Читать книгу Creep - R.M. Greenaway - Страница 11

Since they were in the area, Montgomery swung by the Greer house to check up on progress. He parked behind an Ident van, and Dion stepped out and looked at the quiet neighbourhood. Nothing extraordinary about this block except the yellow crime scene tape over the gate. No signs of shock and horror, no trauma. Trees towered, crows cawed, and there was the gentle hum of distant traffic. Just another day in Lynn Valley.

He followed Montgomery through the gate and up the path, even into the house itself, which up to now he had seen only from the outside. Montgomery told him to go ahead and take a look around.

Upstairs, Dion talked to the techs, who were wrapping up loose ends, lifting, photographing, vaccing. The rooms were empty. The design of the place was generous, maybe eccentric, with broad and solid stairs and plenty of odd nooks, large rooms, and high ceilings alternating with low. He thought of his own cramped apartment with its thin walls through which he could hear the mumbling of neighbours and the banging of dishes.

He looked out a window at a moody skyline, a homey neighbourhood below, lights twinkling. Before the crash, he had lived in a high-rise just blocks from the waterfront. He could see all of Vancouver Harbour from there. Not so high — only the tenth floor — but with a good view of two bridges, the strait waters and, in the distance, layer upon layer of mountain ranges jutting into the skies.

There had been a good-sized balcony, too. He had hosted barbecues up there, stood necking with Kate there. Loved it there.

Compare that to this comeback, as Montgomery called it, living in the rear of a low-rise, its small balcony with a view of conifer needles too thick to let in even a strangled ray of sunlight. No Kate, no Looch, no nobody.

He pulled a face and studied the row of houses across the road. That would be Mr. Lavender’s residence, the man who had called in the tip that launched the investigation. And that would be Farah Jordan’s place, if he wasn’t mistaken. He looked down at the lot below. Some old apple trees and lots of overgrown winter-dead grass.

He looked at the window on the top floor of her house; it was visible from here, just past the sweeping branches of a tall fir. Seemed like a pretty good vantage point. Hadn’t she said she couldn’t see anything from her place? Had he asked? Must check his notebook.

Must remember to check his notebook.

He couldn’t make a note to check because he didn’t have a notebook to write it in. He made a mental note instead.

Back out on the sidewalk, Montgomery was about to beep open his minivan, but had to stop to take a phone call. As Dion stood waiting, a figure appeared, coming along Lynn Valley Road, heading this way in a hesitant fashion. A curious neighbour, probably. Dion watched the figure draw closer and resolve itself into a small older man wearing dark work trousers and a woolly brown sweater. His hair was thinning on top, worked into a bit of a comb-over, messed up by the breeze. He had a lumpy nose and pitted skin. He didn’t look happy, but called out, “Good day.”

He had drawn to a stop at some distance and was speaking not to Dion, but past him to Montgomery, who had finished his call and was tucking away his phone.

“Hi there,” Montgomery called back.

“You a policeman?” The man drifted closer.

“That I am.” Montgomery smiled across the distance with a friendly squint. Dion watched the man close the distance between them: twenty feet, a dozen, ten, eight, six.

“I know ’cause I seen you before. From my window.” The stranger pointed not so well down toward the road called Kilmer, his index finger curled like a bird’s claw, and along a few houses. “That’s my place, with the green roof.”

Montgomery nodded, still smiling, doing the PR thing. “Yes, I’m afraid we’ve been making a bit of a hullabaloo around here lately. Things will soon get back to normal, promise.”

“I seen him, too,” the stranger said, looking at Dion. “Going into the Harmon place, middle of the night. Him and the other one, they was the first. He was dressed like a cop.”

“I am a cop,” Dion said.

How on earth could this man recognize him — especially now, in his civvies — as the cop who had come around the other night with Jackie Randall? From way over in that house with the green roof. Through rain and darkness. Must have eagle eyes. Or a good set of binoculars.

“Yes, well, it was quite a busy night for all of us.” Montgomery was already losing his PR sparkle. The temperatures were dropping, and he looked ready to move on with his day.

“You guys came around my place, too.” The stranger was still addressing Montgomery, still ignoring Dion.

Dion guessed that “you guys” didn’t mean Montgomery and himself, or Montgomery and anybody. It meant the plainclothes constables who had gone canvassing the neighbourhood over the past two days, spreading the net wide, checking for leads on the John Doe murder.

“Asked if I seen anything. I said I seen him go into the Harmon place.” The stranger gave Dion another fixed stare. “So what’s up there, you mind me asking?” he added, not to Dion, but Montgomery.

“Up where, sir?”

“The woods back here.” He indicated the air around them. The neighbourhood was closely embraced by forest, the same forest that fell away into the Lynn Headwaters Regional Park, where kids rode their bikes, and hikers hiked themselves to death, and werewolves were said to roam. “I seen you people looking about. What’re you guys looking for, is all I’s asking.”

“Just scouting the area,” Montgomery said. “Routine inquiries.”

“The wolf,” the stranger said. A statement, not a question.

Now Montgomery and Dion were both staring at him. Montgomery asked, “Wolf?”

“Like I told the cops who come around. The wolf. Maybe you didn’t read their fings.”

Things, Dion interpreted.

“Their reports there,” the stranger clarified. He had a fast and muttery way of talking and kept his chin tucked low, which made him hard to understand. He seemed afraid, Dion thought. He looked like a man who lived with fear. Probably, he was nuts. “I know they reported it ’cause they wrote it all down, eh? Wrote down all what I said.”

“You’ve seen a wolf, sir?” Montgomery spoke up, projecting his voice and being concise as a hint for the man to do the same.

“Hear it. Not see. Hear. Howls.”

“Uh-huh? Could be dogs, right?”

“Dogs don’t howl. Not like wolfs, they don’t. Not like these kinda wolfs.”

Dion had heard and seen domesticated dogs howling their hearts out, just like wolves. Sirens set them off, for one thing. Or loneliness. Watching this little man with the anxious eyes, he wondered if the community was already putting a surreal spin on the death at the Greer house. Like Wong and Graham and Jackie Randall, everyone was hoping for monsters.

Montgomery asked the stranger for his name.

“Ray,” the man answered. His shoulders tightened, but there was a new shine in his eyes. Eagerness, maybe, and Dion thought he knew why. Ray was retired, single, and bored out of his idle skull. The fear was self-induced, to beat the boredom, and being asked his name by a cop was the year’s biggest thrill. “Ray Starkey.”

“And how often have you heard this howling, Ray?”

“Three, sir. Three times altogether. August twenty-fifth was the first time. That was around eleven at night. Then September thirteenth, at one-thirty in the morning. And October eighteenth, a little past midnight. That last one’s just two weeks ago.”

“Damn, I wish my constables kept such good notes,” Montgomery said. Friendly still, but jingling his car keys.

August, Dion thought. From the glimpse he’d had of the body along with what he’d heard around the detachment, it seemed the body had been under the house since the summer, give or take a little.

“It chills the blood,” Starkey went on. “I write stuff like that on my calendar. I like to keep track of fings.” He beetled another suspicious stare toward Dion.

Dion had had enough of the little man and his silent accusations and climbed into the passenger seat of Montgomery’s van to wait. With the door closed, the men’s voices were now muffled. He flexed his arms, drummed his feet. His body felt wrecked from the exercise, but the ride had done wonders for his spirits. He would get a bike of his own to replace the one he had abandoned after the crash, with all the rest of his belongings, before riding the Greyhound northbound.

Montgomery climbed in behind the wheel, chuckling. “That’s one loose screw. Finally shook him off. Wolves!”

“Still,” Dion said. “I’ll talk to Wildlife tomorrow.”

“Somebody else will talk to Wildlife tomorrow,” Montgomery said. “It’s your weekend. Take it. Recreate. Want to take up Tori’s offer, swing by for a drink? Brunch?”

Dion thanked him, but said he had a few things to take care of.

Once dropped off, he climbed into his car and drove home to his apartment. With the weekend and recreation in mind, he showered off the Mesachee mud, then looked over his wardrobe. He picked out his best clothes. It was getting on time for dinner, and for a change, he had plans.