The Detective Lane Casebook #1 Page 9

  Ernie closed the car door and gripped her elbow. Carefully avoiding his mother’s eyes, he matched his pace to Nanny’s. Waiting, baby step, waiting, he shuffled alongside until they had covered the two meters across the blue painted handicapped parking zone and stepped up over the curb.

  Beth opened the red and white door then waited for the pair to pass through.

  Ernie thought he’d died and gone to hell. “Lesley?”

  She held red and white framed menus with Sonny’s written across the top. Along with a smile, she wore a white blouse and black skirt. “How are you?”

  Ernie felt heat on his face, opened his mouth to speak and found he couldn’t.

  “Table for three?” Lesley said.

  Nanny wheezed.

  “Please,” Beth said.

  “Smoking or non?”

  “Smoking,” Nanny said.

  “Non,” Beth said.

  “Smoking! It’s my birthday and I’ll god damn well smoke if I wanna.” She turned to Lesley. “And I wanna talk to the manager.”

  By way of apology, Ernie smiled at Lesley.

  “Before or after you sit down?” Lesley continued to smile.

  She can’t be paid enough, whatever it is, Ernie thought.

  “After.” Then, Nanny said, “Do you need to see my coupon now?”

  “When I take your order.” Without looking back, Lesley matched the old woman’s pace as they passed the glassed in display of cheese cake. Then they moved down the aisle between booths where walls were painted pale green and dotted with chickens in cartoon poses. A few smoked Cuban cigars and leaned against hay bails. The table was shaped like a ‘D’ set inside the ‘U’ of a bench.

  Nanny sat on the red vinyl.

  Ernie memorized the gentle poetry of Lesley’s walk and wondered if she’d ever look at him after this.

  Blatttt! The explosive volume of the eruption turned Nanny’s face a brilliant red.

  Lesley leaned the top half of her body so it looked like she could limbo her way out of there.

  Beth eased around behind Lesley, sat and slid till she was under the window.

  Ernie followed and sat across from his grandmother. It can’t get any worse, he thought.

  “I’ll get the manager and be back to take your order.”

  Lesley winked at Ernie and left.

  Nanny nodded and lifted her hand to press the oxygen tubes further into her nostrils. She lowered her hand and whispered, “It’s so embarrassing when I get the gas! I just can’t help it.”

  “Nobody noticed.” Beth grabbed a menu.

  “Too old,” Nanny said to Ernie.

  “What?” he said.

  “She’s too old for you.”

  “What do you mean?” He picked up a menu wondering if it was big enough to hide behind.

  “Don’t think you can hide behind that. She was your baby sitter.” Nanny lifted the tube from her ears, set it in her lap then reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of smokes.

  “I saw the way you looked at her.”

  Ernie pretended to study the menu.

  Nanny lit, took a pull and blew smoke. It hung between them. She waved at it with her free hand.

  “They say the tobacco companies put formaldehyde in cigarettes,” Ernie said from behind the menu.

  “Can I help you?” A man between 24 and 25 stood at the end of their booth. He wore a white shirt, black tie, black pants and a smile.

  “You the manager?” Nanny blew smoke. It split into separate clouds along the spine of Ernie’s menu.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “The sign,” Nanny said.

  The manager answered with a frown that said he didn’t understand what she meant.

  “The sign over the front door. The one with ‘cluckin’ in it. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doin’. Change the ‘cl’ to an ‘f’ and you got your answer. Take the sign down.” Nanny took another drag.

  Ernie looked at the glowing formaldehyde.

  “Right away.” The manager left.

  “I’m gonna check when I leave,” Nanny said. She blew smoke into the air over their heads. “Gotta speak up for yourself in this life. After my brother died in the war, my mother kept sayin’ she let the government take him away without puttin’ up a fight, without sayin’ a word. She regretted it till the day she died. I told myself I was always gonna say what’s on my mind.”

  “Are you ready to order?” Lesley held a note pad in her left hand. She smiled at Ernie. He smiled back.

  Nanny dug in her purse and pulled out the two for one coupon. “Double chicken breast, fries, gravy, ice cream and coffee.”

  Lesley slid the coupon to the edge of the table and picked it up. Ernie moved his menu to the left, studied the length of her fingers and the way blue fingernail polish reflected light.

  “Chicken salad, please.” Beth smiled, hoping a ten dollar tip would be enough in the way of an apology for Nanny’s behaviour.

  “To drink?” Lesley said.

  “Tea, please,” Beth said.

  “Ernie?” Lesley said.

  All eyes were on him. He glanced left, straight ahead and then at Lesley. She’s got great eyelashes, he thought and said, “Cluckin’ burger, please.” Realizing his mistake, he opened his mouth, looked across the table and saw the disapproving frown lines forming around his grandmother’s lips. “Uhh, chicken burger, please.”

  BLATT. This time, even Nanny appeared startled by the volume.

  Lesley tried to hide her face behind the menus. “To drink?”

  “Coke. Big coke.” Ernie saw people turning to stare at him. He leaned back against the bench, defeated by his grandmother’s gas.

  “Okay,” Lesley said. Ernie watched her hustle down the aisle and take a hard left to disappear into the kitchen. Her laughter was snuffed out when the door closed behind her.

  “Don’t tell me no one heard that one!” Nanny said.

  “Nope, even the people in the parking lot heard that one,” Beth said.

  Ernie looked at his mother.

  “It’s so embarrassing when I get the gas.”

  “Don’t worry, everybody thinks it’s me,” Ernie said.

  Beth smiled at him, then. The kind of smile only a mother can muster to tell her child she’d die for him.

  “You think so?” Nanny said.

  “I know so.” Ernie thought about methane and oxygen and what could happen if his grandmother decided to light another cigarette. He felt the giggles grabbing him by the throat and swallowed hard to hold the laughter in.

  “Oh, of course.” Nanny butted the smouldering filter tip into the ash tray. “People expect a teenager to do things like that.”

  “Here you are.” Lesley arrived with a tray of drinks.

  “Thanks,” Beth and Ernie said in harmony.

  “No problem,” Lesley said.

  “We want take out,” Nanny said and sipped her coffee.

  “But.” Beth took a deep breath, and let it out slow.

  “It’s my birthday and I want take out.”

  Ernie took a long pull on his coke.

  “Whatever,” Beth said.

  “Take out?” Lesley sought confirmation.

  BLATTT!

  Lesley’s eyes opened wide.

  Ernie saw ripples in his grandmother’s coffee. The giggles caught hold of him.

  Lesley looked at him and covered her laughter with a hand.

  “Listen!” Nanny slapped the table top with her cigarette pack. “I’m not feeling well and I wanna eat my,” Blatttt!

  “chicken,” BLATT! BLATTATTATT! “at home!”

  “No problem,” Lesley said before she left.

  Ernie leaned his head back and roared with laughter.

  It took him five minutes to get control of himself and another five minutes to cover the 30 meter journey back to the car. A girl of five or six in a flowered dress, blond ponytails and white shoes pointed at Ernie and asked, “Was that you?” Nanny started to
chuckle. BLATT! The girl ran away saying, “He did it again, Mom!”

  “I’ll get the order,” Beth said. Nanny and Ernie continued out the door.

  He was holding her hand and easing her into the front seat of the car when she said, “You know I love you.” The words created a silence around them. She kept her eyes on him. “You know it.”

  “I know it,” Ernie said.

  “Just because I don’t say it very often doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”

  “You’ve never said it,” he said.

  “Never said it before? Thought you knew it.” She took a hit of oxygen.

  “But you say stuff.” He leaned an arm on the door and looked at her.

  “I thought you knew. I say whatever comes into my mind. Life’s too short to hold back,” Nanny said.

  “But?”

  “You know I got a temper. And you know I love you. Always have. Always will.”

  “I know.” Careful of her feet and the oxygen line, he closed her door and climbed in the back seat.

  “You drive.”

  “What?” Ernie said.

  “You drive.”

  He got out, circled the car to get behind the wheel. “I don’t have my license, yet.”

  “What are they gonna do, arrest me?” Nanny said.

  “No, but they might arrest me.”

  “Over my dead body,” she said.

  Friday, August 4

  CHAPTER 21

  Marv blinked. The grey upholstery on the back of the front seat was tinted pink. His stomach growled. Grimacing at the stiff pain in his back, he rolled up his blue wind breaker to serve as a pillow.

  He tried to stretch his legs but his feet pushed against the passenger door. Marvin lifted himself onto an elbow, eased both feet to the floor and sat up. They were still parked in between a pair of brand new Lincolns. Dew glistened on all vehicles within his field of vision.

  He felt the sun’s hand at the back of his neck. “Les?” Marv’s mouth was dry and he wished he could brush his teeth.

  “Les?” He leaned forward to shake the shoulder of his older brother. Les slapped his hand away. “We smell better in the morning. You notice that? Think the cops’ll find us here?”

  “We’re just another Ford in the lot,” Les said.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Get a cup of coffee and some breakfast, dummy.”

  “How much you got?” Marv said.

  Les reached under the driver’s seat and fished out a 35 mm film container he used to store twoonies. He poured the coins into his left palm and counted. “Fifteen.”

  “Bucks?” Marv’s belly felt emptier.

  “Twoonies. Thirty bucks.”

  “Tim Horton’s?”

  “Sure. Last night, I spotted one just down the road.” Les sat up.

  “Then what?”

  “We need another car. Cops’ll be looking for this one.” Les picked sleep from the corners of his eyes.

  “Where we gonna get one?”

  “Strip mall or one of those health clubs. Wait till someone ducks inside and leaves the car running.”

  Marv felt better when they had a plan. “Then we’ll pay the old man a visit?”

  “And it won’t be kidnapping,” Lester said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll explain after we have a coffee.”

  “Mom, I’m late for work. You wake me up at five to look for lighter fluid. You don’t use lighter fluid anymore. I’m sure we threw it out after Dad died,” Beth said.

  “It’s gotta be here somewhere,” Nanny said. The nightie she wore had been washed so many times that her body was outlined in shadow. She moved across the family room carpet to the garage door. Fluorescent tubes flickered inside the garage creating a soft, eerie light. Glass jars were scattered inside the green recycling box next to the stairs. She looked at the jars and said, “That’ll do the trick.”

  “What?” Beth leaned against the wall.

  “It’s okay.” Nanny closed the door and turned the lights off. She reached for her daughter, and put both arms around Beth’s waist. “I love you.”

  “What?” Beth pulled away from the dusty scent of smoke and perfume, yet remained close enough to keep both arms around her mother’s shoulders.

  “You heard me.”

  “Mom. What’s the matter?” Beth felt a cold fist inside of her. For an instant she thought she might be sick.

  “Can’t I just say it without you making a fuss?” Nanny moved back into the family room.

  “But . . . ” Beth was framed in the doorway.

  “I thought you knew.” Nanny sat and opened her smokes. She lifted the oxygen tube off her face and dropped it at her feet.

  “I do know. It’s just . . . ”

  “Spit it out girl,” Nanny flicked the lighter’s wheel and flame lit the end of her cigarette.

  “You don’t say it very often.”

  “There. It’s better when you say what’s on your mind.” Nanny took a drag and closed her eyes, “You’re late for work.”

  “We need to talk,” Beth said.

  “When you get home.”

  Beth opened her mouth, closed it, looked at her watch, “Shit! I’m late.”

  Nanny waited till the door closed behind Beth. The old woman lifted the TV remote. The screen eased out of black. Coffee cup in one hand and cigarette in the other, she waited until the commercials were finished.

  She reached down to put the clear plastic of the oxygen tube under her nose and over her ears. She stood and shuffled across the carpet to the garage door. Flipping on the light switch with her left, she opened the door with her right hand. She wheezed down two steps where the cool of concrete met the soles of her feet. Sitting on the steps, she picked through the glass jars until she found one with a matching lid. “Small enough to fit in my purse,” she said. Back inside, Nanny headed for the sliding glass door, opened it and stepped out onto the deck. The sun licked the dew off the wood. Reaching back, she pulled the oxygen line but it was stretched as far as it could go. She took short gasping breaths. It was all her scarred lungs would allow. Her gaze measured the pathway to the shed where they kept the lawn mower and gasoline.

  “You’ve gone to the shed a thousand times before. One more time won’t kill you.” Lifting the tube over her head, she looped it over the deck railing and stepped down to the paving stones. She stepped onto the grass and smiled. “Move slow.” Wheezing, and holding the jar between her breasts, she reached the shed. The metal door stuck at first, but she managed to shake it open. Gasoline, grease and grass clippings came together to create a communal scent rich with summer memories. Nanny bent to twist the black plastic cap off the red can of gasoline. “All I need is a jar full.”

  Lane wondered what had been done to beef up security after someone mailed the Chief a letter bomb. He couldn’t tell if anything had been changed but then he’d never been to see the Chief of Police before. He nodded at Harper who sat behind a desk in the outer office. The officer nodded in return. Harper was in his late 20s, had thick black hair and an equally thick mustache. He was still built like someone who played on the front line of a CFL team, Lane noted. For a moment, he recalled their first meeting and wondered if Harper was thinking the same thing. Lane sat in one of the upholstered chairs. He took in the room. It was about as plain as an office could get.

  Lane wondered again about the call he’d received about ten minutes before leaving home for work. “Can you meet with the Chief at 8:15?” Lane realized now it had to have been Harper making the call. The last time they’d talked had been nearly five years ago and Harper had only been on the force for one year. Recently, Lane had heard other officers make cracks about a gun-shy cop looking after the Chief.

  Lane picked through the magazines to his left. Time, Maclean’s and Report on Business. He started with Maclean’s.

  Another officer stepped into the outer office. His blonde hair was cut to a length of no more and no less tha
n two millimeters. His boots were polished till they looked like black plastic. “Chief wants to see me.” He pointed at his chest, “Stockwell.”

  “Take a seat.” Harper pointed at the chair to the left of Lane.

  The officer turned, spotted Lane, hesitated for an instant and sat two chairs over.

  Lane noted the hesitation and ignored it. It was old news. People like that can’t bother me anymore, he thought. He flipped through Maclean’s and glanced over the top of the magazine to study Harper. He still looks fit, Lane thought.

  He looks much better than when he was being loaded into the ambulance.

  “Lane, Chief’s ready to see you.” Harper hitched his thumb in the direction of the door on the right.

  Lane stood, careful not to show any anxiety, and buttoned his grey sports jacket. He opened the door and stepped inside.

  “That who I think it was?” Stockwell said.

  “Depends on who you think it was.” Harper squinted at the computer screen, clicked the mouse and frowned.

  “Detective Lane.”

  “That’s him,” Harper said.

  “Glad I don’t have a partner like that. If you know what I mean.” Stockwell brushed a white fleck off the breast pocket of his jump suit.

  “Like what?” Harper stared at the other officer.

  “You know.” Stockwell crossed his right leg over his left, raised his right hand and bent it at the wrist.

  Swiveling his chair 180 degrees, Harper stood. He moved over to the chair Lane had left and lifted his left shoe onto the cushion. Then Harper pulled up the left leg of his trousers. In the meat of his calf, about two thirds of the way to his knee, there was a round scar. “It’s more of a mess where it came out the other side. My partner and I answered the call. A domestic dispute. When I rang the doorbell, the guy on the inside blasted a hole through the door. I remember looking down and there was smoke coming out of my leg. At first there was no pain. I just fell over.” Harper released the fabric and shook his foot. The hem dropped to the top of his shoe.

  Stockwell yawned.

  “My partner ran for the unit to call it in. Then the pain hit. My partner stayed with the unit. I remember watching the blood rolling off the top step and down to the next.”

  “What’s this got to do with anything?” Stockwell sat with his knees spread wide.