Reluctant Detective (25 page)

“Okay, okay! Get back into the cab! And stay there until I tell you
otherwise.”

The truck driver, his hands still in the air, lowered them slowly and climbed back into his rig.

Ben redirected the barrel of his gun toward the body of the Client
and walked toward it. The Client's automatic lay next to his right
hand. Ben kicked it to one side. Then he bent down and checked the
body. No bullet holes. He'd missed. The second truck had done the
job for him. Ben thumbed through the Client's wallet. Then he heard Anne cry out from his car.

“You okay?” he shouted and rushed back to Anne.

“I think so. What's happening?”

“The good news is your troubles are over. The not-so-good news is you've got hypothermia, but you're going to be fine.”

Anne tried to get up. Ben pushed her back down.

“Just rest,” he said firmly, “and keep that blanket around you.”

The blast from the truck's air horn was deafening at such short
range. It startled Ben. He jumped and, doing so, he knocked his head on the car's door frame. The driver yanked the air horn chain again. The horn blasted, and he held the chain down.

Ben saw a silhouette standing in front of the truck. He heard a small, sharp report, and a slug struck the open car door he stood
behind. Ben fired twice. The silhouette wavered and fell to the
ground. It moved. He fired again. Then it moved no more.

50

“I know you, don't I?”

“Of course, you do. I was here when they brought you in.”

When Anne awoke, she was in a bed at the Queen Elizabeth
Hospital in Charlottetown. She felt rested and groggy and somewhat
disoriented. A nurse was holding her wrist and checking her pulse.
Her name tag read “Jayne R.”

“You had a lovely sleep, dear. How are you feeling?” Jayne R. spoke
with a rich British accent and a cheery lilt to her voice. She was a
pretty woman with a creamy complexion and a long thin nose. Her blonde hair was styled and short.

“I remember…,” Anne started to say, and then pieces of her
memory fell away. A sense of dismay overcame her and expressed itself in her face. Anne found herself staring at gaping holes in what should have been her past. “What's happened to me?”

“Quite natural, dear.” Jayne patted her shoulder reassuringly. “It'll all come back to you soon enough. You've had a bit of a chill. Some hypothermia. And a good deal of stress. Nothing to fret about.”

“How did I get here?”

“Ambulance from Summerside early this morning. Doctor looked you over, put you on an IV. You've been asleep ever since.”

Anne squirmed in her bed. She felt trapped by the blanket and
sheets. Nurse Jayne plumped her pillow, cranked her bed, and
helped her sit up.

“Can I go now? I have things that…”

“Doctor just finished his rounds. He wants you to rest until tomor
row. By then you'll be right as rain. Besides, you can't leave before
you've tasted our chef's special. Dinner trays are on their way as we speak. And I think you may have some visitors, too.”

Jayne R. motioned toward the door. Anne looked over. Sarah smiled through the doorway. Ben carried a worried smile behind her.

“Hey girl! How are you?” exclaimed Sarah who rushed in and gave her a hug and a kiss and then another hug.

Ben trailed after her. “You okay?” he asked. Anne nodded to both of
them. Sarah perched on the side of the bed. Ben sank into a bedside
chair as if he were about to fall sleep.

“I remember bits and pieces. Some things seem like a dream… and maybe they are but… How's Dit?”

The brightness in Sarah's face dimmed. Her lips parted to say
nothing, and her eyes, like those of Ben, drifted to somewhere else in the room.

“Is he in this wing?” Anne asked.

“He's not here anymore.”

“Home?”

“No. Paramedics brought him in last night. I arrived a short time later. A nurse told me that he wasn't critical, and the next thing I
knew he was gone. They had called another ambulance and took him to Halifax. Something about his spine. They wouldn't give me details. They wanted information on relatives, next of kin. I'm so sorry,” she added. “That's all I know.”

“It's all my fault, isn't it?”

“That's not so, Anne.”

“Yes, it is. I was being selfish. I was only thinking about myself,
and I got him involved, and I got Ben involved, and I even got Jacqui involved. Stupid… stupid… I should have known better. I…”

“Anne, please.”

“Dit was hurt. He could have been killed, and none of this would
have happened if I hadn't played the big shot and took on something I knew nothing about.”

“You're getting yourself worked up for no good reason,” Sarah said.

“Other people could have been killed, too.”

“Two others
were
killed tonight,” Ben broke in. His voice was clear and deep and resonant and seemed to fill the room.

“Ben!” Sarah chided. “That's not necessary… not now!”

“It is,” said Ben firmly.

“What do you mean?” asked Anne.

“Two others died tonight,” he repeated. “I shot the Client. He was trying to kill you and me, and he almost succeeded. Before that, the
Client killed a US Secret Service agent. He was trailing MacLaren's
cell phone signal and stumbled upon him in MacLaren's library. He shot him there. Do you remember any of that?”

“I remember the Client chasing me through the house. That's all.”

“My point is that none of that is your fault. Not what happened to
them. Not what happened to Dit. None of it. You got caught in the
middle. You did what you had to do. No more, no less.”

“You killed the Client?”

Ben nodded.

“I'm sorry,” said Anne.

“Don't be. If anyone deserved to die, it was him.”

“Sergeant Solomon?” A teenaged hospital volunteer presented herself at the door. Her eyes swung around the room until they
landed on Ben. “There's a call for you at the nurse's station.”

Ben left the room.

“It takes decades to teach a man tact,” said Sarah, and gave Anne a nudge. “Sometimes longer.”

“It's fine, Sarah,” said Anne. “Friends don't need to be tactful.”

“Are you going to be all right? Anything I can bring you?”

Anne shook her head.

Ben returned. Frustration etched into the wrinkles of an already overtired face.

“Do a ton of paperwork expeditiously, and they want another half-ton even quicker. Gotta go. Oh, by the way, Harbour Patrol lost Cutter's boat last night. Win some, lose some, huh? See ya
tomorrow.”

Ben and Sarah disappeared out the door. Anne heard the rattle of
food trays a few doors down the ward. Then Ben's head appeared
again.

“Forgot. I called Mary Anne. She contacted Delia McKay and told
her a bit of what happened. She and Jacqui will be coming back
from the Magdalens tomorrow. I don't know the ferry schedule.”

Anne smiled and almost immediately fell into a sound sleep. The chef's special lay untouched on the table next to her.

5
1

“I
have
seen you before,” said Anne when Nurse Jayne R. walked into her hospital room the next morning.

“Your memory
is
recovering. Splendid! Let's go for a little walk up
the hall and see how you do.” Jayne pulled the breakfast cart away
from the bed, sat Anne up, slipped a bathrobe over her, and took her arm. As Anne stood, she winced.

“Is that leg tender?” Jayne asked, setting her down again.

“My ankle. I think I sprained it in a fall.”

Jayne examined Anne's ankle. There was some swelling, but no
indication of a fracture. So she wound an elastic bandage around the joint for support.

“Try that.”

Anne cautiously stood up and put some pressure on it. She walked a few steps and said, “That feels better.”

“I can get a crutch if that would help.”

“No, this is fine. Let's get on with that walk. No offense, but I want to get out of here.”

“Right then,” Jayne said and guided her by the arm out of the room.
Anne and Jayne walked silently down one corridor and along a
second. They stopped near the doors leading out of Anne's ward.

“How are we doing?” asked Jayne.

“Great,” said Anne. “Just a bit shaky.” Both of them sat on a bench for a moment. Then Anne continued a bit uneasily, “I
do
remember
you, though. You're an acquaintance of Lord Somerville. You're the
yoga instructor at the community school.”

Jayne R. laughed and turned toward Anne. “A wonderful memory! Good for you! By tomorrow you'll be a hundred per cent. And you're
correct on both instances. I
do
teach yoga for fun and exercise, and I
am
acquainted with
Lord Somerville.
” At the words “Lord Somer
ville,” her voice deepened into a mocking display of awe.

Anne must have looked aghast at the unexpected irreverence Jayne showed for Somerville because Jayne caught herself and apologized.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't be so mean. But it's hard to think of the man who mowed your lawn and tended your flowers as a nobleman.”

“You mean he's a fraud.”

“Oh no. Bobby's certainly legitimate, but that's a long story. We should get you back to your room. I've got a ward full of patients, and some of them are actually ill… unlike present company… and
doctor may make rounds this morning. Wouldn't want to miss him, would we? Come along now, Anne. That's such a pretty name,” she said, and then she led Anne Brown back to her hospital room.

Anne was eager to press Jayne for more details about Robert
Somerville and her involvement with him. Jayne apparently known him when he was younger, and she'd spoken of him with a familiarity that no one else had. Surely, Jayne held the threads which could unravel the mystery behind Lord Robert Somerville and put to rest
Mrs. Murphy's suspicions, but Anne feared that, if she appeared
too desperate, she might scare her off. So she summoned up some patience, held her tongue, and bided her time.

In spite of a bit of soreness in her ankle, Anne felt well. After last
night's sleep she was rested. The little morning walk had freshened
her lungs and got her blood churning. She could remember many more details of the previous several days, and she was anxious to
get her life back to some sort of normalcy. In fact, she was anxious
to do anything except lie like a lump in a hospital where the only
pleasure to be found was anticipating the next serving of leathery meat, tepid coffee, and brittle toast.

Anne tried to lie back quietly in her bed and wait until the doctor
made his rounds, but she couldn't. She was too restless. Anne wished
for a book, a crossword puzzle, or sudoku to fill up the time. Then her eyes fell upon the morning newspaper. A copy of it lay on the
table next to her breakfast tray. The first couple of pages rehashed the Canada Day celebrations, but two articles on page three caught her attention.

Both stories were short, one-column news pieces. The first headline read “Ottawa Visitor Succumbs.” It went on:
Franklin Pierce, an employee with the US embassy in Ottawa, was found dead on Monday evening in a Summerside residence. Cause of death is believed to be heart failure. Pierce was vacationing on the Island and visiting friends when the incident occurred and
…

The second headline read “Truck Strikes Tourist.”
A Florida State man died after being hit by a tractor trailer in Summerside. The accident occurred early Tuesday morning near the waterfront complex. Identification of the victim is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. Officials say weather conditions were poor at the time of the accident. Alcohol was not a factor. No charges are pending…

“Anything interesting in
The Guardian
?” asked Ben. “I dropped in
earlier, but you were out. I left the paper.”

“It's always interesting when two men dead from gunshot wounds don't make page two. What the devil is going on?”

“I think we're in the middle of a cover-up.”

“How so?”

“After the shooting, they put me on administrative leave. I spent
most of yesterday filling out paperwork and being interviewed. I came in this morning to sign my report and Chief hands me my weapon and badge back. I was pretty surprised. When I asked him what was up, he told me I'd been exonerated. He looked at me real close and serious-like and said there was no incident to report – to forget about it. Then he congratulated me on my great police work
in the incident that never happened. Not bad, eh? And all that before my morning coffee break.”

“Interesting, but I still don't know what's going on,” said Anne.

“Neither did I until I had another little chat with a couple of people
I can't name. They came with gold-plated credentials from both Ottawa and Washington. They made me… and you… an offer that
I couldn't refuse. You shouldn't either. A carrot and a stick kind of
proposal. We'll forget about the stick. It's kind of disturbing. The
carrot, however, is worth a second glance.”

“Go on. I'm in suspense,” she said somewhat sarcastically. Ben ignored her. He was visibly excited.

“First, the five grand retainer you deposited from the client.” He
looked at her. She nodded in recognition. “The RCMP is releasing
their hold on it.”

“But it's counterfeit,” she protested.

“Not anymore. It's all legitimate. They made up the difference. It
will be as if the transaction never hit a snag. A technical error on the part of the teller.”

“Well, that's a help. At least I won't be bankrupt.”

“There's more. The US government, through their embassy in
Ottawa, will be issuing you a cheque for another five thousand for
your valued investigative services.” Ben stopped there and looked at Anne with a toothy grin.

“I haven't done any work for them.”

“Evidently, they believe you did.”

“All right, let's cut to the chase. What am I giving
them
?”

“Two things. Number one, you return all the counterfeit money.
Number two, you have a lapse of memory. The Client never existed.
The phoney money never existed. And anything related to either
one never happened.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“You haven't given them the counterfeit yet? It's still in your trunk, ya know.”

Ben nodded.

“Give it to them,” Anne said with resignation and a sigh, “… and
good riddance to it! All I've tried to do since the beginning of this job is to give it to the right person. Toughest thing I ever had to do.”

Anne thought for a minute. Then she looked at Ben. “What about you? Did they throw you any bones?”

“They gave me a raise and a promotion of sorts. My job description
is somewhat vague, though, something to do with coordinating
special investigations between provincial and federal agencies.”

Anne smiled. “Good for you!” she said. Then her face clouded. She
looked perplexed. “It bothers me, though. When the high and mighty
begin to talk that sweet talk, I get goose bumps. Something is really
screwed up, and I sure would like to know what.”

Anne stared at Ben. Ben shrugged.

“There's egg on somebody's face,” he said, “and they're scramblin'
hard to clean it off. Washington, for sure. Ottawa, maybe. I still have
a couple of law enforcement buddies who might offer a theory or
two. I should make a few calls, catch up on old times.”