Law and Disorder

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “Easy for you. I’m sure he takes every one of your calls.”

  She didn’t bother to suppress her smirk. I didn’t suppress anything as I filled her in on what I now believed was going on with Shattered Families. She listened, white-faced without interrupting for once.

  I finished up by saying, “Make goddam sure he takes the next call from you. Tell him what I told you. And suggest that he picks up the next call from me. Life and death and all that.”

  SIXTEEN

  -What do you call 10,000 lawyers

  at the bottom of the river?

  A very good start

  It was six o’clock when I stepped through the door of my own house, as usual not sure what I’d find. Whatever it was, it sure smelled good. And in spite of my unsettled day, I was hungry.

  “Alvin?”

  Alvin’s beaky nose popped out from the kitchen. “Hi, Camilla. I’m just making a bit of chowder for the party tomorrow. Of course, there’s no room in the kitchen, so we’ll be holding it in the backyard.”

  “Chowder? I’m starving. I’d like some of that.” Alvin had put bacon in this latest version, the same way my sisters do.

  “Help yourself. But it’s better the next day anyway. You know that.”

  I didn’t know that, because this was cooking knowledge, and I’d been born without the cooking chromosome, as well as the tall, blonde gene.

  “Speaking of girls, where are they? Aren’t their events all over? I thought I missed them.”

  He emerged carrying a dripping wooden spoon and sporting the Cape Breton tartan plastic apron. “They went on that cruise.”

  “What cruise?” I said as evenly as I could considering I had a bizarre vision of Ray’s girls sailing off into the Caribbean with a crowd of retired accountants.

  “That one they sent you the tickets for.”

  “All right, Alvin. Start from the beginning. I don’t know anything about any cruise, not that it makes any difference. Who would be sending me tickets for a cruise? Cruises cost thousands of dollars. It’s probably some scam. I can’t believe you fell for it, whatever it was.”

  Alvin gestured with the spoon. “Not that kind of cruise, Camilla. I’m not a fool. The lady phoned and said it was one of those on the Ottawa River, an evening cruise with dinner on the boat for you and a guest. She said that the guests on board would all be lawyers and I know you don’t really hang out with many and anyway, you weren’t here and the boat was leaving soon. I couldn’t imagine that you’d want the tickets.”

  “I couldn’t imagine it either. It’s kind of amusing to think of the girls taking my place. But why did I have these tickets?”

  “Maybe you won them in a raffle.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “But I would have had to buy a raffle ticket in that case, Alvin.”

  “A contest then.”

  “Earth to Alvin, I don’t do contests. You do. Maybe you won the tickets. Okay, another mystery solved. That chowder smells really good actually. Is it ready?”

  “They definitely came under your name.”

  “Okay, step back in time, Alvin. Came how? By mail?”

  “No, they were delivered to the door.”

  “Really? By a courier?”

  Alvin sniffed. “I found them in the mailbox. Now I have to check the chowder.”

  I knew better than to snap “forget the goddam chowder” and face sulky chowderless silences for a week. I just wanted answers. I followed him into the kitchen, where a large chowder pot was on the stove. The wonderful smell was coming from that. So was a bubbling sound that appeared to be bothering Alvin. He lifted the chowder pot off the burner.

  I was not the only audience for Alvin’s project. Gussie was already in the room, nose twitching enthusiastically. Mrs. Parnell’s cat was sitting on one of the sleek little chairs watching the show. Lester and Pierre were uncharacteristically silent. Perhaps bubbling pots made them nervous.

  “Not a moment too soon. I really don’t need a lot of interruptions while I’m trying to make a home-cooked meal for two motherless girls.”

  To my credit, I didn’t roll my eyes or utter a sharp remark.

  “It’s just a bit weird about these cruise tickets, Alvin.”

  Alvin didn’t respond. He was too busy stirring.

  “Just explain again how the tickets came to be here.” I sat down at the tiny table and waited.

  Finally Alvin turned around. “Nothing very dramatic. I was out for a walk, to get this beautiful big stainless pot at the Glebe Emporium, and when I was coming up to the house, I saw something sticking out of the mailbox.”

  I did my best not to sigh, yawn or say “In our lifetime, please, Alvin.” I nodded encouragingly and hoped the chowder didn’t start bubbling again and set us back to the beginning.

  He turned back to me. “Then the woman called and said there was something for you in the mailbox to express her family’s appreciation.”

  He whipped around and worked that wooden spoon. Gussie’s eyes opened wide in case that meant serving time.

  I said, “And what was in the mailbox, Alvin?”

  “I told you it was a pair of tickets to the cruise. The envelope and the note are still on the front hall console.”

  I got up and headed back to the hall. A plain letter-sized envelope had been slit open by Alvin. The letter opener lay next to it. My name was typed on it. Plain type, nothing unusual or distinguishing. Naturally, the envelope was empty.

  “There’s nothing here, Alvin,” I called.

  “That’s because I gave everything to Ashley and Brittany.”

  “You said there was a note.”

  “Do I have to do everything around here?” Alvin appeared in full outrage mode. That evaporated when he reached the table and I showed him the empty envelope. Our eyes met.

  “Gussie.”

  Sure enough, a slightly chewed piece of paper had been left on the sofa. What was left of it said, again in plain type, “In repayment for what you did for our family.” An indecipherable signature followed. Or Gussie might have drooled that.

  “I thought it was kind of nice,” Alvin said. “All those years at Justice for Victims working for next to nothing to help people, and how often did either one of us get anything for our efforts?”

  I let that slide. “Did you recognize her voice? If she was a client from JFV in the last five years you would have met her. No?”

  He thought hard. “No. She didn’t sound like anyone I knew. That signature doesn’t look familiar to me, either.”

  “It doesn’t even look like a signature. But that’s not important, I guess. We’ll figure out who it was at some point. Maybe they’ll call to see how the cruise went. I think I’ll have that chowder now.”

  Alvin arched his pierced eyebrow. “Are you waiting for me to serve it to you? And there’s no need to be snide.”

  Snide? I hadn’t meant to be snide, but I knew better then to get into an argument about snideness. The chowder possibility could dry up.

  “Sorry,” I said, with an attempt at a sincere smile.

  Alvin stared at me with concern. At least, I thought it was concern. He said, “Do you have indigestion? Because if you do, you probably shouldn’t eat chowder. It has dairy, and I put bacon in too and that could—”

  “I don’t have indigestion. Thank you for asking. And I think that dairy and bacon and whatever else is in there will be perfect.”

  “Ten minutes,” Alvin said. “I just have to correct the seasoning.”

  “Ten minutes?” I glanced at my watch. “Well, whatever else, at least we didn’t get any jokes. Wait until I tell you what I think I’ve figured out, thanks to Mrs. Parnell. If Mombourquette ever returns my calls...Alvin? Why do you have that expression on your face?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ‘what’ me. Did we get any jokes?”

  “It’s not necessary to raise your voice,” Alvin sniffed. “Do you know how much I have to do around here with two extra people and a
ll these animals and a big party planned tomorrow? You don’t even lift a finger and when you drift in, all you do is criticize.” He turned and frantically whipped the chowder with the wooden spoon. Lucky it didn’t snap in two. “Maybe you could check the mail.”

  I have to say, the person who stirs the chowder has the upper hand in negotiations with the person who hasn’t really eaten much all day.

  “Sure thing. I’ll check the mail then. Although I didn’t notice any when I came in. What’s the matter with me? It’s Sunday. Yesterday was Saturday. Didn’t we get the burglar joke on Friday?”

  Alvin had trouble making eye contact. “There’s always stuff in the mailbox. I put some in the basket on the bookcase behind the sofa.”

  Don’t ask, I told myself, because the answer will merely delay your chowder experience. I had spent five years at Justice for Victims trying to get Alvin to put the mail in the “in” basket, after discarding junk in the recycling bin. To tell the truth, after all this time, he’d been just starting to get better at it. Something about the arrival of Ashley and Brittany and the sale of the house and the notion of a party seemed to have derailed him somehow.

  I lifted the basket out from its hiding place and immediately went to get the recycing bin. That took a minute at least. The glossy pizza flyers, the fat package full of coupons and the collection of photocopied sheets advertising local entrepreneurial services all landed in the blue box. The coupons made a nice thud. Next I tossed in the note from my next door neighbour asking me to tell my friends to refrain from blocking her driveway. There were three requests from charities, all containing notebooks or labels especially made for Camilla McPee. Gee, thanks, folks. I put those aside for the shredder.

  That left the envelope. My name, spelled correctly, was typed on it. I dashed upstairs and returned with a pair of tweezers. I held it by the corner and opened it.

  Camilla MacPhee

  I stared at my name. The only words on the page.

  I got up and walked to the kitchen, where Alvin was holding a container of sea salt in his hand and frowning at the chowder pot.

  “Alvin!”

  He jumped. “Lord thundering Jesus, Camilla, do you have to yell?”

  “Is that all the mail?”

  “Why?”

  I kept my temper in check. No point in wasting time. “Because I see my name typed on a piece of paper, and yet, I don’t see an envelope with a joke.”

  “Oh. Oh,” he said. “Right. There were some more flyers and stuff sticking out yesterday. The phone rang just as I was about to put it all on the console and I—”

  “Just tell me where it might be. Right now. Don’t beat around the bush.”

  He bit his lip. “I think it’s in the dining room. On the dining room sideboard. What is it? What’s going on? Camilla?”

  I made it to the dining room and sifted through that pile of flyers and cheap printed ads that seem to clog the mailbox every day of the week. My heart rate soared at the sight of the plain envelope.

  Alvin appeared by my side. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  I lifted the envelope with the tweezers. “You open it with the scissors. Don’t smudge anything. It must have been hand-delivered on Saturday.

  Alvin managed to open it, and once again I used the tweezers to extract the sheet of paper inside.

  He whispered, “What does it say?”

  “What do you call ten thousand lawyers at the bottom of the river?”

  Alvin said, “Wait, I know that joke.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Oh my god. The girls are on a boat trip that was meant for me. With a bunch of lawyers. What time does it leave? Where does the boat cruise go? Where do they take off?”

  Alvin’s voice shook. “I don’t remember where or when. I just gave them the tickets and the information and they went. They thought it would be fun. Lord thundering Jesus! Oh no!”

  “Do you remember the name of the boat?”

  His eyes widened. “Yes! The Leila Q. I thought it sounded like a pretty name.”

  I shouted, “Alvin, you dial 911 and tell them that someone may have tampered with a boat called the Leila Q on the Ottawa River. I’ll phone too, and I’m calling Mombourquette and Elaine and we’re getting in the car as we call. Leave the chowder.”

  Mombourquette’s phone went to message. I left a long, detailed and shaky one. As we jumped into the car, I said, “Alvin, try to reach Mrs. P. and get her to check out Ottawa River cruises. Tell her to call all the companies and find out about the Leila Q. Tell her to say that passengers might be in danger and to get that goddam boat back to shore.”

  We rocketed out of the garage and up the driveway. I turned right, neatly knocking over my next-door neighbour’s wheelbarrow.

  “Nice going, Camilla. Maybe you’d better calm down if we want to get there in one piece. We can’t save Ashley and Brittany if we’re dead.”

  That would have been sensible advice if Alvin’s voice hadn’t been higher than a shrieking violin or even if he hadn’t been still wearing the Cape Breton tartan apron. Frankly, I didn’t care how many wheelbarrows we knocked over. However, I did keep my eyes open for pedestrians as we shot down the Queen Elizabeth driveway and across the Pretoria bridge.

  Alvin clung to his own cellphone and the dash with one hand as I turned onto Colonel By Drive on two wheels. He clutched my cellphone with the other. “Violet! She’s driving like a maniac. Where did you say the boats depart from, Violet? Hull? Hull, Camilla. Jacques Cartier Park. Then it’s supposed to pick up more people at the locks behind the Château Laurier! Floor it, Camilla.”

  “Tell Mrs. P. to call 911 and tell them that the same people who killed Rollie Thorsten are planning to sink a boat in the Ottawa River. Make sure they understand that this is serious. If the Colonel and the Major have connections, tell them to call in their markers.”

  As we peeled into the dock area in Jacques Cartier Park in Hull, on the Quebec side of the border, the Leila Q had already sailed. People were leaning against the rails, waving gaily. I strained to see Ashley and Brittany, but the boat was too far away.

  How would this insane team of murderers kill all the people on a boat? Sink it? Blow it up?

  “Back to the car!” We ran along the dock and jumped into the Acura. We raced out of the parking lot, leaving the attendant shaking his fist at us. Didn’t matter. We cut in front of a few slow drivers and tore onto the Interprovincial bridge, heading back to Ottawa. Luckily the distance between Quebec and Ontario is greater in the minds of the inhabitants than it is geographically. We were across the bridge and on MacKenzie Avenue in less than three minutes. There’s no parking near the boat pick-up. We pulled the Acura into a No Parking area on MacKenzie across from the Château Laurier and ran the rest of the way, up around the Château to the far side of the canal, finally thundering down the stone steps to the locks and the boat pickup area. At the bottom, I bent over, gasping for breath. Alvin was still descending. Didn’t matter, because the Leila Q had already pulled away.

  “Come back,” I shouted foolishly. “You’re in danger.”

  People on the path edged away from me. Not that I cared. Alvin didn’t help much in his Cape Breton tartan apron.

  “Okay, we need to find a boat, Alvin,” I said. I looked around for a boat close enough to get into. I kept my eyes on the Leila Q.

  By this time, Alvin was shimmying in panic. “What can we do? Ashley and Brittany are on that boat!”

  “I know that, Alvin. We have to keep calm. Hang on, what are those things bobbing on the water?”

  “Where?”

  “Out there!” I pointed, then turned to the nearest tourist and said, “I need your binoculars, please.”

  He goggled at me.

  “Now!”

  I turned the binoculars toward the boat. “Oh my god!”

  “What is it?”

  “Life jackets, Alvin. They’ve thrown off the life jackets. They’re drifting away from the boat.”

  The
man who owned the binoculars said, “How deep is it here?”

  I had no idea. But the Leila Q was steaming away from the life jackets. A low boom echoed across the Ottawa River. The next sound we heard was the passengers on the Leila Q screaming.

  “What’s happening?” Alvin shrieked.

  I managed to answer through my aching throat. “I imagine that’s some kind of explosion on the bottom of the boat. If our plotters are successful, the boat will take in water and sink. Lots of lawyers on the bottom. That’s what they want.”

  A crowd had gathered, and a buzz went through it. “But everyone will drown!” Alvin shrieked.

  “That’s what they want. Dead lawyers. Anyone else is just collateral damage. These people are insane,” I said, grimly. “Let’s hope the 911 calls made a difference. We have to get out there.” To our left, two men in a passing motor boat revved the engine. Other people had begun running toward the dock. “I need to get out there,” I yelled. “My stepkids are on that boat!” I didn’t wait for an okay. I just hopped on board. Alvin was right behind me.

  The swirl of sirens sounded in the background. Fire engines parked on the nearest bridge. We could see the fire crews arriving at the dock on the Quebec side. Our boat bounced up and down, its bottom slapping on the waves as we headed toward the sinking Leila Q. Others mobilized beside us. The boat went down fast. Dozens of people bobbed and thrashed in the turbulent water.

  We were able to reach out and grab for the floating life jackets to toss to the thrashing swimmers. I tossed one to a woman treading water. She seemed reasonably cool, so the four of us worked to haul her thrashing, sputtering neighbour into the boat first. I looked around wildly for Brittany and Ashley. Ray had trusted me, and now his girls might never come back from their wonderful sporty fundraising week in Ottawa. Had they still been on the boat as it sank?

  Alvin shouted. “Look!”

  Sure enough Brittany was holding her own, as a panicky man seemed to cling to her. No sign of Ashley, but I reminded myself that Ray had called them his “water rats”.

  I felt a swell of relief as the first of several Zodiacs with a crew of three firefighters sped toward the bobbing victims. They were joined by more Zodiacs from the Gatineau service. Other emergency personnel had commandeered small boats from both sides and were picking up swimmers and dragging them on board.