A Matter of Malice

by Thomas King

  Thumps had turned the show off when the duck began to shake, but by then it was too late.

  He didn’t sleep well. All night long, the duck kept trying to pick the live wire off the monkey, and there was nothing Thumps could do to stop her. Several times he had had to get up to pee, and each time he put his head down on the pillow, there was that stupid monkey and that stupid duck.

  So he was late getting up, and when he got to the kitchen, he remembered that he hadn’t done the shopping. No eggs. No butter. No potatoes. No quinoa. He opened and shut the refrigerator door several times, searching the shelves in the hope that something resembling breakfast would magically appear, warm and ready to eat.

  He stepped onto the porch and looked to see if there were any lights on at his neighbour’s house. Dixie would probably have a couple of eggs to spare. The problem was the man liked to talk, and Thumps wasn’t much of a conversationalist in the morning. Or in the afternoon for that matter.

  “Mr. DreadfulWater?”

  There was a dark green sedan parked at the curb. The young woman standing next to the car was tall and uniformly slender, top to bottom. Black slacks, leather jacket, short spiky hair the same colour as her pants. More than anything, she reminded Thumps of a Montblanc fountain pen he had seen at an airport gift shop.

  “Gloria Baker-Doyle?” said the woman. “I left a message last night?”

  So the call hadn’t been a wrong number. Or a joke.

  “Is there anything I can do to help you get ready?”

  Thumps felt somewhat caught out, standing there in a T-shirt and pyjama bottoms. “I’m fine,” he said. “What’s this about?”

  The woman hurried to the porch and handed him an envelope. Inside was a business card. Fire and Ice Gallery. San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam. Clipped to the card was a hundred-dollar bill.

  “We should probably be away.”

  On several occasions, when he was a cop in Northern California, Thumps had been offered inducements to look the other way. A speeding ticket, a health violation, a domestic dispute. But no one had given him a business card with money attached and arranged for a livery service and driver as part of the bribe.

  Curious.

  Thumps checked the envelope for a note. “I take it your job is to deliver me somewhere.”

  “Quite,” said the woman.

  His first impulse was to return the envelope and its contents to Gloria Baker-Doyle, retreat into the house, and shut the door. He didn’t need more intrigue in his life. He needed someone to feed him. He needed groceries to magically appear. He needed his medical appointment with Beth to be cancelled.

  “Will there be food?”

  “There will,” said Gloria. “Are those pyjama bottoms?”

  Thumps closed his eyes. He turned his face to the morning sun and took a deep breath. “I’ll get dressed,” he said.

  THUMPS SAT IN front.

  “You can sit in back.”

  “Like a big shot?”

  “Yeah,” said Gloria. “Brilliant.”

  This was Nina Maslow’s handiwork. Nothing else made sense. The woman wasn’t used to taking no for an answer. Okay, so he would enjoy the ride, her company, and a free breakfast.

  And then he would go grocery shopping.

  Gloria kept her eyes on the road ahead and both hands on the wheel. “I understand you used to be a policeman.”

  The Audi had a power passenger seat. Thumps tried several positions until he got comfortable. “I was.”

  “Did you enjoy the work?”

  “Enjoy” wasn’t the word Thumps would have used for police work. Most of the time the job had been dull and routine. The rest of the time it had been unpleasant.

  “Me uncle’s a policeman,” said Gloria. “Scotland Yard.”

  The car was remarkably quiet. His Volvo hadn’t been all that good at keeping road noise at bay. In the Audi, you could drive through the world without having to listen to it go by.

  “Do you know why Scotland Yard is called Scotland Yard?”

  “I don’t.”

  “The original location of the Metropolitan Police Service in London was at 4 Whitehall Place. It had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard, and over time that entrance became the public entrance, and police services became known as Scotland Yard.”

  “Gloria Baker-Doyle,” Thumps said, thinking out loud. “English?”

  “Scottish, actually,” said Gloria. “Me great-great-grandfather was Arthur Conan Doyle.”

  Thumps stopped playing with the lumbar support button. “Really?”

  “No,” said Gloria, without the hint of a smile, “but a great many people are keen to make the connection.”

  “So you’re not a consulting detective.”

  “Solicitor,” said Gloria. “Or I will be as soon as I finish my last year of recognized training.”

  Thumps realized he had been caught out.

  Gloria was way ahead of him. “It’s the clothes, yeah?”

  And the hair, Thumps wanted to tell her. And the black eyeshadow. And the stud in your nose. And the row of piercings in both ears. And the tattoo on your neck.

  “Me dad is on me all the time.” Gloria tapped her fingers on the wheel. “‘What’s wrong with heels?’ he says. ‘What’s wrong with a dress?’”

  “So, you’re going to be a lawyer?” said Thumps, moving the conversation back to safe ground. “You have a specialty or something?”

  Gloria had a nice smile. “Celebrities,” she said.

  Thumps smiled back. “So this is . . . fieldwork?”

  “Something like that.” Gloria passed a slow-moving truck. “You know what celebrities have in common?”

  “Lots of money?”

  “Risk,” said Baker-Doyle. “Every time an actor takes on a role, every time a soccer player steps onto the pitch, every time a singer opens his mouth, they’re vulnerable.” Gloria sounded almost sympathetic. “Average career for a celebrity in any field is about six years.” She gave Thumps a quick glance to see if he was listening. “Men manage better than women, but I shouldn’t have to tell you that. And that’s if they don’t get injured or wind up involved in a scandal or say something stupid that goes viral. My job is to manage and limit that risk. It’s not a noble calling, but it’s fun, and I don’t have to hit home runs or pretend I’m a bloody hobbit.”

  Once you were east of Chinook and looking for food, the only choice was Shadow Ranch. About ten years back, Vernon Rockland had arrived in town and bought the Anderson ranch on the eastern slope. A summer retreat, he told everyone.

  “This is Nina Maslow’s idea, isn’t it?”

  Then, when no one was paying attention, Rockland turned the property into a sprawling upscale country club complete with hotel and golf course, along with a family water park, tennis courts, riding stables, and a skeet-shooting range.

  “We going to Shadow Ranch?”

  “We are,” said Gloria. “But I’ll wager you knew that as soon as we left town.”

  Rockland had hosted several of Thumps’s photo shows, had even bought a couple of the larger landscapes.

  Gloria turned off the main road and began winding her way up to the resort. “When you’re finished, come out front and I’ll take you home.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Hear they have a fancy women’s store in the hotel.” Gloria stopped the car in front of the double glass doors and winked at him. “Promised me dad I’d try to find a tiara and a pair of glass slippers.”

  THE MAÎTRE D’ perched at the entrance to the dining room was a large man, bald, with a full beard and round glasses that made him look like a barn owl.

  “Ah, Mr. DreadfulWater. There you are.”

  Thumps gave a quick nod. “Here I am.”

  The man tucked a leather-bound menu under one arm, glided past the breakfast buffet, and wound his way between the tables.

  Nina Maslow was nowhere to be seen.

  “Thumps!”<
br />
  Calder Banks was sitting at a corner booth by the window. He stood in one fluid motion and tossed his napkin carelessly on the table as though it were a prop in a scene. The man was dressed in chocolate slacks, a vanilla shirt, and a caramel jacket. At a distance, he looked like an ice cream bar on a stick.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Your dollar.”

  Calder’s laugh sounded like a shotgun going off in a closet. “My variation on the business card scene in American Psycho.”

  “Sure.”

  “Christian Bale? Reese Witherspoon?”

  Thumps had had the breakfast buffet at Shadow Ranch before. The bacon and sausages were okay provided you got to them before the heat turned them into jerky, but the eggs were always a disappointment.

  “Order off the menu,” said Banks, reading Thumps’s mind. “That way everything is fresh.” Calder put a thin folder on the table and slid it to Thumps. “I think you’ll want to see this.”

  Thumps recognized the name on the folder. It was his.

  Inside the folder was a four-page document, an outline of his life in bullet points. Childhood, high school records, military service, university, his career as a cop. The last page was a summary of the Obsidian Murders.

  “Nina does really good background work,” said Calder. “She’s one of the best in the business.”

  So Maslow knew about that case, knew about Anna Tripp and her daughter, Callie, knew how badly he had failed them.

  “Nina says you turned us down,” said Calder.

  Thumps closed the folder and opened the breakfast menu.

  “And you’re probably thinking I invited you here to try to change your mind.”

  The à la carte offerings weren’t extensive, and by the time you added in a cup of coffee and juice, the cost of ham and eggs was the same as the full buffet with its fruit-and-cheese plate and dessert bar.

  “Because that’s what I would think.”

  The smart money was on the buffet. Quantity, economy, all you can eat. Who could argue with that? It was one of the narratives that had made America great.

  And fat.

  “But it’s not.” Calder paused for effect. “I’ll be honest with you.”

  Thumps had never cared for the phrase, had always assumed that anyone who felt compelled to tell you he was being honest wasn’t.

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  In the morning light, Thumps could see why Banks was the face of Malice Aforethought. Rugged good looks, brilliant white teeth arranged in his mouth like a string of cocktail marshmallows, skin that glowed as though he had been waxed and buffed to a high shine. Everything about the man was crisp and clean and under warranty as though someone had just broken the seal and lifted him out of the carton.

  “What do you know about show business?”

  Thumps couldn’t resist.

  “‘There’s no business like show business.’”

  Calder’s shotgun laugh rattled through the room. “Annie Get Your Gun. 1946. Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton. Betty Hutton and Howard Keel starred in the film version.”

  Thumps sipped his coffee. It was his own fault. Now the song was playing in his head.

  “What you need to know about show business is that the shelf life of an actor is shorter than warm yogurt. You start off as a nobody and wind up as a nobody. You know the old joke?”

  Thumps was trying to think of the missing word from the second verse.

  “Who’s Calder Banks? Get me Calder Banks. Get me someone like Calder Banks. Who’s Calder Banks?”

  Smile. Thumps remembered. That’s what show-business people do.

  “We’re not going to solve the case. Hell, we never solve cases. We rehash the forensic evidence. We point fingers. We embarrass people. We back the visuals with mood music.” Calder leaned back. “You see what I’m saying?”

  Thumps wasn’t sure if Calder knew what he was saying.

  Calder’s face softened. “Three years ago I had the lead in a new cop drama. The Streets of San Francisco.”

  Thumps remembered an old show by the same name. It had starred Karl Malden as a veteran cop with Michael Douglas as his young sidekick.

  “A remake of the 1970s original,” said Calder. “The new show was going to be a mega-hit.”

  The food arrived. The sausage was dry. The eggs were hard. Thumps poked them with his fork and gave up.

  “Then the show was cancelled.” Calder slowly buttered his toast. “That had been my big chance.”

  Thumps wanted to tell Banks to forget about eggs and stick with the fruit and the yogurt.

  “Now I’m doing reality shows and hoping that I’ll get another shot.”

  “I hear Malice Aforethought is a big hit.”

  “Do you know how many reality shows are out there?”

  Thumps wondered if there was a situation in which he and Banks might be friends.

  “Like blackheads on a teenager’s face.”

  Probably not.

  “What’d you think of Sydney Pearl?”

  “Different.”

  “The gun,” said Calder. “Right? You know Tom Selleck gave it to her? And that unopened bottle of Lagavulin 21? Goes for just under five hundred dollars. Story there, too. And ask her about the Element. Everything Pearl has is a story.”

  Thumps could feel his energy flagging. He should probably check his blood sugars.

  Calder gestured at the eggs. “How’s your food?”

  “Sad.”

  “I understand you’re a photographer.” Calder signed the bill and waved the server over. “Landscape mostly?”

  Thumps nodded.

  “Do you know the gallery? Fire and Ice? They specialized in landscape, nature, and environmental photography.”

  Thumps knew the gallery well. Each time he had gone to San Francisco for a law enforcement conference, he would stop in to see the current exhibition. Kilian Schönberger, Max Rive, Atif Saeed, William Lau, V. Tony Hauser.

  “Owners are friends of mine. Peter and Ileus Kanakis. Use my name. They’re always looking for new talent.” Calder stood up and straightened his jacket. “Have you stopped to ask yourself why Nina wants you to investigate the Samuels case? Because that lady doesn’t do anything without a reason.” Calder’s glow darkened. “Watch your back. For some reason, you appear to be on her agenda.”

  Thumps sat at the table and enjoyed the sunlight coming in through the side window. He considered wandering over to the buffet to see what was available at the dessert bar. He wasn’t going to get anything. It was more curiosity.

  Fire and Ice Gallery.

  He had to admit that Calder had gotten his attention. On Maslow’s agenda? What was that supposed to mean? Banks had made it sound like a threat.

  Curious.

  It would have taken time and effort for Maslow to put together the background check, and Thumps could come up with only one reason why she would have gone to the effort.

  Trudy Samuels.

  Somehow or other, Maslow thought he was connected to that case. He didn’t see how, but it might be prudent to read the police report on Samuels’s death and review the forensics. Just for the hell of it. See if anything jumped out at him. If nothing else, it would give him something to do while he waited for Claire to call, while he waited for his cat to come home.

  How much trouble could it be?

  Thirteen

  Gloria Baker-Doyle was waiting by the Audi. Thumps wondered if she had had a chance to do any shopping.

  “Where to now, m’lord?”

  “Home, I guess,” he said.

  Gloria held up a black lump of plastic. “Care to drive?”

  Thumps could see where Gloria Baker-Doyle could be an easy person to like.

  “I would.”

  “There was an old truck parked at your place.”

  “A loaner,” said Thumps. “My car is in worse shape.”

  “Brilliant,” said Gloria.

  It took Thump
s several minutes to adjust the seat and the mirrors and to figure out the Audi’s controls.

  “The ignition is electronic,” said Gloria. “All you do is push this button. And you don’t actually shift.”

  “I don’t?”

  “It’s electronic as well.”

  Thumps touched a small button on the dash and immediately felt cool air rise out of the seat beneath him.

  “The seats are heated,” said Gloria. “And they’re air conditioned as well.”

  “Does it drive itself?”

  “Not quite,” said Gloria, “but it does have adaptive cruise control and blind-spot monitoring.”

  The Volvo had a manual gearbox, air conditioning, and a radio, but it was still a car. So far as Thumps could tell, the Audi was a computer.

  “Do I have to log in?”

  “Brilliant,” said Gloria.

  Thumps took the long way back to Chinook, along the river with its rock outcroppings and hairpin turns. The car didn’t flinch, stayed flat and level as it hugged the road and bolted down the straight sections.

  “You drive like me dad.”

  Thumps wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or a criticism, and he didn’t ask.

  “You find your tiara?”

  Gloria grinned. “Naw. But I did find a blinding nose ring.”

  Thumps slowed as they hit the city limits and took his time rolling through the downtown in case he saw someone he knew. He circled the block several times before he pulled up in front of the old Land Titles building.

  Gloria looked at the two-storey red brick. “What’s here?”

  “My doctor’s office,” said Thumps. “And the county morgue.”

  “One stop shopping, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” said Thumps. “Brilliant.”

  The Land Titles building was one of a handful of historic buildings in Chinook. It had been built in 1893 and had been the site of land transactions, lawsuits, fist fights, and gun battles. In 1902, ranchers and farmers had come to blows over a water dispute and blazed away at each other until both sides ran out of ammunition.

  “You want me to wait?” Gloria played with a spike of hair.

  “For what?”

  “In case you don’t come out.”

  In 1910, the old Land Titles building was replaced by a new Land Titles building, and the two-storey, red brick edifice with its arched windows, checkerboard banding, and granite sills was sold at public auction. By the time Beth Mooney and Ora Mae Foreman bought the building, it had been a brothel, a billiard parlour, a restaurant, a lawyer’s office, and a men’s club.