by Ted Wood
He waved me to sit down. "Hi, Reid. Tonight's the night."
"For what?"
He gestured at the money in front of him. "For payin' off the mortgage on this place. Lookit. Three hundred and eighty-four dollars a'ready and we'll take another three hundred easy from the bar."
"Mazel tov," I said, and he chuckled.
"If that means good luck, thanks. Like a snort?"
"No thanks, I'm up to capacity. Mind if I leave Sam in here? It'll save him from being fussed by the crowd, and he'll look after your cash."
"Help yourself," he said amiably, and poured another slug of Special Old. I told Sam "Stay" and he settled down on the floor.
I stood in the doorway a minute or two, watching people who were old enough to know better doing the twist to Bill Haley's "Rock around the Clock." With the masks pulled down over their eyes they all looked like Lone Rangers, but I soon picked out the figure I was watching for. There's no mistaking Val Summers—she's tall, dark haired, and graceful. It would take more than a mask to disguise her from me.
She finished twisting when the record ended, and came over to me. "Hi, Reid. I made it."
"Nice going. Want to hang around for a while longer?" She was dressed for dancing, a mid-length number that must have cost her a week's pay. But she laughed. "I didn't get off work at four and drive two hundred miles in this weather to boogaloo."
"Great. I just have to hang around until the contest is over, in case somebody gets fresh with the talent."
"Pervert. You just want an eyeful of that young stuff." She pushed the mask up on top of her head and winked at me. "I'll mingle till you're ready." She mouthed an almost invisible kiss and turned away. I couldn't help smiling at her cheerfulness. But she hasn't always been that way. Three years ago her husband answered a radio call to a domestic dispute. He knocked on the door and the common-law husband inside answered with a twelve-gauge shotgun blast through the glass. Val was twenty-seven then, with two boys to raise. It's taken her a long time to get her sense of humor back. It was good to see her enjoying herself and I was glad I'd invited her up here.
I watched while the dance went on for another few minutes, then the disc jockey played a little fanfare and the dancers stopped. The Reeve came out on stage. He's our township's elected officer, a short guy who runs the real estate office. He was wearing the only tux to be found within a hundred miles of Murphy's Harbour and he was loving himself.
"Welcome!" he said, waving his arms like the Pope blessing the multitudes. "Welcome to the second annual Murphy's Harbour Winter Carnival." There was some clapping and calling out and he went on to explain what was happening over the next couple of days. It was the routine stuff for these occasions. Snowmobile races on the lake. Snowshoe races. A dog-sled race between a couple of teams pulled together by the local Indians from the pack of mutts on the Reserve. The ice sculptures on Main Street would be judged and there would be an ice-fishing derby. And of course, a parade of floats and snowmobiles, headed by the winner of the beauty pageant.
The whistling started here. Everything was happy and small town and cheerful. The Reeve milked it, telling us he had assembled the finest judges of beauty to be found in the area and that they were ready to begin.
Before he could finish, Carl Simmonds, the local photographer, took the microphone and resigned from the committee. Carl is the town's only obvious homosexual. He had to make a sparse living here at best, and I often wondered why he stayed in a place as quiet as this. But he's a good man and a good photographer who has helped me out on a couple of cases. He announced that all the young women were so lovely that he wouldn't presume to pick one above the others, and bowed out. He got down from the stage and prepared to pay for his evening, setting up a tripod with one camera on it, hanging another camera and his meters around his neck.
The rest of the panel formed up, big, hearty men, taking heavy ribbing from their wives, and the contest began. The girls paraded out on stage in swimsuits. There were eight of them. Seven were local girls, the other was Nancy Carmichael. I guessed that at once. She had a rich girl's prettiness and all the grace that money and training could provide.
They circled once while the audience cheered and whistled. Then they moved to center stage, one by one. The local girls did their best, moving with their own innate grace and any skills they might have picked up from watching actresses on TV. Then Nancy Carmichael came to center stage, one foot drawn up behind her the way she must have been taught. She smiled down into our eyes, did the things with her lips that models do in hair-care commercials, and it was all over but the crowning.
The Reeve spun it out as long as he could, collecting ballots and comparing, going from one side of the stage to the other, milking his moment. Then he straightened up at the microphone and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Queen of the Carnival, Miss Murphy's Harbour." He turned and placed the crown on Nancy's head.
In the instant before the crowd could applaud, every light in the hall went out.
I stayed where I was, against the wall, listening to the crowd murmur and feeling in my parka pocket for the flashlight I carry. I felt a blast of cuttingly cold air sweep into the room. A woman screamed, but, astonishingly, there was a brief whoop of laughter before a flash from Carl's camera equipment went off. In the afterglow it left in my eyes I read the scene like a snapshot. The Reeve was standing with his mouth open and no words coming out. The judges and disc jockey were turned, facing the back of the stage, the also-ran girls were standing in their line to one side. But the Carnival Queen had vanished.
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Not even stopping to whistle Sam I plunged toward the lobby, bumping people on the dance floor but finding the door first try as I pulled out my flashlight. The outside door was shut and I threw myself against the one I had opened on my way in. It stopped me dead, slamming my face against the wood. I flashed my light through the crack and saw that somebody had wedged a two-by-four timber through the big handles outside. For a moment I considered drawing my gun and blasting it away, but I didn't. Someone could be in the line of fire, and if this was just a prank I didn't want a corpse on my conscience.
I went back into the hall, keeping to the near wall, using my light. I whistled for Sam and in a moment he was behind me. There is a gap between wall and stage and I went along it to the fire door behind. Carl's flash went off a few more times but I kept going. The pictures would be useful later, if I was lucky. In the meantime I still had a chance to catch the kidnappers outside.
I hit the outside door more respectfully this time, pushing the fire bar down with one hand. It gave without trouble and I plunged out into a waist-deep snowdrift. I floundered down the side of the hall, in footsteps that were new and crisp. Sam bounded after me, rising and falling in the snow. By now I was at least thirty seconds behind Nancy Carmichael and whoever was with her and I called "Track" to Sam. He pushed harder, passing me, forcing himself forward, giving tongue like a hound.
I reached the corner of the building a couple of seconds after him and saw him bounding over the cleared snow in the parking lot toward the Toyota I'd noticed earlier. It was moving away, gathering speed as it slipped down the open stretch in front of the hall toward the gateway.
I shouted "Stop!" but the wind tore the words out of my mouth and flung them sideways with the driven snow. I grabbed automatically for the gun in my right pocket but by the time I had it clear there were ninety feet between me and the vehicle, so I lowered it. This could be a gag of some kind and that is not a capital offense. I swore once and sprinted for the scout car, stuffing the gun back into my holster pocket and calling Sam, but as I reached it I could see it was too late. The tires were flat, all four of them.
The Toyota side-slipped as it went out of the parking lot and I waited to see if it would go off the road but it corrected and headed south toward the highway. I hadn't been able to read the license number even earlier. It had been snow-covered and now I
wondered if that had been deliberate.
The two-by-four in the front door was easy to dislodge. I threw it to one side in a snowdrift. Maybe later I would fingerprint it. Probably whoever had handled it was wearing gloves but it was all I had so far.
The lights came on in the hall as I found my way back in. The place was in an uproar. Men and women were milling about, shouting and arguing. The Reeve was shouting into the microphone, which came back to life with a sudden feedback scream. Walter Puckrin was on his feet, looking about himself angrily, like a sacked quarterback. His money was untouched. Before he could say anything I said, "Gimme your keys, Walt, somebody's slashed the tires on the scout car."
He dug out his keys and wondered out loud what the hell was going on. I said, "Later. The kid's missing. Where are you parked?" He told me and I ran out, shouting "Thanks" over my shoulder. I paused to speak to the Legionnaire at the door. "Don't let anybody leave. I'll be back as soon as I can."
He started to bluster but I cut him off. "I'll leave Sam in the lobby. That'll hold them this end of the building, anyway."
I pushed through and told Sam "Keep." He stopped and settled down on the mat, looking over his new area of responsibility.
Puckrin's Blazer was covered with snow, but I started it away without waiting. Enough snow fell off under the wipers that I was able to keep going. The outside mirror was covered but that didn't bother me. Nothing would overtake me for the next few minutes. I had no trouble chasing the twin ruts left by the Toyota. The inside of the windshield began to mist and I frantically wiped it clear so I could see ahead, through the funneling snowflakes that threw themselves down the beam of the headlights.
I was grateful to be following ruts. The roadbed was obliterated by snow. From time to time I made out a marker post beside the roadbed but otherwise I followed the tracks, making better time than the first guy had, I was sure of that. But I also knew that whoever was driving the Toyota knew the road like the back of his hand, better than I do and I've worked here almost a year. If he hadn't, he would have spun out onto the lake that lay below the right shoulder.
As I drove I made sure there were no trampled areas beside the ruts. Nobody had gotten out of the vehicle. I glanced up at the few cottages on this stretch of road but they were all in darkness. I pressed harder on the accelerator. The Toyota was heading for the highway. Once it got there, it had gotten away.
I rounded the last bend before the stop sign and saw a two-foot pile of snow across the road, left by the highway plow. The driver had ignored the whole of Murphy's Harbour, just cut us off rather than lift his blade as he passed our corner on the highway. And then I saw the Toyota, abandoned at roadside, just ahead of the drift, one door hanging open.
I pulled up right behind it, my headlights shining through the back window which was covered already with a skim of snow. Even before I got down from the Blazer I knew it was too late. The vehicle was empty. I stopped and checked the footprints around it. Three people had left, two from the passenger side. The prints were clear and there was no sign of a struggle. By stooping and checking closely with my flashlight I could make out that two sets were boot prints and the others had been made by small high-heeled shoes. I straightened up, a little less anxious now. The Carnival Queen had gone as she was on stage. And she had gone without a struggle.
I checked the Toyota's interior. It was empty except for a strong smell of perfume. Then I turned and followed the footprints thirty yards ahead, over the drift and onto the shoulder of the highway. The prints stopped there, at three points where the doors would be on a car—a domestic make of some kind, judging by the distance between the wheel tracks. I could tell the car had been waiting a few minutes. There was more snow in the tracks behind it than there was in those in front. It had headed north but it didn't make any sense to climb the drift in the Blazer and try to follow. The tracks vanished almost immediately on the smoothly plowed surface of the highway. For all I knew, the car could have made a U-turn anywhere and headed south again, down the same single-width track plowed out by the Highways Department.
It was time for a little slow and steady police work. I checked the license number on the Toyota and then headed back to the Legion Hall. There was a chance that the girl was still there, hidden under the stage or somewhere. Sam would find her in seconds, given a sniff of the clothes she had left behind when she changed into her swimsuit. And if she wasn't, I might learn something from the photographs Carl Simmonds had taken or perhaps from him directly. He has a good eye for detail, I've found that out before. He might have seen someone he recognized in the light from his flash.
I steered clear of the Toyota's tracks in the parking lot, getting out to check them. It was easy to see where the car had been parked before it took off. The footprints came right up to it. There were two sets, one of a small boot and the other of high heels. No woman in her right mind would wear high heels outside on a night like this except in an emergency. It must have been the Carnival Queen. My reading was that Snowboots had waited at the fire door in the hall, possibly inside. Probably she had a coat for the missing girl. They had cut and run as soon as the lights went off. The getaway vehicle was driven by a third person.
Sam sprang to his feet as I entered the lobby and I rubbed his big head and told him "Come" as I pushed the inner door open.
At first I thought a fight had started. The crowd had gathered around one corner of the stage, pushing and craning to see what was going on. A couple of women were screaming but I saw other women turning away, disgusted. One of them saw me and shouted, "Arrest her! It's filthy!"
Sam spoke on command and the crowd opened for us, onto the most surprising sight of the evening so far. A young thin woman, almost pathetically plain, was standing in front of the stage dressed only in a flat white brassiere and panties of a serviceable cut. She was holding up a card which read: "Down with Male Chauvinism. Long live the C.L.A.W."
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She was almost hysterical, shouting the slogan on her banner over and over in a high cracking voice that told me she was scared. Sam added to the terror. She tried to ignore him but he came within an inch of her thin legs, still barking, slavering. She drew back and back until she was flat up against the stage.
I glanced around. All the men were watching hungrily, plain as she was. Their masks were shoved up on their heads so they could have an unobstructed view. Most of them were grinning like schoolboys.
I touched the closest man on the shoulder. "Lend me your jacket, please." He slipped it off, puzzled, and handed it to me. I said, "Thanks. Easy, Sam." People started shouting again as soon as Sam was quiet and the girl waved her piece of paper and went on chanting. I tossed her the jacket. She caught it reflexively with her left hand. "Put it on, you'll catch cold," I told her.
She stared at me blankly, as if she were coming out of a trance, then began to shiver. She slipped her arms into the jacket sleeves, clamping her banner between her knees in a gesture that was pure Charlie Chaplin. While she held it there I could read the bottom line that I hadn't noticed before. It was Canadian League of Angry Women.
Up on stage the Reeve was booming away and I looked up and shook my head. Then I nodded to the DJ and made a little conducting gesture with my hands. He read me and put some rock record on his machine. I touched the girl on the elbow and led her away toward Puckrin's office. The crowd stood back, the way a hockey crowd does when a player goes to the dressing room to have stitches put in his head.
Walter Puckrin was at the door, blocking it with his body, protecting the Legion money. He stood aside and the girl went in dejectedly. Her head was hanging and all her venom and energy had drained away. She looked deflated, like prisoners you see in newspaper photographs of trials.
Val Summers came out of the crowd, her mask pushed up on her head like a perched butterfly. She was carrying a bundle of clothes. I nodded to her and she followed the girl and me into the office and shut the door. She h
anded me the clothes.
"I guess these are hers. They were around the edge of the stage."
"Thanks." I turned to the girl. "Put these on, please." Walter opened his mouth to say something but I said, "We'll wait outside while she dresses. Mrs. Summers will keep an eye on your money." He shook his head disbelievingly and followed me out. We stood with our backs to the door, ignoring the questions from the crowd.
Carl Simmonds came up to me, excited. "I think I got a shot of somebody in outdoor clothes, at the back of the stage. I'm going home to print it up for you. I'll call here when it's done."
"Try the station first, I may be down there with this prisoner. And thanks, Carl."
He left a moment later. Val opened the office door and handed me the suit coat. "You can come in now."
I handed the jacket back to its owner and went back in. Putting some clothes on had made the girl less unattractive. She looked almost pretty in her green skirt and soft white blouse. "That's better," I said. A policeman has to be a father figure sometimes, it softens people up to answer questions.
Walter started to bluster something but I caught his eye and he stopped, bending instead to recount his money. I stood looking at the girl for perhaps thirty seconds, wondering if she would start to speak and give anything away, but she stayed grimly silent, looking at me and then away, being brave. I realized what I would have to do. It's a bit less than legal, but it was the only move that made sense.
"Tell me your name, please?"
All she said was, "Fascist!"
"Have it your own way." I turned to Val, dropping her the shadow of a wink. "Mrs. Summers, I am about to arrest this person. We have no matron on staff at Murphy's Harbour. I'm asking you to volunteer to stay with her until she is locked up. I don't want any false accusations made about the way she is treated."
