“Can you email me a current picture of your wife?” Stammo’s question pulls me out of the pit of my thoughts.
“I thought you might want a picture,” he pulls his slim briefcase onto his lap and takes out an eight by ten. “This was taken last month to post on her firm’s website. It’s a very good likeness.”
An intelligent face smiles out of the photograph at me. Susan Grey looks competent, kind and stunning all at the same time.
And I know her.
Or more precisely knew her. I knew her very well.
“She’s fooling around on him,” Stammo asserts.
“I’ve got a hundred bucks says she’s not.”
“You’re on! Make it two hundred, if you’ve got the stomach for it.” I nod. “Let’s see your money.” He pulls out his wallet and slides ten twenties on to the table. I do the same. “Adry,” he calls.
She comes in wearing her big smile. “What are you boys bickering about now?”
“A bet. Here,” he hands her the cash. “Hold on to the stakes for us.”
“OK,” she chuckles. “What’s the bet?”
“I reckon his wife’s having an affair and Rogan says she’s not.”
“Oh I’m with Cal. Did you see that guy? He’s drop-dead gorgeous. No woman would cheat on him, believe me.”
“I didn’t think he was that hot,” Stammo says, with a rare reference to his own orientation.
She shrugs and takes the cash. “We shall see.”
As she gets back to the reception desk, she says, “Oh, hi sweetie. You’re early. Come and meet my other guys.”
She walks back in with another face I know. Jason from Insite. He booked me in today. He knows I’m a user. Adry told us that her new boyfriend was a drug counsellor but not where he worked. “Guys, this is Jason. Jason this is Nick.” He walks over and shakes Nick’s hand. “And this is Cal.”
He turns and we lock eyes for the second time today. He recognizes me and does an OK job in hiding the shock on his face. But not OK enough to fool Nick. “Do you guys know each other?” he asks.
Jason: “No.” Me: “Yes.”
Crap, I should have known he’d say no. I cover with, “We met once a few years ago. Back when I was using.”
“Oh yes, I remember.” He’s not much of a liar either. I hazard a glance at Stammo and I’d bet another couple of hundred that he’s guessed I’m using again.
Jason shakes my hand. “Nice to meet you both,” he says. “We’ve got to get going if we want to get a bite to eat before the game.”
“See you in the morning guys,” Adry says and they leave, both excited by the prospect of watching the Canucks maybe blow another game.
Stammo turns to his screen. “I’m gonna watch CBC News. See what’s the latest on the terrorist bombing last week.” He pulls on his headphones and plugs them into his computer. He’s cutting me out. He read Jason like a book. He knows I’m using again.
I need to tell him how I know Susan Grey but now’s not the time.
“Hi Dad. Only nineteen days.” Ellie’s face beams at me from my phone. Since her age hit double digits, she’s stopped calling me Daddy and moved to Dad. It’s OK but I must admit to a little sadness that she’s growing up so fast and so far away. Over the last few months, little by little, Sam has let me back in. I now know they live in Toronto and I know the name of Ellie’s school but their actual home address has not yet been shared. I have even got Sam to agree that I can see Ellie over Christmas. I booked my flight two months ago and Ellie and I are counting the days.
“Hi my lovely girl. How was school today?”
“You always ask that. It was OK. Ethan was funny; he made me laugh during French class. Madame D’Artois was angry with him.” Instant switch of subject: “What cases are you working on?”
Now that she’s asserted that she 'wants to be a policewoman for sure, for sure,’ she always wants to know about our cases.
“We got a new case today. It’s a man worried about his wife. She keeps going out late at night and she won’t tell him where she goes.”
“Maybe she goes shopping?” she giggles. “Or maybe she’s a vampire.”
“Do you even know what a vampire is?”
“Yes. Ethan told me. He was one for Halloween. He kept saying ‘I want to suck your blood’ in a funny voice. He’s hilarious.”
I sense the dawning of a pre-teen crush.
“I don’t think she’s a vampire El.”
“Well if she is you’ll know what a good detective I am.”
We chat on for a while until I hear Sam’s voice in the background. “Bedtime, sweetie.” Her voice brings so many emotions sweeping in but I crush them down. El and I say our goodnights and I’m left alone with my thoughts. I think about Sam and Ellie and about whether Stammo has really guessed I’m using again and about how in hell I’m going to track down the late Wily’s sister, Annie.
But most of all, I think about our new client’s wife, Susan Grey, née Beckett.
And I think about my heroin.
Cal
Tuesday
As I turn off the ignition, the sound of the radio fades. It’s five days since the Ottawa bombing and it’s still the only thing on the news, which is fair enough, it is after all the first real terrorist attack to happen in Canada. It’s one area where we didn’t want to catch up with the rest of the world. Eleven people killed. They have been able to use DNA to identify most of the bodies, the names and backgrounds have been released to the press.
As I get out of my beloved Austin Healey 3000, Adry pulls up beside me in her little grey Mazda. “How was the game?” I ask as she gets out and locks the doors.
“We won, four to two,” she grins.
“Great.” I’m not a big hockey fan; I don’t even know who they were playing. We walk to the elevator. “Jason seems like a great guy.” I say.
“He is.” She goes silent for a moment. “How is it you know him Cal? He wouldn’t talk about it to me.”
I can feel a flush in my cheeks and she sees it too. “I’ll tell you when we get up to the office.”
The elevator ride is a bit awkward. A foreshadowing of things to come?
As we walk into the office, Stammo says, “About time you guys got in. I’ve made coffee and it’s time for morning prayers.” That’s Stammo’s new term for our morning meeting where we review cases and plan the day. He picked it up from an English ex-cop he met in a pub.
We go through the workload, which is all pretty vanilla-flavoured cases, until we get to our newest case: the odd behaviour of Susan Grey. “The obvious thing to do is to stake out their place and follow her when she goes on one of her little expeditions,” Stammo suggests.
Before I can speak, Adry chimes in, “Listen guys, I know you hired me to be the office manager and all but I’d kinda like to be involved in the detective work too. Any chance I could come along on the stake out?”
“Sounds good to me,” Stammo says. He looks at me for agreement.
I don’t want to burst her bubble so I say. “I think it’s a great idea for you to get involved in the investigation side of the business.” I get rewarded with a big smile. “But in this case, I don’t think we need to do a stake out. I didn’t get the chance to tell you yesterday but I know Susan Grey.”
“How?” they ask in unison.
“She was my first serious girlfriend. We met at UBC. First year. I was doing Lit and she was doing pre-law.”
“And you didn’t think to let the client know?” Stammo gives me his disapproving frown.
“I thought about it for a second or two but then I thought maybe I could just go and talk to her, see if she would confide in an old friend.”
The disapproval turns to sarcasm. “Oh great. What are you gonna say? ‘Your husband’s hired me to check up on you. Are you fooling around on him?’ Yeah, that’ll work, no problem.” He snorts.
I know why Stammo’s angry and I don’t blame him. “No. I thought I’d just run into
her and invite her for coffee, let it drop that I’m a private investigator and see if she reacts. Maybe she needs a friend she can talk to, other than her husband.”
“Hmm. Might work.” He’s only partly mollified.
“If it doesn’t fly, I’ll hand it over to you guys and you can stake her out.”
He nods and looks back at his project spreadsheet. “You said you had a next-of-kin case,” he says.
“Oh yeah.” I’d almost forgotten about the job of trying to find Wily’s sister in Ottawa. I tell them about my meeting with Ghost.
When I finish, the first words out of Stammo’s mouth are, “So, I’m guessing it’s pro bono.” Then comes the real question. “Did this Ghost character come to the office?” He knows the answer. It’s time.
“No. I ran into him at Hastings and Main. And before you ask, I was down there to buy heroin.”
For a couple of seconds the silence is profound. I hear the ping of an elevator arriving at our floor then voices in the corridor. Then Stammo speaks.
“When did you start?”
“Six months ago.”
Stammo does the math. “After Em?” His voice is gentler.
I just nod.
Adry steps over, kisses me on the cheek and rubs my arm, then turns around and goes back to her desk.
Stammo just nods and goes back to his spreadsheet.
Their silent acceptance is harder to bear than any anger.
The lobby of the Telus Garden office tower is imposing to say the least. I’m sitting in one of the expensive white chairs which resemble opening buds and are as elegant as they are uncomfortable. The curved wooden beams which support the glass roof are like the ribs of some giant whale, in which, like Jonah, I am sitting. From the fifty foot waterfall behind the glass security desk to the granite planters—each containing a tree surrounded by a profusion of white orchids—to the baby grand piano being beautifully played by a slim young man in a plaid shirt, it is corporate opulence gone wildly overboard.
While waiting for my target at one end of the social spectrum, I’m working for my client at the other end.
“Can I speak to Doctor Marcus, please?” I say into my mobile.
“Speaking.”
“Kaye, it’s Cal Rogan.” Then I remember. “Rocky.” She only knew me by my erstwhile nickname; it makes me think of Roy.
“Oh yes. Hi, how are you? I haven’t seen you in years.”
We do the catching up thing, then I ask, “You have the body of a homeless man there. He was beaten to death last week.”
“Yes. Very nasty. He was tortured before he was killed. Who would do that to a homeless man?”
Tortured? That makes no sense at all.
“One of his friends has asked me to track down his sister but the problem is they only know him by his street name, Wily. Do you have an ID for him?”
“Just hang on.” I hear the soft click of her typing. I’m holding my breath. I realize that this matters to me. Wily was a good friend of Roy and it gives me an… I dunno… a kind of… well… kinship. I make a quick decision. “Sorry, Rocky. He’s listed as a John Doe.”
“OK, thanks Kaye. Listen, when you’re ready to release the body, let me know. If I can’t find his next of kin, I want to make sure he gets a decent funeral.”
“Will do.”
We say our goodbyes and I go back to watching the elevators.
The twitchiness is getting worse but I’m determined to miss my lunchtime fix. See if I can get through until nighttime. All I have to do is miss this one. They say one day at a time but with heroin it’s more like one hour at a time. A lot of detective work is just waiting but it’s a hell of a lot more difficult to just sit and wait when you are literally itching for a fix.
Then I see her. She’s stepping out of an elevator with a young woman who looks about twenty. They turn and head towards the door. I get up and head in the same direction, trying to time it just right. We converge on the doors at the same time and as they glide open, I make the universal ‘after you’ gesture to Susan and her companion.
Perfect timing.
Our eyes meet.
“Susan?”
She pauses for a second and then beams. And in that smile I am transported back almost a quarter of a century. I can feel my heart skipping. “Cal?” She looks at me then wraps me in a hug which lasts longer than I would have expected. When she finally lets go she slides her hands down my arms until she is holding both of my hands in hers. She turns to her younger companion and says, “Why don’t you go ahead and get us a table Abigail, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
She squeezes my hands. “It is so good to see you. What are you doing here?”
The worm of duplicity starts to squirm in my gut. “I have a client in this building.”
“A client? I always imagined you would become a prof and teach your beloved Shakespeare to eager students. What is it you do?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“Wow.”
“I assume you became a lawyer,” I say. The worm squirms more firmly.
She gives a grin. “Well, duh.”
We both laugh.
“I really want to catch up with you. I’m going to be in the building all day,” I lie, “how about we meet for a quick drink after work at the Kingston next door.”
She thinks for a second and I can see her inner debate. Finally, she reaches a decision and it’s not the one I want. “Well actually Cal, I…” Her voice trails off. It hangs in the balance. I’m holding my breath again. New decision. “Sure, why not? The Kingston at six.”
“You’re on,” I smile, wondering what changed her mind; I’m not convinced it’s just my boyish charm.
She kisses me on the cheek. “I’d better go,” she grins. She steps forward, the door opens for her and, as I enjoy watching her walk briskly along Georgia, I feel the twitchiness return.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out. I don’t recognize the number. “Cal Rogan.”
“Hey Cal, it’s me Ghost.”
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Can you come over to the east side. I wanna show you something.”
There’s stuff I have to do on another case, one with a big fee attached. We’ve been asked to track down the scion of a prominent Vancouver family: a youngest son with a drinking problem. “Can it wait?”
“Yeah…” the reply comes out as a sigh. “I suppose so… It’s just that…” He clears his throat. “So when do you think you can come?”
There’s a disappointment in his voice verging on pain. I cave. “Sure, I’ll be right over. Where do you want to meet?”
“How about the Balmoral?”
“Sure. See you there in twenty minutes.”
I hang up and wonder if I caved in sympathy or because the Balmoral is a three minute walk from the alley where my dealer hangs out.
I’m drinking my beer from a bottle; I’d rather not trust the cleanliness of the glasses here. Ghost and Freddy Connor have big glasses of draft in front of them, being more persuaded by volume than by clean. On the table is a plastic Safeway bag.
Ghost takes in half his glass in three big swallows and gives a contented “Ahhhh. That’s the stuff.” He wipes his lips on his sleeve and pushes the plastic bag over to me. “We found this,” he says.
“It was under the tent,” Freddy says. He is a skinny alcoholic who closely resembles his late brother Tommy, who was Roy’s best friend. “We was all sleeping in a big tent in Oppenheimer,” he explains. Oppenheimer Park has become Vancouver’s biggest tent city: a sad symbol of government’s inability to deal with the city’s homelessness problem. “Anyways,” he continues, “’cos it’s so damn cold, me and Ghost decides we can’t sleep there overnight no more. So we took the tent down and here’s what we found.”
“Yeah,” Ghost adds, “we thought you’d wanna take a look at it. It was hidden under the tent. Like Wily didn’t want no one to see it.” He pushes it an inch or two clos
er to me.
The bag is pretty grubby. I open it and inside is another plastic bag wrapped around what looks like a small box. It’s tied up with string. “What is it?” I ask.
“Dunno,” offers Freddy. “We figured it might be evidence, eh. So we didn’t want to touch it in case we did something wrong.”
Evidence for what, I cannot imagine.
They both sit looking at me expectantly. I untie the string, unwrap the second, and then a third plastic bag. “He certainly wanted to protect whatever it is,” I say.
“Is it a clue?” Ghost asks.
“No. It’s a box.” I take it out of the innermost bag.
It’s a pink box a little smaller than a shoe box; maybe a box for a little girl’s shoes. It is held closed by a white ribbon, the bow on top crushed by the tightly wrapped plastic bags which encased it. As I take it out something rattles inside.
I untie the bow and lift the lid. There are two items inside and they could not be more different.
I remove the larger item.
“A book.” The disappointment in Ghost’s voice is evident.
But it’s not just a book. It has a rich, dark-brown, leather cover, soft to the touch. On the front, in gold filigree, is written La Bible. Beneath the title is Louis Segond, and beneath that is the chi-rho symbol inside a golden circle. It feels old in my hands and, although I’m far from being an expert bibliophile, it feels very valuable to me. It must have been valuable to Wily too. Most alcoholics, as far-gone as he was, would have sold this off long ago to buy booze.
I open it gently. On the first page, scribbled in French, in block capitals is: PROPRIETÉ DE DENIS LAMARCHE. The writing looks like it was done by a kid. I turn the page; in contrast, is a beautifully penned note. It is written in fountain pen, the ink slightly faded. I translate it for my companions, “To Denis, on the Occasion of his Confirmation, from his Loving Parents, Samuel and Clarisse. January 27, 1980. Sainte-Foy, Québec.”
“Huh, confirmation,” says Freddy. “I never knew Wily was religious.”
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set) Page 26
