Creep. R.M. Greenaway
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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 if Farah Jordan was the chef tonight.
“Yes, she is.” The waitress was even more delighted than she had been at his choice of beer. “Are you a friend? Would you like me to pass on a message?”
In the space of a pause, he lost momentum, and his yes turned into “No, don’t bother her. I was just wondering.”
Probably it was best to chicken out, anyway. Farah Jordan was too offbeat for him, with her brazen attitude and her talk of ghosts. He smiled at the waitress, and the look she flashed at him was keen and interested. Maybe the message would get passed on, anyway.
He said, “I guess it would be Chef Jordan’s souvlaki, then?”
“It is. And she makes a spectacular souvlaki.”
When the dish arrived and he’d had a few bites, he decided it was good, if not the best he’d ever tasted. Looch had been fussy about food, an Italian snob. Himself, not so much. He ate diligently, ploughing through the dish, forking it in, chewing carefully, self-conscious, alone at this table for two. He ordered another beer to wash it down. The restaurant filled and became noisy, and he wished he had stayed home.
He pushed his plate aside, and a shadow fell over the table. He looked up. The woman gazing down at him wore the standard double-breasted white jacket, knots for buttons, no chef’s hat. Her gold-black hair looked even golder under this light. It was neatly tied back, and there was nothing hippy about her now.
He stood to greet her and noticed the changes right away. Not just the uniform, but the way she averted her eyes from his. She was flustered, not the woman who had invited him into her house that blustery, rainy night. She said, “Jen told me a really cute guy was asking about me. Her words. So I had to come and check it out. I mean, I couldn’t let that one go, could I?”
Dion read disappointment in her laugh. He was disappointed too, at her reaction and the underlying insult. He said, “I didn’t mean for her to bother you.”
“I know. You’ve just got a bunch more questions. No problem.”
“Questions?” he asked. Then he got it, or at least part of her reaction, which made him grin. “No questions. Actually, I was just hungry.”
Now they were both smiling broadly. Along with pleasure, Dion could read relief in her face. The relief vaguely worried him.
“Then you came to the right place, officer. I hope you were satisfied.”
“Very. Can you have a coffee? Have time?”
“You’re not rushing off?” Her eyes shone. “As it happens, I’m allowing myself a bit of a break. Hang on. I’ll get it. Is decaf good?”
“Great.”
She brought two cups and sat across from him. He asked how long she had been a chef, and she told him how as a teenager, she had worked in her dad’s diner on a windblown byway in Richmond. “Just burgers and stuff,” she said. She had a slow, velvety voice, with the faintest trace of an accent. “But one thing led to another, and I eventually went to college, got my learner’s ticket, landed a real job, and have been working my way up since. I’m still a journeyman.