Birthdays of a Princess (25 page)

My breathing is still quite normal, it’s only my shame that makes me
hesitate, and my loss for the appropriate words hinders me to describe what the
man is doing, what the motel-man had done to me before.

“There is no need to go on,” Macintosh whispers.

Quiet again. I’m impervious to the memory, now that I have shared
it, but Macintosh is not. His face is distorted, with a tenacious mouth and ice
cold eyes. He’s out for blood, and knowing that it’s for my sake makes me feel
special. Kind of protected, like I have never felt before.

“I’m gonna get that sick bastard, and all the others involved in
this goddamn crime, if it’s the last thing I do before retirement.”

I chuckle.

“You better hurry. You’re old. You don’t have that many years left.”

He grins back, relieving some of his tension.

“Don’t you get cheeky with me. I’ve got only a few months left on
the force, but I don’t think I need more than a few days to get my report down
to Texas. They already got Antonio Alvares in custody.”

I frown, trying to understand.

“So what? What’s this thing you got about Tony? What’s he got to do
with it?”

Macintosh crumbles. “But isn’t he … I mean, the one who—?”

“Tony? How do you get that idea?”

“Your mother told us he raped you.”

My face twist with disgust. I don’t want to go down that alley.

“It wasn’t Tony.”

He crumbles even more. “How can you be sure? You lost your memory.”

“Of course I’m sure. I remember everything about Tony by now. I’d
know if it was him.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don’t know, but it certainly wasn’t Tony.”

Chapter
54

Under normal conditions he could have made it from the BYSC on
Fraser Drive back to Graveley Street in about an hour, but it had started to
drizzle. A light, cool December rain slowed the cars down and, to make matters
worse, Christmas was already raising its tinsel-head. Boundary Road displayed
all the early signs of shopper’s enticement, garish or gorgeous, depending on
the merchants’ budgets.

Macintosh inched his way back to MCS. He didn’t mind. His head was
spinning and he used the stop-and-go to bring order into his confused thoughts.

What he had promised Tiara had not been an empty phrase. Even if she
didn’t hold him to it, he would never be able to look at himself in the mirror
if he didn’t catch the bastard who had done this to her. God, she was right, he
was getting too old for this. How much time did he have left? Was it enough?

He was further away than ever from finding the answer that would at
least partially exonerate her. Without identifying the woman she had stabbed,
he wouldn’t be able to figure out what had provoked the attack. Tiara didn’t
know why she had done it, but this explanation wouldn’t be good enough for the
judge, it would make her into a loose cannon. Sane people didn’t go around
stabbing strangers.  Something must have triggered it and, as Dr. Eaton had
said, it was now up to him to unearth it.

Her insistence that Tony was not the culprit had shaken his house of
cards, but didn’t collapse it completely. Maybe she got it wrong. Maybe her
memory played tricks on her to protect her. Maybe it was too painful to accept
that she had known her rapist all along.

Melissa had reacted so outraged, he actually believed that she never
suspected Tony to be a pedophile. But she’d been lying through her teeth so
often, he didn’t trust her one bit. Was she capable of burning a house down and
killing Gracie? If so, why? What could have driven her to such an extreme
action? Surely not to get revenge for her daughter. If that was her motivation,
she should have killed Tony.

Assuming Tony wasn’t the motel-man, what was his involvement then?
And who was this elusive Purple Shadow? If Tony wasn’t the rapist, he must be
the Purple Shadow. Maybe Tiara got that wrong, it wasn’t a woman, and it was
Tony after all. She wouldn’t know, she’d never seen behind the mask.

So many questions, so many assumptions—and nothing made sense. He
was about half way up Boundary Road when his phone rang.

“Where are you?” Harding asked.

“About ten minutes away on any normal day, an hour today.”

“Don’t bother coming here. You’re closer to your home than to MCS.”

“Yes, but it’s only four.”

“Don’t fret, my friend.” Harding sounded cheerful. “I’m bringing
work along so you won’t feel guilty. Tony Alvares’ interrogation tape came
through. It should make for a nice video evening.”

Macintosh set the blinker. “I’ll chill the beer. Don’t forget the
chips.”

“You’re right. Traffic’s a bitch today,” Harding said when he
finally arrived at Macintosh’s tiny apartment just south of Kingsway and no
more than ten minutes from BYSC where Tiara was imprisoned.

Macintosh had rented this place a few years ago, after finally
selling his detached Coquitlam home in preparation for his retirement. He had
sold it for a decent price, not as much as it would have brought at the height
of the real estate frenzy, but then his wife had still been alive. The sale
provided them with enough cash to buy a place up north, where he could spend
his golden years doing what he liked best. Hunting animals, not people.

Thinking of his retirement made him think of the promise he had
given.

“Tiara insists the rapist wasn’t Tony,” he told Harding.

“The girl’s confused, she can’t be relied on. Tony’s got to be
involved. He owned the studio, it may not have been him, but he must have known
what was going on.”

“Let’s find out what he’s got to say.” Macintosh popped a beer can
open and slumped into his favorite recliner.

Harding was already connecting his laptop to the TV.

“How come you are such a genius with this computer shit?” Macintosh
said.

Harding grabbed the remote, took a beer from the fridge and settled
in the chair next to his partner. “Seriously, it’s not that difficult, I’ve
been playing around with it a lot lately and I’ve signed up for a course. You
should too. The department offers great courses.”

“Forget it, I can’t be bothered. I’m too old, Tiara said so today.”

Harding laughed. “Clever girl.”

“Which brings me to the point—can we get started now or should we
make polite conversation?”

They had both purposely drawn out the moment they would click the
start button. When they were comfortably seated, Harding opened his can,
spraying beer bubbles into the air. They leaned back and watched.

It started with the usual preliminaries, names, addresses etc. The
picture was clear but not totally focused. That always happened when a stationary
camera high up in the corner of the interrogation room filmed an interview, the
detectives were used to that, it didn’t bother them.

From what they could make out, Antonio Alvares was a good looking
guy. He sat ramrod straight on the chair that looked every bit as hard and
unforgiving as the chairs in the interrogation rooms of the Canadian MCS. Tony
didn’t flinch a muscle.

They watched him, minute by minute, giving an account of his life.
How he had wanted to become a famous ballet dancer, how he injured his leg, how
he became a dance instructor, how he started to work for Tiara’s mother—and how
he fell for her.

“Nice going, you revolting prick,” Macintosh murmured under his
breath.

Josh conducted the interview. He had been briefed by Harding and now
started to question the suspect on his relationship with Tiara’s mother. He had
fallen for her hard, Tony explained.

“Sure,” Harding commented, “isn’t that called the Lolita effect? A
guy weaseling in on the mother?”

They came to the point of Tony buying and owning a photo studio in
Texas City. Tony confirmed this without hesitation. Yes, he did own Studio
Magic, but in name only. He never even set foot in it, he insisted.

Josh did not yet twist the thumbscrews, he politely asked how and
why Tony would own a studio and not be involved in it.

 “It belonged to my sister Inez.”

Macintosh and Harding suddenly sat on the edge of a precipice,
looking into the depth of their case. They knew it, they could feel it;
something important was coming.

“Inez?” Harding asked, but Macintosh put his finger over his lips.
The interview!

“She couldn’t buy it after she got hassled by the IRS, some huge
amount of money they wanted from her. She had asked me to buy it for her, and
of course I did. Inez had put me through dance school a long time ago, I owed
her. And quite frankly, she did pay me a monthly allowance as long as she could
use my name for the ownership.”

“How long was that?” Josh asked.

“Not long enough. She told me to sell it about three years ago.”

Josh then asked Tony how it could be that he never set foot in the
studio if he was so close to his sister. Didn’t he ever visit her there? Didn’t
he want to know what work she did there?

“Hell no,” Tony said. “We’ve grown apart years before she bought the
studio. I guess she grew tired of me being dependent on her. She hadn’t
supported me for years, the tight bitch. Rolling in money herself, she’s a
clever business woman, my sister is, but didn’t give me the time of day when I
asked her for support, until she bought the studio. Then she needed me, and she
knew it would cost her. Was a nice supplement to my dance instructor’s income
while it lasted.”

“Why did she sell it?”

“What do I know? I wasn’t exactly her confidant. We hardly ever spoke
on the phone. All I know is that it had to be done real fast. I remembered what
she paid for it when I signed for her, so I was surprised she sold it at a
loss.”

“She gave you no explanation?”

Tony fidgeted in his chair.

“No, how often do I have to tell you, she didn’t trust me. Ask this
Rodriguez woman. Inez hung out with her all the time. She was related to
Melissa, and I got the instructor’s job through her.”

“You were dating Melissa Brown and knew Graciella Rodriguez well,
but never spoke to your sister?”

“I never spoke much with Graciella either. She was a weird one, she
gave me the creeps.”

Josh kept asking details about Tony’s work at Melissa’s house,
trying to get him to contradict himself. Either he was the smoothest liar
around or he was telling the truth, Macintosh and Harding couldn’t find a
single discrepancy in his account.

Eventually Josh moved on to the day Tony had witnessed Melissa’s
departure.

He seemed to remember it well.

“I was so upset. Imagine, for a whole week Melissa refused to speak
to me on the phone, she just didn’t pick up, so I decided to drive by her
place. I’d just gotten a job in Arizona, one that was really promising, and I
wanted to persuade her to go with me, with her daughter, but without the crazy
Rodriguez woman. I thought we could start a life together. And what do I see
when I arrive at the house? She’s leaving me. We weren’t really together until
then, not in the classic sense, like a couple I mean, that wasn’t possible as
long as I depended on Graciella recommending me for jobs. She had a lot of contacts,
you know. Anyway, with that new job, I thought I could finally make a go of
it.”

“With Melissa?”

“You bet. She’s the only woman ever to take me serious.”

“How’s that? Come on, you’re a good looking guy.”

“Sure. I was a lame dance instructor, getting jobs by the grace of a
known drug dealer. I had no steady income, no home to speak of, and to round it
up, most women think I’m queer.”

“So when you saw Melissa packing up, you got angry.”

“I begged her, I yelled at her, and you know what? She accused me of
molesting her daughter. Didn’t even listen to me when I tried to set her
straight. She said her sister-in-law, the crazy Graciella woman, told her so.
And if I ever come close to her again, she’d have me arrested. That’s when I
knew she was serious. Let’s face it, if the police picked me up, it’d be her
word against mine, and who’d believe me? I had tried real hard to convince
Graciella to give the job back to me, I was desperate to teach Tia again,
everybody knew that. They would just lock me up on account of me being a freak
of a dance teacher. So I left. I called my sister that same day and told her
about Melissa leaving with Tia, hoping she’d persuade Graciella to talk some
sense into Melissa. I know, that was a far-fetched hope, but what else could I
do?”

“Did your sister try to intervene?”

Tony crossed his arms. “That’s when it got a bit weird. Not a minute
later Inez called me back, in total panic. I’ve never known her like that
before. She said she was arranging the sale of the studio, she’d contact a
realtor to take care of it. Things were happening fast and she needed to
disappear for a while. I shouldn’t worry about Melissa, she’d take care of
that. I should go to Phoenix as I’d planned, and lie low and wait for her to
contact me once she’d sorted out the whole mess. I asked her, what mess, but
she didn’t tell me, so I said if I’m supposed to go away without questions
asked, I need some cash. She said, I can keep the proceeds from the studio as
long as I keep my mouth shut about Melissa and her daughter, whatever stories I
might hear about them. I figured her and Melissa and this nutcase Graciella
must have had a business deal gone sour. I didn’t really care, but the money
from the studio would come in handy.”

“Did she contact you later again?”

“Only through her lawyer. I got a letter from him after the studio
was sold, with a cheque and instructions not to look for her. That was it.
Since then I never heard from her again, or from Melissa!”

Josh continued his line of questioning without producing anything
else remotely meaningful, before he sent Tony back to his cell. Leaving the
room, Tony complained bitterly about his treatment and insisted that he had
done nothing wrong. He had been cooperative until now, but that was it! He
wanted a lawyer! Then the screen went black.

Harding switched the video off. “Now what? The guy is as slippery as
an eel.”

“They got nothing to keep him. Nothing at all.”

“But he admitted he owned the studio. He’s responsible for what
happened there.”

“Tony didn’t own the studio, his sister did,” Macintosh said, while
getting two more beer cans out of the fridge.

“Come on. He did on paper. They can get him on that.”

 “I’m sure the lawyer who handled the purchase as well as the sale
will have an agreement in place which proves that Tony was only acting as a
front man. And you know what? I believe him. We’ve been chasing down the wrong
alley.”