Flashback (17 page)

'Nothing she wants to prosecute him for, so it can't be much. I feel this is some ruse to obtain his labour. Why should a boy be permitted to demean himself in this manner? That's what I want to know.'
 

'You think work is demeaning?' Two can be as snooty as one.

'In case you haven't heard about it in your township, Canadians have certain civil liberties.'

'And in case you haven't heard about it in Toronto, assault of a woman, plus other offences, is enough to get even a first offender a criminal record.'
 

She shouted now. 'I want to speak to your superior.'

'I'm the Chief, Mrs Freund. What's your complaint?'

'My complaint is that my son has apparently been tried and found guilty without a hearing.'

'If you'd like a hearing I'll be glad to arrange one. Come on up to the police station at Murphy's Harbour and you can conduct your own. Unless you persist in your attitude, Philip will get off without a criminal record. How does that sound?'
 

There was a long silence. Her pride was all banged up but she was an intelligent woman. 'What are the precise charges?'

'Didn't your son tell you?'

'His exact words were "I pushed a lady over and did some other things".' Her voice became lower. 'What kind of things? Were they sexual?'
 

'No. They were not directed at any person. But they were criminal. The plaintiff has very generously agreed to drop the charges. She doesn't even want money. Instead she has agreed to let him work out his indebtedness. He's glad of the chance. I know him fairly well by now. Maybe better than you do in some ways.'
 

That didn't sit well but she swallowed her anger. 'I'll be up there at noon. Will you be there?'

'I'll try, but I'm in the middle of a homicide investigation. I'd prefer it, and so would your son, if you just stayed where you were and let him work things out. He'll be a better man for it.'
 

'He's just a boy,' she almost screamed.

'Today. Tomorrow he'll be a man, a better man if he does what he's set out to do.'

'That's a matter of opinion.'

She was weakening but she sounded like a reasonable person. 'This has to be your call, whether or not to let him continue. I hope you'll consider your actions very carefully and bear in mind that he's got feelings of his own.'
 

She put the phone down without speaking and I hung up and called Parry Sound. Sergeant Holland was in his office and I filled him in on the location where the Magic Wagon had been found. We mulled things over carefully for a while and decided that we needed to speak to Cy, the gang member who had known about cars. 'I wish we hadn't let that Hanson guy go so fast,' Holland said. 'No choice, of course, but it's starting to look like he knows something about the Jeffries woman. I'll ring Toronto, have one of their detectives chase up Hanson there. And we'll look for this Cy.'
 

'I've given you the description. It matches one of the kids I saw in town first time the gang came here. The Freund boy may be able to give you something more. He's over at the Reservation, painting the house for the woman whose dog he killed.'
 

'You figure you can trust him?'

'Yeah.' I hadn't give him any details, the fewer people knew about it, the safer George's reputation would be in future. None of the Indians would say anything, that left the secret with me. I wanted to keep it that way.
 

'Well, I'll send a couple of guys down to Ellis Lane to talk to the locals. On the way down there they can talk to Freund.'

Hearing him speak the name triggered my memory with a click. 'Freund? Isn't that the lawyer who sprung Hanson yesterday?'

'Yes. Dammit, I must be asleep. How can I get in touch with her? You got her number?'

'No. But she's coming here at noon. And you can call the Horns and get her number off her son.'

'I'll take care of it,' he said. 'I want to talk to Hanson. Should have kept him in custody but we couldn't.'

'OK. I'll leave it with you. I've got a lot on my own plate here. We've got a shop-breaker in town and I figure it has to be a fugitive. Seems to me we may have that guy Kershaw up here. Plus I'm still waiting for the guy in the next room to Waites to make a statement. I'll head up to Pickerel Point Lodge and talk to him.'
 

'OK. I'll keep you posted when we hear from forensics in Toronto or if we round up this Cy kid, or Hanson.'

I thanked him and hung up feeling useless. Detective work is largely a matter of sifting reports, of questioning dozens, even hundreds of people and looking for patterns of similarity in their stories. It's easiest when you have dozens of men asking the questions and a computer to compare their findings. Alone, I was going to be lucky to find anything useful in the Waites case. And I was starting to worry about Kershaw. I had a feeling he was my shop-breaker and that he was holed up in the bush close to town, waiting for a chance to get even with me. By now he might have picked up a gun somewhere so he could stay back out of sight and drop me when I wasn't expecting it.
 

The prospect was scary but I spent two whole years in Viet Nam under the same threat and had come out intact except for busted-up arms from the booby-trap that had killed the guy ahead of me on the trail. I'd also been shot since, the last time a year ago. But now I had a family to consider. That made it different.
 

I spent a while on the telephone, first calling Joyceville for a current picture of Kershaw. The only one they had was his admission photograph, five years out of date at least but they promised to fax it to me. I could photocopy it and spread it around town, that might help a little. I also phoned Fred in the hospital. She was waiting for the baby to be brought around for her morning feed. She sounded bright and cheerful but admitted that she didn't feel quite as energetic this morning as she had the day before. I arranged to visit her in the afternoon, then left the station, turning the phone to the radio.
 

I drove around the town first. It was a picture-postcard morning. The sunlight was lying over everything like gilt on antique furniture and people were moving slowly, muscles slackened by the warmth. The kids were rambunctious, of course, a bunch of them were running and swimming on the tiny beach beside the marina and the usual teens were impressing one another beside the bridge. I drove over and up to Pickerel Point.
 

The guest I'd wanted to talk to was in the lounge. He asked me to come outside and I thought he might have something to say that would be important. He had not called me, he admitted, because he was embarrassed. I had to reassure him that what he said would be kept in confidence before he allowed that he had not been in his own room at all that evening. He had been elsewhere.
 

I looked at him, a lean city-dweller in his late fifties, brown from his week of fishing but nervous. He was going through a divorce, he explained. He had come to the lodge to fish, nothing more, but he had struck up a friendship with a lady, he used the word with care, he was obviously smitten and wanted to keep her out of any hint of scandal. She was divorced, younger than he by some considerable amount, etc, etc. It's one of the older stories in the world but he figured he'd written it for the first time so I went along, then quietly checked with his date.
 

She wasn't a bombshell, a quiet, pleasant woman in her forties, a birdwatcher, she said, who had come here for a few days' birding. Everything checked out so I thanked her and wished her luck and left, driving idly around the lake road, examining all the empty cottages. There are a number, even in the height of the season, which stand empty all week. This was Friday morning and the owners would be coming up from Toronto after the rush-hour for their weekends. In the meantime I wanted to be sure that nobody had broken into any of them, especially now that we had a shopbreaker in town. It would have been ideal for him, the perfect place to lie low for a couple of days. He would be on the move by now, ahead of the owners' return, but if luck ran my way, I might find where he had stayed and track him with Sam's help.
 

There were only a few. I'd covered them all earlier in the week but I tried the doors and checked around again. There were no broken windows or signs of any forcing having been done so I went on until I came to Ms Tracy's place.
 

Her car had gone. She might have retreated to Toronto, I thought, or perhaps just gone out for a while but I parked the car and got out, bringing Sam with me.
 

The air-conditioning was still humming in the back window so it seemed as if she was still in residence. The verandah was open but the front door was locked and there were no signs of anything having been forced. I would have headed back to the car except that Sam began to growl. Most owners immediately shush their dogs, but that's a civilian reaction. I just stood back and watched him for a moment. It might have been a skunk or porcupine under the house, that would have triggered him, but he didn't make an approach. He growled low in his throat for about a half minute, under the rear window where the air-conditioner kept humming. And then he slowly tilted his head and howled, so softly that it was almost imperceptible but it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It was his response to something I wasn't hearing or seeing. And whatever it was, it was inside the cottage.
 

I told him 'Good boy' and went around the place again, checking the doors. They were locked and I stood for a moment sniffing for smoke. Fire would have upset him. Or perhaps Marcia Tracy had left her radio on and they were playing some song that had high-pitched tones in it. If that was the case, it would end in a little while and so would Sam's reaction.
 

I went back and checked him. He was still howling. Then he stopped and barked sharply. And that was the deciding factor. I'd seen him howl at music before, but nothing had ever made him bark. He was hearing something that his training told him was trouble.
 

I didn't wait any longer. The back door had a glass pane in it and I took out my stick and knocked it in. The noise was shocking but Sam did not react. He continued to howl, and then bark. I stood at the broken window and looked in. I was looking into the kitchen. Nothing seemed out of place and I stood and listened carefully, hearing nothing at first, and then, very faint, a human noise, a moan.
 

I whistled Sam and reached through to unlatch the door. There were bolts in it, in addition to the lock and I had to lean in over the broken glass and tap them open with my stick. Then I let Sam in and followed as he bounded out through the kitchen door and straight to the back bedroom.
 

He bounced on stiff legs, barking furiously. I was a second behind him and saw what had distressed him. Marcia Tracy was lying naked across the bed, unconcious and bleeding, her face a swollen mask.
 

'Easy,' I told Sam. 'Good boy.' He relaxed and I gathered the woman's arms to her sides and wrapped her up in the bedclothes. She made no sign of awareness so I left her and called Dr McQuaig. He was out, at the hospital in Parry Sound, but his wife was home and she's a nurse. She said she would come right over and warned me not to try to give the woman anything to drink or to move her. I was to call the ambulance at once. I know enough about first aid for her advice to be redundant but I said OK and dialled the ambulance number. The dispatcher told me they would be there in half an hour. Next I phoned the Parry Sound OPP and gave them the licence number of the missing Mercedes which I had in my notebook from two days before. The driver should be approached with care and should be held, I told them. Also the arresting officer should take a good look at the man's knuckles and check for blood on his clothing. The corporal said he would put it on the air and I hung up and went to look in on Ms Tracy and see if she was moving.
 

She wasn't conscious but she was breathing and I bathed her face with cold water, hoping she would come around. She didn't and I knelt there, hopelessly, sponging her face and waiting for Mrs McQuaig. She arrived in five minutes, a rangy, capable Scotswoman who swept in and knelt beside me.
 

'The poor wee thing's taken a pounding,' she said. 'Was she like this when you found her?'

'Out cold. She's naked under the bedding.'

'Had she been raped?'

'I've no idea. I covered her up right away to keep her warm.'

'That was guid,' she said in her soft Highland voice. 'She was punched,' she said firmly. 'I've seen the same injuries at Glasgow Royal on a Saturday night often enough. The man who did it has marks on his knuckles, most like. Any idea who it is?'
 

'There was nobody here. If you'll stay with her I'll look around, see if he left anything left that Sam can get a scent from. But her car's gone. He likely took that.'
 

'Do it,' she said. 'If she comes to I'll call you.'

I left her and looked around carefully. Not much seemed to have been touched in the place. Ms Tracy's robe and a nightdress were lying on the floor at the entrance to the bedroom. The nightdress was a practical-looking item of flowered cotton. She had not been expecting an assignation, I judged. It was torn at the throat, the way a man might have ripped at it in his haste. On the kitchen table I found the remains of her breakfast, a coffee cup and half a grapefruit. There was no second cup and the kitchen was neat. It looked as if she had been finishing breakfast when the man arrived. It had not been a social call or she would have taken down another cup, the percolator was full.
 

I checked her purse. It was turned upside down on the couch in the living-room, the contents, cosmetics and her cheque-book, lying there. Her keys were gone and there was no money or credit cards. Whoever had attacked her had robbed her and gone. He may have raped her first, we wouldn't know unless the doctor at Parry Sound took a swab, but judging by the torn nightdress I figured the attack must have had a sexual content.