Murder At Lake Ontario

by KATHY GARTHWAITE

  “Do you know why Margaret murdered Elsie?”

  “No. Did she?” Felton hesitated before continuing. “It’ll be Elsie’s fault for getting killed. She’s nothing but a gossipmonger.”

  Gibson urged his lips together, bearing the fury he felt at the despicable man. Felton accepted the detective’s gag for approval.

  “She spreads rumours like I smear peanut butter.” His snicker changed into a fit of whooping. He tugged out his grubby handkerchief and added to its ghastly stench. Gibson remained restrained, letting the aged fellow babble on.

  “Ten years ago, she claimed I was a paedophile. Suggested I had something to do with…” He clamped his trap shut and launched a sneaky look toward the detective.

  “With what Felton?”

  “Nothing, Gibson.” He dragged out the word into a drawl and coughed.

  “So, what happened lately that changed things?”

  “Gregory is what happened.”

  “What like father, like son?” Gibson recalled what Jackie had heard.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Tell me, Felton, where did the rape happen?” Not that it was relevant, but he was curious.

  “At the beach.” Felton’s black eyes drilled into his steely grey eyes.

  “What? At Lawsons Lane?” The answer surprised Gibson. He tried to connect the dots while Felton rambled on.

  “Who does she think she is? Accusing me of whatever. Moreover, Gregory didn’t even rape anyone. So the hell with that father and son bullshit.” He stopped and wiggled in his chair, sliding down further into its tortuous hardness. His face had turned crimson. “It’s all because the victim was a kid Elsie knew.”

  The inspector’s cell trilled. “Gibson.” He listened for a while, his mouth twitching with anticipation. “You’re sure. Blue.” He hung up.

  “Where do you fit in, Felton?” Gibson asked, trying to keep his tone detached.

  “I don’t,” he answered, struggling to bolt out of his seat, but choked instead. “What bullshit!” Felton gobbed into his bandana. The coughing ceased for a time. He mopped his mouth and cleared his throat. It sent him into a fit. He clutched at his chest.

  Gibson got up. He hollered down the corridor. “Hey, Cooper. Get us some water.” The old man continued to gag. “Stat.”

  “Here you go boss.” Cooper came around the corner a second later.

  Felton gulped down the cool liquid and collected himself. “I’ve had enough of this crap.” He licked his tobacco-stained lips.

  “A few more questions, if you don’t mind,” Gibson said. He stared at the drained glass. Well water. Felton’s house next to the beach access. The tumultuous thoughts that had trundled through his mind and nagged suddenly came together—to just one outcome that made sense. “Should we search for Katie’s body at your place?” The pit-bull snarled at him.

  “What? No,” Felton shouted.

  “In the pump house?” Gibson bared his teeth.

  Felton’s unsavoury pallor waned further. He spat on the floor.

  Gibson stuck his head out the door and yelled, “Cooper.”

  “What’s going on?” Eckhart looked up at the screeching and bustled down the hallway from her vigilance.

  “They found some blue shorts in the pumphouse,” Gibson said as he stepped out into the corridor.

  “So?” Eckhart said.

  “A child’s size. Dilapidated.” He thought of the file and the description of blue shorts the young girl had worn. “It’s a long shot but what if Katie didn’t drown?”

  “What? You’re kidding. Margaret?”

  “No. Felton. Everything seems to be linked to that beach.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. But a DNA test will tell us if the shorts are Katie’s.”

  “Why would Felton keep them? Some kind of souvenir?”

  “That’s right. He has a history of sexual misconduct. Remember,” Gibson replied.

  Eckhart nodded.

  “Yes, sir.” The constable sprinted toward them and skidded to an abrupt standstill in front of Gibson.

  “Call your guys at the house. Tell them to search further in the pump house.”

  Cooper inclined his head in query.

  “With shovels,” Gibson said.

  “Sir.”

  “They’ll be looking for bones. Old bones. Of an adolescent.”

  “Whoa. Right away,” Cooper replied. He flipped a salute and was about to charge off when a commotion snared his attention. Felton had scraped his chair along the floor and lunged at Gibson, slamming him into the metal doorframe.

  “Let me out of here. You, asshole,” he shouted.

  “Get this man locked up first,” Gibson said. He seized the old man gruffly by the wrist and shoved him over to the DC. As Cooper dragged him down the corridor to the cells at the rear of the station, Felton howled, wailed and cursed.

  “You can’t do this to me. She stumbled and struck her head. It wasn’t my fault...” Felton bit down on his lip.

  Gibson ran after him.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. I did nothing,” he whined. His face glistened in the muddy light. His lips were chapped and raw, a dribble of blood stuck on his sharp chin.

  “You did nothing all right. Not a thing to save Katie. You make…”

  Cooper thrust Felton into a four-walled white box. The gate clanged shut, and with a flourish of the key the detainee was secured. He took a backward glance and snorted. Felton remained huddled on the concrete, coughing and gasping for breath.

  “I’m going to die in here,” he whimpered. His body shivered in the midst of the heatwave.

  “Die, you bastard,” Cooper mumbled behind his hand. He kicked at the floor as he left and headed to the house at the end of Lawsons Lane.

  Gibson shook himself off and proceeded to the front desk.

  “Get a doctor in there for Felton. We have to do it right. The man needs some medical attention,” he said.

  “You bet,” the dispatcher replied and picked up the phone.

  * * *

  Eckhart leaned on the counter, already starting on the mounds of reports that needed to be done. She looked up when Gibson approached.

  “Margaret won’t say a word,” she said.

  “Felton made up for it.” His cell buzzed. “Okay. Yes.” He hung up.

  “Keep me in suspense,” Eckhart said.

  “They found bones.”

  “That quick?”

  “Felton didn’t stash them deep. The forensic anthropologist is on her way. We’ll find out in a few hours.”

  “Oh, my god.” She held her palm to her mouth. “Is it Katie?”

  “Not certain if the bones are even human at this point,” he replied. “My flight is still hours away. Should we go for a beer?”

  “Sure.” She hitched. “Gibson.”

  He looked at Eckhart.

  “I’ll drive you to the airport. No problem.”

  “Okay. Thanks. That would be really nice.”

  They bumped fists. The walk to the pub was stifling, but they didn’t notice. They relaxed in silence, waiting for the call. After an hour, his cell chirped.

  “Gibson.” He nodded several times before hanging up, a stern expression on his face.

  “They discovered a gingham blouse in the potting shed. It was rumpled and bloodstained.”

  “Margaret’s blouse?”

  “Yeah,” Gibson answered.

  “And Elsie’s blood?”

  “Presumably.”

  Eckhart clapped her hands. They had a bite to eat before the next call came.

  “Gibson.” He listened attentively before hanging up.

  “The bones are human from a young girl about ten.”

  “Oh, shit,” Eckhart exclaimed.

  “They’re collecting the bones now. Frenchy is there too. They’ll take them to the lab. But it’ll take some time before they can identify them as Katie�
�s,” Gibson said.

  “I know.” Eckhart closed her eyes and looked in her heart. “If they are, I’ll have to notify the Underwoods. Won’t I?”

  “Yes, no getting around that,” he answered. Gibson didn’t envy her that task. “Regardless. You have two murderers. Two cases.”

  Eckhart buried her face with her hands.

  “You’ll be okay,” he reached over and touched her arm. “You have excellent people working for you.”

  “I do.”

  They finished up and drifted back to the station. Brown-shoes was seated on the bench that Gibson had deserted hours before. His briefcase lay flopped at his feet on the dirty, cracked linoleum. He looked up at the swish of the door.

  “Inspector.”

  “Yes.” Gibson towered over the shrivelling figure.

  “May I have a word with you?” Brown-shoes asked as he grappled to rise.

  “You are?” Although Gibson knew who the lawyer was.

  “Philip Smith. Margaret wishes to make a statement.”

  “Okay.” Gibson glanced at Eckhart. He cloaked his mouth to disguise the grin.

  They followed Philip as he shuffled down the corridor to an interview room where his client had been cooling her heels. Margaret’s Brillo hair was greyer and flatter now. She fidgeted in her chair, her ample thighs sagging over the narrow plastic seat and her bare ankles swollen into knobs of fat. Philip sat next to her, his eyebrows looked like a fuzzy caterpillar stuck on his forehead. Eckhart took a seat by the door and stayed quiet. Gibson sat down and slapped the recorder on.

  “Did you kill Elsie?”

  Margaret clawed at the mole on her beak and worked her mouth, the trace of spittle at the corners growing larger.

  “Go ahead, Margaret,” Philip said and brushed her scaly hand.

  “It was an accident,” she replied. Her pudgy fingers gripped the rim of the table.

  Gibson waited, his smoky eyes turning to steel.

  “It was the final straw.” Margaret sat up straight, indignant at being quizzed about her actions. “She attacked us. Well, Felton for years.” She stopped and found her voice again. “First it was about Katie. Then Gregory was arrested. Elsie wouldn’t shut up.”

  Her eyes burned holes into the wood surface of the table.

  Philip altered his position. His neck wobbled.

  “I was in the kitchen getting a beer for Felton at the fireworks. I saw Elsie walking to the beach access so I thought I would finally confront her. It needed doing. I took our pathway down to the beach. I asked her to stop gossiping about us. To leave us alone. Just that morning she had been going on about my family. She wouldn’t listen to me. She spun away and laughed. I seized her arm. I was only going to talk to her,” Margaret rambled endlessly. “She lashed out at me. She slipped.”

  Gibson stared.

  “It was an accident. Will you help me?” Margaret pleaded. Her face had gone beet red with the exertion. Her chin jiggled independently from the poison coming from her mouth.

  “It wasn’t an accident. I can’t help you,” Gibson replied and turned off the recorder.

  A sour stench of old age and fear pervaded Eckhart’s nostrils. The odour emanated from Margaret and penetrated the tiny space. Gibson stood up and called for an officer. Two uniforms came at once, rushing into the stale room.

  “Get her out of here.”

  The detectives escaped the room.

  “What? Did she expect we were going to let her have a pass?” Eckhart asked. “Duh.”

  “I have no idea about that but I do about something else,” Gibson said.

  “Oh.”

  “I think the ring is Gregory’s.”

  “What? That’s no good. Is it?” Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

  “What I mean to say is, I believe Gregory left his ring at home when he went to jail.”

  “Okay,” Eckhart said, not quite following his thoughts.

  “The ring wasn’t dirty or scarred in any way. Remember how shiny it was when Frenchy showed it to us at the lab.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t think it was lost some other time, and I don’t think Gregory lost it either,” Gibson said.

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “I think Margaret had the ring cleaned and polished, and she had it with her when she killed Elsie. Probably in a pocket.”

  “And she planned to give it to her son at the party. Sort of a coming home present,” Eckhart finished his sentence.

  “Exactly. Why don’t you find out where Margaret had the ring cleaned? If I were you, I would go to the jewelry store at Grantham Plaza. That’s the closet one.”

  “I think you could be right,” Eckhart replied. “I know the place.”

  “Good.”

  “We should leave soon. Get you to the airport,” Eckhart said, as she glanced at her watch.

  “I’m ready.”

  Eckhart cruised down the Queen Elizabeth Highway with the sun behind them, just about to plunge below the horizon. Soft music played on the radio. Eckhart hummed along with the songs, tapping her fingernails on the steering wheel. Gibson pressed into the backrest. He closed his eyes and sailed off. The Expedition hopped the curb.

  “I guess we’re there.” He chuckled.

  Eckhart slanted her head and threw him a sweet smile, a hint of affection.

  Gibson acknowledged with a nod.

  “Stay in touch.”

  “You bet.”

  He looked backward after she drew away, then scurried out of the heat into the terminal. It was a short wait before the plane took off for Victoria. He stared out the tiny window at the city lights below. In the western sky, sunlight lingered where Katherine waited. A new life would shortly be part of his family. Gibson fell asleep to the purr of the engines.

  Also featuring Inspector William Gibson

  Winter is approaching on Vancouver Island and Inspector Gibson suddenly has a murder on his hands. As the nights draw in, and the cold begins to bite, the investigation comes up against silence and distrust. Convinced he is dealing with a hate crime, Gibson probes the victim’s co-workers for answers.

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Q3WRQLZ/

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q3WRQLZ/

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