Chapter 93

“Can you see what he says there? Look… The cigarette goes to one side. There. Then he says something else. Then Alan Lee starts to give him shit for it.”
Michael Storey cropped in again tighter on the digital image of Dee Lee’s mouth, from video taken at the funeral.
Dee’s red lips and bushy beard filled the entire 36 inch flat-screen.
A white cigarette, in slow motion, danced from the centre of his mouth to the far right corner.
“There. Freeze it.”
Det. Sgt. Bob Smith leaned around Storey’s shoulder, trying to speak into the hearing-impaired man’s slightly-better left ear.
The squadroom of CFIU, or “See if I fuck you,” as biker squad was sometimes known, was otherwise empty and silent, apart from the hum of a few random fluorescent lights still on in some of hallways and bathrooms.
Storey, a civilian lip reader on contract with Criminal Intelligence Service Nova Scotia was having trouble deciphering what the Lee’s were saying.
They always had cigarettes in their mouths while they were talking. It was interfering with Storey’s abilities. Still, a rough transcript was beginning to emerge, although he could only vouch for the accuracy at 50-50.
“OK, so far we got: ‘I want them blank, blank.’ Then Alan says ‘Wouldn’t it hurt? What else? We must have some ideas?’ Then Dee says: ‘Norma Lee would.’ Uh, but I guess that could also be: Normally, I would. Then he continues: I honestly don’t know what blank blank blank. It’s like this has come blank out of left field. Why in hell would anyone wanna kill Jack Lee?’ Then Alan Lee says: ‘This is an attack on blank blank Lee.’ Then Dee says ‘blank blank I thought it would mention all about the coke, you know? Maybe it was more than that. One of our families making some kind of full-out assault on blank blank Lee. It and Jack. They’re both fairly small targets but, blank blank, they both have their ins with you and me Percy Lee. Eh? Jack was bud.’ Actually,” Storey stopped and corrected himself. “That could be ‘Jack was blood.’ That makes sense. I think I made a mistake. ‘Jack was blood and it was blank-blank-blank-blank,’ then the cigarette starts moving again and it’s real hard to see. It moves to the centre of his mouth and it’s very hard to read after that…”
“Can you guess what he says, at all, for that last few blanks? It was what?” Smith asked, knowing he was demanding the near impossible. Dee Lee had been filmed by a black-and-white hidden camera from 25 metres away, not to mention that he had a bushy beard, talked with a cigarette in his mouth, and often spoke in biker code. There couldn’t be a worse candidate for accurate lip-reading. But Storey had a gift, no doubt about that. He was like some kind of goddamn superhero.
“Something’s weird, Bob,” Storey said, rubbing his tired eyes. They’d been at this for hours.
“What’s weird?”
“The way they say the word It all the time, It, it, it. It’s like they’re talking about a person named ‘It.’ But something doesn’t seem right. It’s more like Id, maybe….”
“Shit!” Smith snapped to attention, getting excited. “Is it Wid? W-I-D?”
“Wid? Wid. Maybe,” Storey said. “Hold on, I’ll ask Dee Lee to spell it for us. Why? Does Wid make sense?”
“Yeah, it does. They could be talking about a guy named Wid Missions Junior. That makes a shitload of sense. Wid Missions. It’s short for Willard. He’s connected to these people and he went missing. We presume dead. So, maybe he’s talking about two people that just got killed. Jack Lee and Wid.”
“Could be. The phrase would be: ‘ins with you and me, Percy Lee. Jack was blood,’ comma, ‘Wid was…’ something-something.” Storey stopped again, struggling with the next words.
“Wid was what?” Smith pushed. “C’mon, this could be crucial. He’s talking about two people who’ve both been murdered, recently. Right? This is being viewed as part of a larger attack on the Lee family. Dee is saying ’They’ve killed two of us now,’ sort of thing. Two people. One is blood, family, and one is something else. What? Something important. One is what? Wid is what?”
“Back it up, one sec,” Storey said. “I’ll keep trying, don’t worry about that. If you got the money, honey, I got the time.” Storey cleared his throat. “‘Jack was blood. And Wid was… Wid-ler…learned… Wid was learned. No. Did learn.’ It’s tough. He’s taking a drag right as he says it. I can’t read Dee, at all.”
Smith’s brain was on fire from stress. So was his heartburn. He took another sip of his cold English Breakfast tea, and felt his headache coming back behind the eyes. Staring at the grainy computer image, hour after hour, was becoming physically painful, all just to decipher some casual conversation that could turn out to be nothing of relevance.
This is what he lived for.
There was nothing more fascinating to Bob Smith than what Dee and Alan Lee might talk about casually at the funeral of a murdered relative.
“There’s a few more words, but I can’t read them.”
Smith rubbed his sweaty eyes. ‘Did you say ‘Wid was wid learned’ or ‘did learn’?”
“Diddler,” Storey said. “Diddler? Hm. That’s pretty good. I just thought of that. ‘Diddler... ‘Wid was diddler.’ ‘Wid was a diddler!’ Then he says something like, ‘deet-deet-deet-dee, diddler vision.’ ‘Wid was diddler vision.’ It’s not ‘did learn,’ it’s not ‘riddler,’ not ‘fiddler.’ Some words are pretty unique. I’m pretty sure it’s diddler. Vision. ‘Wid was Diddler Vision.’”
“Okay,” Smith tried to be patient. “Diddler vision. I think we’re way off the Jesus mark here, bud. Christ. Either that or they’re purposely spouting gibberish to mess with our heads.”
“Hold on. You say it again,” Storey said, turning to face Smith, all the way. “Say ‘diddler vision.’ And put the pen in your mouth. Say it slowly. This is good ‘cause you got a mustache. I’m not used to reading so much hair like that.”
Smith put a white Bic pen between his lips, like a cigarette and repeated the words: “diddler vision,” several times, in slightly different ways.
“Slower… Faster… More casual…”
Storey studied Smith’s mouth carefully before turning back to the computer screen and advancing frame-by-frame again through Dee Lee’s mouthing of the same words.
“Okay, we’re definitely missing a syllable. ‘Diddler da-vision. Deficien… Diddler difficient. Di-vision… That’s matching. ‘Jack was blood, Wid was diddler division. Diddler division. That feels good, for me. That’s the best match I can do. Please tell me that makes sense to you?”