Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 1, 2 & 3 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

  “Hello, Ca—, Rocky.” She laughs. “I still can’t get used to calling you Rocky.”

  “Hi, Sam.” I can feel the big smile on my face, straining the sides of my jaws. “Don’t sweat it, call me Cal if you want.”

  “No. It’s OK. I know why you want to be called Rocky and I really respect it.” It’s wonderful to hear that voice. She sounds happy; bubbly even. She sounds happier than I have heard in a long time, in fact, since the split with her former fiancé. “How’s work?”

  Sam will know exactly the right thing to say to help banish the images of Terry Wright’s corpse; I just have to open up to her about the case.

  But “Good,” is all I can say.

  “I’m happy you’re back doing what you love. Did you want to speak to Ellie?” she asks.

  “Yeah, of course. But I uh… wanted to speak to you first.”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  She’s got me there. What can I say to her? Can I tell her that I still love her and that I want us to be back together? Her, Ellie and me, a real family again. Can I tell her that I’ll never use heroin again; that I’ll never put her through the hell of living with an addict and with the lies, evasions and stealing that go with it. She put up with all of that and more as I spiraled into addiction. My habit cost us our savings, our condo and my income. Can I beg her forgiveness for all of those things? Do I have any right to even ask her for forgiveness? No, no and no to all of the above.

  I’m going to do it anyway. I have to tell her.

  But the words that come out of my mouth betray my resolve. “Nothing, I just wanted to see how you were doing,” I say, kicking myself.

  “Pretty good, actually,” she says. “Over the last few months, I’ve kind of got back on my feet. Work’s going well, I got a commission from a huge downtown law firm to do the photographs for their website and their annual calendar. Ellie’s happy at her new school and with you taking her a couple of evenings a week and every other weekend, I feel a lot less stressed. I think I’m in a bit of a remission phase. I only seem to need my stick toward the evening when I start to get tired.”

  Sam has MS.

  “That’s good news, Sam. Maybe it will stay stable for a while.” I take a deep breath for courage and jump in with both feet, “Sam, there is something I have to tell you.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Sam, I… I want to say… Listen,” I cave, “do you want to grab dinner one night?”

  There is a moment of hesitation, then, “Sure. There was something that I wanted to talk to you about too. How about Friday evening when you come to pick up Ellie for the weekend? The three of us could go to Earl’s. Ellie always likes it there.”

  That was not exactly what I had in mind. I need to just tell her. “I was thinking—”

  “Hang on.” I hear her muffled voice talking to Ellie.

  “Ellie is dying to talk to you. Just quickly, are you still on for her staying at your place on Wednesday?”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ll pick her up from after-school care.” Deep breath. “Sam, I just wanted to say—”

  “Good. Phew. That’s great, thanks.” I wonder what she is so relieved about. “Anyway, she is standing patiently beside me waiting to speak to you. See you Friday, Rocky.”

  Desperate, I force out the words. “I love you. I love you so much.”

  “I love you too, Daddy. Hey, you’ll never guess what happened at school today. We made Valentine’s cards for all the kids in the class and do you know what Dugan said…”

  Her lovely little voice, always laced with her hallmark enthusiasm, lifts my soul but her timing crushes my heart. I try to console myself with the thought that I will see Sam at the end of the week. What is it that Sam wants to talk to me about? I push the possibilities out of my mind.

  As Ellie prattles on, I imagine her and her classmates enjoying their Valentine’s Day. Bright, shiny, laughing faces. Terry Wright should have had a Valentine’s Day party at his school today. It seals my determination to nail the monster that stole it from him. I’ll use the picture of those bright shiny faces to keep the other images at bay.

  Hell, if I can do that, winning Sam back will be easy by comparison.

  Cal

  Tuesday

  I resent being here.

  I am in South Langley on a new case, the hit and run killing of a Mrs. Marguerite Varga on Sunday night. Hit and run is not normally the province of the Major Case Squad but the victim and her husband are friends of Superintendent Cathcart, the head of Investigative Services, so her death is getting the red carpet treatment, which is unusual, to say the least. Stammo, with a sickening show of magnanimity, told me I could do this one ‘unsupervised’. As nice as it is to be on a case without him, an element of paranoia whispers that he’s trying to hog Terry Wright’s murder investigation; maybe even trying to get me reassigned.

  I need to get this over and done with quickly and off my back.

  “Hello there, young fella. Come on in out of the rain and tell me what can I do you for?” This wiry old man with a big smile is not what I expected. I follow him into the house, putting my umbrella in the copper bin beside the front door. He leads me through the house to a cozy farm kitchen, smelling of freshly baked bread, where a plump elderly woman is standing at the sink doing dishes.

  Surely these people can’t be— Maybe they have a son.

  He indicates a chair at a big wooden table that looks like it pre-dates Shakespeare.

  “Sit down, son.” He raises his voice, “Florrie, pour this young man a cup of coffee,” then to me, “How do you like it?” he asks.

  “Black, please,” I say, a bit bewildered.

  He plumps himself down opposite me, takes a pipe and a pouch of tobacco out of his cardigan pocket. “So what can we do for you?” He gives me a big smile.

  I take out my ID. “I’m Detective Rogan of the Vancouver Police Department. Are you Mr. Philip Franks?”

  “Sure am and this here’s my wife, Florrie.” He turns to her and goes up a few decibels. “This young fella’s a policeman, Flo. What have you been up to?”

  This is surreal. I expected to be talking to some twenty-something yahoo, not this nice old couple.

  I need to hurry this along.

  She chuckles as she brings me the mug she has just filled from the largest percolator I have ever seen. “Here you are, dear,” she says in a voice that sounds like she just got off a boat from England, “made the good, old fashioned way.”

  I thank her and gratefully take a long sip.

  It is the worst coffee I have ever tasted. I suppress the gag reflex rising in my gorge and smile at her as I put it carefully on the table in front of me. “Mr. Franks, are you the owner of a Ford F150 license plate ZOA 1645?”

  “Had her fer twenty years and she stills runs like a charm. The Ford that is. Florrie I’ve had a lot longer, eh Flo?” He tamps the tobacco in the pipe.

  “Can you tell me where you were at seven-thirty last night?”

  He gives me a look, eyes narrowed. Surprise or something else?

  “Sure can. We were here watching the Canucks get hammered by the Kings.” No smile now.

  “And where was your truck?”

  “Why, it was parked out back. Just like always.”

  “Does anyone else have keys to your truck? Could anyone have used it while you were watching?”

  “Only our daughter has a spare set of keys. She lives in Winnipeg, so I’m guessing it’s not her.” He fixes me with a beady eye and lights his pipe. “I think you’d better tell us what this is all about, son.”

  “Do you have a son or anyone who works for you who might have used the truck?”

  “No way.”

  I decide to level with them. “Your truck was involved in a hit and run on Granville Street in Vancouver at seven thirty-three last night. A woman was killed.”

  Florrie takes a quick breath in and covers her mouth with the fingertips of both
hands. “Our truck?” she says. Is her shock a tell that she knows something? Something unpleasant that she doesn’t want to face?

  “Couldn’t be. There must be some mistake.” Franks is adamant. He looks over at his wife. There is an involuntary twitch in his left eye.

  “There were two eye-witnesses, one of whom got a partial license plate and it was confirmed by a traffic camera at 49th Avenue,” I tell them.

  They both shake their heads.

  “Where is the truck now?” I ask.

  He pulls himself to his feet. “Right out back here. Come and take a look fer yerself.”

  He leads me out onto the back porch and Florrie follows in our wake. A baby blue F150 is parked on the gravel facing us, not ten feet away. For a twenty year old farm vehicle, it is in mint condition. I step off the porch and examine the front carefully: fenders, grill, bumper. There are no dents, no scratches, no signs of blood, no bits of fabric, nothing. Unless it has been in a body shop overnight, this cannot be the vehicle that slammed into the body of Mrs. Marguerite Varga and snuffed out her life in an instant. The vehicle is immaculate, except for the filthy license plate, DIA 7410. I crouch down and examine it. It is grimy everywhere except around the screws holding it in place.

  My resentment at being here vanishes.

  I call back to Mr. Franks. “Are you sure that this is your truck, sir?”

  “Hell, son, I drove it down to the store this morning to buy milk. I know my own truck.” There is irritation in his voice.

  I go back to the porch out of the rain and take out my phone. Two minutes later I know that the license plate currently on the Franks’ truck is from a Jeep Cherokee, stolen in Surrey on Sunday morning, and I’m guessing that the Franks’ license plate is on the truck that hit Mrs. Varga that night. The hit and run was a hit. This is a real case. Superintendent Cathcart unknowingly did a smart thing assigning it to the Homicide Unit.

  Someone planned this hit well and I’m going to enjoy finding out who.

  “Did you take the truck out at all yesterday?” I ask.

  “Of course we did. We go to church in Surrey every Sunday morning then we go have fish and chips for lunch in White Rock.”

  I tell them that they must not touch their truck until I can get a forensic team out here to examine the license plate and surrounding area. I tell them why.

  Philip Franks is stunned into silence.

  “Well, I never,” says Florrie.

  I thank them and tell them I have to rush off to follow up this lead, sidestepping any further contact with the toxic waste that Florrie blithely calls coffee.

  6

  Stammo

  The Chan family live in this fucking monster house in Kerrisdale. It don’t seem to bother Cal ‘call-me-Rocky’ Rogan that Chinese immigrants are slowly taking over the city, driving up the house prices. But why should he care? He’s got some sort of trust fund, money given to him by his best friend’s dad before he died.

  Rogan is being a pain in the ass, as always. He’s so full of himself because he has discovered that the Varga woman’s death was a murder. Like anyone else couldn’t have worked it out. Another murder we’ve got to solve. I used to look forward to a nice new challenge but now I’m getting too old for this shit. Still, I can get Rogan to do the legwork and at least it will mean some overtime. God knows I could do with the money.

  I’ve got a bastard of a hangover. I couldn’t get the thought of that poor kid’s body out of my mind last night. No kid should die like that. It made me think of my own kids back in Toronto; then I couldn’t get them out of my mind. I could only get to sleep with the help of my good old buddy, Jim Beam. I told Rogan he could do the interview today.

  He’s been through the whole Sunday with Grace and Dave Chan, the parents of Terry Wright’s friend Michael, and it looks like Mark Wright was telling the truth about his day with Terry. They have even verified that the Wrights were worried about Terry always climbing out his bedroom window. Christ, it’s hard enough bringing up kids without them doing shit like that.

  Rogan’s about to wrap up with them when their kid walks in. He’s a funny looking kid and he doesn’t look at us. That’s a bit odd. Two strangers in your living room and you don’t look at ’em.

  He starts walking in circles in the middle of the room. “JGK 8315,” he says. That’s odd. I’m pretty sure that that’s the license plate of our Crown Vic. He’s more observant than most adults. He’d be a great witness.

  He says it three times, stops and then points at me, doesn’t look, just points. “He smells funny.” He says. Cheeky little shit. If I was his father I’d—

  “I’m really sorry Detective Stammo,” the father, says. “Autistic children are sometimes…” He sighs.

  Oh, he’s autistic too, like Terry Wright. Poor little kid. My anger disappears faster than it came. I know what it’s like to have a kid who’s different. My kid Matt for one. Kid could read before he was three. His teachers said he was gifted, put him in a special program and everything. And he did real well. Got scholarships for college, the whole nine yards. But being a fuckin’ genius didn’t stop him from doing some drug dealing on the side. Made him better at it in fact, ’cause he’s a thousand times smarter that the other scumball dealers. But he still got caught. Killed his chances of college. No-one saw it coming. All they could see was the genius kid.

  Maybe if I’d been there when he was growing up… At least this kid’s got a father who cares enough to stick around.

  Oh crap. I feel a prickling in my eyes. I have to look away and think of something else. Anything. Good thing they’re all looking at the kid. I get up and walk over to the window; stand with the light behind me. That’s better.

  “Michael, remember about keeping thoughts like that inside,” the mother tells him. She draws the kid onto the couch beside her. “Michael,” she says, “these gentlemen are policemen. They’re here to ask about Terry.”

  The kid’s looking at the fingers of his right hand, which he’s waggling like he’s playing a riff on the guitar. “Terry is my friend,” he says.

  “Hi, Michael,” says Rogan.

  “Terry is my friend,” he repeats.

  “Yes, I know he is. Do you remember playing with him on Sunday.”

  “We played. Terry is my friend.” The kid is still looking at his fingers. What’s that about?

  “What did you play, Michael?”

  “X-Box.” The kid does a lightening quick glance up at Rogan, then back to his fingers.

  “You and Terry played X-Box. That must have been fun.” I’m starting to wonder what Rogan is getting at. But he’s clever. One of the sharpest in the Department, despite all the drugs. Trouble is sometimes he’s too sharp for his own good; he pisses off a lot of other members who ain’t quite as quick as him.

  “I played X-Box. Not Terry.”

  “What did Terry play?” Rogan is starting to piss me off now. Who cares what the kids played?

  “Terry played Lego.”

  Now the kid’s father chimes in. “Terry could make amazing things with Lego. They were like these complex sculptures. You should have seen his art work.” The mother’s starting to cry now but the kid is still just waggling his fingers and staring at them.

  “I did,” Rogan says. “I saw his bedroom. His art was amazing.” He looks back at the kid again. “Michael, did Terry say anything to you? Anything unusual?”

  The mother is about to say something when the kid says, “O – B – O – E ssshhhh!” in a loud whisper.

  “Did Terry say that, Michael?” Rogan asks.

  “O – B – O – E ssshhhh!” the kid repeats, a bit louder this time. “O – B – O – E ssshhhh!”

  “Michael, what did Terry mean?”

  “O – B – O – E ssshhhh! O – B – O – E ssshhhh! O – B – O – E ssshhhh!” his voice is getting louder each time he says it. “O – B – O – E ssshhhh! O – B – O – E ssshhhh! O – B – O – E ssshhhh! O – B – O – E ssshhhh!�
� He keeps repeating the same gibberish and he is starting to rock back and forward in his chair. Now he’s shouting it.

  His mother pulls him onto her lap and holds him real tight but he still keeps shouting it. She picks him up and takes him, wriggling, out of the room.

  “I’m so sorry if I upset him,” Rogan says to the father. The kid’s shouts have turned into screams.

  “It’s not your fault, Detective,” the father says. “It happens with autism.”

  “Do you have any idea what it was about? O – B – O – E. Oboe. Did Terry or Michael play the oboe?”

  “No. They’re both musical. Terry had perfect pitch and he played a keyboard. But as far as I know he never played the oboe. When Michael calms down, I’ll ask him what it means and see if I can make any sense out of it… I doubt it will mean anything.”

  I don’t know why Rogan is wasting his time with all this but it has triggered something in my memory. “There’s another thing I’d like to ask you Mr. Chan,” I say. “Mrs. Wright said something like, ‘he’s in the hands of the Great One.’ Any idea what that might mean?”

  “Well Elizabeth is quite a religious woman. She often says things like that. I suppose she means that he’s in God’s hands.”

  I look over at Rogan and he shrugs. I guess even the great junkie has run out of questions.

  We say our thanks to David Chan and he shows us out. Somewhere upstairs we can still hear the kid screaming. “O – B – O – E ssshhhh!” Thank God they didn’t try and blame us for setting their kid off like that. What a nightmare. How do those parents manage?

  And the poor little kid. All you see is the weirdness, the difference, not what he’s like inside. How’s he ever gonna make friends if he can’t look people in the eye and can’t stop himself saying the first thing that comes into his head?

  7

  Cal

  I do not want to go in. I hate it in there. Despite the fact that the rain has not stopped and the temperature is dropping fast, I am perfectly happy to stay out here and delay the inevitable while Stammo finishes his after-lunch cigarette.