Authors: Anthony Bidulka
authority, “you do not.”
While she huffed at that, I asked, “So Jane
Cross comes home empty handed and then
what?”
“Well, by then everything was falling apart. Jane
could find nothing on you in New York…which
cost me plenty let me tell you…and the date for
the money from Daniel had come and gone. I
couldn’t believe it! The asshole didn’t pay up! After
all he’d done to me! I didn’t have the cash, I didn’t
have the proof I needed to ensure a good divorce
settlement and I didn’t really want to make good
on my blackmail threat.” She leaned towards me
then, her eyes ablaze with hatred. “And it was all
your fucking fault! You told him not to pay! You
were still fucking my husband for all I knew! You
406 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
were making a fool of me! Of me!”
“So you left a stink bomb on his porch?” Darren
asked, not bothering to mask how ridiculous he
considered the move. “Vandalized his car?”
She gave me a sour look. “I wanted to hurt you
in whatever ways I could think of. But of course
none of it was enough.”
“So you hired someone to kidnap Mr. Quant
and Mr. Lowe?” Darren said.
She turned to Darren and told him, “I didn’t
hire anyone. That was my brother. But don’t get
all worked up about that. He didn’t know what he
was doing…other than helping his wronged sister
get a little harmless revenge.”
“You call dumping us in the middle of
nowhere to freeze to death, harmless?” I asked
incredulously.
“That was me,” she said, looking me straight in
the eye. “All my brother did was bring me the
truck from the farm and get you boys…your
friend was obviously a mistake…loaded up in the
back. I told him you were having sex with
Daniel…which of course did not go over well with
him…and that I was just trying to teach you a les-
son. After he got you on the truck, he left. I was
already in the cab.”
I shook my head in disbelief. Cheryl Guest had,
by playing the wronged wife, gotten her best
friend and brother to unwittingly help her commit
her grand criminal schemes.
“You left us to freeze to death, Cheryl,” I said
plainly.
Suddenly her eyes were everywhere but on us
Anthony Bidulka — 407
and her fingers were knotting around one another
with nervous energy. When she finally spoke her
voice was so quiet we both had to lean forward to
make out the words. “I didn’t sleep all night.
Everything I’d done seemed surreal. I began to
wonder if it’d really happened at all. But of course it
had. And I knew it was wrong. But I didn’t confront
myself with it until the morning, after Daniel left the
house. When he did, I just fell apart. And I finally
admitted to myself that I’d attempted… murder.”
She looked at us then, not crying, but her eyes
shone with unshed tears. “So I drove to a pay-
phone and told the police where I’d left you. I did-
n’t want you dead. You have to believe that.” She
looked at Darren but his face remained an expres-
sionless
stone.
“And
I
don’t
want…to…go…tooooooooo jaaaaaaaaiiiiiiillllll-
ll…” And the tears began. Without a tissue or
handkerchief she simply let them pour from the
corner of her eyes, over her cheeks and past her
trembling lips.
“Do you know a man by the name of Hugh?” I
asked, desperately trying to tie together several
loose ends before Darren took over.
She shook her head, unable to speak.
“Drives a green Intrepid?”
Nothing.
Darren stood up then and went to the front
door to motion in the other constables. I sat across
from Cheryl Guest—the long elusive Loverboy—
and said nothing.
408 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
I spent the next hour in my office unsuccessfully
trying to find Daniel by phone. While I did that I
went through my files on the Guest blackmail case,
checking things off, getting it clear in my mind who
had been naughty and who had been nice. In the
end I was satisfied I’d earned my money and done
what I’d been hired to do, which was to find and
stop Loverboy. All well and good except the stub-
born suspicion in my mind that the fat lady had yet
to sing. Sometimes as a detective you have to rec-
oncile with the fact that there are truths you may
never discover, answers that can’t be found. I hate
that. And there was stuff in my Herrings file that
just wouldn’t allow itself to be ignored.
There was James Kraft. Did he commit suicide?
Or was he murdered? Why did he refer to himself
as Loverboy in his last phone call to me? If he did
kill himself, why do it—for all purposes—in front
of me?
The landfill chase. Who was Hugh in the green
Intrepid? Was this related to the Guest case at all?
Common sense would say no—the chase occurred
before I was even hired by Daniel—yet Hugh had
warned me off a case I didn’t have at the time.
Why? And who was in the other car?
And what about Daniel Guest? Who was he
meeting at the Riviera Motor Inn for six months?
Even as the idea entered my mind I knew it
was wrong.
Beverly. She knew something. Daniel had
revealed something to her in their private sessions
that somehow influenced my case. And she knew
it; she’d hinted at it when I returned from New
Anthony Bidulka — 409
York. But what? What was it and how could I find
out? Did she mean for me to ask her more ques-
tions? But asking her to reveal a patient’s confi-
dences in order to help me would be contrary to
our professional relationship and personal one. I
couldn’t put her in such a position. Then what?
How could I find out what she knew?
And so, my treacherous scheme: break into
Beverly’s office, on Christmas day when I was
sure not to be caught, and riffle through her files
on her sessions with Daniel Guest.
I made it as far as her office door, my lock picks
in hand, before I stopped myself with a most
hearty chastisement. To do this would be wholly
unacceptable. My housemates trusted me, we
trusted each other and to do this would be a
breach of that trust. I turned away from her door
with the intention to slink upstairs and think up
some other means to my end, when a memory
shot across my brain like a subliminal advertise-
ment, barely there but still leaving an impression.
The newspaper! When was it? When had I seen it?
I rushed into the kitchen and to the closet where
we stored used newsprint for recycling. It was the
Saturday I was in New York…the twentieth…I’d
come home and read the article…about the south
downtown vote…I found the paper I was looking
for and yanked it down from the shelf where it
was stored with about two months worth of old
StarPhoenix
, causing several other issues to spill
onto the floor. I spread the paper on the kitchen
table and quickly found the front-page article I
remembered. As with most big stories in
410 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
Saskatoon, much of the news coverage consisted
of comments and opinions of local politicians
and professional wags. I hurriedly flipped pages
to where the story continued on page B6.
And there it was. The mini-headline read,
“City Councillors Weigh In.” My finger raced
down the column’s verbosity to the end where I
read, “Councillor Dufour was unavailable for
comment. He was in New York City on business.”
Like coins into slots, I could hear the phop,
phop, phop of missing pieces falling into place.
And then I remembered a startling bit of informa-
tion. Cheryl Guest had told us Daniel was meet-
ing with a colleague. Daniel Guest was with Herb
Dufour. Daniel Guest was in danger.
Chapter 22
I SWISH-TAILED OUT OF THE PWC parking lot onto
icy Spadina and sped towards the north end of
town and the DGR&R office building. The going
was quick as most people with any sense were
home on Christmas day with their loved ones,
rather than out on the streets collecting guests for
the local police holding tank. But I was on a mis-
sion. There was a good chance my client was in
mortal danger. For some reason he’d agreed to
meet Herb Dufour that morning. I could only
guess that their meeting place was DGR&R, likely
abandoned on December 25th.
Daniel was correct in assuming Herb was not
Loverboy, but he was sorely unaware—as I had
been—of another subplot burbling beneath the
surface of his wife’s blackmail scheme. By simply
being caught having extramarital sex with anoth-
er man, Daniel had unintentionally set off numer-
ous chains of events that resulted in blackmail,
kidnap and murder. Daniel had much to fear from
Herb Dufour.
At least that was my theory.
I knew Daniel had been meeting with someone
at a local motel for six months prior to his ren-
dezvous with Anthony. I sensed James Kraft had
not committed suicide but had been murdered for
some unknown reason. And I knew someone did-
n’t want me to take Daniel’s case and nearly ran me
off the road in order to convince me.
412 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
From the
StarPhoenix
I learned Herb was in
New York City at exactly the same time I was; at
exactly the same time James was killed.
Coincidence? Bullshit. But how did he know I’d
be there? How did he know that James Kraft was
the most likely suspect to be Loverboy?
The same way he knew I’d be offered the case
of finding Loverboy before I even did.
Daniel Guest had told him.
Daniel and Herb were business partners,
friends and, I was betting, ex-lovers who’d had a
six-month affair which had played itself out at the
Riviera Motor Inn. An affair that someone, likely
Herb, called off when it became too serious or too
close to becoming revealed. This was probably
about the same time Herb was just becoming
highly touted for the top job in Saskatoon—
mayor.
But then what? Blackmail? No, it was Daniel’s
wife who’d been blackmailing him. And Herb
would have no logical reason to blackmail Daniel.
He wasn’t in obvious need of the money. And a
threat of revelation could only hurt his own
chances of anonymity in the whole matter. It did-
n’t make sense.
But it was about to.
I parked on an empty street half a block away
from DGR&R and made my way to the back door
of the building on foot. I was gratified to see I was
right. In the parking lot was Daniel’s black BMW
and another equally ostentatious car that I
assumed belonged to Herb Dufour. I used the
now-familiar security code and gained entrance
Anthony Bidulka — 413
into the building and made my way up to the
partners’ offices. As I inched open the third-floor
door I could hear a low murmur of voices.
Although there were no overhead lights on, the
hallway was grey with dull daylight. I crept down
the passageway and peeked around the corner
into the atrium. And there, standing at the
entrance of Daniel’s office were two men.
Embracing.
Daniel and Herb.
I couldn’t make out the words between them.
Their voices were low and muffled by kisses and
caresses. I was wrong. I came here thinking I might
be saving Daniel’s life. I was almost certain Herb
killed James and now intended to kill Daniel too.
But a murder was definitely not what I was witness-
ing. I pulled back into the hallway, utterly confused.
I heard a thudding noise and quickly stole another
glance around the corner. Herb had pushed Daniel
against the jamb of the door and while covering his
face with sloppy kisses was slowly pulling his shirt-
tails out of his pants. Daniel’s hands were also busy
a little lower down. On the floor between them was
a 750 ml bottle of Scotch, a third empty. This was a
party, a tryst, a reunion.
I slunk back down the stairs. Something didn’t
add up and I was bad at math. But unless I was
planning to become a voyeur (which under differ-
ent circumstances would be okay) I had no course
left me but to leave. Although I doubted they’d