Authors: Laurence Gough
Atkinson picked up the purse, opened it, and sifted quickly through the contents. Loose change, the major credit cards, a driver’s licence. Breath mints. Lipstick. Kleenex. And down at the bottom of this portable midden, two hundred dollars in crisp new twenties, and a three-pack of contraceptives. According to the licence, Alice Palm was forty-four years old. Atkinson, who considered himself something of an expert, deduced that she had been more concerned with disease than pregnancy. He snapped shut the purse. Aside from the roll of cash and the rubbers, there was nothing unusual about the contents. Not at first glance, anyway. He and Franklin would take a much closer look when they got back to 312 Main, and then hand it all over to the crime lab.
Franklin, who had been crawling down the aisle on his hands and knees, came to the end of the bus and stood up.
“Find anything down there?” said Atkinson.
“Zilch.” Franklin brushed ineffectually at his pants, wiped his hands on his raincoat.
Atkinson picked up the umbrella, swinging it by the handle. He did a thing with his feet, a little sideways shuffle. Detective Astaire. He tossed the purse to Franklin. “There’s a couple of hundred bucks in there. Maybe you better lock it in the boot of the car before we find ourselves with another crime on our hands.” He stepped carefully over the chalk lines and down into the stairwell. The rear doors hissed open. He looked up. “Is there a flashlight in the car, George?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Let’s drop off the purse, grab the flash, and go take a look at the garage.”
“Okay,” said Franklin.
Atkinson stepped down from the bus, unfurled Alice Palm’s umbrella with a theatrical flourish, and danced off into the rain. Franklin slung the purse over his shoulder. It was typical of his relationship with Atkinson that he had been the one left holding the bag.
*
There were seven of them squeezed into the squad car. The motorcycle cop, Earl Simpson, was behind the wheel. The transit supervisor was next to him and one of the passengers was pressed up against the far side window. The other three passengers and the bus driver were crammed into the back seat. The inside of the car was like a sauna, except hotter. There clearly wasn’t room in the car for all seven of them. Simpson took it as a sign of his authority that, so far, no one had dared complain. He flipped open his notebook and carefully wrote down the time, date, and location. Then he twisted in his seat, pointed at the driver with the business end of his Bic, and said, “What’s your name, pal?”
“Kenneth R. Stoddard,” said the driver. He spoke as if he was already on the witness stand, the words slow and clear and a little too loud.
“What’s your present address, Ken?”
Stoddard leaned forward, blinking rapidly. “Listen, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“What?” said Simpson.
“There was another passenger on the bus. Somebody who isn’t here now.”
Simpson chewed furiously on the end of his pen. “You mean he took off on me? Shit, why didn’t somebody speak up?”
“No,” said Stoddard, “he disappeared the minute I stopped the bus, right after the woman got shot.”
Simpson relaxed. “That was before I got there, right?”
“Yeah, right.”
“You just make sure you remember that,” said Simpson. “Now, what did the guy look like?”
“He was built like a weight-lifter,” said Stoddard. “He was wearing a black leather jacket and a Blue Jays baseball cap.”
“Expos,” said one of the other passengers, a woman in her seventies with short grey hair and bifocals thick as the bottom of a shot glass.
“You watch much baseball?” Simpson said to Stoddard. “Once in a while, mostly around the playoffs.”
“I never miss a game,” said the woman. “I’ve even got a subscription to the Sports Network.”
Simpson wrote ‘Expos baseball cap’ in his notebook in small block letters.
“Okay, so far we got a muscleman wearing a black leather jacket and a baseball cap. Anything else?”
“He had long blond hair,” said the woman.
“Down to his shoulders,” said Stoddard.
“Blue eyes,” said a man in the back seat, a young Chinese guy with an earring.
“Green,” said Stoddard.
“Blue,” said the Chinese kid.
“Green,” said the old woman.
“I’d swear they were blue,” said another man, an old geezer who could have been the woman’s husband. “A real bright blue, like my granddaughter’s.”
Earl Simpson sat hunched in the seat with the tip of his pen hovering an inch above the paper. There was no way responsibility for the missing Expos fan could be blamed on him. But Earl knew that when the abbreviated cop with the cold eyes found out he was one passenger short of a load, he was going to have to kick somebody’s ass. Inhuman nature. And in his heart of hearts, Earl Simpson knew exactly who that somebody was going to be.
*
There was a squad car parked in front of the oval concrete island where the gas pumps had once stood. As the two detectives passed through the twin beams of the headlights, Franklin waved his badge at the cop peering at them from behind the wheel.
“He knows who we are,” said Atkinson.
“Courtesy, it’s contagious.”
“Sure thing, George.”
They followed a narrow, crumbling sidewalk around to the rear of the garage. Franklin saw that squad cars had been stationed at each end of the alley, to keep it clear of civilian traffic. He made a mental note to find out who had positioned the cars, intending to give the man a word of thanks. He flashed the five-cell flashlight across the mud along the edges of the lane. He could see where a car had pulled over. The tyre tracks were already starting to crumble under the steady onslaught of the rain.
“We ought to get a tarp over that, or a piece of plywood, something.”
Atkinson nodded his agreement. The rear door of the garage was wide open. He fingered the broken hasp. No rust where the screws had been torn free of the door frame. “We got a break and enter, as well as murder.”
“Have to catch him first,” said Franklin.
Atkinson furled his borrowed umbrella and they went into the building, following the beam of the flashlight and the lingering smell of cordite across a greasy black expanse of concrete and into the front office. Franklin held the light on the debris-strewn floor as Atkinson moved cautiously towards the gap in the hoarding, drawn like a moth towards the dim triangle of light, the rare opportunity to view the world from the perspective of a killer.
Standing where the shooter must have stood, Atkinson had a perfect view of the bus. The interior of the vehicle was so brightly lit that he could see the red splatter of blood on the paintwork on the far side of the aisle. As he stared out the window he slowly became aware of a soft thumping coming from somewhere behind him, a sound so steady and insistent it might have been the beating of his heart.
Turning, he saw the vague outline of a man sitting on the counter behind him. A surge of adrenalin made his heart leap. He dropped the umbrella and fumbled under his jacket for the chrome-plated Colt, at the same time crying out to Franklin, who brought the flashlight around in a wide, sweeping arc.
“It’s about time you guys got here,” said Jack Willows, squinting into the glare.
INSPECTOR HOMER BRADLEY’S crab-apple green office was on the third floor of 312 Main. The room was furnished with a large cherry wood desk, one leather chair and two plain wooden ones, and a pair of grey metal three-drawer filing cabinets. There was only one window in the office. It was small, faced north, and — until the beginning of the week — had offered a clear and unobstructed view of the brick wall of the adjoining building, less than six inches away.
When Bradley had first moved into the office, he’d found the almost total lack of natural light depressing, even a little claustrophobic. But during the five years he’d been in residence, he had gradually come to know every subtlety of coloration in the brick and every nuance of texture in the crumbling grey mortar. Without him ever knowing how or when it had happened, the wall had evolved into a complex work of art that never failed to change, however minutely, from one day to the next. On more than one occasion an unexpected visitor had entered the office to find Bradley standing at the little window, studying the wall as if it were a valuable and much-admired painting.
And now the wall was gone. Reduced in less than a week to an untidy heap of rubble, a dusty memory.
Bradley drained his coffee cup and put it down on the windowsill. With his hands in his pockets, he stared out over the brooding expanse of the harbour. The water was matt black, pounded flat by the rain. In the background, the greyish-blue bulk of the North Shore mountains seemed to crouch under the sagging, bloated belly of the clouds.
The view was quiet as a photograph, wonderfully gloomy and morose, perfectly suited to Bradley’s mood. Reluctantly, he went over to his desk and sat down. A dozen colour photographs lay spread out on his blotter. Alice Palm gazed incuriously up at him through a dozen sets of glazed and foggy eyes. He shuffled the photographs into a neat pile and put them to one side. Glancing up, he caught Jack Willows watching him. The expression in Willows’ eyes wasn’t all that different from Alice Palm’s. He looked bored, as if he was waiting for a bus. He was leaning against the crab-apple wall, his hands folded across his chest. During the five long minutes Bradley had kept him waiting, he hadn’t said a word or moved an inch. The boy was on his best behaviour, and Bradley knew why. He leaned forward in his chair and flipped open the lid of the Haida-carved cedar humidor his wife had given him on 24th January 1982, the day their divorce had been finalized. He chose a cigar, fished a big wooden kitchen match out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket, and lit up. When he had the cigar burning evenly, he waved the match into extinction and flipped it into the metal wastebasket next to his desk. Willows, a reformed smoker, stared impassively into the middle distance. No need to offer the box around.
There was a light knock on the door. It swung open and a young woman walked confidently into the office. He had never seen her before, but Bradley recognized her immediately: her file had been languishing in his in-tray for the better part of a month.
“Parker?”
Claire Parker nodded, and shut the door.
Bradley motioned towards the wooden chairs. “Sit down, make yourself comfortable.”
Parker glanced at Willows, back to Bradley. “No thanks, I’d rather stand.”
Bradley shrugged, a little irritated but not letting it show. According to the file, Parker was twenty-eight years old, five foot seven inches tall, weighed one hundred and seven pounds, and had a pale complexion, dark brown eyes and black hair.
Well, the file hadn’t given him the whole story by a long shot. There was no hint, for example, that Parker’s eyes were unusually large, dark as chocolate, liquid and expressive, full of warmth and intelligence. Or that her hair fell in a glossy mass, framing a delicate oval face, generous mouth, a nose that was strong and firm and full of character. If Parker’s file had mentioned the Taj Mahal all it probably would have said was that it was a building in India.
Bradley found himself wondering what kind of body Parker had tucked away under her loosely-cut grey tweed jacket and matching skirt. He’d noticed that she had terrific ankles. In his reasonably varied experience that was usually a promising sign.
Not that he imagined she’d be all that interested in a short balding pear-shaped fifty-two-year-old twice-divorced lapsed Catholic. Although, of course, you never could tell.
Bradley waved his cigar at Willows, a sort of informal benediction. “Jack, this is Claire Parker. Claire, Jack Willows.”
“Hi,” said Parker.
Willows nodded politely, and then turned to look out the window at the matt-black water, and the clouds.
Bradley leaned back in his chair, taking solace in the familiar creaking of the leather. When Norm Burroughs made the abrupt switch from the homicide squad to the cancer ward, Bradley had allowed a decent interval to pass and then started sniffing around for a replacement. A desk sergeant at the Oakridge Substation had tipped him to Parker. Heavy on formal education, she had put in very little time on the street. Bradley had thought about it for a few days and then arranged the transfer. Parker’s lack of seasoning worried him a little, but he knew that anyone paired off with Jack Willows would soon have enough experience to last a lifetime — if she managed to live that long.
“Jack,” said Bradley, “Claire is your new partner.”
“I don’t need a new partner,” said Willows. “The old one isn’t dead yet.”
Bradley flicked an inch of cigar ash into the wastebasket. “Maybe not, but you and I both know he might as well be.”
“What’s this all about?” said Parker.
Bradley ignored her.
The door opened and George Franklin shuffled into the office. He yawned, covered his mouth with his hand, waved a genial hello.
Bradley’s fingers drummed on the stack of photographs. “You’re due some time off, Jack. If you want to take it now, it’s okay by me.”
Willows went over to the window and stared venomously out at the harbour. Cloud had completely obscured the mountains. Tendrils of mist trailed down into the ocean. The rain was coming down so heavily that it was impossible to tell where the sea left off and the land began. He pressed his forehead against the cold pane of glass, felt it vibrate under a sudden gust of wind. He wanted a slice of the Alice Palm cake so badly that he was even willing to take Parker along for the ride. There was no point in telling himself otherwise. He hoped Norm Burroughs would understand.
Bradley introduced Parker to Franklin. He asked Franklin where Dave Atkinson was.
“On his way,” said Franklin vaguely. “Should be here any minute.”
“That’s real considerate of him,” said Bradley. He glared angrily at Franklin until Franklin looked away, and then he began to sort through the photographs of Alice Palm, searching for a detail he might have missed, some small thing.
It was five minutes before Atkinson made it to the office. The first thing he said was, “What the hell is he doing here?”
“Waiting,” said Willows.
“Shut the door,” said Bradley.
Atkinson gave the door a push. The square of frosted glass rattled.
Bradley waved his cigar at Parker. “Have you two met, Dave?”
“In the elevator,” said Atkinson. “About an hour ago.”
“Really?” said Parker, clearly not remembering.
“Look,” Atkinson said to Bradley, “George and I answered the squeal. We examined the body, collected and tagged the evidence. It was me and George who conducted the initial investigation, standing around in the rain, sneezing. We worked hard on this one. Inspector. Christ, we were stuck in the squadroom questioning dumb-ass witnesses and drinking shitty coffee until two o’clock in the morning.”
“What’s the point, Dave?”
“The point is, what’s Willows doing here? The Alice Palm case belongs to us.”
“Is that right, Dave?”
Atkinson hesitated, decided to keep his mouth shut.
“I’m in charge of the manpower,” said Bradley. “What square you stand on. How long you stay there. Where you jump next.” He looked around the room, softening the blow to Atkinson’s pride by speaking to everyone. “That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s always going to be.”
Willows turned away from the window, wondering what was coming next.
“What’ve you got so far?” Bradley asked Atkinson.
“Not much. The body. Shell casings, bullet fragments. All we’re sure of is that a person or persons unknown shot Alice Palm for a reason or reasons unknown.”
“What you’re saying is that it was personal, there’s no chance she was the victim of a random shooting.”
“Yeah, right.”
“How did you happen to come to that conclusion, Dave?”
Atkinson was very much aware that Willows was giving him all of his attention, listening to everything he said. He chose his words carefully, occasionally glancing at Franklin for support.
“For starters, neither George nor I have ever heard of a pro using such a large calibre weapon. A gun like the .460 Magnum has way too many disadvantages.”
“For example?”
“Ammunition is hard to come by. Depending on the manufacturer, the magazine holds only two or at the most three rounds. The weapon makes a hell of a racket. It’s next to impossible to conceal. What else? Velocity is real slow, and the bullet has a trajectory like spit.”
“Another thing,” said Franklin. “The two spent cartridges we found in the garage were very shiny, a lot shinier than you’d expect. We sent them to the lab. Jerry Goldstein found traces of Brasso around the flange and in the area of the primer, in that little groove between the two pieces of metal.”
Bradley took the cigar out of his mouth. “You’re telling me the shooter sat down with a rag and a can of Brasso and put a nice shine on his bullets before he went out and blew a hole the size of a doughnut in Alice Palm?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Weird,” said Bradley. “What else have you got, if anything?”
Franklin took a much-travelled notebook out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He licked the ball of his thumb and flipped through the pages until he came to his notes on Alice Palm. The pages were wrinkled where the rain had dampened them, but his writing was round and modest, unhurried. He squinted at the page for a moment, and then fumbled through his pockets until he found his glasses.
Atkinson sighed audibly.
Bradley dropped another inch of cigar ash into his wastebasket. He fiddled with the humidor until it was lined up just so.
Parker risked a quick glance at Willows, perched now on the windowsill, settled in.
Franklin shook his glasses out of a black imitation leather case, tilted his head slightly to one side as he put them on. The frames were rectangular, heavy, made of black plastic.
Parker thought the glasses had a nice effect. They somehow made Franklin look more dignified, even scholarly. He happened to glance up, and their eyes met. He gave her a brief, meaningless smile, and began to read.
“Alice Palm was a spinster. She was forty-four years old and as far as we know has no surviving relatives. She lived alone at The Berkely, 990 Bute. For the past twenty years she’s been employed as a secretary at Foster Pharmaceuticals, over on West Pender. Her boss’s name is Malcolm Armstrong. He’s been with Foster a little over five years. Claims the victim was one of those quiet, dependable types that everybody liked, but nobody liked enough to get to know on an after-hours basis. Claimed he couldn’t think of anybody who might have wanted her dead.”
“No boyfriends?” said Bradley.
“Not that anybody at the office ever knew of,” said Franklin. “But the answer to your question is a big fat yes.” He peered over the tops of his glasses as he turned to the next page, and was gratified to see that he had everyone’s attention. Franklin was famous for his notes, which by department standards were remarkably lucid and concise.
“Dave and I talked to the manager of The Berkely. Her name’s Collette Ringwood. She’s a widow, in her mid-sixties, and has lived right across the hall from Alice Palm since the summer of 1962.” Franklin smiled. “If you ever happen to be in the neighbourhood, drop in and try one of her home-made chocolate chip cookies. Take it from me, they’re real tasty.”
“I can believe it,” said Bradley, gazing pointedly at Franklin’s rotund belly.
Franklin buttoned up his jacket, and pressed on. “We kind of hoped that Collette, being the manager and all, might’ve kept her nose to the keyhole, so to speak. But it turns out the old girl is a TV junkie. Spends all day sitting in front of her Marconi, the sound turned up as loud as it’ll go.”
“What is she, deaf?” said Bradley.
“Got a hearing aid but she doesn’t wear it much, due to the outlandish price of batteries.”
“So, except for the free cookies, you got nothing.”
“No, Inspector, we got lucky. There’s another tenant in the building, a pensioner named Arnold Hooper, who does spend all his time prowling up and down the halls. Hooper told us that, for a quote modern young woman unquote, Alice Palm led a very quiet life. But every Friday night, no exceptions, she got all dressed up and went outside to play.”
“Where?” said Parker.
Franklin turned to her in surprise, as if he had forgotten she was there. The heavy black glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose. “Hooper said he must’ve asked her that same question a hundred times or more, and never once got a straight answer. But wherever she went, there must have been men around.”