Drumm moved back in front of Gill. “You remember I said you’d have a choice? Here it is, then. Continue your denials and we hand you over to Lieutenant Colonel Perez and the Cuban government. You’ll get an all-expenses-paid Cuban vacation for the rest of your life. Have you ever seen the inside of a Cuban prison? It doesn’t need to happen. Tell us all the details of Kathy Walters’s death and you’ll stay here.”
“We have the death penalty in Cuba,” said Perez, looking at Gill. His English was very good.
“Hanging?” asked McDonald.
“Firing squad.”
McDonald laughed. “Talk about being between a rock and a hard place!”
“We’ll let you think about it,” said Drumm. “Gentlemen?”
The three detectives left the room without another look at Gill.
Out in the hall, Drumm introduced Perez to Lori who was looking a little bemused. “Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to earlier when I brought him in.”
“I understand now,” said Lori. “How much of that in there was true this time, Nick?”
Drumm smiled. “Almost all of it. Although it is a lot harder to extradite a suspect than I made out. The courts get involved and the Minister of Justice and God knows who else. It’s not simple.”
McDonald turned to Perez. “Lieutenant Colonel, are you really here to take him back with you?”
Perez said, “If I can bring him back, I will. We would like to interview him some more.”
“Do you really have the death penalty?” asked McDonald.
“Si,” said Perez. “But it has been many years since we executed anyone.”
Drumm said, “Lieutenant Colonel Perez knows that there’s very little chance Gill would be going home with him. He’s here as a favour to me, more or less.”
“So it’s a bluff,” said McDonald.
“Partly,” agreed Drumm. “It would be a lot simpler to put him away for killing Kathy Walters.”
“What do you think he’ll do?” asked McDonald.
“We may be about to find out,” said Lori, pointing at the window, where Gill was gesticulating with his arms. He was clearly agitated.
Drumm smiled. “Let’s go see what he has to say.”
McDonald said to Lori, “You go in this time, love. Maybe the sight of your beautiful face will cheer him up.” He turned to Perez. “It’s cold out, Lieutenant Colonel, but we can’t smoke inside. Can I interest you in a Cohiba?”
Perez smiled for the first time. “Si,” he said.
thirty-four
“So you think you’ve won?” Drennan was sitting at his desk, fiddling with a row of pens which he had lined up nicely on his desk blotter. He was avoiding looking at Drumm even though he’d summoned him to his office.
“It’s not a question of winning, sir,” said Drumm. “You should know that.”
“Should I?” Drennan suddenly looked up at Drumm. “Feeling pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you? You shouldn’t be. You took far too long to solve that case. If you’d been faster about it, that last young woman wouldn’t have been raped.”
“You can always tell Susan Benitez that when you have your press conference, sir,” said Drumm. “I’m sure she’d run with it.” He looked out the window and wished he was anywhere but here. What was the point of this?
“Don’t be insolent, Drumm,” Drennan said sharply. “Or I’ll have you up on charges.”
Drumm said nothing. He knew as well as Drennan did, that if the Staff Inspector was going to charge Drumm, he would have done it by now. And how would that look, just after the Riverwood Rapist had been found and put behind bars?
Drennan said, “I understand Gill confessed to stabbing Kathy Walters.” Drennan had picked up a pen and was turning it idly in his hands. “Funny how that Cuban detective showed up like that. Remarkable.”
So this is what this is about, thought Drumm. “No, sir, not really. I arranged it. I was certain there was a connection between the Cuban death and Kathy Walters.”
Drennan ignored him. “Yes, remarkable. Especially when I told you specifically not to get involved in that Cuban death. I ordered you, in fact.” He looked up suddenly. “Do you recall that, Drumm?”
“I do, sir. But then it became clear to me that the deaths of Mike Kennedy and Kathy Walters were related. And I didn’t have time to run my ideas by you, so I went ahead and got Perez up here. It worked out okay, don’t you think?”
Drennan looked at him and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Some people might call that disobedience of a direct order. Or insubordination.”
“Not really, sir, no. I felt sure that if I’d had the time to get your approval, you would have agreed. But time was of the essence, so, as it was, I had to move quickly and well…the results speak for themselves. Another case cleared.”
“Going behind my back like that, contacting the RCMP, calling down to Cuba, bringing that Lieutenant Colonel up here.” He leaned back in his chair, the twirling pen still in his hands. “It’s all noted in your file here, Drumm. All documented – your wilful disregard of direct orders, your insubordination, your refusal to keep me informed. It’s all on your docket.”
“Yes, sir.” Drumm thought, is that all? He really didn’t care what was written down on a piece of paper. It was results that counted, and the clearance rate. “Will that be all?”
“Enjoy your little triumph while you can, Drumm. I hope it was worth it to you. Because this isn’t the end of it.”
“It was good police work, Staff Inspector. And while we’re talking about this, I would like to put forward a commendation for Detective Lori Singh. Her behaviour was exemplar, and she put herself in extraordinary danger. She should be recognized for that.”
“I think you mean exemplary, Drumm.” Drennan stood up abruptly. “Don’t press your luck. Now get out of here.”
“Sir.” Drumm turned on his heel and left Drennan’s office. He couldn’t help a little smile as he passed Drennan’s secretary, but then he repressed it. He’d been lucky to get away so lightly.
“I’ve never had one of these before,” Drumm said to McDonald and Lori. “And I’m not sure I will again. I can’t say I care for it.”
The three of them were sitting in a restaurant called Inferno’s. It was newly opened and Drumm thought it was an appropriate choice to celebrate the end of an another case. “Because,” he said. “It was a helluva case. Or cases, I should say.” He looked around the restaurant. The dominant colour was red: red walls, red and yellow outfits on the servers, who were equipped with devil’s horns, and red lighting. There was a huge log fire pit in the middle of the eating area and it was throwing off an enormous amount of heat. Drumm had taken off his coat and he was sitting comfortably in short sleeves with a Cuba Libre in front of him. The others had identical drinks.
“The lime juice makes it interesting,” said Lori.
“I’d rather have a beer,” said McDonald. “But I know you can’t get a Cristal or Bucanero here. Too bad.”
Drumm took a sip, made a face and said,” Like I was saying, Drennan let me off lightly. He just rapped my knuckles a little. I’ve had worse.”
“You’d think he’d be pleased with you,” said Lori. “You made him look good, finding the Riverwood Rapist and Kathy’s killer. He’ll take a lot of the credit for those.”
“Let him,” Drumm said. He took another sip of his drink. “You know, this is growing on me.”
McDonald said, “I can’t say it was fun to see old Jorge again. He doesn’t give a lot away. It was good to have a smoke with him though.” He looked at Drumm. “I don’t understand how you were able to get him up here so quickly. I mean, you couldn’t have called him until what – a day or so ago?”
Drumm smiled. “We’d talked to each other before that, though. I called him just after you spoke to me, Dick – when you got back from your trip.”
McDonald stared at him. “Did you now? Kinda forgot to tell us that, didn’t you?”
“Did I?
Quite possibly, I guess.” Drumm took another sip. “Anyway, I called him. When I thought of flying him up here, I realized he probably wouldn’t have a passport. But I’ve got a contact with the RCMP – he put me in touch with our Cuban friend in the first place – and he was able to help with getting approval for Perez to come up here.”
Lori said, “I’m surprised that you were able to get the YPS to pay for the flight. Normally we have to jump through hoops for even the smallest expenses.”
Drumm smiled again. “They didn’t pay for it; I did. And his accommodation. And a rental car. I knew the YPS would never agree to do it and I was in a hurry. So I’ve paid for everything. I’ll put in for reimbursement and who knows?”
McDonald laughed. “You know, when I spoke to him down there, he told me he would never get to see Canada. Too bad he had such a short visit.”
“Oh, he’s still here,” said Drumm. “He’s got a week. He’s up at Blue Mountain right now. I got him a package deal: room, ski rental, lift tickets, even a lesson.”
“Huh!” said McDonald. “Big expense. But it worked out for you. But if it hadn’t, if he’d called your bluff…”
“It was only partly a bluff, Dick,” Drumm objected. “If Gill hadn’t copped to her killing, we could have taken our case to the Crown as it was. And Cuba might have sought to extradite him and go after him for Kennedy’s death. Perez would have flown home pretty quickly, of course, because it would have taken all the lawyers and government weenies months to figure out how to get him down there. But Perez knew that – he knew that he’d probably be going home empty-handed.”
“But he was willing to come anyway?” asked Lori.
“Free vacation,” said Drumm and grinned. He sipped again from his drink and held it up to them. “This is tasting better and better. Now, if it was me, I’d stay down there in the heat. But I guess he wanted to see what winter is like up here.”
“Well, I’ve seen both, and he definitely made the wrong choice,” said McDonald.
“Gill sang like a bird, didn’t he?” said Lori. “It was nice to get everything cleared up like that. The knife from his parents’ house – I wonder when he lifted it? And you’d think they would have noticed it was missing.”
“Well, they didn’t,” said Drumm. “And they did have a lot of knives.”
“And the call from Kathy wanting to speak to him about why he was out the night her fiancé died,” went on Lori. “That really shook him up. He thought he’d been able to slip out of the unit and back in unobserved. And all the time she’d seen him come back in.”
“She didn’t want to believe Gill killed her boyfriend,” said Drumm. “I’m sure that’s true. And it helps explain why he was able to get so close to her in the park the night she died. ‘We need to talk, Kathy.’ And she was probably thinking she could spare Charlotte from getting involved.”
“And that misunderstanding about Aaron Whiteside’s previous job,” said McDonald. “Just a small privately-run group home, not on the government roll. So we couldn’t find a record of it, which meant we suspected him.”
“Little things can make a big difference,” said Drumm.
Their Canadian champagne arrived. McDonald popped the cork and poured three overflowing glasses. He raised his in celebration. “Hola,” he said. “Or whatever the hell they say in Cuba.”
“Salud,” said Drumm, lifting his glass as well. He smiled. “I looked it up.”
“Salud,” said Lori and McDonald together.
thirty-five
The plane was crowded, full of sun worshippers looking forward to a vacation in the tropics. There was an excited buzz throughout the cabin. They’d just heard the announcement about preparing for landing and people were stowing bags, fastening seatbelts and craning their heads to see out the window.
“Twenty-seven Celsius! Heavenly,” said Lori to her companion.
Cindy nodded. “Wait ‘til we get off the plane. It’s like stepping into an oven. “ She shook her long blonde hair and said, “And we’ll be all sweaty in no time.”
“Good,” said Lori. “I’ve had enough cold this winter to last me a lifetime.” Then she frowned.
Cindy looked at her and then put her hand on Lori’s arm. “It’ll be okay. Sint Maarten is a lovely island. I’ll show you all the best spots. We’ll start with lunch at Turtle Pier.”
Lori looked at her. Cindy had suggested, half-jokingly, that her reward dinner should be in the Caribbean, and on the spur of the moment, Lori had agreed. “I know. It isn’t that. It’s just…”
Cindy smoothed Lori’s hair back from her forehead. “That’ll be okay too. Trust me. It’ll be fine.”
“I know. I’m just nervous.”
“Ah, the landing will be great. It always is.” Cindy smiled at her.
“I meant…”
“I know what you meant.” Cindy leaned over and brushed her lips against Lori’s cheek. “Fasten your seatbelt; it’ll be a wonderful ride.”
Drumm threw his towel over his shoulder, adjusted his bathing suit slightly and headed down the path to the beach. A swim in the ocean was first on his list and then he would lie on the sand and bake until he was tired of it. The pool would be next and then the swim-up bar for a drink.
The resort was full of Canadians, Brits, Germans and the odd Spanish-speaking couple, just like McDonald had said it would be. Drumm supposed he could strike up a friendship with someone but just at the moment that didn’t appeal to him. He was happy on his own, glad to sit and soak up the heat of the day and forget his troubles. He had two weeks of eating, drinking, swimming and sleeping. Especially sleeping. After weeks of stress and long hours, he had decided to take some vacation time, and a last-minute trip to the Playa de Trinidad had seemed appropriate.
Sometime, if he felt like it, he might wander along and find the spot where Mike Kennedy had fallen to his death. After all, if it weren’t for that, he wouldn’t be here. He should pay homage, perhaps. But he was also on a mission. Drumm was on the lookout for a keg mug and he wouldn’t be going home until he’d seen one. He had a feeling he wouldn’t have to wait long.
Later on, sitting in the heat and the sunshine at the swim-up bar, Drumm looked ruefully at the drink in his hand. He could see why people brought mugs with them; these silly plastic cups were enough to drive a man crazy.
A middle-aged, attractive woman in a green bikini swam lazily up to the bar and gracefully mounted onto the submerged seat beside him. She shook her head to get some of the water out of her eyes and hair and then looked over at him.
“Sorry! Did I spray you?”
Drumm lazily waved a hand. “Not to worry. I’m tough; I can take it.”
The woman smiled. “You don’t look all that tough.” She studied the array of bottles at the bar and then turned back to him. “What do you recommend?”
His thoughts about keeping to himself for a couple of weeks were disappearing. Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea after all. And maybe two weeks would be far too short.
Drumm raised his glass and said, “A Cuba Libre?”
Author’s Note
The inspiration for A Cuban Death came from a story I read in the Toronto Star newspaper, from the August 24, 2012 edition. It detailed how a twenty-two-year-old man from Mississauga, Ontario died after falling sixteen metres (about fifty feet) from a third-floor balcony in Varadero, Cuba. The death was mysterious to say the least. And as far as I know, the family of the dead man has never received any adequate explanation as to how and why he died.
The descriptions of Cuba that are used in the story are accurate, although the resort that I used is fictional. Cuba is a wonderful country to visit, with terrific beaches and friendly people. As it says in the book, however, the food can be so-so and there are shortages of nearly everything. Many Canadians travel to the country every year, taking with them necessities for the Cubans they meet, everything from school textbooks to shampoo.
It is too bad that Americans cannot yet easily tr
avel to the country but there is hope. At the time of this writing, US President Barack Obama has just shaken hands with Cuba’s leader, Raul Castro, on the occasion of the funeral for Nelson Mandela. This has been seen by some as a significant step forward in US-Cuban relations.
December, 2013
Table of Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgments
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
Author’s Note
Excerpts
A Cuban Death Page 22