by Medora Sale
Who in bloody hell am I dealing with? he wondered. Who precisely, that is. He could always try the last refuge of confusion and ask. He looked at his watch. 8:30. He accepted his change and pulled back onto the highway again. Higgs had been complaining today about having to be at another concert tonight, he remembered, some chamber group playing with that violinist, sponsored again by the Austrian embassy. He headed north toward Ottawa.
The crowd was still milling around for the intermission when he arrived at the concert hall, but the ringing bell had started to herd them back to their seats. Higgs was standing near the main entrance door, facing inward, looking reluctant to commit himself to the second half of the program.
Sanders pulled open the door behind Higgs and spoke right into his ear. “Evening, Inspector,” he said. Higgs jumped and whirled around.
“For God’s sake, man,” he said, seeing Sanders and stepping back in relief. “Don’t do that. Not right now. I might have killed you.”
“Probably not,” said Sanders. “You’re much too well trained to do something that stupid, I would say. But I apologize for startling you. How’s the concert?”
“Who can tell?” asked Higgs, gloomily. “I’m just here to look around, that’s all. No time to listen to the music. I suppose it’s all right, and so far nobody’s massacred anybody else, so it’s a success from that point of view as well.”
“You’re really expecting something to happen, aren’t you?” asked Sanders curiously. “I’m surprised. It just doesn’t seem all that likely to me. Not here.”
“Well . . .” said Higgs. “You hear a few rumors here and there and so you do something. You should know how it is. Most of them have no basis in fact at all and you look like a bloody fool tracking them down. One or two of them are the real stuff, and if you ignore those you end up administering local justice in some Arctic outport.” He shrugged. Right now, in the bright lights of the lobby, he looked tired and pretty human. Through the closed doors behind them came muted clapping, and then the muffled sounds of music. “What are you doing here? You come to this concert? You’re missing the second half if you did.”
Sanders shook his head. “I was just walking by on my way back from dinner,” he said, “and I saw you through the glass. Thought I’d say hello is all.”
Higgs made an indefinable snorting noise.
“Oh, there was one thing,” said Sanders. “What in hell is ‘Joe plus one’?” The RCMP inspector gave him a startled look. “I was over in headquarters talking to some people and this guy is staring straight at me and says it. Someone laughs and the guy next to him says, ‘Sure, no problem.’ I felt pretty stupid. What in hell was he talking about?”
Higgs laughed, and the taut lines disappeared from his face. “I haven’t heard that for a while,” he said. “Not for a couple of years.” He shook his head. “One of the men in our detachment used to call the days of the week that.”
“What?”
“The days of the week. I didn’t know that anyone still remembered it. And the guy who did it is . . . never mind. Anyway, Joe was a bartender at someplace we used to go to, it doesn’t matter where. He worked the bar in the evenings from Thursday through Sunday, so Joe plus one was—”
“Friday,” said Sanders thoughtfully. “A neat system. He must have been a funny guy.”
“He was,” said Higgs, clipping off his words again. The mask of rigidity slipped over his face once more. “I must get back into the hall and keep an eye on things. Good night, Inspector.”
Sanders stood at the door to the motel room and hesitated. There was a dim light glowing from behind the heavy curtains but no sound issuing from the room. He transferred the key to his left hand and let his right hand slip automatically inside his jacket. With a slightly awkward motion, he inserted the key and opened the door, keeping his body back from the opening. The area in front of him had been cleared of mess, but the portion of the bed that was visible from where he stood was still piled high with their jumbled possessions. He pushed the door open a little more. More chaos, but no sign of Harriet. And no sign of anyone else, either. He slammed the door back as far as it would go. It hit the wall with a satisfying thump of metal on drywall and he walked in.
Propped up against the lamp on the low chest was a terse note. “Couldn’t stand this. In coffee shop. H.”
She was sitting over the remains of a piece of apple pie and cheese. “Have some,” she said calmly. “It’s not bad.”
He picked up the menu, ran his eye down it, and put it back down. “I wish you’d stop doing that to me,” he said.
“Doing what?” She put down her fork and looked up.
“Scaring the life out of me. When I opened that door and you weren’t there . . . All I could think was that it might have been nice to have more than one night. . . .” His voice trailed away and he picked up the menu again. The waitress took a couple of steps toward them and he called out, “A corned beef. And a beer, a Blue, I guess.” Harriet raised two fingers. “Make that two corned beef and two Blues.” He turned back to her. “Now, what happened?”
“Nothing happened to me, obviously,” said Harriet. She could feel her cheeks burning under the steadiness of his gaze. “We lost him,” she went on hastily. “It was pretty stupid of us, I guess. I was sure he hadn’t seen me, and there was no reason why he would have recognized Scott, but we followed him out to the parking lot, got Scott’s car, and followed his car right back into Ottawa and then up to the river and over into Vanier. Anyway, the car pulled into a motel parking lot, the driver got out, and—”
“It wasn’t the same man?”
“How in hell did you know?”
“It happens,” he said, grinning. “He probably spotted you, led you to the parking lot, and drifted off to his dormitory as soon as he found someone else for you to follow. Long before the person you were following got into his car.”
“Well, I felt pretty idiotic. Harriet Jeffries, girl detective, screws up again.”
He waited while the beer arrived, poured some, and raised his glass. “To Harriet Jeffries, girl detective. It’s just as well you didn’t find him, you know. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I have to say that these are probably not nice people. And I hate to think what stupid thing you might have done if you’d actually tracked him down to a motel room. Like charging up to him and asking for your pictures back.”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t do something like that. I think. Not unless I was really furious.” She raised her glass in return. “And where in hell have you been?” She was having trouble keeping her voice steady. “I was—”
“All over,” he said, suddenly cheerful. The anxiety in her eyes and the catch in her throat as she spoke had ignited the fire in his belly once again, and he picked her hand up and held it in both of his. “I may have found out a lot. Then again, it might be absolutely nothing and totally irrelevant. I’ll tell you as soon as I get something to eat. I’m suffering from having consumed nothing but organic junk food all evening.”
“Organic junk food?” He surrendered her hand and shook his head as the sandwiches arrived.
“And that’s what I’ve got so far,” said Sanders, pushing his plate aside as he finished both his sandwich and his account of the evening. “This Bartholomew was keeping rather cryptic notes on some sort of activity when he was killed, but for whom I do not know. One thing is very clear, though. He sure as hell wasn’t an ordinary construction worker, not even an ordinary snitch. I would have sworn he was roaring drunk when I saw him, and an hour later, when he died, there was no appreciable amount of alcohol in his system. So he was pretty good at blending in.”
“This is all very interesting, but it doesn’t tell us who stole my pictures, does it?” said Harriet, frowning.
“There is that party,” said Sanders. “The one in his notes. It’s tonight, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’ll b
e damned,” said Harriet, “so it is.” Her eyes began to glow. “What a coincidence. And here I am, dressed fit to kill, just itching to get to crash some glamorous affair. Come on, finish your beer, John Sanders. Let’s go. In case everyone gets bored and goes home early. What time is it?”
“Ten-forty,” he said. “But first we get ourselves another motel room.”
“Check out at this time of night?”
“No, we don’t check out at all. We leave everything here as it is. We can buy toothbrushes at an all-night drugstore. We’ll leave my car here, drive up in yours, and leave it on the street somewhere. Any objections?”
Harriet shook her head. “Why should I have any objections? If I stick around with you long enough, I’ll have fifteen different addresses. I’ve always wanted to live like the rich.”
By now the data interpretation section of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was dark and empty. Andy Cassidy sat alone in a small pool of light at Betty’s desk and stared down at the file in front of him. He considered for a minute or two; tentative and potentially explosive as this might be, it was going to have to be passed along right away. Not hoarded, the way Steve Collins had obviously hoarded it for weeks and weeks. But passed along to whom? He pulled the telephone closer, lifted the receiver, and then put it down again. This was not the phone to use to talk about it. He extracted several pages from the file, picked up the folders, put them back in the black filing cabinet, and slammed the door shut. He locked it, went back into the photocopy room, hoisted up the top of the copier, restored the key to its odd resting place, and began locking up again. He gave one last look around Betty’s office. The coffee maker was off, the note safe in his breast pocket, everything was as it had been. He headed for the telephone at the all-night diner near his apartment.
As he dialed the familiar number, it struck him that everything had changed now, that he had no business calling the unlisted number anymore, and that his reception might well be cool, even hostile. It was more likely, of course, that the number had been changed. But there was no interruption, no metallic message telling him the number was out of service. Henri Deschenes’s familiar voice answered on the third ring, sounding alert and unhurried as usual.
“Henri? It’s Andy Cassidy. Sorry to call so late and at home, but I’ve run across something that I think you ought to look at. No, no. Tomorrow will do fine. It’s not that urgent, I think. Just let me give you a brief run-through. . . .” Five minutes later he hung up and wandered back to the counter to finish his lukewarm coffee, conscious of the blaze of burning bridges to his rear.
“The Mary Jo Motel doesn’t seem to be quite as upscale as our last hovel,” said Harriet as she settled herself back into the car. “But, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t actually appear to have bugs.”
“Come on,” said Sanders. “It’s not that bad. You just have some irrational prejudice against paper bathmats.”
“And tin showers.”
“And plastic bedspreads.”
“And hourly rates,” added Harriet, giggling.
“Be serious,” said Sanders, looking out his window. “It’s not that bad. You’ve never been in—”
“Now don’t start with that worldly-wise, seen-it-all, scum-of-the-earth detective act,” said Harriet. “I saw the expression of pure horror on your face when you opened the door. And there it is. Stop.”
“What?”
“Seven-twenty Echo Drive. You just drove past it. The big house back there with all the lights. Back up.”
“Why don’t we just sit here and have a look?” said Sanders, pulling in to the curb and backing up a few feet.
“It’s huge, isn’t it?” said Harriet softly. “I love Georgian houses.” She turned her head briskly back in Sanders’s direction. “I wonder how hard it’ll be to crash the party. Maybe I should try it alone. I might have better luck than you.”
Sanders didn’t reply. Instead, he slouched down in the seat, put his right arm around Harriet’s shoulders, and pulled her toward him. He could feel a tremor run through her body as it touched his.
“What in hell are we doing out here?” she whispered huskily. The sting she was trying to inject into the words was lost in her rapid and irregular breathing.
“Sssh,” he murmured, kissing her lightly on the temple and then the neck. She shivered. “Just sit and observe. Pretend you’re bird-watching. For owls.”
She reached her face up to his and kissed him, pulling him closer. For a second or two he succumbed to his own overwhelming need to respond, and then pulled away, placing a finger on her lips and shaking his head. She buried her face in his shoulder and encircled his chest with those surprisingly strong arms. After an age of silence, an age in which her warm body and agitated breathing infected him with a powerful restlessness he was beginning to have trouble resisting, a black limousine pulled up in the circular drive and stopped at the front steps. “Look,” he whispered. Harriet raised her head and blinked in the light streaming in the window. A chauffeur got out, his cap and uniform clearly visible in the bright lights of the broad portico. The front door opened and Sanders pointed silently at the figure silhouetted in it. At the same time baroque music poured out over the neighborhood from the open door.
“Hey,” said Harriet in a whisper. “It’s Anna Maria Strelitsch. She’s leaving. Can you see what time it is?”
Sanders held his watch up to the street light three houses away. “Twelve-fifteen. Maybe the party is winding down.”
“I suppose it’s possible. Who in hell lives there?”
Sanders shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea. We can try the city directory tomorrow, and if that fails, I’ll put Dubinsky on to finding out. My partner. It’s wonderful what he can get done while sitting on his tail in Toronto.”
“What now?” whispered Harriet. “Don’t you think I should try to get in quick before everyone leaves? I can always say that someone asked me—it’s been done before.”
“No,” murmured Sanders. “Let’s wait here and see who else turns up on the doorstep.” As he said that, half the lights in the front were turned off and the windows to the right of the front door were plunged in darkness. The door opened again and three people—men, probably—their bodies silhouetted and their faces shadowed by the lights, moved quickly down the steps and headed in the opposite direction. “Damn,” said Sanders. “Did you see anyone you recognized?”
“No. They could have been the caterers for all I could tell.” The lights in the other front room went out as she spoke.
“Why in hell,” said Sanders, “does someone who looks like a lumberjack, who was some kind of informer for the RCMP, and who was doing a lousy job of pretending to be a novelist, want to go to a party where they play baroque music all night? It doesn’t seem to be in character.”
“Why worry about it?” said Harriet. “Nobody’s consistent. And just how long are we going to sit here staring at a dark house? I’m getting sleepy.”
“Sleepy?” said Sanders. “That’s a funny way to describe it.”
“Just trying to be delicate,” said Harriet, and rubbed provocatively up against him in the tight confines between the steering wheel and his chest. “After all, we have a perfectly good bed to go to and this place is looking pretty uninteresting.”
Sanders tried to hold her still. “Not more than a couple of hours or so,” he said, grinning.
Chapter 9
Friday, May 19
Peter Rennsler slipped out of his bed in the Carleton University Residence. In the distance one early-waking bird was chirping; the sky was still almost black. He put on a dressing gown and padded softly down to the bathroom. He would have liked to shower, but didn’t want to risk waking up any restless sleepers at the conference; instead, he washed and shaved quietly and with care. Minutes later he was dressed in corduroy trousers, a turtle-necked jersey, and a tweed jacket. Cas
ual but elegant and very adaptable. He slipped a pair of leather gloves in his pocket. From the top drawer of his dresser he removed a thermos bottle and a jar of instant coffee. He spooned several teaspoonfuls of coffee into the thermos, added sugar, and plugged in the electric kettle that he had purloined from the communal kitchen the night before. He stared out the window as he waited for the water to boil, then poured it on the coffee and sealed it up. Last of all he removed a helmet, a folded tarpaulin, an attaché case, and a scarf from the closet, and left the room, locking the door carefully.
He walked rapidly out of the residence and headed for the most distant of the university’s parking lots, where his motorcycle had been sitting since Wednesday. He fastened the tarp and his attaché case to the luggage carrier in back and put on his helmet; without a glance, he got on and drove off at a moderate speed north toward the deserted westbound Queensway and Highway 7.
He traveled without haste until he was well out of the city and the ring of suburban towns encircling it. Once on the two-lane highway he began counting intersections. At the third, he slowed and turned abruptly right. About a mile in from the highway, he stopped in front of a derelict barn and gently piloted his bike up the ruined laneway leading into it. The door was propped half-open. He halted his machine, pushed it inside, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the light. He undid the thermos and poured himself a small measure of coffee—he would want the rest later on. He finished the coffee, looked around, noted the existence of a large parcel wrapped in heavy plastic under the teeth of a broken-down cultivator, nodded in satisfaction, and checked his watch. Time to leave. He covered the bike with his tarp, left the barn, and headed briskly back to the highway on foot. Minutes after he arrived at the intersection, a car slowed down, allowing him to jump in. As it headed back to Ottawa, the morning sun was flooding the countryside with light.