*
Lunch
Claire carried Hadrian on her hip as she made herself a cucumber and lettuce sandwich on whole-wheat bread. She’d already put the kettle on the boil. She turned her body to protect Hadrian as she poured boiling water into a pot of herbal tea. Hadrian clapped his hands in glee. He was hungry too, and he knew the routine.
Claire went to the cupboard and got down glass jars of Gerber’s beef stew and Hadrian’s current favourite, puréed carrots. She put him into his high chair and fastened the safety strap. He kicked his legs, and grabbed his bent-handle spoon and excitedly slammed it down on the plastic tray.
Claire said, “Are you a hungry boy, Hadrian? Would you like some beef stew, and carrots for dessert?”
Hadrian yelled, “Rats!”
“That’s right, carrots.”
He thumped the tray with both pudgy fists. “Rats!”
Claire took a moment to pour herself a cup of tea, and then unscrewed the metal lids of the two jars. She offered Hadrian the jar of beef stew. He pushed it away.
“Rats!”
“Stew first,” said Claire. She dipped her finger in the jar and put her finger to her mouth. Her eyes widened in delight. “Mmm, yummy!”
Hadrian’s spoon rattled off the teapot, skittered across the table, hit the floor, and rolled under the fridge. Tripod, their three-legged cat, bolted into the living room. Claire sipped at her tea. Hadrian watched her closely, trying to gauge her mood and determine whether he was best served by an uproarious burst of laughter or a gale of tears.
Claire pursed her lips and blew on the cup. She said, “Hot!”
Hadrian decided that was just hilarious. Claire got another bent-handle spoon from the dishwasher. She dipped the spoon into the jar of pureed carrots. Hadrian watched her closely. He opened wide. He could be such a well-mannered child, when he got his way.
After lunch, while Hadrian napped peacefully in his crib, Claire sat down and wrote a letter to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, detailing Dr. Randy Hamilton’s unprofessional conduct. As the letter took shape, she grew increasingly aware of the futility of her action. Hamilton wasn’t as stupid as he looked. As Claire drew up a list of his offences, she quickly realized that he’d been careful not to do or say anything that was the basis for a reasonable complaint. Claire was vexed. Context was everything. The cunning way Hamilton freighted a word, the delicate outward turn of his hand, bright spark of lust in his eye. How could she possibly define and catalogue these things in such a way as to give them weight and meaning?
Fuck Hamilton. Fuck the College.
Claire had a good cry and then she made herself another pot of herbal tea and wondered for the umpteenth time what the hell was wrong with her. It seemed a little late in the game to be suffering from postpartum depression.
She went quietly into Hadrian’s room and stared down at him. He lay on his back with his arms flung wide, breathing slowly and steadily. His right hand gripped one of his favourite toys, a brightly coloured plastic rattle. He was a wonderful child; everything she had wished for, and more. There was something about him that suggested a quality of restraint. She smiled, knowing she was projecting her wishes onto him. Hadrian had her grandfather’s cleft chin, and she liked to think he had inherited his long pianist’s fingers from her. The rest of him was all Jack.
Claire lightly pressed the palm of her hand against her son’s smooth forehead. He stirred. His arms came up defensively, then settled back with a strange slowness, as if untouched by gravity. She bent and kissed him, and whispered that she loved him. He opened and shut his mouth like a fish gulping air. His breath smelled of carrots.
Claire tore up her unfinished letter to the College and went out on the back porch and angrily shoved the pieces in the yellow City of Vancouver recycling bag. Hamilton was off the hook, for now.
*
Heist
Harvey didn’t want to hurt anybody. That’s why he was armed. The stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .38-calibre revolver was his insurance policy, a lethal, four-pound chunk of metal designed to minimize the risk of incoming mayhem.
Harvey circled around the lineup to the cash register. He yanked the black balaclava out of his pants pocket and pulled it over his head, instantly blinding himself. Someone very close laughed nervously. Harvey pulled off the balaclava and turned it around and put it back on again, so the eye and mouth holes were lined up in the right places. He drew his Smith & Wesson. The cash-register guy was perched on a wooden stool. Harvey gave him a long up-and-down look. He was about twenty years old, had prominent cheekbones and a thick chest and wide shoulders and long black hair tied back in a ponytail. Harvey logged him at six-two and about two hundred and twenty pounds. He believed the guy looked an awful lot like a much-younger version of that Hollywood actor who was always smashing heads and breaking arms and busting up dopers and stoned killers real good. Harvey struggled to remember the actor’s name. Steven Seagal, that was it. He pointed the revolver at the cash-register guy. His name tag said Mario. Harvey said, “This is a stickup. Open the cash register.”
Mario stared at him. His mouth fell open.
Harvey poked him in the belly with the gun. “Now, moron!”
Mario punched buttons. Nothing happened. He chuckled nervously. “I’m sorry, sir. But I forget how to do that.”
Harvey pressed the muzzle of his gun up against the kid’s head, and dramatically cocked the hammer. “If you don’t open the fucking cash register right this minute, I’m gonna splatter your stupid brains all over your lap” He gestured with the gun. “I’m on a timer. Get cracking, or I’m gonna hurt a whole bunch of people.”
Mario said, “I’d open it if I could but I just can’t remember how to do it. My mind’s a blank.”
Harvey tried to screw the Smith’s blunt muzzle into Mario’s head. Mario said, “Please don’t do that!” He gestured wildly and incoherently. “I can’t think straight. It’s like somebody chopped off my frontal lobes with a meat cleaver!”
“What in hell are you yapping about, fucking lobes. You’re earning what, five or six bucks an hour, and you’re ready to lay your life on the line for your company? This might be news to you, kid, but Caper’s isn’t some puny little mom-and-pop operation, it’s part of a huge multinational outfit, they own hundreds of businesses right across the whole fucking continent!”
“How would you know?”
“I read it on a poster on a telephone pole across the street. Something to do with a Hep A outbreak, whatever that means.”
“It’s a contagious disease you can get from someone who handles food but doesn’t practise appropriate sanitation procedures,” said a middle-aged woman in the lineup. She added, “It’s not like anybody died.”
Harvey glanced around. All the Caper’s staff had scrammed. The two women who’d been laughing at him had never looked more serious in all their lives. He waved the Smith at the crowd. “Does anybody know how to open the fucking cash register?” “You’d better watch your language,” said a child of about ten. “Or your mother will wash your mouth out with soap.”
Harvey glared at him.
Somebody yelled, “Leave him alone, he’s just a kid.”
Harvey sensed he was losing control of the situation. He knew what to do about that, in spades. The kid was fashionably dressed in khaki shorts and an action-hero T-shirt. Harvey pressed the muzzle of the gun up against the kid’s bony knee. He said, “Open the cash register, or you’ll never skip rope again.”
The kid laughed, as if Harvey had said something funny.
Harvey said, “I’m gonna count down from three, and then I’m gonna pull the trigger. Three … two … one.”
Nobody moved.
Harvey wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t particularly want to kneecap the kid, even though he probably deserved it. On the other hand, what choice did he have? He ripped off the kid’s Nike sneaker, aimed at the little toe on his left foot, and squeezed the trigger. The cylinder
revolved through sixty degrees and the hammer made a dull click as it struck the firing pin. Harvey pulled a few more times.
Somebody said, “It’s a toy gun.’’
Frustrated, Harvey kept yanking on the trigger.
Click, click, click.
A fat guy in coveralls tried to jump him. Harvey slapped him across the nose with the revolver’s barrel. The fat guy dropped as if he’d been shot, spurting blood and cries of anguish.
Harvey backed towards the door. He’d hit the guy a little harder than he’d meant to, but he didn’t think it wise to stick around and apologize. This decision was confirmed when a bowl of pasta salad hit him square in the balaclava, half-blinding him.
The Caper’s mob howled like demons as they chased him up Fourth Avenue. It was hard to run in the yellow suit’s baggy pants. Harvey shied away as a standard-bred poodle tethered to a parking meter snapped viciously at him. Next time he pulled off a robbery, he’d have to try to remember to park his getaway vehicle a little closer. That or hit the gym, work himself into tip-top shape. Fat chance that was gonna happen. The balaclava made it hard to breathe. He tore it off and glanced behind him, at the howling, churning mob. Who were those guys? They weren’t armed with pitchforks and burning torches but they sure had a bad attitude, for a bunch of health freaks who claimed they didn’t eat meat.
Chapter 10
Scenery to die for
Chelsea turned to shut the car door behind her and then hesitated. She put her finger to her plump lower lip, and frowned, and said that she just remembered Colin had a Day Planner on her computer. If Willows was interested in the names and addresses he’d find on the planner, he was welcome to come in for a moment.
Chelsea’s apartment was on the red-brick building’s seventh floor. Mullioned windows in the original wooden frames faced to the west and to the north. The views were terrific. Stanley Park was right across the street. Beyond the dense greenery of the thousand-acre park, the Pacific Ocean heaved restlessly. There was lots of marine traffic to charm the eye. No more rowboats in Lost Lagoon, though. Years ago, a kid had tossed a rock at a duck, and the Parks Board had screamed in horror and yanked their fleet. Fun City, for sure. Beyond Lion’s Gate bridge, the mountains loomed steeply. In a few months, they’d be capped with snow, and be even more determinedly scenic. On the shady side of the mountains there was a wilderness so vast and untrammelled it was too scary to think about.
Chelsea said, “Nice view, huh?”
Willows nodded. He reflexively accepted a glass of white wine.
Chelsea said, “To success.” She clinked glasses and sipped delicately. “At night you can see the lights on the bridge. They’re named after a local politician but I forget who he was … ”
Willows said, “Why do you live here, instead of in Yale Town or False Creek?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it’s very nice here. But I’d have thought someone like you would prefer to live in a more fashionable part of town.”
“I got a deal on the apartment.”
“From Colin?”
“Yes, from Colin.” Chelsea drank a little more wine. She studied Willows for a moment, looking up at him in a way he found vaguely unsettling, and then said, “You’ll probably find out sooner or later, so I might as well tell you now. The apartment’s in my name, but Colin paid for it. I just moved in a couple of weeks ago, to tell the truth.”
“That was nice of him.”
“Not really. It was a secret loan. I had to sign a demand note for the full amount, so he could get the title back any time he wanted. The idea was to protect his money from any lawsuits or whatever that he might have to deal with.”
“Have you got a copy of the note?”
Chelsea nodded. She said, “We both have copies. Well, Colin’s got the original. I don’t know what he did with it — probably it’s in a safety-deposit box.” She gulped her wine. “The note says that Colin has to give me three months’ notice. You might as well know it was also a condition of the note that, in the event of Colin’s death, the loan is automatically cancelled.”
Willows said, “Whose idea was that?”
“Colin’s. He had his lawyer draw up the note. It’s very straightforward.”
“Why did he do it?”
“Colin was a real fitness nut. He had a personal trainer, and a dietician. He went to the gym six days a week, was very careful about what he ate. His physician is one of the best in the city. Colin had a thorough medical exam every year. He was in excellent health.”
“I don’t understand … ”
“Colin was a very careful driver. He drove a Volvo, because he believed it was the safest car on the road.”
Willows still didn’t get it.
Chelsea said, “Colin never went into specifics, but he told me that he sometimes had to use money that belonged to the kind of people who would be very upset if they were to suffer a financial loss.”
“But he didn’t mention any names.”
“No, and I didn’t ask him.”
Willows said, “How much is the apartment worth?”
“A little over one-point-five million, in today’s market. I know that sounds like a lot, for an old building like this, but the apartment is actually two apartments made into one. There’s four bedrooms and a study — over three thousand square feet.” Chelsea recharged her glass. “Go ahead, ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“If I murdered Colin so I could live happily ever after in my deluxe apartment.”
Willows smiled. He said, “Did you murder him?”
“Nope.”
“Where’s the computer?”
“In the study. Follow me.”
Willows followed her out of the living room and down a wide hallway. Pictures of Chelsea lined the walls. Most of them were candid shots that seemed to have been taken while she was on assignment, in various states of undress.
The computer was a Sony laptop. Chelsea had no idea how it worked. Willows sat down at a glass-topped desk. He flipped open the computer and fired it up.
Chelsea rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”
Willows nodded, so intent on the computer that he hardly heard her. To his surprise, the computer’s files weren’t password-protected. He opened the Documents folder. There were about two dozen files, alphabetically arranged. The names meant nothing to him. He opened a file, and started reading. An hour later, all he’d learned was that he’d wasted an hour of his time.
*
Big dipper
In the afternoon Hadrian usually could be relied on to nap for anywhere up to three hours, depending on how active his morning had been. Today was different. He slept for just under an hour, and woke up screaming. Claire wondered if he’d had a nightmare. She calmed him, and then fed him slivers of cooked-to-pieces stewing beef and spoonfuls of squashed banana. Afterwards, she took him into the living room, and they played with his primary-coloured hollow plastic blocks until he tired of knocking down what she had built. By then she was feeling overheated. She ran lukewarm water into the bath, and watched Hadrian carefully as she undressed. He loved taking baths. He wasn’t tall enough to climb into the tub unassisted, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Claire lowered herself into the tub and then reached over and took him, chortling and squealing happily, into her arms. She lifted him up and slowly dunked him into the water. He screamed with delight and furiously waved his arms. Claire hugged him and told him she loved him. He didn’t care. He wanted more water. Wa-wa! Claire sat him down between her legs. He slapped the water with his hands and shrieked with delight.
Claire’s mind wandered. It was ridiculous, because she wasn’t the least bit attracted to him, but she couldn’t stop herself from wondering if she had subconsciously enticed Dr. Randy Hamilton to show interest in her.
She couldn’t remember doing or saying anything that might lead him to believe she found him attractive. She supposed most women
would consider Hamilton good-looking, even handsome. That didn’t mean she panted after him. She was just trying to be objective, that’s all. She idly scratched her thigh. She was worried about Jack, about her marriage. There was a distance between them, a lonely space that was getting wider day by day. He refused to talk about his cases. She was tired of being shut out of his life. A few days ago, she had caught herself thinking that she finally knew why his first wife, Sheila, had walked out on him. It was a terrible, terrible moment, and it had frightened her half to death.
She thought back to Jack’s mixed reaction when she’d first told him she was pregnant. He had been happy, and dismayed, and not particularly communicative. At her insistence, they had talked about her pregnancy at length. Jack had said that he’d already put up with all the horrors that modern parenthood entailed, and wasn’t sure he could manage it all over again, now that he was twenty-odd years older. Claire put it all down to the shock of the news. Jack had eventually come around. At least, that’s what she had thought, at the time.
An unnatural silence snatched Claire from her grim reverie. Startled, she glanced down at Hadrian. He was perfectly still, staring with fascination at a water droplet taking shape on the end of his down-turned thumb.
He must have sensed that she was watching him, because he suddenly glanced up at her. His face was weirdly solemn. Claire forced a smile. He didn’t smile back. Claire began to cry. She splashed water on her face. Hadrian joined in, wildly punching the water with both hands. The front door slammed shut. Claire jumped. She struggled to get herself under control. She cried out, “Who is it?”
“Me. Annie!”
A few moments later, Annie poked her head in the door. She said, “What the hell’s going on in here? Are you crying?”
“No, of course not.” Claire didn’t consider herself an accomplished liar. But there was no denying it was a talent that came naturally.
*
Money-back guarantee
Harvey knocked but got no answer. He pounded on the door with both fists, and kicked it for good measure, and even yelled a few vague threats, but all to no avail. He sat down with his back to the wall. Anders had deafened himself with his headphones, or he was out.
A Cloud of Suspects Page 12
