Northern Exposure

by Michael Kilian

  She went to the seventh floor, where she was shortly joined by Showers and Joyce, the two of them breathing heavily from their rapid climb up the service stairs.

  With Alixe and Showers shielding him from the elevators further down the hall, Joyce went quickly to work on the lock.

  There was a click. He looked up at Showers.

  “No one at home, you say?”

  “No one answered the house phone.”

  Joyce rose and pushed open the door. They stepped inside, finding themselves in a foyer that gave onto an enormous living room with full-length windows stretching from wall to wall. The drapes were fully opened and the room was bright with sunshine. The view was spectacular, the towers of Parliament and seemingly the entire city of Ottawa visible across the river.

  They were not alone. In a chair by the window sat a small, neatly dressed man with white hair and silver-rimmed glasses.

  “At last you’ve come, Mr. Showers,” Hugh Laidlaw said. “Welcome to Canada.”

  The doorman went back out to the street, all the way up to the corner, looking for Alixe but finding no trace of her. The only person around was a short-haired man sitting in a parked Chevrolet across the street. The doorman stared at him a moment, then went back to his station.

  Frank Trench slouched further down in the front seat. He had picked up Showers and his friends at the telegraph office just that morning and then followed them all over Hull and Ottawa on the craziest tail he’d ever done. They’d gone all over both cities looking at street signs, but kept coming back to this high rise. Once, on an empty side street on the north end of Hull, Trench gave a good long thought to pulling alongside and wasting them all, but the street was too narrow. Some local could pull out of a parking place and jam him up good.

  He’d wait. All he wanted was for the three of them to light somewhere, so he could get this over with. Though he was a little confused by the way they entered, and wondered where the black man had gone, Trench hoped they’d light here in this building. He was getting tired. He wanted his money, and he wanted to be long gone.

  19

  Most people only see newspaper photographs of crimes, emergency vehicles, standing policemen, shrouded bodies on stretchers. The police files contain police photographs, and they are not glimpses. They are minute examinations of every aspect of a crime, views from far and very near, detailed observations of everything of legal and scientific interest, and much that is not of interest but might possibly be. In the crime of murder, the photographs are often gruesome and ghastly, but dispassionate. Mendelsohn had eight such photographs, all of the same crime of murder. The agency owned a number of people on the District police force; Mendelsohn had just rented an evidence technician.

  He was in the basement room of the safe house, the photographs arranged before him on the conference table in two rows. He leaned forward in his solemn study, his elbows fixed to the arms of his chair, his hands held together in steeple fashion before him, his fingers touching his thin crooked lips. The victim lay on her side, naked from the waist down, her legs bent as though she had been kneeling when death came, her head twisted grotesquely to the side, her blond hair spread upon the ground, her dead eyes staring upward, her mouth curled open in a snarl or scream.

  The views were from the rear, from the front, from above the body, from every pertinent angle. A close-up examined the death wound, a term of understatement. A thin, strong cord had been drawn around her throat and pulled with such violence it had half cut off her head. The garrote, a cruel device of the cruel Spanish.

  “A brute,” said Mendelsohn, finally.

  “Yup,” said Thatcher, from the other end of the table, where he was looking over computer printouts. “A real son of a bitch.”

  “Curious. Her hands show no sign of being bound, yet she did not attempt to reach for the cord.”

  “Maybe she didn’t have time.”

  “No sign of struggle at all; just surprise and rage. Or terror. You see?”

  “I looked at them, Freddy. Once is enough.”

  Mendelsohn lighted a Virginia Slim, inhaled deeply, exhaled with a cough, and, when the smoke cleared, picked up the photograph that showed the most distant view of the body.

  “She was not killed here,” he said, at length. “She was murdered elsewhere, I think in an automobile. Yes, in the front seat of an automobile, by someone sitting in the rear. Then she was taken was taken to Rock Creek Park, and arranged. Her skirt and underclothes were removed after she was dead.”

  “The police realize this?”

  “The police. They are methodical and start with the obvious. They still have this listed as a probable sex crime.”

  “Even though her name is Judy Sadinauskas.”

  “Even though.”

  “We should have provided some security, Freddy. That’s my fault. I should have looked out for that kid.”

  “William, Karin Nielsen in Iceland you should have looked out for. Here, you are without responsibility. You can’t be assigning patrol boys to everyone who knows Dennis Showers.”

  “I can look out for his wife. We owe him that.”

  “The Watergate is very safe.”

  “There was a time when it wasn’t, as G. Gordon Liddy might say.”

  “It is now. And she has her Mr. Jordine.”

  “I’m going to put someone over there, Freddy. This is giving me the sweats. I don’t want to take any chances as long as we’ve got Bolshinin’s free-lancer still hanging around.”

  “You’re sure that’s the case?”

  “I’m methodical. I start with the obvious, too. The dead lady was walking around not too many hours ago, and she was Showers’ secretary.”

  “How do we stand with the White House?”

  “The deputy and I have an appointment, as soon as the vice-president gets back from his trip.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Why is it the only newspaper articles you read are the old clips you find in the files?”

  “I keep up with current events in more direct and reliable ways.”

  “The vice-president is in Cleveland, telling the Conference of Mayors about the joys of fiscal self-reliance.”

  “The soles of this girl’s feet are clean, perfectly clean.”

  “Put the pictures away, Freddy. Madeleine’s coming.”

  “Please, come in, Mr. Showers,” said Laidlaw, rising from his chair. “You and your friends are most welcome. May I fix you something to drink? There’s quite an ample supply of liquor here. I’ve just put a large pitcher of martinis in the freezer.”

  Showers took a few steps into the living room, then stopped.

  “Whose apartment is this?” he asked.

  “Why, yours, Mr. Showers. For as long as is necessary. I sublet it some days ago. It wasn’t easy to come by, don’t you know? But we had to have something where you wouldn’t be so … obvious. In the less prestigious accomodations we have available here you’d be much too conspicuous, and we simply had to do something about your dangerous habit of staying in deluxe hotels.”

  “Who is this dude?” Joyce asked.

  “This is Hugh Laidlaw,” Showers said. “A ‘foreign service’ officer, who works the nonsunny side of the street.”

  “Retired, actually,” said Laidlaw. “I’m here in a consultive role. You, of course, are the impetuous Mr. Joyce, and you are the charming Miss Reston. And you seem to have injured your knee. Please, sit down. I’ll get something for that and then attend to the refreshments. Unless you’d like to do that. As I say, these accomodations are yours. I’ll have a martini, please. Three olives.”

  Alixe seated herself on the long white couch and pulled her skirt up onto her thigh, exposing her badly torn hose and bloodied knee. “This is what I call overacting,” she said.

  Showers touched her shoulder, then went into the kitchen with Joyce. There was a bottle of nearly everything imaginable, including a half-gallon of Johnnie Walker Black, and in the full refrigerator, se
veral six-packs of Molson. Joyce took the preparation of Laidlaw’s martini upon himself. Showers poured a Scotch and water for Alixe and a Scotch with ice and a touch of water for himself. By the time they returned, Laidlaw was seated next to Alixe, and was carefully sponging her knee.

  “I knew your uncle slightly, Miss Reston,” he said. “In Scandinavia. We had some business dealings. And I believe my ex-wife knew your mother at Wellesley. Different graduating classes, of course, but they played women’s field hockey together.”

  “That’s certaintly possible, Mr. Laidlaw.”

  He gently applied some disinfectant, then a large, square Band-Aid.

  Showers took his drink to the window, appreciating the extraordinary view.

  “Where’s Felicity Stuart?” he asked.

  “We’ll get to that presently,” Laidlaw said, moving to another chair. “Thank you for the martini, Mr. Joyce. You remembered all three olives.”

  “You left the note in the closet,” Showers said. “And the notebook in Vancouver, and the letters in San Jose.”

  Laidlaw gave him a quick but searching look.

  “Yes I did. I feared at first it was all too subtle, and then that I might have been too obvious, but here you are all the same. Mr. Joyce, there’s a set of doorkeys on the foyer table. If you want to get your luggage from your car, don’t worry about the doorman. He’s in my employ, temporarily, at least. He’s been expecting you.”

  “Yassuh boss.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Showers said.

  “Can the liberalism, my man. Someone’s got to do it, and I want to check out the scene, anyway.”

  “Do you trust him?” Laidlaw said, after Joyce had left.

  “More than I do you.”

  “Of course. Mr. Showers, I very much need your help. The help of all of you.”

  “Where’s Felicity? Is she alive?”

  “Yes. Very much. But at the moment, I’m afraid I can’t say where she is.”

  “How did you come up with the name Chauncey McQuillan? Did she give it to you?”

  “No. We obtained that from your personnel file. You may be unaware of it, but Mr. McQuillan was among those interviewed in your background check when you were first being considered for the State Department. He wrote a very long letter of recommendation, explaining your … special circumstance.”

  “My lack of a college degree.”

  “And your extraordinary qualifications. It was, I gather, a very influential letter. He mentioned Felicity in it as well, that you two were his prize students.”

  “How much of this is real, Laidlaw? And how much your confection? You’ve led us along with that string of phony addresses.”

  “Not phony, sir. Miss Stuart was actually in all of those places. The photo was taken in Stave Lake, British Columbia. Perhaps I would have been more prudent to have arranged a less authentic but less dangerous trail.”

  “Who were those men in Vancouver?” Alixe asked.

  Laidlaw looked at her carefully before speaking, as though making an assessment.

  “The unpleasant gentlemen who tried to kill you fancy themselves freedom fighters, if one may so speak of wealthy ranchers and oil men. The gentlemen who interceded are … my associates. I wish we had been better prepared. Matters would not have gotten so far out of hand. We’ve been rather short of time.”

  “For what? What’s going on?”

  “The word revolution will suffice. For now.”

  “And Felicity is involved?”

  “We are all of us now involved.”

  Laidlaw drained his glass and stood up, straightening his suit jacket.

  “Mr. Showers. I dislike conversing in confined spaces, especially those I have repeatedly visited. If you could spare me a few minutes, outside, no more than half an hour. Miss Reston will be quite safe. As I say, the doorman is now associated with my enterprise. And, of course, you have Mr. Joyce.”

  “I’ll be all right, Toby. I’d like to bathe and change clothes.”

  “Keep the door double-locked,” Showers said. “I’ll be back when he said.”

  Joyce was waiting for the elevator in the lobby. While Laidlaw went to the garage for his car, Showers hung back to speak with Joyce.

  “Since the gent knows where your Felicity is,” Joyce said, “I guess my gig is done.”

  “On the contrary. We need you now very much. I’m going to stall Laidlaw as much as I can. After you’ve dropped the bags upstairs, get down here as fast as you can. I want you to follow us, wherever we go. When I leave Laidlaw, follow him, wherever he goes. If Felicity is in Ottawa, I want to make sure that I find her, that I do everything possible to find her. I don’t want to be left with just another peculiar note.”

  “It’s cool, my man.”

  “Laidlaw is a professional.”

  “So am I, my man, and I ain’t bad.”

  Laidlaw was sitting outside the entrance in a Peugeot sedan. He had the engine running and the radio on.

  “I’m sorry,” Showers said, getting in. “I had to wait for Joyce to bring me something.”

  “Please, Mr. Showers. They’ve shot the prime minister.”

  “Who shot …?”

  “Shhhhh.”

  Laidlaw put the car into gear and accelerated quickly, turning into Rue Maisonneuve and heading toward Portage Bridge and the city of Ottawa on the far shore. On the radio, a police official was being interviewed about the shooting. In verbose officialese, he took a very long time to say next to nothing. When he was done, an announcer came on and summarized the events once more: Harry York had been shot while getting out of his car in Elgin Street just opposite the Ottawa Arts Centre. He suffered one wound in the upper thigh. His bodyguard had been shot twice and killed instantly. York was at a nearby hospital and in good condition. Police had recovered the weapon, a .25-calibre automatic. The assailant had not been apprehended. A widespread manhunt was underway. York had ordered all government offices to remain open and the Parliament to remain in session. Any new development would be reported at once.

  The talking gave way to music, a Bach fugue.

  “I thought it had started, Mr. Showers,” Laidlaw said. “But evidently this will be all for now.”

  They sped through an intersection just as the traffic light went from yellow to red and in a moment were on the long Portage Bridge. Showers looked upstream, toward the long, rushing, rapids of Chaudiere Falls.

  “Thought what had started?” he said.

  “Whatever it is that’s at play here. I used the term ‘revolution’ with you. It may well prove inexact, insufficient. Killing Harry York would have been a logical starting point. But they didn’t kill him, so nothing was begun. Nothing has begun.”

  “Damn it, Laidlaw.”

  “Be patient.”

  “Where is Felicity?”

  “Be patient, Mr. Showers. The automobile is the most vulnerable confined space there is.”

  At the other end of the bridge, Laidlaw took a sudden right, a sudden sharper left around a triangular traffic island, skidded to an abrupt halt at a red light, and then roared back onto the bridge again a few seconds later when the light turned green. As Joyce’s gray Ford came by in the opposite lane, Laidlaw waved politely.

  Back on the Hull side of the river, Laidlaw turned right onto Laurier, speeding several blocks past Melisande Street again, and turning into Parc Jacques Cartier, proceeding toward a pier jutting into the river. He parked, turning off the engine, and the radio.

  “I have a colleague who is quite paranoid on the subject of microphones,” he said. “No matter where he goes, he has Mantovani or the Strings playing at a hundred decibels. Here, he’d leave the radio on and turn the volume up full blast. It’s quite enough to make one sign a germ warfare confession.”

  “How interesting.”

  Showers stuck his hands in the pockets of his gray flannels and followed Laidlaw out to the end of the promenade. The sky was beginning to cloud out to the west, m
oving rippling shadows of gray over the blue-green surface of the river. It was hot and windy, the air heavy with the sense of an approaching storm system.

  “A wonderful capital, Ottawa,” said Laidlaw, leaning on the railing. “One of the cleanest, most civil cities extant.”

  “At the risk of sounding uncivil, would you please tell me where the fucking hell is Felicity Stuart?”

  “In time, Mr. Showers.”

  “No, no more time. I want my question answered right now. I am weary of all these little spook games. I am weary of all you little spooks. I’m not going to talk to you about anything else, not one bloody word, until you tell me about Felicity.”

  “She’s in Ottawa.”

  “I gather.”

  “Or near. At the moment, it’s hard to say.”

  “Give me the address.”

  “I will, presently. I’ll tell you where to find her. But hear me out.”

  “Where’s Porique.”

  “Not in Ottawa, but quite possibly near as well. We’re sure he didn’t leave Canada. We presume he intends to come here. He got out of Montreal a bit ahead of us. The apartment you went to in Montreal, that was where he was staying. He and Miss Stuart.”

  “They’re lovers?”

  “Of course, Mr. Showers.”

  Dennis leaned on the railing also. There was a bridge to their right, le Pont Alexandre. Above it on the other shore rose the towers of Parliament, stark, Gothic, green-roofed structures, as forbidding as the towers of the Kremlin.

  “You’ve not seen Felicity Stuart in more than twenty years, Mr. Showers.”

  “She tried to reach me, on the telephone. There were two calls.”

  “It’s safe to say she wanted to talk to you about Porique. They’re in serious trouble.” Laidlaw’s neat WASP face was impassive, as expressionless as his cold gray eyes.

  “Why me? How would she know I was coming to Canada?”

  “You and Miss Stuart were very close, were you not, Mr. Showers? A long time ago. You are something, someone, she and Porique have in common, very much in common. He is your friend, and you are indebted to him, I believe, for your life. You are also an influential public official. It’s quite logical that she would call you.”