Raw Bone (19 page)

As he drove, MacNeice’s thoughts were racing between the basement on Ryder Road and Nicholson’s diary, when what he wanted to focus on was Dylan Nicholson. Devastated by the loss of his father, and the manner of his death, he was about to discover that his mother was tortured, starved and murdered by his father. That his father was a monster, not his best friend.

While there already was an army of social workers and psychologists available to Dylan, MacNeice couldn’t escape feeling some responsibility for how he learned the news. He wanted to be the one to tell him.

Before he could make the call to arrange that, though, MacNeice’s phone rang.

“It’s me, Mac, on the Smylskis’ porch,” Aziz said. “Not only did she remember that the man was big and athletic-looking, she saw him drive away—in a truck carrying soil, garden tools, and a small birch tree wrapped in burlap.”

“How could she remember that?”

“She thought he was coming to do landscaping for Nicholson, and she was looking for someone to work for her. She was heading across to ask him about it when the fight broke out. By the time she was on the sidewalk, the truck was heading toward Main Street and Nicholson was struggling to get up. Remarkably, Mrs. Smylski can recall what Nicholson said about the man too. ‘Oh, him, he’s a nobody.’ ”

“It’s not every day that your neighbour gets decked.”

“Exactly. She said Nicholson was seething—wiping the blood from his face—but managed somehow to sound casual about it. I’ve been asked to stay for lunch and meet Tom. As Dylan’s best friend, he may be helpful.”

MacNeice thanked her and said goodbye. Instead of heading back to Division, he swung the Chevy onto King Street, heading for the west end. At the next light, he pulled out Graham McLeod’s card and punched the number into his phone.

A pale green bubble trailer was parked in the wide turning circle that led to the lilac dell. It and the truck next to it were the only signs that anyone was in the botanical gardens. As MacNeice stepped out of the Chevy, McLeod opened the trailer door and waved him in.

Edging past the mud-caked rubber boots on the trailer’s step, MacNeice ducked and entered.

“Yeah, sorry—anyone over five-ten has gotta watch their head.”

Under the rear elliptical window was a drawing table, with plan drawers below, custom fabricated to fit both the width and curve of the space. In the belly of the trailer, there was a small table and two chairs. Opposite was a shelf with a two-burner electric stove with a steaming coffee pot on top. Two mugs were waiting beside it. With its door closed, the trailer appeared bright, almost spacious.

McLeod noticed MacNeice taking it all in. “It’s intimate,” he said. “But, on a day like today—or a month like this one—I can get a lot done here and it’s always better to be on site rather than trying to remember what was here back at the studio.”

McLeod didn’t seem nervous or concerned to have a homicide detective across from him, and MacNeice was content to let McLeod set the pace, making conversation about his work over coffee. When he’d finished his cup, McLeod asked, “You had something you wanted to discuss?”

“Tell me why you didn’t mention the altercation with Nicholson on his front porch?”

The younger man took the mugs and placed them both in a plastic bowl under the shelf, then straightened and met MacNeice’s eye.

“Maybe because I didn’t want you thinking I was a suspect.” He leaned against the trailer wall. “I went over to Nicholson’s after she’d been gone for two months. Something about the way he said, ‘No, I haven’t heard from her,’ really ticked me off.” McLeod came and sat down again at the table. “He made some crack about knowing that I’d been seeing his wife, and maybe I should tell him where she got to. I mean, it all happened so fast. I shoved him and turned to
leave, but Nicholson grabbed me by the shoulder. I hit him square on the nose and he went down like a beach umbrella in the wind.”

“Were you surprised he didn’t lay charges?”

“Not really. David wouldn’t want word getting out that I’d slugged him.”

“Did you confront him about hitting her?”

“No … I figured that would jeopardize Jenn’s trust in me. And if she came back, he’d take it out on her. I couldn’t risk that.”

“She’s dead, Graham. She died roughly a year after she showed you those bruises.”

McLeod stood up, slamming his head on the ceiling. Without a coat and wearing only moccasins on his feet, he went outside in the rain.

MacNeice looked around the trailer, which suddenly seemed smaller. He retrieved McLeod’s battered Barbour and went after him.

He was standing on the edge of the dell, the rain beating off his shoulders, his hair flattened to his skull. MacNeice put the coat over his shoulders. With the rain pelting his face, it was hard to tell if he was weeping, but his voice cracked when he spoke and he coughed several times. “I guess I’ve known all this time. She wouldn’t leave Dylan—no way. Jenn loved that kid.”

MacNeice took him by the shoulders and turned him back to the green bubble. “Have you got anything stronger than coffee?”

“Yeah … some Guinness, bottom drawer of the plan files.”

Inside, MacNeice hung the Barbour and his own raincoat. He guided McLeod back to his chair, found a hand towel and gave it to him so he could dry his face and hair.

The bottom drawer was marked “Plan B.” MacNeice smiled, took out two cans and
pulled the tabs on both. They sat sipping Guinness in silence, McLeod cradling the can in both hands, looking down as if studying the label, the small print or the harp logo. When he’d drained it, he dropped the can in a small wastebasket, pulled the drawer open and took out two more.

“Not for me, Graham. I’m driving.”

McLeod sat heavily, setting both cans down in front of him. He pulled the tab on one. “How did she die?”

“I can’t reveal the details, but it was homicide.”

McLeod’s eyes welled with tears, but he made no sound. He was forcing down the grief either out of pride or the fear that if he gave in to it, he’d fall to pieces right there.

MacNeice finished his beer and put the tin in the bin. He looked out the window and waited for McLeod to pull himself together.

“It was Nicholson,” McLeod said at last. “It was him … I know it was.” He wiped his face and blew his nose into the hand towel. “She called me from LA, called her family. I can’t speak for the Grants, but it never occurred to me that she wouldn’t ever come back.” He looked down at the floor for a moment. “I tried to believe she was happy somewhere out there, you know, on the edge of the continent.” He smiled then, ruefully. “No, it’s worse: I convinced myself that one day, out of the blue, I’d get a call from Jenn asking me to come out to join her. We’d live happily ever after.”

“I think she came back for her son,” MacNeice said.

“If he didn’t want Jenn, why wouldn’t he let me have her? I should have taken those photos to the cops. I was going to, you know. She was terrified I would and I was worried that I didn’t. Man, it was such a relief to give them to you.”

“Do you have any idea who might have killed David Nicholson?”

McLeod was knotting the small towel around one hand. “Honestly, I don’t know. If I did, I’d buy the guy a beer.”

“A young constable was killed by the same blast. He leaves a wife and two kids. If there’s anyone you know who might have hated Nicholson enough to kill him, I need to know.”

“Shit, no. Sorry, I really don’t know.”

MacNeice left him there in the trailer, with his guilt and his grief.

Driving slowly out of the gardens, he glanced through his rear-view mirror at the little trailer. A green bubble in the rain, it qualified as the second loneliest place in the world. First place would have to go to the sad little bungalow on Ryder Road.

When MacNeice got back, it was 2:35 p.m. Williams was only four weeks into the diary, but he had already taken a walk, had two double espressos, drunk a jug of water and swallowed three ibuprofen for a headache that he couldn’t shake. So far, there was nothing to indicate who might have wanted to kill the English teacher. Instead, Williams had three pages of notes, all of which focused on dates or the increasing punishments Nicholson had inflicted on his wife. He gave MacNeice a quick overview. Nicholson had kept his pledge to hose his wife down once a week. When he aimed the water at her face, she’d cover it with her hands. He’d spray it between her legs until she closed them, then aim at her breasts, which she tried to cover with her forearms and so on—for him, it was a game.

“That hose was underneath her, coiled like a snake,” Vertesi said, executing a narrowing spiral with his hand.

Williams flipped to a page he’d marked with a purple Post-it and read aloud: “ ‘J should thank me, but she won’t. I’m getting the filth off her while she’s getting some exercise.’ The water would have been ice cold, but he never mentions it. That poor girl would have wished she were dead every minute of every day—and she’s still got …,” he flipped through the rest of the pages, “roughly eleven weeks to go.”

Vertesi swivelled in his chair to tell MacNeice that he’d offered to take over, but that Williams wouldn’t let him.”

Williams said, “One sorry brother in this unit is enough, and you white folks … well, I
just don’t know. I definitely think it’s safer that a black man be reading this shit. Lord knows, we have a lot to answer for, but when it comes to weird, nobody does weird better than a white man.”

“I’ve been out in the botanical gardens with Graham McLeod,” MacNeice said. “When I told him Jennifer was dead, he took it very badly. I think we can rule him out.”

“Nicholson made one reference to McLeod knocking him on his ass. He already had her locked up in that house, and after the incident, Nicholson punished Jennifer by giving her a dozen lashes with the garden hose. I’ll read it to you.” Williams thumbed to a marked spot. “ ‘For McLeod. Because I’m told landscapers do it with hoses.’ ” He rested his hand on the page to hold his spot. “She passed out after four lashes and that scared him. Nicholson wasn’t sure exactly what damage he was doing, so he decided to abandon the treatment rather than lose his prisoner … I think he was having too good a time.”

Williams got up and headed for the washroom. When he returned, he sat down the way one does when preparing for really bad news, then picked up the diary.

MacNeice’s eyes settled on the images of the bandshell tacked to the whiteboard. The phone rang behind MacNeice.

Ryan picked it up on the second ring. “I’ve got Freddy Dewar, sir. Do you want to take the call?”

MacNeice nodded.

Dewar was calling from a pay phone. With the sound of traffic, he had to raise his voice to a level he probably hadn’t used in years. He sounded excited.

“Detective, I think I have something for you. Last night, I was sitting at my usual table in the bar, just finishing my Fish ’n’ chips, when a big man came in to talk to Byrne.” He paused
either to catch his breath or wait until someone passed by. “They disappeared into the office. Byrne looked back at me before closing the door. That was odd, I thought.”

“Go on.”

Freddy explained that the two men stayed in the office for a half-hour or so, during which the waitress brought Freddy his apple crumble. He’d asked her about the guy meeting with Byrne. The waitress said she’d seen him before. She thought his name was Bishop and that he was another expatriate mick.”

“Meaning?”

“She said that once the micks have had a few, they think her bum is public property.” Dewar laughed. “In my day, girls never used to talk like that.”

“Did you notice when he came out?”

“Yeah, and that was funny too. Byrne took him out the side door so he didn’t come back through the bar. Anyways, that was it. I just thought I’d better ring you.”

MacNeice thanked the old man, reminded him to keep a low profile, and then walked over to the whiteboard, where he wrote “Bishop” next to Byrne’s name. He added a question mark.

“Michael, call your contact at Vice and Drugs—ask them if they’ve got a file on someone named Bishop, a big man, possibly an Irish national.”

“Will do … What do you think he’s involved in?”

“I’m guessing bookmaking. Horses, I think.”

MacNeice stared at the whiteboard some more, his mind flitting in two directions. Then he picked up his phone and dialed. It rang twice before McLeod answered, slurring a little.

“Yeah … Who’s calling?”

“You’re still out at the gardens?”

“Yeah. Just cleaning out my Plan B drawer.”

“Promise me you’ll take a cab home.”

“I think I’ll sleep here tonight. What else?”

“Did Jennifer ever mention another man in her life, besides you and Nicholson?”

The long pause was punctuated by the sound of a Guinness can being crushed. Just as MacNeice was regretting the question, McLeod said, “I heard that shit about her being wild. Ridiculous. She was straight and narrow, you know. That was the thing about Jenn. That was the reason she left me. I was wild back then, but she was the straightest person I’ve ever known.”

MacNeice heard a chair fall and the zip-fizz of another Guinness from the Plan B drawer being popped. Then McLeod let out a long, ragged sigh. “I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess. Funny, Mac—do you mind if I call you that?”

“Not at all.”

“I wanted to be the one she turned to. I was waiting for her. Shit, people thought I was gay because I didn’t want to date anymore after my marriage broke up. I was just waiting. Now, I’ve got nothing to wait for.”

“So you think it was possible she took up with another man?”

“Sure … I guess. Sure. I mean, who wouldn’t? You saw those photos. I wouldn’t have blamed her.”

After he hung up, MacNeice circled his note—“We’re looking for another lover”—and turned again to the whiteboard for inspiration.

Ryan came over and tapped his shoulder. “The duty sergeant says Markus Christophe is waiting downstairs.”

MacNeice looked over at Aziz, who said, “I’ll fetch him. We’ll be in the interview room.” She was up and out of the cubicle before he could respond.