Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

  “Would you feel safer if I threw this jerk out?” I ask her.

  Her eyes are still drilled on the coffee table and with some relish I take this as tacit approval. I get up and walk toward him. “Easy or hard?” I say. But he’s not looking at me; he’s looking past me.

  “No.” Marly’s voice sounds resigned. “I think you should go Mr. Rogan.”

  Bob Pridmore is smiling for the first time since I walked in. His hold over Marly is complete. I look from one to the other and wonder what that hold is.

  25

  Tomás

  Javier looks very pleased with himself but the man with him looks a lot less happy to be here. I can sense his fear. Not a bad thing but, unlike my father, I do not want to rule by fear. “It’s good to see you Victor,” I say. “Thank you for coming.” He looks relieved and surprised. I have made a point of learning the names and history of all our employees; it seems to be paying off already.

  “Victor has some news Patrón.”

  I smile and nod.

  “I have been following the girl on Instagram sir.” Victor talks quickly, the words tumbling out of his mouth. “I went to her school’s website and found their yearbook. I studied it for a while and then I set up a phony Instagram account in the name of one of the popular girls in the grade above Rogan’s. She accepted my friend request in a heartbeat. She must have been flattered that a cool older girl wanted to follow her.” He gives a very nasal snicker. He’s an odious little worm but a brilliant coder and hacker and worth his weight in gold. “So I’ve been following her for a couple of days,” he babbles on. “I asked her where she’s staying but she says she’s not allowed to say. I tried to get her to tell me but she wouldn’t. Then she made a silly mistake. This morning she posted a photo of a lawn leading down to a beach. There was a dock with a boat moored to it. I downloaded the jpeg but there was no location information, she probably took it with an iPod or an iPad with the location services switched off. Her mother probably—”

  “Cut out the details, Victor,” Javier growls. “Tell the Patrón where they are.”

  Victor looks cowed. “No Javier,” I say. “I want to hear what Victor has to say. He’s one of our best people.”

  I can see from his face that I have a loyal employee for life now. “Thank you sir,” he says. “Anyway, I couldn’t track the location from the jpeg but I was able to enhance the image of the boat. It took a while, the pic wasn’t very good, I had to try a number of times with different enhancement algorithms until I got enough of the letters in the name to make some intelligent guesses. I entered each guess into a search of the Canadian Register of Vessels and I finally got a hit. The boat’s name is Sweetwater Rider. It’s registered to a Mr. Neil Tapscott. Here’s his address.”

  He hands over a tatty piece of paper. I look at it and pass it to Javier. “Unfortunately,” Victor adds, “I can’t search the land titles database by owner name but I can try to hack the database if you would like me to try.”

  “No need,” Javier says. “I know the address. I can make a visit to this Mr. Tapscott and find out where the property is.”

  I mull over the idea. Javier’s idea is a little heavy handed. I think this needs more finesse than he can apply.

  “You have done well Victor. Javier will see to it that you have a nice little bonus for your excellent work.”

  “Thank you sir. Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  I just nod magnanimously. “Excuse my rudeness but could you leave Javier and me alone for a moment?”

  “Of course, sir. Of course.” He scurries from the room.

  “Tomorrow morning, you and I will deal with this Javier. You too have done well. Your reward’s one step closer.”

  Oh, Mr. California Rogan. You are going to suffer sorely for killing my father before I had the pleasure of doing so myself.

  26

  Cal

  “Three times in four days, Mr. Rogan. You’re becoming a fixture here. Maybe I should offer you a job.” His voice is convivial but I sense a certain irony. I don’t want to wear out my welcome but I need to know something only he can tell me. I decide to play along.

  “Maybe you should,” I say, giving him a big, and I hope charming, smile. “Who do you currently use for investigations and security?”

  Luke Summers’ smile goes slip-sliding away as he says, “Cut to the chase Mr. Rogan, why are you here today?” Clearly the legendary Rogan charm’s not working.

  “The rider in the terms and conditions of your brother’s trust fund.” That’s got his attention. “Why did your late father put it in and why haven’t you taken it out?”

  “Which rider would that be?” he asks just a bit too smoothly.

  “OK, if you want me to spell it out, the rider that says if his homosexuality should ever become public, he’s cut off. For heaven’s sake it’s twenty-nineteen.” My anger’s only partially faked.

  “My father was an extremely religious man; he took the bible’s prohibition of a man laying with a man very seriously.”

  “OK, I understand that, but do you take it seriously?”

  “Yes Mr. Rogan, I do.”

  This is the question I came here to discover. And of course it begs another question but I need to approach it obliquely. “Might I ask why?” I ask in a gentle but puzzled tone designed to get him to talk.

  He ponders that for a moment and I’m wondering if his next words will be to ask me to leave. Maybe gentle and puzzled aren’t going to work.

  “Have a seat Mr. Rogan,” the urbanity is back on his face. I sink into one of his leather armchairs as he walks over to his precious coffee machine. “Would you like a coffee of some sort?”

  Time to play ball. I need him relaxed if I’m going to get the answers I need. “I’d love an Americano, please.” I wonder if I’ll actually get to drink it this time.

  He talks as he prepares the coffees. “My family have been members of the same church for four generations. Although the building has changed three times, the tenets of our faith remain the same.” He tamps down coffee into the double-shot metal filters with a plastic tool. “In several places in the old testament homosexuality is clearly outlawed and nowhere in the new testament is that prohibition revoked. It’s a sin under both the old and new covenants.”

  “I respect that,” I lie, “but why should that cause you to cut Dale’s trust fund if he were to make his homosexuality public. Surely to be consistent with your beliefs, you should have cut him out when you learned of his homosexuality.”

  He doesn’t answer but clips the filters into the machine, places cups underneath them and presses a button. While the machine does its magic, he comes over and sits opposite me.

  “Yes, I must admit you’ve caught me in a little bit of hypocrisy. My father always believed Dale was rebelling, that he would come around and renounce his homosexuality, but by the time Dale was twenty-three my father was ready to cut him off. That was when he announced his engagement to Marly. Father didn’t approve of her but he took the engagement as a sign Dale had abandoned the gay lifestyle, so he never objected to Dale’s choice of spouse.

  “I, however, understand it’s not a lifestyle choice. Like it or not, I know Dale was born the way he was.”

  “So why didn’t you drop the rider after your father’s death?” I ask, hoping my voice doesn’t betray the condemnation I feel.

  The silence is broken only by the hissing of the espresso machine. He gets up, walks to the window and looks out over Coal Harbour toward the mountains. Eventually he answers. “I should have done. But I guess I felt that if Dale came out, it would besmirch the family name and that it would spill over to the Hotels. We make a great deal of money from conventions run by people of faith. We host the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association whenever they hold their conventions in a city with a Summers Hotel. Will Graham’s a personal friend. If my brother were to come out,” he makes quotation marks with his fingers, “it would badly effect our reputation and our
bottom line. Call me a hypocrite if you will but that’s the way it is.”

  I rein in my feelings. It’s not easy. Fortunately he goes from the window to the espresso machine and doesn’t see my inner struggle. Two more questions now.

  “How much would it impact the bottom line? These days just about every family has a gay member. There are gay CEOs; Apple’s stock isn’t tanking under Tim Cook. Would it really matter that much?”

  He turns. Physically and mentally. “Yes, Mr. Rogan it would.” He looks at me and for the first time I see the hard inner core, the fierce determination which makes a successful CEO.

  Now is the time for the final question.

  “So how far would you go to keep it a secret?”

  The hum of the Healey’s engine is soothing and I’m looking forward to seeing the Franks; they’re a lovely couple and I will do everything I can to help them out. Before I set out on this trip to Langley I looked up the Church of the Pure Divine Light. Their website looks like a scam waiting for marks. It promises to connect members with their loved ones who have ‘passed on to the other side.’ It will make a nice change from all the people I’ve met as part of the investigation into Dale Summers’ murder. They all have a dark side. I’m starting to sound cynical, a hazard of the job.

  I turn off the highway at the last exit before the US border and make my way eastward. I go over in my head Luke Summers’ reaction to my final question. I couldn’t tell if his anger was righteous indignation or guilty coverup. Either way, I never did get to try the delights of his fancy espresso machine; I was dismissed in no uncertain tone. I called Stammo and got him to do a deep plunge into Luke’s background. If he’s as religious as he claims, it’s unlikely he killed his brother. But people do wildly out-of-character things when large sums of money are concerned; if Dale’s coming out could have impacted the bottom line, who knows what Luke may have done, or have had someone else do, to his brother.

  I pull up onto the Franks’ property and see their immaculate, old, powder-blue Ford pickup truck parked in the large paved area behind the house.

  As I get out of the car, the front door opens and Philip Franks is standing there with a broad smile on his face. “Come on in Detective Rogan,” he yells. “We’ve got the coffee on.”

  My stomach reacts to the memory of Florrie Franks’ coffee, without doubt the worst I have ever tasted. I walk through the door and he ushers me into the huge farm kitchen at the back of the house, where, alas, Florrie’s pouring me a huge mug of the toxic brew.

  “Here you are Detective Rogan,” she hands it to me and I think with regret about Luke Summers’ Americano. “Sit down, dear.”

  I do as she says and put the mug down. Philip sits down in his chair and starts to fill his pipe.

  “First thing, I need to tell you I’m not with the Vancouver Police Department any more.”

  “I know that son, they told me but I still wanted you on the case. When your secretary called me this morning to tell me you would be here this afternoon, I was as pleased as Punch.”

  “He was,” agrees Florrie. “Happiest I’ve seen him since…” She stops and a sombre look comes over her face. She takes a sip of her coffee and looks like she’s going to cry. “Tell him Phil.” she says.

  He lights his pipe and when he’s got it going, he starts to speak. “Last time you were here asking about my truck, I mentioned we had a daughter.” Despite his years, there’s nothing wrong with his memory. I nod. “Well about ten months ago, she died.”

  “I am so sorry to hear that,” I say and they both nod. “No child should die before their parents.” I know where this is going but I need to ask, “Were there suspicious circumstances?”

  “Oh no, nothing like that,” he says.

  “It was the cancer,” Florrie adds in her English accent.

  There’s a somber pause.

  “Anyhoo,” he sighs. “We were grief-stricken. It took a real toll on us didn’t it Flo?”

  She nods and takes a handkerchief from her apron pocket and dabs her eyes. I can feel an anger building at what I know is coming.

  “So a friend of Florrie’s tells us about this Church of the Pure Divine Light.” He takes another puff on his pipe and continues through the cloud of smoke, “So we went to one of their services and there was a point where the preacher looked out at the congregation and he was looking straight at us, wasn’t he Flo?” She nods her head furiously. “‘You’ve lost a loved one,’ he said. ‘A daughter is it?’ Well we were amazed. He asked us to stand up and he asked us some questions and we just knew he was in contact with Jan, he even knew she lived in Winnipeg and died of cancer. Then he said, ‘She wants to communicate with you, there’s something she needs to say. Something that you both need to know but she can’t do it here.’ There was a big pause and then he said, ‘She’s gone. I’m sorry.’”

  “I still don’t know how he could have known so much,” Florrie adds. “He knew things not even my friend knew. I’m sure he’s truly psychic. He can talk to the dead, I know that, but he didn’t have to take all that money from us. He took advantage.”

  “I don’t doubt his powers either,” agrees Phil. “But he took ten grand from us because we were desperate to have some contact with Jan. We needed the comfort of knowing she was happy.”

  “We don’t want to stop his work,” says Florrie. “He helps a lot of people with his powers. But ten thousand dollars is a lot of money for some talking and for one trip to Winnipeg to communicate more closely with Jan. We don’t want it all back. He can keep what’s fair. That’s all we want, what’s fair.”

  It’s the oldest and most insidious con in the book and I’m going to see to it that Phil and Florrie get back every penny.

  I take a deep breath to calm the anger at the con artist who bilked these lovely people. The aroma of Phil’s pipe tobacco enters my nose and it has an aromatic quality which I’m surprised I like.

  “I’ve encountered people like this before,” I tell them. “Anyone can speak to the dead but there are two types of people who claim the dead speak back: the deluded and the criminal. The pastor of that church is the latter.”

  “But how could he know so much about Jan if she wasn’t speaking to him?” Florrie asks.

  “I’ll show you. Come and sit over here next to your husband.”

  She comes over and pulls a chair from the dining table over beside him and sits down. Now that I can see them both I can show them how they were conned.

  “You said a friend of yours introduced you to the church?” They give tiny nods. “I’m thinking it’s a woman.” Again the micro movements of the heads. “Is it possible she told the pastor all the details of Jan’s death?”

  “No,” they say in unison. Phil’s head gives a slight move to his right and Florrie gives a quick double-blink. They’re a con-artist’s dream.

  “All Ethel told Pastor Kilman was that our daughter had died, nothing more she swears.”

  I look at them. “Jan had blond hair,” I say. The both nod furiously. “Her cancer, I’m getting that it was breast…” I catch Florrie’s double blink. “No, not breast cancer, something to do with…” I pause and look like I’m concentrating and Phil rubs his thigh. “Was it bone cancer?”

  “How did you know that?” he asks and Florrie looks amazed.

  I ignore his question and go on, “I’m getting an idea about her work.” I focus on them. “She took care of people.” They give me their no tells. “Not in the way you would usually think, like health care, but more in business…” no “or education…” yes “Yes, that’s it, she was in education.”

  Phil burst out with, “How the heck did you know that? She did admissions at a university.”

  “It’s called cold reading. It’s how con-men like Pastor Kilman fool you. I bet he told you Jan had blond hair.” They nod. “Although you both have grey hair, you both have blue eyes. It was almost a certainty that Jan’s hair was blond or at least light-coloured” I go on and explain h
ow I established their tells and used those to guide me from general questions to specific ones.

  “We’ve been had, Florrie,” he says.

  Florrie’s not convinced. “But he even knew where she lived.”

  “I’ll show you how,” I tell her. “Jan was close to here…” I say it like it’s a question and get Florrie’s no tell. “No, I mean now, right now she’s close to here in the spirit, but when she was alive… Canada…” yes “back east…” no “but east of here…” It’s almost a certainty, most of Canada is east of Vancouver, but I still get the yes tell. In Canada, ‘back east’ is Ontario, Québec and the Maritime Provinces so there are three other Provinces to pick from, I choose the middle and smallest one. I speak slowly, “Not Saskatchewan, but west,” no “no, no, she was from Manitoba.” I remember Phil said she did admissions at a University. “She lived in Winnipeg,” I say.

  “That’s how he did it,” says Florrie, “not exactly the same questions, but like that. You’re right Phil, we have been had.”

  “And remember how he got some of the things wrong but then went on to something else right away,” Phil adds.

  “That’s how the con works,” I tell them. “You remember the hits and forget the misses. I’ll tell you something else. I bet after the service he asked you things like your daughter’s last name and where she worked and where in Winnipeg she lived.” They nod. “Well he used that to find out all sorts of other information about Jan that he could use on you later. By doing a few Google searches, digging around on Facebook and making some phone calls, he probably knew things about Jan even you didn’t.”

  They nod some more and Phil grunts, “That son-of-a…”

  “Tell me how he conned the money out of you.”

  “Well he charged us for private sessions where he gave us so-called messages from Jan. We had three sessions at a thousand bucks a pop. Then he said Jan had something vital to tell us but something was holding her soul back in Winnipeg and the only way was for him to go there. He said he needed money to go there and commune with her so he could free her soul and she could come back to us. Said he needed ten grand for the air fare and hotel and that it might take some time. We told him we only had seven thousand more in our savings and he said he would make an exception for us because Jan was such a lovely soul.”