When the Killing Starts Read online

  I turned away and walked out. I heard her screech something, and then glass shivered against the wall behind me. It took all my self-control not to sprint over the parquet to the door.

  I got back into my car and fussed Sam for a few moments. He sat up and pressed his big head back against the pressure of my hand. The contact cheered me. Women like Norma Michaels leave me with a hole in my gut. Loneliness isn't something she could dispel by dragging the iceman into bed. She should know by now that her condition was contagious. Misery loves company, but misery also makes misery. There once was a time when I might have taken my chances on that, but I had Fred in my life now. I didn't need any more ships that pass in the night.

  I pulled away from the curb and headed out of Rosedale back into the real world where family problems aren't complicated by the weight of ten zillion dollars on top of everything else. The only productive thing I could do was to go call on Michaels Senior's girlfriend. If she lived in Prince Arthur Place, it might be hard to get in. It seemed to me that it was one of the newer condominiums that have risen from the ashes of unprofitable apartment blocks in Toronto. Thirty some floors of half-million dollar pigeonholes with squash courts and saunas and beauty parlors in the basement and upkeep costs higher than most of us could afford to pay in simple rent.

  I prepared my camouflage carefully. There was a Chinese grocery store open on Yonge Street, and I picked up a couple of bunches of freesias for a few dollars and had the clerk double wrap them for extra bulk. The package looked like the kind of bundle stars expect from their agents on first nights. Then I drove north to Prince Arthur Place.

  It turned out to be two buildings artfully placed back-to-back as if to fight off the rest of the city. As I'd expected, they had a security man at the gate of the parking lot, but I was lucky. He was a twenty-five-year-old gum chewer with a radio tuned to some rock station. He came out of his little house and said, "Yes, sir?"

  "Hi. Like your music. I'm from out of town. What station is that?"

  "CKNY," he said, warming up to me.

  "What's the frequency? All I can find is guys yakkin'."

  He told me, and I thanked him with a wave of one finger. But he wasn't bought off entirely. "Who're you here to see?"

  I did a conspiratorial chuckle. "Anybody you'd care to recommend? Like the gal I'm here to see is kind of senior."

  He laughed with me. "Most of 'em are, here. What's this one's name?"

  "Ali. Ali Beatty. Asked me to come up next time I was in town, and here I am."

  The security man was impressed. "Asked you up? Hey, I wouldn't have thought that. She's kind of snooty."

  "Yeah, before she lets her hair down." I grinned again like a salesman. "Listen, she said not to let the guys in the office know, so I'm gonna tell them I'm delivering flowers." I held up the bunch. "Which is true, only she gets to ask me in for coffee."

  He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, good idea. Old George inside, he's kinda nosy. Yeah, I'll tell him the delivery man's on his way."

  "Good thinking." I flipped out a five-dollar bill, and he looked at it in surprise.

  "For me?" I guess he didn't get much in the way of tips. George did all the Christmas collecting.

  "Yeah," I said. "I'm feeling lucky." He snuffled a quick laugh and waved me through. I saw him lift the phone in his shack.

  George was waiting at the door. "I'll take those," he said.

  I shook my head. "'Preciate the offer, but the boss said to take 'em on up."

  He tutted. "And who would he be, this boss?" I raised an eyebrow and stared him down. He was small and British, ex-service by the look of him, used to being ordered around. "Miz Beatty'll tell you if she wants you to know."

  "All right," he said. "But she's not going to be pleased. She already has a couple of visitors up there."

  "I'll be discreet," I promised, and handed him a five. He took it after looking at it as if he'd been expecting a twenty. Then I asked him, "What visitors are these? The boss said she'd be on her own. Got her sisters over, has she?"

  "Two gentlemen, sir." My fin had bought me some respect, anyway.

  "Two?" All my suspicions jumped out of hiding. "One English, officer type?"

  "That's right, sir. The other an American gentleman."

  "With his right hand bandaged?"

  "Yes. Do you know them?"

  "We've met. Which apartment is she in?"

  He told me, and I held up one finger for a moment.

  "Excuse me," I said, and went to the door again and whistled short and sharp. Sam came through the window of the car and was at my side in seconds. "Good boy, heel," I told him, and I went in, past George, who tried to tell me Sam couldn't come in. I knew it would cause trouble, but I had enough, anyway, right now. "Those men are wanted by the police. Dial 911 and tell the police that Dunphy and Wallace are with Ms. Beatty. Dunphy and Wallace. Got that?"

  "What's going on?" he blustered, but I stabbed him in the chest with one finger.

  "Do it, George, or your ass is grass. That woman is in danger."

  I only made it to sergeant in the marines, but apparently George had never risen that high. He turned to the phone, and I sprinted for the elevator. There was a broom standing beside it, and I dropped my flowers and grabbed it. Not much, but I might have to take on both men, and a bayonet thrust with a broomstick can be lethal if you know what you're doing. And I do.

  The elevator was quick and silent. It ran me to the eighteenth floor in one take, and I came out carefully, looking both ways. She was in 1814, George had said. That was to my left. I ran down the hall on tiptoe and listened at the door. It was silent inside. Damn, I should have asked George how long ago the men had come calling. If they were after revenge, five minutes was all it would have taken, less if they hadn't done any more than kill her.

  Finally I tapped on the door and waited. Nobody answered, and I tapped again and called, "Alison, it's me," in a voice as close to that of Michaels as I could manage. "I've forgotten my key," I said.

  There was no answer, and I tried the door. It swung open. I hissed at Sam and told him, "Come," and went inside, checking around me very carefully. There was nobody there, but as I stood, I could hear water splashing and a tap running. I told Sam, "Seek," and he jumped ahead of me and sprang through the apartment. I waited, and he ran into all the open rooms and then stopped, out of my sight, barking.

  Holding the broom like a rifle, I followed the sound and found him at the bathroom door. It was shut but not locked. I opened it and let him in, and he barked again, but it was his working bark, not an attack sound, so I followed him in and saw the bathtub running over. There was a woman lying in it, covered by a foot of water.

  I reached in and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her up and out, limp as a load of blubber. I rolled her on her face first and pumped hard on her back, and she gouted out a great spout of water. Then I flipped her onto her back and listened for signs of life. There weren't any, but I set to with CPR. The water had been running cold. If she had developed hypothermia, there might be a chance to get her going again.

  It still hadn't worked ten minutes later when the police arrived. Sam's barking alerted me, and I told him, "Easy," then called, "In the bathroom," and kept on pumping her chest.

  They were both young guys, one black, one white. The black one said, "What's happening here?"

  "Found her in the tub," I said, then bent to breathe into her lungs again. I did it and went back to pressing her chest rhythmically, and said, "Reid Bennett, police chief, Murphy's Harbour. My ID's in my left rear pocket. Can you get a cardiac unit up here?"

  One of them turned to use the phone, but I shouted, "No, I think this was an assault. Don't touch anything. Go down and phone or call from your car."

  The white guy left on the run, and the other one knelt opposite me across her body and gave the formal signal. "I know CPR."

  "Good. Take over, please." I leaned back, and he went to work, smoothly and professionally.

 
; I talked to him as he worked. "She's involved in a family that sent me after those mercenaries. Nod if you've heard of Dunphy and Wallace."

  He nodded as he pumped her chest. "They were here. George on the door downstairs told me. I came up, and she was in the tub. All I've touched is her and the front doorknob."

  "Good," he grunted, and bent to blow into her lungs. When he had straightened up and listened to her mouth, he flashed a glance at me. "Looks like we're too late. How long you been at it?"

  "Maybe ten minutes. I got the guy on the door to call when I came up."

  He nodded. "Don't try to leave, please. I'll have to get the detectives in soon's help arrives."

  "Understood. I'll take over again when you need a rest."

  He nodded and went on working while I knelt on the wet floor, watching for signs of life.

  Nothing had happened when the paramedics arrived, but they took over from us, and I stood up and uncrinked my back. The black copper did the same thing, and I reached out and shook his hand. "Nice try, anyway. What's your name?"

  "Harry Good. I hoped we could bring her around. I saved a kid last summer up at the conservation area in Pickering."

  "We tried," I said. There were towels on the rack, but we were too long on the job to use them. Both of us wiped our wet hands on our pants, and I said, "Let's go out in the hall till the brains get here."

  "Okay." He turned to the other copper. "Did you call the detectives while you were down there, Jeff?"

  The other guy nodded. "They're on their way." He was a year or two older than the first one, sandy haired, with a mustache that looked as if it had come with the uniform. "You say you're a police chief, sir?" He managed to make the "sir" sound menacing.

  "Right." I unflipped my billfold and showed him my ID. "I'm the guy who was involved in the scuffle with the mercenary guys up north. Two of them were seen here just before I got here. It'd be a good idea to grab George downstairs and find out how long ago that was. Also to get their descriptions on the air ASAP."

  He wondered how to make me look small but couldn't think of anything better than "Of course. You stay here with Harry. The detectives will want to talk to you."

  "Right." I turned to Good. "Shall we stand in the hall, Harry?"

  "Be best," Good said.

  We went outside with Sam while the other man took the elevator down. Good looked at me and allowed himself a faint smile. "Don't mind Jeff. He kinda takes the job seriously."

  "The best way," I minimized. "Only it tends to take the fun out of life."

  He laughed and brought out chewing gum. Juicy Fruit.

  "I'm trying to give up smoking. Wanna stick?"

  "Thanks. My mouth tastes of dead woman and lipstick."

  "Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, when did you see a woman take a tub in full makeup?" I thought about that. "I'm not sure. Any girls I know take showers, but it seems to me that they cream all of that gunk off first. No, I figure someone put her in there."

  "Figures," he said, and stooped to pat Sam, who ignored him. "You really trained him," he said approvingly.

  "He's all the backup I've got in my little place," I said, and he nodded, and we stood chewing gum and waiting until the detectives arrived. In an ordinary apartment block the neighbors might have opened their doors. Apparently people with enough bread for a bunk at Prince Arthur Place lose their curiosity. Nobody came out, and after another five minutes the elevator opened, and two detectives came in.

  I was delighted to see them. One was a stranger, but the other was Elmer Svensen. He's my sister's boyfriend and a good buddy of mine. He'd bailed me out one time when a Chinese woman I was close to was about to cancel my check.

  "Reid," he said. "Hey, kid, what's happening?"

  "Elmer. Good to see you." We shook hands, and he introduced me to his partner.

  "Reid Bennett. He's gonna be my brother-in-law come December. Reid, this is Joe Irwin."

  "Hi, Joe. This is Harry Good. We've just been trying to get some life going into a woman who lives here, Alison Beatty. She was lying in the bottom of her tub, which is still running over, by the way. We didn't touch anything except the woman."

  "Any response?" Irwin asked. He nodded at Good curtly. Detectives don't mingle much with the troops. I guessed he was new to plainclothes and proud of it.

  "None. This could be a homicide."

  "Homicide?" Elmer frowned at me. "Makes you think that?"

  "Dunphy and Wallace, the two guys in charge of the mercenary outfit I was tangling with up north, they called on her just before I got here today," I said. Down the hall a door had finally opened, and a middle-aged man stuck his head out and looked at us. "Maybe we should duck inside and talk," I said, and Elmer nodded.

  "Harry, could you stand outside and keep the lions at bay? Joe, maybe you'll go down to the front office and call homicide. We don't know if this woman's gonna make it, but we've got enough work without taking on an extra case if we can avoid it. Then talk to that citizen down the hall, see if he noticed anything strange."

  Both men nodded, and Irwin moved away to the man at the open door. The man asked, "What are you men doing here? And why is there a dog in the building?" Then Elmer and I went inside with Sam, and I shoved the door almost closed with one foot.

  Both of us stuck our hands in our pockets, the automatic safety precaution at a crime scene. It stops you from touching anything. Then he said, "What the hell was happening up north? When Louise heard on the radio, she just about went out of her tree. You should've called her."

  "Sorry about that, Elmer. I figured now she had your shoulder to cry on she wouldn't worry anymore."

  "You kidding?" He grinned. "Anyways, tell me, how's this broad connected with the guys up north? She one of their girlfriends? What?"

  "It's kind of complicated. And the first twist is that they have two other possible targets in town. It'd be smart to have someone at their door for a day or two."

  He took his hands out of his pockets and found his notebook. "Who are they?"

  "Michaels, not sure of his first name. He's the stepfather of the boy I brought back, plus the wife, the mother. They live up in Rosedale." I gave him the address, and he wrote it down. "Also the boy, Jason Michaels. They're teed off about him. He ducked out on them, and besides, it looks to me as if the stepfather had set the kid up to be wiped."

  Elmer looked up in horror. "His own goddamn kid?" His reaction pleased me. Louise has a couple of kids, and it looked like Elmer counted himself their father. Good. They all deserved it. I was about to make the comment when the door opened and two more detectives came in. Elmer said, "Hi, George. This may be a homicide."

  The other guy grunted. "It already is," he said. "She was DOA at St. Mikes."

  FIFTEEN

  The homicide men were pros. It took them only a couple of minutes to get my story into a straight line that made sense to them. Then one of them went to phone for the investigation team to photograph and fingerprint the place. After that they went over everything again, getting all the details. Filling them in on Wallace and Dunphy took a couple of hours, and by that time the apartment had become the usual crime-scene zoo. But Sam and I were free to go.

  I had considered dropping in on my sister, but it was after ten, and I was still tired from the exertions of the past couple of days, so instead I went back to Fred's place.

  The light was flashing on the answering machine, and I played it back and was treated to Fred's voice. "Hello, machine. Good to talk to you again. Please tell Reid Bennett that his other half wishes he was here." Then there was a pause, and she added, "And tell him I love him and he can reach me at this number."

  I scribbled down the number and then listened to the other calls. There were three more of them, all from her, spaced about twelve hours apart. The message was about the same on each, and I rewound the tape and called Saskatchewan. They're two hours behind Toronto out there, and I figured she might be out to dinner, but I was lucky. She pi
cked it up on the second ring.

  "Hi, it's your wandering boy, missing you like hell."

  "Reid!" God it was good to hear her voice. "I was starting to worry about you. I called you at home, no answer. I just got off the phone from the police office at the Harbour. Somebody called Fred Horn said that you and his son had been up north."

  "We went on a little assignment. If I get paid, I'll be earning as much as you this week. But how are you?"

  "Aside from wishing you were along, fine and dandy. The director is fantastic. He's been changing the script as we go, fattening my part. This film could be big for me, Reid."

  I swallowed my jealousy of some guy who could make her feel this good. "That's tremendous news. I don't know why you didn't get the lead in the first place."

  "It's not sitting well with Ms. Famous Face." She laughed. "That's the only fly in the ointment. She's getting more and more difficult. The tension on the set is starting to build. But so far we're on schedule, and the weather's holding."

  "I hate to think how long you're going to be there." Talking to her was difficult. I've never been comfortable telling a phone receiver how much I loved anyone.

  "Not a moment longer than it takes. I'd rather be right there with you this minute than accepting an Oscar. I'm missing you, Reid. In fact, if this is what it takes, being an actress, I'm thinking of activating plan two."

  "Flattering but no go, kid. I don't want you pining around unfulfilled."

  She laughed. "Not much chance of that with you right there," she said. "But tell me about this assignment. What was it?"

  I filled her in, leaving out most of the gory bits. I wasn't out to worry her. That's a coward's trick. There was still enough to tell that she said, "Listen, Reid. That's enough of that kind of work. Knock it off. You hear me?"