Death as a Last Resort

by Gwendolyn Southin

  “So why tumble her house? What were they looking for?”

  “I suspect the thieves think she has the rest of the stuff.”

  “There’s got to be more to this,” George frowned as he looked from Nat to Maggie. “How did this bracelet turn up at that junk shop?”

  “Either Nancy sold it to them . . . or they took it from her. And thereby hangs another sad tale,” he said ruefully. “Rosie Smith is trying to sell it to me for two thousand bucks.”

  “Serves you right,” George commented unsympathetically after he heard that his friend was out one hundred dollars. “I told you to keep me in the picture. And,” he continued, “you two are still holding something back. Thanks, Henny,” he said, taking the coffee and cookie from her, “you’ll have to give my wife the recipe.” Henny beamed with pleasure as she refilled their cups.

  The look that Nat shot at George should have ended their friendship right then and there.

  As soon as George had gone and Nat left to catch the ferry, Maggie told Henny, “I’m going to call Thelma Schaefer. Maybe she’ll see me this morning.”

  • • •

  MAGGIE TOOK THE SECOND Narrows Bridge to North Vancouver. Driving over the huge structure, she thought about the terrible tragedy only three years earlier when a large section of the bridge span had collapsed into the inlet, sending eighteen workers to their deaths. The new bridge had only been completed the previous year. Maggie still felt insecure each time she used it.

  The Schaefers’ door was opened by a comfortable-looking, middle-aged woman in a grey uniform, who showed Maggie into the perfectly appointed living room where Thelma Schaefer waited for her. Trim-figured, every hair in place and beautifully dressed—in fact, the perfect colonel’s wife—she sat in her wheelchair beside a tea trolley.

  “So you’re Mrs. Spencer,” she said, smiling graciously and holding out her hand to Maggie. As Maggie’s hand closed over it, she was aware how small and fragile the woman was, and she wondered what had put her into a wheelchair. An accident? Disease, perhaps?

  “Maisie has already brought in the coffee.” She indicated the trolley laden with a Royal Albert service and a tiered cake stand with small cookies and petites fours. “Now what can I do to help with your enquiries?” And she began pouring coffee.

  “You’re English, too,” Maggie said, settling into a cretonne-covered chair on the other side of the trolley.

  The woman nodded. “I guess you could call me one of the early war brides,” she said, smiling as she handed Maggie a cup of coffee. “I met Arnold about ten years before the war. He was in London on some kind of hush-hush military thing. He never told me what.”

  “But he was in the tank corps during the war.”

  “Yes,” she said sounding surprised. “The Middle East. How did you know that?”

  “Liam Mahaffy. He seemed very proud to be part of your husband’s outfit.”

  “Oh, dear Liam.” She smiled. “Such a nice young officer.”

  “You met him during the war, then?” Maggie asked, taking a bite out of a cookie.

  Thelma nodded. “Arnold and I had a lovely little cottage in Ashford. Sometimes he would bring one or more of his men home for a weekend. They appreciated that, as most of them were so far from home.”

  “Your husband obviously kept in touch with Liam. What about Maurice Dubois?”

  “Maurice Dubois?” She looked puzzled. “Oh, Maurice wasn’t in Arnold’s unit. As far as I know, he was in a French Canadian regiment . . . the Van Doos.” She reached over to the trolley to offer Maggie a petit four. “No, Arnold’s men were all British . . . although he did bring a couple of Canadian officers home once . . . they were on temporary duty with the 8th, although for the life of me I couldn’t tell you their names anymore.”

  “Was one of them Robert Edgeworthy?”

  Thelma Schaefer paused in the middle of refilling Maggie’s cup. “Of course, you’re quite right. Robert was seconded to Arnold’s company when they were in North Africa,” she said, passing Maggie the cup. “Do you know him?”

  “We’ve met. He told me that he was at the lodge with your husband over New Year’s.”

  “Was he? My goodness, I didn’t know that.”

  “Was there a Henry Smith in your husband’s company?”

  “I don’t know, dear. If he wasn’t an officer, there was no way I would have met him.” Then she asked, “Was he a big man? A cockney, perhaps? Because now that I think about it, there could have been a Henry Smith in stores or something like that. Of course, it’s such a common name.” She reached for the little bell on the tea trolley and rang it. When the housekeeper arrived a moment later, she asked, “Maisie, could you bring me the photo on the Colonel’s desk in his den?” While they waited for it, she continued, “So many of them were either killed or missing in action.” She paused. “War is a terrible thing.”

  The photo turned out to be the same one that Liam Mahaffy had shown them. “So did you get to meet any of these others?” Maggie asked, taking it into her hands.

  “Some. That’s Liam, the one laughing in the back row. Such a clown,” she added fondly. “And next to him is, of course, Robert. He was transferred shortly after that picture was taken. But we’re so pleased that Liam came to BC to live,” she continued. “He tried his hand at farming on Lulu Island, but his real love was always horses.”

  “He runs a stable in Delta now, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s right. Arnold tells me that he boards and trains race horses there.”

  Thelma leaned across the trolley and took the photo from Maggie’s hands. “More than half of them didn’t make it back.”

  “I lost two of my cousins in the Battle of Britain,” Maggie said. “I’ve never stopped thinking of them.” They drank their coffee in silence for a few moments, then Maggie asked, “Was your husband in the lumber business before the war?”

  “No. The lumberyard was Arnold’s father’s business. Arnold only went in with him after the war, and then his father died just a year later.”

  “Is that when your husband took Maurice Dubois on as a partner?”

  “Maurice? Well, he wasn’t really a partner, you know, and the only reason he was involved with my husband at all was because he persuaded him to expand into logging. Worst mistake Arnold ever made.” She stopped abruptly, as if she had said too much.

  “Then it was very thoughtful of him to finance René and Isabelle so that we can continue investigating the two murders.”

  “I didn’t know he had.” For a moment she looked almost shocked at this revelation, and then her usual mask of politeness returned and she added, “I’m a little surprised, as he wasn’t exactly enamoured of Jacquelyn, but I guess he has a soft spot for René and Isabelle. Their father’s many marriages have been difficult for them.”

  “You knew both his previous wives?”

  “Not Annette. She and Maurice had divorced and he was already married to Edith by the time I came here after the war. But I must say this of him, he was very fond of both of his children and took a great interest in their growing up.”

  “I appreciate you seeing me,” Maggie said, folding her small linen napkin, “especially on such short notice.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been more helpful.”

  Outside, Maggie sat in her car for a few minutes before reaching for the ignition. “Oh, but you have, Mrs. Schaefer,” she said quietly as she pulled away from the curb.

  • • •

  NANCY WAS TERIFIED. SHE had been tied up and her mouth duct taped before she was dragged through her backyard in her nightgown and then thrown into the trunk of a car. At the end of the journey, she had been blindfolded, hauled out of the car, dragged up a long flight of stairs and interrogated again by the two thugs. She told them in vain that Jacquelyn had given her the bracelet and she had no idea where the rest of the stuff was, but that had only led to them slapping her around some more. At last she had debated telling them that she had buried it in
the back garden, but figuring they would kill her off once they had it in their possession, she had kept her mouth shut.

  Now she was still tied up, but at least they had taken the blindfold off and left her alone in this small bedroom for a while. Tears coursed down her face at the indignity of still being in her torn nightgown with cold, bare feet and, worst of all, no makeup. She looked up fearfully as the door crashed open once again and a pile of clothes was thrown at her.

  “One peep out of you and you get this,” one of the men said, pointing a gun at her. Then he walked over to her and untied her arms. “Get dressed.”

  “Please let me go home,” she whimpered as she pulled the grey sweatsuit on over the nightgown. “I won’t tell anyone!” She reached for the knitted wool socks. At least her feet would be warm. “Please.”

  “Shut up,” he said as retied her hands behind her back and reached for the roll of duct tape.

  “Not the tape, please. I promise I won’t say a word.” But relentlessly he taped her mouth shut.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “It’s all very embarrassing, Mr. Southby.” It was three fifteen on Thursday afternoon, and Nat was sitting opposite Jake Houston, a grey-haired, lean man in his mid-fifties. “It was your enquiries into that logging scam on Hollyburn that brought the subject to our attention . . . so we started to investigate ourselves.” The Forestry official looked acutely uncomfortable.

  “And you found that there was definitely something fishy 130 going on?”

  The man nodded, steepled his fingers and continued ponderously, “Yes, that clear-cut on Hollyburn was definitely illegal. And . . . it seems there are more large tracts of land—mostly in our wilderness parks on Vancouver Island and probably in the northern part of British Columbia—that may have been logged without our knowledge.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Because of the remoteness of the areas in question. There are rangers, of course, but these are vast areas we’re talking about, and I’m afraid we have a few dishonest people in the business. That’s where you can help us.”

  “Me?”

  “We want you to make enquiries.”

  “Thanks for your consideration, Mr. Houston, but I haven’t the time to tramp all over BC looking at logging sites. And I certainly don’t have the expertise to know whether they’ve been logged over their allotted boundaries or . . .”

  “No, no. That’s not what we’re asking you to do. Your agency has already uncovered this Dubois character, but he’s dead. What we need to know is who his contacts were in order to see if they lead into other nefarious goings-on in the . . . uh . . . ministry.”

  “What about the RCMP?”

  “We must keep a low profile with this. We’re approaching you because you are already on the ground floor of this case, so to speak. Besides, you are a former police officer and it’s obvious you know your way around.”

  Nat sat quietly thinking about the money, the prestige and the possibility of future jobs with the government before he answered. “You understand that I have to consult my partner before I could agree, and that we would require the names and addresses of all your staff who could possibly be involved.”

  Houston nodded. “Then you will consider taking this on for us?”

  • • •

  IT WAS A LITTLE after five, and Maggie was preparing supper for herself. She hadn’t heard from Nat so supposed he wasn’t back from his meeting in Victoria. After popping one of her made-ahead pot pies into the oven, she was sipping a glass of red wine while waiting for her dinner to warm up when the telephone gave its annoying jangle. She debated letting the thing ring, but then it could be Nat or even one of her daughters. Placing her glass of wine on the counter, she reached for the instrument.

  “It’s René, Mrs. Spencer. I’ve been trying to get hold of you since yesterday afternoon.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You told me to call you if I heard anything unusual,” he answered in an accusing voice. “Well, I did. I heard Bakhash and some guy yelling at each other.”

  “In the office?”

  “No. The stockroom in the basement. I had to go down there to get a bolt of seersucker.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “No, no. Anyway, Bakhash was yelling at this guy about him grabbing some woman and that there were better ways to get the stuff back.”

  “Did you recognize the man?”

  “No, I couldn’t see him, but the important thing is, Mrs. Spencer, Bakhash told him that another consignment would be coming in, and that they would be unpacking it Friday evening when there was no one around.”

  “You mean tonight?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes, and this other guy said that at least my dad was no longer a threat, and if that fool Edgeworthy had followed instructions, the other stuff would have been safe, too.”

  “Good work, René! This is important information.”

  “Anyway, I could smuggle you into the building, and we could see what they’re up to.”

  “Heavens no, René. That would be foolhardy to say the least. Remember, both your father and stepmother have been murdered . . . and probably by these same people.”

  “But I want to find out why,” he answered vehemently.

  “Mr. Southby would be dead against us doing any snooping.” She paused for a moment while possibilities ran through her mind. “And I can’t ask him, as he’s not back from Victoria.”

  “You want to know what’s in those crates, don’t you?”

  “Certainly, but this would be far too risky.”

  “Then I’ll have to go by myself.”

  “You can’t possibly go in there alone,” she said. “What if you’re caught?” Then she added reluctantly, “Oh, all right. But I’ll need a safe parking spot for my car.”

  “There’s a restaurant called the Daily Bread quite near the factory and it has a large parking lot.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you there.” She replaced the receiver, grabbed her coat and turned the oven off. “I guess supper’s going to be a mite late.”

  Maggie was still feeling very unhappy about the venture as she parked her car. Nat would be furious when he found out. She got out and was locking the door when René suddenly appeared at her side.

  “I still don’t think this is a very good idea, René,” she said when she climbed into his old Jeep.

  “Hold tight, Mrs. Spencer,” he said as he swerved around the corner and both their seats shot forward. “Sorry,” he said. “The seats have come loose on their runners.”

  “I see what you mean,” she yelled at him over the noisy engine. “Why don’t you get it fixed? That’s really dangerous!”

  “I keep forgetting,” he said as he pulled the Jeep over to the curb just around the corner from the factory.

  “Look, René,” Maggie said as she clambered out of the vehicle, “if I feel that it is too dangerous for us to be here, we’re leaving. Understood?”

  “Okay. I understand.”

  The evening had turned cold and the harsh wind made Maggie pull up the fur collar of her wool coat. She buried her hands deep into her pockets, and her right hand closed around her trusty flashlight. “How do you propose we get into the building?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got this,” and he brandished a large key. “My supervisor keeps it in his desk, so I borrowed it.”

  The grim, totally dark building did nothing to lift Maggie’s spirits. She watched in trepidation as René fitted the key into the scarred wooden door. With the banks of sewing machines silenced for the night, it was eerily quiet inside. “Which way?” she whispered.

  A beam from René’s flashlight lit up the square reception area, and taking Maggie by the elbow, he led her to a door she hadn’t noticed on her previous visits. It revealed wooden stairs leading down into inky blackness. “Be careful. These stairs are steep and they curve.” Maggie brought out her own flashlight and followed him down, but she was relieved when she felt the solid
floor beneath her. René played his flashlight over four rows of tall racks, their shelves piled high with bolts of fabric and enormous cartons of Bakhash and Son’s shirts.

  “What if they come back early?” Maggie whispered as she followed him between the racks.

  “Oh, there are lots of places to hide,” René reassured her.

  About twenty feet from the freight doors, the racks ended, and much of the remaining space was filled with enormous empty cartons and wooden crates stacked in higgledy-piggledy fashion against the walls and the ends of the racks.

  “See,” René said, “there are the crates I was talking about.” He played his light over three huge wooden boxes standing close to the freight entrance.

  Maggie walked over to inspect them in the beam from her own flashlight. She could see right away that the wooden lids had been firmly hammered shut and that each crate had been tightly bound with thin metal strips. There was no easy way to open them. “What we need is a crowbar,” she said.

  “You’re not going to open them yourself?” René asked in horror.

  “How else can we see what’s inside?”

  “I thought we’d hide out until they came and opened them.”

  “I plan to be long gone before they get here, René.”

  “But if you open them, they’ll know someone’s been here.”

  “So what?” She swept the beam of her flashlight over the cartons, brought it to a halt on a workbench that stood against the far wall, then walked purposefully toward it. “This will do it,” she announced and, picking up a box hatchet, headed back to the crates, jammed the blade under the metal strapping of the nearest crate and heaved. It gave a satisfying snap and fell to the floor. “This shouldn’t take long,” she said, as she got ready to break the next one.

  “Oh, merdé!” René hissed. “Someone’s coming.”

  “What?” Then Maggie heard the sound, too—cars arriving outside. “René!”

  Taking Maggie by the hand, he pulled her toward the huge pile of carelessly stacked crates and cardboard boxes.