“Why would you have something like that? It doesn’t make sense. Even for you, MacPhee.”
“Because I received a burglar joke. And you left me no choice.”
“Forgive me if, as usual, I don’t follow your thinking.”
“Three people are dead: Rollie Thorsten, Judge Card-arelle, Roxanne Terrio. Your police colleague Steve Anstruther is seriously injured. As far as I can tell, they all received jokes. I got the same jokes. So did Bunny. The day they died or were injured, he and I received their names, including Steve Anstruther. Remember? I have always figured it was Brugel. He’s capable of doing it. Completely. And there’s no way that Annalisa Fillmore would do anything for him or with him. Don’t you think I’m right there?
Mombourquette nodded dourly. “Love her or hate her, she wasn’t the front woman for a gang lord.”
“But she was involved somehow. We need to find out how she was connected with any of these people.”
“She was definitely connected to Thorsten. We all accept that. I myself checked that out. She couldn’t have killed him. She was with a number of people who couldn’t stand her and would have loved to point the finger..”
“Well, maybe she had someone to do her bidding. We thought that Brugel could use others to do his dirty work. Why couldn’t Annalisa?”
“First of all, for the last time, there is no ‘we’. Second, I want that DVD.”
“Sure thing,” I said. “I’ll ask Alvin to bring it over.”
“Never mind. I’ll send a uniform for it.”
“Good idea,” I said, thinking fast. “I’ll ask him to let your officer in and hand the DVD over.”
Lucky for me, Mombouquette had to go to the little boy’s room. That meant I could tell Alvin, when I got him on my cell, to make sure to copy the DVD before the uniform showed up to get it.
“You’re where?” Alvin bleated.
“Emergency. Don’t even ask. Better yet, can you pick me up here and bring a copy of that DVD for Sgt. Mombourquette? That’s a copy. Don’t forget. Don’t mention it to anyone. Bring the original too. We need to show it to Mrs. P. And hurry up.”
“Good news,” I said to Mombourquette as he returned. “I reached Alvin. He’ll bring the DVD here. By the way, how’s the officer who hit his head? He seemed to be pretty badly injured. Will he need surgery?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“What about the guys who hit him? That Mustang must have been damaged after that.”
His eyes narrowed. “We haven’t found them yet.”
“But you will,” I smiled encouragingly. Of course, Mombourquette was pretty well immune to deceitful types like me.
“We will. We got the car.”
“You did? Really?” I said admiringly.
“Not me personally, so you don’t need to lay it on quite so thick, but it’s been found. Abandoned. They must have fled on foot.”
“But you know who owns it? The Mustang, I mean.”
Mombourquette watched me with narrowed eyes. “It was reported stolen earlier today. But there will be a link to whoever was driving. For sure. Fingerprints, hair. Something.”
“Of course, although they don’t usually do any amount of forensic follow-up on stolen cars, do they?”
“This isn’t usual. This was an attack on a police officer.”
“Right. Of course. Sorry, I was just thinking out loud, and face it, I have my own interest in it. Those guys tried to run me over. They were coming after me when the first police cars arrived. I owe you guys a lot.”
“That’s weird, isn’t it, that a pair of complete strangers would try to kill you. You sure you didn’t know them?”
My jaw dropped. “Of course, I didn’t know them. The people I know don’t try to kill me. They just get pissed off.”
“They sure do. Don’t go anywhere. I’m going to make some calls. I’ll be back.”
After about twenty minutes, I was really glad to hear Alvin’s voice.
“Alvin, I need something else from you.”
“You could say hello first,” he sniffed. “And what happened to you, anyway? Do you know that you missed the girls’ second race?”
In the interests of redeeming myself, I filled him in on events, perhaps adding a bit of drama here and there, in case the missing burglar, the invaded apartment, the injured cop, and the attempt to run me over weren’t enough. Alvin can set the guilt bar quite high. Sometimes he’s worse than my sisters.
Finally, he sniffed, “I guess if you were in the hospital, it would be understandable. I’ll make sure the girls hear the story behind it.”
“Perhaps I should call Ashley and Brittany to apologize.”
“I don’t think so, Camilla. You’ll probably just make things worse. You know what you’re like.”
“Fine. Okay. Can you take me over to Clearwater to pick up my car? While you’re there, we can look for my digital camera. It got knocked out of my hand when that Mustang came after me. I’m hoping I captured a picture of the people who hit me. I’d like to get a look at that. Oh wait, here comes Leonard now. Do you have the DVD for him?”
“Why don’t you get him to pick up the camera?” Alvin said.
“Shh. Don’t mention the camera to Mombourquette because—oh hi, Leonard, how are you?”
Mombourquette just shot me a look. I made a big deal out of accepting the DVD from Alvin and passing it to him.
“Don’t thank me,” I said.
“I don’t plan to,” he answered. “You could have saved us a lot of trouble if you’d told me about it and don’t bother to pretend I wouldn’t let you.”
I just shrugged and turned to Alvin. “Let’s head home. Dr. Hasheem told me to take it easy.”
Dr. Hasheem, whishing past at that moment, said, “And try to stay out of fights.”
Alvin was driving Mrs. Parnell’s former vehicle, the seemingly indestructible 1974 LTD that she’d given to him. It practically knew its way back to her apartment, leaving Alvin and me time to argue.
“I still don’t see why you didn’t just tell the police where in the parking lot your camera is and leave it to them.”
“If Mombourquette gets the camera before I do, he won’t let me see anything. He doesn’t want me interfering in his so-called investigation, which I have to say would be going nowhere if you and I weren’t involved. And Bunny is the second reason. I don’t want the cops around the building any more than they have to be. I’m willing to take the risk. Illegal, I know, unwise for sure, and possibly even insane. But Bunny went to the wire for me when I needed him, and I would do the same for him. Anyway, the camera might be behind the recycle bins or maybe it dropped when I jumped over the barrier at the end of the lot. It could be on the patch of grass by the edge of the parking lot. Let’s hope it’s still there and that there’s something worthwhile on it. If we find it, I’ll tell Mombourquette that I forgot all about the camera in the shock of being attacked.”
“The fun never ends,” Alvin said.
The camera turned up on the grass, just as I’d hoped. Alvin scooped it up. I peered at the indistinct image on the small screen. I could barely make out the cars, let alone who might have been sitting in them.
“Fine. We’ll drop off one of the cars at home and take the camera to Mrs. Parnell’s. She’ll be happy to print out my shots for us. She might be able to improve the image of the guy in the Mustang. And there are a few more things I’d like her to look up.”
“Okay. But are you sure you should be driving?”
“I’ve had lots of excellent painkillers. Unless you’ve figured out how you can drive two cars at once?”
Alvin sniffed. “Fine. But I hope I don’t have to drag you back to Emergency.”
“Not everything’s about you, Alvin,” I said as I hurried off before he could respond.
We chose to drop off the LTD first. As we both pulled up to the house, Jacki Jewell was just getting out of her black Mercedes SUV.
“Wow,” Alvi
n said. “She’s had her photo and name vinyl-wrapped on her car. That’s so—”
“Egotistical?” I muttered.
“Well, looks like I caught you,” she said with just a hint of accusation.
“Likewise,” I said. I tried not to stare at the giant scary vinyl teeth on the side of her pricey vehicle.
“We have an offer,” she said, the way anyone else might say the patient died.
“Told you,” Alvin muttered.
“Why the long face? I thought that was what we wanted,” I said.
“Well, I’m certain we can get a better price,” she said. “Give it some thought.”
“Is it much under what we asked?” I said.
“No. They didn’t quibble about price at all. But that’s a sign. Perhaps we can get a higher offer from someone else and then get a bidding war going. That’s where…”
“Is it that couple who were here earlier?” Alvin said, “Because they were lovely and I don’t think that Camilla wants to rip them off. Do you?”
“Of course not. We’re in a hurry, Jacki. Can you give us the offer, and we’ll take it with us to read it over before we sign it.”
“I’ve indicated those items you need to note,” she said haughtily.
“Camilla can never forget she’s a lawyer,” Alvin piped up.
“Is it a conditional offer?” I asked. “Maybe we shouldn’t get too excited, Alvin.”
“No conditions,” she said in clipped tones. “They have the money. They won’t even need a mortgage. They sold their house in Vancouver. Could have bought a much more expensive property if they wanted.”
“Possession date?”
“Flexible. Up to three months if you need it.”
“Is there anything unreasonable?” I asked.
“Not really, but I do believe we could have gotten a better price if you—”
“Thank you, Jacki,” I said extracting the envelope from her hand. “I’ll go over it tonight, and you can pick it up tomorrow. And now if you’ll excuse us, we have to get out to visit our friend before it’s too late. Alvin, do we have any good quality photo paper?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t even have a decent printer. But we can get some on the way.”
“Did you ever find the wires to connect the camera to the computer?”
“Lord thundering Jesus, Camilla, you’re the one who’s always losing things.”
Mrs. Parnell had no trouble uploading the images from the camera to her laptop and displaying them on her large screen television. Apparently, it’s easy if you know how and have thousands of dollars worth of the right kind of software.
We were crowded into her small space in the Perley, mostly because the Major and the Colonel had decided to join us. We were more than a little sombre as we had all just watched the surveillance DVD of Annalisa Fillmore’s approach to Bunny’s house and her horrifying fiery exit.
“I got good shots of all the cars in the parking lot. They were all empty, but I’m not certain I actually got an image of the Mustang before it tried to run me over,” I said as Mrs. P. quickly clicked through photo by photo. Sombre or not, she was enjoying the task.
Click click.
There were pictures of a silver Mazda 3 and a black Acura, almost a twin of my own, only with Manitoba plates.
She clicked onto the candy red Yaris, then the black cherry Honda Accord from the late nineties, a ribbon of rust showing around each of the wheel wells. All were empty, all had Ontario plates.
Click.
The glossy Ford F-150 King Ranch truck had no plates in the front, meaning either it was straight off a dealer’s lot with a temporary plate or it was registered in Quebec. I’d stepped behind it to check that. Sure enough, Quebec plates. Click. I’d been approaching the mustard-yellow Mustang, starting to wonder if I had been wasting my time when all hell had broken loose.
Click.
“Did you see anyone in the car that tried to eliminate you, Ms MacPhee?”
I shook my head. “No. It all happened so quickly. I barely saw it coming at me. I guess I heard the engine rev before my brain recognized what was happening and I ran for cover.”
“There’s an image of the license plate, so surely we can trace the owner. I might even be able to hack in and—”
“Won’t do any good, Mrs. P.,” I said hastily. “The vehicle was stolen earlier.”
Alvin said, “You can see the profile of a person on the passenger side.”
“I don’t even remember seeing him. I was just clicking away. These shots are not too well focused.”
Mrs. Parnell swirled her mouse. “I can enhance that shot a bit more. It’s somewhat blurry, but my photo software can produce miracles.”
I squinted. “It’s not quite enough to identify anyone though.”
Alvin said, “Give Violet a chance.”
Mrs. Parnell beamed and swirled her mouse again. All too technical for me. The picture sharpened. I stared. “That’s funny. That person looks a lot like…”
“What?” Alvin said.
“Who?” Mrs. Parnell added.
The Major or possibly the Colonel said, “Don’t hold back. It’s not sporting.”
I said, “Well, that just doesn’t make sense.”
“Who?” Alvin raised his voice. The other three reminded him that we were in a medical facility, and we didn’t want to get turfed out.
“It looks like Jamie Kilpatrick.”
Mrs. Parnell glanced up sharply. “You asked me to research the demise of a pair of Kilpatricks.”
I sat on Mrs. Parnell’s bed and stared at her. “I did indeed. His grandparents. They were killed by a drunk driver. But that doesn’t explain why he would be in the passenger seat of a stolen Mustang that tried to run me down.”
“From my time in Intelligence,” the Major said, “I learned that things are not always what they seem.”
“Very astute, Major,” Mrs. P. said. “Very.”
So if things weren’t as they seemed, what were they? I’d been sleuthing around Kilpatrick’s grandparents’ house, and someone had called the police on me. What if it had been Kilpatrick himself and not the English lady with the dog? But what would that accomplish? Unless he didn’t want me looking too closely at anything to do with him. If people weren’t as they presented themselves, who were they? Annalisa had presented herself as a campaigner against crime, and yet as far as I could tell, she’d had a plan to murder Bunny and his family. The people in this strange game of cat and mouse, victims and villains, were connected somehow. Would I ever figure it out?
“I don’t know why he’d try to kill me, but he was Rollie Thorsten’s assistant, and he is definitely connected to Brugel. I don’t think there’s any link between him and Annalisa, but it’s worth exploring. I think I need to sit back and think of everyone who is even vaguely related to this and then perhaps, if it isn’t too much trouble, Mrs. P., see if we can find photos of them and print them. It’s time to talk to the people who knew the victims.”
Within fifteen minutes, we had several decent photos printed out: a shot of Brugel, thuglike, one of Annalisa Fillmore, giving a speech, another of Judge Cardarelle gazing frostily into the camera at a formal event. Madame Cardarelle, elegant as usual, stood beside him with a pro forma smile on her beautiful face. Roxanne Terrio standing by her bicycle, shielding her eyes from the sun. Bev Leclair was waving in the background. Rollie Thorsten striding out of the Courthouse, and Constable Steve Anstruther at his swearing in ceremony. We came up empty on Jamie Kilpatrick. Eventually, even Mrs. Parnell gave up.
I didn’t though. I pulled out my cellphone.
“P. J.,” I said merrily. “Glad to catch you. I think I have a few scraps of very newsy stuff for you.”
“You’re always saying that, Tiger, and yet, to date? Big fat zero.”
“Take heart. I was almost run over today, and it looks like the passenger in the car was the junior lawyer in the Brugel case. I think he’s involved in this who
le joke set-up and these deaths. I don’t know why, but his grandparents were killed a year and a half ago. There has to be some connection. His name is Jamie Kilpatrick. Do you have a shot of him? Maybe leaving the court? I know you take lots. I noticed one you took of Rollie Thorsten made the paper after his death.”
P. J. sighed.
I said, “By the way, the cops aren’t saying anything, but that body outside Bunny Mayhew’s house? That was Annalisa Fillmore.”
I enjoyed P. J.’s gasp more than the preceding sigh. “You can ask if they’ll confirm or deny it. I suggest starting with the lovely and talented Sgt. Leonard Mombourquette.” I added, “That might get you something before the paper goes to bed tonight. Make sure you send me that photo soon. The best address is Mrs. Parnell’s, but send it to me too. Just in case.”
P. J. said, “I’ll see what I can find, and I’ll email you. Just give me a bit of time. This is smokin’.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, smugly.
The group was watching me as I finished making sure he had the right email addresses. When I hung up, Mrs, Parnell said, “I wonder why it is that you would be receiving these jokes, and why your former client Mr. Mayhew would have been at risk?”
I said. “The questions are the easy part. What I need is answers.”
“Perhaps it’s not the only question,” the Colonel said. “It’s important to ask the right questions in order to produce the best answers.”
Frankly, while I thought he was just trying to keep up with the Major in Mrs. P.’s estimation, he went way up in mine.
“You’re right,” I said. “We should all be trying to find relationships between and among each of these people. Let’s work on that on our own. Use your imaginations. Let them run wild.”
“Oh, that reminds me, Ms MacPhee. In all the excitement, I quite forgot to tell you that I have learned that Annalisa Fillmore and Judge Cardarelle owned adjacent rental properties in Lowertown. Condos in that new development on George Street. Not sure if that’s a fit, but it’s a fact.”
Law and Disorder Page 21
