by Ted Wood
“Fine.” I opened the rear door of the cruiser and the man got in, moving carefully, as if he were walking in his sleep. I shut the door and Scott drove down the main street and turned off into one of the streets of bungalows. He got out and opened the door and the man got out.
The door of the house opened and a woman came out, wearing a housecoat. “What happened?” She ran down the walk to us. “Randy, what happened?”
“Nothin',” he said irritably. “Go on inside for crissakes.”
We watched them walking up to the door, him stiff-legged, sullen, the woman bending from the waist, talking at him in an angry hiss. The door closed behind them and Scott laughed.
“Hey, that was quick thinking,” he said. “I'll have to remember that one.”
“May not work next time. But it took the big guy's mind off killing people.”
Scott laughed again. “I like the way you do business, Reid. I'd have had to end up fighting the pair of them.”
“Use the head to save the hands,” I said. “I've got a sore shoulder still. I can't afford to get into any donnybrooks.”
“Come on,” Scott said. “Let's see if there's any coffee left at the Chinaman's.”
We had coffee and patrolled the town again, checking the lockup properties this time. Then the crowd left the bar, and the place went to sleep all around us. I pumped Scott carefully all night, pacing my questions, finding out a lot more about the other men but nothing about the chief or the sergeant. I went off-duty at eight, wondering how long it would take to get close to the problems of the town.
FOUR
I wasn't used to working the night through. My practice at Murphy's Harbour had been to stay up until both bars had closed and people had gone home, then check my properties and go to bed until dawn. Occasionally I would get up around three and check out the properties again, in case anybody was watching my routine, planning to commit a break-in while I slept. I had not regularly worked through the long gray stretch from four a.m. until six for years.
I went back to the motel and had breakfast with Fred who said she was looking for a place for us to live. She told me with a laugh that Jacques from the community center had volunteered to rent us half his house. “Don't worry,” she laughed as I looked up, “I told him thanks but no thanks.”
“He's really taken with you,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “Star-struck, if I can exaggerate a little. I don't think he's ever met a professional before.”
“Nobody's ever met anybody like you before,” I said, and she reached over and squeezed my hand.
“With eyesight as bad as yours I don't know how you passed your physical. But in any case, I thought we'd be better off somewhere else. I've got a couple of leads from the manager of this place.”
I let her go looking while I hit the sack and slept until she came back at noon and told me about the house she had rented. The owner was a widow. Her husband had been killed in a mine cave-in and she had fitted out her house with a basement apartment for herself and was renting the upper level to stretch her pension.
“It's sort of fifties, I guess is the best way of putting it,” Fred explained. “Vinyl-covered kitchen furniture. The rest of the stuff looks as if it came from the Eaton's catalogue the year they got married. But what the hell, she's asking a reasonable rent.”
“I'm going to get reimbursed when this is over,” I said. “Keep the receipts.”
“Don't worry. Acting is almost all deductible. I'm an ace at bookkeeping on expenses,” Fred said. “Now finish your fish and chips and we'll move in.”
Mrs. Schuka was a motherly little Ukrainian lady. She was skeptical when she saw Sam. “I've never had a dog in the place before.”
“He's not a dog, he's a pussycat,” Fred said. “And he's trained. Nobody's going to bother us while Reid's out at night. I can promise you that.”
“Does he bark?” Mrs. Schuka asked anxiously. “I don't like noise.”
“Doesn't make a sound unless he's working,” Fred said. She bent and fondled Sam's head. “Do you Sam?” Sam whined low in his throat and thrust his head against her hand.
“Well, all right.” Mrs. Schuka smiled. “But keep him off my furniture, eh?”
“I promise,” Fred said. “He's the best-behaved dog you ever saw.”
The house was as she'd described it. But it was spotless, and with the October sun shining in, it seemed enough like home to suit me for a month or two. Fred paid the first and last month's rent. When Mrs. Schuka left us and went downstairs, Fred made coffee and we unpacked the few things we'd brought with us. Then Fred led me into the bedroom and sat on the bed. “I wonder if this thing works?” she said.
I was rested by the time I reached the police office at eleven-thirty. Fred was at home, watching the late movie with Sam beside her on the floor, and I was free to concentrate on the reason I'd been sent here. I took over from the afternoon-shift man who had come in early from patrol. He was tall and dark, in his thirties. He had a thin mustache, the kind old movie stars wore. I could tell from the way he moved that he thought he was God's gift.
He nodded to me. “George Thomas. You're Reid Bennett, right?”
“Yeah. Pleased to meet you, George.” I remembered Scott's description—the station Romeo.
“How'd you like Elliot so far?” he asked.
“Seems like any other place. Scotty showed me around last night.”
“Dudley, you mean.” He laughed. “Dudley Do-right. Goes to church every Sunday, coaches the hockey team. Wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful.”
“Seems pleasant,” I said, grinning to show I wouldn't disagree.
“That's what half the rounders in town think,” Thomas said. “He don't uphold the law the way I like to see it done.”
He was testing me, but I shrugged. I'd get more out of friends or neutral people than I would out of enemies. “Just met him last night. Seemed friendly. That's all I ask.”
Thomas shoved the message board across to me. “Nothing much on the wire,” he said. “Sundays this place is dead. Not that you noticed, I guess. I hear you're a newlywed.”
I looked him in the eye. “Yes,” I said, and whatever he had been planning to add shriveled up.
“Okay. So you know how to turn this thing to the phone, do you?” He hooked his thumb back over his shoulder at the radio.
“Wouldn't mind going over it again, please.” I grinned at him now we were back on police work. “Wouldn't want Ferris calling in and not getting me. What's he like, anyway?’
“Tough sonofabitch,” Thomas expanded. “Good cop. If anybody tries anything on with the guys, he takes them out back and shows them it was a dumb idea. We don't get much trouble anymore. Used to have lots of it.”
“Suits me,” I said.
Thomas let the subject drop and showed me how to couple the radio. When he'd completed the procedure I undid it and did it again. “Yeah, you got it.” He put on his cap, tilting it over one eye. “So, I'll find some hay to hit. You're in charge.”
He left and I locked the station and drove around town. Sunday night everything was closed, so I checked all the properties, putting the time of the inspection in my notebook. I drove by the house we'd rented. The light was still on in the living room. Fred was seeing Double Indemnity through to the end. I considered going in but decided against it. Mrs. Schuka might be the town gossip for all I knew. Tales of the honeymooners having a tryst while I was supposed to be on duty would soon filter back to Ferris, and I didn't need trouble with him. I had work to do.
As I'd done with Scott the night before, I took a run out to the gold mine. There was a watchman on the gates in a shack, listening to the only radio station that reached Elliot, rock music and commercials. I stopped in and asked him how everything was going, and he made me a cup of coffee, glad of the break. Then I drove back and rechecked my properties. It was one o'clock. I had seven hours left to fill.
The radio sounded a few minutes later. As I'd ex
pected, it was Ferris. “Who's this?” he asked when I picked up the mike.
“Bennett, sergeant. I'm on Main Street, opposite the Headframe.”
“Anything going down?”
“Quiet as a church. I've checked the properties and the mine. Everything's normal.”
“Stay out there,” he said. His voice sounded a little slurred. I wondered whether he was whiling the night away with a bottle of Canadian Club. “Police work is unpredictable.”
“Right, sarn't. I'm planning to take my lunch at three-thirty.”
“Half an hour's all you get,” he said. “Don't be goin’ in there an’ sackin’ out. You hear me?”
“Loud and clear, sergeant.”
“See you at eight,” he said, enunciating very carefully.
“I'll be there. Good night.”
He didn't answer and I hung up. I sat for a minute, wondering why he had called. Why was he even awake now? Was he with a woman? That thought niggled at me. I wondered who she might be. The only likely candidate was Marcie from the station. They were very friendly, more friendly than either of them was with anyone else. I wondered whether she was married. Finally I decided I didn't care. It was better for me that he should be somewhere else—anywhere.
A few minutes later I had another call. It was a woman.
“Come quick, he's drinking an’ he's beatin’ me up.”
“Address?”
“Sixty-one Finch,” she said, then I heard the clatter at the other end and a squeal and the line went dead. I'd already made a note of the layout of the town. Finch was about three blocks away. I drove around to Sixty-one and stopped outside. It was the house I'd brought the drunk home to the night before. The lights were on and when I got out of the car I could hear shouting. Probably the neighbors could hear it too, but they had shifts at the mine to face in a few hours. They were ignoring it.
The front door was open and I knocked loudly and called, “Police.”
A man's voice shouted “Get lost,” but I heard a woman sobbing, so I went down the hallway to the kitchen. The man I'd brought home was standing over a woman who was sitting on a kitchen chair holding her hands over her ears. She looked up at me and I saw that her face was bruised.
“Okay buddy, that's enough,” I said.
He straightened up and shouted, “Get outta my house. I didn't send for you.”
“Your wife needs a doctor,” I said. “Sit down.”
He told me where to go and whirled to open the kitchen drawer. I figured he was going for a knife, so I stepped forward and kicked him behind the left knee, hard enough to fold it for him. He fell and I rolled him onto his face and held one hand behind his back.
“That's enough,” I said. But he kept on struggling.
My left arm was weak but I managed to unsnap my handcuffs case and pull out the cuffs. I got them on his right wrist and knelt on it while I tugged his other arm free. He wrestled and almost threw me off, but he was uncoordinated and after about a minute I was able to snap the other wrist into the cuff. He swore and kicked, but he was out of action.
I stood up, rubbing my aching left shoulder. “What happened here?”
The woman sniffled and reached for a paper towel to wipe her face. “He was drinking. All day. I just told him he had to get up at six for work and he got mad, started hitting me. He kicked me as well. Look.” She pulled up her skirt as innocently as a child and showed me a bruise on the front of her thigh. She let the skirt hem drop again. “I don't have to put up with this,” she said, but she had the whine of a perennial victim.
“I'm going to charge him with assaulting you,” I said.
The man on the ground squirmed over so he could look up at her. “You say one word about me in court and you're dead,” he hissed.
She covered her face again and sobbed. I'd seen it all before but it didn't make it any easier. It was time for a little creative police work. I bent down and smiled into his face.
“You ever been in jail?” I asked him.
He frowned, startled. He'd been expecting a shot in the head, not words.
“'Course not,” he shouted.
“Those guys are tough. They're not women, they're rough sons of bitches and they hate guys who beat up on women,” I said. “Kill me and they'd respect you; bruise your old lady and they'll make you sorry you were born.”
His mouth worked but no words came out. “I don't think you'd survive,” I said. “And if you did it would be on account of letting the toughest guy in there have you for a girlfriend. Do I make myself clear?”
“Girlfriend?” The beer he'd drunk was evaporating now. “Girlfriend?” he said again, lying back down.
“Think about it,” I told him. “And think quietly.”
I touched the woman on the shoulder. “Do you have any children in the house?”
“No, there's just us.”
“Okay. Get your coat, I'll take you to the hospital.”
“Will you?” She looked up at me wonderingly. “Okay. I'll get it.” She had been pretty once, I judged. Now she was heavy and poorly dressed. Any disposable income in the house went to the bar, not the clothing store.
She came back in an old quilted jacket. I levered the man to his feet and steered him to the door.
In the streetlights I could see a couple of curtains along the street pulled sideways as neighbors watched the drama. His wife came with us, pulling the door closed, not stopping to lock. I put him in the backseat and opened the front for her. She turned and smiled up at me, as if she were Cinderella going to the ball, the shadows accentuating the bruises on her face.
I took her to the hospital first. There was a nurse in emergency and she looked up when the woman came in. “Jean,” she stood up, ignoring me. “Did that bastard hit you again?”
The woman nodded and the nurse came around the desk and hugged her. Over her shoulder she spoke to me. “This is my sister, officer. I'll take care of her.”
“Good. I just need to get a statement. Could you get her a cup of coffee and give me a couple of minutes, please?”
“Sure. You want one?”
“Thanks, black.”
The nurse left and I sat the woman down and asked her. “Now, can you tell me your name, please? And what happened.”
“Jean Wilcox. That's Randy in the car. Like he was mad last night when he came home from the Headframe. He didn't get up till late this mornin'. Didn’ eat nothin'. Just sat and watched TV an’ drank beer. An’ then when I reminded him he had to be at work in the mornin’ he hit me.”
“Does he do this all the time?”
Her eyes were full of tears. “He never used to. Not before the accident.”
“He had an accident?”
“Not him, no. The one he seen.”
I frowned. “Which accident? I've only been here a couple of days, I don't know anything about the town.”
“The accident that the guy had who used to run the hotel. Like Randy was out that night, and he came home mad. An’ he's been mad ever since then. Like drinkin’ more, beatin’ on me all the time.”
“You don't have to stay with him. Why don't you stay with your sister for a couple of days, cool him out.”
“He'd kill me,” she whispered. “You don't know him, how he's been this last couple of months.”
“I'll talk to him. You saw what happened at the house.”
“Will that stop him?” She wanted to believe me.
“It already has. You saw it.”
The nurse came back with coffee and I took mine and excused myself and went back to the car. I had some talking to do.
Randy had passed out in the backseat. He wasn't unconcious and he roused himself when I prodded him, but he wasn't making any sense, so I drove him to the station and put him in one of the cells. He sprawled on the bunk and was snoring before I could even take away his belt and bootlaces.
I stood and looked at him for a while, wondering what part he had played in the accident. I wished he was still
in control, but he wasn't. I would have to wait to question him. In the meantime there was paperwork to do.
I took an occurrence form out of the file. His wife would have to be the principal witness, but for now I charged him with obstructing the police. No sense claiming assault, he hadn't got his hands on the knife, fortunately. I sat back in the chair and flexed my fingers. I'm a lousy typist.
When I'd typed the form I went to the file cabinet that Ferris had pointed out and checked the accident occurrences, looking for the one dealing with the death of Lewicki. There was nothing unusual about it. Sgt. Ferris had investigated. Lewicki's car had been speeding down the hill outside of town. Another driver had seen it swerving towards him and had hit the shoulder on the other side. Then Lewicki's car had swerved back and continued down the hill, failing to negotiate the bend at the bottom. It had smashed into the rock face, and Lewicki, who had not been wearing his seat belt, had been thrown out and killed.
Ferris's statement included the fact that the accident had been reported by Randy Wilcox. He had called the police and Ferris had investigated along with the officer on patrol. Ferris had noticed a strong scent of liquor on Lewicki's body and had asked the doctor at the hospital to check Lewicki's blood. He had been deeply drunk. The level of alcohol in his blood had been three times the legal limit. There was an inquest, and the coroner had returned a verdict of accidental death.
I put the file away and sat and thought. Wilcox was involved. Whatever he had done had changed him. You didn't need to be Sigmund Freud to realize that he had done something serious.
There was a coffee maker in the guardroom and I made a pot, extra strong, and filled two cups. I took them back to the cells and unlocked Wilcox, slamming the door noisily so that he groaned and woke up, holding his head. “Here, drink this,” I said.
He was at the low point in his hangover, still drunk enough to be feeling queasy but with enough sense to realize the trouble he was in. He groaned again and held out his hand for the cup. I gave it to him and he sipped, then closed his eyes and shifted the cup to his other hand. “Lookit, I'm sorry, eh,” he said.
