She returns to her task and I can hear O’Day’s body thrashing around on the bed. His scream through his gag is a muted “Mmmmmmghhhhh.”
Suddenly his volume cranks up but not enough to mask the sound of sizzling.
Then everything’s overwhelmed by thunder.
The door crashes open.
“Armed police! Drop the weapon!”
She doesn’t even turn. She swings the poker up over her head. I see her muscles tense as she prepares to smash it down on O’Day’s skull. But the crack in my ear is the sound of the nine millimetre bullet crossing the space of ten feet in eight milliseconds.
Em’s body crumples to the floor.
There is silence.
Only the ringing in my ears.
And the smell of burnt flesh.
“How did you know to come here?” I ask Steve. He inclines his head toward the door. Stammo’s sitting in the hallway, in his wheelchair, sporting a VPD vest. He’s grinning like a loon. I walk out of the room, kneel beside the chair and envelope him in a hug. He reciprocates with a man-hug: two quick slaps on the back.
“Just ’cause I came out to you,” he whispers, “doesn’t mean I’ve got the hots for you.” Our excessively riotous laughter is a big reaction to the relief we both feel.
When the quasi-hysteria abates, I ask it again. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“When I got to your voicemail, I asked someone for a copy of the Sun. Fortunately for you someone had one. As soon as I saw the article I knew it was her.”
“How did you know?”
“I saw her picture and I knew who she was. When I was at the GAMMA meeting on Wednesday there was a guy there named Max with a blond brush-cut. I remember at the time thinking he was a bit too effeminate for my taste but didn’t think anything of it… until I got your voicemail and then saw his, or actually her, picture in the paper.”
“But how did you know she’d be here?”
“I didn’t at first. My first thought was to get here before you did some damage to poor old Sean O’Day. But then I got to thinking: serial killers usually don’t know their victims. She was picking them up at GAMMA meetings. But she did know Dale, that was a break in the pattern, a big sign she was losing it, escalating out of control. I wondered if you had told her about me being in a wheelchair and that maybe, when she saw me at the GAMMA meeting, she knew who I was. That would have made GAMMA off limits for her. But she needed another victim. Maybe she knew about Sean being Dale’s lover. It made him the low hanging fruit. She killed the others in their homes so if she was going to kill Sean she’d do it in his hotel room.”
“Nick you are a friggin’ genius.”
“Rogan, I keep telling you… Yes, I am.” I grin at him and he adds, “She hired us because she wanted to keep ahead of the investigation.”
He’s right. I think of all the things I reported to her and everything fits. It fits like a jigsaw.
“You were right about something else too Nick; the reference to Luke Summers’ church wasn’t in the twenty-thirteen.com metadata until after I told her about the church on Sunday night. She was playing us.”
“I was right again? Imagine that.”
But his lighthearted words somehow push me in the opposite direction.
How could I not have known it was Em? As I think it over some more, I remember something she said at our dinner in Al Porto. ‘Do you think she’s the sort of person who could commit such a gruesome crime?’ It was to steer me away from thinking about a female killer but I missed the real importance of the question. How did she know the killing was gruesome? Up to that point I had never discussed the details with her.
I stand up and turn back toward the room.
Em’s crumpled body is lying where it fell. I shake my head, hoping to wake myself up and discover it was all a dream. It’s not. How could I not have known? Am I so blind I could have such strong feelings for a serial killer? Even as I look at her now, the moments of our time together flicker across the screen of my memory and I feel the tenderness I felt before.
“You couldn’t’a known.” Not just a genius, Stammo’s a mindreader too. But he’s wrong. I should have known. It’s my job to know. I’m a detective for heaven’s sake.
A detective!
I can’t stop the tears streaming down my face.
59
Cal
Sunday
“Here they come!” I smile at the excitement and glee in Florrie’s voice and I hear a chuckle from Phil. I watch as the first two congregants push through the doors of the Church of the Pure Divine Light. As luck would have it, it’s Milly and Edna. As they stop and blink in the sunlight, Florrie says, “Hello, here’s a little gift from Pastor Kilman.” She hands them each a thumb drive with my recording of Kilman’s wife prompting him through his nasty little con game. She also gives each of them a lavender-coloured envelope.
“What’s this?” asks Milly, still in her purple hat.
“Think of it as a small documentary. Put it in your computer and listen to the recording.” I say.
Florrie and Phil start handing out the flash drives and envelopes to the other congregants flooding out of the ‘church’. Most of the crowd know them and are happy to take the gift.
I feel a hand on my arm. “Hello Cal, did Pastor Kilman help you get in touch with Elizabeth?” There’s nothing wrong with Edna’s memory.
“It’s all in the documentary. I hope you enjoy it Edna.”
“I’m sure I will.”
I can’t resist giving her a little hug before joining Phil and Florrie. The three of us hand out the recordings and envelopes to any in the crowd who will take them and our activity does not go unnoticed. Before too long Kilman comes barging through the doors, anger and fear painted on his face in equal proportions. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asks.
“Shutting you down,” I say with a grin.
His eyes narrow and he steps toward me, the violence coiled inside him about to spring out. I just smile and incline both my head and my gaze toward the two RCMP members walking up to us.
He turns and the rage washes out of his face.
“Peter Kilman?” the first officer asks.
He nods, unable to speak.
“Would you mind coming with us sir? We have some questions we’d like to ask you.”
I feel myself being enveloped in a big hug from Florrie. “Thank you Detective Rogan, thank you. Phil and I decided. We’re going to get everyone together and sue Kilman for all the money he bilked from his congregation. It’s all in the envelopes I’m giving to them.”
Today was definitely worth getting up for.
60
Cal
Tuesday. Six weeks later
Before yesterday morning, I had never sat in this seat, although I’ve looked at it often enough. I am surrounded by bulletproof glass on three sides and have a perfect view of the courtroom. Behind the judge’s bench, the oak panelling, for some reason, holds the British rather than the Canadian coat of arms.
I can only see the backs of the lawyers. They are all wearing their black gowns and from this angle they remind me of crows. There’s a Crown Prosecutor and his assistant in front of me and to the left of them is Jim Garry. He rises to his feet, tugs down on his jacket, glances down at the red carpet, then looks towards Stammo sitting in his wheelchair beside the raised witness box.
Since he wheeled in, waited for the judge to be announced and seated, and was then sworn in, Stammo has not once looked in my direction. Even now as he answers the preliminary questions he doesn’t hazard a glance at me.
After the initial questions, Garry asks, “Mr. Stammo, can you tell me what you were doing on Wednesday April seventeenth?”
Stammo clears his throat and glances down at his hands for an instant. He seems to be holding something and rubbing his thumb against it.
He looks up. “Mr. Rogan and I were surveilling the residence of Carlos Santiago on Samuel Island, BC. Mr
. Rogan was on the Island and I was on a boat moored off the island.” He stops and cuts a quick glance at me. Why is he doing that? It makes him look guilty of something. I look towards Justice Bernice Lemay. She is watching Stammo closely.
“What was your reason for conducting this surveillance?”
“We had been hired to find a missing child and we had reason to believe she was on the island in the residence of Mr. Santiago. It turned out we were right; she was there.”
Jim Garry gestures towards the other lawyers. “Although he has offered no evidence in support of it, my learned friend has suggested several times that Mr. Rogan was there for the purposes of assassinating Mr. Santiago and Mr. Edward Perot. Is that correct?”
Now’s the first hurdle. Will Stammo perjure himself or will the next chapter of my life be spent behind bars?
Stammo looks towards the judge. He speaks in a clear voice. “Yes.”
The shock travels through me like an electric charge. Stammo is giving me up.
“It’s correct that’s what the prosecution is alleging,” he continues, “but it’s a ridiculous suggestion. Mr. Rogan is not an assassin.”
The relief washes through me and I know it must be obvious to anyone watching me. Fortunately, the judge is watching Stammo not me.
“Yet the police were unable to find any evidence that there was another person on the island who might have committed those murders.” Garry is pre-empting the CP’s likely argument.
“It’s a big island and if my guess is right, they were killed by a rival gang. I understand that the police found evidence that there were explosions on the island, which I can verify because I heard them. They could have been a diversion used by the killer or killers. In addition, I saw a boat leave the island but it was shot at by some people in another boat and it sank.” Thank heaven Stammo has thought this through.
“I understand that you were kidnapped by the son of Carlos Santiago. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because the Crown Prosecutor’s office rushed to charge Mr. Rogan with the murders of Santiago and Perot. Santiago’s son must have learned about it and decided to seek revenge on Mr. Rogan. The CP’s actions put the lives of Mr. Rogan, his family and myself in deadly danger.”
Another nice point. Judge Lemay’s eyes are levelled at the Crown Prosecutor.
Garry waits for a moment until the judge looks toward him. “Your son, Matthew Stammo, was a member of Carlos Santiago’s gang.”
Stammo’s demeanour changes. It’s like he has been punched. “Yes.” His voice is barely above a whisper now.
“Can you tell the court the circumstances that led up to your son’s death?”
This is the second hurdle. This time, if he does perjure himself I’ll be behind bars. He’s silent. He hasn’t decided. The silence lengthens. You could hear a pin drop.
“Mr. Rogan killed him.”
“I’m sorry for your loss Mr. Stammo. Can you tell the court why Mr. Rogan killed him?”
Another long silence.
“It was self defence” There’s a catch in his throat. “He had to do it or Matt would have killed him.”
Again I can’t hide the relief. Garry asks for details but I don’t even hear them.
I stand in the doorway taking a last look at the courtroom. I look at the now-vacant judge’s bench beneath the ornate coat of arms bearing the motto Dieu et Mon Droit. Stammo came through for me. After hearing his testimony, Justice Bernice Lemay had no hesitation in finding me not guilty in the murder of Matthew Stammo.
I turn and walk out of the courtroom a free man.
He’s waiting for me in the hallway outside. As we head for the elevators I say, “Thanks man.”
“S’OK,” he sighs. “Y’know, sometimes water’s thicker than blood.”
We are silent until we get to the elevator. “D’you want to go for a beer? Celebrate?” he asks, not too enthusiastically.
“Maybe tomorrow. I’ve got something I need to do.”
We take the elevator in silence and go our separate ways.
I listen entranced to everything she has to say. She likes her new school, sorry she can’t tell me the name but Mommy says she can’t. She only went there for a week before the summer holidays started. And the new apartment’s nice and she likes the boy next door; he goes to the same school as her. She chatters on about the things in her life and I long to just hold her in my arms, hug her and tell her how much I love her.
Then in typical Ellie fashion she does a rapid gear change. “Remember when we were on Grandpa’s island and I stabbed that bad man with the screwdriver?” She doesn’t wait for a reply before going on. “I was just like a policeman wasn’t I Daddy? I made the bad man move. And that’s what got him shot. Do you think I’d be a good detective because that’s what I want to be? What do you think Daddy? Would I be?”
As she stops for breath I get in with, “Yes sweetie you would be a wonderful detective. But are you sure that’s what you want to do? You’re very good at math and science, maybe you should be a scientist.”
“Well detectives use science don’t they Daddy? I could be a detective and a scientist couldn’t I?”
“Yes sweetie, you could.”
She does another gear change. “Ooo, ooo, I forgot to tell you, Mommy said we can have a kitten…”
As her enthusiasm spills out of the phone, I try and join her in it but there’s still a great weight on my shoulders. I look toward the kitchen. “El,” I say as she pauses for breath again, “can I speak to Mommy please?”
She goes silent. “Uh, Mommy said she wouldn’t be able to speak to you right now. She said the call was just for you and me.”
I’ve had no contact with Sam since Hardy Island. Ellie calls every week from a number with a blocked caller ID but Sam always refuses to speak to me. I want to tell her I was found not guilty. Not that it would make a difference. She knows what I’ve done and it’s the wedge that will forever keep us apart.
“Anyway Daddy, Mommy’s making that sign that means it’s my bedtime, so I have to go.”
We say our goodnights and she hangs up. It’s five in the afternoon. If it’s Ellie’s bedtime it must be eight or nine o’clock where she is. That’s three or maybe four timezones east. I was hoping…
I feel the loss deeply. Not just of Ellie and Sam but also of Em. I can’t get her out of my mind.
Only work pushes down the memories. Most of the time anyway.
Right now… there is only one thing that will do the trick.
I walk into the kitchen and look at the eight items laid out on the countertop: spoon, sterile water, lighter, cotton ball, needle, elastic strip, syringe and a tiny baggy of what I hope is just heroin.
Time to give in to the Beast and embrace the solace of Morpheus.
Afterword
Thank you for reading Three. Reviews are the life blood of an independent author. If you have a minute to do a review, it would be really appreciated. Just swipe to the next page. Also, a review at Goodreads or Bookbub is always appreciated.
If would like to read more about Cal, I invite you to check out Junkie, Oboe, Lockstep and Cabal, the latest in the series.
For more information on my books visit my website or follow me on Facebook.
Foreword
Thank you for purchasing Cabal the fifth Cal Rogan Mystery. At the end of the book there is information about the other books in the series.
In the story you will see references to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. It is usually abbreviated as CSIS and pronounced see-sus. Also the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP or ‘Mounties’ are mentioned. These organizations help keep Canada safe, helping to make it one of the best countries in the world in which to live.
Copyright © 2019 by Robert P. French
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents, organizations, names and places either are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Acknowledgments
So many people go into the writing of a book and I would like to thank those who helped me with Cabal.
A special thank you to Andrew McKay of the Royal Canadian Airforce for pointing me in the right direction for information on the RCAF and for his service to our country.
A thousand thanks to every single member of my Launch Team for your support. You guy’s rock!! I would like especially to thank the following members of the team who helped me hone the plot and whose eagle eyes found errors missed in the proofread. I made some critical changes based on your feedback. You all made this a better book. Alphabetically by first name, I would like to thank: Adele Knight, Alice Campbell, Andrew Tucker, Barry Thomas, Beverley Canuel, Bob Watson, Cindy Warrick, Colleen Beson, Dave McColeman, Deborah Andrew, Diane Griffin, Donna Bordage, Ed Campbell, Eva Beaton, Gillian Romain, Gloria Cardey, Grant Coull, Holly Stolarski, James Philips, Jamie DeAvilla, Janet Cline, Jeffrey Benham, Jim Bolger, John Mylett, Judith Baxter, Ken Pitman, Kenny Fraley, Krystle Huwyler, Larry Branson, Linda DiMezza, Linda Harbour, Lisa Mauk, Lorraine Garant, Mary Clare Scully, Mel Calaby, Natoshia Avery, Patti Flanagan, Peter Lighthall, Rhiannon Cooper, Richard Pollack, Rod Marsh, Roz Wood, Sheryl Korljan, Siobhan Allen, Susan Oswalt, Terry Cochrane, Toni Keating, Valerie Hykawy and Vicky Sampson. If I missed anyone, my sincere apologies. All errors are mine, not theirs.
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set) Page 24
