Ocean Drive, page 21
“Hands, Cam. Easy.”
He didn’t put up a fight.
Meghan had him booked and placed in a cell, then escorted into a hard interview room. She contacted his parole officer, ate a Wendy’s plain double cheese, then headed into the room with a can of 7Up. She sat down and regarded Cam for a minute before handing over the beverage.
“Parole is over,” she said. “You go before a judge on Monday morning. The only question, really, is what else we charge you with. Which depends on what you tell me now.”
Cam said nothing. She could tell the gears were grinding inside. He was putting together just how badly he’d fucked up.
“Bob Sutter died yesterday,” she said. “Murdered, while you were in the house. Mrs. Garrick was beaten—how’s the court going to look at her husband’s killer coming back for more?”
“I didn’t hurt either of them,” he said.
“I’m absolutely willing to hear your side of things.”
No comment from Cam.
“If I don’t,” Meghan said, “I’ll be forced to think the worst of you—which we both know isn’t far from the truth.”
Beneath the stoic prison stare, she thought she saw shame flicker over his face. He knows what he’s done, she thought. Knows how bad this will get.
“You look worried,” she said. “Do you think your friends in the League of Nations will stick with you when you’re back in Kent? Or did they maybe help put you there?”
She opened the soda and drank it herself.
“Probably not hard for them to get at someone who’s locked up with a half dozen of their pals.”
“You think you know,” Cam said.
The words stopped Meghan. Alexa Reed had written something similar. And while cop cynicism and age made Meghan want to dismiss the words as generational griping, something nagged at her about them. It wasn’t unfairness they were complaining about, it was indifference. Blindness.
“What don’t I know?” she said.
Closing his eyes, Cam said, “This wasn’t supposed to go like this. I was only supposed to pretend.”
“And it got out of hand?” she suggested. “Is that what happened with Alexa? You were just going to talk and things got out of hand?”
“I didn’t have shit to do with that.”
“Right. You say I’m missing something, but won’t elaborate. You know what, Cam? You wanted this. And you knew this would be the result.”
Meghan stood, stifling a burp with her fist.
“I’ll get someone to take you back to your cell. We’ve got all weekend together, Cam. We’ll talk more in a few hours.”
The killer didn’t look up at her.
* * *
A full night’s sleep had never felt so well deserved.
The next morning, she visited Liz Garrick at her home. The widow was in her solarium, wearing ski boots and sweats, wrist wrapped in a cast, hair loose to cover the bandage on her forehead. Liz was directing two men in overalls to be careful with the replacement glass.
“Meg,” she said, neither friendly or perturbed, but as if she were another entry on her list of chores.
Meghan sat down unasked in the chair next to the pool. The water had been drained. A smear of blood could be seen on the tile near the edge.
“Poor Bob,” Meghan said, surprised by how little grief she felt.
“He was a good man. I hope whoever did this pays dearly.”
Once the window was in place, Liz took the chair next to Meghan. The workers left, returning with caulking guns and paint.
“Cameron Shaw was here when you were attacked,” Meghan said.
“Was he?”
Meghan gave her a don’t-bullshit-me grin. “I chased him away from you. I didn’t see anyone else.”
“You arrived a bit after the fact,” Liz said.
“What the hell are you mixed up in?” Meghan lowered her voice. “I talked with Pete Shaw. Remember when I told you there’d be a time when your secrets would come out?”
Abruptly, Liz pushed out of her chair and started toward the kitchen.
“If that’s true, Meg, then I think we require a drink.”
Perched on the edge of the loveseat, with a tumbler of gin in hand, Liz Garrick told Meghan about Roger’s business.
“He had vision, even back when this was nothing more than a pissant border town,” she said. “The casino was his dream. He laid the groundwork years ago. Or tried to.”
“What groundwork?” Meghan asked.
Liz gestured through the window of the living room, out toward the beach and the water.
“We are so incredibly sheltered, you and I,” she said. “The power of those waves are nothing by the time they reach the sand. The bay protects us. Insulates us. Roger sought to do that economically for the town.”
Meghan didn’t touch her drink. She let the widow continue.
“You see White Rock as a sleepy hamlet that would do fine on its own, and me as this monstrous witch who wants to turn it into a playground for the wealthy. What Roger saw was a town with a steadily creeping median age, a population getting older, wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer, and no means for younger people to obtain the lifestyle their parents enjoyed.”
“And a casino would solve that?” Meghan asked.
“Not by itself, but it would employ thousands—who else works in hotels and bars, as dealers, as valets?”
“Immigrants,” Meghan said. “Don’t pretend they’re all union jobs, Liz.”
“They’re decent jobs people could use to pull themselves up.”
“And you and the Garrick Foundation would do this out of charity.”
“For a healthy profit,” Liz admitted, “which we pay taxes on, and which feeds back into the community.”
“We’re never going to see eye to eye on this,” Meghan said.
“Probably not. But you asked for the truth. Roger had his faults, but he saw this town as stagnant and wanted more than anything to revitalize it.”
“Then explain how the Vipers and the League of Nations fit into that?”
“Bribes,” she said simply. “And protection, and the thousand and one things that come up when you work as a developer. Do you think Roger was alone in dealing with them? Or that he enjoyed it? He was extorted by every criminal group under the sun. But he was a practical man. He did his best.”
“And you knew about this.”
“Roger and I knew everything about each other.”
“Even about Pete Shaw and Max?”
Liz smiled dreamily at the mention of her son. Looked at Meghan but said nothing.
Meghan thought it through and then blanched as something fell into place.
“He found out, didn’t he?” she said. “Roger found out Max wasn’t his, and confronted Cam, thinking it was him. That you were pregnant with his child.”
“Really, Meg,” Liz said.
“Cam didn’t know, did he? And Roger attacked him for it. And you watched the whole fucking thing.”
“Worse,” Liz said, refilling her glass. No longer meeting Meghan’s gaze. “The trim guard Roger was brandishing. I helped take it away from him.”
She drank and ahhh’ed like someone in a commercial. Looked at Meghan evenly.
“I was hysterical for months,” she said. “I heard them arguing, walked in and saw Roger slash at Cam. I grabbed my husband’s arm, trying to convince Roger it wasn’t what he thought. While I was holding him, the kid knocked the tool from Roger’s hand, picked up a hammer and struck my husband.”
“And you hid your role in this,” Meghan said. “You cost that kid years of his life.”
“I was traumatized, Meg. I hope you never have to face something like that.”
Before Liz could drink, Meghan covered the glass with her palm, demanding the widow’s attention.
“Do you know who killed Alexa? Or Michael May? Are you hiding anything else from me?”
“I wouldn’t be party to murder,” Liz said. “If I knew, Meg, I’d tell you. Or do something about it myself.”
Meghan left, wondering what she meant by that.
* * *
A thick-bodied woman in an expensive suit was waiting by the station’s front desk. She stood up when Meghan arrived.
“Zoe Prentice,” the woman said. “I’m Cameron Shaw’s counsel. I’ll see my client now.”
“Like hell,” Meghan said. But she led Prentice through the station toward the holding cells. “How’d he afford a hired gun like you?”
“As that’s immaterial, I won’t dignify it with an answer.”
“How very proper,” Meghan said.
Cam was poised on the edge of the stainless steel bunk, elbows on his knees like the statue of the pugilist at rest. He looked up at Zoe Prentice with gratitude, fear.
“Hey kiddo,” Prentice said. “How are you being treated?”
Cam shrugged.
The lawyer said to Meghan, “Some time alone, please. Here is fine. Then you and I should talk.”
“Can’t hardly wait,” Meghan said.
In her office she blew on a scalding cup of coffee, the station fridge having run out of milk, and phoned her son. Trevor was between classes, on his way to crim, with only a second to talk. He was doing fine. No nightmares. No more sightings of gangsters.
“You’re not in any danger, are you, Mom?”
“I’m fine as long as you are,” Meghan said. “Be careful, okay? Situational awareness at all times.”
“You be careful, too.”
A quick online search revealed that Zoe Prentice practised criminal law in Surrey. Mostly pro bono defence cases. An abused wife charged with spousal homicide. A homeless woman who’d smothered her roommate during a psychotic episode. And now Cameron Shaw.
Meghan finished her coffee. Richie Reed’s confession still sat on top of her in-box. She looked at the canister of kerosene found in the cottage. It would need to be chemically matched to the residue from the homicides, and on her son.
The can was half-empty. Three attacks on half a can? Not likely.
Alexa Reed, dead from a broken neck, her body burned. Found in her old bedroom, in a house once owned by Richie and Emily Reed, both now deceased. The house placed on the market by Elizabeth Garrick, Emily’s cousin. The Reed family had seemingly gone broke, in fact hoarding their money in cash.
Strangled. Burned. Bankrupt.
A thought hit Meghan.
She pushed away from her desk and stood up, only to see Zoe Prentice waiting in the doorway.
“Mr. Shaw needs to be r.o.r.’d,” the lawyer said.
“Like hell. He’s a suspect in multiple homicides, not to mention a violent offender whom I saw at the scene of a crime. Try again, Ms. Prentice.”
“Have new charges been laid?”
“That depends entirely on his cooperation,” Meghan said. “There are certainly multiple violations I can charge him with. Trespassing, breaking and entering—”
“Are you sure Mrs. Garrick would support that?”
Meghan picked up the phone receiver. “Should we check?”
Prentice smiled. “Please.”
Her bluff called, Meghan had no choice but to see it through. Liz admitted to inviting Cam into her house—or rather, that Bob Sutter had. She wouldn’t give a reason, but insisted Cam was there as a guest, and hadn’t been involved in her attack.
“Mr. Shaw will happily answer any charges placed on him,” Zoe said. “He will appear in court on Monday with regards to his parole. In the meantime, though, he deserves to be released on recognizance.”
“And I have your word he’ll be there Monday morning?” Meghan said.
“My word?” Prentice smiled at the quaintness of the term. “Don’t you trust your own system?”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Meghan said.
* * *
If you took all the lies people had told her in the course of her career, quilted them together, you could fashion a garment large enough for the city to wear.
A significant part of that garment—a sleeve, say, or a collar—could be sewn out of only the lies told by Sukhi Kaur.
Since the beginning she claimed innocence, and only admitted knowing Alexa, knowing Cam, when confronted with evidence. Even then, she hadn’t told Meghan the truth.
Well, if she had to go back to the girl yet again and force the whole story out of her, so be it.
When Meghan arrived at the house, there were no cars in the driveway. She knocked and waited. Eventually Sukhi appeared, wrapped in a robe, her hair and makeup a mess. Instead of defiance, though, the young woman was oddly muted.
“What now?” she said.
“I’d like to look around your garage.”
“My parents’s garage,” Sukhi said.
“You gonna let me in?”
The garage held a 1970s Jaguar under a dust cover, its tires flat. Boxes of old tax returns. Little else. Sukhi looked bored.
“You done?” she asked.
“Now the shed.” As they walked through the house, Meghan asked, “When did you last see Cameron Shaw?”
“Dunno. Days ago. Why, he do something?”
“I know you’re not dumb, Sukhi.”
The shed was piled with vintage camping gear. Coleman lantern, portable stove, the green metal heavily oxidized. A prominent spot in the corner held nothing. Meghan shone her light on it. Noted the circular stains of rust.
“You burn a lot of kerosene?” she asked.
Silence.
Meghan followed as Sukhi trudged into the house, letting herself fall onto a living room couch, arms folded in a profound sulk.
“I think you know who set that fire,” Meghan said. “Who killed Alexa Reed.”
“Don’t know nothing,” Sukhi said.
She made to stand up and Meghan said, “You know who did it, because Alexa came to you. You were introduced through Michael May, who’s also dead. If I had to guess, I’d say your brother killed them. Tequila or Cam. Or you did.”
Sukhi glared at her from the couch. She unfolded her arms and let them fall with a deep sigh. One trailed the floor. The other sunk between the cushions of the couch.
“Sukhi, you are going to tell me the truth. You met with Alexa, didn’t you?”
“No clue what you’re saying.”
“She told you about the money, didn’t she? The hundred and fifty grand her parents had taken out.”
“No.”
“Did you send your brother to her place to take it? Or were you with him?”
“Don’t know anything,” Sukhi said. “Why’re you always—”
“Because a young woman is dead and you know what happened. I’m giving you an option to come clean and not spend the rest of your twenties and thirties in prison. I walk out of here, that’s what happens. How about that?”
Sukhi said nothing. Meghan watched her, waiting for the woman to recognize that her options had officially run out. Meghan opened the front door, thinking a few hours in an interview room would probably nudge her into a confession. She heard Sukhi spring off the couch.
Turning, Meghan saw the eye of a nickel-plated .45 leering at her, wavering slightly between the woman’s hands.
“How ‘bout this instead, bitch?” Sukhi said.
Seventeen
“Let’s get an ice cream,” Zoe said.
There was a Baskin Robbins near the beach, along with a gelato parlour and a small kiosk run by an eighty-year-old woman who still hand-churned her own three flavours. From her, Zoe bought a double-scoop strawberry and a single chocolate for Cam, despite his protestations.
They walked out onto the promenade. Holiday lights were still strung in parabolas above the boardwalk. A grey mist covered the breakwater and the bay. To the east, Cam could see the roof of the Garrick home.
“I’m fucked, aren’t I?” he said.
“If you mean are you going back to prison,” Zoe said, “almost certainly, yes. The system makes it very hard for parolees to receive the presumption of innocence. One of its many flaws.”
Cam couldn’t tell if she was fucking with him. He licked at the grey-brown runoff that threatened to cover the knuckle of his index finger.
“My parents used to bring me here in July to watch the fireworks,” Zoe said. “We‘d buy ice cream and get to the beach early, park a blanket on the sand. I used to love inspecting the tidal pools, or walking across the train tracks.”
A dozen sarcastic replies came to Cam’s mind. He had spent his summers working, maybe slamming an extra couple beers at shift’s end. No days off, boy, Uncle Pete liked to say.
“I wonder about children today, if they’ll have that same urge to explore the world.” Zoe lapped at her cone. “But then the world’s a more frightening place now, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the world that frightens me,” Cam said.
Zoe looked at him with what he took for sympathy
“No way I’ll last inside, not with the Vipers and the League.”
“I can’t guarantee it, kiddo.”
Cam lobbed his cone into the water, brushed his hands on the weather-greyed railing. He felt cold.
“My decisions,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“I did this to myself. And I don’t see a way to un-fuck things. Not unless you can offer me a get out of jail free card.”
A trio of elderly women speed-walked by, laughing. When they were out of earshot Zoe said, “Your friend Harvinder Singh is an interesting man.”
“He handed me to the cops,” Cam said.
“Anyone would under those circumstances. Harv, though, seems to have maintained close ties to his former group.”
Zoe’s expression admitted nothing.
“Harv, Tequila and Tito,” she said. “They were the most likely, since all three defected from the Vipers. Tito has no ambition, and with Tequila gone, it’s obvious who’s been brokering this unwanted merger.”
