Corkscrew (7 page)

"Hmm. Worth a check," Irv said. "What's the address?"

I gave it to him and then added the last name, the one that had me feeling a little guilty for encroaching on the man's privacy. "And the fourth name is Carl Simmonds, around thirty-eight, address West Shore Road, Murphy's Harbour."

"Be back with you in an hour," Irv said.

I thanked him and hung up, then called the local office of the OPP. The guy on phone duty was Jack Rinhardt, a friend of mine. I told him to take the boy off the missing list and then explained about the bikers and asked if he could contact the OPP special unit that'd been set up to deal with them. They might be able to give me a lead on where this gang came from. It was more direct than working from their descriptions, finding their names from mug shots, and then going through the criminal-records process I'd set in motion with Irv Goldman.

Jack said he'd do it for me, taking the notes himself and calling me back. He knows I'm alone here and need all the help I can get. Then I rang the third number, the insurance office in town. The secretary answered and put me through right away to her boss, Wolfgang Schneider.

He was with a client but took the call, anyway. "Yes, Chief, what can we do for you? Maybe increase the contents coverage on your house?"

"Next time, thanks, Wolf. No, it's not insurance this time. I've got a drowned kid, and the guy who pulled him in thinks he may have been tied to something up south of Indian Island, maybe thirty yards toward mid-channel, just off the southern tip. I was wondering if you could call out your scuba club for me and go looking for whatever it was." I added the same statement I always made when I used his services. "We can't pay for your time, I'm afraid, but we'll cover any out-of-pocket expenses. Could you do it for me?"

"Sure, I was just closing up. Do you know what we're looking for?"

"Whatever it is, there's likely a loop of yellow boat cord attached to it. I'd like your guys to bring it in if they can without touching it. I want to try for fingerprints."

"I'll get them some gloves," he said, his German accent hissing gently on the "s." "That's deep there, over thirty feet, I think."

"Yeah, and the bottom's weedy, so it may be hard pinpointing the place. I've got a few things to do now; then I'll come up to the point in the police boat, bringing the guys who found the kid. They'll know where you should look first."

"That would be good. When will you be there?" He hesitated and added a respectful "Chief." All the Germans I've ever met love rank.

"Two hours," I told him. I checked my watch. "Let's say seven-thirty."

His voice became dubious. "We would have light only for an hour. I'll get Roger to bring his underwater light."

"Thanks, Wolf. At least we know we're looking for a fixed object. It won't be drifting away from us."

"That's one good thing," he said. "See you there at seven-thirty."

The phone rang at once, and I answered, "Police chief."

A teenaged boy spoke at once. "Yes, Chief. I'm Cy Levine. My mother said you wanted to speak to me."

"Thanks for being so prompt, Cy. I hear you were going slalom up near Indian Island this afternoon."

The voice was cautious. I remembered that Levine Senior was a lawyer. "I was skiing safely, Chief," he said. "We stayed away from other boats, had an observer and a driver."

"I know, Cy, and I hear you're pretty good. The reason I'm calling is to ask if you saw any boats up near the narrows while you were out."

"Oh." He was relieved and eager to please. "Lemme see. There were a couple of guys fishing. They caught something, then left."

"I know about them. Anybody else?"

Another pause and he said, "There were boats, you know, but if they're not in your way, you don't notice. Like I was working pretty hard at the time." I could feel his ego swelling up, blocking out his memory of anything other then himself flashing over the waves. I burst his bubble to get at the truth. "The reason I'm asking is that those fishermen found a boy drowned and, I believe, he came from a boat. What you remember may be important to me."

He gasped, and his voice went up a fifth. He was a kid again, not a star. "Wow. Drowned. Yeah, well, that's different. Let me see." He thought about it and said, "There was a sailboat up above the narrows. It had a red sail. Not a big boat—holds two, you know."

I scribbled this down and waited. He went on. "Oh, and there was a green aluminum johnboat, the kind they use at the lodge near us to take the garbage over to the dump."

I wrote that down as well and asked, "Where was it?"

"Coming north through the narrows. As if it was coming from the lodge. Heading over toward the dump."

I probed to see if he remembered any garbage bags in it or who was driving, but he didn't. He had seen a biggish inboard/outboard with a canvas cover. He didn't recognize it but remembered it was green. And a canoe. The canoe had only one man in it. It was gray aluminum, and he didn't remember what the man looked like.

"Okay. Now I've got some other things to do. Could you please round up your friends and see what else they can remember? I'll drop by your cottage at dusk, in the boat, to check. If you could have them both there, I'd appreciate it. It's important."

"Yeah. Sure will." His voice sank again to its teenage masculinity. "Is this, like a homicide, Chief?"

"We treat them all that way, Cy," I said ambiguously. "So it's important. Thanks for calling. See you at dusk."

The next call I made was to Freda. It rang five times before she picked it up and answered, "Hello there."

"Hi, it's your landlord," I said, and she laughed.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about the deerfly situation. Here I am, a defenseless woman in a bikini, trying to get some sun, and they're gnawing on me."

"Understandable. You looked very bitable the last time I saw you," I kidded, then came to the point. "Listen, can you throw some clothes on and come down to the station? You know where it is."

"I ought to. You locked me up in it once." She laughed. "You want me to pay for my keep now?"

"Yes, this drowning is getting complicated. I need somebody to answer the phone while I play cops and bad guys. Can you help me?"

"Sure will. Be there in ten," she said, and added the typical actor's afterthought. "It'll give me a chance to practice my accents."

I hung up, grinning. What Murphy's Harbour would think when the phone was answered by an East Indian, a Mexican, an Irishwoman, or a Cockney, I didn't know. But Fred has a good mind, and she wouldn't play games with the facts.

It took only a few minutes for her to arrive, and I used the time well. I rang the lodge and asked who had been using their johnboat around four o'clock. They told me it was the owner, a guy in his fifties, straight as an arrow, to my knowledge. He had gone to the dump on his own. Right now he was in town at the hardware store, but he would call when he came back.

The other two boats were harder to trace. I called both locks and gave a description of the pair of them to the keepers, asking them to detain any boat of that description and call me, then rang Walter Puckrin at the marina and picked his brains. He knew the sailboat. It belonged to a Toronto schoolteacher and his wife. They stayed at the cottage up above the narrows. They had no phone, and I decided to call on them later. The cruiser might be any of a dozen he could think of or a stranger passing through our stretch of the waterway. He would make a list of the locals and leave it for me.

Then Fred arrived, wearing a peasant blouse and a light skirt that swirled when she walked. She came over and kissed me. I wasn't in a mood for kissing, but she compensated for that and told me gravely I was going to have to work on my pucker. Then she got down to business, and I explained what messages I was expecting and how to reach me on the radio. She did a nice Katharine Hepburn good-bye, and I took Sam out to the car. First I would drop the boy's film in at Carl's and wait while he developed it. Then I would visit the Spensers and try to find out more about the mysterious David whose picture had been in their son's pocket.

As I reached the car, I heard the whooping and revving of the gang of bikers speeding up past the station, filling the whole road as they roared by me. At the back of the procession there was a General Motors van with two people in it, a man and a woman. I thought they were visitors or thrill seekers following the bikers for the excitement. Then the driver turned his head my way, and I recognized him as the head of the gang.

I may have been overly cautious, but I've always found it pays to be prepared for trouble, so I went back into the station and told Fred to call the OPP and let them know the bikers were in town. And while I was there I unlocked the station shotgun and propped it under the counter beside her. She laughed, but I told her, "Just don't use it on any little old ladies. In the meantime, it gives you firepower if they decide to hoorah the place."

She slipped into a southern-belle accent. "Whah, Mistah Bennett, Ah'll take good care. Y'hear?"

I rolled my eyes up, and she laughed and punched me in the arm, but not hard. Then I kissed her on the nose and left.

Chapter Six

The bikers had stopped at the government beer and liquor store in town. Murphy's Harbour is small enough that we don't rate separate outlets for each, like you find in the cities, so the gang didn't have to stop twice to fill their van with wine and beer.

They put in three dozen bottles of white wine and a dozen two-fours of Molson Export. It was a heroic amount of booze for fifteen people, but at least they hadn't included any hard liquor. That probably meant they intended to party, maybe doing a little grass along with their wine, but not to get ugly drunk. I hoped so, anyway.

They worked quietly, ignoring me and not disturbing the other shoppers, most of whom waited outside until the bikers were through. Then they saddled up and rode off up the side road, going two by two like animals into the ark, moving at the limit.

I wondered if they were on their best behavior because I was there to see. Probably not. From time to time bikers play this kind of game, behaving like choirboys instead of the hoodlums they really are. People fear them, anyway. They can afford to walk softly occasionally. It makes the public more likely to come down on their side if some poor bloody policeman has to wade into them. If I was real lucky, they would be on good behavior all weekend, but I wasn't holding my breath. I was glad I'd informed the OPP.

I sat for a minute or two longer while the last-minute shoppers went into the liquor store, which closes at six. That would be the classic time for a holdup, before the day's take was stashed in the safe. But, as usual, nobody tried anything, and when the manager closed the door, I started up again and drove to Carl's house.

There was a polite sign over the doorbell—typical Carl. "May keep you waiting a couple of minutes. I'm in the darkroom. Please ring and wait."

I rang and waited, settling Sam down on the step. Carl's voice came from inside, singing up in the campy way he uses with customers. It's his way of letting them know he's more creative than the other people who live in the Harbour. "Thank you for waiting," he yodeled. "I'm coming."

Behind me a car went slowly up the road. I turned and saw the shopper who had been in the grocery store with me earlier on. He had a girl with him, heading back to town. He half waved at me, and his girl turned a plain face my way. I waved back and turned to greet Carl, who had opened the door.

"I'm sorry to tell you, Carl. The boy's been found dead."

He gasped. "Oh, no. That's terrible. How did it happen?"

"Can I come in, please?"

He stood aside. "Yes, of course."

I went in, leaving Sam out on the step. "Look, Carl. I don't think you're involved in this. But I've got two things to ask you, one off the record, one on."

"Glad to help," he said, and reached for the film. I kept hold of it, and he checked himself and met my eyes.

"First favor. Can you tell me, off the record, if the boy seemed like he was gay?"

"No." He said it quickly, and I cocked my head without speaking as he hurried on. "Not the least. No. He was anxious to talk, but just about cameras. He was a perfectly ordinary little boy." He hesitated and went on in a voice that had a hint of a tremor to it. "You're not saying this was a sex case, are you, Reid?"

"The doctor says no. But tell me, what did you talk about?"

Carl shrugged. "We just discussed photography. He was keen to ask me questions because he thought I was an expert. He wanted to know things about depth of field, and I gave him some advice."

I pushed the film toward him. "The second thing I needed—I was wondering if you could develop this film for me. It was in his possession."

"Of course." He took the film and turned toward the back of the house. "I'll do it right away. It's warm in the darkroom, but if you want to come along, please do."

We went into the little room with its trays and machinery. He turned on a work light, then closed the door. "Kodacolor. I've just been working with it. That's good; everything's set up."

He had a commercial tank that ate the film out of his hand so he could keep the light on while he worked. I suppose I could have asked him about the process, but I didn't have time to waste. I was working out what to do next. Spenser was the key. He may not be the prime suspect yet, but there was something about the picture of him outside the apartment building that intrigued me. Perhaps he had some guilty secret that the boy had discovered. He wasn't the boy's father. If the secret was big enough, maybe he had taken the boy out in a boat and killed him to ensure his silence.

Carl had taken out the roll of negatives and was holding them up to the light. I looked over his shoulder, unable to make out much in the reversed colors. He held them against a light and skimmed them. "Nothing very exciting so far," he said as he reached the halfway point. "Six—no, seven—shots of the gigglers who hang around downtown. A couple of boats."