Accidental Deaths (A Willows and Parker Mystery) Read online

  Accidental Deaths

  Laurence Gough

  © Laurence Gough 1991

  Laurence Gough has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1991 in Viking by Penguin Books Canada Ltd.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

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  28

  1

  Frank borrowed a ballpoint pen with the hotel logo on it from the red-haired guy at the front desk. The guy had an accent. When he spoke, the words seemed to pour out of his mouth, all liquid and silvery, musical. The way he talked, he might’ve had river rock for teeth, a sandbar for a tongue. Frank figured him for Irish but it turned out the guy was Italian. That was the way it was in Vancouver — everybody in the city seemed to have come from somewhere else.

  Frank tried the pen out on a scrap of paper to make sure it worked and made his way to the hotel bar, which was surprisingly busy considering the time of day.

  His waitress looked like Heidi gone to seed, but she had a nice warm smile and Frank liked her accent. He ordered a vodka martini on the rocks, twist of lemon. As she was turning away he touched her arm, very lightly, and asked could he have an extra napkin, since he’d left his notebook up in his room. Another smile. No problem. It was that kind of hotel, expensive and friendly.

  While he was waiting, Frank drew a happy face on the ball of his thumb. He wasn’t a bad artist — maybe it was time to consider a career change. Killing people was a lot different than breaking arms. More permanent. Not as much fun. There were lots of details that had to be worked out. You couldn't just walk up to the job and do it and go home and read the paper. Frank’s problem was that he was a novice. He needed to get organized, work out the risks and how to eliminate them.

  It wasn’t the kind of chore Frank was good at or had any patience with. He wasn’t looking forward to the task. When his drink arrived, he asked the waitress to give him five minutes and then bring him a refill. He plucked the lemon out of the glass, popped it in his mouth and chewed it to a pulp. The martini went down like an oyster – one long swallow.

  Frank tried his new pen out on the napkin. It worked okay, but he had to be careful not to press too hard or he’d rip the paper. Fine, he could live with that. Now what? He watched the bartender shake his new martini to death. The guy caught his eye and smiled. Frank nibbled on the tip of the pen.

  The crime he intended to commit was hit and run. He needed a disposable set of wheels, obviously.

  So … the first detail that needed to be taken care of was what kind of car to steal.

  His instinct was to boost something dependable and common and not at all flashy. Also fairly large. Like maybe a Volvo. But for the moment he wasn’t supposed to be thinking like a cautious 38-year-old ex-con. He was a kid on a joyride, and kids didn’t think at all. Go for it! was what they shouted at each other. Fuck the future, even if it was only ten minutes down the pike.

  So Frank decided to steal something loud and fast.

  His second martini arrived. He paced himself on this one; took all of five minutes to eat the lemon and drain the glass. Enough thinking! He signed the bill, added his room number and strolled out of the hotel into a wall of heat and bright sunlight, was immediately almost run over by a courier on a mountain bike. He stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, rubbing his elbow where the handlebar had nicked him. Imagine what it must feel like to get whacked by a ton of automobile.

  Unbelievably painful. Ouch!

  Frank headed east on Georgia towards The Bay, caught the elevator up to the third floor and sauntered through women’s fashions and a snack bar and flowershop, made his way across the skywalk and into the parking lot. Another elevator took him up to the lot’s top floor. Working his way down towards ground level, Frank hunted for his new car.

  Half an hour later he was sitting behind the wheel of a midnight-black Corvette with a tinted windshield and white leather seats and a four-speed gearshift sloppy as a bucket of pigshit. To his mind, the Corvette was so ostentatious and ugly it could give a blind person a migraine. Cops too, unfortunately. Frank pushed the bucket seat back as far as it would go, making room for his legs, and then drove it a long series of straights and spirals down to ground level.

  There was a lineup at the ticket booth. He checked the dashboard and sun visor and then the glove box. No ticket. The Vette’s owner had apparently taken it with him. Son of a bitch. Frank had to pay the maximum rate. Eight bucks. He gave the attendant a ten and told him to keep the change but give him a receipt for the full amount. The terms on this thing he was doing for Newt were half in advance and the other half, plus expenses, on completion. Nice word. What it meant was before Frank got paid in full he had to show Newt a newspaper headline or death notice proving that he’d killed the lady cop, Claire Parker. Frank stuck the receipt in his wallet, put the Corvette in gear and gunned it.

  Frank parked the car in an underground lot about six blocks from the hotel, backing it in and then ripping off the front licence plate. Later, he’d lift a set of tags from another vehicle and do a switch. Using the Vette was risky, but the way he saw it, there was an element of risk in everything a person did in his life — people’d choked and died on a piece of steak, right? So what were you gonna do, starve to death? No, what you were going to do was chew your meat more thoroughly, take care not to rush the situation. Exercise caution.

  Frank was only going to put about three miles on the car. He’d take it nice and easy. Stop for red lights and everything. Drive every inch like he was somebody’s grampa.

  He walked down Robson to Burrard, turned right. The hotel was fairly large — three hundred rooms. The front entrance was on Hornby but there was a side entrance on Robson. Frank had been out of town for a few years, but he remembered the street well. Hornby was sunnier and more pleasant than it used to be; the old courthouse — now an art gallery — was set well back from the street and was only a few storeys high. Plus during lunch hour there was usually a bunch of secretaries from the surrounding office towers catching a few rays on the wide granite steps or lying around on the grass. The women were mostly young and attractive. The type that liked to spend their leisure time eating yogurt and smoking and scoping the guys in the crowd, trying to guess their net worth.

  There was a white BMW Cabrio parked at the bottom of the gallery steps, guarded by a clean-cut type in a folding metal chair behind a plywood table, selling lottery tickets.

  Frank walked up to the car, tried the door. Locked. There was a handwritten sign on the table — the proceeds of the lottery were going towards a new clubhouse for a local rugby club. Tickets were thirty-five bucks a pop. The guy behind the table asked Frank was he interested in a ticket?

  Frank said, “Why should I pay money when it’s so easy to steal one for free.”

  The guy’s smile faltered but didn’t die. Frank liked to travel light. He’d breezed into town with nothing but the clothes on his back, walked into a nearby Ralph Lauren outlet and slapped about a grand on Newt’s charge car
d. He wasn’t that crazy about the Ralph look; the store was conveniently located, so that’s where he’d shopped. But now, because of the way he was dressed, this preppy-type jock wouldn’t take him seriously.

  Frank said, “You think I’m kidding? Watch this.” He used a pick to slip the lock. It took him maybe three seconds. The kid’s mouth fell open wider than the door. Frank slid inside the car. His nailclippers scraped a couple of wires bare. He touched the wires together and the BMW’s engine caught. He got out of the car. Less than fifteen seconds. He said, “Not bad, huh?”

  The kid swallowed. “You a cop?”

  “Security biz. Mostly industrial applications. It’s a growth industry. Ever been robbed?”

  The kid shook his head.

  Frank said, “Tough shit, because what you’re telling me, whether you know it or not, is you don’t own anything worth stealing.” He started to walk away. The kid asked him how to turn the engine off. Frank ignored him.

  Back at the hotel, he went up to his room and washed the licence plate grit off his hands and lay down on the king-size bed and watched some TV and tried not to think too much about those yogurt-eating secretaries and the way they hiked up their skirts to sun their legs. After a while he drifted off. By the time he woke up, it was past six. Jet lag? From Los Angeles? Doubtful, since the flight took about three hours and the two cities shared the same time zone. Frank stripped and showered, shaved, blow-dried his hair and dressed in tan slacks and a shirt patterned with what looked like dead leaves, a rust-coloured tie and his Bass Weejuns. At a party, you might guess he taught art school for a living, instead of beating people up and making them promise to catch up on their payments, be prompt. He made sure he had his wallet and comb and then locked up and rode the elevator down to the bar.

  The piano player was a fat lady with blue hair. She did a pretty fair Billie Holliday, considering the two of them had never dipped into the same gene pool. Frank leaned against the bar and ordered a Paulie Girl. The bartender who’d mixed his eleven o’clock martini had come and gone. This one, night shift, was taller and better looking, wore tight black pants and a crisp white shirt with red suspenders, topped off with a red bow tie that was left over from Christmas, maybe. A rectangle of gold plastic pinned to his shirt had the name Jerry stamped into it in black letters. Geriatric, the way he moved. His shiny black hair was slicked straight back and the gunk he’d put on it had stained his collar pale yellow. He wore a black patch over his left eye and walked with a limp.

  But even with only one eye, Jerry had seen enough of Frank to know better than to keep him waiting.

  The beer arrived. Frank tilted the bottle to his mouth and delicately sipped.

  Jerry used a small white towel to polish the bar in fast, tight circles. Centrifugal force quickly carried him a safe distance away.

  Frank sniffed the neck of the bottle. He raised his voice a little and said, “Got a Rolling Rock, Jerry?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Why not?”

  A shrug. The name tag glittered under the lights. “Not enough call for it, I guess.”

  Frank said, “C’mon back here a minute.”

  Jerry moved reluctantly towards him. The guy had a definite limp, all right.

  “Can you score me some dope, Jer?”

  The bartender flinched away. “Who told you that?”

  “Nobody. I’m just asking.” Frank smiled. He had a nice smile, teeth like sugar cubes. “You look like a guy knows his way around, might be able to help.”

  “I can help if you’re thirsty. You got some other kind of problem, there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Nickel bag,” said Frank. “Couple of joints … ” He smiled.

  “Am I asking for a truckload of coke? C’mon, be reasonable.” Jerry glanced up and down the bar.

  Frank flipped open his wallet, showed Jerry his New York licence made out in the name of Bobby Costello. The bartender gave the licence a quick glance, focused on Frank’s fat wad of cash.

  “There’s a bellhop should be on duty … Name’s Roger. Short guy, in his fifties. Grey hair, cut real short … ”

  Frank dropped a pair of twenties on the bar.

  Jerry shook his head. “No thanks. Roger’ll take your money, not me.”

  “For the beer.”

  “It’s on the house.”

  Frank shrugged, slipped the money back in his wallet. He went into the lobby and told the desk clerk he wanted to talk to Roger. There was a miniature working steam-engine enclosed in a glass case to the left of the desk. Frank supposed it was a marvel of engineering. He used the glass to study Roger’s posture and walk as the guy sneaked up behind him. Frank believed you could tell a lot about a man by the way he held himself, moved. He spun around just as Roger reached out to tap him on the shoulder. Roger was caught by surprise but recovered quickly.

  “Something I can help you with, sir?”

  Roger was wearing a natty grey suit with dark blue piping but no gold braid. His eyes were dark brown. As he’d spoken he’d back-pedalled across the carpet until he was just out of kicking range. Now he waited with his soft hands dangling at his sides. Frank smiled. Roger was smart enough not to smile back.

  Frank said, “I was talking to Jerry, in the bar. He thought you might be able to help me.”

  “Any friend of Jerry is a friend of mine. Are you staying at the hotel?”

  Frank nodded.

  Roger said, “Then if you’ll just give me your room number, she’ll be right up.”

  Frank flicked ash on the carpet, let some smoke leak out of his nose. “I’m not looking for a woman.” Frank lifted his arms, as if preparing to be body-searched. “Punch me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “In the stomach. Hurry up.”

  Roger glanced quickly around the spacious lobby. He hit Frank with a playful jab.

  “No, I mean hard.”

  Roger said, “Should I be getting paid for this?” and delivered a roundhouse right. The sound of the blow made a bellboy turn his head, wondering. He saw Roger nursing his hand, Frank standing there with a cigarette dangling from his smile.

  “Jeez!” Roger sucked his knuckles, gingerly rotated his wrist.

  “I’m like that all over,” Frank said. “Hard as a rock. And you think I’m the kind of guy has to pay for his action, izzat right?”

  Roger said, “Hey, the things some people like to do, it wouldn’t matter if they were Cary Grant and Mel Gibson all rolled into one, it’d still hurt like hell and cost top dollar.”

  Frank’s broad forehead curdled in thought. “What kind of things?”

  “Forget it. If it ain’t a dame, exactly what is it that you’re after?”

  “Drugs,” said Frank.

  “Coke? I can score a couple lines. Nothing serious. We’re not talking more than a gram or two. Although I could probably give you a phone number, put you in touch with the right kind of people.”

  “Couple of joints is all I’m interested in,” Frank said. “A dime bag, whatever.” From his point of view, people who got involved with serious drugs were not very serious people.

  “I can let you have a quarter-ounce.” Roger bent a leg. The way he was standing, his posture, Frank half expected him to unzip and piss on the chair. But all he did was polish the toe of his plain black shoe against his pants leg, study the shine.

  Frank said, “Yeah, okay.”

  “A hundred bucks, couriered to your room. It’ll get there faster’n a Domino’s pizza.”

  Ash fell from Frank’s cigarette to the carpet. He said, “Who do I pay?”

  “Person knocks on your door. Anything else I can do for you? Sure you don’t want a woman? Or something with a little less mileage, maybe?”

  Frank said, “Don’t be disgusting.” He smiled. “I’m in five-eighteen. You can’t miss it; it’s right next to the ice dispenser and the room with the TV turned up too loud.” He started across the lobby towards the bank of elevators forcing Roger to scoot aside to
avoid being steam-rollered into the carpet. Frank had been outsized ever since the third grade, and had quickly learned how to wield his bulk so he intimidated and diminished people without ever laying a finger on them or even looking as if he was thinking about it. In fact, it was the unhappy realization that Frank wasn’t even aware of them that rocked most people, liquefied the marrow in their bones. Frank was six-four and tipped the scales at two hundred and fifty-something pounds. When he took a stroll, the sidewalks were never crowded. When he was thirsty, there was always room at the bar. A few years ago, he’d been up around the three-hundred-pound mark. Fat, and getting fatter. A stray round from a .45 had steered him into a liquid diet followed by six months of hospital cuisine. Since then, he’d never had any trouble keeping his weight down. Looking on the bright side, you could say that every cloud had a copper-jacketed lining.

  He took the brushed-aluminum elevator up to the fifth floor, slipped the plastic rectangle into his lock and opened the door. He’d left the television on, and all the lights, the air conditioner and bathroom fan and heat lamp. Two-fifty a night, but that included utilities and, anyway, Newt was paying the bill. Frank loosened his tie and flopped down on the bed. Outside, a siren wailed the only song it knew.

  Frank passed the time watching television and honing the fine art of blowing a small smoke ring through a larger smoke ring. After a while there was a discreet knock on the door. Frank said, “It’s open. Come on in.”

  She was maybe fifteen years old, and had a fifteen-year-old’s perfect figure — a little bit tentative but excruciatingly feminine. Her skin where you could see it was white and seamless as a sheet of paper. Her hair was peroxide-blonde and swept up in a French twist. She wore a skintight Lycra body suit, electric-blue laced with pink stripes. There was a gold chain with a cross around her neck. A man’s chunky diver’s watch weighed down her left wrist. Aviator-style mirrored sunglasses dominated her face. Her mouth was wide and sensuous, her lips the colour of an overripe cherry.