The Devil's in the Details

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “When we get to the park, I’ll give you my good news,” I panted.

  That worked too. There was no holding Gussie back, and we were in the park in what seemed like seconds.

  “Here’s the best thing, Leonard. I remembered what Constantinople meant.”

  “Okay, and what does it mean?”

  “Contrary to interpretation, I wasn’t shouting out nonsense because of my head injury.”

  “So what was it?”

  “Laura’s home town. I’ve been trying to remember the name ever since this whole thing started. No, not in the flower bed, Gussie.”

  Mombourquette seemed underwhelmed by the news.

  I said, “Now that I know where she was from, I should be able to find someone who knew her.”

  “Huh.”

  “It could be the break we need. You got an Ontario road atlas in your car?”

  “I better tell you what I found out.”

  “Sure, it’s your turn, Leonard.”

  “Don’t interrupt until I’ve finished talking. Okay, Camilla?”

  “Won’t say a word.” This newly polite relationship with Mombourquette had something going for it. “Bring it on.”

  For some reason, Mombourquette kept staring at his flip-flops. “Here goes.”

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  “Maybe not. That girl you met with last night? Chelsea? I’m afraid she’s dead.”

  “I know. That’s the bad news I had to tell you. I found out from Jasmine while you were out.”

  “You promised you wouldn’t interrupt.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a promise.”

  “Better let me finish. I heard from a solid source that foul play might be involved.”

  “Jasmine said they told her Chelsea probably fell or jumped. But people don’t fall off the bridge, and Chelsea sure didn’t seem suicidal. I think it’s connected with Laura. That makes four deaths in four months. I better talk to Jasmine fast. Hey, I have an idea. You could talk to someone in Major Crimes and fill them in on the connected deaths, and that wouldn’t be investigating, but it could stop whoever is doing these things before there’s another murder. Like maybe Jasmine or this Bianca. I need to find her too and warn her.”

  “Listen to me. This is off the record. A guy in Major Crimes told me when I was picking up the stuff at Tims.”

  “My apologies. Go ahead.”

  “They got a tip about Chelsea last night.”

  “That’s great. Does it give them a suspect to focus on?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “They’re not thinking robbery or sexual assault, are they?”

  “She had several hundred dollars on her when they pulled her out of the river. So I’d say no to robbery. No one mentioned sexual assault, so I’m guessing there were no indications.”

  “I told you it had to do with Laura. Did anyone see her walking with the suspect? Or getting into a car?”

  Mombourquette cleared his throat.

  Gussie tugged at his leash.

  “Yeah, they got a detailed description.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “Not really. A waiter from Legal Beagle got in touch. Apparently, you were seen having a big argument with her in the bar. Then you raced out and chased her down the street, yelling.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Not all that long before you collapsed, but it was enough time for Chelsea to get killed.”

  “But that’s crazy. I didn’t have anything to do with it. She was meeting someone. She was talking on the phone with the person. We just need to find out who she was talking to. They can get the cellphone record. Can you set them straight?”

  “Try to understand, it was coffee shop talk. People know we have a connection, some of them blame you for what happened last summer. They thought I’d be pleased to hear it, I guess.”

  “You told them I didn’t do it, right?”

  “I said I didn’t believe it, but they’ve got witnesses, and they want to talk to you. I’m surprised they’re not here already.”

  “What do you mean, witnesses?”

  “Apparently there was more than one tip. You were seen near the Interprovincial Bridge with this girl.”

  “But I never went near the bridge.”

  “One of them described your jean jacket with butterflies on the back.”

  “That’s my missing jacket. Oh my God. Do they know you took me home?”

  “They do. And we’re both in deep shit.”

  I said, “Okay, Leonard. So what’s your good news?”

  “I’m afraid there is none.”

  A few minutes later, a grim-faced Mombourquette headed off to see if he could pry more information out of some friendly soul on the force. Mrs. Parnell’s cat looked disappointed.

  He paused at the door. “You going to be all right?”

  “Of course, Leonard.”

  “You won’t go anywhere?”

  “I have no car, no money, no cash card, and no desire to connect with my relatives. Mrs. Parnell and Alvin are off in a balloon. Where could I go?”

  “I’ll check in as soon as I have news.”

  I wasn’t exactly lying. I didn’t say I wouldn’t go anywhere. I did have the VISA card I keep for travel, and I didn’t mention that either. Elaine’s name never came up. I didn’t plan to sit on my bum and wait for the police to bang on the door. Better Mombourquette didn’t know that. For his own mental health.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, I tried Jasmine’s number. Busy. I fed the animals and tried again. The third time I called the operator. According to her, the phone was off the hook. Neither Mrs. Parnell nor Alvin answered at home or on their cells. Must have been out of range. I got P.J.’s voice mail three times too.

  Luckily, Youssef answered the phone in his cab.

  “Of course, I take VISA. See you in five minutes,” he said.

  A couple more brownie points for Youssef: one, he had an Ontario road atlas; two, he didn’t mind finding Constantinople for me, since my vision was still wonky; three, once we arrived on Spruce Street, he had no problem idling his cab until a bleary-eyed Elaine staggered down the stairs and undid the zillion locks on her front door. He waved goodbye as I dodged past her and lumbered up the stairs to the living room.

  “Sorry to wake you again, Elaine, but you’re my only hope.”

  Elaine tilted her head. “Why are you standing at that weird angle?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You. You’re standing at a 45° angle.”

  “Nothing to worry about. The big thing is the police are probably after me.”

  Elaine’s mouth hung open. Most gratifying. “Why?”

  “That’s not all,” I said. “It’s goddamed inconvenient, because now they’ll never give me the names of the witnesses who saw Laura fall.”

  “Sit down, Camilla. You’re making me dizzy.”

  I sat. “It’s all connected with Laura. Did you know Frances Foxall died this summer?”

  “Holy moly.”

  “She was killed in a riding accident, and she had also been seen with Laura at Maisie’s. Bear with me. I’m having trouble remembering things, and I want to get it all out. Sylvie Dumais, who is also dead as you told me, was seen lunching with Laura. Then Chelsea, the girl who told me this, went off the Interprovincial Bridge last night. She’s dead too. Probably killed by the same person who stole your photos, my cellphone, and Laura’s will and pushed me into the traffic in the market. They stole my jacket too and probably used it to make it look like I killed Chelsea. I guess you didn’t get the message I left you last night.”

  Elaine merely stared.

  “The police tried to arrest me for being drunk in public. That was before they knew Chelsea had been murdered. Luckily, Leonard Mombourquette got me out of the situation.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Too true. But apparently now we’re friends. So now I have to go to Constantinople, which seems
to be north of Kingston, and find Laura’s family. I need to replace the photos with similar ones and show them to Jasmine, the other server from Maisie’s. I think I told you about her. She needs to be warned, too. Plus I need to locate a woman named Bianca, because she’s involved somehow and may be in danger also. Did I mention I can’t get my cash card back from the restaurant?”

  “It’s too much to take in this early,” Elaine said.

  “Right. So if you can just lend me the Pathfinder and your phone and maybe a couple of bucks, I’ll take care of this stuff before the police track me down.”

  “If you can’t stand up straight, how can you drive the Pathfinder on the highway without killing yourself or innocent parties?”

  “No choice, Elaine.”

  “The police won’t come after you for being drunk in the Market on a Friday night.”

  “Which I wasn’t. The head injuries made it look that way.”

  “They’ve got better things to do. It’s small potatoes. You don’t need to worry.”

  “Mombourquette warned me that Major Crimes is investigating Chelsea’s death. And they’ve got witnesses who identify me fighting with her and chasing her down the street, yelling.”

  “They will want to talk to you.”

  “Since I don’t officially know that, I want to take care of these things first.”

  “Hear me: you can’t drive.”

  “Sure I can. Where are your keys?”

  Elaine said. “I’ll take you.”

  “That’s kind of you.”

  “Holy moly, like I’ve got a choice.”

  Twenty-Three

  Constantinople turned out to be tucked in the tangle of dirt roads that run off Highway 38, north of Kingston, in a mix of farming and cottage country.

  “Wouldn’t want to try to farm here,” I said, as we passed another fine example of pre-Cambrian shield.

  The late summer weather had been hot and dry. We raised a lot of dust as we crested another blind hill. Elaine kept her eyes straight ahead. “You know what? If we haven’t found it in three hours, I’d say that’s a bad sign.”

  “We’ve been relying on the map. And we know about the problem with maps. I say we ask someone.”

  “We’re in the middle of hell. Just who do you suggest we ask?”

  “Someone in one of the general stores we passed.”

  “But they’re back on the highway.”

  “So what?”

  “We’d have to backtrack.”

  “Big deal.”

  “I hate backtracking.”

  “Let’s keep going in circles, then. There’s that 1950s Pontiac up on blocks. Third time we’ve passed this place.”

  Elaine took a bit more gentle coaxing. “We can’t just go in and ask about some people named Brown. There must be only a couple of million Browns in this country.”

  “What is your problem, Elaine? We’re women. We can ask directions to Constantinople or anywhere else. If it helps, sit in the car and keep your face hidden.”

  “Very funny. I’ll come with you.”

  Elaine’s worst fears seemed to be realized. People stared at us like we’d just landed from Venus and asked for a short cut to the Vatican.

  Everyone shook their heads. I thought they showed unnecessary emphasis. They spoke slowly and made dramatic gestures, indicating they had no idea where Constantinople was, or even if it existed. The name Brown drew more blanks. I imagine they collapsed into laughter as soon as the door slammed behind me.

  I hit the second store by myself. Elaine opted to stay in the car. Okay, no success. Still, I held out for one last store.

  Smith’s General Store had the smell of an establishment with a long history. A dust-covered red pick-up was parked in front. A rusted Corvair was up on blocks at the side of the store. A load of wood sat stacked near the front.

  Inside the store, a quarter-inch of dust decorated the tinned soups. Smith’s sold soap without packaging, loose candles, fly paper and big boxes of safety matches. Bait appeared to be their specialty. I noted two new coolers full of nightcrawlers.

  A pair of ancient fellows in red baseball caps were the proprietors. I figured they were brothers and that they had about six teeth between them. I asked if they knew how to find Constantinople.

  “Constantinople?” the first one said.

  “Yes.”

  “Constantinople?” the second one said about thirty seconds later.

  Of course, it may have been the first one again.

  “Does that ring a bell?”

  “Yep,” the first one said.

  I looked at the second one. He said yep too.

  “Good,” I said. “Can you tell me how to find it?”

  “Not that easy,” the first one said.

  Somehow I had already figured that out. I smiled at the second brother. After a longish minute, he said, “Not that easy.”

  “Okay. What would be the nearest community to it? Maybe we could ask someone there to direct us.”

  “We’ll direct you,” the second brother said.

  “Need a map, is the best thing,” the first brother said.

  “Do you by any chance sell detailed maps of this area?”

  Turned out they did. Five minutes later, they had the route traced out for me.

  “I guess I’ll be able to find the Browns now,” I said.

  “Who?” they said in unison.

  “The Browns. I’m looking for the parents of Laura Brown, an old friend.”

  They exchanged glances. The meaningful kind.

  “Thank you for your help,” I said.

  “You want Ralph and Sadie then. Why didn’t you say so, ma’am?”

  “You know them? I asked at a couple of other places, and no one knew anything about the Browns.”

  Brother One spat. “Newcomers. Can’t tell their arses from their elbows.”

  Brother Two spat a bit further. “Come in from somewheres else. Change everything. Give people crazy ideas.”

  “Useless conceited parasites,” I said, getting into the spirit.

  Brothers One and Two grinned in approval.

  “Won’t do you no good to go to Constantinople.”

  “Why not?”

  “Won’t find Ralph and Sadie there,” Brother One said.

  Brother Two shook his head sagely. “They moved when Laura was just a tyke.”

  “Where would I find them?” I said.

  A hush fell over the store. My head throbbed. I sat down on a wooden bench and decided to wait them out. I hoped they wouldn’t direct me to the nearest graveyard.

  Twenty-Four

  Well, I’m sorry,” I said to Elaine. “Apparently, the Browns moved to a place called Daken, years ago. It’s supposed to be really hard to find, but they said they’d show us the way.”

  “Let’s hope we’re alive when we get there.”

  “What can go wrong?”

  I found out what could wrong soon enough as we shot down the twisting dirt roads in full pursuit of Brother Two in his dirt-covered Ford pick-up. Every bend in the road seemed to produce another choice of directions.

  “Holy moly. Does he have a rocket engine in that thing?” Elaine muttered. “If we lose sight of him, we’re sunk.”

  She had a point. I figured Brother Two might have had a career in Formula One before he went into the nightcrawler business. Whatever engine he had in that old truck, the Pathfinder couldn’t match it. I thought my head was going to splinter into a thousand painful fragments.

  “Speed up! You’re losing him,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t want to be in the line of fire if some of that wood comes flying out of the back.”

  “But if we can’t see him . . .”

  Elaine said, “I guess we get lost out here in this godforsaken bit of wilderness. We’ll be lucky if they find our bleached bones.”

  “Do you think maybe his directional signal isn’t working?” Not that I’m such a geographer, but we’d turned north
, south, east and west and had now started north again.

  “Nobody lives here,” Elaine said.

  “Come on. You can see houses every now and then through the trees.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “People don’t live near the road, I guess. I wonder how they manage in the winter?”

  Elaine was bathed in sweat, and I was pretty damp myself when Brother Two whipped his truck into a ninety degree turn and shot down a half-hidden single track road. He must have used the OFA sign, which I guessed meant Ontario Farm Association, as the marker. Or it could have been the weather-beaten “Property For Sale” sign.

  We slid precariously across the road and just missed a fine example of Canadian shield on the far side. Brother Two was completely out of sight by the time we got on the road. Lucky for us there were no more splits, turns or choice of directions. Just a couple of dips that caused my stomach to fly up to my throat, and there was the truck, stopped in front of a small conventional yellow brick bungalow. The house sat on a large lot. A cluster of outbuildings loomed in the back. A well-tended vegetable garden occupied a substantial space near to the side.

  I got out of the car, knees weak and head buzzing. On the upside, I only saw one of everything, if you don’t count cedars and spruce.

  Elaine stayed put. She seemed jittery.

  Brother Two nodded briefly as I passed the truck. Apparently, he was staying put too.

  I walked back to Elaine, who was clutching the steering wheel like a life preserver. “Let’s go.”

  “I’ll stay here.”

  “You’re the one who counsels people. Come with me.”

  “Can’t.”

  “This is not about us, Elaine. We’ve got to tell the Browns their daughter has been killed. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “You’ll do the right thing,” she said.

  I marched up to Brother Two.

  “Thanks for showing us the way. Please don’t leave without us.”

  He grinned, giving a nice view of his chewing tobacco.

  “I imagine they’ll be pleased,” he said.

  “Pleased? I don’t think so,” I said. I stiffened my spine and set out toward the front door. Elaine stayed in the Pathfinder. Probably trying to get her heartbeat back into normal range.