by Wood, Ted
Normally you don't phone news of a death. You call the local police and have them send someone around. It's painful for them as they stand there twisting their cap in their hands, but it prevents the person at the other end from thinking she's being fooled by somebody with a Halloween sense of humor. The difference this time was that Carol already considered herself a widow. I thought about that as I sipped on my rye. On the night I'd seen her playing cozy with Henri Laval I'd wondered whether Prudhomme might have disappeared because of her affair. Maybe they'd set it up between them so she could have his company life insurance and he could get a fresh start. She had acted jumpy enough to ring a little guilty to me. And if she was, she was going to be startled to find herself widowed for real.
I compromised by phoning my ex-wife. After all, it was her fault I was up here in the first place. She was closer to Carol than I had ever been or would ever be. I reached her in her office. She sounded brisk and businesslike, probably taking me for a client. "Amy Bennett."
"Hi, Amy, it's Reid, how are you?"
Give her marks for couth. She still didn't treat me badly. She hated the work I do but she wasn't bitchy to me. She was as polite to me as to a stranger. What more can you ask?
"What's going on? Are you still in Olympia?"
I filled her in, not painting any pictures, just playing out the facts like a man dealing the cards for solitaire. She listened, as she always listens, and asked the practical question. "What can I do?"
"I'd like you to call her and break the news. I figure she thinks I'm a bit of a heavy. The news is bad enough without coming from somebody you don't like."
She agreed, and we talked a minute or two more and I gave her my phone number in case there was anything Carol wanted me to do, and she hung up.
Almost at once the phone rang again. This time it was my drinking-buddy copper from Montreal. He was at home, cooking the dinner for his kids while his wife had her hair done, he explained, but what could he do to help? I gave him the telephone number to check and he did it while I waited, just by digging into the phone book. "Oui, 'enri Laval, like you say. In the book like 'e got nothing to 'ide," he told me. There wasn't anything else so I thanked him and hung up and sat there for a while, finishing my drink and thinking about going on patrol again the next day, out in the boonies looking for a man with a gun. It would be like Viet Nam, all over again.
14
I called the station and found out that Gallagher was down there. Because it was daylight and Alice didn't need the support, I took Sam with me. He's too well trained to show much emotion, but he was glad enough to be with me again that he sat up straight in the front seat instead of snoozing as he usually does when I drive with him in the car. I reached over and fussed him with one hand as I drove. He's a good buddy and he was going to save me a lot of wasted motion in the morning when he went with me into the bush.
He came with me into the police station, pacing quietly, his standard six inches behind my left heel. I guess Gallagher's clerk was a little house-proud about station cleanliness. She tutted when he came in but didn't say anything. I just waved at her. "The boss in?"
"Out back, in his office," she said briskly and went on typing as if Sam were a mirage and she didn't want to admit to seeing it.
I lifted the counter flap and walked down the short corridor. Gallagher was hanging up the phone. "Hi. D'you get anything from Montreal?"
"Yeah, that's Laval's home number on Prudhomme's list. Any luck tracing the others?"
Gallagher got up and came over to pat Sam, who stood for it patiently. "I gotta get myself a dog," he said. "Not as fancy as this guy. Just something that'll be glad to see me when I get home. Even if it's just because I feed it."
"Should I get out my violin?" I ribbed, and he scowled and straightened up.
"Smart-ass. You youngsters are all the goddamn same." He sat down again and picked up his notebook. "I checked the other numbers, came up with some surprises," he told me, referring to his list. "The first belongs to a woman in Thunder Bay who has the same last name as everybody's favorite animal stuffer. Sallinon."
I whistled. "Now there's the kind of coincidence that makes coppers get suspicious."
"Right." Gallagher nodded grimly. "As soon as I've cleaned up a few things here, I'm heading up to see him. In the meantime, I'd like to track down Laval and have someone we trust have a word with him. You think you could talk to your contact again?"
"I can ask him. He's a bit of a loser, but I made friends with him the other night; he'd do it. What's on your mind?
"I'd like to ask Laval why Prudhomme had his phone number in his possession," Gallagher said. "I mean, he wasn't alive anymore, not officially. He was supposed to be this Wagoner guy, but he still had Laval's number. They were still in contact. That means to me that Laval knew he was alive. I want to lean on the sonofabitch a little. He might just open up for us."
"I doubt it. He's a lawyer, he knows all the reasons there are for not saying anything. He's also slick as a whistle, he isn't likely to bend because some detective comes knocking on his door."
"Well, let's try it anyway." Gallagher rubbed his face thoughtfully. "Looks to me like he's in this up to his armpits, it wouldn't hurt to stir him up and see what comes of it."
"All right, I'll call my man. What else is there?"
Gallagher sucked his teeth. "Not a lot until the claim office opens on Monday and I can get a man in there to start looking up those numbers. That may give us a lead to the company that's registered them and we can chase up the members and see what their tie-in with Prudhomme could be."
"Well, if it was somebody from town who shot Prudhomme in the back, he'd have needed a flight into the area. We could check on that."
"I'm ahead of you there," Gallagher said. He fumbled in his in-basket and pulled out a sheet of paper. "I've talked to all the chopper companies in the area. None of them flew anybody into the bush yesterday. Or"—he waved one hand brusquely—"make that none of them flew any strangers anywhere near where you found the body."
"From what I saw of the terrain, he'd have needed a chopper to get in there that quick," I said. "It's a good thirty miles away and the river's got some rapids on it, so he couldn't have taken a powerboat in. He'd have needed a canoe, and then needed to portage about three miles through the bush. That's a solid day's traveling, even if he had an outboard on his canoe and even if he was used to lugging it over a portage."
"That's what I figured," Gallagher agreed. He made a face and rolled his chewing gum between his front teeth and threw it away. "This stuff doesn't keep its flavor like it used to when I was a kid," he complained, and took out a fresh stick. He stuck it in his mouth, then swung his feet up on his desk luxuriously.
"So that's another suggestion that's not going to help us," I said, and he nodded. We looked at one another for a while, realizing the case wasn't going to solve itself just because we'd proved we were right about Prudhomme. Finally I asked him, "Okay, so what did you learn about those other phone numbers?"
"Ver-r-ry interesting," Gallagher allowed. "Three of the others are pay phones. One of them is in Thunder Bay, another is in Timmins, and the third one is in the Soo."
"Anything in common about the locations?" It was the kind of question you ask without having any particular reason, just trying to narrow the focus of your search. But he had an answer for me.
"Yeah. They're all in the bus station lobbies, all three of them."
"Well, maybe he had a schedule, maybe he called people there at certain times. A guy could come into town, walk into the bus terminal all casual and wait around the phone box at set times. Then when the phone went, he stepped in and the contact was made."
"That's the way it looks to me," Gallagher admitted. "Only I was wondering why he'd have three towns so far apart, and why he wouldn't have a more personal number for these guys. I mean, who doesn't have a telephone? Everybody does. And there's no check on incoming calls, we couldn't trace where a call was c
oming from, not like if a guy dialed out and had the number on the phone company record. Why would he go to this kind of trouble?"
"Beats the hell out of me," I shrugged. "And he's never going to tell us."
"Right." Gallagher put his feet down on the floor and sat hunched over as if the case had a weight of its own that was pressing on his back. "So I've arranged to have the numbers staked out, just today. Once word gets into the paper that Prudhomme's body's been found, whoever's been using those boxes will steer clear of them. I'm calling each one of them on the hour, then the half hour, then both quarters. It's kind of hit-and-miss. We don't know what their schedule was. But if anybody answers, the local cops can pick the guy up and ask him some questions."
"What about the other number—weren't there five on that list?" I asked, and Gallagher grinned.
"Yeah, that one was the strangest of all. You're never gonna believe this one."
"So break it to me gently," I said. "Is it going to help us, that's all I'm asking."
Gallagher dropped the grin and his face settled into an expression I hadn't seen there before. He was sad. "This one was a number you get through the mobile operator."
"Whose car is it?" This was important. It could be the break we were waiting for.
"It's not a car," Gallagher said slowly. "And it's not in use anymore."
"Okay, but you must know who owned the truck, whatever."
"I do," he said. "And this one's a puzzle. It's the number of the phone in the trick truck that Eleanor drove."
"Maybe she handed it out to all her tricks."
"Not likely. It had the area code on it so it would be for calling long distance. You couldn't expect her to drive down from the Soo if you were in Timmins and felt lonely. There had to be more to it than that."
"Maybe he had something going with her."
Gallagher shook his head. "No, I don't think that would be it. He wouldn't have it on this piece of paper if he did. He'd have known her number right off. Hell, you know what it's like when you're involved with a broad."
I said nothing. He had the hangdog wistfulness about him that I'd seen the night before when he spoke about Alice. I would have bet he had her phone number memorized perfectly and I felt a quick pang of sympathy for him. He hankered for her and it was hurting him to know that I was the one she had chosen. I could still remember how it felt from the time after Amy left.
I waited a moment or two and he spoke again. "No, I figure it must be another contact number, something connected with this business. And it made me wonder if he had anything going with Eleanor's pimp."
"The homicide guy at Thunder Bay said she didn't have a pimp," I reminded him, and he waved one hand impatiently. "He just meant she didn't have some big nigger in a red fur coat beatin' up on her," he said. "Hell, I've been a copper for more years than that kid's been living and I want you to know that every hooker I ever met had a. pimp. Sometimes it's her old man, sometimes it's her brother, sometimes it's her goddamn mother. They all have pimps." He looked at me as if he was defying me to argue. I didn't.
"Well, did you call the guys in Thunder Bay? Maybe they can dig. Hell, it could be this pimp who killed her."
"I called," Gallagher said. "The homicide guy doesn't know, but I spoke to the Morality office. Their guy's away today and they can't reach him. But they said he'd call."
"I doubt he'll have much for us when he does," I said. "The homicide guy would have chased that one down the day after the murder."
"We'll have to wait and see," Gallagher said.
"And while we wait, what?" I queried. I hadn't got any new suggestions. He was handling his facts the way I would have done it, the way any competent investigator would.
He straightened up slowly and put his cap on, tapping it down over his thick hair. "While we wait we'll go see Sallinon. "Find out why he lied about the bearskin he sold Prudhomme."
"Good. I'll come with you." I stood up with him and Sam hustled to his feet in my shadow.
Sallinon was in his store, handing over a fair-sized lake trout on a wall shield to a guy who looked as if he'd just won the lottery. The customer turned to us as Sallinon wrote out the receipt. "How about that for a fish?" he asked proudly. "On eight-pound test. That's all. Just eight-pound. Sonofabitch weighed seventeen. He could've snapped it like that."
Gallagher was a good copper. He nodded and looked impressed. "Must've taken you all day to land him."
"An hour," the guy said. "That beauty's going on the wall." He got his receipt, thanked Sallinon, and left.
Sallinon looked at us and smiled a buddy-buddy smile. "Fancy getting excited about a seventeen-pounder?"
"Don't knock it, Arnie," Gallagher said. "It's guys like him pay your rent."
"Yeah, I guess," Sallinon said. "So what brings you two fellas down here?"
"Prudhomme," Gallagher said, and let the word sit there, as lifeless as one of the stuffed animals.
After a long pause, Sallinon nodded. "Yeah, I heard about that. Incredible, eh?"
Gallagher leaned on the countertop and nodded agreement. "Fer sure," he said. I watched Sallinon. He licked his lips quickly, the way a man does when he's going to lie. And suddenly Gallagher reached out and held him by the front of his wool jacket. "Listen, Arnie, I wanna know why you've been jerking Mr. Bennett around."
Sallinon tried to be dignified. He drew himself up to his full height, bringing himself eye to eye with Gallagher, and he reached down and removed Gallagher's hand as if it were something that had fallen off one of the dead animals above him. "You'd better explain what you're talking about," he said. It was the right thing to say, but there was so much tension in his voice that the words trembled.
Gallagher looked him straight in the eye and spoke so softly I could hardly hear him from a yard away. "You'd better tell me why you lied about selling him a bearskin."
Sallinon licked his lips again. "I didn't lie. I sold him a mink, just as I told this gen'leman."
Gallagher sniffed. It was as if he had a bad smell under his nose, a contemptuous wrinkling of his nostrils. "Then how come he had a bearskin in his gear, up at the motel? And how come he turns up dead a couple of weeks after he's been buried? Or at least after some poor sucker with bear claw and teeth marks all over him has been buried?"
Sallinon shrugged. "What's that got to do with me?" He was afraid, I could almost feel it. He might or might not be involved in the plot we thought Prudhomme had been running, but he was quilty of something.
Gallagher shook his head, looking down at the counter, then up again into Sallinon's face with a gesture as sharp as a whiplash. "Work it out, Arnie. Soon after you don't sell a skin to a guy, some other guy ends up chewed up by what looks like a bear. Now for that to happen, the killer would either have to be a bear, which is bullshit, or else it has to be a guy with a set of bear claws and bear teeth working to disfigure a stranger so he could head off into the sunset under an assumed name." He waited and Sallinon said nothing, just licked his dry lips once more.
"So," Gallagher went on, "if you earned your living trying to keep this town free from crime instead of stuffing chipmunks full of sawdust, what would you think?"
Sallinon said nothing and Gallagher suddenly reached over and grabbed his jacket again with two hands and drew him close up. I could see Sallinon trembling as he struggled to pull back. "I tell you what you'd think, Arnie," Gallagher roared. "You'd think, Why is Arnie Sallinon lying to me about the bearskin? If he had nothing to do with this, why did he bother to lie to me in the first place? That's what you'd think."
He released Sallinon abruptly, shoving him a little so that he staggered back against the cupboard behind the counter. A gray squirrel on top of the cupboard rocked and I thought it was going to fall on Sallinon's head but it didn't. He did good work, the base was wide enough to stand up to shocks.
So was Sallinon. He staggered to his feet and straightened out his shirtfront. "I don't have to put up with this," he said softly. "And I won't.
I'm a member of council in this town and I think they'll take my recommendation that we don't want some slob running the police department."
It didn't fizz on Gallagher. "Dry your eyes, Arnie," he said. "Nobody's gonna take your word for nothing when you're in Kingston pen." He leaned on the counter again, as relaxed as a customer waiting for his parcel to be wrapped. "And while we're talking about what a good citizen you are, how about getting your sister to give you a reference?"
Sallinon looked at him quickly, then away, a darting little motion like a dog would make if he thought you were going to swat him with a rolled-up newspaper. But again he kept himself in check. "What about my sister?"
"Well, if I was on the town council, hearing how our big rough police chief had come asking questions, I might want to know why the dead man all this is about had the phone number of the honorable council member's sister in his pocket. Now, just to get in practice for when you get me fired, why don't you tell me why that would be? Were they going steady, what?"
"I don't know anything about my sister's private life," Sallinon said. And again he pulled himself together. "And if you're harassing her like you're harassing me, she will say the same as me."
"Harassing?" Gallagher laughed. He turned to me. "Did you see any harassing?"
"I've been here the whole time while you and the accused talked," I said equivocally. I don't like this kind of investigation, but so far Gallagher was keeping his anger under control. I didn't think he would get rougher. If he did I would stop him.
"See," Gallagher said, "Mr. Bennett says we've been talking nice."
Sallinon looked at me, then back at Gallagher, the speed of his head move making his jowls tremble. But he didn't say anything. Gallagher said it for him. "We haven't finished yet, Arnie. Your sister's not home. She's at the drugstore, where she works. I've saved her the embarrassment of having a Thunder Bay cop come calling for her, but he's waiting at her door for when she does show. Then we'll find out what all you're up to."
