Death as a Last Resort (2 page)

Henny Vandermeer, five foot eight, in her mid-forties and a lover of hand-knitted garments and stout shoes, had ruled the agency since taking over Maggie's job as Girl Friday a couple of years back. She was having a hard time accepting all the changes. “I stay here, ja?” she asked for what seemed the tenth time that morning.

“Yes, Henny,” Maggie answered as patiently as possible. “Nat is using the new office. I've got his old one and you will stay right where you are.”

“This mess is going to be gone soon, ja?”

“We should be almost straight by the end of the week. Nat's new carpet is being put down tomorrow.”

“And my files?” Henny asked, pointing to the boxes piled in the corner.

“I'll give you a hand putting them into those nice new cabinets this afternoon,” Maggie answered. “And you get to keep them along with the coffee pot and the coat rack.”

“But where is my telephone?”

Maggie sighed. “The new phones will be connected later today, and then you'll be able to put through any calls for me or Nat.” She turned as footsteps sounded outside the door. “That's probably the phone people now.”

But it was the sign writer to add Maggie's name to Nat's on the door. After he had done his job and departed, Maggie stood on the landing and gazed at his handiwork.

It's really happened. I'm actually a partner. “
Southby and Spencer, Private Investigators,” she said out loud, just to see how it sounded.
And not: Maggie Spencer, housewife.

She was so preoccupied that she didn't hear the ancient elevator grinding its way upward or its door opening just down the hall, so she was startled when an overdressed woman about her own age pushed past her. But Maggie's glance took in the freshly coiffed peroxide hair, the liberal use of mascara and, rather enviously, the beautifully manicured nails.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

The woman paused with her hand on the doorknob to look Maggie up and down before she marched into the office. “I want to speak to my husband,” she announced to Henny. When a confused Henny only stared at her, she repeated, “My husband, Nat Southby.”

Henny gasped. “Mr. Nat is married?”

Then Maggie remembered where she had seen the woman before. Nat had shown her a couple of old photographs of himself and his wife Nancy before their divorce.

“Is he in?” Nancy Southby checked her wristwatch. “I was hoping he'd take me out for lunch.”

“He'll be out until two,” Maggie said, following the woman into the office. “I'll tell him you called.”

“No need. I'll be back before then.” She opened the door and then pointed at the sign. “Who's this Spencer person?”

“I'm Maggie Spencer.”

“Huh! I read about you in the newspapers. Didn't take you long to get your hooks into him.”

It was all Maggie could do not to reply, but by the time Nat returned a half hour later, she was ready to explode. “Your ex-wife came in a short while ago,” she said, leaving Henny to finish sorting the files and leading the way into her office.

“Nancy?” he said, following her.

“Apparently she read about me when our last case was written up in the newspapers, and now she seems to think I've got my hooks well and truly into you.”

“What the hell did she want?”

“Lunch for starters, but she's coming back around two to tell you the rest of it,” she answered sweetly.

“If she thinks I'm giving her more money,” he thundered, “she's got another think coming.” He stormed out, heading for his own office.

Maggie smiled as she closed her door quietly behind him.

• • •

“IS HE IN?” NANCY asked, shedding her Persian lamb coat as she made a beeline for Nat's office.

“You wait!” Henny interposed her bulk between the woman and Nat's door, ready to defend her boss. “I'll see if he is busy, ja?”

“Don't bother,” she answered, pushing Henny aside.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Nat,” Henny said miserably. “I ask her to wait.”

“It's okay, Henny.” He turned to his ex. “What is it this time, Nancy?”

“You got any decent coffee in this place?”

“I'll get coffee,” Henny answered, closing the door behind her and making straight for Maggie's office. “She's back again.”

“Who's back again?” Maggie asked, looking up from her work.

“Mr. Nat's old wife.”

“I wonder what she wants?”

“That's what Mr. Nat ask her. But she wants coffee . . . now.”

• • •

“OKAY, NANCY,” NAT SAID. “What gives?”

“The police told my friend Jacquelyn Dubois that it was you that found her husband dead on that mountain,” she said.

“Not exactly. My partner, Mrs. Spencer, found him.”

“And now this has come out,” she carried on as if he hadn't spoken and waved a newspaper at him. “Yesterday's paper. Have you read it?”

“No,” he answered, bewildered. “Should I have?”

“Here, read it.” And she thrust the article in front of him.

The Sun has learned that the body of a man in his late fifties that was discovered by two unidentified skiers on Saturday, January 6, on Hollyburn Mountain, was the late Maurice Dubois. He had been reported missing by his wife, Jacquelyn, on January 3 when she returned from a vacation in Montreal. He had been on a fishing trip with a few friends at St. Clare Cove Resort and Marina, situated in Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast, when he disappeared.

Dubois owned a successful logging company operating on the Lower Mainland, Sechelt Inlet and Vancouver Island and was a business associate of Schaefer's Lumber and Building Supplies in North Vancouver. Mrs. Dubois was too distraught to be interviewed, but according to a close acquaintance, she was completely mystified why her husband's body was found on Hollyburn Mountain.

When this reporter enquired the cause of death, he was informed that the autopsy showed the death was from a severe blow to the head.

“So what has this to do with me?” Nat demanded.

“Jacquelyn wants to know who murdered him.” She paused for a moment before bursting out, “So I gave her your name.”

“Why? The police are taking care of it.”

“She doesn't trust the cops too much. She wants an independent inquiry.”

“But why me?”

“You're supposed to be some kind of detective, aren't you? So,” she added, “when can she come and see you?”

There was a tap on the door and Henny came bustling in with two cups of coffee and one huge, lumpy cookie, which she pointedly placed on a napkin in front of her boss. “Anything else, Mr. Nat?”

“Take a look in the appointment book and see if Maggie and I have a free hour tomorrow or Friday.”

“Do you need to bring
that woman
into this?”

“
That woman,
Nancy, is my partner. And we always cooperate on big cases, especially a murder.”

Henny reappeared at the door, book in hand. “Nothing until eleven on Monday morning, Mr. Nat.”

He looked enquiringly at Nancy.

“I'll call her and find out. Pass your phone over.”

“There's a phone in the outer office,” Nat replied curtly. “Then if your friend wants that slot, Henny can book her into it.”

Grabbing the fur coat that she had flung over her chair, Nancy stormed out of Nat's office, slammed the door, settled behind Henny's desk and picked up the phone. “Jacquelyn,” she said into the phone, “can you make Monday at eleven?”

Now I have to break the good news to Maggie,
Nat thought as he listened to the muted voice of his ex-wife in the outer office. But a shout of dismay, some blue language and several thumps made him rush to the door. Nancy, in the act of marching out of the office, had collided with two men entering from the corridor, staggering under the weight of several heavy boxes containing telephones, coils of wire and other equipment that were now scattered over the floor of the office. The two men were gaping with astonishment and Nancy was livid.

“Watch where you're going, you idiots!” she shouted at them as she bent to retrieve her handbag, and she slammed out of the room without a backward glance.

“What was all that about?” the installer asked Maggie when she appeared in her office doorway. “You'll have to pay for new telephones if they're broken, you know,” he added.

Nat stomped back into his office and slammed the door. Maggie would have liked to do the same, but she waited patiently while the installer inspected everything for damage.

Henny watched apprehensively as he unpacked the console onto her desk. “All those buttons. How do I know which one to push?”

“I'm sure this gentleman will explain everything,” Maggie answered. “It'll be quite easy, you'll see.”

“But . . .”

Maggie escaped into her own office, shut the door firmly behind her, drew some legal papers that a courier had delivered earlier in the day toward her, and tried to concentrate.

But her peace was short-lived. “The telephone man wants to come in here next,” Henny said, poking her head into the room.

“Can't he do Nat's office? I'm busy.”

“The man has come to put down the carpet in Mr. Nat's office.”

“But he wasn't supposed to come until tomorrow.”

“He said he has spare time today.”

“I give up.”

By the sound of the raised voices emanating from Nat's office, Maggie didn't think he and the carpet layer were getting along too well either. It was obviously time to take Nat out for an afternoon break.

“I don't understand about buttons,” Henny yelled as Maggie headed toward his door.

“You the boss?” the telephone man asked in exasperation.

Maggie nodded.

“It's quite simple to use. Let me explain.”

“Can you wait for just a few minutes?” she asked.

“Lady,” he replied testily, “I have two more installations to do this afternoon . . .”

Maggie was beginning to wonder if the new Southby and Spencer Agency would ever achieve some kind of normalcy.

CHAPTER TWO

T
he office was quiet. The telephone system had been installed, Henny had departed for home after Maggie assured her she would explain all the buttons in the morning, the carpet man had left, and she and Nat were sitting in her office going over the day's events.

“You'd better read this,” Nat said, sliding the folded newspaper towards Maggie. “I wonder why it's taken the cops so long to identify him?”

Maggie picked up the newspaper and read the article. “You're right. It's been two weeks since we found the body.” She handed the paper back to him. “It was easy to see that he'd been bashed on the head.” She couldn't help giving a shiver. “Of course, it was getting quite dark when we discovered him.”

“I wonder why Mrs. Dubois wasn't at the resort with her husband?” Nat mused.

“Perhaps she prefers the city life,” Maggie answered. “Not everyone is into a log-fires-antlers-on-the-wall kind of vacation.”

“We'll probably find out when we interview her on Monday.” He stood up to leave, then turned back. “By the way, that was a good piece of work you did on that housebreaking case.”

“It didn't take much to figure out that the boyfriend was helping himself to the family silver as well as the daughter's charms,” she answered. “Henny's already typed the report up for me so we can bill Smedley and Company.” The publicity from their last big cases meant that their agency was now doing quite a bit of work for a number of law firms, Smedley, Smedley and Dawson being one of them.

“Come on. Grab your purse and let's go and splurge our hard-earned money on a steak at Monty's.”

Maggie didn't need any prodding.

• • •

JACQUELYN DUBOIS WAS SMALL, slim, dark and very young— probably in her early twenties. She was dressed in deep mourning—black pillbox hat with a small veil, black dress, shoes, stockings and handbag. The black mink draped over her shoulders and the fingers covered in rings spoke of money.

“You know, it's early days yet, Mrs. Dubois. Perhaps you should give the police a little more time,” Nat suggested when the three of them were seated.

“Maurice had no time for
les cops
,” Jacquelyn Dubois answered, her accent giving away her Quebecois heritage. “And I think there was . . . how do you say . . . funny business going on in his death.”

“Funny business?” Maggie asked. “When was the last time you saw your husband?”

“At my papa's house in Montréal. Then Maurice flew back here to the Coast on the December 27.”

“Any reason why you didn't come with him?” Nat asked.

Jacquelyn's beautiful little face registered disgust. “Fishing camps do not appeal.”

“Did he call you from the lodge?”

“
Non
.” She took a lace-edged hankie out of her handbag and gently dabbed her eyes. “I called the resort when he didn't come home, and they told me he had left on the previous Saturday.”

“Did your husband know the others up at the lodge?” Maggie asked.

“Some. They are . . . how do you say . . . business associates.”

“To do with his logging operation?” Nat asked.

“
Non, non
. He has an interest in the St. Clare Cove Resort. He wants . . . wanted to subdivide and build big houses there.”

“And the guests were potential customers?” Maggie asked.

“Oui.”

“Did you know any of them?” Nat asked.

Jacquelyn Dubois shook her head. “As I say, it was business. I know nothing about business. Maurice always tell me . . .” she paused and blushed, “not to worry my pretty little head. Now I wish I had asked questions.”

“What about his partner?” Nat asked, looking down at the notes he'd made earlier. “Arnold Schaefer?”