Murder in Focus (28 page)

“When you find Steve's diaries, Charlie, could you let me have them? As a favor? I don't think there's anything in them you'd be interested in.” Andy Cassidy turned and began to walk out of the room after Higgs. “Good night, Henri,” he said.

“You reporting in?” asked Deschenes.

Cassidy shook his head. “Nothing to report, really. It was your pigeon. I just took a couple of hours out of a boring evening to pay a debt to an old friend.”

“Have you eaten?” asked Deschenes.

“No, but thanks, anyway. Actually I'm going off to report to Betty Ferris. I made a promise to her—about Steve's death. I have to tell her I didn't do much, but it got done, anyway.” He paused for a moment. “How long does it take a woman like Betty to get over someone's death? Do you know?”

Deschenes shook his head. “I don't know. A year, maybe? Two? If she ever does.”

“Don't say that. Good night.”

Inspector Ian MacMillan made his way through the labyrinthine twists of the Mirabel parking garage toward the ranks and ranks of ticket counters. He casually dropped his keys and ID in a waste container as he strode along. He had reckoned with fair accuracy the length of time it would take Deschenes to piece together anything the Strelitsch woman could tell him. He figured that gave him until 10:30 or 11:00. He had allowed himself the few minutes required to book a flight before he picked up his packed suitcase, new passport, and ticket and walked out of his Ottawa apartment for good. The crowds around the corner for boarding passes were horrendous, except at the modest first-class counter on the end. This was no moment for economy. He headed for the ticket counter, frowned when he saw the line, mentally calculated how many of the people there were merely part of each traveler's support system, and elbowed his way ruthlessly past the throng. He reached into his pocket for a handful of fifties to upgrade his ticket. His cold glare caught him the attention of a free ticket agent; for minutes that felt like hours she laboured over the flimsy document. He snatched it up with his change and thrust his way back through the waiting hordes, slapped it down on the first-class counter, and found himself suddenly enveloped in the aura of privilege that accompanies the expenditure of cash.

He sat down in the first-class lounge, rejected, then accepted, a drink, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and relaxed for the first time in months, for the first time since he got wind that Steve's bulldog tenaciousness of purpose might be getting him somewhere. He had thought that once Steve shifted over to CSIS he might forget about this investigation. After all, no one else believed that there was anything to it, or at least anything anyone wanted to tangle with. Except bloody goddamn righteous Steve Collins, who couldn't let anything lie. It had been sheer bad luck that someone had decided to get rid of Maury Charbonneau. Stupid creep. Especially since the bastards who did it had been bunglers who let him live those few hours and let Collins get onto him. And he should never have trusted a fucking dealer like Green and his friend Karl Lang to clean up his mess for him. Even if they did work with Teutonic efficiency. Shit! Here's to the end of making mistakes, he said to himself, and raised his glass of Glenfiddich in a silent toast.

As he put the empty glass down, he was suddenly aware that three men were surrounding him. Three men who hadn't come in the main door to the lounge. He reached automatically into his jacket before realizing that, as a quiet and peaceable businessman, he wasn't carrying a weapon anymore.

“Inspector MacMillan?” said one of the men. He stood up without a word and walked docilely with them toward the exit.

Saturday, May 20

Sanders stepped out of his car—rescued the night before from its resting place near Dow's Lake, two tickets neatly stuffed under the windshield wipers—and looked around him. RCMP headquarters loomed ahead, as formidable as ever, but the sun was shining benignly, and the trees and shrubs were perceptibly greener than they had been six days before. Harriet's car pulled up behind him; she honked and waved him firmly out of the parking space he was standing in. He hadn't seen her since last night, when she had pleaded exhaustion and allowed herself to be chauffeured home by a bouncy little Mountie, neatly avoiding Sanders's silent entreaty to stay with him. And here they were again. One last confrontation and that was it. One more statement and he could head off wherever he wanted to go—home to Toronto, anywhere for a week of leave. His head reeled with indecision as they walked in tense silence up to the entrance.

By the time they had recounted—separately, to two separate and patient interviewers—everything that should have been said last night, and hadn't been, it was well past noon. Sanders stepped into the corridor and found Harriet standing there, looking uncomfortable. He made an awkward gesture toward her and seized her hand abruptly.

“Wait,” said Harriet. “Let's not say goodbye in a place like this.” She waved her other hand around and winced. “It smells of law enforcement.”

“Thanks,” said Sanders. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing much,” she said coolly. “I'm starved. How about lunch before you leave Ottawa? On me. In gratitude for getting my pictures back.”

“Lunch sounds like a wonderful idea,” said a voice behind them. “And I have another picture for you, Miss Jeffries.” Henri Deschenes was walking toward them, trailing Anna Maria Strelitsch and Carlo Hoffel behind him. “Why don't you join us? And I will make a formal presentation of it to you. The original slide. We have taken the copy and the print. You see, we can tell the difference.” Harriet glared at Sanders.

“I'm glad it wasn't Higgs,” said Sanders, putting his knife and fork down on his empty plate and reaching for his wineglass. “Although I would willingly have locked him in a dungeon for putting us through all those dreary lectures.”

“They weren't his idea,” said Deschenes dryly. “He was as irritable about them as you people were.” He leaned back in his chair and pushed away his glass. “Anyway, I'm glad it wasn't Charlie, too. I had a few bad moments when it seemed to be pointing in his direction. But I couldn't imagine him on the take. Drunk, maybe, or violent, overstepping the line with someone, but not on the take.”

“Is Inspector MacMillan a big man?” asked Harriet. “With sandy hair and north-of-England cheekbones?”

“Not those again!” groaned Sanders. “What in hell do you mean by that, Harriet?”

“A bony face, very strong, with forehead and cheekbones that stand out like this.” As she spoke her hands flashed over her face, creating a brilliantly clear picture.

“
Un visage Normand
,”
said Deschenes quietly. “A Norman face. Yes. That's him.”

“I saw him coming out of Lang's house yesterday afternoon, but of course I didn't know who he was.”

“Everyone connected with the affair seemed to know something crucial,” said Deschenes, “and no one put it all together. Except Steve. And he didn't have a chance to tell anyone.”

“But why did your Mr. Green kill Steve?” asked Harriet. “He had nothing to do with him, did he?”

“He's
not
my Mr. Green,” protested Sanders.

“That's simple,” said Anna Maria Strelitsch, suddenly looking up from her chocolate and Grand Marnier sundae and waving her spoon in Harriet's direction. “He did it for Inspector MacMillan. As a favor, I think you would say.”

“They seem like pretty strange buddies to me,” said Sanders. “Was MacMillan on counterespionage?”

“I don't know,” said Anna Maria, scraping the last of the chocolate sauce from the dish. “But that's not how they met. Or at least I don't think it is. Karl recruited Groenwald—that is, Green—because he had useful connections with the criminal world. Drugs, mainly, I believe. He was into”—she waved her spoon again—“the import-export trade.”

Deschenes nodded gloomily. “When Ian was on immigration detail in Montreal.”

Anna Maria shook her head vigorously in agreement. “And Green and MacMillan already knew each other when Green joined the movement. Anyway, there was a trade. Your Inspector MacMillan arranged things so that the sniper Lang hired could kill our prime minister, and in return Groenwald—Green—killed your Mr. Collins. Of course, it was—was it not?—to Green's advantage to have Collins dead. Because he was also investigating Dawn in Vienna. Lang's organization. But I am not sure if Green realized that. There were things that they did not discuss in front of me. I believe they thought that no one really threatened them. Except you, Fräulein, and your picture.”

“I still don't understand why the picture was so important,” said Harriet. “Perhaps I'm being stupid, but really. John and endless other people had seen Mr. Green, hadn't they? And people had seen him with Lang, too.”

“Ah, but your picture was the only thing we know about that connected Green, and therefore Lang, with the sniper,” said Deschenes. “It seems that he wasn't supposed to leave the secure site alive. Dead, they were planning to blame him for the deaths of Steve Collins
and
the prime minister. The perfect villain to wrap up our case for us, nice and neat. That picture would give the game away.”

“How could they be sure that he wouldn't get away?” asked Sanders.

“Very easily. Our local sharpshooter had been ordered to finish him off as soon as the prime minister was shot at. MacMillan fed him some wild romance about the prime minister being in a bulletproof vehicle and perfectly safe. He was a great talker, Ian MacMillan was. And he certainly baffled poor Bill Fletcher.”

“I would not give much for this Fletcher's chances for survival if the assassination plan had worked,” said Hoffel. “Surely he would have identified MacMillan.”

Deschenes shook his head. “I don't know whether MacMillan was planning to leave anyway, or if he had something else ready to silence Bill Fletcher. Of course, you know, he baffled all of us—screwing up the intelligence reports from time to time just enough to confuse what was going on, and sitting back laughing as I tried to make head or tail out of them. It must have given him great joy to watch me,” Deschenes added with a sigh. “He never quite got used to the idea of working for a frog.”

Anna Maria Strelitsch frowned in lack of comprehension. “A frog?” she whispered to Harriet. “
Einen Frosch
? Why was he working for a frog?”

“A Frenchman,” said Harriet, trying not to laugh. “From Quebec. M. Deschenes. They don't usually call themselves that, though,” she added in sudden alarm. “It's not exactly—”

“I understand,” said the violinist, “I think.”

“Did you get the sniper?” asked Sanders.

“We should have,” said Deschenes. “That photograph is magnificent. But I think he probably was out of the country before dinnertime yesterday. We've been able to use it to confirm that he wasn't the person who broke into your motel room. Nor was he the person who was hanging around Mrs. Cruikshank's house just before the fire.”

“That was MacMillan? Both times?” asked Hoffel. “The other man with light-coloured hair?”

“Without a doubt,” said Deschenes. “When we find his weapon, we'll be able to check it against the bullets in Mrs. Cruikshank and her dog.”

“Why did he have to kill the dog?” said Harriet fiercely. “That seems—”

“It's better than leaving it to die in the fire,” said Sanders. “It shows a certain elementary humanity in the man. But there's one more thing. Can anyone tell me who in hell was following us all over the countryside? Everywhere we went, there was this car—”

“Karl was paying an exorbitant sum of money to some unimportant sort of person to find out where you were and get those pictures back,” said Anna Maria. “He used to call Karl every two or three hours to explain where he was and why he didn't have the pictures yet and leave him in a terrible rage. I am very glad that it is over,” she said. “I'm glad it is all over.” She shook her blonde hair out of her eyes, and looked sideways at Hoffel. “It is time we left, Carlo,” she murmured. “There is another reception tonight and I must practice.” Whereupon the burly head of security for the Austrian delegation leaped to his feet and began making their excuses. “He is well trained, is he not?” she whispered to Harriet, and winked.

“It's time we left as well,” said Harriet. She stood up and laid a hand on Sanders's shoulder. “You have a long drive ahead of you.” And amid a flurry of meaningless phrases and exclamations, the party scattered into the parking lot.

Sanders walked over to Harriet's car. “I could,” he said, leaning down and looking in her window, “postpone my return for a day or so.”

“You look exactly as though you're about to give me a ticket,” said Harriet, laughing. She caught the look on his face and resumed her usual expression of grave sobriety. “I don't know,” she said uncertainly. “There is always the possibility of stone architecture in the Ottawa Valley for a couple of days. Once I get my equipment together again. There are some very pretty towns. Very quiet,” she added.

“Why don't I meet you in the parking garage and we'll talk about it over a pint?”

“I'll buy if you can get there ahead of me,” said Harriet and winked. She eased the car into gear and left him standing in a shower of dust and gravel.

Medora Sale
is the author of the acclaimed John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries mystery series, set in contemporary Toronto, and under the name Caroline Roe, of The Isaac Chronicles, a series of historical mysteries. Born in Windsor, Ontario, Sale's interest in criminal justice was roused by her father, a lawyer and engineer involved in weaponry and criminal justice, who served as an official in the court system. Sale is a graduate of the Centre for Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto, is a past president of Sisters in Crime and Crime Writers of Canada, and won the Arthur Ellis Award for best first novel for
Murder on the Run
, the first title in the John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries mystery series.