Garry Ryan
The Lucky Elephant Restaurant
The second book in the Detective Lane Mystery series, 2005
for my parents
Thursday, October 8
Chapter 1
“YOU EVER LOOK for a missing kid before?” Harper sat up straight as a high-school principal in a grey sports jacket and matching pants. Their black Chevy crested a hill on John Laurie Boulevard. On their right, Nose Hill Park rose two hundred metres to a plateau of prairie where the city people walked their dogs and kept an eye out for coyotes. To the left, and below, houses were hidden behind a grass-covered sound barrier between the roadway and homes. The treetops were a collage of oranges, yellows, and greens. Over Harper’s left shoulder, the downtown high-rises were headstones along the Bow River.
On the western horizon, the Rocky Mountains were white-tipped. In a couple of hours, the sun would drop behind them leaving about thirty minutes of twilight.
“Lane, have you ever looked for a missing…?” Harper said.
“Once,” Lane said, finally. “This time, the mother says the child has been missing since yesterday afternoon.” He shifted his weight. Looking down the long slope of the road, he spotted a green pickup parked on the shoulder. “Better slow down. Wouldn’t want to get your picture taken.” There was a white Multi-Nova flash after a speeding Honda passed the truck.
“Should’ve known.” Harper braked. His bear-like hands made the steering wheel look tiny.
They passed the truck. Lane caught a glimpse of the officer waving from the driver’s seat. Lane lifted his left hand in return. With his right, he adjusted a purple silk tie. A glimpse in the right mirror assured him that the Windsor knot was at the exact centre of his grey collar.
His hand moved to brush white lint from black wool slacks.
“What else do you know about this case?” Harper asked.
“Not much. The father is missing as well. Apparently, he moved out of the house nine weeks ago. He’s a welder who travels from job to job. Estranged wife says he went on a holiday. She claims he was angry at her for not letting the kids go with him on a camping trip.”
Harper accelerated up another hill.
Lane shuddered. A flashback shivered up his spine and filled his nose with the stench of decay. He saw a length of fence. The boards were sun-dried grey. White paint peeled from the wood. It curled into flakes and coated back-alley dandelions. A galvanized trash can had its side creased with a dent. Lane leaned over the can. His fingernails picked at a knot atop a green-plastic garbage bag. It opened. There was a matted mess of curly-blond hair. He’d been told the child’s eyes were blue but death, and the light shining through green plastic, changed that. They were a colour he’d never seen before, or since. He stuffed his nose into the crook of his elbow. His voice sounded disconnected. “Over here! Oh, Jesus! Over here!”
He stared down at one blue strap of a pair of denim coveralls looped over the child’s shoulder. His heels crunched on gravel. He backed away from the horror and stench of a body swollen by summer heat.
Lane had been there when detectives confronted the father. He’d been drinking. He yelled at Candy. She wet her pants. The father kicked her so hard, she flew into the wall. He put the body in a garbage bag and dropped her into the trash.
Lane remembered getting home that night and throwing his clothes in the wash. Then he scrubbed and shampooed his body till the shower ran cold. For weeks afterward, he smelled death on his clothes, in his hair, and on his hands.
“You look kind of pale,” Harper said.
“Missing kids.” Lane took a breath, shivering as drops of sweat trickled down his ribs. He shook his head. For weeks after he’d discovered the body, a good night’s sleep was a memory. “Candy, her name was Candy.”
“What?”
“Her name was Candy. The name of the child I found in a garbage can. I hate looking for missing kids.
What you usually find is what you can never forget.”
Lane leaned back and studied the grey fabric around the dome light. Many of those sleepless nights were spent watching TV. One was a documentary about WWII in North Africa. A survivor said, “Flies were everywhere. They fed on the dead. When you swatted a fly, it smelled of death.”
Harper opened his mouth to speak, glanced at Lane, and decided against it.
Lane swallowed. The sharp, sour taste of bile caught at the back of his throat.
They stopped at the red light at Sarcee Trail.
Lane said, “Don’t know very much yet. The missing child’s name is Kaylie. Blond. Four years old. Blue eyes. Has a brother who’s eighteen months older. Both live with the mother. Her name’s Roberta Reddie.”
The light turned green. Harper checked right and left before accelerating. “Roberta Reddie. Isn’t that the one on the radio?”
“Apparently.”
“Call me Bobbie?” Harper asked.
“The one and only,” Lane said.
“No leads yet?”
“Nope. All of the neighbours have been interviewed. Nothing. The dad’s nowhere to be found,” Lane said.
“Next left?” Harper entered the turning lane before leaving the boulevard.
“Yep.” Lane felt anxiety snaking its way up his spine and licking at the nape of his neck.
The Reddie home faced west and sat on a corner with an attached garage on its north side. In the front yard, a pink bicycle lay on its back, white handle bars like outstretched palms lying flat on the grass. Its chain was a sleeping snake, curled over the crank and frame. Flies swarmed around the bicycle and its missing rear wheel.
A champagne-coloured Chrysler sparkled in the driveway. The freshly-waxed paint was tinged rose by the evening sun. Lane wondered at the dirt stuck like clotted blood to the fender liner around the rear wheel. SPK 2ME was written in red letters against the white of the license plate. “Speak to me,” Lane said.
“What?” Harper shut off the engine and palmed the keys.
“Vanity plate,” Lane said.
Harper looked at the back of the Chrysler. “Oh.”
Lane studied the house as he stepped out of the car. The front window was big enough to drive a small sedan through. White sheers curved along either side. The wall facing the window was filled with family portraits above a colonial-style couch. A TV screen blinked like a cursor in the bottom right-hand corner of the window.
Harper rapped twice on the front door. It opened.
“Ms. Reddie?”
The woman studied them from behind sparkling glass. Her hair was black and shoulder-length. She wore a black long-sleeved cotton blouse buttoned to the throat. Black slacks. Black socks. Black shoes. Her eyelids were outlined with black eye shadow. “Call me Bobbie,” she said. Her voice was low, deep. Bobbie put her back to the wall to let them in. Her generous bust forced them to turn sideways while they inched uncomfortably past her.
Lane’s nose filled with her herbal perfume. It could be described using many words, Lane thought, and none of them would be subtle.
“Have you found her, yet?” she asked.
“We’ve just started,” Harper said.
Lane noted the implied accusation in her voice, and the defensiveness in Harper’s reply.
“Tea?” Bobbie asked.
Lane said, “No thank-you. We have some questions, though.”
A boy sat in a chair across from the television. He did not look their way.
“Of course.” Bobbie indicated the kitchen. “Follow me.”
Harper followed.
Lane felt as if she had added a tablespoon of guilt to the contents of his rebellious stomach. He swallowed hard. He put his hand under his nose in an attempt to filter out her scent.