The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries

by Fiona Snyckers

  The elevator doors swished open and disgorged another load of office-workers. One of them was roughly the same height and build as the man she was looking for, so she stepped forward and addressed him.

  “I’m looking for a man by the name of Jules Chatel. He’s one of the actuaries here. Do you have any idea where I might find him?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know him.”

  Eulalie was about to step back when a woman who had been on the same elevator stopped her.

  “You were asking about Jules? That’s him over there, standing in the queue to get his parking validated.”

  Eulalie thanked the woman and went to the parking desk. It was obviously which one was Chatel, even with his back to her. He was the tallest person in the line. She waited until his parking card had been stamped.

  “Jules Chatel?”

  “Yes?”

  And in that instant Eulalie knew that this was not the man who had killed her mother. He was far too young.

  Eulalie handed over her cards and introduced herself anyway.

  “We’re investigating the murders of the women who were found in Robson’s Field. We believe they may be connected to someone who went to Sydney as part of the Prince William Island Olympic team. I’d like to ask you some questions if I may. You might know something without even being aware of it.”

  “Me? It said in the news that one of the women was killed twenty-eight years ago. I was two at the same. How can I possibly know anything?”

  “You aren’t a suspect, Mr. Chatel, but you might be a witness. As I say we believe this relates to the Sydney Olympic Games. You were part of the team, weren’t you?”

  He guided her to a coffee bar on the other side of the elevators. It was closed, but the tables and chairs had been left out.

  “I was certainly part of the team, but I was much younger than everyone else. They were in their thirties and I was fifteen years old – the child prodigy table-tennis player from Prince William Island.”

  “You sound bitter,” said Eulalie.

  “Do I? I suppose I am, a little. It all went away, you see. I thought I would still have at least two or three more Olympic Games ahead of me even if Sydney was a bust. But after Sydney, I couldn’t play anymore. I could still beat almost anyone, but my playing was no longer of an international standard. It was like something inside me switched off. I didn’t do as well as I hoped in Sydney, and after that I couldn’t play anymore.”

  “What about the rest of the team? Were they happy with their individual performances?”

  “I think we all felt honored to be there. And Sophie Webb, the fencer, brought back a bronze, so she was happy. I don’t know about the men. The age gap was too big. They were adults and I was a kid. It’s funny to think that I am now the age they were when we all went to Sydney. I thought they were all impossibly grown up, but that’s not how I feel now. I feel just as uncertain and insecure as I did when I was a kid.”

  “Did you notice anything about the men? Was there anyone with anger issues, disappointment issues, a lack of self-control?”

  “I don’t want to get anyone into trouble. Like, if I say the wrong thing, you’ll arrest some poor guy for murder.”

  “You’re not testifying in court, Mr. Chatel. We’re just looking for leads here. No one will be arrested unless the police have an excellent case against them. Even then, it will have to be proved in court. You can speak freely to me as long as everything you say is true to the best of your recollection.”

  “Okay, well, the guy who did the decathlon, Ron Coward, was very resentful of Sophie Webb’s medal. He kept saying that her event was easy and implying that her medal didn’t count because she was a woman.”

  “And was he alone in that belief, or did anyone agree with him?”

  “I didn’t spend enough time with them to know. I remember that he made some pointed comments to Sophie, and she ignored him. He probably said that stuff to anyone who would listen. It was an obsession with him.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “The boxer struck me as an odd person. Do you know, his parents went with us to Sydney? I was the one kid on the team and only my coach went with me. Here was this thirty-year-old man with both his parents tagging along to Sydney. He was very enthusiastic about being there. I just thought it was a bit strange – like he had never really grown up properly.”

  Eulalie found the photograph of the navy-blue polo shirt on her phone and showed it to him.

  “Does this ring a bell?”

  “Of course. That was part of our team kit. We wore it at the airport, and on all public occasions. I haven’t thought about it in years.”

  “Do you still have yours?”

  He frowned. “I’m sure I do… somewhere. My mother probably has it. I outgrew it pretty fast, so I haven’t worn it in years.”

  “Could you check with her that she still has it?” asked Eulalie. “I would like to know that there were only five of them, and that they’re all accounted for.”

  “Five? Oh, you’re thinking of Sophie Webb. No, her shirt was different. It had red piping along the collar. I have a photograph of her wearing it. There were only four of the navy-blue ones.”

  “That helps, thank you. Is there anything else you can remember from your time with them, or anything that happened since that might be relevant?”

  “I don’t think so. I doubt that what I’ve already told you was particularly relevant. Just because someone begrudges one of his team mates a medal, doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  Eulalie assured him that she would bear that in mind.

  If someone on Prince William Island were leading a double life, the one person who might know about it was Jimmy the Knife.

  Jimmy was no crime lord, but he had a finger in every pie in town and was the central hub of information for Queen’s Town’s underworld. If there was something he didn’t know, he would know how to find out about it. He was usually willing to share his knowledge for a modest fee and a couple of beers.

  It was six o’clock, which meant that Jimmy would just be surfacing for the day. He was a nocturnal creature. He should at least have switched on his phone by now.

  Eulalie sent him a text.

  Eulalie: What do you know about these three men: Ronald Coward, Laurent Task, Thashin Bapanda? All Olympic athletes – Sydney Games. I have a budget for solid intel.

  She hit send and put her phone away. She would visit Jimmy in person later that night at Mo’s Bar. That would give him a chance to find out as much as he could about the three men.

  In the meantime, it was time to go home and feed her cat – and possibly herself.

  A stack of correspondence was awaiting her signature when she popped into the office. Mrs. Belfast had locked up and left for the day. Eulalie skimmed through each letter and signed it, leaving the pile on her secretary’s desk for mailing the next morning. Then she went upstairs to her apartment where the cat greeted her with an impatient meow.

  “Am I five minutes late for dinner?” she said. “So sorry about that.”

  She opened a sachet of smoked salmon in gravy and decanted it into a bowl for him. Then she changed his water and topped up his dried food.

  If only her kitchen was as well stocked with human food as it was with cat food.

  Faced with a choice between cold cereal and takeout, Eulalie ordered sushi and curled up on the couch to eat it. She watched Some Like it Hot – an old favorite. When she caught herself yawning towards the end, she had to resist the urge to go straight to bed rather than venturing out to Finger Alley at this time of night.

  Only the knowledge that Angel would be waiting for an update the next day spurred her on. Angel would expect her to have questioned Jimmy by now. Angel and Jimmy were old friends.

  Lafayette Boulevard was pumping with nighttime energy as Eulalie strolled up from Bonaparte Avenue. Music and people spilled out from the cafés and bars that lined the boulevard. Strings of fairy lights suspended from tree to tree
added to the festive atmosphere.

  Eulalie turned into a narrow opening between two buildings. It looked as if it led to a blind alley, but she kept walking. Soon, it opened into a cobbled walkway lined on either side by dive bars, tattoo parlors, betting shops, peepshows, and money-laundering enterprises like storefront drycleaners where nobody ever took their clothes.

  It was strange to remember how new and unknown this had been to her back when she was twelve years old. Now, she knew Finger Alley like the back of her hand. And Finger Alley knew her.

  She stepped into Mo’s Bar.

  A large, placid man behind the bar hailed her. “Bonsoir, Eulalie.”

  “Hey, Mo. Jimmy not in tonight?”

  “He said you’d be coming. He said you should make yourself comfortable and he’d be along in a minute. He’s drinking lager tonight, apparently.”

  “Sure, whatever. Make it a large one for Jimmy, and a white wine for me. I’ll wait for him in his corner.”

  She put money on the bar and settled herself in the corner that Jimmy usually occupied. The drinks arrived soon after. She sipped her wine, and awaited Jimmy’s pleasure. She knew he would be along soon. He wasn’t the kind of man to let a beer get warm from standing.

  “Evening, girlie.”

  “Ça va, Jimmy. Have a beer.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Jimmy the Knife settled his portly frame into his usual seat and took a long, pleasurable pull of his beer.

  “That hits the spot. What else have you got for me?”

  Eulalie took out two hundred dollars and laid it on the table between them. If he tried to grab it before their conversation was over, she would get to it first.

  “How does that look?”

  His eyes glistened. “Fair.”

  “So, what can you tell me?”

  “Not so fast, girlie. I have a bone to pick with you.”

  “What would that be, Jimbo?”

  “You sold me a bill of goods the last time you were in here.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever sold you a bill of goods, Jimmy. What are you talking about?”

  “You told me it was no good looking for mammoth tusks in the deep forest because the cops had done a sonar scan of the swamp and found there were none left. My sources tell me that was vintage, copperplated B.S. Why do you lie to your Uncle Jimmy?”

  “It wasn’t a lie, Jim. Well, the bit about the sonar was, but not the rest of it. There are no tusks left in that swamp. The one that was there was a freak of nature, not the tip of a tusk iceberg.” She waited until he was looking into her eyes. “There are no tusks left, Jimmy. I’m not lying about that.”

  He returned her gaze for a moment. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied. “Okay, I believe you.”

  “I should think so. Now, what can you tell me about the three men on my list?”

  “Before I give you an answer, I want you to tell me one thing – is this connected to the bodies they’ve been pulling out of Robson’s Field?”

  Eulalie glanced around the room to make sure no one was listening. Then she nodded.

  “Okay, then my hot-off-the-press news is that somebody tried to snatch a girl this evening.”

  Chapter 19

  Eulalie sat up and put down her wine glass.

  “What are you saying, Jimmy? Is she okay? What happened?”

  “She’s fine, just shaken up. When she realized where he was taking her, she threw herself out of the car.”

  “Mon Dieu, Jimmy. Are you sure she’s all right?”

  “She’s a bit bumped and bruised, but there’s nothing broken.”

  “You say it happened this evening?”

  “At about seven o’clock.”

  Eulalie checked her watch. It was ten-thirty.

  “Where is she now? Would she speak to me?”

  Jimmy sipped his beer while he thought about this.

  “I’m not real sure about that, girlie. This girl is on the game, see? She’s not too keen on cops.”

  “A sex worker?” Eulalie thought for a minute. “You tell her I’m not a cop, Jimmy. You can vouch for me. Tell her she’ll be talking to a woman who is not a cop, and who has also been hurt by this man.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that, girlie. The first victim was your mother.” He took another sip of beer and looked at the floor. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. We knew she had died. Angel always knew it. In a way, it’s a relief to know what happened to her. The sooner we put this guy away forever, the sooner we can take her home and bury her properly.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell her I’ll meet her anywhere she likes. I can take her to the hospital to get patched up, or I can ask Angel to do it.”

  “No need. She’s already been. They’re pretty good at the ER at Queen’s Town General. They don’t ask a lot of awkward questions.”

  “That’s good. I’m glad she’s been taken care of. If she’s willing to speak to me, I can promise her there’ll be no trouble. Nobody is interested in what she was doing on the street. We want to know about the scum who picked her up.”

  Jimmy finished the beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he stood up.

  “I’m going to make some calls. Get us another round, girlie. I’ll be back soon.”

  Eulalie ordered another beer on autopilot. Her mind was in turmoil. Were they losing a once-off opportunity to catch this guy by not involving the police immediately? But she had to respect the wishes of the woman who had almost become his fourth victim. If she had wanted to go to the cops, she would have done so.

  The prostitution laws on Prince William Island were complicated. You could do what you liked in the privacy of your own home, but soliciting on the streets was against the law – both for sex workers and for their clients. This woman had most likely been walking the streets when she was picked up. That’s why she was reluctant to come forward.

  The chances that the man was still cruising around after what had happened were slim. The best thing Eulalie could do was get a description of him and his car as quickly as possible. If he had picked her up in central Queen’s Town, there was a chance that it had been caught on CCTV.

  She exhaled slowly. She was doing the right thing. She just hoped Jimmy would come through for her now.

  His second beer had not been on the table long before he reappeared, slipping his cellphone into his jacket pocket.

  “It’s all set. She doesn’t want you coming to her place. She says she’ll come here if Mo will let us use one of his rooms upstairs. If she likes the look of you, she’ll talk to you alone. If not, she wants me to stay in the room.”

  “That’s brilliant, Jimmy. Thank you. What’s her name? Do I know her?”

  “I doubt it. She’s not a local girl. She moved here from Australia two years ago. Her name is Kelly.”

  Eulalie got a key for an upstairs room from Mo and went up to wait. Within minutes she heard voices on the stairs. The fact that Kelly had arrived so quickly told Eulalie that she was staying somewhere in Finger Alley.

  Jimmy was in an avuncular mood. He ushered a young woman into the room and clucked over her as he settled her in a chair. She was tall and athletic looking, but painfully young. Eulalie thought she must be barely twenty. She had shoulder-length hair that had been bleached almost white, and she looked exhausted.

  “Eulalie, this is Kelly,” said Jimmy. “Kells, this is who I was telling you about. You want to watch out for her. She might be half your size, but she’s terrifying. You give her any trouble and she’ll rip the head off your shoulders and make you eat it.”

  Kelly gave Eulalie a skeptical look.

  “It’s okay, Jimmy,” she said. “You can wait outside. I’ll call if I need you.”

  “I’ll be right on the other side of this door.”

  “Sure, no worries.”

  Jimmy slipped quietly out of the room and closed the door.

  “Thanks for coming at such short n
otice.” Eulalie’s eyes swept over the young woman’s frame, looking for injuries. She was wearing denim shorts and a tank top. There was a dressing on her upper right arm, and another on her left thigh, indicating how she must have rolled when she flung herself out of the car. There were scrapes and cuts on her face too, but these had been cleaned and left open.

  “It’s all good.” Her Australian twang filled the room, making her seem impossibly lost and far away from home.

  “Can you tell me what happened tonight, Kelly?”

  She hesitated. “Jimmy said you weren’t going to ask me about… about…”

  “About why you were on the street? He’s right. I’m not a cop. I just want to catch this man. He killed my mother twenty-eight years ago, and I want to bring him to justice before he does it to anyone else.”

  Kelly shuddered. “He almost got me. I could have been his next victim. I could have been the one on the news tomorrow morning.”

  She started to cry silently.

  “It’s all right, chérie.” Eulalie handed her a tissue. “You were very clever and brave. You figured out what he was doing, and you got yourself out of the situation. As the only survivor, you are in a unique position to help us catch him. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

  Kelly blew her nose and nodded.

  “When you’re ready, please tell me what happened from the beginning.”

  “Okay, uh, my shift started at seven o’clock. I was standing at the corner of Beach and Dockside. There are four or five of us who meet on that corner at the beginning of our shifts. We have a bit of a smoke and a chat, before we get picked up and scattered all over town. It’s a nice way to start the evening, you know?”

  Eulalie nodded, thinking that Kelly might not have been the only witness. If she and her friends were standing together, one of them might have seen the man’s face or car too.

  “How long did you have to wait before he arrived?”