do I want you with me, Lorne, later today, I hope, or first thing tomorrow. You knew Bob, he trusted you, you could be a help, notice something I miss. There is an accomplice still at large and he could get to Bob’s place ahead of me and remove or destroy evidence. Or she could. Homicide is on Browne’s case now and they could beat us to his place too.”
I said leadingly, “This hoped-for someone could count on Bob Browne to visit the Slasher at the detention centre. And this someone would have had to visit the Slasher first to get him to kill Bob, and all in a short time, since Tuesday morning. Art Foster did talk about a slutty female claiming to be the Slasher’s relative, who was also a friend of Bob’s.”
“I got that from Foster too. It’s what I’d been hoping to get out of the Slasher: who set him up to murder Bob Browne? The list of petitioning visitors, all manner of whack-jobs, is too long to get through in time, that’s what Homicide will be doing. The so-called American cousin is just a fake number and address in the visitors’ register. The guards tell me you were present when it happened, Lorne, that you and Foster witnessed it all, that you were with Bob when he died. Foster remembers nothing helpful, but you must.”
“They got in an argument, I couldn’t hear clearly, something about boxing, somebody named…Little Pep, I think. It was done in an instant and Bob was dead.”
Kevin considered, squinted: “Could it have been Willie Pep? He was featherweight champion in the 1940s.”
I showed bemused incredulity.
“Yes, I’m a fight fan, a dying breed. But how co
uld that lead to murder? The Slasher’s psycho, okay, but an argument over Willie Pep’s place in boxing history? What the hell.”
“The Slasher did shout something unintelligible about Willie Pep, though it sounded like Little Pep to me. And then Bob Browne talked about this Willie Pep just before he died, his last words in fact. He wanted me to save Willie Pep. It was probably just some dying echo from the argument with the Slasher. All that blood, the brain depleted of oxygen, he wasn’t making sense.”
“And he said nothing else? Think. Remember.”
I’d let him down. He touched my right wrist, wrapped his lanky left hand around it and held. I didn’t mind. I closed my eyes and pictured Bob dying in my arms.
“Just some incoherent words about saving children too.”
He flung the butt of his cigar from his right hand. “Let’s go. My car’s back at your house. My day’s not done, but yours is.”
I hurried to keep up. “Bob’s dying gibberish means something to you?”
“Maybe. I may not have been so far off seeing Bob as a deluded Peter Pan out to save Troutstream’s children from their lying parents.”
“No offence, Kevin, but you’re confusing Peter Pan with the Pied Piper.”
“I don’t know what they mean yet, but Bob’s dying words sure have the feel of a big puzzle piece. In my experience, people don’t waste their dying breath.”
“In mine too.” I needed to win back his respect. “Here’s something Shawn’s not telling us: she was taken somewhere outside the city before being dropped off at the soccer fields.”
He smiled quizzically at me, controlling his eagerness.
I said, “She’s displaying the symptoms of a pretty severe exposure to ragweed, which you don’t get around here.”
“What about the soccer fields?”
“Not concentrated enough.”
He was impressed. “That could prove helpful, Lorne.”
“But what sort of sicko are we dealing with, Kevin? Two, three more kidnappings, Bob Browne sacrificed, even the Slasher’s suicide?”
“Listen,” he said across his shoulder, “I have a memory-regression technique I’ve sometimes used successfully. It could help you better remember the scene at the detention centre. Would you be up for it? It’s a little weird.”
“I’m up.”
Once again only Owen was home: laid out on the couch in the family room, surrounded by two damaged soda cans, with his old PlayStation console like dead flowers on his chest. Though prone, he was still wearing his cap backwards.
“Mom home yet?”
He didn’t even look, just made a noise such as a bothered cow might make.
“Shawn with Mom?”
“Dunno.”
“Owen, I asked you a question.” I recognized my temper flashing in the way that had made me hit Shawn, and it chilled me. I was watching myself again and didn’t like what I was seeing in my attitude with my son.
“No. And no to whatever else you ask.”
Okay, maybe he’d been sleeping and I’d woken him. He’d not noticed that Kevin was with me.
“Owen, we have a guest.”
He looked, wide awake now. What had he been looking at? The TV was off. The ceiling? Had I been missing signs of drug use? He didn’t smile, but flapped a hand at Kevin off the PlayStation console.
“Owen?” I said sharply.
Kevin said, “It’s all right, Lorne. Owen’s got a lot on his mind.”
Owen frowned at the ceiling: “Where the hell have you been?”
“Sit up and mind your manners or you’ll wish you had.” I heard my own father’s voice and was drowning again, it happened that suddenly.
He not only sat up but got up and walked out of the house. He’d had his runners on! He was leaving!
Forlorn Lorne Thorpe hurried out the side door and commenced shouting from the porch: “Owen, get your ass back here this instant!” He kept walking, turned left. “Oh, all right, run to Mommy, you big sucky baby. See if I care! All of you!” I flung my arms at the invisible legions abandoning me. “Go be Jack’s family now! The Kilborn fucking bunch! The perfect name for your reality show, ha! Be brother and sister and mother to Jake the retard! But no tattoo, do you hear me, Owen! No —”
Kevin had jerked me back into the house by the collar. I raised my fists à la John L. Sullivan and called the only thing I knew from boxing: “Let’s get ready to rum-ble!” I lunged.
When I regained consciousness I was sitting on the kitchen floor’s terracotta tiles. Then he was hauling me up from behind by the armpits.
“Sorry about that, Lorne. You were hys…overwrought. Are you okay?”
I touched my right cheekbone. It was tender and hot.
“Did you hit me?” I heard my prissily offended tone.
“You attacked me, Lorne. You’re not cut, but you’ll have a bruise there.” He was amused, the prick. “Don’t fret, it’s just a delayed response to trauma. I see it a lot. That and the cocktail of whatever you’ve been taking.”
I smiled painfully, but felt my spirits returning yet again, strange to say. Felt myself knocked back together some. It was Kevin.
“Thanks, I, uh, needed that. Would you believe I’ve actually lost two fights today? And I’d never had one fight in my entire life! Would you be willing to give me boxing lessons, Kevin?”
He made me fetch the special bottle I’d tried to entice him with on the phone. I didn’t have to be told to have a double. He had a single himself. He said he knew I had sedative and told me to fetch it, all of it. He threatened me with arrest for assaulting an officer. So I took the smoky vial from my pocket and emptied it down the toilet. I reached for the Macallan and he allowed me another double.
“You get a good night’s sleep, Lorne, which I expect you will now. As I said before, you’re no good to anyone in this condition.”
I was being moved along, as cops will the unruly, and I slurred, “Tomorrow we go…sleuthing, right?”
I do believe he laughed: “Tomorrow we go sleuthing.”
“And …”
“Tomorrow, Lorne, okay?”
“O…kay.”
I was lying where Owen had just lain. I remember thinking: Beldon’s using me. Thank the gods, someone still has use for Lorne Thorpe. No dreams. I would never dream again. Bob Browne was sleeping with saints and angels. Willie Pep had been featherweight champion of the world till Mike Tyson ate him. Veronica was dreaming about prescription sunglasses with somebody new. I saw that man hitting Shawn. I would kill him. If I could just get up. I’d get that old bottle of diazepam from when Veronica…babies…Shawn’s hard birth…working round the clock… My own daddy was telling me to get up and take my medicine like a man. I really wanted to. But Kevin had ordered me to get a good night’s sleep. Veronica was right about me. We had work to do…in the morning…sleuth…ing.
Chapter 18
I awoke to the sound of rustling paper in the kitchen. Through the doorway I saw two brown lunch bags standing like familiar flags on the kitchen island, Veronica’s back… Veronica’s back!
I’d fallen asleep on the family room couch. But I did that sometimes when home from work so late that going to bed would disturb her. I patted myself down: still in my lab coat…with stethoscope? Bad form, but even that too happened occasionally in normal life.
The phone was ringing, then it wasn’t. I looked at my watch: eight o’clock. I’d slept close to twelve hours! I kept my eyes on Veronica as I came through the café doors. She pressed the phone over her heart, feigning obliviousness, then she saw my face.
“What happened to you? Did you get in a fight?”
“Yes, with Kevin Beldon. And before that, with lover-boy Jack. Didn’t he tell you, I’m not much at fightin’ for my woman?”
Her face returned to blank. “It’s Detective Beldon.�
� She pinched the end of the phone so as to avoid any contact with me on the handover.
Kevin was on his way. I hung up.
Looking sideways at her, I touched my tender cheekbone, cringed for pity, got none. I was piecing together the previous day. As it came back to me, I abandoned the project.
She spoke over folding the bag tops: “Owen and Shawn left without their lunches again. Shawn’s in a state and so is Jake. I’m —”
“You slept here last night?”
“The kids did. I didn’t sleep. I’m dropping these off at their schools.”
“Then you’re coming back here? Veronica …”
She was out the side door. I should have said fightin’ for the woman I love. I shouldn’t have joked at all. I should learn when to shut up.
I hurried to the front door and watched her get in the Golf. She looked around at the untidy state of the front seat, crinkling her nose. That was cute. I hoped she’d not recognized the stains and smell as blood. Instead of driving off, she got out and went back to Jack’s.
I waited, but she didn’t return to the car.
I missed her so. And the children already.
I wished them well, without me.
I changed out of my filthy hospital scrubs into suburban wear and waited for Kevin at the front door. The Golf was still in the driveway. The Crown Vic pulled up at the curb and didn’t shut off. I went and got in.
Kevin slipped the yellow tin of Panters from his shirt pocket and lit up off the old car’s lighter. Opening his window a crack, he blew out the side of his mouth. We shot from the curb. At Izaak Walton Road we turned north towards St. Joseph’s, then onto the Queensway West. It was morning rush hour. Kevin was breathing hard.
I said, “How’d you find out where Bob Browne lived?”
Peering around for an opening to jump into the bus lane, he said, “Bob’s something of a hero among the street kids. A few more stops late last night, and by early this morning under the Laurier Street Bridge I had his address, I’m pretty sure. I should have gone there right away, but I was dead tired and afraid I could mess something up, and I said I’d meet you, and I still need your help. Probably a mistake already, waiting, because I’d forgotten the accomplice. That’s what deep fatigue does to the brain.”