Law and Disorder

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “There’s still a warranty on the roof,” Jacki Jewell said to the husband, as the wife was busy mooning over the faux stone walls with the grapevines. No one paid much attention to her. “The furnace and air conditioning are well-maintained.”

  The young woman continued to smile. I was pleased to note the smile reached her dark eyes. She leaned over and scratched Gussie’s ears.

  She pointed at the walls. “I just love these paintings. I’m crazy about anything Italian.”

  I was startled to hear myself saying, “I’m glad you like the murals. I’ll pass it on to the artist.”

  I refrained from mentioning that the artist, Alvin Ferguson, hailed from Sydney, Nova Scotia, and was about as Italian as your basic haggis.

  The husband gave a gentle pat to his wife’s backside, meaning let’s get a move on. Maybe they were as irritated by the real estate agent as I was.

  Jacki Jewell shot us a critical glance as she followed her clients into the kitchen. Her chipper voice grated, “The kitchen is totally up-to-date with granite countertops and high end appliances. The French-door refrigerator is a nice feature and the stainless is a true classic, don’t you think?”

  I tried not to listen to appreciative murmurs from the young couple, but they were drowned out by the latest blast from Jacki Jewell.

  “And you have a lovely view of the deck and the garden. It seems to extend the kitchen beautifully. Step outside, and I think you’ll see how pleasant and private it is for meals on the deck, surrounded by greenery.”

  I supposed that they stepped outside.

  Jacki shot her head around the corner, and I swear she hissed. “Please stop making fishy foods during the showing of the house. It’s hard enough with all those murals and Tuscan trinkets. Fresh-baked cookies. That’s a good aroma. Flowers. Or anything with cinnamon. Even barbecue smells good to some people. We just don’t need them thinking about fish heads in the garbage or anything disgusting like that.”

  “Point taken,” I said. “Now can you excuse me, please?”

  What did I care? I wasn’t running for Miss Congeniality. I guess it took more than that to deflate our ace realtor.

  She said, “I realize this is very hard for you to grasp, but there’s an art to getting the best price. It means money in the bank for both of us. Please tell your guests not to leave their luggage open and their sports gear strewn around. It’s also quite inappropriate to have undergarments hanging on chairs in full view of clients during a viewing. Between that and the revolting smell of fish, it will be almost impossible to move this place. I’m not sure I should bother.”

  The young couple had returned from the backyard. “I love the fountain fresco, and the potted rosemary is wonderful.”

  Alvin had chosen that moment to make an appearance. He said, “Thank you,” with great dignity.

  “And I can tell you really use the kitchen.”

  “Why don’t you head upstairs?” Jacki Jewell said. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  I called up to the prospective buyers. “By the way, my friend’s daughters are here for the Dragon Boat Festival. They are accomplished athletes. Alvin is making a giant vat of fish chowder for them. I don’t intend to fuss over a bit of luggage strewn around. Or the chowder. We have to keep living here as usual.”

  Jacki flounced up the stairs after her clients. She stopped briefly as soon as she was out of sight. I figured she needed to have a silent and private hissy fit.

  No problem for me. I returned to the living room where I pressed PLAY again on the DVD player. I wanted to revisit the scene of Annalisa Fillmore’s death, and to try to figure out what I might learn from it. The clunk of feet on the staircase put an end to that. The young couple entered the living room, smiling broadly. Jacki Jewell followed, not smiling.

  The young woman grinned from ear to ear. “I love that this is a house that my sisters can come and visit. It seems so comfortable upstairs, but private for guests too.”

  “They have their own bathroom up there,” I said. “They’re guests, and I’m letting them relax while they’re here.” I refrained from giving Jacki Jewell the finger.

  “We are so tired of houses that don’t quite look real, aren’t we, honey?”

  Her mate had that buzzed-out look that husbands get sometimes in intense situations. No one expected much of a response from him.

  She reached over and shook my hand. “We’ll be in touch. Or Jacki will. Thank you and we’re sorry to interrupt.”

  “Fine with me,” I said. “And with the artist who did the murals.”

  Alvin blushed to the tip of his ponytail.

  She said, “I love them all. That’s what makes the house really special.”

  Jacki Jewell cleared her throat. “Well, we have a couple more really special houses to visit, so we’ll be off now.”

  The young couple prepared to leave. The young woman leaned over and gave Alvin a huge hug. “I know you will have a successful career as an artist and as a chef too, if that wonderful chowder is anything to go by.”

  By this point, the tips of his pointed ears were glowing like embers.

  As Jacki Jewell, significantly more purse-lipped than she’d been when she arrived, shepherded her buyers out the door, Alvin said, “I think that went well.”

  Jacki turned and said, “You may be hearing from me. I’m not overly hopeful.”

  Alvin snorted. “I don’t know why not. They were ready to sign on the dotted line before they even left.”

  Jacki Jewell slammed the door. Not that we cared.

  “Will you make me a copy of that DVD quickly, Alvin? I have an idea of how to find Bunny, and he has to see it.”

  THIRTEEN

  What’s the difference between a lawyer and a pothole?

  -People will swerve to avoid hitting a pothole.

  What conceivable connection could Bunny have with Annalisa Fillmore? Or, for that matter, why would she, a high-powered crusader, have wasted her time trying to harm a tame former burglar? She usually set her sights on cabinet ministers or influential media types. It just didn’t make sense. She was the most resolute anti-crime crusader anyway. She was in favour of bringing back capital punishment. She would have been able to reduce Bunny to a solitary speck of lint on Tonya’s spotless carpet. He might have died of fright, no fire necessary.

  I got P. J. on the phone. “Me again, and don’t interrupt. Are you sure there wasn’t any way that Annalisa Fillmore could have stage-managed that ‘alibi’ for the time of Rollie Thorsten’s death?”

  “Hello to you, Tiger. And no, there isn’t any way. I’ve been checking and rechecking. The people she was with are rock solid. And none of them had any reason to love her, let alone lie for her. At best, she was like a permanent hangnail for most of them. Endless harassing letters and time-wasting calls. Most of the people who can vouch for her would have been overjoyed to see her as a viable suspect in a murder case.”

  “Did they know that’s why you were asking? It’s not like the police suspected her.”

  “I may have suggested the possibility of something tasty if we could put her somewhere else at that time, without revealing what. They were all tempted, but the fact is she was there. All evening. Mind telling me why you’re pushing this?”

  “Soon. I promise you will be glad you helped me.”

  “High time. I’m always helping you.”

  “I just need to check out one small detail, then I’ll let you see something that will blow the top of your head off.”

  “Make sure it happens. I’m getting tired of all this one way—”

  I hung up and planned my next move. Bunny was the only person who might possibly be able to answer the question as to why Annalisa Fillmore was lying in the morgue. If they had already identified her, that might explain Mombourquette’s lack of cooperative information sharing. And, more worrying, the police would now be actively looking for Bunny. Sure, his house had burned down and he was a victim, but they didn’t believe i
n him the way I did.

  If Bunny wasn’t dead, and now I felt confident that he wasn’t, where the hell was he holed up? His townhouse was toast, and from the stories I’d heard over the years, every member of Tonya’s family and all of her friends had hated the idea of a smart, hardworking girl with her own successful business saddled with a dyslexic, art-loving burglar. According to Bunny, Tonya had cut off contact with most of them. Therefore, it was unlikely that they’d go running to that side of the family.

  Bunny had sworn he’d never go back to his old life, that he was steering clear of any lowlife colleagues who could drag him back. I’d believed him. Just to stay grounded, I reminded myself that this wouldn’t be the first time I’d been fooled by a former client who talked a good story. Even so, I couldn’t figure out how Bunny’s recent troubles came from his criminal past. Brugel had never figured in his life.

  Mrs. Parnell’s place would have been perfect, yet Bunny hadn’t stayed there long. And stranger still, he hadn’t found a way to let me know where they’d gone or even that they were all right. Why not?

  What would have motivated him to hide from me? Elaine and I were the only two people in the world who always stood by him, aside from Tonya, and even she had threatened to walk away if Bunny was involved in something shifty. She was raising a child, so I got that, no question. But I couldn’t imagine what circumstances would cause me to abandon Bunny.

  He should have known that. So where the hell was he?

  Bunny could have been anywhere.

  Or nowhere.

  I whipped over to Clearwater with the copied DVD and a new plan. The execution started in the mailroom on the first floor of the building I’d called home for years. I turned my attention to the mailboxes. I had Alvin’s copy of Mrs. Parnell’s keys and decided to use picking up her mail as a cover. I waited until no one was in the room, then began at one end of the mailboxes and moved along. I was checking for boxes that were stuffed with paper, signs of mail not collected for a while. By the time I’d reached the end of the bank of mailboxes, I’d identified two dozen of them, all conveniently identified by their apartment numbers. I checked as I got off the elevator and hustled down the hallway on the third floor. My hunch was that Bunny had felt exposed in 1608. Too many people knew about the connection with Mrs. Parnell and me, and he didn’t want to take a chance. Now that I’d seen what had happened to his home and what could have happened to his neighbours, in retrospect I couldn’t blame him. If it had been my family, I wouldn’t have chosen an apartment on one of the higher floors. If he needed to get out fast, close to ground level would be better.

  The third floor seemed like the place to start. I tried not to berate myself for giving a known burglar the run of the apartment building. After all, this was an emergency and an unusual one at that.

  I tried the door of 306.

  No luck. The door didn’t budge when I turned the handle. There wasn’t much I could do about that: I didn’t own burglar tools and wouldn’t have been inclined to use them if I did. The door at 310 held fast. There were extra locksets on each of these doors. I figured these people probably also invested in deadbolts that were too much for the casual break-in. By the end of the hallway, I was no better off. I took the stairs to the fourth floor and started again. At apartment 428, I paused. There was a crack of light at the edge of the door. I stuck out a finger and gave the tiniest of pushes. The door swung inward, and I popped through it without waiting. Bunny never was much for locking doors.

  Inside, Tonya’s face was swollen from crying. She slumped on the sofa in this stranger’s apartment with a blanket over her shoulders, Destiny snuggled beside her.

  “Hello,” I said, glancing around for Bunny. “Where’s—?”

  Bunny stuck his head out of the bedroom and began pacing, pale and agitated. “You found us.”

  “Hi, Tonya. Destiny.”

  “I lost my dolly. Daddy’s going to get me another one.”

  “Guess what I found?” I said, putting a finger to my lips. “He won’t have to.”

  I pulled the ragdoll from my big yellow handbag. Destiny squealed and hugged the doll, then put her hand over her mouth. “We’re not supposed to make any noise.”

  I said, “Do you and Mummy want to take your dolly into the bedroom so she can have a nap while I chat with Daddy about big people stuff?”

  “So,” I said when they’d closed the bedroom door behind them. “Thanks a lot for giving me all this grief, Bunny.”

  “Sorry, Camilla, but I had no choice. I have to protect them. I didn’t know who else might know where we were. I didn’t know that carpet guy, or if I could trust him. His kids were once in trouble with the law. They might still be connected.”

  “They’re not connected, but anyway, you can trust me.”

  “You can’t be everywhere all the time.”

  “I’m here now. And you are going to be arrested for being unlawfully in this apartment. You had access to Mrs. Parnell’s place. You didn’t have to worry about breaking the law.”

  Tonya yanked open the door to the bedroom and blurted, “You’re here unlawfully too, Camilla. Probably none of this would have happened if you hadn’t gotten involved. I think the police will have to know that.”

  I rolled my eyes, “Good thing you’re an honest citizen, Tonya, because you don’t have what it takes to make a criminal. I know that you’re stressed, but I need you to work with me. Try to remember that I have your best interests at heart.”

  Tonya sniffed before retreating to the bedroom and closing the door softly. Bunny paused in his pacing. “Did you see what happened to our house? I had the TV on with no sound just to keep Destiny amused. Tonya freaked. I hope no one in the next apartment heard her carrying on.”

  “Lucky for you, most people here work during the day. Look, I’m sorry about your house, Bunny. I know your paintings would have been destroyed too but it was a good thing that the three of you got out of it. You had a close call.”

  “Tonya and Destiny are safe. That’s all that matters. But on the news they said a woman was badly burned in the fire. Who was that? One of our neighbours?”

  “I thought it was you at first, or Tonya. I was terrified there might be three bodies. Do you have any idea how I felt about that?”

  “I never thought about it,” Bunny said. “I’m sorry, Camilla.”

  “By the time I heard about the news, I already knew that you weren’t where you were supposed to be, so guess what went through my mind?”

  “I told you, I couldn’t stay there.”

  “Whatever. You sure can’t stay here.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I used to be your lawyer, remember? I knew your MOs.”

  Bunny’s hazel eyes teared up. “I thought I’d never have to use any of those again. I’m really serious about going straight. This was a matter of life and death for…” He stared toward the closed door.

  “We have to get you out of here and into somewhere safe. You’re going to do what I tell you and not try any tricks.”

  I hoped like hell I wasn’t being a gold-plated patsy falling for Bunny’s tales. Of course, I knew if he’d planned it, he could have found a better hiding place and one that wouldn’t come with a spell in the slammer.

  “I don’t know if anywhere is safe. I saw people checking out the building. We’ve kept the lights off in the apartment just in case. But it looks over the parking lot, and I can see people watching the windows.”

  “You’re a tad too paranoid lately, Bunny, even for this weird situation,” I said. “Of course, who am I to talk? I’ve been worried that my phone or car could be bugged. Conspiracy theories dance in my head. Anyway, let’s get down to work. How about if we get you all out of here? My sisters are away, and you’ll be all right at one of their places. I have keys.”

  “I bet they’re watching you too, Camilla. Someone probably followed you here. They’ll just track us, and we’d be sitting ducks. I’m not going to ris
k it.”

  “Unlikely, Bunny. They, if there is a ‘they’ and whoever ‘they’ might be, will be looking for a family of three. We can outfox them on that front.”

  “Maybe.”

  Bunny was the picture of misery. For the first time I noticed the pronounced shake in his hand. I sat down and looked him straight in the eye. He managed to evade my scrutiny. I said, “Before we go anywhere, I need to know what your connection is with Annalisa Fillmore.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, come on, Bunny. Anyone who reads the paper knows…”

  “Dyslexia, remember?”

  “You watch television. You must see the news from time to time.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know who she is.”

  “She’s the crusading mother who has been lobbying for stiffer sentences for people who injure or kill other people while commiting a crime. She’s been advocating a return of the death penalty.”

  Bunny stared back at me uncomprehendingly.

  “Ring a bell?” I said.

  “No, and anyway, why would it? I’ve never hurt anyone in my life, Camilla. You know that’s true.”

  I did.

  “Death penalty?” he said with a shiver.

  “This would be a good time to quit dicking around, Bunny. Who is after you? And what the hell do they want?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know anyone who would want to hurt me. I mean, the guys I used to hang out with, they’re just losers, small-time crooks. They want a fix or a few bucks to blow on a weekend. They’re not evil. They might kill a person in a bar fight, or if they felt trapped in an armed robbery, but they wouldn’t chase my family. So I don’t understand. But I’m really scared.”

  “What about Brugel?”

  “What about him?” Bunny was practically gibbering by this time.

  You can’t really throttle a terrified father, so I fought off the urge. “Is there something I should know, Bunny? Something that connects you and Brugel? The kind of thing that could get your house burned down and someone killed?”

  Bunny bit his lip until it bled.