Murder in Focus

by Medora Sale

  “You expect a lot, don’t you?” she said, drawling her words contemptuously. “What are you used to? Women who take one look at you and fall panting into the nearest bed with their legs spread?”

  “For chrissake, you’re the most unreasonable bloody bitch I’ve met in a long time. I don’t expect anything!” He smashed his fist down on the bed beside him. “You’re the one who expects it all. For God’s sake, you have to admit that. I don’t expect a thirty-year-old—”

  “Thirty-two-year-old,” she corrected, her deep voice icily precise.

  “That’s worse. A thirty-two-year-old woman to hang all over me and then look absolutely terrified if I accidentally touch her. You should have outgrown that at sixteen.” He shook his head. “I’m going to bed. This could take all night.” He began unbuttoning his shirt.

  She paid no attention. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to think I found you disgusting, anyway,” she said wearily, and then laughed. “Not nearly as disgusting as the Ottawa police. Obviously Toronto produces a better class of cop. Anyway, if it were true, I don’t suppose I’d actually be here. I could have checked into a hotel.”

  Sanders stood up and walked toward the bathroom, dropping his shirt on the television set as he went. “Listen,” he said, turning to look at her. “I don’t mind being dragged all over hell’s half acre, I don’t mind being frozen out by an iceberg, I don’t even mind sleeping in my goddamn underwear so I won’t offend your sensibilities, but don’t try to get funny at my expense at twelve-thirty in the morning. I lost my sense of humor a few hours ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Harriet almost inaudibly. She stopped abruptly and took an enormous breath before going on. “And I’m sorry you got saddled with someone as screwed up and goddamned miserable as I am. It’s not your fault. But if I don’t make a joke of things, I’ll start crying all over your chest again.” She turned away from him and began pulling clumsily at her watch strap.

  “Dammit,” he muttered. “Now you’re making me feel like a flat-footed louse.” He sat down beside her. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at noticing when there’s something wrong.” She kept her head turned away, staring down at her recalcitrant watch strap. “Look, don’t pay any attention to me. Think of me as a brother you’ve gone camping with. And maybe tomorrow you can tell me all about it. You wouldn’t know it from looking at me, but for an arrogant bastard I’m a very good listener.” He reached out and gently ruffled her hair. Then he dropped his arm and ran his fingers softly and, he hoped, comfortingly along her shoulders. She shivered convulsively and half turned toward him. The taut lines in her face had softened; her eyes were half-shut. Without thinking, he bent down and kissed her lightly. With a sudden violent motion she twisted her body and pressed up against him, opening her mouth under his and delicately forcing her tongue between his lips. She caught him around the neck and fell back onto the bed, dragging him down with her. When he pulled away to catch his breath he realized that she was pushing up her T-shirt to reveal her bare breasts, and he began to fumble hastily at the fastenings of her jeans.

  “No,” she murmured, “please . . . don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” he said, pulling back and looking at her. He stroked her face, pushing her damp hair back onto the pillow, and then bent down and kissed her. “Don’t what?”

  “Nothing. Pay no attention.” Her voice was hoarse and faint.

  “Here,” he said, pulling her to her feet and yanking the covers back, “there’s no hurry. Let’s do this properly.” She sat down on the edge of the bed again, toed viciously at the backs of her running shoes and socks, and then stood up and let her jeans fall to a heap on the floor. In one rapid movement she had discarded her underwear, letting it join his clothes in a pile between the beds. Sanders leaned over and pulled the little yellow shirt above her head before pushing her back down on the pillow and easing himself gently down beside her. He ran his hands all over her now. All the hard and awkward angles she had made out of her body before—except for her small, erect breasts—felt infinitely warm and yielding under his exploring fingers. He stopped to look at her for a moment, oddly detached, like the spectator at a special performance. Her skin was gleaming with sweat; one hand was pressed frantically under her left breast, the other was thrown across her mouth. The lids were fluttering over her unfocused eyes. He forgot whatever reason he had had for waiting any longer. He kissed her fiercely until her long legs wrapped themselves around him and he fell dizzily into her. She reached up and clutched at his neck and shoulders like a fighting cat and thrust herself upward. In three or four fierce movements he felt her muscles contract in an enormous spasm, and she screamed, a low-pitched, sobbing scream.

  “How long have you been separated?” asked Sanders. He was lying comfortably propped up on pillows, with Harriet’s head on his chest.

  “Let me see,” she said thoughtfully, twisting the luxuriant hair on his chest with her fingers. “November to May. Six months.”

  “Married?” he asked.

  She shook her head, and her hair flipped lightly over his shoulder. “Living together. How did you know?”

  “I’m a detective, remember, sweetheart?” He kissed her on the nose. “After all, that was a breathtaking reaction to a simple kiss. Which says to me,” he said, stroking her breast, “that you’re a passionate woman who has been living a celibate existence for a while. Elementary, my dear Jeffries.”

  “Smug bastard that you are,” said Harriet.

  “And why not? What I haven’t figured out is your reason for that ice maiden act.”

  “Come on,” she said. “That’s not fair. It wasn’t an act. You were getting to me. For some peculiar reason I found you disturbingly attractive. And I had bloody good reasons not to get myself involved. With anyone.” She turned her head and muttered something into his chest.

  “What did you say?” he asked, half sitting up to look at her.

  “I said, it wasn’t much of an act, anyway. We only met on Monday.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said cheerfully. “I don’t mind. Why are you so worried about getting involved? You strike me as having enough independence for six women.”

  “You want me to tell you why?” she asked bitterly.

  “If you insist,” said Sanders, stretching lazily, then propping himself up on one elbow and looking at her. “Go ahead.”

  “Remember my assistant who ran off to Montreal to join her boyfriend?”

  “The bad painter?”

  “Well, he was my bad painter. And I knew he was a lousy painter and an even lousier boyfriend. He was an arrogant, conniving leech, and half the time—no, most of the time lately—I hated him, and I was the one who threw him out. But still, when Jane told me about the baby . . . that was pretty bloody humiliating.”

  “Is that why you threw him out?”

  “Uh-uh.” She shook her head vehemently. “Jane told me the happy news after he had moved on. It was about then I decided I couldn’t afford a sex life.”

  Sanders snorted with laughter. “I’m sorry,” he said, raising his hand contritely. “I’m not laughing because your boyfriend got your assistant pregnant. Just that I knew damn well there was sex under there somewhere, but I assumed it was your assistant who had dumped you. Which seems pretty funny right now. I apologize.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said coolly, and sat up. “And don’t be so damned smug. I don’t regard it as an insult. If I’d been someone different, it could have been true.” She watched him silently for a moment. “Anyway, you’ve had plenty of time to cross-examine me.” She was looking at him steadily, her head slightly to one side in an attitude of detached, scientific curiosity. “It’s my turn. There’s something I need to know about you before I spend any more time in this bed.”

  “Ah,” he said cautiously. “This is where we get into wives and kiddies, right?”

  “Not at a
ll. It’s something much more important.” She dropped back down onto the pillow again “Tell me, do you always carry a gun when you’re taking people out to dinner?”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Of course it bothers me. I wouldn’t have said anything if it didn’t bother me.”

  He sat up, dislodging the hand she had draped over his belly. “Hell, what do you want me to say? It’s part of the job. And there have been moments when it’s come in handy. I don’t care much for the damned things, and they’re not much bloody use, let me tell you. Inaccurate as hell.” Harriet sat up, pulling the sheet around her, and rested her chin on her knees. “I suppose if I’d thought about it I wouldn’t have brought it with me, but I’d been working all night when the word came down to leave for Ottawa—at once and double quick. I threw some shirts and underwear into a suitcase and jumped in the car.” Her silence was unnerving. “So here I am in Ottawa and I’ve got the damned thing with me. What do you want me to do with it?” he asked accusingly. “Leave it in the motel room drawer? A very bad idea, Harriet. The things are dangerous. At least I don’t wear it to bed,” he added with a sly smile. She didn’t react. “Look, Harriet, I don’t go around killing people. We have a whole squad of people who specialize in firing at human beings, and when things are really desperate, we call them in.”

  “You whipped it out pretty handily in my apartment.”

  “Slight overreaction.”

  She shivered and retreated back under the covers. “Have you ever killed anyone? No, wait. Don’t tell me, not right now.” She rolled over on her belly and leaned her head on his thigh. “I have to think about this. Are you going back to your own bed, or are you spending the night in mine?”

  “I’m spending the night in yours,” he said. “I want to make sure you’re still in the room when I wake up again.” He moved the extra pillow over to Harriet’s side of the bed, slid down, and reached out for her. She threw a leg over his and in a second had them entangled again.

  “This time,” she murmured, “you can turn out the light.”

  Chapter 7

  Thursday, May 18

  “How do you feel?” asked Sanders. He was sitting across from Harriet at a table by the window in the coffee shop attached to the motel. With his index finger he traced the pattern of bones and ligaments in her hand as it lay on the table between them.

  “Aside from starving?” she asked. “Strange. And empty.” She smiled. “Something to do with lack of sleep, I think, as well as everything else. I ordered bacon and eggs with extra toast for both of us. Where were you?”

  “In the office, telling them my wife had arrived from Toronto for a few days. Just so you don’t feel you have to duck around avoiding the management.”

  “Your wife? Me? How quaint. Did they believe you?”

  “I don’t suppose they cared, one way or another. Do you mind?”

  “Being called your wife? I don’t know. Ask me when my head has cleared a bit.” She waved energetically at the waitress, who wandered over to pour them some coffee. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” he said automatically.

  “That’s it? You feel fine?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Habit. I suppose if I really tried to figure out how I felt I’d say I was dizzy. Or light-headed, however you want to describe it.” He picked up her hand. “And somewhat pleased with myself. You can’t imagine how much you’ve inflated my male ego,” he said with a grin.

  She looked around the room and laughed. “I think we’d better change the topic. All that food,” she said, nodding in the direction of the waitress, “must be ours, and half the people in the place are eavesdropping like mad. That guy over there is about to faint in ecstasy. Pervert,” she hissed distinctly in the man’s direction, and giggled again. Sanders winced.

  “What are you going to do today?” he asked when they had finished the last of their toast.

  “I don’t know,” said Harriet. “I haven’t really decided. But I want my pictures back. Every time I think about them I get absolutely furious. Where should I start? With the police? That’s thousands of dollars’ worth of work they walked off with, you know. I’ve got to get them back.” She stopped to give him an intensely concentrated look. “Should I get the insurance company to offer a bribe? They have contacts in the criminal cases, don’t they? They always seem to in movies.”

  Sanders shook his head. “I’m not sure that would do much good. If you’d lost some diamonds, sure, the insurance company has contacts and it could use them, but whoever walked off with your stuff wasn’t just some break-and-enter artist. He wanted those particular pictures. So either we’re looking for the two men who were in them, assuming that they’re shy and don’t like their pictures taken, or somebody else wanted to know what they looked like. My guess would be the RCMP—or CSIS.”

  “The RCMP? But why in hell break into my apartment? They could have—no, don’t answer that. I know already. What makes you think it might have been them?”

  “Those bastards from the local police,” said Sanders, yawning. “That’s been bothering me ever since they walked through the door of your apartment.”

  “What has?”

  “Their attitude, I suppose. They were just a little too casual and uninterested in your break-in. Okay,” he said, raising one hand as if she had been contradicting him ferociously, “they’re busy, it was a sort of weird thing, and they probably felt that not much of value had been taken, but still. Pretty casual. Too casual. And maybe that was because they’d been told to keep their hands off the case. And why would someone tell them that? Because the Mounties had been doing the searching.” He shook his head. “And that’s where we stand. The Mounties have the pictures, which means we haven’t a hope in hell of getting them back, or those two guys have them. And they’re not much better from our point of view. They didn’t look to me like small-time B and E artists.”

  “Damn!” said Harriet, and nibbled her lower lip. “There must be some way to find them. I wish you didn’t sound so bloody plausible.” She yawned and stretched and then smiled at him. “Well, if you’re right about that, then it’s all not much use, is it? I think I’ll go back and straighten up the mess in the apartment—”

  “No!” He interrupted her with such force that everyone in the little coffee shop turned and looked. “Look, Harriet, don’t go back there alone.” She opened her mouth to protest. “Think of it as humoring my paranoia if you want. Maybe it’s safe—if they’ve decided that what they’re looking for isn’t there—but still . . .”

  “And I used to think I was twitchy,” she said. “That poses a problem. I didn’t really pack much in the way of clothes. In that case—I don’t know—maybe I’ll go shopping. And buy a skirt. After all, wouldn’t the wife of an inspector wear a skirt once in a while?” She gave him a look of impassive innocence and then winked.

  “My God,” he said. He could feel himself sinking into deep water. “I don’t know. I suppose she would.”

  “Are you trying to imply by that remark,” said Harriet sternly, “I mean, are you really trying to convince me that you have reached the age of—”

  “Thirty-eight,” he said.

  “Thirty-eight, and you’re not married? And not gay?”

  “You should certainly know I’m not gay,” he protested, “if anyone does.”

  “Not necessarily. You could be a passionate and oversexed bisexual.” She gave him a calculating look, biting her lip as she considered the question. “No,” she shook her head. “You’re right. Not on the police force.”

  “Not very likely, anyway. I’d have had a rough time.” He started building little walls with the napkin dispenser, the salt and pepper, and the ashtray. “I used to be married. Does that matter?”

  “It depends. How used is used? Last week?”

  He laughed. “No, a couple of years ago. And I have
two almost-grown-up children who haven’t really noticed that I moved out. My abandoned wife has married a nice guy—well, truthfully, he’s a sleazy bastard—who owns a store in our old neighborhood. He seems to suit her better than I ever did.”

  “So you’re off the hook. How nice for you.”

  “Yes, it is. And you’re sitting there thinking that I’m a heartless son of a bitch. Well, maybe I am. Sort of.”

  “How could I think that?” said Harriet, widening her eyes in mock amazement. “You’re sweet. A real pussycat. All six foot ten of you. And you’re bloody late for that meeting.”

  He looked at his watch at last. “Christ,” he breathed. “So I am. Look, stay away from the apartment and I’ll see you around four-thirty. I got an extra key to the motel room for you”—he threw it down on the table as he got up—“and here’s a twenty. Do you mind paying for breakfast?” He bent down to whisper in her ear. “Watch out for yourself, please? And it’s really only six foot three. You should see Ed Dubinsky, my partner.”

  She looked up and caught his hand, a worried frown on her face. “Then I’ll meet you at four-thirty this afternoon. With the change. I’ll wait around right where you knocked me down, all right? Just to give you another chance.”

  “Great.” He brushed her forehead with his hand and then threw open the door, fumbling in his pocket for his keys. One of the men eating alone turned with deliberation to watch him leave; as Sanders drove out of the parking area the man picked up his coffee cup once again and settled into his newspaper.

  Once Sanders had worked his way past the islands of construction onto the relative breadth of space on the parkway, he accelerated and allowed his attention to wander. How in hell was he going to set about finding those damned pictures? Because it was obvious that he had been silently elected to the job. Otherwise Harriet was going to start charging all over the city looking for them and God knows what was going to happen to her. There was something very clear and simple he could do, he was sure of that. But he couldn’t remember what it was. He slowed down for the light and put on his right turn indicator. There, on the broad grounds belonging to RCMP headquarters, a man was walking with a briefcase tucked under his arm. A briefcase. That was it. The briefcase, with something written on it. What? He pulled into a parking spot. It was the name of a conference. A conference on . . . maybe Harriet would remember. After all, she took the goddamn picture. As soon as he got in the door he turned to the nearest pay phone and dialed the motel.