Authors: Scott Thornley
“What am I supposed to do now? Can I go on living here?”
“If you and your aunt are willing to make this work, then perhaps you will live here, or at her place,” MacNeice said. “Otherwise, you’ll be placed in foster care.”
“For how long?”
“Until you’re eighteen.”
The doorbell rang. Aziz got up to answer it.
MacNeice put up a hand. “Ask them to wait for a couple of minutes.”
It was as if Dylan had been slapped awake. “Can I still be on the Panthers, have my friends … my teammates?”
The doorbell rang again. Aziz answered, but stepped outside, closing the door gently behind her.
Dylan’s aunt came into the living room from the kitchen, turned and went upstairs without saying anything or even looking the boy’s way.
Aziz came back, followed by two more strangers who were now a part of Dylan’s life. Dylan remained seated, looking fearfully from MacNeice to Aziz before shaking hands with the social workers.
“Dylan, later today there’ll be a forensics team here to search the home for any evidence that could aid us in our investigation,” MacNeice said. “They’ll be as considerate as possible, but they have a job to do. We’re leaving now, but you have my card. Call me if you think of anything that will be useful.” He glanced toward the social workers, who stood looking down at Dylan with expressions of solemn compassion. Turning to the medals and photograph on the mantel, MacNeice said, “I’d like to come to one of your games.”
The boy tilted his head, maybe thinking it was a strange thing to say at such a time. “We’re through for the year,” he replied. “We practise all the time, but next season starts next November.”
“Who’s your toughest rival?”
“Oh … the Golden Ghosts, for sure. They’d say the same about us too.” He seemed to be sitting a little straighter.
“Look for me in the stands when the championships come around again.”
“Serious?”
MacNeice reached over and shook Dylan’s hand, pulling him onto his feet. “Think about what I said. This will be a very hard time for you—the hardest you’ve ever experienced.” Standing back, he pointed to the photo. “Look for me, I’ll be there.”
Dylan nodded. “You’ll find out who did this to my dad, sir?”
MacNeice said, “We’ll do everything we can.” Then he said goodbye to the two social workers. He opened the door for Aziz and they stepped outside.
In the car, doing up her seat belt, Aziz looked over at MacNeice. “Well … it staggers me, the things we don’t learn at the academy.”
“You didn’t need to be taught that, detective.”
She smiled at him, then turned away to hide her tears.
Before he drove off, MacNeice rolled down the window to see if he could make out what was happening in the living room. Dylan was still on his feet, his head down. The care workers had their backs to the window. There was no sign of the aunt. With his foot on the brake MacNeice put the car in gear and glanced up to the second-storey window. Doris Nicholson was peering down at him from behind the sheers. When she realized he’d seen her, she stepped away.
Aziz blew her nose. “What do you think will happen to him?”
“My guess is he’ll be in care by this evening.” He took his foot off the brake and eased down Tisdale toward Main, the wipers on the Chevy doing a feeble
fwub, fwub, fwub
against the rain.
MacNeice drove slowly through the city as if he wasn’t sure where to go. They didn’t speak, and both seemed distracted by the sound of rain on the roof, by the wipers that couldn’t clear the windshield fast enough.
Aziz shifted so she was looking at MacNeice—the one thing in her field of vision that wasn’t moving, his brow furrowed and his jaw locked tight. “You okay, Mac?”
He glanced toward her with a brief but unconvincing smile. “I need a bit of a breather.” If it weren’t for Aziz sitting beside him, MacNeice would have gone for a long walk to let the rain wash over him until all his thoughts were clean or gone.
The rain eased as they zigzagged through the city. “Let’s go down to the bay,” MacNeice said.
Minutes later, he eased the Chevy into the deserted Macassa Bay parking lot, splashing through shallow puddles before coming to a stop at the bay side. Together, they headed along the trail to the end of the snout, where they looked across the water to Cootes Paradise. They could see smoke from a diesel engine, belching black roses above the trees before the wind swept them away to the west. The enormous barge was carefully combing the small bay’s bottom, like a gorilla attempting to lift a tiny flower from a pond.
“I hope they don’t find Anni’s tall Norwegian friend,” Aziz said.
From somewhere in the train yard to their left came the colliding ripple of shunting cars. Then the mist turned to rain again and they both jogged back to the car.
Safely inside, MacNeice turned the key, saying, “Let’s go see what Byrne has to say about Duguald.”
Aziz removed the hotel booking records from a large manila envelope, placing the originals on William Byrne’s desk. She sat down with a bull-clipped photocopy of the ledger on her lap. Byrne sucked on his teeth, shrugged and looked over at MacNeice.
MacNeice tapped the cover of the top ledger before sitting down. “Who is Duguald, Mr. Byrne? Where is he from, what’s his relationship to you, when did he leave Dundurn, where did he go and how did he get there—and if he didn’t leave, where might we find him now?”
“Duguald Langan. County Meath, not far from Dublin. Duggie’s my second cousin. As to the rest, I haven’t the foggiest. Why, what’s he accused of doing and, while I’m at it, what’s become of me boat?”
“Langan is listed as your night clerk from November to late December—he’s a person of interest.” MacNeice let his eyes wander over the desk. “Your boat will be returned when we’ve finished with it.”
“Where does Mr. Langan live?” Aziz asked.
“Beats me. Duguald’s been travelling since he was seventeen, working freighters out of Dublin.”
“Did he arrive here on a boat?”
“No. He wanted to see a bit of Canada first, so he landed in Halifax and took the train across. He stayed here for a while and might’ve booked himself onto another ship or gone home to be a carpenter and bricklayer.”
“Without letting you know he was leaving?” Aziz asked.
“Duggie is like that. I don’t expect more of him.”
“Did he have access to that boat of yours?”
“He’s a damn fine fisherman, so yeah, I let him take the boat out.”
“Over to Cootes?” Aziz asked.
“Nuttin’ there but carp. No, he’d be gone from first light to last some days. Come home with a haul of lake and brown trout he’d caught off Secord.” Byrne leaned against the wall. “Once, he snagged so many, my chef made it a special with fries—they sold out over lunch.”
Aziz looked up from her notes, keen to interrupt Byrne’s trip down memory lane. “What was the name of the ship that brought him to Halifax?”
“Ya know, detective, I can’t recall him ever telling me the name.” Byrne wasn’t leaning on the wall anymore. “Though I remember it sailed out of Helsinki and was registered in Taiwan—funny, the things you do remember.”
“Was your second cousin ever in trouble with the law back in Ireland?” MacNeice was studying the worn oriental runner on the floor.
“Not that I know of. He’s a good lad, a bit quick-tempered, but then single men his age often are.”
“And what age would that be?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Aziz asked whether Byrne had a photo of the young man. He didn’t; nor did he have the address in Ireland where Duguald or any of his family lived.
“Why is that?” Aziz asked.
“Duggie left home early for a life at sea, and neither side of my family is given to staying in touch with the far-flung relations.”
MacNeice’s fuse was running short. “Describe him to us.”
“Whaddya mean?”
Aziz put her pen down with a slap. “Is he tall, short, heavy, slim, built like you or more like DS MacNeice? Does he have tattoos, as seamen often do? Any scars? Is he bald or does he have a full head of hair—if so, is it fair or dark? Are his eyes green, grey, hazel, brown or blue? Did he walk erect or hunched over—any limp or oddness in his gait?”
Byrne reacted like he was being smacked. When she’d finished, he exhaled. “I wasn’t in love with the fella, we were only related. Lemme see … he’s taller than me for sure, but not as tall as him.” He nodded in MacNeice’s direction. “He’s heavier, though—like I said, he’s a big boy.” Arching his eyebrows like he was running through Aziz’s list, he added, “Duggie has dark hair, lots of it. He says the ladies like it that way because they can run their fingers through it, if you follow.”
“He’s a lady’s man.” Aziz kept her eyes on her notebook.
“How should I know? We didn’t double date. He was my night clerk and when he wasn’t clerkin’, he was out fishin’.”
“Tattoos or other distinguishing marks?”
“He has a tattoo of the flag of Ireland on his chest over his heart, and a bathing beauty on his forearm that he can make shimmy when he flexes his muscles. Duggie is fit, but not the kind
of fit you get in a fancy gym.”
“You said that Duguald is dark. How dark?”
“Well, no offence, but not as dark as you, detective.”
She let the comment slide. “Did he ever bring one of his girlfriends back to the hotel?”
“Nope. Never met a one.”
MacNeice leaned closer to study the memorabilia tacked to the corkboard: postcards and brochures from the Emerald Isle. He removed both postcards to check the backs—nothing written on them; they’d never been used. “Where is Duguald now, Mr. Byrne?”
“You asked me that already. I dunno.”
“Yes, but you suddenly remembered so much about him, I thought you might have gotten lucky there too.”
“You mean you thought you’d get lucky.”
MacNeice smiled. “Why don’t you show us where Duguald stayed.”
Byrne shrugged and led them upstairs to the room with sickly green curtains. He leaned against the door jamb after the detectives went in.
Without turning to him, MacNeice said, “Leave us now. We’ll see you downstairs when we’re finished.” He put on his latex gloves.
“Okay, but no funny business you two—not witout payin’ first.” He winked at Aziz, raising his eyebrows as she put on her gloves. She turned on him with a cold stare and the man retreated.
MacNeice opened the oppressive green curtains, sending a fog of dust particles floating toward the bed. The window was so filthy, it filtered the already grey light from outside.
They tore the bedding off the double mattress, lifted and turned it, then slid it off the frame and checked the structure and its stained headboard. Nothing. They put it back. They lifted the mirror and the cheap print of Boston Harbor off the wall to see if either had been tampered with. They tipped the chair, checked the drawer in the bedside table and lifted the edges of the crusty carpet, sending more dust flying up in their faces. They removed the shelf paper from the closet—nothing. Aziz ran a hand over the wallpaper and scanned the subflooring for any lumps or loose boards.
MacNeice sat on the bed frame while Aziz stood on the chair to check the fluorescent light fixture. Its diamond-patterned screen came off, but there was nothing behind it other than the tubes. She climbed down and sat beside MacNeice, who was staring at the curtains.
“Those curtains put me in mind of Wilde’s final words.”
Aziz dusted off the dead insects that had fallen on her when she removed the fluorescent cover. “You mean either they go or I do?”
“Exactly.”
MacNeice stood up and went to the window. He lifted the right side curtain and felt along the bottom hem from the outside in, then checked the left. That’s where he found it, tucked inside the hem: a piece of paper torn from a bar tab, neatly folded to make it smaller. In pencil were seven single digit numbers—4, 3, 7, 5, 2, 6, 1—and beside each, an initial with another number: B50, W100, S75, Z400, A50, R100, G500.
“That’s rich.” MacNeice held the paper up to the light and laughed. Sitting down again beside Aziz, he told her about a case he worked as a young cop. It had involved an old guy that everyone—cops and crooks alike—called the Fox. “He was the real deal, right out of the pages of a Damon Runyon novel, a street-smart bootlegger and bookie, horse racing mostly.” MacNeice
handed her the chit. “Each of those numbers represents a horse in the race, the initials are the person who placed the bet, and the number next to the letter is the amount of the bet. It’s garden-variety bookie accounting. But hidden in the hem—that’s the Fox—pure genius.”
He told Aziz that the Fox had had a faulty heart. One day, following his umpteenth attack, he was in a single bed recovery room at Dundurn General—tubed to the hilt with monitors measuring everything—when MacNeice and another young cop were told to turn the room over and be thorough about it. “He had allegedly been running bets with the other cardiac patients out of the critical-care unit. The fresh widow of one of those patients found a note about a bet in the drawer of the table next to his bed as she was clearing out his effects. He’d put it there perhaps because he knew he might not wake up, or that if he did, he might not remember—and nobody really trusts a bookie. She called the cops.”
MacNeice smiled as he remembered. “The Fox had somehow managed to get out of bed long enough to slide his record of the bets into the hem of the curtain.” MacNeice and his sergeant never found it, even though they tore the place apart, including the bed—they had the Fox moved onto a gurney for the purpose. He had a clear plastic oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and he was smiling the whole time. “When we came up short, the sergeant lifted the mask off the Fox’s face—the nurses went crazy. Sarge asks him, ‘What’s so funny?’ ”
“How did you learn about the hem?”
“Years later, the Fox finally had one too many heart attacks. My sergeant showed up at his funeral, either because he had a soft spot for a smart crook or he just wanted to make sure it wasn’t another scam. The Fox’s wife told him about the chit in the hem. She didn’t know it was there either, until he had asked her to retrieve it so he could collect on the bets.”