At four o’clock and at a quarter and half past the hour, and at a quarter to five, she dialled Melanie Martel’s number. Each time she called, she let the phone ring three times and then hung up and waited, her heart beating wildly.
At a few minutes past five, she hit the redial button again. But this time she let the phone keep ringing.
The answering machine picked up after the fourth ring. Melanie said she wasn’t home at the moment, invited Joan to wait for the beep and then leave a message. In seductive tones, she promised to call right back, just as soon as she could. Joan slammed down the phone. The mini-blind was fractured by thin lines of pinkish light. She went over to the window and looked out. The sky to the east was a soft rose colour, the stars pale and fading.
She hit the redial button again, waited impatiently for the beep. All in a rush, she told Harold she knew he was there and would he please have the common decency to answer the phone and reassure her that he hadn’t been in an accident.
She waited in vain, as the answering machine’s tape hissed like an impotent snake, uncoiling from one sprocket, wrapping around another.
She shouted at Harold that she was fed up with his lies, that she wanted a divorce.
She told him she never wanted to see him again, except in court.
She took a long hot shower and went to bed, and lay there, fuming. At ten o’clock she tried the hospitals again, and then the police.
By noon she was half convinced that Harold had finally left her for the bimbo. When the mail arrived, an hour later, she was in the garden, pulling up anything that remotely resembled a weed.
Tossing aside her gloves, she hurried up the fieldstone pathway to see if there was a postcard from Harold. Or, as seemed more likely, a letter from one of his hotshot lawyer pals.
Mixed in among the cablevision and telephone bills and a rare letter from a schoolgirl friend who had long since moved to southern France, were several plain white envelopes with her name and address printed on them in an unlikely combination of letters and numbers. Studying the envelopes, she saw that the addresses were on separate pieces of paper glued to the envelopes and that none of them had a return address.
There were, in all, eight letters addressed to her that were identical in every respect.
She sat down on the sun-warmed top step and opened the first of the letters.
Inside was a photocopied ransom note that said:
5 MILLION OR HAROLD DIES. CALL THE COPS AND HE DIES!
Joan sat there, stunned, in shock. She read the note again and again, as the sun beat down on her, and the world went about its business. Finally she opened the other letters. All seven were identical to the first. She checked the postmarks. The letters had been mailed in the city the previous day.
She went into the house and mixed a small gin and tonic, and then went back outside and sat on the patio, in the sunlight.
Harold had been kidnapped. He would die if she didn’t pay the people who had him five million dollars in cash, or if she called the police.
She sipped nervously at her drink. She told herself to be calm, and think things through. She knew Harold was in some kind of financial difficulty. During the past few weeks, a man who refused to identify himself had phoned incessantly, demanding to speak to Harold, shouting at her. Sometimes when Harold answered the phone, he’d just stand there, listening, not saying a word, his face grim. As soon as the call ended, he’d start drinking, drink himself insensible.
She’d beg him to talk to her, and he’d look right through her.
Once, the phone had rung as Harold was sitting down to dinner. The meal had grown cold as he’d stood there, ashen-faced. Finally he’d started talking, sounding frantic as he assured the caller that everything was under control, there was no need to worry ...
As soon as he’d hung up, he’d burst into tears. Joan had attempted to comfort him, but he’d shut himself away in the den. She’d reheated his dinner. He’d had no appetite for anything but the bottle.
Sometimes the phone rang in the middle of the night, at two or three or even four o’clock in the morning ...
Harold refused to explain the situation to her, allow her to share his grief and fear or to work with him to find a solution to whatever the hell kind of mess he’d gotten himself into.
Well, that was Harold. When things were going well, he’d bend her ear to the breaking point. When things were going badly, it was as if she’d ceased to exist.
She reread the ransom note for the tenth time.
Five million dollars. The enormity of the sum began to sink in. Harold had bank accounts all over town. A few she knew about. But she suspected there were many others that he kept secret. Was it possible he’d tucked away five million dollars in those mystery accounts?
Maybe all those phone calls were about the five million his kidnappers were demanding. Maybe the money was theirs in the first place ...
Joan swallowed a mouthful of her gin and tonic. An elderly man walked slowly along the sidewalk, his small white dog running ahead of him, barking shrilly.
Five million dollars in cash.
It was an unimaginable amount.
But Harold, promoting hot gold strikes, fist-sized nuggets lying right there on the ground, had raised five million dollars in a single day. To Harold, five million was peanuts.
Joan found herself wondering about the bimbo. Melanie. What was she like? What kind of woman was she? She’d heard Harold speak to her once, on the telephone. The phone had rung and she and Harold had picked up at the same time. Harold had said hello and a woman had asked if she was speaking to Harold and Harold had said, “Melanie?” Joan had hung up immediately, hurried into the kitchen and noisily emptied the dishwasher.
Melanie had sounded young, sexy. On the basis of the few words she’d overheard, Joan pictured a slim blonde with big breasts and a narrow waist and long legs and absolutely no morals. She’d sounded, in those few words, like a woman who wanted all sorts of things and was used to getting every last one of them.
Joan found herself wondering if Melanie was involved in the kidnapping. Who better to set poor Harold up but his lover?
Five million dollars. The phrase came easier now. She lined up the numbers in her mind, all those zeros.
Of course it was possible that Harold had tucked that much cash away in his secret accounts.
Of course there were people who would do absolutely anything for that kind of money.
But if Harold had the money, and she let it sit there, made no attempt to retrieve it, and the kidnappers followed through on their threat and killed Harold ...
Then she’d inherit the money, every penny of it.
Joan Wismer leaned forward in her chair. The old man and his dog had disappeared, vanished around a bend in the road. It was as if they had ceased to exist, or never existed at all.
If she tore up the letters and threw them in the garbage ...
If she tore the letters into small pieces and flushed them down the toilet and disconnected the answering machine and packed a suitcase and drove to Seattle and shopped for a few days ...
When she came back, Harold would be dead.
There was Harold, back in his body bag. His eyes shut forever. His heart stopped forever.
She would tell the detectives that she thought he’d run away with the bimbo. She’d tell them she’d been depressed, driven down to Seattle for a few days because she needed to get away from it all. Wasn’t that a reasonable thing to do?
She’d be rich.
Five million dollars.
It certainly looked as if he hadn’t planned to spend any of that money with her, didn’t it?
Joan lifted her glass to her mouth, tilted back her head and shut her eyes. The ice had melted and the drink was watery, tepid.
But what if the people who had kidnapped Harold did murder him, and then decided to come after her?
Joan’s mind was in turmoil as she went back inside the house to mix herself another
drink.
27
Sheila and her new boyfriend liked to move around, but for the past year or so they had been living in Alvarado, a small town on the Gulf of Mexico. In one of her infrequent letters to Annie, Sheila had mentioned that Alvarado was an easy commute from Veracruz.
Annie had researched the town on the Internet, but hadn’t learned anything of interest. She’d cross-examined Willows, who supposed the cost of living was low and the weather reliably pleasant. Studying his Times Atlas of the World, he’d found himself wondering why Sheila would want to live, even temporarily, in such a determinedly out-of-the-way spot.
There was a fax machine at the Alvarado post office. Sheila had given him the number, in the event of a dire emergency. She had advised him that the machine, and its operator, were frequently in need of repair. Should he have difficulty with the transmission, she had told him, wait a day or three and try again. Willows had composed and typed and then retyped a single-spaced one-page letter delineating Sean’s injuries, current condition, state of mind and prospects for recovery. Parker, reading it, had complimented Willows on his unique style, which had been honed to a razor edge by thousands of tersely factual police reports.
“What’s wrong with my style?” Parker’s remark had put Willows on the defensive. He hadn’t actually been aware that he had a style.
Parker rested her hand on his shoulder. She leaned over him, her thick black hair brushing his cheek. She said, “It’s a little brusque, Jack. A little, I don’t know, dry ...”
“Dry? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Parker said, “Formal. Try to loosen up, just a little. Think of Sheila’s reaction, as she reads what you’ve written. She’s going to be frantic, Jack. What you’ve written is a document, rather than a personal letter.” It was clear from the expression on Willows’ face that he still didn’t get it. Parker tried again. “Think warmth.”
“Warmth?”
Parker gave him a quick kiss. “Warmth.”
Willows had spent as much time as he could spare reconstructing his fax. But no matter how he tried to alter the words, they always came out the same. Sean had been shot in the arm. His injuries were not life-threatening. He was recovering rapidly and would likely be discharged from hospital in the next week to ten days. His overall prognosis was excellent. He was in good spirits.
But there was no getting around the fact that Sean had suffered catastrophic nerve damage, and would require plastic surgery and months or perhaps even years of intensive therapy in an outpatient program. Worse, there was a very real possibility that he’d never recover the full use of his arm.
En route to 312 Main, Parker made a slight detour to the neighbourhood Shopper’s Drug Mart, which had a post office at the back of the store. She waited in the car while Willows went inside. There was no lineup. Willows hesitated at the counter, pen in hand. How should he sign this ... document? “Regards”? “Warmly”? “Best Wishes”? He finally settled on “Hope to hear from you soon, Jack.”
The fax was sent without difficulty. Willows was charged a modest two dollars plus appropriate long-distance charges.
He wondered how things would go in Alvarado. He imagined a mob of excited, unruly children running down a narrow dirt track to Sheila’s hacienda, the oldest of them waving the fax like a flag.
Or would his message gather dust on a shelf for days, until she finally dropped by to pick up her mail?
He bought a roll of breath mints before leaving the store, popped a mint into his mouth as he got into the car. Parker said, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Want a mint?”
“No thanks.” Parker put the car in gear and accelerated away from the curb.
Half an hour later, as Willows was getting into the day’s paperwork, Dan Oikawa phoned to tell him that there had been a shooting in the parking lot of a highrise on the north shore of False Creek.
Oikawa gave Willows the address. He said, “No corpses, that we can find. What happened, somebody emptied most of a clip into the windshield of a Rolls-Royce. Late-model Silver Cloud. I’m no mechanic, but it looks to me as if the vehicle’s been mortally wounded.” Oikawa let the silence build, then added, “The reason I called, the CSU guys are tweezering chunks of nine-millimetre rounds out of the Rolls’ body. So far, they’re all Black Talons.”
By the time Willows and Parker arrived at the crime scene, Oikawa had run the Rolls’ tags past DMV and learned that the car was registered to Harold Arthur Wismer, of Balfour Avenue, in Shaughnessy. A “slim jim,” a flexible length of steel that resembled a yardstick, had been used to unlock the car. Inside, the CSU had found a myriad of fingerprints, but no blood or human tissue or bone fragments that would indicate the car had been occupied at the time of the shooting.
Oikawa introduced Parker and Willows to the building’s superintendent, a man in his mid-fifties named Barry Holbrook, and then left to accompany the Rolls to the police impound yard. Holbrook gave Willows’ hand a quick shake, lingered a fraction too long over Parker.
Willows said, “Is Mr. Wismer a tenant?”
“We got no tenants. This is a strata-owned building. Condominiums, not apartments. People own the units. Strata title. No rentals. It’s against the by-laws.”
Parker said, “Okay, fine. We’ll do it your way, Barry. So tell us, did Mr. Wismer own a condominium in the building?”
“Yes, he did. Ten-zero-three. It’s way up there on the tenth floor, a nice unit, with views to the west and south.”
“Do you happen to know his occupation? What he did for a living?”
“Yeah, he was a promoter.”
“What did he promote, Barry?”
“Stocks and bonds. He worked out of the VSE. Gold and silver mines. I think he might’ve done a thing with giant pearls. Or maybe that was a pal of his, some other guy. One time only, I asked him for a hot tip. He laughs, grabs his crotch.”
“His car’s registered to an address in Shaughnessy. Was he living here, or did he just drop by from time to time?”
“Just dropped by, far as I’m aware.”
“He needed a place close to the office where he could relax, is that it?”
“Yeah, you could put it like that.”
Willows said, “How would you put it, Barry?”
“Mind if I smoke?” Holbrook lit a cigarette with a disposable lighter. He stepped away from the detectives, averted his head and exhaled with a rush. He flicked ash at the pavement. “Look, I’m only the super. I change the light bulbs, maybe if I’m feeling lucky I’ll take a shot at a plugged toilet before I call a plumber. But that’s about as complicated a situation as I’m gonna tackle. It ain’t in my job description to stick my nose where it don’t belong. You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.”
“Got a master key, Barry?”
“Sure, but you need a warrant, right?”
“Not necessarily,” said Willows. He smiled. “Have you already been inside the apartment?”
“No, of course not.”
“You don’t think it’d be a good idea to take a look, make sure it wasn’t just Wismer’s car that got shot to pieces? What if he’s up there bleeding to death?”
They rode the elevator to the tenth floor. Holbrook knocked several times, waited a moment and knocked again. Finally he unlocked and opened the door. Standing in the open doorway he called, “Mr. Wismer? Hello? Is anybody home?”
Parker brushed past him. Willows said, “Wait there, Barry. Don’t even think about coming inside.” He followed Parker into the apartment.
The drapes had been drawn. Parker found a light switch. Two empty lowball glasses squatted on the glass coffee table in front of the sofa. Willows turned on the kitchen light. The cupboard doors were shut. The countertop was clean.
In the dining room, there was nothing on the table but a subscription copy of Details magazine and an unopened telephone bill. The magazine was addressed to Melanie Martel, the bill to Harold Wismer.
Willows e
xplored until he found the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet, worked his way through the contents.
Parker said, “Jack ...”
He turned.
She crooked a finger.
He followed her into the apartment’s single bedroom. Parker had opened the drapes, flooding the room with light. Sliding double glass doors led to a generous balcony. The carpet was ivory. The king-size bed’s duvet had a pink floral pattern. The lamp on the single night table was in the shape of an angel, with a red shade and pink tassels.
The room smelled faintly of perfume.
Parker said, “I went through the bureau, top to bottom. There’s nothing in there but cashmere sweaters and about a million dollars’ worth of lingerie.” She indicated the mirrored walk-in closet. “The closet’s stuffed with designer clothing, but there’s nothing that’d look good on you, Jack.”
Willows smiled. “Harold’s a cross-dresser?”
“I don’t think so.”
Willows unlocked and pushed open the sliding glass door. He stepped outside and glanced around. Another slider at the far end of the balcony gave access to the living room. Holbrook had been right about the view, which was spectacular. He went back inside, walked over to the doorway and called out, “Barry!”
Holbrook hurried down the short hallway. “Something wrong?”
“Tell us about Harold’s roomie,” said Parker.
“Who?”
“Melanie Martel.”
“Right, Melanie. Nice girl.”
“She lives here, does she?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Since when, Barry?”
“Five, six months.”
“How long has Harold owned the unit?”
“Ever since the place was built, about three years ago.”
“You’ve worked here all that time?”
“Since day one.”
Willows said, “Step out on the balcony, Barry.”
“What for?”
“So you can smoke. You worried I’m going ask you about Melanie and Harold, shove you off the building if I think you’re lying?”
“No, of course not. But it’s okay, we don’t need to go outside, I’m trying to cut down.”
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