Woman Chased by Crows

by Marc Strange

  Sunday shoppers were streaming in from the subway laden with booty, racing for the GO trains, making the lower concourse a stampede. He wouldn’t be down here, anyway: Via Rail loaded upstairs.

  For all its size, the main concourse bore the unmistakable stamp of Toronto’s ungenerous nature. The limestone columns were thick, perpendicular, half Greek, partly Roman, not quite certain of anything except their structural integrity. It wasn’t pretty, but it wouldn’t fall down. That was Toronto.

  The man sitting in the corner of the cafeteria was the right age. He had on a black suit and a black wool topcoat with velvet lapels. He wore a yarmulke. On the tray in front of him was a small metal teapot with a teabag string hanging down the side. A rectangular package sat on the seat beside him. It was about the right size for a container of ashes.

  “Mr. Grova?”

  The old man blinked before he looked up as if she had awakened him from a sad dream. “Yes? Who? Do I know you?”

  “No. My name is Adele Moen, I’m a detective.” He rubbed his eyes, replaced his thick glasses and then appraised her badge as if it was collateral for a loan. “I’m looking into the circumstances surrounding your brother’s death,” she said.

  “Circumstances? Someone beat him up.”

  “Yes. Would you mind if I talked to you for a minute?”

  “A minute only. I’m waiting for my train.”

  “Your train doesn’t start loading for half an hour. If I could just ask you a few questions.”

  “Sit, sit.” He shifted the tray to one side, wiped the tabletop with a paper napkin. “You like some coffee?”

  “No. Thank you.” She sat across from him. “Did your brother have a bad heart?”

  “Louis? He had bad everything — heart, pancreas, veins, name it. It’s a wonder he lasted as long as he did.”

  “Were you close?”

  “He was my brother. Hate, love, what’s the difference? Blood is blood.” He shifted the package on the seat beside him. “Cremation isn’t what we do,” he said. “Cremation is when you want a person to disappear. I would have given him a place, a stone.” He studied her face. After a while he nodded. She felt as if she’d passed some test. “You’re investigating his death?”

  “Yes. Peripherally. I’m investigating a murder that may be connected.”

  “A murder. I see. And who else was killed?”

  “A man named Nimchuk.”

  At the name his eyes looked heavenward. “Of course.” His laugh was short and bitter. “Why not? ‘Someday,’ I told him,” he waggled a finger, “it took nearly thirty years but I knew. Someday, this will all come back and bite you on the tuchus. Excuse my language.”

  “All what?”

  “His life, his connections, his involvements.” His lips pursed for a moment as though he wanted to spit. “Viktor Nimchuk.” He lifted the lid on the little tin pot, but let it fall without looking inside. “The first time Louis brought that man around, I knew. ‘Stay far away from this man. He brings trouble.’”

  “Why did he bring Nimchuk to see you?”

  “I need more tea,” he said. “Would you watch this package for just a moment?”

  “You stay put. I’d like some, too.” The line was mercifully short. She slid a tray along the steel track and got tea for two. The cashier took her money without looking up. When she returned Grova was checking his ticket. He looked up. “How much time do we have?”

  “You have lots of time. I’ll make sure you don’t miss your train.”

  “Good. Thank you. I don’t walk so fast these days. I have to start early.”

  “So, this happened some time ago, right?”

  “Twenty-eight years, I think. Yes.”

  “In Montreal.”

  “That’s right. I’ve been in Montreal all my life. Louis, too, until he moved here.”

  “When was that?”

  “Fifteen years, no, eighteen years.”

  “Okay. Can you go back to the beginning? Your brother came to see you with Viktor Nimchuk.”

  “This Nimchuk, he’s Russian, yes? He did some business with my brother once before, a fur coat, sable, none of my business, I stayed away from what he was doing. This time he had some diamonds he wanted to sell. Fine, good. That’s what I do, estate jewellery is my area of expertise, so, let’s have a look. Very nice. He has six stones. Old European cut. Maybe 1890. Something like that. Probably Vienna. Nice enough, two carats, two and a half. So I ask, where do they come from? That, too, is part of my job. This Nimchuk doesn’t have his story straight. Maybe he doesn’t think it’s important. They belonged to my grandmother, he says. Really? She must have been a wealthy woman.”

  “Did you buy them?”

  “I have a good business, Detective, legitimate, pay taxes, keep records, I’m very careful. Very careful. When it comes to diamonds, it’s good to be careful. Make sure the person who’s selling the diamonds has the right to sell. Some putz comes in off the street with a handful of stones wrapped up in a dirty handkerchief. These are not his grandmother’s diamonds. These are probably stolen. So I said no. But Louis, he had his own business, and not so . . . fastidious.”

  “Do you know what Louie did with them?”

  “He sold them. One by one. Sold them for less than they were worth.”

  “Any idea who he was selling to?”

  “I stayed far away from those transactions. I know he sold some to professional athletes.”

  “But you don’t know their names.”

  “I don’t know from sports. Players from here, players from there, Toronto team, Montreal team. Football players. I never met any.”

  “That was the only time you met Nimchuk?”

  “Once more. A year later, maybe. This time he brought a woman, I don’t know from names. They wanted an appraisal on a blue stone.”

  “A sapphire.”

  “Yes. A sapphire. Louis had a buyer, he said. He wanted me to look at it, make sure it was the real thing, tell him how much I thought it was worth.”

  “How much was it worth?”

  “Back then, maybe five thousand dollars a carat to start with. But it isn’t like adding up pounds of coffee, the price multiplies, a two-carat stone is worth more than two one-carat stones. This one was over five carats.” He dipped his tea bag up and down three times and then used the back of his spoon to press the goodness out. “A lovely Kashmiri sapphire. Perfect, round, deep blue fire. I recognized it right away.”

  “You knew this one jewel?”

  “I not only knew it, I knew where it came from. Russia. And if I knew that, I knew what else they had. You just had to add it up, by now they were trying to sell another eight diamonds, all cut before 1890, plus the sapphire. Not too hard to put things together — old diamonds, sapphire, Russians. I said, ‘Where are the other three?”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that’s all he had. Who knows if he was telling the truth? He was a good liar. I said to him, if this is what I think it is you have a big problem, my friend. This is one of the Sisters.”

  “The Sisters.”

  “The Seven Sisters. They were stolen over a hundred and fifty years ago. Pakistan would like them back. India would like them back. India and Pakistan have a disagreement over who should get them. Who knows? The Taliban would probably like them as well.”

  “You said four.”

  “Yes. Well. There used to be seven. Four in the pendant, plus two earrings, somewhat smaller. And a finger ring. But the four in the pendant were the real prizes.”

  “Who has the earrings and the ring?”

  “They’re in England. They aren’t leaving soon.”

  “You never saw them?”

  “Not in person.”

  “Is there any way you could tell from a photograph, and a black and white pho
tograph at that, if this . . .” She took the carefully folded picture from an envelope and spread it out in front of him. “. . . is a sapphire?”

  His eyes lit up and his face creased in a hundred wrinkles. “Oh sure. That’s it. That’s the stone.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “You just know, Detective. It’s like recognizing a face. Stones like this one have names, personalities, even fan clubs. Stones like this don’t disappear. They live forever. And sooner or later,” he smiled, “someone wants to wear them to the ball.”

  “If I could show you the real thing, in your hand, would you be able to swear under oath that it was one of those sisters?”

  “Under oath, you say? Would this in any way help to convict whoever killed my brother?”

  “If I can get enough evidence to arrest him. It would certainly help.”

  “You know, it’s been a hundred years since those jewels were worn in public. There is a photograph of the Dowager Empress Feodorovna wearing them. Part of a crucifix. An ugly piece, really, all those stones clumped together like that. Not really beautiful. Excessive. The four blue stones at the points of the cross don’t really go with the big red stone in the middle.”

  “The big red stone in the middle. You’re talking about a ruby, right?”

  “Of course, very famous. The one they called the Ember. But it was a fake.”

  “Oh.”

  “That size, usually fake. Or maybe a spinel, garnet, hard to tell them apart if you don’t know the difference. But that size? I’ve seen pieces of glass that would fool a lot of people.” Smiles. “Somebody says they’ve got a ruby as big as a doorknob you can bet money it’s a fake.”

  “They don’t make rubies that big?”

  “A few. But the Ember hasn’t been seen since the Revolution. It belonged to the Tsar’s mother. Maybe once it was real, but most of the royal jewels were sold by the Party. For cash. Stalin didn’t care for jewels, he liked cash. He was a bank robber at heart.”

  “If you saw the Ember you could tell if it was real or not?”

  “Of course. But I’ve always had my doubts about that one. Too perfect, if you know what I mean. But the sapphire in your picture, it’s definitely real.”

  “So why didn’t you buy it when you had the chance?”

  “And do what? I have no personal use for gems. I don’t wear them, I don’t have them in my house. My wife doesn’t care for jewels, she likes china. We have lots of nice china. What I do is sell stones, for a decent profit, not too much, I’m not a greedy man, just a fair deal for all concerned. So, here’s a beautiful stone that I can’t sell. So why would I buy it? The person selling it to me has committed a crime. If I sell it, I’m committing a crime, whoever buys it is committing a crime. Legitimate merchants wouldn’t touch it. They’d recognize it. The best of them have a photographic memory for stones, believe me. Start mentioning Russians, and Russia, and old diamonds, that starts to narrow it down. Then show the blue stone? They’d all know.” He checked his watch. “Please? I have to start now.”

  “All right.”

  He walked like a man with faulty hips and fragile knees, and halfway up the long climb to Track 16 he relented and allowed her to carry the package. When they reached the loading platform he needed to rest, but they had arrived with time to spare.

  “Thank you,” he said. “That’s some climb for old legs.”

  “Will you be able to sleep on the trip home?”

  “Oh yes. No stops, clickety-clack, puts me right out.”

  “Good. You’ve had a long day.”

  “I don’t mind. There are things you need to attend to for family. I don’t count that boy. He’s not a blood relative. Louis’ wife’s child. No connection at all. He’ll sell what he can, probably drink himself to death. None of my business.” He took the package from her. “My car is down there somewhere.”

  They started walking again. She kept a hand under his elbow in case he lost his balance.

  “Why did your brother move to Toronto?”

  “Something scared him.”

  “Do you know what it was?”

  “He wouldn’t talk about it. By that time Louis had some kind of partner. Or something. Someone else was involved. A man. I never met him, but I got the feeling he was dangerous.”

  “Was he a musician? I heard something about a musician.”

  “I never heard about that. I only heard about football players. Okay, this is me,” he said. He held out his hand. “Thank you for your help, Detective.”

  “Thank you for talking to me.”

  “You know, some people just like to have something that no one else can have. People like that would buy the Mona Lisa and keep her locked in a closet, visit her in the dark once a year. I’m not one of those people. If I can’t sell it, it’s no good to me. Louis wasn’t like that. He would keep Mona in a closet.”

  “Some people thought Louie had the big ruby in his closet.”

  “If he did, he gave it to them. Louis didn’t like pain.”

  Eight

  Monday, March 21

  The Vernal Equinox. It was official. First day of “Muck Season,” according to Orwell. The previous week’s heavy rains had melted any exposed snow, mud was everywhere, impossible to avoid. And even though it was much too early for plowing, Dean Halliwell, who leased three of Orwell’s fields for hay, had already been up and down the lane in his tractor at least twice, leaving sloppy ravines in his wake and making a good case for Bozo’s ability to handle boggy terrain. The mud-room was at peak capacity: wellingtons, gumboots and galoshes were crowded under the long bench and every coat hook bore at least two muddy outer garments. A pan of water and a grubby towel were on hand for sluicing paws. The concrete floor was slick. Slippers waited on the mat by the kitchen door if you could make the jump.

  Erika was in her element. Seed catalogues covered the dining table, and Dermot Dell, her partner in horticulture, showed up twice a week to discuss garden expansion.

  “If you call him ‘Dingly’ while he is here I will brain you with a trowel.”

  “I never do.”

  “You want to, I can tell. You think it’s cute.”

  “I think you’re both kind of cute, huddling over that plan. What’s going in this year, an olive grove?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Orwell wouldn’t have been surprised. Last year it was a nuttery. “This year we will have a pond.”

  “With fish?”

  “Of course with fish.”

  “Fish we can eat, or fancy Japanese goldfish?”

  “Not an ornamental pond, a real one, big enough so you can row a boat across, with frogs, turtles, ducks . . .”

  “If you dig it, they will come.”

  Three days without her morning run and she could feel it. Doesn’t take long, she thought. Only on her third klick and her thighs were already complaining about the pace. The rhythm of her breathing was breaking up, ragged around the edges. Not good. Don’t let it happen again. She thudded across the wooden bridge at the east end of the locks and turned for home. The familiar black Labradoodle chased her enthusiastically for the usual hundred metres before acknowledging a sharp whistle. She had never seen the owner. Don’t you even think about slowing down, Stacy told herself, work through it, there’s serenity on the other side of the pain.

  Three days. Fun while it lasted, no doubt about it, it was a rush, but the job was complicated down there, easy to blow your routines, she’d have to fight for her alone time if she ever got to work in Metro.

  Yeah, like that was going to happen. Maybe it’s better to be the top investigator in a six-investigator town. After all, things had been pretty interesting in Dockerty lately. Not that a person could count on that much excitement every month, but no doubt about it, this case had been . . . stimulating.

  But not finis
hed. Well, maybe her end was finished, there wasn’t much more she could contribute from up here — talk to Dr. Ruth again maybe, push the Zubrovskaya woman a little harder — but what good would that do? And what would she be looking for? What part of the case was still unresolved? The murder of Viktor Nimchuk in a motel on the Queensway in Toronto. The Queensway. In Toronto. Definitely not up here, and most definitely not her case. Not any more.

  Almost home. Quick shower, a protein shake, find something to wear, verbal report to Lieutenant Paynter, another one to the Chief, then write it up, wait for orders.

  She stopped running at her front gate, but kept moving, pacing the perimeter of the little front lawn, cooling down, around and around the three rowan trees Joe Greenway had given her last year. One male and two female. Hope those babies made it through the winter. Their trunks were wrapped in burlap and chicken wire. At least the wild things hadn’t wounded them. If Joe said they’d be happy there, they’d probably be happy. Trees, he knew about. Staying in touch? Not so much.

  “Chief? Captain Rosebart on line one.”

  “I’m picking up, Dorrie, thanks. Brennan here.”

  “Chief? Émile Rosebart.”

  “How do you do, Captain? What can I do for you?”

  “Giving you a heads-up, Chief.”

  Orwell was alert. “Appreciate it,” he said.

  “We let those two Russians go.”

  “Really? ”

  “Right, we’ve got nothing to charge them with.”

  “Stolen handgun?”

  “No evidence he stole it. Says he bought it from the pawnbroker. Plus he turned it over to a police officer.”