Up in Smoke

by Ross Pennie

  “Before we call the cops,” he said, “I’ve got to have one more go at Ligorov. Get him talking. There’s no other way.”

  Colleen shook her head. “Please, Zol, no. It’s too risky for all of us. Besides, you won’t manage it. Ligorov knows what danger he’s facing. He’ll not let you near him.”

  “Come on, I can make the guy understand what a serious situation we’re in.”

  “Don’t you think he knows that already? He reads the papers, watches TV newscasts. He must be terrified the tobacco mob will pop him off before he can finger them. Promise me you will leave him alone.”

  “No, I gotta talk to him. Myself.”

  The phone buzzed from Nancy’s office.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Dr. Szabo,” Nancy said. “There’s a gentleman here from Escarpment Cable. Needs to make an emergency adjustment to your phone and your Internet cable connection.”

  “Sorry, Nancy, this isn’t a good time.”

  “I’m only bothering you because he says you have a critical privacy breech. Some sort of computer virus from Kazakhstan.”

  He had no idea what that might be, but it did sound important. “You trust him?”

  “Really, Dr. Szabo, you’re not in Hamilton anymore. Here in Simcoe we trust pretty well everyone with an honest face.”

  “You know the guy?”

  “Not personally. But I’ve seen him around town and he looks legitimate. He’s got lots of equipment with him, and he gave me his business card. Would you like to see it?”

  “How long is it going to take for him to get the job done?”

  There was a pause as Nancy conversed with the cable guy. “He says twenty minutes, max.”

  “Okay. We’ll go out for a coffee.” He needed some fresh air anyway. “But keep his card handy in case he screws up my computer. You know what these guys are like — always adding bells and whistles that make simple tasks a helluva lot more complicated.”

  As he strode with Colleen toward Norfolk Street and the Detour Café, neither of them said a word. Truly annoyed at his veto against calling in the police, she bristled when he tried to take her arm.

  He left her to her thoughts, unable take his own mind off Jovan Ligorov. He pictured the man as Hamish had described him, heavy set, bent over a corpse in the autopsy room, thick rubber gloves on his hands, a plastic bib over his clothes, an ornate cross hanging from his neck.

  The image gave him an idea. Colleen would think it was crazy, misguided, and dangerous. And it would make her even angrier.

  He’d keep it to himself.

  CHAPTER 30

  It was after eight that evening by the time Zol kissed Max goodbye, got a frosty peck from Colleen, and checked twice to be sure the front door was locked and all the outside lights were on before he climbed into the minivan. He wasn’t sure which was feeding her iciness with great vigour, anger or fear. Probably both in equal measure. Anger that he was not following her professional advice to call in the cops — after all, he’d hired her as a consultant on the case. And fear for their lives — the Badger was showing little reluctance to eliminate anyone standing in the way of building his empire.

  It was becoming increasing clear that the Badger was on a quest for political power. He was no longer satisfied with the untold millions his tobacco empire had earned him. Seizing the loon pipe after executing his rivals and destroying the ROM’s Crystal could have two motives: repatriation of a Native power symbol and proclamation of an anti-White manifesto. Dennis Badger’s tobacco business was no longer a piggy bank for funding expensive toys, but a war chest. Was he planning to use the country’s six hundred Indian reserves as guerrilla bases? He’d already consolidated them into an efficient and lucrative retail network for cigarette sales. How much would it take to hide arms and explosives under the cash registers of his tobacco franchisees?

  Zol shuddered and forced himself to think of the case purely as a public-health issue. His job was to bring the liver epidemic to a halt, and that was what he was going to do. It wasn’t helping to allow his personal and deep-seated apprehensions about the Badger’s intentions to turn fanciful.

  As he backed out of the driveway, he satisfied himself there were no strange vehicles lurking on the street. Nothing but a cable company van was parked outside the neighbours’ house. He turned left on Scenic, right on Garth, and ten minutes later was heading east past the industrial estates at the far end of Stone Church Road. He was keeping his eyes peeled for the crosses.

  Why the heck had the Macedonians built their church way out here? The land must have been cheap before the city spread its tentacles this far south. He’d checked out Saint Naum of Ohrid on the Internet and knew what to look for: a beige stucco building with two square towers and a hexagonal dome, each topped by a simple but conspicuous cross. Its banquet centre — a popular venue for weddings and charity functions — extended from the rear and wouldn’t be visible from the street.

  He spotted the crosses about a half a kilometre in the distance as he passed a plumbing store on the left and a carpet showroom on the right. Two blocks later, when he could see the approaching towers, he braked opposite a self-storage depot surrounded by a chain-link fence two or three metres high. Beyond the depot, and immediately past an automobile windshield repair centre, a brightly lit sign indicated the right turn into Saint Naum of Ohrid Macedonian Orthodox Church and Banquet Centre. He followed the driveway into the church’s expansive, unpaved car park. The lot was empty except for one car, and behind it a vacant field yawned in the darkness. The long, flat-roofed banquet centre was clad in the same beige stucco as the church. Most of its lights were off.

  He swung the car around a hundred and eighty degrees and found a spot with a good view of the church, the banquet centre, and the street. The clock on the dash said 8:23. He was early by seven minutes, plenty of time to keep his promise to the priest by ensuring that no one followed him. He killed the engine, hit PLAY on the CD player, and selected track two of Ray LaMontagne’s “God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise.”

  At this time on a Monday night, there was almost no traffic on Stone Church Road. One small car, a Kia or a Hyundai, had been driving eastward behind him, but was long gone. There was no activity at the self-storage place or the windshield repair centre next door. Both businesses were closed and the lights were off. The Tim Hortons kitty-corner across the street was open but quiet. No cars in the drive-thru and one parked out front. As Ray LaMontagne and his Pariah Dogs belted out a mournful ballad about New York City, one car left the Tim’s, another arrived, and then an Escarpment Cable repair van pulled in. These days, it seemed, society ran on three essentials: coffee, gasoline, and cable.

  At eight-thirty, he said goodbye to Ray and stepped out of the car. His shoes crunched on the gravel as he headed toward the door marked BANQUET CENTRE AND CHURCH OFFICE. An illuminated sign advertising SUPER SAUSAGES AT WHOLESALE PRICES winked at him from a prefab hut across the street. He couldn’t help wondering when the last time a health inspector had visited that seedy-looking place. He hated informal butcher shops; you never knew what they were hiding in their wieners and cold cuts.

  From a distance, the church had looked impressive with its bright red roof, polygonal dome, and stately towers. Up close, the building looked as if it had been thrown together by volunteers whose budget and enthusiasm had flagged near the end. There were no railings guarding the front steps, the paint around the windows either had peeled or was missing in the first place, the stucco was flaking off in chunks, and the front door looked like it had been purchased from a local building supply centre during its annual scratch-and-dent sale.

  He tried the door, but it was locked. No surprise without a banquet in progress. He couldn’t find a buzzer, so he rapped with his knuckles. He knocked twice more before heavy footsteps approached, and the door was pulled open by a tall, young, pale-eyed man beaming a circumspect smile
through a thick red beard.

  “Dr. Szabo, good evening to you. Come in, my good man. I recognize you from your photograph in the newspaper.” The priest touched the large silver cross hanging from a heavy chain around his neck and threw Zol an infectious smile. “I’m Stoyan Murphy, and you can see by my get-up that I’m the parish priest here at Saint Naum’s.”

  The cross, which looked like it weighed a ton and appeared more garish than holy, was dominated by a high relief of a crucified Christ, naked and agonal; a knotted-rope design, oddly Celtic and also high relief, embellished each of the cross’s four arms.

  He led Zol across a utilitarian, low-ceilinged foyer, his black cassock swooshing heavily against his ankles. He opened a door that said FATHER D. STOYAN MURPHY and invited Zol in.

  The first thing Zol noticed inside the priest’s office were the framed photographs of fireworks. Nearly two dozen of them blanketed the walls. Some had been staged locally at familiar venues such as the Burlington Skyway Bridge, the Dofasco steelworks, and Dundurn Castle. Others showed the Eiffel Tower, the Egyptian Pyramids, the Washington Monument, and landmarks he couldn’t place. A church seemed a strange place to hang photos of pyrotechnical displays. Maybe they were meant to symbolize the ephemeral power of the Lord.

  “You don’t play poker, do you Doctor?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your thoughts are written all over your face. You’re wondering what in the name of everything that’s holy an Orthodox priest with an Irish accent is doing with so many photos of fireworks. Is he going to blow something up?”

  Zol felt his ears flush. “Well . . . I don’t think I’d say that.”

  “Just think it?” said the priest, a teasing smile on his face.

  “It is a fascinating collection,” Zol said, concentrating on a bouquet of fiery peonies dazzling the sky over Toronto’s CN Tower.

  “It’s my hobby. One of my healthier passions. My wife would call it an obsession.”

  “You do it competitively?”

  He shook his head. “Not so much. But I am a certified pyrotechnician. I do holidays and special events. In Hamilton, Oakville, Brampton, Mississauga. Sometimes Toronto, but they have their own set of enthusiasts there in the Big Smoke.” His chest puffed as he pointed to what looked like a layer cake and birthday candles floating atop the expansive arch of the Skyway Bridge over Hamilton Bay. “I think that’s my best work. Canada Day last year. Weeks in the planning.”

  “Impressive. Do you ever do the burning schoolhouse?”

  “A favourite of yours, is it? Mine as well. I have a special version of it. Do it at birthday parties.”

  He tugged at his clerical dog collar, as if pyrotechnics and the clergy weren’t supposed to mix. Perhaps fire and brimstone weren’t important elements of the Macedonian church.

  “Last summer,” he continued, “I did a party at a tobacco farm. Used one of those abandoned kilns as the schoolhouse. The kids squealed in delight when it seemed the entire building was engulfed by flames.” He paused and threw his arms out for the dramatic effect he probably used in the pulpit. “And they were clearly amazed — and perhaps a little disappointed — when the smoke cleared and the schoolhouse emerged completely untouched.”

  “Sounds like magic.”

  “That’s the fun of it. A bit of the blarney. Especially when I do it by remote control, and the fire appears to start all by itself, out of nothing.”

  He pulled at the cuffs of his cassock as his ruddy face turned serious. He indicated that Zol should sit in one of the four folding metal chairs in the room and took one for himself.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and touched his cross with his broad palm. Then he fixed Zol with a stern gaze and said, “Doctor, this liver plague, as they’re calling it, now that’s a terrible business. Two more deaths yesterday, I’m given to understand.”

  Zol’s stomach tightened at the reminder. Two more kids from Erie Christian Collegiate. Both cheerleaders. That school had become a train wreck in slow motion. Was he ever going to be able to stop it?

  The priest shook his head in recognition of their shared remorse. “Is it true that you people have no idea what’s causing it?”

  “At this stage, I can’t say anything quotable, uh, Father Murphy.”

  “Please call me Father Stoyan. The Murphy part comes from my late father, and doesn’t sound the least bit Macedonian, does it?” His eyes, which Zol now noticed were shamrock green, twinkled briefly. “The Irish make their mark wherever they find themselves, and that is pretty nearly every corner of the world. But don’t let me interrupt.”

  “As I explained on the phone, we’re reasonably certain the liver deaths have to do with a research project at Caledonian University that — let me put it this way — spun out of control.”

  “That’s putting it mildly, Doctor. I understand Jovan’s boss — a young woman with a promising future — was murdered last year about the same time as the project was shut down. Near Grand Basin Reserve.” He crossed himself. “Another terrible business. Jovan reminded me of the details.”

  Zol nodded.

  “You can’t blame the man for being terrified,” the priest continued. “I would be too, in his position. Especially after that poor woman was shot this morning in Simcoe. Jovan seems convinced she was connected with your case.” He shifted on his chair. “Is that the truth, Doctor?”

  How much should he tell him? If he held back, he’d lose the man’s trust. And without Father Stoyan’s encouragement and support, Jovan Ligorov wouldn’t sing.

  He had to go for it. “We think it must be.”

  “This Dennis Badger fellow?”

  Ligorov had briefed his confessor thoroughly. “Or his associates.”

  “If Jovan agrees to talk to you, tell you everything he knows about the research he was doing with Dr. Tammy Holt, how can you protect him from . . . certain irreversible reprisals?”

  Zol hesitated. He couldn’t give the answer Father Stoyan wanted to hear.

  “As I thought,” said Father Stoyan. “You are in no position to offer protection. The tobacco crime syndicate is too large, too complex, and too dangerous.”

  “Our team will use any information Mr. Ligorov gives us without attributing it to him.”

  “Mr. Badger will know where you obtained it.”

  “Not if we appear to discover it for ourselves.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Mr. Ligorov tells us what compound Tammy Holt’s tobacco plants were producing, we can have Dennis Badger’s tobacco products tested for it.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Mass spectrometry.”

  The priest looked puzzled.

  “I don’t understand it, either, Father,” Zol admitted. “All I know is it’s the same technology they use in airports when they screen luggage for illicit drugs and explosive residues. You know, that little wand thing they wipe over laptops?”

  Father Stoyan examined his hands. His face hardened into an anger he couldn’t hide. It was obvious he knew exactly what Zol was talking about. He’d likely been snared by an airport-security sniffer machine, guilty of no more than handling fireworks in the preceding day or two. Zol pictured the tall, bearded man hauled off to a windowless side room, interrogated as if he were a terrorist.

  “If we find Tammy Holt’s toxic drug in Badger’s cigarettes,” Zol continued, “I can take the evidence to Health Canada.”

  “Surely you have enough suspicions already to interest the — relevant authorities.”

  Yes, the priest had been on the wrong side, felt the force of abused power.

  “In a normal case, certainly,” Zol said. “But anything involving our First Nations Peoples is never normal.”

  Father Stoyan closed his eyes and nodded slightly. “Hmm.” He let out a long, slow sigh that said so much without be
ing quotable or politically incorrect. Zol had seen that response so many times before. Political niceties superseded definitive action when the problems of Canada’s Native Peoples were on the table.

  “With concrete evidence of a toxin in the Grand Basin cigarettes,” Zol explained, “and a clear story telling why Tammy’s project was abruptly terminated by the American drug company, we should be able to overcome the . . .” How could he say this politely? “. . . the thick wall of political inertia.”

  “And force the authorities to act?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “How many deaths so far?”

  “Five.”

  “And counting?”

  That was the reality they were facing. “I’m afraid so.”

  “And the police?” Father asked.

  “The cops consider Native reserves to be alien territory where law enforcement is governed not by the rule of law but by political agendas and expediencies. Remember the troubles over Dover Creek Estates?”

  “Some of my parishioners live in Caledonia. I understand the heartaches there.”

  “The police are not going to act on the mere suspicions of a guy like me, a public-health official with . . .” he raised his hands and mimed quotation marks, “. . . an overactive imagination.”

  “Jovan Ligorov is a good man. He was a pediatric surgeon in Macedonia, his homeland. He wants to do the right thing.” Father Stoyan paused. He tugged again at his collar and rubbed the back of his neck. “But he’s terribly afraid for his family.”

  Zol fingered the loonie in his blazer pocket. “This case is calling on all of us to do the right thing, Father.” Sweat pricked the back of his neck. “Dennis Badger has threatened me personally. And my son.”