An Indecent Death (19 page)

“We’ll keep him in the car and out of the way for now. And then we’ll see.” He looked out at the street where two marked police cruisers were just pulling up to the curb. “I’ll go intercept these guys and make sure they don’t talk to Karl.”

Drumm walked quickly down the driveway and spoke to the officers. It was a short conversation. The uniforms went cautiously around to the back, checked and declared the garden shed safe, and then they spread out in the standard formation. In the meantime Drumm had determined that the garage was empty, the Lexus having decamped for places unknown. Drumm rang the doorbell and then hammered on the door with his fist. “Mr. Shaughnessy? Detective Sergeant Nicholas Drumm with the York Police Services. Open up! We have a warrant.” There was no sound from within the house. Drumm went through the ritual again. After a bit, when there was still no response, two of the uniforms came forward and used a ram to smash open the door. They stepped aside and allowed the two detectives entry.

It took only a couple of minutes to determine that the house was empty. One cruiser was sent on its way, the other remained to keep nosy neighbours at bay. Drumm called in to put out an arrest warrant for Shaughnessy, and then he and Singh split up to explore the house more thoroughly.

Drumm headed to the basement. It was finished as sumptuously as the rest of the home, carpeted and with a pool table and gas fireplace at one end. There was also a bar and a huge wall-mounted flatscreen TV. There was a small bathroom and a cold cellar. The bar contained a good assortment of liquors and various so-so wines, the bar fridge several types of beer.

The cold cellar was more interesting. There was a large wine rack, holding, Drumm estimated, about a hundred bottles. The entire collection was Puligny-Montrachet Clos de la Garenne, as much as he could tell without checking every bottle. It was the same wine that he had seen in Shaughnessy’s refrigerator. He’d looked it up, and discovered it was a dry wine from the Beaune region of France, its cost almost $90 a bottle. Looking at Shaughnessy’s wine cellar, Drumm whistled. Clearly the principal had expensive tastes, and just as clearly, he drank a lot of wine. How else to explain so many bottles of such an unusual vintage? Drumm was thoughtful as he went back upstairs. He checked the refrigerator in the kitchen and was surprised to see that the bottle that he had noticed the day before was gone.

From the office at the side of the house, Lori called to him. “Nick? You’ll want to see this.” Singh sat in front of a Dell desktop computer. She stood up, letting Drumm slide onto the chair, and moved behind him, staring at the monitor.

Lori had opened a folder called Vacation Pictures. It was not holiday photos, but pictures of Sarah Noonan. They had been taken in her bedroom and she was asleep or unconscious. As Drumm scrolled through the photos, it became clear that she was drunk or drugged. The first showed her on her back, dressed in a black skirt, white top and sheer black blouse, exactly the clothing she was wearing when her body was found. The following photos showed her in increasingly lewd poses, her skirt up, legs spread, tube top pulled up, until in the final few, she was completely naked.

“Animal,” muttered Lori.

Drumm glanced up at her. “As you say, Lori.” He went back to the screen and scrolled back. “Look at that one closely.”

Singh leaned forward for a closer look. There was an exclamation of disgust from Lori. “That’s semen on her!”

Drumm nodded and said, “He masturbated onto her belly. And then he took a picture of his handiwork. Sorry, no pun intended.” He right clicked on the photo to check its properties. The date stamp was May 12, 10:37 p.m. “It would seem that good old Jim drugged Sarah and then had his way with her, photographing every step of the way. Since she was dressed when we dug her up and Sigrid found no trace of semen, he must have washed it off.” As he was speaking, Drumm had closed the folder and was looking around for more. He opened another folder called Banking and discovered even worse.

The photos in this folder had clearly been taken later in the evening. The first one showed Sarah with a silk stocking tied around her neck, her tongue protruding and her face swollen and distorted. She was still nude. Then there was a series of shots with the stocking removed and her in different positions. Shaughnessy had arranged her like a mannequin. Then there were several pictures with an erect penis, presumably Jim Shaughnessy’s, in the foreground, the angle such that her body was visible in the background. The last couple were close-ups of her pubic area, the last one of all showing more semen dripping down between her legs and onto a towel.

Lori Singh was shocked almost beyond speech, horrified by these last photos. She managed to say, “What a sick man! Do you suppose he went even further?”

Drumm said, “It’s hard to say but I’d guess not. Maybe hemophilia was too much, even for him.”

Lori blinked. “I think you mean necrophilia, Nick.”

Drumm looked at her. “Of course I do. What’d I say?” He closed the Banking folder and searched for more but that appeared to be it.

“Lori, see if we’ve missed anything.” He indicated the computer, then glanced at his watch. The fisties would be arriving any time. “I’ll check out the rest of the place.”

He proceeded to do a quick search of the upper floor, then headed out to the backyard when nothing turned up. Drumm wanted another look at one of the items in the shed.

Lori joined him. “There’s nothing else on the computer that I could see. But maybe the fisties will find something.” She sounded subdued.

“You’ve got to put that other stuff out of your mind, Lori,” Drumm said. He looked straight at her. “It’s important. That was bad, but you’re going to see worse in your career. You can’t carry it all around with you. Get it out of your head right now.” He entered the shed.

Lori knew he was right. “I’ll try.”

Drumm made his way to the back of the room and then entered the smaller room where he’d spotted the garden caddy the day before. He crouched down beside it, then waved Lori over. “Take a look,” he said to her. She inspected it carefully and saw what he’d noticed. The caddy, folded away neatly, had been damaged. There was a small piece of plastic from the frame missing.

“What is this thing?”

Drumm was surprised. “It’s a garden caddy. It’s used to move things around the property; you know, bags of fertilizer or dead leaves.”

“Or bodies?”

“Or bodies,” Drumm agreed. “The big advantage over a wheelbarrow is that it folds away neatly when not in use. Not too heavy. We’ll leave it for the fisties to process. But I’m sure that’s how he got her out of the apartment.” He paused. “Lori, I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other day. Maybe there’s some truth in what you said. Maybe I haven’t always treated you equally. I still think that by and large I’ve done the right thing with you and Karl, but I’ll keep in mind what you said. And I can assure you, if I did offend you, it was purely intentional.”

Lori stared at him before realizing that he was apologizing, in his own way. She smiled. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, Nick.”

Hearing the faint sound of doors slamming from around the front of the house, Singh and Drumm headed back into the house. The fisties had arrived.

“Lori, stay here, please, and tell them about the computer and the caddy. I’ll join you as soon as I deal with Karl. I’ve gotta hustle before the fisties try to talk to him.” Drumm rushed out the front door and greeted Ken McIntee who was just about to speak to Wesson, still sitting in his Acura and holding his phone.

The Forensic Investigation Services Team and Ken McIntee duly briefed and sent into the house, Drumm was free to tackle the problem of his drunken detective. He moved over to Karl’s car and opened the driver’s door. “Get out, Karl, and get in the other side.” Mutely, Wesson did as he was told. Drumm slid behind the wheel. “Keys,” he said.

When they were out on the road, Drumm said, “I’m taking you home. You’re sick. You had something for lunch that made you ill.” That was almost true, he thought. “Lori Singh knows, of course, since you reek like a distillery. But nobody else does, unless you were drinking in public. Were you?”

Karl shook his head tiredly. “No, I was in the car. The bottle’s in the trunk still.”

“Damn,” said Drumm. “You drove over here drunk?”

“No, I didn’t. Well, only the last mile or so. If I’m even drunk, that is. I only had part of the bottle. And it was in an empty lot just down the road a bit.”

“You’re drunk, Karl. And you shouldn’t have driven at all.”

Drumm pulled into the parking lot of the next strip mall they passed, parked and opened the trunk. He found the bottle, emptied its contents on the pavement, walked over to the nearest trash can and returned to the car, sliding back behind the wheel. “Not a bad Scotch you had there, Karl. It’s a shame to waste it.” He pulled back into the traffic. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Karl looked at him briefly, then put his head back, tiredly. “I can’t remember. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

Drumm manoeuvred through traffic. “Karl, what is going on? You haven’t been yourself for a while now.”

Karl said miserably, “I owe a lot of money. I started playing online poker about six months ago; I wish now I never had! One of the guys at the station got me interested in it. Don’t ask because I won’t tell you who it was. Anyway, he was boasting about how much money he was winning. I resisted for a while but I took a look at it one night, created an account, used my credit card to make a deposit and I gave it a whirl. I won two hundred dollars that first night and I was hooked. I thought it was so easy to make money!”

Drumm laughed derisively. “Sure it is.”

Karl shook his head. “Now I know that was probably the worst thing that could have happened to me. If I’d lost, I might have given up but instead I kept trying to repeat that first night’s luck. And sometimes I would, but most of the time I would lose, like last night. And the night before.”

Drumm’s eyes were rolling at the stupidity of it. “How much, Karl?”

“I owe just over nineteen thousand.”

“Jesus!” He thought about it. “Actually, that’s not too bad. It’s only money. It’s on your credit card, right? So you can pay it off gradually. You can call them and make arrangements if you can’t meet the monthly payments. The important thing is to cancel your account with that website. And then you need some counseling. I’ve got a friend that can help you. Here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to drop you off at your place and you will sleep it off. You’re going to take a few days leave, for illness, and I’m going to arrange for you to get treatment before you’re allowed back to work. Treatment for a gambling addiction, and maybe alcohol as well. The guy I know specializes in treating addictions. This will all be done quietly; only you and I will know about it. The Police Services will never find out from me. And I will swear Lori Singh to silence.”

Karl was too tired to argue. Not that he wanted to, anyway. “I’m sorry I let you down, Nick. Won’t happen again.”

Drumm had heard that kind of promise before. Nevertheless he said, “You didn’t let me down, you let yourself down. And that’s worse. Now, get some sleep, get sober, get treatment and get back to work. You’re too good a detective to be dicking around like this.”

They arrived at Karl’s home. Drumm and Wesson got out of the car. “I’ll return the car to you tonight,” Drumm said. “Right now I’ve got to get back to Shaughnessy’s. You get to bed. Don’t turn your computer on. Later on I’ll be back with your car and we’ll sit down and you’ll show me the site. We’ll cancel the account together. And if I find out that you’ve added to that debt before I get back here, then I’ll be laying this whole story in front of Mark Chappell.” Drumm stared at him. “I mean it, Karl. Sleep it off.”

It was Friday, exactly two weeks after the death of Sarah Noonan. The FIS team had finished going over Shaughnessy’s house. No more photos had been discovered, the piece of red plastic found along the path at Hillsdale Park had been matched to the garden caddy in the shed, but nothing else of significance had turned up. Drumm was a bit disappointed, even though they had plenty enough to convict the principal. He’d been hoping to find GHB somewhere on the property and that hadn’t happened. And neither the principal nor the Lexus had been located. This was despite the fact that all the obvious escape routes had been alerted: airports, train stations, bus terminals, border crossings. The Lexus wasn’t anywhere to be found and Shaughnessy was still in hiding, despite having his description broadcast across the province. Drumm wasn’t worried, knowing that both car and principal would turn up eventually.

He was in his office, enjoying a cup of coffee, when Lori Singh came in. He was surprised, since she had been reassigned to another case.

“Good morning, Nick. How’s Karl doing?” Wesson was “on holiday”, supposedly enjoying three weeks’ vacation.

“He’s doing well, actually, Lori. I call him every night and he’s sounding better, more like himself. And when I’m done with Karl, I talk to the doctor. His reports are good, too.” Wesson had been admitted to a treatment centre in the country, a private and secluded facility. “He has a long way to go but he’s on the right path. Thanks for keeping quiet about it.”

“It’s the least I can do. Karl’s a good guy and he’s been decent to me.” She paused. “I’ve got some mail for you. You’ll want to see this.”

This was odd. Any correspondence would normally arrive on his desk later in the morning. Seeing Drumm’s puzzled look, Lori handed him a fat envelope. “Check the sender.” It was addressed to Detective Nicholas Drumm and the return address was J. Shaughnessy’s. The cancel on the stamps was Tuesday’s date. Three days to travel a few miles? Drumm guessed that was about normal these days.

“Prints?” Drumm asked.

Lori said, “The envelope has already been dusted.”

Drumm nodded, opened a drawer in his desk and donned a pair of gloves. He slit open the envelope, extracted three sheets of a typewritten letter, and walked over to the photocopier where he carefully made two copies. He sorted, collated and stapled, then handed a copy to Lori Singh, putting the original carefully to one side. Removing his gloves, he sat down again, picked up his copy and began reading.

Detective Drumm,

Forgive me for not starting ‘Dear Detective Drumm’, but at this moment I am not feeling particularly fond of you! After your visit on Monday, I realized I was finished. I want you to know I never intended to kill Sarah. It wasn’t supposed to happen.

You were quite right to believe I noticed Sarah and the way she dressed. How could I not? At first I was successful in ignoring her, keeping her at a distance. But then I started hearing the rumours about her, with Bill Deans and Callaghan and others, and I started watching her. Covertly, of course, and I think I was successful in being discreet. Gradually I grew fascinated with her. I noticed all the things she wore, the way her body moved, the way she carried herself. Obsession is not too strong a word for how I acted.

I knew I had to do something when I found myself trying to get a look up her skirt one day at school. The turning point came when I bumped into her one Saturday at the mall. She was wearing skintight jeans and a tight white tee-shirt. She looked like she had been poured into those clothes. It was more than I could stand and I went home and started planning how I could have her. I knew there was no way she would ever have anything to do with me. Maybe if I were twenty years younger, a hundred pounds lighter and still had my hair, but not now. There was no way she would ever agree to see me. But I
had
to have her.

I’d picked up some GHB at Pinehurst when I was principal there. I confiscated it from an eighth-grader. Most of it was turned over to the police but I kept some. I googled it and discovered quite a lot about it, so that I was pretty sure I could get Sarah to take it in a drink and then have sex with her. She would wake up and not remember anything. I knew that this was quite possible. It happens all the time.

So I showed up at her building that Friday night. I waited until there was nobody around and went to her apartment. I had a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet with me. I fell in love with that vintage a year or so ago on a trip to France and that’s pretty much the only wine I drink now. Anyway, I figured if anyone saw me going into the apartment, I could just turn around and try another time. But no one saw.

Sarah was surprised to see me but she let me in willingly enough. She said she was going out later but had a little time. I told her I had a sensitive situation that had developed at school that I needed her advice on. It needed to be discussed in private. I told her I brought the wine to make it easier for us, and as a thank you for interrupting her evening. I did it well, I was mysterious and I think she had no suspicions. Certainly she had a glass of wine with me willingly enough. And I had no trouble getting the drug into her drink.

Soon enough she got drowsy and was having trouble focusing. I suggested she lie down and helped her into her bedroom; I had to support her as she was so unsteady. I got her onto the bed and waited for her to pass out, which she did quite quickly. My plan was to undress her slowly and make love to her. Things don’t always turn out the way you plan them, however.

After making sure she was well and truly asleep, I flipped up her skirt and there she was, in all her glory. What a woman! And this was the way she went around at school! I got excited. My hands were shaking so much I had trouble holding the camera. Oh yes, I had decided to photograph it all so I could relive it later, as much as I wanted. She had on a filmy black blouse and a tube top, as well as the skirt. I started removing her clothes and I got increasingly excited until, when she was naked, I couldn’t hold back any longer and I just had to relieve myself. It wasn’t what I had planned but I was so excited, and I figured I had plenty of time to do it properly later.

I went out to the bathroom to get cleaned up and that’s when “the plan” went seriously wrong. When I came back, Sarah’s eyes were open and moving around. She didn’t seem to be able to move her head or anything so I thought I might be okay. But I guess I came into her field of vision and she saw me. I knew instantly she recognized me and I panicked. There was a pair of stockings on the dresser and I picked one up and put it around her neck and she stopped breathing in no time. And I stood there panting, and I could hardly believe what I had just done. I guess I was in shock.

I went back out to the kitchen to get some more wine and steady myself and think. Back I went into the bedroom to make sure she was dead, which she most definitely was. And I regretted it, believe me I did. I didn’t want her to die. I took the stocking off and put it my pocket, put the other one back in a drawer and went back to look at her. And, despite myself, I started getting hard again seeing her there all naked and on display, just for me, and before I knew it, I came onto her again.

So there I was: a horny old fat man who had concocted a sneaky plan to screw one of his colleagues without her knowledge. What a complete failure I turned out to be. I didn’t get to have sex with her at all and ended up killing her to boot.

After some serious thinking, I decided it was just possible that I could get out of the situation. I had touched as little as I could in the apartment and I had brought gloves to use. The next few hours were busy as I cleaned her off, dried her and got her dressed. The cloths and towels I used came home with me. I found her vacuum and quickly cleaned her carpets. I took the bag with me and a new one went into the machine. I knew it was possible that another tenant might hear the vacuum but I just had to take the chance. I wiped down her counters and cleaned the bathroom sink. I made her bed and I washed the wineglasses and left hers in the drying rack. Mine went with me, along with the bottle, which was so distinctive. I’m pretty sure the LCBO would remember the customer who had purchased eight cases of such an expensive vintage. I definitely should have brought a more common wine, but then, how was I to know she would die? I thought it was just possible that after I buried her, the police might think she had gone out and disappeared. Turns out that didn’t work so well.

I slipped out of the apartment and went back home. The wineglass went into a trashcan along the way. I came back with some rope, a plastic tarpaulin and my garden caddy. Once again I was able to get into her apartment unnoticed. I got her wrapped up and onto the caddy and out of there. It wasn’t easy and I was sweaty and nervous before it was done. I had some trouble getting her into the car as I just wasn’t strong enough to lift her into the trunk. So onto the back seat she went. But as far as I know, nobody saw me. It was well after one a.m. by this time.

I had decided on Hillsdale Park. I thought I could get her buried and maybe nobody would ever find her. But it was getting later and later and I was beginning to lose my nerve. And I was
so
tired.

It was dark there and the flashlight I had brought didn’t help all that much. I remember that I smashed into a rock along the path and I was so exhausted that I decided to just get it over with. I couldn’t have gone much further, so I picked a spot off the trail which I thought would do. I guess it was too close to the path; things look different in the dark. I got it done as best I could, but obviously it wasn’t good enough. I never expected her to be found as soon as she was. I went home and just had enough energy to shower before I collapsed. Early the next morning I thoroughly cleaned the tarpaulin, caddy and my shoes, and I washed all my clothes. I got rid of her towel and the cloths.

I’ve been debating with myself about whether I chose correctly in burying her. Maybe I should have just left her there. But I decided that I had a better chance if I hid the body. If she weren’t found for weeks or months, the GHB would never have been detected. If I left her in the apartment, she could have been found the next day. So I chose the park, and as it happened, I only gained a day. Which as it turned out, wasn’t enough. And it doesn’t matter now anyway.

Once she was discovered, I did my best to co-operate while throwing suspicion on Greg Parent. I don’t think you ever believed it was him, though. And then planting the stocking on poor old Pierre, that was clumsy, I know. But I was getting desperate. I thought you’d be after her husband or Parent and that didn’t seem to be working.

As for Lynnette, I’m sorry that happened. But she told me she had a friend at Pinehurst and I knew it was only a matter of time before she found out about the GHB. She and Cassie would talk about Sarah and what had happened to her, and then it would come out that I had taken the drug from that kid. And that would do it for me. Right now I’m glad that old bag came along and interrupted me. I like Lynn and hated having to hit her. I’m glad she survived – please tell her for me.

I heard you in my refrigerator and knew the bottle of Puligny-Montrachet would draw your attention. And when you came back, you would find my wine cellar. Have you found the drug yet? If not, look under the stone in front of the birdbath in the back.

Take a look in the woods on the north side of Boundary Road just west of Concession 12. You know where I mean? Northwest of the city. There’s an overgrown laneway in those woods. It goes in quite a long way. I discovered it years ago when I was out hiking. You might find something interesting there. There is no way I could go to prison. An old fat guy like me wouldn’t last a week in there.

For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it happened.

James Shaughnessy, BA, B Ed, MA

Lori had finished reading first and was looking at him as he threw down his copy. “For what it’s worth?” Drumm said. “It isn’t worth dick all.” He looked at Lori Singh. “Sorry for the language.” He pointed at the letter. “And listing his degrees! Like we’d give a shit. Pretentious asshole.”

“Well, that wraps it up, I guess,” said Lori. “And no worries about the language. I feel exactly the same. Interesting about the GHB, isn’t it? He kept some hidden. And here’s betting that he would have done it again, if he’d gotten away with it. Some other poor woman would have been given the old Jim Shaughnessy special.”

Drumm was nodding. “Yes, you’re right.” He stood up. “I’ve got to get out to his house and check out his birdbath, not to mention take a peek at Boundary Road. I’ve got a good idea what I’ll find there.” He turned to leave, then said, “Meet at The Cat and the Fiddle later?”

They agreed on the time and went their separate ways.

The pub was a busy place at this time in the afternoon. Lots of people liked to stop in on their way home from work; quite a number of them were enjoying dinner. Drumm found Lori Singh sitting at a booth waiting for him, a glass of wine in front of her. After he had ordered ice water, he told her about the rest of his day.

The Lexus had been located where Shaughnessy had said it would be. There was an empty bottle of Puligny-Montrachet on the passenger seat. The principal had been behind the wheel and he was dead – appallingly dead.

“It was a new one for me,” said Drumm. “No gun or knife or carbon monoxide for our Jim. No, he used a plastic locking tie. The sort of thing that’s used to tie cables together. Those things are impossible to break once they’re on. You have to use a knife or scissors to cut them off. He must have put it on around his neck after he fortified himself by drinking the wine. Then, just a quick pull on one end and it would have tightened immediately. He wouldn’t have lasted long. I’ll spare you the rest of the details.”