A Dream of Death (8 page)

I emptied my pocket the moment I entered the hotel room and
locked the door behind me. The watch was aged and weathered, I couldn’t tell
how long it had been hidden beneath the tree root but it must have been years.
It was a simple watch—a silver Timex with an inset date counter, two numbers
that switched over daily and had to be manually changed in the event of a month
with less than thirty-one days.

I wanted to wash the watch clean but it was evidence—stolen
evidence, but my training was hard to shake. My fingers rubbed some of the dirt
away, just enough to see the details. I turned it over and inspected the back.
There was an engraving made more prominent by the dirt that filled the grooves:
L.C.M. IV, 1976.

Nausea and dizziness took over and forced me to sit on the
toilet beside the sink.

Lincoln Charles Munroe the Fourth. My initials. The year I
was born. It was my father’s watch, given to him by his father when I was born.

Memories I hadn’t touched in years came rushing back. The
watch was a symbol that my father never removed—a symbol of family, loyalty and
an oath made to a dead man.

I flashed back to my childhood and saw the watch sitting on
my father’s dresser while he was in the shower—the only time he ever took it
off. I slipped the watch onto my thin wrist and closed the clasp, then stood in
awe of the shiny silver against my dark skin. My father interrupted me when he
walked back into his bedroom dripping wet with a towel around his waist.

“It looks good on you, Lincoln,” he had said. “It’ll be
yours one day, a long time from now. But before then you’ll have one of your
own.”

A confused look crossed my face along with a wide-eyed stare
of anticipation.

“Your grandfather gave me that watch the day you were born.”
He reached for my wrist and undid the clasp, then pointed to the engraving. “Lincoln
Charles Munroe the Fourth, nineteen-seventy-six. When you have a son, Lincoln
the Fifth, I’ll give you a watch like this one with a new inscription for your
son and the year he was born. And he’ll do the same for his son.”

I nodded, happy and proud to be part of such an important
family tradition.

“You and I, my father and my grandfather are all named after
a very special man, a man who didn’t care if people were black or white. One
day I’ll tell you more about him and what he did for our family.” I thought I
saw a tear form in his eye. “It’s because of him that we’re here, alive and
well in a country that accepted us regardless of our skin colour.”

At that time I knew little of our family history and even
less about what my father was saying. He kept the story close to his heart for
a while, waiting until I was old enough to understand the horrors that people
of colour had to endure.

My mind moved forward in time, a couple of years later, when
I noticed my father wasn’t wearing his watch. He wouldn’t tell me what had
happened to it or why he no longer wore it. “We can’t wear these watches
anymore, Lincoln, I wish I could explain it to you.”

I cried in my bed that night, my face buried in the pillow
so my father wouldn’t hear me. The tradition that had meant so much to me was
gone, along with it the chance of my own engraved watch. As often happens new
memories take the place of the old but they are never erased, only buried
deeper in the mind waiting to be pulled out.

Then the implications began to hit. My father had lied to
me. We never set foot near Tobermory. We had gone to Algonquin… and something
had happened, something so horrible my father had lied to me to protect himself
and to protect me. It had been my father fighting with the other man in my
dream and he had emerged victorious—he ran his hand through my hair to comfort
me.

And we were digging the other man up now.

The truth struck hard and made me feel faint again. I was like
a child seeing their own blood for the first time, and I was on the verge of
passing out. The ceramic tile floor was cold as I lay down upon it. My heart
wouldn’t have to work so hard to get the blood to my brain this way, perhaps it
would be enough to keep me conscious.

The accident on the camping trip, falling down an embankment
and breaking my arm—it never happened. Something else happened to cause those
injuries, something that led me to suffer blackouts at the same time my father
was embroiled in a fight to the death. I needed to know more but I had no idea
how to dig deeper.

The only person who knew the answers no longer existed. His
body was still here but his mind was gone. Still, I had to try, I had to see if
he remembered what had happened.

It only took a few minutes to pack my clothes and
necessities. I closed the hotel room door behind me and knocked on Chen’s door
to say my goodbyes.

After a moment I heard footsteps approach and the deadbolt
unlocked. The door opened and Chen stood inside in his boxers, his lean and
muscular body inspiring a hint of jealousy. The years had been better to Chen,
or perhaps he had been better to his body.

“I was just about to get in the shower. You leaving
already?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a flight out soon. There’s been nothing new
happening back home but it won’t be much longer until the proverbial excrement
hits the fan.”

“Understood,” Chen said. “And Link?”

“Yeah?” The tone of his voice unnerved me.

“I’m your friend, Link. Never hide things from me again.”

The fainting feeling came rushing back and it took
everything in my power to hold on. “What are you talking about?”

“Your arm, Link. That old injury acting up again?”

I sighed. “Yeah, damn football injury.” The old injury was
true, a torn rotator cuff during a high school football game. Of course that
injury had been to my right arm, not my left. I praised Chen’s faulty memory.

“No need to hide that shit from me, Link.”

“I know, Chen. Sorry.”

“No worries.” He slapped me on what he thought to be my good
shoulder. “Now go catch a murderer.”

“You too,” I said. “And keep me posted on this one. I’m
curious to see how it’ll turn out and you know you’ll need my expert crime
solving skills.”

“Whatever, Link. I’ll keep you posted. Fifty says I solve
mine before you do.”

A hundred says I solve them both.

“A cold case versus a serial killer? I wish I were a betting
man, Chen-Chen.”

We hugged as men do, a quick embrace and a slap on the back
to cancel it out. I walked out to the waiting cruiser, my limousine to take me
to the airfield.

I was greeted by two very happy children and a very tired
wife upon my return home that night. It was late, nearly nine, and past Link
and Kasia’s bedtimes. Kat had kept them up after I called her and told her I’d be
home soon. There’s nothing like coming home and having your children sprint to
the door and leap into your arms. That alone is reason enough to be a parent.

I had missed them so much and it didn’t take a detective to
notice that the feeling was mutual. I fought back tears and picked them both
up—a much harder task than it had been a few years prior—then carried them
upstairs. They dressed themselves in their favourite pajamas and brushed their
teeth before climbing into my bed. Four more chapters of
The Secret World of
Og
later, they were both dozing off and I was not far behind. Kat joined us
and with her help the children were tucked into the beds and sound asleep
within minutes.

Kat came up behind me as I walked down the hall into our
bedroom, and hugged me from behind until I felt the air rush. She had always
been intuitive to a fault. My emotions were at the breaking point and I
couldn’t stop the tears. I turned around and buried my face in her shoulder.
Her soft hands caressed my back before she brought one up and ran it through my
hair. Images of my father standing above me doing the same flashed upon my
closed eyelids and all restraint I had fell by the wayside.

“My dreams, the hallucinations, this murder in Algonquin,
it’s all related,” I said between sobs. “I think my father killed the man and I
was there.”

“That can’t be true, Link, it can’t be”. She never called me
Link, not since the day our son was born.

I took the watch out of my pocket and told her every detail.

“I know how it looks, Lincoln, but there has to be some
other explanation. You’re an amazing detective, you’ll figure it out.”

She was trying hard, but it wasn’t enough. I knew because I
had been trying since I identified the watch.

“And if it was your father,” she said, “I don’t know. God,
what should you do?”

I looked at her, her gentle pale blue eyes beginning to well
up with tears as she realized the gravity. “I don’t know. This may be one I
keep to myself.”

“Can you do that? You’ve got too much integrity for that.
Hiding it would tear at you forever.”

“He’s an old man, and if it was him, that man doesn’t exist
anymore. Even if he wouldn’t understand, I couldn’t tell the world he was a
killer, I couldn’t destroy his legacy. He was, he still is, a good man.”

“Even if he killed someone?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“Then there has to be more, keep looking Link.” She took me
in her arms once more. “I know you, you’ll find out the truth and do whatever
is right.”

Her certainty was incredible, her faith in me unbounded. But
there was something in her eyes, something I just couldn’t place.

Cabin fever was setting in. I had been back in the office
for two days and not discovered a single lead. It was wearing us all down,
morale was lower than I ever thought possible. We all walked around like the
living dead, devoid of emotion as we stumbled through our days, trying to make
sense of it all.

Time was closing in on us. And it felt like the walls were
too. I could barely breathe, the office seemed smaller. Maybe it was the piles
of documents and photographs, banker boxes filled with evidence, that were
taking up the air in the room. Or maybe it was the guilt of still not having
caught our killer, guilt that intensified every time someone else was found
dead.

Life wasn’t getting any easier. I had the deaths of four
women and an unborn child on my hands as well as another killing to try to
solve.

Two days I’d been back and I may as well have stayed home. I
was determined to believe that today would be different. The sun was cresting
over our house when I pulled out of the driveway. Breakfast was beckoning but
cereal just wouldn’t cut it today. I needed to treat myself, something greasy
and fast handed through a window.

The thought was interrupted by my phone ringing.

“Detective Munroe.”

“Lincoln, it’s George.”

“Seriously?”

I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Although apparently
George had found it funny.

“Yep, another one. Something different here, though.”

My hopes were rising. Today was the day.

“Perfect,” I said. “What’s changed?”

George paused. “You know what? I’ll leave it for you. Blank
slate, eh?”

It was the way George taught me to look at a crime scene. No
knowledge going in meant no preconceived notions. And the body was always the
last stage of the crime scene. If the body was examined first, it coloured a
person’s view, made them see nothing but the blood, or the stab wounds, or the
bullet holes. View the scene first, collect any evidence, then examine the
body.

“All right,” I said. “No hints?”

“When have I ever?”

“Right.”

I hung up from George and dialed Kara, catching her at home
still.

“I was just getting ready to leave,” she said. “Where are we
going?”

“Glencoe.” I gave her the address. “I can pick you up along
the way if you want.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m going out after work tonight so
I’ll need my car. See you there?”

“Sounds good.”

The drive was short but it gave me time to visualize how to
respond. It was mental training, preparing for a scene before arriving. With
every possibility run through, there was little that could be a surprise.

Or so I thought.

Kara and I pulled in within a minute of each other. Must
have been nice to have had an easier commute. George was standing outside,
waiting patiently for our arrival. A constable was standing guard at the front
door, and judging by the number of cruisers there was one at the back and two
more inside.

“All yours,” I said to Kara. She looked at the house from
the outside. It was an old farmhouse but I hadn’t seen a barn on the property
when I pulled up. Either the house had been sold separately from the farmland
or the current owners weren’t farmers and instead rented out the land to a
neighbour.

The house was old, shingles showing signs of water and wind
damage, paint peeling from the window frames, broken boards on the porch. The
glass sidelight beside the front door had been broken, possibly a long time
ago, and a board on the inside kept the weather out.

It was an odd looking house, a mixture of the old and new—a
ranch house many years ago with a second floor addition put on later, in a
different style. Either that or the original architect had a very eclectic
sense of style. The lower half was done in brick, originally red but since
painted in a fading yellow, the pallid colour of cooked chicken. The upper
floor was done in gray siding, brown fixed window shutters adorning the
windows.

A half-moon window in the front door and the decorative wood
pieces on the porch and roof peaks lent the appearance of a farmhouse, the
square windows and high peaked roof of the second floor looked like a house in
the suburbs. I couldn’t help but laugh. Architecture was an interest of mine
and this, this was like looking at a painting done in collaboration by Leonardo
Da Vinci and Jackson Pollock.

“Nice place,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” Kara’s mouth was agape. “Is there anything in the
Criminal Code for this?”

“Not that I know of. Bad architecture isn’t illegal yet.
I’ll add it to the Bill I want to send to Parliament.”

Kara laughed. My ‘Bill’ was well known. If only I could get
it passed. Being creepy, wearing clothes three sizes too small, and just being
stupid would all be illegal.

Kara led the way into the house and I marveled at the choice
of furniture. It was a perfect match to the outside of the house. Prints that
never should have been within fifty feet of each other were touching—a floral
couch and a striped sofa, pushed together at the corners. Another sofa and two
recliners were crammed into the other corner of the room, no pattern alike. The
furniture was all angled toward the TVs against the large wall. There were six
of them, from a small LCD to a large projection style. Kara and I stepped
carefully through the cluttered house. Every surface seemed to have some sort
of artifact on it, a porcelain doll here, a snowglobe or a wooden craft there,
all of it gathering dust.

I’d been in houses like this before. Hoarders. Just like on
the documentary channels. People who couldn’t get rid of anything and collected
everything. It was going to make finding evidence like jumping in a haystack
and getting the needle in the rear.

The kitchen was no different. I probably could have put
together table settings for five or six different families with pots and pans
as well. Likely some to spare. The cupboards were overflowing with non-perishables,
bought on sale in mass quantities and stored well past their ‘best before’
dates.

The fridge was much the same. Somewhat disappointing for me
since there was nothing new to find, nothing new to learn about the residents.
There was a strong smell in the fridge, something had gone bad, but finding it
would have been impossible—I had never known there were so many different types
of relish.

“This is insane,” Kara said, looking around in shock.

“First hoarder house?”

“Oh yeah. I didn’t think those shows were real, I figured
they had to put extra stuff in there. You know, make it worth watching.”

“If only that were true.”

Kara and I walked down the hallway toward the bathroom and
original bedrooms. The bedroom doors were both opened slightly but wouldn’t
give as we pushed our way in. I stuck my head in one door and couldn’t believe
my eyes. There wasn’t a piece of carpet visible and boxes were piled to the
ceiling in spots. Boxes were stuck behind the door, giving me only about a foot
to squeeze through. If I’d had anywhere to go.

I looked back at Kara who was just pulling her head out of
the other bedroom.

“Let me guess,” I said. “No way to get in?”

“None at all. I guess we can rule out these rooms.”

“What about the bathroom?”

Kara took a few steps down the hall and opened the door. It
bounced back at her immediately.

“I can see the mirror,” she said. “There’s no space in here
either.”

“Hopefully the upstairs one isn’t as cluttered.”

“Either that or there had better be an outhouse.”

I nodded. “Upstairs?”

“Lead the way,” she said.

I gestured gallantly. “Ladies first.”

“You mean, rookies first.”

“Yeah, that too.”

I heard Kara mutter something under her breath. At least I
knew she was just kidding.

We were greeted by a uniform when we reached the top of the
stairs.

“Detectives. Standing room only.”

There was a thin path through the hall toward the other
rooms, nothing more, nothing less. If someone dropped a match in here, the
place would be in flames in minutes and burn for months.

“Any space up here at all?”

“Just in the master bedroom, Sir. It’s actually clean, that
and the ensuite.”

“I guess they needed somewhere to live,” Kara said. “Where’s
the husband?”

“Out back with another officer.”

I nodded and followed Kara into the master bedroom. We
breathed a collective sigh of relief. I felt like I could relax, I’d had to
suck in what little gut I had just to weave through the house.

I thought back to what George had said, about there being
something different. I thought he had been talking about the house.

Then I saw her.

Lying flat on her back in the bed. The other women had been
found like this as well, moved down from a seated position by the husband or
boyfriend when they tried to save them.

But this was different. George was right.

This wasn’t our killer.

“What do you see?”

Kara looked around. “It’s not him.”

I nodded. “Run me through it.”

“Right. Her throat is intact, ligature mark on the neck.
Whatever was used was smooth, thin.” She glanced at the other side of the bed,
to an orange cord sticking out from under the folded back comforter.

“There,” she said. “An extension cord.”

I nodded.

Kara walked over to the woman’s side of the bed. She lay
there, nude and uncovered before us.

“Female, Caucasian, forty to forty-five. Average height,
maybe five-foot-six. Heavy, probably two hundred pounds. Brown hair, brown
eyes.”

Kara moved down to the woman’s hands and turned them over.

“Fuck, Lincoln. She’s warm.”

I took off my latex gloves and touched the woman’s skin.
Kara wasn’t kidding. She was warm, for a corpse. The other women had been cold
by the time we got to them. I looked at my watch. 7:15 a.m. Most of the
killings happened around one or two in the morning.

Kara lifted the woman’s arm and we both watched as it fell
back toward the bed, completely limp. Next, Kara started manipulating her
fingers, bending the fingers of her right hand into a fist and back out.

“There’s no rigor. She hasn’t been dead long.”

Rigor mortis usually began to set in within three hours
after death. The shortening of the muscles led to the joints and extremities
becoming tense, almost immovable. Full rigor was reached at around seven hours
and lasted for up to three days.

She’d been dead less than three hours, one if my uneducated
estimate on the body temperature was correct.

“Look at the scar on the top of her wrist,” I said.

“Carpal tunnel surgery. Desk job.”

I nodded. “What else do you see?”

“The lividity. It’s faint but it’s there all down her right
side.” She put her hands under the body and rolled it away from her. “More
pronounced on the back. She was moved.”

I was proud of her. She really was a hell of a detective.
The blood had pooled briefly on the right side, meaning that when she died she
was lying on her side. She was later, and not much later, moved on to her back.
The lividity in the back was darker, evidence she’d been left there longer.

“So?”

“Let’s go arrest the husband,” Kara said.

“We have enough?”

“No signs of forced entry, he had the opportunity.”

“Motive?”

“Not sure yet. Let’s go talk to him.”

I followed Kara downstairs and out the back door. The
husband was sitting, his head in his hands.

His hands. On the edges of his hands, just below his pinky
fingers, were bruises. The same shape and size as the bruises on the victim’s
neck, just much fainter.

Kara saw it too.

“Sir?” Kara looked at the man, directly in the eyes as he
moved his hands away.

“Morris, Morris White.”

“Mr. White, I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “What was
your wife’s name?”

“Brenda.”

“Was it him? Was it The Strangler.”

She didn’t even look back at me. She knew what she was doing.

“Morris White, you’re under arrest for the first degree
murder of your spouse, Brenda White.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about? I was at work,
he killed her. It had to be him.” Anger, no tears.

“Please, sir. You’ll have your chance to speak. I need to
read you some things.”

He was getting upset, frustrated, aggressive. I moved behind
him and took hold of his hands, then clicked my handcuffs into place.

Kara read Morris his Right to Counsel and the Caution to
Charged Person. It was the same thing as what was always on TV, just different
words. You have the right to a lawyer. If you can’t afford a lawyer, one will
be provided for you. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can
and will be used against you. We Canadians just felt the need to make it far
longer than that, just to cover it all off and be polite at the same time.

Morris was still yelling, protesting his innocence as we
dragged him out to a waiting cruiser. The officer took custody and secured him
in the back of the car. The look on the officer’s face was priceless, not only
was he tasked with the all-important job of transporting a murder suspect, he
was dealing with one incapable of exercising his right to remain silent.

With a rap on the trunk of the car the officer left for the
detachment. Kara and I followed the officer, my Mini and her Prius pretending
to be official police vehicles.

* * *

An hour later Morris was booked into cells and on the phone
with the lawyer of his choice. It was against the rules for us to ask about the
conversation, lawyer-client privileges and all. It didn’t matter though, the
gist of the conversation was always the same: shut up, don’t tell the cops a
thing.