by Marc Strange
“When was this?”
“Nineteen eighty-two. Spring of ’82. Back when he was pretending to be a cattle rancher.”
“Ms. Hiscox,” I begin.
“Why don’t you call me Roselyn?”
“Ms. Hiscox,” I reiterate most firmly. “None of this has anything to do with me. I have a hotel to watch over.
The police are in charge of the investigation and I’ve been told to keep my nose out of it.”
“You aren’t curious?”
“Not even a little,” I say. “My general feeling is one of aggravation. Leo was with me when what happened, happened.”
“How convenient,” she says. “He managed to be somewhere else the other time as well.”
“Do you know anything the Calgary cops don’t?”
“Not a thing. If he was involved he covered his tracks perfectly.”
“And I suppose all of that will be in your book.”
“All that, and all this as well,” she says, taking in the entire hotel with a sweep of her manicured hand. “You’ve got to admit, Joe, this is going to make a great final chapter.”
chapter nine
“The Presbyterians” aren’t necessarily Presbyterian or even churchgoers. They are four competent men from Midnight Security that Rachel put on long-term contract shortly after most of my original staff disintegrated a year ago in an unforeseen cluster of calamities that saw two of them dead, and a third hired away by a less dysfunctional organization. The guy who’s guarding the door to the Ambassador Suite is named Brian Bester and I know for a fact that he’s not Presbyterian because I distinctly overheard him say “Jesus Mary and Joseph!” when he heard about Raquel. Strictly a Catholic expletive.
“He alone?” I ask.
“He’s got a roomful, Joe,” Brian says. “Lawyers, mostly.”
“He eat today?”
“Food came up. I don’t know how much of it he ate.”
“Okay. You want to take a break for a while? Check in with Rachel?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Oh, one thing,” I say, reaching into my pocket. “You know your way around a computer, right?”
“I guess,” he says modestly.
“Check this out for me, will you?” I untie the medal and hand over the MedicAlert tag.
Brian has a quick look. “Sure,” he says, “plugs right into a USB port.”
“Hattie has one,” I say. “She’s diabetic. It’ll have all kinds of information inside.”
“Anything in particular you want?” he asks.
“Just the name, Brian. I want to return it to its rightful owner.”
There are six people in the suite with Leo — four men, two women. I recognize one of them, Leo’s lawyer, Winston Mickela. This must be a serious gathering; Winston doesn’t cross the street for under five thousand dollars. Leo is sitting at a table covered with documents, surrounded by suits. He looks relieved to see me lurking in the doorway and excuses himself.
“Making any progress, Joseph?” He leads me into the second bedroom, the one he isn’t sleeping in.
“This is something Raquel wanted me to pick up.” I hand him the package. “For your birthday.”
He smiles tightly. “Oh. My birthday.”
“A special order.”
He opens the lid and stares for a long moment at the special bands, and then suddenly he moans like a wounded animal. I recognize the sound. I once made a noise much like it when a very large man hit me in the kidney and drove me to my knees.
“Oh, God!” he says. He slumps onto the edge of the bed, holding the open cigar box on his lap. Tears are making dark spots on the light candela wrappers. “I told her I was too old.” His voice is choked. “It wasn’t going to happen. She said she would say a prayer to some saint, the patron saint of impossibility or … something.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” It’s more a curse than a prayer.
He puts the box carefully on the pillow, excuses himself and goes into the bathroom. I can hear water running, coughing and nose clearing. After a few minutes he opens the door. His face is red as if he’s been scrubbing himself with a coarse rag, his shirtfront is damp, his eyes are wide and unfocused.
“I don’t want this getting out, Joseph.”
“It might be hard to keep it a secret, sir. The police will know. After the autopsy.”
“Autopsy? Oh, Christ. Is that necessary?”
“It’s standard, with a homicide, exact cause of death, other factors.”
“Factors? What factors?”
“I don’t know, sir. Factors. Like was she drugged, what exactly caused her … Factors.”
He goes back inside the bathroom and closes the door again. This time I don’t hear any noises. After a minute he opens the door a crack.
“Joseph?”
“Sir?”
“Would you be kind enough to get me a drink?”
“Certainly.”
In the sitting room, the six of them are perched uncomfortably, looking at papers, twiddling thumbs. I cross to the bar and pour a stiff shot of Glenlivet into a hotel glass. As I start out, Winston Mikela stands up and reflexively buttons his pinstripes across his belly.
“Is he going to be long?” he asks.
“You’d have to ask him,” I say.
“There are still some papers that he needs to sign.”
I look around the room at the platoon of legal talent.
“I’m sure he’ll get to them as soon as he’s ready.”
“If you could mention that we’re waiting?”
“Be happy to,” I say. They can spend the afternoon for all I care.
I find Leo sitting in a dark corner holding a corner of the drape aside to give himself a glimpse of overcast sky. He takes the glass with a nod of acknowledgement but doesn’t drink right away.
“She made me go to that damn thing,” he says. “I said ‘who needs it?’ She said I needed to get outside, meet some people again. I was … I would have been … happy to stay home. With her. Up there.” He drinks half the Scotch in a gulp and inhales deeply through his open mouth. He shakes his head. “She couldn’t marry me. Her husband is still alive. She’s Catholic. She was Catholic. She wouldn’t get a divorce.”
“Did you know he was after her for money?” I ask.
“I thought that was taken care of,” he says. “I gave the bastard fifty thousand two years ago. Some postal box. Hell, I couldn’t even find the son of a bitch. I tried. I hired some people, people in California. He was supposed to be living in Fresno. They couldn’t find him. He cashed the damn cheque, I know that much.”
“Is it possible he showed up again, looking for more?”
“Oh, Christ,” he groans, sits on the bed again. “It started so slowly, Joseph,” he says. “Six years ago. I never expected it to grow into anything … anything meaningful.” His voice is low, filled with aching. “I liked the way she folded things. I thought it showed care and respect, not for me, respect for the material. I called the housekeeper, asked who the woman was looking after my place Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. They thought I was unhappy, thought I wanted her fired. I just wanted her assigned to my personal staff. Full time.” He shakes his head. “Vera Dineen thought it set a bad precedent.”
I can see tears on his face. “I could send those people away for you,” I say.
“No, no,” he says wearily. “I’d better finish. They want me to straighten out my will now that … things have changed. If her damned husband should show up they don’t want him making messes.” He finishes the drink.
“Freshen that up, sir?”
“No, I’m fine. I just needed to pull myself together. Seeing those … She wanted it so much.”
“There’s something else, sir. I haven’t made a full report what with everything.”
“What is it?”
“Someone defaced the award you got last night.”
>
“Throw it in the trash.”
“The police have it now.”
“What for?”
“To see if there’s any connection. It looks like the driver who went missing had it in his possession, for a while anyway.”
“Have you tracked him down?”
“No, sir. The police are looking for him. I suppose you know that Ultra Limousine Service is owned by your son.”
“It is now,” he says. “Used to be owned by a friend of mine.” He shakes his head. “Sounds like something Theo might arrange. Hell, pissing on the award sounds like something I might arrange.”
“So you don’t think there could be any connection between that and what happened later?”
Leo stops and turns to me. “I don’t think he hates me that much.” He has to steady himself for a moment before he can open the door. “If you find out differently you’ll let me know.”
I leave Leo to sort out details of his estate, or whatever else he’s doing, and head up to the penthouse. I deliberately avoided any mention of Roselyn Hiscox, and her story about Leo’s late wife — Leo hasn’t made it my affair and I’d prefer it to stay that way. My instructions are to do a few chores around the penthouse before the cleaning crew arrives. It’s not a job I’m looking forward to but at least it’s something I understand. The rest of it looks like a dog’s breakfast.
The Crime Scene Unit has departed, and unless I get a look at the police report, which is unlikely, I won’t know what pieces of evidence they’ve taken. To me the place looks the way it did two nights ago. It feels strange to be in here, on my own. My visits to the penthouse always felt like an audience with the Pope. I was welcome enough, invited to watch a baseball game, or have a beer, but no matter how hospitable the atmosphere there was never any doubt that I was a visitor from below decks.
And something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on back then but am beginning to understand now, the unspoken, veiled, yet palpable atmosphere of family. This was Leo’s home life. When I arrived he’d be settled by the fireplace, or watching a football game, or reading the Financial Times, to all appearances a self-sufficient bachelor. And yet, Raquel was always there, somewhere in the background, discreetly out of sight, running his bath, sorting his vitamins and supplements, looking after him.
The formal patio is a squared horseshoe looking west, north, and east.
A wide balcony runs along the west side of the hotel and opens to a broad, north-facing terrace with stone planters and outdoor furniture. When I step outside I can feel a wet wind moving over the top of the city. The sky is darkening. Rain is heading in from Point Grey but it hasn’t hit us yet. From up here I can see the mountains and the North Shore and a glimpse of English Bay between the high-rises.
The downward view from terrace to excavation is less appetizing, especially now that I can pinpoint the exact spot where the body landed. Given a few variables — wind, angle of trajectory, desperately flailing arms and legs — he probably began his descent from exactly this spot. There are faint bloodstains on the concrete railing; dirt scattered across the tiles, broken glass from the French doors.
“Who we dealing with here, Ninjas?”Gritch has followed me. He looks over the edge to the street below. “Have to be a human fly to get in this way,” he says.
Ledges on the north face of the Lord Douglas are nonexistent, windows are sparse. The old Warburton Building once butted up against the Lord Douglas with barely enough space between for a tight fire lane. Guests regularly complained of being ogled by office staff next door and over time many of the windows were simply bricked up. Which might explain why no one saw a body falling.
“So, what happened?” Gritch wonders. “Two guys climb up, one of them doesn’t make it, the other one goes on without him, does a murder and runs down the fire stairs?”
“A bizarre scenario,” I admit.
“Have to be nuts,” he says.
“Or highly motivated.”
“Yeah, well maybe he was hoarding gold bars and bags of diamonds up here. You don’t climb fifteen stories to steal furniture.”
“I don’t think they came in this way.”
“I’m with you there, Mr. Moto,” he says, “but somebody left from here. And something went on out here. Glass table got knocked over, somebody kicked those flower pots, two panes gone in the French doors …”
“Kicked from the inside. Probably started in there,” I say. “Maybe she tried to run out here, call for help or something, he chased her …”
“Or they chased her,” he says. “Officer Chan says more than one.”
“Okay, they chased her. And somehow, God bless her, she got one of them, pushed him over, and the other one dragged her back inside.”
Inside. There is a clear path of breakage from the terrace to the kitchen to the front hall.
The rain picks a fitting moment to hit. Not the usual Vancouver drizzle, this is a solid cloudburst. I can hear a rumble of thunder in the distance, uncommon in this part of the world.
“Comin’ down heavy,” says Gritch. “Sky’s black. Where’d that come from?”
The question doesn’t require an answer.
The kitchen is a mess. Shattered glass and broken china cover the floor. A big platter of assorted canapés strewn countertop to sink, caviar, pâté, fancy cheeses, the air is rich.
“Stinks in here,” says Gritch, unnecessarily. “Cops never bother to clean up.”
“Not their job.”
“Are we supposed to do it, or call Housekeeping?”
“I’ll do it,” I say. “Go water your fern.” Chaotic or not, the kitchen is well-stocked with garbage bags, cleaning supplies, brooms, dustpans, rags, and mops. I start slowly, picking up the bigger shards one piece at a time, taking a look at each one, not searching for anything in particular and pretty sure I wouldn’t recognize a real clue if it cut my finger, which it might do if I handle things in my usual ham-fisted fashion. Take it slow. Broken glass and china into a metal wastebasket, foodstuffs into a plastic bag. Raquel took a lot of care with this buffet — toast points and little spoons, hard-cooked eggs and lemon wedges. All ruined.
The rain hasn’t let up and it’s getting on to evening by the time I’ve cleaned up the kitchen. I’m no wiser than I was when I started, merely more informed. There’s a knife missing from the wooden knife rack. The carving knife. And by Christ I hope she got to it first, I hope she cut the bastard, I hope that I was washing some of his blood off the tiles.
The rain is pounding the deck, spattering through the battered French doors. I stuff a plastic garbage bag into the biggest gap and get a good scratch on the back of my hand for my trouble. Bound to happen.
Leo’s bathroom, like the kitchen, is well-stocked. There’s peroxide and Polysporin and I have my choice of Elastoplast or Band-Aid, pretty much anything a wounded klutz might need. As I’m fixing myself up I’m checking the inventory. Looking inside someone’s medicine cabinet is akin to reading their mail; not something I’m comfortable doing but under the circumstances not out of line. Mooney and Pazzano probably handled these pill bottles. It appears that Leo has his choice of Viagra or Cialis, as well as a Chinese male potency booster called Hua Fo. He also has prescriptions for various age-related medications, none of which I’m familiar with. They don’t have any bearing on what I’m supposed to be up here doing anyway, which definitely isn’t standing in Leo’s bathroom looking at his privacy. I already know a lot more than I want to about my boss.
And how much do I really know? Not that much. I may be a “house dick” by occupation, but I’m no detective. I don’t have a snooper’s curiosity. Private lives? None of my business. Back when I earned a living doing physical labour I took comfort in the precise outlines of the job. I knew what was expected of me, what I would be required to pay in pain and effort, the exact proportions of my roped-off territory. No confusion. The Lord Douglas is a bigger ring, but it’s measurable, in size and requirements. At least that’s how it
’s supposed to be.
Most of Raquel’s personal things are in her own suite at the southernmost corner of the penthouse; self-contained chambers — kitchen, sitting room, bedroom — through a door at the end of the hall. According to Leo, I’ll find suitcases there. Packing up that apartment will be a job for another day; right now Leo would like me to remove her things from his bedroom closets. He doubts he’ll be able to sleep in there anyway. He says he may use one of the guestrooms. If he doesn’t move out permanently.
It looks like Raquel had her sitting room organized for sewing. Two machines, bolts of cloth, a dress form, work tables, threads, ribbons, scissors, all neatly arranged. The half-finished dress on the mannequin is white. There is lace around the neckline. To my untaught eye it looks a lot like a wedding gown. Heartbreak upon heartbreak.
Back in Leo’s bedroom, once very much their bedroom, obviously arranged for two people to watch television, read, sleep, side by side. I pack up Raquel’s things as neatly as I can. Dresser drawers filled with underclothing, slips and stockings, jewellery box, makeup. Everything I touch reminds me of the woman who wore them. I’m clumsy with delicate things.
She had her own bathroom. Her pink robe is hanging on the back of the door, her moisturizers and creams and conditioners lined up on an open shelf. Near the tub is a wall rack holding a sheaf of magazines: Prevention, Cigar Aficionado, Men’s Health, Conceive, and a glossy Spanish language magazine called Agenda Para Mama.
It’s that last one that does it. My eyes are blurring and my face is getting hot and I have an urgent primitive need to punch something, punish someone, almost anyone. And I didn’t love her; I just liked her, liked trying out my meagre Spanish on her, seeing her smile when I got it right.
Fresh air. Clear my head, cool my face. The sky is clearing in the west when I get outside, the rain has moved on. The trailing end of the storm has diminished to a steady breeze across the roof garden. The moon is breaking through the clouds. I can almost see stars.
I walk to the railing and look down at the street. At fifteen stories, plus the penthouse structure, the Lord Douglas is dwarfed by most of the buildings around it. When it was built it was a monument, now it’s merely a mesa. Still, it plants a massive footprint, almost a full city block, hugging the sidewalk on three sides, flanked to the north by the empty pit.
