“Please leave, Harry,” she sobbed.
George, noticing Maggie’s distress, joined them and put his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s find you a cup of coffee. And,” he said, turning to Harry, “I don’t know who you are, but do as the lady says. Go.”
“How dare you!” Harry spluttered, drawing himself upright. “I am her husband. And I’m taking her straight back to Vancouver and . . . and . . . sanity.”
“I don’t care who you are. She told you to scram, so scram!”
“I am a lawyer,” Harry shrilled.
“And I’m a cop,” Sawasky growled, and taking Maggie firmly by the elbow, he led her away.
“You’ll regret this, Margaret,” Harry bellowed as they went down the hall toward the cafeteria.
It was quite late by the time the doctor allowed Maggie and George to see Nat. Pale-faced, he was lying back against a pillow, with his plastered leg resting in an overhead sling. “It’s so good to see you both,” he said weakly. “What’s happened to the others?”
George, who had managed a brief conversation with Brossard before accompanying Maggie to Nat’s room, filled him in. “Guthrie and Nordstrom have been attended to and they’re in the next room under guard.” He moved toward the door. “Brossard’s coming in the morning. He’ll tell you everything. Meanwhile, I’m bushed.”
“You look all in, too,” Nat said to Maggie after George had departed. He took her hands in his. “What’s this I heard about Harry turning up?”
“Who told you that?”
“Brossard came in to see me. He said Harry was making one hell of a fuss in the waiting room.” He tried to shift his weight. “Are you going back to Vancouver with him?”
“Don’t be foolish. I’m staying right here with you. We’ll go back together when you’re able to travel.”
“But . . . ”
“No buts. George and I will get rooms over at the hotel for tonight and we’ll be back in the morning.” And she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. “Oh, Nat. I was so worried about you.” She let the tears run down her face unchecked.
Nat brushed them away. “You’re one hell of a trooper, Maggie. Don’t you ever dare leave me.”
When she returned to the ground floor, she found that George was talking to Harkness, Brossard and Teasdale. “Where are the others?” she asked.
“Kate and Jamie have been allowed in to see Guthrie,” George answered. “I’ve just been telling Corporal Brossard about us searching the cottage for the ransom money.”
“We both searched,” Maggie said. “It’s funny, because we found the briefcase, and it had been with the ransom money when I went into the old mine the first time.”
“Ransom money?” Jerry Harkness mused, and they all turned to look at him. “I bet I know where it is.”
“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.
“Vivienne. She’s gone.”
“Gone!”
“Yep. Left a note saying she’s fed up being tied to me, and that she’s off to greener pastures.” He shook his head sadly. “Been expecting it for some time,” he added ruefully. “But you can bet your boots that she wouldn’t have left unless there was money involved.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Sawasky asked. “Were you hoping she’d turn up?”
“No. I came to give Kate some moral support,” he answered.
“I think she’ll need a lot of it in the next few days.”
Brossard stood and replaced his cap on his head. “Well, I guess that’s everything for now . . . ”
“Just a minute,” Maggie interrupted. “Jerry, Vivienne had been married before she married you, hadn’t she?”
“Oh yes. To a fellow named Sean O’Connor.”
“The sixth partner,” Brossard said.
“Not him,” Maggie contradicted. “Her. The sixth partner was V.M. O’Connor. Vivienne M. O’Connor. So she lost all her money in the Shadow Lake Mine, too.”
“And that’s why she married me,” Jerry said. “How could I have been so dumb?”
The RCMP office was on the same street as the Williams Lake Memorial Hospital, so the following morning, Brossard walked along to visit Nat, who was propped up in bed, his leg still elevated. Maggie was seated at his bedside.
“I hear that Mr. Teasdale has agreed to fly you back to Vancouver,” Brossard said, handing Nat a bag of grapes, then settling into a chair.
“Yes,” he answered, “I’m being transferred to the Vancouver General. By the way, where’s George?”
“Outside. He’ll be in to say goodbye before heading home.”
“Sawasky tell you about the skeleton in the mine, Brossard?”
Nat asked.
Brossard nodded. “Oh, yes.” He turned to Maggie. “It looks as if you were right about the kidnapping, and we’re sure that skeleton will turn out to be Leonard Smith.”
“What about Vivienne Harkness?” Maggie asked.
“Early to tell. But it looks as if she was mixed up in everything.” he answered. “When I told Guthrie that she’s split with the money, he started to spill his heart out. I think he gave it to her to look after, and when she realized we were onto him and Nordstrom, she took it and ran.”
“Do you think you’ll find her?”
“Sooner or later we Mounties always get our woman.” And he grinned. “Anyway, we’ve put out an APB on her.”
“But how did she know we were on to Guthrie?” Maggie asked.
“Kate Guthrie told me that Nordstrom had called someone on the radio phone. We think it must’ve been her.” He turned back to Maggie. “I have to hand it to you, Mrs. Spencer, that was very courageous to go and look for Southby on your own.”
“We’re partners, Corporal,” she answered him with a smile.
“When are you going back to Vancouver?”
“Today. I’m flying back with Nat.”
“Look, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot.” Brossard stood up and put his hand out to her. “I guess I was out of line.”
Maggie shook it and gave him an impish grin. “Well, we’ll soon be out of your hair.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A week after their return from Shadow Lake, George Sawasky called Southby’s Investigations to say that he would be collecting Nat from the hospital and stopping by the office with him so they could all hear his update on the Cariboo affair.
“The boss, he be his old self?” Henny asked.
“I doubt it,” Maggie answered. “The cast itches, the bullet wound hurts, he’s bored to death, and he’s sure I’m not running the office properly. In fact,” she finished with a chuckle, “he’s ready to come back to work.” He had been driving Maggie and Henny to distraction with his constant phone calls—to see how things were going.
“He be using the clutch things?”
“You mean crutches,” Maggie answered.
“Ja, I said clutches,” Henny answered, reaching for the phone. “Ah! It is that nice sergeant,” she said, handing it to Maggie.
“Have some coffee ready, Maggie,” Sawasky said. “We’re on our way.”
“It is exciting, ja?” Henny said, as she lugged Nat’s chair to the outer office. “Easy for boss to sit when Sergeant Sawasky tell us all.”
Maggie smiled. And easier for you to hear everything too.
“They here!” Henny, who had been anxiously watching from the window for her boss, ran to the door. But it took several minutes before the ancient elevator creaked to their floor and a pale-faced Nat hobbled in and collapsed into his chair. Henny immediately rushed over, lifted the plaster-encased leg and rested it on an upturned wastepaper basket. He looked imploringly at Maggie who was doing her best to hide a smile.
“You’ve got some answers for us, George?” Maggie asked, as soon as everyone was settled.
“Where to start?” George said and paused teasingly.
“The skeleton, ja,” Henny chimed in. “I want to hear about the bones.”
Maggie laugh
ed. “Yes, George. Let’s hear about the skeleton.” Maggie would never forget the shock of stumbling onto it.
“Right! The skeleton. It was definitely Leonard Smith. Not only did the dental records prove it was him, but his widow identified his watch and the scraps of clothes found on him.”
“How terrible for her,” Maggie said sadly.
“Yes,” George answered, “but at least she now knows what happened to him.”
“Ja,” Henny said, passing cups of coffee around. “She is going to have a big funeral now.”
“How about the briefcase?” Maggie asked. “I’m sure it was the same one that I found earlier.”
“It was,” George answered. “Guthrie’s prints were all over it.”
“I suppose he was making sure that no one would find it again.”
“Who did the actual kidnapping?” Nat asked.
“What is kidnapping?” Henny questioned as she settled down to listen.
“It means abduction,” Maggie explained.
“Oh, I see.” But Maggie could see that Henny was wrestling with that word too.
Sawasky continued, “We think it must’ve been Guthrie, Nordstrom and Sarazine, though Guthrie and Nordstrom are denying everything. But Guthrie was no newcomer to kidnappings. I eventually got the report from the Seattle police, and it says that they were on the verge of arresting him on an abduction case when he’d skipped out of the US, supposedly to take over his father’s Wild Rose Ranch.”
“Yes. Just before the war.”
“That’s right.”
“Was Vivienne Harkness part of the kidnapping scheme?” Maggie asked.
“I’m sure she was.”
“But the kidnapping went wrong?” Nat said.
“Yes. They knew Smith from having approached him as a potential investor, but didn’t know that he had a bad heart. They got the $750,000 ransom money, but they had a corpse on their hands and couldn’t figure out how to explain away the money.”
There was a sudden gasp from Henny. “Poor man,” she said sadly. “Like my aunt Wilhelmina. She has bad heart.”
“Hence the explosion!” Maggie said, ignoring Henny’s aunt’s bad heart.
Sawasky nodded. “Right. They couldn’t risk using the ransom money to openly develop the mine, so they decided to blow up the entrance and bury Smith inside it. What they didn’t know was that Fenwick was in the mine at the time. Luckily for them, the police found Fenwick first and didn’t check any further down the shaft.”
“Chandler and Fenwick weren’t in on the kidnapping, then?” Nat asked.
“It doesn’t look like it. Guthrie just told them they’d have to close down operations because Nordstrom had been unable to raise more capital, and the two of them went back to pick up their gear. Fenwick was still inside when they set off the charge.”
“And Chandler got blamed for it,” Nat said.
“Yep. At his trial, the Crown produced witnesses who had seen the two men having a drunken brawl the night before.”
“But how did they find out that Fenwick was in the mine?” Maggie asked.
“Chandler.” Sawasky answered. “According to him, he had been in the mine when Fenwick showed up, and they picked up their fight where they’d left off the night before. He admitted slugging Fenwick and knocking him out, but he insisted that he was still alive when he left him in the mine.”
“And no one would believe him,” Nat said.
“They found dynamite and caps when they searched his cabin. Also, he was known for his foul temper. He was the perfect fall guy.”
“What about Sarazine?” Maggie asked quickly, before Henny could ask what a fall guy was. “What was he doing on the old mine road?”
“Putting two and two together, I think he got greedy. Guthrie and Nordstrom had been dipping into the ransom money a little at a time over the years to avoid suspicion, and giving Sarazine enough to keep him quiet, and then they found out that he had been helping himself as well. When Chandler appeared back on the scene, it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of Sarazine and blame his death on Chandler.”
“Do you think Guthrie shot Sarazine?” Nat asked.
“I’m putting my bet on Vivienne.”
“Then it was Vivienne who shot at me?” Maggie mused.
Sawasky nodded. “Looks like it. But to ease your mind, I think she was just trying to scare you off.” He smiled at her. “With her shooting accuracy, I think she’d have got you if she really wanted to.”
“But why did Guthrie do his disappearing act?” Maggie asked.
“Same reason. To avert suspicion. If he was out of the picture, then it had to be Chandler who killed Sarazine. I guess he and Nordstrom thought no one would suspect Vivienne.” Then he added, “But I think it was Guthrie who killed Chandler.”
“And he must’ve seen you that day at the old mine, Maggie,” Nat chimed in.
“And he started that rock slide.”
“I would think so. Probably saw you speaking to Chandler, too.”
“So Chandler had to be killed.”
“Guthrie must’ve been worried that you were getting too close to the truth for comfort.”
“What about the others mentioned on the contract?” Nat asked.
“I was coming to that,” Sawasky said, grinning. “Jock Macleod was included, like the other two, just to do the hard work of the mine. The real work.”
“If they were hired just to get the mine going, their share must have been nominal.”
“And Jerry Harkness?” Maggie said. “How does he fit into all this?”
“He insists he knew nothing about any of it, and I believe him. He had no part in the mine, and in fact, he told me that he and Vivienne were on the verge of splitting up when he had that terrible riding accident that paralyzed him.”
“Was it an accident?” Maggie asked. “He insists that he heard a gunshot just before the thunder.”
“Brossard had a long talk with Hendrix,” George answered. “He knew nothing about the kidnapping, but he was always very suspicious about Jerry Harkness’ accident. He had no proof, as Vivienne immediately had the animal put down and buried. If there was a shot, I’m putting my money on Vivienne as the shooter.”
“To collect his insurance money,” Nat suggested.
George nodded and stood up. “Well, I must go. Do you want me to run you home?” he asked Nat.
Nat shook his head. “No. I’m going to go over a few things with Maggie.”
“I’ll take him home, George,” Maggie said.
“I’ll be glad to settle down to normal, unexciting investigations,” Maggie said after George had left and she and Henny had helped Nat into his own office.
“Me too,” he answered, painfully shifting his leg. “And I’ll be damn glad to get this cast off.”
Maggie could see it was going to be a very long five weeks before his wish came true.
“You sit quiet, Mr. Nat,” Henny said, patting his shoulder. “I make you tea.” She beamed at him. “I got your favourite—chamomile.”
“Don’t bother, Henny.”
“No bother. Do you good.”
After she had left, he turned to Maggie. “I hate chamomile!”
Maggie laughed. “She’s worried about you.”
“Have you heard from Kate?”
“No. But I feel so sorry for her,” Maggie said as she spread out the new files on his desk.
“Any idea what she’s going to do?” Nat asked.
“She wants to come back to Vancouver,” Maggie answered slowly. “Jodie’s asked me to give up my suite so she can move in there for awhile.”
“Are you going to?” Nat asked.
“I don’t think I have a choice.”
“You could always move in with me,” Nat said, but his tone said he didn’t expect her to say yes.
Smiling, she shook her head.
“Think about it.”
“I’m still married to Harry, Nat,” she said gently.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he answered. There was a long silence between them. “Have you got your cat back yet?” he asked at last.
“I’m going to collect her from Harry tonight.”
“Can’t you get one of your daughters to do that for you?” he asked, remembering Harry’s performance in Williams Lake.
“No. It’s something that I have to do for myself,” she answered.
• • •
HARRY WAS WAITING for her when she arrived to collect Emily. “Come in, Margaret,” he said calmly, as though nothing had happened. He led the way into the living room.
“How’s your mother?” Maggie asked. “Is she here?”
Harry shook his head. “No. I took everyone’s advice and got a nurse for her. She’s in pain but doing quite well at home.”
Maggie relaxed a little. At least she would not have to face the old battle-axe as well. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you, Harry,” she said, “but you know, even if I’d been here, I wouldn’t have looked after her.”
“I know that, Margaret,” he answered. “You and Mother have never been that close. Why don’t you sit down? I’ve made coffee.”
As Maggie sat, Emily appeared in the kitchen doorway. The cat walked sedately over to her and sprang onto Maggie’s lap. Gathering the cat up into her arms, she snuggled her face into the soft fur as she looked around the familiar room. It hadn’t really been such a bad life here.
“She’s very fond of you,” Harry said, putting a china mug of coffee in front of her. “I think she’s missed you.” Then, pulling a chair up to the table, he said, “There’s something I’d like to ask, Margaret.”
Maggie took a sip of her coffee. “What is it, Harry?” she asked, steeling herself for a fresh round of unpleasantness.
“Mr. Crumbie is having his annual tea party next week and . . . ” he hesitated for a moment before continuing, “would you consider going with me? You see, I’ve never told him or Mrs. Crumbie that we are . . . we are living apart.”
Margaret looked at her husband of twenty-eight years. She realized that they had been through a lot together; they had two beautiful daughters and now a grandson. Harry was stuffy and she knew he would never change. And she knew, too, there was no way she could ever go back to the old relationship. But he had driven all that way to the Cariboo to rescue her, and she owed him this. “Yes, Harry,” she said, “I’d love to go.”
In the Shadow of Death Page 21