Flashback (21 page)

'Good, what were they?'

'Well, first, he and this Hanson woman split up a coupla weeks back. She doesn't know where he is. That's the big thing, so we're lost for a way to find him.'
 

'Pity, but OK, what was the second thing?'

'The reason they split up.' Irv said. 'Seems his lady found out he was having a fling with some other woman, a film producer. She, that's the girlfriend, figures it's just a professional thing. The producer is older than him, although that doesn't mean much, hell, this Hanson woman is forty-five if she's a day.'
 

'Professional—you mean he was sleeping with the producer to get a job?'

'Wait, I didn't tell you the best bit.' Irv chuckled. 'The job he's after is something about being the honcho of a street gang.'
 

'And the producer is Marcia Tracy of Northlands Productions.'

'Absolutely,' Irv said happily. 'How d'ya like that?'

'It's tying up tighter and tighter,' I said.

'There's one other thing, something I dug out of her accountant, guy I did a favour for one time. And this could be vital. It seems this Tracy woman is in financial trouble. She had a coupla successes, but that was a year or two back. Now she's had four stinkers in a row and she can't get backing for her new movie.'
 

I didn't mention George's version of the same story. 'So she's in trouble?'

'Big trouble. She's mortgaged everything to get this new movie off the ground. If it doesn't go through, she's in a hole.'

'I don't see how it fits exactly. But it's a damn good motive for what's going on up here.'

We jawed a while longer and I thanked him, then hung up and the phone rang again. 'Hello, is that Chief Bennett?'

'Yes, go ahead, please.'

'This is Dr Baer. The woman has come round. Can you come in and talk to the Parry Sound officer, please.'

'Be there right away. Thank you, Doctor.'

I ran for the car and wailed up the highway. At the hospital I went straight up to Ms Tracy's room. The doctor was there, and the constable, who nodded to me. 'She knows the guy,' he said. 'His name's Hanson.'
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 11

 

 

I took my hat off and went over to the bed. Ms Tracy looked at me, moving her head painfully. 'I understand you found me.'

'My dog. He heard you over the noise of your air-conditioner.'

'Thank you,' she said.

'How are you feeling?' I wanted her to see me as the good guy, not the hardnose she had thought me earlier.

'I feel like death warmed over,' she said, and tried to smile.

'Nothing permanent's been done. The doctor will fix you up so there isn't a mark within a week.'

I sat down on the chair beside the bed and winked at the doctor. He took the hint and left. 'I'd like to catch the guy who did this to you. He belongs inside.'
 

'It was Eric Hanson.' She said it angrily. 'He raped me and beat me up.'

'We'll get him, I promise you. Tell me what happened.'

'I was just finishing my breakfast when he knocked on the door.'

'Was he alone?'

That made her frown. 'Yes, why do you ask that?'

'Did you hear a car drive up before he knocked? Or did you get the impression he'd walked?'

'I didn't hear a car.' The question has confused her. I wondered whether she had rehearsed her story or was still not functioning properly. 'Why do you think he came in a car?'
 

'It might have helped if I knew, that's all. Go on, please.'

'Well, he came in and I asked if he'd like a cup of coffee but he said no. He wanted to know if I'd finished casting my movie.'

'And what did you say?'

'I told him yes and he asked if he'd got the part he was angling for. And I told him I still hadn't made up my mind.'

'Were you telling him he hadn't got the job?'

She frowned and the effort tugged at the plasters on her face, making her gasp with the shock. I waited and at last she said, 'He's too old. There's an American boy, a dancer, if I can get him he'll be perfect for it.'
 

'And what happened then?'

She turned her head away on the pillow for a moment and when she looked at me again there were tears in her eyes. 'He got angry. He started to shout at me and I told him to leave.'
 

'And then what?' I asked the question gently, as if I believed those tears in her eyes were real. Her story was coming out too well, as if she had rehearsed it. Tears might have been part of the rehearsal. Drama was her life's work, after all.
 

'And he attacked you.'

She nodded dumbly, then wiped her eyes on the edge of the sheet. 'He and I had been close before. He'd always seemed so courteous.'

'What did he do?'

'He grabbed at me and called me a bitch. He said I'd only wanted him for sex.' She sniffled. 'He said I was too old to get a man for myself, that I used my position to take advantage of young men who would never bother with me otherwise.'
 

'And then what?'

'Then he tore my nightgown off and pushed me down on the floor and raped me. He kept on asking how I liked being used, the way I'd used him.'
 

It was possible but she was telling it too well. I've talked to a lot of women who've been assaulted. They don't lay things out as straight as this usually.
 

I played along anyway. 'Nice guy. And did he beat you up then?'

'Yes. While he was, you know, on top of me, he was hitting me.'

'Did you hit him back? Is his face marked?'

'I tried but he held my hands. He's very strong.'

I heard a movement behind me but I didn't turn, I wanted her to think that her story had my whole attention. Then Holland came and stood the other side of the bed. He said nothing and she ignored him and went on.
 

'And what happened then? Did you pass out?'

'I guess so,' she said. She looked away, at Holland, and then back. 'I'm not sure. I was hurt. I think he picked me up and kind of dragged me through to the bedroom. I don't remember.'
 

'Did he hit you with anything other than his fists?'

She shook her head regretfully. 'He hit me again but I was numb, I don't know whether he used anything else. Is it important? Look what he did to me.'
 

Holland was anxious. I could feel his excitement across the space between us but he didn't speak, he's a professional, this was my investigation.
 

'Did you know he took your car and rifled your purse, took whatever money you had and your credit cards?'

'I passed out,' she said and then, 'Look, I'm thirty-seven years old. I've been through a lot in my life but I've never had anything like this happen to me before. I was in shock.'
 

'OK. Thank you for your help, Ms Tracy. We've already put out a description of your car as being stolen. We'll circulate Hanson's picture. Do you have one at your house?'
 

'No.' She seemed sure of that. 'There's one in the file in my office in Toronto. Or you can get one from his agent. I gave you his name yesterday.'
 

'I'll get right on to it,' I said. 'You'd better rest now. We'll leave the policeman here so you'll feel safe. Then tomorrow, when you're rested, maybe we could talk about this some more.'
 

'Oh God,' she groaned. 'Oh well, I guess so, if you must. I just want you to catch him.'

'So do we, Ms Tracy. Thank you for your help.' I stood up and smiled at her, then nodded to Holland who took the hint and came out of the room with me.
 

'Got the bastard dead to rights,' he said happily. 'Description, complaint, hell, we can even get a photograph.'

'She's lying,' I said.

That stopped him cold. 'Lying? Don't look to me like she's lying.'

'That's not the way the attack happened. If it was an attack.'

'What are you smokin'?' He was angry. 'What makes you so all-fired sure she's not telling it like it was?'

'Couple of things. First her story. It's hard to believe a guy could hold both her hands and rape her at the same time he's punching her in the face like that.'
 

'It's possible,' Holland said. 'He's a big kid. I saw him. He's six feet anyway, one seventy-five.'

'Sure it's possible. But I've seen the room where it happened. There are no bloodstains on the floor where she says she was attacked, but there's blood on the wall at face height. Whoever attacked her rammed her head into the wall a few times. She'd have remembered that. And there's blood on the alarm clock next to her bed. Somebody hit her a few licks with that for good measure.'
 

'But like she said. She was dazed, she doesn't remember.'

'Ask the doctor, if you like. He said he couldn't see any clinical reason why she should have been unconscious when she came in. She may be faking this whole thing. There's a chance that Hanson did call on her, that he did even drive away in her car. He may even have screwed her but I don't think a few clumps in the head in the middle of all the sexual activity would account for her being so dazed that she didn't remember having her head banged into the wall later.'
 

Holland wasn't convinced. He cocked his head thoughtfully. 'What's your version, then?'

'I think she's lying. I'm not sure why. Could be that Hanson got snaky when she told him he hadn't got the part he was after in her movie. He may even have raped her, although a lawyer would get him off. According to my latest update, he's split up with his steady girlfriend over his affair with this woman.'
 

'So he's her boyfriend.' Now Holland understood what I was saying. 'They had an argument. He threatened to get nasty so she wants to get him sent down, just to punish him.'
 

'Exactly. It's even possible she banged her own face on the wall a few times, maybe even hit herself in the face with her clock.'
 

'But then what? You say the house was all locked up. Would she have locked herself in, where nobody would find her? That doesn't make sense to me.'
 

That was a fact which had bothered me as well and I turned my full attention to it. 'Maybe she didn't intend for me to find her,' I thought out loud. 'Maybe she was expecting some other guy, someone who would have found her banged up and gotten mad and taken after the guy she said had done it to her.'
 

'Yeah, but what about her car and keys being missing?' Holland was coasting now, shooting down my theory with cold hard facts. 'You mean she drove her car off somewhere, dumped her keys and money and then came back to her house and banged herself around so some strange guy, some Mr X, would feel sorry for her and climb on his white horse and go out to set things right? Come on, Reid. That's not the way it works.'
 

'I've sent the clock and some prints I found to Toronto for comparison. I'll know better when I hear back. Meantime we should find Hanson. He's tied up in this whole thing, the Jeffries killing, this assault, recruiting the Freund kid into a gang. I want him.'
 

'Put him on the air, then,' Holland said. 'And chase up this agent of his, get a photograph.'

'Right.' I recalled my reason for driving up here. 'Did you get something from Jeffries' place for my dog to track from?'

'Yeah. There's a pair of running shoes in my car. You want 'em now?'

'May's well. I'll make the calls. Could you leave them for me, please?'

Holland chuckled indulgently. 'This is a good scam you got goin', Reid. Whenever nothing's breaking, call in the dog and take a nice long walk in the fresh air.'
 

'He earns his keep,' I said. Sam had done more for me than the entire OPP in my years at the Harbour.

'OK. Call from the front desk. I'll see you there.'

We went out to the front and I made my calls. First to the OPP office to circulate Hanson's description and then to Toronto to ask the Headquarters detectives to pick up his photograph from his agent and get it out to all police departments on the Fax. Holland came back while I was calling and dropped a pair of running shoes in front of me in a plastic grocery store bag. They were pretty funky and I figured Sam would have no trouble picking up Jeffries' scent from them.
 

I glanced outside and noticed that the sun was low. I had only about an hour left before dark but I didn't leave right away. I went upstairs quickly to have a word with Fred. It didn't seem right to leave without doing that. She was lying back on the bed, but she sat up happily when I came in. I kissed her. 'Hi, love. How are you feeling?'
 

'Can't wait to come home,' she said. 'The nurse tells me I'll feel weak for a day to two but I can do that at home, can't I, just as easily as I can here.'
 

'What time can I spring you?'
 

'Any time after nine. Can you make it?'
 

'Hey, no sweat. I've even cleaned the place up.'
 

'Made our bed, I guess you mean.' She smiled. 'You need to make up the crib and all the other things. There's three of us now.'
 

'Bossy,' I said. 'You rest up and I'll be here at nine.' She winked at me and I left and went out to the car, carrying Jeffries' running shoes.
 

By the time I reached Ellis Lane and found the spot where the grey wagon had been parked it was dropping dark. But I took my flashlight out of the glove box and then gave Sam a good whiff of the shoes and set him loose. He ran back and forth with his nose to the ground and finally came to a point about twenty yards off, where he stopped. It was as I'd thought. Jeffries had left his car there and driven away in something else. So that was one good theory proven, to no advantage. I fussed him and let him try again but he just covered the same ground, so I called him off and drove back to Murphy's Harbour with him on the front seat and the bag with the running shoes in it between us.