Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 1, 2 & 3 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

I write down the names and numbers.

  “I would like to check on Seth’s room, look through his stuff, see if there are any clues to who might have killed him. Is that OK with you?”

  She nods.

  Good. Her permission obviates the need for a search warrant. Not that I could get one. But if it comes to legal proceedings, I am still officially a cop and an agent of the Crown and, as such, I would need to be covered by a warrant if I did not have her consent.

  “I’ll show you his room.”

  She leads me up to the next floor.

  On the landing, half way up, I find my nose wrinkling at a familiar smell. It gets stronger as we approach the closed door to Seth’s room.

  Morgan reaches out a hand to open the door but I gently take her wrist and stop her. Positioning myself between her and the door thus blocking her view of the room, I open the door.

  The smell is stronger. It is accompanied by a buzzing.

  Another question is answered.

  Lying in the middle of the floor is the body of BLZ, Seth’s giant dog. A small business of flies swarms around the bullet hole drilled between his eyes.

  There is no sign that the forensics team was in the room. I wonder why? Whatever, I’ll take advantage of it and do my own search first. Then I think we will go and take a look at Marguerite Varga’s murder weapon in that neighbor’s garage.

  58

  Cal

  As I get out of the car, I scan the street and see him, sitting in a nondescript Honda Civic, strategically parked so that it provides him with the best view of the approaches to the building. His hard gaze catches my eye and he nods. Although I know they are but attended by a simple guard, I have complete faith in their safety.

  My time with Morgan Harris took up all of the afternoon and I know I should be seeing Elizabeth right now, to ask the question that has been upsetting my stomach since seeing Stammo.

  I did not call ahead for fear of rejection.

  Sam opens the door a crack. “Rocky,” she says. Neutral. Neither spurning nor welcoming.

  “I need to explain a couple of things,” I say, “and… well, apologize.”

  She steps back and opens the door wide.

  She leads me into the kitchen. The house is quiet.

  “Where’s Ellie?”

  “Out.” Her tone is distant. “She’s having a sleepover at Sarah’s house.” She takes a breath and shakes her head. “I meant what I said. I can’t risk having her with you if there is any chance… any chance at all of you still…”

  She turns away from me.

  What I hope are the right words form in my mind. “Sam—”

  But the words are cut off by a cry that racks her body. I stand transfixed as she wraps her arms around her shoulders and gives herself over to her sobbing. I want to reach out and wrap her in my arms but fear she will draw away from me. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.

  No!

  Too much of my recent relationship with Sam has been rooted in fear.

  But no more.

  I reach out, take her shoulders and, although I feel her tense, I gently turn her around. I wrap my arms around her and she sobs into my chest.

  After what seems an age, her hands unlock from her shoulders and her arms envelop me. We stand, locked together in the middle of her kitchen, until the sobbing subsides.

  We stand in the moment. Neither one of us wanting to speak, but eventually I must.

  I know what I have to ask her; I just have to find a way to do it.

  She looks up at me and I want to kiss her tear-stained face, kiss away the pain in her eyes. For the thousandth time, I kick myself for not kissing her when I was here earlier but the thought still gives me a stab of guilt as I think of Elizabeth.

  “I love you,” she whispers.

  My heart skips at the words that I haven’t heard from her lips since Ellie was eighteen months old, the words I have longed to hear for so long now. I want to shout, ‘Oh God, Sam I love you so much.’ Shout it at the top of my lungs. Logically, I now know that my relationship with Elizabeth is doomed but should I do the honorable thing and talk to her and end it first before recommitting myself to Sam?

  My second of hesitation is translated in Sam’s eyes, making the point moot. I feel her start to pull away.

  “Sam, I do love you,” it doesn’t sound like I wanted it to sound.

  “But…?” she asks.

  Time for the truth. “But… I’ve been seeing someone.”

  “Oh.” A single syllable overflowing with meaning. “Who?”

  “Someone involved in the case.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sam, I love you. I’ve never loved anyone else. I just need time to break it off with her before I can…” The words sound callous, even in my ears.

  She pulls away from me and sits down on a bar stool at the kitchen counter. “So why are you here?”

  “To ask you some questions related to the case.”

  “I thought you were suspended.”

  “I am but I’m working the case with Nick Stammo. He believes that the investigation is being compromised by a dirty cop in the department.” Her eyes widen in surprise. “You said that Seth Harris didn’t kidnap you. What happened?”

  At the mention of Seth’s name her surprise turns to sadness.

  “Seth called and came over to my place, he was going to take Ellie and me to dinner, only he had left his wallet at home. We went over to the creepy church where his sister is the minister and he went in. I was outside in his car. He took a long time. I was starting to get worried about picking up Ellie from after-school care, when I saw this woman come out of the front door. She came down to the car and crouched down by my window. I had never met Seth’s sister, so I thought it might be her, but the woman pulled back her jacket and showed me that she had a gun in a holster. She signaled me to get out of the car, took my arm and lead me into the building. I’d never been in there before. Another woman, with her arm in a sling, was there and Seth was tied up in a chair, with a gag over his mouth. They did the same to me. Then the first woman went through my purse, took my cell and disappeared for a couple of hours. When she came back she had a man with her but I didn’t see his face. They all went to another part of the house and I could hear talking. They were there for hours. They just left Seth and me tied up in the main room.

  “I was starting to get really thirsty and then I heard a pinging noise. Suddenly the two women appeared and one went behind the curtains; next thing I know, you’re coming into the room at gunpoint. You know the rest.”

  I wonder what it was that triggered the women to choose that moment to turn on Seth?

  “Can you tell me anything about the man?” I ask.

  “No. When he first came in, the woman with the broken arm grabbed my hair and told me to keep facing the curtains. Later when he came in and attacked you, he was wearing a ski mask.”

  “Was he tall… short…?”

  “Average height really.” She looks upward, reviewing the scene with her photographer’s eyes. “His body shape was mesomorphic. He was very powerful looking. He hit you with a baseball bat; I was sure he’d killed you and then he came over to me. I was petrified. He laughed and hit me with the bat and that’s all I remember until I came to and you were lying on the floor groaning and Seth was dead.” The memory has drained the blood from her face.

  “When did you meet Seth?” I ask as gently as I can.

  She sighs. “Is that really relevant?” she asks.

  “Yes, it is. I’m sorry to tell you this Sam, but Seth was involved in the drug trade.”

  “I can’t belie—” She cuts herself short.

  “How did you meet him?” I ask.

  “He called me on my work number and said he wanted photographs of his dog. Said the dog was terminally ill and he wanted something special to remember him by. He came to my studio and after the session he invited me out for coffee. We had a few dates, nothing serious, and then…” her vo
ice tails off.

  “When did he first call you?”

  “It was the last Wednesday in January. I remember because he called in the evening and Ellie was with you. We did the photo session with BL the next day.”

  More than two weeks before Terry Wright was killed.

  I tell her the name of the man, locked up in Millhaven prison, upon whose orders Seth was operating.

  When the initial shock wears off, I see the humiliation wash over her face. “He only dated me to get to you,” she whispers.

  “Not true, Sam. I think he dated you because he really liked you. It was those women who made use of the relationship to try and get to me.” I don’t really believe this but I can see that it makes Sam feel a lot better.

  I seize the moment. “Sam, I love you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to get you back. All I want is to be a family again, with you and with Ellie.”

  She puts her arms around me. “I love you too. I want the same things that you want but now, twice, Ellie and I have faced real physical danger because of your job. I don’t know if I can live with that. And I don’t know if I could live with the constant fear that you may start using again.”

  Rationalizations crawl all over my mind like maggots on a corpse. I push them down and say, “I can’t make any guarantees on either count.”

  “I know,” she says and kisses me on the cheek. “Do you want to stay and have dinner?”

  I can’t think of anything I want more.

  “I can’t, Sam. There are two things I need to do first.”

  Both of them may yield missing pieces of the puzzle that is this case. One of them could do much more.

  59

  Cal

  I have seen grizzly bears smaller than this guy and less tough looking, too. He fills the doorway. I wait for him to speak. He doesn’t.

  “I’m here to see Dominique Dufresne.” I’m betting my looks are going to get me inside.

  Nothing. No movement, word or deed.

  “I’m Eli Harris.” I decided to use a vaguely biblical first name.

  Still nothing.

  “Seth’s brother.”

  His eyes narrow as he examines my face and there is a hint of recognition. I’d like to play poker with this guy but he doesn’t play; he just guards the door.

  “Seth’s dead,” he says.

  News travels fast.

  “I’ve been sent to see Mr. Dufresne by our mutual friend back east.”

  This is outside his very limited terms of reference.

  He moves backwards enough to let me into the hallway. He closes the front door behind me.

  The entranceway is large, more like a luxurious office lobby. There are expensive chairs along one wall; with a flick of his head he indicates that I should take one. I do.

  Two doors lead into the interior of the house. He opens one to reveal a staircase going up, which he takes, closing the door behind him.

  Opposite from where I am sitting is an expensive looking office desk made of what I suspect to be burled maple. On the desk are a keyboard and two expensive looking Apple computer monitors. Sitting behind the monitors is an expensive looking woman in an expensive looking navy blue suit.

  She is drop dead gorgeous.

  She ignores me utterly.

  Sam’s words, ‘I love you,’ keep running through my mind and I have replayed our time together this afternoon again and again. I am having difficulty focusing on anything else.

  Stammo told me it took him about half an hour on his laptop, logged into the department’s computers, to find an address for Dominique Dufresne, described by Morgan Harris as the greasy-haired criminal, named Dominic, with a French-Canadian accent. He has a criminal record in Québec for illegal gambling and is listed in the land-titles database as the owner of this large house nestled among the high-rises of the West End. Stammo thinks I shouldn’t be here.

  The third door in the lobby bursts open and a well-dressed man of around fifty walks into the room. He does not look entirely happy and, unless I am missing the mark, is not entirely sober. He walks to the desk and the receptionist’s face breaks into a smile that is the very picture of convent-girl innocence. His look of annoyance melts in her glow.

  From his pockets he pulls handfuls of casino chips, red, green, yellow and white, which she takes from him and professionally sorts into different piles. As she takes the last handful, her hand grazes the back of his. He smiles broadly.

  She counts the value of the chips out loud to him, seventeen thousand, three hundred and twenty-five dollars, and he nods. She taps a code into the keyboard and there is a discernible click as a draw in the desk slides open. She withdraws eight bundles of notes, all of different sizes, and hands them over. He tells her about how great it would be if they could go out together sometime. She looks around, with a soupçon of fear in her eyes and tells him that she would love to but it is just not allowed by the management. Her regret at this injustice just oozes from every pore. He sighs and walks to the outside door. She examines the right hand monitor then taps another code into her keyboard and a clunk indicates that the door is unlocked. She gives him a flirtatious wave and a wink as he disappears.

  “Big winner?” I say.

  Her look changes fast and now has all the warmth of a penguin’s buttocks. Her dismissive grunt says maybe that seventeen grand was not winnings at all but the remains of the much larger amount with which he entered. Still, she sent him away happy. Good marketing.

  The volume of air in the lobby reduces as the muscle re-enters. Another flick of the head indicates that I should climb the stairs.

  I do.

  He follows.

  I am met at the top by a badly-dressed man with a paunch and a head of long, straggling, greasy hair. Monsieur Dufresne, I assume. True to the ethos of the establishment, he says not a word but turns and leads me into an office, every bit as plush as Harold Varga’s, but decidedly less tasteful. There is a huge grandfather clock behind a desk similar to, but larger than, the one below.

  Dufresne slouches in his chair and puts his feet up on the desk. His shoes are new, the soles unscuffed.

  There are no guest chairs so I just stand there like a kid in the principal’s office.

  He closes his hand across his stomach, interlacing the fingers. They look as soft as a woman’s hands, the nails manicured and polished.

  The door closes quietly and I don’t know on which side of it his pet grizzly is positioned. I want to check over my shoulder but that would indicate nervousness; these guys can smell fear.

  “Seth never said ’e ’ad a brother.” His accent is definitely French-Canadian.

  I smile knowingly. “I’m sure there are a lot of things that my brother kept from you.”

  “Yeah, well ’e’s dead now, so I guess I never will know ’is little secrets.”

  I shrug.

  He looks nervous. “So… your boss sent you.” It is partway between a statement and a question.

  Now I can play on his nervousness: I look at him long and hard then nod.

  “Are you…? Does he…? I mean you don’t expect our deal to be still in place, right?” he asks.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  He licks his lips and looks over my shoulder. I hear a deep breath being drawn behind me.

  The grandfather clock chimes the quarter hour.

  “Dese new guys… they’ve taken over. I mean even Varga’s taking orders from them now. They killed your brother and ’is messenger boy. I gotta deal with them. All due respect to your boss, but ’e’s in jail, so are most of ’is men, and will be for a while. You’re the only one not in jail, right?”

  “Am I now?” I smile. I need to keep him off balance.

  I hear a creak in the floor boards behind me.

  “Look,” he says. “I’m caught in the middle ’ere. I got no complaints about what you guys did for me but dese new guys… I mean they sent one of those broads to my house. My home! She talked to my wife and kid, thre
atened them if I didn’t cooperate. I gotta go along with them. Varga refused at first and look what happened to ’is wife. He hasn’t been back ’ere to gamble since. I lost one of my best customers dere, I can tell you.”

  I try and keep the surprise off my face. It may have been Seth’s blue truck that killed Marguerite Varga but maybe it wasn’t him driving it.

  But there’s something else that doesn’t ring true.

  “Why do you care about the woman? It looks like you can take care of yourself.” I use this as an excuse to turn and gesture toward grizzly. He is leaning against the door, cleaning his nails with a wicked looking knife. His eyes meet mine and I have a great deal of difficulty taking my attention off him to turn back to face Dufresne. I think about Stammo’s Glock; it would feel pretty nice nestled under my arm right now.

  “One of them’s out of commission now anyway,” I add.

  He doesn’t react to this news but I think it’s a surprise.

  He licks his lips again. “There’s stuff you don’t know,” is all he says. I wonder what stuff he is talking about. It must be big if it scares him.

  Again he looks over my shoulder at grizzly. I can feel the hair on the back of my neck but I know if I show weakness by turning round again, this interview will be over.

  “Who does the pick ups?” I ask.

  “What d’you mean?”

  Uh-oh, have I said the wrong thing? Oh well, in for a penny in for a pound. Let’s go for broke, “Who comes and picks up the money you want laundered?”

  “One of the broads.”

  “How do you get in touch with them?”

  “I don’t. They come regular. Same as your brother did.”

  “What days?”

  His eyes narrow with suspicion. I screwed up. If I were Seth’s brother, I would know the days.

  Another creak in the floorboards sets up a tingling in my spine.

  He holds his silence for six ticks of the grandfather clock, then, “I’ve said too much already,” he grunts. “Look, tell your boss I’m sorry, I really am. I liked working with you guys but there’s nothing I can do. I think you’d better go now.”