Page 32 of Not a Word

She parked between a new Camry and a Prius hybrid and went into the showroom, heading straight for reception. She didn’t introduce herself to the young, blond woman when she asked where she could find Stanhope.

“Parts,” the woman said.

The parts department was adjacent to the service area, where McCabe found four people waiting for work on their vehicles to be completed, leafing through old issues of Toronto Life and Canadian Living. She went to the parts window, tapped a bell to get someone’s attention, and waited until a short man in a red polo shirt with a Toyota emblem stitched to it approached.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Looking for Ray Stanhope,” she said.

“Hang on.”

He turned and called out, “Ray! Someone to see you!”

A burly guy who stood about six two came out from behind some metal shelving. He was fiftyish, had a full beard, and weighed in, McCabe guessed, at two seventy easy.

“Yeah?” he said.

She flashed her ID. “Detective Janice McCabe, Yorkton Hill Police. Is there someplace we could talk?”

“What’s this about?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

She said, “Maybe someone’s office, or outside?”

He muttered something that sounded like “just a sec” and vanished from the window, presumably to find a way to join her on the other side. But when almost a minute had passed, McCabe started to think he wasn’t coming.

She ran out the closest door and saw Stanhope striding toward a pickup truck. He was getting behind the wheel and closing the door when McCabe started running his way, shouting: “Mr. Stanhope! Stop!”

McCabe was fifty feet away as he started the truck and put it into gear. She stood in the vehicle’s path and drew her weapon, aiming it directly at the man behind the windshield.

“Stop!”

The truck braked to a stop. Stanhope, wide-eyed, his fingers still gripping the steering wheel.

“Step out of the vehicle with your hands where I can see them!”

The door opened and Stanhope slowly got out, arms in the air. The man McCabe had encountered at the parts counter had come out. “What’s going on?” he shouted.

“Go back inside, sir!” McCabe said, and when the man didn’t immediately do as he was told, she repeated the order. He complied.

To Stanhope, she said, “Lie down with your arms above your head!”

He looked incredulous. “On the pavement? It’s all oily and shit.” McCabe stood there with the gun trained on him and said nothing. “Okay, okay.”

Stanhope went down, stretched out his arms. McCabe straddled him, holstered her weapon, pulled out a pair of handcuffs, had Stanhope put one hand behind his back, cuffed it, then ordered him to bring down his other hand, and cuffed it. She patted him down for a weapon, found none, then reached into the truck and turned it off.

He was too heavy a man to grab under the shoulders and haul to his feet, so she ordered him to do it on his own. It was a struggle, a bit like watching an upended turtle right itself, but he finally managed it and when he did, McCabe turned him toward the truck, leaning him up against the front fender.

“Am I going to find any weapons in there?” she asked him.

“No,” he said. “Shit, I think I dislocated my shoulder.”

“Why’d you run?”

“I wasn’t running. I just didn’t want to talk to you.”

“And why’s that?”

“Look, the other guy started it.”