“I don’t understand.”
“Seems that with a lot of pushing from me and a bit of false evidence, enough people in Ottawa now believe you may be the rat in our midst.”
“Eli, you used to be a damn fine cop,” Parker said with what sounded like real remorse. “How could you have lost your way so badly?”
I, for one, really wanted to hear the answer to that question. Everyone in the room was hanging onto each word spoken. Glancing quickly down the line, Jean-Claude’s face showed only resignation. Tony’s looked tense but watchful. Parker’s face was dark with anger, but also showed no fear and that gave me a bit of heart. I hoped that he was just playing for time, that the cavalry might really be on the way.
Griffin paused for a moment, and it was easy to see what he was thinking by the way he moved his gun from one end of our line to the other. So far his eyes seemed to be focused only on Parker, but I became afraid that once he decided to start shooting, he’d just go on until we were all on the floor.
Griffin’s face was like stone when he finally spoke. “It’s not hard to lose your way, Parker, when the trap springs shut on someone you love, when, no matter what you do, you can’t protect them.”
Griffin was sweating, obviously in the grip of some strong emotional wash. I wondered if he was on drugs.
Parker obviously thought so, too. “It’s not the first time one of us has gotten caught up in something we shouldn’t have. We have drug rehab programs for our people. All you had to do —”
“I’m not talking about me!” Griffin snarled. “It was Laura ... my wife. The stress of not knowing when I went off to work whether I’d be coming home at the end of my shift. It took a toll on her. It only got worse when I joined the drug unit. The months when I was undercover, not knowing where I was or if I was safe, every time the phone rang or someone knocked on the door, it all took a toll on her.
“The worst part was, I didn’t notice. I was too caught up in trying to do the job right, trying to be a good cop, trying to get ahead. First it was pills, then harder stuff. I can’t believe I was too stupid to see it. If she’d only confided in me. You just don’t think it will be someone in your family, not your own wife.”
The longer Parker kept his fellow cop talking, the better our chances of staying alive. I think everyone knew that, because we were all barely breathing as we tried not to break the spell.
“So what happened, Eli? Help me understand.”
“I was handed a golden opportunity one night when I was undercover, a chance to bust one of the big boys and I could do it all by myself.”
“Mad Dog Clement? You were assigned to that surveillance.”
“Got it in one,” Griffin said, chuckling, but there wasn’t a shred of humanity in it. “Another one of those ‘moments of clarity’ you’re always prattling on about?”
“No. I just always wondered why that operation went south. We all believed we’d be able to bring that one home.”
“I had him dead to rights and he had to know it. I mean, he had all the drugs in his house. You know the big guys never do something stupid like that. I felt like I’d won the lottery, but all he did was laugh at me. I found out why when he reached under the sofa he was sitting on.
“He handed me a box and in it was all the evidence they’d ever need to get Laura busted and sent up for a long time. In order to feed her habit, she’d been dealing. Clement sat there grinning at me like a frigging hyena the whole time I looked at that stuff. Names, dates, photos, audio, video, they had it all.
“‘Now sit down, Elijah, and let’s have a little chat about what you’re going to do for me,’ was all he said. You have no idea what that was like, Parker. Having to listen to that scumbag tell me what I was going to do. He not only would have brought Laura down, but me as well. I’d worked too hard and done crap assignments for too long to let that happen.”
“So you went rogue on us. Went against everything you stood for.”
“You don’t understand!”
“No, I don’t, Eli. There had to be some other way out. You should have talked with us.”
“I couldn’t take that chance! Laura’s a stock broker. People trust her with their life savings! If even the slightest whisper of this had ever got out, she’d go down, all because of me, and I couldn’t face that. If I’d told Clement to take his evidence and stick it where the sun don’t shine, he would have dropped his bomb before I could have done anything to stop him.”
Parker’s next comment caught all of us off guard. “You ended up killing people for Clement, why not just kill him at the beginning and be done with your problem? Same thing, isn’t it?”
Griffin shook his head. “Clement may be rotten to the core, a murderer and a psychopath, but he’s not without some brains. He had himself completely covered. Besides, I never killed anyone. I only provided information.”
“Oh, don’t give me that crap. You know the law. So you didn’t actually pull the trigger, you’re still just as guilty.”
I could not hold my tongue a moment longer. “What about today? Or did you bring some of your biker buddies along to do your dirty work at the restaurant?”
Griffin licked his lips nervously. “That wasn’t supposed to happen there. Something went wrong. I don’t know what yet.”
“But you didn’t care who got killed? I suppose my death was just a bit of collateral damage you could live with? Is that it?”
“No, that wasn’t it at all.”
He said the words, but his eyes told me it was a total crock of shit. If I hadn’t spotted Tony sitting in that taverne, Jean-Claude and I would have gotten on his motorcycle and immediately been blown to kingdom come. It was just luck that truck pulled into the parking space when it did.
Lucky for us, but not for the guy in the truck and the people in the restaurant. I was feeling sick about that.
“So you did have help,” Parker stated flatly. “That’s how you got the bomb, as well as the Beretta you’re holding.”
“Henri Clement, as you well know, has reciprocal arrangements with other biker chapters in Europe. Everything was waiting for me when I got here.”
“Let me get this straight, you had help with the bomb?”
“Yes. I had to stay with the Internal Investigation boys so I’d have an alibi. I knew the guy the bikers sent was a screw-up the moment I spoke to him on the phone.” Griffin laughed. “Well, he’s going to take the fall for the bomb. That was all set up from the beginning. He has no idea who I am. He thinks I’m a biker, too.”
The chatter had been going on for several minutes, and I didn’t know about everyone else, but I was getting increasingly nervous. Zero hour was looming and I didn’t see any way out. We couldn’t keep Griffin talking forever.
The rogue cop’s watch beeped and he stole a quick glance at it. The rest of us tensed to spring, but Griffin was back a good eight feet in the cramped room.
Looking around for something that might help us, my eyes dropped to the table in front of me. Right at the edge lay my stick bag, and as usual, I had removed every single drumstick and mallet from the pockets when I’d been practising that morning. The events of the morning seemed so long ago now.
All of the sticks were made either from very hard wood or plastic. Some had large heads. I remembered how much it hurt if someone in the percussion section lost one out of sweaty hands and you happened to be in the way as it flew by.
It just might work, I thought, glancing up because Griffin was looking in my direction.
When his eyes passed on, I stole a couple of quick glances downwards, estimating how long it might take me to grab a handful or two and fling them at Griffin’s head. Two dozen pieces of wood flying at him would certainly be a big distraction. It might give someone else a chance to dive at him. I was out on that score because the table lay between the two of us. Parker was closest, followed by Tony. Jean-Claude was partially blocked by the corner of the bed.
I decided that the best course
of action would be to fling everything — sticks, mallets, and case — at the same time, then make a dive for the floor. It would be up to someone else to take the bastard out.
Sooner or later, Griffin would work up the nerve to begin shooting. It was obvious that having your victims lined up like they do for firing squads was spooking him, since all of us were staring him down. We’d only been silent for maybe ten seconds, but already it was feeling like weeks. I decided I had to move then or not at all.
As Griffin’s eyes swung once again to Jean-Claude, I made my move. Parker also chose that moment to act.
The next three or four seconds stretched for longer than seemed possible. Parker, about three steps away from the gun, started to make a vertical dive for Griffin’s knees. Unfortunately for the brave man, his counterpart was lightning quick and rapidly swung his gun down. All I heard was two loud clicks as he pulled the trigger. Parker seemed to deflate, landing hard and sliding harmlessly along the wood floor.
I only saw this out of the corner of my eye, since I was focused on grabbing the near corners of the stick bag to fling everything in Griffin’s direction with all the force I could muster. I was already well aware that if Parker hadn’t done what he did, it would have been me on the floor with the two bullets. Griffin was too fast.
The spinning pile of sticks and leather bag seemed to take forever to reach their target, and I was already diving for the floor when they hit.
Griffin, responding by instinct, raised his arms to protect his face, and it was Tony who used his foot on the corner of the bed in order to launch himself toward the startled cop.
I was partially under the table when the two bodies collided with a sickening crunch. Whose bones had broken, I didn’t know, but somebody was severely hurt. Both men slammed back into the wall between the bathroom and the apartment door and fell to the ground. They lay there stunned or knocked out, and Griffin’s gun skittered across the floor.
Before I could react, Jean-Claude was around the bed, clamping my arm in his strong grip, half dragging me toward the door and simultaneously reaching down for the gun.
“Let go!” I shouted as I squirmed against his grip. “We have to help Tony!”
Jean-Claude answered, his voice tense and low. “He won’t be in danger if we are not here!”
It couldn’t have been more than seven or eight seconds since Parker had made his desperate lunge, and I was allowing myself to be pulled out the door. Jean-Claude was right. If someone was desperate to kill him, I wanted them as far away from Tony and Parker as possible.
I started to speak but Jean-Claude slapped his hand over my mouth and brought his face close to mine. “Do not make a sound. Could you not tell he was waiting for someone?”
A moment later, the downstairs door was opening and I could hear loud, anxious talking from the entryway.
“Merde!” Jean-Claude spat out as he once again grabbed my upper arm and pulled me toward the stairway, which we bolted up.
The old stairwell had rickety metal railings, and the steps were worn and badly lit, but we ran up as fast as we could, listening to the other footsteps that we hoped would be going to the apartment we’d just left. They did.
By that time, we were up two flights and had run out of stairway. Jean-Claude tried two apartment doors, then spotted a third door, looking like it might be a closet. I hadn’t even managed to move my mouth to point this out when he smashed it open with his shoulder. In the dim light, we could see it was indeed a closet, and mounted on its right wall was a metal ladder.
Sticking the gun in his belt, Jean-Claude grabbed the rungs and looked up. Stepping into the doorway, I could see what had attracted his attention: a trapdoor in the ceiling.
“Follow me. The roof is our only hope.”
Down below, I could again hear voices and footsteps. Were more people arriving, or was the first group coming up the stairs after us? I didn’t hesitate. Jean-Claude was already at the ceiling, pushing furiously.
“Use the goddamned gun,” I whispered as loudly as I dared.
Grinning down at me, he pulled it from his belt and pounded at what I assumed was a rusty latch. Nothing happened.
Dropping down to the floor again, he raised the gun, firing off three rounds. The expelled casings hitting the stone floor made more noise than the silenced firearm. The smell from firing the gun was overwhelming in the confined space.
He again shoved the gun in his belt and launched himself up the ladder; it clanked where one of the bolts holding it was partially out of the wall.
This time the wooden trapdoor gave way with a single smash from Jean-Claude’s shoulder. Daylight flooded in as he pushed the door all the way open. His head and shoulders disappeared, then reappeared as he looked down.
“C’mon, girl! The roof is flat. We may be able to get over to the next building.”
I stuck my head out of the closet. It wasn’t loud, but several people were slowly making their way up the stairs toward us. I didn’t have to be told twice to get the hell out of there.
I pulled the closet door shut and was up that ladder in a flash. As my shoulders came through the trapdoor, Jean-Claude grabbed them and hauled me the rest of the way.
The clouds above seemed very close and rain spattered our faces. Though it was only mid-afternoon, the daylight was already sliding toward darkness. Below us in the street I could hear shouting and in the distance the sirens of emergency vehicles.
“I think help is on the way,” I said and started to walk toward the roof’s edge so I could look down.
Jean-Claude dragged me back.
Sticking his face into mine, he shook me and said, “We have only a few moments to escape. Follow me.”
He quietly swung the trapdoor shut and set out for the far side of the roof. I followed.
On the adjoining street, there was another flat-roofed building. Unfortunately, its roof was one storey lower and separated from our building by a good ten feet of alley.
“Oh well,” I said, looking at the broken concrete of the alley a long way below.
“We will have to jump.”
“Are you crazy?”
“It is our only hope.”
“We don’t even know who just came into that building. It was definitely more than one person and I don’t think that Griffin brought a whole biker gang to back him up!”
“Do you really want to take that chance? Even if it is the cops, I do not want to see them. Stay if you will, but I am going.”
I grabbed his arm. “Don’t be a fool, Jean-Claude. You could die making that jump.”
“We will both die if the wrong people come through that trap door.”
As if in answer, we heard voices down below.
“They are coming, Marta! Take my hand!”
Jean-Claude pulled the gun from under his belt and grabbed my arm with his left hand. Down in that small closet, the ladder clanked against the loose bolt. Someone was climbing.
He moved us back three steps toward the centre of the roof. “When I say three, we will run and jump as far as we can. When you hit the other roof, just roll. If you try to do anything else, you will break a bone.”
“I will break my fool neck, regardless of how much I roll!” I pried my arm from his grasp. “I’m staying here.”
I think he was about to try to convince me when we ran out of time.
The trapdoor opened a crack, then was flung back and a torso appeared in the opening. The man was dressed like a commando and he had an assault rifle. He also couldn’t fail to notice that Jean-Claude had a gun.
I moved toward the commando with my hands up and open, starting to say, “No! Wait! It’s not what you think.”
Behind me, Jean-Claude bounded toward the edge of the roof and an impossible bid for freedom.
The commando fired off three rapid shots before my husband disappeared over the edge.
Coda
As Jean-Claude disappeared over the edge of the roof, I stood frozen in horror. T
hen, as I started to move forward, knowing I’d see his still form lying on the ground three storeys below, someone grabbed me from behind, forcing me onto my stomach. At least three other men were now on the roof and they were all shouting.
Not listening to what I was trying to tell them, half in French, half in English because of my near hysteria, I was hustled back through the trapdoor without being able to see with my own eyes what had happened to Jean-Claude. On the way down, I asked if Tony and Parker were all right. I might as well have been talking to statues. The two tactical squad cops gripping me by the upper arm wouldn’t so much as grunt.
Hustled out to the street, I was locked in the back seat of a police car while two men dressed in suits stood around, apparently discussing what should be done about me.
A crowd was gathering from every direction, for the moment being held back by stern-looking gendarmes. Down at the bottom of the street on Rue Barrault, one of those news trucks pulled up and started to unfurl their satellite uplink antenna.
A few minutes later, a man I recognized came out of the building and walked over to the two senior cops. It was Constable Glover, and the last time I’d seen him he’d been the partner of Griffin, who I sincerely hoped was lying in a pool of his own blood back in that apartment.
Was he on our side or part of Griffin’s machinations?
Pounding on the window, I shouted at them to let me out. I had important information. The three men ignored me, but people in the crowd started gesturing in my direction, and not in a friendly way. I sat back, folding my arms while trying to control my anxiety. With all the law enforcement around, Glover of the RCMP wouldn’t be trying anything. At least I hoped that was the case.
Behind me, two ambulances were slowly backing down the narrow cobblestoned street. They stopped near the door of the apartment building and several paramedics piled out, two of them carrying those simple stretchers with two poles and a canvas sling between, and disappeared inside.
A minute or two later, a tall man exited the building and walked over to Glover and the other two cops. The way the two French cops immediately stood a little straighter confirmed my guess that he was in charge. Going grey around the temples, he had a weary expression that spoke of a long career, during which he’d seen too much violence.
Masques and Murder — Death at the Opera 2-Book Bundle Page 27