Читать книгу Creep - R.M. Greenaway - Страница 7

Considering the length of Constable Randall’s interrogation of Mr. Lavender, Dion wondered if she had eyeballed the man as her prime suspect, instead of a harmless retiree who had called the sanitation department to report a vague stink on the breeze. The sanitation department had told Lavender there wasn’t much they could do about it, so Lavender had called 911.

On his climb up the front steps, Dion had predicted five minutes of conversation, at most. But five had turned to ten, and Randall was still harping at Lavender about wind direction, garbage removal days, troublesome neighbours.

Lavender seemed to enjoy having late-night visitors. He drew out every answer and ended it on a hook. Dion began to feel it was strategic. When Lavender invited them to move from the porch where they stood to somewhere more comfortable within, Dion decided he was one cop too many and told Randall he was going back to the vehicle to catch up on his notes. When she didn’t object fast enough, he left.

Out in the rain, he looked back at the house, at Lavender’s closed front door. Maybe Randall was right, and Lavender was now pulling out the machete and chasing her around the living room. But then there would be the sound of police-issued 9 mm gunfire — and a whoop of triumph, probably.

Jackie Randall could take care of herself. All Dion had to worry about was getting from here, under the covered archway at Lavender’s front gate, to his parked cruiser down the road without getting soaked. The neighbourhood looked sound asleep. The sky had reneged on its ceasefire and was doubling its efforts to drown the planet. Water drummed down, hit the pavement under lamplight, and crawled toward Dion like a league of ghosts. Randall’s flood had arrived with a vengeance.

It was probably her flood that had flushed the odours out from under the abandoned house and set the alarm bells ringing, leading to John Doe. He thought about the body lying on the tarp and reeking.

He hadn’t stopped to look, because that death smell had a way of coating a person for days, and getting stuck with the smell was no longer part of his job description. All he could guess from what he had seen in passing was that the body had been there a long while.

Randall was more explicit. She had looked and listened, and then reported to Dion what she knew. The body was a young male, and far from fresh. Monty had told her the first forty-eight was long gone, but so what, she argued. In a way, it had just begun, now that there were police buzzing about the scene, advertising their presence in a big way. It changed the game, and somebody in one of these apparently sleeping houses could be hastily doing god knows what. Packing their bags, making a call, flushing the evidence.

Dion thought Randall had a good point, but he wasn’t going to encourage her.

He walked down the road, assaulted by the pouring rain. On the other side of the bushy spur named Greer, a house facing Lynn Valley Road stood out like a beacon, and he stopped to look at it. Unlike its neighbours, this one was lit up. It was one of the older homes, a double A-frame, painted maroon with cream trim. Clapboard siding, conventional landscaping, but not so well maintained, as if the homeowner had lost the will to trim those laurels. There was a driveway and a carport off to the side, a little white car parked within. The gutter spouts drizzled noisily.

He could almost see into the main floor of the place, as the heavier drapes were hooked back, leaving only a gauzy screen to obscure the view. White-gold Christmas lights sparkled everywhere, strung across the window and sparkling like stars amongst the foliage. It looked like the kind of place he could walk into and never want to leave.

Somebody standing behind those drapes was returning his stare, he realized with a start. He turned to go, but the front door opened, and the woman who had been watching him called out. “Hey you, hello!”

He called hello back to her. She was oddly dressed for a cold October night in baggy shorts — maybe boxers — a plum-coloured cardigan, and tall rubber boots. She was a dark-skinned woman with a mass of goldish-black hair. She stood blurred behind rain falling from the eaves like a flickering bead curtain. Dion knew that from where she stood, he must be a human bead curtain himself.

“What’s happened over there?” she asked. “Was somebody hurt?”

A reasonable assumption. The commotion of emergency vehicles, lights, and noise made it obvious enough. He pushed open the gate and walked to the bottom of the stairs so he wouldn’t have to shout, but even here he had to project his voice over the din of rainfall. “There’s an investigation underway.”

“At the Greer house?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, thinking she was more a hippy than a ma’am. She was around his own age, near the thirty mark. Her casual clothes and her tangly hair and her unkempt garden all pegged her in his mind as some kind of poet.

“Don’t ma’am me,” she said. “Or I’ll sir you. Who got hurt? Is it serious?”

“There’s been a death, so there’s going to be some activity around. Just letting you know.”

“A death? I’m sorry to hear that. How awful. I did wonder, a bit.”

From the bottom of the stairs, he watched her. A follow-up question sprang to mind, but that would be somebody else’s task. “If you’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary happening over there in the last few months, we’d appreciate hearing about it,” he said. “Somebody will be around tomorrow to get your statement. Just let them know, if you could. Anything’s helpful.”

She didn’t seize the opportunity to wish him good night and return inside, but stayed where she was and gazed down at him, as if she had something to add. He couldn’t help wondering what it might be. “Unless there’s anything you can tell me now, since I’m here?” he asked.

“Well, why don’t you come in.”

The golden lights twinkled all around her. He looked up and down the block as he radioed Randall, letting her know he was talking to a witness who had volunteered information. He gave the address and hoped Randall would not race over to join him.

Randall ten-foured him.

Dion ran his hands along his gun belt, just checking, then climbed the stairs and followed the hippy inside. She shut the door behind him as he glanced around the dark interior. Something strange about the place, a noise …

But it was just the forced-air heating rumbling through the ducts and blasting out the vents. He needed the warmth that gusted down. He was an ice block after the hours he’d spent outside the Greer house, setting up lights and tents. It hadn’t been smart, stripping down to his shirt sleeves in the October rain, but he hadn’t seen this far ahead, didn’t know Randall’s overblown work ethic would have him canvassing the neighbourhood after hours.

Inside the house, the woman didn’t wait for his name and ID, as she should have, but removed her rubber boots, slipped her feet into sandals, and went whisking down the dark corridor. She called back at him, “Holy moly, I’ll make some tea, warm us both up.”

She had disappeared to her right. He followed her into a brightly lit kitchen, where he saw nice appliances and expensive but unenthusiastic furniture, none of it matching up with the woman, somehow. She gestured at a clunky table to one side, next to a window. From here he could see a hallway leading to a living room, with more furniture that didn’t seem to be hers. Here and there on the pale-grey walls were darker squares and rectangles where pictures must have once hung — for years, maybe decades.

“I know,” she said, as if reading his mind, but missing the point. “This place needs a serious makeover, doesn’t it?”

She put on a kettle and went about preparing cups. She moved with brisk energy, despite the hour. Dion sat at the table and unzipped his jacket halfway. He flattened his notebook and asked the woman for her name. “Farah Jordan,” she said, and spelled it for him.

He occupied himself filling in the details of the interview. Then he glanced around, still trying to understand the disconnect. Centered on the table were porcelain salt and pepper shakers shaped like bell peppers, one red and one green. There was a jar containing chopsticks and teaspoons, a sugar bowl, a vase with assorted flowers that had died and dried some time ago. Unlike the rest of this place, they all seemed to belong to this woman. Maybe she was a boarder.

The window at his side was open a crack, and cold air seeped in. On the sill sat an ashtray, and in the centre of it was a single crushed-out roach. He glanced down and over at the woman’s bare legs as she worked at the counter. “Who else lives here?” he asked.

It was a question that might have alarmed her, if she followed the news and realized the lengths to which some rapists would go to get past a woman’s door. A phony police uniform was one of the oldest tricks in the book.

“Besides me, just Radar.” She took the chair across from him. “My cat.”

Just her was hardly the answer he expected. The furniture, the colour scheme, even the air — all seemed mannish to him, as though a middle-aged, cigarette-smoking bachelor occupied the space, not a hippy and her cat.

“Are you going to show me your ID?” she asked. She said it lightly, as if she was more curious about police ID in general than the bona fides of his presence.

He dug out his wallet and showed her his identification card. She inspected it with interest and handed it back. He explained again who he was and why he was here, then asked, “Have you lived here long, Ms. Jordan?”

“If you have any urge at all to call me Farah, I’d be more than happy if you gave in to it. I’ve been here since May.”

Half a year, he thought. Then it clicked. She had inherited the house from an older male relative, a father or grandfather. One she had not been too fond of, if the first thing she did was to take down his favourite pictures. Her face was kind, so the male relative was probably unkind. She poured tea as if they had all the time in the world. He couldn’t decide whether her overly relaxed manner was suspicious or nice. Probably it had something to do with the roach in the ashtray. “You had something to tell me?”

“Did I?” she said.

“I thought you did.”

She poured tea into a second cup and smiled at him brightly. “No, I’m sorry. It’s just you looked so cold out there. All I wanted to do was bring you inside, warm you up.” Her teeth were white against her dark skin, and her blue-grey eyes were hypnotic. Suddenly he wasn’t sure who was doing the luring.

“Here’s sugar, if you like,” she said, and he said no, thank you, worrying that this was more of a tea party than an interview. He had told Randall that he was speaking to a witness who had info to offer. He imagined Randall’s inevitable question, What was Ms. Jordan’s intel? and his inevitable answer, Actually, she just wanted to warm me up.

Must work at building a better foundation for this visit. “I’m wondering,” he said, “do you know anything about the house across the road — who owns it, who lived there, anything like that?”

“No, I’m sorry, it’s been vacant as long as I can remember. But will you tell me what happened there? Was it an accident?”

He told her he couldn’t say anything more than that a body had been found, sorry.

“I understand,” she said, but apparently didn’t, as she added without pause, “Man or woman? Not a child, I hope. Children seem to like getting into places.”

“Well, like I say.”

“Sorry, yes,” she exclaimed. “You just finished telling me you can’t divulge anything, and then I go and ask for more details.” She sipped her tea and looked wistful. “About how long would you say it’s been there, though? Not long, I’m sure. I just started noticing this kind of bad smell last week, but I thought it was somebody’s garbage. Oh rats, I’ve done it again, and you’re starting to look exasperated. I’ll just have to wait for the news, I guess.”

Something banged. Dion looked around to see that a cat had just slipped through the cat flap in the back door. It walked into the room and studied Dion. It was slim, dusky grey, with bright-green eyes. It looked a bit like its owner.

Its owner seemed delighted to see the animal and enticed it over with a ksk-ksk noise so she could stroke it from ears to tail. “They’re such snobs,” she told Dion. “But you have to love them. And every time she comes home, I’m so grateful, as there are coyotes out there. They’ll go for cats. Do you have any pets?”

When he had lived with Kate, she had a tabby. A fat cat that ate, slept, complained, and damaged furniture. He had never seen the point of it, himself. “No, I don’t. I’d like to have a dog.”

He blinked in surprise at his own words. He hadn’t meant to say anything so personal.

“Me, too,” Ms. Jordan said. “Not so big, not so small. A rescue mutt!”

And now they were talking about dogs. Dion described sitting in the park this fall and watching dogs and dog owners at play. It seemed like a good, safe, amiable relationship. He told her about the coal-black pup he’d seen at the SPCA the other day, in the course of his duties, how tempted he’d been to sign the adoption papers and bring it home. He had imagined the pup following along on his heels and curling up by his feet at night.

But having a pet wasn’t practical, and neither was sitting here talking about it with a witness. He asked, “Do you recall what day you first noticed it, the bad odour you thought was garbage?”

“I couldn’t give you a date. It came and went.”

“That’s fine.” The other question that had cropped up meanwhile had somehow gotten away from him. He wondered if she could smell death on him. The tea scent pluming up from the cup in front of him was doing a good job of overriding the crime scene stench that lingered in his nostrils, but it didn’t quite do it, and still the idea of eating or drinking made him queasy.

“It’s nice, isn’t it, the bergamot?” she asked.

“Bergamot?” he said.

“These weird hours,” she said. “Do you always work this late?”

The solidity of the question brought him back to earth, and he picked up the cup and gulped the tea she had gone out of her way to make for him. It was nice, warm, comforting. “I’m on nights,” he said. “Seven to seven.”

“How awful.”

“Not really. It’s usually quiet in the shop. A good time to catch up.”

Randall’s voice came over the radio, saying she was done and at the car — did he need assistance? He replied no, he’d be out in a minute. He apologized to Ms. Jordan. “It’s really late, and you must be wanting to get to bed. Thanks for thawing me out.”

“It’s okay. I work quite late myself. I’m used to the hours. I work at the Greek Taverna, down on Lonsdale.”

“Really?” He was happy for an excuse to carry on the conversation. He didn’t want to leave, go back to Jackie Randall and reality. “I’ve had dinner there. Quite a few times.” Though not lately, and not in this life. “Great food. You’re a waitress?”

“Head chef, actually,” she said.

He watched her smile and wanted more. The low-grade lust he felt was nothing new. He was single, hungry, and easily infatuated. But of course nothing would happen. It was time to go, and he put his final question to her. “I know it’s none of my business. But this house, is it an inheritance?”

“Yes, exactly. My mom died when I was little, and my dad’s been here for the last fifteen years. He got ill in May, so I gave up my Lonsdale apartment and moved in to take care of him. Now it’s just me. He passed away last month.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dion said, and mentally kicked himself. What a completely unnecessary, insensitive question. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. And thank you. Yes, it’s strange to hear him shuffling about upstairs, looking for something. We’ll all end up like that to some degree, I guess. Looking for something.”

An odd statement, and an odd woman. He had the feeling Ms. Jordan was a little mad. The wind wailed, the ducts roared, the house creaked, and out in the car, Constable Randall would be growling. As they walked to the front door, he told Jordan to call if she could pin down the dates any further of when she had first noticed the smell across the road. It could be helpful.

“Yes, I will,” she said, opening the door. “What’s your name again?”

“Dion,” he said, and the question he had forgotten popped back into mind, a more particularized version of his first remarks while standing out in the rain. “You must have a pretty good view on the Greer house from here. Have you noticed any activity over there since you moved in?”

“It’s got a high fence,” she said. “Isn’t there some kind of bylaw saying fences can’t be more than five feet tall? That one’s at least six.”

He didn’t like the question. She wasn’t the kind of person who measured fences and lodged complaints, so what could it be but a deliberate diversion? He tried again. “I thought from upstairs, you might be able to look across, see if there’s anyone moving around inside?“

She shook her head, shrugged an apology.

He could think of nothing else. Standing on the front porch, he searched his wallet, found a business card, and handed it over. “Well, if you do think of anything …”

She seemed to find the RCMP crest — gold and blue, with its honourable motto — funny. It turned out it wasn’t the crest she was laughing at, but his name. “Calvin,” she said. “That’s so nice. Where’s Hobbes?”

Calvin and Hobbes was a popular comic strip, he knew. He was still trying to think up a reply — though what could he say to that? — when she spoke again, more seriously. “I shouldn’t laugh. This is obviously not the time for that. It’s just, I feel like we’re in a movie. You say, ‘If you think of anything …’ and now the bodies start piling up, and you save my life, or I save yours, and we end up falling in love. Isn’t that how it goes?”

He said, “That’s for sure. Good night.”

Randall watched him drop in beside her. He was still swearing at himself. Farah Jordan had all but offered herself up nude, and his response had been That’s for sure.

“What’s the matter?” Randall said. She had ridden shotgun earlier, but was now behind the wheel, looking about ready to drive off without him.

“Nothing.”

She started the engine. “Get anything good?”

“No. You?”

“Nope.”

A lot of time and one big embarrassment for nothing, then. They headed back to the city lights, leaving Lynn Valley and its secrets behind.