Extensions (35 page)

Dad snorted gently. “All I'm aiming for is not to run out of publishers when it starts coming back.”

I gave the envelope a good luck tap before loading my things into the car. On the way to the apartment, I stopped for groceries: fixings for chicken pasta and salad for tonight, along with the usual staples of bread, milk, eggs, cheese, and yogurt. If I made enough, I wouldn't have to think about food for tomorrow or for work on Monday.

January continued its wet imprint on the lower mainland, fogging over the mountains and often blurring the line between sky and sea, both the same aluminum grey. People complained about January blahs, but I still preferred the month to the gloominess of November. At least we were inching out of darkness rather than into it. And on days like this when the rainclouds parted in a sunny smile, we were reminded why the city is the most inviting on earth. The sudden afternoon light, a sharp glare in my rear-view mirror, accompanied me to the underground parking of my apartment and was still streaming through my patio doors from the little balcony when I carried up the first load. A bright note for my re-entry into independence from assisted living.

No whiffs of the fragrant currents that filled the place before Christmas, so I cracked the sliding doors for fresh air. I then lit a cinnamon candle and put on my Susan Crowe
CD
as I organized the food. I first heard “Fall Back Up Again” after my break-up with Ray, and it never failed to exhilarate me. My bare feet began to dance around my own little space and I poured the sole beer in the fridge to welcome myself home. From this stimulated state I heard the ivory walls cry for colour: a mustard or sage would do wonders until I decided what to do with the striped couch. Slipcovers, maybe? A bright throw co-ordinated with some squishy cushions? I craved relief from sombre interiors like the Kubiks.

Dad arrived right at five with a bottle of wine. “Warren Wright called again. Is he anyone I should know?”

“Too soon to tell. Maybe I'll bring him over to meet you.” Eventually I would have to divulge my cellphone number. Dad couldn't be my answering service forever.

After supper, Dad watched the hockey game while I put clothes away.

At nine, Wayne called to say he was sending Dex and me to the island on Monday to check on the witness under protection for the Hell's Angels trial. We were to deliver a subpoena, check on his earlier testimony, and assure him he would have a guard with him at all times. It made sense to send Dex because the guy knew him and trusted him, but I had been hoping unreasonably for a day with Tessa for this assignment. The thinking goes that a strategic shuffling can strengthen the team as a whole. Sukhi and Tessa would stay on the Kubik file; the longer the culprit to a high-profile baby murder was on the loose, the more incompetent we looked.

After the conversation, Dad jumped up. “I'll be off. You need your rest.”

“He said Monday, Dad. Why don't you finish watching the game?” My words were futile because he would never get over feeling like an intruder on my turf, whereas the same feeling did not apply to me on his. “Our home was once yours and always will be,” Mom had once said by way of explaining this double standard, “but yours was never ours.” Maybe not in our culture, but aging parents were a permanent fixture of a lot of immigrant homes where I'd taken calls.

He edged toward the door, pausing to ask if I would be able to work in a visit with Janetta when I was there. Not that I should do it on company time, but in case there was a wait between ferries, he knew she'd love to see me. That thought had already occurred to me. After his quick exit, I breathed a sigh of gratitude. We had survived the transfer.

When I dialled Warren's number, I opened again with “My dad gave me your message.” He responded with a low laugh and I pressed on. “I'm back in my apartment so I'll give you my cellphone number. I'm not going to bother with a land line.”

“I'm ready.”

“How've you been?”

“Okay. A friend is here and we're on our way to Torchy's for a drink. Care to join us?”

“Maybe next time. It's been a long week.”

“How about coffee tomorrow? And a walk along English Bay if the weather holds. Even cops get some Sundays off, don't they?”

“Sure. What time?”

“Two? I can pick you up.”

“Thanks, but I have an errand to do first.” It was still too soon to give out my address. “How about meeting at the Sylvia at two? We can take it from there.”

“Sounds good,” he said; we hung up.

A few palpitations, as I imagined the two of us strolling along the sea wall in the bright brisk perfection of a day like today. Greedy, bossy seagulls swooping around us, mingling energies with joggers, walkers, and winter sun. Maybe my hopes and fears would quit their standoff and settle into a workable state.

But I didn't get the chance to test myself. As soon as I hung up, Wayne called again to say there had been a change of plans. The witness had a doctor's appointment Monday but was available Sunday afternoon, so we had to accommodate him. Dex and I were to leave on the 11
AM
ferry. Two hotel rooms were booked for us in Nanaimo tomorrow night. We'd have the rest of Monday off. I called Warren back with apologies: “Welcome to a cop's world. Are you sure you have the patience for this?”

“I'm sure.”

THE SUN'S SMILE had lasted only an afternoon. When Dex picked me up at nine-thirty the next morning in a work car, we were back to blinding rain. I felt some consolation knowing a stroll along the sea wall would have been out of the question. Coffee shops are normally dry, however, and I had a stab of longing about missing out on that. Why was the longing most intense in the no-contact zone?

Traffic moved slowly over the Lions Gate Bridge. We heard on the radio it had been closed for over an hour because of an accident. Involving vehicles, at least. Sometimes jumpers on bridges stalled traffic for hours while being coaxed off the high beams. The serious ones succeeded with no fanfare.

We arrived just in time to drive onto the Horseshoe Bay ferry and climb the metal stairs up to the cafeteria. No fresh air or scenic vistas today. Dex ordered a hamburger and fries and I had a bowl of clam chowder and a piece of cheesecake. After lunch, he pulled out a deck of cards and I figured rummy was as good a way as any to spend the rest of the trip with Dex. At work he had been called intolerable, a lovable fool, a nerd, and the keenest cop on the force — all of which carried a bit of truth. Rumour had it he slept with his badge. He had been in Serious Crimes for two years and eyewitnesses claimed that he whistled a happy tune whenever his pager went off. No matter when it was — the middle of the night, Christmas dinner, or even on what to him was a rare event: a date. Nearly everyone else I knew came up with a curse or two; some wives even cried when their husbands' pagers vibrated — no, not for the obvious disruptions, but in the middle of shopping malls when they finally had the guy's attention.

Amusement for Dex consisted of his collection of Fwds from the internet. At work he had a cabinet full of them, also copied and filed at home with those that came in on his own computer. Every joke, virus alert, and uplifting message got printed and stored. Those whose blessings would be invalidated if not sent to ten people, were. Someone on another team remarked that a spam-filtering service was as close as anyone could come to a restraining order on Dex.

But now across the bolted-down table with the ridge on it, all I could see was a thirty-three-year-old man concentrating on his cards. Sandy hair, decent body, a face too pasty for my liking but whose features were more or less in the right place. Dex was not unattractive to certain women, though his two short-lived relationships had given way to his preference for the job. He referred to girls as “gals,” and I'd caught him once saying “a gal was swell.”

He was no quirkier than any of us, really: Dave, Jake, and Emile came to mind, and I was known for my scatterbrained ways. So why was such a dedicated member the butt of so many jokes? Because he had no sense of humour. He was too naïve to hide his obsessions, or to refrain from announcing, say, that he used one of his cat's discarded whiskers as a toothpick. The guys were continually at him not to share these things with the outside world, but he didn't get it. According to Sara, it was a missing sense of the absurd that kept people from laughing at themselves and made others laugh at them. But today my partner was far from innocent and took great glee in whipping me soundly in every game of rummy. I finally called it quits and said we should go down and wait in the car for debarkation.

Dex's undistracted mind stored data more accurately than most, so when we lumbered off the steel grates and ramps of the ferry onto the highway again, he knew exactly the route to find our protected witness Andy Lambert in Lantzville. The door opened before we had a chance to knock.

I had read the file and spoken to Dex about Andy Lambert, so I knew his age — fifty-six — and about his drinking problem and poor health. Still, I was not prepared for the crumpled man who greeted us. Looking closer to ninety, he moved like a stooped invalid. He had obviously dressed for visitors, his thin grey hair slicked back with grease, a plaid quilted jacket over what was probably his cleanest
T
-shirt, and ancient faded grey dress pants cinched at the waist with a brown belt. An old black Lab, grizzled at the mouth, stood protectively next to his master and, at a calming gesture, wagged his tail. Dex shook Andy's hand and I sensed a rapport between the two men. When he extended it to me, he bowed slightly, as Dad and Wendell Mingus did.

We entered the dingy trailer and Andy motioned us to sit down. I chose the shabby recliner over the gritty blanketed sofa, which emitted a smell of stale dog farts. Andy eased himself down next to his loyal companion and Dex remained standing.

“How ya feelin'?” Dex asked in a trailer park voice I'd never heard him use.

“Good days, bad days. I take them as they comes.”

“You up for the trial? They've rescheduled it for April 5. If it don't get cancelled again.”

Enough, Dex
, I said to myself of this attempt to speak Andy's language.

“Should be. If I live that long. Been four years already.”

“We can come here and get you, or meet you at Horseshoe Bay, whatever's best. You'll have a guard with you the whole time — hotel, courthouse, everywhere.” He opened his briefcase and handed him an envelope with a subpoena. “Just to make it official.”

Andy set it on the arm of the sofa without looking at it.

Dex pulled over one of two kitchen chairs standing against an Arborite table that folded out of the wall. He sat down and removed a clipboard with pages from his briefcase. “Just want to go over some of your prelim testimony to make sure it's accurate. Freshen your memory.” Andy began shivering on the sofa next to the dog.

“Would you like a cup of coffee first?”

He shook his head. “Just get the shakes now and then. And I'm supposed to be asking youse that question.”

Dex told him we didn't need anything and began reading. “You are prepared to testify in a court of law that Mitchell Pogue, an agent of William Hubbard, on trial for the murder of Harold Lorimer, threatened you with your life if you did not give Hubbard an alibi.”

Andy nodded.

“That William Hubbard sent his cousin Mitchell Pogue, also known as Macho Mitch, to your motorcycle repair shop, Lifecycles, just before closing on May 9, 2003. Pogue told you that you were ‘screwed' if you did not comply with Hubbard's wishes.” Dex looked at Andy for confirmation before continuing.

“When you were questioned by Constable Patricia Luknowsky of the Burnaby
RCMP
detachment, you told her that William Hubbard had brought his bike in for repair on Friday, April 18, 2003 between 20 and 21 hours.” From the transcript Dex then repeated Andy's own spoken words to the officer: “‘I was working late that night. The bike had a short in the lighting system and Hubbard said he would wait while it was being fixed so I wouldn't waste time ‘fartin' around.' The job took longer than I expected because I didn't have the exact part in stock and had to make do with what I had. Hubbard left just before 22 hours. I was alone on the premises.'”

Andy hung his head, remembering the lie.