Perry dropped a folder on the table in front of Yakinchuk then sat down opposite. Yakinchuk stared at him as if in a trance. Perry waved a hand right in front of his face. ‘Hello, anyone home?’
‘What do you want Perry?’
‘The Lyburn case report would be nice for starters. Where the hell have you been all morning and what the hell is this shit?’ He pushed the folder towards Yakinchuk. ‘It’s the accident report you ordered from Records; it’s not a homicide which, unless I am mistaken, is what you usually do.’
Yakinchuk grabbed the folder, opened it and began to read, scanning the pages rapidly. ‘Sarah Winthrope Churchill,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘What?’
‘This wasn’t an accident Neil; it was murder made to look like an accident.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I believe that one of the victims is not only alive and well, but living in Ireland.’
Quickly Yakinchuk stuffed Maggie’s pages into the folder. ‘Got to go,’ he announced as he jumped to his feet. ‘You’ll have to take care of the Lyburn case report yourself Neil. You’ve got all the facts.’
‘Where the hell are you going?’ Perry shouted, obviously not one bit amused.
‘I’m going to solve a murder.’
*****
This time Yakinchuk drove his car up and out of the station parking lot, around the corner then stopped in the shade offered by a line of oak trees. It was three in the afternoon. He sat reading the police report in detail. The facts of the case were simple and straightforward.
The vehicle – a 1972 Ford Mustang, was owned by David Michael Kendall; one of the victims. Late on New Year’s Eve 1979 he and a passenger were driving west along Highway Five when it was presumed that the driver applied his brakes rounding a tight bend in the road. The brakes either failed or, more likely partly failed sending the car into a slid. The driver lost control of the vehicle and it plunged over the embankment and into a grove of trees. The vehicle caught fire. By the time ambulance and emergency services arrived, the vehicle was totally gutted and the bodies inside burned beyond recognition. One of the investigators described the scene as “horrific”.
Yakinchuk pulled himself free of the report and sat staring out the window at a beautiful sunny summer afternoon; an afternoon Kendall would not live to see, let alone enjoy. He frowned.
Why do you do that? Why do you always think like that whenever you’re faced with a wrongful death?
Angry at himself, he returned to the report determined to be the cold, deliberate, professional homicide detective he had been trained to be.
Eyewitnesses confirmed that both Kendall and Churchill were seen at the New Year’s Eve Ball at the Fenshaw; that they left before midnight in the Mustang – the valet remembered Kendall clearly because he didn’t tip him. According to her flatmates, Miss Churchill did not return home that night or any other. Kendall’s former flatmate confirmed that the Mustang’s brakes were “shot” and that he knew for a fact that Kendall did not have much in the way of money and if he did, he wouldn’t have spent it fixing the brakes.
Yakinchuk leaned back in his seat. ‘If Kendall didn’t have the money to fix the car, how come he had the money to buy two tickets to the Ball?’
He flipped through the pages, adding small bits of information like the fact that the road was described as “greasy” and poorly lit. That identification of Sarah Churchill’s body was based on the discovery of her wrist watch on the floor of the vehicle plus scorched and tattered fragments of a shawl she had worn that evening; traces which had somehow been thrown from the car perhaps at the moment of impact. It was Sarah’s roommate – a Janet Lanskey, who had identified the shawl and the watch.
Yakinchuk searched the report for Sarah Churchill’s last known address. He smiled as he started the car. ‘Number twelve Bacon Street; just off campus,’ he muttered as he eased into the traffic. ‘Janet Lanskey, we need to talk.’
4
The house was old, almost derelict and so was the neighbourhood. ‘Was this all Sarah could afford?’ Yakinchuk thought to himself as he knocked on the front door. It was answered by a young woman, perhaps twenty-five years old. She was dressed in a baggy pair of sweat pants and an equally baggy tee-shirt. The costume was cunningly crafted to hide the fact that she was grossly overweight. It failed miserably.
‘Are you Janet Lanskey,’ he asked. She nodded. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Victor Yakinchuk.’ Her eyes were reduced to two matching squints as she inspected his badge. ‘I would like to ask you a few questions about a former roommate – Sarah Winthrope Churchill.’
‘Sarah’s dead,’ Janet replied flatly. ‘I ah … look, I’ve got to get ready for work so …’
Yakinchuk could hear someone at the back of the house. ‘Hey Jan, who are you talking to?’
‘He’s a policeman asking about Sarah.’
A pleasant looking young woman, again in the mid-twenties age range, appeared out of the gloom. She looked Yakinchuk up and down and liked what she saw. Displaying all the predatory traits of a female preying mantis, she suggested he come inside. He did, ending up in a squalid little living room which reeked of cigarette smoke and, unless he was very much mistaken, marijuana.
‘I’m Heather; what do you want to know about Sarah?’ she asked, smiling.
‘I understand that Miss Churchill attended the New Year’s Eve Ball at the Fenshaw with a Michael Kendall. Is that correct?’
‘Yeah,’ they both replied simultaneously.
‘It’s a costume ball so what was she wearing on the night?’
They both laughed but it was Janet who answered. ‘A harem costume; pants and a sort of bra top with layer after layer of veil material; very sexy. I’ll tell you what, she wasn’t too pleased about Davie’s selection.’
‘Yeah,’ Heather added, ‘for a while there we weren’t sure if she would even try it on but, hey it wasn’t that bad. She sure looked nice in it.’ Her smile faded. ‘After I heard about the accident, I kept thinking, I hope she had a good time at the Ball; stupid eh?’
‘Not at all,’ Yakinchuk assured her. ‘That is a very typical response to such a tragic event. Tell me, what colour was the costume?’
Heather shrugged. ‘It was mostly shades of green, wasn’t it Jan?’
‘Yeah,’ Jan replied, ‘and it came with little gold sandals with tiny bells on them and some fake gold bracelets. I think there were some green sequins on it too.’
‘And the shawl;
