LITMIR.BIZ

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Ronald was the farthest thing from my mind as I drove home along the deserted streets not much before three a.m.

      I share a mutual driveway with my lawyer neighbour, and damned if there wasn’t a car parked between the houses. He probably had another sweet young thing over for the night. It would have been within my rights to pound on his door and make the car’s owner come down and move it, but I decided to just park behind and make her wait in the morning when she wanted to leave. That’s why I entered my house via the front door rather than the back as I usually do.

      There aren’t any street lights directly in front of my house, so the shrubs, a group of scraggly rhododendrons and other evergreens I’d let get the better of me, blocked off almost all light on the porch.

      Tired from the strain of the past three days, fuelled by two scotches I shouldn’t have had, I fumbled with the lock and dropped my keys. Bending to pick them up, I noticed the outline of someone sitting on one of the rattan chairs I hadn’t bothered to put away for the winter.

      “Hello?” I said. “Who’s there?”

      When I got no answer, I walked the eight or so feet to where the chairs were. Maybe it was Olivia, and she’d fallen asleep waiting for me to return.

      Why had I picked this night to come home so late?

      I touched the person’s shoulder gently and got no response.

      “Are you all right?”

      Able to see a little better because my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I could tell the person had their head back, resting it against the house. When I shook the shoulder a little harder, the person slipped sideways and slowly toppled out of the chair.

      I’m not ashamed to admit that I had to back away and bend way over to keep from passing out. I didn’t have to be very smart to know that something was horribly wrong.

      It would have been a simple matter to go into the house and turn on the porch light, but I didn’t think of that in my distracted state. Instead I went to the car, and with shaking hands, fished a flashlight out of the glove compartment. I already had it on when I came back up my steps.

      It wasn’t Olivia, but her friend Maggie – and it looked like she’d been strangled.

      The effect of seeing someone lying dead on my porch,her swollen throat a mass of ugly bruising and her tongue fat and purply-red in her open mouth, was made infinitely worse by the harsh, concentrated beam of the flashlight. Maggie’s eyes were open, and her expression was incongruously one of surprise, as if she hadn’t believed her life was about to end.

      Standing up slowly, I clicked off the light and leaned back against the porch railing, telling myself to keep breathing deeply. The first thing that went through my shaky mental faculties was, What have I gotten myself into? as I entered the house to call the police.

      The two constables who arrived took one look at the body, said something into a walkie-talkie and escorted me to their cruiser, where they sat me in the back. It was only when the door shut that I noticed there were no door handles or window cranks. I’d never before had a twinge of claustrophobia, but I sure felt it then.

      I was asked some preliminary questions while we waited for reinforcements, with me leaning close to the plastic divider so I could hear them clearly. My head was still swimming, and I’d started shaking, a delayed reaction to the shock, I suppose.

      Three more cars pulled up in short order. Lights bouncing off the neighbouring houses and loud voices talking soon had the first of the curious neighbours on their porches and front walks, staring at the drama taking place on my property.

      Yellow crime scene tape was unrolled from the tree at the corner of my property all the way across to the driveway, where there was another big tree, then up to the corner of the house. Towards Broadview, a fourth cruiser parked across the road, sealing it off.

      Left alone in my backseat prison, I could only watch helplessly.

      Eventually someone in a business suit, obviously more senior, came to the window and peered in. He was a big man, but some of that had gone to fat, and he looked to be not far from retirement. One of the original constables was with him, and I heard him say, “This is the guy who called it in. That’s his house.”

      “I don’t plan on freezing my ass out here talking to him. Take him into the house and get him something to drink. He looks like he needs it. I’ll be in to speak with him in a while.”

      As we walked towards the house, I asked, “Could we go in by the back door? I don’t...you know...”

      The constable grunted. “That’s what I had in mind, buddy,” as we continued up the driveway.

      To my embarrassment, his hand was on my upper arm when I noticed the street’s nosy parker, who lived on the other side of me, step out her front door. I kept my face forward, pretending I didn’t see her. The old battleaxe had made it clear long ago that she didn’t think much of me or my choice of vocation. This certainly wasn’t going to help matters.

      Once inside the kitchen, the constable asked me if there was any booze, but I don’t have any in the house any more, so he made a pot of coffee. I just sat at the kitchen table dumbly, not even bothering to remove my coat. Through the storm door, I could see people moving around on the porch and the occasional flashes of photos being taken.

      We were silently sipping from our steaming mugs when the man who’d freed me from the police cruiser came in the back door.

      “Constable, the media has arrived. I want you out front making sure none of them gets past our line. Got that?”

      The constable took a big sip of the coffee as he rose and winced as it burned its way down. “I’ll get to that right away, sir.”

      The big man stuck out a meaty paw.“I’m Detective Sergeant Palmer,” he said as I got partway out of my seat to shake. “Mind if I join you in a mug of that coffee? It’s going to be a long night.” He went over to the kitchen door and looked out at the foyer, then shut the door.“You don’t mind if we search your house, do you?”

      That gave me a twinge, but I couldn’t think of a reason to deny the request. A lawyer probably could have given me a dozen. All I wanted at that point was to appear cooperative and above suspicion. I did decide, though, that a prudent course of action would be to not offer any information not directly asked for. I still stupidly had the hope that I might keep Olivia out of this mess.

      After filling a mug from the orderly row I kept on the counter, the cop sat down heavily in the seat across from me. “Bet you wish you’d never come home tonight.”

      I couldn’t decide whether the comment was meant to be friendly.

      ***

      An hour later, I knew it had been a mistake to come home. If I’d had even an inkling of what waited for me on the porch, I probably would have never come home.

      Palmer’s questions, while not overtly hostile, were relentless. Quite rightly, he focussed on where I’d been all day, who had seen me, what I’d been doing. I answered everything as fairly and completely as I could, even though there were things I didn’t want him to know. I don’t think he believed me when I told him I only knew Maggie’s first name and that she lived somewhere in the west end. I didn’t know where, and I didn’t know what she did for a living.

      “I’ve only met her a few times. Actually, she was a friend of the vocalist for the jazz group I play with.”

      Palmer looked up at that. “And where can I find the vocalist?”

      I winced inwardly, realizing I’d just given something up. “I really don’t know. She left in the middle of our gig two nights ago, and we haven’t heard from her since.”

      The detective was in the middle of writing when one of the underlings came in and spoke softly into his ear. Palmer whispered something back, and the underling nodded and left.

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