Wild Thing

Mike Harrison

Description

When Eddie receives an early morning call for help, he catches the next plane to Britain. His friend, Dr. Peter Maurice, a renowned psychologist on a UK book tour with his wife Sylvia, has been accused of multiple, brutal murders and is about to be arrested. Eddie learns that the deadly intrigue goes further back than the present time to a two-hundred-year-old manuscript, written by Franz Anton Mesmer, and recently purchased by Dr. Maurice. The manuscript, written in Old Italian, appears to be a catalyst that sparks killing sprees, as history shows that Mesmer s

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 19 mai 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554902644
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

WILD THING
An Eddie Dancer Mystery
WILD THING
An Eddie Dancer Mystery
Mike Harrison
Copyright © Mike Harrison, 2006
Published by ECW PRESS 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW PRESS .
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Harrison, Mike (Mike S.), 1945- Wild thing / Mike Harrison.
(An Eddie Dancer mystery) ISBN 1-55022-719-X
I . Title. II . Series.
PS8615.A749W54 2006    C813'.6    C2006-900296-7
Editor for the Press: Michael Holmes Cover and Text Design: Tania Craan Cover Image: Todd Gipstein/National Geographic Image Collection/Getty Images Typesetting: Mary Bowness Printing: Friesens
This book is set in Sabon and Bubba Love
The publication of Wild Thing has been generously supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

DISTRIBUTION CANADA : Jaguar Book Group, 100 Armstrong Ave., Georgetown, ON L7G 5S4 UNITED STATES : Independent Publishers Group, 814 North Franklin St., Chicago, IL 60610
PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA
To Jan, Alec, and Annalisa, Gavin and Sarin

With special thanks to Margaret Fergusson, Andrew Fulcher, Kelly McLachlan, Trisha Coles, Chris Podeski, and Janet Klippenstein
Chapter One
WHEN THE PHONE ON my night table rang at 3:44 on Wednesday morning, I assumed that somebody had died. It wasn’t an unnatural assumption, given my line of work.
“Hello?” I tried to sound respectful of the newly bereaved.
A man’s voice came from a long way off.
“Edward?”
Nobody called me Edward. Except my parents, but they have been dead for ten years.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Dr. Peter Maurice.”
I searched my memory but didn’t need to go back very far. Dr. Maurice headed up a team of specialists brought in to help me after a violent episode last summer. He was a psychologist of some renown, flown in from Vancouver to make sure my brain recovered the way brains should when they’ve been shaken, not stirred.
“How are you, Doctor?” It gave me a thrill to ask psychologists how they were. They never gave you a straight answer though.
“Fine,” he lied. “Just fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
It was now 3:46 in the morning. I remembered he was a long-winded old soul.
“So, are you fit and well and back on the job, Edward?”
“Hundred percent,” I lied. “No longer a defective detective.”
“That’s very good to know.” He paused. “Maybe I could use your services.”
“My pleasure,” I assured him. “Where are you?”
“In England,” he said. “I’m under house arrest.”
I let that sink in for a moment.
“Why?”
“Why am I in England, or why am I under house arrest?”
“Why are you under house arrest in England?” I played him at his own game.
“I’m here on a book tour,” he said. “Promoting Eye Too Eye in the United Kingdom.”
I had an autographed copy of Eye Too Eye in my bookcase downstairs. It was his take on what was wrong with the world. Chapter One said our problems all began with too . We either had too much of something, such as stress or work or time on our hands, or too little of something else, such as money or time or life skills. The secret, according to Chapter Two, was to achieve total congruency between the conscious and subconscious minds.
His words, not mine.
Chapter Three began to use words such as sub-modalities, neurolinguistics and re-entrainment .

I never reached Chapter Four. But as bad as it was, I didn’t think it was grounds for house arrest.
“Are book tours illegal over there, then?” I asked.
“Well, no,” he answered, seriously. “But apparently, the British police believe I’m a mass murderer. Their number one serial killer, in fact.”
“Well, it’s nice to be number one at something,” I said. “And that would explain the house arrest,” I added, relieved that it wasn’t the quality of his book after all.
“Yes, indeed.”
He could be quite droll.
“How can I help?”
“Can you come over? We really do need your help.”
“Who’s we?”
“My wife is with me.”
“Coming over won’t be a problem,” I said, since I was, as we say in the profession, between jobs, “but how much help can I be, Peter? I don’t know the country. I don’t know their laws.”
“I’ll take that chance,” he said. “My wife can organize your flight, book you a hotel. How soon can you leave?”
“How long do you need me for?”
“I don’t know. Let me give you my phone number.”
I scrambled out of bed. What sort of defective private detective was I not to keep a pen and paper on the bedside table in case a notorious serial killer called in the middle of the night? I hurried downstairs to the kitchen. The hardwood floor was cold on my bare feet. I grabbed a pen and paper from the drawer.
“Okay.”

It was a long number that included the country code. I counted fifteen digits when I read them back to him.
“Can you let me know soon?” he asked.
“Why do they have you under house arrest? How come you’re not in jail?”
“It’s a temporary measure. They’ll transfer me to jail later this week.”
“Why do they think it’s you?”
“Circumstantial evidence,” he said. “But it’s very persuasive. On the face of it, Edward, even I believe I’m guilty.”
“But you’re not?”
I had to ask.
He paused a short moment. It was a classy pause, born of neither guilt nor suspicion.
“No,” he said, finally. “I’m most assuredly not.”
Which was good enough for me.
“When’s the next available flight?” I asked him.
“I’ll let you talk to Sylvia.”
The phone went dead for few long seconds and I listened to the sound of November snow melting from my roof and running through the eavestroughs. A chinook wind was blowing outside. I could hear it gusting hard against my little two-storey in Marda Loop, one of Calgary’s more trendy areas. Chinooks are warm, moist Pacific winds that blow in hard over the Rocky Mountains. A dense blanket of low grey cloud obscures the sky and forms an impressive sky-blue chinook arch directly above the mountains. The warm air becomes trapped beneath this blanket of cloud and can raise the ground temperature by as much as twenty to thirty degrees in a matter of hours. Chinooks play havoc with the barometric pressure, bestowing upon Calgary the dubious title of Migraine Capital of the World.
A woman’s voice interrupted my thoughts of warm winds and migraine headaches.
“Hello, Edward?” She sounded strained.
“Hello, Sylvia.”
“Peter is in trouble,” she said. “He really needs your help.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” I promised. “Have you had time to check on any flights?”
“Yes. That’s why we called you so early. There is a flight out of Calgary at 7:45 a.m. Your time. Can you be on it?”
Four hours. I did a fast mental locate of my belongings. Passport. Underwear. Toothbrush.
“Sure.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, her relief evident. “I have reserved a seat in your name. With Peter’s credit card. You’ll need to take a cab from the airport when you get here.”
“I land at Heathrow?”
“Yes.”
“And where are you?”
“In a place called Saint Albans.”
“What’s your address?”
She gave me the address and said she had booked me in at the Queens Hotel. I wrote it all down. The flight was due at Heathrow around midnight their time.
“Can you get me a late check-in at the Queens?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’m on the way, then.”

“Just a minute. Here’s Peter.”
She handed the phone to her husband.
“Edward?”
“Yes, Peter?”
“I want you to know I really appreciate your help,” he said.
“You’re very welcome,” I told him. “Now get off the phone. I have underwear to pack.”
After we hung up, I made a pot of strong coffee. I thought about England. It had been more than ten years since I was last there. Maybe this time I’d get to try some of their famous figgy pudding.
I began packing for a cold British winter.
One without the benefit of warm chinooks.
Chapter Two
MY HAIR WAS STILL WET from the shower but I was packed and ready to leave by 4:37 a.m.
After I set the house alarm, turned down the thermostat ten degrees and phoned my answering service to let them know I’d be abroad until further notice, there was nothing left to do. I had no cats to cuddle, dogs to romp, fish to feed, birds to cage, nor elderly relatives over which to dote.
I live a singular and frugal existence.
I took a yellow cab to the airport and we used forty gallons of wiper fluid to keep the windshield clear.
The other downside of chinooks.
The international terminal was full of sleepy-looking travellers in need of a hearty breakfast. The ticket the Maurices bought me was first-class, so I avoided the crowds and was ushered aboard like Canadian royalty.
King Eddie.
They gave me a window seat, which was nice, but sat me next to an anti-social lady from the thirteenth century, laden with sufficient jewellery to seriously compromise our takeoff speed. She wore dozens of metal bracelets on both arms and it sounded like a serious engine malfunction every time she scratched.
Once we were in the air, I asked to borrow a map of Great Britain. The flight attendant lent me a hefty, battered old atlas. I hoped it wasn’t the pilot’s. Saint Albans was spelled St. Albans and was in the county of Hertfordshire, north of London. I measured the distance from the airport. Heathrow was west of London. It didn’t look too far but I knew the traffic would be heavy and forty-odd miles could easily take several hours.
Before boarding, I’d phoned the lovely Cindy Palmer at home. I used one of the airport’s pay phones. I had called her before I left Canada because I knew my cell phone wouldn’t work in the United Kingdom.
Her answering machine kicked in right away, so I knew she was asleep. She’s an E.R. nurse and works funny hours. Not as funny as mine, of course. I left her a cryptic message about Que