When the Killing Starts (23 page)

He stuck out his hand, and we shook. "Thanks, Reid. I was glad to help, anyway."

"For services rendered. Thank you for having the balls to come in after me."

So that was done. I went across and had Millie credit both our accounts with twelve and a half grand. It was the most money I'd had in the bank since I split the sale price of our house with my ex-wife. Millie chattered, delighted to be playing with big bills, and then I left and drove home. I was on top of the world when I got there, but I let Sam out of the car for a quick check around before I got out. And that brought my mood to earth. He checked around the door closely. Someone had been calling.

My hair tingled, and I called him back into the car and went down to the station to pick up George and my gun. He brought the shotgun with him, and we went up to the door as if we were on patrol. I unlocked it and shoved Sam inside. He ran through the house, barking everywhere, but I didn't realize why until he came back to me, letting me know the place was empty. Then we went in and checked it ourselves. It was still neat and clean, but the back door had been forced. Somebody had broken in.

"That was done since this time yesterday," George said. "Dad checked the house on his rounds, checked all the vacant places."

"The house hasn't been turned over," I said. "Maybe it was kids looking for booze." I opened the door of the fridge, which was largely empty except for half a dozen cans of Labatt's Blue. They were still all there. Next I checked the cupboard over the sink where I keep my liquor, one full, one started bottle of Black Velvet, plus some Montego rum I'd bought for Fred. All of them were there.

"Doesn't look as if they've taken anything." I checked the door for damage. "Looks amateur. The scar where they jimmied it is rounded, as if they'd used the spiked end of a tire iron."

"Sounds like kids," George said. "But they'd've ripped off the booze for sure. You don't think it was those bikers, do you?"

I shook my head. "They'd have trashed the place like they did the Corbett place that time. No, these guys must have been looking for something."

"Better check and file a report," George said. "Did you have anything valuable?"

"Naah, I don't have anything worth ripping off. Books, a few clothes, not even a good television set." I thought about it. "Listen, don't bother putting the break-in on the record. It's just going to sit there as an unsolved crime and there doesn't seem to be any harm done."

"You're the boss." He stooped and patted Sam. "So what's on now? You going fishing?"

"No, I just came up to get rid of the cash, kill time until my sister gets off work. I'm staying with her overnight, then heading out to join Fred for the weekend. I can afford it now."

"Hell, you could afford Hawaii." George laughed. "When you coming back?"

"Next week, early. I'll pick up Sam from my sister's place and head back out. Think we can go fishing?"

He grinned. "I'm sure of it."

He turned down my offer of a beer and left. I opened a Blue and wandered through the house opening drawers and cupboards, checking my belongings. I'd told George the truth; I don't have a lot to attract thieves. An old stereo with a few records, mostly country, one suit, a few pairs of pants and another jacket, my winter gear, a cheap camera, books. I could carry away anything important under one arm.

One of the last places I looked was the bureau in the bedroom. Fred had left a couple of things on top of it, suntan lotion and a pair of big costume-jewelry earrings, and I grinned when I saw them. Then I opened the top drawer. It holds socks and underwear, and underneath it in a tin box I keep souvenirs, some photographs and a locket of my mother's and my father's and my own medals and discharge papers. I could tell at a glance that the tin had been searched, and I stopped at once and went down to the kitchen for a pair of rubber gloves Fred had bought when she decided to clean my stove. They were stiff from the gunk in the stove, but they would prevent my smudging any new prints on the tin.

Wearing the gloves, I went through the contents of the tin. The locket was still there. It was gold and the only item a normal thief would have taken. The other items were all intact except for one thing. My marine dog tags.

I stood and thought about that for a minute, wondering why anybody would bother stealing five cents' worth of metal. Then I set the tin on the bureau and called George.

He answered at once, on a tinny-sounding phone. I guessed he was out back of the station again, fishing for pike. "Yeah, George, Reid here. Whoever it was has taken my service dog tags."

I could hear his puzzlement as he said, "Why in hell would they want them?"

"Beats me. But they didn't touch anything else. I've got the container here, it's metal, should hold prints pretty good. You want to print it for me?"

"Hey. Sherlock Holmes all the way." His laugh echoed on the line. "You want to bring it in?"

"Yeah, I'm just heading back to Toronto, so you can play detective while I'm gone."

"Good. I'd better come ashore and talk business. See you."

He hung up, and I picked up the box and the contents and put them into a plastic bag. Then I fastened the back door by driving a four-inch nail through it into the jamb and set off for the station, en route to Toronto.

 

 

 

SIXTEEN

 

 

George already had the dusting equipment out, and we worked over the box together. He got a good set of latents off it, two sets, in fact, one of which we soon discovered was my own. The other looked as if it'd been made by an index finger and thumb. From the way the box had been sitting in the drawer, I decided they were probably made by somebody's left hand. George gave them to me to deliver to Toronto, and I took them with me when I shipped out.

It was two by the time I left, and I beat the rush hour into town and dropped the fingerprints off with Irv Goldman in 52 Division detective office. That's not normal channels. I should have taken them to forensics and then waited the usual three days. Instead, Irv promised to follow through and have them processed as if they were part of an investigation of his. Time saved, although there were still no guarantees they would be useful to us. Only a few people ever get fingerprinted. Convicted criminals, policemen, and a few securitycompany people. That excludes about 95 percent of the population, most of whom would scream like stuck pigs if you asked them for a sample to compare with your evidence.

I left Irv's office and drove up to my sister's house. She wasn't home yet, but her kids are typical Toronto latchkey brats, and they were in the kitchen making peanut-butter sandwiches.

They dropped their makin's and hugged me to pieces when I arrived, complete with the candy bars I had picked up on the way. I kind of enjoy being an uncle and do my best to spoil the pair of them. Young Jack is ten, and he wanted to know whether Fred was going to join us.

"No, she's acting in a movie. She's out in Saskatchewan for a few weeks. I'm going out to see her on the weekend. I thought I'd come and see you all before I went, maybe ask you to take care of Sam for me while I'm gone. Could you do that?"

"Could we?" Little Lou is eight, with her mother's blue eyes, and her black hair in two tight plaits. She looks like the kind of little girl you used to see in cartoons twenty years ago. I hope that if Fred and I go into the baby business our youngsters will look like her.

"Sure. You just tell him, 'Heel,' and you can walk anywhere. He'll follow you; you won't need to say another word. He's like a shadow."

"Oh, Sam," she said, and sank down to kiss his head. He let it happen, blinking to show his embarrassment.

Louise bustled in at five-thirty. I gave her a quick brotherly peck of greeting, and she squeezed my arm. I guess we're closer than a lot of siblings. I paid for her education out of my Marine Corps earnings after our parents died, and she's always been grateful. I'm proud of her now. She's creative director at an advertising agency, and she looks great. She has our father's blue Limey eyes and our French Canadian mother's jet-black hair.

"Hi, stranger. Good to see you," she said. "You here to stay?"

"Better than that. I'm here to cook supper, as long as we barbecue."

"Sounds ideal to me," she said. "I'll fix a salad, you get the coals going."

Jack helped me, and I sent him back into the kitchen for a juice can with both ends cut out. I set it over the flames, and we had the coals going in a matter of ten minutes. That impressed him. "Elmer takes a lot longer," he said. "I'll have to tell him about using a chimney."

"Yes, makes the coals draw better. Now, why don't you ask your mom for the burgers and we'll get to work?"

He ran indoors for the meat, and I stood there nursing a beer and waiting for him to come back. When he wasn't with me within a few minutes, I ambled in after him to see if he'd been sidetracked by the TV. He hadn't. Elmer Svensen was standing in the kitchen with his partner. Louise was with them, looking shaken.

"Hi, what's up?" I asked, and Elmer looked at me and shook his head.

"Got a minute, Reid?"

"All the time you want, Elmer. What's on your mind?"

"Bad news," he said. He turned to Louise first. "This is messy, Lou. Could you take the kids outside, please?"

"Sure, if you think it's necessary." She took them by the hand and led them into the garden. When they'd gone. Elmer turned back to me.

"Norma Michaels has been found strangled."

"Strangled? That's the second homicide in that group in two days. First Michaels's girlfriend, now his wife. It's got to be tied in with this Freedom for Hire thing."

Elmer nodded, but he didn't comment the way I'd expected. Instead, he gave me the facts, his face grim. "They found the body about an hour ago. Her housekeeper found it. She lives in, but she'd been out since morning. It's her day off. She came back to pick something up. There was something broken in the hall, a vase, I guess, and she went through to check on her missus."

"To see if she was drunk?" I wasn't joking. He looked too serious.

"She didn't say that, but I guess, yeah," Elmer said. "Anyway, she went into the library and found her strangled."

Elmer's partner was looking at me very straight, weighing everything I said. I knew he was a novice at detective work, and I figured he was probably suspicious of me. At that stage in your career you're suspicious of everybody except your partner, but his look made me careful with my words.

"Strangled? Manually or with a ligament?"

Elmer cleared his throat. "Look, Reid, I don't believe this, but I have to tell you. She'd been strangled with a piece of cord which was broken. And in the corner of the room, under a china cabinet, we found a piece of metal."

"What kind of a piece? Had she been bludgeoned?"

"No." He composed himself carefully and then said, "It was a military dog tag. We've spent the afternoon checking it out, and we find it was a Marine Corps dog tag." My mouth must have fallen open because he nodded. "Yeah, this is the hard part. We found out that it was yours."

"Mine?" The news hit me like a punch in the gut. I'd been set up. "Mine? That explains it."

"Explains what?" His partner took over now that the news had been broken.

"My house at Murphy's Harbour was broken into some time overnight, I guess. I was back up there today and found it. Somebody broke in the back door and stole my dog tags."

"Yeah?" Elmer's partner spoke softly, the disbelieving voice of a copper who's seen it all. "What else'd they take?"

"Nothing. I reported the theft. George Horn, the guy who's minding the store up there, he printed the box I kept the tags and some other stuff in. Got a good set of prints; I turned them over to Irv Goldman in Fifty-two Division about an hour ago."

"Very convenient," the partner said.

Elmer held up his hand. "Easy on, Joe. I know Reid better'n you. He didn't do this, I know it."

"I sure as hell didn't."

"Have you ever met this woman? Been to her house?" The partner was persistent.

"Yes, I was there last night. I went there because the check I'd been given to rescue her son had been stopped payment. I went to collect my money from her."

"Did she pay you?" Elmer asked. He was my friend, but he was a policeman as well. He wanted all the facts.

"No, the payment was twenty-five grand, and she told me to go and see her husband. I went over to his girlfriend's place, and you know what happened there."

Elmer went to the fridge, opened it, and took out a jug of orange juice. He waved it at his partner. "Want some? We don't keep booze in the house. I used to hammer the stuff, and Lou doesn't buy any now we're together."

His partner waved him off, and he took a glass from the cupboard and poured himself a drink. "You likely brought some beer with you, eh, Reid?"

"Yeah, it's in a cooler outside."

"Not for me," his partner said. He wasn't here to socialize. He was here to lock me up for the homicide, to get stars on his work even if it screwed up Elmer's romance with my sister. He wasn't going to kick back.

"Do I get the impression I'm a suspect?" I asked him.

"For Crissakes, Reid. I know you didn't do it. But we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't talk to you. It was your dog tag, and you're connected with the family. The papers would hang you and us together if we don't clear this up."

"For the second time," I said, and sat down. "I've been through this kind of crap once before, Elmer. I don't want any more suspicion. Check with Irv. He'll tell you about the prints."

"Yeah, I know." Elmer nursed his orange juice, cradling it in two hands. "I know you didn't do it. But the thing of it is, she was murdered last night, just after you'd been to see her. The housemaid gave us a description. Says you and the victim had an argument, you threw a glass at the wall and left. Then her boss got into the sauce, so she went up to her room and watched TV and was asleep by the time the news came on at ten."

"When was Mrs. Michaels killed?"

"The autopsy's still going on, but preliminary signs are that she died around two a.m. last night." He looked down at me, miserably. "Reid, I know this is bullshit, but do you have an alibi for last night?"