by Marc Strange
“What was it you wanted to pick my brain for, Stonewall?”
“Oh Lordy,” Orwell said. “Almost forgot, what with defending myself against scurrilous attacks. Argos. 1982. You remember anything about them?”
“Of course.”
“Anyone from those years in the vicinity?”
“Surely you jest.”
“I do not jest.”
“We’re talking history here.”
“Georgie, I’m a baseball fan. And I watch junior hockey when I can get to a game. I don’t know much about the CFL. It’s a failing, I admit.”
“I’m shocked. Sam? Aren’t you shocked?” Sam was otherwise occupied wiping rhubarb juice off Orwell’s statement. “Well I’m shocked.”
“When you’re through being shocked maybe you can help me out. I need to speak to someone who was part of that team.”
Georgie savoured the last morsels of his favourite treat. “And aren’t you just the luckiest police chief in the country?”
“How so?”
“Touchdown Toyota. The dealership on 35? Just south of Bethany? You know who owns it?”
“Remind me.”
“The name Nate Grabowski strike a familiar note?”
“Not even a glimmer.”
“I fear for your soul, my friend.”
Nate Grabowski had the unmistakable look of a former athlete. Rich living had added a substantial layer of lard since his football days, but he still moved like a gladiator. When he saw their badges, his shoulders hunched and he put up meaty hands as if to ward off a linebacker. “What is it this time? Somebody’s claiming his brakes quit? Worse? Accelerator pedal stuck? Tell him there’s a lineup.”
“Nothing like that, sir,” Stacy said. “We want to talk about football.”
“Oh yeah? Okay. Good. Police starting a kids’ team or something? You want some coffee?”
Stacy took the lead. “No, thank you, we don’t want to take too much of your time. Need some information, if you can provide it, about the 1982 Argonauts team you played on. Do you remember any trips you made to Montreal to play the Alouettes that year?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.”
“Trick question. They weren’t the Alouettes in ’82. Montreal Concordes. They went two and fourteen. Don’t know how they won two games. Terrible team. They didn’t last long.”
“Whatever,” Adele said. “But you were with the Argos ’82?”
“You know it.”
“You remember that season?”
“Well, hell yeah! We went to the Grey Cup. Played the Eskimos. Exhibition Stadium.”
“Congratulations.”
“We lost. Scored two touchdowns in the first quarter and after that we couldn’t do dick.”
“Montreal.”
“What about it?”
“You remember a teammate, Dylan O’Grady?”
“Dilly? Sure. What is this, a background check? You don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance of him getting elected, do you?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Some diamonds have turned up that Mr. O’Grady may have been involved with,” said Stacy.
“In 1982,” Adele added.
“Oho! Oh yeah, I remember that one. ‘Dilly’s Deluxe Diamond Deal.’ They were hot, right? I figured. I didn’t go in on that one.” He looked from one to the other and shook his head. “Listen, I’ve only had one bite out of my sandwich, mind if we sit in my office?”
“After you, sir.”
The sandwich waiting on his desk was a foot-long Subway creation. He picked it up and looked at it without affection. “Supposed to be slimming,” he said. “I don’t know. Sit, sit.” He put it down without taking a bite and had a sip of Diet Coke instead. “He always had something going on the side. Leather jackets, big name handbags for the wives, and every time there’d be a story to go with it.”
“What was the story that went with the diamonds?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, it’ll come to me. It was a beaut.” This time he had a bite and chewed for a moment. “Now I’ve got it. Dilly had this pawnbroker. Fat little creep. Always checking out your stuff.”
“Your stuff?” Adele distinctly heard her stomach rumble.
“Yeah, like your watch, like ‘How much you pay for that? I can get you a Rolex,’ and then he has like three watches up his arm. That kind of guy.”
“Remember his name?”
“Louie something. I wouldn’t buy a newspaper off him.”
“So what was the story they gave out about the diamonds?”
“It’s coming to me.” He swallowed. “Right, they belonged to a woman who was maybe the great granddaughter of Anastasia or something.”
“You didn’t believe it?”
“I never believed his bullshit, excuse my language.”
“No fucking problem,” Adele said.
He laughed. “Right. He even had a couple of real live Russians to back it up.”
“Remember their names?”
“Boris and Natasha. I don’t know. Man and a woman. Only met them once. They could speak Russian anyway.”
“You remember what they looked like?” Stacy asked.
“The woman was kinda pretty as I recall. I checked her out. Had a beaky nose. Not ugly beaky, sorta like Barbra Streisand. Dilly was all over her.”
“You think they were involved?”
“Him? Like I say, he always had something going on. I was never into that stuff. I was saving myself.”
“For marriage?” Adele was amused.
“No, shit, saving my strength. Wife and I were trying to have a baby. She was taking her temperature every five minutes. I’m telling you, I was on call day and night, and I’d better have the necessary inclinations.”
“Did it work?”
“Four kids. Two of each. Then she packed it in. That’s plenty, she said. Get your tubes snipped, I’m retired.”
“What about the Russian man?” Stacy again.
“Him I don’t remember. Just a guy. Dylan and the Russian woman were leaning on him pretty hard.”
“In what way?”
“I got the feeling Dilly was taking over the deal.”
“You recall anything about the deal?”
“Dilly wanted to get a bunch of players to kick in a thousand dollars apiece and they’d each get a diamond worth like five times that much.”
“Did he pull it off?”
“Couldn’t tell you. I was just having a beer when all this was being discussed. I said no thanks, move your head, there’s hockey on or whatever. I figured the diamonds were hot, anyway. I think a couple of the guys bought one, but not as many as Dilly was hoping for.”
“You ever see any of those people again?”
“Not the other two, but I’m pretty sure Dilly snuck the woman into the hotel later that night. Pretty sure.”
“Do you remember anything else Dylan was involved in?”
“Nah, he broke his big toe right around that time. Didn’t make the Grey Cup game. Coach was pissed. I heard Dilly joined the cops. Is that right?”
“That’s right, sir. He joined the force in 1985.”
“Last guy I would’ve figured to go legit. He’s a smooth operator. Probably why he went into politics, right?”
“Chief? You’ve got the crown prosecutor on line one.”
“Hello. Mr. Blumberg?”
“Chief. I just found out your daughter is Harold Ruth’s lawyer.”
“One of my daughters is one of his lawyers, yes.”
“Is this likely to compromise my case in any way?”
“I shouldn’t think so. And for the record, beyond informing me that she’d been asked to work with Georgie Rhem, we have been scrupulous to avoid discussing the
matter, even casually.”
“She won’t be calling you as a witness?”
“She might, I suppose. I can’t see why she would.”
“You were involved in the arrest.”
“I helped identify Dr. Lorna Ruth as the woman who was with Detective Delisle on the night he was killed. After that, it was Metro and OPP all the way.”
“Detectives Lacsamana, Heatley, Siffert and Hong. You weren’t present at the arrest?”
“No.”
“You didn’t see the accused that day.”
“No. They never brought him to the station. Took him straight back to the city.”
“Which they shouldn’t have done.”
“Definitely not. He was returned to Dockerty on Wednesday.”
“You realize this makes at least forty-eight hours that the defendant was held incommunicado, unable to speak to a lawyer, not charged, nowhere near where the charge should have been laid.”
“I put it at closer to seventy-two hours.”
“Jesus Lord. Bloody idiots.”
“I understand they’ve been reprimanded. To what extent I don’t know. You’ll have to check with Captain Rosebart.”
“We’ve spoken.”
“For what it’s worth, Gord, there were no procedural irregularities at the Dockerty PD end.”
“Cold comfort, I’m afraid, Chief. SIU is investigating. Police Services are involved. The accused may have grounds for a suit. Toronto hasn’t exactly been covering itself in glory lately.”
“I’m sure they’ll straighten things out.”
“This isn’t about protesters being penned up; this is a murder trial. Which may be seriously compromised.”
“Gordon, if there’s any way I can make your lot in life easier you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
“The only thing I can think of at the moment is your reassurance that the case won’t be further embarrassed by the involvement of your daughter.”
“I’d say you have bigger problems than Diana’s participation.”
They drove north toward Dockerty, Stacy behind the wheel, Adele working on a Wendy’s Double Baconator. “Beaky,” she said with her mouth full. “But not ugly-beaky.”
“Barbra Streisand beaky.”
“You figure the dancer lady ever saw them together?”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Adele peeked under the bun, wished she’d gone for a Triple instead, had another chomp. “So what exactly are we doing? What do we know now that we didn’t know last week? Not suspect, know for fucking fact?”
Stacy was dealing with crawling traffic ahead of her and a huge Kenworth semi climbing up her tailpipe. “We know Dylan O’Grady was in Montreal when the first diamonds started to hit the market.” Her words were carefully measured. She was occupied with checking her rear-view mirror and looking up front for the cause of the problem. “We know Dylan had dealings with Louie Grova in Montreal.” She spotted it, a pickup with busted shocks and a poorly secured load of hay bales leading the parade. “We know he was one of the investigating detectives when the body of Vassili Abramov was discovered in the Beaches.” The Kenworth was filling all the mirrors. “We know Abramov was carrying jewels . . .” She suddenly signalled, hit the siren, flashed her reds and passed six cars and the weaving pickup in one long swoop. She continued without any change in tone, “. . . because your partner picked two of them off the grass.”
“That’s it?”
Stacy checked the rear-view and smiled as the entire line of traffic behind them came to a lurching stop while the pickup made a wobbly left turn onto a side road. “I can tell you what we don’t know for a fact. ”
“A fucking fact.”
“We don’t know for a fact if the two Russians, Boris and Natasha, were really Viktor Nimchuk and Ludmilla Dolgushin. We don’t know if O’Grady and Ludmilla Dolgushin had sex that night in the hotel. We don’t know if she was carrying the big sapphire at the time.”
Adele joined in. “We don’t know if, after fucking her beaky brains out, Dylan stole the rock and turned her lights off. We don’t know if he strangled her in the hotel, or waited until they were in a more convenient spot, or if he was back in time for the fucking kickoff.”
“That’s a long list of ignorance.”
“We know shit.”
“Except that Dylan’s wife has a sapphire as big as a bottle cap on her ring finger.”
“I’ll grant you that much.”
“No witnesses.”
“None alive.” Adele crammed the last bite of burger into her mouth. “Feel like coming back to the Big Smoke with me again?”
“You want to arrest O’Grady?”
“Not yet. No way. With what we’ve got he could still wiggle. I don’t want him to have any wiggle room.”
“What then?”
“I think we need to take another run at Serge and Citizen Grenkov. I don’t like them roaming around. They might fuck off. Serge still has some ’splainin’ to do.” She wiped her mouth. “You got a couch?”
“Better,” Stacy said. “I’ve got a guest room.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Clean sheets and cable.”
“You’re spoiling me, partner,” she said. She wadded the hamburger wrapper and looked around for the bag it came in.
“By your foot,” Stacy said, “partner.”
Nine
Tuesday, March 22
It was a morning for carefully worded greetings, polite avoidances, nods and smiles and conversations that went nowhere. Diana was going to court and Orwell wasn’t sure how he felt about it except that he was unusually fidgety for a man so calm. He had to admit that his daughter looked entirely competent: bright, brisk, smartly turned out in a dark jacket and a crisp blue shirt. He watched closely (but discreetly) for signs of nerves and couldn’t spot any. What he saw was eagerness. Diana was standing at the kitchen window looking out at an eastern horizon barely tinged with pink, and one foot was tapping. She was champing at the bit.
“No!” Erika was emphatic. “You will not begin your day on a cup of coffee. Sit.”
“I’m in a hurry,” Diana said.
“You are in a hurry to get out of the house. You aren’t late for anything. Sit.”
“All right, but nothing heavy.”
“You will eat what I feed you.”
Diana resigned herself to getting nourished and sat. She glanced at her father. He was offering her some toast. She took a half slice. He took the other half. There was a moment’s silence. “Watch your shoes getting to the car,” he offered. “It’s a quagmire out there. One of these days we should pave the lane.” He slathered on a layer of Erika’s sour cherry jam. “Maybe after we dig the lagoon.”
“It is not a lagoon.” Erika served Diana a measured portion of scrambled eggs. “Eat that and have some juice so you don’t fade away before lunch.”
“Georgie says we’ll be done in ten minutes.”
Everything stopped for a moment. Diana looked up, aware that alluding to the forbidden topic might have been a breach of protocol. Orwell came to her rescue. “Pretrial hearings are usually just in and out,” he said.
“You will still need your strength,” said Erika. “And you, not so much jam. Have some eggs.”
“As soon as I receive eggs, I will devour them,” he said. He had a defiant chomp of toast. He was particularly fond of Erika’s sour cherry. “That Lyman fellow has taken to calling this place the Brennan Estate,” he said happily.
“That is nonsense,” said Erika.
“It is, isn’t it? The place deserves something grander. Xanadu, maybe.”
“Xanadu.” Erika was offended. “If you ask around the neighbourhood, it is still called the old Robicheau place and will be for another hundred years. Then, maybe, they’ll start call
ing it the old Brennan place.” She put a plate in front of her husband, then sat at the other end of the table and looked from one to the other. “Go on,” she said. “Eat before it’s cold.”
Orwell surveyed his breakfast plate, knife and fork at the ready. If he was upset at the absence of sausages he didn’t mention it. From Leda’s third floor atelier they could hear lines being declaimed. Leda was rehearsing Emily’s goodbye speech from Our Town.
“She’s going to be great,” Diana said.
“You too,” Erika told her daughter. She looked at Orwell. “Well, she will be.”
“I have no doubt of that,” he said.
It was Adele’s first good sleep in more than a week. The bed in Stacy’s guest room wasn’t large, but it was a hell of a lot more comfortable than the one she had in her apartment. I should break down and get a new bed. One of these days. And the shower had a massage nozzle to beat the tension from her neck and shoulders. She wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that a “power protein smoothie” would ever take the place of bacon and eggs, but had to admit that the woman did make a good cup of coffee.
Nice little house, too. If I had this setup, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to ditch it. “I don’t see any moose heads on the wall. No bearskin rugs.”
“Joe’s pretty much a fishing guide these days.”
“No fish, either. What’s wrong with the guy?”
“He planted three Rowan trees in my front yard. A male and two females. That was kind of romantic.”
“A threesome is romantic?”
Stacy laughed. “Never thought of it that way.”
“Wait a minute, boy and girl trees?”
“Otherwise you don’t get the red berries, he says.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s romantic.”
“Technically I think they’re mountain ash but I like calling them rowans.”
“Because?”
“Rowans are magic.”
“Oh. Would that be practical magic? I mean, anything we can use?”
“Good for wands, I hear. You want more protein shake?”
“No. Thanks. It was good. With the banana and the soy milk and the whatever else you tossed in there. I feel energized. So, what’s it gonna be? Think your boss was serious about you going to town to bust Citizen Grenkov?”