Free Seaweed Under Water by Stanley Evans Page A

Motel?”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with anything?” he retorted, giving way to sudden anger.
    â€œJust answer my question.”
    â€œPersistent, aren’t you?”
    â€œI’m a cop. We are as persistent as a dose of the clap.”
    â€œAnd as welcome,” Jack Owens snarled.
    I had been sitting with my legs crossed. I put both feet on the floor, put both hands on my knees, leaned forward and said, “What did you just say?”
    Owens paled. In a lighter tone he said, “Sorry. I can’t remember when I was last in the motel. Not lately.”
    â€œTry and be more exact.”
    â€œSorry, but I can’t. I seem to recall the Rainbow had a popular lounge, back in the good old days.”
    I thought about asking Owens’ present opinion of Janey’s loose morals, now that he was out of the relationship, but I enquired instead, “How would you describe affairs between you and Janey at this moment?”
    Owens hesitated. Instead of replying, he picked my card up for the third time. He looked at it for a full minute before saying, “Actually, our business affairs have taken a turn for the better. I had a letter from Janey’s lawyer yesterday. Apparently, Janey’s coming into a little money, so they’ve stopped pressuring me.”
    â€œComing into a little money? Could you be referring to the sale of her father’s house?”
    â€œNo. And there’s no guarantee Mr. Colby would give her anything. She’s supposed to be coming into something big, actually.”
    The words were no sooner out of his mouth, than his face fell. He rose to his feet, crossed to the door and opened it, and said tersely, “That’s it. I’m a busy man, sergeant. This interview is over.”
    â€œWait a minute,” I said.
    I was wasting my time. That was that. Jack Owens had clammed up.
    â‰ˆÂ Â â‰ˆÂ Â â‰ˆ
    It had stopped raining by the time I left Owens’ office. Steam rose from sidewalk; evaporating rainwater puddled along Wharf Street. I began to ask myself why I was so obsessed with this Colby affair. As Bernie Tapp had observed, it was really none of my business. Nevertheless, there was that raven to consider—the one I’d seen yesterday. Raven the Messenger?
    Raven doesn’t always show up in person. Sometimes he sends an emissary to deliver a garbled communication, the full meaning of which, oftener than not, becoming evident only after the passage of time. It had felt from the beginning that Terry Colby was just that kind of messenger. Then there’s Raven the Trickster , that keeps us in stitches sometimes, but that is another story. I was so preoccupied with speculations about Raven and his many personas that my recollection of that walk from Owens’ office to the Rainbow Motel is an almost complete blur. I vaguely recall collecting an evidence bag and a pair of latex gloves from my car. I must have walked past the Empress Hotel and the wax museum, and played dodgem with the usual Belleville Street tourist hordes, and yet, when I got to where I was going, I had a momentary feeling of dissociation, of being temporarily lost. Karl Berger’s black Viper, parked at the sidewalk nearby, reoriented me.
    Instead of the Rainbow Motel, I saw a new plywood fence, eight feet high, facing the street. The fence had an unlocked plywood door with Danger Zone. Do not enter stenciled across it. Upon opening the door, I discovered that the Rainbow Motel property was now a construction site encircled by chain-link fencing and the aforesaid fence. A yellow Cat dozer, operated by a man wearing a yellow hard hat, was levelling the property and uprooting trees. More building-razing machinery roared at the water’s edge, where the vanished boathouse formed part of a growing pile of rubble. The motel was as yet unscathed. This time, there was a Do Not Enter sign on its front door. I went inside.
    Karl Berger was up on a