Reluctant Detective (8 page)

1
6

Anne unlocked the door to her second-floor office on Victoria
Row and hit the button on her answering machine. She listened to the recorded messages as she unlocked Billy's office and swung the
door open into a bath of sunshine.

As soon as she stepped into it, she felt awakened with a new
energy. Then a phone rang. It was her cell phone.

“Hello.” Anne heard thick breathing on the other end followed by a familiar voice.

“You didn't deliver the money,” he said. There was a deadness in
his voice.

“There was a break-in and…”

“I know, and I don't care. I'm only interested in results. Can you
retrieve the money? Yes or no?”

“Yes, I know who took it.”

“Time is short. Do it. You'll find a more formal expression of my
concern on your desk.”

“How did you get this number?”

Anne never got an answer. The line went dead. Then her eyes travelled toward the big oak desk near the window. Something
glinted in the sunlight. There was a sheet of paper on the desk. On it someone had drawn a primitive “smiley face” – only this one wasn't smiling. Instead, it carried a stunned expression, and, where its nose should have been, stood a shiny brass 9 mm cartridge.

Anne stared at it, and Billy's sunny room slowly drained of its warmth.

All the cards weren't on the table, but Anne already knew two things about this game that she didn't like: first, the stakes were too high; second, she was in no position to fold. The 9 mm shell
proved that. She had to play this hand out, whatever the risk. But the
only risk she really worried about was the chance of Jacqui being
caught, somehow, in the middle. That choice was clear. Jacqui had to disappear quickly and secretly. But how to do that might not be easy,
given a client who could walk through two locked doors and had the means to get her private cell phone number.

Anne could still smell the ink from the marker pen which made the drawing. The brass casing glittered in the window light. Anne
took a powder brush from her purse and dusted the cartridge with talc. The natural lubricant on the bullet would hold a fingerprint, but there was none. Not even a smudge. It had been wiped clean.

Anne paused over Billy's desk for a thoughtful moment. Then she
sat down in the big leather chair behind it and leaned back.
If the client has learned all these tricks, then he's not likely an amateur,
Anne thought.
He probably knows, and has known for some time, that Billy is dead. That means he's been using me. But for what? What can I do that he couldn't do himself? What do I know that could possibly be of any use to him?

No answers came to mind.

Anne glanced at her watch. It was nearing eleven. She had planned
to treat Jacqui to a special lunch at The Blue Peter after school, but
she had work to do before that, and there no time to spare.

Anne grabbed her jacket from the coat rack and hurried down the stairs. Her fingers sifted blindly through the scraps of paper, business cards, receipts, and tissues in her pocket until they came to one that felt familiar. It was a note, written in an elegant hand in
ink, and a phone number.

It was only six blocks from the office to Billy Darby's apartment. Anne hadn't been there since Billy had died, and she wouldn't have gone there so soon after his death if it were not something she felt
compelled to do. But there she was, standing in the middle of his apartment, surrounded by familiar pictures, cheesy knickknacks,
mementos and, most painfully, the pathetic traces of a dead man's
daily life. A soiled shirt tossed in a corner, a half-emptied cup of
coffee on a side table, sections of
The Guardian
scattered across the
sofa, rumpled bedclothes, and a closet door ajar. The only sound
came from the bathroom tap. The valve was not quite closed, and drops of water drummed out a slow measured beat that echoed in the ceramic washbasin.

Anne caught her breath and, afraid to be suddenly swept up in a wave of sentiment, she grabbed the spare set of keys to Billy's car
and dropped them in her purse. Then she picked up the receiver of the kitchen phone and dialled the number on the note in her pocket.

“Hi. This is Anne Brown… Anne Darby. I need some help.”

1
7

Anne felt as if she had fallen onto someone's living room floor
when she slid into the driver's seat of Billy's Ford sedan. Her feet didn't meet the pedals, and she could see little above the steering
wheel. Billy had been the last person to drive it, of course, and he had been a big man, 6'4”, 240 lbs. It took a few minutes while
she sorted keys and started the engine, and a few more while she
fumbled with the seat adjustment. After that, she realigned the
rearview mirrors, took a final look behind her, and backed out of
the driveway.

Her first stop was the Queen Street Glass Repair. She tossed her keys on the counter, told the clerk where she had left her own car, and said she needed the broken window replaced. Then she went
home, packed a large gym bag with enough of Jacqui's clothes to last a week, and returned to Victoria Row. This time she parked around
the corner and entered The Blue Peter restaurant through a rear
door.

It was just after noon. The restaurant was busy. She had the gym bag in tow. It was unwieldy, and, as she passed through, it snagged
the wings of several chairs. Some of the hooked chairs were occupied, and the few disdainful looks which darted her way were
parried by Anne's trail of
excuse-me
's as she made her way toward the last empty table near the serving doors.

“Hey, little girl! Runnin' away from home?” asked Mary Anne MacAdam, the owner.

“That's every mother's dream… at one time or another.”

“Trouble at Green Gables?”

“Everything's good at home, but storm clouds are pilin' up other places. Got a minute? Can we talk?”

Mary Anne held up her hand to indicate that she'd be right back
and headed into the kitchen. Anne shoved the sports bag full of
Jacqui's clothes behind the table and settled into her chair. One of the patrons that Anne had nearly unseated levelled another wither
ing stare at her. Anne avoided looking, but she could still feel the
woman's eyes.

“Storm clouds, is it?” Mary Anne slid into the seat across from
Anne. “Are you referring to the ‘up-yours' signal Ruby Red-Lips over there is sending you?”

“No, but I am sorry about the disruption… really.”

“Forget about it. When a place is packed, it gets crowded. And if
Yogi Barra didn't say that, then he should've. People come here for
good food, not wide open spaces. If Miss Red-Lips is miffed, I can
recommend any number of near-empty restaurants for her dining pleasure. So what's up?”

“Good news and bad news. I've got two clients. One's a sweetheart, the other's poison.”

“Quit. Send him packin'.”

“It's not as simple as that. I wish it were. But it's partly my fault. I screwed something up. Now he's made some not-so-veiled threats.”

“Call Ben. He'll straighten him out. A couple knocks on the head is all that any normal idiot needs to change his mind.”

“No. Can't do that. Ben's already growling about me getting
involved in the PI business. I love him to death, but he's Old School. He just doesn't get it. Besides, I'm pretty sure I can get a handle on things. I've got a few good leads. The thing is, I don't want Jacqui in the middle… I don't want this client to get the idea that he can use Jacqui as leverage.”

“Where do I come in? You need a babysitter or somethin'? Is that where this conversation's heading?”

“I have to get Jacqui someplace where there's no connection to me
and where nobody can find her. Delia McKay, a relative of Billy's, lives on a farm in Iona. She's agreed to look after Jacqui for a few
days. So I need someone besides me to drive her there… today… this afternoon, in fact.”

“And I'm the designated driver?”

Anne looked up. She said nothing, just shrugged her shoulders and
looked vacantly across the room. Then she brightened, raised her hand high, and motioned to Jacqui who had just come through the
door. The anxious lines on her face vanished.

“All right, all right, I'll do it… so long as it's not too close to supper hour. Have to keep an eye on the cash.”

Jacqui spotted Anne and waved back excitedly. Mary Anne laughed
at the sight of Jacqui bounding gleefully across the room like an unabashed twelve-year-old. Then she snickered. “She's taking it
well.”

“I haven't told her yet.”

“Yikes! In that case, I'll leave you two alone.”

“Hi, Mom… bye, Mary Anne!” Jacqui dropped noisily into her chair and let her backpack fall with a disturbing clunk to the floor. “Done! All done!” she said and feigned exhaustion. “What's to eat?”

“Anything you want.”

“Ooooh, lemme see,” she said as if challenged with a dare. “Lob
ster.” The word rang with an uncharacteristic decisiveness, and she snapped shut the menu.

“What kind of veggies do you want with it?”

Agreement was not what she had expected from her mother. As
a result, Jacqui's self-assurance, pushing hard against nothing at all,
tumbled into surprise and landed her in the midst of a bewilderment.

“Maybe not,” she said. “Lobster's kind of messy. What else?”

“Anything you want.”

“Is this some kind of celebration or something?”

“No… but it is your last day in junior high. You're a high-school
student now. Right? That's worth celebrating.”

“I guess. Scallops?”

“Sure. Let's make that two scallop dinners.”

The chatter of the crowd gained strength and momentum as lunch
hour progressed. It finally drowned out Jacqui's report on her
morning adventures. Anne didn't mind the loss, though. Jacqui's exuberance lent a telling pantomime to her narrative that pleased
Anne, and she continued to nod as appreciatively and to smile as warmly as if she had heard every word her daughter had spoken.
Still, she could not put aside what she knew would be the unhappy outcome to all this.

They took their time eating, but by one o'clock the atmosphere
of the restaurant changed. The conversations around them ebbed and flowed like unstable breezes. More often now, they could hear the clink of silverware break through the table talk, or they would notice the clatter of plates over the rounds of laughter. Eventually,
conversations faded into discrete murmurings, and Anne knew that it was time to tell Jacqui the truth.

When Anne left the restaurant, tears were streaming down her face. Jacqui's last words,
how could you do this to me
, had broken
her heart, and the ugly sound of them still rang in her ears. Anne
had hoped that Jacqui would understand. She was a good kid – no, a great kid – and she was mature in many ways. But she could not seem to understand.

At first Jacqui thought her mother had been playing a joke on
her. Then, when she realized that her mother was serious, her face deadened, her lips parted, and then they began to tremble ever so slightly. Her face blanched, and her body froze as if she had come
upon a snake. It seemed a long time before she found her voice,
but, when she did and the words escaped her mouth, they were not recognizable as Jacqueline's. They were unsteady and choked back, broken and pathetic.

“I'm sorry,” was all that Anne could reply to Jacqui's plea not to be sent away.

Her second plea emerged more coherently. A third followed. Then a fourth. Each one a bit more forceful, and each one a bit more desperate.

“I'm really sorry, hon. I have no choice. It's the only way I can keep you safe.” Then Anne stood up, gave Jacqui a hug, motioned to Mary Anne, and walked away.

Jacqui buried her head in her arms and quietly sobbed. Mary
Anne gave Jacqui her privacy for four or five minutes and watched
from a distance. Mary Anne had no children. Nor had she much
experience with the children of others. And while she could deftly
manage a restaurant and efficiently dispatch a squadron of cooks
and waitresses and dishwashers, she felt helpless when dealing
with anyone's personal problems. For now she was able to cope by keeping a safe distance and, every so often, sweeping by or hovering near Jacqui's table like a nervous bird circling a mate's nest.

Eventually, Jacqui's sobbing dwindled into sniffling. She braced her head up with two hands and stared abjectly at the marble pattern on the tabletop. She's over the worst of it, Mary Anne thought. She gave her a bit more time, and then she slipped into the seat next to Jacqui.
She felt obliged to say something, but she didn't know what. Words
of consolation and platitudes she had heard as a child rolled around
in her head.

“Sweetheart? You okay?” she began.

Jacqui looked toward her and took the tissue she offered.

A short phrase of comfort formed on Mary Anne's lips. Then her
mouth went dry. She felt faint.

“You want some dessert?”

18

The convenience store on the corner of Filmore and Condon was
small and cluttered. The clerk behind the counter was short, round,
and dark. He spoke with an accent that noisily and mechanically
spat out consonants and buried the vowels.

“How may I help you, lady?” He smiled as if he were about to close on his first sale of the month.

“Looking for Carson White – the White family. They live some
where near here. Know them?” Anne grabbed a loaf of bread, placed it on the counter, and looked over the canned goods.

“Small brown house there,” he pointed up the street. “See hole in screen door?” Anne nodded.

“Would anyone be home now? I have to pick up a package.”

“I don't know. She work. He drink. Boy come, boy go.” He shrugged.

Anne carried her bag of bread and two jars of mango chutney to
the car, drove half a block, and parked just past the Whites's house. No one answered her knock on the front door. So she went through a small dangling wire gate on the side and tried the rear doorknob.
It turned. Inside the half-open door, she halloed. No answer, not
even an echo. She went in.

Anne passed through the smell of stale beer and sweaty clothes in the pantry and into a heavy lingering scent of frying-pan fat in
the kitchen. She made her way up a steep flight of stairs. There were two bedrooms. The bedroom on her right was Carson's. A
grotesque poster of some metal band was taped to his closed door. Inside, under a sloping roof, was a single bed, a small table, a fold-up wooden chair, and a few cardboard boxes, but no valise with money.
Anne rifled through the boxes. One was filled with car and motor
cycle magazines. The other had stacks of school papers, photocopied
handouts, old assignments, and partly filled scribblers. Posters of
Harley Davidson motorcycles adorned one wall. Scantily clad models
struck erotic poses as they straddled their machines. Below the
posters was a heap of machine parts from a 150cc Yamaha.

A four-drawer dresser stood against a second wall. Jumbles of
clothes filled three of them. The bottom drawer was a jumble, too,
but under a layer of towels and sweat pants Anne found Carson's
stash: trinkets: watches, cell phones, leather billfolds stripped of ID and credit cards, CDs, a coffee can a quarter full of necklaces,
broaches, rings, and pendants, mostly cheap gold-plated pieces but
a few that would bring a few bucks on the street. Tucked into the edge of a mirror frame over the dresser were bits of paper with phone numbers. She copied the numbers into her notebook and headed downstairs.

As she navigated back through the rickety fence, Anne noticed a detached garage. She pushed open the door, and quickly searched
the junk on the concrete slab floor. Then she climbed the short
ladder to the loft. Odd dimensions of board and plank were neatly
stacked up. She saw no valise, but Anne did notice that the veil of dust on the landing just above the top of the ladder had been
disturbed. Someone had been up there recently.

Anne had gotten as much as she could from her quick search of
Carson's house, and she dismissed the idea of waiting for him to
show up. Instead she drove to the parking lot of a nearby mall and took out her cell phone and notebook. She called the first number she had taken from Carson's room. A girl answered. She sounded young. The call display read
Krystal Conohan
.

“Krystal? Hi! This is Mary MacLean… you know… from Student Council.”

“Yeah, and?” she said. A note of suspicion tainted her voice.

“I'm trying to get a hold of Carson White. Do you know where he is this afternoon?”

“What do ya want him for?”

“There was a random draw at the Student Council. End-of-the-year activity. Carson won. A $25 dollar gift certificate.”

“I didn't hear that announced at the assembly, and I was there.”

“Yeah, I know. Somebody… I won't say who… forgot to bring the
box with student names to the assembly. By the time we got it, the
bell had rung. We were too late. We drew names later. So do you
know where he is? We want to get it to him.”

“Well I don't know. Try the pool hall on Kent. Or one of those bike shops downtown. He says he hangs with the mechanics… if you can believe him. He's tight with Sean. Maybe he knows. Anyway, I don't follow him around.”

“Sean who? What grade is he in?”

“Sean McGee. He's not in school. By the way, how'd you get this
number?”

“Friend of a friend. Gotta go. Thanks. Bye.”

There was no answer at the other numbers she had gotten from Carson White's room. She dialled again. This time the number was
the Charlottetown Police Department's. The switchboard routed her call. It rang once before it was picked it up.

“Detective Sergeant Ben Solomon.”

“Hey, Ben. Anne.”

“Where the hell have you been hiding?”

“Haven't you heard? I'm a working girl. No time for Dunkin' Donuts and coffee breaks like you.”

“Are you keeping out of trouble?”

“As best I can, but I need a favour. Can you run a partial plate number for me?”

“I only do things like that as a professional courtesy.”

“Then be nice… and consider me a professional.”

Solomon laughed and added, “Tell me whatcha got and I'll see what bell it rings.

“Late model Ford F-150, dark blue, Island plate KT71 something
something.”

“That's it?”

“That's it. Oh… and do the names Carson White or Sean McGee mean anything to you?”

“Nothing on White. McGee. That's a familiar tale. He runs a head shop downtown. I don't think he makes a living off it, but some of
the boys think he uses it to launder money or fence stolen goods. He
belongs to a biker gang. Satan's Chosen. They're like little brothers
to Hell's Angels in Halifax. They keep a low profile, but they have a clubhouse of sorts. A bar near the old railhead on Water Street. Why? What's the interest?

“Their names came up in a case I'm working. Nothing definite.”

“Satan's Chosen doesn't have the reputation for the dazzling
brutality of Hell's Angels, but they can bite. Best to steer clear of
that crew. Okay?”

“Okay.” There were a few awkward moments of silence between
them. Then Anne asked timidly, “No big lectures?”

“Would it do any good?”

“Probably not.”

“I didn't think so. Sarah didn't think so either, but you already
know my opinion about getting involved in investigations. It's not healthy. By the way, a job may be opening up here at the
Department. A guy on staff is leaving. Going into RCMP. He handled
administration. In charge of building management, secretarial
personnel. Basically he took care of everything not directly involved in policing. It's a management position. Good pay, too. Interested?”

Anne was caught unawares by Ben's offer. In view of the tenuous situation she found herself in, it seemed like a comfortable door to
walk through and a safe place both for herself and Jacqui. It was
a job with responsibility, and maybe it could evolve into a career. Most of all, it would be a welcoming escape from the path she was travelling.

“It… does sound good,” she said.

“I'll send over an application.”

“In the meantime, if you need help or advice… or anything, call. I'll get back to you on that plate.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

“Just don't make me worry. Three daughters at home. I have an
acid stomach as it is.”