Memory Lane

by Laurence Gough

  “We’d been drinking white wine. He ordered a bottle of Chardonnay, and he talked to me, and my friends. I was attracted to him, physically attracted to him. And I could tell he liked me. But there are plenty of good-looking guys around, aren’t there, Ross?”

  “If you say so.”

  “What I really liked about Garret was he was obviously hitting on me, but he didn’t exclude my friends, tune them out. That was important to me, because it showed that he was considerate.”

  Ross nodded. There was a draft from the window, cold and damp. He pulled the blankets up a little higher.

  “He stayed for a long time, drinking and dancing. Most of the time with me, but every so often he’d take one or both of my friends out on the floor. About one o’clock in the morning, I noticed my purse was missing. Garret spoke to the bartender, who called the manager. He was really upset. We were all upset. The manager told me he’d make sure the janitorial staff kept an eye out for it. He offered to lend me cab fare home, but I had my car, and my keys were in my coat pocket.”

  “You’d been drinking all night, and you drove home?”

  “Losing my purse sobered me up. And I’d been dancing a lot. But you’re right, I probably should’ve taken a taxi. But when you’ve had a few too many, sometimes it’s hard to think clearly, isn’t it?”

  Ross agreed that it was. He pushed the flashlight around with his feet until the beam was pointing away from him.

  “Anyway, I gave my girlfriends a ride back to their apartment, and then I drove home.”

  Ross knew exactly what was coming.

  “I parked out in front, where I parked tonight. I was halfway up the walk before I saw Garret.”

  Sitting on the porch, top step. Smoking a cigarette and looking down at her, smiling.

  Shannon put a hand to her breast. “He scared the hell out of me!”

  “I bet he did,” said Ross. He could, no problem, picture the expression on her face.

  She’d screamed loud enough to wake the neighbourhood for blocks around.

  “I screamed, really screamed. And he started laughing. He held up my purse, so I’d understand what he was doing there, and he told me he’d found it in the men’s washroom.” Her voice softened. “At the time, I knew there was a chance that he was lying. But I didn’t care. All that mattered was his cute little butt plunked down on my porch, his wonderful smile that was all for me.” She turned a little so she was more directly facing Ross. “Did he ever talk about that night, mention my purse?”

  “Yeah, he talked about it. Bent my ear so bad I thought it’d fall right off. You got everything back, didn’t you, in the end?”

  “Except my credit cards and about eighty dollars in cash.”

  “Still, I bet he was worth every penny.”

  She snatched up the flashlight and for a wild and crazy moment he feared she was going to bounce it off his skull. Teach him to mind his tongue, or some other equally valuable lesson. But all she did was stroll out of the room, shut the door behind her without even bothering to say goodnight.

  Ross waited a moment, and then he eased out of bed and tiptoed to the window. In the glow of a neighbour’s security light, he saw a dark shape detach itself from the house, move towards Shannon. Big brother seemed to have skipped work. Kelly’s clothes were dark. If he hadn’t been smoking, and had been wearing a hat, Ross might not have seen him at all. Kelly put his arm around his sister’s shoulder. They disappeared around the side of the house. Ross thought about wrapping himself in blankets and going outside for a smoke, but it was too late, and too cold. He crawled back into the icy bed and lay there shivering. As he drifted uneasily into sleep, someone shouted his name… Or was he already dreaming?

  He awakened to an unexpected view of bright blue sky. Directly above him was a large rectangular skylight. The glass had safety wire embedded in it, so the rectangle was a grid composed of thousands of tiny squares. He glanced around, getting his bearings. The studio was sparsely furnished. A gas fireplace stood in one corner. There was the sofa bed, and an overstuffed chair in a shiny, dark green fabric, an ornate oak rocking chair that might’ve been an antique but was probably a reproduction, if only because it looked so new. The nubby wall-to-wall carpet was cream-coloured, with hints of pale green. And of course there were all those photographs, hundreds of them, on the white-painted plasterboard walls. His bladder was full. He banged a shin on the sofas iron frame as he climbed out of bed. Ouch!

  Man, oh man, but it was strange, being all alone. Privacy. It was an alien concept. He crossed the room and opened a door with a red light bulb screwed into a socket above it. He flicked the light switch just inside the door, and the room was bathed in blood-red light. A low counter and three shallow stainless-steel sinks ran along the back wall. A complicated machine stood on a small, thick-legged table. A few small photographs were fastened by clothes pegs to a length of butchers cord strung from wall to wall. Shannon apparently worked exclusively in black and white. Maybe it was cheaper. Ross took a closer look.

  Self-portraits.

  Totally shameless nudes.

  The photos had been taken in her kitchen, from several perspectives. Ross considered the possibilities. Her camera had a timing device, or she had an accomplice. No, that wasn’t the right word. Apprentice. His bladder nagged him. He urinated in the end sink, let the water run and then washed his hands, and shook them dry as he spent a little more time studying the pictures, decided the one of Shannon clothed in Saran Wrap, curled up in a refrigerator, was his favourite.

  He left the darkroom, dressed in yesterday’s clothes, folded the sofa bed back into itself, replaced the cushions and went outside. He’d expected nothing but blue from horizon to horizon, but the sky was full of churning black cloud, the patches of blue coming and going in those high winds. He lit a cigarette. The backyard lawn was patchy and needing mowing. On the far side of the yard a small patio had been made of ugly concrete slabs. The fence, side and back, was a sturdy six-footer. He moved away from the garage, into a transient patch of sunlight. A moment or two later the basement door swung open and Kelly stepped outside. He wore black jeans, a black leather jacket, black boots. His black baseball cap was on backwards. His sunglasses had perfectly round, antiglare lenses. He shut the door and locked it, turned and glanced towards the garage, the black glasses zeroing in on Ross like shotgun barrels. Ross felt himself go perfectly still. Cloud raced across the face of the sun and the air suddenly grew chill. Nothing moved but the smoke from Ross’s cigarette, which dangled from a corner of his mouth.

  After a long moment, Kelly turned his back on him and shouldered his way towards the front of the house.

  Slugs of sweat crawled all over Ross’s body. He exhaled with a whoosh, leaned against the wall of the garage and took a long pull on his cigarette, swamping his lungs with four thousand chemicals, including a healthy dose of cyanide. A complex blend, but perfectly realized. Now all he needed was a cup of coffee, a hot shower and change of clothes. His Jockeys, anyway.

  He smoked the cigarette down to his fingers, flicked the butt over the fence and into the alley. It had started to rain, again. He went back inside.

  Some of the photographs on the wall of the large room were of Shannon, but none of them were nudes. Most of the pictures were of normal, everyday scenes. People waiting for a bus. People getting onto a bus. The bus pulling away, leaving some of the people behind, looking resigned but not angry. He supposed it was the way the pictures were taken that was important, rather than the subject matter.

  He realized, as his eye was sliding on to the next picture, that one of the people left behind at the bus stop happened to be his old buddy, Garret.

  He studied the pictures more closely. There was Garret loitering outside a McDonald’s, a Big Mac in both hands, a sloppy Happy Meal smile all over his face. And there he was standing in line at the Cineplex, grinning amiably. The camera’s auto-timer, or the assistant or collaborator or whatever, had taken a snapshot of Garr
et and Shannon down by the Stanley Park seawall, the loving couple oblivious to the blurred, wall-to-wall mass of weekend athletes trotting past in the background.

  Here was a completely hysterical shot of Garret grinning wickedly as he mock-sneaked up on an armoured car, his fist shaped into a gun.

  And another of Garret and Shannon curled up, naked but unrevealing, the clever intertwining of their sleek bodies giving away nothing at all, in the backseat of the Saab. Looking post-coital and smug.

  Ross heard a sound behind him, turned as Shannon hurried in. She had a rolled-up newspaper in hand, and his first thought was that she was going to give him a whack. But no, she was cheerful and smiling.

  “What d’you think?”

  “Of the pictures?”

  “Photographs. No, the weather, stupid.”

  “Nice to see blue sky, for a change.” He smiled. “They’re great.”

  “Really?” She was pleased, he could tell.

  She leaned against the open doorway, the rain slanting down behind her, a drip from the eaves, bushes swirling in the fitful wind.

  “What do you like best about them, Ross?”

  “Uh…”

  “The composition, contrast, lighting? Cropping? What?”

  “Uh, I’m no expert…”

  “I guess not.” Abruptly, her mood changed. “Hungry? Come on back to the house. Let’s eat.”

  Breakfast wasn’t quite ready, and wouldn’t be, until Ross had showered and shaved. She showed him the bathroom. A razor and other gear had been laid out for him. From a hook on the bathroom door hung a freshly ironed maroon shirt on a metal hanger, faded jeans complete with a brown leather belt. She’d also laid out a pair of beige socks and some nifty bikini underpants, in white silk with fire-engine-red hearts. Were these Garret’s clothes, in storage for all these years? Had to be. Not that he had the heart to ask.

  She showed him how to work the shower, told him to make sure the sliding glass door was completely closed, to wipe up any spills when he’d finished. He waited until she’d left, then shut the door and shot the bolt and turned to look at himself in the mirror over the sink. His hair was a mess. The stubble on his face softened his features, giving him kind of a wimpy, indecisive look. His skin felt gritty. He turned on the shower, adjusted the temperature of the water blasting from the shower head. He stripped naked. A bar of white soap squatted in a built-in tile dish. No doubt Shannon had used that same bar, run it all over her body…

  Ross shouldered that licentious thought aside. He washed his hair with shampoo that smelled of flowers. He fumbled a fresh cartridge into the razor, and cautiously shaved. He squeezed out a fat green worm of toothpaste onto his brand-new toothbrush and vigorously cleaned his teeth.

  He towelled himself dry, used a white plastic rat-tail comb on his hair. He wriggled into the silk undies, socks, shirt and pants. Not bad, considering.

  A pair of almost-new white leather Nikes stood on the floor just outside the bathroom door. Just for the hell of it, he tried them on. The shoes fit like a glove.

  He found Shannon sitting at the kitchen table, reading the Province. She told him to sit down, poured him a cup of coffee and then busied herself at the stove. She’d scrambled some eggs, fried sausages, heated up some pre-cooked hash browns. The toaster popped. She carried the food to the table, got him a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice from the fridge. There was a big round wall clock over the stove. The second hand jogged steadily around the dial. He began to eat. Shannon went back to reading her paper.

  Eventually she said, “How’s your breakfast?”

  “Good.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? One of the many things I liked about Garret was that he was so polite.”

  “Really good,” said Garret. “Delicious. Superb.”

  “Thank you. More coffee?”

  He nodded, and then caught himself and said, “Please.” She fetched the pot, filled his cup and then her own. He added some milk from a clear glass jug, stirred in the milk with the handle of his fork. When he looked up, she was watching him. He cocked an eyebrow. “Something on your mind?”

  “I was just thinking that with your hair cut short you look a lot like him, in a way…” She trailed off, as if she’d lost track of her thoughts. She looked down at the paper, and then out the window. It had stopped raining, for now.

  “Like who?”

  “Garret.” She seemed genuinely surprised that he hadn’t known who she was talking about. As if there was only one him in the world. She said, “You’re both about the same height. Garret might’ve been five pounds lighter. The shape of your eyes is remarkably similar. And you’ve got the same nose, nice and straight. The overall shape of your face is almost identical, but Garret’s cheekbones were more prominent, and he had such nice dimples, when he smiled.”

  Which was almost never, by the way.

  She was looking at him, he suspected, as she might look at something she intended to photograph. Intent, but dispassionate. He picked at his eggs. She said, “Your ears are similar, too. On the small side, set close to your head…”

  Ross said, “I never thought of myself as having small ears.”

  “Well, you do. In my opinion.”

  He stared at her, and she stared back at him. After a moment he shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. “If you say so.”

  “I do,” she shot right back.

  She had a temper. He’d forgotten about it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. A wildcat, Garret had called her, admiringly. As if his ability to deal with her violent temperament somehow enhanced his vision of himself. But why was she upset with him?

  Because he looked a lot like Garret, but wasn’t Garret. He leaned back in his chair. “In the slammer, me ’n’ Garret took care of each other. I watched his back and he watched mine. There were guys in there, met us for the first time, thought we were brothers.”

  “Did they?” Her eyes softened, lost their flash and thunder. She said, “I can see why.” She hunkered forward in her chair, reached across the table and touched his sleeve, traced her fingers across the back of his hand. “You could be him, you really could.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “No,” she said, “but you could be.”

  Chapter 14

  Ray Waddington exited his portable computer, unplugged the power cord and rolled the cord into a tight coil. The computer after he’d snapped it shut resembled a very slim briefcase. “How many copies you want, Jack?”

  “I don’t know.” Willows thought about it for a moment. “Let’s start with fifty.”

  “That’s all?”

  “The guy isn’t a lost cat, Ray. We aren’t going to be stapling his picture to every telephone pole in the city.”

  Parker said, “But don’t take it personally. You’re an artiste, for sure.”

  “See you later, detectives.” Waddington waggled his fingers at Parker, who waggled back. As he left the squad room, Waddington agilely stepped aside in deference to Inspector Homer Bradley. Bradley broke stride. “You finished here?”

  “Just leaving, Inspector.”

  Bradley nodded tersely. Waddington kept moving. Bradley focused on Graham Aubert. “This our witness?”

  Parker made the introductions. Bradley congratulated Aubert on his sense of civic responsibility. “You need a ride home?” Willows said, “I lined up a car. I was just going to take him downstairs.”

  “Do it, Jack.” Bradley pumped Aubert’s hand again, and complimented him for being an upstanding citizen.

  Willows escorted Aubert down to the main floor, and passed him over to a uniform. By the time he made it back upstairs, Orwell and Bobby Dundas had joined the crowd around Parkers desk.

  Bradley said, “Jack, Bobby’s suggested we film a ‘Crimestoppers’ spot. What’s your opinion?”

  “It’s too early for that, Inspector.” Willows studied the printed copy of Ray Waddington’s sketch, as he collected his thoughts. “All
we know about this guy is that he visited Mooney fairly frequently during the past couple of weeks. We can’t place him at the apartment at the time or even on the night of the murder. At this point, all we can say about him with any degree of confidence is that he was an acquaintance of Mooney’s. If he looks good right now, it’s only because he’s all we’ve got.”

  Parker said, “I agree with Jack.”

  Bobby gave her a look. He smiled faintly.

  Bradley said, “Bob?”

  “The security guard’s all we’ve got. I say we should use it. How long does it take to slap a ‘Crimestoppers’ together? Three or four weeks? Let’s at least get started on it. If the guy shows up, or is eliminated as a possible suspect, or the case takes a sharp turn in some other direction, fine. We’ll drop it. But if that doesn’t happen, we’ll be ready to roll that much sooner.”

  Bradley glanced inquiringly at Orwell. Eddy held his peace. Bradley said, “Eddy, are you and Bobby on the same page?”

  “We’re on the same fucking paragraph,” said Bobby Dundas. He smiled. “In fact we’re on the same line. Right, Eddy?”

  “Right,” said Orwell.

  Parker said, “Another thing. ‘Crimestoppers’ has a limited budget. We spend a few thousand dollars trying to catch a cop-killer, aren’t we leaving ourselves open to criticism?”

  “No matter what we do,” said Bobby Dundas.

  Bradley held up a warning hand. “What have we got going for us?”

  “Eddy and I’ve been over the interview reports from the door-to-door canvass,” said Bobby. “They don’t look promising.” He shrugged. “It’s a busy neighbourhood, Inspector. People coming and going at all hours of the night. Unless you’re wandering around with your head tucked under your arm, you’re not gonna get noticed. But we’ll do follow-up interviews with the artwork, and there are a few people we weren’t able to contact the first time around, that we’ll be talking to.”

  Bradley nodded. “You going to need help with that?”