by Susan Calder
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“You might be wise to, in case a vagrant comes in through Caspar’s apartment.”
“What’s the chance of that happening, Mom?”
“You know you’re always welcome to stay with me if you need to.”
“Mom, I’m comfortable here. It gives me space to think.”
“If you’re ever the least bit—”
“We’re off, at long last.” Brendan strode into the living room. “Leah, you’re good with locking up?”
“No problem.”
“Great seeing you again, Paula.” Brendan’s smile seemed so sincere. “Thanks again for lending a hand with the paintings. Feel free to drop by to see Leah any time.”
“I will,” Paula said and meant it.
Chapter Twenty-three
Isabelle dumped the DeLongs’ jewellery on Nils’ desk. She explained to him and Paula that last night she had arrived at the house early, before the insureds, Tom and Mary DeLong, got home from work. While chatting with Mary’s mother, Isabelle considered where Tom would most likely hide the allegedly stolen jewellery, and she thought of his den, his private space in the house. She made an excuse to go the bathroom, slipped into the den, opened his desk drawer and almost screamed when she saw the necklaces and bracelets from the insurance pictures.
“I stuffed them into this bag I found in another drawer,” she said. “I told Mary’s mother I had a call about an insurance emergency and took off before Tom and Mary arrived.”
“You should have left the jewellery right there,” Nils said.
“You shouldn’t have gone into his den in the first place,” Paula said. “Even the police require search warrants. This could open us up to charges of illegal search, trespassing and theft.”
Isabelle’s fiddled with her western necktie. “Tom claimed the stuff was stolen. How could I steal it again?”
Paula let Nils continue their arguments, while she studied his stripped-down office. His insurance books, family pictures, pen holder and other desk paraphernalia were gone. On the bare walls, all that remained of his insurance certificates and picture were cream coloured rectangles. The window’s sagging blinds would go down with the building. Nils ended his reprimand by sending Isabelle to the reception area to work on the packing.
“It was my fault for letting her handle this alone,” Paula said.
“I won’t disagree,” Nils said. “Can we use this to get DeLong to withdraw his claim, with no exposure to ourselves?” His mouth twitched. “I have to admit, I admire Isabelle’s initiative.”
“Part of me does, too,” Paula said. “I’ll take care of it somehow.” She left to phone Tom DeLong from her office.
Isabelle followed her in. “Is Nils going to fire me?” Her blue eyes grew wider. “If he fires me, I can’t pay Erin the rent, and she won’t be able to pay you.”
“You’re safe this time,” Paula said. “In the future, let’s keep it legal and above board.”
Isabelle slumped into the visitors’ chair. “Erin really wants out from the house. We talked last night. Where will I live? I asked Brendan if I could have his third bedroom when it’s cleared out.”
“You were at the Beckers’?”
“I went over after I talked to their neighbours. Brendan said three would make his apartment too crowded.”
Or disrupt his twosome with Leah.
“I almost forgot the good news.” Isabelle’s face brightened. “I heard back from the neighbour who had the contest with Caspar Becker to quit smoking. He says Caspar gave him a shopping bag filled with cigarettes—cartons, single packs and loose ciggies. The guy gave them to a relative he’s visiting in Cold Lake. This proves Caspar got rid of the smokes.”
“One cigarette could always remain, buried beneath a piece of junk.”
“Is this about Caspar Becker?” Nils spoke from the doorway. “My understanding is there’s still no proof he or anyone else committed arson.”
“That’s right,” Paula said.
“Then all you can do is settle with his estate as best and as fast as you can.”
Isabelle jumped up. “I have more research before we do that.”
“Keep your focus on the hail claims,” Nils told Isabelle. “Don’t waste your time checking the Becker family habits and history. Our only concern from an insurance perspective is arson by an insured.”
“Not entirely.” Paula picked up her phone receiver. “I have to call DeLong now if I’m going to see him this afternoon.” Nils waited while she arranged to meet Tom in his office. After the call, she stood to approach Nils’ height. “We’re also supposed to be helping the police from our insurance angle.”
“Why should they get our outsourcing work for free?” Nils asked.
They had discussed this a dozen times. The idea was to carve a niche as the go-to firm for suspicious claims. “When claims are slow, the insurers keep everything in-house,” she said. “When they need us, they toss us their leftovers. Aren’t you tired of being dependent on this?”
“Let’s say with this Becker case you prove murder. The insurer pays. How will that inspire them to assign us their future dicey claims?”
“Because normally it isn’t murder. The next claim is more likely to be arson by the insured.” She thought of Mike’s homicide motto. “Nils, we can’t shove the Beckers aside. Time is critical for cases of suspicious death.”
“That’s equally true of insurance. Claimants want and expect quick service, and we want to be the quickest out there. Agreed? Our priority is hail.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Then go along.”
Alone, Paula scanned her naked office. No paintings, knick-knacks, pictures or plants. Isabelle had stuck pieces of masking tape with the word ‘sold’ on the desk, bookshelves and chair.
Nils owned this firm; Paula was salaried staff. His money, not hers, was invested in the business, and he assumed the full risk. Almost from the start, Nils had wanted her to join him as a partner and continue the company after he was gone. By turning the opportunity down, she had forfeited her right to an equal say in the direction of the firm.
She picked at a corner of the masking tape. For a total cost of twenty-five dollars, Garner had bought her desk, bookshelves and chair. Isabelle’s energies would have been far better spent working on the Becker claim, which might establish them as a force in the Calgary insurance industry.
Paula phoned her mother at David’s house. No reply. Were they outside communing with his garden? With an hour to spare before leaving to meet the DeLongs, she turned to her hail claims reports. She was halfway through reviewing the second one when Sam phoned about the trip to Edmonton. The developer wanted him to come up ahead of the public meetings to discuss alternatives for the project. Sam planned to drive there tomorrow afternoon.
“He’s going to give in to the protestors. I know it,” Sam said. “The upside is: an Edmonton friend of mine wants to come here for the Stampede. I’m swapping my studio for his house, which has a main-floor suite for your mother and one upstairs for us.”
“Perfect.” The hell with work. As salaried staff she deserved a couple of days off, especially when she was supposed to be on holiday. “Mum hasn’t phoned for me to pick her up from your father’s place.”
“If they want to shack up this weekend, you and I can go alone,” Sam said.
“Not funny.”
Any hail claimants not available to meet her tonight or tomorrow morning could be scheduled for Monday or later. No doubt they’d be occupied anyway, whooping it up these last days of Stampede.
“Mum and I are in,” she told Sam.
“Another Edmonton friend’s invited us all to a barbecue on Saturday night,” Sam said. “He promises there will not be one single cowboy hat.”
Even that felt refreshing.
* * *
In Tom DeLong’s office, Paula opened her briefcase and took out a necklace. She set it on his desk. The glass wall
behind him framed a view of the Calgary Tower dwarfed by new high rise buildings.
“What are you doing?” Tom asked.
Paula added a pair of ruby clip-on earrings. “Returning your stolen goods.”
“Where did you find these?”
Paula placed a choker beside the earrings and described her associate’s discovery in his den.
Tom banged his hands on the desk so hard an earring rolled into the choker. “Your associate was completely unprofessional.”
“Better than fraud.” Paula laid out more pieces. “Everything’s here. By the way, I photographed myself holding them in case you try to claim theft again.”
“You won’t get away with this.”
“You didn’t get away with it. That’s the main thing.”
“I don’t know what you think you’re up to.” Tom glared at Paula. “I’m contacting my lawyer.”
Paula’s heart pounded in her ears. Best to say nothing and get out. If Tom sued, they had the truth on their side, although a judge could rule against them due to Isabelle’s illegal search. The potential damage to their adjusting firm’s reputation was too horrible for her to think about now.
* * *
At last, Paula’s mother phoned from David’s house. Paula pulled into a parking meter spot to take the call.
“We’ve finished the jam,” her mother said. “It was hot working in the kitchen but fun.”
“I can be there in about fifteen minutes.”
“Do you mind if I stay for dinner at David’s? We bought buns from a bakery to go with the fresh jam.”
“Sam often stops by that bakery for David. Their bread melts in your mouth.” Paula waited for her mother to invite her to join them. When she didn’t, Paula mentioned the Edmonton trip.
“Tomorrow?” her mother said. “Friday until Sunday? Hadn’t you talked about a day trip to mountains?”
“We’ll have time for that next week.”
“That’s a lot of travel when I’ve barely seen Calgary.”
“If you’d rather stay home,” Paula said. “When do you want me to come get you? Before or after I see my claimant tonight? Either is good for me.”
“As long as you get here by nine, when David goes to bed.”
“I’ll be finished my meeting well before that.”
If her mother didn’t want to go to Edmonton, Paula would stay home with her. What a shame to miss the miniholiday in that big house. While Sam was at his meetings, she and her mother could talk and do things without distractions from her work and David. Meanwhile, here she was alone in the midst of this busyness. She might as well go home and perhaps later drop by Erin’s for supper to see if she was fine after the argument with Isabelle.
Walter rocked on his porch. Rather than venture down the stairs, he extended his foot clad in a cowboy boot. “My doctor prescribed an anti-inflammatory. It’s starting to kick in.”
“Did he prescribe less brutal footwear?”
“I overdid it at the Stampede, but these boots are good for tramping around here.”
“Any progress with your wife getting her oxygen tank?”
“Our doctor doesn’t believe I won’t smoke indoors.” Walter flicked cigarette ash to the porch floor.
If they went in through emergency, a pulmonary specialist might prescribe the tank. Paula didn’t suggest it. She didn’t trust Walter not to cheat any more than his doctor did.
Inside, she phoned Mike and left a voice mail message asking about the status of the Becker case. A few minutes later he called back.
“No progress,” he reported. “We asked Florence and Cynthia to come to the station for questioning. Both refused. Florence pointed out that we’d already interviewed her and she has nothing to add. Cynthia had no real excuse. We can’t force them.”
“You have no evidence against them or any signs of arson?”
“Bang on for both. Or ‘off’ in this case.”
“Your investigation is spinning its wheels?”
“Pretty much.”
“I wish I could help.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing. I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later.”
Paula wandered through the kitchen, down the hall, through the living room. Why not use this spare time for exercise, which she’d neglected all week? It wouldn’t take much to set up Sam’s gym machines, but why be stuck in the basement on a sunny afternoon when her neighbourhood was calling her out for a walk?
In her T-shirt and shorts she set a brisk pace past bungalows mixed with renovated and infill homes. Sam favoured a sloping second-floor roof for their enlarged house so it wouldn’t boast that they had a higher income than the majority of the neighbours. The highest part came from his architect’s salary. How would she like living with a man who earned considerably more than she did? During her marriage, her income had risen in tandem with her ex-husband’s, their raises and promotions leapfrogging each other’s. They’d found it pleasantly competitive. At least, she had. During their break-up, Gary had confessed that her increases had bugged him at times.
Sam didn’t see Paula’s concern. “Who cares about money?” he had asked. Easy to say when you were the one who had it.
She returned home sweaty and thirsty and surprised to see Leah’s Civic parked out front. On his porch, Walter chatted with a young man. Jarrett, who now had custody of the car.
Jarrett spotted her and bounded down the stairs. “Walter told me you’d be back any sec.”
“Does Leah have a problem?”
“It’s terrible. Can we talk somewhere?”
Paula’s heart beat faster. “What is it?”
“She broke up with me.”
Her heart slowed. She caught the sadness in Jarrett’s brown eyes and slack mouth. “I’m sorry,” she added sincerely. “Do you want to talk?”
On the front porch, Jarrett turned down her offer of a drink. She said she needed one for herself.
“You can get me a beer,” he called after her.
She found him settled in the rocking chair. His white T-shirt showed off his muscles and tan. A man of leisure, Jarrett spent hours working out or engaged in outdoor sports. Paula sat on the chair Johnny Becker had half-wrecked, guzzled her beer and waited for Jarrett to explain why he had gone to this trouble to come here. They were far from confidants.
“It was great to see Leah walk into the apartment today,” Jarrett began. “Fantastic, I thought, we’ll grab a bite and sort things out. She said she couldn’t; this guy who loaned her his car was waiting outside to drive her back to wherever she’s staying. I walked her out, and there was this cowboy: Stetson, jeans, boots—”
“Everyone dresses cowboy these days.”
“This was a real dude. I could tell.”
“Johnny Becker?”
“I don’t know his name. Leah had told me, before, a woman was loaning her the car—she’s the landlord or something—so who is this cowboy?”
“The landlord’s son. What time of day was this?”
“Noon or so, I guess.”
Why would Johnny drive Leah to Jarrett’s? Brendan had said ‘we’re off’ to the art galleries, ‘we’re’ being Johnny, Cynthia and him, Paula had assumed. When she left the Becker house, she’d noticed Johnny’s pickup with the paintings gone.
“Leah said she couldn’t stick around,” Jarrett said. “She had to check prices for fishing gear. I said to her, ‘Fish? You don’t eat meat.’ I know fish aren’t meat for most people, but fish are living creatures that deserve equal rights.” He paused for Paula’s agreement or rebuttal.
“I can’t argue with that,” she said.
“The cowboy chimed in that he’d cooked Leah fish for breakfast and she’d wolfed it down. Tomorrow he’d try her on hotdogs or steak.”
“He was cooking for Leah?” Paula got it. “Johnny was pulling your leg.”
“He looked serious, and Leah nodded as though it was true. She had told me a guy she met at the bar offered her the use of his vacan
t apartment. Why did she lie and not say the guy was living there with her? I’d have been cool with that.”
“Would you?”
“Leah and I trust each other. We’re honest and open about everything and believe jealousy is about possession, not love. If she’d told me they weren’t fooling around….” He shook his head. “Now that she lied, I don’t know.”
“To my knowledge, Leah has the apartment more or less to herself. The cowboy lives upstairs.”
“They seemed real friendly.”
Paula’s stomach tightened. She had thought Leah with Jarrett was bad and Leah with Brendan worse. Leah with Johnny would be—
“I love Leah.” Jarrett’s voice choked. “She knows it. Why is she doing this to me?”
“People grow—”
“I’d marry her, if she wanted, even though I don’t believe in the institution.”
“Leah doesn’t either.”
“Girls don’t always mean that.”
“I think she does.”
“It’s common for women to deceive themselves that way to please the guy.”
Paula sipped the last drops of her beer to avoid commenting that, of course, his introductory psychology course gave him special insight into the female mind. “You and Leah need to discuss this.”
“Marriage?”
“Everything.”
“I’ve tried. She always says she’s busy. This fishing gear pricing was an obvious excuse.”
“Actually, it wasn’t. Leah’s working twelve-hour shifts. You might have to postpone your talk with her until after the Stampede. It’s only a few more days.”
Jarrett edged forward, squirming on his seat. “What do you think if I did the big romantic gesture? You know, go to her bar tonight and propose in front of everyone, with the ring and all?”
“Do you have a ring?”
“I could buy one.” His gaze shot sideways.
He had bought it. Had he come for her approval of this plan?
“Would Leah go for it, do you think?” he asked, his brown eyes eager.
