Tin Men

by Mike Knowles

  “Do you think Lisa is alive?”

  “There was no report of her being in any accident. No report of anything like that happening at all.”

  “Maybe someone lost the report.”

  Dennis shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. Besides, there’s no female Detective Smith on the force.”

  “But that’s who I spoke to.”

  “I have no doubt that was the name they gave. It’s a good fake.”

  “Why would someone lie to me like that?”

  “I got a better question. Why would Lisa O’Brien have a crib and a playpen in her apartment?”

  Dr. Kelsey said nothing.

  “She said the playpen was a shower gift for Julie, but Julie already had a playpen. She had a crib too.”

  Dr. Kelsey stayed silent.

  “Was she pregnant?”

  “I can’t tell you anything.”

  “Holy shit, she was.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Dennis flew off the couch and took hold of the arms of Dr. Kelsey’s chair. He brought his face close to hers and she turned away.

  “According to you, she’s dead. So cut the bullshit. If this wacko faked her death, it’s the same as firing you. You owe her nothing.”

  “But don’t you see? She’s unstable. This is when she needs me the most. This is when I have to stand up for her rights.”

  “And what about Julie’s rights? It’s okay for her to be opened up like a high school science project so long as you don’t have to talk about it or the group she was in? Who else was in that group? Because I’m going to need to talk to them if I can’t talk to you.”

  Dennis went around Dr. Kelsey’s desk.

  “Get away from there.”

  Dennis pulled open the top drawer and pulled out a leather-covered address book.

  “You can’t do that.”

  Dennis held up the book. “I got a murder to solve. A dead cop’s murder. So you either talk, or I call every goddamn name in this book.”

  Dennis started for the door. He got halfway there when Dr. Kelsey blocked his way. “They were both pregnant.”

  Dennis handed over the book. “One of them gets murdered and her baby gets cut out while the other fakes her death, and you have nothing to say?”

  “It’s doctor-patient privilege.”

  “You’re one hell of a doctor. You’re changing your patients for the better alright.”

  “What the hell do you know?”

  “I know one woman is dead. Maybe two. But as far as you’re concerned, Lisa’s death is legit. You called her mother and said so. Privilege is over, so stop holding on to it because you feel guilty. There might be a baby out there.” Dennis meant it. This morning he wouldn’t have put a dime down on the baby being alive, but now with the neighbour being the likely killer, the baby being alive seemed more possible. Dennis’s phone rang. He looked at it, saw it was Jerry, and put it on vibrate.

  The doctor held her address book against her chest and walked back to her chair. She threw herself into it and looked at the ceiling. “I was helping both women get through drug-free pregnancies.”

  Dennis had worn her down, and he didn’t waste time gloating. “And how were both women doing?”

  “Both were fine, I thought. Julie was farther along than Lisa. She was helping her get through it. Showing her how she dealt with a lot of the same things.”

  “They were close?”

  “Julie looked out for Lisa. She got her an apartment in her building when she needed it and even found her a job through some of the contacts she had.”

  “You think it was a good idea for them to be so close?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Addicts in rehab aren’t supposed to live with other addicts.”

  “Are you an addict?” Dr. Kelsey asked.

  “No,” Dennis said.

  “Neither was Julie or Lisa. They shared a similar mental illness not an addiction.”

  “So being close was good for them.”

  Dr. Kelsey shrugged. “It wasn’t harmful.”

  “What was Lisa like mentally?”

  Dr. Kelsey didn’t say anything, so Dennis made himself more clear.

  “I know Julie was a workaholic and she was good at her job.”

  “You knew her well?” Dr. Kelsey asked.

  “My partner on the case told me. I know him well enough to know he’d be right about something like this. Was Lisa a workaholic who was also good at her job?”

  Dr. Kelsey was still quiet, and Dennis saw that she hadn’t misunderstood him—she was holding back.

  “Lisa wasn’t stable like Julie, was she? Julie was her mentor because Lisa was worse off. You said she was showing her how to handle things better. What couldn’t Lisa handle?”

  “You have to understand. Lisa’s whole life was ruined by bipolar depression. She ran away from an abusive home and spent years on the street undiagnosed. She had to deal with a lot of trauma.”

  “Explain trauma.”

  “I only heard her version, so I can’t be sure about everything she went through.”

  “Give me her version.”

  “She was abused, assaulted, raped. All of these things combined with her undiagnosed depression made her violent and erratic, but she sought treatment and was making gains.”

  “Who was her violence directed at?”

  “Whoever she felt was responsible at the time. She was institutionalized multiple times. She even spent some time in jail.”

  “I ran her name through our computer. I never saw any listing of jail time or an arrest record.”

  “This was years ago when she was living in Manitoba.”

  The computer wouldn’t have flagged the name if her record was in another province unless someone looked. “What did she go to jail for?”

  Dr. Kelsey rubbed her eyes.

  “I could find out, but it would waste a lot of time. Time I don’t have,” Dennis said.

  “She tried to kill her boyfriend with a pair of scissors.”

  “Why?”

  “She was under a lot of stress, not medicated, and, for lack of a better word, she snapped.”

  “What caused the snap?”

  Dr. Kelsey looked Dennis in the eye. He saw that she was crying. “She miscarried.”

  27

  “Where the hell are you, Os? We need to talk.” Woody ended the call and dropped the phone into the cup holder between the seats.

  Woody had spent an hour in the car, freezing his ass off in Os’s driveway. He had banged on the front door until a neighbour in his boxer shorts opened his and threatened to call the cops. After he calmed the angry man down, Woody circled the house and checked the windows for any sign of his partner. When he came up with nothing, he started calling Os’s cell. He had been hoping that he would find Os at home, suffering through a massive hangover after a solitary night of binge drinking on the couch. But deep down he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Os didn’t drink himself into a coma last night—the list of suspects was too slim for Tony Nguyen’s murderer to be anyone but a cop. Looking at the potential candidates and the crime scene eliminated everyone but Os. The big man had the skill to do the job without leaving a trace of evidence, and he had the strongest motive. Os was the father of Julie’s baby. Who else but the father would kill Tony in such a way?

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Woody said to himself. When he said it, he saw his breath fog the air inside the car. Woody cursed out loud and wished he had more gas in the tank so he could leave the car running.

  Os had looked at the evidence, put two and two together, and came up with five. To make matters worse, stupid Dennis had been copying off Os’s paper and he had used the same faulty math to come up with Os as Julie’s killer. Woody knew Dennis w
as wrong, but his story sounded good and, most times, that meant more than the evidence being good. It wouldn’t be long before Dennis started bragging that he solved the case to anyone who would listen. After that, it wouldn’t take long for someone else to connect Os to Tony. He’d hang for both murders. Woody wasn’t going to help Os get off. He earned whatever he got for what he did to Tony. The gangster was scum, but there’s a line. Most people don’t believe there is, but it’s there. Cops lie, cheat, steal, and use every day, but they don’t go all the way. They don’t come out of the box like that—it’s a by-product of the job. You put someone through sixty-hour weeks of first-hand experience with the worst in society, and you won’t end up with the same people you started with. A good man will change, and the ones who weren’t that good to begin with will get worse. Not every cop is dirty, but the good ones are. The dirt under their nails make them good police. The squeaky officers don’t have the grease to make any movement with a case. Clean cops are about as effective as a chef with no tongue. The motions are correct, but the food never comes out right. Woody knew where he fell. He was no angel, but he respected the line. One of the many things Woody and God disagreed on was the Ten Commandments. In Woody’s opinion there really only needed to be one: thou shalt not kill. You start killing people, and there’s nothing left between them and you—Woody knew how full of shit it sounded, but that was the line and Os crossed it.

  The worst part of the hour in the car was the lack of caffeine. He was starting to fade. The seats were feeling way more comfortable than they really were, and his eyelids were getting heavy. He had been up for over thirty hours. Woody was starting to regret taking those pills Joanne had given him. He needed sleep, but he needed the case closed first. Tired as he was, Woody was scared of sleep. He knew the second he closed his eyes, Natasha would be there. Her face on Julie’s body. Or, he’d see himself on the job, finding the baby, only to realize it was his daughter. Woody needed to solve the murder; that was the only chance he had at pushing the nightmares back into the hole they crawled out of. Maybe then he’d be able to doze off for longer than a half hour.

  “Fucking Os.”

  This shit with his partner was like a speed bump he didn’t need. Woody lasted another hour-and-a-half in the driveway. Between ignoring Jerry’s constant calls and slapping his own face, he stayed awake. When the slapping stopped being effective, Woody got out of the car and walked around the empty house one last time. Woody tried Os’s cell again and then decided to start checking the bars Os frequented. He had been gone too long to have been at the gym or the gun range, and he was too stubborn to have called his union rep. Os’s life was falling apart—it had to be drinking time. Woody got back behind the wheel and started the car. He needed to find his partner fast; Os never made good decisions when he had been drinking. For a lot of guys, alcohol was liquid courage that pushed them to do things they would never do. For Os, alcohol was more like liquid green-light; it eased up on the brakes that kept him from doing all the things he wanted to do. First, a small stop at home for a little pick-me-up and then a hard search of all the dives Os had ever dragged him to. Woody felt more awake just thinking about going home. There were two of the pills that Joanne gave him left waiting in that little baggie. Woody was suddenly hit with a pang of guilt; maybe he was overdoing it. No, he was in control. He was just sick and stressed. Everything would get back to normal when the case was closed.

  *

  Woody pulled into his driveway and saw that another car was already there. Os’s Jeep was backed in far enough to almost be against the garage door. Woody parked in front of the Jeep, blocking the sidewalk that severed the last five feet of his property.

  Os’s Jeep was empty and the hood was cold. That didn’t mean much. It was five below, so the engine would have cooled in minutes. Woody saw no one on the porch so he checked around back. The yard was empty too. He walked up the steps to the front door and turned his key in the lock only to find the mechanism was already retracted. Woody opened the unlocked door and walked inside. He looked from room to room until he found Os sitting in his favourite leather chair. Beside the chair, on the end table, was a bottle of tequila that was three quarters empty.

  “I’ve been calling you.”

  Os nodded. “I know.”

  “You didn’t pick up.”

  “Felt like a conversation we should have face to face.”

  “You have some explaining to do,” Woody said.

  Os held up a stained glass pipe. “So, we have something in common.”

  “You broke in to my house,” Woody said.

  “I let myself in.”

  “Like you let yourself in to Tony Nguyen’s place?”

  Os stood up but said nothing.

  “He’s dead,” Woody said. “Insides pulled out. Looked a lot like another scene we just saw.”

  “You guys should have made sure he didn’t walk,” Os said.

  “He walked because he wasn’t good for Julie’s murder. We just took him in on a bullshit charge to keep him confused about what we wanted to talk to him about. It kept the GANG unit’s case intact.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t kill her?”

  “You know me to be wrong about this shit a lot, Os?” Woody’s words came out a little more heated than he wanted them to.

  Os held up the pipe. “I’m just saying, your judgement might not be what it once was, Wood. I mean, look at this place. No wonder you never invite me over. It looks like the crack dens we shut down.”

  “You don’t know anything. I’ve just been sick lately.”

  “Sick? You hear yourself? How could someone so smart be that fucking stupid? You’ve been on this shit for a long time—since Natasha died.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You think I couldn’t smell it on your clothes? You think you’re the only smart cop out there?”

  “Shut up.”

  “You’ve been sucking this shit up for a long time, Wood. So don’t come to me all high and mighty and tell me that I have to explain myself.”

  “Tony didn’t kill her.”

  “So tell me then, junkie cop. Who did?”

  “Dennis thinks you did it,” Woody said.

  “What? Why would that fat fuck think that?”

  “He found out that you’re the father of Julie’s baby, and he started to put things together. Added the fact that you held everything back at the scene, and he came up with you as the prime suspect.”

  “So you don’t think I did it?”

  “I know you didn’t do it.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You didn’t give enough of a fuck about Julie to kill her.”

  “You think I didn’t care?”

  “Did you?”

  Os said nothing.

  “You and her weren’t close. I saw her life; she didn’t have anything in it but the job and the kid. Did you even know she was pregnant before the other day?”

  Os nodded.

  “You know it was yours?”

  Another nod.

  “What names did she pick?”

  “What?”

  “Seems like something a father would know.”

  Os turned his back on Woody and rested his hands on the empty mantle.

  “You didn’t know because you didn’t care. Why would you cut a baby out of a woman you couldn’t even be bothered to talk to?”

  “I didn’t kill her. I wasn’t always good to her, and maybe I didn’t care about her, but I didn’t kill her.”

  “I know,” Woody said. “Problem is, neither did Tony. The working theory had been that Julie turned his girlfriend into an informant, and she had to give up Tony to stay in the country with her kid. At first we kicked around the idea that Tony found out about what was happening and killed Julie. Only problem is, Tony is a small-time gangster running kids and lightweight
amounts of drugs. Murdering a cop is outside his skill set. He wouldn’t know how to find her let alone how to get in and out of her place unnoticed. Guy like him would have been all flash if he had done the job.”

  “Maybe he’s better than you think,” Os said.

  “That’s reaching, but let’s say he is. The other problem with Tony being our guy is that he has eight kids by three women. He doesn’t keep track of the kids or the women. So, if one betrayed him, spied on him for us, do you think he would let it slide? If he had killed Julie, then he’d have no problem hurting women or babies, so he would have done something to the girlfriend. I saw her, Os—she didn’t have a scratch on her.”

  “So those are your only reasons for ruling him out?”

  “Same logic that says he didn’t do it says you didn’t either. If I’m wrong about one then I’m wrong about the other. You kill Julie?”

  The piles of garbage in the room cradled the noise and made Os’s booming voice almost painful. “You know I didn’t.”

  “Of course I do. Just like I know Tony didn’t. But I know who killed Tony.”

  Os grabbed the bottle of tequila off the end table and took a long swig.

  “What the hell happened, Os?”

  “Got tired and drunk. Tired of gangsters throwing their weight around and drunk on Cuervo.”

  “Tony was barely a gangster.”

  “Not just him,” Os said.

  “Who then?”

  Os didn’t answer. He pulled on the bottle twice more.

  “Who Os?”

  “How long you been a junkie?”

  It was Woody’s turn not to say anything.

  “Not so easy to answer things about yourself, is it? You put everything under the microscope except yourself. You want to figure everyone out with question after question, but you don’t want anyone else to give you the same treatment. Why don’t you just mind your own business?”