Shutterbug

by Laurence Gough

  Wayne blew his stack. He left-handed the propane torch and hit Sammy Wu flush on the jaw with a straight right. Sammy’s eyes rolled up in his head. His knees buckled. Wayne hit him again, putting every last ounce of his three hundred and twelve pounds into the blow. Sammy rose up on his toes, ballerina-like. Wayne got in another solid shot, striking Sammy a downward glancing blow as he collapsed to the floor.

  Sammy lay there on the carpet. Extinguished like a candle in a hurricane. Wayne recovered the patch of material torn from his suit. His defences had been breached. But then, Sammy had been de-breeched.

  Wayne’s ominous chuckle sounded oddly frog-like.

  His goggles were fogged up. He slipped them off, wiped them on a trailing edge of sheet, and put them back on.

  Sammy just kept on lying there, motionless as a photograph of Sammy just lying there. Wayne snapped a few pics.

  He got out his drug kit, and prepared Sammy’s syringe.

  *

  April said, ‘Are you okay?’

  Wayne’s head snapped up. He was back in the kitchen, sitting at the table, the tines of his fork crammed with crumbling pieces of soft pink shrimpflesh. As far as he could tell, April hadn’t moved an inch.

  He said, ‘Yeah, fine. You got a problem with that?’

  ‘Just asking.’

  Wayne shoved the loaded fork into his mouth, filled himself up with tiny mutilated bodies.

  Disinterested but thorough, he chewed and chewed.

  April said, ‘Want me to warm that up for you?’

  ‘No, I’ve had enough.’

  Wayne miscalculated the required force as he pushed away the congealed pasta and deceased shrimp. The plate shot across the table and hit the floor, and shattered. The dogs pounced.

  ‘Did you do that on purpose?’

  ‘’Course not.’

  The dogs were in a frenzy, indiscriminately gobbling up bellyfuls of carbohydrates and splintered shards of plate. One of the creatures, it was impossible to say which, was bleeding copiously.

  ‘Christ, now look what you’ve done!’

  ‘What?’ said Wayne. He kicked out, not trying to hurt the animals, so much as simply intending to make them keep their distance.

  April yelled at him. Swore at him. Debased his ancestors. Queried the validity of his DNA sequences. She was a tigress. Once she got rolling, there was no stopping her. Wayne torched a Marlboro and leaned back in his chair to enjoy the ride. April was foaming at the mouth, speaking in tongues. Still, he got the gist. What a mean-spirited, foul-hearted bitch! She was just amazing, wasn’t she!

  Eventually, April ran out of wind, and venom. By then Wayne was down on his knees, lovingly tending to the wounded dog, Esmeralda. The cut was superficial, at worst. It had already stopped bleeding. Wayne said, ‘Aren’t you such a good dog.’

  Esmeralda licked his beard, became confused, and backed away with her tail between her legs.

  ‘I guess she don’t like shrimp,’ hazarded Wayne.

  ‘It’s the tobacco smoke, you idiot. Want a slice of pie?’

  *

  Wayne didn’t hear the question. He’d shifted back to Sammy’s apartment, was sitting down on Sammy’s bed. He fine-tuned his Radio Shack torch until the hissing, pale blue flame was thin as a razor.

  Sammy Wu was not a particularly hirsute guy. Wayne knelt beside him and ran the torch up his leg, from ankle to pubic bone. The familiar stench of scorched hair was something he hoped he’d never get used to. He ran the torch into the scanty nest of Sammy’s pubic hair, circled, and pulled away. The torch sputtered and died. He tried, unsuccessfully, to relight it. The flow of gas was weak. The damn cylinder was empty, and he’d forgotten to bring a spare.

  Wayne got out his lighter, adjusted the flame as high as it would go, and painstakingly finished the ritual burning.

  Had a team of paramedics burst into the room, kick-started Sammy with a dose of Narcane, and brought him blinking back from the bottom of his grave, and had Sammy asked Wayne what the hell he was up to with that crazy torch thing, Wayne would not have been able to provide him with a definitive answer.

  He’d have said something along the lines of, ‘I dunno.’ Pressed, he might have admitted the possibility that it had something to do with his lack of sexual drive.

  Something to do with the way his dad treated him when he was a helpless little kid, maybe.

  Of course, he’d be flat-out lying like a rug.

  *

  ‘Want some ice cream with your pie?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Wayne. April spooned a lump of ice cream onto his plate. He began to eat. The dogs watched him as closely as paint clings to a wall.

  Wayne said, ‘I was thinking Lewis might be interested in my collection of Polaroids.’

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  April toyed with her dessert. She swirled the ice cream into the pie until it was a gooey, unidentifiable mess.

  ‘I was hoping to keep him around for a while.’

  ‘I know you were.’ He reached across the table and snagged a choice piece of her piecrust. ‘You kind of like him, don’t you.’ ‘Just a few more days… ‘

  ‘What’s the magic word, babe?’

  ‘Please?’

  The dogs had flopped down companionably, in close proximity to the refrigerator. Were they white, with small black spots? Or mostly black, with large white spots?

  Wayne pushed away from the table. Was Lewis a sacrificial lamb, or April’s new boyfriend? He said, ‘I’ll think about it. Okay?’

  Chapter 22

  The cafeteria at 312 Main had never made any of the local lists of ten best restaurants. Or fifty best restaurants. Or thousand best greasy spoons. On the other hand, unlike several of the city’s finer dining establishments, the cafeteria had never suffered from an outbreak of e-coli resulting from undercooked or improperly handled meat.

  Willows and Parker sat on either side of Bradley, who had made himself comfortable at the head of the table. Parker had availed herself of the hot water, and had dunked a teabag she’d had stowed in a plastic sandwich bag, at the bottom of her purse. There had been a brief-but-spirited conversation about the physics involved in a featherweight teabag’s unlikely journey to the bottom of her purse. Willows was deep into his veggie burger, but not enjoying it very much. Bradley had finished his salad and just begun to tuck into his apple crumble. He paused, his fork poised midway between plate and mouth.

  ‘What about the hooker - you already talked to her, right?’

  Willows, his mouth full of God knows what, nodded agreeably.

  Parker said, ‘Holly Wentworth. We didn’t talk, we listened.’

  ‘Chatty, was she?’

  ‘To say the least. I’m pretty sure she set a new land speed record. A real motor-mouth. I kept wanting to issue a ticket.’

  ‘Back to your roots,’ said Bradley. ‘So, what’d she give you?’

  ‘Nada.’

  Willows drank some coffee. He said, ‘She gave me a headache.’ ‘I stand corrected,’ said Parker. ‘In fact, come to think of it, she gave me something, too.’

  ‘That stick of Juicy Fruit,’ said Willows. His hamburger was falling apart in his hands. What a mess. Kind of like the case. He said, ‘How’re we doing, big-picture-wise.’

  Bradley shrugged. He swallowed, used his fork to chase the last of his crumble around the plate. He was slowing down, losing his moves. Ten years ago, he’d have wiped up every last crumb with a single pass. It was all in the wrist…

  He said, ‘Orwell and Spears are re-canvassing the victim’s neighbours, hunting for witnesses. They’ve split the work load with Dan Oikawa and Bobby Dundas. Dan tells me Bobby keeps going AWOL.’

  ‘You talk to Bobby?’

  Bradley nodded. ‘I sure did, but I wish I knew why.’

  Parker told Bradley about Bobby’s odd behaviour at the morgue, prior to Sandy Newton’s autopsy.

  Bradley laid his fork down in the exact centre of his plate. �
��Bobby was crying?’ It was an unlikely image, to say the least. He glanced at Willows for confirmation.

  Willows said, ‘Bobby kissed her.’

  ‘Kissed her?’

  Parker said, ‘On the forehead, Inspector. Chastely.’

  Bradley retrieved his fork. He balanced it between his fingers, like a teeter-totter. The fork tilted down. The tines chimed musically against the plate, and then were still.

  ‘Chastely, huh?’ Bradley tugged at his ear, pulling memories from years gone by. A slow pimp with the unlikely name of LaMer Ocean had turned up in a drainage ditch outside Blaine, Washington. The pimp’s head had yielded two copper-jacketed.38-calibre bullets. The second round had impacted on the first, destroying them both. As evidence, they were useless. Bradley had found out about the pimp’s fate shortly after his abandoned Lexus, complete with Washington State licence plates, had turned up in a False Creek parking lot. Neighbours had reported that, for the past few weeks, the pimp had been sharing a condo rented by a hooker named Sandy Newton.

  Bradley should have made the connection earlier. He was slowing down. LaMer had died a long time ago. Eight, nine years? Had Bobby been working vice at the time of LaMer Ocean’s death? The fork hung in perfect balance, but only for a moment.

  Bradley decided he wasn’t interested in Bobby’s whereabouts on the night of LaMer Ocean’s brutal, execution-style murder.

  Not yet, anyway. He glanced up. Willows and Parker were both staring fixedly at him. He said, ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Parker a little too quickly.

  Bradley decided it was the fork. Somehow, it had bent itself into an imperfect oval. How had that happened? No wonder Jack and Claire were looking at him so oddly. Yuri Geller, look out!

  *

  Parker and Willows were in the elevator, on their way up to the third floor, when Parker’s beeper sounded off. She checked the number. Christy Kirkpatrick. She phoned the pathologist from her desk.

  ‘Christy, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Au contraire,’ said Kirkpatrick. ‘Remember Sammy Wu?’

  ‘Vaguely. He scheduled?’

  ‘Top priority. I’ll get around to him some time next month, if he’s lucky. The reason I called, we pulled him by accident. I’m scheduled to autopsy a gorgeous female model who jumped out a window ten minutes after eating a chocolate sundae. But when I pull back the sheet, I’m looking down at Sammy.’

  ‘That must have been a major disappointment.’

  ‘You better believe it. Anyway, Sammy’s mouth’s wide open, the overhead light’s shining down on him, and I can’t help noticing there’s something stuck between his teeth… ‘

  Kirkpatrick trailed off.

  Parker waited, and waited.

  Finally she said, ‘Christy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’d you find?’

  ‘I think you better drop by, take a look.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ said Parker.

  ‘What I found, it’s physical evidence. You better bring one of those little plastic bags with you.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Parker.

  ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’ll clear a table for you,’ said Kirkpatrick blandly, and disconnected.

  *

  They found the pathologist at his desk, lunching on an egg-salad sandwich. He waved them into the cramped office, drank quickly from a bottle of Snapple as he stood up. A paper napkin fluttered from his lap towards the floor. He snatched it out of mid-air and used it to wipe his mouth. He checked his watch against the wall clock. ‘You’re right on time.’

  ‘We used the siren,’ said Parker.

  ‘Not that it was needed,’ said Willows.

  Kirkpatrick eyed him warily. Jack wasn’t noted for a lighthearted approach to life, much less death. He tossed the balled-up napkin in his wastebasket. Two points.

  ‘Follow me, detectives.’ Kirkpatrick snatched his smock and nifty elasticized cap off the coatrack as he went out.

  Sammy Wu lay on a stainless-steel table, under a pale blue sheet. Kirkpatrick wriggled his hands into a pair of disposable latex gloves. He pulled the sheet down past Sammy Wu’s collarbone. Sammy’s eyes were shut but his mouth gaped open. He lacked the necessary bulk, but might otherwise have been a deceased opera singer.

  Bradley tilted Sammy’s head slightly to the side. He adjusted the overhead light.

  ‘Right there? See it.’

  A spark of silver glinted between two molars. Willows predicted tinfoil. He guessed that Sammy had tried to swallow a small quantity of heroin. If there was a tinfoil packet in his stomach, Kirkpatrick would certainly unearth it during the autopsy. He wondered what all the fuss was about.

  Kirkpatrick had a pair of stainless-steel tweezers. He said, ‘Watch.’ He flicked at the bit of silver with the tweezers. Willows saw that the thing, whatever it was, was far too flexible and shiny to be tinfoil. Kirkpatrick shifted his grip, closed the tweezers on the tiny scrap of material, and tugged gently but firmly.

  The shiny fragment resisted his efforts. He pulled harder. The material came away in the tweezers’ jaws. Kirkpatrick held it under the light. His hand was absolutely still.

  Parker said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Beats me. Mylar? Some kind of fabric.’ Kirkpatrick led them back into his office, got a magnifying glass from his desk. He turned on his desk light and swivelled it around. He studied the scrap of Mylar-like material, and then turned the tweezers so he could look at the flip side. He said, ‘It’s woven, for strength. There’s at least two layers…’ He handed the magnifying glass to Parker, who studied the scrap of material for a moment and then passed the glass on to Willows.

  Kirkpatrick said, ‘It’s such a small piece… ‘ He finished the Snapple, and tossed the empty bottle in his wastebasket.

  ‘Very tiny,’ agreed Parker.

  Kirkpatrick picked the Snapple cap off his desk and began clicking it in and out.

  Snap-snap. Snap-snap.

  Willows was, in the blink of an eye, incredibly irritated.

  Kirkpatrick said, ‘What kind of evidence you find at the scene of crime?’

  ‘Virtually none,’ said Willows.

  Parker explained the circumstances - that the apartment had been professionally cleaned just before the corpse was discovered.

  ‘What about the bedroom, where she found the body? Soldier on, did she?’

  Parker laughed. ‘No, she dialled nine-eleven.’

  ‘But I understand you found no evidence in the bedroom, either.’

  ‘Where’d you hear that?’ said Parker.

  ‘From Tony LoBrio. Is it true?’

  ‘True enough,’ said Willows.

  Kirkpatrick said, ‘Look, I’ve been thinking about this. Is it possible your perp was wearing coveralls, maybe an outfit similar to what the IDENT team wears, to avoid contaminating the crime scene?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Parker held out an open, clear plastic evidence bag, size small. Kirkpatrick dipped the tweezers into the bag, shook loose the piece of material. Parker sealed the bag.

  Kirkpatrick tapped the bag with the tweezers. He said, ‘I’m just guessing, but this could be a piece of a lab suit.’

  ‘A lab suit?’

  Kirkpatrick nodded. ‘Have you seen that Intel ad, the guys dancing around in those shiny outfits? They look almost like astronauts. They’re covered head to foot in these shiny suits, wearing face shields, or goggles… You don’t know the one I’m talking about?’

  Willows said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He glanced at Parker, who was clearly equally mystified.

  *

  Outside, there was a high wind. Clouds raced towards the horizon. Sunlight flickered across the sidewalk, and the towering glass faces of the skyscrapers.

  Parker stopped dead in her tracks.

  She said, ‘Bugs.’

  Willows unlocked the unmarked Fairlane’s passenger-side door. He tossed the keys
high into the air, turned gracefully, and caught the keys behind his back.

  He said, ‘Bugs? As in, covert audio surveillance?’

  ‘No, as in bugs. Really huge bugs.’

  Willows leaned against the car. There was no ceiling to look up at, so he looked away, down the street.

  Finally he said, ‘I need another clue.’

  ‘Shiny,’ said Parker. ‘Bugs, huge and shiny.’

  Willows nodded thoughtfully. There it was. Now he had it. A two-storey walkup. A filthy apartment. Huge, shiny bugs. Chocolate-chip cookies. Tea laced with a generous shot of brandy.

  He said,’Lets go see how Marjorie is doing.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Parker.

  Marjorie was doing very well, thank you. There was no need to knock; she’d heard footsteps on the stairs, and had her eye to the peephole as Willows and Parker made their way down the hall towards her.

  ‘Well! My two favourite detectives! What a lovely surprise! Dear me, how terribly exciting. Come in, come in…’

  The tidy little apartment had been stripped of everything but the furniture. The walls were dotted with nail holes where Marjorie’s family pictures had hung. Presumably everything had gone into the cardboard boxes lined up against the far wall.

  ‘Moving?’ said Parker.

  ‘Oh my yes, at the end of the month! I’m so excited!’ Marjorie’s blue eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘Is that why you came to visit, because you’d heard I was leaving, and you didn’t want to lose touch?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Parker.

  ‘I wish I could offer you something to eat. But everything’s packed, or at least nearly everything. 1 know it’s a little early. Would you like a nice cup of tea?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Parker kindly.

  ‘It’s so stupid of me to be in such a rush, but I wanted to be sure everything was ready, so there wouldn’t be any delays. Jack?’

  Willows had been napping his way through the monologue. He made an effort to look attentive.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve just made a pot, so it’s nice and hot…’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘You’re so very welcome. You wouldn’t believe how much I’m so looking forward to getting out of this dreary little place. When I realized that Mr. Rules’ apartment was vacant, I could hardly believe my luck!’