Flashback

by Ted Wood

  'You'll have to scratch him now. He could do a couple of years for what he's charged with.' I was fishing, but she made no answer and I had a new insight. 'Is that why you retained Waites? To keep people out of jail when they were working on a movie of yours?'

  She struck a pose, perhaps unconciously but very stagey, jutting one hip and cupping her right elbow in her left hand, holding her cigarette up next to her face, looking at me quizzically. 'There's some of that goes on,' she said. 'Especially with drugs. There's too much drug use today and sometimes people get caught. If it shuts down a production a lot of people stand to lose money.'

  'Has Waites ever represented Hanson?'

  'I don't know. Hanson has never worked for me.'

  The conversation was headed for another stalemate so I changed my tack, making it more personal. 'I have no right to ask you this but I've got a lot of things breaking at the same time. Can I ask you to help me, please?'

  'Ah-ah. Humility.' She sounded triumphant. I just smiled. I'd been polite throughout all my talks with her but apparently I hadn't tugged my forelock often enough.

  'Well, yes, I guess you'd say that. I wondered if John Waites ever discussed his private life with you.'

  She drew on her cigarette and resumed her pose. 'Not in detail. Why d'you ask?'

  'From talking to him yesterday I got the impression that he was pretty annoyed with his wife. He's—was—a button-down yuppie lawyer. She's kind of a bohemian, lets everything go to hell while she paints. That's what he said. On top of which, he didn't seem too broken up when he thought she was dead.'

  She looked at me without saying anything, then suddenly stubbed her cigarette. 'It's early, but I'm going to have a drink. Would you like something?'

  'No, thank you. I'm working.'

  'Suit yourself.' She padded off into the house and I heard ice cubes clinking and she returned with a deep, dark drink. She sat down and raised the glass. 'To his memory.'

  I nodded and waited, there was more to her grief than friendship. I was starting to believe that Waites had been one of her lovers. He was in the right area, rich and important in his field, an equal of sorts. But her next words surprised me.

  'I guess you'll find out some time so I might as well tell you. John was my second husband.'

  CHAPTER 7

  If she was expecting me to reel back, slapping my forehead at the shocking revelation, she was disappointed. I'd already seen that she and Waites were close and Fred had told me she had a couple of exes. The news figured. But to humour her I showed polite surprise with a question. 'How come you got on so well? Most people stay away from their exes.'

  'I'm not most people,' she said defiantly.

  'I can see that, Ms Tracy. Tell me, please. Did John Waites bring his wife up here because of you?'

  'I happened to mention that the Lodge seemed like neutral ground for them, fancy enough for her, passable for him, that's all.'

  'But both you and Mr Waites knew the other would be here?'

  'Yes.' She was brisk again. 'This was to be business as well as pleasure, As always, I have a few problems with this new production and his advice was useful. We figured he could spend some time discussing things with me while his wife painted.'

  'And did that happen?'

  'He came over a couple of times. She'd promised him she would play golf but she forgot all about it once she got here. She had her goddamn easel and paints in the car and she set them up on the beach and that made her deaf and blind. He could have laid the cocktail waitress on the sand in front of her and she wouldn't have seen it.'

  She was starting to loosen up now and I eased into the reason I'd come here. 'How badly did she bug him? I mean, he sounded really ticked off about her when I spoke to him yesterday.'

  She answered as if it were a social question with nothing to do with the wife's disappearance. 'Her art was starting to get to him. I think he figured she would change when she married, that she'd relegate her painting to just a hobby. I guess he felt a bit like a guy who's married an alcoholic. She had him, what could she possibly want more than that? You know.' She waved one hand vaguely. 'He didn't realize that everything else, including him, came second to her paint-box.'

  'Is she any good?'

  She sipped her drink and gave a grudging nod. 'I guess. She's some kind of impressionist. Since she married John, her work brings big prices in Toronto.'

  'Didn't that please him? He seemed like a man who wanted success.'

  'He was. But it had to be his own success. That's what came between him and me. As long as I was hanging on by my fingernails he felt confident. When I made Family Pride and then Bugaboo and started making real money, things fell apart.'

  'And where did he meet this girl? I imagine she's younger than he was.'

  'Not a lot. She's thirty. And I know exactly where he met her. It was at the studio. At a wrap party for Family Pride. She came with the cameraman.'

  'And John made the moves on her.'

  She looked at me through narrowed eyes. 'I can tell you didn't like him. He wasn't your type, was he? Too sophisticated.'

  'I only met him twice, both at bad times.' It wasn't the whole answer. Waites had not been a guy I wanted to spend time with.

  'Women adored him,' she said softly. 'He didn't bother wooing, he was too confident. He radiated power. Without half trying he could seduce any woman he wanted.'

  'And he worked his magic on this girl?'

  'He didn't. Not at first, and it infuriated him. I saw him with her and kidded him about losing his touch.' She smiled, but not fondly. 'A dumb thing to do. He decided she was a challenge and he went to work on her the way she worked on her painting. In the end she said yes, not because she wanted him particularly, I never thought so anyway, but because he was always there.'

  'And where were you while all this was going on?'

  She gave a little jerk of her head and reached for the cigarette box. I recognized it as a defence mechanism. 'You could say I had plans of my own. And anyway, I was away a lot. We shot Bugaboo in the Rockies and I was out there on location for three months. I'm a producer, not a housewife.'

  Listening to her made me glad that Fred had pretty well given up acting. A wife who disappears for three months at a time to the other end of the country is not my idea of the perfect mate. I'm a chauvinist, OK, but I hoped I'd never be sitting home with the baby while Fred was three thousand miles away smiling at a camera.

  'And when you got home, what happened?'

  'He'd moved out. He'd been living with her for a week. So I had a meeting with him, not her, I didn't want to see her, ever. And we agreed to a divorce.'

  'Why did he marry her? If all he wanted to do was prove he was wonderful he could have moved on.'

  She lit her cigarette and blew smoke thoughtfully. 'I asked him the same thing. He didn't have an answer, but I think I did. She made him feel incomplete. Not sexually or in a male sense, but intellectually. I guess she had the same kind of power that he did, in a different way. She never really surrendered to him. She slept with him but it wasn't as important as her painting. He wanted to possess her, the way he might have owned one of her paintings.'

  'If she was making good money as an artist she didn't need him, surely?'

  'She's been making good money only since her marriage to John. Before then she was making a couple of hundred dollars a time in some crummy gallery in Soho, that's in New York in case you didn't know.' I did, as it happened. Once on liberty I had spent a weekend with a girl a lot like this Marcia Tracy sounded, in her studio in Soho. But Ms Tracy was still explaining. 'He pulled some strings, lined up some buyers for her and arranged for a fancy gallery to show her work. It sold out. Maybe it's a bubble that will burst now he's gone. Maybe she's good. I don't know. I don't understand pictures unless they move.'

  This was all good background but it wasn't advancing my investigation, so I pressed a little harder. 'Is that where she came from, New York?'

  'No. She was fr
om Wisconsin or some deadly place like that. She studied in New York and moved there. From there she came up to Toronto with the cameraman I told you about.'

  I'd been hoping for an address but obviously she didn't have one to give me, so I asked the next question, hoping it wouldn't stop her talking. 'Do you think maybe he wanted her dead?'

  That blew it. She stood up, carefully setting down her cigarette first. 'John was not the ideal husband.' she said carefully. 'But he was no murderer, if that's what you're asking.'

  'Did he talk about her to you these last few days while they were staying at the Lodge?'

  'No.' She made a move towards the door. 'And this discussion is over. You're trying to get me to say he wanted to kill her. He didn't and I won't. Please go.'

  'Sure. I have one last question, please. Did you know he had a cocaine habit?'

  'No, I did not.' She was fierce now, angry enough that she might easily have been lying, but she wanted me out so I went.

  'Thank you for your help. Will you be staying up here for a while?'

  'Are you telling me not to leave town?'

  'I thought I asked a polite question, Ms Tracy,' I said as I stepped down into the sunshine.

  'I'll give you a polite answer. I haven't decided yet. How does that suit you?'

  'It'll have to do. I'll be in touch.' I clicked my tongue to Sam who was lying in the shade, beside her car and walked out to my own car. She lay down on her blanket again and turned up the radio. She had not brought her drink with her, I noticed.

  On my way back to the station I called in at the Lodge and spoke to Holland. He said he would supervise the movement of Waites' body to Toronto for forensic work and I was able to go back to the station to do the paperwork. I typed up the report on Waites' death and copies of the statements Holland and I had taken from the people in the Lodge. And after that I also recorded the gang swarming and the killing of Horn's dog.

  I'm a better typist these days since Fred bought me a book and made me put masking tape on the keys so I had to follow the book to find them. It worked and I'm faster but this job still took me until one-thirty and there was no time to go home and change before visiting the hospital.

  By the time I'd picked up the roses and a box of candies for the nurses it was two-thirty and I reached Fred's room at feeding time. I've seen a lot of things in my life but nothing so far has topped the thrill of watching Fred with the baby.

  In uniform I felt like a bull in a china shop but Fred put me at ease. She was over her ordeal, feeling strong and well. She would be coming home in two days, she told me. I said 'good' while I juggled my workload in my head. I had a lot to do and it wouldn't ease up until I had at least located Moira Waites.

  'You're being very quiet about all this, dear,' Fred said as she gently put the baby over her shoulder and patted her back. 'What's been happening while I've been in here multiplying?'

  I gave her a scaled-down version of events and she looked sober. 'Are the OPP going to help you on this? A murder involving a man from Toronto, you can't handle that on your own. You'll need help from a lot of people.'

  'It's heavy right now, but it'll settle down soon.'

  'While things are so busy for you maybe you should stay at the Harbour and work on it, rather than drive up here all the time.' She's a good woman, a real cop's wife, understanding that the job has to come first sometimes.

  'Maybe, if you don't mind, I'll put off coming again until tomorrow afternoon. We've had some gang trouble on Main Street and I'd like to show a little more presence for a day or two, people are getting spooked.'

  The baby gave a tiny burp and Fred wiped her mouth and told her she was clever girl. The woman in the next bed was watching us like a visitor to a zoo. I guess she hadn't realized that policemen procreate just like real people. After a while the nurse came and took the baby back to the nursery and Fred got up and walked around there with me to peer through the window and watch our firstborn yelling as lustily as the rest of them. 'The nurses tell me she's a screamer,' Fred said, hanging on to my arm. 'Can you handle that?'

  'For you and her I could handle anything at all.'

  At a quarter to four I left, after she'd made me promise to stay away until the next day at least. I was anxious to get on with my investigation so I didn't need any urging. I returned to the car and let Sam have a stretch, then drove up to the police station.

  Holland was in the detective office with his feet on the desk and a cup of coffee. He told me where the machine was and I grabbed a cup for myself, remembering that I'd had no lunch so far. The way things were breaking and with Fred away I was going to lose weight. 'Coupla things,' he said, after he'd asked the expected questions about Fred and the baby. 'First off, Stinson found prints on the glasses from the room. One set was the deceased's. The other set isn't on record, so far as the computer in Toronto has been able to check. And they're not Hanson's either.'

  'That's another theory shot to hell,' I said. 'I'd been hoping we'd find they belonged to Kershaw, that escaped con.'

  Holland shook his head. 'No dice. The guy in Toronto checked Kershaw's prints individually. It's not him.'

  'So what's the second thing?'

  'Second thing is that a hotshot lawyer from Toronto came into town and sprung the kid you arrested last night, this Hanson.'

  'What was his name?'

  'Hers. A Ms Freund. Works for the same firm as this Waites guy. She gave me one of their cards and Waites is on the list as a partner.'

  'I just found out that Waites' firm works for a movie producer, Marcia Tracy, she's staying at her own place in Murphy's Harbour. He was on a retainer to cover the company's butt if any of their people got in legal trouble.'

  'This Hanson kid works for her?' Holland was only half interested, he hadn't been with me to see the way all the strings in my caseload led back to Marcia Tracy.

  'Not yet, apparently. She's considering him for a part in a movie but maybe he knew about Waites from that, talking to other actors, stuff like that.'

  'Maybe.' Holland was looking smug, holding the most interesting news for last, I guessed. 'There's one more thing.'

  'Helpful, I hope.'

  'Could be. Could tie the both homicides together in a neat knot. We found prints on the car, that Honda Accord. No ID of course, because they're the same as the prints on the glass in Waites' room.'

  We sat and sipped our coffee, staring at each other sightlessly. The whole thing was tying together. After a little thought I had an idea. 'Hey, have you checked the Jeffries' house for prints? Could be that he's the guy responsible. Just maybe he found out, say, that Waites was boffing his wife. He kills the wife and puts her in Waites' car so we figure Waites is behind it. Then, for whatever reason, he goes to see Waites and kills him.'

  'Doesn't hold water,' Holland argued reasonably. 'If some guy came to my house after, God forbid, his wife had been murdered in my car, I wouldn't send out for drinks.'

  'Waites was yuppie. Who knows how guys like him think?'

  Holland was still unhappy. 'You know the rules of evidence as well as I do. I can't print Jeffries without arresting him or having his consent.'

  'No sign of him anywhere?'

  'Naah.' Holland finished his coffee and scrunched up the cup, tossing it at the garbage can. It missed and he grunted and picked it up. 'I've done everything I can but unless we go nationwide with this thing we can't stake out every car rental, every ticket agency, for him or the Waites broad to show.'

  'And it's his car that the teen-gang used to buzz Murphy's Harbour.' I thought out loud. 'Maybe we should concentrate on finding that car. It'll be a mass of fingerprints by now but we might find his in it somewhere.'

  'It's an idea.' He swung his feet down. 'I'll put the car out as wanted for investigation in a homicide. That'll wake up the troops more than it just being stolen.'

  'Good idea. Now, while I'm here, I have to file a statement about the Hanson arrest. Can you get me a typewriter?'

  He s
at me down with a machine and I did my thing and he witnessed it and I was on my own. By now it was six in the evening and I was hungry enough to take a bite out of Sam but I drove back to Murphy's Harbour to eat. The presence of the car on Main Street would remind the good folks where their taxes were going.

  It was a good to be back at the Harbour in any case. I like the spot. It's been home for three years and they're good people. Right now, on a bright summer evening, it was at its best with the shadows lengthening across Main Street and everyone moving slowly in the warmth. I sat at the window of the restaurant and ate a good dinner. Yung Luk is a gourmet cook if you let him do things his way and I had his Thai soup and Szechuan beef while most of the other customers ate fish and chips. Then I paid and took Sam for a stroll around town.

  I went into the grocery and the bait store. Both owners were glad to see me. They'd already heard about Waites' death so I didn't have to explain where I'd been all day, but I got the usual small-town feeling that they wished I'd give them more attention and quit showboating, which is the way people look at a murder investigation when they're not involved.

  It was seven o'clock and night was coming down on the town. The two lights on Main Street were on already with their usual halo of mosquitoes, and so was the big light at the dock of the Marina.

  All the berths at the Marina were full, and, as I always do, I started my evening patrol at their hotel, the Lakeside Tavern. I went in by the back door and ambled through the kitchen with Sam at my side. The cook had a hamburger someone had sent back as too well done and he gave it to me for Sam who crunched it down and wagged his tail.

  Amy Vanderheyden was at the desk in the back and she greeted me happily and bent to pat Sam, the only dog allowed in there. She chirruped happily about Fred and the baby and tutted about Waites' death and I smiled and nodded and looked around. The usual crowd of boaters and cottagers were in for dinner and the trumpet, piano, drums band was playing 'Don't cry for me, Argentina' well enough that a couple of Moms and Pops were pushing one another around the dance floor. A typical Thursday night in Murphy's Harbour, except for the homicides I was working on.