Jan shook Harvey’s shoulder. He looked up at her, seemed mildly surprised to see her standing there. She said, “What in hell were you just thinking?”
“About Marvel Durwood.”
“Who’s that?”
“A guy I knew in the joint.” Harvey smiled. “Me and Marvel were the best of platonic friends. We watched out for each other.”
Jan said, “I guess it must be good to have a friend in prison.”
“It’s a priceless thing, lemme tell you.”
Jan nodded. She said, “I told you before you went in that I wasn’t going to dry up like a prune waiting for you. It was your own fault and nobody else’s that you went in. Beating that man up just because he was attracted to you. That was stupid, Harve. All you had to do was say ‘no thanks,’ and you would’ve been just fine.”
“Maybe.”
“Why should I have spent five years being lonely? Tell me what good that would have done.”
“Made you gladder to see me now.”
“I’m glad to see you.”
“But not for the right reasons. I want us to be man and wife again and all you want is somebody to help you pull off a score. I’m love, and you’re all business.” He put his hand over his heart. “How do you think that feels?”
“I don’t want anyone else in on this,” said Jan. She wore a pair of lace-up knee-high black leather boots it must have taken her at least an hour to put on, and tight blue jeans and a pink T-shirt decorated with sequins. The T was snug. Anybody could see she wasn’t wearing a bra. Harvey’s palms felt sweaty. He tightened his grip on the Coke can, and tried not to stare. Jan was watching him.
He said, “Did you say something?”
“I said that I don’t want you inviting any Marvel Durwoods or any of your other loser convict buddies in on this.”
“Fine with me.”
“Everybody’s got a mouth, but hardly anybody can keep a secret. You trust me and I trust you, and Matt Singh’s in because it was his idea. But that’s as big as the party gets.”
“Okey-dokey.”
“Just the three of us,” said Jan. “Nobody else.”
Harvey drank some more Coke. It barely qualified as lukewarm. Was the bar fridge working, or just for show? He swirled the Coke around in his mouth, and let it slide down his throat. He had at least a thousand questions that needed answering. Quite a few of them revolved around their son, Harvey Jr. Called now by his middle name, Jan’s father’s name, Tyler.
Harvey the absentee ex-con father said, “Want to go somewhere, grab a bite?”
“Love to, but i’ve got a date.”
“Break it.” Harvey smiled. He put his fists together, thumb to thumb, and then twisted his wrists as if he were snapping a bone. Jan said, “Thanks anyway.”
Harvey bit down hard on the anger boiling up inside him. He said, “I’d like to see my son, if that’s okay with you.”
“Tyler’s on a camping trip.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“It’s his name. He’s been Tyler for the past five years, and he isn’t going back. Get used to it, or take a walk.”
“Where is the cute little tyke?”
“Golden Ears Park.”
“Oh yeah?” He didn’t watch out, she’d be sending the kid off to Europe.
Jan said, “He’s coming home in a day or so. He’ll be tired, not at his best.”
“You tell him I was getting out?”
Jan nodded.
“Tell him I wanted to see him?”
“I said it might be a possibility.”
“What’d he think about that?”
“He knows you love him. I tell him that on a regular basis. But he’s only eight years old, Harve. He can’t remember the last time he saw you, and he doesn’t really know anything about you.”
Harve said, “I always remembered his birthday.”
“You should’ve sent him a card, so he’d know.”
“Easy for you to say, but how in hell … ” He realized he sounded like a whiner, and shut up.
Jan saw the hurt in his eyes. He had six years on her, but she’d grown up faster than he had. She was smarter, too. Whose fault was that? Nobody’s. She said, “You can see him Sunday after dinner. Bring some chocolate ice cream. Chocolate’s his favourite. You can visit a while, eat some ice cream, get to know each other.” “Sounds good.”
“You can afford it, buy him some Lego. A spaceship.”
“Lego spaceship,” said Harve. He finger-wrote the words in the air.
Jan smiled. She said, “Don’t steal anything. You get tossed back in jail, you’re useless to me.”
“What sweet sentiment.”
She leaned over him and kissed him chastely on the cheek. She smelled like a flower garden in the sun. Harvey hoped and prayed it didn’t take her long to mend her broken heart when her new boyfriend suddenly disappeared, never to be found again.
*
So far away
Janey Markson sat on the edge of her queen-size bed, surrounded by a blizzard of tear-drenched tissues, book-ended by a mismatched pair of City of Vancouver homicide detectives. Janey repressed an inappropriate smile at the thought that the tissues looked like a flock of miniature doves that had died en masse in mid-flight.
Jack Willows had no faith in Janey Markson s grief. He’d have bet next week’s paycheque that her river of tears would dwindle and die as soon as the Kleenex ran out. He tried but failed to make eye contact with Claire Parker. Janey was a receptionist at a hair salon. The salon was downtown but upscale. Janey had spent a lot of money on her clothes. She dressed well and provocatively.
Parker seemed lost in thought. Willows was pretty sure he knew what she was thinking about. Hadrian, Hadrian, Hadrian.
Willows said, “I know you’ve already been over most of this with the attending officer, but would you mind going over it again, for me?”
Janey nodded. She made a visible effort to collect herself, grabbed a handful of tissues and wiped her eyes, and suddenly burst into another rainstorm of tears. She blew her nose, destroying another handful of tissue. It had been a long day. Willows had a hunch it was going to keep on getting longer.
Popeye Doyle stepped into the room, an unlit cigar propping up his mouth. The weight of the cameras and related equipment made his shoulders sag. He said, “We’re done with him, he’s all yours.”
Parker had Janey Markson stretch out on the bed, and suggested that she try to relax. Janey nodded again, snuffling. Parker squeezed her hand and assured her that she and Willows would be back shortly.
Peter Markson lay face down on the living-room floor. His right hand clutched the TV’S remote control. A cylindrical shaft of bright chrome-plated metal protruded from the left side of his back, just below his wishbone. Willows crouched down beside the body. His arthritic knee cracked painfully. Now that he was closer, he could clearly see that the spear of metal was made up of the two sections of a “rabbit ears” television antenna that had been tightly bound together with black electrician’s tape. The bulbous safety tips on the antenna had been removed with a pair of needle-nose pliers, and the hollow rods had been filed to sharp points. The roll of tape, pliers, file, and a brief handwritten suicide note lay on the blood-specked carpet a few inches from Markson’s outstretched left hand.
Parker circled around so she could read the note. She had perfect vision, but Markson’s writing was so small and cramped that it was all she could do to make out the words. It was hardly worth the effort. Markson’s last thoughts were generic and pedestrian, unenlightened. About the only thing you could say in the author’s favour was that he’d been brief.
Parker said, “This is so depressing.”
“You’re right,” said Willows. “Why is that, anyway? Usually, there’s nothing like a suicide to brighten up my day.” His bad knee popped again as he stood up. He’d lost the cartilage as a result of a rugby injury back in his high-school days. Now, all these years later, he was pa
ying the price. He patted himself down, found his Advil, and popped a couple of the small brown pills into his mouth.
Parker said, “How long has it been since you last rode the bike?”
Willows swallowed the pills. In fifteen or twenty minutes the pain in his knee would vanish like fog. Parker was always criticizing him for his lack of commitment to his exercise regime. He was supposed to ride the damn bike for fifteen minutes every day, and then lie down on an exercise mat and stretch the tendons behind his knee for another quarter of an hour. The bike was a stationary, recumbent model. It had cost him almost a thousand bucks. He had quickly learned that few things in life were less rewarding than riding a deconstructed bicycle to nowhere. He was certain that, in the dreary aftermath of all that work, his knee always hurt more than it would have if he’d only left well enough alone. Human beings were designed to wear out. Unnatural exercise was just asking for trouble. He smiled. It had taken a while, but he’d finally figured out what was bothering him.
“Claire?”
Parker turned towards him. The breeze coming in from the sea lifted the blinds. The slats were open. Parallel bars of light and shadow raced across her face, and then the breeze died and the blinds fell rattling into place. Parker couldn’t see the ocean, but she could smell it. Her eyes darkened. She hugged herself and said, “Did you say something, Jack?”
Willows was paralyzed by deep-seated fear and an aching, wholly irrational, anger. He felt as if he were spiralling helplessly into unlit depths. His heart pounded and his lungs burned. His wife had never looked so beautiful, or lost.
Chapter 3
Love and trucks
Jan loved Tyler with all her heart. She missed him every single minute he was gone. But at the same time, being a working single parent was a bitch, and she refused to feel guilty for taking pleasure in the rare luxury of having no one to think of but her own sweet self. She’d come home from work to her stifling sublet two-bedroom apartment, stripped naked, cranked up the stereo, cracked open a bottle of cheap but ice-cold Sauvignon blanc, and run a tub. She’d been soaking for half an hour and two glasses of wine, and felt blissfully calm for the first time in months.
It had been a shock seeing Harve, after all those years. Harve was Tyler’s father, and a secret, buried part of her no bigger than the faded picture inside a heart-shaped gold locket would always love him, and wish him the best. But that was about it. Five years was a long time. She hadn’t consciously thought about it, but when he walked unannounced into her studio, she realized that she had irrationally hoped his long years in jail would have smoothed the sharp edges off him. She spent five long minutes listening to him tell her how much he missed her, blah blah blah, and knew for a rock-hard certainty that her husband was meaner and more self-centred and ruthless and cold than he had ever been. He was a danger to her, and to all the people around her, including and maybe even especially their darling son. She drained her wineglass and reached for the bottle. If Harve ever laid a finger on Tyler, she’d kill him.
In the meantime, sad to say, she was in desperate need of the sonofabitch, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
She was surprised and vaguely alarmed to see that the bottle was two-thirds gone. Her boyfriend, Sandy, wasn’t much of a drinker. He wouldn’t think it was all that great if he showed up and she was drunk. But a little bit tipsy was okay. Tipsy was relaxing. Tipsy was fun.
Jan sat up, and poured herself a half glass of wine, and settled back down into the warm, soapy water.
Sandy buzzed her an hour later, on time to the minute. Jan was still in the bathroom, her hair done, makeup applied, dressed now in tan shorts and a pink tank top she’d picked up at Milano’s half-price sale. She gave herself a last quick once-over in the mirror, ran her fingers through her hair, and turned and headed for the door, excited, wanting to hurry but holding herself back. She was almost at the door when she remembered she’d forgotten the goddamn deodorant, and had to go back to the bathroom and rummage through the medicine cabinet for the Ban. In her hurry, she knocked over a bottle of Aspirin. The cap hadn’t been screwed on. The little white pills, dozens of them, had an awful lot of bounce. She scooped up as many as she could find. Sandy was a very tidy person. She had never met anyone half as organized. He never said a word, but she could tell he hated it when he came over and the place was a mess.
The buzzer rang again. She’d offered Sandy a key the second time he’d stayed over. He’d been nice about it, but had turned her down. She’d been so shocked that she’d babbled on for ten minutes about how she didn’t offer a key to every self-centred sonofabitch she met and that if he thought … Etcetera, ad nauseam, for sure.
Jan was still thinking about how badly she handled rejection when she opened the door. Sandy wore freshly ironed jeans, a dark blue shirt hanging unbuttoned and loose over a pale blue T. He had brought her a bouquet of long-stemmed roses and baby’s breath. She could tell by the way they were wrapped that they’d come from a florist, not a corner store. Sandy almost always brought her flowers, and they were almost always roses, eleven red and one white. When she’d asked him about that, he’d told her red was for passion and white was for purity. Eleven red, one white. Jan thought that more or less defined their relationship. Sandy’s driver’s licence said he was twenty-one years old, and she was pushing the dreaded big three-zero.
Sandy said, “You look great.” He smiled his killer smile. “Gorgeous, actually. Did you do something with your hair?”
“Washed it.” Jan accepted the roses. He gave her a quick kiss on the mouth as he slipped past her into the apartment. She loved kissing him, could have kissed him all day long, if there weren’t even better things to do.
He shut the door and locked it, casual but quick.
“We alone?”
“Were you expecting somebody?”
“Shouldn’t there be a cute little kid around here somewhere?”
“I told you last night that Tyler was going camping for a few days.”
Sandy nodded, remembering. “With the neighbour and his kids, right? You trust the guy?”
“He’s a fireman,” said Jan.
Sandy nodded agreeably. But what did Jan think, that all firemen were saints? Or that the mere fact of their exalted profession absolved them of all sins? Sandy had met more than his fair share of smoke-eaters. Most of them were nice enough guys, but about 90 per cent of them had been divorced at least twice, and most of them had kids they didn’t see all that often, and lots of them drank too much, and smoked a little dope, when nobody was looking.
He followed her into the kitchen. Got a vase down from a high cabinet for her and then opened a cold bottle of Chardonnay while she took care of the flowers, filled the vase with lukewarm water, cut away the excess leaves and trimmed an inch off the stems, emptied the plastic pouch of preservative into the vase and carefully arranged the roses and baby’s breath, placing the white rose where it would have the most visual impact. Jan was an artist. You could see her talent in just about everything she did, no matter how inconsequential. It was one of too many wonderful things about her that made it hard for him to keep his balance, stay cool and detached.
She put the flowers on the table in the flow-through dining area, and then the two of them sat down on the living-room sofa. Sandy poured two glasses of wine. They clinked glasses.
He said, “To you and me, babe.”
Jan sipped her wine. The Chardonnay had cost twice as much as the bottle she’d been drinking from earlier. That one, what was left of it, was in the back of the fridge, hiding behind the lettuce and carrots, waiting for her to be alone again. She hoped the bottle was in for a long wait but wasn’t holding her breath.
Jan said, “How was your day?”
“Okay. Guy came around, installed the dish, and set everything up for me. I spent most of the morning flipping channels. You?”
“Not too bad. Kind of slow in the morning, but it picked up after lunch.” Jan told him a
bout the piercings she’d done, not going into detail because he had a weak stomach. The first time they’d gone out, she’d described with some degree of pride a complicated multiple tongue-piercing she’d done that morning, and he’d lost his colour and had to step outside to gulp some fresh air and settle himself down. She told him about Toby and his desire to have a blood-stained Bowie knife tattooed on his arm. He’d brought along pictures of the knife ripped out of a book, and had paid in cash from a wad of scuffed hundreds big enough to choke a dinosaur. Jan said she was pretty sure that if you put a straw to the bills, you could probably suck another fifty dollars’ worth of coke off them.
Sandy said, “You think the guy was a dealer?”
“He sure as hell looked the part.”
Sandy laughed and asked her another question that showed he was interested in her story. He was a good listener. Kept his eyes on her, and nodded his head every so often, made small sounds of amazement or consternation, asked exactly the right number of intelligent questions. Jan finished telling him about the knife tattoo, and then she put her wineglass down on the coffee table and snuggled up to him, thigh against thigh, letting the weight of her breast fall on his muscular arm. They kissed for a while, nice and slow, warming up, and then Sandy tilted her head up so he could look her in the eye.
“What is it? Something wrong? Do I need to brush my teeth?” Sandy shook his head. He said, “Something’s bothering you. What is it?”
“Nothing.”
He sat up a little straighten “Bullshit. Is it Tyler?”
“Tyler’s fine.” Jan scratched her arm. She leaned forward to retrieve her wineglass, stretching out more than she had to and holding the moment, conscious of her breasts pushing at the thin material of the pink tank top, giving him an eyeful but at the same time feeling emotionally distanced because he was right, something was wrong, and it had everything to do with that sonofabitch Harve. She drank some wine, and felt a little better, and drank a little more wine. Not much, just a sip.
A Cloud of Suspects Page 3
