Scammed (14 page)

Then something startling happened: a black shape came tearing down the bank from above. It was the dog, who until now had been watching the proceedings. As the corpse started to slide away, Hatch raced down and grabbed it with his teeth. Aghast at the apparent attack, Greg realized his error right away: Hatch was merely following his retriever's instinct.

“No, Hatch! No!” Greg splashed around to the dog, grabbing for his collar. “Leave it, boy! Leave it now!”

Surprisingly, the dog did. Lucy had claimed he was well trained, and it was true. Mouth open, tail stiff, Hatch backed off, looking at the man expectantly. Greg held out his palm sternly. “Stay,” he commanded, and when it seemed that the animal would obey, he once again bent down to the body. As he adjusted his grip, he saw that Hatch's efforts had made a tear in the pants, ripping a back pocket. Sticking out was something square and white.

Greg reached down and retrieved a damp wad of paper. Holding it closer, he discovered that it was an envelope. Even in the pale light, its familiarity struck him like a blow between the eyes.

It was his own letter, the bait that had drawn the rat to the trap.

Had it been found on the dead man, everyone would know exactly where he had come from. And had it not been for the timely action of Hatch, it would already be on its way down the Cowichan River.

Quivering, Greg pocketed the missive, which had almost given the thug the last laugh. “Thanks, Hatch,” he whispered. “Oh, man—I owe you big time.”

Hatch wagged his tail.

Before anything else could happen, Greg shoved the body out into the river.

T
he next hour was a blur of activity, of which Greg later had little memory. Although relief was mixed with exhaustion, he knew he couldn't relax until all traces of the intruder's visit—and his own preparations for it—had been eliminated.

Having managed to get rid of the dog, he stored the tarp that had transported the body in the garage. Next he took the telltale letter, so miraculously recovered, tore it up and flushed the pieces down the toilet. Then he went around the house, checking for anything that the dead man might have left behind. He found a small backpack lying in a corner of the kitchen. It contained a flashlight, a couple of chocolate bars and some tools, but nothing to identify the owner. Nevertheless, he buried it in the woods. Lastly, he dismantled his watching post, and removed any evidence of the early-warning device. He wanted to get rid of all physical reminders of the dreadful night. The mental ones were another matter.

Only when it was all done, and the sun well risen on a bright day, did he allow himself to think of rest. A shambling scarecrow of pain and fatigue, he clawed his clothes off and staggered into the shower. The hot water hit him with a delicious shock. His head cleared—and he remembered the gun.

“Oh, Holy Christ!”

Dripping and stark naked, he stumbled through the house. God, how could he have overlooked the most important thing of all? It was lying in the studio, where he had so carefully removed it from its owner's dead hand. The fact that there was no one to see it didn't matter. What terrified Greg was that he could have forgotten it in the first place, almost as if some part of him had wanted it to be found.

With icy clarity, he recalled exactly where the monstrous little thing was. Throwing open the studio door, he almost screamed when it wasn't there. Fortunately, the shock was only momentary; his mental picture had been turned around, and when he looked in the correct place—there was the gun.

He rushed across the studio, so overwhelmed with relief that only after it had happened did he realize he'd actually done that dumbest of things: staring at the gun clutched in his still-dripping hand, all he could do was groan weakly.

But it was too late and—final surprise of the day—he found he didn't care. So his fingerprints were on stupid thing. Okay, before he disposed of it, he'd just have to wipe them off. Meanwhile, he was wet and freezing. He went inside, finished his shower, dried off and without bothering to put on anything, locked every door in the house and went to bed.

He didn't clean off the gun right away. Instead, he stuck it under his pillow.

• • •

He awoke at what he was astonished to discover was twilight, from a heavy and dreamless sleep. He felt thoroughly rested, but when he moved, every single inch of him hurt. Rising painfully, he suddenly remembered the gun, stowed under his pillow like a treasured keep-sake.
I must have been crazy last night,
he thought, fishing it out. Stripping the case off the pillow, he used that to wipe the weapon from end to end, then dropped it into the case and wrapped it into a compact bundle. Carrying it with him, he padded to the kitchen. Before anything else, coffee.

His bare foot almost immediately trod on something sharp. There were bits of shattered crockery all over the floor: of course, the mug the intruder had used, which Greg had smashed in revulsion and had not had the energy to clean up later. Stepping around the wreckage, he had a vivid memory of the man taking what would be his last drink—then stopped himself in mid-thought. There would be none of that. Not now. Not ever. He would put the whole incident out of his mind, lock it in some dark corner and throw away the key, and that process had to start right now.

While coffee was brewing, he swept up the mess. He then had another shower, which took away much of the pain, and made breakfast. He still hadn't put on any clothes, which, although a little chilly, felt good, cleansing. His parents had often in earlier years gone about the place nude, something with which Greg had never felt comfortable. Now, for the first time in his life, it didn't seem so strange at all. Out of left field came the thought,
Maybe I'm more like the old man
than I knew.

Though Walter Lothian's orneriness had been responsible for much of what had happened in the last weeks, his guts and feistiness had never been in dispute. If, apart from a shared taste for whisky and a newly discovered pleasure in being naked, Greg could find in himself some of the old man's rugged individuality, that would be no small compensation. When memories arose of this fearful time, bringing with them disgust or, God forbid, more guilt, what he had to do, he realized, was view the whole thing through the prism of his father's confidence and self-assurance. Then he would get over it. This was a startling idea that was also a considerable relief.

But what he needed right now was to take leave of the Cowichan Valley. Pack up and return to Victoria. There he could get back to his sane, sensible and, above all, quiet life, while things settled down, in the world and in his own sadly pummelled heart.

As for the gun, the best place for that was somewhere far away from the scene, preferably at the bottom of the ocean.

A
fter his strange and fearful existence of late, getting back to work was almost like a vacation. Each day, with its peaceful routine, was such a balm to his battered psyche that in a remarkably short time, he was feeling much like his old self. Not that everything was exactly the same. In the office, people treated him differently, seeming to notice him more, stopping to chat when a passing nod would once have been sufficient. At first Greg put this down to sympathy, his parental loss being common knowledge, but it was more than that. He was puzzled, until George Allrod, who noticed everything, provided a clue.

“Morning, Greg,” he said one day. “Glad to see you've come out of your shell.” Which, perhaps, said it all. For whatever reasons—the deaths of his parents, the frightening aftermath or the simple fact of having survived—the part of Greg that had always avoided interaction with his peers was no longer dominant. The difference was not glaringly obvious, but people evidently sensed it. Quite simply, he was better liked. Once he'd become used to this, Greg found it enjoyable.

The probate of the will was completed in good time, and Greg resumed going to the house by the river on weekends, getting it ready for sale. He didn't sleep there. That would have been too much. And his hours were spent in brisk activity, studiously avoiding all thoughts of recent history. He replaced the broken window and finished the clearing, cleaning and sorting of everything, including the contents of the studio, which he sent to his father's gallery in Vancouver. A huge exhibition and sale of the late artist's works was envisaged for the near future.

When Greg told his sister the kind of sum this was expected to raise, she was as stunned as he had been. They were aware that their father had once been quite famous, but in later years, his style had fallen out of fashion, hence the many unsold works. But death altered everything: the supply of Lothians now being finite, apparently every collector in the country was interested. The amount predicted from the sale was many times that lost in the scam; a mere portion of it would have provided the best possible treatment for Mary. The bitter irony of that didn't bear thinking about.

On a Tuesday morning, nearly two months after the end of the financial year, the second day of summer, Greg received a phone call at work.

“Mr. Lothian, this is D. S. Tremblay of the Victoria Police. I have some news.”

“Oh?”

“It relates to the theft of your ID.”

“Really?”

“Do you think you could spare a few minutes to come in to the station?”

Greg's heart had speeded up as soon as the caller identified himself. His mouth was a little dry as he said, “Er . . . sure. When would be a good time?”

They settled on 3:00
PM
that afternoon. In the interim, Greg continued his regular routine, but the calm that had begun to settle on his soul was disturbed. News about his ID could only mean that at least some of it had been recovered. Did that mean that the body of the thief had been found and identified? If so, the police would no doubt contact everyone whose property had been discovered in his possession. So this contact was probably just routine. Nonetheless, as Greg waited for the intervening hours to pass, he couldn't help feeling nervous.

He got to the police headquarters on Caledonia Avenue long before the appointed hour and filled in time walking about, so that being early wouldn't make him look too eager. But when he did arrive at Tremblay's office, the red-haired detective's friendly greeting immediately put him at ease.

“Thanks for coming in, Mr. Lothian. Take a seat. I hope you didn't have too much trouble getting away from the office?”

“No, we're not too busy at the moment, thanks.”

“Fine, fine!”

They chatted for some moments. Tremblay offered coffee, which Greg declined. He couldn't help noticing several pieces of what appeared to be his ID laid out on the desk. Noting his glance, the detective nodded. “Yes, that's your stuff, all right. Does it seem to be all there?”

What wasn't there, obviously, was the old driver's licence. That he had burned. “I guess so,” he said, adding, since not to mention it would seem odd, “oh, except the driver's licence. I don't see that.”

Tremblay shrugged. “Can't win 'em all. Lucky to get this lot, I reckon. You do identify these items as yours?”

“Of course. Er—how did you find it? You caught the thief, I gather?”

The sergeant patted his brush cut. “Yes and no. That's what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Hold on.” Deliberately, Tremblay rose and closed his office door. As he returned, he indicated a picture on his desk: a woman and two young boys. “My family,” he said, as if in answer to a query. “You have family, Mr. Lothian?”

“You mean a wife and children? No.”

The sergeant tapped his forehead apologetically. “Oh, yeah—you mentioned that, I believe, when you told me the sad story about your parents.”

“You remember that?”

Tremblay gave him a look of mild reproach. “Sure! Just because we couldn't do anything at the time doesn't mean we weren't concerned. Anyway, that's kind of why I called you.”

“You have information on who stole from my parents?”

“Not exactly. It's complicated.” Tremblay reached for a scratch pad and began to doodle. “The reason I asked you here involves a bit more than the fraud committed on your folks, or the theft of your own ID. You see, Mr. Lothian, my guys and the Mounties are conducting a joint investigation into an organized-crime ring operating in the capital region. Obviously, I can't divulge details, except to tell you that your ID was among a bunch of stolen articles we recovered just recently. To tell the truth, it turned up by accident, when we had the unexpected opportunity to search the premises of one of the gang. And
that
happened because the guy turned up dead.”

Greg sat very still. “Oh. But I don't see . . .”

“What this has to do with you? Nothing directly. I wouldn't be telling you, except for an odd coincidence.”

“What's that?”

“The guy I mentioned was found floating near the mouth of the Cowichan River. You know that river, right?”

“Of course. I grew up there. My parents' house is on the river and that, as I told you, was where my mother . . .”

“Yeah, sure! Of course, you know it all too well, eh? Sorry to have to bring it up, but—well—here's where the coincidence comes in.”

Greg strove not to show his growing apprehension. “What kind of coincidence?”

“You see, this dead guy in the river—shot in the head, I guess it can't hurt to tell you that—was found in a place where he couldn't in fact have been dumped. He must have floated down from upstream. We had no idea where he'd been put in until we got an unexpected break. The Duncan RCMP received a complaint about a car that had been abandoned. When they ran the plates, they found it was stolen. So they took some prints, just in case, and what do you know, they were on file. The thief was none other than our dead perp from the river. So, in finding the car, we knew the general area of where he'd probably got himself wasted. Now—here's where we get to the coincidence—do you know where that car was parked?”