Spiked

by Randall Denley

  Gill paused to take a drink from the water glass in front of him, then took a somewhat grimy-looking handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped his brow.

  “So you were acquainted with Mr. Sandhu. Did you consider him a friend?”

  Gill shrugged. “A politician is everyone’s friend.”

  “So did you approach Mr. Sandhu personally, or deal with someone from his office?”

  “I went to his office, but asked to speak to him directly. As I said, we had met before.”

  “Mr. Sandhu must be a busy man. Was he able to accommodate you?”

  “Oh yes, he was very gracious. He saw Mr. Fung and myself right away.”

  “And where did this meeting take place?” Faulkner asked.

  “It was at his constituency office.”

  “His private office?”

  “Yes, he has his own space at the back.”

  “So you outlined for Mr. Sandhu your experience with the wind power program and your requirement for a quick approval?”

  “Objection,” Bernstein said. “Counsel is testifying.”

  “Let Mr. Gill tell the story in his own words, please,” the judge said.

  “Of course. So what did you say to Mr. Sandhu?”

  “We talked about the very fine program, but the really large problem of how long it might take to get approval for our good project.”

  “Was Mr. Sandhu sympathetic?”

  “Very much so. He has always been a great supporter of the environment and of business people in Brampton.”

  “And did he offer to help you with your application?”

  “He did.”

  “Could you be more specific, Mr. Gill?”

  “He said he would make some calls on our behalf, try to hurry things up.”

  “And did Mr. Sandhu suggest that there was anything you could do for him?”

  “Yes. He mentioned that his riding association was always raising funds for his next campaign, and that he could use our support.”

  That caused a murmur in the courtroom. Faulkner was heading toward the crux of it, what Sandhu got out of the deal.

  “Let’s be specific Mr. Gill. Was Mr. Sandhu’s suggestion a general request for campaign support or something in particular?”

  “Mr Sandhu suggested that Mr. Fung and I should organize a fund-raiser for him, reaching out to our contacts in the Indo-Canadian community and also selling tickets to our fellow developers.”

  “And how did this strike you?”

  “Well, that he wanted money.”

  “Money in exchange for helping you, you mean?”

  “Yes, clearly. He had never asked me for money before, and I had never asked him for help.”

  “How did this request strike you, Mr. Gill?”

  “Well,” Gill said, shrugging and holding his hands out in a “what can you do?” gesture.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to expand on that,” Faulkner said.

  “As I said earlier, I come from India. In that country, the culture of business is different. The wheel only turns when it gets an application of oil. Mr. Sandhu is from the same background. I understood that he wanted us to oil his wheel.”

  I tapped that one into my laptop for later use. No doubt it would be all over Twitter within seconds.

  “So you saw nothing wrong with Mr. Sandhu’s offer to help in exchange for some help for his campaign?

  “I did not. It was not as if we were handing him a suitcase full of cash. This money would all go to his riding association. Proper receipts would be issued and tax papers given.”

  “So it didn’t feel like you were putting money in his pocket?” Faulkner said.

  “Not directly, no.”

  “So, in your view Mr. Gill, you and Mr. Sandhu had reached a business arrangement?”

  “That’s what it was to me, yes. I will itch his back, he will itch mine.”

  Politicians had been trading access for fundraising dollars forever, but they always claimed it didn’t influence their decisions. To me, it still seemed like the Crown was in the grey area. If Sandhu didn’t have a direct personal benefit, where was the crime?

  “I see,” Faulkner said. “And what happened after your meeting?”

  “Mr. Fung and I set a date for the fundraising event and began to send out invitations to many hundreds of contacts. About a month later, we got good news. Our federal grant had been approved.”

  “And had you held the fund-raiser by that time?” Faulkner asked.

  “No, but it came a few weeks later. The event was a great success. We raised $25,000 for Mr. Sandhu’s upcoming campaign.”

  “Was this his leadership campaign or the general election?”

  “I am not aware of that detail. He referred only to his campaign.”

  “And did you hear from Mr. Sandhu, either about the approval or fund-raiser?”

  “Yes, both. He phoned me personally to say he had made some calls and he was confident that our project would be approved. Then, later, he called me again to thank me for my good work on the fundraising event.”

  Bernstein had been taking notes throughout Gill’s testimony, the occasional wolf-like grin appearing on his face. I expected the cross-examination to be more entertaining than the Crown’s examination in chief.

  “Your honour, I have a few more questions for Mr. Gill, but I am cognizant of the time,” Faulkner said. “I think I can wrap up with him this afternoon.”

  Faulkner was managing the day’s proceedings like a football team running down the clock before kicking the winning field goal. By the end of the day, she would have put up two damaging witnesses and Bernstein wouldn’t have had a chance to grill either one. Sure, Gill’s testimony took the line that Bernstein predicted last week, but that wouldn’t matter to the media. If something was said today, it was new. If the plan was to make Sandhu seem guilty in the public’s eyes, it was moving along nicely. I wasn’t yet sure that Faulkner was getting it over the bar for the judge, but she no doubt had a few more cards to play.

  My phone pinged and I saw that a text had come in. I expected it to be from the city desk, pressing me for my angle, but it was from Reilly. I would have thought him too old to be texting. The message was simple. “News. Tonight 7. The bridge.”

  SIXTEEN

  “I saw the PM this morning,” Vanessa said. “You know, he’s even more handsome than people think. I know he’s like in his 40s but he’s so fit. And he’s tall, too. Did you know he’s taller than Obama? You wouldn’t think it, with Obama being so skinny, but when they met when Obama was still president, there was the PM, taller.”

  Suzy sipped her mango smoothie and nodded as if Vanessa’s crush on the PM was really interesting to her. She had known that Vanessa would be at the gym on Queen Street, just two blocks from the Hill, by 5 p.m. It had been a perfect opportunity to hook up and see if she knew anything about this Mae Wang thing, without forcing it. What could be more natural than two girls sharing a healthy drink after a workout?

  Suzy had already heard about which of Vanessa’s girlfriends had moved to new and better jobs with ministers, none of whose names rang a bell. All Vanessa’s friends seemed to be named either Brittany or Kelsie. Suzy figured they were about 25, like Vanessa, which made them seasoned veterans on the way up in the strange culture of Parliament Hill. Odds were they all looked like Vanessa, too; cute, dark-haired, nice figure, full of energy, not yet seasoned by life’s realities.

  By the time they were 30, they would be working for some consulting company, making more money than Suzy did. She could understand the career path if they were cynically using the system to get ahead, but Vanessa actually acted like a true believer who thought the PM was a rock star. She was right about his looks, though.

  “Look at me, I’m just talking about work all the time,” Vanessa said. “When you’ve got a job like mine, it’s almost all you think about. In fact, I have to go back and do a bit more work tonight.”

  Suzy wondered if the w
ork would be vertical or horizontal. Vanessa had never quite come out and said that she was hooking up with her boss, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines. Suzy had seen Derek Hall only in pictures, but he was actually kind of hot for a politico. Thick, dark hair, always a couple of day’s growth of beard, sharp suits, and chief of staff to the PM, as well. Power made almost any man look more attractive.

  “But what’s up with you?” Vanessa asked. “You working on anything interesting?”

  “Homicide investigation.”

  “Wow. That must be exciting. I’d love to have a job like yours.”

  “Nothing like as important as what you do, but this one is kind of mysterious.”

  “Really? I love a good mystery.”

  Suzy wondered if Vanessa read actual books or just watched those reality TV re-enactments. “This one involves that girl who was thrown off the building on Elgin a few days ago,” she said.

  “I read about that. What a terrible story. She was a beautiful girl. I thought I heard that was a suicide.”

  Suzy leaned towards Vanessa and lowered her voice. “I shouldn’t really be talking about this yet, but the police say she was murdered. And there’s more, too.”

  “Come on, tell me the good part,” Vanessa said. “I can keep a secret. I work in the PMO.”

  Suzy feigned reluctance, then said, “All right. It’s not confirmed, but what I hear is that the police think she was a Chinese spy.”

  “Right here in Ottawa? A real Chinese spy?”

  “Sure. What better place to be one? This is where most of the secrets are.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Vanessa said.

  “I’ll bet you know a lot of them yourself,” Suzy said.

  “Some, for sure.”

  “Here’s the odd thing about this one. The RCMP have taken over the case, although they’re calling it a joint investigation with Ottawa police. From what I hear, absolutely nothing is happening. And it gets weirder. A bunch of people from the Chinese Embassy showed up at the morgue and made off with the girl’s body. Something is really wrong here. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Maybe the Chinese killed her. Would that make sense?”

  “It might. Who knows?”

  “I hope the office has been briefed on this,” Vanessa said. “It’s the kind of thing that could generate a lot of news coverage and embarrassing questions in the House. People don’t like to think that there are spies here and nothing is being done.”

  “Exactly. I wonder if your boss knows about this? Seems like he should.”

  “There isn’t much that Derek doesn’t know about,” Vanessa said, proudly.

  “I’m sure, with a job like his. I bet he’d appreciate it, though, if you mentioned this to him. You never know with the Mounties. They keep their information pretty tight.”

  “You know, you’re right. I should tell him. Thanks, Suzy. Good advice.”

  “I’m working my police contacts and I’m likely to find out more. What do you say we collaborate on this? I’ll keep you informed of what I find out, you tell me what you’re hearing on your end?”

  “I’m not sure that would work,” Vanessa said. “Everything I do has to be completely confidential.”

  Even her pout was pretty. Must come from practice, Suzy thought. “Of course, I understand that completely. Anything you give me would be absolutely off the record. That’s how it normally works. You’d be amazed how many important people I work with on that basis.”

  “So you wouldn’t use it in your story, but just to help point you in the right direction?”

  “Yes, like that.”

  “Maybe I could do something then. Let me talk to Derek. I might even be running into him later.”

  Good, Suzy thought. If things were as she suspected between Derek and Vanessa, it could be just the right time to share a confidence. Men were at their most vulnerable with their pants down.

  “Great,” Suzy said. “Let me give you my cell number. If you find out anything, call me, even if it’s late. I’ll do the same for you. These stories can move pretty fast.”

  “Perfect,” Vanessa said.

  Suzy looked at her watch. There would be just time to grab something light for dinner before she had to meet Pierre Lacroix at 7. Fortunately, it was just around the corner at D’Arcy McGee’s on Sparks.

  She couldn’t say she was looking forward to spending a couple of hours hearing Pierre brag about his police exploits while she fended off his hands, which had a habit of landing on her knee or her shoulder. The thing with Pierre was to get the maximum information while sustaining the illusion that there could be something between them, without actually having to deliver.

  The Mae Wang thing sounded like a hell of a story, but screwing Pierre Lacroix to get it would be beyond the call of duty. She’d had enough of a hard time from other reporters when she was hooked up with Mike Reilly, but that had been different. With Reilly, it had been real.

  SEVENTEEN

  I waited for my moment, then sprinted through the steady stream of cyclists coming west off the Corkstown Footbridge and turning on to the Queen Elizabeth Driveway. Ranger struggled to keep up, his pathetic little legs churning. What was it with cyclists? They were always whining about the treatment they got from drivers, but they refused to slow down, much less stop, for a pedestrian.

  Reilly was sitting on the same bench as before, just as he’d promised. The bench itself was situated in a little clearing on the wooded bank of the Rideau Canal. In a way, it was conspicuous, but to the cyclists, walkers and joggers cruising by, Reilly and I would look just like a middle-aged couple out walking the dog on an unseasonably warm May evening. I wondered what it would be like to be part of an actual middle-aged couple, then quickly dismissed the thought. My experience with coupledom hadn’t been entirely rewarding.

  Reilly had removed his navy suit coat and loosened his red tie. Seeing me coming, he moved the coat to make room. I sat down, keeping to my end of the bench, and said, “You going to wear a suit all summer?”

  “It’s not summer yet, and it sure beats a uniform.” He pointed at my dog and said, “What do you call that sorry little thing?”

  “Ranger, believe it or not. Thought I might as well take him for a walk. So, news. What have you got?”

  “Not much for small talk, are you?”

  “I figure you didn’t text me to make small talk. Nice evening to sit by the canal, though. That cover it for you?”

  Reilly smiled. “God you’re a hardass, Redner.”

  “Some have said that.”

  Reilly snapped open a beat-up black leather briefcase and removed a file folder. “I ran the footage of the surveillance cameras around your building. We’ve got quite a few.”

  He opened the folder. I could see a good-sized pile of enlarged black and white screen captures inside.

  “There are a couple of interesting things here. I followed up on your information about Mae Wang seeing someone Tuesday and Thursday nights. She’s killed at your building, makes sense that whatever else was going on took place there, too, right?”

  “Sure,” I said, nodding. I wondered if I had ever passed her in the hall.

  “I looked at the surveillance tapes for those two nights, going back a month. Every Thursday evening, about 7 o’clock, we see this joker show up. It’s the only time he’s there, so he’s not likely a resident.”

  He passed me a picture of a heavyset man in a dark overcoat, the face blurry. The only remarkable thing about him was his bomber hat, an oversized thing with ear flaps. It looked as if it was made of some kind of fur and the guy had it tied tight under his chin. It was the kind of hat that someone not from Canada would wear because they thought southern Ontario was just a short snowmobile ride from the Arctic.

  “If he was there for sex, he had to have been paying for it,” I said. “No other way he could get laid, showing up in that kind of hat.”

  “I’ve got a hat like that,” Reilly said.<
br />
  “Seriously?”

  “Well, I don’t wear it in town.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Then we see him leaving again, always around midnight.”

  “More staying power than the body type would suggest. Maybe he takes a nap.”

  “Could be. Let’s call him Mr. Thursday. At this point, he could be anyone. He arrives on foot, which could mean that he works nearby, or that he’s smart enough not to leave an easy trail.

  “Now, it gets a bit more interesting. When I looked at the Tuesday tapes, I also see a regular, but this guy shows up much later, around 9 o’clock. He stays all night, usually leaving around 7 the next morning.”

  Reilly handed me a photograph that showed a tall man in a well-cut overcoat, scarf knotted loosely around his neck in a European style, dark hair swept back, striding through the little courtyard in front of my building like he was really someone. The face was unclear but somehow familiar.

  “Know him?” Reilly asked.

  “No, should I?”

  “Take a look at this one. The light is better in the morning.”

  The second picture showed a closer, clearer view of the guy’s face. “Shit, that’s Luc Champagne.”

  “It sure is.”

  “When was this taken?”

  “The week before Mae Wang was killed, and every week I looked at before that.”

  “What about the week she died?”

  “A no show.”

  “Wow, so Luc Champagne is Mr. Tuesday. That explains why your RCMP friends have grabbed the wheel.”

  “Yeah, maybe they grabbed the wheel, but they haven’t stepped on the gas. They should have looked at this CCTV footage, or had us do it. Hasn’t happened.”

  “So we know Champagne was a regular visitor at the building, but that’s all, right?”

  “Yeah. He could have been seeing someone else in the building. Lot of political types there, right?”

  “There are. And media, too.”

  “There’s no evidence that Champagne was in the building when Mae was killed and we’re a long way from connecting him to what happened to her, but it’s pretty interesting, when you put it with what you got from the roommate.