The Dells (25 page)

“No,” Shoe said. He didn't remember Mackie being so talkative. They'd been well-paired; on patrol, hours had gone by without the exchange of but a few words. Except toward the end, when Mackie had learned that Sara was seeing someone else, probably some “suit,” he'd said, and had started talking obsessively about finding out who.

“The wife of a city councillor who's also on the police services board,” Mackie continued. “The councillor, not the wife. Claims I hit on her, then said I purposely put the wrong date on invitations for a charity thing she was organizing when she blew me off. Maybe I should retire, take up fishing or curling or whatever. Wanna buy a print shop? Nice little business, except for the occasional wacko customer.” His hand shook slightly as he raised the glass of coffee to his mouth and drank.

Why is he so nervous? Shoe wondered. With a start, he realized that Mackie was afraid that Shoe had come to settle old scores.

“Ron,” he said. “Relax.”

“Yeah,” Mackie said. Exhaling, he bent his spine and eased against the chair-back. “I am kind of running off at the mouth, aren't I?” He leaned forward again, but his hands and his voice were steady. “Look, let's get this out of the way. I know I was an asshole, all right.”

“No, you weren't,” Shoe said.

“Yeah, I was. I knew Sara and me were never gonna get back together, but I was too much of an asshole to let
it go. What happened between me and her was my fault, not hers. Or yours. I don't blame you for what happened between you and me either. I'm sorry, okay. For, well, for a lot of things.”

“Likewise,” Shoe said. “I'm glad things turned out for you.”

“Thanks. How about you? Things turn out okay for you?”

“Yes, I'd say they did.”

“Hannah told me you're some kind of corporate investigator. Like I said, was a little surprised you didn't stay a real cop. I always thought you could've been a good one, if you'd tried. Ever thought about hanging up a shingle as a PI or security consultant?”

“Not seriously.” After a moment of silence, Shoe said, “I'd like to talk to you about an old case you worked, the Black Creek Rapist.”

“Yeah, Hannah asked me about it. Wasn't much I could tell her. It was a long time ago.”

“Did Hannah tell you about Marvin Cartwright's murder?”

“Yeah, she did. Son of a bitch finally got what he deserved, didn't he? Couldn't've happened in a better place, too.”

“Did you know there was another murder in the Dells last night?”

“No. Christ, this city's turning to shit. Besides being in the Dells, is it connected with Cartwright's murder in any other way?”

“The victim was a woman named Marty Elias.”

“Elias? She was one of Cartwright's victims, wasn't she? The kid, right?”

“Yes. Claudia Hahn and I found her body this morning.”

“Claudia Hahn?” Mackie's brow lowered in thought for a moment, then he said, “She was Cartwright's second
victim. The schoolteacher. Like my old rabbi used to tell me, everything's connected some way or another. You just gotta find how.”

“You still think Marvin Cartwright was the Black Creek Rapist then?”

“When I think about it at all. Any reason I shouldn't?”

“Claudia Hahn is certain it wasn't Cartwright who raped her.”

“She was what, twenty-two, twenty-three back then? Pretty shook up, as I recall. And she knew him from the school where she taught, didn't she? I remember thinking, people don't like the idea that people they know would do that kind of thing.” Mackie lifted his glass of coffee and drank.

“Most rapists have a victim preference, don't they?” Shoe said.

“So the experts claim. Your point being?”

“The age of the victims in this case ranged from eleven — Marty Elias — to mid-twenties — Claudia Hahn. Daphne McKinnon was fourteen and Elizabeth Kinney was nineteen or twenty. How alike were they physically? Marty Elias was prepubescent and Claudia Hahn was a grown woman, tall and slim. What about the other victims? I remember Daphne McKinnon as being plump and blond. What about Elizabeth Kinney?”

“The parks department worker?” Mackie said. “She was black as the ace of spades. Look, I know where you're going, and if this was a television cop show, I might agree with you. But you know as well as I do — or maybe you don't; you weren't a cop as long as I was — that you gotta be careful about making too many assumptions about things. Yeah, some of the investigators thought that the lack of physical similarity between victims meant there was more than one perp. Me, I figured Cartwright was either just getting started and hadn't established his
preferences yet, or he was an opportunist, jumped anything that happened by.”

“None of the other investigators seemed to think Cartwright was guilty.”

“Yeah, well … ”

“According to Hank Trumbull, you almost lost your job over it.”

“So I was a little overzealous in my pursuit of justice. I was young and green and stupid, and it was my first big case. But I wasn't wrong. I just went about it the wrong way.” His tipped up his glass to drink, but it was empty. He put it down. “What do you want me to tell you? That it wasn't Cartwright? He was innocent as fresh fallen snow? Fine. Someone else attacked the teacher and those girls. Someone else raped and murdered the black girl. Happy?”

“Hank Trumbull is worried that your connection to Cartwright might compromise Hannah's investigation.”

“Is that right?”

“Or that you may have even had something to do with his murder.”

“Trumbull's an old pal of yours, isn't he? Hope you won't be too upset then when I tell you he's an asshole.”

“It would help Hannah's investigation if you had an alibi for the night of Cartwright's murder,” Shoe said.

“You're starting to make me regret talking to you,” Mackie growled. Then he shrugged. “Hannah's already asked me if I had an alibi for that night. Not that it's any of your business, but as a matter of fact, I don't. Not much of one, anyway. I was working in the shop till around midnight or a little after, then got home about one, maybe a little before. My wife's visiting her sister — I think she half believes I got it on with the councillor's crazy wife — so there's no one to vouch for the time I got home. But in the real world alibis aren't worth shit unless they're absolutely airtight. Nothing lawyers like
better than creating reasonable doubt around someone's alibi.”

“Cartwright wasn't the only suspect in the case. Why were you so certain he was the Black Creek Rapist?”

“Jesus, it was thirty-five years ago. Let's see. He spent a lot of time in those woods. He didn't have a credible alibi for the time of the attacks.” He smiled thinly. “And, yeah, I remember, now — there was a complaint.”

“A complaint? From whom?”

“The father of some girl in the neighbourhood. I forget the name, but they lived in an older house at the end of a little dead-end road that stuck into the woods behind your parents' place.”

“Braithwaite.”

“If you say so. I don't remember. All I remember is that the girl's father didn't want Cartwright hanging around his daughter, but there wasn't anything we could do about it because he wouldn't let us interview her. In any case, she was over twenty-one. He was some kind of preacher.”

“Pretty circumstantial,” Shoe said.

“When circumstantial is all you've got, circumstantial is all you've got.”

“Hank said there may have been a witness to one of the rapes or the homicide, and that you were accused of suborning a false statement. Was there a witness?”

“There were three,” Mackie said.

“The surviving victims, you mean? None of them was able to identify her attacker.”

“That doesn't mean they didn't know him. It only means they wouldn't identify him.”

“Or couldn't.”

“Yeah, well, maybe, but I was sure the kid knew who'd attacked her. She was a lousy liar. I tried to get her to open up, but her parents complained to the lead investigator that I was trying to get her to say it was
Cartwright who'd attacked her even though she kept saying it wasn't.”

“Do you remember an assault that occurred in the Dells a month or so before the first rape?” Shoe asked. “The victim was a fifteen-year-old boy.”

Mackie's eyes narrowed. “Not sure. Sounds sort of familiar.”

“His name was Joey Noseworthy.”

“Noseworthy. Noseworthy. He was interviewed for the rape case, too, wasn't he? Small for his age, with a big mouth? Queer, though, right?”

“Smallish and sharp-tongued,” Shoe agreed. “But he wasn't homosexual.”

“If you say so. What about him?” “Hannah has him down as prime suspect for Cartwright's murder.”

“Is that right?” Mackie said. “Maybe it's a case of what goes around comes around then. Maybe it was Cartwright that attacked him. Was he raped? Always figured Cartwright for a shirt-lifter.”

“It wasn't Cartwright who attacked Noseworthy,” Shoe said.

“No? Who was it then?”

“My brother and a couple of his friends: Dougie Hallam and a boy named Ricky Marshall. They were the neighbourhood bullies. Hallam was, anyway. My brother and Ricky Marshall just went along for the ride.”

“How do you know it was them? Seems to me I remember the Noseworthy kid couldn't or wouldn't say who beat him up.”

“My brother admitted it. So did Ricky Marshall. I didn't give Dougie Hallam a chance. Joey Noseworthy was my best friend.”

“Your brother,” Mackie said slowly. “Hal, right?” He was lost in thought for a moment, then said, “I remember him. He had a smart mouth too, but he was
kind of fat and whiney. I could see him beating up a smaller kid, but I never figured him for having the balls to rape a grown woman, if you'll pardon the expression. Christ, you don't think your brother was the Black Creek Rapist, do you?”

“No,” Shoe said.

“I don't remember the Marshall kid, but I remember Hallam. He was a punk. Thought he was tough, but I remember something about him getting the crap beat out of him around the time the rapes started. That was you? Payback for Noseworthy?”

“Yes,” Shoe said.

“Hallam or his old man would've been my second choice for the rapes, except they were both out of town when the first two attacks occurred. The old man — Eddy? Freddy? — he was a real piece of work. He had a couple of convictions for assault and battery, and both him and his old lady had a dozen arrests between them for robbery and receiving stolen goods, but skated on them all, as I recall. Insufficient evidence, witnesses losing their memories, changing their stories, that sort of thing. The son wasn't much better. There was a daughter, too, wasn't there? I don't remember much about her, but if she was anything like her old lady … ” He left the thought unfinished. “Hallam and his old lady, weren't they killed around the time you joined up?”

“A little before. Their bodies were found in the trunk of their burnt-out car, wrists wired together and .22 bullets in their heads.”

“Shows what can happen when you keep bad company. No great loss to the gene pool.”

“There must have been other suspects in the rape/homicide case,” Shoe said.

“Sure. Just about every male in the area over the age of twelve. But none of them panned out.” He examined his stubby, powerful hands for a moment. “All right, so
maybe Cartwright didn't do the Noseworthy kid, but he was guilty as hell for the sexual assaults — and for the homicide, although I was off the case by then. Just talking to him I knew it was him. You could see it in his eyes. You know the look. They all have it, the guilty ones. They can't hide it. It's like a stigma on their souls. Of course, we may never know for sure now, eh?”

“Perhaps not,” Shoe agreed.

“Why are you so interested, anyway? You figure Hannah's looking at the wrong guy, is that it? Her and me, we haven't had a lot to say to each other, but the word I hear is, she's a good cop. Better'n most.”

“Hank Trumbull thinks so too.”

“I never had much use for what Trumbull thought, but he's right about that. Maybe Hannah hasn't closed all her cases, but every one she has closed was rock solid. Crown prosecutors love catching her cases. Most of them get pleaded out and hardly ever go to trial. Saves us beleaguered taxpayers a bundle. I hear she's tough on partners, though. She's on her second this year.”

Mackie regarded Shoe for a few seconds through half-closed eyes. The expression made him look as though he were falling asleep, but Shoe remembered that it was a sign Mackie was thinking, trying to make up his mind about something.

“How's the saying go?” Mackie said at last. “If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras? For someone who says he isn't interested in PI work, you sure sound an awful lot like a PI. You're working for someone, is that it? Noseworthy?” When Shoe didn't answer, he went on: “It's a good bet whoever killed Cartwright also killed the Elias girl. Two murders in a matter of days in more or less the same location, and a history between the victims. This city gets maybe sixty murders a year, give or take. Subtract the gang-related killings and the domestics, the number drops significantly. You'd have to
be a complete idiot to rule out a connection. And my sister's no idiot.”

“No, she isn't,” Shoe said.

Mackie looked at his watch and stood. “I gotta get back.” He offered his hand.

Shoe stood and took it. “I don't remember you from the Black Creek Rapist case.”

“No?” Mackie said, releasing Shoe's hand. “I remember you.”

“When we were partners, why didn't you ever tell me you'd worked the case?”

“I was supposed to be training you to be a good cop,” Mackie replied. “Not a fuck-up.”