The Corpse with the Silver Tongue

by Cathy Ace

  “I will sue you!” Beni screamed in French at the end of the room. He stood about half an inch from the nose of a short, fat man in a badly cut suit, who I suspected might represent the alarm company. “This is all your fault. You are to blame. Why did you not instruct your workman to fit the alarm? Why not send someone else to do it if he could not?” I was quite impressed with how my French translation abilities were coming along.

  “It was the window fitter at fault,” replied the rotund little man. He, too, was angry, but his anger smacked of desperation. Oh dear. Poor thing. And poor Beni. He looked very flushed, and in fact I was surprised his feet weren’t beginning to leave the floor, given the way he was flapping his arms about.

  “You will wait. I will deal with you later. Now I must find out what has been taken.” Beni motored toward a door at the far end of the display hall. I thanked the young man who’d been so informative and rushed after Beni. I wanted to know if the archive had been stolen—that was my only interest. I knew I had to stick close to be sure I could see what had happened.

  As we left the large open area filled with display cabinets and artifacts, we walked through a small door into a long, dark corridor. Ahead of us was a tiny window, set about five feet high in the end wall of the building. It couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches square. The broken glass that had fallen to the floor in the corridor surrounded a rock about the size of a fist, and the frame of the window had been opened inward and now swung on one broken hinge. The police had taped off the end of the corridor, so we peered into the offices that had their doors open. Each room we could see into was in some sort of disarray. In one a computer screen lay on its side; in another papers had been scattered around the room; and in yet another, an earthenware pot lay broken on the floor; the greatest amount of damage was in the largest office at the end of the hall.

  Beni wailed as he looked into the room. “Oh, my office!”

  “Can you tell us what is missing, Doctor Brunetti?” asked the policeman who’d been leading our sad little guided tour of destruction.

  “May I enter?” asked Beni, sounding unhappy.

  “Yes, but do not touch anything, and please be careful where you tread,” replied the policeman. I had to content myself with craning my neck around the door jamb to see what Beni could see, but it was only a moment or two before he emerged, looking crestfallen.

  “A small alabaster vase that I kept in that niche is missing,” he said, pointing to a little space above his desk, “two stone tablets with inscriptions that came from the wall of the baths outside have disappeared, and some papers that I was working on at my desk yesterday have gone.” He looked at me as he mentioned this last item, and I knew he meant that the archive was missing.

  “Are the missing items very valuable?” asked the policeman.

  “Not in themselves,” answered Beni. “It is surprising that such ancient and rare objects as the vase and the tablets often bring only small amounts of money. The papers were the archives of a family that used to live in the area. They are rare in that they were domestic writings and were on papyrus, rather than on wooden or wax tablets. But, when I say ‘papers’ I do not mean it in the sense we would use the term today: what is missing is a wooden box filled with rolls of papyrus.”

  “The box would have been heavy, and bulky to remove?” asked the policeman.

  Beni shook his head.

  “And how big?”

  “About so big,” Beni answered, holding his hands about a foot or so apart. He looked distraught and asked the officer, “What else is missing?”

  The policeman referred to his notes and replied, “Apart from your box, tablets, and vase, a statue of Aphrodite has gone from this office,” he turned and pointed behind him, “and a pair of . . . ummm . . .” He struggled a bit as he said, “. . . millefiori pyxis?”

  Beni nodded. “The ink-wells. I know them. Small and, again, not very valuable. Is that it?”

  “Yes,” replied the policeman. “It seems that the thieves did not gain access to any of the other areas. The alarm was not tripped, and there appear to be no attempts to reach anywhere other than this part of the complex. They took small items that could be easily removed. It looks like a crime of opportunity. Your colleagues have all told me that the offices with the disturbances were not locked. Did you lock your own office when you left here yesterday?”

  “I thought that I did,” answered Beni slowly, “but I had a lot on my mind, so maybe I did not.”

  “It does not look as though the door was broken,” added the policemen significantly.

  “Then maybe I did not,” replied Beni quietly.

  “Sir—outside, they have found something,” came a shout from a young policeman at the other end of the corridor.

  “What is it?” asked the more senior officer.

  “Some sort of wooden box, sir. It looks as though it has been discarded in the parking area.”

  Immediately I saw a brighter look appear on Beni’s face and he mouthed “The archives,” at me. I, too, wondered if that might be what they’d found.

  “We will come,” replied the policeman, and we all retraced our steps back toward the display hall, then out through the fire exit to the parking area. Beni was clearly excited, and trotted ahead of the policeman, to where a little knot of uniformed officers were gathered around a large recycling bin. “In here, sir,” said one of the men to his superior, nodding toward the bin, then opening its lid with latex-gloved hands.

  We all arrived at much the same time and peered into the receptacle. Sure enough, inside was a large wooden box, bound with metal strips, with the lid levered off and discarded at its side. The box was empty.

  “The scrolls . . . has anyone found the scrolls?” asked Beni sharply.

  “We haven’t examined the other contents of the bin yet, sir,” the young officer replied.

  Beni’s voice was commanding. “When you do, please be very careful. If the scrolls are in there they are delicate and could break apart easily.”

  The young officer looked at his superior who nodded back, obviously signifying that the search should begin.

  “We will let you know what we find, Doctor Brunetti,” said the superior officer. “But now, could I ask you to come back inside with me so I can get some more details from you about the items that are missing?”

  “Yes, yes of course,” replied Beni, “but maybe we could sit in the sun and smoke while we do that?”

  The policeman smiled and nodded. Having moved to a low wall that surrounded the parking area, both sat and smoked as Beni spoke and the policemen took notes. When Beni had turned to leave, I’d gestured to him to show that I was going to make a phone call. I was of half a mind to call Captain Moreau to tell him about the theft of the archive, but, since it might be sitting in a big plastic bin just yards away from me, I thought that I should wait until we were sure. I decided to call Bud instead. It would be about seven in the morning in Vancouver, still early for a Saturday morning phone call. I knew for a fact that he and Jan were always up at six with Marty because dogs don’t know it’s a weekend. Besides, he called me at all hours when there was a case he needed my help with. I wandered off to another part of the little wall and turned my face to the afternoon sun. I pulled my phone and my cigarettes out of my purse, which I dumped on the floor at my feet, lit up, and punched in Bud’s number. To hell with the roaming charges—I needed to talk to someone about all this, and Bud Anderson was just the man.

  Late Saturday Afternoon

  I IMAGINED THE PHONE RINGING in the Anderson household. Bud and Jan’s two-bedroom apartment on Quayside Drive in New Westminster wasn’t small, but it struggled to accommodate two busy adults and a very rambunctious Labrador. It always felt as though it was ready to burst at the seams. Funny, that. Bud was known as a stickler for neatness, accurate record keeping, and meticulous attention to detail in his work as a police officer. Jan, on the other hand, seemed to have lots of hobbies that required large
quantities of “stuff.” She belonged to groups that did scrapbooking, weaving, quilting, candle-making, soap-making, knitting and photography, and probably a lot more. It made for a snug home.

  They had loved their place since the moment they’d first seen it, right on the riverfront, with great walks for the three of them on the doorstep, as well as a fantastic view of the “Mighty Fraser River,” as Monty Python once famously put it. And at night, you could see the lights of the city beyond. It provided Bud with a relatively short commute to Downtown Vancouver—where his new office was based. I knew that he’d accepted his new job as “Head Gangbuster” on the basis that it was likely to offer slightly more regular hours than his last position. When you head up a murder investigation team, you know that murder won’t wait; it has to be dealt with whatever the hour. Longer term investigations into gang affiliations and drug routes can, apparently, be managed more within what the rest of the working world thinks of as “normal office hours.”

  The phone rang for the fifth time before Jan’s breathless voice answered.

  “Yes—who is it?” she panted.

  “Hi Jan, it’s me, Cait. Sorry to bother you so early on a Saturday, but I guess Marty has you up and about already, eh?”

  “Oh, you’re not kidding! He’s all over me right now to take him out. It should be Bud’s turn, but he’s off on some urgent call. My morning off has turned into an extra walk with Marty this week. Never mind. I’m meeting some friends down at Crescent Beach for coffee today, so I’ll take Marty with me and he can have a long run on the sand. Then he can sleep while we girls catch up on all the gossip. I hope Bud took the car and left the truck for me. Marty prefers the truck—more space for him in the back seats than in the car.”

  Jan always referred to herself as a “girl.” Her friends too. To be fair, she’s only six years older than me, so she’s not “old,” but I’d run into her and her “girlfriends” in Kitsilano once, and had been delighted to find that Jan was the baby of the group, at fifty-four, and the oldest “girl” was approaching seventy! Mind you, they were a fit bunch; they only sat and chatted for a “coffee and a gossip” after walking about three miles.

  “So Bud’s gone already?” I was disappointed. I could have called earlier, after all.

  “Yes, long gone, but he’s driving out to Chilliwack, so he’ll be on the road for a while yet. You could call him on his cell. It’s him you’re after, I guess?”

  I only knew Jan because she was Bud’s wife, but I liked her a great deal. I’m a natural loner, so I shy away from any sorts of gatherings that I don’t absolutely have to attend. To be honest, the idea of spending time with a bunch of women, the way Jan does, fills me with horror. So, even though Jan and I always got along really well, we hadn’t really clicked. No reflection on her. Just me. We both knew it. The only time I ever called was to talk to Bud. I hadn’t anything to talk to Jan about except Bud, his work, my work . . . oh, and Marty. He and I seemed to have struck up a friendship on first meeting, and it was tough to resist his unquestioning enthusiasm and affection. Especially since he didn’t require me to engage in conversation!

  “Yes, you’re right—it’s Bud I was looking for. I’ll try his cell. Thanks, Jan—talk soon . . .”

  “Well, aren’t you coming next week?” she asked.

  I wracked my brain. Next week? What was happening next week? I paused as I thought. She noticed and jumped in.

  “Next Saturday—a week today—it’s Bud’s get together at the old office. Remember? They’re doing it now because they couldn’t do it when he left because of that big case on the Downtown Eastside, then MacMillan was off on leave for a month, then Bud was off on that big ‘fact-finding’ thing . . . So it’s next Saturday. Terminal City Club. Six-thirty for seven. You will be there, right? You said you would, and it’ll be great to catch up . . . It’s been an age since I saw you, Cait. You haven’t forgotten, right?”

  “No, Jan, I haven’t forgotten, and I’ll do my best to be there. It’s just that, well, I’m a bit stuck at the moment . . .” I had forgotten. What to say? What not to say? “I’ll do my best. But I can’t leave Nice right now.”

  “What? Did you say ‘Nice’?” Jan sounded puzzled. Not surprising.

  “Well, that’s what I want to talk to Bud about. You see, the university sent me to Nice to present a sick colleague’s research paper at a criminology symposium, and I ran into an old boss of mine and ended up being at a birthday party he was giving, where he died. I think we were all poisoned, and now I’m a suspect in a murder case. Oh, and an ancient Druid necklace has been stolen . . . and there’s this really gorgeous Italian professor who’s the director of the Roman museum here who took me out to lunch, but then the museum was burgled . . .” It all sounded a bit far-fetched when I put it that way.

  “Oh, Cait my dear, this could only happen to you, eh? That house party in Kelowna last year where you were snowed in with the dead body of that romance novelist? Now this! Only you could go to the south of France and get caught up in a murder. I can quite see that you’d want to talk to Bud—so you do that, and I’ll take Marty out for a quick pee . . . he’ll give me no peace until he’s relieved himself and had his food, then we can get ourselves ready and set off for a good long beachy walk! Tell Bud I’ll call him when I’m on my way back from Crescent Beach. Maybe by then he’ll have some idea of how long he’ll be out in the wilds of Chilli-wack-wack-wack.”

  “Chilli-wack-wack-wack?” I was puzzled.

  “Yeah—they call it that because of all the ‘whacking’ that goes on out there—a lot of killings this past year, Bud says. More than usual. Seems it’s working its way out into the Valley from Abbotsford and Mission. I don’t know, Cait, the world is changing so fast. Now that Bud’s working on this gang stuff . . . well . . . it feels different . . . I don’t know how to explain it . . . It used to be he’d come home and talk about some terrible murders—but they weren’t like the stuff he’s working on now.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “Well, it’s real sad when someone is murdered, of course, but so often he would be dealing with a killing resulting from a fight that got out of hand, or a crime of passion, or something that happened in the heat of the moment. This gang stuff . . . It’s all so businesslike . . . so planned. I know you guys haven’t been working on it together, because I guess they don’t need a victimologist when they know exactly who the victim was and why they were killed—they usually know exactly who’s done it too. That’s the other thing, Cait. I know the hours are better, and there’s more opportunity for us to plan time for ourselves and be more of a couple, but he’s getting so frustrated. Already! He’s only been at it two minutes, but already he can’t cope with how tough it is to pin anything on these guys. He just keeps pushing and pushing. In fact, I think that’s where he’s gone now: they’ve been watching some group out in the Valley that’s up to its ears in marijuana grow-ops and guns, so it sounds like they might be about to swoop. But there, I’m the last to know. Typical that they’d decide to do it first thing on a Saturday morning!”

  Lovely though it was to talk to Jan, I really wanted to get hold of Bud.

  “Yeah, bummer, Jan. He’ll probably be home soon so you guys can have a nice walk later on with Marty, then G&Ts to watch the sun go down—”

  “Sun? Sun? Oh, of course, you’re not here! The weather here is pretty grim. It might be early May but you’d think it was November. Still, Marty and I can move at quite a pace, so we’ll wrap up warm and march on. Go on now, call Bud. And take care of yourself. I know you’re bright Cait, but you sure do know how to get yourself into some trouble! Oh—and watch out for that Italian. Yes, I heard what you said, and I’m guessing he’s gorgeous . . . So watch that heart of yours, madam—take it right off your sleeve and pop it into an inside pocket, where it’s safe. Make sure you’re back for Bud’s party. It wouldn’t be the same without you. Bye . . . Marty’s got his leash in his mouth—I am about to be taken for a walk!”
And she was gone.

  I looked around and could see that Beni was still closely engaged with the policeman. Jan and I had only spoken for a few moments, so I still had ample time to call Bud, which I did immediately.

  “Hello Cait—how are you? And what are you doing up at this hour?” was his jovial reply. He was clearly using the speakerphone in his car.

  “I’m not there. I’m in Nice. South of France. It’s gone three in the afternoon here. How are you?” I thought I’d get the pleasantries done with before I blurted out my sorry tale.

  “I’m good, thanks Cait. Did you speak to Jan?”

  “Yep. She told me where you were. On your way to Chilliwack, I hear.”

  “Yeah. I’m about half an hour away. So we can chat. Haven’t seen you in a while, Cait. I miss working with you, you know.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “No. Seriously, I do. You can be fun to have around. Pleasant change from the usual lot. You see things so differently. Sadly, we know only too well what we’re going to face in this gig. I’m afraid that all those ‘consultancy fees’ are a thing of the past, my Deario.” I liked it when he called me his “Deario”: it made me sound like a small child, and him like my grandfather . . . though, like Jan, he was in fact only six years my senior. “If you’re in France and you’re calling me, I’m guessing you’re in some sort of trouble that Uncle Bud might be able to help with—would that be right?”

  I took a deep breath, then began to relate the events of the last couple of days. Briefly. But with all the necessary details. It took a little while, but it went quicker because Bud didn’t interrupt. “So there you have it. The archive might have gone, the necklace might have gone, Alistair has definitely gone, and I am most definitely not going anywhere!”

  “You know, I don’t think we should let you out on your own,” were Bud’s first words.

  “Thanks, Bud. I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I replied sullenly.