Memory Lane

by Laurence Gough

  Us?

  Was Shannon being manipulated by her money-grubbing brother? If so, what a totally rotten fate. Man, she’d be better off having no brother at all. Ross wanted to take her in his arms and hold her close, comfort her and make her feel better. Sooth her with words. Remind her that every cloud had a silver lining. Assure her in honeyed tones that everything was going to work out just fine, in the end. Remind her that whatever happened, it was always for the best. You only went around once, right?

  Ross’s problem was that almost everything he’d learned that was of any real value had been taught to him in the slammer. But how pertinent were those hard-earned truths on this side of the wall? He could think of nothing to say to her that wouldn’t have looked right at home on a bumper sticker.

  He eased out of bed, scrambled into his — Garret’s — underpants. He buttoned up Garret’s shirt, pulled on Garret’s jeans. He zipped up. He shoved his feet into his socks. He tucked in Garret’s shirt. Where were his borrowed Nikes? He found the left shoe lying on its side beneath the bed, laces trailing wantonly across the carpet.

  But where was the other shoe? On hands and knees, he patrolled the carpet from wall to wall. Shannon was crying again, had really cranked up the volume. He felt like a whipped dog, though he was the one who’d doled out the anguish. All he lacked was a tail to tuck between his legs.

  He found the missing shoe, put it on. His cigarettes were on the table by the bed. He crawled over there, keeping a low profile. His groping hand closed on the package. Shannon grabbed his wrist. She held on tight and wouldn’t let go.

  She was snuffling, but the wailing had stopped. He raised his head an inch or two. There she was, watching him.

  “Why did you tell me all those horrible things about Garret?”

  Ross refused to tell her. She pleaded with him. When that tactic gained no ground, she swore feistily at him, and beat him about the head with her small fists hard as walnuts. He wouldn’t budge. Not a word. In his mind, she had to figure out for herself why he’d told her the ugly truth about the convict she had loved.

  It wasn’t a complicated situation. If she wasn’t able to figure it out for herself, it was because, at heart, she didn’t really want to know.

  He snatched up Garret’s nifty black leather jacket and headed for the door. Stood quietly with his hand on the knob, ears twitching, as he waited in vain for her to cry, “Don’t leave me!”

  After a moment he turned and walked slowly down the hall towards the elevator. The hotel was silent. He reached the elevator, pushed a button. The doors immediately slid open. A portly gentleman in a baggy brown tweed suit peered disapprovingly out at him. The doors began to slide shut. The gentleman stabbed at the elevator’s control panel with the tip of his loosely furled umbrella. Ross lurched forward. The doors slid shut, and the box with its cargo of human misery began its slow descent. Ross imagined he could still hear her crying.

  His bruised heart plunged giddily downward at such tremendous speed that the elevator soon lagged far behind.

  Chapter 22

  Christy Kirkpatrick was impressed. But for the fact that he’d been wrapped from head to toe in duct-tape, and then drowned via an ersatz intravenous, Donald E. Mooney was in damn fine shape.

  “He must’ve spent a lot of time in the gym,” said the pathologist. “You don’t get definition like that without working at it.” He glanced at Willows. “D’you pump the iron, Jack?”

  “Pancakes,” said Willows. “I pump the pancakes.”

  “The blood came back this morning,” said Kirkpatrick. “Pure as the driven snow.” He leaned against the autopsy table, hip on steel. Willows wondered how much weight he’d lost during the past few months. The pathologist’s skin clung to his bones. He was verging on gaunt, and it seemed to Willows that his lustrous eyes were a little too bright. Kirkpatrick noticed that he was being scrutinized. He nodded very slightly, as if acknowledging that his situation merited attention.

  The pathologist jerked a thumb at the corpse. “His kidneys, heart, liver, everything was in tiptop shape. His lungs, though full to the brim with water we have not yet analysed, but very much doubt was Perrier, were a lovely shade of pink. He didn’t smoke, or take drugs. If he drank alcohol, it was in moderation.”

  “He hadn’t been drinking when he was killed?”

  “Not a drop — except for the tap water that drowned him, of course. I wish I could be more helpful, Jack.” Kirkpatrick tugged at his ear. He cast a sidelong glance at Parker. “I hear you’ve got a suspect,” he said in mock-conspiratorial tones.

  “We do?” said Parker.

  “I understand that it was an inside job,” said Kirkpatrick. “Scuttlebutt has it your suspect’s got pips.” Taking note of the expression of dismay on Willows’ face, Kirkpatrick hastily added, “But of course, it’s only a rumour.”

  There was no point in grilling Kirkpatrick. He was a slippery fish, and even if he did give up a name, they’d never trace the rumour back to its source.

  Parker’s beeper vibrated against her hip. She checked the readout. Jerry Goldstein had called from the RCMP crime lab. She used Kirkpatrick’s telephone to call him back. Goldstein picked up on the first ring.

  Parker identified herself. She said, “What’ve you got for us, Jerry?”

  “Not much. But probably more than you expected. The rubber gloves are manufactured in China. One thousand gross were shipped to the Vancouver distributor a little over six months ago. Prior to the date of the murder, six hundred and twelve gross had been sold to a total of three hundred and eighty-seven restaurants. The majority of the restaurants, more than two hundred of them, are located in the city or suburbs. I’ve got a complete list, if you’re interested.”

  “I’m very interested,” said Parker. “Send it right over, Jerry.”

  “Consider it done. Now just bear with me for a minute…” Parker heard the rustle of paper. Goldstein said, “We found a partial thumbprint inside the left glove. Nothing you could use in court. But there were traces of soap, which, sparing no expense, we’ve been able to identify.”

  There was a small silence. Parker said, “If you’re waiting for a round of applause, forget it.”

  “Soma Soaps,” said Goldstein. “Available in bulk only, no retail sales. It’s a highly abrasive product, used by restaurants to clean pots and pans. You’d just love to get your hands on a box, wouldn’t you?”

  “Sounds to me like you’re standing on one right now,” said Parker.

  “You can buy the stuff at almost any kitchen-supply wholesaler’s. It’s a very popular item. But nowhere near as popular as the gloves, lucky for you.”

  Parker said, “Have you got a list of Vancouver-area restaurants that bought both gloves and soap?”

  “Would you buy me lunch if I did?”

  “Eventually.”

  “Next week? Tuesday at noon?”

  “C’mon, Jerry. Cough it up.”

  “You’re going to be knocking on forty-one doors,” said Goldstein. “Want me to send over the list, too?”

  “Please.”

  Goldstein chuckled into the phone. “Forty-one restaurants. Chinese, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Vietnamese, you name it. I hope you don’t have a weight problem, Claire.”

  *

  Neither Willows nor Parker had expected much from the autopsy. Even so, the results had been disappointing. Both detectives had clutched a tiny splinter of hope that Kirkpatrick, working hand in hand with Donald E. Mooney’s corpse, would provide them with a lead, no matter how tenuous or slender.

  On the other hand, Jerry Goldstein had worked hard and done well; there was a decent chance that the rubber gloves found at the crime scene had come from his list of forty-one restaurants, and forty-one was a manageable number, given that there were now three teams of detectives working the case.

  The faxed list of restaurants was on Parker’s desk by the time she and Willows made it back to 312 Main. Parker made half a dozen copies. Bradley w
as in his office, his ghostly shape drifting behind the pebbled glass of his door. Willows knocked, and Bradley bade them enter. The inspector sat at his desk, in his burgundy leather chair. His uniform jacket hung from the oak coat rack he’d recently picked up at an auction. Bradley had rolled up his sleeves. His regulation tie was loose. His new bifocals lay on his desk blotter, next to a dismantled fountain pen. The tips of his fingers were stained dark blue. The man was all cop, thought Willows, repressing a smile. Parker briefly explained the significance of Goldstein’s list.

  “Forty-one restaurants,” said Bradley. “When’re you going to start your canvass?”

  “At the first sign of hunger pangs,” said Willows.

  “Chuckle, chuckle.” Bradley wiped his inky fingers on a tissue. “They’d never admit it, but Eddy and Bobby have been spinning their wheels, getting nowhere. Ditto Spears and Oikawa.” Bradley glanced out his window. The sky that moved across the glass was every shade of grey. The forecast was for rain, and plenty of it. Sometime yesterday he’d lost his umbrella. He said, “Shut the door, Claire.”

  Parker shut the door.

  Bradley said, “I’ve made a few discreet inquiries about my fellow officer, Inspector Mark Rimmer.” He smiled ruefully. “At least, I sure as hell hope they were discreet inquiries. I wouldn’t want him to know I was interested in him. He might get the wrong idea, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

  “What’d you find out?” said Willows.

  “Internal Investigations has got a file on him that’s thicker than a telephone book. Vice has been watching him for years.”

  Parker said, “What’s he been up to?”

  “Nothing it would benefit the department to hang out on the line. But he hasn’t done anything illegal, either. Rimmer’s deep into group sex, but he’s stayed clear of the downtown clubs, anywhere local where he might be recognized. Once or twice a month, he wriggles into a hairpiece, glues on a false moustache and prowls the glitter-domes as far afield as New Westminster. He’s a charter member of a group-grope club out in the valley. Doesn’t mess with the kiddies or corner boys, thank Christ. He spends a disproportionate amount of his salary on the sex-chat lines. Runs a ‘help wanted’ ad in the local magazines. Aside from a healthy aversion to juvies and hookers, he’s about as discriminating as a great white shark.”

  Willows said, “Bobby worked vice for more than three years, before he was rotated into narcotics. He must’ve known all about Rimmer.”

  “Yeah, sure. But would it jump-start his career to say so?” Bradley picked up his glasses. He peered at Willows through the split-screen lenses. “I don’t want to involve Internal Investigations in this little caper. Not yet, anyway. You up for putting in a little unauthorized overtime, Jack?”

  “Are you asking me to surveil him?”

  “Covertly, of course.”

  “If you yanked his file, he’ll find out about it sooner or later. Probably he already knows. He’d spot me in a minute.”

  “Could be.”

  Parker said, “Is that what you want?”

  “Absolutely not. We know that Rimmer and Mooney had a thaing going on, so I don’t see that we’ve got any choice but to treat Rimmer as a suspect.”

  Willows said, “Do me a favour, Homer. Put Bobby on Rimmer. Skulking in doorways, slouching in cars. It’s what he does best, and he loves to do it.”

  “You don’t much care for Bobby, do you, Jack?”

  “Does anybody?”

  Bradley leaned back in his chair. He put his feet up on his desk, folded his arms across his chest.

  Parker said, “What about Timmins?”

  “He’s still in the running. But I’ll tell you something: Aubert’s my favourite suspect.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He isn’t a cop.”

  “True, but he isn’t a dishwasher, either. Where did the gloves come from?”

  “How should I know? None of them are dishwashers. Maybe the gloves were used as a sexual accessory.”

  “How does the soap residue fit in?”

  “Why ask me?” Exasperated, Bradley ran the palm of his hand across his thinning, close-cropped hair. “Beat it, detectives. Hit those mean streets.” He smiled, putting the department’s dental plan on display. “Ever watch ‘The X-Files’? ‘The Truth Is Out There,’ if you can believe Scully and Mulder. And believe me, I do.”

  Parker pointed at the window. “Out there?”

  “Out there,” corrected Bradley, indicating his door.

  *

  Willows slumped into his chair. There were three pink message slips by his telephone. Peter Singer had called twice. Inspector Mark Rimmer had called once, not ten minutes earlier.

  Willows phoned his lawyer. Singer was in court. His secretary didn’t expect him back at the office until the following morning. In response to Willows’ query, she primly informed him that she had no idea why Singer wanted to talk to him.

  Willows cradled the phone. Parker was watching him, openly curious. He told her that Rimmer had left a message.

  “You going to call him back?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Willows dialled Rimmer’s extension. The inspector picked up on the second ring.

  “Inspector, this is Detective Jack Willows. You called me?”

  There was a slight pause. Rimmer said, “No I didn’t, Jack. Why would I want to talk to you?”

  Willows said, “My mistake, Inspector.” If Rimmer said he hadn’t called, then he hadn’t called. Simple, wasn’t it? “Sorry to have bothered you.”

  Rimmer hung up. Just before the line went dead, Willows was fairly certain he heard Rimmer softly mutter the word asshole. But perhaps he’d been mistaken… Willows hung up.

  Parker said, “That was a short conversation. But was it sweet?”

  “Rimmer just wanted me to know he’s aware of our interest in him. He’s giving me a chance to back off.”

  Willows checked Farley Spears’ desk, and then Orwell’s and then Oikawa’s and finally Bobby Dundas’. Rimmer had left messages for all four detectives. Willows went from desk to desk, snatching and crumpling.

  Parker said, “What are you doing, Jack?”

  “Homer’s going to ask Bobby to keep an eye on Rimmer. Bobby’ll risk it, too. He’s an ambitious guy, willing to take a chance. But he’s nobody’s fool. If he knew Rimmer was already watching his back, he wouldn’t go anywhere near him.”

  “But now he won’t know, will he?”

  Willows rolled the message slips into a tight little ball and tossed them into his wastebasket. “Not unless you tell him.” He smiled. It was his first smile of the day, and Parker was warmed by it. He said, “All this treachery has given me an appetite. Want to get something to eat?”

  “Sure,” said Parker.

  Willows was in the mood for a cheeseburger. Like many Vancouverites, he believed the White Spot made the best burgers in town. He drove south on Main, past the imposing sandstone façade of the Carnegie Library and the pale, blank faces of the local street-level dealers and their clientele, through the fading heart of Chinatown and on towards the elevated SkyTrain monorail, a cluster of new high rises.

  At Twelfth and Main, Willows made a sharp right on the green. He drove west on Twelfth to Cambie, eased into the left-turn lane. The light was red. City Hall loomed behind them, the four clocks with their orange dials that faced east, west, north and south all clamouring to tell a slightly different time.

  The light changed. Willows let the car crawl forward half its length. There was a break in the flow of traffic, but he didn’t take advantage of it because there were pedestrians in the crosswalk. A horn blared. He glanced in his rear-view mirror. The driver behind him gave him the finger. There was another break in the traffic, but Willows didn’t take advantage. He waited until the light turned red, and then gunned it through the intersection, leaving the other driver stranded in his wake.

  Parker said, “Nice move, Jack.”

  “So
metimes it’s mature to act immaturely,” said Willows. He turned off Cambie at Thirteenth. It was well past the lunch hour and the parking lot was more empty than full.

  Inside, they were shown to a booth with room for four. Their waitress arrived with a bright smile and two glasses of cloudy ice-water. The detectives politely declined an opportunity to examine the menu. Parker ordered tea and a shrimp sandwich on toasted whole-wheat bread, Willows a cheeseburger with French fries and coffee. When the waitress had gone, he held his water glass up against the light, then put the glass down on the table and pushed it away.

  Parker said, “Forty-one restaurants use both our crime-scene gloves and the same brand of soap that was found in the gloves. If we’re really unlucky, we’ll have to canvass all forty-one of them. So what are we doing here — at a restaurant that isn’t on the list?”

  “Warming up,” said Willows. He leaned across the table, and took her hand. “Getting in the mood,” he added with a comically demented wink.

  Chapter 23

  Ross stood on the sidewalk outside the hotel, feeling the damp seep up through the soles of his inherited shoes. Now what?

  A yellow taxi cruised past. The driver eyeballed Ross, as if willing him to raise his arm and flag him down.

  But what use was a ride when there was nowhere that he wanted to go? He stepped away from the shelter of the hotel, trotted across the street and looked up, counted windows until he reached the fifth floor. Which room was Shannon’s? Probably that one — but maybe not. Small creatures bobbed and weaved in the tangle of ivy, disturbing dead twigs and desiccated leaves, random bits of debris. A brown bird about the size of a sparrow nibbled industriously at some invisible-but-no-doubt-delectable source of nourishment. It stepped off the vine and plummeted abrupt as a stone down to the second-storey level, drifted over the sidewalk and then curled back towards the building at suicidal speed. At the last possible second it flared its wings and braked hard, alighted gracefully on a vine thick as Ross’s forearm. The bird glared at him with a glossy black eye the size of a pinhead, ducked its head and began to preen.