The Devil's in the Details

by Mary Jane Maffini

  The tip line number flashed below a file shot of me looking deranged. A couple of guys at the counter wrote down the number.

  “An officer’s weapon?” I blurted. “What the hell was that about?”

  “That’s something, eh?” the cashier said as she handed me my change. “Apparently, she shot a cop.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “They’re going to take her down first time they see her.”

  I said, “And ask questions later.”

  “Yup. Something’s got to be done about people like that. It’s got so nobody’s safe nowhere.”

  “You got that right.” I headed back to the washroom and lost my three fries.

  I did my best to keep my head high as I left.

  There wasn’t a cab to be found. I whipped out Bunny’s phone. The first cab company I called said thirty to forty minutes. The second couldn’t commit to a time. What the hell. I called Youssef and said a friend had given me the number, and I needed to be picked up near Montreal Road and the Vanier Parkway. I tried a little French accent just in case. I didn’t want him to send the cops. Twenty-five thousand dollars goes a lot further than the average fare. Youssef wasn’t on duty. His cousin Faroud could be there shortly.

  Faroud didn’t recognize me and didn’t seem remotely interested in his passenger. That was good, because the tip line reward would probably get him into a program to get his medical accreditation here. Faroud was not in a chatty mood. That wasn’t my problem, but I needed his medical knowledge. I said, “I’m visiting a friend with a bad concussion. You ever know anyone with a concussion?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “She says the symptoms come and go. Did you know that?”

  “It can happen.”

  “She’s having trouble with her vision. Did the person you knew have that?”

  “I’ve known people with that problem.”

  “Sometimes her vision’s a bit better, then a bit worse, then a bit better. Can that happen? I mean, in your experience.”

  He looked back at me in the rearview mirror. I didn’t think there was much chance he’d recognize me. Especially without my stinky dog. He said, “In my experience, your friend should get to a hospital fast.”

  “But my question was, do the symptoms come and go? Get better and then worse and then better? That’s what’s happening to my friend. Her vision in one eye seems to come and go.”

  He said, “Concussions are tricky. The symptoms can change rapidly. Seem better, seem worse. But it doesn’t matter. If your friend has unstable symptoms, especially vision loss, she has to go to the hospital. She might have bleeding in her brain. Does she live here? I’ll take her.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Just asking.”

  “No charge to take her,” he said. “But maybe 911 is better.”

  “I’ll ask her,” I said as we pulled into the Westerlunds’. The meter read five dollars. I dropped ten onto the front seat. “Thanks. Can you come back in fifteen minutes? I’ll try to talk my friend into going to the hospital.”

  I struggled out from the cab and stumbled badly. I had trouble walking. I prayed Faroud thought I’d had too much to drink.

  I positioned myself by the side of the Westerlund house, where I couldn’t be seen from inside. I watched Faroud drive off. I looked up to see if any balloons were arriving. I could see a small cluster drifting along the river in a lazy formation. I wished that Mrs. Parnell and Alvin, my two most stalwart allies, would hurry, but, of course, arrival by balloon wasn’t the most precise. I hoped they would get a move on, since my plan to confront Kate and Joe required reliable witnesses. If my timing was wrong, it was game over.

  Patience is not my best thing.

  I wandered around the back of the house to check out entrances and exits. There appeared to be a back door from the sunroom where Joe Westerlund spent his life. I ducked past that, in case Kate spotted me. My head was reeling, and I knew there was a good chance, I’d pass out soon. I dug out the cell and called the “Limited But Necessary List”.

  I had to leave messages for P.J. and Romanek. Thank heavens Mombourquette picked up.

  “What?” he shouted.

  I shouted back that I was at the Westerlunds’. “I believe Kate Westerlund is dangerous. If I end up in jail, find the connection between them and the Settlers.”

  “Who the Jesus are the Westerlunds?”

  Fine time for the goddam phone to cut out. I had no choice but to go in. A silver Neon was parked in the driveway. My heart jumped. That must be Kate’s car. It was just like the one I’d seen in front of Bianca’s. The front door of the house stood open. I had a clear view of Kate Westerlund locked in a struggle with another woman. As I ran toward the house, Kate pummelled the other woman’s head, knocking her straw hat off. I stumbled close enough to see that the second woman was Jasmine. Her eyes were wide and wild. Why had I left her alone to fend for herself? How had Kate found her? Did she know Jasmine worked with Chelsea and might recognize her? Kate must have systematically tracked her down. I’d screwed up big-time, and I couldn’t wait for help. Faroud wasn’t back yet. I tried the goddam phone again. My fingers shook as I dialled 911. I could only see out of one eye. The phone crackled. The 911 operator answered. I said, “Emergency. Serious assault in progress.”

  “You’re calling from a cell. We need the address please.” Static broke up the operator’s voice.

  “We’re on the River Road in Vanier. The address is . . .”

  “Speak louder, I’m losing you.”

  I screamed the address into the phone as I raced toward the front door, stumbling on my three-inch heels. The phone died. I stumbled and landed on my knees. When I stood up, Kate and Jasmine had vanished from sight. The front door was now closed. No balloons, no cab, no P.J., no Bunny, and Mombourquette was probably searching for the address. Even Romanek and cops would have been welcome at this point. I lurched up the front steps and grabbed the doorknob. I tumbled into the house and landed chin first on the hall floor.

  I dragged myself to my feet and stared around. The good eye had greyed over. Now I could only see dark and light shadows. I put out my hands to keep from bumping into things. Somewhere nearby there was shouting. Was that a shot? Follow the noise. I felt my way along the hallway until I encountered a doorway. I remembered a portable phone in the Westerlunds’ hallway. I hoped the dark shape was the table it sat on. Lucky guess. I fumbled the receiver and dialled Alvin’s cellphone. I pressed it against my body to muffle his voice. Before he answered, I jumped. I heard shouting from what I thought was the living room.

  “Dear God, Kate,” I yelled, “don’t harm her.”

  “Way too late for that,” Jasmine said.

  Thirty-Seven

  Jasmine, are you all right?” I said, lurching through the door and careening into the nearest wall with its huge soft wall hanging.

  “I am now,” she said.

  I heard soft sobs from the corner. I had a shadowy impression of Kate Westerlund, hunkered down, weeping. She appeared pathetic, but I wasn’t fooled.

  “Thank God, you’re okay, Jasmine,” I said.

  From the corner, Kate wailed, “No. She killed him.”

  “What?”

  “Joe. She killed Joe. She’s insane. What harm could Joe do? He was helpless.”

  Jasmine said crisply, “But he’d already done plenty of harm in his life, hadn’t he? The people your precious Joe killed were just as helpless. But unlike him and unlike you, they were innocent.”

  Jasmine didn’t sound distraught.

  Kate said, “He did what he believed in. He always lived by his principles.”

  “Interesting principles,” Jasmine said. “You can shoot innocent people to get enough money to live out your delusions of grandeur. You can complete your education and masquerade as an exemplary citizen.”

  “Joe lived a good life. He taught at the university. He . . .”

  Jasmine said, “There’s the thing. He lived. You see t
hat’s the difference between him and his victims. Life. He owned the nice house, had the artwork and the beautiful wife who was just as guilty as he was.”

  “He gave back to his community. He gave to his students. He made amends.”

  “How could he make amends? Could he bring back a woman to life? Could he give a mother back to a daughter who never got to know her? Amends? He made me sick, and so do you.”

  Kate screamed, “You shot him in cold blood. What’s the difference between you and him?”

  “Here’s the difference. I told him why he was going to die, and he understood. He got to think about it and what it meant. My mother never had that chance. She was just a nice young woman with one baby and another on the way who went into the bank to get enough cash to buy a playpen. She never knew why she was cut down. She didn’t understand why she had to drown in her own blood.”

  My knees buckled, and I crumpled to the ground. I slid the cellphone over behind a shadow that I took to be a planter. I couldn’t see well enough to tell if either of them saw me do it.

  “Joe’s dead?” I said, trying to comprehend what I was hearing.

  “That’s the good news,” Jasmine said. “It’s working out beautifully. I’ve got nearly all of them now. They’ve paid the price for their actions. Kate will be next, then I’ll track down Bianca. Of course, they’ll let their guard down once they hear you’ve killed yourself, Camilla. Then I’ll finish my job.”

  “But who else is left besides Bianca?”

  “Norine, naturally. Stupid bitch. Where do you think she got the funding for that restaurant? But then they all had such wonderful false lives, didn’t they?”

  I was still having a bit of trouble with all this. “You mean they all moved to Ottawa? Isn’t that a bit odd?”

  Jasmine said, “Not too smart maybe, but you can see why they would. It was Canada, easy to get to, easy to blend in, using dead people’s identities, but away from the FBI. And I think Joe Westerlund still had a big hold over them. These women had a shared history. No one else knew what they’d done. I suppose they acted as a vile support group.”

  “I imagine they’d need to help each other.”

  “Help each other, my ass. They had everything they wanted. They had money from those robberies. They each got themselves a good education, graduate degrees. Houses, cars, careers. Did you see Laura’s portfolio? Do you think I had a wonderful life growing up?”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” I said.

  Jasmine said, “I had a father who never got over his wife’s death. He never held a proper job after. Do you think it’s easy getting through school on welfare? I can tell you it’s a lot harder than buying your way in with blood money and stolen identities.”

  “You planned this whole thing,” I said.

  “I planned it wonderfully. But the best part is that I was the last face they saw, the last voice they heard. I made sure they all knew why they died.”

  “But how did you find the Settlers?”

  “Remember all the fuss about Kathleen Soliah? During that time, Frances Foxall wrote an opinion piece in an online forum discussing the beliefs of groups like the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Settlers. She did a great job of justifying her actions. ‘Life goes on,’ she said. Don’t you just love that? She truly believed that she, and all the others, should be left alone because time had passed, enough punishment that she had needed an assumed identity for all these years. I didn’t share that view. I’d been reading everything about the Settlers for years. I knew it was just a matter of time until I found one of them.”

  “But an online forum should be anonymous. How did you find her?”

  “It took a bit of work to track her down, but it was worth it. She mentioned her horse farm in her article. She let a few other things slip. It took some digging to find out where her farm was, but then it all paid off. I showed up one day, said I was interested in horses. It wasn’t hard to feign interest. She wasn’t the least bit suspicious. She had an ego the size of Ontario. I knew she kept in touch with the others. In her article she said ‘We are living good lives. We are productive useful citizens.’ Wasn’t that nice for them? I learned she met a lot of friends in Maisie’s. I sweet-talked her into asking Norine to give me a job. Couldn’t be simpler. I figured out who was who soon enough.”

  “The horse,” I said loudly. “You frightened the horse. And it threw her.”

  “That’s right. And I made sure she knew why.”

  “Sylvie Dumais in the canoe. The same thing?”

  “It’s not hard to put an unobtrusive hole in a canoe. I watched from the shore. I was almost sorry when the hypothermia got her. I had a lot of venting to do.”

  “I see that.”

  “Yes. And your precious Laura Brown. That was my best.”

  “You were her special dinner guest. You wore the straw hat,” I said, trying to prop myself up. I hoped like hell Alvin or Mrs. Parnell was hearing this on the phone. “What did you do? Tinker with her insulin?”

  “That was a good guess. I put it back afterwards. That’s when I ran into you in the night. I’d been searching her house for a couple of hours looking for information on the others. Then you showed up. I’m glad you didn’t die then, because you’ve come in very handy. Now I’m through, and you get to be the guilty party.”

  “Laura must have liked and trusted you.”

  “Her actions killed my mother and ruined my life. Then she meets me at Maisie’s, and without knowing anything about me, wants to help with my education. Don’t you just love it?”

  “She obviously liked you very much and trusted you. She didn’t bother to hide her code number from you. You didn’t want her to die in the house.”

  “The house would have been fine. A fall down the stairs. But every time I was there, this stupid woman with those miserable wiener dogs would walk by and wave, or else this nosy old geezer next door would be drooling over her. Couldn’t take the chance. It turned out for the best, because now we know that people survive falls down the stairs.”

  By this time, I was on all fours, trying to struggle to my feet.

  Jasmine said, “She really didn’t want to go over that cliff.”

  Kate whimpered in the corner.

  “How did you get her on the other side of the fence?”

  “I had a knife. Knives are persuasive.”

  “But there were people around.”

  “Around, but not close enough to see that.”

  “You wouldn’t have used the knife on her, because you wanted all these deaths to look accidental.”

  “Laura didn’t know that. Everything came as a surprise to her. And now, of course, with you in the picture, the deaths don’t have to look accidental.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  Kate whimpered in the corner. Not much hope of her getting us out of this trap.

  “You seem to understand. It’s too bad I need you to be dead.”

  “Maybe so, but there will be an inquest. Police investigations.”

  “But at the end of the day, everything will still point firmly to you. I’m just a server in the restaurant. No connection at all, except when you visited me and threatened me.”

  She had a point.

  I said, “I gather you attacked one of the police officers and took his weapon. That was useful to pin on me too.”

  “Wasn’t it?” Jasmine said.

  It was a small chance, but I hoped like hell Alvin was on the phone, picking up some of this.

  “That reminds me,” I said. “Chelsea was your friend. Why kill her?”

  “Friend, my ass. Greedy little thing. She figured out I knew them all. She wanted money from me. She became a little more collateral damage.”

  Jasmine was just a blurred shape. As much as I needed to see, I was glad I didn’t have to look at her face. “And I conveniently provided you with props to mislead the police. My jacket. Crashing around making a fool of myself. You hid my cash card.”

 
; “Funny, you made me nervous when you came to Maisie’s. I just forgot to give the card back to you. Norine must have taken it to get your name. She was quite suspicious about you. It sure came in handy. Helped to make you look guilty.”

  “Speaking of guilty. That silver Neon of yours. I saw that car outside Bianca’s place. Someone else will have seen it too. If she regains consciousness, she’ll tell the police.”

  “I’ll make sure she doesn’t regain consciousness.”

  The room was tilting strangely. I felt my head whirling. My stomach heaved. I had to stop Jasmine. But there was no way I could get to her.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Camilla,” she said. “It saves me a lot of trouble.”

  “You lied about everything,” I said, stalling. “You lied about Elaine.”

  “It doesn’t take much to get you to turn on your friends,” Jasmine said. “It’s surprisingly easy to start a rumour with the police.”

  “You lied about Kate too. And Joe.”

  “That was the truth. They were the core of the group. I got that much from Sylvie before she died. Not their new names, though. I had to rely on you for that.”

  A dim shadow rose slowly behind Jasmine. I did my best to appear to look straight at Jasmine. Anything to distract her. I sensed rather than saw Kate lurch forward. Kate loomed behind Jasmine and slammed into her. Jasmine lurched forward and lost her balance. She staggered, whirled at Kate. A shot reverberated. Without a sound, Kate crumpled to a heap on the floor. The smell of cordite filled the room.

  I stood, stunned, unable to react. Even with my limited vision, I could see the stain spread around her, clearly red. Jasmine turned back to me.

  “Now look what you’ve done, Camilla,” Jasmine said. “The authorities will not be pleased. Fortunately, I happened along to check on Kate and was able to struggle with you and save myself. It pays to be younger and taller. I was too late for poor Kate, of course. But as Frances Foxall liked to say, life goes on.

  I saw the shadow as she raised her arm.

  “This is the police,” a familiar voice came from behind the door to the dining room. “Put the gun down and step away from it.”