Reluctant Detective (21 page)

42

An overcast sky drew a blanket of night more quickly over the city. Eight-thirty and it was already dark – dreary, too, in spite of the festivities ramping up around her. Confederation Landing Park
and the entire waterfront area were bustling with Canada Day
crowds. A large stage had been erected in what had been a parking lot behind the green lawns and flora-lined walkways running to the
water's edge. All afternoon musicians had entertained, local bands
and lesser-known pop groups had performed earlier in the day, and
headliners would take the stage after the fireworks scheduled for
nine-thirty.

Peake's Quay lay at the west end of the park. It was a collection of gift shops, snack bars, and craft stores housed in structures resem
bling the fishermen's shacks and bait sheds typical of the Island's coastal villages. A lounge and restaurant rose up in the centre of
that collection, and tourists and visitors dining on its second-floor balcony had an unencumbered view of the floating docks and boats in the marina below, as well as a stunning view of Charlottetown Harbour over which the fireworks would soon be launched.

Anne sat alone on a bench below the restaurant and lounge, and
near the boat ramp. She could see the dock where she and Sean McGee would exchange the suitcase of money for Dit. The boats
and docks of the marina were gated off to the public, but the gates weren't locked, and anyone with enough boldness could walk in and look at the cruisers and sailboats close up with little or no scrutiny.

Anne arrived early for the switch. She scouted the area closely and
hoped to anticipate any undesirable surprises Sean and his crew
might throw into the plan. The hand-off would happen at the end of the first dock. It was in plain view. That made it an unlikely spot for
some kind of double-cross, but vengeance couldn't be too far from
his mind. People like him never forget, forgive, or let things go. The only obstacle that might rein back his baser impulses was a witness or two, and they were plentiful here, even within the gated-off dock
area, where many boaters and their guests sprawled across decks
and cozied up in cockpits, drinking beer, sipping wine, and digging into plates of finger food.

Anne looked around for Ben. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was nearby, somewhere, out of sight. He had listened carefully to her plan over dinner the night before. He had said it was a good
one but insisted that someone back her up. False pride shouldn't
rule common sense, he had said. If the police depend upon back-up,
he reasoned, shouldn't she consider it, too? He offered to help even
though it was his scheduled day off. Just a friend helping a friend, he said.

Anne accepted his offer, but she pretended to be reluctant to do
so. It
was
a matter of pride, but in her heart she realized that he was
right. Acting alone could prove to be a reckless move on her part, and having someone share the risk would double her chances of success. That brought some consolation because it was Dit's well-
being that was in jeopardy, maybe even his life.

So Anne waited on the bench, the suitcase beside her, feeling a
bit lost, like a tourist waiting for a bus and worrying if she were at
the right station. At quarter to nine, Anne picked up the suitcase and passed through the gate to the docks. The floating docks gave
slightly under her weight. The chains linking each platform clanked.
Her sneakers padded over the wooden planks. Every berth at the marina was filled with a vessel, some with people aboard. Giggles,
the mutter of conversations, the clank of beer bottles, and swells of laughter echoed from corner to corner. She saw few of the noisemakers until she was almost upon them, and few of them noticed her as she passed in the darkness.

At the end of the dock she set the suitcase down. It was the same one that she'd taken from Cutter at the Hole in the Wall; it carried
the same bullet hole in the side panel; everything was the same except for the contents. She'd switched the Client's counterfeit
with Dit's replica bundles. She figured that McGee or Cutter could be duped, especially in the reduced light of the marina. The Client wouldn't be taken in so easily.

Anne stared toward the water, then turned slowly around and watched the silhouettes etched against the fake fishing shacks on the landing and the dancers and diners on the balcony of the restaurant above. She didn't know from which direction McGee
would come. Perhaps he was among them. Perhaps he was in a boat
berthed at this very dock. Maybe he was watching from the near
edge of the park. She faced back toward Charlottetown Harbour. A stone breakwater stretched across the marina's entrance. A blinking white beacon marked the entrance. Through the opening Anne saw the running lights of a dozen boats. They were drifting or anchored nearby for a clear view of the festivities.

The red and green lights of one of those vessels grew larger and
brighter. It was approaching the entrance. Just inside, it idled,
the engines emitting a gentle burbling. It lost headway and stood motionless as if hunting for an empty slot to pull into or searching
for the fuel dock to gas up. Anne heard a muted clunk. The boat shifted into gear and swung around, its bow pointing out again.
Another clunk. It edged back until it was abreast an empty sailboat. One of the crew reached out, grabbed a stanchion on deck, and held his boat in place without tying up. Another crewman stooped over,
clambered across the deck of the sailboat and jumped onto the
dock. It was not until then that Anne realized that any escape route
had been cut off. If these were Cutter's men, then she was trapped
at the end of the quay.

The outline of the figure that swaggered toward her was tall and
muscular. Heavier than Sean McGee. Taller than Cutter, and half a man lighter than the Bouncer at Cutter's club. Before he got too
close, he pulled a neck scarf over his nose to hide his face. Darkness hid the pattern of his tattoos.

“That the money?” he asked, no threats, no bravado, just business.

“Yes. First, where's Dit?”

“In the box,” he said and pointed to a large plastic cooler strapped to the swim platform on the stern of his cruiser, a Chaparral.

“How do I know he's okay?”

He snapped his fingers a few times. A crewman hammered on the
box and said something she couldn't make out. Then she heard a
muffled shout that she recognized as Dit's voice.

“Get him out of there,” she said angrily.

“The money,” he said, motioning with his hand.

Anne passed him the valise. He popped the latches, cradled the
valise in the crook of his arm, and lifted the lid. He peered in,
shuffled a few bundles, locked it again, and leapt from the dock to the sailboat. Two strides and a jump brought him onto the deck of
his Chaparral. Anne thought they were going to bolt, and she was
about to shout for help, when a blade glinted in his hand, and he cut
the straps holding the cooler. He signalled the driver, who hit the throttle. The Chaparral lurched forward, the stern dug in, and the
cooler slid off the swim platform and into the water.

The cooler floated and bobbed a few times. Then it became
unstable and rolled. The hinged lid opened with Dit's weight against it and water surged in. The harbour seemed to swallow the cooler. It disappeared, Dit Malone still inside.

43

Ben had been watching Anne from a second-floor-balcony table of
the restaurant. It overlooked the marina. From there he had been keeping an eye on Anne, waiting on a bench, the valise beside her. She looked small and young and as anxious as a waif running away from home. The sight of her there, and realizing what she had gone through so far, disturbed him. He was damned if he knew why she took over Billy's agency. If it wasn't craziness, he didn't know what
it was. Maybe some side effect of Billy's death had set her off. Maybe
it was some women's lib thing. It was beyond his understanding. He admitted that, but he had done his best to discourage her. He had gotten her a job, one that anyone else would have jumped at. He couldn't tell her – or for sure she would have turned him down
– but the job was hers for the taking. Not that he had pulled strings,
but he had convinced the right people that she was perfect for the position. And after all that, it looked like she was going to pass on it.

The waitress brought a smoked meat on rye sandwich. He ate the
slice of dill pickle first. He sipped his beer. Then he dug into the sandwich. He wanted it to taste like those he remembered from Montreal or Ottawa, but it didn't. He finished it anyway, wiped mustard from the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin and
watched Anne make her way to the head of the dock.

When he saw a boat moving in, he pulled a small pair of binoculars from his pocket and focussed on it. It seemed to stall near the breakwater. A blinking white navigation light lit up the boat's registration
number. He jotted it in his notebook, just in case. Then he hurried
down the restaurant's steps and walked slowly toward the docks. He could just distinguish Anne's silhouette from the other shadows. For not more than a minute, the boat slipped out of sight. Then he heard
the roar of its engine. It sped away too quickly, he thought, and that
was enough to send him running along the dock toward Anne.

Anne watched in horror as the container that held Dit disappeared
beneath disturbed black ripples of water. She leapt aboard the
empty sailboat to get closer. Then the cooler bobbed up and rolled
again. Dit's head broke the surface. He sputtered and coughed,
choking on the sea water. He seemed disoriented. Anne reached out toward him, but it was too far. She grabbed a boat hook lying on the floor of the cockpit. The shaft was about five feet long.

She shouted, “Dit! Over here!”

His arms flailed the water. He had no sense of direction in the darkness. At first he began to make for the flashing beacon on the
breakwater, but Anne's shout turned him around. He did not appear to see her, but she extended the boat hook as far toward him as she
could. When he felt the hook graze his shoulder, he caught it, and
she pulled him toward the dock.

By that time Ben was at her side. He hauled Dit by his underarms onto the dock. Dit lay there retching and gasping. His right eye was
black, swollen shut, and dried blood caked his hair. Ben said nothing, but he knew that Dit had taken a bad beating and probably had been
kept isolated in that box for some time. On his cell phone he called
for an emergency vehicle, no lights, no siren.

“Dit, are you all right?” she asked frantically. He didn't answer. He just lay there.

“You can't stay here,” Ben said. “You've still got work to do.”

“But Dit...?”

“He'll be all right. He's hurt a bit. Exhausted. But nothing serious.
Don't worry. I'll take care of him until the medics get here. But
there's going to be a commotion in a few minutes. A lot of gawkers
wantin' to see what happened, and one of them might be your Client. If he sees you, it blows the set-up.”

“Are you going with him to the hospital?” she asked.

“No. I'll call Sarah. She'll want to be there. I'll stay until the medics
take him away. Then I'll be keeping an eye on you. Now, go! Sarah
will keep us updated.”

Once he'd hauled Dit onto the dock, called EMS, and sent Anne
away to prepare the trap for the Client, Ben phoned the police
dispatcher who transferred him to the harbour patrol vessel.

“Harbour patrol, this is Sergeant Solomon, Charlottetown PD. I
have a partial registration on a Chaparral cruiser... sierra tango four
niner seven. It left Peake's Quay marina at high speed maybe three minutes ago. Two men aboard are suspects in a kidnapping. They
may be armed, and they may try to dump some evidence, a medium-sized brown suitcase. Over.”

“Roger that, Ben. We caught them on radar when they left. They're
still a blip on the screen, but it's dark and they've got a pretty good
head start. We're in pursuit. If they don't take cover along the shore, we've got a chance. Over.”

“Do your best, Danny. This one's special. Over.”

“Roger, Ben. Harbour patrol out.”

Even without emergency lights and siren, two paramedics rushing
through the mass of people gathering for the fireworks drew stares
and interest. Small groups assembled on the walkway that bordered the marina and looked down over it, but the drama was short-lived. The paramedics were quick to load Dit aboard a stretcher and move
him to the ambulance. After their departure, Ben looked around for
Anne.

The gazebo where she was to meet the Client was a stone's throw from the marina. It formed part of several walkways that followed
the shoreline from the marina to the commercial wharves four
hundred yards away. The walking paths had a nineteenth-century
look to them. They were paved with antique brick. Period lampposts
lit the way. Varnished wood benches with heavy wrought-iron
frames were set at comfortable intervals. Most of the walkways had
short runs before a turn. That gave the park an intimacy. Adding
to that effect were the gardens that bordered them. Red and white
rose bushes and plots of yellow lilies added colour to the sugar
maples above them. Farther on, the path led through cedars and lilacs, pussy willow bushes, and thick pines. On any summer day,
one could feel alone there without being so.

On this evening, however, there was little possibility of solitude.
The walkways were busy, mostly with families trying to keep their
children preoccupied until the fireworks began. Behind the walkways was a grassy field covered with blankets, more parents, and
squirming kids. Young couples huddled affectionately on cold grass, and older adults reclined contentedly on beach chairs.

Ben settled into a park bench a few yards from the gazebo. Anne
walked by him, the second suitcase in her hand. They exchanged no sign of recognition. She stopped where two walkways intersected.
The corner of the intersection widened into a small plaza in the
middle of which stood the gazebo.

The gazebo was large, intended more as a historic edifice than a
recreational facility. The inside was open. The walls carried murals
depicting the Charlottetown Conference, the meeting at which the idea of a Canadian nation was conceived. She stepped cautiously
inside as if to read one of the commemorative bronze plaques.

The gazebo was empty. Strangely, Anne thought, so was the
surrounding plaza. Earlier, pedestrian traffic there had been steady and, given her vulnerable situation, Anne could not help but note the
change. Perhaps the warm-up acts performing their sound checks
had lured some of the crowd back toward the stage on the commons,
she thought. Perhaps the imminence of the fireworks drew them
away. It grew quiet, too, as if some announcement were about to be made. Voices fell off, and the music from Peake's Quay mellowed.

Then Anne heard a clatter of feet behind her from garden side of
the gazebo. It was a dark corner, in the shadow of the lamplight. She started to swing around, but she was struck from behind. She yelped in fright. Someone grabbed the hem of her jacket. Her heart raced. Then two shrill screeches cracked the air. They came
from the children who had run through the rear of the gazebo, one chasing the other in a game of tag, Anne in the middle.

“Sorry,” each cried between peals of laughter. They circled her
twice, ran out the gazebo, and scampered down the path to the
commons. Loose sandals scuffed and clacked as a harried, frumpy woman appeared and disappeared in pursuit of them.

Anne's heart was still pounding when she turned back, but it took a skip when she saw a man standing nose to nose in front of her.

“MacLaren! What are you doing here? Where's my Client?”

“He couldn't make it. He sent me.”

“The hell he did! I made it clear. He had to be here! Not you. Him!”

“I can't help it. He told me to get it or else.”

“Or else what?”

MacLaren lifted a corner of his sweatshirt. His hand gripped the
butt of a nickel-plated revolver, and his left hand reached for the
valise beside Anne. He took two careful steps back. Then he strode quickly out of the gazebo and down the same path the children had escaped on.

Ben Solomon was staring into the emptiness of the harbour when MacLaren drew abreast of him.

“He's got a gun!” Anne shouted.

At that warning, Ben sprang up and grabbed MacLaren's right
wrist and upper arm. He levered the elbow forward and the wrist back, and MacLaren tumbled helplessly to the pavement face first. With his knee pinning MacLaren's back, Ben cuffed him.