by Rick Blechta
This novel is dedicated to my long-time good buddy, cover art collaborator (on every book I’ve written), photographer extraordinaire and partner-in-crime, Andre Leduc. Thanks for the photos, the advice – and most of all, your friendship.
Also by Rick Blechta
Knock on Wood
The Lark Ascending
Shooting Straight in the Dark
Cemetery of the Nameless
When Hell Freezes Over
As co-editor:
Dishes to Die For
Dishes to Die For...Again
She had a voice like an angel, smooth and complex as a twenty-year-old single malt, rich as thick cream. Everyone who heard Olivia sing felt as if she could see right into the depths of their souls, that her songs were meant for them alone. This was the magic her artistry conjured. In earlier times, she would have been put to death as a witch.
The real kicker was that Olivia had no idea how the magic worked. She’d just open her mouth and the song was there, no deep thought about the meaning of lyrics, no analyzing of how she wanted to shape a phrase, bending, stretching, adding notes until everything fit the way she wanted it to. Her pitch was dead on, and her innate sense of rhythm impeccable. Stunningly artless was the only way to describe her performances.
Her voice could produce with equal ease a mental image of a smoky bar at the end of a long night of drinking to forget a lost love, to highstepping down the sunny side of the street with a bluebird on her shoulder.
With no apparent effort, she made you believe she knew intimately everything about which she sang.
Such was the talent of Olivia Saint.
Chapter 1
Things might have turned out very differently if the slimeball hadn’t punched me in the eye.
The knee in the gut that followed hadn’t helped. No one appreciates getting dropped by a sucker punch.
“That really wasn’t necessary,” said the smaller of the two, the one seemingly in charge, as I knelt on the wet sidewalk, gasping for air.
The big one shrugged. “The guy was annoying me.” He leaned down until his face was about a foot above mine.“Sorry, bud. No hard feelings, huh?”
He didn’t extend a hand to help me up, though. Barely able to breathe, I could only watch helplessly as they pushed Olivia into the back seat of their car, and the smaller one climbed in next to her.
Olivia looked at me once before the door swung shut. Her eyes seemed vacant, her expression devoid of anything that spoke of the spark I knew was there. Since they’d begun talking to her in the club, she hadn’t spoken once, had given no indication that she even knew who I was when I’d followed them outside.
“Wait,” I finally managed to force out. “Wait!”
The big brute stopped as he was getting in the driver’s side and smiled over the roof of the car. “No can do, bud. Got a plane to catch.”
As I struggled to my feet, the car did a quick U-turn and drove off down King Street. As they neared the corner of Bathurst, it stopped, and the back door on the driver’s side opened.
The smaller man leaned out, holding the lambskin coat I’d bought for Olivia. “Hey, mac!” he shouted. “She says this is for you.”
He dropped it to the pavement, and the car screeched around the corner into the night.
I walked as quickly as I could to where the coat lay and bent to pick it up. A greasy smear now marked the back, where it had lain on the streetcar track.
Shaking my head, I went back to the club, cold, wet, sore and very confused about what had just happened.
About a month earlier, Olivia had been spinning around delightedly in front of a store’s full-length mirror, telling me how much she absolutely loved my gift, how she’d always wanted a coat like this.
Just now, had she been trying to send me a signal?
By the time I stumbled back into the Sal, my eye had begun to swell shut. Slipping into a chair next to Dom,who was carefully nursing his between-set beer, I signalled for Loraine, the waitress. I needed scotch, certainly a double.
Dom raised an eyebrow. “What the hell did you run into?”
“Olivia’s gone,” I said distractedly.
My comment, though, instantly galvanized Ronald, who sat across the table from me.“You mean gone, as in she’s not doing the next set?”
“I mean gone, as in I don’t think she’s ever going to be doing anything with us again.”
Loraine came over and took my order with a raised eyebrow. I refused to elucidate until she returned and I’d downed half the scotch in one gulp. With the excitement over, the adrenaline had loosened its grip, leaving me feeling cold and decidedly shaky.
“You look like shit, Andy,” Dom observed with an expression pretty well devoid of sympathy.
“Tell me what happened,” Ronald ordered.
I took another gulp and felt the booze drop warmly into my belly, then looked across at our problematic pianist.“You didn’t see those two guys talking to Olivia right after the set ended?”
Dom answered, “I did.”
Ronald’s response was typical. “I had some people I needed to talk to.”
I held up my glass, signalling Loraine to bring another scotch. At that point, I didn’t care if I got a bit tight. In my increasingly wobbly state, I was more worried about staying on my drum stool.
“Tell us what happened!” both my band-mates demanded in unison, causing me at least to smile.
“I was talking to Olivia about trying out those new songs we’ve been rehearsing, when two guys appeared from nowhere. They butted right in and told me to get lost.”
The change that had come over Olivia had been quite startling. One moment she was all bubbly, obviously very happy and excited about how the first set of the night had gone. The next it was as if someone had removed her batteries. She just went dead.
When I didn’t move off, the bigger of the two guys pushed between Olivia and me.“Like my friend said, bud, we need to talk to the lady—alone.”
I peered around his bulk at Olivia, but she just stared back with that blank expression. Against my better judgement, I moved off, but I did stay close to make sure they weren’t hassling her.
They took Olivia to a back corner of the club, conversed quietly with her for a few minutes – the men actually doing all the talking – then accompanied her to the closet-sized space that serves as the Green Salamander’s dressing room.
Reappearing immediately, with Olivia wearing her new coat, the party of three headed for the door. Naturally, I followed.
They had their car waiting out by the curb, and when I asked what the hell was going on, I got bopped in the eye and kneed in the gut.
Dom whistled after I finished my story, but Ronald looked angry.
“You mean she’s just left us high and dry? Walked out? Well, that’s a bullshit thing to do after all we’ve done for her!”
In no mood for his crap, I shot back, “What we’ve done for her? Do you think the club would be this full tonight if Olivia hadn’t been singing? We couldn’t attract flies on a cold, wet night like this before she came along, and you know it!”
“Andy’s right, Ron,” Dom added, using the shortened form of our pianist’s name, fully aware how much it irritated him.
“So what are we supposed to do now?” the pianist asked stupidly.
Getting to my feet, I swallowed my second drink in one gulp.“We get up on the stage, say that Miss Olivia is indisposed and get on with it. Whether she’s here or not, we still have to play three sets, unless everyone leaves, which is more than likely once they find out she isn’t singing.”
I was right about the audience making a beeline for the exit. The early spring weather outside promised to become pretty beastly, with wet snow forecast for
later in the night. By the time our second set finished, there were about a dozen customers left, most of them pretty drunk.
“This is just swell,” Dom said glumly as he took a miniscule sip of his next beer. “This puts us right back where we started.”
Ronald looked at our bassist with disgust. “What are you moaning about? There are other chick singers out there – if we decide to go that route again. They’re all more trouble than they’re worth, if you ask me.”
“Come off it!” I said angrily. “None of us has ever worked with someone of Olivia’s calibre. Talent like hers doesn’t wander in here every night.”
“What makes you think she isn’t coming back?” Dom asked, guiding the discussion into less contentious waters.
It was a fair question. Neither Olivia nor the two guys who carted her off had given any indication what was going on, but it was her behaviour that had really spooked me. My swollen eye throbbed a reminder as I frowned.
“I should go to the cops,” I said.
“For the roughing up you got? Good luck if you didn’t have any witnesses.” Dom took a bigger swig of his beer. “As for Olivia, did she say she didn’t want to go with them? Did she struggle?”
“Well, no.”
“Then the cops won’t be interested. She’s not a child.”
“She acts like a child often enough,” Ronald grumbled.
“So what can I do?” I asked, ignoring him.
Dom looked up. “You actually serious?”
“Sure. Olivia may be in some kind of trouble. The way those two guys behaved didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, even if she didn’t protest at all.”
Dom nodded. “Remember when I got divorced a few years back? Well, I didn’t feel like saying much at the time, but I caught my wife cheating. Actually, I hired a private investigator to find that out for me. He was loud and a little bit cocky, but seemed pretty competent. I could put you in touch with him if you are serious.”
Suddenly, I realized I was. “Can you give me his phone number?”
“I don’t think I have it any more, but I can tell you how to find him.”
I took out the small black gig book I carry. “Okay, shoot.”
“Know that instrument rental outfit north of the city off Woodbine Avenue?”
“Quinn? Sure.”
“This investigator’s got an office at the opposite end of the same building. That’s how I found him. I was renting some equipment for an out of town gig and stopped in to see him on the spur of the moment. I’d had some suspicions about my wife for a few months. It didn’t take this guy long to come up with everything I needed: names, videos, the whole sordid shooting match.”
Dom had steadfastly refused to talk about his failed marriage for the past two years, and now I couldn’t shut him up long enough to get the information I needed. “Dom! The guy’s name?”
“O’Brien. Rob O’Brien. Good guy. I think the company is called O’Brien Investigates.”
For the first time in many months, Dom ordered a second beer before we went on for our last set. Old wounds, when reopened before they’ve completely healed, often need painkillers of one kind or another.
At least that’s been my experience.
***
Sleet arrived sometime in the middle of the night, lashing the windows of Shannon O’Brien’s room in the old farmhouse with enough noise to wake her.
After a half hour of fruitless effort, she decided that sleep would not be returning and switched on the light above her side of the bed. Disgustedly grabbing the pillows, she propped them up behind herself and leaned back to check the alignment. Once comfortable, she picked up the book she was currently reading.
Five minutes later, she hadn’t read a single word.
Later that morning, Shannon had to make a decision about taking on a new operative. That normally wasn’t a difficult decision, but this time the mix was different. The loss of one of her longtime employees had thrown a monkey wrench the size of Winnipeg into the normally smooth-running machinery of O’Brien Investigates.
Several things in the submitted documentation and subsequent follow-up on the prospective employee had raised red flags, tiny ones, true, but it was the little things in her line of work that bit you in the ass. Normally, she’d just wait for the next resumé, but at the moment the firm really needed another person.
The dismissed employee had also been a big blow to Shannon’s pride. Warren Duke, experienced and likeable, had been with her since the beginning. He had probably been padding his expenses that long, too, as she’d discovered the previous week. What hurt even more was that she’d only discovered his duplicity by accident.
Shannon did not like failing, but she detested being made a fool of, and Warren had done that in spades.
“I’m getting to old for this shit,” she told herself as she dropped the book to the floor, rearranged the pillows and snapped off the light.
Lying on her side, her left arm flopped out to where Michael should be. If he were here now, she’d pull herself against his warmth, and they’d hunker down together against the storm outside. She always felt so safe with him.
As four turned to five, Shannon eventually dozed off, but her dreams were troubled and uneasy.
***
After a long night of gigging, I found myself travelling up Highway 404 that miserable Wednesday in driving rain. It was far too early to be up.
April can be a pretty grey month in Southern Ontario, but Toronto always looks extra grimy at the end of a long winter, especially when the highway spray kicks up a four-month accumulation of dirt and salt onto your windshield.
The day reflected my mood perfectly as the traffic crawled along south of Finch Avenue.
As I exited at Steeles, everything halted because of a collision in the intersection. By the time the traffic got moving, I seriously considered turning around and going back home. But my swollen eye was still throbbing, and that hardened my resolve to find out what the hell was going on – and possibly pay back the guy who’d popped me one.
As expected, I hadn’t heard a thing from Olivia. I’d toyed with trying to get in touch with her friend Maggie to find out if she knew anything, but considering the bad blood between us, I wasn’t sure what good it would do. She’d just blame me for what had happened.
With all these thoughts running through my head, I pulled into the small industrial mall where this O’Brien character had his office. It felt odd to be looking for a private investigator. Other than Dom – and that had certainly been news to me – the only people I knew who consulted private eyes were on TV or lived between the pages of books.
The previous evening’s events had so unnerved me, I had just driven up without calling first. Pretty stupid thing to do, if you think about it. What if they’d moved or gone out of business? What if they weren’t open regular hours? What were regular hours for a PI?
But the gods were with me that day, because O’Brien Investigates was stencilled right on the glass door, and lights were on inside the office.
Getting out of the car, I didn’t bother locking it. A thirteen-year-old vehicle doesn’t hold much interest to a thief – not when the only things holding it together are paint and rust.
Sticking my head in the door, I was greeted by a middle-aged bottle redhead with long fingernails to match. How she managed to type, especially so fast, with claws like that, I couldn’t imagine.
“New client?” she asked without looking up.
“Ah, yes.”
The woman stopped long enough to reach behind her for a clipboard with forms on it. Holding it out to me without looking up, she added, “Got a pen or pencil?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Please fill this out. We’ll be with you in a minute.”
I did as I was told, sitting on a cheap plastic chair, the kind you see in high school cafeterias. The whole place looked a little careworn: old filing cabinets, yellowing paint, a carpet that had seen better days and a ra
ther shabby desk – although the computer on it looked new. If it hadn’t been for Dom’s first-rate recommendation, I probably would have left. Maybe their slogan was “Investigations on a Shoestring Budget”.
The form was filled with the usual questions, although they asked for my driver’s license number and quite a lot of credit info as well. That caused me to wonder how much I’d be willing to pay to find Olivia. The redhead finished her typing before I reached the bottom and sat staring at me as she tapped a pencil on her desk. At least her tempo was steady.
When I handed her the clipboard, she immediately went through a door to the right of her desk into what I supposed was the boss’s office.
Appearing in the doorway shortly after, she said, “Step this way, please.”
The smaller room I entered had recently been painted, and the desk was large and new. In one corner was a low circular table with four chairs, although judging by the jumble of papers and file folders on it, it probably didn’t see much use. Even more filing cabinets lined the opposite wall, and next to me was an aquarium of slowly waving plants and brightly coloured fish.
Standing just in front of the desk was not the heavyset, middle-aged man with a slouch hat that I’d been imagining. My eyes rested on a slender, honey-blonde with intelligent-looking eyes and a welcoming smile. I guessed her height to be close to five-eight and her age to be somewhere around forty. Dressed casually in jeans, a blouse and a tan jacket, she was quite pretty.
She extended a hand. “I’m Shannon O’Brien.” Picking up on the fact that I’d stopped partway into the room, not because of what I saw, but what I’d expected to see, she added, “I’m the proprietor of O’Brien Investigates.”
“Um, yeah.” When I didn’t move, she raised an eyebrow, so I added, “I was expecting someone else.”
“This business used to be jointly owned by my ex-husband and me. Obviously, he’s no longer here.”
Her blunt words were said in a kind way but made it perfectly clear that further illumination would not be forthcoming.
