Pity and a Shame

Chapter 20

Brian listened to Polly's account of the stranger and asked about the car. Luckily, her artist's eye had taken in more information than he needed, and he finally had to interrupt her to tell her that if he didn't move soon, the opportunity to do anything would be lost. He called Marge and left a message for the doc and Wegman and left to do a little snooping.

The dirt track that led off the south road to the sugar shack was marked with tire tracks. Brian knelt down and studied the marks, certain that they were fairly recent. He drove deeper into the bush and stopped when he saw the sparse clearing where the shack stood. There were more tire tracks here suggesting different vehicles as well as footprints.

Brian unsnapped his holster and crept up to the shack door, peering inside and finding the small space empty but filled with signs of recent occupancy. He took a small stick and slipped it into the neck of the discarded vodka bottle, holding it up to the doorway, smiling at the cluster of fingerprints all over the glass. He looked around some more, seeing nothing else of interest and left.

Wegman dug through the large bag of equipment he'd brought from Ingersol and set about dusting the bottle Brian had brought to the office.

"I'll transfer these to acetate and we can fax them to Ingersol. They'll get back to us quickly; my captain is being a real bear on this case since the second killing."

"Polly described the car very thoroughly and I can tell you for sure it's the same car I saw at the station asking about accommodation," Brian said. He gave Wegman the description of the car.

"He could be miles away by now," Wegman complained as he lifted the prints from the bottle.

"I'll check with George to see if he might have been in already for gas." Brian rang the garage and listened to George moan about the lack of business before he managed to get his information. "George says nobody's been in and as far as he knows nobody's even driven by today."

Fifteen minutes later, Doc came into the office carrying a box of pastries from the bakery and a carton of cigarettes. "Mornin' boys. Hungry?"

"Doc, why are you doing this?" Brian held out a helpless hand.

"What, you don't like pastries?" He opened the box and shoved it toward Wegman who studied the contents with great interest.

"Don't be a smart ass, you know what I mean."

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, son, whether it's free pastries... or free time." He gave Brian a stern, knowing look. "By the way, I met George on the way over and he told me what you were askin', so I went back and checked with the bakery. They said absolutely that no car has gone north past their place yet today."

Brian closed his eyes and surrendered with a shrug. "I'll give Janet a call and see if she's seen anything. If she hasn't, and unless we've already missed him, or he's headed back down south through the hills, there's only three roads down to the highway, north, south and middle, so if we cover the one outside the courthouse here and the one at the south end we should have him boxed. If he comes down the middle we've still got him anyway."

Wegman held up the acetate, questioning with his eyes as he bit into a flaky, jam filled pastry.

"Fine, I'll fax this to your office and I'll set up the roadblock. Why don't you two just sit here, relax and stuff your faces." He snatched the print holder from the smiling detective and went to the outer office.

"He's a good kid," Wegman stated, selecting another bun.

"And easy too." Both men laughed together.

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Janet finished sweeping the floor around the chairs after talking to Brian, and put the broom away as Carol and another woman entered the shop.

"Carol, hi. Did I forget an appointment?" Janet smiled at the other woman.

"No uh- I- this is my cousin, Beth, from out of town." Carol put a tentative hand on Gwen's arm. "She's going on from here on a bit of a holiday and would like to get her hair done. I told her you were the best."

Janet laughed and stepped forward offering her hand. "Happy to meet you, Beth. I'm Janet."

"Carol is putting me up for a few days. We haven't seen one another for years."

"Great. So what do you want?" She wondered why Carol never mentioned her cousin before.

Gwen looked at the advertising posters and shrugged. "I think I'd like to change my colour, blonde hasn't been all that much fun lately."

"Grab a chair and I'll get my samples." Janet went to the drawer by the counter and brought back the hair colour samples for Gwen to look at. "Are you going to wait, Carol? I can put on some coffee."

"Ah yes, I think I shou- will. Coffee sounds great." She put her purse on the table and took a seat by the window.

"Beth? Coffee?"

"Thanks. Just black please." Gwen placed her purse beside Carol's and sat in the chair, staring at her reflection in the large mirror.

They had raced back to Carol's, leaving Mickey unconscious in the shack, and on the way, planned quickly what they would do. Carol was terrified that her husband would find out and Gwen promised to be her alibi.

They could just say that she didn't want to intrude on the family and Carol kept coming out to visit, finally convincing her to come back to Carol's home and stay there. Gwen said she would be convincing. In return, Carol was to pretend that Gwen was her cousin and help her get out of town without any fuss. The idea of changing her appearance was Carol's and she decided it was a good one.

"Here we go, two coffees, black and regular. So, have you picked a shade?"

"I like this," Gwen said. "But I don't want something that's going to take forever to do."

"That would be quite a change," Janet said fingering the black sample. "Why don't we just drop it down to something more like this and maybe alter the style while we're at it. That should compensate for the need to change."

"The need?" Gwen gave her a strange look.

"You know, the desire for something different."

"Oh, right. I get you. Okay let's do that one and uh, what style do you think?"

"Here's a magazine with some of the latest cuts, see what you like—oh look! Hang on a sec, can you?" Janet ran to the door and outside, waiving to the car that pulled up outside.

"What's that?" Gwen sat up and looked outside.

"It's just her boyfriend." Carol prayed that Brian wouldn't come inside. She didn't really know Gwen all that well.

Janet leaned on the driver's door, smiling. "What are you doing down here?"

"I want you back inside, Janet. I'm setting up a little road block."

"Really? Why?"

"It's complex, I'll tell you later. Please go back inside."

She straightened up and started to march away before realizing that it was just that behaviour that caused most of their problems, so she turned back and blew him a kiss before heading back to the shop.

"Is that Brian," Carol asked innocently.

"Of course." Janet pulled a face at her friend. "He's setting up some kind of road block."

Carol's eyes darted to Gwen's reflection. "Road block? What on earth for?"

"Sheriff business, I guess."

"Sheriff?" Gwen said.

"Yeah, Brian's the town sheriff. He's my boyfriend." Carol looked away, feeling Gwen's eyes burning on her neck.