Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (54 page)

Trevor laughed. “I just don’t want you to think I’m a nutcase. I’ve been honest with you about the past, but that’s over and done with.”

“Is it?”

Trevor gently tugged at Dan’s hair. “What do you mean?”

“You can’t just put what happened with you and Joe on a shelf and hope it will stay there. He’s gone, but you’ve still got all those feelings to contend with. If you deny them, you’ll explode.”

Dan pictured the Japanese Garden on the west coast island where Trevor lived, and where the ashes of his ex-lover were scattered. To the casual eye, Trevor exuded confidence, a feeling inspired largely by his easygoing good looks. To those who knew him, however, the story was quite different. Part of him stayed on Mayne Island. There, he’d been protected, sheltered. Outside of his environment he was exposed and vulnerable, far more susceptible to currents of fear and self-doubt.

“How has it been these last few weeks?” Dan asked.

Trevor looked out the window. The CN Tower rose in the distance, a solitary inland lighthouse, immense, blinking out a warning to anyone straying too close to its realm. “I’m still adjusting to the city. After the island it feels crowded and chaotic. It’s always noisy here. It’s beautiful in its way, but it doesn’t feel comforting.”

Dan pulled him closer. “You know I’ll do anything to fix whatever I can for you.”

Trevor smiled. “Can you make four million people go away? Can you replace all the concrete with grass?”

“Not overnight, but I’ll see what I can do about it in the long term.”

Trevor kissed Dan’s ear. “I don’t expect you to fix my problems. I just need you to understand when I’m dealing with something that overwhelms me.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“It’s hard to explain. It’s as though I wake up each morning with my mind already in fight-or-flight mode. I don’t want to fear waking up every day. I know the city doesn’t cause it, but being here exacerbates those feelings.”

“That’s a lot of anxiety for anyone to bear. I wouldn’t want you to stay here if you really can’t stand it.”

Trevor twisted around to look at Dan directly. “Be patient with me. I really am trying.”

“Don’t worry. I can deal with whatever you throw at me.”

Trevor looked chagrined. “That’s just it. I don’t want you to have to deal with me. Just accept me for what I am and let me do what I need to do. It will happen.”

“All right.”

“How about you? What do you want from me?”

Dan thought for a moment then said, “Companionship, more than anything. I want someone to share my concerns and make me laugh and feel better about my shortcomings. Sex is great, but there’s no guarantee it will last till we’re eighty. Intimacy is much better, when you come down to it. I want someone to rub my back when it aches and whisper in my ear when I’m sad and lonely.”

Trevor ruffled Dan’s hair and smiled.

“What? Is that too much to ask?” Dan said.

“Not at all. It’s perfect. I just didn’t know you were such a poet.”

“All right. What do you want from me?”

“Much the same. I want someone to welcome me when I come home, someone who appreciates me just for coming in the door. Someone who makes me feel secure. I miss that.”

Dan rolled over and propped his chin on his palm. “Why did you and Joe get involved? You knew he was HIV-positive when you met.”

“The usual story: I fell in love when we met. Only I wasn’t thinking about the dying part when I agreed to move in with him. I was only thinking about how I felt for him then.”

“Did it last?”

“The love? Sure, but it wasn’t always at a fever pitch. The daily routine of keeping Joseph healthy was demanding. I never thought it would become a full-time occupation, but at the end I had to choose between my career and looking after him. I cared too much about him to hire someone else to look after him, so I let the career slide. I wouldn’t choose differently now, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You probably were a great caregiver.”

He smiled sadly. “I think I was, but I couldn’t detach. After Joe died, I lost my purpose in life. Even when I tried to bury myself in work it still seeped through. It felt like I had taken on this job no one else could do. So when …” He faltered.

“So when he killed himself, you felt you’d failed him.”

Trevor nodded. “Yes.”

“You took that on yourself too.”

“I thought I could make a difference.”

“You probably did. Chances are he would have killed himself sooner, if you hadn’t been there.”

Trevor shook his head. “That’s what I’m not sure about. I live with the fear that he killed himself to free me from the relentlessness of his illness.”

“A sacrifice …”

“When in reality he had become my reason for living. So when he died, in a way I died too.”

The silence held. Dan didn’t break it. This was Trevor’s confession. He needed to bring it out in his own way, a little bit at a time. To examine the debris that remained after the blast, the annihilating heat that consumed everything, until one day the fears would be gone, the past would be remote and unable to threaten them. One day.

Dan reached up to stroke Trevor’s face. This was where the richness of a relationship lay, he knew, in this sharing of themselves and sorting through the intimate details each would have to know in order to live with the other. The quirks and habits, the fears and desires. These were the things they needed to absorb carefully and slowly, sifting through the fragments of each other’s life, one story and one emotion at a time, if they wanted to survive.

Seven

The Altar Boy and the Thief

To bystanders, the postmodern structure overlooking Bay Street at College appears like some whimsical concoction spirited away from Las Vegas or Disneyland rather than the Metro Toronto Police headquarters. Outside, blue glass and pink marble glint in the sun. Inside, light streams generously down onto the atrium floor from ten stories above. Who says the police commission doesn’t have good taste?

Dan arrived a few minutes before nine. The uniformed blonde at the desk smiled when he said his name.

“Constable Donna Blake,” she said, reaching across the counter to shake his hand. “We’ve spoken on the phone many times.”

Dan returned the smile. Although it was their first face-to-face encounter, he and Donna had had several heated though not entirely antagonistic exchanges over who he could and could not have access to by telephone after hours. What had started off as a minor irritation on both sides transformed over time to a form of passive-aggressive flirting, as though he’d been nibbling on her neck and she would occasionally slap him before letting him progress a little farther each time.

“A pleasure to meet you in person, Donna,” he said cordially.

She looked at him appraisingly. “You too. You look kinda like you sound on the phone — rough and ready.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, giving him the once-over. “It’s a compliment. What’s your gym?”

“Extreme Fitness.”

“Really? Mine too. See you there sometime?”

“You never know.”

She checked her book. “Go up to the second floor and head down the left-hand corridor to the very end. There’s a coffee machine and a bench. You can wait there till someone comes for you.”

He felt her gaze on him as he turned and walked to the elevators.

Once upstairs, he didn’t have long to wait. He’d been sitting less than a minute when a junior officer with a clipboard approached.
Another kid,
Dan thought.
Or am I just getting that much older than everyone else?
The officer flipped a page, inquired Dan’s name in an aggressively efficient manner then indicated a door across the hall.

“In here, sir. They’re expecting you.”

Dan entered and was momentarily thrown off guard. Four faces looked up expectantly. There, seated with the two officers he’d encountered at the morgue, were the chief of police and Dan’s former-boss, Ed Burch. Ed was one of the few authority figures Dan respected wholeheartedly. He relaxed somewhat on seeing him, but was still aware he’d entered potentially hostile territory.

The room was designed to make newcomers feel less intimidated at being in the headquarters of one of the biggest power bases in the country outside of the military. Tall bay windows allowed in considerable light, as though the architect had been tasked with providing a police station that, while grand, in no way resembled a place of incarceration. It was a pleasant anteroom in Buckingham Palace, say, versus the dreaded Tower of London. Soft music gave it the aura of a spa, while ferns drooped lazily from ceiling hangers. Ironically, the hanging plants reminded Dan of the slaughterhouse, which, he knew, was what had brought him here today.

While Dan had already sized up the two younger officers, he knew the chief by reputation only. The man came forward, hand extended, a silver-haired bulldog with a disarming grin that settled back into a habitual frown as soon as it was no longer needed. Dan had been reluctantly impressed with the man’s ability to present himself in public through various media appearances, as well as his efforts at building community relations with the force. Here was a man who worked hard to look and sound good. Still, Dan wasn’t convinced they’d be on the same side of the barricades come the revolution. As chief of police, he believed in the unquestioned right of authority and had shown that, for good or bad, he would do anything to perpetuate and uphold it.

The chief indicated the officers Dan had met earlier. “Let me introduce you. Detective Danes and Constable First Class Pfeiffer, this is Mr. Dan Sharp.”

Here, once again, were the force’s bratty Jack Spratt and his awkward, shuffling wife. The missus — Detective Danes — was her usual hesitant self. This was the man who belonged to the voice on his answering machine, making the other one Constable Pfeiffer. The latter eyed him through barely raised lids. He was chewing gum again. Dan remembered the shorter officer’s cockiness. There was something slightly restrained about him here in the presence of the chief. An invisible leash, perhaps. In the clear light of day, his uniform and the faint outline of a moustache were about the only things that differentiated him from an adolescent punk. That wasn’t possible, of course. With his First Class officer designation, there would have to be at least four years between his entering the force and receiving First Class status. So maybe twenty-three or -four, at the very least. Still, he reminded Dan of a truculent teenager on the lookout for trouble.

Neither of the officers extended a hand. Dan nodded to the pair, who remained seated across the table. “We met at the morgue yesterday,” he said simply.

“Both Detective Danes and Constable Pfeiffer are among the most highly regarded men on the force,” the chief said then turned to Ed. “Now here’s someone you know.”

Dan greeted his former boss. “Hello, Ed. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Good to see you again, Dan.” A comforting smile and honest yet discerning eyes. Well built, with the self-confidence of a former pro hockey player.

Addressing his officers, the chief continued. “Mr. Sharp I know of by reputation only, but that reputation is an impeccable one corroborated by his former employer, Ed here, who was one of my best cops until the son-of-a-bitch went freelance on me.”

Ed acknowledged the backhanded compliment with a smile.

“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” the chief said. He turned directly to Dan. “Dan — may I call you Dan?”

Dan nodded. “Certainly.”

“The reason we’ve asked you here today, as I’m sure you realize, is because of the body you discovered at the old slaughterhouse.” His hands shuffled the papers on the desk before him, but his sharp blue eyes stayed on Dan’s face.

“The man’s name was Darryl Hillary,” Dan said.

“Yes. I understand you had been hired to find him by his sister …” Here he looked down. “… Darlene Hillary.”

“That’s correct.”

The chief looked back up at Dan again, taking
his measure like any good tailor or undertaker. “None of what I’m saying here today is under overt censorship of any sort, but we would appreciate it if you would keep it to yourself for now. For reasons of discretion, we can’t have the media finding out certain details I’m about to disclose just yet. Are you good with that?”

Dan inclined his head slightly: open to suggestion but not willing to be led down the garden path. “I’d have to know what it is first before agreeing to treat it confidentially, but if it’s above board and nothing to do with me then I can give you a reasonable assurance I’ll keep my mouth shut about it.”

The chief looked to Ed. “You described him pretty well, Ed,” he said.

“Dan’s a straight shooter,” Ed said, nodding.

Dan wasn’t taken in by this surface dusting of comradely jousting. While he trusted his former boss, Ed had ties to the police that predated his relationship with Dan. Perhaps one loyalty outweighed the other. What lay behind this surprise meeting was impossible to say. He still needed to know why he’d been brought here. What more he could tell them that he hadn’t already indicated in his statement the previous evening remained to be seen.

The chief gave him another shrewd look, as though trying to decide how much to confide in him:
Are you for us or against us?
As far as Dan was concerned, they’d invited him to this game of poker, so it was up to them to reveal their hand first.

“I won’t mince words here, Dan. The reason we’ve asked you to come by today is because Ed suggested you might help us.”

Dan’s ears pricked up. This was the first he’d heard of being asked to help the police.

He turned to Ed, who took up the narrative briefly.

“That’s right, Daniel. I’ve been asked to work as a special consultant on the case, in light of my capacity as a former police officer. When I heard what was being asked, I suggested you might have a part to play in it.”

The chief’s icy eyes travelled from Ed back to Dan. “We believe yesterday’s murder is related to a larger investigation into a child prostitution ring, which has now taken on the proportions of a Canada-wide operation. Detective Danes was assigned to lead the operation in the GTA. With Hillary’s murder, Constable Pfeiffer has just taken over as evidence officer. That’s where Ed felt you might help us, Dan.”