Читать книгу A Case of You - Rick Blechta - Страница 10

Hell and damn! Shannon thought as she sped through the light traffic of the early morning at a rate considerably over the legal limit.

This job had certainly gone south in a hurry. When she’d gone to bed the previous evening, she’d told her musician boyfriend, Michael, that the case would no doubt turn out to be a simple one of a woman on the lam from some charge in the States who had stupidly stuck her head up into the public light and consequently got hauled back to face the music.

“I’ll have this whole thing cleared up within a week,” she’d told him confidently.

Why couldn’t life ever be easy?

She wished she’d taken Michael up on his offer to spend the night at his downtown loft instead of being the good mom and staying home with her two teenage kids. She’d have had a far shorter drive to get to Curran’s house. Of course, Michael had also offered to come out to her place in Caledon. Problem was, she still felt uncomfortable sleeping with Michael in her own house, even if they were doing just that: sleeping. She had to set some kind of example for her seventeen-yearold daughter especially, even though the whole thing was a complete sham. Rachel certainly knew what her mom was doing when she spent the night with her boyfriend.

As she drove, Shannon wondered if something she or her latest recruit had done could have caused the death of this woman. She felt confident that talking to some people at the airport wouldn’t have caused any alarm bells to be sounded, but there was no telling what Jackie Goode might have stirred up the previous day.

Swinging south onto the Don Valley Parkway, she had to remind herself not to formulate conclusions without sufficient information. Her experience with the Toronto Police and in her own business had certainly drilled that into her head: get the facts and be thorough. Sloppiness could get you killed.

Now someone was dead.

The constable on duty at the end of Curran’s street hadn’t been informed of her arrival, typical of Guy Palmer. Her dad had said in an unguarded moment years ago that Palmer was a competent enough detective,but he had a “terminal case of the sloppies”.He worried about the time he wouldn’t be around to pick up his underling’s shortcomings. When police detectives made mistakes, innocent people could go to prison – or worse.

By the time Shannon was escorted up the driveway and around to Curran’s back door, her mood had blackened considerably.

She found her client sitting at his kitchen table, head down. He looked awful, but she hadn’t expected anything else. From all accounts he was a good guy, well thought of by his peers. Murder has a way of hitting people between the eyes with a force they cannot imagine. The better the person, the worse the shock. What she now needed most were some private words with him, but she couldn’t think of how she might swing that.

Palmer was on top of her before she was barely in the door, all “hail fellow, well met” as he pulled her into a bear hug against his foulsmelling overcoat.

“Shannon, you look fantastic. How you doing?”

She slid out of his grip and stepped back almost to the door, fighting to keep her expression blank. Palmer stank of cigarettes, coffee and garlic, a lethal combination.

Regardless of the fact that her dad had been a storied homicide detective, Shannon knew most cops distrusted private investigators. Having Palmer on her side could prove invaluable, so she needed to keep everything nice and friendly.

The police detective would be hoping his old boss’s daughter might already have information that he could utilize to make his investigation easier. Any time Palmer could find something to save him effort was a valuable thing in his eyes. If she managed things right, she might very well manipulate this situation to her advantage.

Patting Andy on the shoulder, she said, “Sit tight. I’m going to talk with Detective Palmer out on the back deck. I want to get up to speed on where we stand. Is that okay?”

The drummer didn’t even look up. “Sure. Fine with me.”

“What you got?” Palmer asked as soon as the door shut behind them.

“Curran showed up in my office two days ago, said he wanted to find his band’s vocalist, that she’d been escorted out of the club where they play by two heavies. She went without any fuss.”

“And you checked up on his story?”

Shannon nodded, fighting the urge to silence Palmer with a loud, “Well, duh.”

“Let me show you what I got to deal with.”

He led Shannon down the driveway and onto the porch. Two techs were hard at work around the body, but Palmer asked them to step back.

She’d been on site after a few murders in her time, but never a manual strangulation. Though she knew from books what it was all about, seeing one up close and personal was pretty intense. There had been enough time for the victim to realize she was going to die.

Shannon turned away, walked down the steps and surveyed the growing crowd at the crime scene tape, all of them eager to know what was going on. They might not be so eager if they knew what the reality actually looked like.

Palmer was next to her. “I know you don’t let the dust settle on you. Tell me everything you’ve found out.”

She gave him a concise rundown of what she and her new recruit had found out, which didn’t amount to all that much, except that Curran’s version of what had happened at the club seemed to be accurate. For the moment, she held back what she’d found out at the airport the previous day.

“Know anything about the stiff on his front porch?” Palmer asked.

“If it’s not this missing singer, then no. What did Curran tell you?”

“Well, he made out at first as if he didn’t really know the woman. Then we find out from a neighbour that the victim had been over here a number of times, and on one occasion, the two of them had a verbal donnybrook right on the selfsame porch.

“According to him, he left for work at his normal time, about eight. When he came home, shortly before three a.m., he found the body on the porch and calls it in. We’ve listened to his voice mail to see if she’d called or something before she came here, but other than two hang ups after he left for work, there’s nothing. Could have been her, I suppose.”

“What does the ME say about time of death?”

“Best first guess is sometime after eight. Your boy’s not in the clear.” Palmer lit a cigarette and looked into the brightening eastern sky for several moments.“Tell me, do you think Curran’s clever enough to have bumped someone off then faked the whole discovery thing? ‘Cause that’s the way I’m leaning at this point.”

This quick decision was part and parcel of the way Palmer worked. He could, of course, be correct, but Shannon’s gut told her no, although she’d also gotten a phone report from Goode about her visit the previous afternoon. Jackie’d felt Curran had been on edge. Perhaps it had been the fact that Goode was poking around, perhaps something more sinister.

“What’s the dead woman’s name?”

“No ID on her. Curran told us it was Maggie. He says he doesn’t know any more than that. Of course we’re checking it out, but that could take awhile.”

Shannon thought for a moment longer. “Think I could have a talk with him – alone?”

“I don’t know if I can oblige, Shannon, department protocol and all that. You know how they are downtown these days.”

She winked conspiratorially at him. “Since when has that ever stopped people like us? I promise to share anything I get. He might be willing to talk more openly with me. Could be a good shortcut.”

“Well, I got stuff around front that needs doing. I suppose I could work it where you’ll stand in for one of my boys, short of manpower and all that, you know? It is about time I sent them out to canvass the neighbourhood. But you got to share anything you get. Don’t jerk me around on this, Shannon.”

They returned to the kitchen, where Palmer gave his men jobs to carry out in order to clear the room. In a matter of moments, Shannon was alone at the kitchen table with her client, a fresh pot of coffee and,comically,a box of fresh doughnuts she’d taken the time to pick up. The friendly dig hadn’t been lost on Palmer – but he’d also helped himself to a glazed one.

“Did you eat anything?” she asked.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You are, whether you realize it or not.” She pushed the doughnuts across the table. “Eat a couple of these; you’ll feel better.” He didn’t move. “Trust me, Andy.”

He reached out for the box while Shannon poured two mugs of coffee, and they sat drinking and munching silently for a few minutes.

“I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”

She looked across at him. “Only if you haven’t been telling the truth.”

“Do you think that?”

“No.” She let that sit for a moment before adding, “But I think you’ve held back information from me.”

Curran looked down into his coffee cup as if he thought an answer would magically float to the surface.

“I just wanted to find out if Olivia was okay, find out why she left with those guys.” He shook his head slowly and finished in a weary voice, “I didn’t think anything like this would happen.”

“So you’re convinced the death of this Maggie person has a connection with Olivia.”

It could have been a question, but it was said as a statement.

“Maggie was her friend. Olivia gets carted off, then her friend turns up dead on my porch. What else could it be?”

“Andy, I could easily come up with several different scenarios. The one thing we need now is all the information we can get. I need you to tell me everything you know about the dead woman.” She fished her notebook out of a coat pocket. “And we don’t have much time.”

***

The insistent beat of her cell phone’s funky ringtone roused Jackie Goode from the depths of a very deep sleep.

Not immediately remembering where she was, she groped around for a nonexistent bedside table before realizing she was sleeping on a friend’s sofa. Her cell was on the end table behind her head.

Reaching out and managing to get it open before it switched to voice mail, she croaked, “Yeah, what do you want?”

“It’s Shannon O’Brien.”

She forced herself to a sitting position. “What time is it?”

“Nearly seven o’clock.”

Jackie had finally shut down her friend Carolina’s computer when night was just beginning to drain from the eastern sky, sometime after five thirty. Yesterday had been very long.

“You still there?” her boss asked.

Cold, she pulled the blanket up around her. Why did Carolina keep her heat so low?

“I’m still here. Sorry. Just had a late night.”

“Well, I’ve had an early morning. I’m over at Curran’s place. Something has come up, and I need you over here.”

“How soon?”

“Right away. Where are you?”

“Quite close. I’m at a friend’s place up on Cambridge. That’s near—”

“I know where Cambridge is,” O’Brien snapped. “How soon can you get here?” she repeated.

“If I run all the way, maybe ten minutes.”

“Look, you don’t need to run.”

“I’m just saying I can if you want.”

“Just hurry. Bring everything you’ve got on Curran. The cop at the end of the street will pass you through. Tell him to speak to Detective Palmer if you get any grief.”

Jackie was groping for her jeans under the coffee table with her free hand as she asked, “Care to tell me what this is about?”

“Curran found the singer’s friend dead on his porch when he got home from his gig a few hours ago.”

“Shit. Murder?”

“Yes. And don’t talk to anyone about this between where you are now and Curran’s house. Got that? No one. Not even Palmer.”

“You got it, boss.”

Shannon sighed. “Don’t call me boss.”

Jackie washed up and threw her clothes on in record time, slipping into her runners as she shuffled down the hall to the small home office. Her friend, nearly six feet in height with the slender body of a jogger, was sitting at her desk, dressed in only a short satin robe, no slippers, coffee cup in her right hand and computer glasses poised on the end of her nose as she read through the morning email. How could she not be freezing to death?

“I didn’t expect you up this early,” Carolina said without looking up.

“Got a phone call. Something’s happened.”

At Jackie’s tone, the tall woman looked up. “Does it have anything to do with what you were using my computer for until all hours?”

“Yes, but I’m sworn to secrecy at the moment.” Jackie grinned as she scooped up her notebook from the desk and a sheaf of downloaded documents from the printer. After stuffing everything into her backpack, she started down the hallway for the front door. “Although, if you don’t want to wait for me to be able to tell you, I’d suggest turning on the TV. There’s probably something there.”

Jackie actually did run down to Curran’s house on Bain Avenue, since she needed to get her blood and brain moving and was also pretty eager to see what was shaking.

Of course, the constable on duty at the end of the street stopped her and an argument ensued, since she didn’t look like anyone who would be summoned to a crime scene, unless it was to provide a confession. Unfortunately, he actually said that to her. By the time another constable had trotted down the street to get between them, the media had also closed in, with the result that the argument wound up on the morning news, hard facts about the case being pretty sketchy at that point.

Jackie was close to being arrested when she remembered that Shannon had told her to mention a Detective Palmer if she got hassled. That name eventually opened doors, but not before the two cops had searched her backpack thoroughly and a female constable had patted her down, all of which the TV cameras recorded.

As two constables escorted Jackie along the street, she reflected on the fact that she’d have to do better at keeping her temper and tongue under control.

Once in Curran’s kitchen, she found the master of the house, her employer, the fabled Palmer and a junior detective who’d been elected to take notes. As she joined everyone around the table, Shannon flashed her an expression that clearly said, Keep your mouth shut unless you’re asked something specific.

***

Shannon’s brain felt as if it were made out of cardboard, not a good thing when she needed all her faculties. The situation was far too tricky for an error in judgement.

Curran had passed on everything he knew about Olivia’s deceased friend. That wasn’t a lot, but it was more than he’d told Palmer originally. It wasn’t that Curran had purposefully held anything back, she just had better interrogation chops and possessed an uncanny knack for coaxing memories to the surface. To toss the homicide detective another bone, Shannon had also summoned her new operative to throw in whatever she could about the dead woman – but no more. The PI couldn’t see where this was going yet, and she didn’t want to give anything away unnecessarily.

While he’d been out of the room, Palmer had shown a bit of initiative and spoken personally to the old lady next door. She’d provided him with the heretofore unknown tidbit that Curran’s wife had walked out on him several months earlier. That got Palmer excited all over again.

“And the old lady says you had another woman living here with you,” Palmer was just saying when Shannon zoned in on the conversation again. “What do you have to say about that?”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it had any bearing on things,” Curran shot back. “I told this woman all about it yesterday afternoon when she was here. I’m not trying to hide anything!”

He’d indicated Goode, who hadn’t spoken up to this point, except for a “What’s happening?” when she’d entered.

Palmer swivelled to her. “Is this true?”

Goode had her notebook on the table and read from it. “Yessir. He told me about his wife leaving and indicated that he’d invited the singer to move in. That was shortly after two thirty yesterday, sir.”

Shannon couldn’t believe Goode was making fun of the homicide detective. She’d have to put a stop to that as soon as she got her alone, or immediately if it got out of hand. No matter that Palmer deserved it. Fortunately, the crack seemed to go right over his head.

“Did he mention anything to you about this Maggie coming over to see him?”

Goode didn’t even blink as she said, “No, he didn’t.”

“And why didn’t you ask him why he hadn’t bothered to contact the missing girl’s friend to find out if she knew where the girl might be?”

Goode feigned embarrassment (and she did it well). “I guess I dropped the ball on that one, didn’t I, sir?”