A Matter of Malice

by Thomas King

  Still, here was the house, the only one on the street with the proper colour combination, so perhaps there was some truth to the cliché.

  The lights were on and the curtains were open, so Thumps could see in. He walked the far side of the street, just a guy out for an evening stroll. Nothing to worry about. Up the street he went and then back down. By the third circuit, he had run out of reasons why he was walking the same block over and over. He didn’t think anyone would ask, but there was the chance that someone would feel uncomfortable with a tall Indian roaming the neighbourhood.

  Thumps could see into the house itself, could see the kids moving in the living room with the television, could catch glimpses of the mother and father.

  But no cat.

  Maybe it was the wrong block or the wrong house. Thumps turned around at the top of the street, crossed over so that he was closer to the windows. He slowed down this time, came to a stop, actually bent down, pretending to tie his shoe.

  Pathetic.

  And then there she was. Freeway. As though by magic. Sitting on the back of the sofa, looking out into the night. Thumps was sure she could see him, but if she did, the cat gave no sign of recognition. She didn’t press against the glass or paw at the window. Thumps wanted to wave, to mouth her name, to pat his thigh to bring her to him.

  Instead, he stayed in his crouch, tying his shoe over and over again until one of the children lifted Freeway high in the air and ran off with her, while another set of hands pulled the curtains closed.

  Later that night, when he was sure everyone was asleep, he walked the four blocks back to the blue house with the white trim and left the bag of cat food on the porch, along with Freeway’s favourite toy.

  Then he walked home in the dark by himself and began making the phone calls.

  Twenty-Eight

  Thumps was up bright and early the next morning. It was time, he told himself, as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, to be decisive. It was time to make decisions.

  The decision to give up Freeway had been difficult, but the cat herself had taken the first step. Thumps had simply agreed. His life wasn’t one that easily included pets. He wasn’t home all that much, and his two-month absence, when he was in Seattle with Claire, had finally convinced the cat to look elsewhere for companionship. A family with children had, at first glance, seemed a wrong decision for an anti-social cat, but in fact, as it turned out, Freeway hadn’t been anti-social at all.

  She had simply been lonely.

  Now it was time to make decisions about the other unresolved issues in his life, and first up on the to-do list he had created the night before was Nina Maslow.

  The Tucker hotel came with two restaurants. The Mother Lode, which catered to elegant and expensive dining, and the Quick Claim, which handled breakfast, lunch, and late-night coffee. Sydney Pearl was sitting in a booth at the back of the Claim. On any other day, he might have been surprised to run into her like this, but this was where he had asked her to meet him, and here she was.

  What Thumps had not expected were the other two people at the table. Calder Banks and Gloria Baker-Doyle.

  What the hell. Had Pearl sent out a general invitation? He looked around just in case Adele Samuels, her son, Ethan, and Duke Hockney were lurking in the shadows.

  “Mr. DreadfulWater.”

  “Ms. Pearl.”

  “I’m guessing you wanted to meet with me privately.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “Problem is,” said Pearl, “there’s not much about TV that’s private. I asked Calder and Gloria to attend in case they can answer questions I can’t.”

  “You’ll find us quite helpful,” said Gloria.

  “I must admit,” said Pearl, “I was intrigued by your phone message.”

  Thumps slid into the booth next to Gloria.

  “Meet me for breakfast,” Pearl intoned in a low, deep voice. “I’ve solved Nina’s murder.”

  Thumps was sure he didn’t sound like that. “I didn’t say I had solved her murder.”

  Pearl wagged a finger at him. “That was the intimation.”

  “I said that I had some ideas as to what happened to Nina Maslow.”

  “And Trudy Samuels?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And you expect me to pay you for ideas and maybes?”

  “I do.”

  “Quite exciting,” said Gloria. “May I be your side stick?”

  “Kick,” said Calder. “Sidekick.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “I’m listening,” said Pearl.

  “Let’s play twenty questions,” said Thumps.

  Pearl grinned. “The 1940s radio show or the 1950s television show?”

  Calder frowned. “There was a television show called Twenty Questions?”

  “A Christmas Carol,” said Gloria. “They play a version of twenty questions called ‘Yes and No’ in the Dickens story.”

  “First question,” said Thumps. “How many shows has Malice Aforethought completed?”

  “Not counting the Samuels episode,” said Pearl, “we’ve done forty-three.”

  Thumps wrote the number on the paper placemat. “You said that Maslow actually was able to solve three of these?”

  “Two,” said Pearl. “The fourth episode and the twenty-third.”

  Thumps did a fast calculation. “So if we were evaluating the show in terms of its success rate in solving cases, the ratio would be less than 5 percent.”

  “Actually,” said Gloria, “it would be right at 4.65 percent.”

  Thumps checked his figures.

  “Always liked math,” said Gloria.

  Pearl held up her hands in surrender. “Thank heavens we’re not in the business of solving cases.”

  “But you are,” said Thumps. “That’s the promise of the show.”

  Calder brightened. “You mean, where I say, ‘Welcome to Malice Aforethought, where we investigate the most heinous of unsolved crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice,’ at the start of each show?”

  “You ever been to a carnival sideshow?” Pearl arranged the silverware in front of her. “Cobra Girl, Frog Baby, the Two-Headed Bear Boy? It’s all hype.”

  “But Maslow actually wanted to solve each and every case, didn’t she?”

  Pearl cocked her head to one side. “Nina could be somewhat driven.”

  “The two cases that she solved,” said Thumps, “they weren’t very strong, were they?”

  “You mean in terms of network potential? Awash in graphic sexuality and gratuitous violence?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” said Pearl. “I argued against them.”

  “But?”

  “I trusted her.”

  Calder came to life. “What has any of this to do with Nina?”

  “Trudy Samuels,” said Thumps. “How strong was Trudy Samuels?”

  Pearl rearranged the silverware. Thumps didn’t bother waiting.

  “It was weak,” he offered. “In fact, I’m guessing it was probably the weakest of all the possibilities.”

  “Your point, Mr. DreadfulWater?”

  “Nina solved the case.” Gloria could barely contain herself. “That’s it, isn’t it? Brilliant. She solved the case.”

  Thumps waited for Pearl to confirm what he already knew.

  “Very good, Mr. DreadfulWater.” Pearl’s voice was not congratulatory.

  “When?”

  “Two days, two weeks, a month. I really don’t know.”

  “And?”

  “She didn’t share the details with me,” said Pearl.

  Calder shook his head. “Nina liked surprises. We knew she had something, but she wouldn’t give us the script points until the day of the shoot. Believed it kept the interaction fresh and real.”

  “And if the show solves the case . . .”

  “Yes, Mr. DreadfulWater,” said Pearl, “that is the gold standard of reality programming.”

  “Is that what got her killed?” Gloria
looked around the table. “I mean we’re all thinking that, right? I mean, no one thinks that Nina fell off a cliff.”

  “What do you think, Mr. DreadfulWater?”

  Thumps leaned forward. “I’ll need Maslow’s files.”

  “Her files?” Calder frowned. “They were stolen. Someone broke into her room and took them. They’re gone.”

  “That’s right,” said Gloria.

  Thumps watched Pearl’s face. It didn’t change, and he hadn’t expected that it would.

  “Her files,” he said. “All of them.”

  Pearl tried to look bored. “Surely you’re not accusing me of breaking into Nina’s room and taking her files?”

  Calder slowly turned to Pearl. “No,” he said. “He thinks you have copies.”

  “Does he?”

  “He does,” said Thumps.

  “That’s an intriguing theory,” said Pearl.

  “Not a theory,” said Thumps. “The program is too important to have only one copy of the research for the shows. There’s no way Nina would allow that to happen. There has to be at least two copies of everything. If I were guessing, I’d expect that there are at least three.”

  Pearl slowly spread her hands out on the table, palms down. “Actually,” she said, “there are four. Two hard copies. One was stolen. I have one.”

  “Digital?” asked Gloria.

  “One is at the office in Los Angeles,” said Pearl. “The fourth is stored at a cyber facility in Utah.”

  “Shit,” said Banks. “Now that’s paranoid.”

  “Prudent,” said Pearl. “Stick with acting, Calder. Leave the logistics to me.”

  “You can give me yours or you can make me a copy of the files. A complete copy. Your choice.”

  “And if I say no.”

  “Deal’s off,” said Thumps. “I walk.”

  “How will you know if I’ve given you everything?”

  “I’ll know.”

  “All right,” said Pearl. “I’ll give you everything but the file on the Obsidian Murders.”

  “No.”

  “Sorry,” said Pearl, “but if I give you that file, there’s nothing to keep you from walking.”

  “How do I know you even have the file?” said Thumps. “How do I know that there’s anything in it of value? Trust cuts both ways.”

  “Let’s be clear, Mr. DreadfulWater,” said Pearl. “I don’t trust you, and you don’t trust me. But Nina trusted you, and I trusted her. You have my word on the file.”

  Thumps took a moment. “All right,” he said. “Deal.”

  Sydney Pearl pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Find out who killed Nina, Mr. DreadfulWater. Don’t let me down.”

  Thumps slid out of the booth.

  “See,” said Pearl. “We’re all friends.”

  THUMPS HAD PARKED the truck in the no-parking zone in front of the hotel. Since Duke was going to fix the one ticket, he might as well fix two. But there was no citation on the windshield. A good omen. And the day had come in warm and windless. Maybe things were looking up.

  Or maybe this was just the calm before the storm arrived, the moment before all hell broke loose.

  Twenty-Nine

  Thumps pointed the truck west, left Chinook behind, and followed the road as it rose up onto Little Horn Plateau, an area of high plains that stretched north and south along the Ironstone River. The fall sun was at his back, and it lit up the tablelands, red and yellow and dark green. Aspens, larches, lodgepole pines and firs, all brilliant and glowing under a steel-blue sky, a landscape painted in oil with a knife.

  Thumps slowed the truck when he got to Randall, just in case the speed trap was still in operation. Randall wasn’t really a town, more a turn in the road with a grocery store, a gas station, two bars, and a motel that looked like something from a Hitchcock movie.

  The patrol car was sitting in the shade of a large roadside billboard. “Executive Lots” the billboard proclaimed. “Your Piece of the Old West.” Thumps had no idea where these lots might be. There was nothing around Randall but flat land and scrub brush. Maybe the guy in the cruiser knew.

  Not that Thumps was going to stop and ask.

  Black Stag, the Samuels estate, was on the northern edge of the Little Horn Plateau. Buck Samuels had chosen the site carefully. The log mansion he had built was rumoured to resemble the hotels that the Canadian Pacific had built in the Rockies at places such as Banff and Lake Louise, and the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park, which had been built by the Great Northern Railway, though not on the same scale.

  Thumps had left a message on Adele’s phone, so he wasn’t sure that she would see him, but he figured it would be harder to turn him away if he showed up on her doorstep than if he asked permission from a distance.

  Buck had thrown up a stone wall that ran out for about ten feet on either side of a set of iron gates that had been sculpted to look like two bull elk with their antlers locked in combat. A bit melodramatic, and so far as Thumps could tell, the gates and the walls were useless. Anyone could simply step round the walls and keep going. But if you had a car, you were obliged to stop at the stainless steel intercom box and press the button.

  Thumps decided to keep it formal.

  “Thumps DreadfulWater,” he said to the box. “For Mrs. Adele Samuels.”

  Thumps waited for someone to answer. Instead, there was a sharp sound and the gates slowly swung open.

  Okay, Thumps thought to himself, that’ll work.

  The road to the house didn’t run straight. It followed the contour of the land, dipping down between rock outcroppings and riding high on the back of the ridgeline.

  Thumps had seen any number of log houses but nothing like this. The logs Buck had used were enormous. Thumps didn’t know his trees all that well, but he guessed these were old-growth western red-cedar logs chosen and cut to Buck’s specifications.

  So far as Thumps could tell, it had taken the better part of a forest to build the house.

  Adele Samuels was waiting for him when he pulled up in front of the log mansion. She was dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, as though she were on her way to the barn to toss hay around.

  “Mr. DreadfulWater.”

  The sheriff had a way of touching the brim of his hat to let folks know that he was in charge. Thumps gave it a try.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Intriguing phone message.”

  “I hoped that you would consent to see me.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It is,” said Thumps.

  “You read any of Robert Parker’s western novels?” Adele was standing at an angle, her arms folded across her chest. “Because you’re beginning to sound like Marshal Virgil Cole and Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch all rolled into one.”

  Ethan Price appeared behind his mother.

  “Morning, Mr. DreadfulWater.”

  “You’re a smart man,” said Adele, “showing up here like this. Over the phone, I would have told you to go to hell.”

  The wind was on the rise, and the light had faded. The bright colours had dulled down, and the land had lost its early-morning glow.

  “But now that you’re here,” said Adele, “you may as well come in.”

  The exterior of the house had been impressive, and the interior didn’t disappoint. It reminded Thumps of some of the pictures he had seen of European cathedrals.

  “We’ll have coffee in the great room.”

  Adele led the way into a large open space with log rafters and crossbeams that towered overhead. The light came in through the windows in broad slants, but the heavy beams and posts cut it into pieces so that parts of the room were brilliant and parts were deep shadow.

  “We can talk here.”

  The leather sofas and chairs were arranged in a U shape so that everything faced the large windows and the view west towards the Highwood and Little Belt Mountains and north to the Bears Paws.

  “It’s a monstrosity.” Adele arranged herself
on one of the sofas.

  Ethan took a chair. Thumps took a corner of the second sofa, out of the sun.

  “But that was Buck,” said Adele. “Bigger than life. And an even bigger pain in the ass.”

  “But you didn’t come here to talk about Buck Samuels,” said Ethan.

  “No,” said Thumps, “I didn’t.”

  An older woman, Mexican, if Thumps had to guess, came into the room with a tray.

  “Coffee, Mr. DreadfulWater?” said Adele. “Juanita makes the cookies herself. They’re quite good.”

  “You told my mother that you were going to look into the case.” Ethan rubbed at the palm of his hand with a thumb.

  “That’s right.”

  “Because Malice Aforethought is paying you.” There was no cruelty in Adele’s voice, but neither was there any warmth.

  “That is part of it.”

  “And the other part?”

  Thumps helped himself to a cookie and a cup of coffee from the silver pot.

  “I’m hoping you’d be willing to talk to me about Trudy.”

  “My daughter is dead.”

  Ethan didn’t flinch. But Thumps could feel the young man’s body tense.

  “Technically,” said Adele, “she was my stepdaughter. Do you have children, Mr. DreadfulWater?”

  The sun was working its way along the southern horizon, heading west, and the shadows in the great room were on the move.

  “Trudy was six when I married Buck. He needed a mother for his daughter. I needed a father for my son. It didn’t quite work out as either of us had hoped.”

  “Dead history,” said Ethan. “Nothing to be done about it.”

  “Can you imagine what it’s like to leave a child behind?”

  “You didn’t leave me behind,” said Ethan.

  “I begged Buck to let me bring my son with me.” There was no sorrow in Adele’s voice, just the sharp ring of steel hitting steel. “I suppose that was the first cut.”

  The shifting light had crept across the floor and found his boots. Thumps tried to remember if it was werewolves or vampires who couldn’t manage sunny conditions.

  “After that, we just kept cutting.”

  Ethan shifted in the chair. “I’m sure Mr. DreadfulWater didn’t come here to talk about Buck Samuels.”