Corkscrew (29 page)

"A lot more." He nodded. "Do I get the pinch?"

"For sure. Just make sure to keep the evidence intact," I told him, and he gave me a mocking salute and went over to the corner of the counter.

Fred was watching me from her place on the pew, drinking a cup of coffee the man on the desk had brought her. She summoned me with one finger, and I went over to her.

"You look worried," she said.

"I am worried. I think that Corbett murdered that little boy, but I don't have any proof. We have enough suspicion to arrest him, but he's going to get off unless we find something we can take to a jury."

"Like what?" Her face was sincere. Tired as she was and without makeup, she looked almost plain in the greenish light. She could have been acting a part for me or testing me to see if I still meant what I had said to her outside. If she was, I passed.

"We need to establish that he touched the boy. Even if we show that he went back to the house and didn't tell us, it's not enough to prove anything. He might have flour on him, or rust or grease from the engine block he used to weigh down the body, but it's still not conclusive. The kind of lawyer he can afford would talk a jury out of convicting him. He'd get away."

Sam was lying on the floor beside her, and she bent down and stroked his head with her left hand. He looked up at her indulgently but did not move.

"I've got an idea," she said. "Give me Sam for a while."

"What for?"

"Don't ask. Just give me your dog, if you don't mind."

I stood up straight and commanded Sam. "Easy." He stood, panting and watching me, and I turned him over to Freda. She nodded and walked outside.

Kennedy had come to the counter. "Where's she going with the pooch?"

"Damned if I know. Said she had an idea. That's more than I've got."

I went out of the door to see where she had gone and found Corbett's Mercedes pulling in with an OPP car behind it. I stood there while he got out, then nodded to him. "Thanks for coming back. We have some things you can help us with."

"This had better be good," he said angrily. "I was going back to my apartment, but they stopped me and I said, sure, if I can help. But if you're jerking me around, Bennett, you're going to be sorry."

An OPP man was sitting in the passenger seat and he got out and I stood back to let them pass me and reach the station door. And then I saw Fred, with Sam, presenting him with something to sniff. And suddenly I saw she was doing what I should have done if I hadn't been past useful thought. We were going to get our conviction. I gave a short whistle, and she looked up as Corbett paused in the doorway. "What?" he asked angrily.

"Nothing, just go in," I said, then turned back and held up one finger to check Fred. She cocked her head and frowned, and I held up the other hand, extended, five fingers, five minutes. She nodded and waited, patting Sam.

I stooped and looked into the Mercedes. There was a garment bag hanging on a hook against the rear door. It looked as if it contained clothing. Without comment I followed Corbett into the station. Kennedy was at the counter, and I nodded to him. He raised his eyebrows and I said, "This is Mr. Corbett. I have reason to believe he murdered Ken Spenser and dumped the body into the lake. Can you caution him and read him his rights, please?"

Corbett whirled on me. "What is this? What shit are you pulling? Me murder somebody? I'll have your job."

Kennedy was opening his notebook and taking out the printed copy of the caution and the Charter of Rights speech. He overrode Corbett, reading doggedly through the whole speech while Corbett blustered and tried to take a swing at me.

I caught his hand and held it, not hurting him. "Relax, please. Sergeant, now this suspect has been arrested, I want to look in his car."

"That's fair and square," Kennedy said. "I'll come with you. Constable, please keep an eye on Mr. Corbett for us."

"You can't search my car," Corbett shouted. "You've got no right."

"You watch too many American TV shows, Mr. Corbett," Kennedy said. "In Canada we can search you and anything in your possession; that includes your car. Want to come and watch us?"

Corbett swore, but he came outside, and there was Fred with Sam and the Spenser boy's sweatshirt. She put it in front of him and let him sniff it, then told him, "Seek."

He circled in front of her, nose to the ground, and then I opened the door of the Mercedes. He lifted his nose to sniff inside and then bounded in and barked furiously at the garment bag that was hanging behind the front seat.

Corbett swore again, but I opened the bag, revealing a casual shirt and pants on a good wooden hanger, the kind you would normally use only for a suit, like the one Corbett was wearing. Sam sniffed the clothes and barked again.

I let him bark while I turned and spoke to Kennedy. "Sergeant Kennedy, the garment my dog used for reference is a shirt worn by the deceased, Kenneth Spenser. I think forensics will find flour and rust on these clothes matching the flour at the vandalized house and the engine block used to sink the boy's body. Also, the dog's actions prove that these clothes here have been in contact with the deceased boy." Very formal, very accurate. Kennedy just nodded and wrote that down in his book. I turned to Fred. "Could you tell him, easy, please, miss?"

Fred nodded and said, "Easy." Sam relaxed, and she patted his head.

I turned to Corbett, who was standing next to the OPP man, clenching and unclenching his hands. "You're guilty, Mr. Corbett. Why don't you tell the sergeant all about it."

He clenched his hands shut one final time and said, "I want to see my lawyer."

And that was it. They led him back inside and sat him down in a chair in the body of the station. Werner gave him some coffee and even offered him a dash of rye in it, but he shook his head and said nothing until he caught sight of his grandson. Then he exploded. "You little creep," he said, hissing his words softly but with enough venom to be heard all through the room. "This whole mess is your fault."

The boy ducked his head, not speaking. One of the OPP men led him outside while Werner told Corbett to relax. Just relax.

Kennedy took me to one side and asked the big question. "This dog of yours, will he be able to do that again? I mean, we won't find some smart lawyer who'll rig a test so Sam fails? I like nice clean pinches."

"I'll take care of the test," I said. "A lawyer would try to set one up and then sprinkle aniseed everywhere so the dog won't know what's happening. Given a fair test, my dog will pick up a scent anyplace anytime for up to two, three days after the event."

"Then we've got this mother dead to rights," Kennedy said. "And we've got that needle and gear from that biker. That accounts for the second homicide, Spenser." He grinned at me out of tired eyes. "Two homicide arrests, plus the Indian woman we locked up at Magnetawan. Three for three, I haven't had a day like this before, ever."

"Nor me," I said. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to end it right here."

He held his hand out like a priest and sketched a cross. "Go in peace, my son."

"Thanks. And thank you for bending the rules, letting me work with you even though I'm suspended."

"That was bullshit." He laughed. "It's gonna burn Anderson's ass, but he's gonna be here tomorrow morning reinstating you. Now go on home. That lady of yours has had a long day."

"I'm gone." I reached out and shook hands with him and then turned away. "See you tomorrow."

He followed me to the counter and looked over at Fred. "Listen, this ugly fellah here probably won't think of it, but I want to tell you this. That was one fine job of police work you did. Thanks."

Fred stood up, then mocked a curtsy, putting one finger under her chin and bending her knee. "Thank you, kind sir. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing more of it," she said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

We left the station, me laden with the envious glances of all the single policemen in it, Fred walking tall. Outside she stopped and held both my hands. "How did you like my bright idea?"

"You're not only beautiful, you're a good copper," I said.

"If that's what it takes, I'll try to be," she said softly, then bobbed her head at me. "How about taking your dog back? I'm not up to any more responsibility tonight."

"Sure. Tell him, 'Easy,' then, 'Go with Reid.'" I said. She did, and I spent thirty seconds fussing him and telling him he was a good boy. Then we all three got into her car and headed home.

As we got out of the car, Fred said, "I hope you're not feeling overly romantic. This isn't the time."

"Time? We've got years. Let's just snore side by side like an old married couple," I said, and she kissed me, not saying anything.

In the morning we lingered over breakfast, bacon, eggs, coffee, and a lot of laughs. Then we headed back to the station. We got there around nine-thirty to find the OPP still in residence, a fresh uniformed man on the desk, and Positano and Andy working out the final details of the case.

"How did you get on with Corbett and his lawyer?"

"Oh, the usual objections and legal crap," Andy said. Like most policemen, he wondered why the law is written to protect the guilty rather than the innocent. "But we'd already seized the garment bag with the shirt and pants in it."

"You know, it still doesn't prove he murdered the boy, only that he had contact with the body," I said.

"Yeah, I think that's the last straw the lawyer will hold on to. We've charged Corbett with obstructing justice and offering indignity to human remains, on top of the first-degree murder. He can't wriggle off all three charges. I think we'll get him on the lesser two, and if his wife works on him, he may cop a plea on the homicide."

"The only thing I can't work out is that heelprint," I said. "If Corbett scattered that flour, then somebody must have come in after him and seen the mess and left that print."

"No problem there," Andy said. "Did you check the boots on young Reg?"

"No. He wasn't at the camp yesterday when I had that fight with Jas."

"He's as far as you have to look," Andy said. "He stopped in there yesterday afternoon early, took one look, and got the hell out."

"He told you this?"

Andy nodded. "He's gotten very talkative since his granddad made the big speech last night. Seems he really wants to be an actor, poor dear. And he's afraid the tape will put an end to that. He'll just get a part on some soap opera and this tape'll come out and he's gone."

"It's kind of hard to feel sorry for him. Nobody twisted his arm to take part in that tape," Positano said. "Incidentally, where is it? I haven't seen it yet. Do you have it here?"

"No, I took it back to them last night in that exchange. That much was legitimate, although I cheated on the file cabinet."

Andy started to laugh. It began as a chuckle but grew until he was helpless with laughter, bending from the waist, roaring. He had become a biker again, as he had been when I first met him, devoid of subtlety or kindness, the same as all the others he had ridden with. Then he wiped his eyes. "You know what happened to that videotape? When that homemade bomb of yours went up, Reid, Jack, that's one of the Brigade guys, he had the camera and tape in his hands, in that garbage can. The bang blew him back, or he jumped back or whatever, right over the edge of the bridge and down into thirty feet of water. He got out, but hell, that tape isn't ever going to come up. It has to be in the lake by now, lost for keeps."

"There's still that file cabinet from Spenser's house. I'll bet that had copies in, the originals, maybe," I said, and now Positano laughed. As long and hard as Andy, who was infected by it and started to laugh with him.

"I thought you guys had been working. Now it looks like you've been smoking up. What gives?"

"You wanna hear something really funny? You wanna real laugh?" Positano choked out at last.

"Funnier than bikers going off bridges?"

"Much funnier." Positano wiped his streaming eyes, gave a couple of last chuckles, then held up his hands, the way he might have done for an address at the Rotary Club. "See, we found all those tapes from the cabinet in the Spenser house. They were all of them in the saddlebags of the Diamonds we brought in last night." He chuckled and then went on. "So they all had real pornie titles on them, just handwritten, mind, on tapes but really sensational, right. So we sat some shiny-faced young officer down with a VCR and all of these tapes and asked him to catalog them."

"And it turned him into a raving sexual maniac," I tried. So far the story wasn't funny.

"No." Positano waved me down. "No, see, he starts screening them and something's wrong. The first one is called Hotlips Nurse. Only there's no nurse in it and no hot lips. It's all game shows—The Dating Game, The Price Is Right—soap operas, all daytime TV. So he goes to the next one and the next and they're all the same, all innocent garbage right offa the TV."

"Wait a minute, I don't get this. I thought these were sleaze tapes that the bikers were selling."

"They were. Until Mrs. Spenser found one of them and realized what it was. She was disgusted and she wiped them all, the only way she knew, by playing other stuff over them all day while her husband was off talking bullshit about Greta Garbo," Andy said, and then we laughed again, all three of us this time.

"So the kid's safe from harassment. His granddad's down the tubes for the Spenser murder, and you're talking to the Diamonds to find out which one of them needled Spenser senior and shoved him over the rock," I said.

Positano nodded. "Got it all wrapped up, or damn near. All's we need is a statement from your lady about what happened to her; then you're free and clear. Come back in later on and Anderson will be here full of apologies to reinstate you."

I stood there for a long moment, looking around at the interior of the office I knew so well. And I thought about Anderson and the rules of conduct he represented and about the long spells of boredom I had known since coming to Murphy's Harbour, between the very few exciting times that had occurred. And I thought about another police chief I had met in a town like this, an older man who had warned me to leave before the job took me over. Somehow, from this side of the counter, I could see all this in a light that was obscured once I got into harness. It was a little job, for a little man, someone much closer to retirement than I was.