Crazy Dead (A Cordi O'Callaghan Mystery)

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  I waited a few minutes and followed him into the foyer. It took my eyes some seconds to adjust, but I caught sight of him through the foyer windows as he stood in line. I waited until he had bought some juice and a sandwich and brought it back to a table. Luck was with me. He took a seat with his back to me and I sidled in and took a seat as far away as I could get, but still keep him in sight. I picked up someone’s discarded newspaper and pretended to read. I hoped I wouldn’t get kicked out because I hadn’t bought anything.

  By the time he’d finished his lunch I was getting restive. I was afraid that if I got up to buy something to eat he would see me, or he would leave. Either scenario left me sitting there with a rumbling stomach.

  I almost missed it. A tall, heavy-set balding man walked toward Jacques’s table and stopped. He pulled out an envelope and handed it to Jacques. They talked for about thirty seconds and then the man left. I’d had enough. I pushed back my chair and headed toward Jacques.

  He looked up in surprise as I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down without an invitation.

  “Cordi, how nice,” he said and casually picked up the envelope and tucked it into an inside pocket.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  He turned his head quizzically to one side. “Jacques,” he said.

  “I think you know what I mean,” I said.

  “No.” He held the word for a long time and then said, “I’m not sure I’m following you, Cordi.”

  “You’re hiding something. You’re not a smoker because you’re in too good physical shape. You weren’t even winded on the stairs, and you knew about the subway and I hadn’t told you. And when I asked you what poison you drank, you hesitated, as if you didn’t know.”

  I stared at him, and he stared back.

  “And Martha says you’re acting,” I added lamely.

  Jacques splayed his huge hands on top of the table, shook his head, laughed, and homed in on the one piece of information that I didn’t want him to.

  “Martha? Why would she confide in you? You don’t even know her.”

  I’d never been good at keeping a poker face.

  “You do know her.”

  “Why would you jump to that conclusion?”

  “Because you’re hiding something,” he said.

  I was really angry with myself, and Martha was going to kill me. I had almost blown her cover trying to blow his.

  We sat there facing each other, the tension rising with each passing second, until I could stand it no more.

  “Are you trying to kill me?” You couldn’t get blunter than that.

  “Why would I want to do that?” he asked, looking baffled.

  “Because you killed Mavis and think my snooping around will reveal you as a killer.” I was watching him closely, looking for any telltale sign that he wasn’t who he said he was, which come to think of it, was only “Jacques.” Was that even his real name?

  “But why would I kill Mavis?” he said, raising his hands in a gesture of utter mystification.

  I hadn’t thought this through very well. I had no real idea why he would want to kill Mavis, and Martha’s suggestions seemed a little flimsy with Jacques sitting right across from me.

  “Then maybe you’re a private investigator or undercover cop,” I said. I had no idea where that came from. Somewhere out of my subconscious mind, I guess, although now that I thought about it, the guy who’d handed Jacques the envelope had had cop written all over him. He could have been Jacques’s boss, giving him orders. Jacques raised his hands to his face, ostensibly to rub it, but it also served to hide his face so that I couldn’t read anything there.

  “Why would you think that?” he finally said, lowering his hands and looking me in the eye.

  “Because you’re so interested in helping me find Mavis’s killer,” I said.

  “And you can’t think of any other reason I might be interested?” He smiled. I was thankful at that moment that I am not prone to blushing, or I’d have looked like a boiled lobster.

  “Cordi, you have a wild imagination.” He paused. “Has it given you any ideas as to why Mavis was killed? At least, ideas that have nothing to do with me as the killer?”

  I looked at him and twisted my mouth in a grimace. Was I going to let him change the subject? Was he really a danger to me? He certainly didn’t seem like it.

  When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “I’ve been thinking about what you overhead Ella saying the other day. And by the way, you’re not the only one to eavesdrop on the nurses,” he said. “How else would I have known about the subway?”

  I’d forgotten about that. The police could have told Ella everything.

  “You said that she said there were others.” Jacques went on, pulling me back from my thoughts.

  “Yeah. Creepy.”

  “Creepy, but it may speak to motive. If there’ve been other suspicious deaths on the floor, maybe there’s a serial killer on the loose, and you’ve been targeted.”

  “To keep me from finding out about the ‘other’ deaths and linking them to Mavis? Or to stop me from finding the truth about Mavis?”

  Jacques nodded. “Both.”

  “So it could be a patient as a serial killer?”

  “Could be, but it could also be a nurse or a doctor or a member of the cleaning staff.”

  “That puts us all in danger,” I said. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop. “But that would make no sense.”

  “What would make no sense?”

  “Why Ella, or whoever, isn’t targeting me anymore.”

  “And why don’t you think Ella is trying to kill you anymore, assuming it is Ella and not me?” asked Jacques with a smile.

  “Because there haven’t been any attempts on my life in a while,” I said, meeting his gaze.

  “But why would someone just stop like that?” he asked.

  “Maybe the killer is a hired assassin,” I said, watching to see how he reacted to that. But he didn’t flinch.

  “Maybe the assassin’s employer had a change of heart,” I said. “Or maybe the assassin just got too interested in his target.”

  Jacques didn’t laugh. In fact, he didn’t react at all until he said, “You’d be dead by now if it was a professional killer. They don’t fail, at least not twice. Still doesn’t explain why the attacks have stopped.”

  I shivered and then I told him about Austin and his rendezvous with a drug dealer.

  “What if Mavis knew? He could have killed her to prevent anyone from knowing he was buying drugs.”

  “Or she could have been blackmailing him and he killed her to stop that,” said Jacques.

  “I thought about that,” I countered, “but apparently Mavis was wealthy so why would she blackmail anyone?”

  “Because she’d given all her money to Scientology?

  “That’s what Martha and I thought, but maybe we’re just barking up the wrong tree.”

  “What’s the right tree?” asked Jacques.

  I shook my head and we lapsed into silence as we walked back together, Jacques and I, to the hospital. He was the perfect gentleman, keeping between the traffic and me and holding my arm to guide me safely across every intersection.

  “So what was in the envelope?” I asked suddenly, hoping to catch him off guard.

  “Tickets to the Habs game,” he said without a pause. I wasn’t sure I believed him, and why was he a Habs fan when he lived in Toronto?

  “Habs game?” I asked.

  “As in Montreal Canadiens.”

  “I knew that, but why are you a Habs fan?”

  “Why is my name Jacques?”

  He could be so infuriating, so I changed the subject. “What do you think of Leo and Mavis being a couple?” I asked, recalling the CBT meeting.

  “Didn’t see that coming,�
� he said.

  “Gives him some doozy motives, especially if they were living together long enough for him to be entitled to some or all of her stuff. For starters Mavis was wealthy. He could have been after her money.”

  “But why now?” said Jacques.

  “She was threatening to leave him. Or maybe he needed to get rid of her before she gave all her money to Scientology.” I was on a roll. “Or maybe it was because she actually did rebuff him. He felt like a failure and he was angry that, paraphrasing his words, someone like Mavis should be thankful to get anyone at all.”

  Jacques took my arm again as we crossed St. George Street. A car turning right cut us off and Jacques slammed his fist down on the hood, earning the finger from the driver.

  With his hand on my arm, I’d lost my train of thought by the time we reached the safety of the curb.

  “But Leo’s so scared of everything,” said Jacques, taking up the conversation as if there’d been no interruption. “He hears something even the least bit negative, blows it up out of all proportion, and winds up in a panic attack. I just can’t see him murdering Mavis.”

  “Unless the alternative was worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Unless it’s worse to be made to feel like a failure all the time. With Mavis out of the way he could get on with his life.”

  “I don’t buy it,” said Jacques. “The money aspect, yeah. That works for me. And maybe if Mavis knew something that Leo had to keep secret at all costs, such as maybe the ‘other’ murders, I could see him murdering her. He might have believed that she’d ruin his life.”

  “My point exactly. She was ruining his life, by his account. He worked himself into a panic almost every time he saw her.”

  We walked in silence for a while and I was aware that people were making space for us, as they never did when I walked alone and got crowded. Jacques’s size forced respect, even from total strangers.

  “I thought Bradley’s comment was intriguing,” I said.

  “About being desolate. Yeah, that was pretty sad.”

  “No, I mean what he said about trying again.”

  “I think he was just talking about maybe trying a medication again.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. But he said it as if he’d made up his mind about something. Something specific.”

  “Hmm,” said Jacques. “Maybe he’s got some weird serial-killer mentality where killing makes him feel good temporarily. He killed Mavis to feel good and is now thinking of striking again.”

  “That’s macabre.”

  We were almost at the hospital when Jacques turned and asked me about Martha and how I knew her. “Does mental illness run in your circle of friends?” he asked, but I detected a note of disbelief in his voice.

  “She’s going to kill me,” I said. “No one is supposed to know she’s an old friend.”

  “Why not?”

  I realized my mistake. He didn’t know anything more than that we were friends. Nothing hugely suspicious about that. He didn’t know she was faking, and now he might wonder.

  “She’s a very private person,” I said lamely.

  “Her secret’s safe with me,” he said, and I realized I had no way of knowing if it was or why it really mattered. After all, if Martha really needed help, who would care if we were old friends? But if I was talking to the murderer it was a whole different story. I could be endangering Martha.

  I changed the subject and told him about the strange thing Kit had said in an unguarded moment. “‘I saw her lying there.’ What did she mean by that? That she saw her lying there, alive or dead, or awake or asleep?”

  “No idea,” said Jacques.

  “But if she saw Mavis dead, why wouldn’t she say so?”

  “What makes you think she saw her dead?”

  “Just the way she said it. It was creepy, and the way she talked in CBT about seeing a dead friend? What was that all about? Could it have been Mavis?”

  “Maybe she didn’t see her dead, but she saw something else,” said Jacques.

  And it suddenly dawned on me. “Kit is the only one who always speaks of Mavis in the past tense.”

  “So do I,” said Jacques. “So do you.”

  I glanced up at him quickly, but his face was unreadable.

  “Why do you speak of her in the past tense?”

  “Because I believe you?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Next morning after breakfast I went back to my room to lie down. I intended to have a nap, but I couldn’t, because Martha was sitting on my bed, looking out the window.

  “Hi, stranger,” she said in what sounded like an accusatory voice.

  So I told her about following Jacques and asking him if he was trying to murder me.

  “What did he say to that?” she asked.

  “He didn’t really. So I asked him point-blank if he was an undercover cop.”

  “A cop? Are you kidding me?”

  “Why not? It makes perfect sense. And you were the one who said he was acting.”

  “So he comes undercover looking to flush out Mavis’s murderer?” she asked. “But that doesn’t make sense. Kit told me he was here before Mavis died.”

  So I told her about “the others.”

  “He could have been looking into these other murders when Mavis died,” I said. “After all, he was the one to first suggest that Mavis’s death was covered up.”

  “Or maybe there weren’t any other murders and he was just hired to kill Mavis,” said Martha.

  Put like that it sounded pretty awful. Jacques seemed like such a great guy.

  “Maybe he was hired for some other reason that relates to Mavis,” I said, clutching at straws.

  “So what did he say about being a cop?”

  “He sort of just changed the subject.”

  “Does that sound like an innocent man?”

  I didn’t answer and she said, “If he’s an undercover cop he hasn’t exactly done very much, has he? I mean, you seem to be doing all the work.”

  “He’s undercover, Martha. As in incognito. Sort of like you.”

  “Why are you defending him?”

  I hesitated. “He’s a good man,” I finally said, the hope in my voice noticeable even to me.

  Martha eyeballed me and said, “Lord love a duck, Cordi. Have you fallen for him?”

  I didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything, and she stared at me for a long time before changing the subject.

  “I’ve been busy, too,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes, thankful she hadn’t given me the second degree, and wondered what kind of trouble Martha had got herself into.

  “I hid in the men’s washroom,” she said.

  “You what?” I said, totally taken off guard. “What’s wrong with the women’s washroom?”

  “It doesn’t have men in it, obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Besides, the cleaners were in the women’s and I didn’t want to disturb them, and the men’s was empty.

  “Anyway, I was in the stall and Bradley came in, followed by Austin. They were each standing at a urinal. I could see through the crack in the door.”

  “Jesus, Martha!”

  “Cripes, Cordi, I wasn’t interested in what they were doing! I was interested in what they were saying.”

  “The suspense is killing me.”

  “Bradley said, ‘I’ve got it for you,’ and then Austin said, ‘Will it work?’ and Bradley answered, ‘It’ll stop it from happening.’” Martha stopped talking and smiled at me.

  “Is that all?” I asked, not sure what to make of the information.

  “Isn’t it enough?”

  “Well, I’m not sure what it means. Are you certain it was Bradley who said, ‘I’ve got it,’ and not Austi
n?”

  She looked at me blankly. I was pretty sure I’d told her about Austin and the drugs, but I told her again.

  “No, it was Bradley,” she said after I’d finished.

  “So what did Bradley have that Austin wanted and that would stop something from happening?”

  “An aspirin?” suggested Martha.

  I looked at her and grimaced and she smiled back at me.

  “What can I say? It was the first thing that came to my mind.”

  I debated whether to tell her that Jacques knew she was my old friend. In the end I kept it to myself. I didn’t need to have my head chewed off.

  I was staring out the window when Ella breezed into my room.

  “Dr. Osborn wants to see you in twenty minutes,” she said.

  This time Ella didn’t wait for me and I waited ten minutes before I headed toward the cafeteria and the door to the doctors’ offices. I was nine minutes early but I figured I could hang out in the hall and think, instead of having to talk to Kit, who had just returned from CBT. Someone had propped the door to the cafeteria open with a wooden wedge and I went on through and down the hall to Osborn’s office. His door was slightly ajar and I couldn’t resist taking a peek, wondering what patient was in there with him.

  But it wasn’t a patient.

  It was Ella. And she was crying.

  I jumped back, worried that I had been seen, and crept back down the hall to the cafeteria where I waited another five minutes before approaching Osborn’s door again. He was sitting at his desk, writing in a folder and scanning the computer, seemingly at the same time. He smiled up at me and asked me to take a seat. There was classical music playing in the background and as usual the lighting was warm and cozy — he’d turned off the overheads and left the floor lamps lit. After a moment he got up and came and sat in the chair across from me, holding a folder in one hand and a pen in the other. He looked sombre and determined, which could not be good.

  He said, “Cordi, I understand that you continue to upset a number of the patients with your version of what happened to Mavis.”

  “No one will believe me,” I said.

  “No. People don’t understand. There’s a difference. Whether they believe you or not is irrelevant if they don’t understand.” I blinked at him.