by Vicki Grant
I didn’t.
The receptionist went, “Hey, Shannondoah! You’re a little early today. Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll tell Lawrence you’re here. In the meantime, can I get you a cucumber infusion or a yam smoothie or anything good like that?”
Shannondoah sighed in that nice way of hers and said, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” She sat down in the waiting room.
The receptionist turned to me and said, “And what can I do for you, sir?” I hadn’t thought that far yet. All I really wanted was a few more minutes with Shannondoah.
I was going to say “A haircut,” but I checked the price list sitting on the counter. A haircut cost sixty bucks! That was ridiculous. I didn’t have sixty bucks worth of hair on my entire body.
Now what?
It would be way too embarrassing to say “Nothing, thanks,” especially with Shannondoah sitting right there.
I stood there, stunned and sweaty, like the kid at the head of the cafeteria lineup who agonizes between the chicken wrap and the hot hamburger special as if he’s trying to figure out which one to ask to the prom.
The receptionist scratched her neck with a pencil and tried not to look irritated.
I scanned the price list again. There was only one thing there for under ten bucks. That’s about what I had in change. I didn’t care what it was. I pointed to it. “I’ll have, you know, that,” I said.
She smiled and lifted her eyebrows way up. She leaned in close to me. She whispered, “Sure. No problem. Lawrence can do you too if you don’t mind waiting.”
I took a seat next to Shannondoah. Time to man-up. No use putting it off any longer.
I said, “So, like, what are you here for?”
She laughed. “You’re not supposed to ask things like that in a spa. You could get an answer you’d rather not hear!”
I went, “Oh, no, sorry. I meant, what are you in Halifax for?”
She laughed again. “Now how did you know I wasn’t from these parts?” She nudged me in the ribs with one of those long nails of hers. “Sounds like you’ve been doing your research too!”
I went, “Ah, yeah, sort of,” and blushed. Luckily, she thought it was cute.
“I guess you know who my husband was then,” she said.
I nodded. She smiled but in a kind of sad way.
“I was here for the trial.”
I went, “Oh, right... But that was ages ago, wasn’t it? How come you’re still here?”
She looked deep into my eyes, reached over and took my hand, then said, “Well, you’re very attractive too, you know.”
My heart thumped. She let out a big laugh. I started laughing too. She totally nailed me.
“Seriously,” I said.
“I am serious, honey! You’re a very attractive young man. But you’re right. That’s not why I’m still here. I’m still here frankly because...well...I don’t know...something just doesn’t smell right.”
I went, “You’re not still talking about me, are you?”
That made her laugh too. Good. Couldn’t hurt.
She went, “No, no, you’re fine, darlin’. I meant something’s fishy, you know.”
“Like what?” I said.
She moved her lips around like “Should I tell him or shouldn’t I?” I opened my eyes wide and tried to look all innocent and harmless.
I could see this smile sort of passing under her face as if she wasn’t totally falling for it but, like, whatever.
She didn’t say anything for quite a while. Then she went, “Do you know anything about the trial?”
“Not a lot,” I lied. “Someone supposedly tried to save your husband from a fire or something, but he died and they charged the guy with manslaughter. Something like that.”
She put her magazine on the coffee table and took a big breath.”Yeah, that’s more or less it. Chuck Dunkirk? The guy charged with killing Ernest? He got off, you know. I guess the jury figured he panicked and threw the stuff on the fire without realizing it would explode.”
“How do you feel about that?” I said.
She surprised me. “Well, I was sure upset about it at first, but I’ve sort of come round, I guess. I think the jury did their best with the information they had. I mean, it’s true. He could have just panicked. I don’t know what I’d do if I saw a fire. Maybe I’d go and do the same thing...”
This wasn’t going where I hoped it was going to go.
“So what’s fishy then?” I said.
Shannondoah pushed back her hair and looked up at the ceiling for a second. “Well, it’s just that the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why there was even a fire in the first place. Sea lice—that’s what my husband was working on—they aren’t flammable. Believe me, if they were I would have set fire to them ages ago! I hated those ugly little things. I don’t know what Ernie saw in them. All I know is that he wouldn’t be doing anything with a fire around them. There’d be no reason.”
Sounds like Chuck hadn’t figured this out as well as he thought he had.
“And another thing,” she said. “Why wasn’t there a fire extinguisher? Why weren’t there lots of them? This was a lab, for goodness sake! Labs always have fire extinguishers. They have to. There are laws about these things, you know...”
She was on a roll now.
“But there’s something that bothers me even more than that. The stuff the guy threw on the fire was called Power Powder. He was using it to clean the floors. That’s what I don’t get. Why did the university still have it? That company had gone out of business ages ago. You want to know why? Because the stuff exploded all the time!”
She put her hand over her mouth and turned away for a second. I should probably have just dropped it there, but I couldn’t. She was my best chance for figuring out what was going on here. I convinced myself I was doing it for the both of us.
I waited a second. Then I said, “So, um, what do you think happened? Do you think this Chuck guy was involved somehow? That he did something on purpose?”
She was poking at her eyelashes with her fingernails. Her mascara had gotten wet, but she was acting like this was just a regular touch-up.
“No, I don’t think so. At least, not anymore. He’s just some poor working guy, trying to make a living. Why would he do that?”
My heart kind of sank. She’d fallen for Chuck’s big act too.
She kept going. “I have two theories. Chuck Dunkirk honestly tried his best to save Ernie. He couldn’t find a fire extinguisher and didn’t know any better than to throw that stuff on the fire. If that’s the case, then I think we should be suing the university. I’ve looked into it. I found a couple of legal sites on the Internet—thanks to you.” She reached over and patted my hand. I tried to concentrate on what she was saying anyway. “Unless I misunderstood something, it’s the university’s job to make sure their employees are trained and their buildings are safe. There shouldn’t even have been any Power Powder around.”
That didn’t help me much. “What’s your other theory?” I said.
“That this isn’t all it seems to be.” She did that “woo-hoo spooky” thing with her hands and laughed. “I know that sounds foolish. My lawyer looked at me like I’m some airhead when I said that to him. Maybe I am. I didn’t actually finish high school—and if you need any proof I’m an airhead, there it is. Quitting school to go into a beauty contest! That’s about as dumb as you can get...Anyway. That’s beside the point.”
She looked at me. “You really want to hear my crackpot theory?”
I nodded.
“Well, you’re the first, kiddo. Okay, here goes. I think someone wanted to kill Ernie because of Gleamoccino. They planted that Power Powder there or started the fire or something.”
“Who?” I said. “Why?”
“Who? I don’t know. Why? Well, it’s a stretch, I guess—but I think it has to do with patent protection. You know what a patent is?”
I did but I wasn’t going to admit it. She didn’t need to
know how much I knew. “No, not really,” I said.
“I’m not a lawyer—ha, ha, no kidding, eh?—but how can I explain this? A patent, I guess, is just sort of proof that you invented something. If you’ve got the patent for something, it means you’re the only person who can make it or sell it or make money from it. If you’ve got the patent for something good, you can get really rich off it. Like Ernie and his partner Mike did. Unfortunately, when that happens, all other people see is the money. They don’t see all the hard work it took to bring Gleamoccino to market. Ernie told me it took them years before they got something that whitened your teeth without making them fall out first.”
I pictured Chuck’s gummy mouth going, “He could get himthelf in real trouble if he’th not careful.” Something was beginning to come together for me.
Shannondoah told the receptionist that she’d like a cucumber infusion after all; then she kept going.
“Anyway, Ernie had been getting crank calls and letters from some guy for years, claiming he was the real inventor of Gleamoccino and that Ernie had just gotten to the patent office first. Ernie didn’t like to worry me about that kind of thing, but I know he ran into him again here in Halifax.”
“Really,” I said. “Where?” I had a pretty good idea what she was going to say.
“Ernie got in a little trouble for speeding...” She did that sort of “oops” thing with her face and laughed. “He was a bit of a health nut, you know. He wouldn’t touch fast food, but he loved fast cars! Anyway, he had to go to traffic court. He came back really, I don’t know, agitated. I thought he was just upset because the judge got so mad at him—but it was something else. I found out later that a man had kind of, you know, accosted him. Said something to him. I think it must have been the guy. The guy who wrote the letters. If he knew when Ernie was going to be in traffic court, he could have known when he’d be alone in the lab too.”
Missing teeth. The “Patently False” website. Traffic court. It made perfect sense.
Shannondoah was looking down at her hands and twisting her wedding ring around. “I wish I realized earlier how much trouble Ernie was in. Maybe I could have saved him somehow. It’s upsetting me so much I can’t sleep. I can barely eat. I’m a mess.”
She scrunched her face up to keep from crying.
“You’re not a mess, Shannondoah,” I said. I meant it too. I wasn’t just saying that to make her feel better. She wasn’t a mess. She was pretty, and she was nice, and she was smart too. Nobody else had figured out what actually happened. I was willing to bet she had.
“You’re so sweet,” she said. “Almost as sweet as my Ernie.” She was squeezing my hand and sniffing back the tears when Lawrence came in.
“Should I come back?” he said.
Yes.
Shannondoah shook her head. “No, no, that’s fine. We were just chatting.”
Lawrence went, “Your facial treatment’s going to take some time, Shannondoah. Mind if I do your friend first? A hot lip waxing should only take a second, especially with the little bit of peach fuzz he’s got.”
chapter 31
Cui bono (Latin)
Literally, “To whose benefit?” The phrase is used to suggest
that the person or people guilty of committing a crime may
be found among those who have something to gain from it.
For the next hour or two, I was more interested in getting a jail sentence for Lawrence than for Chuck. I mean, what sadistic maniac came up with that waxing idea? You pour boiling hot wax on someone’s face, tear it—and most of their lip—off, then charge them ten bucks for the pleasure? The guy’s an evil genius.
I’d deal with Lawrence later. Right then, I had to figure out what to do about Chuck.
I was sure now that he was behind it. I mean, it all made sense. Chuck had worked with Ernest and that Mike Reith guy. One of them came up with the idea for Gleamoccino. Who knows? It could even have been Chuck. He was the one missing the teeth.
In any event, Ernest and Mike patented the idea. They got rich. Chuck got mad. It took him years, but somehow or another he wangled things so he was alone in a lab with Ernest. He got his hands on some old Power Powder. He knew it would blow up good. He threw it on the fire and made it look like it was all a big accident.
The obvious thing for me to do now would be to call the police.
And admit I’d broken into the guy’s place, rifled through his stuff, checked his Internet history?
No, I don’t think so. I wanted them to arrest Chuck, not me.
And, anyway, what proof did I have that he did it? Like, real proof? All the pieces fit together, but so what? People make up stories every day that fit together. They still aren’t enough to convict a man. I didn’t have any fingerprints. I didn’t have any blood spatters or eyewitness accounts. All I had was a pretty good hunch.
Generally speaking, judges don’t take too kindly to hunches.
And there was another thing that was bugging me too. Even if I had evidence—good, solid evidence—proving that Chuck did it, I wasn’t sure it would make any difference. Something I remembered from law school was sort of coming back to me. Some legal principle.
Res Judicata. That was it.
If it meant what I thought it meant, we were too late. No one could convict Chuck of killing Ernest, even if we’d captured it live on CNN.
I couldn’t stand it.
I had the sinking feeling that Chuck was going to get off scot-free.
chapter 32
Search Warrant
A court order issued by a judge or magistrate that authorizes
law enforcement to search a person or location for
evidence of a criminal offense and seize such items.
Kendall didn’t like my idea, but he went along with it anyway. That’s what I liked about him.
“You’re sure Chuck did it?” he said.
I nodded and put a CD in the camera.
“And you’re sure this is the only way we can get him?”
No, I wasn’t sure. Some brilliant legal genius could maybe have come up with something else, but this was the best I could do. I nodded again.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure. There’s no way he’d be convicted. I called Atula and asked.”
Kendall’s eyeballs nearly bugged out of his head. “You told Atula what you’re planning on doing?! And she let you?”
I snorted. “No! What? You think I’m crazy! Of course I didn’t tell her. I just kind of, you know, hypothetically explained the situation as if I had some big school project to do on lying homicidal maniacs. I asked her if, under the circumstances, the principle of res judicata would apply. She said yes, hypothetically, that is.”
Kendall shrugged and went, “Well, I guess we have no choice then.”
We did have a choice, of course. We could have called the police and hoped they’d believe some fifteen-year-old kid. Maybe they’d just pretend not to notice I got most of my so-called evidence when I illegally broke into Chuck’s apartment.
We could have just given up. We could have said, “That’s the way it goes,” and forgotten all about it.
We could have done a lot of other things, I guess, and part of me really, really wanted to, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t let Chuck Dunkirk get away with murder. I had to get him while I could.
“Nope,” I said. “We’ve got no choice. So—should we just do it or what?”
Kendall lifted his hand like, yup, go ahead.
I tried not to shake. I tried to act as cool as Kendall. I picked up the phone and called Chuck. I asked him if he minded if I came by and showed him my project again. I needed his advice. I had a few questions I wanted to ask him.
He was most welcoming. I wasn’t surprised.
He loved being the know-it-all.
And he no doubt had a few questions for me himself.
chapter 33
Alias
An assumed name.
Well, well, well,” I said.
“I see you’ve redecorated.” The place was spotless. The laptop was gone.The pizza boxes must have been put out with the recycling. The pictures of all Chuck’s buddies were tucked away. The place looked like a real janitor might actually have lived there. Even if I had called the police, they wouldn’t have found anything now.
Chuck smiled. He hadn’t redecorated his gums.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “Are you hungry? I juth had thome pete-tha and there are a few thlithes left if you’d like one.”
When had I eaten last? I couldn’t remember. I’d had so much to do that day to get ready. I was starving. I could tell from the smell it was my favorite, the Hawaiian-Greek special, but I said, “No, thanks,” anyway. I was having enough trouble swallowing as it was.
“Tho, what have you got for me?” Chuck was doing his jolly department-store Santa thing. I practically expected him to ho-ho-ho and put me on his knee.
“Well,” I said, “I’m just about finished my project and I wanted to make sure I had the facts right. Would you mind checking it for me?”
Chuck went, “Gee, I’d love to. I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I’m juth a poor uneducated boy from backwoodth Nova Thcotia, you know.”
We both smiled at that. He wasn’t even pretending that hard anymore.
I looked around for an outlet. I found one near the window and plugged in the video camera. Perfect.
“Mind if I open the window just a crack?” I said. “I’m a little hot.” I even had the sweat stains to prove it.
Chuck smiled and waved his hand like, Go ahead. We sat down on the couch. I put the video camera on the coffee table and twisted the viewfinder so we could both see it. He was a little too close for comfort, but what could I do?
“All ready?” I said.
“Roll ‘em,” he said.
It was a little different than the version he’d seen before. For starters, the opening line was: “Chuck Dunkirk—aka Duncan Charles—killed Ernest Sanderson in cold blood.”
chapter 34
Attempted Murder
Attempting to kill someone deliberately or recklessly
