A Year Less a Day

by James Hawkins

  “That’s garbage.”

  “OK. Well, bottom line ... As you know, forensics have found human blood on a kitchen knife; the cab company that supposedly took him for his treatment didn’t; her apartment is full of pot, and we’ve got a video from the drug squad showing her buying on the street; her mother was a mainliner, judging by her record; and, to top it off, her husband’s been missing for three months while she pretended to everyone that he was upstairs with a touch of the flu. Not looking good for your friend, Mike.”

  Phillips takes a breath and weighs in, “I thought something wasn’t right, just the way she trimmed herself up and started taking care of herself, wearing lipstick and eyeshadow, getting her hair done.”

  “As if she was on the lookout for a replacement,” suggests Wilson. “Although that doesn’t make really sense. From what I’ve heard, he was the one who might have been on the prowl.”

  “Do we know what her husband looks like? I never saw him.”

  Jordan’s appearance arises again half an hour later when the detectives and crime scene officers hold a progress meeting.

  “She says she hasn’t got any pictures of him at all,” Brougham tells the group of detectives and forensic officers.”

  “That’s kinda suspicious,” chimes in BB. “Particularly as she claims he was on his death bed.”

  “She said that there were some on the computer, but he lost them.”

  “Hah! That’s convenient,” snorts BB.

  “There’s no sign of a passport, health card, or driver’s licence,” one of the forensic officers adds. “Although we should be able to get replicas from the various ministries—if the pen-pushers don’t invoke the privacy act.”

  “What about credit cards?” inquires Inspector Wilson, and BB lights up.

  “You might find this interesting, sir. I checked. He hasn’t used a credit card since early September.”

  “I asked her about that yesterday,” Brougham says, rifling through his notes. “When she said he called her from a payphone at the hospital, I said, quote: ‘Did he pay with a credit card? Does he have credit cards?’

  ‘Not any longer,’ she said. ‘I cut his up last summer because he kept buying things we couldn’t afford.’”

  “She’s thought of everything,” says BB, his implication clear.

  “What’s the situation with the knife?” asks Wilson.

  “It’s positive for human blood,” a forensic officer tells them while checking his notes. “Fourteen-inch stainless steel with a single edge.”

  Brougham looks up, “I’ve spoken to her about that, and we’re having all the hospitals, walk-in clinics, and morgues checked for a white male, late fifties, goes by the name of Tom.”

  “What did she tell you?” asks Wilson.

  Brougham stops in momentary thought as he casts his thoughts back to the interview, when he had stood over the snivelling woman with the carving knife on the table in front of her, saying, “This knife’s got blood on it.”

  “It’s a kitchen knife,” she’d sniffed.

  “So—Beef, pork, lamb? Whose blood is that Ruth? And don’t bother lying anymore—it will be tested.”

  “I wasn’t lying,” she’d started fiercely, then sobbed her way through the story of Tom and his loan business.

  “And you expect us to believe that this Tom, whose name and address you can’t remember, lent you eighteen thousand dollars with no paperwork, not even a signature, and then you cut his throat?” Brougham had said.

  “She claims it was only a scratch, but until we turn up a body we have no way of knowing,” continues Brougham to his colleagues, then laughs as he says, “You’ll never guess why she did it: She says he was stealing her toilet paper.”

  “That’s taking capital punishment a bit far isn’t it?” laughs BB.

  Another part of Ruth’s story that has quickly sprung a leak concerns the cab that Jordan took each week for his treatment sessions. The cab company has no record—not even for the first trip when Ruth had tearfully seen her husband off.

  “It was definitely Bakers,” Ruth had told Brougham. “We always use Bakers.”

  “The first alleged treatment session was just over three months ago,” Brougham tells the others, “but Bakers only keeps records for three months, so we can’t verify it one way or the other. But all the other trips she claims he made should have been recorded, and they are not.”

  “He’d have a cab pick him up at the back door so he didn’t have to go through the café,” Ruth had explained to Brougham. “I only saw him off the first time. Usually, I’d say goodbye to him upstairs and he’d call a cab when he was ready and slip out the back.”

  It wasn’t a total shock when Brougham had informed Ruth that Bakers had no record of picking Jordan up after the first treatment session in September. But it would no longer be a total shock if they told her that Jordan had been abducted by aliens in a little green spaceship.

  “He must have used a different cab company ...” Ruth had started, but Brougham had shaken his head. “Nope. I checked them all.” Then he tried a different angle. “What about yesterday, Ruth? When you say you went to the hospital to talk about Jordan’s cancer?”

  “I did.”

  “So why did you lie to the nice man who gave you a ride?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Sergeant Phillips said you were very nervous in the car; that you hardly mentioned your husband and you claimed you were going for a check-up.”

  “That’s not true. I said I was going to the hospital, but I didn’t tell him why.”

  “Why not?”

  “He didn’t ask.”

  “What about the evening you went out with him?”

  “I’ve never been out with him.”

  Brougham knew he was trawling the bottom when he’d continued, “Your friend, Trina Button, claims you’d had a few dates with him.”

  “He’s just a friendly customer, that’s all,” Ruth had retorted angrily and had left Brougham at a dead end.

  “So where were you going in the cab that evening that you didn’t want to be seen?” Brougham had persisted, although he already knew the answer, he was just pushing buttons.

  BB had tracked the cab driver in Hawaii and the man had easily remembered Ruth and her destination.

  “She didn’t look the sort that usually goes there,” the vacationer had told BB over the phone. “She was quite classy. Nice looking too—groovy glasses, nervous as hell.”

  “What sort usually goes there?” BB had wanted to know.

  “Well, you know what the place is, don’t you?”

  BB had not known of the porn movie studio on his beat, though the Mountie’s organized-crime squad certainly did. Mike Phillips had quickly filled him in.

  “A gang of bikers led by a crazy English toad runs the place. We think the porn is a bit of a front. It’s mainly a clearing house for dope. They’ve got a small pot grow-op in the basement, but most of the supply comes in from other growers.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it, Sergeant,” BB had queried.

  “My job, kid,” Phillips had replied, asking, “What’s your interest?”

  BB’s declaration that Ruth is a part-time porno queen leaves Phillips with a bad taste, but there is a simple way for him to establish the facts, and he scoots back to his office, shuts the door, and pages a field-operative with an urgent message.

  Two hours later, as the forensic team is finishing for the day at Ruth’s coffee shop, Phillips is across town reading a newspaper with his back to the wall of an unwholesome greasy spoon.

  The RCMP sergeant doesn’t look up, but he sees the café door opening and Vernon McLeod, the young photographer from the porn studio, walk to the counter for a coffee. There are only a handful of customers, all seeking refuge—some from the rain, but most from life—and McLeod carefully checks each one out before settling himself at the table next to Phillips. The young photographer has his eyes on the far wall and his cup cove
ring his mouth as he questions to the air. “What’s the panic, Mike? I haven’t been burnt have I?”

  “No. You’re in the clear, Vern,” says Phillips, with his head down in the paper. “But we need a quick ID in a murder case. Ask me for the sports.”

  McLeod puts down his cup and turns. “Can I see the sports page, Buddy?” he asks loudly, and Phillips reaches over with the pages.

  “Recognize her?” asks Phillips once McLeod has studied Ruth’s features for a few seconds.

  “I don’t take much notice of their faces ...” he begins, then pauses with a look of recognition. “Oh, yeah. She was in for a tryout. She the victim?”

  “No, suspect. Was she any good?”

  McLeod gives Phillips a leery glance. “Do you think it’s fun watching women perform all day?”

  “It beats taking mug shots of women with split lips and black eyes.”

  “Don’t you believe it, Mike. There ain’t much difference. Anyway, she wasn’t the type.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “The creep who runs the place pulls out a foot-long dildo and she heads for the hills.”

  “You didn’t get any pictures?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” says McLeod, shaking his head. “Though I have got her on video.” Phillips’ face instantly picks up and McLeod reads it wrongly, as he adds, “Door surveillance, Mike. Nothing to get excited about.”

  “I just don’t know why she would even consider doing it.”

  “Same as the rest of them—the money,” says McLeod, handing back the paper.

  By the time Phillips returns to the police office, Brougham is having another go at Ruth in the interview room. Brougham thinks he’s dug up a bone and he’s not letting go easily as he questions, “We have information that you disposed of a quantity of contaminated food in September, Mrs. Jackson. Why?”

  “Contaminated? What food?”

  “The food you said was too poisonous to be taken to the women’s shelter.”

  “It wasn’t poisonous ...”

  “Trina Button says ...”

  “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “I kind of agree with you there,” Brougham says, recalling his interview of Trina following her arrest at the café earlier that morning.

  Trina, wearing her nurse’s whites, had stopped by the café with the intention of liberating some of Ruth’s clothes—so that she would look nice for her first court appearance that afternoon. It simply hadn’t crossed Trina’s mind that the crime scene tapes across the doorways applied to her, so she had given the police officer on guard duty a friendly wave and slipped underneath as if it were an everyday occurrence.

  With a cheery, “Hi,” to a couple of forensic officers helping themselves to coffee and cookies in the café, she’d confidently walked upstairs to the apartment, selected a decent-sized suitcase, and started to pack.

  “Excuse me,” she’d said, nudging the fingerprint officer aside as she bustled around, selecting suitable items from the closet; trying a few things against herself in the mirror; avoiding everything with even a trace of stripes.

  She had worked her way quietly around the forensic team for several minutes, and had the suitcase half-filled, before she had spotted Ruth’s treasured purse, together with the George Harrison posters, atop a cupboard.

  “Could you just reach that bag for me, please?” she’d asked one of the officers.

  “Sure,” he’d said, handing it to her; then he’d pulled a puzzled look.

  “I just got arrested for attempting to pervert the course of justice,” Trina had laughed as she caught up with the crossword gang temporarily re-housed in Donut Delight.

  “What happened?” Maureen had asked when no one else seemed willing.

  “I was just picking up a few things for Ruth when they grabbed me. ‘You can’t arrest me,’ I shouted. ‘I promised my next client an enema.’”

  “And they still let you go?” inquired Darcey.

  “Yeah. And they didn’t even search me.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “Well, they were all wearing surgical gloves.”

  “Trina!” exclaims Matt in disgust, then he leans forward. “This place stinks. I hope Ruth’s not gonna be long.”

  “I’ll be bringing you in a wheelchair by the time she gets out. If the sergeant’s right.”

  Sergeant Brougham is still laughing about the incident at the start of a progress meeting late that afternoon.

  “I reckon she’s got a moose loose in the top paddock,” Brougham tells Wilson after explaining that he had recovered the suitcase of clothes and let Trina off with a warning.

  “You got something against moose, Dave?” laughs Wilson.

  “Yeah. I totalled my Chevy under one in Alaska last year. Stupid animals. No moose is good moose as far as I’m concerned.”

  “What have we got, then?” asks Wilson, motioning Brougham, BB, and a couple of forensic officers to sit.

  Speculation outweighs factual evidence as the officers flip through their notes and make the most of slim pickings.

  “There was absolutely no trace of poisons, not even domestic stuff like fly killer, drain cleaner, or rat poison. Everything we found was totally non-toxic,” begins one of the crime-scene officers.

  “That’s interesting,” says Wilson. “You’d expect some poisons.”

  “She got rid of ’em in September,” suggests BB. “Cleaned out everything just like the Cloud woman told me.”

  “Maybe. But where’s the body?”

  “I bet she cleared out a freezer to make room and dumped him later,” suggests Brougham, then lays out his theory. “She might not have meant to kill him—it happens, right? Abused woman, smacks him over the head with a frying pan and ‘Boomph!’ he’s dead.”

  “Was she abused?” asks Wilson. “I don’t remember anyone saying that.”

  “No,” admits Brougham, “Though God knows what goes on behind closed doors. I’m just speculating that if it was a spur-of-the-moment thing she would have had no money to run with, and no way of disposing of the body. So she cleans out the freezer, claiming the stuff is poisonous, and slips him in. Then she spends a few months collecting enough money to get away. Cindy, the girl who works there, said that once her husband vanished in September, Jackson had gotten really tight. Apparently, before that, she’d graze her way through the cake cooler and dip into the ice cream all day long; then suddenly it all stopped. And they were much busier as well after he’d gone. I bet she’s stashed some cash somewhere.”

  “But where’s the body, Dave?” demands Wilson, and Brougham shrugs.

  “She had three months. A few bits in the garbage every day ...”

  “Then why cause the commotion at the hospital yesterday?”

  “Double bluff,” pipes up BB. “Remember—she wouldn’t phone her husband. The administrator offered. She wouldn’t phone because she knew he wasn’t at home.”

  “But she phoned eventually,” reminds Brougham.

  “Yes. When she was alone at a payphone, and that was just to let the Button woman know that she could leave because she was on her way home.”

  “I still don’t get it,” admits Wilson. “Unless she claims that her husband must have been in his room because Button had looked after him all day.”

  “That woman is driving me nuts,” says Brougham. “If she’s not snooping around the café, she’s on the phone demanding to know what we’re doing to help her friend. She’s phoned at least six times today and she’s been in twice.”

  Trina has actually been in to see Ruth three times, and sent away twice, but now she is waiting in the interview room with a large plastic garbage bag.

  “You’ve got a visitor if you can stop crying long enough to see her,” the matron tells Ruth. “She’s brought you some clothes for your remand hearing.”

  “Trina?” she queries hopefully.

  “Dry your eyes and you’ll find out.”

&
nbsp; “Hi, Ruth. How are you doing?” asks Trina as Ruth crashes into her arms. “Not good, eh?”

  “Sit down,” orders the matron, dragging the tearful woman off, and Ruth falls into a chair.

  “Who’s running the café today?” snivels Ruth.

  “The Gestapo,” says Trina, recalling her adventure.

  Ruth has a fearful look as she queries, “Not Jordan’s mother?”

  “No. But I got arrested. It was quite a lark. I was just trying to get some of your clothes ...”

  “Getting arrested isn’t a lark, Trina.”

  “Yeah, but I hadn’t done anything wrong.”

  “Neither have I, Trina,” she cries. “Neither have I.”

  “Look what I brought,” says Trina, anxious to change the subject, and she opens the bag like it’s a birthday present. “I had to bring you some of my clothes,” she says, pulling out some snazzy pants. “They wouldn’t let me have yours. But I expect these will fit you now. You’re beginning to look like an Easter snowman. You should eat.”

  “Eat, eat, eat,” spits Ruth. “Why does everyone tell me to eat? All my life people said, ‘Stop eating, fatso,’ and now it’s, ‘Eat, eat, eat.’ How can I eat; how can I sleep or even think, knowing he’s out there, cold and starving?”

  “But you’ll get sick if you don’t eat, Ruth.”

  Ruth isn’t listening. “Trina,” she implores, looking for support in her friend’s eyes. “Tell me honestly. You do believe that Jordan was there don’t you?”

  “Well ... I did think it strange that I never saw him.”

  “Trina,” Ruth bawls. “Even you don’t believe me.”

  “Of course I do ... Though you did lie to me. If you’d told me he wasn’t in his bedroom, I wouldn’t have gone in.”

  “He was there. I didn’t lie ...” starts Ruth, then gives up.

  Several minutes of awkward silence is punctuated by Ruth’s constant sniffing, until Trina sneaks a peek at her watch. “I can stay another two minutes,” she says, and that gives her just enough time for an idea she’s been working on.