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Elsie was standing outside in the parking lot smoking a cigarette when Dan stopped by the Haida-Way for lunch.
“Taking a break before the rush?” he asked as as he headed towards the door.
She nodded and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Yeah. It’s already crazy in there. I’ve been here since six and it hasn’t slowed down any since then.”
Dan stopped as a thought occurred to him.
“Does Victor Halvorsen ever come here to eat?”
Elsie ground her cigarette out on the pavement. “That asshole?” She turned towards the entrance. “”S’cuse my French. Yeah, once in a while.” She nodded towards the dining room. “You coming in? He’s in there now if you want to talk to him.”
They entered the restaurant together and she nodded towards a table. “That’s him over there by the window. Glad he’s not in my section. Miserable bastard’s too cheap to tip.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and Dan looked across the room to where an overweight man wearing a blue ballcap and a T-shirt that might once have been white but was now a dirty gray sat hunched over a half-finished meal. The restaurant was rapidly filling up, but the tables next to Victor Halvorsen were all empty.
Dan threaded his way through the crowd and pulled out an empty chair.
“Victor Halvorsen?” he asked.
The man glared at him from under heavy brows. “Who the hell are you?”
The high-pitched voice combined with the moon face and the heavily muscled chest and arms stretching the grubby T-shirt made Dan figure Victor might be into some serious steroids and bodybuilding.
“Dan Connor,” Dan pulled out his wallet and laid it on the table. “I need to ask you a couple of questions.”
Halvorsen’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the police credentials. “You’re a cop? What the hell you hassling me for? Go get your own goddamn table.”
“You own a house here Vic?” Dan ignored the questions. “Up there on Alder Street?”
“None of your goddamn business if I got a house! Who cares? Owning a fuckin’ house ain’t illegal.”
“How about a blue pick-up truck?”
“Go to hell. I got nothin’ to say to you.”
Dan sighed and leaned back in his chair. “That’s too bad, Victor. I was hoping we could have a nice chat over coffee, but if you would rather I take you over to the station, we can talk there instead. It’s your choice.”
“Yeah? Well I got my rights.” Halvorsen went back to eating, mumbling between mouthfuls of the huge burger and fries crowding his plate. “You gotta charge me with something before you take me anywhere, and I ain’t done nothing wrong so what are you gonna charge me with, huh?” He straightened up, raised his voice and lifted his chin to indicate he wanted everyone in the restaurant to hear what he was saying. “I got witnesses too, and they all know me. You want them to see you try and drag me out?”
Dan smiled and put his elbows on the table as he leaned forward and put his face close to Victor’s. “I really don’t care whether they see me or not Vic. It might upset a few of these good folks, but I doubt it. I think most of them would be pretty happy about it. You don’t seem to have a lot of friends—at least not in here.”
“I got plenty of friends!” Halvorsen was looking down at his plate again, sawing frantically at his burger, his knife clutched so tightly in his fist it screeched against the plate.
“Really? That include the guy that was there at the house with you a couple of days ago? Wears his hair in a ponytail?”
It was a guess. Dan had no idea whether Halvorsen had been in the house at the time, but he knew the guess had worked when he saw a fine sheen of sweat appear on Halvorsen’s forehead.
“What guy? I don’t know no guy wears a ponytail!”
“Sure you do Victor. Dark hair? Slim? Looked like you guys were checking out the neighborhood.”
Halvorsen’s face changed, took on a furtive look, and he answered with a forced laugh. “That guy? He ain’t my friend. He was just some guy I picked up when I was out fishing.”
“Fishing?” Dan could see a damp stain spreading across the T-shirt. “Pretty early in the morning to be back from a fishing trip wasn’t it? Where’d you go?”
The knife was clattering now, and Halvorsen put it down. “Ahh, I just went out to the reef, but nothin’ was biting so I came back in.” He words came in fast bursts.
“That’s too bad.” Dan leaned back. “Lot of salmon out there. You’d think the reef would’ve been a good spot.”
“Yeah.” Halvorsen glanced at him nervously, trying to see if he was serious. “Usually catch a bunch out there. Must’ve been an off day or something.”
Dan nodded and looked at the man sitting across from him. Halvorsen was scared. He could smell it. Fear was oozing out of the man’s pores, but fear of what? He hadn’t been nervous until Dan had started asking about his friend.
Dan leaned forward again and kept his voice casual. “So you just found this guy out on the reef?”
“What?”
Halvorsen had let his guard down enough that Dan’s question caught him by surprise.
“Oh no! No. Hell, that would be crazy man. He wasn’t on the reef. No way. He—ahh—he was on the wharf. Down there by the ramp.”
“On the ramp? Was this when you went out? Must have been pretty dark.”
Dan watched Halvorsen closely. He didn’t want to ease off, but the man looked like he was close to having a heart attack. His face was flushed a bright red and veins pulsed at his temples and throat. Even his eyes were unnaturally bright.
“Yeah. No.” Halvorsen’s fists were clenching and unclenching as he appeared to search for the words to make his tormentor leave him alone. “He was there when I came back. Wanted a ride so I gave him one, that’s all.” His eyes found Dan’s, almost pleading with him to believe what he was saying. “No harm in that, right?”
Dan shook his head. “No harm at all.” He smiled. “So where was he going?”
Halvorsen looked at him, a look of utter frustration on his face. His mouth moved, but no words came out. Instead he rammed his chair back and headed towards the door.
He was moving so fast Dan barely heard what he said as he pushed his way past the crowded tables.
“Eric said you were going to be trouble.”
Dan watched him go. Eric. It wasn’t much, but it was the start he had been hoping for and he planned on making sure Eric was right—he was going to be trouble. He smiled and beckoned to the waitress for the bill.