Flashback Page 3

  'Well I'm damned.' He came with me and bent over the body to check the throat with his forefinger. 'No doubt about it.' He peered at the foam around the mouth. 'This is classic drowning, Reid. She was alive when she went into the water, although she wasna kicking.'

  'That's what I thought. If she'd been concious at the time she would have been scrabbling at the catch or pressing at the lid, or something. But she just lay there and died.'

  He tilted his hat back and scratched his head thoughtfully. 'Ay, that's how it looks. I'll know better when I've examined her.'

  'I've got McKenney coming for the body shortly. First I want Carl to photograph everything.'

  'Right. I'll be at McKenney's in an hour. First I'll try a few more casts at that bass beside my dock.'

  'Try a Fireplug if you've got one,' I said and he sighed.

  'I think you've shares in the company, Reid. You never recommend anything else these days.'

  As he left Carl Simmonds pulled in. He's the only chronic bachelor in Murphy's Harbour, a sweet guy but with a toughness to him that has been a big help to me on a lot of cases. Today he was wearing his working gear, a safari jacket, pockets crammed with gadgets and spare film, and he was carrying his Leica.

  We shook hands and he said, 'A drowning you said, Reid?'

  'Yeah, Carl, a homicide. Woman was shut in the trunk of a car and the car was driven into the lake, just south of the lock on the west side.'

  'Hmmm.' He took out his light-meter and thrust it close to the face of the dead woman. 'Pleasant-looking girl,' he said. 'Madly Woodstock.'

  'That's what the grieving husband says. Only he's more mad than grieving.'

  'Sounds suspicious.' Carl's voice had a playful yodel.

  'We'll see. Meantime, if you could get all the angles, please. And then take a few shots of the interior. The seats have been slashed pretty badly.'

  He looked up from his viewfinder. 'Sounds like teenagers. I guess you heard about downtown this morning? Two incidents.'

  'I was there for one of them. This could tie in.'

  He took half a reel of film, including close-ups of the foam at the mouth and of the dead woman's limp left hand lying across her body. Then McKenney and his ghoul-in-training arrived and I let them remove the body. It had not stiffened much and they laid it on their gurney and we got our first look at her face. Pleasant, I thought. Carl had picked the right word. No make-up, a fresh-faced, natural-seeming blonde in her late twenties. She was wearing a pale blue cotton blouse and a printed peasant type skirt and sandals. Her clothes were still wet and I could see that she wasn't wearing a brassiere, nor in much need of one.

  For once McKenney worked without questions. He's a pale man in his fifties with a set of false teeth that look like a row of Chiclets. He's also the world's worst gossip and I knew he wanted facts to go on, but I gave him only one. 'The husband's in the diner. I'll bring him in later on to tell you about the arrangements. I'd guess she'll have to go to Toronto. Meantime the doctor will be there in an hour, if you could be ready, please.'

  'Of course, Chief.' He nodded slowly. 'Whatever you say.'

  'Thanks, Les. I'd be sunk without you.' Manners cost nothing, my dad always said.

  They drove off and Carl took a few more shots of the interior of the trunk, then said, 'Got to go. It's only half an hour to the wedding and the family will be screaming for blood.'

  'Thanks, Carl, can you call me when you've printed these up.?'

  'For sure.' He drove away and I closed the lid and went back into the coffee shop. Waites was sitting with his shoulders slumped, gazing into his coffee cup. A couple of other customers had come in and were looking at him curiously.

  'We can go now, Mr Waites. I'll drive you back to the lodge. Later I'll ask you to come down to the funeral parlour and make arrangements for your wife. And just for my report, I'll have to ask you to identify her, formally.'

  'You thrive on this, don't you?' he said angrily.

  'It's my job, that's all. I wish it wasn't distressing but sometimes it is.'

  I led him to the cruiser, dropping five bucks on the counter for Paul, who protested until I waved him off. Rye isn't cheap and he had been invaluable, keeping Waites there while I worked.

  As I drove Waites back to his hotel I went over the case. Waites himself was the most likely suspect. There was only his word for it that his wife had driven away. A more probable suggestion was that he had driven off with her himself, bumped her on the head maybe, then slashed the seats of his car to make it look like vandalism and driven it into the lake. His hotel was only half a mile from the place the car had been found.

  Against that was his claim that his golf clubs had been in the car. If they turned up in his possession I would know he had been lying to me although that still would not prove him guilty.

  The only confusing fact was the time he had reported the car stolen. Six-thirty p.m., daylight. He wouldn't have reported it missing and then run the risk of being found driving it, with his wife's body in the trunk.

  At the hotel I went up to his room with him and checked the closet, not telling him why. I wanted to see that his golf clubs weren't there and none of his wife's things. Then I went in for a word with Mrs James who runs the place. She was brisk but friendly. It turned out she had been doing her books the day before and had barely left the office. But she called in the waitress who had been on duty at dinner-time and the girl reported that Waites had been there from the time she came on duty. He had sat at the bar all evening, with a break for dinner, then back to the bar. 'You know, like a movie, like drowning his sorrows. Didn't talk, didn't do anything. Just sat and drank.'

  'Was he on his own?'

  'Yes. Usually his wife's with him but not last night.'

  'You're sure of that? You know the guy I mean?'

  'Positive. 'Scuse me, Mrs James, but like he's picky, eh. His wife's nice but he's always finding fault, sent his steak back one night, complained that the coffee was cold. You know.'

  'You know his wife, do you?' She nodded and I asked, 'Did you see her drive away yesterday afternoon, around four, five o'clock?'

  'I'm in the dining-room from four on,' she explained, 'Sorry.'

  'Thanks anyway. There's one other thing. He says his golf clubs are missing. Have you seen them around anywhere?'

  'Haven't seen any layin' around. I could ask Chuck.'

  'Chuck's our handyman. He's here all day.' Mrs James explained.

  'Good, could you talk to him, please?'

  She left and Mrs James asked, 'What's going on, Chief? There's more to this than a set of golf clubs missing.'

  'His wife has drowned in his car. He says she took off in it yesterday. I want to know if that's true.'

  She puffed out her cheeks in a little gasp of surprise. 'Lord, that's terrible. I'll ask around, see if anybody heard anything.'

  "Predate that. Try not to say too much, please.'

  She said, 'Count on it,' and picked up the phone. I left after talking to Chuck, who had been away from the lodge from five until six, taking garbage to the town dump. No help there.

  Dr McQuaig arrived at the funeral parlour as I did and we walked in together. 'You're quick,' I told him. 'Thought you'd still be fighting that bass.'

  'Three pound, smallmouth,' he said happily. 'Damn if you weren't right with the Fireplug. He came from under a lily-pad and nearly tore my arm off.'

  'I'll make a fisherman of you yet.'

  McKenney had the body waiting for us in his preparation room, a grim place with a stainless steel table with draining grooves on it. He wheeled the gurney out and stood back, hands folded in front of him, waiting for the revels to begin.

  'I'd like to keep this in the family, Les,' McQuaig said, 'If you don't mind, please. This is Chief Bennett's investigation.'

  McKenney nodded without speaking and left and the doctor pulled the sheet off the young woman's body and pulled up her eyelids to look at her eyes. 'Her pupils are different sizes. I think the w
ee thing had a concussion.'

  He rolled the body over, gently and felt in her hair. 'Ah-ah.'

  'What is it?'

  'She's been hit on the temple.' He fingered the spot, stooping to peer at it. 'It was one hell of a smash, the wound itself is depressed, although there's some swelling around it.'

  'Any guesses about the weapon, or the guy who did it?'

  'It's a small wound, must have been done with something small but heavy, a small rock held in one hand maybe.'

  'Could it have been done with a golf club?'

  He looked up in surprise. 'Ay, it could. A driver maybe. All that power concentrated in one spot. What makes you ask?'

  I told him and he gave me the measurement of the wound and I made notes. Then he undressed the body and examined it thoroughly. Waites was right, I realized. She had been wearing the kind of simple clothing that had been popular in the hippy culture. Even her panties were plain white cotton, worn for comfort, not for any excitement they might generate, some kind of statement on a woman this young and attractive.

  'You want me to check if she was sexually assaulted?'

  'Yeah, please,' I said and looked out of the window while he made his examination. There are some things about police work that I don't want to learn. Then he cleared his throat and I turned back. 'I'd say she wasna touched sexually,' he decided. 'But I'll take some swabs to be sure.' He did so and I stored each one separately in its own plastic bag for shipment to the forensics centre in Toronto. 'I've a refrigerated flask in the car you can use to ship that,' he said. 'I'll bring it in while you finish.'

  'One last thing. Any idea what time she died? It would help me know when the car went into the lake.'

  He put one hand on his chin and thought about it. 'I dinna think anybody, even an experienced pathologist could help you much, Reid. The water temperature has retarded the rigor mortis. The best opinion you could get would be no better than mine.'

  'Which is what?'

  'Something between twelve and sixteen hours back, I'd say.'

  'Thanks.' It was no real help, encompassing both of the windows of opportunity when nobody within earshot would have been awake. My best hope was to make a house to house canvass along both sides of the lake within half a mile of the site. The sound of the car going into the lake could have travelled across the water and been heard on my side almost as loud as it was at the scene.

  'Thanks, Doc. You've been very helpful. If you could get that flask I'd appreciate it.' He left and I wrote up my notes and then the door opened on McKenney. 'Chief, the bereaved is here.'

  'Thanks, Les, hold him a second while I cover her up, then I'll come out for him.'

  He went back out and I folded the dead woman's wet clothes and put them at her feet, then covered the body with the sheet and went out to the reception room with its purple drapes and piped organ music. Waites was sitting there, grey-faced. He was fully dressed now in expensive casual wear with a monogrammed JS on the shirt pocket. He looked up bleakly.

  'Thank you for coming in, Mr Waites. Could I ask you to come with me, please?'

  He didn't speak but I could see he was holding himself together very hard. I went ahead of him into the preparation room, sensing his revulsion at the surroundings. He walked slowly up to the gurney and stood, hands at his side, fists clenched.

  I was next to him, in case he fainted. It happens sometimes to even the toughest men. 'Mr Waites. I'm going to expose the face and I want you to identify her for me. She doesn't look dreadful, I promise you.'

  He nodded and I rolled the sheet down, studying his face as I did so. He was the prime suspect and I wanted to catch his reaction completely.

  It startled me. He gasped and said. 'There must be some mistake. That's not Moira. That's her friend, Carolyn Jeffries.'

  CHAPTER 3

  He turned away from the gurney and bent from the waist as if he'd been punched in the gut. 'Sit down,' I commanded, and pulled a chair over for him. He collapsed on to it, and sat with his shoulders hunched, face in his hands. Relieved? Horrified? It was impossible to tell. At last he whispered, 'That's not Moira. Moira's still alive.'

  'You're absolutely sure this is Mrs Jeffries?' I was floundering. The neat little case I'd been building was in ruins.

  'They look like sisters,' he said. 'In fact, that was their cutesy name for one another. They'd call one another "Sis".' He hissed the word and I realized he was angry at the memory.

  'How close were they?'

  He looked up at me, focusing slowly on my face. There were no tears in his eyes. 'Are you asking if my wife was straight?'

  'I'm asking how close they were? Did they talk to each other every day, every week? How often did they get together?'

  'Every couple of weeks they'd visit, either way. And they spoke to each other every day or two.' He shook his head impatiently. 'How should I know? I work every day just about.'

  'Work at what?'

  He stood up angrily. 'What difference does that make?'

  'Look, Mr Waites, I've got a dead woman on my hands. You're one of the few people who can tell me how she fits into the world. Indulge me, could you, please?'

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his billfold. He had a sheaf of business cards in there and he handed me one. I read it: John Waites, LL.B. of Donnely, Waites, Egan.

  'Thank you. Just a couple more questions. First, what's the name of this woman's husband?'

  'Stu. Stu Jeffries. He's a failed MBA type.' He threw in the second sentence with an angry sneer.

  'I'm not sure what that means.' MBA I understood but what did this man mean by failed? That could be important.

  'Oh, he got the degree, Harvard no less. But he couldn't cut it in business, not in the real world.' Waites was almost hissing again and now I could read his jealousy of the husband and impatience with a lifestyle he could not understand. 'So he and, her—' he paused and waved vaguely at the dead woman—'they copped out. They came up here and opened up their starving artist hideaway.'

  'Did they make a living at it?'

  'Sure, enough to live on if you're into rolled oats and alfalfa sprouts and making your own clothes out of spiderwebs, you know the routine.'

  'You said your wife was kind of taken with this Stu. Why did you think that?'

  'He knows all the words to "The Red Flag", maybe.' Waites turned away from me towards the door. 'How in Hell would I know what she saw in him, goddamn loser.'

  'Where are you going now?'

  'Home.' He paused with one hand on the doorknob. 'To the lodge. I'm not going to let her ruin my vacation, I've worked too hard to run back to Toronto and say, "There there, poor thing."' He pursed his lips angrily and left the room before I could say anything.

  I did the necessary policework. There was a telephone in the corner of the room and I rang Parry Sound police detatchment and spoke to the inspector on duty. 'We have a homicide here, Inspector. The deceased is a Parry Sound resident. A Carolyn Jeffries, around thirty, slim, blonde, no make-up. Apparently she and her husband Stuart run some kind of art supply shop in town.'

  I was lucky. They have two inspectors and I'd struck the one of them who had experience in detective work. He asked the right questions and I was able to fill him in within a couple of minutes. He said he would send a car to the store and break the news to the husband, as well as checking to see if Moira Waites had arrived. He would keep me posted on developments, and send his own crime team down to examine the car and take over the investigation.

  Dr McQuaig came back with his flask and I put the plastic evidence bags into it and had McKenney fill it with ice. It could go to the Parry Sound detectives when they arrived, one less headache for me. Then I headed out to make a house to house canvass around the lake to try and uncover any witnesses to the car's going into the water.

  I started around the corner from the funeral home, in the town itself. Town is overstating it a little. Officially we're an incorporated village, the lowest form of urban life.
We have a Main Street with the bank, bait store, grocery, liquor/beer store, a Chinese restaurant specializing in hamburgers and a cluster of houses, most of them taking in summer guests, and a couple of side-streets of houses which also rent rooms to tourists. The rest of the village is straggled around the shoreline of the lake, every fifty yards or so.

  Main Street is wide with the Lakeside Hotel and Marina on the water and a bridge over the lock. It's an unmade street, dusty in summer and lined with parked cars and with a knot of kids listening to music and giggling together. Remembering the two hassles from the morning, I stopped to talk to the kids. This was the early teen crowd, at the age when self-confidence only comes with numbers, before they get to the pairing-off stage. The girls were more forthcoming than the boys who all acted supercool. A couple of them had seen the swarming at the bait store but they didn't know any of the kids involved in it.

  'They're not from around here, Chief,' Debby Vanderheyden told me. 'Like, we wouldn't do something like that.'

  Her friends all giggled and said 'Oh no' with mocking innocence, all a joke. They wouldn't need to swarm a store, I thought, all of them already knew who they were. Gangs are made up of losers looking for a sense of belonging.

  One of the bolder girls asked how my wife was and they all giggled again. It was hard for them to imagine how an old guy like me had caused a pregnancy.

  I asked them to call the station if they saw any gangs of kids in town. It was good insurance, they would rather watch me tackling the situation than see another store ripped off. It wasn't that they were so very law-abiding, they just weren't sure what the cool reaction was when a gang came to town.

  Gilles Perault was busy and I lingered with him until he had time to talk. He wanted to discuss his swarming but I slowly got him around to asking if he knew if anyone had been out fishing the night before. The occasional dedicated man will go out after dark for pickerel and there was a chance one of them might have seen the car go into the lake. Gilles told me he'd check and I left town to drive up the east shore, knocking on doors.