Death On a No 8 Hook (A Willows and Parker Mystery) (15 page)

Chapter 29

Willows borrowed the Duty Sergeant’s Bic pen and signed an unmarked chocolate-brown Ford Fairlane out of the car pool. He checked to make sure the cherry and the radio and the computer terminal worked, then wheeled out of the parking lot and on to Cordova.

He drove down Cordova for three blocks, turned right on Jackson, made a quick left on Prior and accelerated up the concrete access ramp to the Dunsmuir Viaduct. Almost directly ahead of him the bloated, bone-white fibreglass roof of the domed stadium rose up to dominate the south-west quadrant of the city’s skyline. Off to his right, the old
Vancouver
Sun
building looked as if it was waiting to be climbed by a giant ape.

It was Monday night, a few minutes past ten. The temperature was in the high seventies, and holding steady. There was a breeze coming in from the ocean; the air smelled of iodine. Traffic was moderate.

On the downtown core side of the viaduct Willows impatiently waited out a red light and then turned on to Howe Street, one of the main arteries that skirted the city’s financial district. He drove one short block down Howe and hit another red. As he sat in the idling Ford waiting for the light to change, he was suddenly filled with a sense of urgency and despair. Too much time had passed since the discovery of the bodies of Naomi Lister and her still-unidentified boyfriend. The vast majority of murder cases were solved in the first few days of the investigation or not at all. This one was slipping away from him, fading fast.

At the corner of Robson and Davie, Claire Parker sat at a bus stop bench drinking grape juice out of a waxed cardboard carton, and reading the graffiti spray-painted all around her. Willows pulled the Fairlane tight against the curb and Parker stood up. She opened the Fairlane’s door and slid inside, adjusted her skirt. She shut the door and said, “Let’s roll, partner!”

Willows just sat there, not moving. Parker was wearing a dark blue skirt and matching jacket, a creamy white blouse with an open neck. She drank the last of the grape juice and reached out the window and tossed the container into a litter bin. Willows still hadn’t moved. She turned to him and said, “Something wrong, Jack?”

“No, not a thing. I was just admiring your outfit. Nice suit. Very businesslike. Makes you look like a lawyer.”

Parker shrugged. “Eddy Orwell took me out to dinner.”

“Lucky you.”

“Have you ever been up on top of the Sears Building, that revolving tower?”

Willows shook his head. “No, I can’t say I have.”

“Real nice view,” said Parker, doing her best to mimic Orwell’s gravelly voice.

“I can imagine.”

“What Eddy kept wondering about, all through the meal, was the plumbing. How do they keep the pipes from getting all twisted up? When you flush the toilet, where does it all go? Fascinating.” Parker tilted the rearview mirror towards her, peered intently at her reflection. “Tell me something, Jack. Do you think I’m too old for Eddy?”

“Everybody over the mental age of twelve is too old for Eddy.” Willows swung the mirror back into position, twisted in his seat to check the traffic, and hit the gas. “Why, did he give you the brush-off?”

“I’m a free woman,” said Parker. “No encumbrances.”

Willows let that one go by.

The Fairlane was burning oil and the automatic transmission was out of adjustment, the bands were slipping. They were cruising down the twelve-hundred block Davie, between Bute and Jervis. There were hookers everywhere. Space was at a premium, the intersections filled to capacity, groups of two or three prostitutes at every corner. As they drove west, down the slope towards English Bay, the women faded and the boys took over. They looked right through the Fairlane. The four doors and blackwall tyres made the car instantly recognizable as a police vehicle — the two small whip antennae sticking out of the boot were simply icing on the cake.

Willows drove past Jervis and pulled up next to a fireplug halfway down the block. A street-cleaning machine sloshed up the hill towards them, huge brushes spinning, jets of water spraying both sides of the street, sluicing the day’s accumulation of filth into the gutters. Willows turned off the engine. He rolled up his window and waited until the big white machine had roared past, then pushed open his door and got out of the car. The wet and steaming asphalt was a palette of colour — blurred smears of neon pinks, greens and blues.

“All set?” said Parker.

Willows reached under his jacket and shifted the angle of his .38 snubbie in its clamshell holster. He got out of his car and slammed the door shut, then examined his reflection in the car window, making sure that his jacket hung properly and that the gun didn’t show.

The two detectives strolled up the sidewalk, Parker adjusting to Willows’ slow, rolling gait, the pace he’d learned during his years as a uniformed patrolman.

*

The experience they had with two women in front of the government liquor store on Alberni was typical in most respects of the way things had been going, and the way they went that night.

The women were both hungry. It is not against the law in Canada to be a prostitute, but it is illegal to actively solicit business. Willows watched the women move with the flow of the traffic, all hips and mouths and pouting breasts as they patrolled the curb, smiling sightlessly into the glare of the lights and the glossy metal bodies of the slow-moving cars that cruised past them like the links of an endless chain. He and Parker were about thirty feet away when the nearest of the women noticed them. She said something to her companion and they both began to walk rapidly down the street, heading towards the alley.

“Hold it!” Willows shouted.

The women slowed, glanced uncertainly at each other, stopped.

“It’s those six-inch spike heels,” said Parker. “If they’d been wearing flats, they’d have run for it.”

The women turned to face the approaching cops. A chorus line of two. Twin sisters wearing frilly pink dresses in a clinging, translucent material. Blue nylons sprinkled with tiny silver stars. Hair cut short and ragged, dyed blonde with streaks of red and green and purple. Eyes sunk deep in blue shadow, cheeks heavily rouged, lips blood-red and glistening.

Willows found himself staring. He was looking at a pair of Shirley Temple clones created by a mad scientist in a late-night movie. The women stared back at him with knowing, half-bright eyes. If there was going to be a conversation, he’d have to start it. He took the morgue shot of Naomi Lister out of his shirt pocket, held it up so it was illuminated by the light from the liquor store window. “Do either of you know this girl?” he said.

The women edged a little closer, curious. Willows saw they weren’t sisters after all, they were just dressed to look that way. Both of them were about the same age, though, early twenties. The woman on his right was plump, almost chubby. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick. Her companion had a small scar high up on her neck, just beneath the lobe of her ear. The roots of her hair were black. She rested a hand lightly on Willows’ arm.

“What do you want her for? What’d she do?”

“Nothing,” said Willows.

“Yeah, right. That explains why you’re so interested in her.”

“What’s the girl’s name?” said the plump woman. She was looking at Parker.

“Naomi Lister.”

The woman studied the passing traffic, and then said, “I’ve seen her around. Not lately, though. Two or three weeks ago, maybe a month. She in some kind of trouble, her parents looking for her?”

Parker glanced at Willows. Willows nodded.

“She’s in the morgue,” said Parker. “She’s dead.”

The woman with black roots fumbled in her purse, pulled out a crumpled pack of Virginia Slims and lit up, blew a stream of smoke at the passing cars.

“You from out of town?” said Willows.

“What makes you ask?”

“The cigarettes.”

“Aren’t you clever. Keep it up, one of these days you might make detective.”

“Seattle?”

“Portland.”

“What happened to Naomi?” said the plump woman with the chewed fingernails. She was deliberating changing the subject, but Willows didn’t mind. The only reason he was hassling the import from Portland was to give her a motive to cooperate.

“Somebody killed her,” he said. He took another morgue shot out of his pocket, this one of the boy found stabbed to death in the back of the Econoline. The plump woman glanced at the picture and nodded. “His picture was in the papers, right?”

“You know him?”

“Not really.” She paused, and then said, “What’re you gonna do about my sister, kick her ass across the border, or what?”

“That depends,” said Willows.

The import with the blonde hair and the black roots flicked her cigarette into the gutter. “Talk to him, Shirley, and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“I’ve seen them around,” the plump woman said to Parker.

“What, both of them? Naomi
and
the boy?”

“Yeah, that’s right. They were living together. Rumour was, they were going to get married.” She smiled crookedly. “Cute, huh. I mean, what were they, about ten years old?”

“Wait a minute,” said Willows. “I thought the kid was gay.”

“Why, just because he did a little business? Don’t be so naive, handsome. He was just looking to earn a dollar, that’s all.”

“Beats pumping gas,” said the import.

“What was his name?” said Parker.

The plump woman shook her head. “No idea.”

“You know anybody who knew him?” Parker persisted.

“I don’t mix with the younger set. It’s too depressing. Ask some of the kids his own age, why don’t you.”

“Good idea,” said Willows. He handed the woman his card. The card had his name printed on it, and beneath his name his office and home phone numbers. The home number had been inked out, and the number of his new apartment written beneath it. “If you hear anything, give me a call, okay?”

“Sure thing,” said the woman from Portland, already turning away.

“How come you don’t have a card?” said the plump woman to Parker.

“He’s the card,” said Parker. “I’m the serious one.”

The woman smiled, not getting it, but trying hard. Her front teeth were stained with lipstick. Parker thought about vampires. “Have a nice evening,” she said. The woman made as if to blow her a kiss, but lost her nerve. She hurried after her friend, her heels clicking on the pavement.

“I think she kind of likes you,” said Willows.

“Do you blame her?” said Parker. They stared at each other for a moment. Willows blinked first.

At two o’clock in the morning they decided to take a break, and walked over to a nearby twenty-four hour restaurant to take a load off their aching feet and grab a bite to eat. Willows bought himself a large glass of two per cent milk and filled a second glass with water and chipped ice. Parker ordered a cheeseburger and a pot of tea. She scooped some cutlery out of the plastic self-serve bins, and they found a table near the window.

The restaurant was air-conditioned. Willows could feel the sweat cooling on his back. Two o’clock in the morning, and it was still in the mid-seventies. He sipped at his milk, drank a little iced water. He wiped his forehead with a paper napkin, tossed the napkin on the table.

Parker sipped at her tea. “Nobody seems to know these kids,” she said to Willows. “It’s as if they never existed, and it doesn’t make sense. Whoever heard of a juvenile hooker who didn’t mingle.”

Willows nodded vaguely, not wanting to talk about it. His lungs were clogged with exhaust fumes. He felt tired and dirty. He needed a shower and a couple of inches of Cutty Sark, sleep. He drank a little more milk. “How was the croquet?” he said. “You have a good time?”

“I didn’t go. Did you really think I would?”

“No, I guess not.”

Parker’s number was called over the P.A. System. She pushed away from the table and went to collect her food. Willows passed the time watching a kid in a sleeveless V-neck sweater and a polka-dot bow-tie amuse his date by walking a quarter across his knuckles. He yawned. What he needed was to lie down somewhere, stretch out and fall asleep, sleep without dreaming. Not at the apartment, though. Nothing depressed him more than unlocking his fireproof metal door and walking into all that silence, even the sound of his breathing absorbed by the empty space and wall-to-wall carpet.

Parker came back to the table carrying a tray loaded down with a huge cheeseburger and a side of French fries, a second pot of tea and a spare plate. Indicating the empty plate, she said, “Have some fries.”

“Thanks anyway, I think I’ll stick with the milk.”

“When was the last time you had a decent meal?” said Parker. “Put some carbohydrates in your stomach, it’ll do you good.”

“You sound exactly like my grandmother.”

Parker smiled. She cut the cheeseburger in half and used the blade of her knife to shovel the burger and a handful of fries on to the empty plate, pushed the plate across the table. “Just don’t tell me I look like her.”