by Cathy Ace
“Okay, so there are a few things I might be able to help with,” he added. “I can certainly call the lead detective, Moreau, as one cop to another, and fill him in about you. They shouldn’t be allowed to think of you as a real suspect, because it’ll take their efforts away from finding the real perp. So that’ll help them, and it’ll help you . . .”
“Oh no, Bud—please don’t do that . . .”
“Yes—I will do that, Cait, and, given that my French is a whole lot better than yours, I’ll be able to do it directly on the phone with the guy himself—so when we’re done, you call me back immediately and leave a message with his number, ’cause I can’t write it down while I’m driving—right?”
I capitulated. He was right. “Yes, I will. Of course, you’re right, Bud. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Next, I can give you my opinion about what you’ve told me.”
“Great. Thanks, Bud. So what do you think?”
“It’ll come as no surprise to you that I think that you were all poisoned at the party, and that that means whoever did it either gave Alistair an extra dose of the poison, or was sure that the same amount for all would affect Alistair more—so you need to find out if he was on any medications, what else he ate or drank that day, where and when, and if the stuff in his system was stronger than what was in your system. Hopefully, when I’ve spoken to him, the captain guy will take you into his confidence.”
“Well . . . he didn’t seem to be a particularly warm character, Bud,” I added hesitantly.
“Look, Cait—and don’t take this personally—I know how defensive you can get—”
“I do not get defensive, Bud!” As I heard myself whine, I knew I was proving his point for him. Bugger!
“Hmmmm . . . well, whatever you might bleat at me, my Deario, you must realize that the cop was looking at you as a possible murderer. He doesn’t know you from a hole in the ground, and you’re the only character on the scene who arrived, out of the blue, on the day the Townsend guy shows up dead. You have to admit, the optics are bad. See it from his point of view. Who else is in the frame? An old couple—”
“No, Madelaine and Gerard are not a couple . . . most definitely not a couple,” I interjected. I didn’t want Bud getting the wrong impression.
“Okay, then—in this case the immediate suspects are an old man and an old woman, neither of them overly mobile and, presumably, they’re well known in the area and they’ve had many chances before to kill Alistair. The dead man’s wife—who you’ve painted as a dotty airhead, who may or may not have the wits about her to be an honest to goodness gold-digger. There’s a world famous American author, who fawned on the dead man. Oh, and just one more pillar of the community—the director of the local museum! Not very promising as a list of suspects when running against a criminology professor who hated the victim and is visiting town on the very weekend when he drops dead, eh?”
“Oh Bud . . . don’t put it like that.”
“No Cait, I’m not putting it like that—but I am guessing that that’s just how that captain saw it. Like I say—I’ll talk to him about you, then we can get on with thinking about the others. You know what you should do?”
“I don’t know—do my ‘thing’ on Alistair?”
“If by that you mean work up a victim profile on your old boss, then, yes, that’s what I mean. I know you knew him once, Cait, but things might have changed.”
“I doubt it . . .” I mumbled.
“Cait—don’t do it! Don’t let your judgmentalism cloud your objectivity. You have to find out about Townsend as he was, there, in Nice, now. Unless you think it’s something from his earlier life come back to haunt him?”
“You know, Bud, it could be anything . . . but I think there has to be a connection to the necklace stuff, so it’s rooted in the present, and his ownership of the necklace.” This conversation was helping me feel more certain that my thinking was right about this whole mess.
“I agree, so treat the necklace as though it were a victim too. Do a ‘victim profile’ for the necklace as well as one for the Townsend guy.”
I thought about it for a moment. “That’s a really good idea, Bud! Thanks!”
“I do have them, on occasion, you know,” was Bud’s wry reply. “You’ve helped us so often on cases to understand the life of the victim. You know it’s often helped us narrow the field of suspects, or even work out where to start looking for a possible perpetrator . . . so, yes, do that for the dead guy, by all means . . . but also do it for the necklace. If he was killed only in order to facilitate the theft of the necklace, then you might get more of an idea of who might be to blame by understanding the history of the necklace—its life if you like—rather than just the life of the man. He might just have been collateral damage. Or else, and I’m just throwing this one out there, his death might not have been connected with the theft of the necklace at all. It might just have been a huge coincidence.”
“Since when do you believe in coincidences?”
“Yeah—you’ve got a point. Anyway—I’m nearly where I need to be and I’ve got to get right into this one when I arrive, so I gotta go now, Cait. Don’t forget—call right back with that number and I’ll get on it as soon as I can. I’ll call you. Remind me about the time difference?”
“I’m nine hours ahead of you,” I replied.
“Right, I’ll make that call as soon as I can,” said Bud, in his “office voice.” I pictured him getting close to his destination.
“Oh, Bud . . .”
“Yeah?” I could tell he was distracted.
“Jan said to tell you she’ll call you when she gets back from some girls’ get-together at Crescent Beach today.”
“Oh yeah—she was still pretty much asleep when I left. Glad you reminded me. I’d forgotten that was today. I’m sure she’ll have a great time . . . They always do, those girls. No Men Required. The NMRs, they call themselves. Bless ’em! I would say why don’t you ever join them, Cait, but I know you a bit better than that, eh?”
“True,” I had to concede. “Good luck with whatever it is, and be safe. Is it a Kevlar vest day?”
“Yep—Kevlar, guns, dogs . . . the lot. I get to sit on the sidelines and watch it unfold these days, Cait, so don’t worry about me. Jan keeps telling me how much better she feels knowing I’m so much more likely to come home alive now that I’m basically in an office job, rather than out on the front line. Though this feels pretty front-line, today. Big grow-op. Big players being drawn in. Long-term planning coming to fruition—we hope! We’ll see. Somehow they always seem to wriggle out of it. But we’ve gotta keep bringing them in if they’re ever gonna get convicted of anything that’ll take them out of circulation for a good amount of time. Wish us luck, Deario . . . gotta go now. Talk soon. Bye!”
“Good luck, Bud. Thanks—and bye,” I said, but the line had gone dead. I quickly called the number again and left Captain Moreau’s contact info. Then I was on my own again—no longer speeding along the Trans-Canada Highway across the Sumas Prairie with Bud and his clever ideas and comforting voice to help me see the wood for the trees, but sitting in the still-warm sunlight on a wall built thousands of years earlier by Roman hands.
Those wall-builders had been strangers in a foreign land back then. Probably thinking of the homes they’d left behind as they’d laid each brick and slapped on the cement. I knew how they felt. Despite the fact that this was supposed to be one of the most glamorous places in the world, I’d have given anything to be curled up on the sofa in my little house on Burnaby Mountain, with the wind and the rain slamming against the window and good old Mark Madryga telling me on Global TV that it wasn’t going to let up any time soon. Bliss!
As it was, I was being hailed by a gloriously handsome, impeccably dressed, and possibly murderous Italian. He motioned to me to join him, against a backdrop of the ancient white stones of ruined Roman baths awash in the pale buttery glow of the late afternoon sunshine. It should have been idyllic. I
t wasn’t. Bugger!
Beni walked away from the group of policemen who’d obviously gone to their superior to tell him about what they’d found in the recycling bin. Clearly it wasn’t good news, because there was still only the broken wooden box sitting on a tarpaulin to one side of the bin, and a huge pile of paper, cardboard and other recyclable materials on another tarpaulin opposite.
“There are no scrolls. There are no artifacts,” stated Beni bluntly, sounding and looking miserable. “They have taken them.” He made it sound very final.
I felt as though I should comfort him in some way. If this had been Bud, I’d have given him a big hug. I suspected that wasn’t quite appropriate, so I settled for giving Beni a pat on the arm. It was really quite maternal of me. Very odd.
He acknowledged my pat with a sad nod, then looked at me with pleading eyes.
“Will you come with me to collect Tamsin? She has called me from the hospital. They say she can go home. They are finished at the apartment. She wants me to be with her.” I bet she does, I thought, somewhat bitchily. Instead, I said, “Do you really want me to come?”
Beni looked a little worried. “I think it would be good if you are with me. It will not be so . . . intense.”
I allowed myself a tiny, internal smile as he selected the right word. I got the impression that Tamsin frightened him a little. I’d seen how she’d looked at him when her husband was standing right next to her. Goodness knows what she’d be like as a young, beautiful, and, let’s not forget rich, widow. As I thought all this I caught myself, and tried, as Bud had reminded me, to be more objective and less judgemental. Maybe Tamsin would be in bits. She might have really loved Alistair. It was possible that her flirtatiousness had been totally innocent—that’s often the case with flirts. They do it because it’s “good, clean fun,” only indulging when they know that nothing will come of it. Or she might be a cold-blooded killer who’d only married Alistair for his money, and was sick of waiting for him to die. Anything was possible. After all, I knew almost nothing about the woman.
If I went to the hospital with Beni to collect Tamsin, I could pump him for information about her, and Alistair, and we’d have a chance to discuss the necklace. Or I could get a cab back to my hotel and sit there counting my toes. It wasn’t a difficult choice.
“Of course I’ll come, Beni, but would it be okay if I used the washroom before we leave? All that wine . . . all that coffee . . . It’s got to go somewhere, you know!”
Beni looked slightly embarrassed, which I thought was hilarious. He walked with me toward the fire exit door, which was still wide open, and directed me to the public washrooms that weren’t being examined by the police. I thanked him and ducked into a very tastefully decorated and well-appointed room. I used the facility for its major purpose, washed up, and then took full advantage of the large area set aside from the washbasins for the hasty reapplication of my lipstick and a quick touch-up of my hair.
I re-emerged feeling a great deal fresher and drawing the comment “Bella” from Beni. That guy knew how to make a woman feel special!
We headed outside. I expected Beni to call for a cab, but instead, we walked toward a long, sleek, midnight blue convertible BMW.
“Is this yours?” I was puzzled.
“Si, it is mine,” he said casually.
“Why is it here?” We’d come by cab, after all.
“I left it here after work yesterday. I do not like to drink and drive. It is not good. And I know that I drink with Alistair. Sometimes too much. When I left hospital this morning I wanted to go straight to my home, which is much lower down the hill than here and, because I had to meet with the police at the police station this morning, I have not had time to collect it yet. It is lucky, because now it is here and we are here.”
“You were just drinking with me at lunchtime,” I remarked.
“But this was just wine,” replied Beni calmly.
Obviously, wine didn’t count.
We both got into the car and I asked, “You saw the police this morning?”
Beni nodded as he started up the motor. At least, I think he did—it was so quiet and smooth it was difficult to tell.
“Captain Moreau?”
Again he nodded. “He was very pleasant. His Italian is very good, but I think my French is better.” He wasn’t even being arrogant, so I’m glad he didn’t see me roll my eyes or smirk.
“Did he tell you anything, or did he just grill you?”
“Grill me? I do not know this.”
I wondered if he was deflecting, or if my use of language had been too colloquial. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“Did he ask you lots and lots of questions?”
“Ah, yes. Many questions. About me, about Alistair, about last evening, about everybody at the table. Of course, I could not tell him much about you, because we did not talk together very much. I am glad we have talked more now. Though it does not seem to have been very much about you. Except to establish that you are a genius, of course!”
“Oh, touché, Beni! I’m not really very interesting, though. But I bet Tamsin is . . .” Had I managed to steer him toward one of my desired topics of interest?
Beni smiled broadly as he negotiated a very tight turn (for a car the length of his, anyway) as we left the museum. “Ah Tamsin . . . the Widow Tamsin . . . is she interesting? No, I think not. But I think that Tamsin thinks that Tamsin is interesting. She is young. She has not lived. She is fresh faced with no lines or wrinkles, but she has nothing to say. She is like a child. A greedy child. She used Alistair to do everything for her, or to buy everything for her. Even if she has all of his money she will not be happy unless she has people around her she can control. She makes eyes at me because she cannot control me. She wants what she cannot have, then she is bored with it as soon as she has it.”
“Boy, oh boy, Beni—why don’t you just come out with it and say what you think?” I quipped.
“But I have said what I think,” he replied, sounding a little hurt. Clearly, he didn’t get the irony. I decided to rescue him.
“I know you did, Beni—I’m sorry, I was just playing with you. I shouldn’t do that.” I still couldn’t help but smile, though, as I added, “So you’re not very keen on Tamsin, eh?”
“She can be difficult,” he replied a bit sulkily.
“Do you think she might have killed Alistair?” I thought I might as well get right to it, and I’d expected a quick response from Beni but he actually mulled it over for a moment.
“I think she might want to. But I do not think she would know how to.”
It was funny, because that was pretty much what I’d been thinking. “What about her smoking sticks, and chanting all those weird words when he died? Is she into mysticism or something? Do you think she’d know how to mix a potion to poison him?” I’d been intrigued by that at the time, but now all I could think of was “the pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle,” à la Danny Kaye. Shameful of me, really, given the circumstances.
“Ah, yes, her beliefs.” Beni sounded exasperated, and I didn’t think it was because of the early evening traffic that was beginning to slow our journey to a snail’s pace as we wound down the hill toward the Old Town. “Tamsin is a person who likes to call many things magical. I believe that is why Alistair wanted to give her the necklace.”
“Did Tamsin know about the necklace? Had Alistair shown it to her?”
“Oh yes. But she had not been allowed to wear it.”
“How did Alistair find out about the necklace? How did he even find it, or know about its history as a Druidic relic?”
Beni began to shift in his luxurious leather seat. It couldn’t have been because he was physically uncomfortable, because that would be impossible in his beast of a car.
“I might have mentioned the necklace when Alistair and I were talking about the work I had been doing on the archives,” replied Beni, sheepishly.
“You might have? Or you did?�
�� I wasn’t letting go of this one.
“Si. I did. It is true. Sometimes Alistair and I spoke about my research. I thought it was a good way to encourage him to make donations to the museum. We happened to be talking about Roman family life—he was amused by the idea of the Romans eating so much that they had to leave the table to vomit. He had been told this as a boy. I had to correct him and tell him that a ‘vomitorium’ is simply a means of allowing a lot of people to leave a place quickly, and is nothing at all to do with vomiting, in the modern sense. It was a very silly discussion—but, for some reason, the family archive was mentioned, and I then told him about the necklace. I do not know why.” That was Alistair’s famous “Silver Tongue” at work for you, I thought. “He said how wonderful it would be to own such an item, and I think then he started to try to find out more about it. But Alistair seemed to be very interested in all sorts of stories about the Palais and the general area. I think he was trying to establish that there was no reason why the gardens couldn’t be dug up to install a swimming pool—he wanted to prove that there was nothing of historical importance there, except, of course, maybe the old wine cellars. He had already been told by the authorities that it would be acceptable to dig into a part of those as they were not of any real importance.”
I wasn’t as interested in wine cellars as I was in the idea of Alistair hunting down the necklace.
“Beni, you say that Alistair believed he had found this Druidic necklace, but didn’t he tell you how he had found it?”
“No, he would not tell me. He promised he would tell the whole story at the birthday party, when he gave it to Tamsin.”
So, that was a dead end.
“Maybe he told Chuck?” added Beni casually. I perked up.
“Why? Were they close?” It seemed an improbable partnership.
“Ah, this I know!” Beni seemed excited that he could finally contribute something he felt was concrete. “Chuck wanted very much to own an apartment at the Palais. He is very interested in the Nazis and the Gestapo. The Palais was headquarters for the Gestapo here in Nice during the Vichy years . . .”