Beach Strip

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “And talking business. Makes it harder for us to bug him.”

  “So you let him get away with this?”

  “Pilato will probably pay for the damage.”

  “I don’t care about that. I’d like somebody to go after him with a sledgehammer and leave a couple of dents in his rusting old body.” When he said nothing, I added, “You’re smirking, aren’t you?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m serious, and I’m concerned about you.”

  “Mel, I don’t have any idea what’s going on, except that everything is linked. Gabe’s death, what happened to Wayne Honeysett, Glynnis Dalgetty … did you know she was convicted of manslaughter and would have gone to prison if Mike Pilato hadn’t hired a lawyer for her, and when she got a suspended sentence … you know all this, don’t you?”

  Mel said yes, he knew. He knew more that he couldn’t tell me.

  “Why not?”

  “Because there are things going on, Josie, that you don’t want to be involved in.”

  I told him he was wrong. I told him I wanted to know everything that involved Gabe’s death.

  “Then I’ll tell you. Soon.” He promised to call me the next day.

  When the telephone rang five minutes later, I assumed he couldn’t wait.

  It wasn’t Mel. It was Pilato. “First you’re not home, or not answering, then you’re talking to somebody so’s you can’t answer. All the time, I’m calling, calling, getting nothing but ringing or a busy signal. Good thing I’m a more patient man than people think, eh?”

  “Why did your thugs smash my car?” I said. I am very brave when separated from a gangster by a telephone cord.

  “Why did you go to Central Police Station when you left here?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You ask me that? I ask you this. What’s it look like, some woman I never met comes into my office, talks about somebody murdering her husband, then goes to the police? You think I like that? You think I don’t wonder what you’re saying, why you see me? Huh?”

  “So that gives you the right to have two of your hired hoods smash in my car?”

  “Get it fixed and send me the bill.”

  “No, I won’t. I’ll drive that poor little car into the ground, and every time somebody comments on the dents in my trunk lid, I’ll tell them that’s what I got for driving down a public street in front of your office. How’s that?”

  “You think that’s a big deal to me? You think I haven’t been accused of bigger things than putting a couple of dents in that piece of crap you drive?”

  “Like murder?” Nobody was going to swing a sledgehammer at me through a telephone receiver.

  “You accusing me of that? Because you better be careful, Mrs. Marshall. You be careful with stuff like that. You come to see me, I’m nice to you, try to help you out, tell you a couple of stories. You start saying people get killed because of me, you forget about us being friends—”

  “I am not your goddamn friend!” I shouted through the telephone. “The only thing …” I began. My throat had gone dry. I began again. “The only thing I ever want to discuss with you is the death of my husband, and if you had anything to do with it, I’ll see your Italian ass in prison.” I really said “Italian ass.”

  “You watch yourself, okay?” Pilato replied. “You watch yourself. You’re pissed, you’re upset because you think somebody killed your husband. Okay, okay. You loved your husband, that makes you a good wife, a good woman. I like that, it’s good. But you watch who you yell at like that, you hear me?”

  “Did you have my husband killed?”

  “I already told you, no.”

  “No, you said you didn’t kill him. I just asked if you had him killed. Do you think he committed suicide?”

  “Again, no.”

  “Then who killed him? I mean, the police are saying he killed himself and that he shot Dougal Dalgetty.”

  “They’re saying that? How come they’re saying that?”

  “They say Gabe must have shot Dougal Dalgetty because the forensics lab matched the bullets, the bullets came from the same gun that killed Gabe, and I don’t think I was supposed to tell you that.”

  “Too late.”

  “So there’s something going on here that I can’t figure out and maybe you can. Or maybe I shouldn’t say anything more, so whatever you do, you didn’t hear it from me, right? About the bullets matching, okay? Hello?”

  Mike Pilato had hung up on me.

  “WHENEVER YOU SEE A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET,” my Buddhist photographer boyfriend of a few months told me, “turn around and look 180 degrees in the other direction, to the east. All sunsets are pretty much alike. But the light they cast is always somehow different.”

  Facing east across the lake, I was reminded of his words. This was an evening like the one he meant, soft and glowing, with the immediate world acquiring a tangerine radiance that I always find both uplifting and melancholy. Why did Mike Pilato appear to find it so interesting that the lab report identified Gabe’s gun as the one that killed Dougal Dalgetty? Obviously, I had told him all he needed to know, because he hung up on me without asking or waiting for more details. As if I had them.

  I walked through my garden, noted with some comfort that the door to the garden shed remained closed and locked, and stepped up to the laneway to look across the expanse of water that lay ahead of me, flat and smooth and glassy. Buildings on the shore to my left and right shone like jewels in the gold rays. I could make myself believe, with a little effort and a larger dose of imagination, that I was looking at an artist’s rendering of an idyllic scene.

  The image, like all of my fantasies, lasted only for an instant. I became aware of people around me. An elderly couple walking hand in hand on the water’s edge, both wearing white trousers, the cuffs rolled up over their calves, each carrying their shoes so they could feel the coolness of the water on their bare feet. The woman, her hair silver-grey, leaned her head against the man’s shoulder and laughed at something he said to her. Three guys in their twenties were walking in the other direction, across the sand, passing a bottle of beer between them, laughing and looking constantly around to make sure everyone saw how cool they were, and keeping an eye out for cops who could make things very uncool. Here came Hans and Trudy, walking their schnauzer and maybe discussing recipes for sauerkraut. They waved and were about to greet me when I noticed the slim, balding man about twenty feet to my right, leaning against a tree next to the boardwalk, watching me.

  “Who’s minding the bridge?” I called to him, and Tom Grychuk smiled and pushed himself away from the tree to walk toward me.

  “Wondered when you might notice me,” he said. He wore a striped golf shirt, cotton trousers, and sneakers. Mister Suburbia with a civil service salary. Hans and Trudy passed, watching us carefully. I smiled to reassure them and turned back to Grychuk. “Okay,” I said, “I caught you. You’re it. Now what?”

  “I just wondered if, I don’t know …” He looked at his shoes, then, as though he had read something on them, looked up with a grin that made him look as shy as he no doubt felt. “I was wondering if maybe we could have a coffee together, or maybe a drink at Tuffy’s.”

  I wasn’t listening as closely to the words as I was to the voice. “You’re the guy,” I said.

  “The guy?”

  “The one who called me. On the telephone. Saying you would buy me something.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He looked away, then down at his shoes again. “Well, you answered the telephone the first time I called and asked what I had bought you, remember?”

  Of course I remembered. I thought it was Tina calling back. It was Grychuk.

  “You’re asking me for a date?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe just a talk.”

  “About what?”

  He shrugged again. “Things.”

  I felt like I was back in grade eleven, talking to some nerd from algebra class. “Some other time,” I said, and turned toward my gate. “An
d don’t hang around my house anymore, please. You perverts are liable to trip over each other and wreck the roses.”

  “I’m not a pervert, Mrs. Marshall.”

  I walked through the gate, closed it, and looked back at him. He was caught in the same setting sunlight as the rest of the scene and, like the rest of the scene, it made him look nostalgic. Not Grychuk himself, who was hurt. Just the whole picture, the sunlight, the lake, the sky.

  Grychuk put his hands in his pockets and walked toward me, lowering his voice. “I just thought you were a nice woman and might need some company. Seeing as how you lost your husband and I lost my wife last year, we could talk about things. That’s all. Not really a date. You gotta talk about things sometime, right?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Maybe sometime. Not now.”

  I left him standing in the lane, watching me walk through the garden and through the back door of my house, which I secured with the double locks.

  23.

  I woke the next morning resigned and determined. Resigned to the fact that I was not likely to learn the truth about Gabe and Wayne Honeysett and the whole damn thing until Mel or someone else let me in on the secrets they were keeping from me. And determined to get on with my life. I would not stop searching for the truth about my husband’s death, but I would find things to do that gave me as much sense of normalcy as I could expect.

  One thing I could do was return to work at Trafalgar Towers. I would need the income more than ever, it would provide a reason to get out of bed, and the job would enable me to see more of Mother.

  It was another mild and sunny day, so I decided to walk to the retirement home, crossing the lift bridge on foot for the first time since Wayne Weaver Honeysett had spoken to me from beneath it. I stared straight ahead to avoid seeing the bridge operator’s window, although I knew Grychuk wouldn’t be there so early in the day. Crossing the bridge, I followed the road leading back to Lakeshore Boulevard, turned right at the second street, and climbed the steps to Trafalgar Towers, surprised by how comforting it felt to return to a familiar routine.

  Intuition is never turned off. Not mine, anyway. When I entered the reception area, Candace, the day receptionist, glanced at me with a smile that faded almost immediately, and looked back at her computer screen. Candace and I were hardly sorority sisters, but I could usually make her smile with some snappy observation. She once took my advice about ditching an abusive boyfriend and thanked me for weeks, so her response at the sight of me entering the reception area was confusing.

  “I’m back,” I said when I reached her counter. “I need the work, I need the money, and I need to see your smiling face. How’re you doing?”

  Candace said she was fine, never taking her eyes from the computer while reaching for the telephone receiver. “I’ll tell Helen you’re here,” she said. After one quick glance at me, then away again, she added, “She wants to see you.”

  This was strange, but so had my life been for the past couple of weeks, and when Candace said, “You can go up now,” I took the elevator to the third floor and Helen’s office.

  The elevator faced Helen’s door, and both opened simultaneously. I stepped out to see Helen standing at the entrance to her office, waiting for me to arrive. “Come in,” she said, and when I passed her, she said, “Please sit down,” and closed the door behind her.

  “What’s going on?” I asked when she settled herself in her chair, facing me across her polished and empty desk.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.” Her hands were clasped in front of her.

  “First Candace treats me like I’m some broom peddler off the street, and now you’re acting as though you’d prefer not to see me.”

  “Actually, I wanted to see you,” she said. “Are you here to discuss your job?”

  “And to see my mother.”

  “I’m certain she will be pleased to see you. She is concerned about you.” She frowned at a spot on her desk, pressed her index finger on what I assumed was a speck of dust, and wiped it on her dress.

  “Why are you acting like this?” I asked. “Last week you were hugging me and now you’re behaving as though … I don’t know, as though I’m a threat or carrying some kind of disease …”

  “We had a visit yesterday from a senior police official.” When I said nothing, she added, “He was making inquiries about you.”

  “About me? What kind of inquiries?”

  “So far …” She was uncomfortable. Good. So was I. She began again. “So far they have been only empty charges, only suspicions, nothing definite—”

  “Helen,” I interrupted, “I don’t have any idea what the hell you’re talking about. For god’s sake, get to the point. What is going on?”

  “This officer, this detective, wanted to know if anything, uh, untoward has occurred in our finances lately. If there is any money missing or improper cheques issued, that kind of thing.”

  “You mean they’re wondering if I’m crooked? They’re suggesting I’m stealing from the place, skimming money, submitting false invoices, getting kickbacks, that kind of thing?”

  This seemed to give her confidence. She arched her eyebrows and sat up straighter. “You certainly appear familiar with those activities,” she said.

  “Did you believe him, whoever it was who came here?”

  “The allegations were made, as I said, by an individual in an office of some authority with the police department, and I would be foolish to ignore them.”

  “Well, you were an ass to believe them,” I snapped. “Who told you these things? Who’s accusing me of stealing from you?”

  She raised her chin, and with a voice and attitude that would have done Queen Victoria proud, she said, “I prefer not to identify the individual.”

  She didn’t have to. “Walter Freeman, right? Big guy, nose like a walnut, head like a melon?”

  She twisted her mouth and looked away.

  “He’s upset with me because I refuse to believe his crap about my husband committing suicide. My husband was murdered, Helen, and Walter and his incompetent creeps are pissed at me because I insist on them getting off their asses to find who did it. That’s why he came in here to spread rumours about me. I haven’t taken a damn penny from this place that wasn’t mine.”

  “We are making other arrangements,” Helen said. “For your job. Of course, if our audit reveals that the allegations are false, you may be invited back to reclaim your position.”

  “I don’t plan to reclaim anything,” I said, standing up. “Except my mother.”

  “Your mother is a wonderful woman,” Helen said to my back as I headed for the door. “She will always be welcome here.”

  I’LL GET OUT OF HERE AS SOON AS I CAN, Mother wrote on her blackboard. I had finished describing my encounter with Helen Detwiler.

  “Don’t,” I said. “I’m not moving, and there’s nowhere else this nice for you that’s close to the beach strip.”

  Mother erased the words on her blackboard and wrote, You have been difficult, but you have always been honest.

  “Not always,” I said. “Mother, I have not done anything wrong here. You believe me, don’t you?”

  And she wrote, You are my sweetheart. You always have been. Of course I believe you.

  I was damned if I would shed tears in front of Helen, but at the sight and the meaning of Mother’s words, I sank to my knees and lowered my face to her lap while she stroked my head and wiped away my tears.

  WALTER FREEMAN WOULDN’T SPEAK TO ME. “He said you could leave a message,” the duty cop at Central told me over the telephone. “If you have a complaint about his conduct, you can write the commissioner.”

  I promised I would, after the audit at Trafalgar Towers cleared my name.

  But before I did that, I would go to Vancouver.

  It wasn’t Tina I wanted to see. It wasn’t even Vancouver, which I have always considered a city that’s like somebody else’s attractive spouse. You visit because it gives you a thrill, you h
ave a good time, and after the thrills have ended you get the hell out of there. Later, you feel silly about being seduced by mountains and ocean and mild weather and tofu, and you forget about them until the next time you realize your own spouse is boring. So where do Vancouver people go for that kind of sensual fix?

  It didn’t matter. I had so many things in my head, none of them good, that I just wanted a few days away. Let someone else worry about the meals and the dishes and the dusting and Walter Freeman and perverts. Tina and Andrew had a house you could park a jetliner inside, and a full-time maid. It would do.

  I found a noon-hour flight the next day at a price that wouldn’t convert my credit card into an improvised explosive device, then called Tina, who became appropriately hysterical.

  “I love it! I love it!” she said, and I pictured her almost jumping up and down. “We’ll go shopping, we’ll do lunches, we’ll gossip.” Tina is as predictable as a perpetual calendar. “We’ll cruise Robson Street. There’s this sweet little café where the waiters are athletes, two of them from the Winter Olympics—and I think a couple of them are gay, but who cares—and Andrew would love to talk to you, he always loves talking to you, and the only problem is my bridge club.”

  I asked why her bridge club would be a problem.

  “Because this week it’s my turn to host it, but if you don’t mind … you play bridge, don’t you?”

  I asked with whom I might play bridge, here on the beach strip.

  “But you know how? I mean, I know Daddy taught you. He taught both of us. Anyway, sometimes we need a fourth hand for one of the tables, and maybe you can fill in. I promise not to ignore you.” She took a deep breath, long overdue, and a new Tina was speaking, the quiet, solicitous one. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad you’re coming, really. I can only imagine what you’ve been through, and I’m sorry I wasn’t more help when I was there with you.”

  “You were all the help I needed, Tina,” I assured her. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve been the perfect sister.” And she had been. From time to time.

  I could almost feel her tears through the receiver. “That’s lovely, Josie. Really. Thank you. What time does your plane arrive?”