Snowjob (18 page)

“Okay. We’re not joined at the hip,” Hinton said. “Where’s Maloney live?”

I directed him and he dropped me off. Maloney’s car was not there and I didn’t have a key to the house so I had to leave Sam inside and drive away. Hinton had given me the north end of the town with a rendezvous in an hour’s time at a restaurant in the main square. He drove off and turned left at the main street. I followed a minute later and turned right.

If I hadn’t been on business it would have been a very pleasant drive. The town was quiet and pretty. The houses looked like something off a Christmas card and I slipped back into remembering the town I grew up in. It was a mining town in Ontario, nowhere near so pretty as this, all the trees stunted from the relentless acid rain from the smelter stacks. But the snow was the same, and the few kids on the street ware playing hockey with the same intensity.

I was half lost in my memory when I saw a familiar car parked in front of a house at the end of a long street, under a maple. The sight snapped me back to the present. I pulled in behind it and got out of my car.

The driver wound the window down and looked up at me. “Doug,” I said. “I thought you were supposed to be staying home.”

“I’m a cop,” he said grimly. “Even with my badge lying in the chief’s top drawer. They can’t stop me thinking.”

“What are you doing here?”

“My job,” he said softly. “Grant’s car is parked in the next driveway.”

He was right. The Oldsmobile was there, driven up to the front of the garage as if Grant lived there. I didn’t approach it but went back to Doug Ford. “Yeah, that’s his car. How did you know it was here?”

“They all should have known,” Doug said. “Wendy Tate lives here. She’s one of his women. Was one of his women, I guess.”

“How did you know his car was missing?”

“I didn’t,” Doug said. “I just figured I’d talk to some of his old girlfriends, see if any of them knew anything. This was the first place I came to.”

“Have you knocked at the door?”

“Nobody home,” he said. He seemed angry at having to say anything. “I figured as long as I was here I should stick around until she got back.”

“Look, Doug. I’m glad you found the car but the chief’s right. If you get involved in this case it’s gonna blow it for the defense on your own problem. I’ll go find a phone and call for Pat Hinton. When he gets here, you should be gone.”

“Right.” He sounded savage now. “Make sure the white boys get the credit.”

He started winding the window up but I grabbed the door and opened it. “Listen, Doug. You don’t have to give me this crap. This isn’t about black and white. This is about homicide, goddamn it. I thought you were a cop, not a Black Panther.”

“I’m going home,” he said. “You do what the hell you like.”

I let go of the door and he slammed it shut. I waited while he made a three-point turn in the roadway and drove back out, moving slowly as if his tension was so high he was afraid to put his foot down. I watched him go, then went up to the house. It seemed quiet but with all the doors and windows shut, who could tell. I pressed the bell. Nobody answered and I tried again, then turned away.

There was a garage beside the house, an old frame building, big enough for one car. The snow was clear in front of it, looking as if the owner used it every day. I wondered if her car was in there and she was at home, ignoring my ringing. Idly I turned the handle and swung the door up a couple of feet. It moved easily and the momentum from my tug carried it up and over my head so I could see inside. One look was all I needed. There was a body on the floor, a woman, wearing blue stretch pants and a many-colored down jacket. She was lying on her back and I could see a dark stain on the front of the coat, around the heart.

TEN

I didn’t need to check hear pulse. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was hanging open. There was a thread of dried blood from one corner of the mouth running down her jaw onto the collar of her coat.

Carefully I backed out and closed the garage door. She had been dead some hours, maybe all night, I knew that. Doug had been locked in his cell at that time. But he had come here today and I wondered whether he had touched the handle. If he had, he would be hard put to explain it away. Knowing I might be destroying evidence I did what I had to, wiping my gloved hand over the handle until anything on it would have been smeared beyond recognition. Next I did the same thing with the front door bell and the knocker. Only then did I drive to the nearest phone and call the police department.

Hinton got to me first but before he was even out of the car Captain Schmidt was pulling in behind him. Schmidt did the talking. “Where’s the body?”

“In the garage, Captain.”

He opened the door, touching toe handle very lightly so as not to disturb any prints. He went and crouched by toe woman. “Been dead awhile,” he said. Then he stood up. “How come you were snooping around in here?”

“When I found Grant’s car I rang the doorbell. There wasn’t any answer so I checked the garage to see if there was a car here and whoever was inside was ignoring me.”

“Is that standard practice up among toe Eskimos?”

“It’s called checking your options. You’d have done the same thing.”

He snorted and turned to Hinton. “Get on the radio. Call the hospital, have them send toe ME over, and get Wilkins down here with his camera and crime scene kit.”

Hinton ran back to his car and Schmidt turned back to the body.

“Do you know who she is, Captain?” I kept it polite.

He nodded. “Yeah. Her name’s Wendy Tate. She’s divorced, works at the drugstore in town. Hear tell she had round heels, the kind of broad Grant would’ve known.”

“Was it her phone number in his wallet?”

Schmidt shook his head, crouching by the body. “No. We checked that place. Neighbor says she’s gone to Mexico for a couple weeks, left last Saturday.”

I crouched with him. He was touching the front of the coat, probing the bloodstain with his forefinger. “Feels like a couple holes, small,” he said. “Here, try.”

It was amateur, messing around with evidence with your fingertips, so I didn’t do it. “Take your word for it, Captain. Could it be small-caliber pistol shots?” I said.

“Could be. What caliber was that gun of his?”

“A .22 automatic. Could have been the murder weapon.”

“I’ll talk to the ME about testing Grant’s hand for powder traces,” Schmidt said.

“Won’t tell us a whole lot. He fired the gun earlier, at my dog.”

He snorted. “In that case,” he said and left it there.

A car pulled in behind us and the chief got out. He came up and looked at the body, not bothering to crouch. “Who found her?”

“I did, Chief.”

He asked me how and I told him what I’d said to Schmidt. He looked at me angrily. “I’ve been chief here for eleven years. In all that time we’ve had one homicide. Then suddenly we get three inside a week.” It was my fault, he was saying.

“This must be tied in with the Grant death. Captain Schmidt says there are holes in the coat, maybe bullet holes, small caliber.”

“Any sign of a weapon?” He was speaking to Schmidt and I could see he wanted me gone. I was a jinx, a blight on his town.

Schmidt said, “Haven’t looked for it. Can’t see it lying around and I want Wilkins to get photographs before I start turning the place over.”

The two of them looked at one another and I could see something like a plea in Schmidt’s face. The chief read it and he turned to me gravely. “Can you come with me, please?” he asked and led the way back to his car. I went with him and he spoke softly. “I don’t know how to put this, but you’re a chief yourself, you know the pressures of the job.”

I said nothing and he glanced away then back at me. “The thing is, my men are good men and they’re resentful that you’re here. I know you want to help. I know you’re an experienced man. But I’d like it if you would back off and give my guys some space.”

An honest speech. I knew he would back it up with authority if he had to. His department’s morale came ahead of me. But I didn’t want it to come ahead of Doug Ford’s case. I compromised with him. “I understand. And I appreciate what you’ve done for Doug. I think you can see now that he was on to something and somebody framed him.”

“That’s why I had him released,” he said carefully. “I don’t think the charge will stand much longer. He was obviously right in his assumption that something heavy is going down right here in Chambers. But right now I’m up to my ass in alligators and I have to get the best out of my troops. I can’t do that with you looking over their shoulders.”

“Okay, I’m through with Grant and this girl’s death. But while you’re busy with this investigation, do I have your permission to keep on checking into the Laver murder?”

“Sure,” he said. “Ask around all you want. If you get any hassle from anybody, refer them to me. But stay away from my guys. Could you do that?”

“Okay. I’d like your permission to talk to you if I come up with something that makes a difference.”

“You’ve got it. And you’ve got my permission to check the crime scene, talk to witnesses, conduct the investigation all over again if you want to.” He reached up and stroked his nose, something he probably did whenever he was thinking hard. “It would give me the greatest pleasure to find something that cleared Officer Ford. He’s efficient and quick and good. He’s a credit to the department and I want him back. See what you can do to get him out of this mess and you’ll have my gratitude as well as his.”

“I’ll tell him that. Thanks, Chief.” I went back to my car and drove off, back to Maloney’s house first. His car was there and I went in and found him in the kitchen, working a pasta-making machine. Sam was lying under the table and he got up and came over to me, wagging his tail. I bent down and fussed him before doing anything else. Maloney watched in approval.

“He’s a great dog,” he said, then, “How’s the investigation going?” He was cranking the handle and turning out broad strings of lasagna.

“There’s been another victim. Woman called Wendy Tate. Looks as if she was shot with Grant’s gun.”

He straightened up and looked at me, openmouthed. “When did this happen?”

“I found her, half an hour ago. She’s been dead all night, in her garage. Grant’s car’s in the drive.”

“What the hell’s going on?” he wondered out loud.

“I’m not sure, but the chief was getting some heat from Captain Schmidt so he asked me to back out, which I’ve done. I’m concentrating on the Laver killing, with the chief’s permission.”

He wasn’t really listening. “Wendy Tate. She was friendly with a lot of men. Digging into her past is going to rattle a lot of cages in town.”

“That’s about what Schmidt said. I didn’t think about the domestic angle on the investigation. Maybe some guys are going to be embarrassed today.”

“That’s for sure.” Maloney turned back to his pasta machine and fed another chunk of dough into the hopper. “So what will you do next?”

“They’ve sprung Doug Ford. He’s under house arrest. Has to stay home. I’d like to go over and spend some time with him. He’s pretty shook up.”

“I understand.” He nodded and went back to turning the handle on the machine. “Are you going to move in with him?”

“Might be better if I did. I hope you don’t think I’m being ungrateful but he needs some support.”

“Of course,” he said. “Can he stretch the house arrest far enough to come over here for dinner? Ella Frazer will be here. Might make him feel better.”

“I’ll suggest it, thank you. But he’s pretty fragile right now. He’s been stuck in solitary for four days. That messes up your head.”

“Play it by ear,” Maloney suggested. He gathered up his lasagna and started cutting it into lengths. Maybe he figured I was feeling awkward, because he chatted on. “I took a cooking course after my wife died. Out of necessity at first but I’ve gotten to like it.”

“Something I’ve never had the patience for, even when I was living on my own,” I said politely.

He finished his cutting and laid the knife aside. “Okay. So, what can I do to help your investigation?”

“I’m not sure, at the moment. The chief knows something about Doug’s suspicions. Enough to make him think Doug was right and to get him out of jail.” A thought occurred to me, remembering how messed up Ms. Frazer had been. “Is that going to complicate your talking to Ms. Frazer?”

“No. I’ll tell Ella. She’ll be easier in her mind, knowing that it’s out in the open now.” He took a plate aid laid the lasagna strips on it carefully. “I’ve been thinking since I got back here.”

He looked up, waiting for a cue to continue, and I said, “What about particularly?”

“Firstly, I thought that even if we bring this money thing into the open, it doesn’t do anything to clear Officer Ford. The homicide is a different investigation. All we can do is dig up a separate motive from the one the police had thought of in the first place.”

“Right. I want to go into the case itself. You and the police are better equipped to investigate money-laundering anyway.”