Raw Bone (3 page)

He agreed to pull the receipt records by the next day but cautioned Aziz that pick-n-go sales were often paid for in cash, so the only record might be the inventory or a clerk’s memory. As far as the nylon line was concerned, every marina sold the same nylon line, “like chewing gum at the corner store,” the owner said.

Vertesi had headed for the yacht club. As he walked toward its entrance, he became certain that whatever the attraction of the Royal Dundurn Yacht Club was, it wasn’t the building. The wide and low white aluminum facade, with its white picket fence perched on top—an attempt to mask the facility’s heating and air conditioning units—would double quite nicely as an industrial facility for the manufacture of fast food placemats. Nonetheless, out front there was a proper nautical flag mast, while the marina and Dundurn Bay lay beyond. And, of course, the power of the name to inspire association not just with the city’s yacht set but the very Age of Sail had to be a strong draw.

When he presented a photo of the dead woman to Melody Chapman, the young facility manager, she tilted her head this way and that, as if the tumblers of recognition might fall into place with a little agitation, but in the end she shook her head. “With the economy being so bad though, some members do rent out their boats for cash.” She glanced through the window as if she might catch one doing so at the moment. “We frown on it, but the best we can do is insist that those renters are not allowed to use the facilities—not even the washrooms—unless they’re coming into the Nautical Pub for lunch.”

“Is it okay if I walk around and see if anyone else might have noticed something?” Vertesi asked.

“Of course,” Chapman said, “though not that many people are around yet. You have to be pretty committed to go out on the water this early in the year.”

She was right, the place was deserted. Then Vertesi spotted Ernie Reese, the club’s ancient gas jockey, checking the pumps. Reese looked at the photo for a long moment but then shook his head, saying he’d never seen her. Vertesi asked him if there were boats at the RDYC that would take runs into Cootes Paradise Bay across the way, especially late in the season.

The old man looked out to the far shoreline, rubbed his chin and delivered a response that identified him as a born and bred Brightside north-ender. “Strictly speaking, eh—no fuckin’ way—unless you’re talking a tin outboard or one of them dinghies or inflatables that’ll take ya anywheres, not in style eh, but shit. Mind—we don’t see mucha that in here, eh.”

After sending Aziz back to Division, MacNeice decided to make a final stop in the north end. Somewhat wearily, he climbed the stairs to the Block and Tackle Bar, overlooking the bay at the corner of Bay and Burlington Street. Built in the 1880s, the BTB was originally a roadhouse where lake sailors and merchantmen could have a pint and a room for two dollars a night.

It smelled of spilt beer and suffered a music mix that a banner proclaimed as “Where Authentic Celtic Meets New-World Country.” Judging by the customers—none of whom looked like sailors, Celtic, country or otherwise—they were more likely lured in by a sign declaring, “The lowest on-tap price-per-pint in the fair city of Dundurn.”

The owner, William Terence Byrne—also known as BTB—was standing on the porch with his arms crossed. After MacNeice introduced himself, Byrne led him into his back office, a crowded little affair that boasted more cases of Guinness than functioning office space. There was, however, a roll-top desk with three chairs. As the owner shoved the paperwork from the desk onto one of the cases, he eyed the detective. “I know you from the TV. You’re DS MacNeice, if I’m right.”

MacNeice nodded and put the manila envelope containing the photo of the dead woman on the desk, resting his hand on top of it. He asked about the bar and the rooms for let upstairs.

“Well, as you can see,” Byrne said, “it’s a humble but authentic Irish pub, and some of them fellers takes rooms from time to time when their women chuck ’em out.” He glanced at the envelope. “If you got somethin’ on one of my roomers in that envelope, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.
I’ve never thought they could do anything to get arrested, let alone warrant a visit from the murder squad. Hell, halfa them boys don’t have teeth and the other half can’t see for Jesus, and all of them are deef, so far as I know—you heard how loud the music is in there. And they like it that way. It gets turned down at eleven because of the neighbours and the six rooms upstairs, which I keep clean and tidy.”

MacNeice enjoyed the brogue. “How long have you been here?”

“You mean here at BTB, in Dundurn or Canada?”

“All three.”

Byrne cracked open the case beside him and pulled out a tall, slim can of Guinness stout. “You want one, or you can’t, I suppose, ’cause yer on duty.”

“Correct.”

He popped the can. “I’ve been in Canada since 2006. I sold the family farm when me ma died, twelve hectares near Dublin. Made a small fortune … well, not in North American terms, no.” He took a long swig of the dark liquid and licked the caramel foam off his lip. MacNeice noticed the downturned lines on either side of his mouth, how they contrasted with the laugh lines heading toward his temples. “Truth be told, I was had by a developer who wanted to do a working-class housing estate. But then, call it the ‘luck of,’ I got out just at the right time, ’cause the economy tanked. The developer decamped to Majorca just ahead of a lynching by the buyers he’d defaulted on.”

“So why here?” MacNeice asked, as he continued to study the man. Judging by the yellow stains on the inside of his middle and forefingers, he was a right-handed heavy smoker—which would explain why he’d been standing on the porch without a jacket, even though there was a red down-filled coat on the back of the door. Shorter than medium height, he was too slender for
his own good, with the pinkish complexion of someone whose body was close to mutiny due to decades of abuse. If his body wasn’t speaking to him, Byrne’s eyes should have—the whites were almost yellow and that wasn’t a trick of the lighting.

“Well, I could have gone to America or Australia, but to my mind they’re both full of macho men or fundamentalist Christians. So I chose Canada.” He said he landed in Dundurn and then bought the bar, which was a dump. But he’d been slowly investing in it, hoping that the rumour of Dundurn’s turnaround would soon come true. He took another drink, wiping his mouth with his hand. Then he leaned to tap the edge of the envelope. “Okay, your turn, detective.”

“Fair enough.” MacNeice picked up the envelope. “The woman whose photo I’m about to show you died, we believe, about three months ago, in late November or early to mid-December. I want to know if she may have been to your bar, or possibly rented a room upstairs.”

“You sayin’ she was a tramp and this is a flophouse?” He squared his shoulders in mock offence.

MacNeice put the photocopy on the desk in front of Byrne. “Not at all. I believe she may have been passing through, off a ship or off the highway.”

Byrne’s shoulders relaxed and he picked the photo up, studying it closely. “She’s pretty—well, she was pretty,” he said, meeting MacNeice’s eyes. “What happened to her?”

“All I’m prepared to say at the moment is that her death is suspicious.”

Byrne put the photocopy on the desk and ran the fingers of his right hand tenderly over her face.

“So you do recognize her.”

“Me, ah, no, I can’t say I’ve ever seen her before. No. She was pretty, that’s all. It’s a
shame.” He cleared his throat, then cleared it again and looked at MacNeice. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes, you can give me the desk register for the rooms upstairs for November and December of last year. I assume you do keep records?”

“Yeah, well of course, I gotta keep records like I gotta keep the kitchen clean.” He put his hands on both thighs as if he was about to stand, but then didn’t.

MacNeice picked up the photograph and held it in front of Byrne again. “You’re quite sure you’ve never seen this woman?”

“I haven’t seen her before.” He picked up the can of stout.

“I’ll need your written consent to remove the records from the premises, or I can come back with a warrant for them.”

Byrne began shoving papers around on the desk and then opened the drawers before he stood to look about the clutter as if for an answer. “The registers are somewhere in here … so, if it’s all the same to you, come back tomorrow with a warrant like, and I’ll give ’em to ya. Is that okay with you?”

“It is.” MacNeice put the photocopy in the envelope and stood up. “Not that I’m accusing you of anything, but if those records are missing, or if they’ve been altered even in the slightest, I will be prepared to have you charged with tampering, and trust me, you won’t want that to happen.”

At the door MacNeice hesitated, then took out his cellphone. “I’ll take your cellphone number in case I have to call.” He held the phone up, waiting.

Byrne gave him the number.

MacNeice punched it in and pressed the green button. A moment later, Byrne’s phone rang.

“Just checkin’ on me, I see, detective,” said Byrne.

MacNeice met the man’s eyes. “I’ll be here with the warrant at eight tomorrow morning.”

Walking back to the Chevy, MacNeice thought about Byrne’s response to the photograph. While it may have been an absent-minded gesture, or just part of the man’s theatrics, he hadn’t reacted the way one would if the face meant nothing. Glancing back at the BTB, MacNeice couldn’t picture that young woman walking in there for a beer, let alone to rent a room. But, in the absence of evidence, one is left with intuition: a hand’s gentle passage across a photograph of a beautiful face would suffice for the moment.

In the Chevy MacNeice took a deep breath and took out the photograph. Ryan had done an admirable job. Though black and white, he’d recreated the porcelain skin of her face and the gentle curve of her cheekbones framed by her hair. She looked like she’d just closed her eyes and was about to open them and smile. MacNeice put the photo back in the envelope. He called Ryan and asked him to find the residential address for Byrne. It turned out that Byrne owned a small cottage just a few blocks south of the bar.

MacNeice called Deputy Chief Wallace to fill him in and to ask for a warrant for the records, another to search the bar and Byrne’s residence, and wiretaps on Byrne’s cellphone and the land lines of the bar and home. And, while he was at it, unmarked surveillance on the bar.

“Based on what?” Wallace said.

“A hunch.”

“Christ, MacNeice, you know judges don’t like hunches. Can you give me anything better?”

“An educated guess.”

Wallace sighed. “Leave it with me. There’s a surveillance team I can redirect. They’ll be there in five minutes or so. Brief them when they arrive.”

MacNeice opened his CD wallet and took out Thelonious Monk. He slid
Solo Monk
into the CD player and, as he waited, let the light-fingered playing carry his thoughts down to the water and over to the shallow inlet across Dundurn Bay. The striding piano stripped away a myriad of concerns and allowed him to focus on the possibility of Byrne as a killer. It didn’t work. Byrne didn’t have the strength to crush the girl’s neck, let alone lift her and the heavy anchor over the side of a shallow draft boat. An aluminum or cedar strip runabout would have been unsteady, too, like trying to throw her out of a canoe. And, as far as a second man to help him went, he’d have had to be younger than those he’d seen at the bar. They were doing all they could just to lift a pint of beer.

A rusted-out blue Ford Windstar approached slowly from the south. The driver flashed the headlights once before turning onto the side street. He did a slow U-turn before parking comfortably between two driveways, one home to a tired old Chrysler and the other, a worn-out Lincoln with one of its rear wheel hubs rusted and resting on a jack, within sight of the BTB entrance and side door. MacNeice drove around the block and came to a stop behind the van. When the driver emerged, he was wearing a black wool watch cap, blue jeans, cross-trainers and a grey hoodie under a beat-up Harley-Davidson leather vest. He slid into the passenger seat—Constable Edward Radnicki.

MacNeice gave him a detailed description of Byrne: fifty years old, give or take, five foot seven, mousy brown hair, brown eyes, approximately 130 pounds, skinny, heavy smoker, wearing a grey blazer, baggy denim jeans. “He lives a few blocks up Bay,” MacNeice said, handing him a note with Byrne’s name and address. “I want him watched until a warrant is served tomorrow morning. And, taking into account the clientele you can imagine frequenting the BTB, I’d like a report on anyone that looks out of the ordinary.”

“No problem.” Radnicki jogged back to his vehicle.

Back at Division, he found a message from Wallace that the necessary paperwork would be on MacNeice’s desk before morning.

As he sat in his usual spot at the end of Marcello’s bar, it wasn’t to the body or the Block and Tackle Bar or William Byrne’s shaky performance that MacNeice’s thoughts turned. What came back was the moment in Cootes when the sun broke through and all the black tree trunks turned to zinc; even the smallest branches glistened silver-gold. It was early March and entirely possible that he wouldn’t see precisely that quality of light for another year. When it had happened, the sparrows around him paused and fluffed their feathers as if they’d noticed too.

He recalled looking back at the bay through the rain as he and Aziz had driven away. Like tiny islands, the remnants of ice that had imprisoned the body lay forlorn, left to drift and dissolve in the brown water. The landscape forgets over time; the bay had already forgotten. MacNeice wouldn’t. The morning, the ice, the hand and buttock, the once-lovely, near-frozen woman had all found their way to the stack of shadows where they’d be waiting for him.
While the zinc trees and the happy sparrows were no match for those shadows, he’d cling to them for a time.

His mind drifted back to when he was twelve or so, taking Silver, his golden retriever, into the birch, spruce and pine forest for the first time, climbing over the pink and quartz-veined bedrock with its crispy lichen and blueberry bushes—the latter picked over by his mother or by black bears—to go skinny-dipping on the other side of the Georgian Bay island labelled D-25 by the government bureaucrats that had sold northern properties to the public in the 1950s.