Reluctant Detective (10 page)

21

Carson White or Sean McGee? It didn't matter which, but she had
to pin down one or the other, or both. Anne had Carson's phone number. She tried that a few times. No answer. The third try brought Carson's father to the phone. Carson hadn't come home.
He didn't know where the boy had gone, but he expected him back soon. He thought Anne sounded like a nice person, and any friend of Carson's was more than welcome to come over and wait for him.
Besides, the father said, he would like to meet more of Carson's young friends. The father slurred his words. Anne could almost smell his sour beer breath over the phone. She hung up without
reply, and suddenly she felt rather sorry for Carson White.

Having no luck with Carson, she drove to the street where Sean lived. Once, this area had been a comfortable residential neighbourhood. The homes were spacious. Windows were large. Most had verandas, garden plots, neat fences, and small trimmed lawns. But now the lawns were spotty, the fences needed painting, the roofs were acquiring a mossy veneer, and the houses had been subdivided into apartments. Sean's apartment was on the second
floor front.

Anne cruised by every half-hour from seven until nine o'clock and had seen no sign of life, but at nine-thirty she spotted a light behind
his closed curtains. She made one more phone call and waited
impatiently.

Anne's side of beef arrived fifteen minutes later. It came in the
burly, looming shape of Tim Perkins, one of Dit's friends. Perkins
had been the enforcer on his Newfoundland hockey team, and he'd exacted vengeance on the slashers and body-slammers who
hadn't been caught by a referee, but he was only a mediocre hockey player at best. He was slow on skates and slow to react, but his size,
strength, and brutish appearance eventually earned him a try-out as offensive tackle on Acadia's football team. Football was a better fit for Tim's skills, but his miserable academic record tripped him up, and he flunked out. During the years that followed, Tim had
been content to work the logging camps in western New Brunswick during the fall and winter months and to haul lobster traps during
the spring on Prince Edward Island. Somewhere between the
solitude of the forest and the undulations of the sea he found Jesus.
Regularly during the summers he volunteered as a counsellor at a camp for disabled children. That's where he met Dit, who was also a volunteer. The kids loved Tim. They called him the gentle
giant, something which always made him smile. But the truth of it
was that, in addition to his bone-crushing strength, he also had a
genuine care for those who were weakest in society and felt almost a personal obligation to protect the endangered. Strangely, this odd
brew of frightening and redeeming characteristics made Perkins one of the best bodyguards in the Maritimes.

“Tim, I want you to stand right there under the street lamp. I'm
going to be in that apartment… up there… the one that has the light on. I'll be fifteen minutes, no longer.”

“Got it. You want me to do anything special?”

“Are you dressed?”

Tim said nothing, but he pulled back the long coat he wore and
revealed the butt of a pistol in his belt.

“.357?” asked Anne.

“It's a .177… a pellet gun. It has a frame which looks like a .357. It's for show. An argument-breaker. I don't want to shoot anybody.”

“Nor do I,” said Anne. “So this is what I want you to do…” Anne
gave Tim a brief run-down on Sean McGee and what she was
planning for him. The plan was simple: “When the drapes are drawn and Sean looks down and sees you, give him your best Grim Reaper
imitation, and flash your piece. That should bring him to his knees.
I'll handle the rest.”

Tim nodded. Then Anne walked up the steps to the front door of
Sean's house. The front door opened into an entryway. A flight of stairs led to the second floor and, at the top of that landing, Anne stood for a nervous moment and took a couple of deep breaths.
Then she knocked on Sean McGee's door.

The man who opened the door was lean and wiry. Clumps of
brown hair drooped lazily over his forehead. His eyes were watery, and the rims were slightly reddened like those of a regular drinker. A cloud of perfume floated ahead of Anne and enveloped Sean. She
watched his eyes soften and his facial features lose their tension.
He almost smiled. Then he took a half-step back. His eyes grew cold again, and he barked gruffly:

“Whaddya want?”

“I'm sellin' Girl Scout cookies,” said Anne, leaning up against the
doorjamb and looking bored.

Sean stared at her as if he didn't know what to make of her.

Finally, Anne said, “Are you going to be a gentleman… or do I have to invite myself in?”

Sean stepped aside, and Anne strode boldly past and into the
living room. His apartment was neat, shabby, and plain. She walked around a spacious, stained sofa and stopped in front of the picture
window. The drapes were closed. She turned around just as Sean
closed the door behind him.

“What if I don't like Girl Scout cookies?” he asked.

“Well, I suppose we could find something you like better,” she
replied. Anne smiled. Both her hands were jammed into the pockets
of her leather jacket. Her right hand gripped the trigger of the pepper spray. She felt her heart beating against her blouse, and she felt a quiver of fear and a certain light-headedness as a jolt of
adrenaline shot into her veins.

“But before that,” she added, “there's somethin' I just gotta show
you. It's a surprise. Okay? Pull back the drapes. Look out the win
dow,” she said. She acted like an excited schoolgirl hiding a present.

Anne leaned against the back of the sofa and poked her finger in the direction of the drapes in front of her.

“Go ahead… open them!”

Sean came around the sofa, looked at Anne, and looked at the
drapes. Without warning he lunged toward Anne, grabbing her by
the throat and pushing her until she was bent over backwards, her feet dangling off the floor, and her body pinned. Anne was choking, but couldn't scream. Her eyes bulged. She'd had lost her grip on the pepper spray. Her back ached as the butt of the .32 pistol dug into the small of her back, but she couldn't reach it.

“Ginger may be an airhead, but she's not stupid,” Sean growled. His face was inches from hers. Cigarette tar had stained his teeth. Saliva
spattered her face each time he spoke. “Did you think she wouldn't
tell me that somebody was snoopin' 'round?”

Anne was immobile under Sean's weight, but his words lit up a
picture of the stoned shopgirl at Smoke Signals. Then she wondered
what Tim was doing. Had he heard anything? Would he suspect
trouble or not? Could she get a hand free? Was Sean going to kill
her? What would happen to Jacqui?

“Who are you? And what do you want?” he demanded.

Anne tried to speak, but the stranglehold on her neck left room
enough for no more than a wheezy gasp and a raspy croaking sound. He loosened his grip slightly, enough for Anne to speak.

“Money. My suitcase,” she groaned. “I want it back.”

“So that's it.”

Sean straightened up and with him so did Anne, but he kept firm
hold of her throat and held her at arm's length. “Well, you've got
balls comin' up here,” he said. There was a hint of amused admiration in his tone, and then it turned venomous. “But you're not too
bright, are ya? Whaddya think, I'm gonna give it back? Besides, I
don't even know what you're talkin' about. I don't know about no
suitcase. I don't know about no money. And I don't wanna know
about your little troubles. Now get the fuck out,” he said.

Sean flung her toward the door. She lost her balance, hit the floor,
and rolled against a table. Instinctively, she recovered and spun
around to face him. He was coming toward her again. So she stood
quickly, took one short step forward, and pressed the trigger on the
pepper spray. A long steady stream of liquid caught him in the face.
Sean screamed in pain, but the pepper didn't stop him. Blinded, he continued to rush forward until he stumbled over her. He grabbed
her with both hands, picked her up, and hurled her like a sack of old
clothes towards the kitchen. Anne felt herself airborne for a long time. Her shoes hit the floor first. Then her slight frame skidded
through a doorway into the kitchen, the back of her head slamming
the side of the stove. She yelped when she hit.

Sean staggered, still half-blind, toward the sound of her. Anne
watched him cross the room. She remembered the little pistol. Her
back still ached from it. She felt for it, but she didn't want to use it.
Then she saw the cast iron frying pan on the stove. She grabbed the handle and wound up.

Then there was an explosion. When Anne heard it, she thought
a truck had struck the house. She even felt the tremor. Sean heard
it, too, and his head snapped around in time to see the front door
burst free of its hinges and latch. The enormous bulk of Tim Perkins followed it in and drove the door far into the room where it fell just short of Sean McGee's boots.

Sean stared at Tim with frightened, burning eyes and a gaping mouth.

Tim looked at Anne. He looked unsure of himself and a bit worried. “Nobody opened the drapes,” he tried to explain. “Was this okay?”

Anne swung the frying pan with less force than she had first
intended. It brought McGee down, and he dropped at her feet.

22

The first image in Sean McGee's mind as he regained conscious
ness
was the shattering of a door and a giant standing in front of him. It seemed so real, and his body twitched violently at the vividness of that memory. Then came the terrible pain in the back of his head.
Sean could feel blood matting in his hair. He wanted to lift his hands
and soothe his cracked skull, but his hands wouldn't move. Both were tied behind him and fastened to the plumbing of an old cast-iron radiator. Both his feet were tied together, too, and, when he
opened his eyes, he could see nothing. A blindfold covered them. He
heard small noises that he couldn't identify. He called out: “Who's there?”

“It's just me,” said Anne. “I took some liberties and made myself some coffee. You were out of tea. Remember? Girl Scout cookies? You weren't very nice, if you recall. A sonofabitch comes to mind.
Other words, too.”

“When I get out of here…,” he growled limply.

“Who says you're getting out of here, Sean? And, by the way, I'm
not so sure I like your attitude. Now you may not think me charming,
but I'm sure you'd agree that I'm still a whiz in the kitchen.” Anne enjoyed the playful torture of Sean, but she knew that he was not
beaten down quite enough yet.

The blindfold helped. Not seeing made Sean unsettled and
disoriented. He couldn't see where she was. He couldn't read her expressions… her body language. He didn't know where the giant
was… what he might be doing. So much depended upon seeing
and, in the dark, his ignorance deepened and his pain amplified. He couldn't think. He couldn't plan.

Anne watched him coldly for a while and sipped her hot coffee. Then her tone changed to one which was humourless, grave, and
matter-of-fact.

“Here's what's going to happen, Sean. I want to know where the
money is, and I want to know now. If you tell me, I'll free you… once it's in my hands… not before.”

“Go t' hell!”

“If you jerk me around in any way… any way at all… you won't see the sun rise tomorrow.”

“You don't have the balls.”

“My friend… who you met earlier and who's waiting downstairs…
will drop you off the North River causeway. It's not like you'd be
missed by anybody. It's not like you're some little boy gone missing or some pretty young girl snatched from her home. In fact, you're not important at all. Who'd bother to report you missing?”

“You're bluffing.”

“Put yourself in my shoes, Sean. Would you let someone walk
away with a million and change… or would you drown the skunk
who stole it so at least
he
couldn't spend it? Think you might be
spiteful enough to drown the skunk? I think I might, Sean, but that's just me.”

Anne stopped, drank the last of her coffee, and waited for another
virulent response. Sean heard the small clink of her cup touch the
saucer, and then he heard a wispy resigned sigh from Anne. He said nothing.

“If I can't get what I want from you, I'll get it out of that kid,
Carson. So… should I ask my friend to start riggin' the anchor or what? Your call? Which is it?”

He said nothing.

“Fair enough, then.”

Sean thought he detected a sadness in her voice. Then he heard
a gentle scrape of her chair as Anne rose. A ripping sound. Anne's
footsteps coming toward him. The smell of her perfume. A strip
of tape pressed across his mouth. Her retreating footsteps, and a “Good-bye, Sean.”

Sean felt as if the lid to his coffin had closed over him. Panic
followed in a single, hot, smothering wave and loosed a torrent of indecipherable words against the tape stuck on his face. His cheeks puffed under the back pressure. His eyes bulged. His body writhed.
His muffled wails and stifled cries evoked a scene of pathos and
desperation – that of a creature sensing the imminence of its own death, and that of a human being reaching out for mercy.

Anne had reached the front door. It was propped loosely up against the frame where Tim had left it.

“A change of mind?”

He nodded briskly.

“Full cooperation?”

He nodded again.

“Good,” she said. “Let's get started.”