“George is a good man and he has a great relationship with Ellie. He always says that after we’re married in February, he would love to adopt her. But you’re her father, Cal. Please, please stop using, get a job and start living a normal life for God’s sake. Seeing your daughter for four hours a week is just not good enough. She deserves more.” I can feel the anger burning inside and I am frightened my body will react and let me down.
Cal is very still. He looks like a condemned man, holding his breath waiting for the ax to fall.
It breaks my heart but I can’t stop now; I have to put Ellie first. “You’re either in or you’re out. If you’re not clean by the New Year, I’m going to cut you out of her life and have George adopt. I’m truly, truly sorry but that’s the way it is.”
The hurt on his face is awful but I can’t waver now; too much is at stake. If Kevin lives up to his promise and does his part, maybe, just maybe, it will be another lever to force Cal to stop using. Kevin can be a big softy, bless him, but I really hope he doesn’t chicken out this time; maybe I’ll phone and remind him.
With a firm grip on the door handle, I step back into the hallway. I don’t want to hear any excuses or promises. I just need him to take the ultimatum on board and do the right thing: take action, not talk. Please Cal, no more talk.
But before I can get the door closed, he speaks. “Sam. Listen.” He puts his hand out to stop it closing and my heart drops; I know what he’s going to say, maybe not the words but the intent. “Listen… When I was out with Ellie today, she said a couple of things that touched me, deep down. Frightened me. I made the decision. I know you’ve heard this before and I know I’ve put it off for too long but I am absolutely going to stop using. Ellie means more to me than anything. I promise you and I promise Ellie that by New Year’s day, I will be clean. Nothing will stop me this time.”
The familiarity of the words is painful. I heard them over and over and over and over and over again when we were married. The same words that always preceded a total lack of action.
“Oh, Cal,” I say and, as I step backwards to close the door, my foot catches on the rug. Somehow I manage to right myself and push the door closed before he can see the tears of frustration. Frustration at my illness and frustration at him and his promises.
He has got to get straight before I become too sick to cope.
5
Cal
Pain. Whatever choice I make will lead to pain. I am going to have to suffer the crippling physical pain of detox or bear the unbearable agony of losing Ellie from my life. And, even now, I can feel the worm of heroin withdrawal drilling into my bones. I shot up at seven this morning in the alley and then again at nine thirty in the restroom of a coffee-shop in West Van, twenty minutes before seeing Ellie. I hate to do it twice so close together. It’s a sure-fire way to deepen the habit but I need that second fix to get me through my four hours with her.
And again there is no reply to the ringing of Kevin’s doorbell.
Kevin wants to speak to me about something. Sam’s ultimatum drove it from my mind. And what was the matter with her? She almost fell; twice, come to think of it. I don’t buy that ‘sampling the wine’ excuse for a moment. Not Sam. Unless she’s changed since she’s been with George…
I try the bell again. I can maybe get through another hour before the pain becomes too bad to manage.
I try the door handle.
It opens.
“You home, Kevin?” I call. Silence. Louder, “Kev?” He must have gone out and left the door open for me. I’ll do my laundry while I wait for him. I head towards the spare bedroom.
I reach for the door handle and something stops me. Fear slithers through my gut. Every house has a distinct smell; Kevin’s smells of sandalwood. But this is different. Primal. An odour with which I am all too familiar. And it reminds me of…
“Kevin.” I fly up the stairs. “Kevin!” I hear the note of panic in my voice. At the top, I glance left to the kitchen, immaculate as ever, then turn right into the living room.
He is on the couch.
A jolt of electricity fires up my spine and all the hair on my body is bristling. I can feel the pump of adrenaline in my veins. Breathing is difficult.
Kevin is wearing the paisley robe from this morning. It is thrown open revealing royal blue boxers. The black and yellow handle of a fishing knife is sticking out of his stomach. High, just under the ribcage, it is angled, so the blade must be close to the heart. He is drenched in blood.
I am shocked by the wave of detachment which breaks over me; it holds my emotions in check as my old training takes over. My fingers search for the carotid artery but find no pulse. I try the other side of his throat but the cold flesh tells all. I have touched more than a few dead bodies though never the body of someone I have known well, the body of a friend whom I love. I take his wrist and try to move his arm. It’s just going into rigor. He’s probably been dead since very soon after I left. Even this thought doesn’t break the unnatural calm that has descended on me.
I scan the body. There are no other stab wounds. There’s a lot of blood, so I’m guessing that maybe the blade didn’t find the heart but severed a major blood vessel, allowing the heart to keep pumping blood, and Kevin’s life, out through the wound.
I direct my attention to the details of the scene. It’s not a robbery. Kevin’s wallet is right there on the coffee table, uncharacteristically messy right now, so is his prized Rolex, a graduation present from his father.
Something has switched inside me. My training and instincts as a detective, suppressed for so long, have taken over and I cannot deny the guilty pleasure that it feels freeing and wonderful. Has it taken the death of my closest friend to make me alive?
On the floor under the coffee table is a ring; it looks like an engagement ring. Wait a minute. Sandi’s not here! The calm that descended on me disappears and I rush upstairs. As much as I detest Kevin’s girlfriend, I dread what I know I’m going to find.
But she is not in the bedroom. Or the bathroom. A wave of relief washes through me. The bed is unmade and the quilt is thrown back. Only one pillow holds the indentation of a head. A quick scan of the room reveals nothing which is obviously out of place.
Back to the main floor and it is starting to sink in that he is actually dead but I rein in my rising panic. I can’t let my feelings in. Not yet.
I go into the kitchen and pick up the phone on the wall beside the fridge. I dial nine, one… and then stop. As quickly as he appeared, the detective vanishes and is replaced by the junkie.
If I call the police now, I will become the prime suspect: the junkie friend. I need to go back downstairs, get my stuff, slink back to the downtown east side and get the fix I now so desperately need to wash away the pain in my body and the grief in my heart. Leave it to someone else, probably Sandi, to find Kevin.
I wipe my fingerprints from the phone, go downstairs and head for the front door. I can be back on the east side in half an hour and, as soon as I find Roy, I can get well. I freeze at the front door. My clothes. I have to take them with me. I head for the bedroom and again the smell of Kevin’s blood stops me.
For a moment I am paralyzed by indecision, rooted to the spot.
Then, as the familiar smell of blood stirs up memories from my former life, I know that the moment upstairs, when the cop rose to the surface, was real. In spite of all that has happened to me in the last five years, I am still a detective; a junkie, yes, a failing father, yes, but above all I am a detective. The dormant longing to be back on the job bursts through the layers of emotion under which I have buried it. For a moment, I even believe I could give up heroin if I might just…
Now the indecision is gone; I have no choice.
I return up the stairway to the living room and recheck the scene. There are no signs of a struggle. Kevin’s body is sitting upright, well back on the sofa; he’s not slumped but his chin is on his chest. The sofa has nothing on it except the body but I see a
piece of paper lying, half hidden, beneath it.
I know that I should not disturb a crime scene but it does not bother me, I have to know the truth; I owe it to Kevin. I remove my handkerchief from my pocket and wrapping it around my fingers, grip the edge of the paper and pull it out. But instead of sliding free, it tears on something under the couch. I have crossed a line and this time it does bother me. Now I’m tampering with evidence, changing it, perhaps doing something that will confuse the crime scene techs when they get here. The paper is blank except for four words at the top of the page: ‘Mom & Dad I’. The other side is completely blank. Feeling a sliver of guilt, I try to slide it back, part way under the sofa, but I cannot get it into the exact position.
Now the ring. It is an engagement ring and not a cheap one. A quick examination reveals no telltale engraving. This time, I am able to return it to its exact position.
Keeping my good jacket from touching the body, I lean over and look at the knife and the wound it has made. It’s Kevin’s fishing knife, I have seen it a hundred times on the many fishing trips Kevin, Brad and I took over the years. It is top quality. I should know; I bought if for him, almost twenty years ago, and it cost me over a hundred bucks back then. I take in the things littered over the coffee table and check that there’s nothing out of place or odd in the room.
It is now way past the time to call the police, but first I need to take care of one more detail.
Clearly, I won’t be using Kevin’s place anymore to store my good clothing. So I am going to stay dressed as I am, in my good clothes, for when the police come. It would not do to change back into my street clothes, especially with the blood on my jacket from last night. Although not Kevin’s blood, it would be a complication when the police arrive, enough to make them detain me. That mustn’t happen. I’m thinking like a cop but am going to act like a criminal.
I take a couple of garbage bags from the kitchen and hurry downstairs. I get my other good clothes—pitifully few of them, left over from my previous life—and fold them into the bottom of the first garbage bag. Then I cover them with the second garbage bag, add my toiletries, then stuff my dirty old street clothes on top, including the blood stained jacket; I will not be washing it in Kevin’s machine today… or ever again. I leave the townhouse and as I hasten up the street, I think I see the curtains twitch at Mrs. Komalski’s house, next door. Just what I want is Kevin’s nosy neighbour observing my movements. I take a quick look around and stuff my garbage bag into the bushes between the end of the row of townhouses and the back of the gas station.
I force in a deep breath and return to the townhouse—without seeing any noticeable curtain twitches—lock the door behind me and head up to the kitchen.
I make the nine-one-one call then go back to the sofa and stand, looking down at Kevin’s body, knowing these are our last moments together. I draw myself up to full attention.
“I promise you Kev, no matter what, I will find out who did this to you,” I whisper. “I promise you and I promise your parents.” But my voice breaks and now, at last, the tears can come.
And through my tears, I think again of Brad.
Kevin, Brad and me, christened the three amigos by our grade eleven classmates after we pulled a prank which, twenty years after it happened, is still talked about at Magee High School. Although we have not spoken in a while, too long a while, we have a bond, the bond of a friendship forged in eighth grade and tempered though our turbulent adolescence. I need to be the one to tell him of Kevin’s death.
I sniff twice but not from the tears. Sniffing is one of the withdrawal symptoms. The aches have already started creeping into my bones and in less than an hour the pain will be unbearable.
When I make good on my promise to Ellie and Sam of going into detox, this agony will be magnified daily, getting worse and worse as my body adjusts. Through the eternity of a week the torture will reach its excruciating climax, then ease and slowly fade to a memory. But then come the weeks of rehab, weeks of learning to live one’s life without succumbing to the craving for that purest moment of bliss which only heroin can bestow.
Now comes the cruelest joke of all: the system spits you out, back on to the streets of the downtown east side, with no money, no job and no home. Thus seventy percent of the graduates are drawn back into the life and are using again within three months.
The thought draws my eyes to the coffee table and Kevin’s Rolex. I guess its value at somewhere north of twenty grand. It would fetch a few thousand from one of the east side’s many crooked pawnbrokers. That would give me enough money to come out of rehab and take a good try at getting off the street; rent a small apartment away from the east side, find a job…
Of course, this is all crap; it’s my junkie mind in full delusional mode. You can’t buy your way out of addiction. Everyone knows that. With a few thousand dollars, I would be getting high five, six times a day for a couple or three weeks and then it would all be gone.
Besides, Kevin’s dad gave him that watch; I could never face him again if I stole it, which is way too high a price to pay.
I hear the scream of a police siren and without thinking—it feels like I am not moving under my own control, or is that just one more junkie rationalization?—I take out my handkerchief again, wrap it around my hand and grab Kevin’s wallet. I open it and am surprised to see that in addition to the credit cards and the various identity cards which normal people carry, it is bulging with cash: hundreds, fifties and twenties. Why would Kevin be carrying around so much cash?
I don’t have time for speculation. I take all but twenty five bucks and stuff it in my pocket, then close up the wallet and place it back on the table in the same place. “Sorry buddy,” I whisper to the inert flesh that used to be my best friend… but I still look with longing at the Rolex.
By taking the cash I’ve crossed a line I never crossed before. I’ve crossed another line by tampering with the evidence. Now that I have crossed those lines, maybe two or three thousand dollars from that watch would help me get back on my feet when I get out of rehab. Maybe I’ll just…
I teeter on the edge but fortunately, I am interrupted before I get to find out just how low I might sink.
The bell rings and knuckles hammer on the front door. I run down and let them in. Two uniformed officers. One looks like he’s just out of the Justice Institute with red hair and bright red cheeks covered in peach fuzz. I’m betting he doesn’t shave much more than once a week. He’s short too. Whatever happened to the height requirements for cops?
In counterpoint, his partner is a hoary old timer with three chevrons on his sleeve. His craggy face has real character written all over it. The four inch scar on his right cheek speaks of his history. His uniform fits well over his ample girth. Our eyes lock and a wealth of knowledge passes between us.
“Hi Cal.” He is the very picture of wariness. “You’re the one who called this in.” It’s not a question.
“Hi Sarge. Yeah. I did… The body’s upstairs.”
I go to lead the way but the young cop grabs my bicep and pulls me to one side. “You wait here sir,” he says in a deep voice, a voice wildly at odds with his size and appearance. Sarge looks at me, half smiles and raises his eyebrows as if to say, ‘Kids eh.’
We troop up the stairs, the kid in the vanguard. The shock of seeing Kevin’s body hits me all over again and I shake my head in an attempt to banish the tears that want to flow. Knowing that I have stolen money from Kevin’s wallet makes me flush with shame.
The kid makes his way towards the body but Sarge stops him with, “Wait a minute, Dave. This may be a murder scene.” May be? A dead body with a knife in the gut and soaked in blood? But then Sarge always was conservative. “You checked he’s dead?” This is addressed to me.
“Yeah. For quite a few hours.”
He nods and keys the radio on his shoulder. The model of efficiency, he confirms the death, adds that it’s suspicious and requests a crime scene unit and a detective tea
m. While he is doing this, the kid takes out a notepad and asks me for my name and address. “Cal Rogan,” I say, “no address.”
He looks me up and down, sees how I am dressed and his confusion turns to anger, making his face redden even more. “This is no joking matter, sir,” he says, “I need your address and I need it now.” He’s an officious little twerp and I’m starting to dislike him. Sarge is catching our conversation while he is listening for a response from his radio. He’s trying very hard to suppress a grin. I suspect he’s not too fond of this kid either.
“I already told you, kid. No fixed abode.” The use of the word ‘kid’ gets a big reaction. He stuffs the notepad back into his pocket and moves toward me, his hand reaching behind him, probably for handcuffs. I straighten up and he realizes that not only am I at least eight inches taller than him but also, despite five years of heroin use, I am still built like the proverbial brick shit-house. He hesitates. One day, in a dangerous situation, a hesitation like that may cost him dearly.
“Back off, Dave.” Sarge rumbles. “He’s OK and he’s telling you the truth. Just wait ’til the detectives get here.” It feels good to have Sarge in my corner right now.
Dave however is definitely not a happy camper but screw him.
Sarge keys off his radio. “Who’s the vic?” he asks, more out of interest than need to know.
“His name’s Kevin Wallace. My best friend.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he says and he means it. “How’d you find him?”
“Well I came over here to see him and got no reply, so I tried the door and it was open. I came in and here he was.” The truth, as far as it goes.
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 1, 2 & 3 (Box Set) Page 3
