Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 1, 2 & 3 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

  She flinches on the word client but says nothing.

  I pause. The ethereal voices continue their chants.

  “What does he do?” I ask.

  “He’s a security expert. He helps his clients keep their computers secure. Keep out hackers. That sort of thing.”

  “So if he made a mistake and a client’s security was breached, that client might be very angry at your husband.”

  “Well, I suppose. But be realistic, detective. Business people don’t go around killing children to make a point.”

  I would agree with her, were it not for the fact that the most important case of my life was a murder committed for business reasons. I don’t see how a child’s murder could possibly be connected with business… which makes it a line of questioning worth following.

  “So why did you say that I should ask your husband about that?”

  “As I said, I was distraught.”

  She smiles at me in a way that I find subtly seductive. The hair she tucked behind her ear escapes and falls forward over her eye. She ignores it.

  “Are you sure there’s no-one your husband knows who might be in some way involved in Terry’s death?”

  “No. No, of course not.” And I know to a certainty that she is covering something up. I look hard into her eyes and she repeats, “No.”

  Without breaking eye contact, I change tack again, “Oboe is blood. What does that mean to you Mrs. Wright.”

  “Nothing. It was just something that Terry had been saying before he…” Her voice peters out. “He kept repeating it and a bunch of other gibberish. It annoyed Mark which just made Terry do it all the more.”

  “What sort of gibberish?” If Elizabeth remembers, I will have more of the hex. Maybe enough for Damien to shed some light on this bizarre murder.

  “Oh it was just letters and numbers like he was spelling something out, with the odd word thrown in.”

  “Do you remember any of it?”

  “No.” She is becoming irritated. “It was just gibberish.”

  “What was gibberish?” Mark Wright’s voice cuts through the chanting coming from the CD player.

  He is standing in the doorway. The volume of the music must have covered the sounds of his return. He is wearing a nicely tailored suit and is carrying an expensive-looking leather satchel. It looks heavy and I’m guessing that it carries a laptop computer. If they are living in this tiny little house with its shabby furniture because of some financial setback, I wonder where the money for all this computer equipment comes from.

  “What was gibberish?” he repeats.

  “You know,” replies his wife, “that oboe thing that Terry used to say.”

  “Oh, that,” he says dismissively setting my antennae twitching.

  I stand. “Mr. Wright, when I was here on Tuesday afternoon, I asked you if O – B – O – E meant anything to you. You said no. That wasn’t true was it.”

  He literally squirms for a moment. “Well, I didn’t make the connection,” his voice has an angry ring to it. “I mean it was the day after I learned my son had been murdered. I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t know…”

  “His friend Michael said ‘Oboe is blood.’ Please tell me what that means,” I ask.

  “Nothing. It was all part of their fantasy game playing.” He takes a deep breath to calm himself. “I assure you detective, it has no relevance to Terry’s death.”

  Now I know it does.

  “Tell me about your business, Mr. Wright.”

  It is like a sobering slap in the face. He goes pale and his face becomes a blank.

  “Detective, my wife and I are the victims here. If you want to interrogate me about my business, you can wait until I get my lawyer involved. So, unless you have any other questions, I suggest you leave right now.”

  I hold his gaze for a good five seconds before saying. “Thank you, Mr. Wright, Mrs. Wright.”

  I turn and go.

  This has been a frustrating interview in many ways. I have gained no new insights into the Church of the Transcended Masters nor into the meaning of ‘oboe is blood’ except that it is in some way relevant to Terry’s death.

  However, I may have gained something far more valuable: a viable theory of the crime.

  20

  Cal

  Stammo is not a happy camper. “I said you could go and interview the chick in the church by yourself. Not the Chinese kid and Elizabeth Wright. What the hell were you thinking?”

  I want to tell him that I got some information that I would not have got if he had been with me. But I keep my counsel, knowing, like Benvolio, if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

  “I’m sorry Nick. I just thought—”

  “Well don’t. And when I call you, you fucking answer, OK?”

  There is a tiny fleck of saliva on the corner of his mouth, a tiny perfect sphere.

  “Yeah, Nick. I’m sorry about that.”

  “I don’t know how to write this up,” he mutters, as much to himself as to me.

  He gets up from his desk, exhales loudly and walks to the window.

  And then it clicks with me. Stammo is as unhappy about his being my minder as I am. In a strange way it creates a bond between us. Now I feel guilty doing the interviews without him.

  “I really am sorry, Nick,” I repeat.

  He nods without turning back.

  After a long pause, “What did you get?”

  I tell him about my visits to the church, the Chan family and Elizabeth Wright and the ideas that are forming around them. He focuses on the one item I knew he would.

  “So your buddy from school, the Goth guy, says that ‘oboe is blood’ is a hex. That’s like a curse, right?” He ponders this. “So Terry and his friend are going around repeating this curse and Terry gets killed for it, maybe by someone from the church.”

  “It’s a bit of a stretch, Nick.”

  “Stranger things have happened.” He looks ruffled. “Some of those churches down Oak Street can be pretty weird.”

  “What I find more interesting is Elizabeth’s reaction this morning after she peeked through the curtain and then came to the door. For a moment, her face was all lit up until she saw it was me. I’m sure that through the curtains she mistook me for Seth, the brother of the minister.”

  “So you think she might be having an affair with this Seth character?”

  “Yeah. And I don’t trust that guy at all. When I saw him yesterday, I got a really bad vibe from him and when I mentioned Terry’s mutilations, the minister said ‘How could he?’ I thought that Seth might have killed Terry. She was his only alibi.”

  “Why would he kill the kid, other than for repeating the hex?”

  “What if he is having an affair with Elizabeth and wants her to leave her husband but she won’t, because of Terry. So Seth kills Terry to take away that excuse.”

  “That’s a bit of a stretch too… but not impossible. Either way, the Church of the Transcended Masters could do with another visit.”

  “I’d like to take along a little prop that might get her talking,” I say. When I tell him what it is, his smile is feral.

  On the way here, we talked about the fact that Marguerite Varga, our hit and run victim, was a member of the church. There is no logical connection between the cases and Stammo thinks it is a coincidence but my gut tells me that there is a link, though for the life of me, I cannot fathom what it might be.

  Morgan Harris opens the door to us with a look of annoyance on her face. She is dressed in a tight angora sweater and blue jeans and I wonder if her irritation is due to the fact that we have arrived unannounced and that she was unable to greet us in her white surplice. Again, I feel the stirrings of attraction and she catches my gaze and gives me a disconcerting look that tells me she knows what is going on in my mind.

  “Miss Harris,” says Stammo, now back in charge, “we would like a moment of your time.”

  “Unfortunately, this is not a very convenient time for me.”
Her voice is brittle. “And it’s Reverend Harris.”

  “Well Reverend Harris, let me remind you that two members of your church have been murdered in the last seven days. I would have thought that you would want to help us find out who killed them.”

  She wilts under Stammo’s barrage. “I’m sorry. Come in please.” She leads us through a door to the right of the church’s main room and into a kitchen. “I was having some tea. Can I offer you a cup.”

  “No thanks,” Stammo answers for both of us. “Is your brother here?”

  “Uh, no.” She was not expecting the question.

  “We wanted to ask him about his affair with Elizabeth Wright.”

  For a beat, she does a pretty good imitation of a goldfish. Just long enough to invalidate any denial that she might have considered. Stammo and I stay silent, waiting for her to speak.

  Five seconds… ten seconds… “Well, I, uh, really can’t comment.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  “We will. Where is he right now.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  I remember my meeting with Elizabeth earlier this morning: how she was dressed and the look in her eyes. “He’s with her now, isn’t he?” I ask.

  “No… I don’t know…” She looks from me to Stammo and back. Then she sighs. “Yes,” she capitulates.

  “How serious is it?” Stammo’s voice has an unaccustomed gentleness to it.

  “For her, it is very serious.”

  “And for him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…” She casts about with her eyes. “Seth is a charismatic man, women are drawn to him. I think many see an element of danger in him that they find attractive. But he is not… well, a one-woman man.”

  This weakens the already-slim theory that Seth killed Terry to break her link to her husband, leaving room for a much more unpleasant thought. Two of them, in fact.

  “Does her husband know?” I ask. Husbands have been known to kill their own children to punish their wives; although I must say, Mark Wright doesn’t look the type.

  “I don’t know but please promise me you won’t tell him.” I wonder if the look of horror on her face is for the hurt that would be caused to Mark Wright or the damage that a scandal might do to her church.

  Stammo uses her reaction. “If you are completely forthcoming with us, we may not need to discuss the matter with Mr. Wright.”

  During Stammo’s questioning, my eyes have been sweeping the kitchen and on the counter I see a dog collar. It is studded like the collar of a goth might wear and has an engraved nameplate. I walk over and pick it up, which gets a reaction from Morgan Harris. She is about to say something to me when Stammo snaps, “Reverend Harris?”

  “Oh, uh… yes. I’ll tell you anything I can.” She keeps her eyes on me.

  “What was the connection between Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Marguerite Varga?” Stammo asks.

  She is caught by the change of subject. “Well nothing really. They knew each other of course but they were not particularly close. They were from quite different backgrounds. I guess the only thing they had in common was the fact that their husbands both came to the church once and then never came back a second time.”

  “Did their husbands come on the same day?” I ask.

  “No, months apart.”

  Stammo looks at me and nods.

  I put the dog’s collar back on the counter. “Would you come with me please, Reverend Harris,” I say as I lead her out of the kitchen and into the main hall. I head for the black-draped picture on the far wall, the one I looked at on our first visit. I turn and wait for her to catch up to me and notice that Stammo is not behind her. I point to the mutilated body in the foreground and take the prop from my pocket: a five-by-seven photo of Terry’s face, taken by the pathologist. “Wouldn’t you say that it is more than likely that one of your parishioners, someone familiar with this painting, killed Terry?”

  She is transfixed by the horror of the photo. “It can’t be,” she whispers.

  “What can’t be?” I ask quietly. I sense Stammo moving up behind me.

  “None of our members could do this to a child.”

  “Well I want you to think about who might have done this? Who apart from your members or their guests might have seen this picture and carved up Terry’s face?”

  “No-one!” she sobs. “The black pictures are covered when we have guests at our open houses, so it couldn’t be a guest and none of our members would do such a thing.”

  “Reverend Harris, I would like you to think long and hard about this and contact me if you have any information that might lead us to Terry’s killer. Any information at all.” I put the photo and my business card into her hand.

  As per our plan for this interview, we head toward the front door.

  On the way to the car, I tell him my speculation about the significance of the three letters engraved on the dog’s collar lying on the kitchen counter.

  “I told you,” he says with his feral smile.

  21

  Cal

  “No, no. Not that one,” he snaps. “That’s mine. The Mac was hers.” His tone implies that he regards his late wife’s computer as a lesser life form. He really is a pompous ass. Yet Sam’s opinion of him keeps coming to mind. Sam is rarely wrong about people; is his attitude the result of some feelings of guilt?

  Stammo and I are here to pick up Marguerite Varga’s computer. Normally someone from Forensic Services would do this but Steve got some pressure from his boss, Inspector Vance. Varga complained to Superintendent Cathcart that not enough was being done to find his wife’s killer, so we need to be ‘more visible.’ Cathcart’s name again gives me that familiar sinking feeling.

  Now that we are here, in the study at Varga’s home, we intend to make good use of the visit. As I unplug the Mac from a power bar under the desk, Stammo asks, “Do you think your wife’s death could be connected to your gambling, sir?”

  There is a tiny pause and I am furious at Stammo for asking the question while I am on my hands and knees under the desk and cannot scrutinize Varga’s face.

  “I beg your pardon, Detective Stammo,” he says, his tone acerbic, “what did you just ask me?” He is playing for time.

  Stammo surprises me. He is usually deferential toward people who have influence with the department’s brass but not now that Cathcart has given us the all clear signal. “I think you heard me, sir,” he says evenly.

  This time the pause is longer and gives me time to get to my feet. I notice that the study walls are covered in photos of Marguerite and Harold Varga: in formal wear; on the beach; sitting at a table in a Mexican restaurant with big glasses of Sangria in their hands and bigger grins on their faces. I remember the photo that he gave us in his office, the one that Sam took, they looked happy in that one too.

  “As you know, Detective Stammo, gambling is legal in Vancouver. Are you inferring that I am somehow mixed up with criminals because I like to place the occasional wager?” His tone makes me want to take him down a peg by pointing out his misuse of the word infer but then the thought makes me feel small-minded and petty.

  “I wasn’t saying that, sir,” Stammo replies.

  “Then what were you saying?”

  “So where do you gamble, sir?” I interject.

  Varga pauses again.

  “Well… not that it’s any of your business but I usually go to either the Edgewater or the River Rock.” The casinos he has named are the largest ones within a twenty minute drive from this house. It’s an obvious answer and I don’t believe it.

  Nor does Stammo. “Do you have any gambling debts, sir?” he asks.

  Varga is angry now and that anger is covering something. I’m sure of it.

  “Casinos do not let people run up debts, Detective. You should know that. One buys chips with a credit card.” The condescension in his voice drips everywhere.

  I make him regret what he has said with, “Could we see yo
ur credit card statements then sir?” the innocence of the question writ large on my face.

  For a second his eyes seek a way out. He knows those credit card statements are going to reveal a side of him that he wants to keep secret. Then, with a supreme effort, he takes a deep breath and calms down. I am convinced that his gambling is connected to his wife’s death and that he knows it. I know first-hand the guilt that comes when a loved one dies because of one’s own actions. I know how that pain can be masked by anger and, out of nowhere, I feel a great empathy for the pompous Harold Varga and the pain he must be feeling. I regret the question I just asked.

  “Thank you for your time Mr. Varga,” I say quietly. “We are very sorry for your loss.”

  He looks at me for a moment and nods. I see a tear forming in the corner of his eye.

  “Just a couple of other things.” There is a hard edge of anger in Stammo’s voice now.

  “No, Detective. No more. Not now.”

  The glare I get from Stammo is a harbinger of his wrath. It takes me all my control not to squirm physically.

  22

  Cal

  I am still stinging from the apoplectic tongue-lashing I got from Stammo for curtailing the interview with Varga. He was right of course. I shouldn’t have let my own guilt from my recent past have clouded my judgment but I did. He was so mad he made me single-handedly load Marguerite Varga’s computer and three boxes of files into the back of the Crown Vic.

  Once he calmed down, we talked about the interview and Varga’s reactions. His gambling is almost certainly connected to his wife’s death. Despite the legalization of gambling, there are still a number of high stakes, illegal games and bookies in town. Stammo and I agreed that he probably owes a ton of money to some underworld character. Stammo figures either he killed her for the insurance money to pay off his debts or his creditors killed her as a lesson to him.

  But, as I think about it now, something about those photos in his study—combined with Sam’s opinion of Varga—tells me that he was in love with his wife and that he wouldn’t kill her. And if he was in debt to some illegal gambling operation, they wouldn’t kill his wife. That would just encourage him to go to the police. Anyway, gambling operations aren’t like drug gangs, they don’t kill people at the drop of a hat. The connection between his wife’s death and his gambling has got to be a lot more subtle than I can yet fathom but I know it’s there. Somewhere.