“Afternoon, ma’am.” He tipped his hat.
“Good afternoon, Officer. To what do I owe the pleasure?” My voice was shaking.
“You were going awfully slow, ma’am. I wondered if you were having some trouble with your vehicle. Stopped to see if you needed some assistance.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Well, yes, ma’am. Actually, we’ve been trying to get in touch with you, and as you have no telephone in that shack I hear you live in, and Hoito never answers his, I thought I’d just pull you over. Give you the message myself.”
“Mighty thoughtful of you,” I said. I wasn’t buying it. He pulled me over because he knew it would bug me. I was intrigued, though.
“We always try to be thoughtful,” Morrison said, smiling cheerfully. “Mrs. Travers show up yet?”
“No, Constable Morrison, but I have reason to believe that she’s safe and not wandering around in the woods somewhere.”
“Now how would you know that, unless you’ve talked to her?”
“I found another note from her after Detective Becker left my shack, as you call it. She signed it with a happy face.”
“So?”
“So, it’s kind of a personal code. We write each other notes all the time. A happy face means everything’s okay. So I figure she probably had a place to go, although of course I have no idea where that could be.”
“Uh-huh. Well, if you find out, you’ll let us know, right?”
“Of course. Can I go now?”
“Just a second. Becker was worried about that mutt at the Travers’ place. He said that if Mrs. Travers isn’t hiding out at home, the animal will probably starve. We could call the pound, but Becker thought you’d be willing to take it instead. I saw the way you acted with it. Real cute. Reminded me of that mountain gorilla movie.”
“Oh, golly. I forgot all about poor Lug-nut. Yes, of course I’ll look after him. I’ll go get him as soon as I finish my errands in town.”
“What errands would they be?” Morrison said. “Taking supplies to Francy Travers?”
I let out an exasperated breath. “Look, I’ve told you I don’t know where she is,” I said. “I can’t lie. It’s not in me.” He narrowed his eyes at me. They were very blue, set deep in the fleshy folds of his face.
“As for my errands,” I said, “I’m going to the Co-op to pick up some grain for the goats. Perhaps you’d care to accompany me. I hear they’ve got a special on pig feed.” I don’t know what made me say it. I was ashamed, instantly, when I saw the look on Morrison’s face.
“Watch your mouth, little lady,” he said. “You may think you have a friend in Becker, but I’m not such a pushover.” He was talking big, but he didn’t look angry, he looked hurt. Like Aunt Susan always said, retaliation only feels good while you’re doing it.
“Hey, just kidding,” I said. “Sixties flashback, eh? Won’t happen again.”
“Sixties? Hah. You couldn’t have been more than six when the seventies started,” he said.
“Seven,” I said, doing a quick calculation. “My aunt took me to rallies, though.” Aunt Susan was the one who had planted in me the notion that cops were, well, swine. Fascists. Nasty men. She had experienced their oppression, she told me, and she knew whereof she spoke.
“That would be your aunt that runs the feed store?”
“Yup.”
“Figures. She ran for parliament a while back, didn’t she? For the NDP?”
“More than twenty years ago,” I said. “How did you know that?”
“My Dad ran against her. Victor Morrison, MPP.”
“Tory,” I said. “That was your Dad? You don’t look like him at all.”
Morrison smiled. “Nope,” he said. “Don’t think like him either.”
He leaned against the cab of the truck. It looked like we were in for a chat, and what surprised me was that suddenly, I didn’t mind so much.
In Laingford, if you get pulled over by the cops, it’s all around town in two minutes. Traffic slowed as people drove past, craning their necks to see who was in trouble. I’d hear about it, later.
“You found John’s truck yet?” I said.
“Nope. Still looking. Damn thing’s disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Too bad. No luck at Kelso’s, eh?”
“No point in asking,” Morrison said. “He drove home before he was shot, remember?” I was surprised that he was talking to me about the case. I thought he and Becker were trying to keep me out of it. Still, I wasn’t complaining.
“Are you sure he did that?” I said.
“The Schreier kid swears it. Travers died at home, with his truck in the driveway.”
“So you think somebody used his truck to move his body to the dump, then drove it somewhere and left it,” I said, carefully.
“You think so too, don’t you?” Morrison said. “Yes, but constable, Francy can’t drive. So it couldn’t have been her.”
He winked. That was all. By now I was thoroughly confused. If he was going to start playing Good Cop, who would that cast in the role of the Bad One?
“Now, you hear anything at all, you let us know, okay?” he said. “And try not to get involved.”
“If you don’t want me involved, why are we having this conversation?”
“Insurance,” he said, enigmatically. A Toyota buzzed by, way over the limit, honking loudly. Several young men wearing baseball caps leaned out and yelled something as they passed.
“Morons,” I said. Morrison was squinting at the retreating car. “PZI 952,” he muttered. Then he turned back to me.
“Mayors kid,” he said. “Gotta make a phone call.”
I started the truck, then remembered that I had some new information. “Hey, Morrison,” I said loudly, over the chugging of the engine. He looked back.
“John Travers was hurting for cash. He sold some stuff to Rico Amato and didn’t haggle over the price. Wonder why, eh?”
Morrison grinned. “Atta girl,” he said.
Aunt Susan’s feed store was busy when I arrived. There were plenty of cars in the parking lot and a Co-op truck was backed up to the loading door, delivering the week’s order. If I wanted to visit privately with my aunt, I’d have to wait.
Feed stores always smell wonderful, sort of a cross between a brewery and one of those brass and incense gift shops. Susan stocked hers with more than just feed. There were rubber boots and racks of work gloves, overalls and buckets, nursing nipples, milking pails, water heaters, bird feeders, tractor parts and tools.
If you were into agriculture, there wasn’t a thing she wasn’t happy to get for you, except American goods. She enforced a strict buy-Canadian policy, and although she would order items from the States if you insisted, she’d fill out the order form in icy silence and never look at you the same way again.
Theresa, her assistant, was at the cash desk, ringing in a big bag of low-priced, economy dog food for a man wearing a furlined coat. If Susan had been there, she would have made him buy a better brand. Cheap, high bulk dog food will make your animal poop twice as much as it needs to, without much benefit. The guy in the coat probably knew that already, though. Probably poured the cheap stuff into a bag of Martin’s