His Hand In the Storm: Gray James Detective Murder Mystery and Suspense (Chief Inspector Gray James Detective Murder Mystery Series Book 1)

by Ritu Sethi

  She continued: “He brought PAS to the hospital unit, knowing the technology was flawed, but he wouldn’t risk losing his precious clinical trial.” She reached out and touched Gray’s two rigid fingers above the scar. “I know about this. If you could set this right, would you?”

  “Nothing sets it right. Nothing brings them back.”

  “You could have this broken hand fixed and choose not to. It’s all you have left to keep you company. Like my anger.”

  All emotion had drained out of him, from dealing with crisis after crisis, from the stench of failure. When he’d completed the case, he could go home and rest. She would never go home again.

  They left the café together. Buckets of rain beat down onto the overhead canopy; thick air made his lungs heavy. The lightning and thunder had grown fierce, and rain slashed sideways across the deserted street.

  They passed several abandoned cars, with his marked police car just around the corner. The sound of an ignition, then nothing. No crunch of tires on wet asphalt, no accompanying backsplash. Instead, the wind howled down the road as though through a narrow tunnel, and somewhere in the distance a faint humming lingered.

  The two of them hurried in the downpour, their eyes shut against the debris flying in the street. Gray’s mind was weighted by the upcoming interrogation and Céline’s death. The long night stretched before him. Rain dripped its icy fingers down his neck and back, the already clammy clothes peeling back from his skin as he walked.

  He motioned towards his car up ahead. Kate passed him and stepped onto the road.

  Two blinding high beams came upon them. Events registered at once: the lights, the deafening screech of the tires, a burst of thunder overhead. And images moved in slow motion with Kate’s body stiffening under the headlights; his surge towards her after that split-second of indecision; the black sedan coming towards them at lightning speed.

  He covered the distance to Kate a moment too late, the car making contact at the level of her hips, her arms spread outwards and legs spread-eagled in the air. She flew forward, pellets of rain bouncing off her body – until she landed on the road ahead.

  The car braked. It came to a complete stop just short of its front tire crushing her ankle. He’d fallen on all fours and jolts of white light flashed before his eyes from the excruciating pain in his hand. For a second, all went black before the rain stabbed his face and outlines of buildings and cars returned.

  Lightning lit the scene like a stage – with Kate lying on her side in front of the car’s lights and facing away from Gray. He struggled to his feet, and even as he ran over to her, he feared the worst. She wasn’t moving.

  A puddle of blood widened. Rain thinned it and spread it across the pavement. The driver of the car jerked open the door and screamed.

  “You killed him! You bitch, you killed my Jimmy!” Evelyn Cane faced Gray. “She did it! You were going to let her get away with it, weren’t you? She took my Jimmy from me!”

  Gray reached Kate’s side. Punching 911 into his phone, he shouted the relevant details to the dispatcher. Looking at her pale, drenched face, he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t risk moving her. In the torrent of wind and rain, he couldn’t tell if she was breathing. He touched her wrist to feel for a pulse, his fingers clumsy and numb, and he could just detect a faint beat.

  Behind him, Evelyn still screamed in between sobs.

  Gray cursed and rushed over to the driver’s side of her car and pushed her aside. Another bout of thunder drowned her protests. Swiftly, he turned off the ignition – silently berating himself for not having done it earlier. It was sheer luck Jimmy’s mother hadn’t run them both down in her distress.

  “Calm down, Mrs. Cane. The ambulance is on its way.”

  “Ambulance? I don't want an ambulance. She killed my boy, and I want her dead.”

  She began screaming again. The rain glued her long hair around her head, a witch’s halo framing fierce eyes and bared teeth. Gray grabbed her by the arms. She’d presumably followed him, seen him arrest Kate, and assumed Kate responsible for her son’s murder. He understood her reasoning. And no two people could better understand her grief. But her logic was flawed. Even over the hammering in his chest, his heavy, uneven breath, and her loud wails, he had to make her understand.

  “Mrs. Cane, listen to me,” he said. “Kate Grant didn’t kill Jimmy.”

  “What? She poisoned him! She did it! Jimmy screamed in pain, begging me to help, and she did it. I know she did!”

  “No, Evelyn.” He looked her directly in the eyes, willing her to understand. She stilled, the muscles of her face hanging limp as water streamed down her pale cheeks.

  “Kate didn’t poison your son. Someone else did.”

  CHAPTER 25

  April 6, 10 am

  GRAY STEPPED OUT of hospital room 2B on the East Surgical ward and nodded to the police guard stationed outside.

  Vivienne approached him from down the corridor, her body rigid, dark circles around her eyes. She hadn’t smiled in days, and he knew why.

  The surgical floor bustled around them with doctors and nurses busily occupied; the white noise of machines ringing and beeping echoing off the pristine white walls.

  He wiggled his left hand, heavy from the cast and damn itchy. At least, his ear had healed.

  “How is she?” Vivienne asked, motioning towards the room he’d just left.

  “She remembers nothing of her previous life.”

  “How do you torture a guy, burn his face off, and then forget?”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Kate will remember soon enough. Her mind won’t give her a permanent reprieve. Any news?”

  Vivienne rested one hand on her hip. “You’re reinstated. Congratulations. And cleared of any involvement in Céline’s murder. Doug killed her under Cousineau’s orders – all with the express purpose of framing you and getting you out of the way. He also planted the car bomb – sneaky bastard, none of us saw him there. He’s recovered enough to point the finger at Cousineau for fear of facing the charges alone.”

  Gray’s hunch had proved correct. Some financial digging had unearthed Cousineau’s silent involvement with Norman and the startup. He had millions (ill-gotten millions at the taxpayer’s expense, no doubt) at stake with the company’s success. It turned out Cousineau and Norman were old schoolmates, accustomed to collaborating in shady business dealing.

  “Cousineau had tried, unsuccessfully, to get in touch with Norman the previous night,” Vivienne said. “By the time he received a description of the body – which described his associate to a T – you had assumed responsibility for the case. He didn’t want you to identify Norman and connect him with the startup, for fear it would jeopardize the estimated two hundred million dollar sale. Your unblemished record for solving cases worked against you.”

  Gray said: “Cousineau attempted to take me off the case – even asked if I’d leave it alone if he assigned it to another detective.”

  “It’s never an advantage to be too competent when you work for the city.”

  Vivienne’s face relaxed, but she still didn’t smile.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  She straightened and raised her chin. “Saleem moved all his furniture out over the weekend. He won’t talk to me, just gives me cold, one-word answers.” An orderly came pushing a stretcher; she waited for him to pass and kept her voice low. “I told him about the abortion. Didn’t tell him you helped by carting me back and forth from the hospital. He says it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done to him, and that I’d never fully understand why. He’s right. I don’t. That’s my failing I guess – putting my career first. What am I supposed to do? Take a part-time desk job at the department and give up detecting?”

  “Other officers have kids and work full-time. I don’t know how they do it, but they manage.”

  Strong antiseptic wafted towards them. Down the hall, a cleaner pushed a mop in their direction. They moved towards the elevators.

&nb
sp; “Maybe, he’ll cool off,” Gray said. “Give it time.”

  “He won’t. There’s something he isn’t telling me, I know it. But enough about that. Are you sure you don’t want to charge Kate with Jimmy’s murder?”

  Gray looked down at Vivienne’s short tresses, her swollen red eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping, only living and breathing two cases at once.

  “Kate used the engineer for information, but she wasn’t the one who poisoned his special order of hazelnut-cardamom coffee.”

  “Then, who?”

  “Someone higher up at the hospital, someone involved in experimental trials and known to operate unethically within those trials. Seymour claimed the arsenic was pharmaceutically concentrated, so I had to ask myself, who had access to that type of drug?”

  Vivienne’s eyes widened. “You still think it was him?”

  “I know it was. Before he became a faceless corpse.”

  “But when did Norman doctor the coffee, no pun intended?”

  Gray resumed walking, and Vivienne followed. They reached the elevator, and he pushed the button. “While it sat at the café waiting for Jimmy. Perhaps even on the very night Kate killed Norman. Jimmy had threatened to reveal the startup’s secret and had to be silenced. I spoke with Norman’s pharmaceutical contacts. After some pressuring, they confirmed supplying him with the arsenic, off the record.

  Vivienne shook her head. “So, Evelyn Cane ran down the woman who unknowingly avenged her son’s death.”

  “Yes.”

  The elevator arrived empty, and they silently stepped inside. It dredged downward to the main floor, where Gray could now walk without looking over his shoulder. He took a deep breath and exhaled.

  As he crossed the lobby, he thought of Jimmy and Céline. “This case hasn’t been one of our successes.”

  He stopped short of the revolving doors. Vivienne followed his gaze.

  Outside, Étienne jumped into a car with a man and woman seated up front, and a little blonde girl beaming in the back.

  “You helped him get transferred out of the Institute and into a regular psychiatric ward, didn’t you?” Vivienne said.

  Gray shook his head. “His good behavior did that. Étienne’s case was under review, and they noticed he never fought back during Carl’s first attack. His earlier conviction, at the tender age of ten, will be overturned in time.”

  “With your help, I’m sure it will. Looks as though he has a weekend pass with his sister’s foster family.”

  Vivienne smiled for the first time in days, like her old self – but she’d forgotten something vital and as yet unexplained. He hoped she wouldn’t remember; his hopes were dashed.

  “There’s one thing I still don’t get,” she said. “A man entered Étienne’s hospital room, pretending to be the killer – not Kate – a man. Who was that?”

  Gray thought to himself: if the intruder knew Kate killed Norman, he may have interrogated Étienne to make sure the boy couldn’t identify her, to protect Kate.

  Avoiding Vivienne’s eyes, he merely shrugged. “It may come out in the trial. We’ll see who comes forward to support Dr. Catherine LaPointe.”

  He knew what Vivienne would ask next, even before the words left her mouth.

  “Then, who was Henri’s father? Kate’s dead son – who was his dad?”

  CHAPTER 26

  April 6, 10 am

  IN A GUARDED hospital room at Westborough, Kate lay in bed, observing the blackened sky outside her window.

  Across the road, she could just see the beach park and the throbbing St. Lawrence River, rippling waves partially lit by lamps on the boardwalk. The wind rustled the branches of the darkened oaks, making them appear alive as though they were reaching long arms out towards her. Cars left the beach parking lot, their headlights floating down the road.

  The room itself looked stark, foreign. Kate remembered she worked in a café though the details remained foggy. A hollow ache rested in her belly, a sharp yearning for Jimmy where everything which existed beforehand remained blank, yet this felt natural. As though, she’d never had memories of her own before, never needed them. Maybe her past would come back to her, the doctors had said. Maybe it wouldn’t.

  She lay back, nestling her head on the pillow, snuggling under the sheet. A sigh escaped her lips, as though it had been a long time since she’d had a rest. It felt peaceful, regenerative, with her thoughts blissfully blank.

  A knock on the door made her turn. A tall stranger stood in the doorway, his face dark, all lines and angles – an unbelievably handsome face. Something in her chest jumped, the present moment shaken and invaded.

  Kate opened her mouth to speak; nothing came out. She heard a familiar name.

  “Hello, Catherine. It’s me, Saleem.”

  He closed the door and came into the room.

  “I want to talk to you – about Henri.”

  ***

  Gabi took a cleansing breath and let it out slowly. The party had moved to Simon’s house – specifically into his backyard beside his saltwater pool – and would probably go on until the early hours.

  The charges against Holly were cleared, and quicker than Gabi thought possible. It turned out that Robert Black hadn’t embezzled all those years ago, and Holly had little difficulty in proving it. She had merely wished to escape her former identity, begin a new life with Melanie and the baby.

  HealSo’s executives and the investors had signed on the dotted line and sold PAS to Juva Pharma as an asset sale. After the killings, they were lucky to manage that. They’d carry all the liability for HealSo for the rest of their lives, their names written somewhere as the shareholders of an empty shell that no longer did business.

  Simon had purchased a three thousand dollar, fifteen-litre bottle of champagne the size of a suitcase, as well as five dozen champagne flutes in preparation for the impending celebration. Smartphones clicked and recorded the event: the popping of the enormous cork, the pouring, and overflowing of glasses, the resultant giggles.

  Fifty people spread out inside Simon’s Outremont residence situated in the most affluent French area of Montreal.

  Three drunk engineers came towards Simon. Within seconds, they lifted and threw him fully dressed into his pool. He hit the water and came up soaked, laughing, and holding his now dead electronic Tesla key up in the air.

  ***

  The days passed slowly for Jimmy’s mom. She sat quietly at her kitchen table. The chirping of the birds and sounds from the nearby river greeted her like they had every morning for the past twenty-eight years.

  Two cappuccinos sat on the table, just the way Jimmy liked his, along with two plates with toast and jam, and his favorite crunchy peanut butter.

  Her tangled hair stood up in clumps, but her mind remained clear.

  She knew her baby would never share a coffee with her, ever again. He lived in her mind, omnipresent, in her every breath and every thought. Each morning, she put on her grief like a set of clothes and wore it throughout the day.

  Evelyn Cane sipped her coffee, finishing it, and then she drank his.

  ***

  Dusk fell by the time Gray reached home. The April evening was mild, and the grapevine and hydrangeas in his back garden swayed in the gentle breeze as he passed and entered by the back door.

  Inside, the air was cool, crisp. Gray switched on the kitchen lights, had a drink of water, and poured three fingers of single malt scotch into a crystal tumbler.

  Cradling the glass, he approached the studio door, opened it, and stood at the threshold.

  Everything remained where he’d left it, the air still and heavy with the smell of clay, moonlight streaming in like shards from a broken mirror.

  Gray lifted his drink and swirled the golden liquid, edges of the cut glass reflecting the light and inhaled the sharp aroma brought out by sixteen years of meticulous care. The first sip touched his palate, smooth and smoky with a long finish before trailing a line of heat down his throat.

  H
e’d solved the case, yet it left him raw.

  Jimmy and Céline remained dead. And Étienne – there, at least, Gray could find a semblance of comfort and satisfaction: his young witness would start a new, more promising life.

  Gray didn’t need to sculpt tonight; instead, he stepped out of his studio, closed the door, and locked it, removing the key from his keychain.

  Moving to the kitchen, he pushed it to the back of a crowded drawer he rarely opened, where it might soon be at least temporarily forgotten. His hand shook.

  He might finally be ready to tackle lonely nights without the sculpting; the ground beneath him seemed to have grown firmer.

  Calmness slowly washed over him as he built a fire in the living room hearth. Forsaking the driving obsession of the sculpting was a small step towards absolution, but a step nonetheless. He couldn’t mold his son back to life. He couldn’t give Craig a future.

  The living room lay quiet, like the street outside, save the crackling from the fire. A log shifted, and sparks flared, obliterating the maroon stump. He felt wafts of hot air caress his face.

  Picturing Evelyn Cane alone in her house, he wondered how she’d get through the rest of her days. The same way he did, probably. The empty room and hypnotic swaying of the flames provided no other answer.

  Gray sipped the whiskey, already priming himself for the next case. A couple of days of rest, and soon, the next investigation would begin, the next chase – although for tonight, he welcomed something else.

  Nurse Dubois’s number was still in his jacket pocket, penned in a slanting, elegant hand. Gray brought out his cell and dialed. The conversation was brief and predictable, with her taking the lead: Adeline would join him within the hour.

  Restless, he moved to the window, twirling the crystal tumbler.

  A long way down the darkened street, a curved, amoebic form shifted, barely distinguishable from the abstract shadows of the night. Was it the form of a woman carrying a child? The apparition receded and faded into the background, and he blinked, uncertain if he’d seen or imagined it.