The Starr Sting Scale

by C. S. O'Cinneide

  “You got me all wrong, Detective,” I say, holding up my hands. “I’m not in the game anymore.” And the truth is I haven’t been for a while. Cooling my jets since prison, working at the E-Zee Market and keeping a low profile. I’m out of that racket. I am. I was.

  “Really,” says Detective Malone, interrupting Saunders this time. “So, you don’t know anything about this kid or who might have snapped his neck so bad he could watch his own ass walk away?”

  “Listen, anyone can do anything these days. Build a bomb, break a neck. They have instructional videos on YouTube for fuck’s sake.” I take a shot of the Jack and smile as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “Do you know anything, or don’t you?” Malone says.

  “I don’t.”

  “You mind telling us where you were last night?” Saunders pauses to look up something in his tattered black notebook. “Between ten and midnight?” He looks up at me again, snapping the ratty cover shut with a flourish over his sloppy handwriting. Jesus, hasn’t anyone heard of technology?

  “Between ten and one,” Malone says quietly before I can answer.

  “What?” Saunders says, turning to look at her. He’s annoyed.

  “Between ten and one,” she says. “The coroner extended the time of death window on account of the cold snap last night.”

  Saunders gets flustered, missing his pocket the first time he tries to put his little notebook away. “Between ten and one in the morning then,” he says, looking up at me, his face turning red.

  “Easy. I was here, watching the store.”

  “Anyone able to verify that?” he asks.

  “I don’t need anyone to verify it.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Saunders says, still flustered.

  “The security tapes,” Malone says, pointing at the video camera on the wall. Definitely smarter than Saunders.

  “I’m happy to give you the tapes,” I say, grinning. My teeth are straight and almost eerily white. I take good care of my mouth. “When you bring back a warrant.”

  Saunders’s face is starting to go the colour of the Caesar I drank for breakfast. He leans in on the counter, so close to me I can smell his crappy aftershave over the stink of his sweat. I feel sorry for Malone if she has to travel in the unmarked car with him. It’s like being assaulted by a basket of rancid fruit.

  Malone puts a hand on his shoulder, drawing him back. “She’s right. We need a warrant.” Saunders turns around and gives her a look that betrays his view on women in the police force.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here. I’ve had enough of this bitch.” He walks right past Malone and smacks the door open with the heel of his hand. It slams hard behind him. The little bell jingles so violently it almost falls off.

  “I think your partner has a hot streak,” I say, leaning back on the stool.

  “He’s not my partner.”

  “Really? You work alone?”

  “Sometimes,” she says. Malone looks over at the door and then back at me. “I caught the case. Saunders just came out here with me because he knows you.”

  She does an in-depth visual scan of me, no doubt taking in my faded State U T-shirt and the loose boyfriend jeans that actually came from an old boyfriend. I have boyfriends, despite my occasional flirtation with the ladies. I’m an equal opportunity employer when it comes to sex.

  I can see Malone’s eyes flick to the bottle of Jack with the shot glass next to the register and then back to me, with my tangle of hair falling over eyes that remain sharp as knives. She’s trying to figure me out; anyone could tell her that’s a waste of time. I’m an enigma.

  “I’ve got a proposition to make,” she says.

  “I’m listening.”

  “This case is getting a lot of play in the media. A lot of concerned citizens worrying about their kids. What’s the world coming to? That sort of thing.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “A case like this could make or break a detective’s career.” She looks over her shoulder at the door again. “And Saunders is useless.”

  “I could have told you that.” He may have nailed me on that conspiracy charge, but that cop has the IQ of a stick of furniture.

  “I need someone to help me. Someone who knows the landscape. If you know what I mean.” She trains those green eyes on me again. “I want you to work on this investigation with me.” She’s actually serious.

  “Like an informant?” This woman doesn’t know me very well. I may be a drunk and a criminal, but I’m no snitch.

  “No,” she says. “More like a partner.”

  “Are you kidding me? Why the hell would I do that?”

  “Well, for starters, to avoid me busting you for that pistol you have stuck down your pants.”

  I stand up from the stool and look down at the slight bulge at the front of my jeans. I’d forgotten about the gun. “Why would I carry a gun in front?” I say, playing dumb.

  “Because I’m guessing most men aren’t expecting you to shoot them when you reach for your crotch.” She’s a salty one, despite the class act. But she’s right; women don’t expect it either. I had a special holster made and everything. “If your parole officer finds out you’re in possession of a firearm, you’ll be back in a prison jumpsuit. I don’t imagine you’d want that.” She’s got me there. I look like shit in orange.

  “And what will they say when I tell them you offered a convicted felon a job helping you investigate a homicide?” I can’t imagine this is standard procedure. Then again, there is nothing standard about this woman.

  She waits before she answers, rubs her lips together in the way some people do when they’re holding back something they want to say. She cocks her head to the side and then finally spits it out.

  “Your father’s murder. We know who did it,” she says.

  I don’t respond at first. Then I tear out from behind the counter and stand in front of this cop, looking down at the part of her smooth dark bob, so close I could do some spitting of my own. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  She puts her hand on her holster, but other than that she doesn’t budge. She looks up at me and answers. “We know who murdered your father. And if you help me with this investigation, I’ll tell you who it was.” Only then does she step away, pulling out her card and dropping it on the counter. “We don’t have enough to make it stick. But the guy is as guilty as sin. Trust me.”

  “I don’t trust cops.”

  “Well, you better learn to make exceptions, Candace.” She smiles. Her teeth are tiny and bright white. She takes care of her mouth, too. “Of course, those security tapes better check out. And we’ll be pulling your bank records to make sure you haven’t received any big chunks of cash lately. Wouldn’t do to have you investigating your own crime, would it?” She goes to leave, the little bell jingling as she opens the door.

  “Why?” I say, and she turns around, her hand still on the glass of the door. I can see her height from the colour-coded measuring sticker on the wall. Five foot eight. “Why the hell do you want to use someone like me to find a killer?”

  She pauses and smiles again. “It takes one to know one,” she says. “Think about it.” Then she walks out the door.

  I stand there for a while. I guess I’m in shock. My worn cowboy boots, the ones my dad used to call shit kickers, are rooted to the tile floor. I want to scream. I want to punch something. I want to chase after Malone and hold her face to the pavement until she tells me what she knows. But I don’t do any of those things. I’m bereft, but I’m not stupid. I walk back behind the counter and take a swig of the Jack straight from the bottle. It burns going down, knocking me out of my paralysis, and gets me thinking straight. Some people get foggy with alcohol, but I get clearer. It numbs the other shit inside me, so I can focus. People often don’t believe that a woman can be a functioning alcoholic. They obviously haven’t been out to the suburbs where the McMansion soccer moms are pouring vodka on their cornflakes every m
orning.

  I’ve tried to find out for years who took out my dad. It was hard, because I was on the inside when it happened, awaiting trial for the conspiracy charge. They let me out for his funeral. I remember dropping the earth on his coffin with my wrists pinned together in handcuffs. I tapped every connection I had to find out who was behind his death, both in prison and when I got out. But nobody was talking. And believe me, I can be quite convincing in getting people to chat.

  I slip Malone’s card into my pocket. I’ve got other things to take care of before I think about her offer. After another shot of the Jack, I get down to business.

  It won’t take much to doctor the security tapes. The time stamp has been busted for months. I can make a tape that’ll say whatever date and time I want. I learned more working in the prison’s AV department than how to keep a roomful of convicts from rioting after the second screening of Miss Congeniality in a month. And Majd won’t talk. He grew up keeping his head down in Syria, where the government and rebels were busy annihilating each other, along with any civilians that rubbed them the wrong way. He knows when to keep his mouth shut.

  My bank account, well, they can check that out all they want. All they’ll find is ten bucks and a history of overdraft. I never took the blonde’s money. Like I said, I’m out of the game.

  That is, unless I find out who put the hit on my old man. Then I have one more play to make.

  CHAPTER 3

  “COME ON IN, CANDACE.”

  My uncle Rod’s permission to enter his bungalow is redundant, since I already let myself in with my own key. Sometimes when I’m between places he lets me stay here. It’s not much, but it’s a decent couch to crash on. He’s sitting on it now in the small living room, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. Coloured blurs on skates move impossibly fast across the flat screen bolted to the wall in front of him.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” he shouts, slamming his fist on the coffee table. A pizza box falls off the side and onto the floor with the vibration, while a half-dozen empty beer bottles surprisingly remain standing. He has a Budweiser on the go in the fist that wasn’t banging the table. “You’d think these fellas would know how to check a man when he’s going for a breakaway down the ice, but they’ve all got their fingers up their arses.”

  Sometimes Uncle Rod gets mistaken for Irish, but he’s Canadian. From Newfoundland. All the Newfies sound like that on account of being descended from famine-crazed Micks, he’s told me. He flies home every year for the same two weeks to visit with those misplaced Irish, no longer starved for anything but steady jobs. The last time I saw my dad, he was visiting me upstate after taking him to the airport for such a visit. I didn’t have Rod’s aging mother’s phone number in St. John’s with me in prison, so I couldn’t let him know what happened. When he flew back two weeks later, he waited for my dad for three hours before finally giving up and calling a taxi. Uncle Rod’s not really my uncle, but he was my dad’s best friend and the closest thing to family I’ve got.

  I clear some newspapers off the seat beside him to sit down. Tyler Brent’s face stares up at me as I move them aside.

  “What period is it?”

  “Second. Gagné’s on the injured list with a concussion and it doesn’t look good for the Habs, by God.” Newfoundland doesn’t have a hockey team, so Uncle Rod roots for the closest team in proximity, Montreal. He objects to French Canadians in principle, but he’d gouge an eye out before supporting the Toronto Maple Leafs.

  As if responding to my uncle’s prediction, Montreal loses the next faceoff. The Penguins’ right wing zips down over the blue line and flicks his wrist to send a slap shot into the top right-hand corner of the Habs’ net. Another goal for Pittsburgh.

  “Shag it!” he says, grabbing the remote. He switches off the game. “I can’t bear to watch those numbskulls lose to a bunch of fuckin’ Yanks again.” He passes me the Budweiser he was drinking. “No offence.”

  “None taken,” I say, accepting the bottle and throwing back what’s left of the beer mixed with my uncle’s backwash. It’s rare that we get to share such a moment. Rod only drinks when he watches hockey. The rest of the time he’s dry. It’s hard to believe he and my dad got along so well, considering. Then again, they were in the same business, often worked for the same organizations, preferring the trade of their own kind, fellow criminals, as opposed to freelancing like me.

  Neither of them ever used guns or knives. I was allowed a pistol on account of being a girl, but it came with express instructions to only use it to threaten rather than kill. Weapons tell a story, Rod and my dad used to tell me. Where you’ve been. Who you are. Your gloved hands and the element of surprise never talk. Both men had been trained somewhere along the way on the ins and outs of using those hands to be more efficient than the most high-powered rifle. Dad in the military. Rod with some mercenary group. Neither would talk about it. They had a lot in common, even if one was drunk most of the time and the other sober.

  “I had an interesting day.”

  “So tell me about it,” Uncle Rod says, as he walks into the kitchen. There is a large rectangular pass-through to the living room, so he can still hear me. Down a small hallway beyond the kitchen are the bathroom and bedroom. There used to be two bedrooms, but Rod knocked the wall down between them to give himself more space. The back door and the cellar door are next to the fridge, where I can hear him rifling around for something to eat. I can see his arm, sinewy and strong despite middle age, holding the fridge’s handle. Rod is thin and wiry, not a big guy like my dad was. You’d never guess what he’s capable of, which often works in his favour. I once saw him stop a man’s heart for good with one well-positioned sucker punch to the temple.

  “I had a visit from Saunders,” I tell him.

  “That bastard,” Rod says, as he grabs a disc of coral-coloured meat and slaps it into a frying pan. He turns on the gas for the one burner of the stove that still works and lights it with a match. Uncle Rod could probably afford a new stove. He makes good money at what he does. But at his age, and with the physical demands of the job, he’s worried about what he’ll do when he can’t work anymore. Even criminals have to think about the state of their 401K.

  “He brought another cop with him,” I say. “Name of Malone. A woman. Asian. Sort of. They were asking me about this kid in the paper, Tyler Brent. Did you read about him?”

  “I did,” Uncle Rod says over the sizzle of the pseudo-meat. The scent of it wafts through the pass-through, a combination of black pepper, maple syrup, and dirty feet.

  “Well, the funny thing is, I actually know something about it,” I say, grabbing another beer from the old red-and-white cooler tucked beside the couch. We used it camping once, when Rod and Dad had taken a job to get rid of a park ranger. The ranger had busted a gang of bikers for running their motorcycles through the protected forest. In the process, he stumbled upon a banker tied to a tree being repeatedly whacked with a tire iron for underperforming stock portfolios. The banker survived the gang’s wrath, but the star witness for the prosecution did not, once my father and Rod had completed their assignment. My dad said it was okay because the Park Ranger was taking bribes from people poaching black bears. I accepted this kind of logic as a child, the way most kids accept a half-assed explanation for why the sky is blue.

  “I thought you were after retiring.” Rod doesn’t look up from the frying pan.

  “I am.” The spicy smell of the meat fills the little bungalow as I tell my uncle about the blonde’s visit to The Goon. The details of her unique request to rid her daughter of a barnacle of a boyfriend. Then the visit from Saunders and Malone, asking about him and how he got his neck broken. Rod listens attentively while he flips the meat, not asking any questions, allowing me to get to the end. Always listen first, I’d been told growing up. It’s how you end up knowing more than the other person, right from the get-go.

  Uncle Rod slides a couple of pieces of the meat onto two mismatched plates and shoots out a good
squirt of ketchup next to each round disc. Then he walks into the living room and serves the fried bologna, one for him, one for me. When he plunks the plate on the coffee table, one of the cupboard doors in the base of it pops open to reveal fifteen years of Stanley Cup playoffs on VHS. He taps it closed with his foot. Honestly, I don’t know why he doesn’t put those onto DVD. But he’s a fucking fossil when it comes to technology. His VCR sits like a museum piece in a corner of the living room, so not of this era it could have dinosaur crap on it.

  “You didn’t tell them anything, of course,” Uncle Rod says, handing me a knife and a fork.

  “Of course not,” I say, but I’m squirming a bit.

  “Did you kill him?” my uncle asks, raising one bushy eyebrow.

  “No,” I say, staring down at my meat. “I’m retired.”

  “Maybe the blonde hired someone else,” he suggests.

  “Maybe.” He waits to see if I say more. I don’t.

  Rod takes his own knife and fork and turns back to his dinner. “Then what’s the interesting part?” he asks, cutting into his bologna. Being questioned about a crime you have some involvement in doesn’t constitute much of a story to a man who’s been suspected of more than a few murders in his time. Not half as many as he’s actually committed, though.

  “After Saunders left, the other detective, Malone, she made me an offer.” I still haven’t touched my own meal.

  “What’s that then?” Rod asks,

  “She asked me to help her find who offed the kid.” I watch him cut into the sweaty sandwich meat again, dip it in the ketchup. “And she’d tell me who killed Dad.”

  Rod’s fork stops in mid-air, ketchup dripping back onto the plate. He looks straight ahead, like the TV is still on, but it isn’t. “How the hell would she know that?” he says, turning to me, dropping the fork onto his plate.

  “She says the cops know, but they don’t have enough to make an arrest. You know yourself, Rod, we’ve done plenty of shit the cops know about but still can’t pin on us.” It takes a surprising amount of evidence to convict someone; the courts are too full and the cops are too busy to bother if they know they can’t make a case. Innocent until proven guilty. Our saving grace.