Mind Games

by William Deverell

  “If we find you’ve been withholding …”

  I gently interrupted, my hand on his elbow. “Hey, Jack, this party came forward, let’s … let’s have a beer.” Dotty, who was also dismayed at his brusqueness, had been nursing a lager, and I ordered a couple more. Churko declined a glass, wiped the mouth of his bottle with his sleeve before taking a pull from it.

  Lolita excused herself to attend to other customers, and I grabbed the opportunity to urge Churko to change tack. What I really wanted him to do was relax. He is more than slightly homophobic, and his lack of judgment was showing.

  “I want to ask you, Doc, how is this party, as you put it, going to look in the witness box? She … he better be able to give us faces.” Churko was clutching a photo album, shots of two dozen young men, Grundy and Lyall among them.

  “Hey, Jack, get into the spirit,” Dotty said. “You may get lucky. That brunette over there has eyes for you.”

  “I got three daughters. This is the world they’re growing up in.”

  When Lolita rejoined us, Churko pressed on resignedly. “I’d like you to describe the scene – José came in with those guys, or met them here, or what?”

  Lolita explained she’d been working alone that night. She remembered Pierrera wandering in, taking a back booth, ordering a beer. She was struck by how lonely he looked.

  At about ten p.m., two young men came in, strangers to her. “Brutes, if you know what I mean. A muscle shirt, for goodness’ sake, and the muscles to go with it. The other one wasn’t as hefty. Utterly adorable in their quiet, strained way.”

  She thought they were straight at first, until they started chatting up Pierrera, flirting with him, the slighter man talking in a falsetto. “I mean, really,” Lolita said, “she was coming on like a little tramp.” Soon they joined Pierrera in his booth.

  “You didn’t figure that was strange?” Churko asked. “These two studs coming on to this lonely … this nondescript who could hardly talk English?”

  “I don’t ask, darling. That isn’t part of my job description. One is discreet.”

  However, she thought they were hustlers, or maybe drug dealers. They seemed high on speed or cocaine. They had another round of drinks during the next half-hour, and since the bar was becoming busier, Lolita lost track of them. The booth was deserted when she next looked, a fifty-dollar bill tucked under a shot glass. She had no idea if they left together.

  “Okay, I want you to look at some pictures here. You’ll see they got numbers, and I want you to tell me if you recognize anyone from that night.”

  She didn’t study them for long. “Number eight,” she said. “Number twenty.” Grundy and Lyall.

  Churko told Lolita to keep her silence, thanked her, and motioned for Dotty and me to join him outside.

  “That joint gave me the creeps,” he said, pulling deeply on a cigarette. “Looks like we got our guys, but they’ll hire a ten-thousand-a-day lawyer who’s gonna rant about how it’s highly circumstantial. I got to talk to some higher-ups. Be close to a phone.”

  I was picked up by a squad car Tuesday morning to join the task force in a conclave with a special prosecutor – Foster Cobb, a former Crown counsel now in private practice.

  Churko’s office was crowded, so I stayed by the door, exchanging greetings with Cobb. I’ve worked several murder cases with him, found him able and quick of mind, and he seemed on top of this file already. “We are having a debate, Tim. We have two schools of thought. The first school is represented by my old friend Jack Churko.”

  The inspector took his cue. “We give them a chance to explain themselves. We offer the normal courtesy of inviting them for a lineup, and if Lolita fingers them again, we got some friendly questions we want to ask them. We go by the book. We got a prominent family here.”

  Cobb nodded, contemplative. “You’ll want to give them the standard warning, I suppose, Jack. The one about how they have a right to a lawyer.”

  “We cross all our t’s, that’s my attitude.”

  Cobb rested a hand on Churko’s shoulder. “Now, Jack has been around the block a few times, I’ve got a lot of respect for him, and he believes we should go into The Tides with warrants, toss their rooms, bring these bad boys downtown, separate them, and grill them till they’re well done on both sides. Some of these other gentlemen feel we need something harder. What do you think, Tim?”

  “I don’t like the first scenario. You’ll be lucky to get a squeak out of these guys. If they exercise their rights, what have we got?”

  “A few lies. Association. Opportunity. Sick motive. Your copycat theory: interesting, not compelling.”

  “How about giving me one last shot at Grundy? If I get lucky, you can go in with handcuffs.” Grundy can’t refuse to talk to me, I explained, the terms of his release require him to submit to my monitoring, to close cross-examination.

  Cobb was interested, and we worked out this plan: my consulting room would be wired for my regular Thursday appointment with Grundy. Police would listen from Dotty’s quarters above.

  Afterwards, I sped off to the Broadway Medical Centre. My disciplinary hearing was to reconvene this day, as soon as the results of Vivian’s polygraph test were in. That had been set for ten a.m. – it had been delayed twice at her request, and Brovak felt she was trying to squirm out of it.

  When I showed up, the hearing wasn’t yet in session, and an unusually subdued Vivian Lalonde was leaning against the boardroom door. “It’s over, Timothy,” she said in an oddly thick voice. “It’s all over.” She was dressed in the black of penitence, a clinging dress. I was heartened by her words, her slouch, the posture of defeat.

  Brovak was closeted in a nearby office with the polygraph examiner, Charles Lougheed, leaning over the graphs. Brovak grinned at me. “Don’t start feeling sorry for her. We should sue her sweet ass off.”

  Lougheed nodded. “She did not perform well.”

  He showed me several jumps on the graph. The kymograph pens had been active when she claimed I’d made romantic overtures, my alleged declaration of love. Her versions of the stalking incidents (“Mostly, we would just casually bump into each other”) caused a sweaty skin response and a skip of the heart.

  As to the alleged romp on my couch, their exchange had gone like this:

  “I’m not under oath, am I?”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “So if I lie, I’m not perjuring myself.”

  “This doesn’t work, Ms. Lalonde, if you don’t agree to tell the truth.”

  “I don’t know any more … I don’t remember exactly. I don’t want to destroy his career.”

  “What is the answer?”

  “We didn’t make love on the couch.”

  “Is that the truth?”

  “Well, we were on his desk.”

  “You had intercourse?”

  “Of a fashion. I … I didn’t resist. It’s confusing. I know he wanted me. I know it.”

  A chilling footnote: I’d proposed that she be questioned about the notes You are next and I know where you live. Lougheed found these useful as control questions. Her answers were unhesitant and honest: she knew nothing of them.

  The sender had to be Grundy.

  I was absorbed in the implications of that, and almost walked into Vivian as I entered the hearing room. She staggered, and when I put out a hand to steady her, she started crying and walked unevenly to a chair. I was concerned – her lack of balance seemed unnatural, as if induced chemically as much as emotionally.

  For a few moments, the only sound to disturb a tomblike silence was her sobbing. That was proof enough that Vivian’s edifice of lies had collapsed. Neither Schulter, Mundt, nor Rawlings could look me in the eye.

  Brovak laid Lougheed’s written report in front of them, along with the graphs, then slouched in his chair. “She flunked, gentlemen.”

  As they perused the material, another silence set in, punctuated by the shuffling of paper and clearing of throats and, finally, as Mun
dt looked up, his lugubrious sigh. Schulter offered me a rigid smile intended to mask clenched teeth. “Thank goodness. Just as I hoped and expected.”

  Vivian was weeping audibly. Mundt cast a regretful look at her, disappointed at her show of frailty. “Let’s put this thing to rest.”

  Rawlings was staring at Vivian. I don’t know if he’d followed much of this. He came to with a nudge from Schulter, and said, “Yes, of course, not guilty.”

  “Very well,” said Schulter, “I am gratified to make it unanimous.”

  Vivian was saying something through choking sobs, her words incoherent.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Lalonde,” said Schulter, “we didn’t quite catch …”

  She was on her feet, steadying herself with a hand against the wall. “I told the truth … about one thing …”

  “What’s that?”

  She was looking at me, trembling. “That I love you, Timothy. It’s the only truth that matters.”

  With that, she pitched forward, over a chair. “Get a doctor,” someone yelled, Schulter, I think.

  I was the first to reach her, raising her limp body in my arms, carrying her to the door, Mundt scurrying ahead of me.

  “Sleeping pills?” he said.

  “I expect so.”

  We found an internist down the hall and left Vivian to his mercies and his stomach pump. It’s all over. Her life, she meant. I rebuked myself for not having picked up her signals – she’ll need intensive, long-term care, the help of a worthier psychiatrist than I.

  At last report she’s recovered from all but her despair; her father has taken her in and hired an around-the-clock home-care nurse and a therapist recommended by the Suicide Prevention Centre. Dr. Lalonde, however, hasn’t called to express regret, nor has he paid my last bill.

  I told Brovak to drop any thoughts of an action against Vivian – I actually grieve for her. There was reward enough in the hypocrisy of Schulter’s formal letter exonerating me and paying tribute to “a fighter, a caring physician, and one of the keenest minds of our difficult profession.” But I intend to send a hefty final bill to her father.

  On the day following the hearing, I rode Vesuvio II like the devil’s horseman, up the Squamish Highway, in heavy traffic, trying to erase my sadness at having failed Vivian. In counterpoint to my melancholy, it was one of those perfect days of autumn, a blue sky that showed no hint of the coming sullen months of grey.

  We have to hope the weather continues to hold, particularly in the Interior – it’s a tricky time of year, mists lingering through the morning, nighttime freezes, always the possibility of sudden fronts, of storms.

  My main challenge will come from an orthopaedist who in his student days tried out for Canada’s Olympic team in the thousand-metre sprints. But does he have the lasting power? The entrants include other amateur athletes, but (aside from stair-climbers and trained ballet dancers) most of our colleagues are overworked, overstressed, and overfed. None can have trained as hard as me.

  Now let’s move on to yesterday, October 23, a date forever enshrined in the honour roll of law enforcement fuckups.

  James had called Grundy earlier in the week to remind him of his two p.m. appointment, his regular time on his regular day: everything must seem normal. “How’s the good doctor?” Bob had asked. “He was under the weather last time I saw him.” Polite, relaxed.

  Jack Churko and a dozen of his crew – three in SWAT gear, just in case – packed themselves upstairs in Dotty’s office – my own offers no hidden alcoves. James, however, had bravely volunteered to be at his desk.

  He’d phoned Grundy to tell him: “The doctor requests he see you alone” – without his soulmate and brother in crime. Was I exposing myself to a supposedly psychotic attack? You are next.

  Grundy was late, and I assumed he couldn’t find a niche on Granville Island to park – the Vancouver International Writers Festival was in full swing. More time passed, and we began to wonder if he was even planning to show up. As of half past two it seemed not: surveillance officers, parked near the gates to The Tides, reported no sighting of Grundy, or Lyall, or any vehicle leaving the estate.

  Churko had missed his lunch. “How long are we going to wait? You better call him. He leaves now, it’ll take him an hour, so some of us are grabbing some chow.” I watched as he, Dotty, and several others strolled off to the Granville Island Hotel, leaving a skeleton crew upstairs.

  James was just about to dial The Tides when I glanced outside and saw to my consternation that Bob Grundison was coming up by a stairway from the pier. As he entered, he was smiling as if at some private joke. James quickly hung up.

  “Real sorry, Dr. Dare, I didn’t think we’d take so long by boat. Lyall and I had plans, but … it’s okay, we can be late.”

  Lyall was trespassing on the Altered Ego, lashing a line from a sleek inboard launch, hitching fenders between the boats, balloon floats.

  I called from the balcony: “Careful of my boat, Lyall, it’s freshly varnished.” That would alert the officers above, in case they hadn’t noticed this back-door arrival. As I later learned, they saw Grundy coming up the staircase, took up their headphones, eavesdropping while keeping an eye on Lyall.

  I led Grundy into the consulting room, so our conversation could be picked up by the hidden microphones. The dialogue that follows is as recorded:

  “You said you had plans?”

  He shrugged. “We were going for a little harbour tour with a friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Jossie.”

  “Ah, yes, Ms. Markevich. Exactly whose friend is she, Bob?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Three’s not a crowd in Lyall’s bed, is it?”

  He went stiffly into the stuffed chair, took a moment to answer. “I think you got the wrong impression, we weren’t … All I did was let Lyall have a piece of the action. He asked if I minded, it was all very open. She … okay, she kind of went for him. I wasn’t going to get in their way. Like I told you, she’s a free spirit.”

  “I thought she was the love of your life.”

  “I guess it wasn’t meant to be. You win some, you lose some. Isn’t that the way?” He was looking unblinkingly at me. I know where you live. I know you can’t keep a wife, either.

  “You don’t like women, do you, Bob? Use them, toss them, pass them down the line.” Dr. Wade’s confrontational approach had reaped interesting rewards, and I was intent on turning up the volume.

  “You’re making a big leap. There’s a lot of females I admire. Just because I … Okay, maybe I had some bad experiences. I’m trying to learn about girls, I’m adjusting.” I waited for more. “You’re the psychiatrist. You going to tell me it’s related to my mother?”

  “No, I think it’s something more disordered.”

  He tensed. “That isn’t very charitable. You mad at me? I break a rule or something?”

  “These feelings aren’t just related to women, though, are they? Gay men – do they bother you too?”

  “Nothing personal, but I don’t think God intended that kind of union.” Grundy’s expression hardened, and spots of anger showed on his cheeks. “Okay, let’s get it out on the table. I know why you’re bugged about me, you’ve been asking people a lot of questions, you want to connect me with these murders of homosexuals. You’d love it if I was the guy who did this, wouldn’t you? Send me back to the funny farm. Forget it, I got Lyall as my witness, I got an army of witnesses. I really feel insulted, Dr. Dare. You’ve had it in for me ever since that jury threw out your evidence against me.”

  I let the reverberations die down. He was panting slightly, like a dog after a run.

  “Okay, so tell me how you feel about homosexuals.”

  “I’ll be honest, I’ve got moral objections. They got a choice, God didn’t make them that way.”

  “We have a right to choose who we are?”

  “And to choose what we do, how we live.”

  “Dr. Barbara Wiseman – d
id she have that choice?”

  “Nobody forced her to be a lesbian …” He checked himself. “If that’s what you meant.”

  It wasn’t what I meant, but I followed it up. “You were aware she was a lesbian?”

  “She made no bones about it.”

  “You were resentful at being placed under her care – was her sexual orientation a factor?”

  “I didn’t know I needed help then.”

  “You recall meeting any of these men who were murdered?”

  “I don’t hang around with the gay crowd.”

  “How do you feel about these deaths? They bother you at all?”

  “I feel bad, same as anyone, it was lucky they didn’t have families.”

  “How do you know they didn’t have families?”

  “It was in the news, all of them were loners. Maybe not the older guy, the others.”

  “The other three.”

  “Yeah, the … I only heard about two others.”

  He’d nearly slipped on the ice of his lies. A shadow crossed his face, a suspicion that I knew too much.

  “Do you read books, Bob? Fiction? Novels?”

  “Occasionally, if I got nothing else. Lyall’s the reader.”

  “Ever discuss books with him?”

  “Yeah, he put me onto a couple of good ones.”

  I pulled a copy of When Comes the Darkness from my desk drawer. “How about this one?”

  He screwed his face up, concentrating on the title.” When Comes … No, can’t say I ever heard of it.”

  “Remember Lyall talking about it? Serial murderer. Gets a sexual high when he kills. Can’t get it any other way. Ring a bell?”

  “No way.”

  “My mother wrote it. It’s been in the news.”

  “Really? That’s something.”

  I wasn’t getting far with this, though he was clearly uncomfortable. I left the book in plain view, opted to stop circling and to move in. “Where were you the night Mr. Wilmott was murdered? You weren’t on the Skeena River.”

  Again, he rallied. “Okay, you want to make a big thing about it. Lyall and me were going to drive up there, but then my dad made his plane available. So we took a little extra R and R, buzzed down to Seattle, picked up a couple of girls, shacked up for a couple of nights. Ask Lyall.”