I shook my head. “Sorry. She backed off when she had a look at the listing. Out of her snack bracket.”
“I have some documents to pick up at home. Okay with you if I swing by the house?”
I considered taking a taxi back to the office, but I dismissed the idea. Ben wasn’t about to lock me in his basement. He’d been in Muskoka when Mindy was brought there. Besides, I wanted a look at his home.
“That’s fine,” I said.
***
Becca’s For Sale sign was still on Ben’s lawn. “I’ll have to remove that sign myself,” he said as we walked up the front steps. “I don’t want Becca anywhere near here.”
I waited in the foyer while he went into his main-floor study. With its marble floor, cathedral ceiling, and raised beds of tropical plants, the front hall resembled a hotel lobby.
He returned holding a slim leather portfolio. “Like a tour of the house?”
“Sure.”
The place was a showpiece, with its sweeping staircase to the second floor, fireplaces in all five bedrooms, and marble countertops in the kitchen. And it was built for entertaining, with its huge living room and a dining room with a table that seated 20 people. An addition on the back housed an indoor pool.
“Did you live here when your daughter was growing up?” I asked Ben.
“No. Marianne was away at university when we moved here. Eleanor liked to entertain, but I don’t do much of that anymore. This place is too big for me.”
That wasn’t an exaggeration.
“I’ll show you the basement,” he said.
Where Mindy had been held. My heart started hammering.
A black-and-white cat followed us down the stairs. Part of the basement had been turned into a gym, with a small running track, a weight machine, an elliptical, and a treadmill. Another room had been done up for more entertaining, with a bar, a movie screen, and a billiards table.
Ben led me to a small room behind the gym and switched on the overhead lights. It held a desk and a daybed. A straight-backed wooden chair stood near the window. The glass in the window had new stickers on it.
He pointed to the window. “She got out through here. I had new glass put in this morning.”
He bent to pick up the cat that was winding herself around his legs. “There’s my sweet Lucy,” he crooned.
“That window couldn’t have been easy to get out of,” I said. It was small, and I figured Mindy must have brought over the chair to stand on.
“Mindy’s a feisty little thing,” Ben said.
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You know Mindy?” I asked.
He turned to me with the cat in his arms, his face unreadable. “I can’t say I know her.” He spoke carefully. “I met her once in Dean’s office.”
He was lying.
He gave me a genial smile and tickled the cat behind her ears. “I recognized her name when the police contacted me yesterday. But I don’t know why the Quincys brought her here. That was outrageous.”
The room suddenly felt like a prison. “I have to get back to work,” I said.
“We’re out of here, ma’am.” He put the cat on the chair. “Lucy is a rescue cat. She was traumatized when she came here a year ago, hiding behind curtains and under beds. I was worried that what went on yesterday would set her back, but she seems okay.”
I breathed easier as I followed him up the basement stairs. I let out a sigh of relief as he locked the front door behind us.
On the drive back to the Annex, I pondered what I knew about the connections between the Quincys and Ben and Mindy. Ben claimed he had met Mindy once at Dean’s office, and he didn’t know why she’d been taken to his home.
But if he’d only met her once in passing, how could he know her well enough to call her feisty?
***
Sam had left for the day. I went straight to my desk and called Mindy at her sister’s home.
“Dean may have introduced me to Ben,” she said, “but I don’t remember. I was focused on carrying out Riza’s instructions.”
“Big guy, graying blond hair, around Dean’s age?”
“Sorry.” I could picture her shaking her head.
The door phone buzzed. “Hang on,” I said to Mindy. “Someone’s at the door.”
That someone was Catherine Monaghan. I buzzed her in.
“Someone I have to talk to,” I said to Mindy. “Don’t leave the house.”
I met Catherine at the top of the stairs. She was back to her regal self: smart navy suit, coiffed hair, flawless makeup. And her composure was back as well. “I have good news for you,” she said, sailing past me and into my office.
The best news Catherine could deliver was that her son had restored my good name. I took a deep breath and followed her.
“Lukas is contacting everyone he spoke to,” she said when we were both seated.
She acted as if they were doing me a huge favor. “The people your son lied to,” I said.
She pretended she hadn’t heard that. “He’s telling them he had the wrong information. And that he wants to make sure they know that Pat Tierney did not skim client accounts at Norris Cassidy.”
She lowered her eyes for a few moments, then straightened her back. “I coached him on what to say, and he makes his calls in front of me. He sounds very convincing.”
She must have rehearsed her lines, as well. “Really?” I said.
She flinched at my sarcasm. “Your name is being cleared.”
My name would never be completely clear. There would always be a question in some people’s minds about whether I’d stolen clients’ money. But Catherine’s assurance was probably the best I could hope for.
“And you’ll stop poaching my clients?” I asked.
She paused for a few seconds. “I’ve convinced the Ramsays and Kimberley Wilson to stay with you.”
She was twisting the truth: Roz Ramsay and Kim Wilson had told me they wanted to work with me. But I let it go.
“And we won’t approach anyone else.”
Again, that was probably the best I could hope for.
She left the office, head held high. I listened to her go down the stairs. From my window, I watched her walk down the street until she disappeared from sight. Was that the end of Catherine and Lukas Monaghan?
I didn’t know if it was the recording that had brought them into line, my threat to take them to court, or something else. But I didn’t care. I only hoped that everyone who had heard Lukas’s lies would believe his retraction.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Ilona called just after four. “I have tickets to the opera tonight,” she announced.
“Two tickets?” I wondered if Laura would be available to stay with Tommy.
“I would not be calling if I had only one ticket. Would you like to see Anna Bolena with me?”
Donizetti’s tragic opera had just opened at Toronto’s opera house, and the reviewers were raving about soprano superstar Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. How could I turn down Ilona’s invitation?
“I would love to see Anna Bolena with you,” I said. “Dinner is on me.”
“Baraka at six o’clock.”
***
Ilona was unusually subdued when I joined her at the restaurant. “I had a drink with Milan Pavli? last night,” she said morosely after we’d placed our orders.
“Milan Pavli?? Do I know him?”
“I met him at Jared’s birthday party.”
I recalled Ilona chatting up the owner of Espresso Experience at the party in the bookstore. “The guy who runs the coffee shop?”
“That’s Milan.” She poured red wine into my glass.
Ilona had said she liked younger men. “Milan must be in his late 30s,” I said.
“Thirty-eight.”
And she’d recently turned 50. I saluted her with my wine glass.
“He’s from Croatia,” she said.
“So?”
“The old country.” She took a sip of wine. “I
should have known.”
“I take it the date didn’t go well.”
“It was not a proper date. Milan took me to the wine bar across the street from his shop.”
“That sounds good.”
“He wanted me to look over a business contract. I told him to make an appointment to see me in my office. At my hourly rate.”
Poor Ilona. Milan had bought her a glass of wine, thinking he’d get free legal advice.
“Guys like Milan date women who are young and pretty and stupid.” She snorted. “Women who make them feel like big men.”
I placed a hand on hers. “Forget Milan. Be yourself, and you’ll meet someone who appreciates you.”
“How long will that take?”
Our goulash soup arrived. Ilona splashed more wine into our glasses.
“I’m taking your advice,” I told her. “I’m gearing up for a client-appreciation party.”
She gave me her first smile of the evening. “That is good, dahlink. What do you have in mind?”
“I think a cocktail party would be best. No agenda other than finger food and drinks to celebrate my new business. I was going to wait until just before Christmas, but with Laura’s baby due in December and…”
“…the trouble you’ve had with Lukas. Yes, you must throw this party soon. And it should not be an evening of financial planning. Where will you hold it?”
“My office suite?”
“Not your office. Your clients associate your office with business. You need a place where they can forget their financial problems, and enjoy themselves.”
What would a party in a hotel or a restaurant cost? My credit cards were maxed out. I was making monthly payments on the loan I’d taken out to purchase Dean’s business. I was paying rent on the office suite, and Sam’s salary. And my business wasn’t fully up and running.
Ilona clapped her hands, setting her bracelets jangling. “I have it! My nephew, András…I’ve told you about András, the artist. He has a studio where he displays his magnificent paintings. You will hold your party there.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. András’s studio might be a garage filled with old canvases and dried-up tubes of paint.
“You will not commit yourself until you see the studio,” she said. “Fair enough. We will visit it, and you will love it. András has many showings there.”
“Do you know what he charges?”
“You will buy the food and drinks for your party, and hire someone to run the bar. That will be all you will pay. András will profit from the exposure his paintings will get. Your clients will see them, some will probably buy them.”
His paintings. I pictured fluorescent sunsets.
“But if you prefer to hold your party in a hotel or a restaurant, that is entirely up to you,” Ilona said. “I will not be offended.”
“Let’s have a look at this studio,” I said.
***
It was my second visit to the opera house in eight days. This time, I felt more comfortable seated beside Ilona in our Ring Four seats than I’d been with Ben in the Grand Ring box. I was relaxed and thoroughly enjoying myself.
The curtain rose, and I gave myself up to the opera, based on Anne Boleyn’s final days. Sondra Radvanovsky was magnificent as the wronged queen fighting for her honor and her life. She exuded power, passion, and dignity, her vibrato filling the theater with righteous fury. Determined to produce a male heir, Enrico, the king, had decided he needed a new queen. He had accused Anna of having three lovers, one of them her own brother.
“Whew!” Ilona said after the curtain went down at intermission.
I smiled at her. “Now Enrico’s a man to steer clear of. Fickle, faithless, and hell-bent on being the star of his own show.”
“Well, he isn’t the star of this show.”
We left our seats, took the elevator downstairs and wandered into the theater’s main floor. I pointed to the Grand Ring boxes above us. “Ben and I sat up there last week.”
“The Grand Ring, very nice,” Ilona said. “Your Ben is a classy guy.”
Just then, the chimes called us back to our seats. “We had better hurry,” Ilona said, “or we’ll be watching the rest of the opera on a screen in the lobby.”
We hastened upstairs to Ring Four.
“You and Ben didn’t have to rush back to your Grand Ring box after intermission,” Ilona said when we’d returned to our seats. “Each box has its own entrance. You can come and go as you please without disturbing the performance.”
The curtain rose. I sat pinned to my seat during the duet between Anna and Giovanna, the queen’s lady-in-waiting, who had now caught Enrico’s roving eye. The two singers played off each other beautifully. Giovanna told Anna that she wouldn’t be put to death if she admitted her adultery. When the queen replied that she would not buy her life with a lie, I wanted to stand up and cheer for her.
It occurred to me how odd it was to hear a chapter from British history sung in Italian. And that thought pulled me out of the magical world on stage. Try as I might, I couldn’t get back in.
My thoughts returned to what Ilona had said at intermission: opera fans seated in the Grand Ring boxes could come and go as they liked during a performance. But Ben had told me that he hadn’t been allowed into the theater until the opera was over.
Radvanovsky brought down the house with Anna’s finale, a heartrending blend of despair and defiance. The audience roared its applause, bringing the star back on stage for repeated curtain calls.
“I am glad that Enrico never got to sing a full aria,” Ilona said when the house lights went up. “That honor went to the woman he threw over.”
I smiled, but my thoughts were on another deceitful man. But I had to be sure. While Ilona visited the ladies’ room, I went up to an usher. “If I had a box in the Grand Ring, could I come and go as I liked?” I asked.
“You sure could,” she said. “Those are the only seats with their own entrances. You can visit the washroom during a performance. Or take a walk if you don’t like what’s on stage.”
So Ben had lied when he said he hadn’t been allowed to return to the box. Why?
He had made a phone call during intermission, and received a text when we returned to our seats. Then he was out of the theater for the entire second act of Cosi Fan Tutte. Ninety-four minutes. I’d checked my watch when he left--and when he returned.
Riza had been murdered that same evening. Had Ben shot her in the alley behind my office building? Would 94 minutes be enough time to jump into a taxi outside the opera house, meet Riza in the Annex, and get back to the theater for curtain calls? It would be tight, but it could probably be done.
I felt queasy. Ben had been growing on me. I enjoyed his company. I found him attractive. But, that afternoon, I was sure he had lied about knowing Mindy. And now I had reason to suspect that he had murdered Riza.
Chapter Forty
The next morning, I found Hardy seated in front of Sam’s desk. He turned, and lifted a hand to me in greeting.
“I had a few more questions for your assistant,” he said, stashing his notebook in his jacket pocket.
“Have you found the Quincys?” I asked.
He rose from the chair. “Not yet.”
I took his chair as soon as he left the office.
“The cops spoke to my parents last night,” Sam said.
I couldn’t help but thinking that the Reisses’ daughters had given them a rough ride in recent years. “You talked to your mom and dad?”
Sam gave me a brief nod. “Mom called me last night after Detective Hardy came by. She was terribly upset. She asked if I knew where Becca was.”
“Do you?”
“Detective Hardy asked me that, too. Of course I don’t know where she is.” She toyed with a pen on her desk. “And he asked if I knew where Mindy was. I told him she’s staying with her sister.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “He asked if I’d passed that on to Becca. Holy shit! Yes, I made
a mistake four years ago, like, a big mistake. But will I ever live it down?”
I patted her shoulder and went into my office.
“Tell me more about Gabe,” I said when she brought me a mug of coffee a few minutes later. “Why did your sister fall for him?”
She thought about that for a few moments. “Gabe can be very charming.”
Con men are always charming. They dazzle their marks with gifts, and they listen while they talk about their problem children and their aging parents. Then they sell them bogus investments and drain their bank accounts.
“He charmed Becca?” I asked.
Her face twisted. “She changed after she met Gabe. She dropped her friends. He became her sole focus.”
I thought of Becca’s real-estate practice. Hardy would have spoken to the people who ran the real-estate agency, but I could do some sleuthing of my own. I turned to my computer, and called up Becca’s listings. Ben’s home was still on her web page, along with six other houses with hefty price tags.
Now that she was on the run, I wondered whether greed would keep her connected to her business.
“Those are Becca’s properties.” Sam was standing behind me, staring at the screen. “You think you can find her through her listings?”
She brought a chair behind my desk, and we scrolled through the seven listings. “Scroll back up,” she instructed.
I did as she told me, and she pointed to the fourth listing. “This one. The house is wheelchair accessible. Outdoor and indoor ramps, and an indoor elevator. Limited buyer appeal. Becca will jump at any interest in it.”
Sam got up from the chair. “Back in a minute.” She returned with her laptop and set it on my desk.
“Amy and I have special names and addresses we use to message each other,” she explained as the laptop powered up. “I’ll send Becca a message under my alias.”
I rolled back my chair to give her more room. On the left side of Becca’s listing was a contact button. Sam clicked on it, and a contact page came up. In the name box, she typed Daisy La Douce.
“Sounds like a stripper’s stage name,” I said.
Uncharted Waters Page 21
