Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

  This all sounds very logical but I’m getting a nasty little feeling there’s something rotten in the state of his answers.

  I look him hard in the eye for a moment before asking, “When you came out of the washroom at Al Porto, you saw Marly’s lawyer Bob Pridmore standing at my table talking to me. You looked terrified. Why was that?”

  His face completely straight, he says, “Terrified? I think you misread me, Mr. Rogan. I had no idea Mr. Pridmore was Marly’s lawyer. I had met him previously when we were interviewing law firms to represent Southbrook in Vancouver. I was just surprised to see him there and wondered why he was talking to you.”

  “So why did you dash out of the restaurant as soon as you had seen him?”

  “I hardly think dash is the right word.” His Irish accent seems even stronger now It’s a tell that he’s lying or maybe stressed. Good to know. “I just left. I had finished my conversation with Marly, gone to the washroom and then I left. It’s as simple as that.”

  It’s all very logical and reasonable but it has my B. S. meter registering off the scale.

  24

  Cal

  Friday

  Adry’s on the phone as I walk into the office and she gives me a big smile. She’s definitely becoming a big asset to the firm. Also she seems a lot happier than when she was working for that slime-bucket, porno movie-maker.

  Stammo’s absorbed in a bunch of photos arranged across his desk and looks vaguely irritated when he sees me. He doesn’t like having his train of thought broken. As I sit down, I recognize the crime scene photos. “Where did you get those?” I ask.

  “Steve. They’re not doing that well with the case and thought we might be able to provide some input.”

  “Wow. That’s not like the VPD to ask for assistance from anyone.”

  He grins. “We’re not just anyone, Rogan.” He looks at me and then his expression changes. I can’t quite read what he’s thinking. “Did you get anything new?” he asks.

  I tell him about my meeting yesterday afternoon with Luke Summers but skip the meeting with Jim Garry. I don’t want to deal with the issue of him giving evidence in my flavor right now. I know I’m putting it off and I absolutely should talk to him about it right now but I guess I’m chickening out. Instead I tell him about the happenings in Al Porto and my conversation with Sean O’Day in Celebrities.

  When he learns that Dale was gay, he nods his head and says. “When I first spoke to Marly I thought he might be.”

  “What made you think that?”

  He shrugs. “Intuition.”

  I go on to the conversation in Denny’s and finish with, “So the last person we know who saw him alive was also his lover.”

  “Holy crap. Do you think…”

  But before he can finish his sentence, he stops and pushes all the photos into a pile and flips it face down on his desk. I follow his gaze and see that Adry has walked up beside me. “Secrets Nick?” she asks playfully.

  “No. Crime scene photos, you don’t want to see them,” he grunts.

  “I’m not squeamish. Let me have a look. Maybe I’ll spot something you missed.” She says it like she’s teasing him but I can tell she really wants to see them. She holds out her hand and just leaves it there.

  Nick looks conflicted and I can’t help chuckling at him. “She’s got you there,” I say.

  He shrugs and hands the photos over to her. We both watch her as she leafs through them. When she gets to the picture of the numbers two, oh, one, three branded on his stomach she asks, “What’s the significance of that?”

  “Twenty-thirteen was the year he married Marly,” I say.

  “Ahh. The pretty client you got all tongue-tied over Cal?”

  “I didn’t get tongue-tied,” I say and immediately realize I shouldn’t have spoken; it smacks of protesting too much.

  “Now she got you too,” Nick crows.

  Adry’s looking at the photo again. “If it’s the year, why did the killer write the numbers like that, in a square with two zero on top and one three underneath?”

  Nick says, “I dunno. Maybe he made the digits bigger to inflict more pain.”

  “Or she,” Adry replies. “It could have been the lovely Marly.” She thinks for a bit and adds, “Can I hold on to these for a while? I want to study them some more.”

  “Sure,” Nick says. I can tell from his voice he’s impressed.

  “Anyhoo,” she says in Canadian fashion, “I came in here to tell you boys we have a new client. I just got off the phone with them.”

  This is a shift in the dynamic of the office. Up until now, Adry would just pass the client queries to Nick. I look over at him to see if he approves of the role she has taken on unbidden. He seems cool with it.

  “It’s a couple in their seventies, claim they’ve been swindled. I spoke to the man but I could hear his wife in the background adding details. They seemed really sweet.”

  “Who do they say swindled them?” I ask. Like any other city there are a bunch of scammers in Vancouver who are happy to bilk innocent victims of their hard-earned savings. However these days the scammers could be anywhere in the world; I’m sure that with his growing computer skills Nick could track them down, but bringing them to justice or getting the mark’s money back is next to impossible. They could be in Russia or Serbia or indeed anywhere.

  “Their church,” she says. “They say they were cheated out of ten thousand dollars by the Church of the Pure Divine Light in Langley.”

  “Have they reported it to the Langley RCMP?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s what’s funny. I asked them that but they said they didn’t want to talk to the Mounties because one of the members of the church is an RCMP officer. So they called the Vancouver Police Department and asked for you, said they knew you. Whoever answered the phone at the VPD gave them our number.”

  A memory stirs from the past. “What are their names?” I ask.

  “Phil and Florrie Franks.”

  I give a little smile. I remember them well. A cute little couple who had the license plates stolen from their truck and put on a similar vehicle which was used in the murder of a banker’s wife a couple of years back.

  Adry hands me a sheet with all the details on it. It’s very organized and she clearly asked a lot of the right questions. “Good work,” I tell her and get rewarded with a big smile before she heads back to her desk in the reception area.

  “I’ll check this out later,” I say. Except I have to pick up Ellie from school today. Oh. The thought dies aborning. Ellie’s not at school. She’s hiding out with Sam on Hardy Island. A maelstrom of thoughts and fears stir in my gut and I’m overcome by a burning desire to go there and see them. It’s the weekend coming up. Why not? Hmmm. Let me count the ways.

  Nick pulls me out of my thoughts. “Best thing we ever did was to hire that girl,” he says quietly.

  I nod and smile.

  “So. Do you like him for the murder?” Nick asks.

  “Sean O’Day? I’m not sure. I don’t think so. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t show much. But I got the feeling he was hiding something from me. When he saw Marly’s lawyer in Al Porto, his mask slipped and he looked terrified.”

  “Big Bob’d scare the crap out of me,” he grunts.

  “Me too.” I can’t resist a little chuckle at the thought of us being scared by Marly’s lawyer. “But he tried to tell me it wasn’t fear, just surprise.”

  “So what’s the next step?” he asks.

  “I told Emily Audley I would give her an update this morning then I’m going to go and grill Marly under the guise of giving her an update too. I want to know what her relationship is with Big Bob Pridmore and I want to find out what she was doing in Al Porto with her late husband’s lover.”

  “Sounds good to me. I’ve got to catch up on some of our other cases while you’re off doing the glamorous work.”

  I turn to go.

  “Wait a minute, Cal.”

  I turn b
ack. Stammo usually calls me by my last name.

  “What is it Nick?”

  He hesitates and looks like he’s about to speak when Adry sweeps past me. She’s holding the photo of Dale Summers’ stomach. She walks over to Nick’s desk and smacks it down on the surface. “Come and look at this Cal,” she says. I walk over and look over her shoulder. She waits for a beat, getting our full attention, then says, “You see how he’s burned the numbers in that square pattern and then has surrounded them with a square?” We both nod. “See between the zero and the edge of the square, there are two little burns?” She points with her finger. “That looks to me like a colon. What if it’s not a year but a time?” She grabs a pen and writes 20:13 on a scrap of paper on Nick’s desk. “That could be a time. Eight-thirteen in the evening. Maybe that’s when he did it.”

  Nick grabs a file off his desk and pulls out the autopsy report. “Between six PM and midnight,” he says.

  “Yeah, but why would the killer brand the victim with the time of his death?” she asks.

  “Beats the heck out of me,” I say.

  And I really want to know the answer to that question.

  “How well did you know Dale?” I ask her.

  “Not that well, socially; it was strictly business between us. Usually at his office or here at mine. We had lunch a couple of times and I learned he was married, no children and I even managed to drag out of him that he was from the family who owns the hotels. That’s about all.”

  “Did you know he was gay?”

  Em’s eyebrow lifts a fraction; that’s a tell, I just don’t know what for. “I did not. Do you think that had anything to do with his death?”

  “We’re pursuing that line of inquiry?”

  “Do the police know?”

  “I’m not sure. My partner’s the liaison with the VPD but he may not have updated them yet.”

  “It can be a dangerous lifestyle. I don’t know about Canada but a lot of people in the States have a horrible hatred of gays.”

  “Knowing he was gay, is there anything you can think of that might be relevant.”

  She thinks for a bit then shrugs. “Not really. Did he have a lover?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know who he was?” she asks and I wonder if she guesses. Maybe she already knows her project manager Sean O’Day is gay. Maybe now that she knows about Dale she may have spotted a pattern in Sean’s past behaviour

  “Not a clue,” I lie. “Can you think of any candidates?”

  “No. I don’t think I know any gay men, not in Vancouver anyway.”

  That’s feasible. She’s only been here for a few months. Give her time. Everyone in Vancouver has at least one gay friend, even if they don’t know it yet.

  “What are your next steps?” she asks.

  No harm in telling her. “Right after I leave here I’m meeting with Dale’s wife. I want to see if she knew about her husband’s orientation and if so, how she felt about it.”

  “That poor woman. Please give her my condolences.”

  “I will.” Now I need to check something with her. “There’s just one thing. You hired us to get ahead of any possible negative publicity. Would Dale’s being gay count as negative for Southbrook.”

  “Heavens no,” she laughs. “We’re in the fashion business, half the people who work for us are gay.”

  I feel an internal sigh of relief. No need to worry about a conflict of interest between our client and the fact that Sean O’Day asked me to keep his orientation from her. However it makes me wonder why. If Southbrook is so gay-friendly a company why doesn’t Sean want to be outed? Maybe I should ask him sometime.

  I stand and grab my jacket from the back of the chair. For the first time I really take in the office. It’s a very up-market shared office facility and is all very steel and glass. Her desk’s very tidy having only a pen, a pad, a laptop and a framed photo on it. I find myself wanting to see the photo, wanting to know if there’s a Mr. Audley waiting back home for her in Georgia or Alabama.

  She sees the direction of my gaze and takes the frame, walks round the desk and stands closer to me than I was expecting. I can smell the subtle fragrance of her perfume. There are three people in the picture which was taken in what looks like a beautiful garden in the height of summer. There’s an older couple who must be her parents; her mother is a very striking woman and I get an image of what Em will look like when she gets older. The third person in the picture is an amazingly beautiful young woman in a white summer dress with a blissful smile on her face. “These are my parents and my younger sister back home in Savannah.” I was right about Georgia. “I must say I do miss them.”

  There’s a sadness in her voice. “Are your parents still alive?” I ask.

  “My mother is but sadly my father and my sister are not.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. My condolences.”

  She returns the picture frame to her desk. “Thank you. I think of them every day.”

  She opens the door to her office. “Let me show you out,” she says. We walk down a short hallway into an open office area with several lines of tables. Most of them have people working away on laptops of all types. “May I ask you if you’re married Cal?”

  I give her the technically correct answer. “I’m divorced.”

  We walk out of the office into the reception area. “I would really like to know how your meeting with Ms. Summers goes. Maybe you could pick me up here for dinner this evening, say seven o’clock?”

  “I would love that Em,” I say.

  We stand in a companionable silence for a few seconds until the ding of the elevator intrudes. She extends her hand and I shake it, both of us holding on a little longer than would be considered necessary.

  She looks at me coldly. “Come in,” she says without any preamble. As I walk through the door of the house she makes a bee-line for the living room, leaving me to close and lock the door and follow her.

  When I catch up to her in the living room with the spectacular view of English Bay, she has already seated herself on the couch upon which she tried to seduce me. But there’s no seduction in the air this morning. Standing, looking out the window, is Big Bob Pridmore.

  He turns at the click of my heel on the parquet flooring. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Good morning Marly, Bobby,” I say. That’s me: Mr. Polite and Friendly. I smile warmly as I watch his anger ratchet up. I’m guessing Bobby is not his nickname of choice. “I’m here to give you an update on my investigation into Dale’s murder.”

  “I want to know why you were following Ms. Summers last night,” he says.

  “Did I spoil your date?”

  He takes a step toward me. “Cut the crap Rogan. Answer the goddamn question.”

  “As I told you last night I wasn’t following Ms. Summers.”

  “Then what the fuck were you doing there?” he snaps.

  I turn my gaze away from his and focus in on Marly. “I was following Sean O’Day, Ms. Summers’ late husband’s gay lover.” There’s no overt reaction from her except for a twitch in her jaw as she grinds her teeth together. “I’d be interested to know what was so amusing about their conversation.”

  Marly’s forcing her composure. When she speaks there’s an edge in her voice, “Sean O’Day was telling me that he—”

  “Shut the fuck up Marly.” Big Bob’s voice is not loud but carries the fang of venom in its tone.

  Marly shuts the fuck up.

  I keep my eyes on her for a moment and can’t help feeling sorry for her. I suspect she’s an innocent caught up in the games of forces more powerful than her. Then I get a flash of intuition about those forces.

  I turn and drill my gaze into Big Bob’s eyes but I address her. “Correct me if I’m wrong Marly but Sean O’Day was blackmailing you, wasn’t he. I was watching you.” There’s no reaction from Big Bob. Zero. None. Odd. “Sean told you he would out Dale’s homosexuality in public which would give Luke Summers a
n excuse to trigger the clause in Dale’s trust fund that cut him, and via inheritance you, out of the fund.”

  Marly’s voice is only just loud enough to hear. “Sean wasn’t even—”

  “Marly!” Pridmore’s voice is a growl. She shuts up again. “You’re a smart man Rogan. I’m not sure how you figured it out but you’re on the money. Right Marly?”

  His eyes drill into hers. She just nods.

  “Tell me what happened.” I encourage her with a smile.

  “She doesn’t have anything more to say, do you Marly?”

  That’s it, I’ve had enough. He’s big and he’s strong but compared to Goliath, the gangbanger from my past, he’s a babe-in-arms. And I bested Goliath three times out of three—well, three times out of four but he had help—I take two steps forward and lock Bob’s eyes with mine. “Time for you to shut the fuck up Bobby-boy,” I say.

  He thinks about it for a second… and then thinks better of it. We both know he’s done like dinner.

  I turn my back on him with a measured deliberation. With every sense tuned to any movement Big Bob might make, I walk over to Marly and sit down on the couch beside her.

  “Go on,” I encourage her.

  She looks up at Pridmore and holds his gaze for a long time. Something seems to pass between them. Then she drops her eyes on the coffee table in front of her. “Sean said that… well he said unless I agreed to pay him the income, I mean half of the income, from Dale’s trust, he would send Dale’s brother some pictures of him and Dale together. You know, explicit photos…” She pauses and I see a real pain in her eyes, or at least what I read as real pain. I don’t know if I’m being a sucker for a pretty face or whether she’s telling the truth. I lean toward the latter, but what do I know?

  Big Bob’s face is impassive. I don’t think he’s angry anymore but something bad is going on behind his eyes. Like a cobra getting ready to strike. Maybe I could get more from her with him out of the way.