Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  The plates on the tables looked split between two-thirds Quan’s Chinese menu and one-third roadhouse fare. McCloskey was relieved to see that and thought Quan should be proud.

  The older folks started making their way to the door around ten. The stragglers hung on until shortly after eleven. McCloskey wasn’t rushing anyone out the door. He continued working the room.

  Vera Maude was thinking how much she liked seeing him in a tux. It suited him.

  “Well, Jack, I think it was a success. You might have to consider doing this full-time.” She was only half joking.

  He had a big, dumb grin on his face. “Thanks, Maudie. Did I tell you how nice you look tonight?”

  “No. But I know you’ve had other things on your mind. I bet you’re exhausted.”

  “Actually I’m a little wound up. I sure could use a drink.”

  “I bet you know a place,” she said, smiling.

  “You know, I should let you in on a little secret: this place isn’t all that dry.”

  “I’m shocked, Jack McCloskey, shocked!” she said. “So, where do you keep it? And why didn’t you think you’d get raided tonight?”

  “Actually, I thought I would. I’m a little disappointed, it would have been a great addition to the show.”

  “I don’t think Pearl would have liked that too much.”

  “No, no, she wouldn’t have.” He paused. “So are you two okay?”

  She put her serious face on, looked past him at nothing in particular, let him dangle for a moment, and then finally said, “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Pearl’s all right, you know.”

  “I know, now. Let’s get back to that drink. Where’re you hiding it?”

  “Where I hide everything: in plain sight.”

  She looked around the room. “So am I supposed to guess? Is that how I get my drink?”

  “So long as you guess correctly.”

  She looked at one of the vases holding the hyacinths. “Are the flowers soaking in it?”

  “They’d be wilted over by now.”

  She got up from her chair. “Plain sight, eh?” She walked about the room, stopping at the aquarium. It was as many gallons as four feet could hold, on a heavy wrought iron stand, lit from the top, and besides the fish pulled from the lake, it contained the usual props: some pretty rocks, a pirate’s treasure chest, a cannon barrel, and a bottle wedged in the gravel. With her finger pressed against the glass, she said, “Jack …?”

  “You like brandy?” McCloskey stood up, removed his jacket, and rolled up his sleeve while making his way over to the tank. “I’m a smuggler, Maudie, remember?” He reached in …

  “Ooh, Jack, do they bite?”

  … and pulled out the bottle.

  “Let’s have a splash.” He had a waiter’s corkscrew ready in his pocket. They sat down and he poured.

  “Let’s have a toast,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Vera Maude. “Let’s.”

  — Chapter 36 —

  AMONG THE BULRUSHES

  “Campbell?”

  It was late. McCloskey had been in a dead sleep. He stumbled out of bed and into the front room, smacking his shoulder on the doorframe. He had no idea how many times the phone had rang before he finally picked it up.

  “On my way.”

  He set down the earpiece, hustled back to his bedroom, and pulled on the clothes he had tossed across the chair only a couple of hours before.

  The roadster was parked right outside the terrace. He climbed in, shot down Dougall, and turned left onto the Drive, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

  The streetlights became fewer and farther between once he passed the ferry terminal and the salt mine. There were a few porch lights throwing their glow around like loose change as he passed through Sandwich, and then darkness again as he came out the other end. It was a starless night and he could smell the rain in the breeze coming from the north.

  Hanging lanterns — a new touch — criss-crossing the parking lots at Chappell’s, Oriental House, and the Westwood gradually brought things back into perspective. He hung a sharp right at Prospect Avenue and came to an abrupt halt a couple yards away from Janisse’s ambulance. It looked like the driver didn’t want to chance getting stuck in the mire. When McCloskey got out of the roadster he could see flashlight beams poking around the tall grass near the shore. A young couple were standing nearby, the guy holding his gal close. She was trembling and boo-hooing her way up to a full bawl while he looked a bit wobbly, probably drunk. It was difficult to say who was holding up whom. A uniform was positioned between them and the owners of the flashlight beams, hands on his hips. He turned when he heard McCloskey approach and seemed to think he could hold him back, but that was before McCloskey grabbed the man’s wrist and used it to push him away.

  “Hey, mister, you can’t —”

  “And yet I do,” said McCloskey. He was working on what a clever newsboy once referred to as his own “critical lingo.”

  The keepers of the flashlight beams heard the tangle and immediately pivoted their shine in the direction of the bootlegger.

  “Watch your step.” Campbell’s tone was somber.

  Laforet had been crouching around the perimeter of the body. He straightened up and nodded at McCloskey.

  The bootlegger took his cue and knelt down. It looked like Quan’s clothes. There was some mud smeareed here and there on the hands and face. Then he noticed the fresh scar over the brow.

  “Yeah,” said McCloskey, “that’s Quan.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Campbell. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “This evening, at the club.”

  “Did he say or do anything that struck you at the time as unusual? What was his mood like?”

  “He seemed agitated,” said McCloskey. “I asked him if everything was all right … he just put it down to overwork. He had picked up some hours at Hong’s laundry. Who found him?”

  “Those two,” said Campbell. “My guess is they were looking for a soft spot in the tall grass. When they came across the body they ran back into the Westwood and begged for the manager to call the constabulary. Fitzgerald arrived about ten minutes later.”

  “Laforet? Your thoughts?”

  The doctor was still getting used to these allowances being made to McCloskey. He went along with it for Campbell and the victim’s sake. “Well, as you can tell by the impression in the weeds, we turned him over. What you are missing is the blow to the back of the head. If he didn’t die from the blow, he could have also drowned, even in this shallow water. I didn’t see any bullet wounds or possible points of entry in his clothing.”

  “And no one in the roadhouse heard anything unusual,” said Campbell, back to thinking out loud. Though it’s possible he was moved to this location.”

  “You know that no one in the Westwood is going to say anything, right?” said McCloskey.

  “Because none of them are supposed to be there,” said Campbell. “Was Quan in any kind of trouble?”

  “We were doing everything we could; you can ask Hong, Pearl … anyone at the club.”

  Fitzgerald approached. “Detective, will you be needing these two for anything else?”

  “No,” said Campbell. “Show them home.”

  “Sir?”

  “Thank you.”

  Demoted to chaperone, Fitzgerald sulked away with the lately besotted, now traumatized, couple. In the morning they would have a unique, very unexpected reason for wishing never to call on each other again.

  When the constable was out of earshot, the detective moved in on McCloskey. “Jack, tell me, did you ever see Morrison talking to Quan?”

  Laforet looked away but his ears were perked.

  McCloskey’s eyes went wide. “No, why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “You’re a detective; you’re never just wondering,” said McCloskey. “Have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Seen Morrison talking to
Quan.”

  Campbell wished he could see the river over the bulrushes. The river grounded him. “No,” he said.

  “That bothers you.”

  Laforet wished he could step in.

  “You missed something,” continued McCloskey, “and that bothers you.”

  “Gentlemen,” the doctor said, growing impatient, “there are more important matters to which we should attend.”

  The detective and the bootlegger collected themselves as best they could while the lines were blurring.

  “I’ll contact you later tomorrow,” said Campbell, “when Laforet has something for us.”

  “This has to be right now,” said McCloskey.

  Laforet looked at Campbell.

  “Jack,” said Campbell, “this has to wait.”

  “No, it can’t wait — I’m not going to take a number and wait.”

  Campbell turned again to Laforet, and Laforet nodded.

  “All right, Jack. Help with the stretcher.”

  “Forget the stretcher.” McCloskey steadied his footing and then bent down, taking Quan’s body in his arms. He carried him through the mud to the ambulance and was once more reminded of all the bodies he had picked up off battlefields in France, including his injured brother.

  “Should someone be contacting the next of kin?” asked Laforet.

  “That would be his father in Vancouver,” said McCloskey. “I have no idea how we would go about getting hold of him.”

  “Letters with a return address maybe,” said Campbell. “I could look into that. Where did he room?”

  “Over Allies, the diner near the Walkerville Theatre.”

  “Okay. And don’t share this with anyone, McCloskey.” Campbell was glad there was no Sunday edition of the Star. He could just imagine the kind of picture they would want to paint of the scene. Better to get as many facts together before they had a chance to go to press with anything.

  “Gotcha.”

  ACT FIVE

  — Chapter 37 —

  AUTOPSY

  Sunday, August 19

  The detective pushed open one of the swinging doors with his elbow and entered the lab, pausing to set his homburg down in the only space on the doctor’s desk not currently occupied by papers, books, or clipboards: the explanations, illustrations, and measures of things.

  Laforet was at the other end of the room, the white tile cool and antiseptic, standing over a sink and scrubbing his hands up to his elbows. He didn’t turn to look — he recognized Campbell’s footsteps. The detective was, as usual, right on time.

  Light stands circled the table where Quan Lee was laid out. Campbell circled the table once and then a second time, giving the body a cursory examination. All these weeks and months on the job, and Campbell still struggled to find words other than “remains” or “corpse,” which to him seemed somehow disrespectful, not to mention a little unsavoury. He figured as long as they had a name he would use it. If they had not yet been identified, then Jane or John Doe would suffice. The best he could do for now was “body,” but in the back of his mind he knew he might eventually come around to using more unsavoury language.

  How many bodies would it take? Mortal coil … vessel …

  Laforet had just finished stitching the torso back together: a neat, long Y done with skills that would be the envy of any seamstress or tailor in the city.

  “Give me the details.”

  “He didn’t drown.” Laforet reached for a towel and moved to the other side of the table, opposite Campbell. “There was no water in his lungs.”

  “How did he die?”

  “It was an overdose of morphine.”

  Campbell looked up. “Impossible.”

  “Believe me, I know a morphine overdose when I see one. The organs, the blood, the needle marks … they tell the whole story. He stopped breathing before he hit the water.”

  Campbell pulled his glass from his pocket and unfolded it from its leather sleeve. “Any signs of struggle?” he asked, squinting through the lens at one of Quan’s hands.

  “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s possible violence wasn’t necessary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was also alcohol in his blood — a significant amount. Right now I’m guessing it was a homemade rice wine.”

  “They got him drunk first.” Campbell started circling the table again.

  “You’re having trouble adding this all up.”

  “If someone merely wanted Quan dead, there could have been easier ways to go about it. And why drop his body in the bulrushes like that? Why not just throw him in the river?”

  The two mulled that over for a moment before Campbell spoke.

  “There was a panic.”

  “Death by misadventure?”

  “Died somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “Now dead somewhere he never was,” said Laforet. “Done by an amateur?”

  “Supposedly.”

  “I never liked that word.”

  “Or someone who likes to think they know how to confuse a police detective.” Campbell stopped circling the table. “So much of what we like to think … so much comes from luck, coincidence, and misadventure.”

  “Do you think he acted alone?”

  “No,” said Campbell, “no I don’t. The disposal of the body, and …”

  “And what?”

  “Not only not acting alone, but also answering to someone. Amateurs, as you suggested, who made a mess of things.” Campbell studied Quan’s face again, but it held no clues. It held a kind of disturbance. “Who do I tell first?”

  “What do you mean?” said Laforet. “Half the city must know by now.”

  “McCloskey won’t have talked.”

  “Are you purposely forgetting Constable Fitzgerald, the ambulance driver, the young couple, and the staff of the Westwood?”

  “Not to mention the Westwood’s patrons,” said Campbell, his hands digging into his trouser pockets.

  “You said they wouldn’t talk for fear of exposing themselves.”

  “People love to talk, blather on about things they really know nothing about; it’s an addiction for some, an escape. Quan’s landlord must be phoning around looking for him. He’s probably already contacted Woo Hong, Li-Ling’s father. And if he has, then Woo has most likely contacted his brother.”

  “Start with the landlord,” said Laforet, “and then go to Woo Hong’s — and take McCloskey with you. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  “Thanks.” Campbell turned to leave but stopped. “One more thing: Let’s keep this morphine stuff between us for now.”

  “That might be wise.”

  — Chapter 38 —

  HOW LONG YOU BEEN REHEARSING THAT LINE?

  “So is he in the habit of visiting this place on Sunday nights?”

  McCloskey was leaning across the counter that ran almost the length of the Cadillac Café, quizzing Ping about the potential whereabouts of a certain detective on the Windsor force. His elbows were getting a workout.

  “A smuggler looking for a cop who doesn’t want to be found. Now there’s a twist.” The restaurateur thought this very amusing. It had been a long and uneventful day.

  “No joke.”

  Word of Quan’s death obviously hadn’t reached every corner of the city quite yet. It was a good thing, for some, that the Star didn’t publish on the Lord’s Day. Ping looked around; there was no one in the joint except for the two of them and the cook, who was distractedly reading a foreign paper that had been wrapped around a stack of bamboo steamers.

  “All right, Jack. On nights like this the one we are talking about drinks at Gretchen’s Lunch.”

  “Isn’t that the one …?”

  “South side, after Montreuil, closer to Albert.”

  “You think he’ll be there now?”

  “Want me to give them a call?”

  “And say what?” said McCloskey. “I’m not advertising, remember?”

  Pin
g shrugged. “It’s your show.”

  “Okay, wait … ask them, ‘Have any rye left, or are you letting your fat friend with the badge drink you dry?’ Can you do something like that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hold on — what’s your connection with Gretchen?”

  Ping smiled. “There is no Gretchen, Jack. It’s my cousin Kiu’s. He barters his rice wine — good stuff. That’s the connection.” Ping picked up the phone and got the operator’s attention.

  Click, click, click.

  He started speaking in his native tongue. McCloskey wasn’t sure why he was listening so intently. Ping nodded a few times at the voice on the other end of the line and then hung the earpiece.

  “He’s there.”

  “Thanks, I owe you one.”

  “Yeah, yeah, go.”

  McCloskey took the Drive as fast as he could without attracting the worst kind of attention. He parked on the opposite side of the street, near one of the gates at Ford. He got out of his vehicle and looked around for Morrison’s. There had been a light but steady rain in the afternoon and the combination of heavy humidity and greasy pavement worked to hold the rainbow-streaked puddles in place.

  He spotted Morrison’s wheels on the same side of the street as the diner and took up a position in the doorway of a grocer on the corner. The entire front of the shop including the recessed entrance was glass, so he had a good view while remaining in distorted shadows.

  He didn’t have to wait too long. He saw Morrison waddling away from the diner and stepped back further but left the detective’s car in clear sight. As soon as Morrison reached for the driver’s door, McCloskey stepped out of the doorway and onto the sidewalk.

  “Leaving already, detective? The night’s only beginning.”

  Morrison flinched, looked towards the voice. “McCloskey?”