Authors: Martin Crosbie
On subsequent visits the man was usually there. When Drake looked a little closer he saw that he had wrinkles around large swollen eyes. His hair stuck out from under a woolen cap, and he had a scar that ran down the side of his face from his right eye to underneath his chin. He never made eye contact, but Drake always felt as though the man was watching him when he walked by, even as he kept his eyes on the street, inspecting the passing traffic.
After his frustrating interviews with Wilson and Monica, he did not feel like cooking for himself. In the locker room at the station, he changed into blue jeans and a plaid logger’s shirt – the staple articles of clothing worn by the locals. Since finding the body the night before, his routine twelve-hour shifts had been disrupted, and when he explained to the watch commander that Investigator Ryberg had requested he assist him again first thing in the morning, the man glanced up from his paperwork and gave him a solemn nod.
“That leaves me short again. But don’t worry about me, Drake, I’ll make it work.”
He wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm, a muted type of support, or if the man was just tired. The corporal looked back down at his paperwork, and Drake noticed a newspaper perched on his lap. He didn’t seem to be expecting a response, so Drake didn’t give him one.
After leaving the station, he drove his aging pickup truck and parked around the corner from Chang’s, remembering to lift the door slightly so that it would secure properly on the hinge when he closed it. He unwrapped a thick, woolen blanket he’d purchased at the Army and Navy store and threw it on the ground, dirtying it, then picked it up and shook it out. When he reached the restaurant the man was in his familiar place.
Drake stopped and spoke quickly to him. “I think you dropped this. It was lying on the ground around the corner.” He didn’t offer it to him and the man’s hand didn’t extend. So he dropped it gently on the sidewalk beside him. The man nodded a couple of times as though he was listening to a song that only he could hear. Drake kept walking and took a seat at his familiar booth.
He had a cup of black coffee in front of him and was reading from the menu when the man rose to leave a few minutes later. As he stood upright he threw the blanket over one shoulder. It covered a small backpack, and with the thinning blanket on his other side he looked like a squat, sturdy Mexican wearing a poncho. As he strode down the street he raised one arm straight up in the air toward the front window of the restaurant, perhaps in recognition, perhaps not. He did not look back. He just kept walking with his peculiar gait – sauntering from side to side.
The waitress, the one who worked at all three restaurants, witnessed the event in the way that small town people often notice things. “He used to be a fighter. I heard he had some big fights back in the day, before he pissed it all away.”
Her face lit up and her eyes softened as she described the man. Drake guessed she was about his age – thirties, not quite forty. Each time he saw her he tried to keep his appreciative glances to himself, but it was hard not to look. She flicked her dark hair to one side as she refilled his coffee cup and then wiped the other side of the table.
“A fighter – like a boxer?”
“J.J. something – everybody calls him J.J. now.” She whispered, in a conspiratorial tone. “He’s pissed most of the time, but still nobody messes with him. Those old punch-drunk boxers can be dangerous.”
She stood at his table with one hand on her hip.
“That was a nice thing you did. He racks up a lot of miles walking all over town. I give him a carry-out now and again when he looks hungry. We all have to eat, right?”
The woman had thin lips, and when she smiled her lively green eyes became brighter as though she was encouraging a response. She kept standing beside the table, and her gaze stayed on him longer than it should have. It had been a while since he’d had an offer – any offer – but he wasn’t immune. Did becoming invisible mean he had to be alone? He wasn’t sure. He’d been told not to get involved – to stay as anonymous as he could for as long as he could. He just wasn’t sure how long that had to be. He stared at the menu, avoiding her smile.
“Do you know what you’d like to order, or do you need more time?”
He looked up at her. “You seem to work everywhere.”
She laughed at him. “Don’t worry, I’m not following you. Nobody can give me full-time, so I go where the hours are. It’s good; it keeps things different all the time. This is Hope, right, there’s only so much work.”
She was in no hurry to leave his table. She had the warmest smile he’d experienced in months – maybe even years. And there were those eyes too – green like the Coquihalla River.
A man called out from one of the stools by the front counter. “Refill please, Tracy. When you’re ready, dear.” Still, she didn’t move.
“I’ll have the combo number three.”
She tapped a pencil against her teeth. “Same as last time.”
“Yes, same as last time.”
“Was there anything else?”
He nodded, deciding. “I wonder if you’d like to write down your name and phone number and give it to me before I leave, Tracy.”
Her smile became a grin as she playfully walked backward, away from him. “We’ll see about that. I just might; we’ll see.”
She wore an old-fashioned waitress’s uniform – a white pinafore over a brown outfit with the skirt just above her knees. He watched her shapely legs glide away, and smiled to no one in particular.
A song came on the radio, and the waitress mouthed the words while pouring the customer’s coffee.
Softly, he said the name of the band in his Scottish accent. “Thin Lizzy.” It was like someone else had been speaking – he barely realized he’d said the words out loud. She heard him though, or perhaps she read his lips. He wasn’t sure which. She smiled, and nodded back in time to the beat.
The owner, George, called from the kitchen for the radio to be turned up. A customer obliged, and with the long-ago band’s words pounding through the restaurant, Drake looked at the empty spot on the sidewalk by the front door. His mind wandered back to the dead man with the halo of blood around his head – his hands out in front of him in prayer.
Cars passed by in front of the restaurant, but the old Indian boxer didn’t return. Tracy put his meal down in front of him, pulled out a pad from her pocket, and wrote down her details. The song began to change. They both spoke at the same time, but she beat him to it: “Golden Earring – ‘Radar Love.’”
He smiled at her sparkling eyes. “You win the prize.”
He hadn’t felt so relaxed since he’d moved to town. There had been no other options. He knew what his new life would be like. He had moved to a town where he had to be invisible, and stay as anonymous as he could. All he could be, all he was allowed to be was “John Drake” – the cop with the weird accent who kept to himself.
She drew a smiley face below her phone number. “Are you going to invite me to have a coffee with you, Officer? Is that my prize for naming the song?”
The confidence from a moment ago disappeared as he realized once again that this was indeed a small town. Everyone in the restaurant probably knew he was a policeman, even without his uniform. Just like the little boy he’d once been, redness rose from the back of his neck and burned the tips of his ears. He pronounced his words carefully, speaking once again in his practiced Canadian accent. “We should, or I thought perhaps we could go for a walk.”
She paused for a moment and put her hand on her hip again. “That would be nice. Maybe we could take a walk.”
He held out his hand and said the almost familiar name. “I’m John Drake.”
Her hand was soft. The bass pounded from the cheap stereo. A car raced down the street as she looked into his eyes. And it came to him. The man on the sidewalk wasn’t praying. He’d put his hands out in front to save himself. And from where he was lying, he had been pushed – he’d been pushed out of a vehicle. Drake stood up suddenly, and Tracy took a step back.
“What did I do? Did I do something wrong?”
He could see it now – the car driving by, and Robinson being pushed out. Maybe the effects of the poison in his system had made him sleepy, and he threw his arms out in front of himself to break the fall. He landed on the ground, away from the road – not praying – trying to break his fall from a vehicle.
“No, it’s not you. I just remembered something.”
He grabbed his jacket. He was at the door before he remembered, and came back and took the piece of paper from her still outstretched hand.
“You don’t want your meal?”
“Can you pack it up please? I need to go, but I’ll be back. I mean, I’ll call you.”
Four minutes later she had his combo number three in a Styrofoam container, and ten minutes after that he was walking toward the situation room.
At night, without the daylight coming in through the large windows and skylights, the appearance of the detachment was quite normal. He passed the same disgruntled-looking watch commander who now had the newspaper in full view on the counter in front of him.
“Are you here, or not here?”
Drake kept walking, barely acknowledging the man. “Not here.”
There was an officer typing at a computer as he passed the row of desks. Surprisingly, the only occupants of the situation room were Sergeant Thiessen, who was in his office, and Investigator Ryberg. The main banks of lights were off, and both men were talking on the phone, but not to each other. Thiessen had his door closed, but Drake could see him through the glass wall, talking erratically to someone on the other end. Ryberg finished his call as Drake walked toward him.
“You should be home with your wife, John. Only the stubborn and the neglected never go home you know.” The lines around the old man’s eyes crinkled as he talked. He looked as though he’d aged ten years in the last twenty-four hours.
“No wife, sir. I was at dinner, and I had a thought.”
The investigator leaned back in his chair and pointed to the empty one across from him. “Good, we need some thoughts. You know, I’ve been doing this for a long time. There’s always a path from every murder – every dead body. Along the path you find motive, opportunity, and finally, the perpetrator. This investigation has none of the above in every direction we go. Other than suspects; we have lots of those. Everyone sounds like they’re guilty when we interview them, yet no one benefits from the man dying. And no one has a grudge against him. There’s no will – no assets – and nobody harbored resentments against him. So yes, please give me your thoughts. We need all the help we can get.”
Drake lowered himself into the seat across from the older man. “I think he was pushed from a car. The way his hands were in front of himself and the way he was lying on one side.”
Ryberg didn’t hesitate. He opened a file and turned it toward Drake. “I think you’re right. And the medical examiner’s report tells us the same thing. There is bruising on only one side – the side where the man’s body was lying. And the bruising is extensive and indicative of a hard drop, as we originally suspected – or, a push.” Exasperated, he raised his voice and opened another file. “And Investigator Myron Couthillard, who should always be called Myron by the way, and not Couthillard, agrees too. The poison found in the man’s system – botulinum – causes paralysis in the body. From his research, Myron feels the paralysis had partially set in when he was thrown down hard; he also feels the man was pushed from a passing vehicle.”
Drake read the notes from the reports in front of him and tried to hide his disappointment. There was a short summary of negative forensic findings. He was unfamiliar with the form he was reading. “The Ident team has come up empty too?”
Ryberg shook his head. “The team consists of Adam only. I had Myron compile a preliminary report, measuring and taking photos at the scene, and Adam was assigned to us afterward. There is no team; he’s the only Ident officer who has been allocated to us for the forensic investigation.” Drake recalled being introduced to the nervous-looking young man as he flitted around the situation room. “I believe his results are inconclusive. I’ve requested a more thorough report.”
He leafed through the paperwork of the medical examiner’s report and then Myron’s very organized findings. “It says a passing vehicle. It wouldn’t be passing though, would it? He went down heavy, and didn’t roll. He stayed in one place, so the car must have stopped.”
“That’s good, sounds logical. Keep going with that, John.”
Drake looked up. “He’s drugged, the paralysis hasn’t quite set in, and then he’s pushed from a vehicle. The medical examiner said the poison killed him and not the fall?”
Ryberg interrupted. “He’s revising his initial conclusion. It seems to be a combination of the two. Once the man’s head hit the ground, the impact and effect of the poison stopped him from moving any further. And that’s where he died.”
Drake continued. “If a car stopped and someone pushed Robinson out, even if it was a strong man and it happened quickly, someone on that street must have seen something. If he died when he hit the sidewalk, then he was lying there for at least an hour before the call came in. That doesn’t make sense. It’s a nosy street. The crims that live there are always on the lookout for some kind of advantage, and the old people who live in the relics jump whenever there’s a noise.”
“You know the street better than me, but that sounds about right.” The investigator’s face was grey under the dimmed fluorescent lights.
“There are a couple of residents I better go back and talk to, I think.” He got up and said goodnight to the investigator. He was at the door before the man called after him.
“That was good work, John. Keep following your instincts; just make sure it leads you to the facts.”
It was a compliment. Ryberg had already reached the same conclusion, but Drake accepted the praise anyway. As he walked down the hallway his stomach rumbled. They had an early interview with Derek Rochfort in the morning, and they were planning on visiting Trevor Middleton, the shunned man, at his hair salon, and he still had to check on the background of Frank Wilson, the old logger. His visit back to Cobalt Street could wait one more day.