Fraser
wasn't sure what to make of the desk sergeant who greeted him when he arrived
at the 27th district building. He called Fraser "Nanook of the
North", seemingly a put-down, but there was nothing in his voice, face or
manner that suggested insult. Rather, he was open and friendly.
Nor did Fraser know what to make of the
man's question "Have you got a dog?" A few Americans he had met had
teased him by asking him if he had a horse. Fraser decided to just take
everything at face value until he had a reason not to, so he told the desk
sergeant about Diefenbaker. It seemed to satisfy the man, who proceeded to talk
about pigeons. Fraser waited for him to finish and came to the business that brought
him here.
"Oh, yeah, that case. One of the
detectives has it. Vecchio, I think."
The man pulled a sheaf of legal-sized
papers from a drawer in his desk and flipped through it. "Here it is:
request from the RCMP. Vecchio had it but it just got re-assigned to Detective
Huey."
The
desk sergeant leaned forward towards Fraser, as though to speak to him confidentially
although a heavy wooden desk separated them and all around was the noise of
police business. Nonetheless, Fraser leaned in closer too.
"You want to be nice to Huey. His
partner just got killed a few weeks ago," the sergeant confided.
Fraser made a politely sympathetic
comment and wondered whether the loss of a fellow officer had also affected the
sergeant's mind. The desk sergeant indicated a corner where Fraser could leave
his pack and bedroll, and then Fraser followed the man's pointing finger
through a door that led to the detectives' squad room.
Detective Huey turned out to be a black
man of medium build in a non-descript business suit. Even sitting down it was
clear that he was very tall.
Fraser introduced himself to Detective
Huey, who grasped Fraser's much smaller hand in his own large paw and gave it a
shake that impressed Fraser as firm, but not overly so. Detective Huey waved at
a visitor's chair and Fraser took it.
"I have to apologize, Constable
Fraser. I got the case last week but I haven't looked at it yet. We've had some
stuff happening here . . ."
"I
understand. The desk sergeant mentioned that you've recently lost your partner.
I'm very sorry to hear that."
"Thanks. So, this Mountie that got
shot – let me guess. He was YOUR partner, right?"
"He was my father," Fraser told
him.
"Aw, Geez. I'm sorry. So you and
your pop were both cops. You guys work together?"
"Actually, no. I've been on the
Force thirteen years and we never once had a single detail together. Never even
stationed to the same post."
"Well,
Canada's a big place, they say."
"Yes, it is."
There was a silence that followed but it
didn't seem uncomfortable to Fraser. He accepted that Huey would need time to
ease into whatever he had in mind to do or say next. After a brief pause, the
tall detective spoke again.
"Thing is, Vecchio had the case
before me and I was going to ask him if he'd done any work on it. Now's as good
a time as any I guess. Let's go talk to him."
The man rose and led the way through the
warren of corridors that made up the 27th. As they walked, Huey asked,
"What's your first name, anyway?"
"Benton," Fraser replied, as he
trailed after the American.
"Benton," Huey repeated. "I
like that. Unusual. Wish I had a name like that."
"I wish I could give it to you. It
causes me nothing but trouble. You really don't want to go through life with a
name like Benton."
They came to a heavy steel door and Huey
pushed it open. Fraser looked through it to a long corridor with holding cells
on either side. Just before going through, Huey turned back towards Fraser and
gave him a sad smile.
"Anything's better than going
through life with a name like Jack. Everybody's Jack. Somebody calls my name
in a crowded bar and ten guys at least turn around. I'm going to call you Benton, okay?"
Fraser was affected by the man's warmth.
Although he seldom made jokes of any kind, he ventured "And I'm NOT going
to call you Jack.
Huey's mouth widened to larger smile,
although there was a sadness in his eyes. "Call me Huey. You're all right,
Benton." He slapped the Mountie's
chest playfully with the back of his large hand then waved for Fraser to follow
him through the door to the holding cell area.
Huey dropped his voice to a whisper as
they proceeded along the hallway. "Let me do the talking. Vecchio's
undercover so I have to get him out of the cell without giving him away."
Huey stopped at the third holding cell on
their right. Fraser saw that it was filled with half a dozen men, a few in
jeans, tee shirts and leather jackets, one oddly dressed in a tight jump suit
and heavy makeup, and two similar looking smarmy characters, both in expensive suits.
The suits were talking to each other and the taller of the two
lifted his leg onto a chair, affording
Fraser a brief view of the sole of his shoe.
It seemed odd to Fraser that a man
wearing such elegant clothing would have a hole in his shoe. It was a fleeting
thought and he dismissed it. It was none of his business. He had no
jurisdiction here, except for whatever tasks may fall upon him in the liaison office,
and he wouldn't even know what those were until he reported to Superintendent Moffatt
the next morning.
"Can you read that? Does the label
not say Armani?" said the man with both feet on the ground, "Of
course it's original merchandise. A friend of mine just sort of found a
truckload sitting on the side of the road."
There
was a bit of an Italian lilt in the man's speech, not enough to be called an
accent. The two men went on discussing some business deal they seemed to have
going. Fraser stood quietly, watching and listening. He recalled the name both
Huey and the desk sergeant had used, Vecchio. Perhaps this brash Italian was
the detective undercover.
Huey beckoned to a guard standing in the
corridor and said in a whisper, "Tony, get me Vecchio but make it look
like he's in trouble, okay?"
The guard nodded and called into cell,
"You, Armani. Somebody wants to talk to you."
Vecchio shot the guard a disgusted look
and then glanced at Huey and Fraser. The man's good, Fraser decided. A casual
observer wouldn't be able to tell he knew Huey or that he was sizing me up.
With a putout sigh, the Italian slouched
his way out of the cell and into the corridor. Huey caught his arm and said,
"Come with me, pal. We're going to talk." The two moved off together
with Fraser once again trailing along behind.
As soon as they were back in the squad
room, Huey let go of Vecchio's arm. The Italian detective was not pleased with
the interruption, it seemed.
"What's so important that you had to
bust in on me right at this particular moment? I was this close to a
deal," he griped.
"You never gave me your notes on
that RCMP case. Constable Fraser here came down all the way from Canada. I wanted to show him where we're
at with it," Huey said evenly, not reacting to the other man's tone.
"Oh yes, the dead Mountie thing.
Well if he came all that way maybe he could wait a few hours. There's plenty of
time for him to go get his boy-scout badge." Then Vecchio turned and
addressed Fraser, "Sorry, Charlie, but I sort of have other fish to
fry."
"Look, Ray, you ought to have some
consideration. The victim was . . ."
"A fellow officer," Fraser
interrupted Huey. He had no desire to placate this angry, unpleasant man, or to
share anything personal with him. Just give the information to Detective Huey,
he thought, and then I won't ever have to deal with you again.
Vecchio exchanged a look with Huey, and
not so belligerently said "I hear you. Losing a colleague – that's tough.
Don't we know it? Come on, I'll get you the file. Only it pisses me off when
you bust in on me just when I'm about to take down the biggest operator in the garment
district for buying stolen merchandise."
Fraser had been beginning to think a
little better of the ill mannered man until he heard this last sentence.
"So, you were attempting to sell him a truckload of illegally obtained
men's clothing?" he asked.
"That's right," Vecchio shot
back, as he walked over to his own desk. "What's it to you?"
"It's none of my concern,"
Fraser said, mildly, "Only, isn't that entrapment?"
Vecchio lifted and examined several files
on his desk one by one, then slapped the desktop and let out an oath in
Italian. He went over to a filing cabinet near his desk, opened it, rifled
among some papers, withdrew a file and slammed the drawer shut. He held the
file out, waiting for someone to take it from his hand. Huey made no move
to take it.
To Fraser, Vecchio said, "Maybe you
can be all nice and polite and follow the rules up in Canada where the worst crime anybody
commits is fishing over the limit. But down here we got real bad guys to catch
and sometimes we got to cut corners to get our man."
"Hey, calm down. Benton doesn't need to know about our
problems."
"Benton?" Vecchio repeated.
"Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian
Mounted Police," Fraser introduced himself and extended a hand towards Vecchio.
Vecchio put the file folder he was
holding into Fraser's proffered hand. "Nice to know you. Jack, you think
you could get me back to the cell so I can try to salvage what's left of my
collar?"
Huey crooked a finger in the direction of
a uniform that was standing nearby and asked him to take Detective Vecchio back
to the cell.
Still holding the file folder in his
hand, Fraser watched them go.
"Look, I hope Vecchio didn't offend
you or anything," Huey said after the other detective was safely out of
hearing range.
Fraser took a breath and let it out with
a sigh. "I have to admit I'm glad you have the file," Fraser handed
the folder over to Huey, thus making the statement now literally true.
"Detective Vecchio . . .well . . . I hate to speak ill of someone I've
just met and I'm sure he has his reasons for being annoyed . . . but . .
."
"Don't be too hard on Vecchio. He's
had a rough time."
"It's very charitable of you to
defend him. Especially since it was your partner that was lost, not his."
Huey sat down at his workstation and
Fraser dropped into the visitor's chair on the other side of the desk. While
scanning the documents inside, Huey continued talking to Fraser.
"Vecchio's got reason to be upset.
Louis, that was my partner, he got blown up with a car bomb. Vecchio was the
target. It was HIS car, but Louis went to get his jacket, opened the car door
and POW. You see, Vecchio's got a history with one of our mob bosses. They grew
up in the same neighbourhood. We've got evidence implicating Zuko to the murder
but the brass won't let us run with it. So Vecchio's frustrated. Hell, we're all
frustrated."
"He must be feeling very guilty that
another man died in his place," Fraser allowed.
"You don't know the half of it. Vecchio
yanked Zuko's chain on purpose. There was this birthday party and Zuko's sister
was there. Vecchio figures if he hadn't made a move on her this never would
have happened."
"I'm not sure I should be hearing
this, Huey, if a lady's honour is involved. All I'm saying is: none of this
gives him license to act unethically. Nor to be rude to a visiting
officer."
"Well, I guess not, but you got to
give the guy a break. He's got all kinds of reasons to think he was responsible
for Louis getting killed. So he's sort of bummed. Not thinking straight, you
know. Hell, it's been hard on all of us."
The other man's sympathy for his
co-worker and his downplaying of his own grief impressed Fraser. "Yes, I
imagine so. I wonder if Detective Vecchio is too distracted to notice his
victim's shoes?"
Huey popped his head up from the papers
at which he was looking. "Shoes?"
"His man in the cell. He had a hole
in his shoe. I'm not familiar with your city, but I would think a man who is,
as Detective Vecchio puts it, the biggest operator in the garment district,
would be careful with his grooming and dress. I doubt he would go out in public
with a hole in his shoe."
"Well, I'll be damned," Huey
let out a low appreciative whistle. "We better go tell Vecchio. This could
be a set up."
"I'll leave that to you. As far as
I'm concerned, if an officer uses illicit tactics he deserves whatever happens
to him."
Fraser
leaned over the desk to try to make out some of the information on the papers
that lay open before Huey. "Are you finding anything useful in there?"
"Um, I'll need a little while to go
through this. Want to give me a number where I can find you tomorrow?"
The papers that Fraser could see, upside
down to his point of view, all were on RCMP letterhead. Correspondence from
Fraser's own detachment, no doubt. Nothing that looked like case notes or the report
of any investigation that may have been done here in the States. Fraser didn't
think it would take anybody more than a few minutes to look through it. Still,
Detective Huey seemed to want to stall and Fraser saw no advantage in pushing
the man. Perhaps Huey was simply embarrassed that nothing had been done on the
case.
Fraser
had been expecting the Americans to give his case very little attention but he
hadn't expected that the reason for that neglect would be that they were
absorbed in high drama of their own, complete with murder, mob intrigue and
forbidden romance.
Fraser consulted his notebook and rattled
off the main telephone number of the Consulate. "I don't know what my
extension will be. Actually I don't even know what my duties will be. But you
should be able to reach me through the switchboard."
Huey handed Fraser one of his own
business cards. "And you feel free to give me a call any time."
Fraser thanked him kindly and was further
impressed by the man's courtesy when he rose to escort him out of the station.
Assuring him that he could find his own way, the Mountie headed out. It was fortunate,
he decided, that his father's case had ended up with Detective Huey. Working
with Detective Vecchio would have been a thoroughly unpleasant experience.
Vecchio stopped beside Huey's desk while
Huey sat listlessly flipping through a number of files wondering which, if any,
to tackle that afternoon. He could always just go home pleading sickness and Lieutenant
Welsh wouldn't mind, but rattling around his house all alone wasn't going to be
any cheerier than hanging around the squad room. At least here it was noisy.
Huey liked noise these days and hated quiet.
"I've got your man," Vecchio
said, distracting Huey's attention. "Frankie Drake. Good chance he's the
shooter but he'd have to be hired by somebody."
"Vecchio, what the hell are you
talking about?" the distraction should have been welcome but Huey wasn't
in the mood for Vecchio right now.
"The Mountie case. I looked into
that list of names. I still had a photocopy in my desk drawer. I checked with
the American Dental Association and one of those dentists isn't current with
his dues. Seems he's been dead for twelve years. So I called up the other dentists
and one of them had a picture of the guy pretending to be Dr. Lawrence Medley.
Soon as I saw the picture I says to myself: I know this character. Hit man, one
of the best." Vecchio dropped a sheaf of computer printouts on Huey's
desk, complete with photo.
"How come you're still working the
case? It's my case now."
Vecchio grimaced. "I figured I owed
Dudley Do Right a favour. That garment guy I was trying to set up - I did some
digging after you told me about the shoe. Turns out he was Internal Affairs
trying to entrap me into entrapping him. What a racket. Anyway, if you see the
redcoat tell him I said . . . hey Lieutenant!"
Lieutenant Welsh was passing by the desk
as Ray was saying this. He stopped when he heard Vecchio's call.
"Yeah, Vecchio."
"Zuko. Are you going to let us haul
him in today?"
"Zuko. You want to talk about Zuko,"
Welsh waggled two fingers to summon the two detectives closer. "You two
asked me that yesterday and I said no. Now, it may amaze you to hear that no
new evidence has come to light in the last twenty-four hours so the answer is
still no. And it is going to be no tomorrow and the next day and the next day
after that unless I see something more definite to tie Zuko directly to the bombing."
"Explosives buried in his yard.
That's not definite enough?" Vecchio demanded.
"It's too definite. You of all
people should know that, Vecchio. You know Zuko's not that stupid. Look, I'd
like to see Zuko go down but not if it means letting Louis' real killer go
free. Maybe this is something useful here, gentlemen?" Welsh indicated the
printouts Ray had just given Huey.
"Um, no sir. This is a lead in the
Mountie case," Huey said. "One of their constables came down all the
way from Canada so we figured we'd better put a
little time into it."
Welsh wasn't interested in the Mountie
case. "What did you learn when you canvassed Zuko's neighbours?"
Vecchio and Huey both lowered their
heads, avoiding their boss' gaze.
"Well? Did the Captain herself not
suggest you two go out and do that?"
"Didn't make sense to do it, sir.
One, Zuko was at his own birthday party all that night – we saw him there
ourselves and two, everybody on that street is beholding to him. Nobody's going
to tell us anything Zuko doesn't want us to hear. That's my neighbourhood,
Lieutenant. I know how things work there," Vecchio explained.
Welsh rubbed his forehead with the palm
of his meaty hand. "I can't take Zuko in on what we have. I need more. If
you want me to hand the case off to another district, maybe somebody more
objective . . ."
"No!" the two detectives
shouted in unison, causing heads to turn from all around the squad room.
"Good. Maybe get your Mountie to
help out. They always get their man, don't they?" Welsh said and moved
off.
"You know, that's not half bad an
idea," Vecchio said, a little thoughtfully. "Dudley's a looker. Take him and that
fancy uniform of his when you go see Drake's ex-wife."
"I'm going to see Drake's ex?"
Huey repeated.
"She's the best lead you have. We
don't have an up-to-date address for Drake. She'll help you out. He slammed her
arm in a car door. Repeatedly. She'll help you, all right."
"Well, thanks Ray. You want to come
along on this one? Seems you ought to. You took it this far."
"Nah. You and Mister Fancy Pants
have your fun." With that, Vecchio left.
Huey bent down to study the folder in
front of him.
Huey got only Fraser's voicemail when he
called the Mountie that afternoon. About 4:30 he called again and zeroed out to
a receptionist who told him Constable Fraser was on guard duty and wouldn't be answering
calls at all that day. He asked when the Constable would be finished his shift
and, to his surprise, the woman obligingly told him
Constable Fraser would be off duty at 5:00 pm. Putting down the receiver Huey
mused that whatever guard duty was, it was pretty innocent of the Canadians to
answer him straight out when it would be over.
When he drove up in front of the
Consulate a few minutes before five, Huey saw why it was no security breach to
tell him exactly what Benton's hours were. There was the poor Mountie standing
motionless in front of the door like one of those guys outside the Queen's
palace in England. Huey sat is his car and waited
while a knot of jeering boys
mocked the Mountie and a couple of
scantily dressed teenaged girls primped in front of him. Poor bastard. Is this
what cops had to do in Canada? No wonder they needed American help to catch their
murderer.
Bells from a church up the street from
the Consulate rang five times and at the very last chime, Fraser came to life.
He rocked briefly back and forth on his feet (Huey supposed he was trying to
get some circulation back) and wiped a couple of sticking spitballs from his left
cheek. Then the Mountie noticed Huey sitting there in his car and came over.
"You have something," the
Canadian said, without preamble.
"Yeah. A lead. Get in."
"Maybe I should go change first. We
don't usually wear the red serge in the street."
"You look fine. Climb aboard and
I'll fill you in while we drive."
Fraser took just another moment to run
the front of his boots against the backs of his pant legs to wipe away the
traces of ice cream some passing school children had dropped on him. As he
opened the door on the passenger side of Louis' car he observed, "I really
shouldn't come with you. Officially I'm not supposed to be working the
case."
Howeverhe
was already in the car and his hat was on the dashboard in front of him by the
time the sentence was finished. The wide Stetson wouldn't stay on its perch
however and slid to the car's floor. With a little grimace of embarrassment,
Fraser picked up his hat and kept it on his lap.
Huey
drove off.
The sun was only just beginning to set by
the time they drove up in front of the decrepit bungalow that was the home of
Mrs. Drake. Fraser and Huey got out of the car and started up the front path.
Fraser
paused and turned so that only his profile was facing the house. Then he
confused Huey by squatting on the ground.
"Follow my lead," he said
softly, looking up at Huey. Then the Mountie touched his forefinger to a bit of
dirt on the front walk, brought the finger to his lips and tasted the substance
he had picked up.
"Eat stuff from the ground. I don't
think so, man. Is that a Canadian thing?" sniffed Huey, amused.
"Turn so that your face is partially
away from the house and talk to me seriously, as though we were discussing
something I found," Fraser instructed.
The Mountie seemed pretty sure of himself
so Huey shifted slightly so that he was turned about 45 degrees away from the
house. "Why am I turning away?"
"To make it difficult for her to
read your lips, in case she just happens to know how."
"Her?"
"The woman at the window. She's been
watching since we drove up. That may be Mrs. Drake. If so, I want to get her
off balance, make her think we found something but of course she won't even
begin to be able to guess what it is we found on the ground."
Huey knew better than to look at that
moment. Instead he kept his eyes on Fraser, saying "Messing with her mind
from a distance. You're one crafty bastard, Benton."
"I'm no Dudley Do-Right if that's
what you mean," Fraser agreed. "Well, that's enough." He rose to
a standing position and then motioned Huey to lead the way to the front door.
Once inside, they played "bad
cop/good cop" together so well that it felt to Huey as though they had
been working together for years.
As
they drove off from the house in the direction of the address given to them by
Mrs. Drake, Fraser commented that in fact it had been too easy, which found he
worrisome. Huey had to agree. They came very close to turning around but
neither man was comfortable with just giving up the idea.
Huey started up a train of thought that
Fraser found interesting while they were stopped at a red light. "Okay,
suppose we figure this is probably a set up but we still want to go, just in
case there's something we can learn."
"That would be a fair
supposition," Fraser allowed.
"We go in with our eyes open, we're
extra careful, we're crafty bastards," Huey turned to smile at the Mountie
as he said this.
"Agreed, but is that
sufficient?" Fraser asked, and the comment reminded him of how much he had
enjoying being complimented earlier in the evening. He didn't experience that
often.
"How about I call for back-up?
There's still risk but we . . . what's the word . . ."
"Mitigate," Fraser supplied.
"We mitigate the risk."
"Yeah. Are you game, Benton?"
"Huey, let's do it."
When the light changed, Huey gunned the
car causing a dramatic squeal of the tires. For the first time since Louis
died, he was excited about doing something.
Fraser wasn't entirely sanguine about
Huey's kicking the apartment door open, but since the Mountie had no
jurisdiction he decided that therefore he had no responsibility. Huey went in
first, pistol at the ready, and swept through the rooms one by one to find them
all deserted. Fraser followed after, his right hand feeling empty without the familiar
touch of his own gun. I might as well be naked, he was thinking as he made his
way through a short, dark corridor towards the living room where Huey had
opened a window to signal to the patrol car
outside where he was. Fraser was about to
suggest to Huey to put on a light when his night-vision kicked in and he made
out the trip wire just behind Huey. Huey had stepped right across it on his way
toward the window.
"You know, Benton . . ." Huey started saying.
He turned away from the window and took a step back towards the centre of the
room, bringing his right shoe close to the wire. Without thinking about it,
Fraser lunged at him, caught the larger man off balance and spun him around 180
degrees, then shoved him through the window. But Huey's foot still tripped the
wire leaving Fraser to take the brunt of the explosion while the American careened
out the window, flipped over, bounced off a canopy and landed unhurt on a fully
laden vegetable stand.
Huey
did make a point of stopping off to check on Diefenbaker before visiting Fraser
in the hospital. It didn't make much difference to the wolf but it made Huey
feel good to be able to report to the Canadian every night that he had seen his
wolf and he was fine.
Fraser tilted his head to the side to
indicate that Huey's latest offerings should be stowed on his bedside table.
The motion sent a jolt of pain through his neck and he let out a deep groan,
dispelling any air of stoicism he may have been trying to convey.
Huey sat down on a chair beside the bed,
wearing an expression almost as pained as the Mountie's.
"I messed up," he said contritely.
"Don't. It was my own fault. I'm not
so crafty after all," Fraser automatically edited out the word bastard
from his own speech, for all that he had enjoyed the sense of camaraderie that
came from hearing Huey apply it to him.
Huey shuffled his large feet against the
hospital linoleum. "You better not be my partner anymore, Benton. I'm bad
luck."
Even with the distraction of his own
pain, Fraser felt the man's very real distress. It was touching. Fraser's mind
focused then on a single word of Huey's: partner. He'd never had a partner
before, unless you counted Diefenbaker and he wasn't officially a member of the
Force. Huey's use of the word touched Fraser and he was casting about in his mind
for something tender but not too embarrassing to say to his new friend when a
nurse came into the room.
The nurse automatically reached for the
curtain around Fraser's bed so that she could change the patient's catheter bag
and top up his medication out of the view of the visitor. Fraser said to her
"No, leave it. I don't mind if my partner sees."
Huey's eyes moistened slightly and Fraser
saw the tautness in his face relax a little. As though somehow bestowing a
reward for saying just the right kind word at the right time, the narcotic hit
Fraser's brain.
But Huey wasn't quite finished dumping on
himself. "I'm just cursed, man. First Louis gets blown up, now you."
"Louis and Huey. I have to change my
name to Dewey," Fraser said, slowly losing his bearings.
"Say what?"
"Ducks. You and your partner are ducks.
Huey, Louis, now you have to have Dewey. I'm going to be a duck. I'm going to
be Dewey."
Huey had to chuckle with amusement.
"You're pretty dewey already. Man, you're feeling no pain."
"I'm feeling no pain," Fraser
agreed dreamily, "I'm going to be a duck."
"You can't. You don't have
jurisdiction," Huey teased him.
"I'm going to be an honourary
duck," Fraser insisted. By then he had reached the end of his ability to
formulate a sentence and drifted off to sleep.
Huey had no particular place to go at
this hour. He was too tired to work on a case and didn't want to face going
home to his too-empty, too-quiet house. Anyway, it felt somehow appropriate to
sit at the Mountie's bedside. He picked up the magazine he had brought and flipped
through it, to the background music of Fraser's gentle snores
and occasional mutterings.
This tranquil scene was interrupted by
Detective Vecchio sauntering into Fraser's room, clomping loudly. "Hey,
what's happening here!" he called out to no one in particular as he came
in.
"Shhh. You'll wake him."
Vecchio had a Tupperware container in one
hand and a bunch of carnations in the other. Huey found Vecchio's presence
suspicious. After tracking down Drake, the Italian hadn't evinced any further interest
in the Mountie or his doings.
"Go ask the nurses for a jar for
those. There's never enough vases so the staff bring jam jars from home and
keep them at the nurses' station," Huey said, not bothering to hide his
annoyance.
Vecchio paused, as though debating
whether or not to argue, then, with a shrug, put the plastic container on
Fraser's table beside the pastries and went out with his flowers.
Huey removed the lid from the Tupperware
container and the smell of oregano and tomato sauce went wafting through the
room.
"My mom doesn't think hospital food
is fit for human consumption," Vecchio said, coming back into the room
with his flowers in a jar half-filled with water. He set the flowers on the
windowsill, in the company of a half dozen other such makeshift arrangements
all flanking one elegant floral display sent by the Canadian Consulate.
The flowers being safely set in place, Vecchio
scanned the ward for a spare chair for himself but there was none to be had. He
shrugged and dropped down onto the end of the Mountie's bed. The bounce of the mattress
roused Fraser just enough for him to acknowledge someone in the room but not enough
to bring him out of lalaland.
"Any particular reason you're here,
Ray?" Huey wanted to know.
"What, can't a fellow visit a friend
in the hospital?"
"You and Benton aren't exactly
friends. What gives?"
Vecchio didn't answer directly but he
looked at his watch and then turned to the door between the ward and the
corridor.
"You're waiting for somebody?"
"Shhh. You'll wake him," Vecchio
jabbed a thumb in the direction of Fraser in his bed and grinned.
"You're not funny, Ray."
"Me? I'm always funny. Hey, what are
these?" Vecchio opened the bakery box, helped himself to a rum ball and
bit into it.
"Those are for Benton."
Ray leaned over the sleeping man.
"Mind if I take one of these? I thought not." And he continued to
munch.
"So have you told him the latest
about his case?" Vecchio asked, licking bits of chocolate sprinkles from
his fingers.
Huey looked over to the sleeping Fraser.
He looks like a little kid, he thought. Everybody looks so innocent when
they're asleep, even me I guess. "Naw, he's too out of it. But, damn,
we're close. Elaine's checking out the calls from the phone booth outside that
apartment and outside Drake's favourite bars. That apartment we went to didn't
have
a phone line. You got anything new on Zuko?"
"I don't have squat," Vecchio
admitted. Then he fell silent and checked his watch again. Huey watched Vecchio
tap his fingers impatiently for a few more minutes then Vecchio reached for
another rum ball. Huey slapped at his hand.
"Leave some for Benton."
"Screw," muttered Vecchio, but
he drew his hand back, and looked at his watch yet again.
"It's thirty fucking seconds later
than the last time you looked at that watch. Who are we waiting for?"
"None of your business."
"I'm sitting right here and I'll see
who it is, so it'll be my business soon."
"I said screw."
Huey sighed. "Look, Ray. Ever since
Louis died you've been going out of your way to be a son-of-a-bitch. I'm the
one that should be all bummed, Louis was my partner."
That finally got a reaction from Italian.
"It should have been me, Jack," he cried out, "That bomb was
meant for me. I shouldn't even be here now."
They heard a woman's voice interrupt, saying,
"I'm glad you ARE here, Ray."
The woman standing in the doorway leading
to the corridor was thin of body and features, but more gaunt than attractively
slim. Her expression was tight and serious. "I'm sorry about that other detective,
but I'm just glad you're alive."
"I'll be damned," Huey said,
under his breath. But his mother had trained him well. No matter how much he
disapproved of the latest visitor, she was female and that required him to rise
and give up his chair for her.
"Uh, Irene, this is Detective Huey.
Louis' partner," Ray introduced.
"You didn't say there was actually a
sick person here, Ray. When you said to meet you in a hospital room, I thought
you meant an empty room." Irene said to Vecchio, while looking guiltily at
the unconscious Fraser.
"He's not really sick. More like,
blown up," Ray offered.
"You set this up! What the hell!
Ray, you and your girlfriend are using Benton's room for a rendez-vous. That's
low, Ray. That's really low."
"Keep your shirt on. Frank's goons
follow her around everywhere she goes in public and I can't get near the house.
They can follow Irene to the hospital but nobody can get in this room unless we
see them. There's no safe place for us to talk, Jack. The Mountie's out of it, he
won't mind. He'd probably want to help out if we asked him. Do-gooder
type."
Huey gritted his teeth and tried to
control his voice, keeping it low so as not to disturb Fraser. "You didn't
ask. God, Ray."
"Jack, couldn't you excuse us two
for a moment. We just want to talk. Honestly. Just talk. Decide about some
things."
Huey had been leaning against the wall on
a space just beside the window. From that place he regarded the woman and his
fellow detective. "I'm here on legitimate grounds - visiting my partner.
I'm not going anywhere."
"Ray, maybe this wasn't such a good
idea. I'd better go," Irene said.
Huey forced his immediate outrage aside
and saw that in fact Benton wasn't being harmed or even disadvantaged, and Ray and
Irene did have it tough. Huey had worked with Vecchio enough to know this was
out of character for the Italian. Brash, he certainly was, and noisy and a little
uncouth. But Ray was a nice guy, basically, "You two may as well stay a
little while, I guess. Benton's out like a light."
"Who is he?" Irene wanted to
know, "It doesn't feel right just staying in his room and I don't even
know the man."
"You tell her, Ray. I'm going to go
get a sandwich," Huey quickly decided his previous refusal to leave was a
sufficient gesture of disapproval. He didn't have the actual authority to throw
the other two out, nor did he have any desire to listen to whatever they had to
say. It was all just too depressing. He pulled his long body away from the wall
where he had been leaning and strode out of the room.
Half an hour later Huey had forced his
cup of coffee and chicken salad sandwich to last longer than was reasonable for
the volume of food and drink. He was just coming down the corridor back to
Fraser's room when Fraser came to enough of a level of awareness to detect
people in close proximity. Hearing a woman's voice and a man's voice that
wasn't Huey's, he turned in the direction
of the conversation even before easing his eyes open just a slit against the
harsh florescent lights. The man's face was one that he knew.
"Hel-lo, Dee-tec-tive Vecc-hi-o,"
he sing-songed.
Vecchio hadn't realized the Mountie was
awakening.
"Hey! How you doing?" he tossed
off.
"I'm an honourary duck."
"Oh good. I was wondering. Irene,
meet Constable Benton Fraser. Constable Fraser meet Irene."
Fraser opened his eyes a little more. The
woman's name somehow registered through his drugged haze. "Hello. . .
Irene. Are you . . . a duck, too?"
"You know, Jack. He's more fun when
he's loopy," Ray said to Huey who was just at that moment coming in.
"Are you two through?" Huey
demanded.
"Yeah, I guess." Vecchio looked
to Irene. "Maybe you better not stay out too long."
"I guess you're right," The
woman bent over to retrieve her purse, which she had slipped under the chair
upon sitting down. Her face came close to Fraser's as she did this and the
drowsy man felt inclined to say something to her, since she was so very close
to him.
"If I walk like a duck and I talk
like a duck . . ." Fraser started a disoriented recitation. Then he sank
back into drugged oblivion.
Irene hesitated just as she was walking
past Ray, paused and gave him a kiss before leaving. Huey watched the two of
them and felt disgusted.
"Constable Fraser has nothing to do
with the case officially. Which is just as well for him. If his own people
ordered his own father killed, how long would he last if he broke this
case?"
"You think they'd do him too?"
said Huey.
"Don't know. Who knows how Canadians
think. He wouldn't be popular, that's for sure. He's lucky as hell he's not
officially on the case."
"So, who would we tell?" Huey
insisted.
"Somebody nobody will miss. Did
Fraser ever say what his official reason for being in Chicago actually was?"
"Assistant to the liaison officer
over at the Consulate. Except the poor sucker spends most of his time standing
around getting his picture taken by tourists."
"Serves him right for having such a
baby face. Never mind that, officially he's with the liaison office. That's
good. That gives me an idea," Welsh said. "You never met the liaison
officer, Moffatt, did you?"
"No sir. No reason I would have to
meet him."
"He's an idiot. Nobody would miss
him. Now that I think of it, isn't the official liaison officer just the person
we should tell about a thorny little problem like this?" Welsh was
beginning to look almost happy.
"As long as it doesn't put Benton in any trouble," Huey said.
"Benton?"
"Constable Fraser. We've sort of
become friends."
"He's a decent guy?"
"One of the best, sir."
"Good, well your friend's ass is
covered. He's lying snug in the hospital. When this hits the fan none of it
will land anywhere near him. Jack, blowing the bastard up is the best thing you
could have done for him."
"He was my father's best friend on
the Force. They were at the Academy together." Seeing the evidence that
Huey brought to the hospital was one thing, but believing it was another.
Fraser was having trouble grasping the story Huey was telling him.
Fraser had made an excellent recovery and
was within days of being released. He was no longer receiving pain medication
any stronger than over-the-counter preparations, but the story he was hearing
from Huey made his head swim as though he were under narcotics all over again.
Flooded hunting grounds. A whole
detachment of officers working to cover it up. No, it was beyond belief, but
here was Huey with the whole thing documented.
"Your dad wanted to blow the
whistle, that's why they ordered a hit on him."
"His own people," Fraser said,
stunned, "My own people."
"It wasn't just your Mounties. I
mean, not that that makes it any better, but the police weren't alone on this.
It's the developers that set up the whole deal and put out the money."
"His best friend! Like another
father to me! Son of a bitch!" Fraser hadn't been able to cry since first
hearing of his father's death. He'd remained dry-eyed while he identifying his
father's body, heard his eulogy, gone through his personal effects and closed
up his cabin. Now the tears came. "Son of a bitch!" he cried out
again.
Huey touched his friend's shoulder.
"Sorry, man." He took the file folder out of Fraser's lap and slid it
under his own arm. "You want me to go?"
Fraser shook his head, wordlessly.
Huey dropped into his usual visitor's
chair. He knew, from his own experience with grief, just what it was Benton wanted now. No words, no kind of
intrusion, just the quiet presence of a well-wishing friend. I can be here and listen,
Huey thought. That's what I needed when Lorraine died and that's what I needed when Louis died.
Lorraine. Was it really more than ten
years? Huey sat, thinking back on his own life while Benton went on weeping. It was eleven
years since he bought the house – he remembered because the mortgage statement
just came last week and he had checked the amortization schedule. Not even a
year after they bought the house, Lorraine's
leukemia was diagnosed. He'd mentioned to
Benton once over a dinner that he was a
widower and the Mountie hadn't questioned him about the details. Benton's smart that way. I'm going to
tell him all about Lorraine when he gets out, Huey decided.
There could be many reasons why Constable
Brighton dropped all hostility towards the new Deputy Liaison Officer upon
hearing he was hospitalized. It may have been simple human decency, or perhaps
she figured being blown up was sufficient punishment for usurping the job she
had wanted. Certainly her colleague's predicament presented several logistical
problems, which gave her a chance to exercise her best organizational talents.
She had to persuade the management at the hotel where Fraser had been staying
that she had good authority to come in and remove his personal effects, after
having settled his bill. She had to ascertain the whereabouts of Diefenbaker
and ensure he was smoothly transferred from quarantine to a kennel. Fraser's things
had to be sorted through and items he would need in the hospital separated from
things to remain stored at the Consulate. A place for him to stay upon release
from the hospital had to be chosen and secured. After considering and rejecting
many options (including Huey's offer to take the man in himself) she decided
that Fraser should simply stay in one of the Consulate's spare guest rooms
until he had a chance to choose a place to live for himself.
Normally Superintendent Moffatt would
have had these plans presented to him as a fait accompli. All he would do was
sign whatever documents Constable Brighton told him to sign. But Moffatt was
suddenly called back to Ottawa, for reasons not made clear to her. With neither chief liaison
officer nor his deputy available, Brighton was now technically in charge of the department which,
in fact, she ran anyway. That speeded up operations noticeably.
Huey was helpful in gaining the
cooperation of the locals Brighton had to deal with. Brighton opined at one point that in all her years at the
liaison office, this was the first time she'd actually worked together with a Chicago cop on a specific project.
Things were going quite well for Brighton until, a few days before Fraser's
planned return, she received a certain communication from Ottawa informing her that Superintendent
Moffatt was being transferred to Baffin Island and his new deputy, Constable Fraser, would assume the
vacated post of Chief Liaison Officer. And she herself, in recognition of her
many years of fine service, would be permitted to serve as Constable Fraser's
deputy.
Fraser, being the adventurous fellow that
he was and therefore having been not infrequently confined to hospital, was not
a stranger to the protocol required when leaving hospital and returning to
duty. He knew he was supposed to report his planned return date to his commanding
officer and receive further instructions. But Superintendent Moffatt never
returned Fraser's phone calls. It was Huey that told his Mountie friend that Moffatt
was gone. Finally a short message came from Brighton instructing Fraser to report to
her at 9:00
am on his
first day back.
Since the two of them were of equal rank,
Fraser didn't have to stand at attention in front of Brighton's desk but since he was,
officially, reporting for duty it seemed to him appropriate to assume the
stance one was supposed to assume when reporting for duty, even if the person being
reported to was not his superior.
Brighton regarded him from behind her
desk. God, what a fine looking man! Why was he unattached? His personnel record
had no one in it for her to notify of his injuries. Maybe gay, the pretty ones
usually are. Well, it was too bad she was going to be his direct subordinate.
He seemed like just the tight-assed type to refuse to fraternize with the
troops. Ever practical, she wrote him off
as a possible love interest, at least for the immediate future.
"Read this," she handed him the
letter detailing both his orders and hers and waited while he stood there and
read it and enjoyed the sight of disbelief spreading all over his handsome
face.
"I . . . I . . . " Fraser
stammered.
"You've got the big office now,
Fraser. Want me to come in and help you set up your desk?" She smiled at
him and they both recalled how she had helped him "organize" his office
that first day of his arrival.
"Um, no, thank you kindly."
Fraser was only taken aback for a moment before he got his bearings. "I'm
sorry you were passed over again."
Brighton shrugged. "I have the job I
wanted. I don't want yours." She stood up from her seat behind her own
desk and came to attention.
"What shall I do first, sir?"
Recalling the woman's former plight of
having to "show her legs" along with the other demeaning implications
of that euphemism, he barked, "Constable, get into a uniform. Any standard
uniform of your choice."
She saluted him and fairly sped out of
the room. Fraser had no doubt she would return in trousers.
Fraser made his way to Moffatt's old
office and stood in the middle of the room, taking in the surroundings and
trying to absorb the fact that they were his own. The irony was, he had very
little desire to remain in Chicago and now that his father's murder was solved. He had been
hoping to ask whoever his new commanding officer was for a
transfer out. This was all going to take
some serious thinking through. Did he even want to go back north, knowing what
he now knew about Gerrard and his father's other colleagues?
It was a little after four in the
afternoon. Fraser hung up his phone, paused, drummed his fingers on his desk
briefly, then rose and walked over to Brighton's office. He found her tapping
away busily at her keyboard.
She looked up as he came in, registered
who it was and stood up to attention. "If you want me, you can buzz me to
come see you. You do realize that," she said.
Fraser smiled shyly. "Actually, I
didn't think of it. It's only been two days. I don't really think of myself as
anybody's boss. Constable Brighton, I wonder if I could ask you to do something
for me?"
"Yes sir."
He cleared his throat. "You don't
have to call me 'sir'. We're both the same rank."
"I know that. You wanted to ask me
something?"
"Oh yes, well . . . I've just been
invited to dinner at short notice and I'm not going to have time to make a
present. I was wondering . . ." he paused, embarrassed.
Here it comes, Brighton thought, and I thought he was
different from the others. He's going to ask me to go shop for him. I wouldn't
have thought it.
"I wonder if maybe . . . do we keep
a supply of spare gifts here at the Consulate? I thought if so maybe I could
pick something out. I'll pay for it of course."
Brighton was pleased to be proven wrong.
"Come with me, sir. We've got a whole closet full of Canadian-made
bric-a-brac." She motioned for him to follow her and they went together
into the corridor. "Did you say make a present? You make your own?"
Fraser explained as they walked down the
corridor. "It's not as eccentric as it sounds. There aren't many stores in
the bush and even when there are stores – the variety of merchandise is so
limited that whatever you buy the recipient probably knows where you got it and
how much it costs. And, to make it worse, if he had wanted one of whatever it
was, he would have already bought it for himself."
They stopped at a storage closet.
"Is this for anyone I know?"
"It's for Detective Huey. I'd love
to make him a dream-catcher, but perhaps that's too exotic."
"Are you kidding? We've got a dozen
of those in here." She opened the closet to reveal shelves full of
gewgaws, bottles of maple syrup, boxes of maple candy, Inuit carvings and ookpiks
of various sizes.
Fraser was pleased to find a
dream-catcher very much like one he might design himself. "What's our cost
on this one?"
"If it's for Detective Huey, don't
worry about it. You've got a budget line for gifts to foreign officers who help
us with cases. Give him something much nicer, Constable Fraser, he deserves
it."
"No, this is exactly what I
wanted." Together they headed back to the offices of the liaison staff.
"I've been meaning to ask you something else. Seems like I'm always asking
you what my duties are. From what I've been able to figure out, I don't do very
much officially."
She steered him into his own office and
shut the door behind them.
"Remember I told you that I didn't
want your job. I wasn't just being polite. Every Consulate has a Chief Liaison
Officer. It's a dead end post to get rid of people nobody wants around. Didn't
you think it was strange they replaced a Superintendent with a Constable? Moffatt
got the job because he was a moron and it was a good place to bury
him. You've got it because everywhere you
go you'll be a reminder of what happened to your father. You were lucky enough
to be in the hospital when the scandal over the power dam broke, or you'd be
the one in Baffin Island now."
"All things considered, I'd be more
comfortable at Baffin Island. I've been thinking of putting in for a transfer
home."
"Don't hold your breath. Oh, I'm
sorry. Don't hold your breath, sir. Look at it this way. Nobody expects
anything of you, so you can spend your time doing basically whatever you
want."
Brighton wasn't at all surprised to see
how much this displeased Fraser. From the first day she had been able to see he
was accustomed to being in action. "You might want to spend some time
helping Detective Huey with his case," she offered.
"That's a purely American matter.
We've no Canadian involvement unless the Chicago PD specifically asks for our
help. Thanks for helping me with this," Fraser waggled the dream catcher
in her direction. "You may as well go home, Constable Brighton. If we
don't do anything here of any value, you might as well put off whatever you're
working on until tomorrow."
"You're the one that doesn't do
anything of value, I'm afraid, sir. Whatever actual liaison work there is goes
to the deputy. That post hadn't been filled before you came and I was taking
care of it. I thought I'd get the job – then you came. Now I've got the title, which
is what I deserved in the first place. My work really is work. I'll explain
what I do if you like. Technically you're my superior so you may as well
know."
She saw the dejected look come over
Fraser's face and wondered if there was anything she could say to make him feel
just a little better. "You know, even down here we heard about your
father. He was a great man," she ventured.
"Yes, he was," Fraser agreed
simply.
She stood waiting. Fraser realized that
she was waiting to be dismissed. He waved an impatient hand in her direction
and said, "Go ahead. Good night. Oh wait, I'm supposed to be your
commanding officer so, dismissed."
Again she turned and headed out of the
room and again she paused. "Where does Detective Huey live, by the way? In
town? Do you know how to get there?"
"Someplace called Schaumburg. I was going to look up
directions on the CTA website."
"Take one of our cars. Log the time
under 'official visits'. Sir." And then she really did leave.
Fraser took the smallest of the consular
cars, a four door sedan, rather
than one of the limousines. As he drove he considered his new situation. He'd
lived through be being abandoned, being snubbed, being welcomed, on a couple of
rare occasions even being celebrated. But he'd never yet experienced being
irrelevant It would be up to him to determine the colour of his life for the
next few years. He could try to escape back to the life he knew before, except
that was poisoned now by the knowledge of the corruption that had led to his father's
death. He could relax and enjoy, as Moffatt had, the perks and power of
official dronedom. Or he could try to find something useful to do. In this day
and age of computers the presence of a physical liaison was less and less
needed. His own function seemed
to be ceremonial and seemed no more
valuable than his former task of standing motionless outside the door and
letting tourists take his picture.
Huey's house was one of a row of similar
bungalows in its subdivision. Bicycles, tricycles and basketball nets on poles decorated
the outsides of his neighbours' houses and in the driveways sat functional cars
and mini-vans. From seeing it, Fraser guessed that Huey and his wife must have
bought their house with the intention of starting a family, putting down roots,
becoming part of middle class America. Leukemia killed not only Huey's wife but
also
his intended future. It would be
interesting to learn, when Huey felt at ease enough to open up about it, why Huey
had kept this house and still lived in it.
Fraser found the address and pulled into
the driveway, parking behind another car that was already there. It wasn't
Huey's car. Huey drove a five-year-old blue Camry, which Fraser supposed must
be parked inside the closed single garage. This car was very much older, from the
seventies, and green. When he had parked and got out and close
enough to tell, he saw it was a Buick
Riviera. Well, Huey hadn't specifically said Fraser would be the only guest but
Fraser had somehow absorbed that from the tone of the conversation when Huey
had invited him.
Fraser pressed Huey's doorbell and the
greeting he got from the American when he came to the door wasn't what he
expected. Huey put one long finger against his own lips to indicate that Fraser
should stay silent. Then he whispered, "He asked me to let him come over,
I swear. It wasn't my idea. He's all upset and didn't want to be alone.
I'm sorry."
Huey noticed the dream-catcher under
Fraser's arm. "Is that for me? Hey, thanks man."
Fraser's attention was distracted by
wondering who 'he' was and he had forgotten all about the gift. He handed it
over.
Huey broke into a smile. "A dream
catcher. I've heard of those. Cool. Well, come on into to the living-room and
try to be nice to him, okay?"
Huey's conciliatory tone of voice and
plea for Fraser to try to be nice told Fraser the other guest must be the one
person in Chicago he actually disliked. For Huey's sake he would be nice to Detective Vecchio
but his hopes of having an enjoyable evening with his friend were dashed.
The dinner menu was so typically American
that Fraser was hard put not to show his amusement. Canned tomato soup, a salad
that was mainly iceberg lettuce, meat loaf, mashed potatoes and niblets corn on
the side. Fraser was impressed that the meatloaf was obviously homemade. Huey
apparently had some cooking skills. When Huey went to the kitchen to fetch
dessert into the dining-room where they sat, Vecchio leaned over to the Mountie
and whispered "Ten bucks says he brings out apple pie and ice cream."
In the interests of amicability, Fraser
only said, "I don't gamble."
Vecchio was almost right in that Huey
emerged carrying a pie in one hand and a plastic bowl filled with chocolate
chip ice cream in the other. But the pie was cherry not apple.
Vecchio hadn't been forthcoming about the
cause of the upsetness Huey had alluded to at the door. He seemed his usual
loud, acerbic self until, while they were dutifully eating their way through dessert,
he suddenly came out with, "Who the hell does she think she is, running away
like that!"
Huey put a forkful of pie back into his
plate, lay his fork down, straightened in his chair and said to the Italian,
"Let it go, Ray. She explained it to you. She's got her own house and her
kids to worry about. You're too much for her to handle right now. She didn't say
it was over. She just said she needed time."
Vecchio cursed in Italian.
"At least you've got a chance of
getting her back some day," Huey said, very quietly, and then continued
eating.
They sat now in the livingroom again,
Huey and Vecchio working their way through a bottle of homemade wine the
Italian had brought and Fraser sipping coffee.
Fraser had been thinking that perhaps the
time was now right for him to get involved in the Gardino case. He decided to
start easy and said, trying to sound as casual as he could, "I guess
there's nothing new on Detective Gardino's murder."
Vecchio shot him a glare that clearly
said, mind your own business.
Huey said "Nothing," dejectedly
and took another drink of wine.
"Sometimes I find when I'm too close
to a case, there's things I miss just because they're too obvious. Sometimes I
find when I tell the facts to a stranger, things come up that I wouldn't have
thought of."
"Yeah, well I don't find that,"
Vecchio grumbled.
Fraser ignored him and focused on Huey.
"We've got some time. Maybe if you talked me through all the things that
happened that night. All the details you remember. Some new angle may come up.
You never know."
"You mean, you might notice something
us stupid Americans missed," Vecchio said.
"Ray, shut up. I know you're hurting
but Benton's not the cause of your problems.
What the hell. I'm going to tell him the whole story. You fill in anything I
forget as we go."
"Yeah, yeah."
Huey launched into a detailed account of
the night of Ray's celebration dinner. He delivered the story with the
precision of a policeman giving testimony on the witness stand. After first maintaining
a disgruntled silence, Vecchio got into the mood and starting adding details,
occasionally taking over the telling of parts that he remembered more clearly.
And when Huey hesitated at the description of the explosion, Vecchio's
expression softened and he leaned over and patted his former partner's arm,
then took over the telling himself.
They went on to outline the evidence they
had found against Zuko. From time to time Fraser posed the occasional question
but mostly he let them tell it in their own way.
When they had wound down and seemed to be
done, Fraser probed into areas the American detectives passed quickly over.
Once his own questioning was done, Fraser, gulped down what was left of his
cold coffee and asked Huey for a refill. He wanted a few minutes to think.
Something was nagging at him. By the time
Huey had brought the coffee and Fraser and put in milk and sugar and drank half
of what was in the cup, the cause of his unease came to him.
"Something about the timing of this
bothers me," he said.
Vecchio
seemed to have used up his supply of hostility for the time being and actually
leaned forward, interested.
"It only seems like a few hours
between the time that Detective Vecchio angered this Zuko and the bomb was
actually planted. Detective Vecchio, your car was parked outside the station
for, how long, an hour, when you spoke to Lieutenant Welsh?"
"Not even. More like half an
hour."
"A very narrow window of
opportunity. The person who planted the bomb must have been tailing you waiting
for his chance. And that person had to have been set into action some time beforehand.
He'd have to go get the bomb and then follow you around waiting for an
opportunity to plant it."
"Where are you going with this, Benton?" Huey asked, eagerly.
"Detective Vecchio, how long might a
party like Mr. Zuko's go on? Well into the wee hours I would think."
"You would think right," Vecchio
told him.
"With Mr. Zuko in the spotlight the
whole time. Now the explosion happened only a short time after you and your
friends left. It would be a simple matter to ask somebody who was at the party
whether Mr. Zuko left for a noticeable period of time."
"Irene already told me. He was there
the whole time. She didn't have him out of her sight, except when either she or
he went to the bathroom. But that would leave Zuko enough time to place a phone
call and start the whole thing in motion."
"True. But that's going on the
assumption that Mr. Zuko is responsible for ordering the – what's the word you
use – hit. Mr. Zuko's a career gangster is he not?"
"Third generation. His father's
father started the family business."
"You have to wonder if a man that
experienced would do something so precipitous as to order an immediate attack
on a man that dozens of witnesses have seen him quarrel with AND be so clumsy
as to leave incriminating evidence buried in his own back yard. Unless . .
." Fraser paused here and rubbed an eyebrow, ". . . unless he was employing
the somewhat comic book technique of doing something so blatantly stupid that
no one could believe he would do it."
"We can count that out," Vecchio
told him.
"So let's go on the assumption that
somebody wished to frame Mr. Zuko. Now follow this logic with me and let me
know if it breaks down at any point. We could start by inquiring of people who
were at the party if anybody left shortly after you did and remained away long
enough to plant a bomb."
"You've already broken down. Anybody
at that party was was high enough on the totem pole that they wouldn't do the
dog work. They'd call a subordinate who would call someone else. That's a phone
call. Anybody could go make a phone call without being noticed. Just have to go
to the john."
Fraser nodded. "Then that speaks of
someone who has wanted to be rid of Mr. Zuko for some time and was waiting for
the right opportunity. They would have had the mechanism in place and when the
quarrel broke out, they saw a chance to set up Mr. Zuko by ordering an attack
on you. A decision made quickly, but backed up by long term planning. Not
someone losing his temper in the heat of the moment."
"Then Zuko's got a problem," Huey
observed.
"One would think so. Someone among
his closest retinue is either an enemy or passing information to an
enemy."
Ray refilled his own glass, then Huey's,
saying, "So what have we got?"
Huey answered. "We've got a scumbag
with a lot of manpower, a lot of information and a budget that's probably
bigger than ours . . . "
". . . in whose best interest it
would be to find your murderer for you." Fraser finished his friend's
sentence.
"What! We're going to work with Zuko
now?" Vecchio nearly shouted, outraged.
Fraser in response dropped to a pitch
some octave lower than he had using before and very much softer, a tone of
contempt. "It hasn't bothered you to work with people you thought were
criminals in the past."
Vecchio slammed his glass down on the
coffee table, sloshing the wine. "It's about time you got down off your
high Mountie horse and stopped sneering at the rest of us because we're not
pure and lily white enough for you!" He jabbed an angry forefinger in
Fraser's direction to punctuate his words. "The only reason you're down
here at all is
because some of your people are so
corrupt that they off-ed one of their own and some others are too stupid to
solve the case themselves. You don't preach to me, pal. You got that?"
Fraser didn't change his tone in any way,
nor did he so much as shift in his chair. "Some of my people may be
corrupt. But I, personally, have never once compromised my principles. And
neither did my father."
"Well isn't that all just duckie."
He stood up and said to Huey. "Thanks for supper, Jack. I got to be
getting home."
"Aw, Ray. Come on."
"No, I'm out of here. Don't want to
upset the sensibilities of your Canadian friend. He's so much better than the
likes of me." Vecchio made a wide-armed theatrical bow in Fraser's
direction then headed for the front door.
"Ray, come on back." Huey went
after him and dragged him back to his previous seat. "We got stuff to talk
about."
Vecchio let himself be taken, but
continued to glare at the Canadian as he moved back through the livingroom.
"We got nothing to talk about. Zuko's
our man, we just don't have the evidence yet. All this other talk is just
stupid. Mister Liaison here thinks the way to solve anything is for everybody
to just play nice together."
"You seem determined that Mr. Zuko
be guilty," Fraser pointed out. Slower to anger than Vecchio, he was
beginning to smolder.
"And you keep wanting me to believe
he's innocent. It's like you're working for him," Vecchio shot back.
"Do you hate this man so much that
you're willing to let Detective Gardino's real killer go free to get at
him?"
Vecchio went white. He raised a fist.
Huey jumped up and grabbed his former partner's arm. "Ray! No! Don't fight
in my house!"
Vecchio whipped his head around and met
Huey's eyes. Still holding Vecchio's arm Huey said, "He's right,
Ray."
"Jack, this is Zuko we're talking
about here."
"I know you hate him, Ray. I know
you got good reason to hate him. But I think Benton's right. He's not the one who
killed Louis."
"I can't believe you're siding this
guy!"
Vecchio and Huey continued to stare at
each other. Then Huey said, "Ray, do you really think that if we nail Zuko,
you won't have to feel guilty anymore?"
Vecchio drooped and sagged back into his
chair.
"Because that's not the way it
works. He died. You lived. It's not fair. You got to find a way to deal with
that."
Fraser put in, "Somebody used both
you and your enemy to further his own ends. Get that person now and go after
your enemy another day."
Vecchio left shortly thereafter, but
calmly, so Huey let him go without any protest. Once he had seen Vecchio safely
out and closed the door behind him, he came back to the living-room and dropped
heavily into the oldest and softest of his armchairs.
"Didn't I ask you to be nice to him?
I've seen you with people, Benton. You're the sweetest, kindest, politest dude
I ever met," Huey said from the depths of the chair.
"I was polite. Never once was I
impolite."
"You know what I mean. Ray's
hurting. He's having a hard time these days."
"None of us are having easy times,
Huey. You lost your partner, I lost my dad."
"You lost worse. You lost your
illusions."
"That's true enough. But getting
back to Detective Vecchio, you're right. I really do look for the best in everybody.
Almost everybody. But something about him . . . I can't explain it. Maybe
certain people were just never meant to get along. Maybe some great Power sent
him to me as a test of my forbearance. I don't know. You never told him
about my father, I trust?"
"No, but you almost let it slip
there tonight. It was lucky for you Ray was too upset to pick up on it. But you
should have told him."
"I don't want his sympathy."
"You two are really something. Ray's
an okay guy. One of these days you two will find something in common."
The woman on the telephone insisted on an
appointment with Constable Fraser, and as soon as possible. Brighton probed her for details about what
she wanted, assuring her that the liaison office dealt with police matters and
some other department in the Consulate could most likely help her with whatever
she needed. But Mrs. Ierfino was
adamant, saying that her business with
Constable Fraser was both urgent and personal. No one else would do.
Seeing
no reason why not, Brighton scheduled her to see Fraser at two that afternoon.
She arrived in his office right on time
and Fraser rose to greet a woman he did not remember ever meeting before.
"I came to see you because you're
Ray's friend," she began.
I have no idea who she is, Fraser
thought. And as for my being Detective Vecchio's friend, that's an interesting
assumption.
The woman saw the puzzlement in his
expression. "You don't know me? I'm Irene."
The only time he had ever been in the
presence of this woman that was so important to Vecchio he had been heavily
drugged. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize you. I'm afraid that when we met
the last time, I was a little . . . disoriented. And Detective Vecchio never
mentioned your married name. What can I do for you today?" Even though
this was
a standard opening question, Fraser
really was curious what this woman could want from him. "I understood from
Detective Vecchio that you had left town."
"Leaving. Friday. Constable, I know
some things that might help find the man who tried to kill Ray. I want to tell
someone, so they can look into it. But I can't have this traced back to me. I
thought, you, you're a foreign government."
Fraser was too excited by the chance of a
lead in this case that he didn't even bother to correct her to say he only
represented his government in limited matters.
"I thought I could tell you what I
know and you get it to whoever has to know, without mentioning my name. I can't
be seen getting involved in this."
"Not even to save your brother? I don't
think anyone would fault you for that."
"I hate my brother; he's a monster.
But that monster is my brother, so I love him. Does that make any sense? I want
to help but I don't want to be involved. It's all too mixed up."
"That's your own decision, I suppose.
What is it that you want to tell me?"
"It's something that happened the
night of the party. Frank has this lieutenant, Michael Sorrento. He's next in
line after Charlie as my brother's closest advisor."
Fraser didn't know who Charlie was but
that didn't seem important enough to interrupt her.
"Right after I danced with Ray,
well, actually, during, my brother said that he wanted to cut his cake. He
wanted everybody to be around watching but Michael wasn't there. His wife
didn't know where he was so she called him on his cell phone. She got his
voicemail. So either he had his phone turned off or he was talking to somebody.
Now,
Constable you have to understand how my
brother operates, if you want to see how important this is. At a big party like
that, Michael would know he's on duty and has to be where my brother can see
him and use him. And he has to be seen. My brother likes his people around for other
people to see. Am I making sense?"
"He craves attention. And
validation. Yes, it makes sense."
"I hate to admit it, but he's not
the man our father was," Irene said sadly.
"Few of us are. Please go on.
Michael Sorrento was missing from the party and not answering his phone."
"There's no way he'd dare turn it
off on a night like that. Like I said, he was on duty. And he wouldn't go out
of Frank's sight just to make a casual call. It had to be something very big. A
family emergency maybe. But his wife didn't know where he was. So I think, and
I'm not sure but I just think, Sorrento saw the trouble between Frank and Ray
and moved fast to take advantage of the situation."
"I've actually been thinking that
someone at the party might be a suspect. I told that to Detective Vecchio the
other night. If you could give me anything else to go on?"
"All I have is what I told you,
Constable Fraser. I'm just going to leave all this with you and I'm going to
ask you not to tell Ray or anybody else about this conversation. I don't have
any proof of anything. But somebody should check it out."
"Somebody will," Fraser assured
her, "I'll make sure of it."
Satisfied, she got up from her chair and
extended a hand to Fraser for him to shake in parting. "I'm glad Ray has a
friend like you. I know you're going to help him. Thank you." Her voice
trembled. She was on the verge of tears and she fled the office before they
began to fall.
Fraser
was well known enough in the squad room that nobody questioned his marching
right through to Huey's desk the next morning. The handsome Mountie had taken
to wearing ordinary business suits on duty, having enlisted Huey's help in
acquiring these. When Huey had casually commented that Ray was knowledgeable
about clothes and might be a good advisor, Fraser had only commented dryly that
he couldn't afford to buy Armani retao; and wasn't interested in abetting
criminals by purchasing clothes out of the back of a truck.
Fraser relayed the story to Huey as it
had been told to him.
"God, Benton! An actual lead! Where
did you get this?"
"I'm sorry, Huey, I'm not at liberty
to say."
"But we're partners, you have to
tell me who it came from!"
"I can't. All I can say is that it
is a reliable source."
"You can't pull that protecting your
sources shit. You're not a reporter. You're a cop."
"In this jurisdiction I'm not even
that. I'm a bureaucrat," Fraser said, pained at this admission.
"Constable Brighton keeps telling me I should get out and work the case
with you, but I suspect she's just trying to keep me out of her hair."
"She's right. You should get down
with me and Ray and get your hands dirty."
"The operative words are 'and Ray'.
If the two of us work together you may very well have another murder on your
hands."
A week later Fraser got a telephone call
at the office from Vecchio.
"I just wanted to let you know, one
of my snitches knows another snitch who ratted on Sorrento. We've got him in custody."
Fraser already knew this from Huey, but
he refrained from saying it. He was determined to be nice to Vecchio for Huey's
sake. I'm Huey's friend and he's Huey's friend, he reasoned, so we've no right
to put a mutual friend through stress just because we can't come to terms between
us.
Fraser waited for Vecchio to actually say
thanks for your help but that expression wasn't forthcoming. So he said,
"Your department solved my murder case, Detective. I'm glad I was able to
return the favour. Even Steven."
"Even Steven?" came the
disdainful voice on the other end of the line. "Nobody says 'Even Steven'
anymore."
"Why?"
"It's juvenile," Vecchio told
him.
"Oh."
Fraser was at a loss. He said a quick, and
what he hoped was polite, good-bye and hung up.
End