A diminutive man in a checked shirt and khakis addressed them from the hall doorway. He didn’t come near to filling it.
“Mr. Milcher, you’re the registered owner of a .32 pistol, is that correct?” Cardinal said. “A Colt Police Positive?”
“Yes. Why, did you find it?”
“What can you tell us about the circumstances under which it was stolen?”
“I told you all that. I put everything in the report.”
“We’d like to hear it again,” Delorme said.
“My wife and I were in Toronto for the weekend. When we came back, the gun was missing. Along with some other items—the stereo and a camera.”
“And why did you have a licence to carry a gun in the first place?”
“I manage the back office for Zellers. Lots of times I have to make sizable deposits at night, after the armoured truck has already gone.”
“Do you still have that job?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why don’t you show us where the stereo was,” Cardinal said.
Milcher looked from Cardinal to Delorme and back again.
“It was in here.”
They followed him into a living room that was furnished almost entirely in white: white carpet, white curtains, white leatherette sofa and matching recliner. Milcher waved a hand at a glass-fronted set of shelves, a Yamaha stereo and speakers.
Delorme went up and peered at it.
“You replaced the stereo pretty fast.”
“This was an old one I had sitting in the basement.”
“Doesn’t look old.”
“Looks like a pretty expensive stereo to just be sitting in the basement,” Cardinal said.
Milcher shrugged. “I don’t see what all this has to do with my gun. Did you find it or didn’t you?”
“Where did you keep the gun?” Delorme said.
“In that box right there.” Milcher pointed to a small oak chest on the shelf. The hasp on the lock was broken.
“Who else knew you kept it there?”
“No one. Well, my wife. No one else. Look, you still haven’t told me if the gun has turned up or not. I did my duty in reporting it. I think I have a right to know.”
“Your gun hasn’t turned up,” Cardinal said. “But we think one of your bullets did.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did you keep the ammunition with your weapon?”
“Uh, yeah. The bullets were stolen, too. They were really old, though. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure they’d even work, to tell you the truth.”
“Do you know this young woman?” Cardinal said. He handed Milcher the photo of Red he had taken that morning. The bandage didn’t show, and you couldn’t tell it had been taken in a hospital. She looked as if she had been caught daydreaming.
“I’ve never seen her,” Milcher said. “Why?”
“Because it looks like one of your bullets has turned up in her skull,” Cardinal said.
“Oh, my God,” Milcher said. “That’s terrible.”
“How many Colt Police Positives do you suppose there are in Algonquin Bay, Mr. Milcher?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with this. Hell, I reported the thing stolen the minute I knew it was gone.”
“How do we know you didn’t report it stolen, knowing you were going to use it on someone?”
“Look, I’ve never seen this woman. I had nothing to do with this. I reported the gun stolen, I don’t have a clue who stole it, end of story.”
“Oh, what is all this bullshit, Rodney?”
All three of them turned to Mrs. Milcher, who was in the doorway now with an oven mitt on one hand.
“Stay out of this, Lorraine.”
Mrs. Milcher let out a theatrical sigh. “The truth is, Officers, my husband has never grown up. If you saw the two-wheeler in the driveway, you know that he fancies himself something out of Easy Rider. He’s never quite gotten over the fantasy of riding with the big boys.”
“I did used to ride with them,” Milcher said. “It was over ten years ago, and I didn’t get into any of their other activities. But I rode with them lots of times.”
“Uh-huh. And I used to sing with the Spice Girls.”
“Who are we talking about?” Delorme said. “Who are the so-called big boys?”
“The Viking Riders,” Mrs. Milcher said. “I mean, doesn’t everybody think they’re heroes?”
“I don’t think they’re heroes,” Milcher said. “A couple of them are old friends, that’s all.”
“Grow up, Rod. One of them was over here three weeks ago, just before that stinking gun went missing.” She turned to Delorme as if only another woman could understand what it was like dealing with an incompetent male. “Genius, here, decides to impress his Viking friend by pulling out his little gun.”
“Lay off, Lorraine.”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Delorme said to Milcher. “I’m thinking that your stereo never did get stolen. I think you just said that so it would look like you didn’t have a clue who took your gun. Because if it was just the gun that was taken, that would indicate the thief knew exactly what he was looking for, and knew exactly where it was. In other words, the thief would have to be someone you knew.”
“Hey, look. You don’t know what those guys’ll do to me if they think I ratted on them.”
“Someone shot this young woman in the head, Mr. Milcher. We’re going to need a name.”
5
ALGONQUIN BAY, ALTHOUGH MODESTLY populated, was not so long ago the second-biggest city in Canada (measured by area). In the late sixties, three former municipalities of no size whatsoever had come together in a Small Bang of amalgamation to create a city that measured some 130 square miles. Only Calgary had been bigger.
Since then, many other cities and townships have succumbed to amalgamation fever, and Algonquin Bay can no longer claim to be bigger than Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal. Even so, it’s possible to motor for half an hour in certain directions from the centre of town and still find yourself within city limits.
Walter “Wombat” Guthrie lived in the basement flat of a former farmhouse just within the city’s southern border; in other words, several miles from downtown.
“A biker named Wombat,” Delorme said in the car. “They probably imagine it’s some ferocious predator. Razor-sharp teeth. But I’ve seen wombats at the Toronto Zoo. They’re these cute, fuzzy little things. You want to pick them up and take them home.”
“Walter Guthrie is not little and he’s not cute. He’s got a sheet as long as your arm including assault, armed robbery and grievous bodily harm. He’s been a member of the Viking Riders practically since kindergarten, and if they had such a thing as a prenatal chapter, he’d have been a founding member of that, too.”
“How come I haven’t run into him?”
“Because you were working white-collar crime when the Riders had their headquarters in town, and Walter ‘Wombat’ Guthrie can’t even spell white collar.” Cardinal made a right onto Kennington Road. “The only reason we haven’t run up against Wombat and his brethren lately is because they moved the clubhouse beyond city limits. Good news for us; headache for the OPP.”
“I thought all these guys were in their sixties by now—you know, grey ponytails flying in the breeze.”
“Not all of them. Some of them. But that doesn’t mean they can’t still cause trouble. They’re the reason Algonquin Bay has a heroin problem these days. They basically dumped the stuff—sold it at a loss and as soon as people couldn’t live without it, they jacked up the price.”
“It’s an effective business model,” Delorme said. “AOL works the same way.”
“Effective is right. We now have thirty or forty full-time heroin addicts.”
“Yeah, I’ve met a few. But it’s hard to get an idea of the big picture since the hiring freeze.”