24
IT'S BACK TO THE BLUES as I cruise north to Edmonton — Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, “Lonesome Mood.” Soothing music. Ripples of heat on the road seem to match the beat. The big double highway is nearly empty; ribbons of grey concrete waver like an acid trip hallucination. I’m on a different sort of trip, no less confusing.
“That girl keeps calling,” Carl told me this morning. “You should call her back.”
I’d slept in Old Faithful, down by the river. Carl was worried.
“You two were a cute couple,” he says. “What happened?”
“She wasn’t who I thought she was.”
“When it comes right down to it, Porter, you never really know people.”
“You got that right.”
I went for a mountain bike ride around town but it took me a half-hour to lose the unmarked Caprice Classic that floated behind me. An excursion into the trees finally did the trick but they knew I’d come out sooner or later. If they didn’t find me, there was always Brotsky, who’s been following me since I arrived in Curtain River. Or Telson — I’d seen her dented orange Beetle several times, looking for me. Like they say in the Westerns, it seemed a good idea to leave town.
This morning the sun beating through the windshield makes the steering wheel slick, leaves a black smudge on my palms, like a kid playing with briquettes. I’m in a mobile greenhouse and have all the windows open. It doesn’t much help; I’m withering anyway. We’ve got to stop this problem with the ozone layer. At a gas station I soak my canvas hat in water, put it on sopping wet, get strange looks from the tourists in their air-conditioned minivans.
The kids wave — look at the funny man.
I drive slow, let what little traffic there is pass me, keep an eye on the rearview mirror. It remains mostly empty but I’m getting cautious in my old age. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. It takes me longer than usual to reach Edmonton.
I stop at Cindy’s, but the house is locked. She’s at work, the kids at daycare.
Downtown, everyone is driving slow. Intersections are blocked by vehicles with vapour locks. The owners stand like mourners beside their immobile vehicles, gazing under the hood, perplexed. It just stopped — just like that. Traffic flows past the clots. You can count the cars without air conditioning — the ones with all the windows open, drivers’ tongues hanging out.
On the north side, I turn into Castle Downs, a residential area tangled with crescents and cul-de-sacs designed to frustrate the unfamiliar driver. You could lose years here — every street I’m looking for is one street over, with no visible way to get there. I four-wheel-drive over a few backyards. Even so, it takes a long time to find Bill’s house.
A bald teenager answers the door.
“Yeah?” His T-shirt proclaims, “Everything Sucks.”
“You must be Mark. Is your dad home?”
Mark is suspicious. I’m over thirty and know his name. “Just a minute.”
I wait in a wedge of shade in front of the house — a vinyl-sided unit exactly like all the other vinyl-sided units. Developers don’t just build houses anymore; they build whole neighbourhoods: a production line, like plugging chips into a circuit board. Even the landscaping is the same — one mountain ash and two spruce trees. There isn’t a gum wrapper anywhere and the lawns have no dandelions. At night, they roll up the sidewalks.
“Porter Cassel —”
Bill stands on his concrete front step, thumb hitched in a belt loop. He’s not nearly as immaculate as the neighbourhood; his thinning hair is unkempt, his shirt rumpled.
“I was in the neighbourhood —”
“Come in. Come in.”
I hesitate, suddenly reluctant to involve Bill any further. Retired and recuperating from a heart attack, he really doesn’t need this. But I need his counsel. I leave my boots on the front step. As I pass, Bill gives me a guarded look that makes me nervous. In the kitchen, Mark stands in front of an open fridge, waiting for his nostril hairs to frost over, complaining there’s nothing to eat. Bill gives him a twenty, sends him to the Winks around the corner. “Kid eats all day,” he says, rubbing his stomach, something he must do a lot — there’s a bald spot on the belly of his velour shirt. “I wish I had his metabolism.”
He makes coffee. I fidget, wonder how to start. “How’s retirement treating you?”
“Retirement,” he says scornfully. “What a crock. Sit around all day watching soap operas, weed the garden. And cleaning — I never thought I’d be cleaning just for something to do.”
“The place looks great — you could film a Windex commercial.”
He pulls out a chair, sits down heavily. “You see what I’m reduced to?”
“Bill ... I wanted to thank you for analyzing that debris.”
“Don’t. It was a stupid thing for me to do.”
“Well I appreciate it —”
“Maybe, but that’s not why you’re here.”
I pull up a chair, start to say something but falter. Retired or not, Bill is still plugged in. And that could be a problem — he might still be enough of a cop that he’ll turn me in.
“A situation has developed,” I say. “To a friend of mine.”
“What sort of situation?”
“One where he can’t go to the authorities.”
“Why not?”
“It’s sort of complicated.”
He looks amused. “Tell me about this problem your friend is having.”
I have a vision of telling him I stole evidence from a crime scene — again — and of Bill clutching his chest and toppling off his chair. Another casualty of the Porter Cassel school of investigation. “Your health isn’t so good. I wouldn’t want to get you all worked up.”
“What?” He looks offended. “All of a sudden I’m an old lady?”
“Okay — but you gotta promise to stay calm.”
“If I was any more calm, I’d be dead.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“It couldn’t be that bad.”
“If you’ve got any pills you need to take, you better take them now.”
He waves off the suggestion. “Just start talking, Cassel.”
“Someone he was close to was killed and he starts poking around, asking questions.”
“Why not leave it the cops?”
“The cops aren’t making any progress —”
“So your friend thinks he’s going to swoop in and save the day?”
“He can’t help himself. He needs to find out who did this —”
“I know a guy with a problem like that,” says Bill. He’s leaned back, beefy arm flopped over a nearby chair. He looks relaxed but he’s watching me closely. “How far did this friend of yours get before he got into trouble?”
“He developed a suspect.”
“Really?” Bill looks skeptical.
“But there was a problem. Turned out to be the wrong guy.”
“That’s why they’re just suspects, Porter.”
“I know, but it gets complicated. His suspect was murdered.”
“Did your friend kill the suspect?” Bill asks slowly.
“No, but it looks that way.”
“Why would it look that way?”
“A number of things,” I say carefully. I’m into confessional territory now and he’s wearing his serious cop face. I tell him about my investigation into Petrovich — how he publicly assaulted me; the suggestion that he was proficient with explosives. The resumé and my attempts to convince the Mounties that Petrovich was the Lorax. Petrovich’s call and my finding him with his throat cut. Bill listens, slouched in his chair. He looks like he’d rather be mopping the floor.
“So what do you think, Bill? How bad is this?”
“Well, it’s not good,” he says, rubbing his forehead. There are lines there that can’t be smoothed out. “No alibi and plenty of motive. They can trace the call and probably put you in the general area. But it’s all circumstantial. If you’re innocent, you’ve
gotta go in, explain what happened.”
“I’m not ready to do that.”
“This is an unexplained death — a fucking murder, Porter. It could haunt you for the rest of your life. Something could come up years from now. Think about how it’ll affect your family — your sister — your own kids when you have them. Being a murder suspect is not how you want to spend the rest of your life. And all because of some circumstantial evidence.”
“It’s a little more than circumstantial.”
Bill’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”
“The killer used my knife.”
“And you know this how?”
“I found it at the murder scene.”
Bill chews his lip. “What exactly did you do?”
“The only thing I could under the circumstances. I took it.”
“Jesus Christ, Porter.” Bill slaps a hand on the table, rattling our coffee cups. “You stole the fucking murder weapon —”
“It wasn’t really theft. It was my knife.”
Bill shoves back his chair and stalks out of the kitchen. A screen door sighs shut and I’m alone in his house, listening to the ice-maker in his fridge. I wait a few minutes to let him cool off, find him on the patio, sitting at a plastic picnic table, his back toward me.
“I had to take it, Bill —”
There’s a moment of silence, as quiet as it gets in the suburbs. Lawnmowers hum like a distant horde of locusts. Bill turns to look at me. His face is flushed and he’s smoking. He waves the cigarette at me. “You know, Porter, if this shit doesn’t kill me, you will.”
“I’m sorry to bring this to you Bill —”
“No — Goddamnit, Porter, I’m serious. This isn’t some game you’re playing here —”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“Don’t I?”
“Nina’s death was no game. Neither is this.”
Bill puffs furiously on his cigarette for a moment. I pull out a chair, sit across the plastic table from him. The table has an umbrella coming out through the centre: a vinyl cloth covered with paisley flowers that doesn’t quite match Bill’s balding velour. My coming here matches his retirement even less.
“I shouldn’t have brought this up.”
Bill sighs, rubs a wrinkled hand over his face. “You still have the knife?”
I nod.
“Is it here? Do you have it with you?”
“No, but it’s safe.”
“What do you mean — safe?”
“I buried it.”
“You buried it.” Bill shakes his head.
“In a suitable container,” I tell him. “Give me some credit.”
“You didn’t put it away wet did you?”
“I let it dry.”
“Good — that’s one thing you didn’t fuck up.”
Bill smokes in silence for a few minutes then butts the cigarette out among marigolds and petunias. “I suppose you left fresh prints all over the knife when you picked it up,” he says, crouched by the flowerbed. “And all over the crime scene.”
“I don’t think so. I tried not to.”
“Are your prints on file?”
I shake my head.
“If they charge you, they’ll take your prints.”
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”
“It’ll take more than hope,” Bill says. “It’ll take a fucking miracle.” He stands up, leans on the back of a plastic lawn chair. “So what are you going to do with the knife?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you’d have some suggestions.”
“Oh — I have some suggestions. Like maybe you should turn it in before they find it.”
“How could they find it?”
“Grow up Porter — this isn’t the Forest Service you’re dealing with here. These are professional criminal investigators. They can use dogs and run along the edges of the road — you had to get out of your truck somewhere. When they pick up your scent, the dogs’ll lead them right to the knife. It would look better if you turned it over.”
“Do you have any other suggestions?”
Bill thinks about this for a moment.
“Why should I turn it over?” I ask.
“There could be some trace left on the knife,” he says. “The dna sequencing technology they got nowadays is amazing. If there’s anything caught in the grip of the handle — skin cells, mucous — they might be able to build a profile. All they need are a few cells.”
“That’s not all they can identify,” I say. “They can identify Petrovich’s blood.”
Bill doesn’t want to answer but he doesn’t have to — the look on his face is enough of a match. The handle on my knife is smooth and I can’t see Brotsky not wearing gloves. But there’s plenty of Petrovich’s blood on my knife, which links me to the murder. Combine this with motive and other circumstantial evidence and it’s not a pretty picture. I’m starting to agree with Mark’s T-shirt.
“What about a suspect?” Bill asks. “You got any idea who capped this Petrovich?”
“I think so. An ex-military guy. He may also be the real Lorax.”
“Ex-military?” Bill nods. “That works in with the c4.But why set you up?”
“I can identify him —”
A door rattles, Mark back from the Winks around the corner. He comes onto the patio, eating potato chips, a bottle of Pepsi in his other hand. “You call that food?” Bill says. “Tell me you bought something wholesome.”
“I bought beef jerky,” says Mark.
“That’s not food.”
“It’s meat. Can I have a smoke?”
Bill hesitates.
“Come on Dad. You can’t fool me.”
Bill sighs, pulls out a rumpled pack. “I’m quitting again.”
“Sure.” Mark takes the smokes, goes inside.
“Not in the house!” Bill yells after him.
I lower my voice in case any windows are open. “Bill, do you think you could dig something up on this ex-military guy? What he did when he was in? Why he left? There’s got to be something.”
Bill sighs, clearly torn. I’m still thinking he may turn me in.
“I don’t know,” he says finally. “Maybe. I worked a case with a guy from the military police a few years back. He might be persuaded. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Alvin J. Brotsky.”
“I’ll see what I can do. But if this doesn’t pan out, you gotta come in.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You think hard. And take care of that knife.”
Cindy is surprised to see me. So are the kids, who tackle me, hang onto me like a koala to a tree. Uncle Porter only comes home when it rains. There’s a storm brewing all right, but it’s one they can’t see. I’m in town for a meeting, I tell them. It’s close enough to the truth.
“What a day,” says Cindy. Am I staying for supper? I nod and she opens an extra can of Irish stew. It’s the same sort of stuff I eat on the fireline, but she’s too overwhelmed tonight to do more than open and warm. The cops busted a child prostitution ring and she spent all day talking to eleven- and twelve-year-olds that have been having more sex than a housewife sees in a lifetime. Runaways, all of them, she tells me as she tosses dirty laundry down the stairs. Most of them don’t have much of a home to return to, which is why they ran away to begin with.