Memory Lane

by Laurence Gough

  “We have no secrets here,” said Spears.

  “Amen to that,” said Oikawa. “So tell me, Farley, still got that problem with your bowels?”

  Spears gave Oikawa the finger.

  “I take it that’s a yes?”

  Under Willows’ unrelenting glare, Orwell eased down into his chair. He fumbled in his pocket for his spiral-bound notebook, flipped it open and wet his thumb, found the page he was looking for. “Graham Aubert, the kid who lived across the hall from Mooney?”

  “We know who he is, Eddy.”

  “Yeah? Don’t be too sure, Jack. See, it turns out Aubert isn’t anywhere near the homebody he pretended to be. Bobby said we should check, see if the kid’s got a sheet. Turns out he’s got a king-size sheet. Stole his first car at the tender age of eleven, a Toyota, and he’s been keeping busy ever since. Lots more cars, a couple of counts of theft under fifty… In June of ’eighty-nine he sledge-hammered a jewellery-store window, grabbed a handful of gold rings and watches and glass, severed a vein and started bleeding all over himself, turned around and ran into a steel light-pole. Knocked himself cold and was captured, caught eighteen months and did six.” Orwell angled his notebook to the light, frowned as he attempted to decipher his scrawl. “A little over three years ago he was busted for break-and-enter, pleaded guilty and did a year less a day. In January he was charged with sexual assault. The charges were dropped when the victim — who happens to be his mother — turned turtle, swore to God she’d deny everything if we went to court.”

  “Who can blame her?” said Spears. “The kid made a mistake. So what? Sounds like your average disenchanted youth to me.”

  Oikawa said, “A model citizen, by today’s standards.”

  “Damn right,” said Spears. “All he did was steal a few cars and bust a few windows, and rape his mother.” He pointed an accusing finger at Orwell. “Who the hell are you to relentlessly harass the poor kid, treat him as if he were some kind of criminal?”

  “It’s not as if he murdered somebody,” said Oikawa.

  “Even if he did,” said Spears, “he probably had a good reason.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like he had a problem with his bowels, and somebody with bad taste made the fatal mistake of poking fun at him,” said Spears darkly.

  Oikawa smiled. “Now hold on a minute, you’re going too far.”

  “Where’s Bobby?” said Willows to Orwell.

  “I wish I knew.”

  Oikawa said, “I understand he’s hustling that new civilian at Traffic and Firearms.”

  Orwell shrugged. “Could be.”

  Spears said, “What’s her name? Ruby?”

  “Ruth.”

  “Perfect,” said Oikawa. “Ruth, meet Ruthless.”

  “What’s so funny?” said Bobby Dundas as he entered the squad room. He smiled at Parker. “Did I miss a punch line?”

  “It was one of those ‘spontaneous humour’ situations,” said Spears. “You had to be there, but you weren’t.”

  Dundas frowned. “You get what we were after, Eddy?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  Willows said, “You’re going after Graham Aubert?”

  The lines in Bobby’s forehead deepened. He glanced angrily at Orwell. “We’re thinking about bringing him in, asking him a few questions.”

  “Well, fine.”

  Bobby’s forehead smoothed out. He glanced suspiciously at Parker, back to Willows. Blinking rapidly, he said, “You don’t have any objections?”

  “Not at all. Sounds like a good idea to me.” Willows smiled. “Grill him till he spills ’em, Bobby.”

  Dundas leaned a hip against Orwell’s desk. “Mind telling me what you and Claire are up to?”

  “Not much,” said Willows. “We’re looking at the possibility that Mooney recently broke up with his boyfriend.”

  “Got a name?”

  Willows nodded. Bobby Dundas thought it over. He decided, for reasons that weren’t quite clear to him, not to ask.

  “Who is it?” said Orwell. “Anybody we know?” Pleased with his witticism, he winked at Bobby Dundas.

  “Probably,” said Willows.

  Bobby straightened. He said, “Eddy, we’ve got work to do. Let’s get the hell out of here.” His tone was sharp, and Orwell let it be known by the spark in his eye and the expression of surly disdain that seeped across his beefy face that he didn’t like it one little bit. But he said nothing, and was quick to follow his partner out of the squad room. The door hissed shut. The automatic lock clicked softly.

  Spears said, “Your suspect’s a cop?”

  “Could be, Farley. Do you really want to know?”

  “Man, I thought you were yanking his chain. A cop?”

  A few minutes later, a clerk from records arrived with Willows’ files. He emptied the brown manila envelope onto his desk. Timmins’ file was third from the top. He flipped it open.

  A colour head-and-shoulders photo of Timmins was stapled to the folder’s inside front jacket. At the time the picture was taken, Timmins’ hair had been a little darker and a little shorter. His upper lip was bare. He looked considerably younger, probably younger than his age. He wasn’t a wanderer; his address and phone had been the same for the past four years. Willows tried his home number. The phone rang four times and then the answering machine kicked in. Willows disconnected as Timmins asked him to wait for the beep.

  Parker raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Nobody home,” said Willows. “Or maybe it’s that he isn’t in the mood to answer the phone. Want to take a drive over there, peek in the window?”

  Parker reached for her coat.

  *

  Timmins lived in a house built on a seventeen-foot-wide lot, one of only a handful of such lots allowed in the city. From the street, the building looked pretty much like an ordinary — but severely emaciated — house. The pink clapboard siding was overly cute, and the architect had slapped on a bit too much finicky detail for Willows’ taste. But the house was only about twelve feet wide. Anything that small was doomed to look cosy. Willows wondered what it would be like to live in such an unusual dwelling. It must be similar in many respects to living in a landlocked boat. There weren’t many windows on the side of the house, and those that did exist weren’t much bigger than a porthole. Fire regulations. Willows opened a cedar gate with a rounded top. He held the gate open for Parker. A strip of lawn not much wider than a man’s tie separated the house and double garage. He turned right, walked past a curtained window and knocked on the enamelled surface of a metal-clad door.

  A black cat with a white ear ambled around the side of the house. It crouched low when it saw them, then turned and ran.

  Willows thumbed the doorbell, waited a few moments and then bruised his knuckles on the door. No response. He stepped away from the door and pressed his face against the window’s cold glass, peered through a narrow gap in the curtains. On the far side of the room a man lay on his back on the beige carpet, a leg hooked awkwardly across the floral-patterned sofa. He wasn’t moving. A pool of red had collected on his chest.

  Willows pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He tried the door. It was unlocked, but there was a safety chain. He stepped back and kicked hard. The heel of his shoe struck just below the shiny brass doorknob. The door crashed open and knocked over a spindly wooden table. A clear glass milk bottle that had been converted into a vase bounced off the hall carpet. Water seeped eagerly into the dense fabric. A dozen red roses lay on the floor like widely splayed, scarlet-tipped fingers.

  Willows slid open the pocket door that led to the living room.

  The corpse had disappeared.

  Chapter 19

  Ross drove another half-block down Point Grey Road. Shannon told him to make a left and park. Where? Anywhere you want. Parallel to the curb. He pulled up behind a white Lexus. She told him to kill the engine, and got out of the car and locked her door. Ross followed her lead. What else was there for him to do? She to
ok his hand and led him across the street, down a public right-of-way between two expensive waterfront houses. A flight of concrete stairs descended steeply to the beach. She insisted that Ross go first. He held tight to the metal handrail. A seagull gave him the eye as it sailed gracefully past. The tide was out. He could smell the sea, things that had died and begun to rot.

  During their time in prison, Garret had told Ross over and over again that Shannon was a totally hot babe, couldn’t get enough of it. Et cetera. Et cetera. Blah, blah, blah.

  Ross had believed every last steamy word of it. At the time, it had seemed like the sensible thing to do. But now he was wondering if his idea of what Shannon should be was getting in the way of who she really was. At the hotel he’d wrongly assumed that she intended to rent a room and seduce his socks off. Instead, they’d strolled into the bar for drinks with muscle-boy. He’d been caught off balance by this unexpected turn of events. His defences at half-mast, he’d been vulnerable to whatever games they had in mind.

  Fragments of shell crunched underfoot as Shannon jumped lightly down from the last step to the sandy beach. Ross paused to light a cigarette. She gave him a mildly disapproving look, then grasped his hand and led him along the beach towards Nancy and Tyler Crowns opulent waterfront home. Below the strip of sand upon which they walked, the beach all the way to the waterline was gooey-looking mud speckled with rocks. It was a landscape that was drab and inhospitable, appallingly unclean. If any life forms prospered here, they would reside at the lowest end of the food chain, and were not in the slightest danger of ending up on a plate.

  To his right, walls of concrete rose thirty feet into the air. At high tide the footings would be under several feet of water. His fingers and Shannon’s were still interlocked. She pointed almost straight up. Had some dreadful omen suddenly appeared in that grim and drooling sky? No, she was pointing towards the summit of the massive concrete breakwater.

  “That’s where they live — right up there. And that’s probably where they’ve got the money stashed. There’s a wall safe in the basement, inside the wine cellar.”

  Wine cellar? Ross stood there, smoking his cigarette. He said, “How’d you find out about the safe?”

  “The real-estate agent told Kelly, and Kelly told me. And I told you, and that’s how you found out.”

  Ross nodded. A glass-panelled fence ran along the top of the wall. The filled-in swimming pool where Billy had drowned would be just beyond.

  “Could you climb that wall if you had to, Ross?”

  “No way.”

  She smiled. “I bet you could fall off it, though.”

  It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact. Or maybe it was a warning.

  Shannon relinquished her grip on his hand. She turned and started back the way they’d come. Ross walked down the gently sloping beach towards the water, until the sand was overcome by an evil-smelling, sticky muck. He bent and picked up a shiny black stone about the size of a deformed golf ball, turned and faced the house and reared back and threw as hard as he could. The stone lifted up into the sky and sailed over the top of the glass-panelled fence and was lost from view. He waited for the sound of breaking glass, but heard only the faint murmur of small waves upon the shore, the low hum of traffic.

  Shannon waited for him at the top of the steps, where she sat huddled with her back to the wind and her hands in her pockets. She was sitting square in the middle of the step, blocking the way. Ross paused with his hand on the steel-pipe rail. He could have looked up her skirt if he’d wanted to. And he did want to. Her panties were black, the fabric sleek and shiny. He looked his fill, and looked away. Lit a cigarette. The way she’d been sitting, posing, he was fairly certain he’d been expected to take a peek. But even so, what a creepy thing to do. Shannon stood up. She looked down at him, a twisted smile on her pretty face.

  He said, “Is there a plan?”

  She laughed. “Of course there’s a plan.”

  “Let me guess. I break into the house, tell Tyler Crown I’ll beat his wife to a pulp unless he opens the safe. He opens the safe. I grab the cash and run back home to your welcoming arms. Is that it?”

  Shannon laughed. “Not really. We don’t expect you to handle Tyler all by yourself. Kelly will be there, helping out.”

  A black BMW with smoked windows cruised slowly past. Shannon moved in on him. She’d topped up her perfume. She moved in so close he could see nothing but her, smell nothing but her. She grabbed his lapels. The leather squeaked — or was it him? She leaned into him, kissed him chastely on the mouth. Her lipstick jumped all over his taste buds. She gave him a playful shove, pushed him, as in a foreign film, right to the edge of frame. He was dizzy from the taste of her lipstick and the sweet, musky scent of her. She relinquished her hold on his — on Garret’s — leather jacket. He swayed backwards, and the first of all those swiftly descending concrete steps rose up to meet him. He clutched at the rail, saved himself.

  A large dog, black with a golden-brown saddle, trotted partway up the stairs and then, for reasons which would never become clear, turned around and hustled back down again, and disappeared from view.

  There was a kid in the slammer, a twenty-year-old kid, who’d missed his dog so much he’d tried to hang himself, because he couldn’t stand the pain.

  Ross didn’t want to go back to that dark place again, for sure. That dark place that was all walls and no sky. He pulled hard on his cigarette. Another glossy black BMW with smoked windows crawled down Point Grey Road, but in the opposite direction.

  He had a strong feeling that something important, or at least significant, was about to happen. He took another pull on his cigarette, hugged the smoke into his lungs for a slow count of five, exhaled.

  A gull drifted past, leaving no shadow upon the asphalt.

  Shannon said, “Do you find me attractive?”

  “Huh?” Ross yanked the cigarette out of his mouth. He nodded. “Yeah, sure. You bet I do.”

  “What is it that you like about me?”

  They were back on familiar ground, but Ross needed a moment to adjust, turn to the right page and find his line.

  She nibbled at her lower lip. Impatient, and letting it show.

  “Your eyes,” he said not a moment too soon. What had Garret said about her eyes? That they were the windows of his soul. He said, “I’m just crazy about your eyes.”

  Really? Those sly eyes sparkled. “What else? Come on, don’t be a tease, tell me!”

  The wind was picking up. It raced up the steps, mussing his hair and blowing invisible-but-irritating scraps of the world into his face.

  She said, “Don’t give me a hard time! You know what you know!”

  He thrust his hands deep into his jacket pockets. Shannon slipped her arm through his and pressed against him. They moved in lock-step towards the Saab.

  “I love the way you smile,” said Ross. “And the way your eyes crinkle up, the sound of your laughter, and the way you just kissed me, as if you’ve never kissed anyone before.”

  She said, “Now you’re talking.”

  But she couldn’t have been more wrong. It was Garret who was doing the talking — Ross was nothing but a complicated, no-strings puppet from the grave. He said, “I’m crazy about your legs, too.”

  “You are?”

  “You know I am. You’ve got great legs.”

  “I do?”

  “You know you do.” Ross was rolling now. He’d had a thousand front-row seats to this particular performance, had listened in on the conversation so many times he knew every word by heart. What had briefly confused him was the unscheduled change of location. He was positive, absolutely sure, that they were supposed to be down by the beach in front of the vine-choked hotel. This was supposed to be a post-coital chat. Everything had gotten all messed up when they’d gone to the bar instead of renting a room. Events were occurring completely out of sequence. Kelly was the problem. Where had he come from? Garret had never mentioned his name.


  “What else?” said Shannon. “Tell me more…”

  Ross kept talking as they crossed the street. He searched for the white Lexus but couldn’t find it. The Saab was where they’d left it. A white cat stared complacently at him from somebody’s front porch.

  Shannon said, “I’ll drive.”

  He gave her the keys, dropped his cigarette butt on the sidewalk and squashed it underfoot. She was already behind the wheel, turning the key. He got in beside her, fastened his seatbelt.

  “The way you walk,” he said, “so confident and sexy. It just drives me crazy with desire.”

  She gave him a tired look, put the car in gear and gunned it away from the curb.

  Ross said, “Where are we going now?”

  She made a U-turn and ran the stop sign. They barrelled at high speed towards the city. “I want to show you something,” she said.

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Me,” she said. “I want to show you me.”

  This time, they parked the Saab in the hotel lot. This time, Shannon climbed the steps to the lobby and turned right, instead of left. She was in the lead by several strides as they marched briskly, in single file, past the dozy clerk at the reservations desk. She punched the elevators up button right on the nose. The door slid open without delay. He followed her into the elevator. She said, “Fifth floor.” He hit the button. The doors slid shut. The overhead lights picked out highlights and gave each strand of Shannon’s hair a radiant, healthy glow. Ross was standing to the side and slightly behind her, so he was looking at her in profile. He shook a cigarette out of the pack, stuck it in his mouth and let it dangle. He was still admiring her when the elevator doors slid open. He followed her out of the elevator and down a wide corridor with white-painted walls and a dark carpet. Shannon seemed to know exactly where she was going; she had not consulted her key and there’d been no hesitation as they’d exited the elevator. She stopped in front of a door numbered 517. She turned the knob, pushed open the door, took him by the arm and led him inside.

  The deadbolt shot home. Ross glanced around. She’d rented a suite. The hotel was old, and the owners had wisely resisted the urge to renovate the place to death. There was a modest entrance hall, a short corridor that led towards an open doorway and another room. Shannon slipped out of her coat, tossed the coat on a straight-back chair. She slipped her arms around Ross’s neck, got up on her tippy-toes and kissed him on the mouth.