Shutterbug

by Laurence Gough

  Both Willows and Parker had been thinking along the same lines. Bradley said, ‘Anything else?’

  Willows glanced at Parker. She shook her head, no.

  ‘Full speed ahead,’ said Bradley, picking up the phone. He was dialling the Chief Constable’s extension as Willows and Parker left the office.

  Nobody had bothered mentioning it, but all three cops had been thinking that the end of the month was right on top of them, and that an unknown number of tenants weren’t going to be paying their rent on time. Inevitably, delinquent rent would result in a number of apartments being entered by irate landlords. When that happened, chances were excellent that the death toll of overdosed heroin addicts was going to skyrocket.

  Parker shut Bradley’s pebbled-glass door as they left the office. She said, ‘Jack… ‘

  Willows slowed down, let her catch up. Except for the civilian personnel down by the door, the squadroom was empty.

  Parker said, ‘Jack, we’ve got to schedule a new appointment with Mary Sanderson.’

  Willows frowned.

  ‘At the bank,’ said Parker, reminding him.

  Willows was on the move again, striding purposefully towards his desk. ‘Call her, explain the situation. She’s already done the math, made a decision.’ Willows picked up a pencil and put it down an inch away from its original location. ‘Tell her we’ll drop by sometime this afternoon, if we can make it. Otherwise, we’ll get it done tomorrow. Be charming, and vague, okay?’

  Willows pushed away from his desk.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To make a copy of the victim list. Especially for you. Back in about thirty seconds.’

  Parker dialled Sanderson’s number, and explained the situation as tactfully as she could. Sanderson assured Parker that the rescheduling was not in the least bit inconvenient. She understood that murder took precedence over mortgages, and cheerfully agreed to juggle her calendar in their favour, whenever Parker was able to arrange a new appointment.

  Parker decided not to sweat it. After all, what could Willows’ ex-wife do if her cheque arrived a few days late? Not much, from Mexico.

  Willows’ sturdy grey metal desk and Parker’s identically modest desk butted up against each other, head to head. They sat there in the otherwise empty office, facing each other, studying the chronologically arranged list of victims.

  Tom KleinMelvin Ladner

  Marcia ChangMadeleine Kara

  Russell GreenMaggie Collins

  Warren FishburgToby Clark

  Sandy Newton Ralph Lightman

  Neil Winwood

  Lester Rules

  Willows added the name Paul Ames to the bottom of the list. He was certain he didn’t recognize any of the names, or addresses. Most junkies were thieves. How could it be otherwise? Dope cost money, and addicts never had enough of either. Willows assumed that, with the wild-card exception of Ames, most if not all of the victims had criminal records. But they’d have been busted for petty crimes like shoplifting, theft from autos, purse-snatching, and break-and-enter, not murder.

  Claire’s head was bent over her own copy of the victim list, her glossy black hair casting her face in shadow. She’d been on the phone, a minute ago, when he was at the copy machine. Had she already called the bank? He wasn’t about to ask. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

  ‘Claire?’

  She glanced up.

  He said, ‘I love you, Claire.’

  Parker couldn’t hide her surprise, and didn’t bother trying to hide her intense pleasure. Willows told her frequently that he loved her, but he’d never spoken of his love while they were on duty. Whether that was due to wariness about departmental regulations and politics, or Willows’ own sense of propriety, was unclear, and unimportant.

  Parker glanced quickly around the squadroom and then reached across her desk to squeeze his hand.

  She said, ‘I love you, Jack.’

  Willows smiled. He picked up his pencil and pogo-sticked it across his copy of the victim list. ‘Recognize anybody?’

  ‘Not a soul.’

  ‘We need DelMonte and LoBrio.’

  ‘I hate to admit it, but you’re right.’

  Willows dialled DelMonte’s internal number. The phone rang and rang, and was finally picked up.

  ‘DelMonte.’

  ‘Ken, it’s Jack Willows.’

  ‘Hold on a minute.’ DelMonte neglected to cup his hand over the receiver. ‘Hey Tony, guess who I got on the line?’

  ‘Your wife? Probably wants to know how come I’m always so late getting to the motel, right? Tell her I don’t look forward to it any more, maybe she should put another ad in the paper.’

  ‘No, it’s Jack!’

  ‘Jack who?’

  ‘Jack Willows, the homicide detective!’

  ‘Get outta here, what’s he want with a couple of low-life cops like you and me?’

  ‘Good question!’ DelMonte came back on the line. ‘What’s the story, Jack? Finally coming out of the closet?’

  Willows told DelMonte about Jerry Goldsteins analysis of the Nigerian heroin.

  ‘You’re saying what?’

  ‘That some of the victims may have been murdered. Deliberately slipped an overdose of toxic heroin. Tell me if you recognize any of these names.’ Willows started to read slowly down the list, but DelMonte cut him off.

  ‘I got a copy, Jack. Yeah, me’n’Tony knew maybe half of them. Let’s see now… Okay, these are the ones we were familiar with, had busted or dealt with in one way or another. Tom Klein, Warren Fishburg, Marcia Chang, Sandy Newton, Lester Rules, and, last but not necessarily least, Melvin Ladner and Madeleine Kara.’ ‘You see a connection between them?’

  ‘Other than the fact that they’re all dead? Not off the top of my head. The women all did a little hooking, from time to time. Far as we know, none of them hustled for a pimp. Klein and Chang shared that lovin’ spoonful. Ditto Ladner and Kara.’

  ‘They were living together?’

  ‘You got it, Jack.’

  Willows said, ‘If you think of a connection… ‘

  ‘You’ll be among the first to know,’ said DelMonte amiably, a split-second before he slammed down the phone.

  Willows hung up. Parker gave him an enquiring look. He said, ‘No surprises. Remind me to call back, next time I need a laugh.’ Parker said, ‘Why don’t we revisit the crime scenes, take another look around. Start with Melvin Ladner, work our way back. Make sure we didn’t miss anything on the first pass.’ ‘Sounds good to me.’

  Parker drove them to Melvin Ladner’s apartment, stopping en route so Willows could grab a take-out cappuccino. The sky had been clear when they’d arrived at 312 Main, but now there were clouds massing on the southern horizon, and a stiff breeze carried the threat of rain. Willows, a native Vancouverite, was looking forward to a little damp weather. It hadn’t rained all day. All that blue sky had left him feeling restless and parched.

  Parker pulled in to the curb directly in front of Ladner’s apartment block. In the harsh light of day, the building looked a lot worse than it had the night of the murder. Peeling paint, crumbling stucco. Crooked brown stains indicated ongoing water damage. The place was falling apart so convincingly it might have been built by fast-buck developers during the past few years, rather than half a century ago.

  The door to the building wasn’t locked. Parker followed Willows up two flights of linoleum-clad stairs and down a broad hallway. The bright yellow crime-scene tape and police seal were still intact. Willows used Ladner’s key to unlock the door. The hallway smelled damp and musty. Inside, it was worse. A crudely drawn outline of Melvin Ladner’s last pose had been drawn on the threadbare carpet in blue chalk. Seen in only two dimensions, Melvin looked as if he’d danced off the planet. A tightly folded square of paper lay on the floor between the chalk outline and the sofa. Parker wriggled her fingers into a throwaway pair of latex gloves, and picked the paper up. Willows was interested. She squinted to read the
tiny printing. The paper contained detailed instructions for the use of a roll of 400 ASA black-and-white film.

  Willows said, ‘What was Dutton shooting?’

  ‘Four hundred. I saw him stuff the box in his jacket pocket when he reloaded his Nikon.’

  The other night, Willows had searched the kitchen and Parker had searched the bedroom. This time they did it the other way around. Willows had started in on the bathroom when he was interrupted by a timid knock on the door.

  Parker got there first. She swung the door open and found herself face to face with a clenched fist.

  The fist’s owner, a portly man in his late sixties, apologized as he hastily lowered his arm. ‘My heavens, excuse me! I’m so terribly sorry!’

  Parker smiled. The man wore baggy blue-and-white-striped coveralls and a matching engineer’s cap. His face was cherubic: pink cheeks and a soft white moustache, bushy white eyebrows. Around his neck he wore a red bandanna with white polka-dots. If he’d told Parker his freight train was double-parked out front, she’d have been happy to believe every word.

  She said, ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Name’s Billy Tobin. I’m the super.’

  Parker introduced herself, and Willows, who was loitering. Tobin’s eyes, piercing blue yet somehow lacking a greater intelligence, said, ‘You’re the police?’

  ‘Both of us,’ said Willows. Parker had flashed her badge. Now he did the same.

  ‘You’re detectives?’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Tobin, we’re detectives.’

  Tobin nodded. He briskly rubbed his nose with the flat of his hand. ‘Investigating Mr. Ladner’s unfortunate demise, are you?’ Willows nodded.

  ‘The reason I’m asking, I got some mail for Mr. Ladner, and I was wondering what to do with it.’

  ‘What kind of mail?’ said Parker.

  ‘Well, let’s see now… ‘ Tobin reached behind him, and withdrew two envelopes from the baggy back pocket of his coveralls. He held the envelopes up in front of his face, at a precise distance.

  ‘This one, it’s his eviction notice. I know that for a fact, because I sent it off to him myself. The man’s rent was a full month overdue, and he just plain didn’t give a fig, if you’ll excuse my language. I gave him plenty of warning, you can be sure of that. Verbal and written, all according to the law.’

  ‘What about the second letter,’ said Willows with just the slightest hint of impatience.

  ‘’Scuse me?’

  ‘The second letter.’

  ‘Telephone bill. How they’ll handle the situation is anybody’s guess. I suppose they got some kind of routine they follow. Go after a close relative, due process, something along those lines.’

  Willows said, ‘Nice meeting you, Mr. Tobin.’ He turned and started back to the bathroom, to finish poking around in Melvin Ladner’s no-name-brand toiletries.

  ‘No, wait a minute! I been saving the best for last!’

  The third piece of mail had Melvin Ladner’s name typed on the plain white envelope in capital letters. There was no address and no stamp.

  Billy Tobin said, ‘You’ll notice there ain’t no address? How the postman figured out where in hell to deliver it is way beyond me. Maybe they got some kind of X-ray machine, can see inside so they know who wrote the letter.’ He rubbed his nose again. ‘Though how that would help them is a puzzle in its own right, from where I’m standing.’

  Parker, still wearing her latex gloves, held the letter by the edges. Not that there’d be any fingerprints, other than Tobin’s. The envelope had not been sealed. Parker thanked Billy Tobin for his help, and briefly but very slowly explained why they’d like to fingerprint him.

  ‘For comparison purposes? I don’t get it. You’re saying you think me and the fella that sent this letter might have identical fingerprints? I thought that was impossible, and anyway, I don’t get the point.’

  Willows told Tobin not to leave the building for the next few hours.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, I ain’t going nowhere!’

  Willows shut the door, and locked it. Parker gingerly opened the envelope, and withdrew five Polaroid photographs.

  A close shot of Melvin Ladner’s needle-stuck arm.

  Melvin dying.

  Melvin dying.

  Melvin dying.

  Melvin dead, dead, dead.

  Chapter 15

  Something smelled really, really ugly. In near-total darkness, Lewis gingerly sniffed the air. Was it the frogs? Had Wayne slipped a bunch of dead, horribly mutilated frogs into bed with him?

  He tried to sit up, and discovered he was manacled, wrists and ankles, to the bed.

  Bourbon, was that what he smelled? He vaguely remembered being basted with a bottle of Wild Turkey. Now it was all coming back to him, and he wished it wouldn’t. His head pounded. His mouth was dry. He lifted his head, and saw that a crust of blood lay on his shoulder. Gruesome. His hair against the pillow felt as if it had been gelled to death. He arced his body and twisted his head towards his groping right hand. His hair was incredibly sticky, matted with dried blood and alcohol. His gently probing fingers encountered a hard, smooth, slightly curving surface. Had his head been fractured? Was this a piece of his skull? He warily untangled the fragment from his hair, tilted back his head so he could look at it.

  Glass. Nothing but a piece of glass. He fell back, exhausted.

  The bedside lamp snapped on. Wayne stared down at him. ‘Man, you stink something awful. Where’s the remote?’

  Blinking against the light and his thumper of a headache, tears streaming down his cheeks, Lewis peered blearily up at him.

  Wayne snatched the remote off the night table. ‘Gotcha!’ He turned towards the television, and a moment later the screen flickered, then blossomed like an enormous, unnaturally shaped flower. Wayne flipped through the channels.

  Tight-packed names and numbers, hundreds of them, scrolled down the screen.

  ‘Hong Kong stock market,’ said Wayne. ‘I’m gonna be rich, or I’m gonna be sorry.’ In silence, he watched the numbers roll by. Lewis found the steady advance and retreat of the well-organized lines oddly soothing. He was mildly irritated when Wayne toyed with the remote, activating the set’s picture-in-picture capabilities. Down in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, a small screen appeared. Baywatch. One of Lewis’s favourites, in his previous life.

  Sand. Surf. Potential tragedy. Pamela Anderson Lee, her three-piece body clad in a scanty one-piece bathing suit, juggled her way across the screen in exquisite slow motion. Talk about special effects! She splashed into the water, did a little swimming, grabbed a scrawny, freckle-faced kid, turned around and swam back to the beach. Hauled him out of the water, bent over him. The kid was apparently revived by her cleavage. Tragedy averted.

  Wayne said, ‘You read about her in the paper?’

  He was waiting for an answer, looming again, breathing hard through his furry nose.

  Lewis said, ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘Accused Tommy Lee of attacking her. This’s at their Malibu Beach house? Man, how’d you like to live in Malibu with Pamela? Anyhow, she said he hurt her back, and broke her fingernail. Broke her fingernail! Cops charged him with assault. Bail’s a million, U.S. Guy’s already on probation, a battery charge.’

  Lewis shut his eyes, and tried to tune Wayne out. No dice. He hummed loudly, trying to create white noise. Wayne saw what he was up to, and cranked up the TV’S volume.

  ‘I ain’t saying he’s guilty. All I’m saying, my advice to you, gratis, never marry a drummer!’

  ‘Okay,’ said Lewis.

  Wayne played with the remote. The VCR mounted beneath the TV clicked into life, and the scroll was replaced by a video of April and Wayne dining on what appeared to be a seaside hotel balcony.

  It was a splendiferous sunny day. Beyond them, the gently curving horizon clung tightly to a glittery blue sea.

  ‘That’s the Mediterranean,’ said Wayne. ‘Greece. It’s where we honeymooned. Ten days
, man. I never saw a cloud, not one. It was just like the travel agent promised - all souvlakia and salads and sunshine.’

  ‘Terrific,’ said Lewis.

  ‘I never had so much fun in all my life,’ said Wayne. He was excited, pumped up by a flood of memories. His deeply sunken eyes were bright as olives freshly dipped from the jar. His blunt fingers clawed at his beard.

  He said, ‘April means so much to me.’

  A few hairs came away in his fingers. He studied them intensely, and then flicked them away. The window on the far side of the room was wide open, curtains drifting in the breeze.

  Wayne said, ‘I ain’t touched a blade in more’n three years. April likes me hairy. The hairier the better.’

  Wayne pointed at Lewis, his index finger rigid and trembling, as if he meant to run him through, pin him to the bed for all eternity. ‘Stay put. I’ll be right back.’

  Lewis lay there, manacled and hopeless.

  True to his word, Wayne was only gone a few minutes. He returned to the bedroom armed with a pack of Marlboros and a six-pack of beer. He uncuffed one of Lewis’s legs, shifted the leg aside and sat down, lit up, and popped the tab on a Bud.

  Lewis said, ‘Where’s April?’

  ‘Out back, cleaning the barbecue. I told her you’d be glad to do it, but she said she was in the mood.’ Wayne puffed on his cigarette, gulped some brew. ‘She’s the cleanest woman I ever met. Showers or takes a bath twice a day, minimum. Can you believe it?’

  ‘She looks clean.’

  ‘Damn right. She is clean.’ He finished the Budweiser, opened another. ‘Clean as a kitten!’ he insisted with false jollity.

  Lewis said, ‘I thought you told her there was no smoking allowed in the house.’

  ‘There’s a lot of rules around here that apply to everyone but me. You got a problem with that, you’d be pretty damn stupid to say so.’