by R. E. Donald
The shipper's smile faded briefly. "You're the driver. I'm just a landlubber. You'd be in a better position to guess."
"Yes, but you must've seen him a few hours before it happened. I didn't."
"You got a point, there ... Hunter, wasn't it? One of those last name first names, huh? Pretty good. You're really in for a guy your age." Another smirk. "I just figured, what with the grapevine you guys have, that somebody would've heard something. No, huh?" He turned back to the paperwork and Hunter walked a few steps away to where he could watch both Mah and the loading without turning his head.
"Is Pete one of the regulars?" Hunter asked.
"He's been in a time or two." Mah didn't look up from his paperwork.
"The stuff goes in bond?" He ventured after another minute of silence.
"Who told you that?" Mah stopped writing something and looked up.
Hunter shrugged innocently.
"No, it doesn't go in bond. The paperwork's already been faxed to our broker at the border by the time you clear the yard here. We'll make sure you've got everything in here," Mah slapped a big manila envelope lying on the counter, "before you put your little ass back in your big Peterbilt, there."
"Freightliner," said Hunter, grinning, with effort.
"Whatever," said Mah.
"Got my paperwork ready?" The long faced man named Pete walked up to the shipper with his hand out. He passed Hunter as if he weren't even there.
"Hold your horny little horses, Petie," said Mah, as he cocked his head to listen to a woman's voice over the paging system.
Hunter exchanged introductions with the other driver. Pete Whitehead looked to be in his fifties, a humorless, nervous man with dark hair combed straight back from a receding hairline. As they spoke, he looked repeatedly from his watch to Mah, who had been called to the phone behind the counter.
"Since day one," Pete said in response to Hunter's question of how long he'd been with Ranverdan. "I drove the first truck Randy bought, aside from his own." The man's eyes made contact with Hunter's for a split second, then were snatched away as if they'd been scalded.
"The funeral's tomorrow."
"Yeah. I'm stopping over for it, but only because I can still make Winnipeg for Friday delivery," the man said, his eyes darting from Mah to his watch to the floor of the warehouse. "Randy wouldn't want the trucks to stop running, not for his own funeral, not for anything else either."
"You think his daughter can keep them running?"
The man shrugged. "It's the drivers who'll make it work."
"You hauled the Waicom stuff much before?" Hunter could see that Mah was just about to hang up the phone.
"Sure." Pete's eyes flicked to Hunter's chest, then back to Mah. He cleared his throat, and Hunter thought he was about to say more, but the shipper was approaching, a fat manila envelope in his outstretched hand.
"Here you go, Petie," Mah said. "Have a good trip. Don't go driving our freight off any cliffs now, got that?"
Pete Whitehead scowled at the floor for a moment, then walked stiffly away. Mah returned to his desk and again picked up the phone.
For the next fifteen minutes, Hunter supervised the uneventful loading of his own trailer. The warehouseman wore a heavy duty set of ear protectors, and Hunter had to yell over the roar of the forklift to even get his attention. After his trailer doors were closed and padlocked, he went back to the counter to pick up the paperwork. Mah was watching him, the familiar smirk taking shape on his face as Hunter approached.
"Time to saddle up, cowboy," he said. "Got enough little white pills to see you through the mountains?"
Drugs wasn't a subject Hunter felt comfortable smiling about. This time he didn't even try. He ignored the comment. "Anything I should know?" he asked. "Anything to watch out for at customs?"
"Like what? Customs make you nervous, cowboy?" Mah snorted. "Surely a clean cut looking dude like yourself won't have any trouble with the geeks at customs."
Hunter smiled crookedly. For whatever reason, he seemed to have lost any shred of rapport he'd managed to establish with Mah. He wondered if it was something he'd said, or simply because he hadn't been successful in hiding his dislike for the man. Or was it something else? "Should I be nervous?"
"You tell me, cowboy," said Mah, still with that irritating smirk. "You tell me."
CHAPTER 8
– – – – EIGHT
“I’m going to bed now, Sorry. Don't forget to take the dog out before you fall asleep, okay?"
Dan Sorenson lay on his side on the couch watching a Kung Fu rerun on T.V. He turned his head and pushed his lips out for his wife to kiss as she leaned over the back of the couch. Simone's short bobbed hair, shiny brown and springy, tickled his ear. Her hair was soft and sophisticated, just like her voice. She had a voice like a caress, it often made him shiver inside, and she spoke with the charming hint of an accent that betrayed her French Canadian heritage. He reached up to pull her to him, but she had already slipped away.
"Don't forget to walk the dog now, Sorry," she said as she left the room.
"Okay, okay, Mo. I said okay, already." Sorry rubbed his nostrils with his index finger, then smoothed his moustache. It had only been a few days since he'd lost the bouncer gig at the King George, and she was already trying to make it sound like he wasn't shouldering his share of household responsibility. Okay, so maybe his jobs were always part time and seemed to have undependable hours and no steady pay check. Christ! She knew when she met him that he wasn't a nine-to-five kind of guy. In fact, being a wild one was what had attracted her to him in the first place, wasn't it? If she'd wanted financial security, she could've married a fuckin' doctor, or a lawyer for Chris'sake.
The doberman shared the couch with him, curled up in a black and tan circle beside his ankles. He poked the dog with his bare foot. It opened one pleading eye, then curled itself up a little tighter. "Fuck it," said Sorry, and turned his attention back to the T.V. He was in the mood to root for the bad guys. If only the bad guys didn't have to fight in slow motion, that decrepit suck, Carradine, wouldn't stand a fuckin' chance. He'd love to see that saggy faced wimp screaming in pain and pleading for his life for a change. Take that, Grasshopper!
When the show was over, Sorry kicked the Doberman awake and pushed it off the couch. It followed him out to the kitchen. He opened the back door and the dog scooted outside. "Okay, Doobie, go take a dump," Sorry said, leaving the door wide open so he could keep an eye on it while he grabbed a snack. He opened the fridge and peered inside. Damn! He'd forgotten that the inside light was out. He'd promised Mo that he'd pick a new bulb up at the Home Depot. Okay, okay. Tomorrow.
The three little brown paper bags in the fridge were the lunches Mo had made for her and Sasha and little Bruno. Off limits. He hauled out a packaged loaf of bread and tossed it on the counter beside a half empty jar of no name cheese spread. He picked up the milk jug, but there wasn't much left. If he just took a couple of swigs, maybe Mo wouldn't notice. As long as there was enough left for the kids' cereal in the morning, he reasoned, it would be okay.
The fridge door swung shut, and suddenly he found himself face to face with the Mother's Day cards he had helped Sasha and Bruno make for Mo a couple of weeks ago while she was at work. Sasha's was made of purple construction paper and had flowers and a sun with a smiley face on it. Bruno's was brown. As always, Bruno had insisted on drawing a Harley. Beneath the cards was still a picture from Christmas, when Sorry had rented a Santa suit, and there he was behind a fake white beard that wouldn't stick to his moustache so the mouth was just a black hole, and sitting on each knee was a blond haired little mugwump with a big, silly grin that almost broke his heart. He aborted his drink of milk in mid swig and ran the tap for a cold glass of water instead.
"Fuckin' bread and water," he muttered to the dog as it trotted back into the kitchen, its nails clicking softly on the linoleum. "You eat better than I do, Doobie."
He'd promised the kids a new wading pool. He'd
promised Simone a new summer dress for work. He missed the days of tailor-made cigarettes and a fridge full of decent food. Not only that, his Harley needed work again, which meant that he needed money for parts. As he settled himself back on the couch, glass of water in one hand, four floppy pieces of bread spread with no name cheese in the other, he resolved for the thousandth time that tomorrow would be different.
"Tomorrow," he told Doobie, "I'm going to find myself a fuckin' job."
Hunter called Bill Earl on Wednesday at about noon. He'd stopped at a roadside restaurant in Blue River, just west of the Rocky Mountains. He was at a pay phone, near the doors to the restrooms. The hallway smelled of Pine Sol.
"Bill! It's Hunter," he said when the corporal came on the line. "What've you got?"
"In a word, it's possible. Hang on a sec." Hunter could hear Bill flipping pages. "According to the doctor who performed the autopsy, there were three clear points of impact on the skull, two of which were severe enough by themselves to have likely caused immediate unconsciousness and concussion. One of the head injuries would be quite consistent with a severe blow to the back of the head administered prior to the accident. He definitely wasn't dead at the time of the accident, but he could have been unconscious. The amount of blood in his lung and body cavities proves that his heart was still beating at the time of the crash. He had enough critical injuries to kill three men, she said. The combined head injuries were potentially fatal, as were the internal injuries caused by his splintered ribs, including a punctured lung. The pattern of damage to the ribcage is consistent with his chest hitting the steering wheel. His spine was broken in two places, as we saw in the autopsy report, which can be attributed to the body tumbling around in the falling cab." Bill's breath whooshed into the phone. "The poor guy didn't stand a chance of surviving that crash."
"Where do we go from here?" Hunter asked, pressing closer to the phone as two obese women with tight perms emerged from the ladies' room. A cloud of powdery perfume surrounded them and he tried not to inhale. "Where are we going to start? My guess ... ."
"Whoa! Hold on there!" Bill interrupted. "In the immortal words of Tonto, what do you mean 'we', White Man? The doctor said, and I quote, It is possible – and I underlined the word possible – that one of the blows was administered prior to the accident, but there is no way of confirming that. It is also quite possible, and most probable – this is still a quote – that all the injuries were sustained during the crash itself." He paused, and Hunter was silent. "Nothing's changed, Hunter. Still doesn't warrant a murder investigation. We just can't afford the time to chase down every wild goose."
"But don't you think it's possible that someone – someone who knew how to drive a truck – could have propped Randy, unconscious from a blow to the head, in the driver's seat, wedged his foot under the clutch pedal with his heel on the accelerator, and managed to steer the rig off the highway, and then jumped clear of the cab before it went over the edge?"
"You're the trucker," said Bill. "You tell me."
Hunter sighed. "Obviously, I do think it's possible." His fingers played absently with the twisted phone cord. "Did Constable Pullen talk to Customs and Immigration? What about the customs seal? Did the lab take a look at it?"
"I haven't heard back from Garth yet, but the lab guy confirms that the seal was broken by something, not cut. The way he described it was a semi-sharp metal object, something like the back of a knife or a screwdriver or something, put extreme pressure on the band in one place until it snapped. There was uneven stretching of the seal at the point of pressure, possibly indicating prying or levering. Same story, I'm afraid. They said it could've been intentionally broken with an instrument, or it could've been the pressure from the latch as the doors burst open. So we've nothing to rule out foul play, but nothing pointing to it either. By the way," his voice got tentative, "exactly what is your stake in this anyway?"
"What about the padlock?"
"What padlock?"
"Was the trailer door still padlocked?"
"Hell if I know. You haven't answered my question. How'd you get involved in this? You never struck me as the caped crusader type."
There was a short silence. Hunter pursed his lips and exhaled slowly. "I'm doing a favor for a friend." He paused. How did he get involved? El had asked him to help out Suzanne, help to set her mind at rest. "It's the guy's daughter, Bill. She said she needed to know how the accident happened, she needed to know it wasn't her father's fault."
"And you think she'll feel better if you tell her that you think her father was murdered? Boy! Are you opening a can of worms!"
But Hunter knew it was something else now, something that went beyond helping out Suzanne. Randy Danyluk had been a friend, a savvy old trucker who liked to drive and who liked to fish. He was somebody's father, doing the best he could. A father who would never have another chance to hunker down and really talk to his daughter. A daughter who reminded Hunter of his own. "Something else, Bill. The old gut feeling. Now I need to know, too."
Before Bill had a chance to comment, Hunter continued. "Sounds to me like a closer look at the trailer could be in order. Can you pass that on to Garth? Or the traffic analyst?"
"Roger. I hear he's got the master mechanics working on it in Merritt today. You going to be back this way again soon?"
"I should be passing through again in a couple of days on my way back from Edmonton, and I'll be in touch. Think you might find the time to go fishing sometime when I'm in town?"
"Could do. As long as you wouldn't mind if my youngest came along. He'd never let me hear the end of it if I ever went without him."
"I'll look forward to it. And thanks, Bill."
"No problem, guy. Glad to hear your gut's still workin'. Guess you can take the man out of the Mounties, but you can't ever get the Mountie out of the man."
Hunter heard Bill chuckling before the line clicked dead.
There wasn't a big crowd, but it wasn't a bad turnout, El thought, for a Wednesday afternoon. She didn't mind funerals, not that she made a hobby of attending them, but she could admit to drawing a certain amount of comfort from saying an official goodbye. It showed respect, she thought, not only to the dead person, but to the relatives of the dead person. Obviously, Hunter didn't agree. He'd said from day one that he had no intention of being here. She looked around the small chapel, nodded to two or three drivers that she knew. Recorded organ music played softly in the background, not loud enough to mask the coughs and whispers, the shuffling of feet and the occasional creaking of the wooden pews. It was a tasteful little chapel for a funeral home.
Stan Murphy slid in beside her, surrounded by a cloud of Old Spice. He looked stiff necked and uncomfortable. It was no wonder, she thought, since the collar of his white shirt sliced into his heavy red neck, and the fabric of his navy sports jacket strained between his shoulder blades like an overstretched tarp. He looked as if he'd been shrink wrapped. Must've been a few years since he'd last taken his Sunday best out of mothballs.
"Nice to see you all dolled up for a change, Elspeth darlin'," he whispered.
El made a face at him and whispered back. "You're a pretty sight yourself, Murph." She looked down at her own black slacks, grey blouse and black blazer and realized that she must look shrinkwrapped, too. Her blouse gaped between buttons and her thighs stretched the polyester of her slacks to its limit. Side by side they must look like an economy size version of the Bobsey twins. "For a Newfie," she added, jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow. She knew that Murph's big heart must ache as much as hers did, saying goodbye to his best friend, and figured that a little distraction wasn't uncalled for.
"Ow!" he cried, then clapped his hand over his mouth. El followed his gaze.
Suzanne and Gary, along with Randy's two little granddaughters, were being ushered into the chapel from a side door by a mournful looking older gentleman with silver hair and a black suit that fit his thin frame perfectly. His serene demeanour marked him as the funeral d
irector, or whatever. The sad little family filed into the front pew. Even the little girls were silent with downcast eyes. El wondered how long that would last. The organ music stopped.
The serene gentleman stood behind a polished wooden podium, cleared his throat, and began to speak in appropriately reverent tones into the hushed chapel. "We are here today, as the friends and family of ... ."
There was a crescendoing clack clack clack of high heels on the hardwood outside and a rush of white noise as the chapel door swung open. The man at the podium carried on, obviously above this sort of interruption, but all heads in the chapel turned to follow the progress of a hard-faced blonde woman, probably in her late forties, wearing a tight-fitting, shiny black dress and four inch heels. She teetered up the carpeted aisle and grabbed hold of Murph's arm. "Shove over, Murphy," she whispered in a harsh smoke-and-whiskey voice. "Let me in." The woman's perfume overpowered Murphy's cologne. It was something cloying. A knock off Poison, maybe.
Murph shoved over, and El shoved over, and the man beside her shoved over, until they were crammed like cabbage rolls into the pew. El gave up trying to hold herself in, her thigh jostling Murphy's for space on the bench. She glared at the woman around Murphy's barrel chest, but the woman seemed oblivious, staring straight ahead behind a pair of oversized dark glasses. El reined her attention back to the service.
"... not as an ending, but as the opening of a new chapter ... "
"Murph!" That smoky loud whisper again. "Where is he, Murph? I want to see him." Murphy shrugged, put his finger to his lips. "Where's the casket, Murph? I want to see him."
Murphy whispered something in the woman's ear, and she covered her face with reddened hands and began to sob, silently at first, then louder, disturbingly so. Murphy looked at El with a pained expression, then stood up. El caught sight of Suzanne's ashen face, her eyes wide with shock and pain. Gary quickly rearranged the little girls and sat down next to his wife, putting his arm around her shoulders as she leaned her head against his chest. Murph had taken the woman by the elbow and led her to a seat at the back of the chapel, where El could still hear her whining and snuffling.