“You’re darn right I can,” she said over her shoulder. “And I will!”
First rule of being in charge, Max thought as she drove away, is to act like you are.
And she had.
FOUR
It worked. When Max stepped out of her office at four o’clock, all six were in the station boardroom. They were drinking coffee and talking. Henry stood to one side of the door with his natural sad face. He was trying to look and sound like a tough cop. It was not working.
“They’re in there telling stories like it’s a party,” Margie said. “You would think they would behave better since someone was murdered.”
“It depends on who was murdered,” Max said.
Margie paused on her way to her desk. “You know,” she said, “I have been thinking. I could not warm to Billy Ray. No more than anyone else in town. But I remember when he was a little boy in short pants. He was a cutie-pie back then. Maybe his adult version wasn’t. But whoever shot the grown-up jerk also shot the little boy too. Don’t you think?” Max nodded as Margie went to the kitchen to make more coffee. Margie Burns, Max thought, might be the smartest person in Port Ainslie.
The coroner had called to say Billy Ray had been shot with a small-caliber weapon. He guessed it was a .22. The killer had fired the gun through the open window at the back of the garage. It happened, he guessed, at noon or a short time thereafter. Billy Ray’s body was now on its way to Cranston for a full autopsy.
It was just as Max had thought.
“Which of you own a .22 rifle?” she said as she walked into the boardroom.
Ben and Ryan raised their hands. Many people kept a .22 rifle to shoot rats or raccoons. Some went target shooting in an old quarry down the road. A few owned guns because their fathers had. Rifles were handed down to children like watches and earrings, family heirlooms.
Ben turned to Sam and said, “You got a .22.”
Sam said, “Yeah, but it’s a pistol, not a rifle.”
Max thought about that. Then she said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. I will talk to you in my office, one at a time. Except for you, Brenda and Seth. I’ll talk with you together. Henry will stay here and make sure none of you leave the building until I say you can go. Margie will keep the coffee pot full for you. Anyone have a problem with that?”
Ryan and Ben said they were needed at their businesses. Ryan ran a small vineyard down the lake and sold wine through a retail store on Main Street. “I need to be in the store,” he said. “This will cost me money.”
Ben was a plumber, the only one in town. He was always busy at this time of year. “I got two service calls to make today,” he said.
“I’ll talk to you first,” Max said to Ben. “In about ten minutes. With luck, you will all be gone in an hour.” She started walking back to her office. Then she stopped and said, “Maybe all but one of you.” Looking at Brenda and Seth, she added, “Or maybe two.” She winked at Margie.
She couldn’t resist it.
Max needed time to think about the questions she would ask. She was sure the murderer was among those in the boardroom. Whoever had shot Billy Ray knew he would be sitting in his garage. The murderer, of course, would need a motive to kill him in the first place. In that case, every person waiting in the boardroom could be a suspect.
As she wrote their names on a lined paper pad, Max felt proud and tense. She was proud of the things she had done with her life so far. She had come second in her class at the police academy and made first-class constable within two years. Twice she had been named Officer of the Month by the Toronto police force. She had two medals for bravery and one for taking top place in target shooting. That one made her extra proud, because she hated guns.
She had achieved all of these things even though everyone called her Max. No one called her Maxine or even Mrs. Benson when she was married. It was always Max. Why couldn’t she have a nice name like Anne or Faith or Jennifer? Maybe one of those old names that were in style again. Like Sophia or Emma or Abigail. She liked Abigail. If she were Abigail, she wouldn’t mind being called Abby. Abby sounded like a nice person, and Max had always thought of herself that way. Abby was a person. Max? Max was still a truck driver’s name, and always would be to her.
She had tried not to let it bother her, but it still did. She just would not let others know. All through her career as a police officer, not once had she complained about being called Max. It was her way to prove she could handle anything. Even a name she hated.
Her first name was no fault of her own, but she took the blame for marrying Brian Benson. Brian had been a tough cop and a rotten husband. When their marriage ended, she felt all kinds of emotions. Some were sad and filled with regret. Most were happy and filled with relief. And there was some pride too. If you didn’t count her failed marriage, she had reached all the goals she had set for life as a police officer.
Except one. The one that was making her tense.
She had never solved a murder on her own.
She was about to fix that, she told herself, in the next few hours.
Ben Black was admired by almost everyone in town. With his thick, dark hair, quick smile and plumbing skills, Ben was both busy and popular. He smiled when he came into the room, wearing old jeans and heavy boots. Max noticed his hands were greasy. He sat in a chair across from her desk.
“Where were you this morning?” she asked Ben.
Ben looked away. Then he said, “I went to see Billy Ray.”
“At what time?” Max asked. She was making notes.
“I’m guessing about noon.”
“Don’t guess,” Max said. “I want to hear the exact time, if you can give it.”
Ben looked at the ceiling, then nodded. “It was noon. Right in the middle of that storm. Maybe five minutes after twelve, no more. I was heading west of town. Had a call to be there between twelve thirty and one. Gave me time to stop and talk to that son of…to talk to Billy Ray.”
“What about?”
Ben’s mood changed, and Max saw anger in his eyes. “About the five hundred dollars he owes me for putting in a new tub. He’d promised to pay me today. He’d been promising to pay me for months. I went to collect it, and I started to open Billy Ray’s garage door. That’s how you got into his house, through the garage. When I went to lift the door I heard him say, Open it and you’re dead. I dropped the door real quick when I heard that.”
“Do you think he was serious?” Max asked.
Ben shook his head. “You never could tell with Billy Ray,” he said. “He sounded like he meant it. I asked when I would get my money, and he said when he was good and ready. I asked him when that would be, and he said, How about when hell freezes over? I’m standing there in the rain and the thunder and all. There was no arguing with Billy Ray. Figured I’d get going and come back some other time. I called him a few names, then ran back to my truck and drove off.”
“Where’s your rifle?”
“Loaned it to Seth last week. He and Brenda wanted to go shoot some targets in the quarry.”
Max made more notes. Then she said, “Go wait in the other room, and tell Seth and Brenda to come in.”
Seth Torsney and Brenda Karp came into Max’s office holding hands. Brenda wore a cotton top that was too low and too tight. Her jeans looked like they had been painted on her very long, very slim legs. Her blond hair was pulled back with a pink ribbon, and her eyes shone a deep blue. Max felt a hint of jealousy. Seth wore faded khakis and a T-shirt printed with the name of his business: Torsney’s Garden Grove.
“Which one of you lovebirds shot Billy Ray?” Max asked when they were seated in their chairs.
Both looked shocked. Together they said, “Not me!” and Brenda added, “You’re kidding, right?”
Max said, “I never kid.” But she liked to catch people off guard. Then she said, “Where were you two this morning?”
They looked at each other and blushed. “We kind of slept in,” Seth said.
&nbs
p; Brenda said, “We fooled around some in bed,” and Seth laughed and said, “Some?”
“Hey!” Max was almost shouting. “We’re dealing with a murder here, damn it.”
Her voice was loud enough to make the couple stop laughing and change their expressions. Brenda bit her lip. Seth nodded to say he understood.
“You two had better start getting serious,” Max said. “I don’t need a picture of your morning antics. Just tell me the time you got up. I don’t care what you were doing before then. I only care what you were doing after. So. What time was it when you got out of bed?”
“About nine or nine thirty,” Brenda said.
“Then what?” Max asked.
“I drove to work in my truck,” Seth said. “See, the reason I got up was one of my guys called to say we’d been robbed. I wasn’t going to go in until noon, but…” He shrugged his shoulders.
“You thought it was Billy Ray,” Max said.
Seth nodded. “The stuff you saw in Billy Ray’s truck? That’s it. That’s the kind I sell. I figured it was him soon as I heard about it. He’s taken stuff from me before at night. I just couldn’t prove it was him. About fifty bags of cedar garden nuggets. Worth four or five hundred dollars. That’s what was gone, and that’s what was on his truck.”
“What would he do with the mulch?”
“Sell it for half price.”
“Who would he sell it to?”
“Gardeners, other nurseries. Anybody looking to save a few bucks. He’d wink and tell them it fell off a truck. You know what I think? I think he stole from me because of Brenda. He thought I stole her from him, so he’d steal from me.”
Max thought about this. Then she said, “What time was it when you got to work and learned what had been stolen?”
“About ten. As I said, I was going to take the morning off, but…”
Brenda took over. “You would not believe what they steal from us at night,” she said. “You just can’t trust people…”
Max held up a hand and said, “Do I smell cedar?”
Seth brought a hand to his nose and nodded. “Sell a lot of young cedar trees this time of year,” he said.
“He comes home some nights, he smells like a whole forest,” Brenda said.
Max turned to Brenda. “How about you?” she said. “Where were you this morning?”
“Well, I did some laundry…” Brenda said.
“Change the bedsheets?”
Brenda blushed. “I made some lunch and took it to Seth around noon. We ate sandwiches together at the nursery. I wanted to go and ask Billy Ray for my jewelry one more time. I took Seth’s truck and headed up to his house just as the storm arrived.”
“And what time was that?”
“About twenty after twelve.”
“I didn’t want her to go,” Seth said. “I didn’t want her near that guy.”
Max turned to Brenda. “So why did you go?”
“I wanted to get my mother’s rings back. I was going to tell him to keep the other stuff. Just let me have Mom’s rings.” Brenda’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s all I wanted from him.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Seth reached out to rub her back. She leaned on his shoulder and said, “I never got there. To Billy Ray’s. Not before I heard he was dead.”
“Why not?” Max said.
“I met Sammy Little on Main Street. He was coming the other way, toward me. When I waved at him, he stopped his truck and rolled down the window to ask where I was going. We could hardly hear each other with the rain and all. I told him, and he said I should stay away from Billy Ray’s, and that someone should call the police. He said, Ol’ Billy Ray’s in there with a loaded shotgun. Somebody should get that lady cop to go in and take that gun from him. That’s what he told me.”
“Why didn’t you or Sammy call me?”
“I thought somebody else might do it. I lost my nerve about going to Billy Ray’s place after hearing about him with a loaded gun. We were in front of Suzie’s dress shop, Sammy and I, and I saw she had put up her summer-sale signs. So I parked the truck to wait for the storm to pass and maybe go shopping.”
“That’s when you called me,” Seth said.
“That’s right,” Brenda said. “I called Seth on my cell phone to tell him what I was doing. I told him what Sam Little had said. Then I said maybe we should call Ivan and tell him about Billy Ray…”
“Why call Ivan?” Max said. “Why not call me, like Sam said?”
Brenda shrugged. “He seemed to…” She wiped her eyes again and started over. “Ivan knows Billy Ray as well as anybody and…” She seemed unable to go on.
And he’s a man, Max thought. Not a woman police chief.
“It was my idea to call him,” Seth said. “I was fed up with Billy Ray, and now he was threatening people with a shotgun. I figured Ivan would call you and Henry to deal with the gun. Thought it would be best if we all said you should do something about it. Anyway, Ivan said we should form a group to meet Billy Ray and talk to him about the resort.”
“I thought it was a dumb idea,” Brenda said. “I told Seth that Billy Ray won’t go along with anybody but himself.”
“What do you know about the sliding window?” Max said to her.
“Window?” Brenda asked.
“At the back of the garage. You lived there with him. Did he keep that window shut?”
“Sometimes,” Brenda said. “But he couldn’t lock it. I know that lock didn’t work. I told him over and over, You should fix the lock on that window. Someone can slide it open and get in the garage. Billy Ray said it wouldn’t matter. He said you just need to turn the handle on the garage door to open it. No need to crawl through the window. I kept telling him until he said I was nagging him and that I’d better stop it. So I did.”
“Why was the garage door not locked?” Max asked.
Brenda smiled. “Billy Ray was good at putting in new stuff, but he didn’t like to fix what was already there. He’d buy new things but wouldn’t fix old stuff.”
Max turned to Seth and said, “Where is Ben’s rifle?”
Seth sat back in his chair. Caught him, Max thought. “How do you know…?” Seth said.
Max said, “Just tell me where it is.”
“In our upstairs closet.”
“When was the last time you used it?”
“Last night,” Brenda said. “Seth took me to the quarry out near the Point. He showed me how to use it, and we shot at some old tin cans we took with us. It was the first time I ever shot a gun.”
“She was good too,” Seth said. “For a woman.” He reached to squeeze her arm, and Brenda leaned toward him.
“Seth should know,” Brenda said. “He won a prize for shooting when he was in the army. Didn’t you, Seth?”
Seth smiled and said, “A few.”
Max might have told Seth that she had won her own share of shooting awards with the police force, but she was too busy writing notes. When she finished she said, “Have Margie send in Ivan Curic.”
FIVE
Ivan Curic wore a linen jacket over an open-collared white shirt. He smiled across the desk at Max and said, “I didn’t want things to end this way. Billy Ray tried to stop the best thing that could happen to this town, but he did not deserve to be shot like that. No sir.”
“Where were you this morning?” Max asked.
Ivan squinted his eyes and said, “Let’s see. I showed a house on Maple Street and got my ad ready for next week’s paper. Then I went to check out some land near Rockcliffe Point.”
“Rockcliffe Point?” Max said. “Why did you go there?”
“For the resort company. In case Billy Ray still wouldn’t sell. If that was the case, I would show them Rockcliffe Point and give them a plan B.”
“I thought the resort had to be built on Billy Ray’s land or nowhere,” Max said.
“You never know,” Ivan said. “You gotta be ready for change in this business. That’s how you make it big. You al
ways have a plan B in your pocket.”
“How much of this resort deal are you a part of ?”
Ivan sat and thought a bit. “I’m not in on the action, if that’s what you mean. I’m just trying to help the company. Of course, I plan to buy some land of my own before it’s built. The resort, I mean. Everybody should. Land values will shoot through the roof here. The resort is just the beginning. It will bring new business, new people moving in. You mark my words. Lots of people are going to get rich from it.”
“People like you.”
“I hope so. But it won’t be just me. This kind of thing can help all of us.”
“Tell me about the land you went to look at today.”
“I got out of town just when that storm broke. Now that was a storm, wasn’t it? I haven’t seen one like that since I was a kid. The rain was so heavy, I had to pull over to the side of the road until it stopped. When it let up I started to drive again. I passed Henry on his way into town and honked at him. I guess he didn’t see me, because he kept going.”
“What time was that?” Max asked.
“I’m guessing twelve, maybe twelve thirty,” Ivan said. “Like I said, the rain had let up some. So I went to look at a place down the lake. Then, on the way back, I thought about Billy Ray and what he was doing to this town. It made me darn mad. Soon’s I got to my office I got a call from Seth, who gave me an idea. Maybe we should all go and talk to Billy Ray together. At least we could say we tried. So I started calling people who I knew were fed up with him and his tricks. I called Ben, Ryan and Sam. Seth and Brenda were already in. I said that we should do what good citizens always do. And that’s try and settle things ourselves instead of bothering Chief Benson about it.”
Ivan watched Max, waiting for a smile of thanks for calling her Chief. When he didn’t get one, he went back to talking.
“We decided to let Billy Ray know how we felt about what he was doing to the town,” Ivan said.
Murder for Max, A Page 3
