by Ross Pennie
But how long would the Saab be safe in the parking lot? The rims and stereo would be gone if the poor thing stayed there much past midnight. He wouldn’t let that happen. Two coffees and nothing else.
They exited the washroom, their arms brushing together in the narrow doorway. At such close range, Al’s sweat and cologne were suddenly more intoxicating than any beer.
CHAPTER 26
At about seven-thirty the next morning, Zol pressed a mug of coffee into Hamish’s hand. He’d never seen his friend in such a state. Dark circles rimmed his bloodshot eyes, and his cheeks were wet with tears. His hair stuck out every which way. He smelled of beer and vomit and sweat — or maybe that was sex.
Zol glanced at Max and Colleen. They were too busy at the stove to worry about Hamish. Max was showing Colleen how to make Saturday-morning pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse. His cellphone peeked proudly from his hip pocket. Their dust-up over the phone was almost forgotten, but Zol hoped the lesson would be retained. Max hadn’t whined about his cellphone once in the fourteen days since Zol had taken it away. Max’s inscrutable poise while his friends worked their phones stirred Zol with pride at the little guy’s grit. Zol had returned the phone to Max first thing this morning, two weeks early, and they’d reviewed the rules of usage in detail. Zol found himself wondering again why a nine-year-old needed to be in instant communication with every friend and acquaintance, twenty-four-seven. He did admit that the phone’s GPS locater function gave him peace of mind when Max went to a neighbour’s house and forgot to report in.
Colleen’s movements at the stovetop entranced Zol with their fluidity. He felt himself stirred at the memory of last night, her delicate fingers dancing across his naked skin, the warmth of her compact body nestling so neatly into his private spaces.
But then the stench of stale beer came wafting on the steam from Hamish’s coffee.
Zol rubbed his nose. “Come on,” he told Hamish, “we’ll go into the sunroom.”
Hamish followed Zol to the rear of the house. It was a glorious, haze-free day, but Hamish showed no interest in the million-dollar view.
“That’s one hell of a hangover,” Zol said, throwing a protective towel over the loveseat. “You taken an aspirin yet?”
Hamish eased onto the towel, his back to the window. He put down his coffee and held his head in both hands. “I’m never drinking again.”
Zol cracked open a window and gulped in a breath of fresh air. “How many did you have?”
“I dunno. Three. Four. Maybe five.” He made a face, embarrassed at getting this sick after only four drinks. “I’m not used to it.”
“You’ve been out all night?”
“At a friend’s. He was asleep when I left.”
“What about Ken?”
“What about him?” Hamish flared, clearly touchy over Zol’s innocent inquiry. Had Hamish and Ken broken up? Was that how this had started? Had Hamish been drowning his sorrows?
“I just thought —”
“He’s away for the weekend. A conference in Vancouver.”
“Are you two . . . you know, still an item?”
“At this point, I couldn’t care less. All I can think about at the moment is my Saab.”
“Are you sure you looked for it in the right lot?”
Hamish let out a groan. “It’s gone, all right. Being picked to pieces in some chop shop in Brant County. I’m such an idiot. I should never have —”
“We’ll call the police after breakfast, once that coffee takes effect.” Hamish was in no shape to file a coherent complaint. No impatient cop would take him seriously if he blubbered into the phone. “Listen, go upstairs and take a nice long shower. I’ll put out a clean shirt and jeans.” Zol stood up and took a swig of his coffee. “But first, let me get you an aspirin.”
“Please, Zol. Sit down. Got something to tell you. About Camelot.”
Zol hesitated, then sat down. Poor Hamish, his life was consumed by work, even during a personal crisis.
“Todd found the listeria.”
“What do you mean?”
“He found its source. At the Lodge.”
“You serious? What’d he find?”
Between sips of coffee and moaning about his headache, Hamish explained how his medical student came across a plate of salami sandwiches in the reading room.
“Hot damn! Colleen’s gotta hear this. She’s been following Gus all over the city.”
“Not so loud. My head.”
“Sorry, buddy,” Zol whispered. “Look, go jump in the shower. We’ll report the stolen Saab and talk deli meats as soon as you’re cleaned up and . . . and feeling more like yourself.” It would be a relief when Hamish stopped reeking like the porta-potties at Oktoberfest.
Twenty minutes later, Colleen handed a freshly scrubbed Hamish a glass of orange juice. The scent of oil of bergamot trailing him into the kitchen was a huge improvement over eau-de- hangover.
When Max started to giggle at the sight of Zol’s long jeans rolled over Hamish’s stubby ankles, Zol stopped him with a quick frown and pointed upstairs. “Time for Saturday morning cleanup, my good man.”
Max pulled a face. “Can we have lunch at Four Corners?” He hated missing out on adult conversation. Sometimes he eavesdropped from the top of the stairs, then asked searching questions later. A journalist in the making?
“You know the drill: bed, desk, closet, floor. And collect your dirty dishes. When your room passes inspection, we can go to Four Corners. We have to be back by one o’clock, so make it snappy.”
Max took his game gadget from the counter and slunk out of sight. Zol listened for footfalls on the stairs and upper landing before easing into a chair opposite Hamish.
“I understand you found Gus’s cache of sandwiches,” said Colleen, pouring herself another cup of coffee. “I knew they had to be somewhere. Though I thought maybe he kept them for the family — a personal dividend for his voluntary efforts on behalf of Waste Not.”
“Does Gus bypass the main kitchen when he carries the stuff in?” Hamish asked. “Take it straight to his apartment?”
“Looks like it,” Zol said. “Otherwise, we’d have found his stash of deli meats by now.” Zol cursed himself for not thinking of inspecting the Oliveiras’ private quarters.
“My guess,” Colleen said, “is that whatever baked goods and sandwiches Gus and Gloria can’t eat get set out later for the residents.”
“Where the listeria have a heyday,” Hamish said, “doubling in population every twenty minutes at room temperature.”
“I can’t believe it,” Zol said. “Looks like the monkey may be off our backs. Trinnock, too.”
“Let’s hope,” Hamish cautioned. “We still have to prove there are live listeria in the sandwich meat. That may be a hit-and-miss effort. We can’t expect every piece of salami to be culture positive.”
“Fair enough,” Zol said. “We’ll make a surprise visit today and seize all the deli meat we can find. I sure hope we get a hit, ’cuz that’s going to be our only chance. Once Waste Not gets wind of Gus’s misappropriations, his Robin Hood days are going to be over.”
“I’ve got pictures of him carrying food trays into the Lodge,” Colleen said. “The same trays he picked up at the Royal Hamilton. Mind you, my telephoto isn’t good enough to capture the filling in the sandwiches. But tell us, how’s Betty?”
“I called the Mountain Wing from your upstairs phone,” Hamish said. “She’s asking the nurses for chicken noodle soup.”
Colleen smiled. “That sounds encouraging.” She got the orange-juice carton from the fridge and refilled Hamish’s glass. “But how did she get infected with C diff in the first place?”
Zol closed his eyes and took a deep breath, relieved that Betty was finally improving. C diff was everywhere. Normal people carried it in their stools. If they didn’t wash their hands after using the toilet, every surface they touched could have live C diff bacteria on it.
“The source of C dif
f isn’t the real problem,” Zol said. “It’s the empty capsules that Horvat’s been dispensing for treating it.”
“Todd, my student, has a theory about that,” Hamish said. He paused and looked around as if to be sure no one was eavesdropping. “It starts high above Horvat in the medical chain. And really, it’s a bit over the top.”
Hamish explained Todd’s hypothesis that someone at the hospital had engaged Horvat to free up acute-care beds by killing off nursing-home patients. When he was done, Zol held his tongue. Hamish could get touchy when you challenged his ideas. He coped well with frank discussion, but he’d pout for a week if he sensed he was being targeted for ridicule, no matter how mild.
“Extraordinary,” said Colleen, her hazels wide.
“Hmm,” Zol said, playing it safe. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Medical people have done worse things, I suppose,” Hamish said. “Look at that guy in England. Dr. Shipman, was it? How many elderly patients did he knock off for their life savings?”
The theory was way over the top. How far was an associate medical officer of health supposed to stick out his neck? Zol wished Peter Trinnock was the sort of boss he could brainstorm with. Solving something like this needed creative thinking, a heart-to-heart with a confident mentor. But not much creative thinking went on inside Trinnock’s office. These days, the chief was paving a flawless highway to retirement, not tackling issues that led into minefields. Trinnock’s mantra was FMG: follow ministry guidelines. Sticking to policies and procedures kept the city manager and his purse strings happy, and kept the health unit out of the media’s hot seat. There were no ministry guidelines on catching high-profile administrators murdering nursing-home patients. Or pharmacists selling empty capsules.
“We can start with Horvat,” Colleen said. “He’s a softer target than the hospital’s bigwigs.”
She’s right, thought Zol. Catching Horvat is the key. The medical establishment wouldn’t circle its wagons around a pharmacist with a thick accent whose son was in jail on drug charges. They’d leave him out to dry.
“I’ve been watching him,” Colleen continued. “I know from my sources that he allowed his burglar alarm contract to lapse. The security company’s posters are still on Steeltown Apothecary’s doors and windows, and the hardware is still mounted on the wall near the front door. But it’s all just for show. Nothing’s connected to the police or a private firm. He must be saving every penny to pay for his son’s Mexican lawyers.”
“Going without an alarm,” Hamish said, “that’s awfully chancy. Think of all those narcotics asking to be stolen.”
“He’s got a huge strongroom at the rear of his shop,” Colleen said. “Behind a heavy steel door that’s controlled by a combination lock — one of those push-button jobs.”
“I’d love to be a fly on the wall inside his operation,” Zol said.
“Operation?” Hamish asked.
“All those blister cards he produces for two dozen nursing homes — he must have some sort of production facility.”
Colleen nodded. She’d been thinking about this too. “If we find his workshop, complete with fake capsules and counterfeit tablets, we’ve got him.”
“Well,” Zol said, “we’ll have to prove that Horvat knows he’s dispensing fakes. Without that, the police won’t be interested. They’ll figure a judge will let him off as not criminally responsible, the way the courts let the others off last year.”
Colleen held Zol with her incisive gaze. “All the more reason for us to have a good look at his operation. Without him knowing, of course.”
Zol waved his hands. He’d spoken too hastily. He still had night terrors about the last time he and Colleen had inspected an illicit operation in a remote location. They’d barely come out alive. “No, Colleen. Please. We can’t. Not this time. Too dangerous. We’ll lay the groundwork for the RCMP, but we’re not going into Horvat’s lair ourselves. None of us.”
“So what are you saying?” said Colleen. “You don’t want to know what’s inside that windowless building attached to the rear of his pharmacy? The one that looks like a large garage, and has ‘Jack the Printer’ scratched on the side?”
“I can’t wait to see what’s in there,” Zol said. “But we’re only going in with a police escort. And that will be after we hear for sure that Horvat’s blood-pressure tablets are counterfeit.” He glanced at the clock above the stove. “Please, Colleen. Have I made myself clear?”
Colleen nodded but didn’t smile, her face neutral. She looked out the window, the way she did when she was concentrating. He prayed that meant she was plotting an alternate strategy for nailing Horvat. One that didn’t involve breaking into his hornet’s nest. Finally, he caught her eye. “If you help Hamish inform the police about his Saab,” he said, “Max and I can get going on our Saturday-morning errands.”
“All part of the service,” she said, and fished her cellphone out of her handbag.
Zol downed the last of his coffee and pushed away from the table. “They say funerals make good scouting grounds for unsolved mysteries. Let’s see who turns up at Gloria’s mother’s service this afternoon.”
“Two o’clock at Craig & Lafferty,” Colleen said. “Their Main East location. I’ll bring my camera.”
The Oliveiras are feuding with someone, Zol told himself. When Gloria and her nephew had staggered bleeding and banged up into Camelot’s front lobby, Joe had hinted at two other so-called accidents involving the same hit-and-run driver.
“Good idea,” Zol said. “There’s more going on in Camelot than dodgy food and fake pills.”
CHAPTER 27
“Crocodilae lacrimae,” Phyllis Wedderspoon pronounced loudly from her seat in the pew beside Zol. She pointed her finger at Gloria Oliveira two rows in front of them. Zol hunched forward, desperate to crawl through a hole in the floor. The preacher stiffened, clamped his Bible with both hands, and finished the benediction that signalled the end of Raimunda Ferreira’s funeral service. Phyllis’s voice, echoing into every corner of Craig & Lafferty’s chapel, reverberated off the brick walls and stained glass. Stuck between Art Greenwood in his wheelchair and Phyllis Wedderspoon on the pew, Zol had no escape.
Gloria Oliveira flinched visibly at the outburst, then rose to follow the casket and the preacher down the centre aisle toward the back of the chapel. Flanked by her husband and her nephew, and followed by two look-alikes in polyester dresses who could only be her sisters from Portugal, Gloria looked a sorry sight. The car crash had made a mess of her face. Steri-Strips criss-crossed her jaw, her right eyelid was almost swollen shut, and her cheeks bloomed as purple as eggplants. She crushed a Kleenex in her fist and stepped behind her mother’s casket, which was being wheeled in full retreat.
The service had been plain and brief, reflecting the family’s abandonment — according to Phyllis — of both the Catholics and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. After an opening hymn and two Bible readings, the preacher had said a few words, but kept apologizing that he didn’t know the deceased very well. After stumbling over her name a few times, he’d given up and referred to her as The Deceased.
Zol felt the collateral sting of venom when the procession reached his row and Gloria pierced Phyllis with a killing stare. As always, Gus’s face was a blank canvas reflecting the mood of the others around him. Zol wondered whether an original idea had ever entered Gus’s mind, or was he one of those people who went through life doing as he was told without giving any thought to the consequences. His nephew Joe looked like a black-eyed boxer. A dark crust slashed his forehead where dried blood and stitches covered the gash that had pumped like a fire hose three days before.
Ahead of the sombre trio, two black-suited funeral directors, trained to turn bland eyes on every sort of funeral-service outburst, guided their cargo toward the front door without missing a step.
Only slightly cowed by the look on Gloria’s face, Phyllis leaned into Zol’s ear. “Those were crocodile tears,” she said, her voice
echoing again, but perhaps not quite so loudly. “They didn’t get along, you know.”
Art tapped his lips with his index finger and glared at Phyllis. Then his eyes softened as he caught Zol’s eye, and the corners of his mouth hinted at a smile, which he covered with his hand.
Zol wished he could ignore Phyllis, pretend she wasn’t there, but he knew if he didn’t provide some sort of response, she’d come out with another, louder bombshell. The next time it might not be in Latin.
“I see,” he whispered. “Let’s talk later. In private.”
He took her by the arm and steered her into the procession, well behind the family. Colleen, sitting by herself at the back of the chapel where she’d been observing the service in her professional capacity, caught Zol’s eye and grinned. She’d heard Phyllis’s benediction, that was clear. Colleen could smirk all she liked from the safety of the rear pew. He was still ready to drop through the floor.
The guests filed out of the chapel and into an adjacent parlour where solid women, bursting out of their black dresses, poured coffee and juice behind tables draped in white linen. Phyllis dashed off, either to the ladies’ or in search of a cup of tea. With the change of venue, solemnity gave way to cocktail party chit-chat. Zol got a few looks sympathizing with his embarrassment at Phyllis’s eruption, but no comments.
He approached one of the tables and lifted a dainty sandwich from a plate and examined it — cream cheese and olive on bread that seemed past its prime. He sniffed and wondered whether the family had saved on funeral expenses by dipping into Gus’s Waste Not dividends. Surely an outfit like Craig & Lafferty wouldn’t allow outside food. What did Colleen think? Did she recognize any of the sandwiches from Gus’s rounds? He looked for her but couldn’t see her. Her short stature gave her a cloak of near invisibility that made it difficult to pick her out in a crowded room. Lucky her.
“Very nice service,” Art said, wheeling toward Zol with a plate of sandwiches balanced on his lap. “But this is turning into too much of a habit — dear Melvin’s funeral yesterday, Raimunda’s today, and poor Earl teetering on the brink.” He paused and looked around to be sure they were out of earshot. “I should have bought shares in Craig & Lafferty. Too late now, I suppose.” He scanned the room. “Have you seen Dr. Wakefield? Did he slip in at the back?”
