Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  “The guy spent a small fortune buying me dinner,” said Parker, “and I made him feel like a jerk.”

  Willows smiled. “Sometimes when Sean fell down and hurt himself, I’d get angry at him, mad because he’d been so careless. Of course, the real reason I was upset was because my son was in pain and there was nothing I could do about it. You still mad at Eddy?”

  “No, I want to nail the bastard who killed that kid.”

  “And the kid’s girlfriend,” said Willows.

  Parker stared at him.

  Willows started towards the double doors with their small panes of frosted and wired safety glass. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee, Claire, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  At the Denny’s on Burrard a smiling waiter with a round face crammed with pale orange freckles led them to a horseshoe-shaped booth next to the window. Willows ordered coffee and a jelly doughnut. Parker thought about it for a long time, and then asked for a pot of lemon tea.

  Out in the bright, sun-splashed street, a tourist bus cruised slowly past. The bus was a big fire-engine red double-decker imported from London. Parker squinted into the glare as shards of light bounced off the two rows of polished windows that ran the full length of the vehicle. Many of the people in the bus were staring at her as if they had never seen anyone eat at a Denny’s before, and she was the advertised highlight of the tour. She repressed an urge to favour them with a regal wave of her hand. She knew Willows well enough to be certain that he’d consider such a gesture badly misplaced.

  The waiter came back, interrupting her line of thought. Parker nodded her thanks. She lifted the lid of her teapot and looked inside, dropped a thick slice of lemon into her cup. She liked her tea hot and strong. She filled her cup and then used her spoon to retrieve the slice of lemon, and ate the pulp.

  “Vitamin C,” she said to Willows, who was watching her from across the table.

  Willows poured cream into his coffee. He used his knife and fork to dice his doughnut. It was a mannerism he had picked up a long time ago, from a detective named Norm Burroughs. The first time Burroughs had eaten a jelly doughnut, Willows had thought he was trying in some misdirected way to be genteel. But Burroughs was simply practical — taking care of his clothes.

  When he’d finished eating, Willows signalled the waiter for more coffee, and dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin, wiping away a few granules of sugar. He crumpled the napkin into a ball and threw it on the table. Then he told Claire Parker about the drowned girl, the blue tattoo of a Smurf she’d had on her arm, and the three twenty-dollar bills wrapped around the black and white snapshot of the boy now lying coldly in the morgue.

  “What do the Mounties think?” said Parker when Willows had finished.

  “Naomi Lister went swimming and bumped her head on a rock and drowned. Death by misadventure. Nice and simple. No muss, no fuss.”

  “They think she was all by herself up there on the mountain?”

  “There’s an old overgrown road up there, a Forest Services fire-break. We found tyre tracks.”

  “She was with a boyfriend, right?”

  “That was the supposition.”

  There had been two fat slices of lemon on Parker’s plate. She picked up the second slice and bit into it and chewed slowly, savouring the bitterness of the fruit. She swallowed and said, “You think her boyfriend drowned her, and then came down to the city and killed the kid?”

  “No,” said Willows, “I don’t.”

  Parker waited a moment, and then said, “Did she actually have a boyfriend? Are the Mounties looking for anyone in particular who she might’ve gone swimming with?”

  “Her father said she went out with anybody in pants. But nobody in particular. He also mentioned that she’d been living down here in Vancouver for the past year or so.”

  “You mean in the city?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “What was she doing, did he know?”

  “Nope.” Willows used the tines of his fork to scrape some jelly from his plate. “But whatever it was, she was making a lot of money at it.”

  “Prostitution,” said Parker firmly. “If we ask around on the street, we’ll soon find out who her friends were.”

  “That’d be nice,” said Willows. “Because I’m kind of in a hurry to solve this one.” He flagged the waiter and asked him for a copy of the Yellow Pages.

  “And more hot water,” said Parker, “and a couple more slices of lemon.”

  When the waiter returned he was carrying the phone book, a pot of fresh coffee, and a large whole lemon on a plate. He served the lemon to Parker, and then filled Willows’ cup. Willows added cream. Parker picked up the lemon. She bent her arm at a ninety-degree angle and crooked her wrist, let go of the lemon. It dropped and hit her bicep. At the moment of impact she flexed her muscles. The lemon rebounded upwards, back into her open hand. She dropped the lemon again, and kept dropping and catching it while Willows turned the flimsy pages of the phone book.

  “What are you looking for?” she said at last.

  Willows’ index finger moved down one page and up the next, and then stopped. He tore out the page and folded it up and put it away in his pocket, then shut the phone book. “There are only three tattoo parlours in the entire city,” he said. “Two of them are on Hastings, the third’s in the six hundred block Davie.”

  Parker nodded. Many of the downtown core’s teenage hookers hung out on Davie. Although neither she nor Willows had much faith in coincidence, it was hard not to feel a little optimistic about this one.

  “I’ll phone the Squamish detachment and get them to wire down a photograph of the Smurf tattoo on Naomi Lister’s arm,” said Willows.

  “I doubt if it’ll do much good,” said Parker. “Do these tattoo joints keep customer records? It’s all walk-in trade and cash over the counter.”

  “You’re probably right,” Willows conceded. “But it won’t take long to check it out.”

  “The street’s something else again. We flash the morgue snaps around, it might get us somewhere. Two dead hookers should give us a certain amount of leverage with the survivors.”

  Willows glanced at his watch. The street didn’t start to wake up until ten or eleven — they were in for a late night.

  Parker, reading his mind, said, “What do you want to do in the meantime, have you got any plans?”

  “I plan to buy some chewing-gum,” said Willows. He reached for the bill. “My treat, Claire.”

  Parker thanked him, but not with a great deal of enthusiasm. Next time it would be her turn to catch the tab. Willows had a knack for changing the price of a pot of tea into a free three-course meal.

  *

  There were eight grocery stores and one supermarket in the five-block strip between Broughton and Burrard, each store squeezed in among dozens of night clubs, sex shops, and fast-food joints. Seven of the eight stores sold the kind of magazines that had been found in the back of the Econoline van. Willows and Parker walked down one side of Davie and back up the other, buying a single pack of sugar-free gum at each of the stores, asking for and receiving a cash-register receipt every time they made a purchase.

  The receipt from the sixth store they visited matched the Xerox copy of the one they’d found in the van. The receipt was stamped on a thin white slip of paper measuring two by two-and-a-half inches. At the top of the slip there were four short vertical bars and then a space and two more bars. Below the two bars there was blank paper, an asterisk followed by the price of the gum, and then a capital “A” and a plus mark. One line down, the asterisk and the price were repeated, but this time the price was followed by a capital “T” and a four-digit number and, finally, the day’s date.

  Willows pulled out his worn leather wallet and flashed his gold shield. The girl behind the counter was Chinese, in her early twenties. She looked startled, and then confused, and then a little bit guilty. It was a typical response — none of the expressions that had fleetingly crossed her face ha
d meant a thing, and Willows and Parker both knew it. Parker gave the girl a reassuring smile. She introduced herself and Willows, and asked the girl what her name was.

  “Cheryl,” said the girl. She hadn’t stopped staring at Willows’ shield. He folded his wallet and put it back in his pocket.

  “Last Friday,” said Parker, “someone came in here and bought four sex magazines.” She named the magazines. “Do you remember the sale?”

  “I’m sorry, no,” said the girl. For emphasis, she shook her head. Her ponytail waggled from side to side. “What did he look like,” she said. And then, “Was it a man or a woman?”

  “We don’t know,” said Willows. “Probably a man, but we can’t be sure.”

  “What time was he here?”

  “In the evening. Why, what difference does it make?”

  “We open at ten in the morning, and don’t close until midnight.” She paused for a moment, thinking, and then said, “I think it would be better if you talked to my grandmother.” She locked the cash-register and dropped the key in her pocket. “I’ll go and see if she’s awake. I’ll be right back, okay.”

  “Sure,” said Parker.

  “Gum?” said Willows, offering the pack.

  Parker shook her head, no.

  Willows stripped the wrapper from three pink sticks and popped them into his mouth, chewed fastidiously.

  “Does it taste as good as it sounds?” said Parker.

  “That’s the traffic you hear, not me chewing.”

  The grandmother was wearing a shapeless black cotton dress and black canvas running shoes. Her hair was tied in a bun, and her skin was smooth and tight except in the area of her mouth and eyes, where it had the texture of finely-woven cloth. Willows had no idea how old she was, but he was certain that she was much older than anyone he’d ever met before. He gave her his name and Parker’s, and showed her his badge. She examined it carefully, then nodded and gave him a quick, shy smile, a glimpse of many gold fillings. Cheryl brought out a folding stool, and helped her grandmother sit down, taking her weight, guiding her.

  “She speaks very little English,” Cheryl said. “I will translate for you, if you like.”

  “Would you ask her if she remembers selling the magazines,” said Willows.

  “Yes, I have already done that. She says she remembers very clearly.”

  “Can she describe the customer?”

  “It was a man,” said Cheryl. “You must understand that she is embarrassed to discuss this, because of the subject-matter of the magazines.” She turned to her grandmother and spoke in rapid-fire Mandarin, a blur of consonants.

  The old woman was about to answer when two small children, a boy with his sister in tow, came up to the counter clutching a grape popsicle and a grimy fistful of small coins. The murder investigation ground to a halt while the sale was rung up. Willows volunteered to split the popsicle in half, and was viewed with a mixture of suspicion and alarm.

  The children left, and the grandmother resumed speaking. She spoke for several minutes, pausing frequently to catch her breath, and to think. When she finally stopped talking, the girl asked her a number of questions and then turned to Willows and Parker.

  “She thinks the man you are looking for came into the store a few minutes after nine o’clock. She says he was not very tall, perhaps five foot eight inches. He was balding. He wore four large gold rings on his right hand, and three more gold rings on his left hand. He had blue eyes. Very pale. Also watery. As if he was just about to begin crying or had just stopped crying. But he did not seem sad. In fact he was very cheerful.”

  “Can your grandmother tell us what the man was wearing?”

  “A dark green suit. No jacket. A white shirt that was very rumpled, in need of ironing. And a very colourful tie. Red, blue and orange.”

  “Did she notice his shoes?”

  “He was not wearing shoes. He was barefoot, and he walked with a limp.”

  Willows glanced up from his notebook. “A limp? Is she sure about that?”

  A quick exchange of Mandarin, short and sharp.

  “It was his right foot that was bothering him.”

  The grandmother frowned at Willows as Cheryl spoke. Willows repressed a smile. “Good,” he said, and made a note in his book. “You said he was not very tall. What about his body shape? Was he fat, thin…?”

  “My grandmother says the man’s shoulders were very narrow. His hips were wide, his legs short and thick. She says he looked like a pear balanced on two sausages.”

  Willows smiled. The old lady’s eyes were alight with intelligence. He suspected that her command of the language was a lot better than her granddaughter thought.

  “How did he pay for the magazines?”

  “With two twenty-dollar bills. They were brand new.”

  “Is it possible these bills might still be in the cash-register?”

  The girl shook her head. “We do a night deposit as soon as we close. Anything larger than a ten goes to the bank.”

  Willows had a few more questions. Did the man have any visible scars? Speak with an accent? Did he have any unusual mannerisms? He didn’t think they’d get much more out of the old woman, but that was all right, because they already had more than he’d hoped for. He asked the girl if they could use the telephone to call for a police artist and an Identikit. While Parker was dialling, Willows said, “Your grandmother surprises me. Does she remember all her customers so well?”

  “My grandmother was frightened of this man,” said Cheryl after another short conversation in Mandarin.

  “Why?”

  “He stole a package of breath mints from the rack by the cash-register. She was afraid that he might try to rob her.”

  “Why didn’t she call the police?”

  “He didn’t realize she had seen him take the mints. She charged him for them without telling him, so nothing was lost.”

  The grandmother had watched Parker make her call. Willows was willing to bet she’d memorized the number. She was a real sharpie, one in a million.

  So far, all the luck in the case seemed to be running his way.

  Chapter 16

  Early the next morning, the skinny kid Junior had seen in the kitchen staggered in carrying a big breakfast tray with folding legs. Misha hopped out of bed long enough to help him get the tray set up, then climbed back in between Junior and Felix.

  Misha’s plate was covered in small, overlapping, glistening pink horseshoes of raw fish, and the torn leaves of a dark green vegetable Junior had never seen before. He decided that if he offered him a forkful, he’d make the girl from Ignacio choke it down.

  The skinny kid went from one side of the bed to the other, his eyes on the ladies as he poured coffee from an ornate sterling pot into bone china cups so thin you could almost see through them.

  Junior drank some coffee and nibbled at a piece of whole-wheat toast. He’d been served hash-browns and bacon, and a heap of scrambled eggs made with white wine and a touch of cayenne pepper, but the raw fish and the sound of Felix at the trough had stripped him of his appetite.

  “If you aren’t going to eat your bacon, can I have it?” said the cute little moppet from Ignacio.

  “Sure,” said Junior. The girl’s shoulder touched his as she leaned towards him to stab at his plate with her fork. Junior slid his hands under the sheet and stroked her hip. “What would your daddy say if he could see you now?”

  “My dad’s in Germany.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Junior’s fingers pushed into the triangular thicket of her pubic hair. “But what would he say, huh?”

  The girl smiled. “He’s got an awful temper. Just awful.”

  “Explains why he’s riding a Pershing Two. You got to have somebody there who’s willing to push that button, right? Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  “I don’t know much about politics,” said the girl.

  “I love you just the way you are,” said Junior. He picked up the sterling silver coffee p
ot and poured himself a second cup.

  “Enjoying your breakfast?” said Felix.

  Junior, his mouth full of hot coffee, could only nod.

  “That’s wonderful. But whatever you do, don’t miss your flight.”

  “What flight?”

  “CP 412 out of LAX,” said Felix. “You’re skedded to lift off in a couple of hours.”

  “Where am I going, for Chrissake?”

  “I want my place in the Properties tuned up.” Felix smiled. “I’m thinking of making a run across the border.”

  “What for?”

  “Take the shrouds off the furniture. Open a few windows and let in some fresh air. Fill the pool. Lay in a good supply of food and drink, put a couple buckets of ice-cream in the freezer.” He smiled. “You know what to do. You’ve done it before.”

  “Two hours,” said Junior. “No way I’m gonna make it.”

  “When you’ve finished tidying up the house, give Mannie Katz a call. Meet him somewhere and make sure he gets the envelope.”

  “What envelope?”

  “The one under your plate, Junior.” Felix shook his head sadly. “What’s the matter with you anyway, you got an astigmatism at your age?”

  “Nothing wrong with my eyes,” said Junior. He almost added there was nothing wrong with his teeth, either. Bleakly, he stared down at his plate full of congealing food.

  Misha could see Junior’s feelings were hurt. She waggled her finger at Felix, and rolled her eyes. To cheer Junior up, she gave his arm a squeeze and offered him a piece of raw fish.

  “Rude little bastard,” said Felix when Junior had left the room.

  The flight out wasn’t much better. Junior had been given a window seat, the only seat available. Usually the first-class section was almost empty, but now it was full of smiling young men in three-piece suits and smiling young women wearing white blouses and pale blue pleated skirts. Junior snagged a passing stew and asked her what was going on. His fellow passengers were a famous TV evangelist and a mob of singers and writers and dancers and special effects people. “As soon as the bar opens,” said Junior, “could I have a double Chivas on the rocks?”