Memory Lane

by Laurence Gough

  “If Jack’s willing,” said Bobby sweetly.

  “Jack,” said Bradley, “what are you and Claire up to?”

  “We’re waiting on the autopsy and the lab reports. I’ll give Kirkpatrick a call first thing in the morning, see if I can light a fire under him.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Claire’s made a list of stores in the area that might sell duct-tape. We’ll do a canvass first thing in the morning. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and someone will recognize our suspect.”

  “The security guard.”

  Willows nodded, “Yeah, the security guard. If that’s what he was. Aubert wasn’t too clear on that. He’d made an assumption, that’s all. The guy could be a mall cop, or work for one of the armoured-car companies. Or maybe he’s a pilot or a mailman…”

  “Or just a guy who likes to dress up,” said Bradley. He rubbed his chin. “I’ve got Dan and Farley working the Richard Beinhart killing, getting nowhere. Farley wants to talk to the house’s owner, Chris Bowers. But his secretary says Bowers decided to spend an extra week in Costa Rica. I’m going to tell them to bag it, assign them to your case.”

  Willows said, “I don’t know what good that would do, Inspector. We’re short on leads, not manpower.”

  Bradley waved away Willows’ protestations. “I’ll talk to you later, Jack. Keep me up to the minute on this one, understand? Anything breaks, I want to know about it right away.” Bradley plucked a cigar from his pocket. He pointed at Bobby Dundas. “You too, Bobby.”

  Bobby nodded, but Bradley was already striding purposefully towards his pebbled-glass box of an office. When he’d shut the door, Eddy Orwell said, “The man is agitated.”

  “We’re all agitated,” said Bobby. He winked at Parker, turned away before she could respond.

  Willows sat at his desk, picked up the phone and speed-dialled his home number. Annie answered on the third ring. She’d already cooked and eaten her supper, and rinsed the dishes and put them away in the dishwasher. Yes, she’d done her homework, and had her evening all planned, thank you. She was going to watch ‘The Simpsons’ on television, and then go to bed and read for half an hour or so. Sean? He was out. She had no idea where he was. But there was no need to worry. She didn’t mind being alone.

  Willows said, “I’ve got some paperwork to catch up on, Annie, but it shouldn’t take more than half an hour or so.”

  “If my light’s still on, you can come up and tuck me in.”

  “Okay, honey.”

  “Or if my light’s out, you could still check on me, if you want.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Promise?”

  “It’s a promise,” said Willows. He told his daughter he loved her, and hung up. Orwell was watching him, a peculiar expression on his face.

  “What’s on your mind, Eddy?”

  Orwell shrugged, and looked away.

  Willows was at his desk, trying to make sense of his written notes, when his phone rang. He picked up, identified himself.

  “Detective Willows, this is Constable Pat Timmins. Can I meet you and your partner somewhere quiet?” Timmins’ voice was barely audible. Willows strained to hear him. He said, “It’s about Don Mooney.”

  Willows reached for his jacket.

  Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the mini-parking lot of a Japan-town restaurant. It was one of those restaurants that seemed to be springing up all over the city — lacking in potential or ambition, with a too-cute, meaningless name, a little neon scrawled across the window. Inside, everything would be shiny and clean, lacking in soul. The lighting would be too bright, the food palatable but uninspiring.

  Pat Timmins was out of uniform, but Willows knew a cop when he saw one. Timmins was sitting in a booth at the rear of the restaurant. Willows and Parker slid into the booth. A waitress drifted over. Willows ordered coffee; Parker a glass of milk. Timmins wanted more hot water for his tea.

  Parker guessed Timmins’ age at about twenty-seven. His broad forehead was unlined. His close-cropped hair was sandy-brown, his sparse moustache almost blond. His eyes were dark brown. He had a prominent chin; Freckles danced across the bridge of his prominent nose. He looked like a man on the edge of exhaustion.

  Willows introduced himself and Parker. Timmins didn’t offer his hand. He said, “Thanks for doing it this way. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  Timmins rotated his cup in the saucer. Manipulating his tea leaves, perhaps. He said, “Don and I were friends.”

  The waitress arrived with the coffee and milk. She’d forgotten Timmins’ hot water. But so, apparently, had he.

  Willows added cream, stirred.

  “Close friends?” said Parker.

  Timmins nodded. “Yeah, you could put it that way.”

  Willows said, “How close were you, Pat?” He drank some coffee, and was pleased to discover it wasn’t absolutely the worst coffee he’d ever had. Timmins sat there, eyes downcast. Willows said, “Close enough to touch?”

  Timmins nodded. He lifted the lid of his stainless-steel teapot and peeked inside, let the lid drop. “We were lovers,” he said quietly. Willows drank some more coffee. Maybe he’d been wrong — maybe it was the worst coffee he’d ever tasted.

  “Don was a great guy. I loved him.” Timmins looked Willows in the eye. “Really loved him,” he said.

  Willows waited patiently.

  Timmins was fading. The waitress arrived with his hot water. He drank some more tea.

  Willows glanced at Parker, but it was clear that she, too, was uncertain as to how to respond to Timmins’ declaration of love. Willows waited a moment or two longer and then said, “Pat, would you like me to remind you of your rights?”

  Timmins violently shook his head. “I didn’t kill him! Is that what you think, that I want to confess?”

  “What do you want to talk about?” said Parker.

  Timmins slumped against the wall. “Don and I went to Hawaii last year, over the Easter holidays. He took some raunchy Polaroids, gave me a few but kept most of them. They’re in his apartment. I knew you’d find them sooner or later, thought I’d better call you before you got around to calling me…”

  “Were you and Don living together, Pat?”

  “No, we weren’t. We did for a while, for just under a year. But I moved out soon after we graduated from the Academy.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Coming up six years. Six years in June. Don didn’t think it was a good idea for us to stay together. He was worried that people would find out about us.”

  “That you were gay?”

  “It was other cops that he was worried about,” said Timmins. “Straight cops,” he amended.

  Willows nodded his understanding. The force had recently instituted a policy of actively recruiting gays, but he didn’t know any straight cops who were convinced that it was a good idea. Willows believed he was without prejudice. He also firmly believed that most cops were homophobic, and so he understood Timmins’ hesitation in stepping forward.

  Parker said, “What was the exact nature of your relationship, Pat? You and Don weren’t living together. Did you have a monogamous relationship, or were there other men in your life?”

  Timmins hesitated. Finally he said, “Don had begun to see someone else, recently.”

  “Who?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “He didn’t mention a name?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Have you got any ideas? Is it likely someone who was a mutual friend, for example?”

  “I just don’t know. Believe me, if I had any idea who he was seeing, I’d tell you. But… I don’t.” His hand trembled as he added hot water to his tea. A bell tinkled as the restaurant’s door swung open. A trio of skateboarders, all baggy-ass and swagger, clattered into the restaurant.

  Parker reached across the table. She laid her hand on Timmins’ wrist. He didn’t look up. She said, “Pat?”

  “Yeah,
what?”

  “We’ve phoned repeatedly but haven’t been able to get in touch with Don’s father or mother. Do you have any idea where they are?”

  “On a cruise ship. They took a cruise ship up the coast to Alaska. One of those ‘love boat’-type ships, big as a mountain. They left the same day Don was killed.”

  “Have you tried to get in touch with them?”

  Timmins moved his arm, disengaging from Parker.

  “Did you get along with them?”

  “Yeah, we got along okay.”

  “They were comfortable with Don’s sexuality?”

  “Don got along okay with his mother. She accepted him for what he was.”

  “But his father didn’t?”

  “His father refused to talk to him, or even acknowledge the fact that he existed. He’s one of those guys, believes all the lies and bullshit; that gays are wildly promiscuous, love to seduce little boys…”

  Timmins had raised his voice. The skateboarders were staring at him, whispering amongst themselves, snickering.

  Willows shifted in his seat, and glanced behind him. Suddenly he was the focus of the skateboarders’ attention. Now they were staring at him, whispering about him, openly sneering at him. He turned away. The look in Timmins’ brown eyes told Willows what he already knew. That he’d just had the tiniest, most insignificant little taste of what it could be like, day in and day out, from the day you strolled out of the closet.

  Parker said, “Pat, don’t bullshit us.”

  Timmins’ head came up. He nervously stroked his moustache. “Excuse me?”

  “You know damn well what I’m talking about. You and Don were together, in a monogamous and loving relationship, for six years. Then he started playing the field. Seeing other men. Do you really expect us to believe that you weren’t upset? That you didn’t get angry, lose your temper, say or do something you wish you hadn’t? Do you really expect us to believe that all you did was drift off into the distance, quiet and placid as a fleecy little cloud?” Parker drank some milk.

  Timmins was sweating, looking more gaunt by the minute. He fumbled in his jacket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs and then burst into a fit of coughing. When he had himself under control, he said, “You didn’t hear this from me, okay?”

  “You know better than that, Pat.”

  Timmins took another pull on his cigarette. Smoke leaked from his nostrils. He said, “Don was seeing another cop.”

  “VPD?” said Parker.

  Timmins nodded. “Yeah, one of us. An old guy. With plenty of seniority, and pips.”

  Willows felt a slow churning in the pit of his stomach. Timmins was about to name a high-ranking police officer. A closet homosexual who was intimately involved with the victim. The poor bastard had failed to step forward, and now there was a chance he was about to be dragged kicking and screaming into a high-profile murder investigation.

  Willows could hardly wait to meet him.

  Chapter 15

  Shannon called in sick. She crossed her fingers and told her boss in a low, throaty voice that she had a headache, sore throat, terrible cough, a fever and runny nose, congestion, a sharp pain in her chest. So many lies, but how easily she told them. In truth, she was taking the day off just for Ross. She wanted to show him around. Take him by the hand and lead him to all the places around town that she and Garret had visited, during those hot, stormy days prior to the launch of his spectacularly unsuccessful career as an armed robber, his sudden incarceration for what turned out to be the rest of his natural-born days.

  As they approached the Saab, Ross asked if he could drive.

  Shannon smiled sweetly, told him no. She deactivated the car’s alarm, unlocked the door and eased in behind the wheel, unlocked his door. Ross thought about taking a walk. But he was broke, and it was raining again, and where would he go? Home to mother? No way. By way of compromise, he turned his back on her and lit a cigarette, sucked smoke deep inside his body. Shannon started the car. The Saab had a manual choke. Ross stood there in the scant shelter of the soon-to-bud-but-not-yet-budding branches of the cherry tree, as the car’s engine warmed up. Fat drops of cold water splattered on his head and hunched shoulders. The air stank of exhaust fumes; he moved a little distance away.

  Shannon leaned on the horn, summoned him with a peremptory wave of her hand. Getting even, he ruthlessly stamped his cigarette butt into the grassy boulevard. Only then did he stroll over to the car. She told him to buckle up, offered him a mint. When he declined, she took his chin in hand and pushed the mint forcefully into his mouth. “Eat it, tobacco-breath.”

  Ross spat the mint into his cupped hand. It was nothing but a mint. He popped it back into his mouth.

  “What’d you think I was trying to do, poison you?” Shannon hit the gas. The Saab lurched into the middle of the road. She said, “You spend ten minutes brushing your teeth and then turn around and light a cigarette. I don’t get it. What’s the point?”

  “I’m an addict,” said Ross. He crunched the mint between his molars. “It’s as simple as that.”

  Instantly contrite, she patted his thigh, and then let her hand lie where it had happened to fall. “I’m sorry,” she said demurely. “I’m a little tense. Can you blame me?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  She smiled, and gave his thigh a quick squeeze, went back to steering the car. She sure had a wide variety of smiles. A real arsenal. Warm, sisterly smiles. Vague, dreamy smiles. Sexy smiles and every other kind of smile you could think of. Maybe you had to be an accomplished smiler to work the Zellers cash registers. Nah, there had to be more to it than that. More likely, women who had a naturally nice smile worked at improving it, broadening their range. Those who didn’t, didn’t. He shifted towards her as much as the Saab’s bucket seat allowed. “How did you end up at Zellers?” he asked.

  “I applied for a job.”

  “How much they pay you?”

  “As little as possible. But it’s a living, I suppose.”

  Ross nodded. “Yeah, I guess it must be. Because you’re alive, right? But then, so am I, and I don’t make a living, do I?”

  “You could if you wanted to.”

  “Doing what? Washing dishes?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of your natural talents,” said Shannon.

  What was that supposed to mean? A tendency to sleep in late?

  They were driving south on Commercial. The sidewalks were crowded despite the weather. But then, if you stayed inside every day it rained, you’d starve to death pretty quick. There was a prosperous-looking ethnic population, mostly Chinese and East Indian. The streetscape was vibrant, colourful, jumping with energy. Prison seemed a million miles away; a drab, alien life on another planet.

  Shannon drove him to a block-square, nondescript park. She killed the engine and got out of the car, and shut the door and locked it. More because of the opportunity for a cigarette than anything else, Ross followed her lead. The sky was stuffed with clouds the colour of dishwater. A chill wind toyed with his new haircut. He turned up his collar. The park wasn’t much to look at. There were a few bedraggled trees scattered around the perimeter, a three-court tennis enclosure. Off to his left stood the miniature forts, monkey bars, and gaudy plastic piping of a tot’s activity centre. A tight group of mothers chatted animatedly. Their socially inept pre-schooler offspring stood quietly by. What else could they do? The children had been so thoroughly bundled up against the weather that they had been rendered virtually immobile.

  In the middle distance a large black dog trotted at a fixed pace across the scraggly grass. Ross couldn’t pin it down, but there was something about the mutt’s posture that suggested vitally important unfinished business. He felt a dagger-sharp stab of envy. He tried to think of what the animal might be up to. Maybe it was looking for a beloved lost puppy. Or a vanished Frisbee, or any mission worthy of its talents. The dog left the park, crossed the street
and was lost from sight. Ross lit a cigarette, and saw he’d better buy another pack soon, or decide to quit.

  Shannon said, “The night I first met Garret, I told him I was playing tennis the next day. He asked me where, and I told him. Even so, it was kind of a surprise when he showed up.”

  “I just bet it was,” said Ross. She gave him a look. As if accusing him of toying with her emotions.

  “A friend of mine, Kathy, and I were batting the ball around, getting some fresh air and exercise. It was right at the end of the summer. September twenty-third. A Saturday, one of those beautiful days that you really appreciate, because you know it’ll soon be fall…”

  Ross inhaled, counted to ten, exhaled a cloud of carcinogens. Shannon’s eyes had gone all soft and out of focus. Somewhere high above them in the murky clouds a propeller-driven airplane droned monotonously.

  “Kathy served. The ball hit the top of the net and dropped over on my side, and just lay there. I ran over and picked it up, my legs straight, bending from the waist. I looked between my legs and there you were. Upside down, sitting on the bench between the courts.”

  “Garret was sitting there,” said Ross. “Not me.”

  “That’s what I said. I’m talking about Garret, not you.” She gave him an irritated look, and began to walk towards the wire-mesh-enclosed tennis courts. Ross trailed along behind. The nets were down. Debris littered the asphalt. A picked-over apple core had been thrust into the chain-link fence. She pushed open the gate, strolled over to a low, green-painted wooden bench. Ross stayed with her. He felt very uncomfortable, walking into this box of wire. She said, “Sit down, Ross.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “You don’t want to sit down? Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”

  “Sit down, please,” she said. She moved in close, so close that he could measure the span of her pupils, admire the tiny flecks of darker blue caught in her pale blue eyes. She grasped his hand. “There, now I’ve asked politely. So be nice, okay?”

  Ross gingerly sat down on the rain-speckled bench. The cold jumped into him. He shoved his hands into his pockets.