Victim Impact

by Mel Bradshaw

  “Yes, I do remember that,” said her owner. “Because of the licence plate.”

  “You remember the licence number?” Ted couldn’t believe his luck.

  “Not all of it. But Merkel was taking one of many rest breaks, and, while I was waiting, my eyes lit on the back of this Ford pickup with a plate AVHD something something something. A three-digit number.”

  “An Ontario plate?”

  “Yep. And incredibly dirty. Maybe someone had smeared mud on it so it wouldn’t be readable by the cameras on the toll highway. From where I stood, though, it was perfectly legible—AVHD. I remember the letters because as soon as I saw them, I thought, A Very Heavy Dachshund. This dog is twenty-two pounds, so any three-digit number would be very heavy indeed.”

  “That’s tremendously helpful,” said Ted. “Might the first digit have been a one, as in 122?”

  “I can’t see the numbers at all, I’m afraid. It’s the same when I read a history book. My eyes slide right over the dates. No, I don’t think the first digit was one, just because that’s so narrow. But it could have been any of the wide numbers from two to nine. Not zero. I can’t do better than that.”

  Ted nursed his disappointment, at the same time giving Merkel’s owner time for a further thought. But when the dog walker spoke again, it was not about the licence plate.

  “Was this the truck the burglar carted your stuff away in?” he said.

  “Possibly,” Ted replied. “You’re sure it was a Ford?”

  “The brand was right on the tailgate. Letters, not numbers. You can trust me on that.”

  “Model year?”

  “You flatter me. Let’s see: it wasn’t an antique, though, and not brand new either. Dusty but not rusty.”

  “Maybe five years old?” Ted prompted.

  “Or less. I mean, how much does pickup truck design change?”

  “Did you notice a dealer’s name? Maybe on the plate holder. Or a plaque or decal attached to the tailgate.”

  “I’m pretty sure there was no sign of the dealer. Lose much?”

  It was the obvious question. “A new computer and quite a lot of data,” Ted got out at last.

  “Bummer.”

  Ted wondered briefly whether a fuller answer from him might sharpen the man’s memory for numbers, but decided that dubious experiment was better left to a more accommodating time and setting. He handed over one of his cards with his cell number circled. “Could you get in touch if anything else occurs to you?”

  “Sure. I don’t have any cards with me, but I live in the second house from the end there. My name is Henry McGregor, and I’m in the book.”

  Maybe Dr. Ornstein had a point. On this visit to Markus, Ted was sleeping better, although his waking hours remained dominated by loneliness and longing. Even a homesickness—not for the marital house, but for the Land of Karin, her geography, her air. In his exile, however, he was also finding new energy for plans of action. Three weeks to the day after the murder, Ted broke the news to the police about Henry McGregor and the Ford pickup. He chose Rodriguez to contact in case Nelson felt Ted was trying to show him up.

  “We don’t encourage private sleuthing,” she said after listening to his news, “but when it bears fruit, we’re certainly not going to ignore it. I’ll take what you have to the Ministry of Transportation’s Vehicle Registration Database. There may be a few similar vehicles with plates beginning AVHD, but not too many to check.”

  Ted decided it was time to speak to Melody Clark. He hadn’t seen her around the department this fall and didn’t want anyone there to know he was looking for her. From an acquaintance at the university records office in Simcoe Hall, he learned that she had switched faculties and was taking first year law. He was welcome to leave a number where she could reach him if she chose. He said that wouldn’t be necessary. After consulting a law timetable, he intercepted her on her way out of a lecture and took her for coffee at the Bora Laskin library. She looked not only healthier, with her skin ailment in retreat, but very slightly more stylish too. Her hair was shorter, bouncier and dyed a softer blonde than before. Steel-rimmed glasses hid less of her face.

  She was clearly surprised at Ted’s seeking her out. He could tell by the way she looked at him that he had changed from what she remembered. He ran his hand over his face to make sure he had shaved—he had—and looked to see if he had a food stain on his white shirt, or if his socks were mismatched—no and no.

  “Professor Boudreau,” she said dutifully as soon as they’d found armchairs in the lounge, “I was very sad to read what happened to your wife. That’s dreadful.”

  “Thank you.” Ted took several sips of coffee before going on. “I need to ask you—have you been in communication with anyone about the organization we were discussing?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Tell me, did anything happen to scare you out of criminology?”

  “Scare me? No, I switched faculties because I found I needed to be doing something active and not just academic. When I had to drop my fieldwork, the thrill was gone.”

  “You haven’t had the feeling you were being followed, spied on?”

  She started to smile, but cooled it when she saw Ted wasn’t joking. “Uh-uh.”

  “You haven’t kept any notes that could have been seen by the wrong people?”

  “No way. What’s this about?”

  “Be careful,” Ted urged. “It’s possible they suspect I’ve been collecting data about them. I don’t think they know I received any of it from you, but take no chances.”

  Melody’s eyebrows went up. She leaned forward. “You know this how?”

  “I’d rather not get into that now—but I have to ask you whether any of the gang owned or had access to a black Ford pickup.”

  “Oh God, you think the criminal events at your house were a result of my fieldwork.”

  “They were crimes,” Ted retorted, “not criminal events.” She might as well drop the social science bafflegab if she wanted to be a lawyer. “The criminal is the one responsible,” he added, “not you, not anyone else. Now about that black pickup?”

  “There was one parked outside the Grey Mare some nights,” said Melody, still stunned but game. “Winter nights, when the bikes were off the road. It belonged to Thorn, the striker. Big, fair-haired oaf with a big curly beard. Keen on motorcycles and physically imposing, but you had the feeling he flapped his jaw too much for that crowd. He was going to have a hard time proving to them he was worth having as a full-patch member.”

  “Any more to his name than that?”

  “Thorn is all I ever heard.”

  “I remember,” said Ted. “He was in your notes. Works in Hamilton.”

  “Lives out by Drumbo. I only know because he offered to drive me home one night when my car was acting up, and he told me where he went.”

  “Any other details?”

  “He and his mother live on a farm, but don’t work it. Stelco pays him better. They rent out a couple of fields. The rest are going back to forest. As I say, he hasn’t got the silent thing down.” Melody sat forward in her chair. “Look, I didn’t want to talk to the police before, while all this was a research project, but with the turn things have taken, don’t you think I should?”

  “No,” Ted insisted. “Leave it to me.”

  “I no longer have any intention of publishing an article.”

  “Word might get back to the gang, and I don’t want anything to draw you to Scar’s attention.” As her professor, Ted had occupied a position of trust. She had trusted him in ways he’d never asked for and now regretted, but that regret left his obligation undiminished. “If your information is ever used against the Dark Arrows,” he told her, “they have to think it came from someone else.”

  “Okay. Who?”

  “You wouldn’t have Thorn’s actual address?”

  “Squarefield Road, I think. I never heard a house number.”

  “You’ve given me more than I expected. Thank
s.”

  “Glad to help, but . . .”

  “Yes?” said Ted.

  “I hope Thorn didn’t kill your wife. It’s hard to think of someone you know in that light.”

  “No question about it.”

  Ted couldn’t get the black truck out of his head. If it had been used in the commission of a crime, a crime more serious than the break and enter that had originally been contemplated, perhaps Thorn would have taken it off the road for a while. It might even be sitting somewhere on Thorn’s farm. After leaving Melody, Ted considered how to find the address. He didn’t want to show up asking questions at businesses in the village of Drumbo. There Thorn might indeed be known, but inquiries about him were almost certain to get reported back to him the next time he came in.

  On his office computer, Ted got a list of Ford dealerships in Thorn’s neighbourhood. Then he took the list to a public phone, which he used to call them one by one. He asked each if they had any more pickups like the one they’d sold a man out on Squarefield Road. When was this? Oh, a couple of years back. The name of the purchaser? Ted said he knew him only as Thorn; they’d met in a pub. When asked if he was satisfied with his truck, Thorn had been very complimentary. If the person Ted reached at the dealership were nonplussed, Ted would ask to speak to a senior sales rep. He drew blanks with the first four calls and was prepared for another with the fifth. Then a salesman at Mannheim Ford up towards Kitchener surprised him.

  “Oh, yeah. I know who you mean. Big blond guy with a set of Santa Claus whiskers. What model was it he bought now? I’ll have it in my card index here if you can hang on.”

  Ted said he could. He could hear some free-form whistling while the cards were thumbed through.

  “Yep, Thornton Laverty, a second-hand black 2003 pickup. On the lot right now, we have a red 2004. I think you’ll like it just as well—or does it have to be black?”

  Ted said he was afraid so and told the man that he guessed he’d phone around some more.

  Next he searched WhitePages.com for the Lavertys’ street and phone numbers. With both noted down, he was ready for the drive down to Drumbo. That was an hour west on the 401, which he left at exit 250. He followed Oxford Road four kilometres east to the village crossroads, then turned right and right again off blacktop onto gravel. The potholes were frequent at first, but small and possible to straddle if you didn’t mind driving down the middle of the road.

  He pulled over and, taking care to block call display, phoned the house while he was still some distance from it. The ringing went on and on unanswered. Ted was encouraged. He preferred not to meet anyone, and it seemed to him a ringing phone is less likely to be ignored when there’s no answering machine ready to kick in.

  Ted eased the Corolla forward again. On the south side, a mailbox marked Laverty presently loomed up. He parked on the road and continued on foot. A long drive beside a field of dry cornstalks led up a gentle rise to a Victorian red brick farm house with paint peeling from the window trim and a sag in the roof of the front porch. To the left and back, an aluminum two-car garage stood with its overhead door open. There were no four-wheeled vehicles parked, inside it or out. Only a motorcycle under a fitted black slip cover.

  The porch deck creaked under Ted’s shoes. He reasoned he had to make one more effort to find out whether anyone were home. If someone came to the door, he was prepared to ask how to get back on the freeway and leave. A break in Squarefield Road just beyond the Laverty property would make his confusion plausible. After driving out this far, to miss his chance to look around would be disappointing, but better than being caught snooping with no excuse.

  The doorbell was the pre-electric type that rang faintly so long as you were turning the key. He twisted it a few revolutions, then tried knocking. Eventually, he went round to the kitchen door and knocked there. The result in all cases was the same—silence from inside the house. He walked all the way round, scrutinizing the upper windows for any sign of an occupant that didn’t want to answer the door. The twitch of a closed curtain, for example. There was no such sign. The curtains were open.

  Time for a closer look at the garage. There were recent grease spots on both sides of the pale concrete floor, suggesting the building housed a car or truck in addition to the pickup and Thorn’s Harley. Thorn and his mother might have driven to their respective jobs in separate vehicles.

  But Ted also found himself wondering if there were anywhere else on the property the black pickup might be parked. Somewhere less conspicuous.

  He walked around the house again, this time looking out. Up here he had a good view in the late afternoon sun of the recently harvested fields sloping down and away to the road in front and to the property lines on the east and south sides. No truck lurking anywhere there. To the west, however, lay the scrub forest Melody had mentioned. There seemed to be no track into it from the house.

  Ted got back in his Corolla and drove west along Squarefield Road until he found what he was looking for—a track, wide enough for a half-ton, winding in among the trees. There was a metal gate, but no chain or lock. Ted parked on the shoulder facing back the way he’d come and got out of the car to take a closer look. Beside the track, in a clump of dried grass, lay a plasticized NO TRESPASSING sign that appeared to have been ripped off the gate. Thorn had let the defence of his perimeter slide. Ted was emboldened to leave the public road and step inside, even though an encounter with the brawny biker could still be awkward.

  The track twisted to the left and back to the right, a low but steep ridge adding to the difficulty of seeing what lay ahead. Less than half the leaves had fallen, but enough to cover any recent tire tracks. A crisp carpet of browns and yellows crackled with the passage of man or squirrel, the only sound apart from the ill-tempered cry of an unseen blue jay overhead. In the low spots, Ted’s leather-soled loafers slipped on mud beneath the leaves. The trees and bushes were thick enough to make it impossible to see up to the sky or around the next bend. Shade kept the air cool.

  He zipped up his windbreaker and stuck his hands in its pockets for warmth. After two more twists, he saw the anticipated black tailgate, the mud-smeared licence plate, and something unanticipated that gave him a jolt. What looked like the hose from a vacuum cleaner had been attached to the Ford’s tailpipe and run up to the driver’s side window. Through the rear cab window could be seen the outline of a broad-shouldered man with his head slumped forward. A chill gripped Ted’s heart. If his teeth weren’t chattering as he warily approached, it was only because he was clenching his jaw.

  The truck’s engine was not running, presumably because the tank had run dry.

  To delay the moment when he would look inside the cab, Ted stared at the licence plate, which was attached with screws rusted tight. Through the grime could be read the raised blue letters AVHD followed by three digits.

  Ted’s eyes dropped to the grey hose, held over the exhaust with a twisted wire coat hanger. He cautiously followed the plastic tube around the left tail light assembly and up the left side of the truck. He discovered that its front end had been wedged between the window and the upper frame of the driver’s door. A blanket had been stuffed into that portion of the opening not filled by the hose so that the carbon monoxide would not escape before doing its deadly work.

  Was there any chance it hadn’t?—any slim possibility that the man behind the wheel was still alive? Because then Ted could not just retreat to his car and drive off. Suppose Thorn, if that’s who it was, had intended to kill himself, but his nerve had failed him before he lost consciousness, and he had managed to turn off the ignition.

  Ted pulled the sleeve of his windbreaker down over his right hand. He tried the truck door an found it unlocked. As it opened, Thorn’s stiff, lifeless body fell into his arms. The weight was considerable. The face that struck Ted’s shoulder was open-mouthed and cherry red. Ted pushed at the dead man, trying to get a firmer footing on the loose leaves. He feared he might succumb to fumes escaping from the cab, but
they must have leaked away, for he managed to shove Thorn back inside. It looked as if the corpse might balance in a more or less upright position, but then Thorn toppled over onto his right side, his head in the passenger seat.

  At this point, Ted saw the note, a single sheet of white printer paper with bold black lettering. He needed to know if this was a confession to Quirk’s murder. He hurried around the truck and, with hands bare, pulled open the passenger door—by now thoroughly reckless as to the fingerprints he was leaving. He had to tug the paper out from under the dead man’s curly blond beard so he could read it.

  “I played SM games with a brother’s ol’ lady,” said the note. “I am too ashamed to live. Thorn.”

  The signature—like the rest of the note—was printed, not handwritten. There was no date.

  Time to get out. The flight reflex obliterated any horror or queasiness. Ted left the note on the seat, slammed the cab door, and made for his own car. What started as a fast walk ended in a run. He wasted no time driving back to the 401 and heading east. Only at the service centre between Cambridge and Guelph did he stop to deliberate over coffee what he had better do. When he sat down to relax at last, his hands started shaking. The coffee was tepid by the time he was able to raise the cup to his lips. He found as well that his stomach didn’t want it.

  He needed the evening to collect himself—not to spend answering the repetitive questions of various levels of a whole new suspicious police force, whether the Oxford County constabulary or the OPP. Nor did he want to have to justify his meddling to the detectives of Peel Regional. So he was tempted to tell no one. On the other hand, it nauseated Ted to think of leaving a human body quietly to rot. Thorn’s mother might be quite used to her son’s taking off for a few days with biker friends, and some time could elapse before she thought to visit the wooded corner of her property where the pickup was stashed. How would Thorn look and smell by then?

  On his cellphone, Ted placed an anonymous call to the Crime Stoppers tips line. He told the operator where the body of a suicide might be found—though his years of researching gangs made him doubt it was a suicide. Even without knowing Thorn, he thought the note far-fetched in content and far too easy to forge. It seemed to be saying to the authorities: