Jan 17

01

STORY PITCH

Blood and Gore-Tex: A Vancouver Thriller

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The Characters

Gord McAdam, 34, sensitive homicide cop working out of 312 Main. Divorced, two kids living in the custody of his ex-wife.

Fiona Roberts, 27, his partner. A hard drinker and smoker who’s seen it all and has a grizzled wisdom, but still dresses smartly and is beautiful to a degree that makes men and women burst into tears when she walks into a room.

Finbarr Tavish, 54, Chief Inspector of homicide division, a man set upon by demons of his own creation, unable to love. Taut and muscular. Thrice divorced.

Anand Lakhti, 64, sweet, kind cop with 40 years on the East Side beat, six months from retirement, never pulled his gun.

Thuy Lee, 45, wisecracking coroner, always tells the same joke about having a stiffie.

William Greasy Salmon, 44, Chief Crown Prosecutor, part Haida, a ruthless champion of just punishment.

Roberto “The Machete” Macchieti, 39, hot-tempered detective, two heart attacks, three ulcers, he starts each day with a vodka latté. He loves his family.

The Plot

A class of elementary students from Point Grey is touring the Museum of Anthropology near the UBC campus. As the children are taken outside to see big Haida totem poles, one of them screams: a man has been crucified, naked, on a pole.

The corpse turns out to be City Councillor Don Lok, much in the news as an advocate for reclaiming valuable Lower Mainland property given to Coast Salish and Stah:lo tribes as part of claim settlements over the past hundred years. Lok was said to have papers proving that the tribes used legal duplicity on the governing bodies of the day, they had no legitimate claim to the land, and the tribes were made up of disgruntled Mexican prospectors who were sent the wrong direction during the Barkerville Gold Rush.

The murders increase, each one a crucifiction at a place of major cultural appropriation: A right-wing newspaper columnist is found strung up outside an art gallery, a Crown attorney is left to die outside a store carrying books about natives written by white people, a doyenne of talk radio hangs naked from the sign of the Tomahawk diner in North Vancouver. Each victim has been a vocal advocate of reclaiming land claims.

McAdam and Roberts spend a lot of time in coffee shops discussing the case in clipped, declarative sentences, always but kind of not really flirting with each other. McAdam pauses to think about his son three times.

Chief Inspector Tavish explodes in rage at the lack of progress, and warns McAdam that if no clues are forthcoming, he can look forward to a nice long stretch slipping parking tickets under SUV windshield wipers in Kitsilano.

Two visits to the coroner provide some shaky comic relief.

One night Macchieti is coming back to the station from a $30 blowjob by a crack whore on East Cordova. He sees a Mercedes screech to a halt outside a head shop on Pender. Three men get out, all dressed in black suits with sunglasses. They pop the trunk and remove a body wrapped up in a neoprene bag. Macchieti calls for backup. Lakhti, on his way out the door to go home to see his wife and 85 grandchildren, catches the call.

The men in suits are attaching wires to the body in the bag when the backup arrives. A gun battle follows, during which the only person to be hit fatally is Lakhti, who takes it all with great dignity.

Macchieti, burning with rage, drives across town to the Cornwall St home of the Salish Tribal elder whose license plates match those on the Mercedes. He breaks down the door, and finds that everyone in the house has been murdered.

McAdam and Roberts show up at the house with the coroner, who asks, “I get a stiffie if I go in dat house?” before laughing himself into a coughing fit. Chief Inspector Tavish shows up, his face red with rage and cocktails. Roberts looks adorable in a sweater with short wool skirt and oatmeal tights. McAdam thinks about his son.

As the detectives and Chief Inspector summarize the plot so far, in clipped, declarative sentences, Billy Greasy Salmon arrives. He says, “I know you think it was me, but it wasn’t. So go fuck yourselves, I’m off to Whistler.”

The next day Roberts is buying Clinique products at Holt Renfrew when an agitated looking man carrying a laptop sees her, freezes, draws a gun, and screams, “No way, no way! Too easy! Too easy!”

Everyone in the store is frozen in place, afraid to breathe.

“You’re a writer, aren’t you,” says Roberts, her voice like a shot of whiskey with a creosote chaser.

“Not as far as Pacific Press is concerned!” he blubbers, tears streaming down his face, the gun wobbly in his hand.

“Have you sent in clippings?” asks Roberts, adjusting her stocking seam, drawing a stray lock of auburn hair behind one ear.

“Of course! But they don’t ‘want’ linguistic experiments! They don’t ‘want’ concrete poetry!”

Roberts smirks, walks up to the man, takes the gun from his hand, insults his aesthetic sensibilities, hints at his sexual inadequacy, demands to know why he wasted her time, and offers him a ride back to Cap College.

Trevor Lautens walks into 312 Main to confess to the murders. “I have a thing for Native men!” he weeps at the sentencing.