Serpents Rising

by David A. Poulsen

  A tap on the window. I looked out into the darkness as the man bent down and looked back at me, an unhappy look on the familiar face. Motioned for me to roll down the window. I did.

  “Nice night for a drive,” Cobb said.

  “It might be, if I was driving.”

  “Which leads me to my next question — what are you doing here?”

  “Why don’t you climb in the other side and we can talk about it without risking frostbite.”

  He hesitated, then nodded and crossed in front of the Accord. I flipped open the lock on the passenger side and started the car. I was due for a warm-up.

  Cobb climbed in and looked across at me. “Frostbite? It’s barely below freezing.”

  “I have thin blood.”

  “Are you going to be a jerk about this?”

  I knew by “this” he meant my being around when he’d told me to get lost.

  “Probably.”

  “To repeat — what are you doing here?”

  “I don’t honestly know. I just needed to get out of the house, went for a drive, ended up here. Then I got thinking about Zoe and the guys that are looking for Jay. Thought I’d just hang here for a while.”

  He made a noise that was half grunt, half cough. He looked at the CD player where Gould was wrapping up the eighth variation.

  “Classical?” He looked surprised or maybe miffed.

  “Yeah.”

  “You like classical?”

  “Among other things, and when I’m in the right mood, yeah.”

  He made the same noise he’d made a few seconds before, then looked across the street at the darkness of the building, and back at me.

  “And you thought you’d ‘hang here.’”

  “Yeah.”

  “‘For a while.’”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not a bad thought.”

  Surprised me. “You think she could be in danger?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. These guys are hardasses. They offed the old man, but that might not be enough.”

  “They could be worried that the kid is pissed off enough to tell the cops whatever he knows about the house on Raleigh.”

  Cobb nodded. “That’s possible. One thing’s for sure, if they target Jay, nobody in his circle is home free. That includes Zoe … and you.”

  “And you.”

  He nodded again. “This is my line of work.”

  “You think I didn’t run up against some bad guys in my research?”

  “I’m sure you did. Encountering violent people when conducting research isn’t the same as encountering them when they see you as the enemy.”

  “I think I can be of some help without doing something stupid. The fact that you’re here says you’re worried about Zoe. You can’t watch her twenty-four-seven and look for Jay at the same time. You need help.”

  He looked at me. “So what do you do if you’re watching this place and a couple of thugs show up, heading for the back door?”

  “I was just sitting here having that same thought.”

  “You call me on my cell, that’s what.”

  “And she’s dead before you get here. How does that help anything?”

  “So you play John Wayne and go running in there and you’re both dead before I get here. How does that help anything?”

  “Fair enough, I call you on your cell … then what?”

  “You wait and you watch and you do what I tell you.”

  “I’m fine with that.”

  “Good. Here’s your first order. You go get us some coffee, maybe a couple of donuts, no icing on mine.”

  He didn’t wait for me to agree, just got out of my car and walked back to the Jeep. I put the Accord in gear, made a U-turn, and headed back toward lights and civilization. And Tim Hortons.

  I was back in less than fifteen minutes. This time I parked behind Cobb and juggled hot coffee cups and old- fashioned plain donuts all the way to the passenger seat of Cobb’s Jeep.

  I passed him a coffee and one of the donuts. I stared for a minute at the warehouse. “Any action across the street?”

  Cobb had just taken a large bite and shook his head to answer. Swallowed, sipped coffee, pointed with his coffee cup.

  “The light flicked on, then off in one of the places in there. Maybe … what was that guy’s name?”

  “Jackie Morris.”

  “Yeah, maybe his place. Hard to tell from here. And that’s it for ground pounding excitement.”

  “How do we know she’s in there?”

  “I took a little walk while you were getting the refreshments. She’s there. Alone.”

  “So she knows we’re out here.”

  He shook his head.

  I decided against asking how he’d found out that Zoe was in there by herself without her knowing he was there. We drank coffee in silence for a while. The dash clock read 10:22.

  “You any closer to finding Jay Blevins?”

  Another head shake. “And it might get still tougher. By now he probably knows about the shooting and maybe that his old man was the shooter. If his brains aren’t totally addled from the shit he’s been putting into his body, he might have figured out that a low profile would be a good idea.”

  “No profile would be even better.”

  He nodded.

  “Which makes you somewhat redundant,” I said.

  “That thought has occurred to me.” Cobb turned his head and looked at me. “I followed up on our conversation with Sharp, the million dollar realtor. The house on Raleigh belongs to a group called the MFs. You know them?”

  “I know a little. Catchy name for starters. Bikers. Badass. Shadowy. I was never able to gather enough to actually write about them.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it’s not like they’re on Facebook announcing it to the world every time one of them goes to the john. What is fairly common knowledge is that they’re a motorcycle gang that would like to rival the Hells Angels. Drugs, prostitution, loan sharking, history of violence — make that rumoured violence. So far nobody’s been able to nail them for much more than speeding tickets. Smart guys.”

  I nodded, took a long drink of my double-double. “I picked up some stuff in my research but a lot of it was rumours. Flamboyant on the surface but pretty low key when it comes to some of their non-motorcycle related activities. The name Blair Scubberd came up a few times. Calls himself Rock. Snappier handle than Blair, I guess. Not much out there about him either except that he’s not a person you want to piss off. I didn’t hear the MFs were into the drug industry, I guess that’s why I didn’t mention them when you asked before.”

  “Might be a fairly recent development. The place on Raleigh has been a crack house for a while, maybe ten years, but it used to have a different owner-operator. Independent named Jerzinsky.”

  “Jerzinsky,” I repeated. “Never heard of him at all.”

  “Died a little over three years ago. He was found at the bottom of a ravine on the Calgary to Banff highway. A couple of bullet holes in his head. A year or so later the crack house was up and running again. Under new management.”

  “Let me guess. No arrests ever made.”

  “Good guessing.”

  “Okay, so we fast-forward to the present and the new entrepreneurs are operating a thriving little business out of the house on Raleigh that used to belong to a rival who met with an untimely end.”

  “Bingo.”

  “The MFs.”

  Cobb nodded.

  “M and F Holdings.”

  “Bingo again.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Smith, aka Scubberd. Well, at least you know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Sort of. Like you said, this guy Rock is pretty much invisible. The most recent picture I’ve seen of him is at least five years old. He looks tough, like the name fits. Can’t find out much about him other than he’s originally from the Maritimes and he’s a gym rat. I’ve been calling gyms to see if I can find somebody who knows him even a little. No luck so far.
And his close associates seem to be just as diligent about staying out of the public eye. No names, no faces … so far.”

  “Except for Schapper and McGowan.”

  Cobb raised an eyebrow at me.

  I shook my head. “It was in the paper.”

  “Here I am working my ass off and I could have saved myself the trouble and read it in the newspaper.”

  “We journalists are a bright bunch.”

  “Paper say anything else?”

  “Nothing of note,” I answered. “Didn’t mention the MFs.”

  Cobb nodded. “Schapper, the one Zoe called Stick, has been an MF for quite a while, a few years anyway. The other one, McGowan, was a recent recruit.”

  For a few minutes neither of us said anything.

  “So it’s back to trying to track down Jay,” I said.

  “That’s all it’s ever been. I’m not being paid to butt heads with the MFs. My job is to find and protect Jay Blevins. Period.”

  “Doesn’t matter that your employer is deceased?”

  Cobb shook his head. “He paid in advance. But even if he hadn’t …”

  “You’d keep looking for the kid.”

  “Right.”

  “And maybe keep an eye out for a girl named Zoe.”

  “Which I hope might eventually give us Jay Blevins. And, by the way, watching a warehouse is something I can do by myself. Why don’t you take the rest of the night off?”

  I nodded. “Sure, but how about I take tomorrow night? Give you a break or an opportunity to pursue other avenues. I’ve got a whole lot more classical music I can play and I won’t do John Wayne.”

  He looked at me for a minute then smiled and nodded. “Deal. There are a few things I’d like to follow up on and I could use the time … no John Wayne.”

  I grinned but wasn’t in a hurry to leave. “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Sure. Talking during surveillance is good, like classical music.”

  “Is that what this is? Surveillance?”

  “That’s what this is.”

  “I like the word stakeout better. Sounds more detective-ish.”

  “Detective-ish?”

  I shrugged.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  I told him about my looking into Donna’s past. Finished up with the conversation with Kelly. When I’d finished he was silent for what felt like several minutes, staring at the building across the street.

  “Give me the wording of the note again.”

  “‘Kelly, the bastard did it again. D.’”

  “That’s all of it?”

  “Except for Kelly’s answer. One word. ‘Pig.’ That’s it.”

  “A girl-to-girl note in high school complaining about some guy. It’s not much. There can’t be more than a few hundred reasons a girl in high school might write those words to a buddy.”

  “I’ve already considered that. But the note is uncharacteristic of Donna.”

  “The Donna you knew. This is the teenage, hormonal version, may be a different person.”

  “Maybe. But there’s something else. I’m not sure Kelly was being totally straight with me. I had a feeling she knew what or who the note was referencing but didn’t want to share.”

  “Again, lots of possible reasons for that.”

  “Maybe. But what about Kelly’s response to Donna’s note? ‘Pig’ has a certain connotation. Maybe sexual. A pervert maybe. Or a flasher.”

  “Or a cop. Or a whole lot of other possibilities, all of them innocuous. Look,” Cobb said, “I know I’m the one who got you thinking about this stuff. And I’m not trying to throw cold water on what you’ve learned so far. There could be something there. I’m just saying it’s a long shot.”

  “You know what’s a long shot? That some psycho killed my wife for no reason. Either he was after me or he had some madman’s desire to see Donna dead.”

  Cobb nodded slowly. “Something I’ve wondered about. If the killer was targeting you, why didn’t he try again when he realized he’d failed?”

  “Maybe one murder scared him off. Or if I was the target, maybe he figured that having my wife killed was worse for me than dying myself. If that’s what he was thinking, he wasn’t wrong.”

  We were silent again. I think Cobb was giving me a minute. I needed it.

  Finally he said, “Possibilities for sure. And you’re right, a certain kind of twisted bastard may have thought that the pain he caused you was enough revenge … if revenge was the motive. But there’s still that other possibility …”

  “That Donna was the target,” I finished the thought.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I think I’ll talk to Kelly Nolan again.”

  “Can’t hurt,” Cobb said.

  We finished our coffee in silence. I said good night, walked back to the Honda, and was home in twenty-five minutes. Not much traffic at that hour. And the road crews had the main streets pretty much cleared off. I shucked my coat and shoes at the door, pulled a Rickard’s Red out of the fridge, and picked up the phone. The telltale beeps told me there was a message. It was Joan.

  “Hello, Adam … hello, Adam …”

  Joan was a with-it senior, but the new technology and things like talking to a machine were troublesome for her.

  “I wanted to thank you for the omelet from Bobby’s. It was as good as ever. I enjoyed every bite. And I also wanted to tell you that I unearthed those photo albums that we talked about. You can come by any time. Except tomorrow afternoon. I have a doctor appointment and before you get all nervous like people do any time someone over sixty says they’re going to the doctor I’ll just tell you it’s my regular checkup. Anyway, any time except between one and four tomorrow. Well, uh, bye then.”

  It was much too late to return the call so I took a long and as-close-to-scalding shower as I could stand, pulled on a pair of checked maroon and yellow lounge pants and a T-shirt, and fell into bed thinking sleep would come in seconds. I was wrong. A half hour later I was out of bed and sitting in the brown leather recliner Donna had bought me on my thirtieth birthday. “Old guys need their creature comforts,” she’d written in the card.

  I sat for a long time, looking out at the night, sorting thoughts, searching memories. Listening to Blue Rodeo, Five Days in July. Until sleep finally came. But it wasn’t the wake-up-refreshed kind. Too many weird dreams that bordered on nightmares. As with so many of my dreams in recent years, fire was a dominant theme.

  The bedside clock — at some point I must have made my way into bed — read 7:14 a.m. I was sweating and had the kind of headache that is usually reserved for the morning after a whisky night.

  A shower, shave, and a bowl of Frosted Flakes later, I was feeling almost ready to tackle the day’s challenges. Just after eight I returned Joan’s call.

  “Hope I didn’t wake you,” I told her.

  “You’d have to call earlier than this. You forget I’m an old farm girl.”

  “Farm girl maybe. Old, not so much.”

  “You’re already in the will so no need for morning BS.” She laughed and I was painfully reminded of how much like her daughter Joan was.

  “If it’s okay maybe I’ll pop over and pick up those photo albums this morning … if you’re sure you don’t mind my having them for a few days.”

  “Not at all,” she said. “There’s too much to get through in one sitting. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  I hung up and called Cobb’s cell. Didn’t get an answer. No surprise. He was probably sleeping after the all-nighter in front of the building on Garry Street. Surveillance.

  My second call was to Kelly Nolan. I got voicemail. Male voice “Hey. We’re either golfing, swimming, taking care of the baby, or making love. Leave a message, and if it’s one of the first three, we’ll get back to you real soon; if it’s that last one, it could be a while.” I tried to think of some clever one-liner but couldn’t, so I left a message asking Kelly to call me. I wasn’t confident
she would.

  The drive to Joan’s was painfully slow — the Glenmore Trail shuffle. It took forty-five minutes to make a twenty-five minute drive.

  At the house I rang the bell and heard a voice call out, directing me to the backyard. Joan was sitting on a lawn chair in a winter jacket reading the Herald and drinking coffee. Tough lady. The coffee was in a Calgary Flames mug. I’d forgotten that Joan was as big a hockey fan as I’d ever known. She’d been in the Montreal Forum in ’89, the night the Flames won their one and only Stanley Cup.

  “Coffee, Adam?”

  “Thanks. That would be great.”

  Donna got up and went inside. The photo albums were piled on a table. Piled high.

  Joan returned with a coffee in hand and held it out to me.

  “Thanks.” I pointed my chin at the photo albums. “Prolific.”

  “Mm-hmm. And like I said, actually we both said, mega-organized.”

  “Mega-organized,” I repeated.

  Joan nodded. “I looked these over again this morning. There’s a photo album for every year of her life from twelve years old on. It’s a record of who she was, what she did.”

  A couple of minutes went by before either of us spoke.

  I said, “I miss her.”

  “I do too, Adam,” Joan said, looking up at the grey-blue morning sky.

  Neither of us spoke much after that.

  Eight

  On the way back from Joan’s house I detoured to the north side of the city. I wanted to drive past Donna’s old school. I wasn’t sure why.

  The building that housed Northern Horizon Academy dated back to just before the First World War. It had originally been a public school, A.C. Rutherford High School, a venerable old brick and sandstone edifice in a solid neighbourhood that was undergoing something of a renaissance — like Bridgeland in that respect. There were lots of in-fills and walk-up style duplexes, new but made to look old, with enough coffee places to keep everyone in the neighbourhood on a permanent caffeine high.