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

by Robert P. French

  Steve nods.

  “You have evidence?”

  “Yes.”

  Inspector Vance’s face does not give much away, but I can see wheels turning within wheels.

  A very unpleasant smile morphs on to his face. “Cathcart?”

  There is a look of amazement in Steve’s eyes. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve suspected for a while.” He sighs and shakes his head. “What’s your evidence?”

  We give him a full briefing, starting with the very first interview when Varga made a big point of being friends with Cathcart and Cathcart’s coming to our meeting to deny any closeness to Varga. He ends his pitch by handing over the transcript of his interview with Varga, signed by Varga immediately before we arrested him for Terry’s murder.

  Vance gets up from his chair and walks to the window. He looks South over False Creek and stands silent for several minutes.

  He turns. “Not a word of this to anyone.” He looks into the eyes of each of us. It’s a hard look, one which, over the years, has frightened a lot of criminals into confessing their crimes. “Steve we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

  He walks us to the door, pats Stammo on the shoulder and shakes my hand. “Rogan, you can’t mention this at your hearing tomorrow, but whatever the result, I will see that the right people get to know about your excellent work on this. Good luck tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Inspector,” I smile.

  My words evoke a memory, an itch I have to scratch.

  65

  Cal

  Monday

  I should be feeling euphoric. I have been reinstated.

  The meeting was surreal, like Kafka’s Trial but in reverse. It was held in a bright meeting room at Gravely Street and everyone was positive and smiling, almost jolly. Superintendent Cathcart was noticeable by his absence. Everyone nodded with understanding at my story of being kidnapped and force-fed heroin and the testimony of Steve and Stammo—the latter looked very tired and uncomfortable in his wheelchair—was accepted without question. The board endorsed, by acclamation, Inspector Vance’s recommendation of reinstatement.

  Despite my enthusiastic thanks to them all, inside, the thought of returning to duty makes me feel… well, I don’t really know what it makes me feel but it is not what I expected it would be.

  Immediately after the review, Inspector Vance gave me back my gun and my ID and suddenly there I was: Detective Rogan again. As I left his office, I saw a very tense Detective Eric Street sitting on a chair outside. I resisted the desire to beat the snot out of the little fuck and instead enjoyed the schadenfreude which enveloped me as I threw him a big smile. But that dissolved when I remembered that there were at least two other VPD members involved in my kidnapping. Will I spend the rest of my career wondering which of my colleagues did this to me and which of them knew about it and did nothing? I try to shake off the feeling.

  I can’t.

  Superintendent Cathcart is missing. His wife says that he received a phone call last night and left the house saying that he had to go in to work. No-one has seen him since, triggering a country-wide manhunt operation by the RCMP. A team of detectives are combing records of his history in an attempt to establish the identity of the women whom we are sure killed Varga’s wife, Mark Wright and Seth Harris.

  Inspector Vance, with his usual efficiency, has teams working on various aspects of the cases. He has sped up the DNA testing and it has just been confirmed that the blood on Varga’s shoe is from Terry Wright, making the case against him fairly tight. Everything seems to be coming together, so why do I feel that something is so very wrong?

  It’s why I’m here at the Vancouver Jail on Cordova Street. I feel a burning need to turn over every stone no matter how seemingly irrelevant.

  He walks into the room, a little unsteady on his feet, and I remember talking with Stammo about taking Terry’s killer and a couple of baseball bats into an alley. It would feel good.

  “Good afternoon, Detective Rogan,” he says. “I am afraid that without my lawyer present, I am not prepared to answer any questions.”

  Despite the fact that he has exchanged his two thousand dollar suits for prison garb, his demeanor has turned one hundred and eighty degrees and he projects his old confidence and pomposity. It is as though he never confessed to the murder of Terry Wright. I get an unpleasant twinge that maybe his lawyer has found an error in our search warrant or the way in which we obtained his confession.

  Well, there’s always the baseball bat option.

  I push the thoughts down and project my own feeling of confidence.

  “Thank you for seeing me Mr. Varga,” I say. Not that he had any option but I want to project a more subservient role right now. “May I ask how long have you known Cathcart?”

  He looks at me, weighing options, and decides there is no harm in answering this question. His eyes go up and to his right. “About two years ago, in October. The Superintendent and I met at a charity dinner sponsored by my bank.” Unbelievable! He is speaking like he will be out of here tomorrow and back to work. And his answer fuels my unease; it just does not fit with the slip of the tongue he made when Steve was interviewing him.

  “You said that Seth Harris blackmailed you into getting involved in this money-laundering scheme. When did you first become aware that Superintendent Cathcart was involved?”

  His eyes go up and to his left; he is constructing a lie. After a moment his eyes lock on mine. “No more questions without my lawyer present.” His confidence of a moment ago has slipped.

  “When you need to contact him, do you just call him at the office?”

  Varga is clearly uncomfortable with my line of questioning. He folds his arms and looks away from me. There is a fine patina of perspiration on his brow. He swallows, twice.

  “Come on Mr. Varga. None of these questions are connected with Terry Wright’s murder.”

  He looks paler than when he entered the room.

  He swallows again. “None the less…”

  “There is no need to be afraid anymore. Superintendent Cathcart has gone missing and is the subject of a nationwide manhunt.”

  “Oh my God.” He tries to stand up, grabs the table for support and flops back down into his seat. “Oh my God, no.”

  On the face of it his reaction is puzzling. He should feel better knowing that Cathcart is on the run.

  He reaches out to me. “You have to…” His breathing is heavy. This is more than just fear.

  He tips forward off the chair and does a face plant onto the linoleum floor.

  “Guard!” I shout. “Medical emergency here.”

  I kneel down beside him.

  His body is taken by a fit of trembling.

  He looks up at me. “He promised,” he croaks.

  He grabs the sleeve of my jacket and tries to draw me closer.

  “He promised. He said… said that… I… I would… be ex—”

  A gout of blood spills from his mouth.

  “GUARD!” I yell at the top of my lungs.

  His eyes flutter.

  “Who?” I ask him. “Who did this to you?”

  His front teeth bite down on his lower lip but before he can say anything, a second larger flood escapes and spreads red across the floor.

  His trembling increases.

  Then stops.

  66

  Cal

  Five hours of paperwork and interviews regarding Varga’s death are more tiring than a week of investigation.

  It’s all over and all I can feel is let down. So many people dead or hurt because one crooked cop attempted to take over a large chunk of the Vancouver drug and money-laundering businesses.

  First Varga, in a frenzy about his role in the money-laundering scheme and desperately wanting out, goes to see Mark Wright but stumbles across Terry Wright repeating the oboe code. In a moment of panic, he kills Terry to shut him up. Mutilating his body was an afterthought, an amateur’s attempt to deflect suspicion from himself, a
staid banker, and implicate Seth—in revenge for the beating he had received from Seth—by using an image that Varga had seen snooping about on his one and only visit to the Church of the Transcended Masters.

  On Cathcart’s orders, his female enforcers kill Varga’s wife to frighten Varga into staying the course.

  Then little Michael Chan, Terry’s friend, starts spouting the oboe code to me. When Cathcart hears about this, he knows that I will do everything I can to get to the bottom of it. So he takes a two-pronged approach: he gets Eric Street and some of his buddies to take me out of the picture by shooting me full of heroin and he gets his hit squad to eliminate Michael. Stammo’s good deed in taking the urine test for me delays me being suspended for just long enough to foil Michael’s kidnapping but also puts Stammo in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

  Mark Wright, knowing it’s all falling apart, uses his computer skills to steal two million dollars of the money-laundering profits and has the misfortune to ask his wife to run away with him; she rats him out to me, poor bastard. Somehow, Cathcart managed to hear about it—probably from Eric Street—and sent in his female hit squad ahead of the Tactical Support team. They staged Mark’s death as a suicide.

  With his women providing the muscle, Cathcart had no need for Seth, who was the one link between the Vancouver drug business and its former kingpin in Millhaven Prison. Seth is killed right in front of Sam, an innocent bystander.

  And last of all: Varga. His death from a virulent poison makes no sense to me. Cathcart is in the wind. He and his millions—and probably his female enforcers—are long gone. Why would he want to kill Harold Varga? Maybe to tie up loose ends. Maybe as insurance against a time when he may make a mistake and get caught; without Varga as a witness, there’s little to tie him into all this. He could say he ran away because the pressure of the job got to be too much for him.

  Everything is tied up nicely with a bow on it.

  So why does something feel so wrong to me?

  Elizabeth is sitting in the passenger seat, close to the front door. I look at her and hate myself for my weakness. When I told her about Seth’s murder, she broke down. I stayed to comfort her and—although it now feels twisted and abhorrent to me—as part of the comforting, we ended up making love. I don’t think I will ever be able to look Sam in the face. With one act, I have ruined everything that might have been.

  I cross the sidewalk and slide behind the wheel of the Healey.

  “How did it go?” she asks me.

  For a moment I am nonplussed, wondering how she knew about Varga’s death until I realize that she is talking about the disciplinary hearing with the Police Board.

  “They reinstated me. I’m a cop again.”

  It’s not the answer she was hoping for. It is another roadblock in her plan to get me to go away with her. She doesn’t yet know that the two million dollars that Mark took will be seized by the government as the proceeds of criminal activities.

  “Congratulations,” she says but her tone is empty.

  “Thanks.” Also empty.

  She looks away and I don’t know what to say to her.

  “I don’t know how I feel about going back.”

  She looks back at me, new hope in her eyes. “Does this mean—”

  “I don’t know,” I say. But I do know. And I know what I have to tell her. But not here. “Let’s go back to your place and talk about it.”

  She smiles and the look in her eyes makes me feel cold. It’s the look of victory. I try to smile back.

  She puts her hand over mine which is resting on the gear shift. There is a dreamy, little-girl look in her eyes as she looks out the window.

  I turn the key and press the starter button. As I shift into first, Elizabeth’s hand clamps down over my wrist, the grip firm; I feel a tremble pass through her. It makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want passion right now.

  I check the wing mirror and start to pull out of the parking spot.

  “It’s him,” she says, her voice a whisper.

  “Who?”

  “Him. Mark’s client. The one you asked me about. The one that frightened me. Oh my God it’s him.”

  I hit the brakes and the engine stalls. I turn in my seat to look at her.

  She is looking toward the door I just came through. Did Cathcart just go into the Gravely police station? Is he giving himself up?

  Steve is still standing there; it couldn’t have been Cathcart. Steve is looking at us, his face expressionless.

  Steve? Steve is partnered with Cathcart? Steve, to whom Stammo and I have told everything we know? No wonder Cathcart is in the wind. Steve must have tipped him off, probably before our meeting with Inspector Vance last night. Why is it always the people that I am close to who turn out to be the bad guys?

  “The tall guy in the brown jacket?” I ask. I can hear the catch in my throat.

  “What? No,” she says, “the other one. The one who just went inside.”

  A wave of relief passes through me followed by one of frustration that I can’t see through the glass doors.

  I leap out of the car, feeling the elation of the hunt mixed with the relief that it’s not Steve. He has turned to go back into the building. I call his name and he turns toward me.

  “Who just went in?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Just now, who just went into the building?”

  He reacts to the urgency in my voice. “What’s going on, Cal?”

  I grab him by the shoulders; its all I can do not to shake it out of him. “For heaven’s sake, Steve. Who just went in?”

  But I know the answer. Varga gave it to Steve in his interview. From the moment that Stammo and I first met Varga, he was very keen to remind us that he was friends with Superintendent Cathcart. He took pains to emphasize the exalted rank. Yet when Steve was questioning him, at one point he said ‘Inspector Cathcart.’

  “Who just went in Steve?” my voice is calmer.

  “Inspector Vance. Why?” I was right.

  “Wait here,” I tell him, “don’t move an inch.”

  I cross the sidewalk again, crouch down and open the passenger door. “When you saw him, did he see you?” I ask Elizabeth.

  “No, I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know.” There is panic in her voice.

  “OK, don’t worry. You’re going to be the safest person in Vancouver.”

  I take out my phone and dial.

  “Yes, Mr. Rogan.”

  “Arnold, are you at home?”

  “I am.”

  “In a about twenty minutes a woman named Elizabeth Wright is going to knock on your door. I want you to keep her safe.”

  Silence on the line, then, “Very well. How long for?”

  “A few hours. I’ll come and pick her up from you.”

  “Good. I’ll expect her; if she doesn’t show up within half an hour, I’ll call you.”

  “Thank you Arnold.”

  I give Elizabeth Arnold’s address. “You’ll be completely safe there,” I squeeze her arm, “I promise you.”

  She leans out of the car and kisses me then scrambles over the center console into the driver’s seat and straps herself in.

  “Drive safely,” I say and close the passenger door, unable to suppress a twinge that someone other than me is driving my beloved Healey.

  Already a plan is falling into place. I turn back to Steve with a grim smile on my face.

  67

  Cal

  Steve is cautious. He wants more proof than Elizabeth’s identification of Inspector Vance as her late husband’s client and he wants it before we make the next move. I was frustrated by this at first but a quick call to Stammo gave me the answer.

  We are in the Forensics Unit. “Sally, before Cal went on leave, he gave you a code to analyze. What can you tell us about it?” Steve asks.

  Sally Wilkes runs her fingers through her mane of auburn hair. “I gave it to Sarah to work on.” She looks uncomfortable.

  “And
…”

  “Well, she worked out what it was pretty quickly but…”

  “But what Sally?” Steve looks at me. We know what’s coming.

  She doesn’t speak.

  “Sally, I know that it’s a private key.” I’m trying to make it easier for her.

  It works. She sighs. “Well if you know, that’s OK then.”

  “So why didn’t you tell Cal about it?” Steve asks. “Cal tells me that Nick Stammo also called you about it and you never got back to him. Why, Sally?”

  “Orders. I was told not to divulge any information. That it was a highly sensitive matter.”

  “Who gave you those orders?”

  She is silent, looking downward, an internal debate waging.

  The good guys win the debate. “My boss, but they came from your boss, Inspector Vance. I was told to sit on all the evidence.” Again she is silent for a moment. When she speaks again, her voice is softer, she is embarrassed. “I was told that if any new evidence came in, I was to send it to Inspector Vance only. I didn’t like it; it’s not standard procedure.”

  “Oh my God,” I say.

  They both give me a questioning look.

  “Mark Wright’s supposed suicide. He called his wife from the motel. Your people were monitoring his cellphone, right Sally?”

  “Yes.” Her expression says it all. “We traced the location and informed Vance immediately.”

  “Vance knew Mark’s location before I did. Before anyone.”

  We are silent. Steve knows the implication of this and Sally Wilkes is a smart woman, she must be putting two and two together fast.

  Steve and I turn to go but I remember one other thing.

  “Sally, what about the fingerprints on the flashlight from the murder scene at the church on Oak Street. Were you told to sit on those too?”

  “No.” She looks puzzled. “When we ran those we got an ‘access denied’ message from the system.”