“My dear lady, ravishing as always.”
He turned toward the table and smiled at Rebecca. “Why, Doctor, what a delightful surprise!” said Feldberg. “How nice to see you again so soon.”
Then came an ox and drank the water
That quenched the fire that burned the stick
That beat the dog that bit the cat
That ate the goat
That Father bought for two zuzim.
One little goat, one little goat.
chapter twenty-two
It’s a small world,” said Rebecca.
The Capitán nodded a greeting and sat down.
Feldberg smiled with bared teeth. “You see,” he addressed her. “Here we try to recreate a little bit of Buenos Aires.” His hand showed her the room as if the feeble rendering of the toreador on the wall, the painted señorita, the bull’s horns, had transfigured a rather perfunctory space into something more.
As he sat down, Isabella rolled her eyes. “Ay! Buenos Aires! How can you compare? All along the streets people sit laughing, singing till four in the morning. Strangers talk to each other, people are friendly. You can discuss. Not like here. Nobody talks to you here. You could be dying in the street, people would just step over you.” Unsmiling, she looked to Rebecca for an answer.
“I’ve heard people say Toronto is a cold place for a stranger,” Rebecca said. “But if you’re in trouble here, people will help. The city may be cold, but the individuals aren’t.”
A few strums from a guitar made Isabella turn toward the men in the band who had gone back to their places. Feldberg and the Capitán rose as she stood up and passed by, lithe and bony.
As soon as the music resumed, Feldberg approached Rebecca’s chair. “Would you like to dance, Doctor?”
The Capitán watched her with half-lidded eyes and lit up another cigarette.
While Isabella sang, Feldberg manoeuvred Rebecca deftly around the other couples sharing the dance floor. His arm gripped her waist with firm assurance, his own back straight and dignified. Rebecca took deep breaths in the opposite direction to avoid the noisome sweetness of his scent.
“So how do you like our little club?” he asked.
She nodded approval and hoped he wouldn’t push for a real answer. “It’s the Capitán’ s place?”
Feldberg’s smile stiffened a bit. “He runs the day to day in the club. I manage the rest. And of course, the building is mine. He rents from me.” With this, his old smile resumed.
“Then you’re old friends,” she said. His lips pursed with displeasure. She’d expected as much. “You knew each other in Argentina?”
“Slightly,” he said.
“And he knew Goldie too?”
“Goldie?” The contempt he injected into his voice distorted his face. “He didn’t know Goldie.” “Was he in the military?”
Feldberg appraised her, then said, “No. He knew people; he had connections if he needed something. But he himself, no.”
As if to evade further questions, Feldberg began some faster, fancier dance steps. She tried to follow, but fumbled.
“Don’t think so hard about what you are doing, Doctor. Let yourself go. Is that the expression? You Canadians are too self-conscious. You don’t know how to enjoy yourselves.”
The song rose to a sudden crescendo, then lapsed into a trembling beat.
“You’ve known Isabella a long time?” she asked.
“We’re both expatriates from Argentina. Away from home, so to speak. It’s hard to make people understand who never had to flee their country. And her past is tragic. So many tragedies. The world is filled with sad stories, Doctor.”
The words came too easily. All the sad stories were someone else’s. Life went on.
“You believe Goldie betrayed her own son?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. The poor woman’s out of her pain.”
How magnanimous, Rebecca thought. “Do you have any idea who killed her?”
Feldberg danced with half-closed eyes as if trying to avoid her questions.
“Do you think it could’ve been someone from the terror? Maybe someone with a grudge?”
His eyes snapped open; his dancing slowed. “It’s all over. The terrorists are in Argentina, most of them pardoned by the new regime. It’s not logical for them to risk their lives to come here and finish someone off.”
His dancing continued to be slow. “I’d rather not talk about her. I feel so guilty about what happened to her,” he said. “Three buildings away and I couldn’t help her. I cannot imagine what you must think.”
His hypocrisy sickened her. As soon as the music stopped, she excused herself.
Outside, the flashing bulbs of the El Dorado sign lit up the sidewalk on College Street as she headed back to her car. The street was empty. She jumped into the Jaguar waiting quietly in the dark by a meter and locked the door.
Driving east along College she rolled her head on her neck to loosen the kinks. God, she was tired! She turned north up Spadina. Traffic was light. One car ahead, a van behind. As long as there were two, she felt safe. But at Dupont, the car in front made a right turn. The van still followed behind. They were the only ones in sight. The van’s headlights were bobbing high off the ground and glared into her mirror. As she approached Davenport, the traffic light turned yellow. She took the chance and sped up to fly through as it changed to red. In her rear-view mirror she saw with relief that the van stopped at the light, its size diminishing as she continued on.
She sailed serenely around the curve heading toward Casa Loma. Maybe some music. She turned on the radio and flipped the channels for something easy to listen to; she didn’t want to hear any more news.
She loved this part of town, the colossal folly of Casa Loma, the stone turrets of which shone yellow in the night like ghosts high above. The parking lot was empty at this time of night. She drove across the bridge of Sir Winston Churchill Park, heading toward St. Clair, before headlights disturbed the dark road behind her. She squinted at the too-high headlights. They looked like high-beams. It was the same van. He was lumbering up the hill, probably going home to the wife and kids.
She made it through St. Clair as the light was turning yellow. Nearly home. Glancing in her mirror she saw the van pick up speed at the intersection behind her and barrel through as the light turned red. Now he was behind her, his high-beams reflected in her mirror, stinging her eyes. So he was in a hurry. It was late.
She drove toward Forest Hill Village, a quaint little neighbourhood of old-fashioned shops with benches on the sidewalk and daffodils in wooden planters. Everything lit up for the night, but deserted. No strollers out at this hour on a week night.
She yawned and rubbed one eye. What had she learned at the club? Not much more than she already knew: Goldie’s American cousin had asked her to look up a shop in Kensington, possibly based on the missing photo. Goldie found Blue Danube Fish and questioned Vogel about a man. Possibly the man who killed her. Vogel sent Rebecca to the El Dorado to find, presumably, the Capitán. But the link between the Capitán and Goldie was tenuous since he claimed he didn’t know her. He could be lying, though Leo corroborated his story. They could both be lying.
She felt herself floating on a surface that deceived, with crests of icebergs in full sun. Everything she needed to know was submerged; somehow she had to find a way to plumb the depths.
All the traffic lights were green as she continued up Spadina. The street was empty except for a few cars driving the other way. And the van a distance behind her. A few blocks north of the Village, she made a right turn down Kilbarry, a side street that would take her to Avenue Road, then home.
Suddenly, headlights emblazoned the road behind her. The van with its high-beams was speeding after her, closing the distance between them. Alarm bells rang in her head. She pushed her foot to the floor. Her tires squealed and pulled her away. What was she thinking? This was a new universe she found herself in and all the rule
s had changed. She should have been more paranoid.
Her heart knocking in her chest, she raced by huge brick houses. There would be no help here.
A stop sign! She couldn’t stop. But with her luck, someone might choose that moment to drive through. She slowed down just enough to glance both ways, then tromped through. To her horror the van didn’t even slow down but lurched toward her. His engine was gutsier than he had let on and he heaved the van beside her. Adrenaline pushed through her body. They flew parallel down the side street for a few seconds, then finally he pitched his huge front fender toward the side of her car. She swung away onto the sidewalk and slammed on the brake to avoid crashing into the fence.
Blood pulsed through her ears; she could feel the walls of her veins expanding with the rush, but she had to move — the van door was opening. Someone was getting out. “No!” she screamed, and punched her gearshift into reverse. Craning her neck to see out the rear window, she pumped her foot to the floor, then screeched backwards off the sidewalk. She flew in reverse for a block till she could turn around in a driveway and race back toward Spadina. Her heart knocked in her chest. Stupid, stupid! If she got away, she would never be this stupid again.
chapter twenty-three
Rebecca jammed her foot on the gas and watched the asphalt speed up beneath her as she raced up Spadina. The street was empty but she couldn’t take her eyes off the rear-view mirror. Where was he? Had she really lost him? Her eyes were engaged in the mirror when she felt the thud of her tires against the curb. She swung the wheel wide and veered into the oncoming lane. Take it easy. You don’t want to wrap yourself around a pole and do his job for him.
She was fast approaching Eglinton Avenue. Up ahead, the traffic light was red. There was no one behind her that she could see, but she wasn’t about to stop. Maybe he’d taken a different way. Maybe he’d camouflaged his van somehow; maybe he was a magician. Slowing down, she checked both sides of Eglinton for cars. There was one coming toward her in the distance but she could make it. She floored it and shrieked into a left turn, heading west.
The light at Bathurst was unavoidable. There was always traffic at that intersection. While sitting impatiently at the red, she kept her eyes on the rearview mirror. No high beams. No vans. He’d given up. For now.
She pulled her car into the nearly empty parking lot of Thirteen Division for the second time in two days. Looking frantically over each shoulder, she hurried into the building.
At the front counter, the same desk sergeant greeted her. “May I help you?”
“Someone just tried to kill me!” she said, trying to control her voice. She was out of breath as if she’d run all the way.
“Calm down, ma’am,” said the sergeant, coming out from behind. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m not injured,” she said, realizing she had been lucky.
“Have a seat, ma’am, and I’ll get a constable.”
“I’ve got to see Detective Wanless. Is he still here?”
The man craned his neck behind him. “He’s working late on a case, but I’ll get one of the other men.”
“This is about the case he’s working on.” She hadn’t sat down and she wasn’t going to.
“The Morelli murder?” he asked.
So Wanless had other fish to fry. She had a sinking feeling about Goldie’s case but kept her face determined. The sergeant hesitated, then made for the back corner of the station.
In the distance she could see Detective Wanless pulling on his sports jacket while he strolled toward her.
“What can I do for you, Doctor?” he said, his bullet head tilted and waiting.
“He tried it again, he tried to kill me,” she said. “I just barely got away.”
“Take it easy,” he said. “You’re all right now.”
Rebecca was taken aback at the soothing tone of his words, words she had murmured herself often enough to patients. It felt odd being on the receiving end but she was surprisingly grateful for his sympathy and followed him back to his office in the corner.
His desk was awash in clutter, paper piled in organized clumps. Wanted posters decorated his walls. It wasn’t until she sat down that she realized her knees were shaking.
“Who tried to kill you?” he asked.
“It was Goldie’s killer. He must’ve followed me all the way from the club. It was a van. Dark blue, I think. It was hard to see because of the headlights. He was very clever, hanging back at first. Then when I turned down a side road and he followed, I knew. He pulled in front of me. I heard his door open. He was going to drag me out of my car....” She took a breath to calm herself, knowing she hadn’t explained it well.
Wanless was taking notes behind his desk. “So how did you get away?” His voice was too even.
“I backed up as fast as the car would go. Then I turned and gunned it out of there.”
“What did he look like?”
Was Wanless trying to be obtuse? “I couldn’t see him,” she said. “He was driving behind me with his headlights shining in my eyes.”
“What about when he stopped?”
“I wasn’t going to hang around to see who it was! I just got out of there fast.” She paused, uncertain. “There’s a man I’ve seen a few times. He watches me from a distance. Strange-looking man in a sweatsuit and baseball cap. Couldn’t see his face, but it could’ve been him in the van.”
“Height?” Wanless asked. “Weight? Hair colour?”
“I don’t know. Slim, I’d say. Average height. I couldn’t see his hair.”
“What about the car? Did he hit your car at all?”
She thought a moment. “He swung over at me, but I pulled onto the sidewalk.”
One of his eyebrows went up but he kept writing in the notebook, his skepticism an aura around his face.
“You say you were at a club.” He glanced up from the desk and perused her skirt and modest heels. “Which club?”
“El Dorado,” she muttered, suddenly embarrassed.
His face clouded over. “The one on College Street?” She nodded, but said nothing. “Doesn’t seem to be your style, Doctor. I would’ve thought something more upscale, maybe one of the ones near Eglinton and Yonge.”
He would get it out of her sooner or later. “I went there to speak to someone who knew Goldie Kochinsky.”
“And you did that because...?”
“I wanted to clear something up.” She ignored the blank stare that said, “I’m too busy for this crap,” and went on.
“The man who runs the club — Capitán Diaz — is from Argentina. What if he had something to do with her torture there? What if he had orders to finish the job here?”
“Do you have any evidence?”
She blinked and turned away.
“If I followed every ‘what if in a case, Doctor, I’d need to bring my sleeping bag to the office and my wife would divorce me. Look, we’re professionals. Let us do our job.”
“Why don’t you admit it, Detective. You’re already working on a different case. This is obviously more important to me than it is to you.”
He sat back in his chair and absently brushed his palm against the side of his head. “All murder cases are important. Some are just more straightforward than others. I went over Mrs. Kochinsky’s file today. I go with your first diagnosis, Doctor. Sure looks like the woman was paranoid as hell. Nothing to reproach yourself for there. I’m glad you gave it to me though; helped clear up any doubt I had. See, we couldn’t find any evidence of premeditated murder. Everyone who knew her is accounted for. And we have no motive besides the obvious. It isn’t final yet, but I’m going to mark it down as a robbery gone bad.”
Rebecca opened her mouth to speak but he lifted his hand for her to wait. “Someone, some punk, maybe a few punks, broke in planning to rob the place, probably thought it was empty. Mrs. Kochinsky confronts the guy or guys, they panic. She was an excitable woman, maybe she starts to yell. One of them loses it, knows he has to shut her up, and pulls
something around her neck. Maybe some rope he brought with him. I’m sorry, Doctor, but doesn’t that make sense to you?”
Her heart plummeted; he was giving up. “It makes perfect sense. Except that someone’s trying to kill me.”
Wanless observed her more carefully, searching her face with opaque blue eyes as if he would find some clue on the surface of her skin, some hidden message her mouth had not revealed.
“Did you meet anyone at this club? Maybe you had a few drinks?”
At first she was angry at the implication. Then she thought of the wine, the two glasses sipped during her conversation with the Capitán. “ I met who I intended to meet. And I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
Wanless sat back in his chair, the tips of his fingers arched together in a steeple. His voice was softer. “I’m not insinuating anything. You’re upset, as you have every right to be. People interpret things differently when they’re upset. I don’t have to tell you, Doctor. And I’m not saying you weren’t followed. But maybe the guy was after something else. Do you have an old boyfriend who might be trying to scare you? A disgruntled patient? You see, there are other possibilities.”
“I know it was Goldie’s killer after me. I lead a very quiet life and believe it or not, I have no old boyfriends and no patients angry enough to run me off the road.” She felt her blood heating up and could barely contain her anger. “I can’t believe you’re finished with this case. You barely started. Is it because the victim was just an old woman?”
“Now you know that’s not fair,” he said, sitting forward. “If anything, her being a senior citizen makes the crime more despicable. But I’ve got to be realistic. Look at my desk. I forget what colour it is. These files just keep piling up. How many homicide detectives do you think there are? It’s the same old story: overworked and understaffed.”
“So Goldie’s killer is going to get away because you don’t have the time?”
“Look, Doctor, I know how frustrated you are. If I thought it would do any good, if I had a shred of evidence that it was premeditated or someone she knew did it, I’d keep going. But there’s nothing.” He lifted a large envelope from under the morass of papers. “You’d better take Mrs. Kochinsky’s file back. I’m done with it.”
Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle Page 14
