“Just as I thought,” he said in disgust. “It’s in Forensics’ parking lot out on Quadra. I’m certain Monday night’s rain did the evidence a lot of good.”
“Well, I’d like to take a look at it anyhow,” I said.
“I thought you would,” he said. “The kid on duty is a parolee. Name’s Duncan. He’s a disagreeable little twit, but he doesn’t have any real backbone that I’ve ever seen.” Sandy snorted. “One of the chief’s rehabilitation projects. I told Forensics you’re coming—you’re supposed to be my mechanic. I’ve sent you over to kick the Bug’s tires in case I decide to buy it. Duncan will try to make things difficult for you, but I’m confident you can handle it. If all else fails, you can invoke my name.”
“He sounds like a swell guy,” I said. “Thanks a lot, Sandy.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll call you with the blood alcohol count on Mary Shepard. Oh, and Caitlin?”
“Yes?”
“Be gentle with young Duncan. There’s a good girl.”
“I promise,” I said sweetly, and hung up.
Hell’s bells, couldn’t anything be easy? Young Duncan sounded about as appealing as a rabid rat. Be gentle with him indeed. And I was supposed to impersonate Sandy’s mechanic? Great. What I know about cars could be written on the head of an Allen wrench. You put gas and oil in them and they go. When they don’t, you curse, kick them, and reach for your checkbook. Well, I guessed I could kick tires as well as anyone. Although it wasn’t the Bug’s tires I was interested in looking at.
In my bedroom, I hauled out a pair of voluminous gray coveralls acquired from an earlier escapade, and put them on over my jeans and turtleneck. Despite the sunshine, the day was chilly. I hunted around in the spare room and found my Polaroid camera, checked to see that it was loaded, grabbed my clipboard, and started for the front door. But halfway there, I stopped. Something was wrong. I stood in the middle of the living room for a full minute, wondering what it was before it hit me. Repo. I missed that fat furry feline so badly it hurt. There was no one to greet me when I came home, and no one to urge me to hurry back when I left. The house felt awful—lonely and empty. I realized belatedly how much a part of my life Repo had become. Dammit, I loved the portly furniture shredder. Tonight, I swore. I’ll come for you tonight, guy.
I parked outside the chain-link fence surrounding the Forensics lot on Quadra Street, hung the Polaroid around my neck, and strode confidently up to a little hut by the gate. With a Vancouver Canucks cap on my head and my mirror sunglasses on, I was sure that I had achieved androgyny. A skinny twenty-year-old with greasy brown hair, a long, pointed nose and a terrible case of acne came out of the hut. Young Duncan, I presumed. I decided to establish who was boss here right off the bat.
“Sergeant Alexander sent me,” I said authoritatively. “You Duncan?”
“Yeah,” the kid said, looking me up and down appraisingly. He put his hands in the pockets of his navy coveralls and stared at me, a nasty little smile twitching his lips. I groaned. Obviously my disguise had been for naught. I would probably have gotten better results with a tight sweater and a zippered leather skirt.
“I need to see that VW Bug over there,” I told him. “The red one.”
“Sorry,” he said, leaning against the fence. He gestured limply to the cars behind him. “All this here is evidence. I can’t let civilians in here.”
“Oh really?” I asked. “And Sergeant Alexander was so sure you would. As a favor to him.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I reached into the right-hand chest pocked of my coveralls and pulled out a folded twenty-dollar bill. I showed it to him. “The sergeant would be much obliged.”
The kid grinned and heaved himself off the fence. He held out one grubby hand for the twenty.
“Not quite so fast,” I told him. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything but I can see how busy you are. In all the excitement going on around here, I sure wouldn’t want you to lose track of your part of the bargain. So if it’s all the same with you, I’ll just hold onto the money until I’m done.”
He licked his lips. “What the fuck,” he said finally, fishing a key ring out of his pocket. “Have it your way.” Unlocking the gate, he ushered me inside.
The Bug was parked at the end of the second row of cars, and it was a sorry sight indeed. It was obvious the driver had rolled the car—there didn’t seem to be one square foot of metal that was undented. The front windshield was missing, as was one of the side windows. I recalled Sandy’s remark about rain and shook my head. Well, with any luck, the evidence I wanted would still be there.
I walked around the car, looking critically. Uh huh. Just as I had hoped. On the left rear fender, driver’s side, was a long, light-colored scrape. If you looked closely, you could see that it was paint. Lemon yellow paint, like the pale yellow Buick that had pursued Mary into the parking lot of the Donut Stop Sunday night. I unstrapped the Polaroid and backed up, taking an establishing shot of the car. It turned out pretty well, and I tucked it away in my pocket. Then I squatted down by the fender.
“Hey, you didn’t say nuthin about no pictures,” Duncan called from behind me.
Ignoring him, I took a close-up and waited for it to develop. Not bad. I decided to take another. “Hey, lady, I’m talking to you!”
I sighed, got to my feet, and turned around. “What’s it to you if I take pictures or just look?”
“Pictures is different,” he said, displaying a set of teeth that would have made a dental hygienist pale. “Pictures is, like, a whole nuther thing.”
A whole nuther thing? “Oh, I get it. You mean there’ll be an extra charge for pictures.”
“That’s what I said. And listen, I know you’re not no mechanic. Mechanics don’t take pictures,” he concluded in a triumph of logic.
I had a momentary urge to plant one of my booted feet on this kid’s backside and return him to his post outside the gate. Instead, I gritted my teeth and told myself to be tactful. Sandy expected it of me. “How much?”
“Well . . . let’s say another twenty.”
I almost laughed out loud. This kid had zero future as an extortionist. Oh his instincts were right, but he had absolutely no idea of what the market would bear. Maybe I should introduce him to Francis, I thought. Give young Duncan a real role model. “Why not?” I said in a tone of capitulation. “I’ll just charge the extra twenty to Sergeant Alexander.” Which, of course, I had no intention of doing.
That seemed to satisfy him. As I squatted down to take another picture, he squatted down beside me. “So, like, why do you need pictures?”
I thought it best to stick to my story. “Beats me. I’m just doing a favor for the Sarge.”
“Oh,” he said. He ran a grubby finger over the streak of yellow paint. “Looks like it was sideswiped,” he said.
“Looks that way,” I agreed.
“Are you a mechanic?” he asked, curiosity evidently getting the better of him.
I thought this over. “Sure,” I said. “I’ve fixed lots of things. I have quite a few satisfied customers, too.”
“No shit,” he said, impressed. “I didn’t know they, you know, allowed lady mechanics.”
Ah the ubiquitous “they.” “Times are changing,” I told him. “They’re allowing ladies to do lots of things. We’re mechanics, pilots, firefighters, cops—you know they even allowed a lady astronaut in space?”
He frowned, clearly trying to decide if this was fact or science fiction. “Right,” he finally agreed, nodding sagely. “I think I heard about that. Say, I gotta go back to the gate. See me when you leave, okay?”
“Sure,” I told him. When he was safely out of sight, I took a plastic bag and my Swiss Army knife out of my coveralls pocket. It took only a second or two to transfer some of the larger pieces of yellow paint from the Bug’s fender to the plastic bag. I carefully sealed the bag, and returned it to my pocket. There. That was all I could do here. As for the yellow car th
at had done the sideswiping, I had the feeling I’d be seeing it very soon.
Poor young Duncan. What kind of a future did he have? Sandy had said he was a parolee. I shook my head. Prison evidently hadn’t taught him any lessons—he was running his entry-fee scam here on the grounds of the police forensics lot. He was either very nervy or very stupid. Somehow, I suspected the latter. I felt sorry for him, and was glad I hadn’t treated him too badly. As I walked back to the gate, I dug the extra twenty out of my pocket with scarcely a twinge of regret.
“Here you go,” I told him, proffering the money.
“Thanks,” he said, spiriting it away into some interior pocket.
“Take care, now,” I said, motivated by a desire to say something kind.
He looked at me a little suspiciously, too dull to resent my interest in him, in the poor young Duncan dozens of others had probably tried to help. “Hey, I always take care of Number One,” he said with a fatuous grin. “Always.”
Chapter 8
Five o’clock found me prowling the aisles of the Oak Bay Safeway store. I had a hunger that couldn’t be appeased by any number of the Golden Arches’ fries, and the thought of eating meat was an issue I still hadn’t resolved. So I decided to play it safe and make a visit to the frozen foods section of the supermarket. When I did so, I went into shock. Have you seen the variety of packaged foods for non-cooks? After a tour of the freezers, my brain was reeling. How long had this world of culinary delights been hidden from me? I thought frozen dinners meant the old three-compartment foil-wrapped numbers on which I’d overdosed during my first job. If I never see another Swanson’s Chicken Dinner, it’ll be too soon. But nowadays there are dinners for the microwave, mirabile dictu, and the entrees are simply unbelievable. There are things like Oriental chicken and vegetables, complete turkey dinners, various seafood dishes, pasta prepared with about a zillion sauces, and more vegetables than I’ve even heard of. There was even microwaveable soup, for heaven’s sake. How would a person choose? After much deliberation, I selected a gaily packaged Shrimp Creole Dinner, hefting it doubtfully. It seemed rather small, and decidedly light, so I took one more. After all, I told myself on the way to the check-out counter, this was supper. And I needed to fortify myself for my evening meeting with CLAW.
I unpacked the Shrimp Creole Dinner, and left it on the counter while I went in search of my microwave. Payment-in-kind from a former client, this electronic gizmo had resided in my spare room for two years. I never could figure out what to use it for. Well, its time had come. I wrestled it out of its cardboard and styrofoam nest, and carried it into the kitchen, looking for a place it could call home. Over by my Krups coffeemaker seemed a likely location, so I put it down, plugged it in, then stood back and looked at the sinister bulk of the oven. To tell the truth, one of the reasons I had never unpacked my microwave was that the idea of it made me nervous. What were microwaves, anyhow, and how could they cook food so fast? Hibachis I could understand. Stoves made sense. Even toaster ovens were comprehensible to me. But microwaves? Didn’t the Voice of America travel around the world on microwaves?
Feeling like a technological dolt, I unwrapped my shrimp dinner and read the directions. I placed the dinner in the maw of the oven, closed the door, set the timer, and swallowed nervously. Things were in the hands of the gods now. Waiting for a sonic boom, or a flash of light, I pressed the COOK panel. Nothing more disturbing than a gentle hum emanated. Gathering my courage, I peered in through the little window on the door. The glass plate was rotating, docilely microwaving the shrimp. I chuckled, feeling inordinately proud of myself. Ain’t technology grand?
In four minutes, a buzzer sounded, and I removed the bubbling delicacy, depositing it on the table. In the intervening three minutes, I had fished a mismatched knife and fork out of the drawer, tossed a paper napkin onto the table, and found a reasonably clean placemat onto which to put this feast. Never let it be said that I’m not a classy diner.
As I had suspected, the shrimp was delicious. I was hooked—I knew it. On my microwave, and on these tasty little dishes. I thought guiltily of my bill—$7.89 for two Shrimp Creole Dinners. Who did I think I was? The Prime Minister? Oh well, I rationalized, maybe I could recycle the microwave plates and use them for Repo’s food. Fat chance. Once Repo got a whiff of this, the only way he would accept the plastic plates was if they included the original dinner. Thinking fondly of the furry gray footwarmer, I decided to save the other shrimp dinner for him. Just this once I told myself. A welcome home present. Something to perk up his appetite.
I put my utensils in the sink, then headed for the bedroom. Disguising myself for the CLAW meeting was going to take all my ingenuity.
I walked across the church parking lot, noting with surprise that there seemed to be at least two dozen cars parked there. CLAW had certainly gotten the word out. And that was good, because I had no great confidence in my ability to fool Judith and Liz for very long. I’m too tall, and my hair is the wrong color. Even though I was still wearing the sunglasses and the Canucks cap I had worn this afternoon, and had dressed in a nondescript pair of jeans, a navy turtleneck and my windbreaker, I had little confidence that I could go undetected for long.
I followed the signs and found myself in the church basement—a large, drafty, dimly lighted room with doorways leading to smaller rooms on my left and right. The smell of coffee and the murmur of voices off to my right persuaded me that I was in the proper place. Giving the bill of my cap a firm tug, I moseyed on into the meeting.
Judith and Liz were busy sorting through a pile of papers at the front of the room and I took a seat in the back, directly behind a pillar. After all, I didn’t want to see, I wanted to hear.
“Hi, there,” a cheery voice called from beside me. I turned cautiously.
“I’m Green Heron,” a freckled little sandy-haired woman said, taking a seat beside me.
“I’m, um, er, Cat,” I told her in a burst of inspiration.
“I thought you were a new one.” When I said nothing, she frowned. “You are, aren’t you? I didn’t see you on the action committee last time.”
“Er, yes,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t insist I leave just yet. “I hoped it wasn’t too late to join up.”
She grimaced a little. “You must have seen the notice I put up in the Oak Bay Natural Foods Emporium. I shouldn’t have done that. This meeting isn’t really for new members.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking furiously. “Too bad. And I was really looking forward to the action.” I bent toward her conspiratorially. “I’m a Ninth Life dropout. They’re too tame for me. I want to get into the trenches,” I improvised. “Rough stuff doesn’t bother me. Especially when it’s for a good cause.”
She looked at me speculatively. “Yes, you just might do. You say you were a Ninth Lifer?”
“Well, not an active one,” I equivocated. “You could check me out with the president—Alison Bell.”
“I guess you’re all right,” she said. “And if you want action, you’ve come to the right place. Judith and Liz have terrific plans for this Saturday.”
“Yeah—the Day of Shame,” I said. “That’s what attracted me to CLAW.”
“You might be just what Derek needs,” she told me. “He’s organizing the Liberation Squad. I’ll introduce you.”
Liberation Squad? Give me strength. “Derek?”
“Yeah, the guy in the leather jacket. Up front.”
I followed her finger. Derek, a thin, dark-haired guy in a camouflage jacket and khaki pants with about a million pockets, was deep in consultation with a small group of men and women on one side of the room. “Thanks,” I told Green Heron. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to listen for a while, then check in with Derek.” But one or two of the things she mentioned had started me thinking. I decided to ask a few questions.
“How many meetings have I missed?” A roundabout way of finding out how old CLAW was.
“Oh, four, maybe five. We’re pretty new on
the scene. Mostly Greenpeace dropouts, brought together by Liz. We’ve been talking about forming a lab animal liberation group for a long time, and CLAW just sort of fell into place. Liz found the cause for us—the rabbits at Living World—we supplied the personpower, and here we are, ready to go. We’ll get some good press out of this.”
Great, I thought. Riding into media stardom on the coattails of Ninth Life. The organization that did all the donkey work—the patient planning, the documenting, the legal groundwork, the scientific opinions. And good old Liz had been plotting CLAW shenanigans for a month, had she? That was just about the time when Mary went undercover at Living World. Very interesting. I gave up believing in coincidences when I gave up believing in the Tooth Fairy, and this fortuitous conjunction of events stank. I filed it for later consideration and turned my attention back to Green Heron.
“Have you let the media know?” I asked.
She burst out laughing. “God, no. They’ll be told at the last minute—Friday night.”
“Friday? I thought the Day of Shame was Saturday?”
“It is,” she said, looking sly, “but we’re not waiting for Saturday. Liz says Living World will probably have the entire Saanich police force around the place on Saturday. No, we’re striking on Friday night.”
I thought of the bargain Liz had made with Alison, and shook my head in disgust. What this babe wanted more than anything was to make a media splash, it seemed. To stage a coup. An event. Liberators, my eye.
“Hello, Caitlin,” a voice said sweetly behind me.
I turned, knowing perfectly well who would be there. Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Judith and Liz. “Evening, ladies,” I said.
Green Heron looked at them apprehensively, blinked, then suddenly realized that she had just been terribly indiscreet. “But isn’t she . . . I mean she said she was . . .”
“It’s all right,” Liz said with uncharacteristic kindness. “Why don’t you go finalize assignments for the billboard with Suzi and her group. We’ll talk to Caitlin.”
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