coated its sides. Salt stains from the recent drive into the city formed an irregular splatter pattern over the mud, but there were no unusual marks on the passenger side of the car. Nor were there any protruding edges; even the door handles were recessed.
But even more importantly, because it was such an old car, it had no mirror on the passenger side.
September 2nd, 1939
The sun is sinking, soon the village will stir.
She curls in the nook of my arm,
her hips soft against mine,
And her skin like silk beneath my touch.
Copper tassels of cornfield dance in the sunset
And a breeze ripples the birches overhead.
Far off I hear muffled thuds,
catch a glint of silver in the sky.
Then a plume of smoke, a second, a third.
She lifts her head. “Our village?”
No, what would they want with our village?
“I don’t remember nothing about no fucking cars, man!
That was the worst day of my life! I remember the body— fuck, I’ll never forget the body. Worst nightmare you could ever have, finding a stiff in your own lot. I was so freaked, I don’t remember nothing else.”
Green’s small mid-morning break had now extended into his lunch hour, and he knew the clock was ticking on his freedom. He had traced the parking lot attendant to a small clapboard shanty on a narrow, crowded back street of Mechanicsville. The young man had called in sick to recover from the upset of yesterday, and he ushered Green into the dingy living room, kicking newspapers and clothes aside to make a passage. The sweet odour of marijuana clung in the air. He gave a nervous whinny.
“It’s my brother’s place. I’m just staying here till I can get my own.”
It took some coaxing, and a small shot of the whiskey Green found on the counter, to get Chad Leroux to retrieve his scattered memories. The young man rocked back and forth on the couch, smoking incessantly and talking in staccato bursts.
“I was checking a couple of cars. Out, like. It was fucking cold, booth’s got no heater. Had my hood on my parka up, so I couldn’t see shit. This guy in the car—he pointed out the old lady to me.”
“Was the lot busy?”
Chad shook his head vigorously. “Most days noon is really busy, but nobody was going out that didn’t have to. ’Cause of the storm, you know? The lot was plowed, but it was still tricky.”
“Was it slippery?”
“Was it ever! And you never knew where, with the snow on top. I saw one poor old guy with a cane go right down on his ass earlier.”
One more point for MacPhail’s theory, Green thought ruefully as he invited Chad to continue.
“That’s all! The guy in the car says ‘Something’s wrong with that lady over there’. I turn around, I see her way down near the end of the lot, waving her arms all about and screaming ‘my husband, my husband’, and—” Chad broke off, sucking in cigarette smoke to ward off the panic. “Fuck, I never did like bodies.”
“No one does,” Green muttered drily. “Were there other cars near hers? Can you describe them?”
Chad rolled his eyes and blew smoke out his nose. “Who the fuck noticed!”
Green leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Chad’s. “It’s important. Concentrate! Picture yourself back there in the snow, the old woman screaming—”
Chad’s head whipped back and forth. “I can’t, man! I don’t remember nothing! I know I should have noticed stuff like that, but I just thought ‘Shit, the guy’s croaked! And maybe somebody’s going to blame me!’”
“Nobody’s blaming you, Chad,” Green soothed. “It’s quite normal to forget everything else, but it’s there, somewhere in your mind. I want you to lean back on the couch and shut your eyes.” Green waited until the young man was ready, then dropped his voice. “Take three deep, slow breaths. Now I want you to picture yourself in the parking lot. It’s cold, the wind is blowing in your face. You’re walking through the snow, the old lady is up ahead screaming at you… Are you there?”
Chad had closed his eyes dutifully, but his body twitched, and his breathing was erratic. It took a few moments of further coaxing to get him properly focussed on the cars nearby.
“There’s mostly empty spaces.” Chad wet his lips. “But right next to her, there’s one—no, two cars.”
“Good. Can you describe the car right beside hers?”
“Medium sized. It’s dark—maybe dark blue or charcoal grey, maybe even black. Sedan, four-door type. Nice and shiny.”
“All right, concentrate on it. Describe anything—make, licence—anything.”
Chad tried to oblige. His eyelids fluttered as he searched the invisible scene. “It was like the shape of the Aries, only newer. Like a Lumina or one of them GM family cars, but fancy. Buick LeSabre, maybe? Tinted windows.”
“Okay, that’s great, you can open your eyes.”
Chad sat forward, eyes alight. “Hey, that’s something! It really works. Did you—like—hypnotize me?”
Green smiled. “Nothing that exotic. I just helped you eliminate the distractions.” He stood up, and Chad followed him with obvious relief. “Tell me, Chad, do some of the vehicles park in the lot on a regular basis?”
Chad looked blank for a moment, trying to translate. “You mean every day like? Oh, sure. Doctors, nurses and them. They use the lot, pay by the month.”
“And do they have their favourite spots?”
“Some of them.”
It was a slim hope, but a hope nonetheless, Green thought as he headed towards the Civic Hospital. Maybe in the parking lot he would find the dark, shiny sedan which had parked next to Walker’s on the day of his death. And against which Walker must have smashed his head as he fell to the ground.
But ten minutes later he found himself in the parking lot amid endless rows of dark, shiny new sedans. The attendant on duty walked him down to the end of the lot and showed him where the body had been found. The whole area had been so trampled that it was useless as a crime scene, and there were no cars parked in the immediate vicinity and no dark sedans within fifty feet. Nonetheless, mainly to impress the parking attendant who hovered nearby, he crouched in the snow and sifted through it with his fingers. It told him nothing.
This is pointless, Green. The old guy hit his head on something, stunned himself and froze to death. You’ve wasted enough of the department’s time. There is no mystery here. Nada,
