“Yeah.” He looked up the weather in the index and rattled the pages until he found what he was looking for.
High of minus three. Low of minus nine.
Robyn said, “You think I’m going to chicken out, don’t you?”
“Chicken out? That’s pretty darn sophisticated terminology, young lady. Exactly what do you mean? Act responsibly? Exercise a little common sense? Yeah, I kind of expected something along those lines.”
“I still want to go through with it.”
“No way.”
“We can do it, Chris.”
“Do what — risk our lives to save a few trees, or a hoot owl or whatever? No way. Forget it.”
Robyn stood up, moved her hips as she walked around to his side of the table. Looking down at him, she told him in a low sexy voice to give her a little room. He pushed his chair back. She sat lightly on his lap and started nibbling his ear.
He said, “I’m impervious to that kind of behaviour — you ought to know that by now.”
Robyn kept nibbling.
Chris said, “Tell you what. If you promise to do the dishes for a week, you’ve got a deal.”
Robyn kept right on nibbling.
Chris said, “Want to take a little after-breakfast nap? Settle the digestion, maybe get laid?”
Robyn said, “No way. I want to blackmail a murderer and make lots of money. You do all sorts of exciting things like drive too fast and go to auditions and mingle with the stars, and all I ever do is sit at a cheap desk, entering meaningless information into a stupid computer.”
“Maybe we could compromise.”
“How?”
“Engage in both activities. A little blackmail, a little sex…”
“Not necessarily in that order, I bet.”
“Necessarily not in that order,” said Chris. “Race you to the boudoir.”
She put her arms around him. “Carry me.”
Laughing, he said, “Don’t I always?”
*
Despite the murder, it was business as usual at the aquarium. And despite the weather, business was good. The roads had been plowed, and the park was a study in white, the branches of the evergreens bent under the weight of snow.
Chris parked the Subaru, bought a ticket from the dispenser and tossed it on the dashboard, locked up. He and Robyn strolled hand in hand into the zoo area. There was a line-up at the popcorn stand. He and Robyn loitered by the sea otter pool, watching a fat, bright-eyed toddler in an electric pink snowsuit wriggle towards certain death while his dull-eyed mother rooted around in her purse for her matches.
Was the kid going to make the jump into the otter’s gaping maws?
Nope. Mom lit up. Casually hauled junior back into her arms. They strolled past the Bill Reid sculpture and up the steps and into the aquarium. Chris borrowed twelve dollars from Robyn and bought two tickets. “What’d you like to see first?”
“A fireplace and a waiter with a couple of hot rum punches.”
“The only way you’re going to get something to drink around here is in the washroom, slurping from the sink.”
“How delightful.”
“Let’s check out the Amazon exhibit. It’s so steamy in there, you’ll feel right at home.”
They followed the signs past a small tank filled with pint-sized alligators, through a wide, open doorway into a miniature rainforest. Robyn unzipped her jacket. The humidity was sauna-like and the temperature verged on uncomfortable. An artfully laid-out plank path tunnelled through the dense undergrowth. A bird so flamboyantly feathered it might’ve been a client of Liberace’s tailor flitted giddily past, swerved and vanished in a shiny green mass of shrubbery.
Chris reached out and pinched a leaf big enough to roll into a canoe.
Robin said, “Plastic?”
Chris shook his head. “Nope. It’s the real thing. Genuine vegetation. Makes you wonder — what’ll they come up with next?”
They continued to wander through the rain forest. If you had a weakness for trees and vines and creepers, it was definitely the place to be. But for a hard-core downtowner like Chris it was just another part of the world where it was hard to snag a cab.
Possibly Robyn was thinking along similar lines, because she suddenly clutched Chris’s arm and uttered a fetching shriek in the very best Fay Wray tradition. Expecting nothing less than a giant ape, he followed the line of Robyn’s trembling finger to a huge cockroach that had decided to free-climb the north slope of his pants leg.
He knelt and flicked at it with his fingers, made solid contact.
The cockroach spread its eight legs slightly, as if intending to give him a hug.
Chris said, “Look at the size of the thing. If it ever got out on the highway, they’d have to put license plates on it.” He shook his leg. The roach continued to laboriously gain altitude. He swiped at it with the edge of his hand. The insect dropped, skittered across the plank pathway and dove headlong into a bathtub-size body of brackish water. A large mouth with a small fish attached to it swam out of the coffee-coloured depths and swallowed the cockroach all of a piece.
Chris said was, “Bon appetite, pal.” The roach had gotten in over its depth, and paid a heavy price. But if there was a lesson to be learned, Chris apparently hadn’t paid attention.
Thunder rolled overhead. The exhibit darkened and the air filled with a fine grey mist.
It was raining, kind of.
Chris said, “C’mon, let’s get out of here before we start to rust.”
What he was really worried about was getting out of there before something happened. He’d known Robyn a long time, close to a year now, and was confident she’d soon lose interest in the bounty-hunting game and move on to something else. She was a frustrated joiner who hadn’t joined anything lately. It was as simple as that. If she wasn’t bored, they’d be safe at home in bed.
“Want to check out the whales?”
Robyn shook her head, no. “The heart and soul of this operation’s got to be the gift shop.” Already, she was moving away from him. Hurrying to catch up, Chris caught an unexpected glimpse of himself in an expanse of polished acrylic. He stopped and stared. A school of angelfish drifted through his skull. He looked harried, off-balance. Like someone who was forever trying to catch up.
In the gift shop, Robyn was talking animatedly to the two elderly women guarding the cash register. Both women were expensively dressed and sported plastic tags that said they were volunteers. Their names were Judith and Katherine. Chris arrived just as Robyn said, “A hundred people work here? You’re kidding me!”
But no, these women were not kidders.
Robyn said, “We were here last week, talking to a woman about… octopuses.” Chris waggled his fingers in a mock-groping motion. Robyn ignored him. “She was so helpful. I wanted to send her a card of thanks. But I didn’t get her name…”
The women leaned forward expectantly. Katherine, who was the taller of the pair, was wearing silver killer whale earrings and a matching necklace.
Robyn smiled up at Chris. What, what? Finally, he realized he’d been cued.
He said, “I’m not very good at describing people, but she was about medium height…”
“Blonde,” said Robyn. “Wasn’t she a blonde?”
Chris said, “Yeah, that’s right.”
Judith and Katherine mulled it over, thinking hard. After a moment Judith said, “Are we speaking of natural blondes?”
“Not necessarily,” said Robyn.
“Well, then. I can think of three.”
“Two,” corrected Katherine promptly. “Yvonne’s been on maternity leave for nearly two months, so it couldn’t have been her.”
“That’s right, she is! I wonder how she’s doing, I haven’t heard a thing since she left.”
“She had a girl. What did she call her… It was an old-fashioned name, quite lovely. Charlotte McKenzie. Doesn’t that have a lovely, lilting ring to it? She sent a picture. It’s on the notice board in th
e lunch room.”
Robyn said, “Charlotte’s a wonderful name. Tell me, was she named after the actress?”
The women looked at her, then burst into laughter. Katherine said, “We went off on a wee bit of a tangent, didn’t we, dear? Let’s see now… Who is it that works in the lab… Moira?”
“Mary,” said Judith.
“She has beautiful hair. She wears it in a pageboy cut.” She smiled warmly at Robyn. “Is it Mary you’re thinking of?”
Robyn said, “Chris…?”
Chris wrapped his octopus arms around Robyn and squeezed her tight. “I don’t know. Could be. I spend so much time looking at you I hardly notice what anyone else looks like.”
Robyn laughed and returned his hug, but one of her lively green eyes shouted You and the other screamed Asshole.
Chris said, “You said that there are two blondes working here?”
Katherine and Judith exchanged an uncertain look. Judith said, “I suppose it could have been Dr Carter.”
“Carter?” said Robyn.
“Susan Carter.”
“She’s a research assistant,” said Katherine, “and she does know an awful lot about octopuses and just about everything else you can think of.”
“But,” said Judith.
Katherine nodded in agreement.
Chris said, “But what?”
“She isn’t overly friendly,” said Judith. “Don’t you dare tell her I said so, but it’s true.”
Katherine said, “It’s not that she’s rude, just that she doesn’t seem to have much time for anyone. Always in a rush. If you say hello, she’ll say hello right back to you. Like an echo. But that’s it. Nothing extra.”
“Such a busy young lady.”
“Yes, she certainly is.”
Judith nodded. “Busy, busy, busy.”
Robyn said, “You’ve both been very helpful. Thank you so much.”
“It was a pleasure talking to you, dear.”
Chris said, “Does Dr Carter have an office in the building?”
“Yes, but you can’t get to it from here. You’ll have to go outside, towards the parking lot, and then walk down the sidewalk to the far end of the building.”
“Towards the harbour,” said Katherine.
“Door number five. The receptionist will help you.”
“But if all you want to do is take a peek at her, just look in the last window before you get to the door.”
“That’s her office.”
“If she’s in, she’ll be sitting at her desk in front of her computer.”
“I wouldn’t disturb her, though.”
“Not if she’s working.”
“And she will be, you can be sure of that.”
Chris smiled. “We’ll find her. Thanks for your help.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” said Judith. “It’s what volunteering is all about.”
Chris thanked them again, and then he and Robyn wandered back to the viewing area. Chris looked out the window, down at the killer whale pool. He thought about the dolly. Would twenty-four hours under water destroy any fingerprints that might be on it? Had the cops found it yet? He said, “Now what?”
“What do you think, Mr Octopus?”
“I think we should go home and take a nap.”
Robyn playfully whacked him with a mitten. “Dream on, loverboy.”
“Okay, go home and have lunch and take a nap.”
“Oh, I see. If you can’t lure me away with sex, maybe a can of tomato soup will do it.”
Chris said, “What do you want to do?”
“Locate Susan Carter. See if you recognize her.”
“Naked would be best,” said Chris.
Robyn gave him a look. She said, “Tell me about it. Isn’t it always the way?”
Chapter 17
Willows was at his desk by quarter to nine. No one else was in the office, although he had the cork bulletin board’s display of several hundred mug shots to keep him company.
At home, he’d tiptoed around the kitchen in his stockinged feet as he made his morning coffee. The pot had burbled so vociferously that he was sure he’d wake the household. But if he had disturbed anyone they hadn’t complained. Willows was solitary by nature. He’d lived by himself for more than two years. Suddenly the house seemed crowded. It was going to take a bit of time, getting used to the mob.
He glanced across the aisle to the clutter on Eddy Orwell’s desk. All those photographs of his wife and kid; Eddy had only been married a few years but his relationship was already falling apart. Well, that’s the way things were, for cops. The job took so much out of you that you had nothing left for your family. For the uniformed constables, it was the shift work that did them in. Detectives had another problem — the lengthy and unpredictable hours they worked played havoc with their family lives. Either way, in uniform or civvies, all you saw was the rotten side of the log. A lot of good cops looked down the road, didn’t like what they saw, and took early retirement or quit. Some made a conscious decision to switch off their emotions, deal with the world as if it was nothing but a tangled heap of machinery. Others hit the booze.
Orwell had started messing with fast women with slow minds. It wasn’t an original solution but it was a popular one.
Willows slid open his desk drawer and took out his personal phone directory. He slid the plastic indicator arrow down to the YZ section and pressed the metal bar. The directory flipped open. Annie and Sean smiled up at him from their two-inch-square school photographs. He leaned back in his chair. Parker had lent him a pair of scissors so he could cut the margins off the pictures to make them fit on the index card.
That had been more than three years ago. The adhesive tape holding the pictures in place had yellowed with age and curled around the edges.
Sean and Annie had been children when the pictures were taken. They were something else now; neither adults nor children, but somewhere in between. Especially Sean. The boy’s narrow, bony face seemed permanently twisted by rage. Willows hoped his son was angry at something in particular. He’d seen what could happen when a kid made up his mind that life wasn’t worth living.
Down at the far end of the squad room there was the scratch of a key in the lock. The door opened and Homer Bradley limped in. He hadn’t complained, but it was clear that the cold, damp weather was playing havoc with his rheumatism. He pocketed his keys, saw Willows and nodded in a friendly way.
Willows stole a last quick look at his children, snapped shut his telephone index and put it away in his desk.
Bradley, approaching, said “Morning, Jack.”
“Morning, Inspector.”
“Anything new — ” Bradley dropped his voice to a growl and did a fair imitation of Marlon Brando in ‘The Godfather’ — “on duh nude dude got took for a swim wit’ duh fishes?”
“Not yet, Inspector.”
“But you’re working on it, right?” Bradley gave Willows a fatherly pat on the shoulder and headed towards his office.
Willows’ phone rang shrilly. He picked up. Parker told him she was calling from the RCMP forensic laboratory on Alberni Street. The water in Gerard Roth’s lungs had come from the big saltwater tank inside the aquarium, the tank with the black-tailed sharks.
Willows remembered it.
Parker said, “Roth was dead when he went into the whale pool, Jack.”
Willows gripped the telephone a little tighter as he felt that familiar adrenalin rush. He’d known Roth was murdered.
Farley Spears entered the squad room. He shrugged out of his overcoat and tossed it on his chair, walked up to Orwell’s desk and used a heavy black felt pen to draw Groucho Marx moustaches on each and every picture of Orwell’s wife and son. He saw the look on Willows’ face and said, “It’s on the glass. It’ll wipe off.”
Parker said, “Somebody dumped him in the whale pool, Jack. It wasn’t the tide that put him there.” There was some background noise at her end, and then she said, “Now the bad
news.”
“What’s that?”
“Read the Province yet?”
“Haven’t gotten around to it.”
“Roth made the front page. Big headline, gigantic colour photograph. The article’s only about fifty words. There’s nothing concrete, but it hints strongly that he was murdered.”
“Who got the by-line?”
“Nobody, Jack. The piece’s uncredited.”
Willows chair creaked. He sighed heavily. Popeye had a fatal weakness — once he’d had a few free drinks poured down his throat he was prone to idle conjecture. Willows said, “Want me to pick you up?”
“I’ve got a car.”
“I’ll meet you at the aquarium. Twenty minutes?”
“See you there.”
Willows said, “But not in the building. Outside, by the popcorn stand.”
“Forget it — it’s too cold.”
“In your car, then. What’re you driving?”
“A dirty brown Pontiac equipped with all the usual optional accessories. Blackwall tyres. Mini hubcaps. Twin antennae. Manually operated windows. Don’t worry, Jack. You’ll know it when you see it.”
“Twenty minutes,” said Willows. He heard somebody with a very deep voice ask Parker if she’d like another cup of coffee, or maybe a drink somewhere.
Parker said, “Gotta run, Jack.”
Willows flinched away from a sudden earful of hearty masculine laughter.
Parker hung up.
Willows walked the length of the squad room to Bradley’s office, knocked and walked inside, and filled his inspector in on recent events.
Bradley said, “I’m assigning Orwell and Spears to the case. Viney and Wilkinson are in court for the next couple of days, but the minute they’re done I’m going to put them on it too.” Willows’ eyes darkened. Bradley said, “Don’t fight it, Jack. You’ve got a hundred alibis to verify, and that’s just the full-time staff. If I can find a couple more bodies, you’ll get them too.”
Fifteen minutes later, Willows found Parker’s dirty brown Pontiac pointed nose out in the parking lot next to the aquarium. He pulled in next to her, turned off the engine and climbed out of the Ford.
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