“I’m being blackmailed,” he sighs. He looks up at me and I nod encouragement. He gives a grim little grin. “You did say this is completely confidential, right?”
“Completely,” I say with a confidence I don’t feel. It’s a grey area; there is no legal confidentiality like there is between lawyers and their clients. A court can compel us to break our promise of silence but it’s never likely to come to that… I hope.
He takes another deep breath. “OK,” he says. He rubs the scar on his right cheekbone and turns his attention to Adry. This happens a lot. In the five months since Adry was promoted from Office Manager to Investigator, we have noticed that clients often feel more comfortable unburdening themselves to her, especially the male clients. Nick and I have made sure she’s always in on the first meeting with any new client.
“I run a software company with eighty-five employees. We’re good at what we do and we’re very successful. Now anyway.” He gives the same grin, then bites his top lip.
I wonder why he’s so nervous. CEO’s I’ve known are usually more self-possessed.
“So who’s blackmailing you, Mr. McCoy?” Adry asks.
“Please, call me Connor,” he glances at me then back at Adry. “About twelve years ago, we went through a bad patch. A client owed us over two hundred grand and I didn’t have the money to make the month-end payroll. I was at my credit limit with the bank and I was desperate. I knew that if I didn’t pay my employees on time, some of them might quit and if that happened, we wouldn’t be able to complete the client’s project, the client wouldn’t pay us and we’d go down the tubes.”
He looks down at the table and bites his lip again.
“What did you do to get the money, Connor?” I ask gently.
He doesn’t look up. “I had this friend from high school,” he says and, in a flash, I have an idea of what he’s going to say. Maybe this is why he’s so nervous. “He always had a lot of money,” he continues, “he drove a Lamborghini, bought all his clothes at Harry Rosen and Zegna, expensive holidays two or three times a year. I thought I’d see if he’d loan me fifty grand to help me meet payroll.”
In the pause I say, “Let me guess. He said sure… if you’d do something for him in return.”
He looks up at me. “How did you know?”
I ignore his question. “What did you do?” I ask.
“He told me to meet him at some abandoned warehouse in Burnaby. When I got there it looked really creepy. I almost turned the car around and left. Then he came out and told me to drive my car inside the place. When I got inside, I immediately regretted it. There were a couple of rough-looking guys waiting. I was scared as hell. He told me to get out of the car and I really didn’t want to.
“While we stood and watched, he had his guys take the tires off the car. They packed them with tightly-bound plastic bags of white powder. When I started to object he showed me a big bag full of money. 'That’s your fifty grand,’ he said. 'If you want it you’ll do this for me. If not…’ he nodded towards his guys.”
I can see the fear in his eyes now, even years after.
Adry pats his arm. “Go on,” she says.
“They put the tires back on the car and sprayed them with some liquid they said would throw off the sniffer dogs. Mike told me I had to drive it to an address in Bellingham. I can tell you I was scared as hell driving across the US border, you know what those border guards are like when they give you that cold stare and ask you if you are taking any goods across. But it worked. I had to do it once a week for three weeks—every time from a different location and to a different address—and at the end of the month, he handed me the bag with fifty grand in it. I felt really embarrassed paying my people their salaries in cash, but none of them quit and we finished the project and got paid by the client. But as part of the deal, I had to do three more runs for them over the following two months.
“After that we shook hands and he said if ever I had a cash-flow problem, I could come to him. Fortunately, the business really took off after that and I never needed to.”
“You were lucky,” Adry says. “My uncle Reuben was a US border guard. He told me those dogs are amazing at finding drugs.”
“And your buddy ripped you off,” I add. “You got fifty grand for six trips. That’s only about eight grand each trip for smuggling drugs with a street value of maybe five million bucks.”
“I never thought of it that way,” he says. He mulls it over. “Son of a—ˮ he cuts himself off and looks at Adry. “Sorry,” he mutters.
She pats him on the arm again. “No prob,” she says. He smiles gratefully and I am impressed with the way she is building rapport with him. “Tell us about the blackmail part.”
“Not long after I did the, uh, deliveries for him, I saw on the news that he’d been convicted for possession and sentenced to ten years. I’d pretty much forgotten about the whole thing until last week. Out of the blue I got an email. There was a video attached. It was the warehouse with the tough guys filling my tires and putting them on the car. My face and the licence plate were really clear. Then it cut to another scene where he was handing over the money to me. His face was blurred out but mine was as clear as day.”
“Can you email us a copy of the video?” I ask.
“No, I can’t,” he says. “I’d opened the email on my computer at work and I was so paranoid that someone might see it, I deleted it.”
“I don’t know a lot about computers,” I say, “but when you delete something, doesn’t it stay on the hard drive somewhere?”
“Usually yes, but I ran a program that removed all copies from my computer and from our email server.” He looks a little rueful. “Sorry, I guess I never thought it through. If they send it again, I’ll keep a copy for you.”
“How much money are they demanding, Connor?” Adry asks.
“That’s the thing,” he says. “The email just said, 'We’ll be in touch.’ I got it last Thursday and I haven’t heard anything since.”
“It’s only four days. They’re playing you. Giving you time to worry yourself sick, so that when they contact you, you’ll be desperate to do anything they ask.” I open my notepad. “Doesn’t mean to say we can’t get started. What’s the name of this slime ball who got you to run drugs for him?”
“Mike Anderson.”
“Any idea where he lives?”
“No. I didn’t even know back then, all I had was his cell phone number.”
“No worries. If he’s been to jail, we can probably track him down.”
“Maybe I can find him on social media,” Adry says. “Can you give me some personal details?”
“Sure,” he looks up and thinks for a second. “He’s the same age as me, thirty-seven, born in Calgary but moved here as a kid. Went to Prince of Wales high school but as far as I know he didn’t go to university. That’s about all I can think of.”
Adry finishes typing the details into her laptop and asks, “Did you ever go to his house as a kid? Maybe his parents still live there, he might be staying with them if he’s just out of jail.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“You must have had some contact with him after you left high school,” I say.
“Not really.”
“How did you know he was rich?” I ask. “You said he drove a Lambo and had expensive clothes. I’m guessing he didn’t have those in high school.”
“Oh, no. I see what you mean.” He gives a nervous laugh. “I didn’t know that at the time. When I was having my financial troubles, I was having a beer with a good buddy of mine from school and I mentioned I was having some cash-flow problems. He told me Mike was loaded, said he’d probably be good for a loan. He’d kept in touch with Mike and gave me his phone number.”
“What’s your friend’s name?” I ask.
“Why?”
“Maybe he’s still in touch with Mike. Maybe we can track down Mike through him.”
He nods. “I see. Do you think it’s wise to contact Mike?” He
looks concerned.
“We’re not going to contact him but I’d like to know where he is, so if we need to we can.”
“Oh, OK. Well… Unfortunately, my buddy who put me in touch with Mike passed away a couple of years ago. A car accident, so…” He just leaves the sentence hanging.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I look at my sparse notes. “Anything else you can think of?”
He shakes his head.
“One last question,” I say. “Did you think of going to the police? They would probably overlook your indiscretion from over ten years ago and they are well equipped to handle blackmailers.”
“Oh, no. Definitely not. If those videos ever came to light, it could ruin my business. We have some very prestigious, high-end clients who would drop us if there were any hint of scandal.”
“Fair enough. Anyway, Connor, other than checking into Mike Anderson’s background, there’s not too much we can do until you actually get a demand for money. Get in touch with us straight away if they contact you and if it’s by email, don’t delete it.”
“Definitely,” he says. He reaches into his pocket and hands me an envelope. “That’s the retainer we discussed on the phone.”
We all stand, shake hands and head out of our tiny conference room. Lucy gets up from the reception desk and gets his rain jacket from the coat closet. As she hands it to him with a bright smile, I’m glad Adry asked Nick’s daughter to be our new office manager and even more glad she accepted. Not only is she great at the job, but having her around is wonderful for Nick who still hasn’t fully mourned the loss of his son.
As he’s putting it on, I ask him, “I didn’t ask you when you phoned, but who referred you to us?”
“My accountant at Beloff and Plasker. He said you’d solved the murder of one of their senior managers.”
I remember them well and I’m a little surprised that one of their people would have known who I was. “Who specifically was that? I’d like to thank them for the referral.”
“It’s another Mike I went to school with. I’ll email you his contact details.”
He shakes my hand again and walks out through the main door of the office just as Nick wheels out of the elevator, back from his check up at St. Paul’s. They nod at each other as they pass in the hallway and I hold the door open so Nick can wheel right in. He can be a bit touchy about being helped; he likes to be as independent as possible.
“Thanks Rogan,” he says cheerily. “Now I’m here, it’s time for morning prayers.”
'Morning prayers’ is his expression for our regular morning meeting where we bring each other up to date on our cases.
Within minutes we are all sitting around his desk in the main office with mugs of coffee and a plate of his favourite chocolate-digestive cookies.
“Was that the new client?” he asks.
“Yes,” Adry chimes in. “He’s being blackmailed.”
Nick’s eyebrows raise. “Interesting. That’s a bit different from our usual missing person or wayward spouse cases. Tell me about it.”
“Sure,” she says, her enthusiasm brimming over. “He’s a businessm—ˮ She stops mid-sentence. I follow her gaze.
It’s a middle-aged man in a raincoat. His hair is awry and there is a crazed look on his face. It’s a look I’ve seen on the faces of crack addicts living on the streets. But this man is no crack addict. He is short and well-dressed and definitely better fed than any crack addict I’ve ever met. He’s just standing there breathing heavily and holding a large brown envelope.
Before any of us can say anything, he speaks.
“Please, you have to help me. Both my children are missing.”
From the way he says it, I know that this too is not going to be one of our usual missing person or wayward spouse cases.
3
Zelena
The kitchen is hot. The tea is hot. But I still feel cold. Why do they keep me in that room at night? And why is it so cold in there? It’s May, or is it June now? I don’t know. I’ve lost track of the days. Either way, the weather is warm here.
He’s sitting opposite me at the table and the old woman is cooking. None of the others are here. At least they feed me and the food is good. It’s the only good thing here. In half an hour, I’ll be taken to the star room for the first session. The thought sends a shudder through me. I look at the counter where the woman is preparing breakfast and I see it: the instrument of my freedom. If I can use it today, I won’t have to go to that room, I won’t have to stand there while they shout, won’t have to…
The door opens and a man walks in. He has a cardboard box full of groceries. The woman says something to him in Cantonese but he just stands there, his mouth hanging open. He looks like he doesn’t understand what she’s saying. She walks over to him, grumbling, and the man sitting opposite me turns around to watch what is happening.
It’s my chance.
I leap up. But I’m too fast. My chair topples over backwards and crashes to the floor. I dash across the room to the counter and hear the shout behind me. I stumble but regain my footing and slam into the countertop. I grab the knife. It’s long and sharp with a point like a needle.
I put the point under my chin.
One deep breath.
Can I?
I think of the star room.
Yes. I can.
With all my strength I push the knife upwards.
4
Nick
Lucy is the first to react. She jumps to her feet. “Come in and sit down, sir,” she says. “Let me take your coat.” Almost in a daze, he takes off his coat and hands it to her. She takes his elbow and leads him to the chair she has just left. “Would you like a coffee or a tea?” He just shakes his head. She takes his coat and vanishes into the reception area. For the hundredth time I’m grateful Rogan agreed to hire her.
Adry slides her chair closer to him. “Hi, I’m Adriana Locke. These are my colleagues, Cal Rogan and Nick Stammo. How can we help you, sir?”
Her quiet voice seems to shake him out of his dazed state. “I’m sorry, I’m forgetting my manners,” he says in an accented voice. “My name is Janusz Gutkowski, I am pleased to meet you.” He puts the brown envelope on my desk, gets up and shakes hands with each of us.
I ask, “You said your children are missing. Have you reported it to the police?”
“Yes, but they can do nothing. My children both went missing in Hong Kong.”
Rogan and me exchange glances. I’ll bet we’re both thinking of the last time we had to track down a missing child and where that all led. As Lucy walks back into the room I’m glad I’ve still got her and that I get to see her every day. This poor bastard’s got two kids missing. She hands him a glass of the fancy fizzy water we keep for clients and he takes a sip.
“How old are they?” I ask.
“My daughter Zelena is nineteen and my son Aleksander is twenty-three.”
At least they’re not little kids. Not that that’s any consolation for him.
“I have photographs,” he says. He pushes the brown envelope across the desk. I take it and slide out the eight by ten photos. The one on top is the son. He’s a good-looking kid with a bright grin and dark, wavy hair. His father’s hair probably looked like this twenty years ago. The photo was taken on a beach with palm trees in the background. I slide the picture across the desk so the others can see. I look at the picture of the girl. It’s a graduation photo. The brother was handsome, for sure, but this girl looks like she should be on the cover of Vogue. She has long dark hair and large brown eyes. Unlike the picture of her brother, she is not smiling. The picture looks posed and I get the sense that the real Zelena is not the demure girl in front of me. I slide her picture across the desk, next to her brother’s.
I watch them looking at her picture. Three different reactions. Adry is the first to speak. “Can you tell us what happened?” she asks.
“Yes. My daughter went missing first. She went on holiday with a friend, to Hong Kong.” T
he way he says 'friend’ makes me think he doesn’t approve.
Rogan interrupts him. “Male or female friend?”
“Female. Zelena’s not that kind of girl. She doesn’t even have a boyfriend yet.” Hmmm. I spot a man who might have a bit of a delusion going on here. A nineteen-year-old girl, looking like that, has at least one boyfriend. Unless, like me, she bats for the other team.
“You sound like you don’t approve of her friend,” Adry says. Good girl, she spotted it too.
“Stephanie is Zelena’s best friend. They have known each other since high school. She’s a nice enough girl, from a good family too, but just not serious.”
Definitely old world.
“What made them choose Hong Kong?”
He stops and takes three breaths.
“I have no idea. They just said it would be a cool place to go.” He makes quote signs with his fingers when he says the word cool. “I told them it was not a good idea because of all the protests and the crack-down by the Chinese government and the viruses you can pick up in places like that. But she insisted.”
“Did you pay for the trip?” I ask.
“No. Never.” He takes three more breaths. “She entered a contest and won a two-week trip for two, anywhere in the world. She could have gone anywhere, Europe, somewhere nice in the Caribbean, anywhere…” he shrugs. “But she chose Hong Kong. They left on April twenty-fifth, right after their final exams at UBC. I told her she had to text me every day and she did. She texted me every evening at six, until three days before the end of the trip, she didn’t text. I texted Stephanie and at first she said Zelena was in the shower and would get back to me but I didn’t hear anything, so at midnight I called Stephanie on her phone and she told me Zelena had gone out the previous night and hadn’t returned.”
His voice breaks and he takes another sip of his water. “I knew something was seriously wrong. I made Stephanie contact the local police but they said they couldn’t do anything until she had been missing for forty-eight hours. When the forty-eight hours were up, Stephanie went back to the police and they didn’t seem to take the matter very seriously. I spoke to the officer in charge, an Inspector Ho Lei Min. He took all the details but, in my opinion, he definitely did not treat the matter properly.”
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set) Page 50
