Same Place, Same Time

by C. J. Carmichael

  By midmorning Trista was ready to go for a stroll in High Park, but Sylvia called just as she was about to walk out the door.

  “My in-laws are driving me crazy,” she said. “Especially my mother-in-law. All she can do is whine and complain about all she’s lost. What about me? They’ve been here since Friday morning, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  “Maybe you should try and get away for a while. Do you have a friend’s house you could spend a few quiet hours at?”

  “Actually I called your office yesterday hoping I could get in to see you. But you’re closed. Is this because of Daniel’s death?”

  Trust Sylvia to be perfectly blunt. “In part,” Trista hedged.

  “According to this morning’s paper, the police think Daniel’s murder might be connected to Jerry Walker’s. Which is so strange, because I’m sure my husband didn’t know Jerry. Although we did meet the Walkers, briefly once, at a fundraiser for Suni Choopra. Of course you know, because you were there. That’s how we met you.”

  Trista’s heart pounded. Suni Choopra. The politician, her friend, was another link between the two men. She should have thought of it herself, since she had met both the Walkers and the Hawthornes through her. Of course, she met a lot of her clients that way.

  “Sylvia, if you need to talk to me, I could meet you at a restaurant for an hour or so.”

  “Really? I’d appreciate that. But how about my house? The in-laws have gone out to visit Daniel’s godparents. Could you be here in half-an-hour?”

  Trista agreed and hung up, feeling she’d been manipulated somehow.

  MORGAN LEFT Walker’s Hardware, amazed that the store was as profitable as it was. Located just west of Bathurst Avenue, it was definitely not in the trendy area of Queen Street. While the store itself was relatively neat, with a tidy exterior, across the street garbage was piled up in front of a secondhand appliance store, and colored neon lights blazed in the window of a decrepit-looking tattoo studio.

  Morgan got into his car and thought of the interesting meetings he’d just had with Thackray, Jason and Nan. His timing had been perfect, interrupting a territorial battle between Jason and Thackray, proving that both men wanted control of the stores much more desperately than either one of them, or Nan, had let on. Jason’s emotional words about carrying on for his father’s sake hadn’t fooled Morgan for one minute.

  As for Thackray, he’d noticed Nan seemed almost as protective of him as she did of her son. Was it possible that Jerry hadn’t been the only one cheating in that marriage? Boy, wouldn’t that make things interesting. He made a note to get some follow-up work done in that direction.

  One disappointment was that he hadn’t found any connection to Daniel Hawthorne. Thackray swore he’d never heard of the man, and Morgan was tempted to believe him.

  Morgan turned left onto Spadina Avenue, tires bumping as they passed over the streetcar tracks. Crowds of shoppers, determined not to pay retail, were thrumming along the sidewalks, moving from one discount outlet to the next. He remembered weekends when he and Trista had been among them. They’d shop for an hour, which was usually all he could stand, before going to one of the trendy bistros further east on Queen Street.

  He drove past the gray stone towers of Casa Loma, leaving the buzzing downtown, and his memories, behind him. He headed for Forest Hill, and the Hawthorne address. A message from Sylvia had come while he was at the hardware store. It had been vague, mentioning that she’d found something and he’d better come over as soon as possible. He turned onto the broad, tree-lined street where she lived and pulled up in front of the house. Sylvia answered the door before he had time to knock.

  “Good morning, Detective.” She sounded slightly out of breath, as if she’d raced to the door.

  Morgan nodded, stepping forward. “I got your message. I understand you found something?”

  “Yes.” Sylvia stepped aside to allow him to enter. “My counselor, Trista Emerson, is here, as well.”

  Trista? Morgan paused, then frowned when he noticed Sylvia watching him curiously. What the hell was Trista doing here? Once inside, he saw her standing by the window. Her cheeks flushed as she saw him. Obviously Sylvia hadn’t mentioned she was expecting him.

  “Hello, Trista.” He hated how formal the words sounded in this elegant, yet uninviting room.

  “You two know each other?”

  “Yes.” Trista spoke quietly. “Actually, we used to be married.”

  “Really?” Sylvia crossed her arms over her barrel chest and glanced back and forth between them.

  “Did you have something to show me?” Morgan repeated impatiently.

  “Yes. It was a note, included in Daniel’s personal papers.” Sylvia pulled a folded sheet of paper out from a side pocket in her black sheath dress.

  Morgan unfolded the paper, not surprised to see the same rose border that had graced Jerry Walker’s note. Typed below—by the same manual typewriter that Walker’s note had been typed on, he was willing to bet—was a brief message. I need to see you this week. Same place, same time. xoxo.

  He felt the familiar quickening of his pulse at finding another piece of the puzzle. These notes had to prove, beyond a doubt, that the two men were killed by the same woman.

  He looked up to find Sylvia’s eyes, dark and intense, focused on him.

  “Find her, Detective. Find her and make her pay.”

  Morgan glanced over at Trista. Her face was unnaturally white, and she was propping herself against the wall. Was her head bothering her? Or was it something else? She was staring at the paper in his hand with the oddest expression.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TRISTA STARED AT the note in Morgan’s hand. It was on Suni Choopra’s stationery. Trista was almost certain. Hadn’t Suni sent her a thank-you note about a month ago on paper just like it? Or maybe it was only similar. Trista stepped closer for a better look.

  It did look familiar—but that had to be coincidence. And yet, the typescript on the note was uneven, as if it had been printed by typewriter, not computer, and the image of Suni’s portable on the side table by her desk burned in Trista’s mind. Suni labeled herself technologically illiterate, and refused to use the office’s computerized word processing system.

  What did it mean? If Suni wrote those notes, then she must have been the mystery lover.

  Was it possible? Could Suni have had an affair first with Daniel Hawthorne, then several months later, Jerry Walker? But why would Suni do something like that? If the press found out, the publicity could wreck her entire career.

  In the midst of all these unanswered questions, Trista knew only one thing. She wasn’t going to tell Morgan that she thought she recognized the stationery, or that both the Walkers and the Hawthornes had known Suni, until after she had a chance to talk to her friend. There had to be an explanation. Maybe Suni’s stationery was only similar to the one used on these notes. Or maybe it was a readily available pattern, more common than one might expect.

  “Are you okay?” Behind the question, she could sense Morgan’s curiosity. He’d noted her strange reaction. Keeping this information to herself was not going to be easy.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted.

  “Well, if there’s nothing else, Mrs. Hawthorne, I’d better be going.” Morgan put the note away and took his leave.

  After Morgan was gone, it took a few minutes for Trista to wind up her earlier conversation with Sylvia. As she left, she said, “You’ll call me if you need to talk again?”

  “I sure will, Trista. Thanks for coming.”

  Out on the street, Trista was dismayed to see Morgan waiting by his car.

  “I’ll give you a ride to the subway stop,” he said.

  There was no point in arguing, so she climbed past the open passenger door.

  Once he’d started the engine, he turned to her. “There was something about that note that bothered you, wasn’t there?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” she an
swered as honestly as she could. “Was Jerry Walker’s note similar?”

  “Almost identical. Both were on that same flowered stationery. Both looked like they were typed on the same manual typewriter. And both used that phrase, ‘same place, same time.’ I don’t think there can be any doubt that the notes were sent by the same woman.”

  “The mystery lover.” Trista tried once more to imagine Suni in that role. It still didn’t seem to fit.

  “Yes. And the murderer.”

  The blunt words made Trista wince. Suni a killer? No, it was impossible.

  When Morgan pulled up at the St. Clair subway stop, she tried to exit quickly, but he caught her by the shoulder and gave her an intense look.

  “Are you sure there isn’t something bothering you?”

  Trista swallowed. Of course, he would sense she was holding something back. But, at this point, there was nothing she could say. “I want this case solved as much as you do, Morgan. If I had something I felt I could tell you, I would.”

  “Not good enough, Trista.” He looked at her through narrowed eyes, his expression set firmly in disapproval. But he let go of her shoulder, as if accepting that he couldn’t make her say any more. At least not yet.

  She stood on the sidewalk and watched him drive off, with a guilty feeling knotting up her stomach. She hadn’t actually lied, but that was just a technicality. When he found out that she hadn’t told him about the stationery, he was going to be furious. And frankly, she wouldn’t blame him.

  THE SAMENESS of Oliver’s, with its blue-and-white striped chairs, fashionable clientele and young attractive servers, came as a surprise to Trista. With all that had been happening lately, it seemed strange to find that some things carried on unchanged by the drama that was monopolizing her life.

  She’d made a reservation and was led to a corner near the front of the restaurant where she could watch the door for Suni’s appearance. She picked up the menu, opened it, then put it down without reading a word. She was nervous. What was she going to say? Did you send notes to those two men who were murdered? Were you their lover? Did you kill them?

  Hardly. But what could she say? How was she going to get the information that would exonerate Suni, without putting her through the humiliation of a police interrogation?

  A rush of fresh air announced a new arrival and Trista looked up to see Suni, dressed in a coffee-colored suit with a blouse a shade lighter, breeze into the restaurant. Trista raised her arm and Suni nodded in recognition, joining her at the small round table.

  “Sorry I’m late. I was doing some door-to-door work in the neighborhood, and time got away from me, I’m afraid.” Suni ran her hand through her hair, patting the thick, black strands back into place and smiling warmly, a picture-perfect smile. Her skin was smooth, her almond-shaped eyes still young-looking. No wonder the cameras loved her.

  The waiter arrived to take their orders and they both chose the daily pasta special after an offhand glance at the menu. Trista waited until their drinks were in hand before she plunged.

  “By the way, I really like the stationery you used for that thank-you note you sent me a few weeks ago. I keep meaning to ask you where you got it.” She took a quick swallow of her wine, hoping the cool liquid would quell the color she could feel rising in her cheeks.

  “The stuff with flowers on the top?”

  Trista nodded, fussing with her napkin, adjusting it over her lap.

  “I’ve had that for ages. I can’t remember where I got it.” Suni answered the question absentmindedly, her eyes watching out the window as if expecting someone. Trista recognized the look. When she was in public, Suni hardly ever relaxed, at least not completely. She never knew when someone might come up to shake her hand or to ask a question.

  Trista’s hands settled on her lap, and the tense set of her shoulders relaxed marginally. Surely Suni wouldn’t have spoken so nonchalantly if she were guilty.

  “You probably ordered it from the company where you buy your other office supplies, don’t you think?” she prodded gently, determined to get a reasonable explanation for the coincidence that she could deliver to Morgan.

  “What?” Suni looked back from the window, a frown creasing her forehead. “Oh, you mean the stationery… No, I don’t think so. It just caught my eye one day when I was out shopping—I don’t remember where. Seems to me I was out of the country on a business trip.”

  “Oh well.” Trista shrugged, her heart sinking. She’d hoped the stationery was a common variety, the kind hundreds of people might own. But if it had been purchased in another country, it might not even be available in Toronto.

  “I saw Steven Reid the other night.”

  Suni’s comment caught Trista off guard. “Steven Reid?”

  “He asked about you.”

  Then Trista remembered. He was a lawyer that she’d met at a breakfast meeting where Suni had been speaking. Attractive, in his mid-forties. They’d sat at the same table and she’d been momentarily charmed by his gentle good humor and obvious intelligence. When he’d phoned the next day asking her out to dinner, however, she’d refused.

  “That’s nice.”

  “Still not interested I see.” Suni placed her hand gently on Trista’s arm. “Now that I’ve seen your ex-husband, I think I understand a little better. You know I’ve never tried to push anything with the men I introduce to you. But if I were you, I’d think seriously about giving Steven a chance. He’s been a widower for a couple of years now. His friends say he’s ready for a real relationship.”

  “Good for Steven. I wish I could say the same for me. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be ready to take that plunge again.” She thought of Morgan, and the disappointment she occasionally glimpsed in his eyes. It had been hard for him to accept the divorce. Would he ever want to remarry?

  “If Steven is so great,” Trista said, “why don’t you date him?”

  Suni slid her hand back to her side of the table and gave a short laugh. “Really, Trista, he’s much too young for me.”

  “Come on, what’s ten years in this day and age?”

  “It’s still quite a lot when it’s the woman who’s older, believe me. Anyway, I’m not the sort of woman men look for when they’re ready to get serious.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Trista, the last thing a man wants is an ambitious woman. Especially a woman whose ambition includes a career in politics.”

  “I’m sure there are men who might find it difficult to deal with a woman who’s achieved as much as you have, but Steven doesn’t seem like he suffers from an inferiority complex.”

  “Believe me on this one.” Suni laughed gently, but her eyes were not merry. “I’ve learned the hard way.”

  “INTERESTING, all right.” Zarowin was holding the two notes in his gloved hands, doing a visual comparison, before Morgan sent them off for analysis. “Any new leads on her identity?”

  “Not yet.” Morgan was as frustrated as his superior. There had to be some link between the two men, besides Trista’s office. There just had to be.

  “You’re playing your cards a little too close to the vest on this one, Forester.”

  “That’s the way I operate. You know that.”

  “And usually we can cut you a little slack. But this case is different. Not one homicide, but two. This has the potential to blow into something really big—”

  “No way.” Morgan rose out of his chair and loomed over the broad figure of the inspector. “This isn’t a serial killer on the loose. I’m sure of it.”

  Zarowin wasn’t intimidated. He stared Morgan in the eye before replying. “You’d better be right. But first, you better find out who this mystery lover is.”

  Morgan turned, staring at the bookshelves where Zarowin’s collection of family photos was displayed. Zarowin’s three sons, dressed in soccer uniforms and posed around a black-and-white ball, smiled back at him. “I have a feeling we’re almost there. I just need to follow up on a few things. I
should know by tomorrow.”

  “Good. I hope you’re right. I also hope you’re not overlooking the obvious. The only connection we have between the two men is still Trista’s office. Trista may have an alibi for the murders, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t the one having the affairs.”

  Morgan shook his head. He knew that simply wasn’t possible. But how could he explain as much to Zarowin?

  “Just keep an open mind,” was Zarowin’s parting comment as Morgan reclaimed the notes.

  The words barely penetrated Morgan’s consciousness. He kept remembering Trista’s strange behavior at Sylvia Hawthorne’s. The difficulty she had meeting his gaze when he dropped her off at the subway. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that she’d felt some shock of recognition when she saw that note.

  So why not tell him? Was she protecting somebody? A client, her secretary, somebody else? Morgan felt his gut twist at the thought. If she was keeping something back, she could be putting herself in danger again. Or even worse, her involvement in this might be more than he’d ever suspected. Both of those options were bad enough, but what bothered him most about her silence was that she obviously didn’t trust him enough to confide in him. Just when he’d thought the gulf between them was beginning to narrow, she had to go and wedge it a little wider again.

  “WELL, THAT CURRY was great,” Trista said with forced cheerfulness.

  After their uncomfortable scene outside Sylvia’s house that morning, she’d half expected Morgan to concoct an excuse for why he couldn’t come by for dinner. In fact, she’d hoped for as much. But he’d shown up at her door at six o’clock with a bag of groceries in hand and a bottle of red wine. Then he’d proceeded to cook dinner, insisting that she sit down and relax while he worked. It would have been very enjoyable—being pampered like that—if he hadn’t kept giving her these strange looks. Sort of sad, yet curious, too. Trista knew he was still suspicious about what had happened at Sylvia’s, and a part of her longed to blurt out the whole story, just to clear the air between them.