still smiling, doing the PR thing. “Yes, I’m afraid we’ve been making a bit of a hullabaloo around here lately. Things will soon get back to normal, promise.”
“I seen him, too,” the stranger said, looking at Dion. “Going into the Harmon place, middle of the night. Him and the other one, they was the first. He was dressed like a cop.”
“I am a cop,” Dion said.
How on earth could this man recognize him — especially now, in his civvies — as the cop who had come around the other night with Jackie Randall? From way over in that house with the green roof. Through rain and darkness. Must have eagle eyes. Or a good set of binoculars.
“Yes, well, it was quite a busy night for all of us.” Montgomery was already losing his PR sparkle. The temperatures were dropping, and he looked ready to move on with his day.
“You guys came around my place, too.” The stranger was still addressing Montgomery, still ignoring Dion.
Dion guessed that “you guys” didn’t mean Montgomery and himself, or Montgomery and anybody. It meant the plainclothes constables who had gone canvassing the neighbourhood over the past two days, spreading the net wide, checking for leads on the John Doe murder.
“Asked if I seen anything. I said I seen him go into the Harmon place.” The stranger gave Dion another fixed stare. “So what’s up there, you mind me asking?” he added, not to Dion, but Montgomery.
“Up where, sir?”
“The woods back here.” He indicated the air around them. The neighbourhood was closely embraced by forest, the same forest that fell away into the Lynn Headwaters Regional Park, where kids rode their bikes, and hikers hiked themselves to death, and werewolves were said to roam. “I seen you people looking about. What’re you guys looking for, is all I’s asking.”
“Just scouting the area,” Montgomery said. “Routine inquiries.”
“The wolf,” the stranger said. A statement, not a question.
Now Montgomery and Dion were both staring at him. Montgomery asked, “Wolf?”
“Like I told the cops who come around. The wolf. Maybe you didn’t read their fings.”
Things, Dion interpreted.
“Their reports there,” the stranger clarified. He had a fast and muttery way of talking and kept his chin tucked low, which made him hard to understand. He seemed afraid, Dion thought. He looked like a man who lived with fear. Probably, he was nuts. “I know they reported it ’cause they wrote it all down, eh? Wrote down all what I said.”
“You’ve seen a wolf, sir?” Montgomery spoke up, projecting his voice and being concise as a hint for the man to do the same.
“Hear it. Not see. Hear. Howls.”
“Uh-huh? Could be dogs, right?”
“Dogs don’t howl. Not like wolfs, they don’t. Not like these kinda wolfs.”
Dion had heard and seen domesticated dogs howling their hearts out, just like wolves. Sirens set them off, for one thing. Or loneliness. Watching this little man with the anxious eyes, he wondered if the community was already putting a surreal spin on the death at the Greer house. Like Wong and Graham and Jackie Randall, everyone was hoping for monsters.
Montgomery asked the stranger for his name.
“Ray,” the man answered. His shoulders tightened, but there was a new shine in his eyes. Eagerness, maybe, and Dion thought he knew why. Ray was retired, single, and bored out of his idle skull. The fear was self-induced, to beat the boredom, and being asked his name by a cop was the year’s biggest thrill. “Ray Starkey.”
“And how often have you heard this howling, Ray?”
“Three, sir. Three times altogether. August twenty-fifth was the first time. That was around eleven at night. Then September thirteenth, at one-thirty in the morning. And October eighteenth, a little past midnight. That last one’s just two weeks ago.”
“Damn, I wish my constables kept such good notes,” Montgomery said. Friendly still, but jingling his car keys.
August, Dion thought. From the glimpse he’d had of the body along with what he’d heard around the detachment, it seemed the body had been under the house since the summer, give or take a little.
“It chills the blood,” Starkey went on. “I write stuff like that on my calendar. I like to keep track of fings.” He beetled another suspicious stare toward Dion.
Dion had had enough of the little man and his silent accusations and climbed into the passenger seat of Montgomery’s van to wait. With the door closed, the men’s voices were now muffled. He flexed his arms, drummed his feet. His body felt wrecked from the exercise, but the ride had done wonders for his spirits. He would get a bike of his own to replace the one he had abandoned after the crash, with all the rest of his belongings, before riding the Greyhound northbound.
Montgomery climbed in behind the wheel, chuckling. “That’s one loose screw. Finally shook him off. Wolves!”
“Still,” Dion said. “I’ll talk to Wildlife tomorrow.”
“Somebody else will talk to Wildlife tomorrow,” Montgomery said. “It’s your weekend. Take it. Recreate. Want to take up Tori’s offer, swing by for a drink? Brunch?”
Dion thanked him, but said he had a few things to take care of.
Once dropped off, he climbed into his car and drove home to his apartment. With the weekend and recreation in mind, he showered off the Mesachee mud, then looked over his wardrobe. He picked out his best clothes. It was getting on time for dinner, and for a change, he had plans.
Nine
FLIRTING 101
The Greek Taverna was close enough that he could walk down. Lonsdale was wide, six lanes including parking. Sometimes it was busy, and other times it stretched out empty like the main drag of a ghost town. Now it was busy, with cars, buses, taxis, delivery trucks, bicycles. A lot of people walking, too, as he approached the harbour. He saw the restaurant ahead. Hadn’t changed a bit since his last visit, which wasn’t as long ago as it seemed.
Could it have been only two years? Seemed more like a decade.
The young hostess gave him a dazzling smile, and he smiled back at her. She offered a small table for two, stuck in a nook shaded by palm fronds, and left him with the menu. A waitress came by soon after and took his order for a bottle of beer. She congratulated him on his choice of brew, said it was her favourite, too, and went off to place his order.
After studying the menu, he studied the restaurant. Warm and aromatic, the lights down low for ambience. Plucky traditional Greek folk music was playing, just like at every other Greek restaurant he knew. Not too busy, but it was early yet. If it was still as popular as it was when he used to come here with Kate, Looch, Looch’s girl Brooke, and whoever else happened to be in his circle at the time, then by seven o’clock, there would be a lineup for seats.
When the waitress came around to take his order, he asked
