by Janet Brons
Frowning, she got out of bed. She had a drink of water and, returning to bed, tried again to sleep.
THIRTEEN
Canada
At Liz’s direction, Ouellette called the Ottawa offices of Citizenship and Immigration first thing. She had asked him to determine when and where any Russians—specifically Chechens—had entered Canada within the past six months. Ouellette had been referred to the director general of the Case Management Branch. Since the young sergeant had been invited to come over right away, the grave, middle-aged woman had been allowed little time to prepare. She was clearly a pro, however, swiftly reviewing a series of files and pattering on the keyboard of her computer.
Ouellette had to amuse himself with a cup of coffee, which had been delivered by a haughty-looking secretary who clearly found the task beneath her. She flipped untidy hair impatiently as she left the office, obviously having better things to do.
After about fifteen minutes, Ms. Stephanie Sayward swivelled her desk chair in Ouellette’s direction and, in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, asked, “It’s basically Chechens you’re interested in, yes?”
“Yes,” agreed Ouellette, “although if you have a list of other Russians visiting or immigrating during that period, that would be useful as well.”
Ms. Sayward nodded slowly, regarding Ouellette intently. “I am not at all comfortable in divulging this information,” she said, to Ouellette’s surprise.
“Why not?” he asked, placing his coffee cup on a nearby credenza.
“Privacy legislation,” she said, still inspecting Ouellette. “These people are subject to the same privacy protections as you and me once they enter the country.”
Ouellette thought quickly. He had not expected to be stonewalled by a government official and was genuinely surprised by the reach of Canada’s privacy laws. He met her gaze steadily and said slowly, “This is a murder investigation, Ms. Sayward—and a very complex one at that. We need your help.”
Ms. Sayward was silent for a moment, reflecting on what the young sergeant had just said. She was prepared to cooperate and to defend her decision if required. Anyway, she was retiring soon. She didn’t have much to lose.
She exhaled deeply and said, “A list of all Russian visitors will take some time to compile. And it won’t give you a complete picture—we only have records on those who would have been sent for secondary examination by Customs. But yes, I can give you what I have, including the immigrants.”
Sayward paused and adjusted her glasses. “Of course, there are always those who manage to get in with fake visas, or fake or stolen passports. It doesn’t happen a lot, but it does happen. Most of the forgeries are pretty amateurish but some are extremely good. We have no record of people entering like that, unless they get caught. I do have three male Chechens, who entered independently of one another.”
“How did you get that information so quickly?” asked Ouellette, intrigued.
“Separate data base,” she said. “All three claimed refugee status on arrival. Religious grounds. Claimed they were being persecuted due to their Muslim faith. Each was given a date for a hearing and allowed to leave.”
“Can you tell me where and when they arrived?”
Ms. Sayward rotated her chair and peered at her monitor. “One arrived in Montreal, at Mirabel, in November 1997. The two others came into Toronto, one in August 1997 and another in … yes … December. I can give you the names in a minute. I’ll write them down because I can’t pronounce them.”
Ouellette was prepared to grin, but Ms. Sayward was only citing fact and had no intention of making a joke. So he just nodded and asked, “Does the department follow up on the whereabouts of refugee claimants prior to their hearings?”
“Not especially, unless they’re of particular concern. We don’t have the resources to do that. And, for that matter, neither do you,” she said matter-of-factly. She resumed work at her keyboard.
She was right about that, Ouellette thought. He was about to ask another question but Sayward continued. “They self-report, though. The file on one of the fellows who entered at Toronto is quite lengthy,” she said with a nod at the screen. “He seems to have wanted to notify the authorities every time he sneezed—presumably so he does nothing to jeopardize his refugee claim. The other who came in at Toronto seems to be living with …” she pattered on her keyboard for another moment, “a relative in Etobicoke.” This seemed to strike Sayward as odd, as she raised her eyebrows and gave her head a small shake.
“And the one who came in at Montreal?”
Another bit of pattering and then, “He seems to have claimed he had friends in—well, how about that?—Gatineau, just across the river. Apparently he would be going there directly from Mirabel. That’s the last we have on him.”
Ouellette would have loved a refill and a further discussion of this fascinating world but wasn’t about to risk the ire of the secretary, so he satisfied himself with obtaining the full names of the refugee claimants, their particulars, and the dates of their hearings. Sayward undertook to provide him the rest of the information on Russian visitors and immigrants as soon as possible, and he headed back to the office. He wasn’t entirely sure what his boss wanted this information for, but it had been an interesting interview.
Due to his early meeting, Ouellette arrived just as the daily task force meeting was breaking up. He explained to Liz that his meeting at Immigration had started earlier than he had expected.
“They said to come over right away. I tried to call to tell you I’d miss the task force meeting but I think your cell phone is dead.”
“Wretched things,” she muttered. They had all recently been issued cell phones, for police purposes only, but Liz rarely remembered to charge hers. “Might as well be on a leash. Anyway, what did you find out?”
“We’ll be getting more information later, but meanwhile we have details of three Chechen males who arrived in the past few months and claimed refugee status.”
Ouellette filled her in on the details of his visit to Immigration.
“Interesting,” she said, looking at the names Ouellette had been given by Ms. Sayward. “One of these fellows, the one living in Gatineau, is named Rasul. Coincidence, perhaps. Is it a common Chechen name?”
“No use asking me,” replied the sergeant with a grin. “I don’t even know where to start with the pronunciation of these guys’ names.”
“Me neither,” agreed Liz. “Look, talk to Holmes,” she said, referring to one of the Ontario Provincial Police members of the task force. “Ask the OPP to follow up on the two Chechen fellows living in Ontario, and we’ll follow up with this Rasul in Gatineau.”
“What are we trying to find out? And why?”
“Just what they’re up to in general—if they’ve heard about Laila’s death, and if they have any suspicions. They’re so new to the country that they’re probably trying to reach out to their compatriots and are probably being told more than we are.”
Ouellette nodded.
“And I’m also starting to wonder …” began Liz. She was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a constable in the doorway.
“Excuse me, Ma’am,” he said. “But the Super wants you to come up and give him a briefing on the task force meeting. He says he was trying to call you on your cell phone but couldn’t get through.”
Liz rolled her eyes at Ouellette and left the room.
Tony Blackwell, nominally the spokesman of the Canadian chapter of Independence United, was surprised to see Liz and her sergeant at his door once again. This time Blackwell was alone and, without his cohort, seemed very young and very nervous. He invited them to sit on the same frilly cushions as before, and he perched on the edge of a worn, corduroy couch.
“So, what can I do for you?” asked Blackwell with an unconvincing smile.
“Mr. Blackwell,” Liz began. “We understand that you were not, in fact, in attendance during the demonstration in front of the Russian Embassy on the day that Laila
Daudova was shot.”
Blackwell’s eyes opened wide in shock, then he quickly tried to recover his calm demeanour.
“Who told you that?” he asked, with a mixture of fear and defiance.
“That doesn’t matter,” said Liz. “But you admit you weren’t there?”
“Yes,” said Blackwell, almost inaudibly.
“Where were you?”
“Here,” said Blackwell with a small shrug, indicating his meagre surroundings.
“With anyone?”
“No.”
“So why didn’t you go to the demonstration?” asked Ouellette.
Blackwell stared at the knobbly carpet for a moment. Then he looked up and regarded Ouellette anxiously.
“It was cold, horrible. Windy. Things weren’t at all back to normal after the ice storm. It just seemed like, you know, a hassle to get there.”
“Perhaps,” Liz prodded gently, “you are not as committed to the organization as some others? Like Mila maybe?”
Despite his abundance of facial hair, it was clear that Blackwell was blushing.
“Of course I am committed,” he said, with an attempt at defiance. “I completely support the aims of the organization. Independence is an indisputable …”
Ouellette, unwilling to endure yet another lecture from the Independence United handbook, broke in.
“Can anyone confirm that you were here at the time of Laila Daudova’s death?”
Blackwell inhaled quickly. “Perhaps,” he faltered, “my landlord. He lives upstairs. He doesn’t work much. Maybe he was home—I’m not sure. Or maybe his wife. But she works …” he trailed off, confused.
“So why,” continued Liz, “did your colleagues, Pierre and Andrea, remain silent when you said that the three of you had been at the demonstration?”
Blackwell gave a small smile. “Because all of us have skipped demonstrations at one time or another. Mila would have everybody at every demo in town if she had her way. She’s a wonderful woman but quite, er, demanding.” He flushed more deeply.
“And you want her to trust you,” added Liz.
“I do,” said Blackwell. “I would do anything for Mila. I don’t want to let her down—she is so committed to the organization. It was just that morning, when I thought about catching the buses, going to the embassy. Were the diplomats even working that day? Maybe even they had stayed at home.” He paused as something dawned on him, then gasped, “It wasn’t Mila who told you that I wasn’t there, was it? Did she know?” He was wide-eyed, panicked.
Liz nodded. “I’m afraid so. She knew that you hadn’t turned up at the embassy that morning.”
Blackwell closed his eyes and threw his head back in despair.
“Mr. Blackwell,” Liz said, “did you kill Laila Daudova on the morning of January 12 outside the Russian Embassy?”
“Good God, no!” exclaimed Blackwell. “No, no, why would I do that? I’d never even spoken with her … oh, God, I see, you don’t know where I was … but no, of course not!”
Blackwell looked like a boy whose young life was crumbling before him.
“So you deny any involvement in the murder of Laila Daudova?”
“No, absolutely not. Oh, no, I mean yes, I deny it,” fumbled Blackwell.
“And you have no idea who might have committed the murder?”
“No, none, absolutely not.”
“Thank you Mr. Blackwell,” said Liz standing. “You have been very helpful. We can let ourselves out.”
At 6:45 PM, Liz and Ouellette were sitting in an unmarked squad car outside a fleabag motel in Gatineau, at present the home of the Chechen refugee claimant who had entered at Montreal the previous November. The one calling himself Rasul, Liz reflected. Rasul Nikolayevich Nasarov. This was the second time they had run across the name Rasul during the investigation. Except that Rasul Daudov was dead, shot outside his apartment building not long after the murder of his wife, Laila.
The inspector and the sergeant were silent in the cold car, coffees in hand, doughnuts wrapped in brown paper bags. Liz had a double chocolate, and Ouellette had ordered a cinnamon twist. They felt like a couple of bad stereotypes. It was somewhere around twenty below, the sun had disappeared long ago, and this Rasul wasn’t at the motel. The cold was exacerbated by the dampness, and the air was heavy.
They would wait, Liz thought grimly, as long as it took to interview this guy. They had initially spoken with the motel clerk, an elderly Québécois, then knocked on the door of number twelve, the Chechen’s room. Getting no reply, she and Ouellette had gone to fetch coffee from a nearby doughnut shop. On their return to the motel they tried again, with the same result. They went back to the car. They had been waiting well over an hour.
“Where the hell is he?” muttered Liz, huddled into her coat. Ouellette only shook his head.
FOURTEEN
Canada
Clarice Eddington, fondly known to her colleagues as the “Silver Fox” due to her hair colour, was on the lookout for would-be shoplifters. As the senior store detective for a major department chain, she always had her eyes open for people with that tell-tale, shifty look. It was her job, and she took it seriously. How on earth, she sometimes wondered, could cameras actually replace the experience of the store detective? Yet she knew the change was coming, if gradually, and was grateful that her employer was among the last to abandon the detectives altogether.
Shoplifters were easy to spot and easy to catch, but charging them could become quite complicated. Some were giggling gaggles of teenaged girls, hovering around the cosmetics department attempting to lift a lipstick. Then there were the pros, armed with empty shopping bags or even wearing the infamous “booster-bloomers,” into which enormous quantities of merchandise could be deposited discreetly and rapidly. Some were the “regulars,” well known to the detectives at all the major stores; others were members of staff who apparently felt entitled to take money from the till or pocket the odd cassette. Occasionally, obviously affluent women came in to pick up things they didn’t need and could easily pay for. These were allegedly suffering from kleptomania, but Clarice didn’t have much time for them. Others looked desperately poor, and often she was tempted to look the other way.
At present, Clarice was watching a scruffy, dark-complexioned man while she pretended to browse through the canned goods in the grocery department. His eyes darted left and right as he pocketed a few tins of fish. She followed him to the bakery aisle, maintaining a discreet distance as she watched him slip a packet of biscuits into his other pocket.
She had him. But she had to wait until he exited the store with the goods on him; otherwise charges wouldn’t stick. And, too often, her boss was willing to let people go with a warning rather than call in the police.
Clarice looked around quickly for backup. A young, burly grocery clerk was watching her as he packed a customer’s groceries. He had occasionally helped in the past. He loved this sort of thing. Clarice caught his eye and he nodded, immediately deserting the cashier and leaving her to do the packing on her own.
Now moving quite quickly, the suspect turned and started towards the exit. Clarice hurried along behind him.
A blast of icy air struck them both in the face as the doors opened. “Excuse me, sir,” she said as they both went through the double doors at the same time. “I wonder if you’d mind coming up to the office.”
Apparently he did mind, because he began running into the icy parking lot. The young grocery clerk was right behind them and, in the end, grabbed the shoplifter by the arm of his ski jacket. The suspect, looking up into the determined face of his captor, had no choice but to accept Clarice’s invitation.
By the time that Clarice, her supervisor, and the shoplifter (or the alleged shoplifter, Clarice reminded herself with a sigh) were seated in the office, it became apparent that the suspect spoke neither English nor French. Clarice and Mr. Trevino had only been able to establish that the suspect spoke Russian—or, as he said “Ruski,”—and clai
med himself unable to understand anything asked of him.
Clarice inclined her head towards her boss and said quietly that Irena from Cosmetics was of Russian heritage and might be able to serve as interpreter. Trevino, agreeing that Irena did indeed have some sort of accent, said that she should be called for.
The suspect shifted about unhappily in his chair, his dark eyes darting from Clarice to Trevino to the floor and back again. He was, thought Clarice, extremely nervous. She wondered what his background was. Was this someone who shoplifted regularly or was it a one-off? Certainly she hadn’t seen him before. She felt sure that she would have remembered him if she had. He had several days’ growth of beard and a greyish pallor to his dark skin. His face looked almost like a carving, with deep lines running from his nose to his set mouth and continuing straight down to his chin. Nonetheless he did not appear very old. Thirty at best, thought Clarice.
The man’s hands were thrust deep into his pockets, and his loot was assembled on the table before him. Clarice was surprised to find that what she had believed to be tinned fish was, in fact, caviar. Although the suspect appeared to have fallen on hard times, he clearly had refined tastes.
Irena Stuart knocked apprehensively on Mr. Trevino’s door. Never before had she been called to the office of the Chief Loss Prevention Officer. What had she done? An extra splash of that lovely new perfume on her wrist, but that was only to let the customer have a good sniff—had she perhaps given away too many lipstick samples? Surely that wouldn’t get her into trouble. Would it? She trembled, and beads of sweat broke out underneath the translucent powder on her forehead. The Silver Fox opened the door, and Irena relaxed a little, as she had always gotten on well with Clarice. But immediately she began to worry again. Surely Clarice didn’t suspect her of something?
Soon, however, Irena’s worries were put to rest, and she began first to breathe, then to feel quite important in her new role as interpreter. Irena was able to tell Clarice and her boss a little about the suspect. His name was Rasul Nasarov. No, he wasn’t carrying identification. He was from Moscow. He spoke only Russian. He had stolen nothing. If any stolen merchandise was on him, it had been planted. He would be happy to take the department store to court.