Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (77 page)

The chief’s face fell. “First of all, there is nothing to indicate that any murder suspect died in that fire.” A dark hue glossed his features as he struggled to contain himself. “Second, you need to accept that I can tell you only so much. Suffice to say that finding a serial killer in the city has been my top priority. I invested my officers with the power to do whatever it took to capture Bélanger. I cannot and will not tell you exactly what that entailed, because it is none of your fucking business. In the meantime …”

“How else would someone have known where Bélanger was?” Dan interrupted.

A hand pounded the desktop. “Because we already had that address under investigation. Constable Pfeiffer informed me of his intentions to look into the matter personally.”

Dan took a breath. Pfeiffer had been ahead of him all along. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised.

“In the meantime,” the chief continued, “I will look into your ridiculous allegations.”

“I doubt you’ll find anything.” Dan glowered. The fact that Pfeiffer had already admitted to knowing Bélanger’s new location didn’t change the possibility that he’d set the fire. “Do you have any more questions for me? Or are you going to charge me with anything? Because if not, I have better things to do than listen to this whitewash.”

The chief sucked air between his teeth. His face turned bright red.

Dan looked him straight in the face. “Why don’t you get Pfeiffer in here? I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say about this matter.”

The chief swivelled his chair till he faced Dan. His eyes were the eyes of a sharpshooter. “Daniel, the reason Constable Pfeiffer isn’t here is because he perished in that fire.”

Dan felt the wind taken out of him.

The chief glared at him. He looked down at the file the junior officer had placed in front of him after Dan came in.

Dan stood. “I’m very sorry to hear that, but what was he doing there?”

The chief put a hand to his forehead. “I won’t discuss the reasons for that with you.”

Dan waited.

The chief nodded. “If you have anything else to add to this inquiry then you had better come out with it now. Otherwise, I am ordering you to stay as far away from this investigation as you can possibly get. Go to Cuba, if you need to. Go to the fucking moon. But if you meddle any further from this moment on, I will have you up on charges so fast it will make your head spin. On top of that, your sources will be subpoenaed and their files checked.”

Dan waited, a lump in his throat.

“Furthermore, as for primary sources of information protected by this or any other police or secret service, I would advise you to stay well away and stop prying. You have no idea how deep this is or what you’re trying to open up here.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” Dan blurted out. “That’s why I keep asking questions and keep feeling more and more frustrated with the answers I don’t get.”

The chief shook his head. “Get him out of here.”

He turned back to his files.

The console had been rebuilt, though it now held half as many screens as it had previously. All the cameras seemed to be operative.

“I need to cue this,” Germ was saying. “Help yourself to coffee.”

Dan walked into the kitchen and poured himself a cup before coming back out to where Germ was working intensely.

“Here — this is what I wanted you to see,” Germ said.

Dan peered at the screen. He saw the outside of a building in the dead of night. Nothing moved. The views were as static as a camera pointed at outer space.

“I had to go through hours and hours of tape.” Germ looked meaningfully at Dan. “Even at fast forward — and it can’t be too fast or you might miss something — it still takes a hell of a long time to watch everything.”

“I appreciate it, Germ.”

Dan waited, wondering what he should be looking for. Then he saw it: a brief flash that lit up the top right-hand corner of the screen and died out again. After another minute, a glow took hold and grew steadily.

“That’s the first shot of the fire. Let’s go backwards from there.”

He tapped in a few commands. A new file began spooling on the hard drive. After a few seconds, it began to play.

“Now watch this,” Germ told him. “This is about an hour before the fire began.”

Dan watched as a figure approached. He had on a blue blazer and cap. As he passed, he looked directly at the camera and flashed an indignant finger.

“He knew!” Dan said.

“The little fucker was on to us the whole time.”

The figure disappeared and was not seen again.

“Now, look who arrives just before the fire.”

A second figure approached the warehouse, a baseball cap pulled down over his forehead. From what Dan could make out, it was Constable Pfeiffer. He entered the building and did not return. They watched until they saw the spurt of flame that signalled the fire’s beginning.

“So it’s true. Pfeiffer was there. He must have been caught in the first explosion. But when did Bélanger leave?”

“It’s on another camera. I’ve got him leaving by the back door. Same get-up, blazer and everything.”

He sped the recording forward. A few minutes later, a group of kids stood and watched the flames without moving.

“I take it these were the kids who discovered the fire.”

“Probably,” Germ said.

Dan looked at the code on the bottom of the screen. “That works with the fire department report. The call was made a little past one o’clock. The time code places the start of the fire just before one. Do they go anywhere near the place?”

“Yeah, I wondered that too. But not that I can see.” Germ paused.

“What is it?” Dan asked.

“There’s something bothering me about this. Something that isn’t right.” He thought about it a moment then shook his head. “Maybe I just need to smoke a little more dope. It’ll come to me.”

“Okay, keep on it.”

Germ ended the playback. “That’s it for this tape. The camera was destroyed not long after.”

Dan stood. “Good work,” he said.

“Wait. There’s something else.” Germ pointed to another monitor.

He fiddled with the keys, snapped
ENTER
, and a website swirled onscreen. They were back on Bélanger’s blog again. A skull-and-crossbones flashed across the screen. The entry had been dated the previous day, one day after the fire.

“What is it?” Dan asked.

Germ looked over. “Hold on, it’s coming.”

A handful of words flew across the screen and vanished. Dan’s eyes flew open wide. “What did it say?”

“I got Velvet Blue to translate for me,” Germ said. “It says, ‘Another pig got roasted tonight.’”

Dan felt a chill. He sank back in his seat, wondering if the chief of police had read this yet. “Okay,” he said at last.

The phone message was jarring. At first Dan couldn’t make out if it was good news or bad. Donny was keyed up to the point where he sounded out of control. He hardly ever got that way, but lately he’d changed. Whatever he’d been through had put him in a state of mind Dan rarely encountered in him.
This is so unlike him
, Dan thought. Was there nothing fixed in the world?

He scrambled to piece together the disjointed narrative. There seemed to be some biblical reference to Noah and his ark and another one about freedom. Finally, he grasped that Lester had flooded the bathtub in his family home, letting it overflow and scramming when the fire department arrived.

At least he hadn’t set fire to the house
, Dan thought. He’d had enough incendiary incidents to last him a lifetime, but he was relieved to hear that Lester was safely back home and that Donny had not had to get involved.

At least one person had been rescued that day.

Twenty-Seven

I’m All Ears

It was going on noon. Dan debated whether to stop at Wendy’s or wait and eat at home. Wendy’s seemed too much of a diversion. He flipped down the glove compartment that had never held a pair of gloves, or socks either, for that matter. It occasionally became the repository for chocolate bars, but in summer that would have proved a sad liability, tithing both the chocolate and the time required to clean up the oozing mess. But perhaps a lowly granola bar lay in wait. He searched. Sadly not, in this case. Forbearance would have to be the better part of valour. Besides, there were healthier things like apples at home.

Ralph trotted out to greet him then quietly returned to the kitchen, where he spent his days lying in the sunlight that dappled the thick backdoor rug. He was nearing senior citizen status and seemed to be taking his retirement prospects seriously.

The light blinked on the answer machine. Dan pressed PLAY and a quiet voice leapt out: “Greetings, Mr. Trevor James, this is Andy from the Tile Place in Markham.” A pause ensued, as though Andy had lost his train of thought from information overload.
Well, Andy, I know how that feels
, Dan thought.

The voice revived. “Mr. James, sir, your special order is ready for pick-up at our Markham office.” Another pause ensued. “If you need it delivered, sir, please let us know, but we won’t be able to get it to you before Monday. Uh, sorry about that.”

The call clicked off. There were no more messages. Dan called to let Andy know he’d be picking up the special order for Trevor James that afternoon, to what sounded like immense relief on Andy’s part.

Dan thought about how little time he’d spent with Trevor lately. Was it a reflection on the direction their relationship was taking? If so, it was his own fault, Dan knew.

In the kitchen, a square brown envelope sat propped on the kitchen table, his name scrawled across the front. He looked it over. Something about it struck him as odd. He was already getting a bad feel. No reason, just bad.

He picked it up and turned it over. There was no address and no postage stamp. In which case, it would have been hand delivered through the slot in the door. The air seemed to buzz around his head. His hands shook as he opened it. A single piece of paper, folded once, fell onto the table. He recognized the pattern immediately. There were three of them. They didn’t look like fallen leaves this time.

Dan sat and stared at the photograph.
This can’t be happening
, he told himself, forcing the panic deep down inside himself.

He thought of the dried pig’s ears Ked sometimes brought home for Ralph. They were meant as a reward. This wasn’t a reward; it was a punishment. But for what? What had he done? How had this monstrosity got in here? He looked around the room, scanning for suspects. At that moment even the furniture looked ominous, the bookshelves seemed to harbour dark secrets.

“What the fuck are you trying to tell me?” he murmured.

He cocked his ears and listened to the rest of the house. No sound. He looked over at Ralph, who seemed to be enjoying the sun more than anything else in the world at that moment.

“All good, Ralphie? Everything okay here?”

The dog thumped his tail against the floor.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

He could have used one of Germ’s joints. Something to dull the immediacy of life right then. He thought how there seemed to be no fixed objects in his universe these days, only satellites and asteroids rolling around in deep space and threatening to fall back on earth, their orbits failing like everything else. He thought of Domingo’s injunction against Little Boy Blue:
It’s like he doesn’t really exist
. But someone had to have delivered this to his door. Dan thought about his current state of affairs. He felt as though he’d been out of touch with things for far too long. Maybe it was time to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn himself up. He was like a man at a cosmic sideshow with the carny barkers yelling at him:
Step right up, friend! Pick a gravity field, any gravity field …

Dan thought of the nearest next best thing. He grabbed the phone and dialled Trevor’s number, wanting to hear his solid, reassuring voice. That was as close to a centre of gravity as he got these days.

“Just checking in,” he said, when Trevor answered. His own voice sounded thick and tight. He tried for casual, trying to force himself to believe in normal, which at that moment seemed next to impossible.

“So everything went okay with the police this morning?” Trevor was saying.

“Oh, that. Sure!” Dan had nearly forgotten what had transpired in the past twelve hours. Everything had come down to a piece of paper sitting on his kitchen table. “Nothing to worry about. How are things with you? It feels like I haven’t had a moment alone with you lately.”

The conversation sounded so absurd he felt Trevor would suspect something for sure.

Trevor laughed. “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“I noticed. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy.”

“I’m feeling a little more relaxed about things these days.”

The deep tones sounded soothing to Dan’s ears. If only he could believe the words. “That’s good,” he said.

“Actually,” Trevor continued, “I’m glad you called. Kendra phoned earlier. She invited us for supper tonight. I told her I’d check with you first. She’s such a sweetheart.”

“Supper sounds good,” Dan said, still striving for something to help cement him back into the everyday. His voice was dull, wooden. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

“I’ll be here at the house.”

No!
Dan wanted to scream.
Don’t come back here
. Then it dawned on him. The
other
house.

Trevor went right on, oblivious. “The cabinetry looks great. You’ll have to come by and see it when you have a moment. We’re fitting in the new bathtub this afternoon and tiling tomorrow. We’re actually a bit ahead of schedule.”

“That’s terrific,” Dan said. “In fact that’s why I was calling.”
Liar!
“There was a message about a special delivery from the Tile Place. They can’t get it out till Monday. I said I’d pick it up for you.”

“That would be very helpful. Thanks, Dan.”

Dan paused. “Oh, yeah … just one other thing. Did you leave the envelope on the kitchen table?”

“Envelope?”