Last of the Independents (4 page)

“What about the elevator?”

“Locked at night.”

“Chuh,” Ben said.

“Rest room?” I asked.

“Hallway, second door on the right,” Younger said. Ben took off, sprinting.

I held out my hands apologetically, what can you do?

“Good help is hard to find,” Younger said.

Back in his office I said, “I'd like to put the building under physical surveillance. That means staying overnight. Most of these people work Monday to Friday?”

“Except Vonda, our part-time embalmer, and Kurt the dispatcher. And my father and I.”

“I'm going to disconnect the red LEDs from the camera,” I said. “I want you to tell everyone just before closing, tonight and tomorrow and the next, that the camera isn't working and that the system will be down for the next few days. Remind them to lock up.”

“I could tell them there have been vandals in the area, which is why we're upgrading security. I could even advise them to take all their valuables home.”

“You could mention it,” I said, “but don't overdo the theatrics. We don't want this to look like a trap. Best to just add a few words to the bottom of a memo or post it in the break room.”

“Understood,” Younger said. “You'll be here tonight?”

“After closing.”

“I'll inform Pop.”

I stood up. “I'll let myself out.”

B
en was leaning on the hood of the Camry, vest off, shirt unbuttoned, a touch of sick around his mouth.

“Can you bring the car back for seven tomorrow?” I asked him as I unlocked the trunk.

“You're really going to stay there overnight?”

“Looks that way.”

In a nylon tech bag in the trunk I keep a laptop and a pair of battery-operated wireless cameras. I also keep an overnight bag. Depending on the situation, I sometimes bring a gun.

I opened the suitcase, pulled out enough clothes so I could fit the tech bag inside, and covered it with a toiletries kit. Ben looked like he needed some encouragement.

“You get used to it,” I said. “It's like if you lived near a rendering plant. You stop minding after a while.”

“How long is a while?”

“It's less of a shock every time.”

“When'd you see your first?” Ben asked.

“August, year before I graduated high school. Victim died of exsanguination, meaning he bled out from a neck wound.” Adding the inevitable, “My grandfather.”

“Oh,” Ben said. “Hey. Sorry.”

“You didn't kill him.”

I took out the suitcase and closed the trunk. “I've got two hours to kill. Drop me at the Wendy's just up the street.” Then, to lighten the mood, I added, “You know the sound maggots make when they're gnawing on soft tissue?”

“No.”

I simulated it.

Ben doubled over and puked straight into the gutter.

L
ater, in the silence and darkness of the office, with the cameras up and trained to cover the perimeter of the embalming room, I sat back in the sumptuous leather chair in the Kroons' sumptuous office and dialed the number for Aries Security and Investigations.

“May I ask who's calling?” the office manager said.

“Bill Billings. I'm phoning on the recommendation of Constable Gavin Fisk. Would it be possible to speak to Mr. McEachern, please?”

“Just a moment, sir.”

The dominant sounds in the still evening were the hum of the freezer in the adjacent room and the whir of the laptop's hard drive. No movement in the embalming room.

“Roy McEachern speaking. Mr. Billings, is it? What can I do for you?”

I said, “You could have the courtesy to return a fucking phone call.”

“Is that Michael Drayton?” McEachern laughed, staccato bursts that taxed the phone's speaker. “Well, Mike, you got through. I have to hand it to you.”

“You blocked my caller ID?”

“We had several offensive crank calls from that number.”

“What a pity. That robot who answers your phone must be quite distressed.”

“We could go back and forth all night,” McEachern said. “My time's too valuable, I don't know about yours.”

“I've inherited an ex-client of yours named Cliff Szabo.”

More of McEachern's easy laughter. “Mike Drayton and Cliff Szabo — a match made in heaven right there. Did he try to pay you with ten percent of his business?”

Ignoring him I said, “He was your client from April till August.”

“Off and on, depending on when he felt like paying us. When he laid that ten percent scheme on me I told him I'd love to work for free, pal. Just convince my ex-wife and two kids in college. All seriousness, Mike, don't allow a client to gyp you out of dough just because he's got a sad story. Sad stories are free.”

“I'd like an overview of what Aries did for Mr. Szabo. Who you interviewed, what information you gathered.”

“All in the report we prepared for him.”

“Which he left in your office.”

“After tossing it at me.”

“He was distraught.”

“Sure,” McEachern said, “but not about his poor little kid, about paying us the nine grand he owed us.”

“He'd like his copy of the report.”

“That ship has sailed.”

“I'd appreciate it.”

“You I like even less than him,” McEachern said. “Only reason I haven't told you to go fuck yourself yet is on account of your grandfather. Tell you what, though. Szabo comes up with the nine he still owes us, I'll c.c. you all the copies you want.”

“Any media coverage he gets he'll be speaking about the investigation,” I said. “You want me to recommend he tells the CBC that you took his money and were no help to him?”

“You really think you'd come out ahead in a PR war, Mike?”

I took a breath through my nostrils and held it until I could pick out the Pine Sol and the death-smell and the lingering aftershave of Thomas Kroon the Younger.

I said, “How about for a few minutes you not be a prick and email me the report so we can maybe find this kid?”

“Fuck yourself, Mike.”

Click.

Enola Curious

T
he
next morning I gave myself a whore's bath in the cramped washroom of my office. I plugged in the plastic kettle and traded my suit for black jeans and a blue flannel shirt, loose-fitting and faded: the two best qualities in a garment. I made a pot of Earl Grey and stood out on the narrow wooden balcony watching the clouds douse Beckett Street and listening to Blind Willie Johnson.

The night had been uneventful. The elder Kroon had opened up around six. When I told him nothing had been disturbed, he said, “Maybe we're done with all this awfulness.”

Ben had only been half an hour late and I was back at the office by 7:15. I could've gone home, walked my dog, taken my grandmother out for a scone. I could've gone to sleep. But I felt like doing exactly what I was doing, which was, or amounted to, nothing.

The buzzer buzzed. On the monitor Cliff Szabo climbed the stairs carrying a milk crate full of papers. I held the door for him, directed him to put the crate on the table.

“Here's everything,” he said.

It didn't amount to much. A comprehensive missing persons report with dental charts and a description of the boy's clothing, the full report of the brown Ford Taurus with VIN and license number, an inventory of the car's contents, including a photo of the repainted Schwinn Stingray. Szabo had also collected press clippings and copies of the flyers. I moved the Loeb file onto Katherine's chair so I could spread the Szabo clippings out.

“You taught Django how to drive?” I asked him.

“I let him drive around parking lots.” He drank from a bottle of water he'd brought with him. “People are so stupid when they drive, he should start now so he doesn't become like them.”

“Fisk seems to think he took off in the car.”

“Where would he go?”

“No idea,” I said. “Is he close to any of your relatives?”

“His mother died when he was two from an embolism.” His pronunciation slowed around the last word. “Her parents are dead. My sister lives with us. When you want to talk to her she's there.”

We drank our beverages. The office was cool, owing to the fact that I'd left the balcony door open a crack. A car with an overdriven subwoofer passed by, hip hop trickling down toward Cordova. Saturday, September 5th. Almost seven months from the date of disappearance.

“I spoke to Fisk and I spoke to McEachern,” I said, hitting print and standing to wait for the pages to land in the LaserJet's tray. “So far all I've heard is a bunch of bullshit. Which means we're starting at square one.”

Szabo's expression didn't change.

“I'm going to re-interview everyone, starting with the people who saw Django that Friday. Then everyone who knew him from school. Then your neighbours. Losing McEachern's files isn't setting us back all that much, because I'd do this anyway.”

“Good,” Szabo said.

“We'll make up new flyers and get them posted around the city, and if we can afford it, take out some ads. There are online groups dedicated to getting information out. Pastor Flaherty might be able to help us finagle some press coverage.”

He nodded, following me.

“I'll also contact all the police agencies in B.C., Alberta, and Washington State, have them check any unidentified remains against the description. If you have anything with your son's DNA —”

“The sergeant took some things of his.” Same level expression.

“If you've got others, keep them handy, though your own DNA will do in a pinch.”

I handed him the two pages, listing the addresses of the shops he and Django visited and the day's itinerary up to the hour of disappearance.

“Can you think of any place you went that's not on this list?”

Szabo unfolded a pair of flimsy reading specs and went over it. “Seems to be it.”

“If you think of anywhere else,” I said.

“I'll tell you.”

“Good. Let's meet every Friday for the next month or so. Anything else you think of you write down, no matter how trivial.”

“I will.”

“Last thing: Fisk said you overturned a table during your interview.”

“I was upset,” he said. “Like I told you, some —”

“— times you overreact, got it. Not anymore. From here on out you are the model of restraint. We can't afford offending anyone else. What's more, I need you to apologize to Fisk. I know that sucks, but we need him to pity you.”

“I don't want anyone's pity.”

“It's not for you. Apologize, kiss his ass, get him to work with us.”

“All right,” he said. “I suppose I should do the same with Mr. McEachern?”

“No, fuck him,” I said, then checked myself. “No, you're right, it would help to be on good terms with him, too.”

“All right.”

“See you next week, then.”

“All right.”

He'd reached the door when he about-faced and placed a fistful of bills and change on the table, spreading it out so I could count it. “Seventy-three dollars,” he said. “Ten percent.”

I
put the music up, reused the teabag for a second pot, and worked my way through the Szabo file. Quarter past ten Katherine came in. She shed her soaked peacoat, hung her umbrella on the balcony rail, and said, “Don't ever ask me to do that again.”

“She appreciated it. And you said you liked animals.”

“The front ends of animals, Mike. The cute, cuddly ends.”

“Least in this job, unlike, say, government service, your exposure to assholes is brief and irregular, pardon the pun.”

She looked at the overturned crate and the papers on the table. She noticed the Loeb file on her chair. “Should I file this?”

“No, it's important it stays out.”

“Where?”

“I don't know. We'll move it when we get back. Did your boyfriend lend you the van?”

“His mother's minivan,” she said. “With express instructions it's back by noon.”

“We won't be any longer than that.”

“Damn right we won't.”

“But we do have some stops to make,” I said.

I
love Staples. It's an irrational love, but genuine. Only book stores and the Army & Navy inspire the same level of ardour. I love the ten-dollar packages of parchment and the locked display case of ballpoint pen refills. I love the bins of cheapjack school supplies, dollar-ninety-nine plastic hole punches, thirty-nine-cent cahiers. I love the row of overpriced lockboxes and safes and the solitary Brother typewriter in the last aisle next to the ribbons and correcting tape. Every item in the store seems both necessary and frivolous, and the store itself seems aware of this paradox. The cashiers will find any justification you come up with entirely reasonable, even if you yourself don't believe your business really requires a tri-coloured stamp set that says
Welcome!
in eight languages.

By the time we'd circumnavigated the store I'd bought a stack of folding chairs, two stainless steel filing cabinets, and a year's supply of alligator clips and legal pads. Katherine had added an ergonomic keyboard and a CO
2
-powered dust remover. She circled back through the furniture section to re-examine a pleather-covered office chair.

“Look,” she said, using the lever to raise herself incrementally and then with one depression sink till her knees were above her waist. “We should get a matching pair.”

“Not me. I need four legs and wood so I can tip it back against the wall.”

“You could get hurt doing that.”

“I live on the edge, Hough.”

She grinned. “Well, I'm getting one. And a ridged plastic office mat to go underneath it.”

“Oh, you have to get the mat.”

“It's more of an investment then an accessory, really.”

“Have to spend money to make money.”

After doling out my debit card to the cashier, we ran through the rain, pushing our purchases down to where we'd parked. We folded down the van's seats and squeezed everything into the back, abandoning the shopping carts on the curb.

As Katherine inched out of the parking spot, I said, “How many government jobs let you pick your furniture?”

“You know,” she said, “there are always going to be other students looking for part-time work.”

“It took a long time for me to get used to your many shortcomings. I don't want to go through that every year.”

“What you mean to say is, it's hard to find someone gullible enough to administer a suppository to your dog.”

“Is that what I mean?” The dashboard clock read 11:40. I brought out Django's itinerary and gave Katherine directions to Enola Curious Studios.

“We'll be quick,” I promised.

The studio was on the third floor of a yellow building just off Broadway and Quebec. Katherine parked beneath an overhanging maple tree behind the property, her boyfriend's mother's silver Odyssey slotting between a beige Vanagon and a custard-coloured Mustang.

The studio's double-door back entrance was locked. We walked around and caught the front door as a skinny beret-wearing kid was exiting. He looked grateful for the help as he maneuvered his upright bass through the doorway.

On the landing, three forty-year-olds in punk regalia were passing around a joint. Two of them leered at Katherine. The third leered at me. Only as we reached the last flight could I hear soft music from inside. As I opened the hallway door the music got louder, and by the time we were standing at the studio entrance I recognized the song as a thrash-metal cover of “The Way You Look Tonight.”

“Get it? Because it's ironic,” I said to Katherine as I knocked on the door.

The music cut off. I knocked again. Bare feet padded across the carpet. The door opened and a woman ushered us in. Before I could ask if she was Amelia Yates or Yeats she had disappeared through a glass-paned door at the end of the hall.

On the left side of the hallway was a live room with a piano in the corner, patch-cords snaked across the floor, and a drum kit in the centre surrounded by a forest of microphones on boom stands. The walls were covered with ribbed foam. Movable baffles had been set up around the kit. The right side of the hall led to smaller rooms: a storage closet containing, among other things, a Fender Rhodes and a sitar, two isolation booths with ancient-looking Koss headphones hanging off music stands, and a break room with a pink-upholstered couch.

“Must be worth a fortune,” Katherine said.

From the glass room the music blasted out, stopped, blasted out, stopped.

I opened the door to the central booth. The woman was facing away from us, staring at a pair of computer monitors each bigger than my grandmother's television. Her crescent-shaped mahogany desk was flanked by speakers, no doubt positioned equidistant from her ears. A half-finished bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper with a pink straw stuffed inside sat next to the office chair.

“Miss Yates?” I said.

“Just a sec, just a sec.” She manipulated a wave form on one of the screens, pulled down a menu on the other. She held up her hand, gesturing for us to wait.

The walls were decorated with framed photos, a gold record, a letter of nomination from the Juno Awards, an official thank-you from some fundraiser. I was looking for clarification on the Yates-Yeats question, but the documents were evenly split. I picked out faces in the photos. The crème de la crème of Canadian music superstardom: the bald guy from the Tragically Hip, Randy Bachman's brother, one of the bald guys from the Barenaked Ladies, Dan Ackroyd in his Elwood Blues get-up, Randy Bachman's son, Colin James, Avril Lavigne, the bald guy from
Hard Core Logo
, and Randy Bachman. And on the door, a very nice signed photo of a young Amelia Yates or Yeats in between the Wilson sisters from Heart.

“Look,” Katherine whispered, nudging me no doubt to inspect one of the photos. Instead she pointed to Yeats's chair. “Same as the one I just bought.”

“Then you've got a lot in common.”

“Okay, sorry,” Ms. Yates said, swivelling to face us. “Just have to bounce this down for those creeps in the hall.”

The song started up again and we were forced to endure the entire two minutes and fifteen seconds. When it finished, she said, “How's it sound?”

“Fine,” Katherine said with exceeding politeness, or at least her version of it.

“I'm sure The Man will feel it's been suitably stuck to him,” I said.

“Punk's not my thing either,” she said, “but you have to admit those drums sound lethal.”

She was unnervingly beautiful. To give a laundry list of her attributes with a poetic rendering of measurements and hues would miss the quality that made her that way — brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin, purple slacks, and an oversized Joan Jett tee exposing one perfect shoulder. Mussed hair swept back from her face. She was the kind of impossible thin that we decry in polite company, before retreating to privacy to think about lithe hips and small high firmly sculpted breasts. She didn't look fragile, though, or arrogant. Just preoccupied.

The tray on her computer ejected a disk. Amelia Yates handed the disk to Katherine. “Could you run this over to them?”

Katherine balked but took the disk and left the room, shooting me a what-a-bitch roll of her eyes.

“Ms. Yates,” I said. “First, is it
Yates
as in Rowdy or
Yeats
as in ‘Rough Beast?'”

“Either or,” she said. “It's a made-up name. My dad always spelled it A-T-E-S because it seemed more American. But he was born in the West Indies, spent most of his childhood in London, and the last thing he wanted was to be reminded of anything or anyone British.”

“Irish,” I said.

“Same difference. So pick a spelling.”

“I like E-A,” I said. “My name's Mike Drayton, I'm a private investigator.”