Killers

by Laurence Gough

  “You’d be shy too, if you were a rabbit.”

  “I bet I would,” said Parker, laughing.

  Archie’s jacket bulged crazily as the rabbit turned round and round. Archie said, “I’m a murder suspect, am I? Is that a good thing? Somehow I doubt it. Please explain. For example, will I lose my driver’s licence? Also, do I need a lawyer?”

  Willows said, “Not unless you’re guilty.”

  Archie nodded, mulling it over. “Nine hundred thousand gallons of water, that’s how much the whale pool holds. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?” He looked out at the water. His nose was thin and straight, his mouth a little too wide. His pale skin was smooth and unlined, even though he was thirty-six years old. His eyebrows and eyelashes were so light in colour that they were hardly there at all.

  Finally, he said, “A mature killer cruises at thirty miles an hour. Pods often travel more than one hundred miles a day. Know how many times you’d have to lap that pool to do a hundred miles?” Not expecting an answer, Archie ducked his head, buried his nose in his jacket.

  He spoke quietly to Louie-Louie and then raised his head and stared directly at Parker. “Killer whales require more than one hundred pounds of protein a day. Three-quarters of their time is normally spent foraging for food. Have you ever thought what it must be liked to be snatched out of the ocean and dropped in an oversized bathtub?”

  “Not too happy, I guess.”

  Archie turned and looked back up the slope at the house. “What did you think of my mother?”

  “She seemed nice enough.”

  “But a little eccentric, maybe?”

  Parker smiled.

  Archie said, “She works so hard at it.” He returned Parker’s smile. “This is the first time in my life I’ve been a murder suspect. It’s kind of neat — makes me feel dangerous.” Louie-Louie poked its head out again. Its nose twitched as it tested the breeze. Archie scratched it behind the ears. The bunny perked up a little. Its close-set pink eyes scrutinized Parker.

  Willows said, “Can you tell us where you were Friday night?”

  “Right here at the old homestead. I had dinner with mother and a wonderfully talented painter who specializes in snowstorms.”

  “Ricardo.”

  “Yeah, Rick.”

  “How much of the evening did you spend with them?”

  “Well, it seemed like forever. But I probably left the table about eight or eight-thirty.”

  “Then what?”

  “I came down here to the gazebo.”

  “Alone?”

  “No, I was with Louie-Louie. He’s a wonderful pal. Never interrupts, never complains.”

  “How long did you stay down here, Archie?”

  “Until about seven in the morning. That’s when mother rang the breakfast bell.”

  Parker said, “What did you do here, during all that time?”

  “Listened to the snow. Rain can be so violent, but the sound of snow falling is the most gentle sound in the world.” He shifted on the wooden bench so he was facing Willows. “Don’t you agree?”

  Willows said, “Can your mother or Ricardo confirm that you spent the night here at the gazebo?”

  “Mother always watches me. She’s very considerate, turns out all the lights in the house so I won’t be able to see her standing at the window. But all the same, I know she’s there. I can feel her eyes on me.” Archie glanced at Parker, quickly looked away. “Can you tell when someone’s watching you, Miss Parker?”

  “Almost always.”

  Willows stood up. “Thanks for your time, Archie.”

  “I hope you learned something.”

  “Well, you never know.” Willows paused. “One more question. Were you aware that Gerard Roth mentioned you in his will?”

  “He said he would. Phoned me a couple of years ago and told me I’d be fifty thousand dollars richer, the day he died. But that I had to spend every last dime on the whales. Educating people. Helping them see the light.”

  “He cared about the whales?”

  “I doubt it. The killers are a big draw. There’s no way the aquarium could survive without all the cash they bring in. They paid Roth’s salary. He was guilty of exploiting them, and he knew it. His posthumous donation to the cause was a last-ditch shot at balancing the books, that’s all. In case God noticed that he’d died.”

  Archie gave Parker a sly look. He said, “Lots of people hedge their bets. There’s a woman who works at the aquarium, sends me a check every month…”

  “Susan Carter?”

  “How’d you know that? She told you?”

  “No, Archie, just a lucky guess.”

  *

  Willows drove the Ford back through West Vancouver, over the falling-down bridge and through the salt-grey causeway and into the city. It was late, approaching end of shift. He asked Parker if she wanted a ride home and she told him she wanted to be dropped off at 312 Main. She wanted to ask Bradley about getting a court order to obtain BC Tel records of outgoing calls from Gerard Roth’s and Susan Carter’s apartments, Iris Roth’s house and Anthony Sweeting’s home.

  Willows said, “You want to know if any of them were in contact with each other?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It’s a good idea. Bradley should go along with it, if you ask him nicely.”

  Parker said, “Dinner still on?”

  Willows nodded, checked his watch. “Seven-thirty okay?”

  “Fine,” said Parker, a little too vigorously. “I’ll bring some wine — what are we eating?”

  “Guess,” said Willows, showing his front teeth and wriggling his nose.

  Chapter 22

  He’d been calling her all morning, letting the automatic redial do the work for him as he held the phone loosely in his hand, hearing a sharp click as the connection was made and then the steady ringing that went on and on and on, until he finally hung up. Since it was Monday, maybe she was at work…

  People had all kinds of phones now — you could rent or buy hundreds of different models and they all sounded a little different. But no matter what kind of phone the person you were calling owned, the sound of the ringing was always the same.

  Chris didn’t think that was right. He believed that if the person you were calling had spent a few extra dollars on a phone that warbled, then you should be able to enjoy the sound of warbling as you waited for her to pick up. And it’d be even better if instead of a ringing in the ear you got a real sexy voice that whispered ‘call me again and again and again’.

  Unfortunately that kind of phone didn’t exist, or if it did, wasn’t available to the public. And if Susan had an answering machine it wasn’t plugged in. Chris hit the redial number again.

  He was beginning to think she’d left town for the weekend and hadn’t come back yet. Maybe driven across the border to Seattle, or up the death-trap Sea-to-Sky highway to Whistler for a little skiing. Or maybe she went home so she could lay her head in her mommy’s lap, be a small helpless child once again.

  Still no answer.

  Chris tossed the phone on the floor. He climbed out of bed, dressed in faded jeans, a baggy, blindingly white cotton shirt, thick white sports socks and his black Nike Hi-Tops, the black leather jacket with the heavy brass zippers.

  Outside, it wasn’t snowing but somehow smelled like snow. Chris unlocked the Subaru, got in. He started the engine and turned the heater on full, then climbed out to scrape the frost off the windows. He slowly worked his way around the car, held his breath as he scraped clean the rear window, exhaust fumes pluming around him.

  When he’d done the windows he climbed back behind the wheel and hit the gas. The engine revved smoothly. He fastened his seatbelt and slipped a Neil Young tape into the cassette deck.

  There was a payphone on Davie, less than two blocks from Susan Carter’s apartment. Chris had written Susan’s number down on a scrap of paper. That was the problem with automatic redial options, wasn’t it? Your brain could take a
holiday but it had to go back to work sooner or later. He dropped a nickel and two dimes and dialled Susan’s number. Her phone rang slavishly until he disconnected.

  He scooped his money out of the coin return slot, got back into the idling Subaru and continued up Davie. There was a parking spot on Bidwell, right across the street from her high-rise. He pulled in, checked his watch. Five minutes had passed since he’d last called her. What could happen in five minutes? He got out of the car and locked it, pocketed his keys and zipped up as he trotted across the street.

  He buzzed Susan’s apartment.

  No answer.

  He hit another button, at random. Again, there was no response. He punched several more buttons, running straight down the row. A voice — he thought it was a woman’s but wasn’t sure — said hello. He said he lived down the hall, gave the voice a name plucked from his subconscious and laughingly explained that he must’ve left his keys in his apartment door. Did she remember him? Would she please let him in, because his mother was coming over and he had to get the roast into the oven?

  The woman buzzed him in. He took the elevator up to Susan Carter’s fourteenth-floor apartment.

  There was no response to his light-hearted knock. He pushed his eye up to the peephole, but it was designed to work the other way around and all he could see was a tiny disc of fuzzy grey light.

  He stepped back, got set, and hit the doorknob hard with the heel of his running shoe. Ouch. Next time he’d wear his boots.

  He kicked the door again. It didn’t move so much as a fraction of an inch. He kicked again, putting all his weight into it, holding nothing back. His foot slid off the rounded knob. Pain zapped his ankle and knee.

  He was sitting on his ass grumpily ministering to his wound when a fat guy in striped coveralls and a green corduroy Mohawk gas-station cap decorated with gold braid pushed through the fire door at the end of the corridor. The guy held the fire door open with his left foot while he dragged a wooden stepladder and a cardboard box full of light bulbs into the hallway. He noticed Chris, did an unintentionally comic double-take and asked him who he was.

  Chris told the guy he’d hurt his ankle. He said he realized he’d left his keys in his other jacket just as the door was closing behind him, had stupidly tried to stop it with his foot.

  The guy asked him what he was doing with keys to the apartment, since he wasn’t a registered occupant.

  Chris explained that Susan was his sister. He said he was in town for a day or two because her boyfriend had been killed and she was pretty upset about it. The guy nodded sympathetically, his gold braid glinting. He was aware that Susan worked at the aquarium and knew all the gory details of Dr Roth’s murder. Imagine being drowned and then used for a beanbag. Brother, what a way to go. He asked Chris what his name was and Chris, caught off guard, told the truth and nothing but. Oh well. The guy shoved his cap back on his sloping forehead, dug around in his coverall pockets, came up with a brass key on a Mohawk keyring. He unlocked the door, pushed it wide open but stood in the way as he mentioned he hadn’t seen Susan around lately. Where was she?

  Chris said she was right there in the apartment, taking a bath. He winked and asked the guy if he wanted to come in for a minute, say hello. The guy hesitated, thinking it over. Finally he shook his head and said he better not, his wife’d break a frying pan on his skull if she got another complaint.

  Chris thanked him for his help, held on to his smile while the door slowly swung shut.

  He looked in the bathroom first, just in case he’d inadvertently made a lucky guess.

  The bathtub was empty. No water. No Susan. He moved quickly through the apartment. It was a compact unit. There wasn’t a whole lot of exploring to be done. He checked the bedroom next. From the hall he could see that there was no one in the kitchen nook or combination living and dining room.

  Wherever Susan was, it had to be somewhere else.

  Chris went back into the bedroom and switched on the light. The walk-in closet was stuffed with expensive clothes. A dozen pairs of shoes were laid out neatly on the floor. The dresser had five drawers, three of them stuffed with the kind of kinky silk lingerie Chris was always trying to get Robyn to buy, and she was always telling him they couldn’t afford.

  In the bottom drawer of the dresser Chris found a ripped-open package wrapped in plain brown paper covered with cancelled American postage stamps. The package had Susan’s name and address printed on it in heavy block letters. Under the brown paper was a sturdy cardboard box stuffed with hundreds of contraceptives. It was a sample pack; a selection of guaranteed-to-please rubbers from all over the world.

  Was the girl weird? Or merely economical?

  The bed was a king-size model. Chris bounced up and down on it a couple of times, testing the mattress, which he judged to be the extra-firm model, fairly new because it still had plenty of life in it.

  There was a purse-size black leather telephone book on the night table. He found Gerard Roth’s name in the book under ‘a’ for ‘amazing’, ‘h’ for ‘hunk’, ‘l’ for ‘lover’ and ‘s’ for ‘stud’ and ‘sex machine’ and ‘satyr’. It went on and on. There he was, every two or three pages, in large red letters. Sometimes there was a small but elaborate, oddly erotic illustration.

  Chris turned to the last few pages. Roth was listed under ‘w’ for ‘wanton’.

  It occurred to him that since Susan wasn’t here, but must be somewhere, maybe she was there. At loverboy’s love nest.

  Acting on impulse, he dialled the number. The phone started ringing…

  In the drawer of the night table he found more contraceptives and two hand-held mirrors. He held the mirrors up on either side of his face. He smiled.

  *

  The damn telephone had been ringing almost all day long. Was it the handsome detective having second thoughts? Or maybe Iris? Or some woman from Gerard’s past that she didn’t know about… Susan’s head throbbed. Too much alcohol. She picked up and said hello, trying to sound sexy but grief-stricken, a little angry.

  Chris said, “I know what you did, Suze. But I’ll keep my mouth shut, for twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Susan slammed down the phone.

  Chris thought, Well, at least she hadn’t said no.

  He finished searching the bedroom and walked down the hall to the bathroom. It was clear that Susan spent an awful lot of her disposable income on makeup. The medicine cabinet was crammed with elegant little jars and tubes and squeeze-packs, expensive brands Robyn raved about but rarely bought.

  A gold lipstick tube stood upright on the counter. Chris opened it. The lipstick was a rich, creamy-looking red. It looked brand new, unused. He put the cap back on and dropped the tube in his pocket.

  The sink, bathtub and toilet were all the same putrid green. Chris lifted the toilet seat, urinated, zipped up. Deliberately neglected to flush.

  He checked himself out in the mirror over the sink, squared his shoulders and tilted his head in an exact imitation of James Dean. The dead and buried poster boy. Some actors were like artists — unpopular until they’d died. It was a chilling thought. Chris wandered into the kitchen. There was nothing of interest except the pyramid of champagne bottles in the refrigerator. He crouched and examined a label. Lanson Père Black Label Brut. French. He laid a hand on the top bottle. It was icy cold. Why was he surprised?

  He found a half-full bottle of Absolut vodka under the sink, behind a pressurized tin of disinfectant. He unscrewed the cap and sniffed, poured a drop on the tip of his index finger and gingerly licked it, then put the bottle to his mouth and helped himself to a stiff shot.

  As he lowered the bottle, he happened to notice his watch.

  He’d been in the apartment for over half an hour, almost forty minutes. She could have walked in at any moment, could walk in right now. Or what if she happened to bump into the halfwit Mohawk dude?

  Chris screwed the cap back on the vodka bottle and tried to remember where he’d found it, if the label
was facing out, what possible difference it could make if he got it right…

  He made a last quick circuit of Susan’s apartment, emptied the dresser of a handful of exotic rubbers and several pairs of frothy silk panties with the price tag still attached. He carried his loot back into the kitchen, put it in a brown paper bag taken from a stack of neatly folded bags wedged between the fridge and the kitchen counter. What else did she have that he wanted? Champagne.

  He was standing there in the kitchen with the paper bag in his arms when it finally sunk in that he’d made a connection. Demanded the cash. Now all he had to do was wait a day or two and then give her another call. She’d get the money somewhere — what choice did she have?

  He helped himself to a bottle of bubbly, tore off the foil and wire cage and popped the cork. A little wine spilled on to the linoleum floor. He drank deeply. The champagne was so cold it made his throat ache. But it tasted wonderful.

  He was confident Susan Carter would never miss any of the things he’d taken. If she noticed the urine in the toilet she’d blame herself. Who wouldn’t?

  But still, it was a creepy thing to do, piss in a woman’s toilet and then leave it there.

  Chris carried the open bottle of champagne and his brown paper bag back down the hall towards the bathroom.

  The phone rang. He hesitated, standing there in the gloom of the unlit apartment. Susan didn’t want any more threatening phone calls so she’d cancelled her call forwarding — but Chris had no way of knowing that.

  There was a knock on the door. More of a pounding, actually.

  The phone rang again and then the answering machine in the bedroom picked up. Susan’s pre-recorded voice said she wasn’t home and please leave a message after the beep.

  Chris waited for the beep. It didn’t come.

  The door shook.

  In the bedroom, a woman’s voice rambled on. Robyn? No, of course not. Impossible.

  A key scratched in the lock.

  He stepped into the bathroom. It was a very small bathroom. If there was somewhere to hide, he couldn’t find it.

  The hall lit up as the door swung open. The Mohawk guy said, “Anybody home?”