Woman Chased by Crows

by Marc Strange

  “This man partnered me for six years with the Volga company,” Anya announced as she introduced them.

  “I believe my husband and I once saw the two of you dance Giselle. I remember you as very . . . stalwart.”

  “You are too complimentary, Madame Lytton. I was never of the first rank, I admit that, but not once did I drop a ballerina on her derrière.”

  “Bless you, Sergei, that is true,” Anya said. “Always strong.”

  “Well, this is a pleasure,” said Mrs. Lytton. “One doesn’t expect to find genuine artistes at these affairs. What brings you here tonight?”

  “It is more a question of who, Madame Lytton. I am the reluctant guest of the local gendarmerie. I am, as they say, helping them with their inquiries.”

  “How exciting. Is it top secret?”

  “Hardly, Madame, they believe the gentleman at the microphone may be guilty of a crime. More than one, actually.”

  “Really? My goodness. This evening is turning out to be much more fun than I anticipated. I think I’ll have a small glass of wine.”

  Sergei was full of juicy gossip about Rudolph Nureyev and Erik Bruhn and other stars of the ballet world, and Mrs. Lytton was hanging on every word. Anya decided it was time for her to visit the man again. The candidate was about to make a speech. Anya wasn’t interested in the substance, she’d heard it before, only in the manner of its delivery.

  He’s developed a twitch, she thought. He’s started wiping his palms on his jacket, he has to refer to his notes in order to locate the next talking point in a speech he’s given many times before. Each time she applauded he lost his place. Or perhaps it was what was happening on the other side of the room that was bothering him. The campaign overseers appeared to be having a heated discussion about something. Anya could only guess what was so important, but the sight had a cheering effect.

  “We don’t pull this off we’re in so much trouble,” Stacy said.

  “We’re in trouble?” It appeared that Adele had regained her appetite: her mouth was full of macaroon. “Ha! Check it out. There’s a gaggle of party hacks in the corner working on damage control already.” Three men were huddled at the rear of the reception hall. “I think the big boys are wondering if they bet on the wrong horse.”

  “Kinda late in the game to find a replacement.”

  “Maybe, but better than having your man busted on the floor of the House of Commons. The woman with the phone growing out of her ear is probably calling party HQ. His ass’ll be off the ticket in a fartbeat.”

  “Wish we had more to hit him with.”

  Adele helped herself to a few more cookies. “That guy Cam’s looking shaky. I asked him if he was aiding and abetting and he nearly pissed himself.” Cam was standing apart from the meeting in the corner, wiping his nose and squeezing the crease between his eyebrows. Adele had another bite of macaroon. “Why don’t you take a run at him? You might handle him better than I would. I think he scares easy.”

  “I’ll be gentle.”

  “Not too gentle.”

  “Hi there. It’s Cam, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Detective Crean, Dockerty PD. And you are Mr. O’Grady’s right-hand man, is that right?”

  “I’m his special assistant. For the duration of the campaign.”

  “You don’t get to go to Ottawa?”

  “What? Oh, no, this isn’t full-time with me. I sell real estate.”

  “So this is a sideline?”

  “Well, it’s a bit more than that.”

  “Have you known Mr. O’Grady long?”

  “No, not long.”

  “Like back when he was on the police force?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “How about when he ran for city council? Did you work on that campaign?”

  “No. This campaign is actually the first time I’ve been involved . . . with him . . . in his political career.”

  “And how involved are you? Special assistant sounds like an important job. You, what, look after all the details, right?”

  “Yes. Details. I’m the detail person.”

  “So you pretty much know everything about his day-to-day activities. For the duration of the campaign, I mean. What? Five weeks? Something like that? Where he goes, what he does. You have his entire schedule, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m supposed to.”

  “Supposed to.”

  “Well, I can’t account for every . . . it’s not like I’m with him every minute . . . of every day . . . for the entire campaign.”

  “Of course not. The man needs some privacy, after all.”

  “Yes.”

  “But he would have to be on call, wouldn’t he? You have to be able to get hold of him. If something should come up.”

  “Yes.”

  “What sort of things might come up, do you think?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, changes in schedule perhaps, reporters wanting a comment about something . . . things like that.”

  “And he’s always available?”

  “Well . . . yes. Usually.”

  “Usually. Is he ever unavailable?”

  “Well, once or twice there’s been miscommunication.”

  “I see.”

  “Nothing that had a serious impact. He missed a meeting once. His cellphone was off and I couldn’t reach him.”

  “You remember when that was?”

  “I’d have to check.”

  “But you could pin it down? If you had to?”

  “Excuse me.” He sneezed violently. “I’m sorry. My sinuses. I think it’s the air in here.”

  “That can be very annoying.”

  “It gives me awful headaches. Right between my eyes.”

  “Ouch. And stress can bring on a headache as well.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s allergies.”

  “So there’s nothing else eating at you? Things going the way they should? All smooth sailing on the campaign trail?”

  “It’s been pretty smooth, yes.”

  “That’s good. Not many more days until the election, is it?”

  “Not many.”

  “This would be a bad time for something unforeseen to come along and mess up all your good detail work, wouldn’t it?”

  “Like what?”

  “You would know better than I would, Cam. Thing is, I’d hate to see a nice guy like you, with a what, wife and kids?”

  Cam shook his head. “I’m not married.”

  “Really? Even so, you want a regular life, don’t you? You wouldn’t want to get caught up in something that could wreck all your chances. Know what I mean? If the man you’re working for turned out to have secrets, things he was keeping from you, or even worse, things he was asking you to keep secret, well, that could make you an accessory to something bad, you know? And maybe you wouldn’t even know what it was you were covering up, but when it started to come out, it might not be clear to people that you were entirely innocent. Know what I mean? People might think, hey, he must have known things weren’t right, otherwise why would he be covering things up. You see where I’m going with this?”

  “Yes.”

  “So let’s do this very quietly, confidentially, while there’s still time to get your side of the story.”

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “Well, for starters, I’ll want you to pin down those times when you couldn’t reach him, when he wasn’t available say, or when his reasons for not being available didn’t quite add up. Because you being a detail guy, you probably keep a close watch on things, don’t you?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “So. For a start, I’m going to need a list of those dates and times. That would be helpful. Now, think carefully, Cam. Is there something else you want to tell me?”


  “I don’t, I mean I don’t know if it’s important.”

  “You’ll have to let me decide that.”

  “I guess I do. Well . . . there is a package.”

  The candidate’s wife in heels was the same height as Adele in cop shoes. The two women were nose to nose. Neither was blinking nor backing down, but where Keasha O’Grady had fire in her eyes, Adele was unruffled.

  “I want to know what’s going on here.”

  “It’s Keasha, isn’t it? I’m Detective Moen. You probably don’t remember but we met years ago.”

  “I know who you are. You were Paul Delisle’s partner after my husband retired.”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is about Paul? Have you caught the person responsible?”

  “We did.”

  “Then do you mind if I ask what it is you’re doing here?”

  “Just asking your husband a few things.”

  “And it couldn’t wait?”

  “That’s a beautiful ring, Mrs. O’Grady. Gift from your husband, wasn’t it?”

  “A great many years ago.”

  “He tell you where he got it?”

  “He won it, in a poker game.”

  “Must have been a pretty high stakes game. It’s worth a lot of money.”

  “This is about a ring?”

  “We tried to arrange a less intrusive interview but . . .”

  “It’s a campaign. Our schedule is unforgiving.”

  “I’m investigating multiple homicides. And I’m unforgiving.”

  “Multiple . . . ? What on earth is going on?”

  “I think there are some serious questions that need to be answered. By your husband. When he can make himself available.”

  But the candidate’s wife was no longer listening, she was looking across the room at the empty speaker’s platform. The audience was murmuring in confusion. Dylan O’Grady was gone.

  Damn! Well what did you think was going to happen, you big stork? Keep poking him like that he was bound to do something. Confess? Grab a hostage? Pull out an AK-47 and blast his way to freedom? Something. So he picked the simplest one, he ran. Great. Now all we have to do is find him.

  “Anybody see which way he went?”

  The general consensus among the pointing fingers suggested that Dylan O’Grady had taken off through the side door to his right, although there was a contradictory view that he’d left by the front door, and a few people thought he’d gone up the stairs. Obviously not everyone in the room had been paying attention. Adele ran for the first choice.

  The hall led in two directions. Stacy and Cam Gidrick were coming from one of them.

  “Did you see him?”

  “See who?”

  “Dilly. He booked, Stace. Just took off. Where were you?”

  “Went to the parking lot, to check out Cam’s car.”

  “Okay, so he didn’t go that way.”

  “Car wasn’t there.”

  Captain Rosebart was not happy to be called away from his favourite television show at 9:23 p.m. on a Thursday night. He refused to tell Adele what show it was, but she suspected there were Kardashians involved.

  “Oh Lordy Jesus, Moen, what did you do now?”

  “I talked to him. I told him we wanted to bring him in for questioning.”

  “So why didn’t you bring him in?”

  “He was making a speech. We’re waiting for him to finish. Hell, there was a room full of heavy political types. We were trying to keep it quiet.”

  “Yeah, that worked out great.”

  “What would you have done?”

  “Well, for starters, I probably wouldn’t have started hassling him in public.”

  “We didn’t have a lot of choice, Captain. Our dancer lady was on his case all day long. She wanted to rattle him.”

  “Well you all did a great job. He got rattled. We’ve got newspapers and TV reporters up the wazoo, the goddamn political party’s accusing us of screwing with their election . . .”

  “Tell them, better it happened now than after.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me how to handle those assholes.”

  “Of course, sir. What do you want me to do?”

  “For starters I want a huge fricking report laying out exactly how you got to the point where you spooked this guy so bad he ran off in the middle of his campaign.”

  “I think you should get somebody over to that pawnshop. He may have gone after Louie’s kid.”

  “Yeah, yeah, all right, I’ll cover that. You stay the hell away from it. Got me?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Do your goddamn paperwork and have it on my desk in the morning.”

  “Yessir. What about the dancer?”

  “What about her?”

  “Should I bring her in?”

  “What for? She do something?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “We’ve got enough problems without nursemaiding that crazy woman. Tell her to get her ass back up to Dockerville. If we need her, let your pal Crean round her up.”

  “Yessir. What about the other one, Sergei?”

  “Jeezuss! It’s never going to end with these frickin’ Russkies, is it? Tell him to keep himself available. Tell them all to keep themselves available.”

  “And Dilly’s wife? His assistants?”

  “Stay the hell away from everybody. We’ll handle it from here. You’ve caused enough goddamn wreckage for one night.”

  “She’s still got the ring. And the assistant was holding some package for O’Grady. Might have been a gun.”

  “Christ! We’re on it. Hear me? We’re on it. Not you. You do some paperwork and stay the hell out of my hair for a while! Full report. On my desk. 09:00. Got it?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  After that it was a long night.

  A very long night.

  First on the scene were two uniformed cops Adele didn’t know well and didn’t like much, who didn’t know what the hell they were doing there anyway. Dylan O’Grady wasn’t a fugitive, wasn’t charged with anything and the only element worthy of police attention was an unsubstantiated claim by one of his assistants that he “maybe” had a handgun in his possession, although Cam Gidrick hadn’t actually seen the weapon, only inferred it from the weight and shape of the “package” he’d been asked to keep in the campaign car. Said car was “possibly” being driven by the missing candidate, although no one had actually seen him drive away in it.

  More troubling to the campaign was the sudden swarm of reporters who smelled blood in the water and were hungry for information. Neither Adele nor Stacy had any intention of helping them out. The campaign organizers and aides weren’t any more forthcoming and Cam Gidrick had been admonished by Stacy early in the proceedings to keep his mouth shut.

  The cobbled together semi-official statement issued by the campaign manager was a cryptically worded paragraph suggesting that the candidate had suffered a “sudden attack of indigestion.” This prompted many in the gathering to experience sympathetic stomach cramps. Most blamed them on the shrimp platter.

  Sergei Siziva immediately demanded around-the-clock police protection. Adele told him to move to a hotel, and no, she wasn’t going to pay for it. Anya told them she’d be catching the morning train back to Dockerty and would spend the night in her hotel room, and no, Sergei wasn’t invited to share it, although she offered to lend him money to get a room of his own.

  And after an hour of what seemed an interminable inconclusive explanation, Stacy and Adele were allowed to depart the room, leaving behind a crowd abuzz with conflicting opinions of what exactly had transpired. The only consensus seemed to be that a formerly secure federal seat was now very much in play.

  Stacy decided to spend another night on Adele’s couch.
She not only wanted to help her friend craft the necessary report for the morning, she also had a few ideas she wanted to talk out.

  “Okay, I’m just spitballing here.”

  “Spit away, partner.” Adele was pulling the cork on a bottle of her favourite Spanish wine.

  “Paul was a pretty good cop, right? I mean he bent the rules, but he didn’t mess around.”

  “Okay, that’s how I’d like to remember it.”

  “So what happens if a cop loses his weapon? What does he do? He reports it, right?”

  Adele stopped with the cork half out. “Oh yeah. Immediately.”

  “From the start we’ve been stuck on the idea that Paul’s gun was used to shoot Nimchuk. Then we sort of proved, at least to our satisfaction, that it wasn’t the gun, that it just as easily could have been Dylan’s gun.”

  Adele finally got the cork out but didn’t pour herself a drink. She was still mulling the implications. “Keep going.”

  “So if it wasn’t his gun, what reason could he have for not reporting it missing?”

  Adele finally poured her flowered water glass half full of Spanish wine and had a long drink. She lowered the glass. “No reason I can think of.”

  “The first time we hear that his weapon’s gone is up in Dockerty. And the only person’s word we have is the woman he was having his little fling with. She claims she never saw it.”

  “So?”

  “So who could have got their hands on it? The waitress he boinked after lunch? Edwin Kewell who shot him through the window?”

  “Or the shrink.”

  “So what would she want with a gun? She planning on offing her hubby?”

  “Hold that thought.” The phone was ringing. Adele had another gulp of wine before she picked up. “Moen,” she burped. “Wha? When? Where? Oh shit. Yessir. Yessir. In the morning.” She hung up and looked at Stacy. “They found him,” she said.

  “He in custody?”

  “Nope. He’s in the morgue. Spotted his car out at the Leslie Street Spit, parked on the grass. Looks like he blew his brains out.”