Authors: Carolyn Davidson
“These were taken last month,” he told them, “we’ve been doing surveillance for some time now. We’ve got Dan Chubb, a big guy over here, your man Thibeault, and this is Rob Davies, father of the girl that was murdered.”
“Wire’s got them planning the distribution route,” he continued, nodding at the photograph of two men deep in conversation, the third apparently listening, his hands shoved deep in pockets. “They keep the information tight, but between the wire and word on the street I’ve picked up we’ve got Davies running tobacco for them down the coast. We’re just waiting for the detachment down South to get a solid link on their distributer and then we’re making our move.”
“Did you hear Angie Davies’ name in any of your time on the street?” Alex asked the question relevant to their case.
“Sure,” Gerry nodded, “I was at an Angel’s house when Davies was sounding off. It was pretty recent and he was hard on the bottle, shouting to anyone who would listen that he was going to find the guy who did it and take care of it in a slow and painful way, you can imagine. John Thibeault was there, took him aside and talked him down.”
Noting the time on the clock on the wall Susan nodded at Alex, and they stood, thanking Billings for his time. They had more information to add to the picture, but she was anxious to the get the investigation back closer to home.
*
The house smelled strange, like the iron had been left on too long. Fire, Tom told himself, striding into the kitchen.
“Clare?” he called when he found the room empty. Approaching the stove hurriedly, he found no sign of fire. “Clare?” he called again. She was always here when he came home, something must be wrong.
The smell seemed to be coming from the direction of the garbage, and Tom leaned over it cautiously. Two blackened pieces of meat had been tossed inside the bin and had melted into the plastic liner.
Feeling sick to his stomach, Tom pounded up the stairs, calling his wife’s name. He burst into the bedroom prepared to find it empty, and stopped short when he saw Clare seated in front of the vanity mirror.
“Hi, Tom,” she said, looking at his reflection behind hers. “How was your day, darling?”
“Fine,” Tom replied, watching her as she brushed her hair. There was a silence as Clare continued to run the brush through her hair. “It was fine. How about you, did you have a nice day?”
“It was fine,” she replied, placing the hairbrush down carefully beside the matching hand mirror. “Why don’t you go on down to the table. I hope you don’t mind, we’re having leftovers.”
“Not at all,” Tom replied nervously. He approached Clare slowly. “You know I love everything you cook.” He reached out to touch her hair, stopping when she moved her head away.
“I just fixed it Tom,” Clare gave a girlish laugh, holding up her hand. “I don’t want you to mess it up.”
Tom gave a start when he saw deep red bands cut into his wife’s palms. “What happened?” he demanded, taking hold of her wrists. Both hands had angry marks cut across them.
Clare yanked her hands back and smoothed her skirt as she stood. “It’s nothing,” she said, brushing past him. “Let’s go downstairs. You can have a drink while I set the table.”
Tom followed his wife down the stairs, the unease still gnawing at his stomach. He had to take better care of her. He would surprise her by taking her out to dinner at a restaurant in town on the weekend.
“This looks great,” he told his wife as she removed a casserole dish from the oven. “You’re so good to me.”
The Wiarton Sportsbar was nearing empty save six odd members of the local OPP force. Late dinner and a couple beers’ stress release, then back at it early the next morning, no weekends or days off until the case had itself a prime suspect. In jail, preferably.
Driscoll leaned back and gave a satisfied sigh, dropping his napkin on top of a plate piled high with well cleaned chicken wing bones.
“I better give Joanne a call,” he said, reaching for his phone.
“Out past your curfew?” Barry Dunlop teased, the constable himself comfortably married upwards of twenty years.
Ronald Knapton laughed in response, grabbing for Gary’s leg in a charade of a ball and chain.
“It not that,” Driscoll’s cheeks reddened. “She’s eight months along though. You know, hormones and all”.
“Ah, yes,” Maggie nodded sagely, “Hormones. The answer to every woman’s action that can’t be explained by men.”
“Don’t worry Gary, Ronnie here doesn’t get it, hasn’t found anyone willing to be his ball and chain yet.” Alex winked at Driscoll as he pulled up a chair, reaching across the table to take a French fry from Maggie’s half empty plate.
“You’re one to talk, O’Reilly,” Knapton returned, and Driscoll glared at his co-workers as he turned his back, hand covering the cell phone clutched to his ear in an attempt to filter out the music and growing pool game dispute behind him.
“Where did you say you learned to play?” Derek Janey teased his opponent. “I knew you were a city girl, but I thought you’d have learned to play straight after all these years with us country folk.”
“I beat you fair and square,” Susan grinned, placing her cue on the table. “We have witnesses,” she gestured to the table of overfed and exhausted OPP staff.
“Not half credible,” Derek grumbled, setting the balls up for another round.
“I’ll vouch for you, Inspector,” Ginny raised her hand. Susan had known the crime scene photographer since she joined the Owen Sound detachment two years ago, and this was the first time Susan had seen her without her camera on scene.
“Glad you could join us Ginny,” “Susan responded “but I am officially out.” She held her hands up in front of her, “I’ll quit while I’m ahead.”
“I’ll take you up,” Emily stood up eagerly, smoothing her hair unconsciously. Derek had that effect on women, Susan noted dryly. Take a competent professional young woman and put a smooth talking handsome faced guy in front of her and the results could make you cringe.
Brushing the cue chalk from her palms, Susan spotted Driscoll putting his cell phone back in his pocket. “Good instinct on the tap on Logan,” she approached the Constable, pulling him aside. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, you can keep up the focus on Tom Senior for the time being, see if there’s anything more to be found there.”
“Will do,” Driscoll nodded. “Actually I think I’ll call it a night, get on it first thing in the morning.”
“I think we all better call it a night soon or we’ll find ourselves a few bodies short in the morning,” Susan said, glancing at the station staff in various stages of enjoyment and relaxation. Emily in particular looked like she needed the night to have a cap put on it quickly; her pool playing poses placed strategically in front of Janey were looking more and more suggestive.
“Early morning everyone,” she called to the group over the beat of the sports bar juke box, and she heard a few groans.
“OK teacher,” Janey smiled, elbowing his new pool partner in the ribs. “Rain check, Miss Emily.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Emily responded playfully, and the group began a slow and reluctant departure.
*
Susan couldn’t think of a worse time for the Deputy Commissioner’s visit, but that was the way it went sometimes. She sat beside him at the incident room table, the information her team had gathered so far spread out in front of them, and immense will stopping her foot from tapping in rapid succession under the table.
“So you can see we’re getting there, we’ve got a number of tangible leads being followed as we speak,” she concluded. “I’m headed South as soon as we’re finished here to look into the possible financial motive, and I’ve got Alex and the rest of the team on top of the other leads here.”
“Good,” Rutlidge nodded his head in apparent satisfaction. “You don’t want something like this hanging open at your detachment for any length of time.”
Susan gritted her teeth and stood in tandem with the Deputy Commissioner. He was the type of man who used his height and girth to intimidate, tending to stand slightly too close for comfort, with his prolific waistline jutting into his recipient’s space. He and Susan hadn’t warmed to each other from the beginning, but had avoided any direct clashes so far, and she hoped to keep it that way.
“The sooner you wrap it up the sooner I can let them know up at Thunder Bay that you’ve bagged it.”
“Yes sir,” Susan nodded in agreement, inwardly pointing out that she solved crimes to get criminals off the street, not to win points at Headquarters.
What a change in leadership, she thought as she walked with the Deputy Commissioner to the station doors. Andrews only had one year in the position before his heart attack, and her the one year in his vacated position when he moved up the ladder to Deputy. But she had worked with Andrews long enough when he was Inspector to know that he would have come with the goal of assisting in any way he could, brainstorming potential leads, playing devil’s advocate to see if there were any alternate outcomes they had overlooked. Not to give a hands off glance at the papers in front of him and leave in his wake an unspoken undercurrent of pressure reminding them that Headquarters was watching their work and getting impatient with the results.
She wouldn’t let it bother her, she told herself, turning back to her office. There were more import things to attend to, and they wouldn’t wait for bureaucratic handholding.
*
“How’s the Commish?” Alex asked Susan, leaning against her office doorframe. He had waited until the Commissioner had cleared the room before making his appearance.
“No comment,” Susan replied, not looking up from her computer as she put the last touches on one of the interminable reports that had been waiting for her attention. That’ll do for now, she decided, saving the document and closing the computer down.
“What’s with the luggage?” he asked, nodding at the duffle bag on the floor beside Susan’s desk.
“I’m following up on Harmon’s ex-clients in the city,” she told him, standing up from her desk and grabbing the bag, “seeing if there’s a revenge motive in the works. I’ll be back late tonight.”
She’d be gone less than twenty four hours, and she trusted Alex to keep things moving while she was gone. No reason then for the gnawing ache in the pit of her stomach. Nerves. Had to be the case, combined with a trip to the city she had called home for most of her life without a visit in what must be close to five years.
“You know if you want some company, and a second set of ears, I could come with you,” Alex suggested with a smile.
It was tempting. To have someone from her current life by her side to ground her now would be invaluable on a personal level. And for the person to be Alex made it even more appealing.
Susan sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Nah, you better stay here and keep an eye on things. I’ll let everyone know they can report to you while I’m gone.” She smiled at him. “You can play the heavy, keep the pressure on while I’m gone so we don’t lose what momentum we have.”
“You got it,” Alex replied. “No worries.”
He watched her pack files into a briefcase, a worry crease between her eyebrows.
“Hey, once we wrap this case up we’ll have to get a kayak in, it’s been way too long. Get out there at least once before winter creeps up on us,” he suggested.
“Sounds good,” Susan replied, shutting the office door behind her.
It did sound good. Kayaking was about the last sport Susan would have pictured herself doing before moving up North. In fact, she had laughed in Alex’s face the first time he asked her.
She had been here a couple months, still adapting to the change of pace, still working harder than she’d needed to impress upon her new colleagues that she was a good cop.
The lack of traffic, the acres of farm fields, all the things that had appealed to her when she requested her transfer up North, they were all as she had pictured. But she hadn’t been prepared for the complete silence and darkness of the country night, the way the entire town seemed to shut down with the sun. She had felt pretty isolated the first while, if she had to admit it. And maybe it had been more obvious than she’d like to think.
Alex had swung by her desk one morning, back when they were both still Sergeants. His dark hair had been damp, and his face had the sheen of exertion on it. “D’you kayak?” he’d asked, with what would become his characteristic drop of a jeaned leg on her desk. And she’d looked at him like he had sprouted a horn. “Do I what?”
He had appeared unfazed. “Out on the Bay,” he gestured over his shoulder. “I’ve got a couple one seaters. I’ll take you out one morning this week if you’re up early enough. You don’t know what you’re missing.” He’d winked at her and headed off towards his desk.
Susan had shrugged him off on a few occasions, but the fourth time he turned up at her desk she’d taken him up on it. “Alright,” she’d said. “I can’t promise any boating skills, but I’ll be there.”
And so she’d met him at the foot of his property the following morning, been strapped into a large yellow lifejacket, and stepped precariously off his dock and into a kayak under his careful direction.
“That’s it,” he had guided her. “Keep your balance in the middle and stay low.”
“No problem,” she’d grunted, feeling like an elephant trying to squeeze into a tin can.
He’d been right, it was amazing. Once she had the knack of keeping a straight line there was nothing like sitting level with the water stretched out around her, silent except for the lap of the waves and the company of a few ducks. And the pale rocks of the cliffs rising up from the water; it had surpassed any inkling she’d had about the serenity of up North when she had considered leaving Toronto.
They had fallen into a pretty regular routine, once or twice a week at the crack of dawn, even the odd evening kayak, watching the sun slide beneath the water. But what with one thing and another recently, they had fallen out of the habit. Alex had urged her to make use of the kayak on her own anytime she wanted, giving her a spare key to the pump house where he stored the paddles, something she hadn’t been quite comfortable enough to take advantage of.
Snapping back to the present, Susan slid into her SUV, taking a moment to enter the addresses she’d be visiting into her GPS before starting off. She quickly settled into the scenic drive down Highway 10 that linked one small town to the next, before the bigger towns appeared, and then the highway into the city.
Traffic, Susan cursed to herself, something she didn’t miss. She eased her foot onto the brake to bring the SUV to a staggering ten kilometers per hour. Gotta love the 401, she shook her head. Glancing at the cars on either side of her she saw more than half of the drivers on their cell phones. And one man biting into what looked to be a McDonalds’ breakfast sandwich. She sighed as she saw the driver wiping frantically at a stain on his tie. What a way to live. Amazing how only ten years ago this wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary for her.
Spotting a sign for the Don Valley Parkway on her right, Susan eased into the next lane, giving a wave to a thoughtful driver who took pity on her and allowed her the last minute lane change. The DVP was marginally better, and Susan took a deep breath as she took in the brightly coloured trees sloping from highway to ravine. Approaching the Bayview turn off, she found herself passing close to the apartments overlooking the Don Valley. Home sweet home, Susan laughed humourlessly to herself.
It was no bungalow with a white picket fence, but if the apartment had one bonus for a childhood home it was that view. She had completely forgotten. How is it possible, she asked herself, to remember small pieces of the past as if they had happened days ago, and to completely erase entire years? Countless evenings she had sat on that balcony, the green of the Don Valley stretching out beneath her, the downtown city skyline rising behind it. It didn’t take long to become immune to the background hum of the highway traffic, and it had seemed there was no better place to breathe in the night air under the moon and dream of the enormity of endless possibilities.
She had always wished as a child that she had a sister, and had created in her mind someone who sat beside her and shared her thoughts, marvelling with her at the stars that looked so close, and staring at the windows of other apartments that housed countless lives she knew nothing about.
Susan cursed as she nearly passed her exit, but with a few quick manoeuvres was soon in the relative calm of a residential neighbourhood. She turned up the volume of the GPS as it directed her down vaguely familiar roads, slowing the car as she read the numbers on the homes that lined the street of her first destination. Mostly bungalows, variegated with recent tear downs that been replaced with four story structures standing tall in their squat neighbours’ midst. The march of urban progress. Susan shook her head; old neighbourhoods getting new facelifts.