When the Killing Starts (31 page)

I eased the boat forward and cut the motor. Wallace was floating facedown, close to the bottom of the water. I reached for the anchor and lowered it over, next to him, then hoisted gently, catching the fluke under his arm and pulling him to the surface.

Fred reached down and caught him by the back of the jacket. I pulled in the anchor and joined her, pulling Wallace up vertical in the water. "Sit as far on the other side as you can," I said.

Fred did it without speaking, and I hoisted Wallace up face first and lowered him into the boat. He was unconscious, bleeding from a bad gash on the back of his head. Then I saw what the Daredevle spoon had done, and I winced. It was hooked deep into his cheek, so hard that the whole right side of his face was twisted out of shape.

"Is he alive?" Fred asked anxiously.

"I'm not sure. Let's get him ashore and get working on him."

I took over the motor again and drove us back to shore, not bothering to dock but pulling right up to the beach and lifting Wallace out. I laid him face down and pushed his back a couple of times, getting water out of his mouth. Then I rolled him faceup and checked the pulse in his throat. It was still going, so I concentrated on mouth-to-mouth. Fred crouched next to me, and her familiar light perfume was in my nostrils as I worked.

"What can I do, call an ambulance, what?" she demanded.

"Better," I said between breaths. "Take the cruiser and drive north to the Bull house; it's north of the bridge. There's a couple of OPP cars there. Put the siren on and drive slowly. Somebody will come out if you miss the house; it's seven or eight past the bridge. They'll radio, it's quicker."

"Right." She stood up and ran for the cruiser, backing it quickly and spurting away to the road.

I worked for another minute before I heard the siren start. Then it stopped a few seconds later, and I concentrated on Wallace. He started to breathe on his own, but he didn't open his eyes. He was badly hurt, and I swore as I stood up and rested for a moment. Dunphy was still out there somewhere, and Wallace was the only lead to him we had.

 

 

 

TWENTY-ONE

 

 

The three cars came screaming into my driveway, the OPP cars first, then our own scout car with Fred in it. All the doors seemed to slam at once, and all three men came running toward me. Fred took her time. I guessed she was still shaken.

I stood up, and Anderson ran past me to stare down at Wallace.

"Jesus Christ, look what you did!" he said, pointing at the fishing spoon.

Werner laughed. "Fishin' as well as huntin'. Quite a morning, Reid."

"The boat hit him in the head," I said. If this case hadn't involved Fred, I would have gone along with Werner's joke, but I wasn't finding anything funny.

Kennedy knelt and fingered the gash on the back of Wallace's head. "Pretty solid thump he took," he said. He thumbed back Wallace's eyelids and stared at his pupils. "No difference in the size of the pupils, though. Maybe he's going to come around soon."

"Did you call the ambulance?"

"On its way. I guess we should get the son of a bitch inside," Werner said. "Keep him warm."

"Right. But in the meantime, he's left a car somewhere, maybe at the Marina. This is one of their boats. Someone should check there. You might find Dunphy waiting for this guy. And close off both ends of the Harbour. We'll need four cars. One each on the highway, one each on the side roads north of the lake. He might try to duck out the back way."

"I'll get on it," Kennedy said. He turned to Fred. "One more time doing our jobs for us, huh? This guy don't marry you, he's crazier'n I thought."

"I'm going to," I said. "You're invited. Now let's get this guy inside."

Werner and Kennedy scooped up Wallace while I picked up the shotgun and opened the house door. They carried him in and laid him on the couch. Fred went upstairs and brought down a couple of blankets and a clean towel to go under his head. Then the other three took off. Anderson lingered on the step to get the last word in. "There'll have to be a full inquiry."

"See you there. Now go check if you can find Dunphy. You know what he looks like?"

He didn't bother answering that one, just turned away, rigid and righteous.

Fred stood looking down at Wallace. "Will he make it?"

"I think so. It takes more than a bump on the head to finish off a Georgia cracker as tough as this guy. Look at his right hand. Fingers missing, but he was still holding the motor with it, firing with his left."

She bent and lifted his right hand out of the blankets.

"Lord, that's right," she said. "You know, I didn't even notice the bandage when he grabbed me. But he was holding a gun as well. It must have been hard for him."

"Tough," I repeated. "Don't worry about him." She stood, lowered Wallace's injured hand, and faced me. "Honestly, Reid, I don't know how much of this I can handle."

I put my arms around her, and after a moment she softened, and we kissed very gently.

"But you will marry me?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, and we kissed again.

Behind us Sam whined. Fred let go of me and turned to him. "Don't worry. You're part of the deal." She laughed shakily and bent down to fuss him.

I knelt down and did the same thing, rubbing the scorched hairs on the back of his neck. "You're a part of a family, old son." I told him. "No more me and you against the world."

Fred was looking down at me, and she suddenly gave a little gasp. "You're burned," she said. "I thought you looked different, but so much was going on I didn't think about it. You're burned. Your eyebrows have gone."
 

"They'll grow back. I'll be my usual gruesome self in a couple of weeks, in plenty of time for the wedding," I promised. And then Wallace groaned.

We turned and saw his eyes fluttering open. He lay for a moment, and then his hands came up to the hooks in his cheek, and he whimpered.

I crouched beside him. "The ambulance is on its way. You'll be fine. They'll get those hooks out in no time."

He swore and closed his eyes.

Fred said, "Shall I make something, coffee, tea?"
 

"Tea, please." I grinned at her, trying to distract her from Wallace's pain. "My old man was a Limey. He made me a morning tea drinker."

Wallace groaned again, and I turned back and found he was touching the back of his skull. He took his hand away and looked at the blood on his fingers and swore again.

"The boat came around in a circle and clobbered you," I told him.

"I was in the water?" His mouth was distorted by the pull of the hooks in his cheek, and his voice was strained.

"You could've drowned."

He tried to grin but grimaced with pain and said, "You're gonna be sorry you pulled me in, cowboy."

"In the meantime, I'll still go to bat for you if you tell me where Dunphy is?"

He looked at me without speaking and then closed his eyes. I waited, and when he didn't speak, I gave him a prod with my finger. "Last chance for any kind of break, Wallace. If we don't get Dunphy, you're going away."

He spoke now, whispering sardonically out of his twisted mouth. "When I get out, you're dead."

I didn't bother getting into his verbal shoving match. He was beaten, all the ways there are. If brave talk was a consolation, he was welcome to it. There aren't many other comforts in jail.

Fred came to the door and made a little cup-and-saucer drinking gesture, not speaking. I nodded, and she turned back to the kitchen.

"You want a hot drink?" I asked Wallace.

"Got any bourbon?"

"You're in shock," I said, and he grunted out a laugh.

"An' I'm gonna be inside. No bourbon there. 'T kinda guy are you?"

"Canadian," I said. "I've got some good rye."

"Just so's it's eighty proof."

Liquor is the wrong thing to give an injured man, but I knew he was right. There would be no booze for him for the next few years, and besides, it might induce him to talk to me. I went out to the kitchen, leaving Sam on watch, and poured an ounce and a half of Black Velvet.

Fred frowned. "I didn't know you were a morning drinker."

"This is for Wallace. His last chance for a drink. He's going inside."

"You know that's no good for him?" We both knew it wasn't, but she's too strong to bother arguing with me. She just laid out the facts.

"It may not be, but it may be good for the investigation." She shook her head doubtfully. "He's a bad person, but you shouldn't do anything to harm him any more."

"I know," I said, and took the drink back to him.

He looked at the glass and licked his lips, then grimaced with pain from his cheek.

"Pretty cheap ain'cha? What's this, an ounce?"

"That's fine for a start. They're going to want to do tests when they get you into hospital. Booze won't help."

He accepted the glass with both hands, holding it in his left and steadying it with his right as he tilted it gently into his mouth and lay with the whisky unswallowed for half a minute. Then he sank it and sighed. "'F I tell you where Dunphy is, do I get seconds?"

"How will I know you're telling the truth?"

"You won't." His voice was harsh again. "Listen, don't jerk me around. This is my last drink for a while, anyways. Dunphy's in Toronto."

"Tell me where and let me make a call and I'll give you a double," I promised.

Now he opened his eyes and held the glass out to me. "Drink first."

I didn't take the glass, and he lowered it to his chest. "Okay, it's your liquor. He's in the big hotel near the museum. You know it?"

"What name is he registered under?"

He groaned. "I don' know. Jus' make the call and bring me that drink."

I picked up the telephone from the little occasional table next to my chair and dialed the homicide office in Toronto. My lucky day. Elmer Svensen was in.

"Hi, Elmer. Reid. Dunphy is registered at the Park Plaza under a phony name."

"Hold on." I heard him turn aside and issue a couple of crisp orders; then he came back on. "Good work. I've got some guys heading over there. Who tipped you off?"

"Mr. Wallace," I said, and then I had to give him a quick summary of the morning's efforts, edited down so that Wallace wouldn't get bitter.

"He singin'?" Elmer asked disbelievingly.
 
"In return for certain considerations, Mr. Wallace is assisting me in my inquiries," I said. It sounded like something out of Agatha Christie, but I needed Wallace working for me.

"I'll follow this up. Call me if there's anything new. The cadet here will pass messages."

"Go get him," I said, and hung up.

Wallace turned his head toward me, the red-and-white spoon dangling like some pagan ornament from his cheek. "Drink," he said.

"Right there."

I poured him a solid double and took it back. This time he tried to sit up but fell back, swearing feebly. "Head feels like it's fallin' off," he said. He sipped the drink and swallowed, lingering over it pleasurably.

I waited for about a minute and then asked him, "What's the tie-in between your outfit and young Michaels?"

He opened his eyes and blinked at me slowly. "I can't say for sure. Him an' Dunphy was thick when I joined up with 'em. Way I figure it, the kid's old man had made some kinda deal with Dunphy. Wanted the kid toughened up, off'cer material, Dunphy called it."

He sipped and then spoke again. "In the boonies, training, the kid was a candy ass. Couldn't run, couldn't hump, couldn't shoot. I could see he's the kind would fall apart when the killing starts."

"That's why you were on his case? I heard some of it when I was hiding up there."

"Boot camp I was s'pposed t' be running. 'Stead of that it was a goddamn kindiegarten. Yeah, I got on his case. Tried to give him some balls."

"What happened when I turned up? Did he tell you?"

Wallace tightened his left hand around his glass. "Yeah." He smiled, then winced with pain. "I had him doin' push-ups, an' he couldn't finish. So then he broke down, bawled like a baby. I told him to smarten up, his mommie wasn't gonna get him out of this. And he said she was. Just angry, like a little kid. So I worked on him a little, an' Dunphy wanted to turn the guys out to find you, only I didn't go for it. I figured you'd come in from the end of the lake. Went down there on my own and found your pack and waited."

He scowled and finished his drink. "Would've had you dead to rights only for that goddamn Indian."

"You brought the kid up here with you to find George?"

"Yeah." He extended his left hand wearily and let the glass drop to the floor. "The kid was feelin' bad about my hand an' all. So I said we should get back up here an' put things straight."

"And he came?" I had a dozen questions. How had they got in touch with Jason? Why had he gone along with them? Why had his father's girlfriend tried to get him out if the father wanted him in Freedom for Hire? And why did the father want him in the outfit, anyway? And had Wallace committed the two murders?

I came at the questions obliquely. "One of your Mexicans told me Dunphy had come north. That's why I headed up here. Why would he have said that?"

"Fuckin' spicks," Wallace said. "Should'n'a said nothin'."

And that was it. He closed his eyes, and when I tried to talk to him, he growled. "I'm tellin' you nothing. Pretty soon you'll have to tell me what I'm charged with an' read me my rights an' get me a lawyer. Until then, you've had all you're gettin'."

"I'll get around to all of that when you're in the hospital," I promised. "Right now, rest, but don't go to sleep. You have to stay awake."

He opened his eyes again and sneered. "I've been hit before," he said. "In the Tet offensive. Got blown up, shot, hit with mine fragments. I know about wounds."

It was an opening, and I took it. "I was there, too. Were you infantry?"

It didn't work. He looked at me for about thirty seconds and then rolled his head away from me and said nothing.

Fred brought in the tea, and I told Sam, "Keep," and went back to the kitchen with her.