by Giles Blunt
The man forced Henry back at gunpoint toward the eating area. Henry had been strong at one time, but his years as an alcoholic had taken that from him.
“Sit down,” the man said. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, with the kind of square moustache actors put on when they play bank robbers in the Wild West.
Henry sat on the chair closest to the door. It didn’t make any difference, though, because two other men came out of the second bedroom. One was a kid of about sixteen, the other a man in his late fifties, something military about him.
“Good job,” he said with a nod to the first man. He sat down opposite Henry and asked him his name. Not threatening, not friendly either. Just a request for information.
“Henry.”
“Henry? That your original name? You’re an Indian, aren’t you?”
“First Nations.”
“Oh, First Nations,” the man said with a deep sigh, as if this information had ended a long and exhausting search. “Not much of an Indian name, Henry.”
“I’m not much of an Indian.”
The man folded his forearms on the table and leaned forward, scanning Henry’s face. “Let me guess. Quit the reserve. Headed for the big lights. Discovered you had no immunity to firewater. Came crawling back here to dry out.”
“You got the order wrong. The grape juice came first. And I didn’t quit the rez, I was banned.”
“Is the old man alone up there?”
Henry shook his head. “He’s got me.”
The man sat back in his chair, making it creak. “So he’s alone.”
“If I told you he had a couple of bodyguards with forty-four Magnums, would it make any difference?”
“No.”
The boy was leaning against the counter near the fridge, no particular expression on his face. The young man with the gun had moved out of Henry’s line of vision, but Henry could feel his body heat on the back of his neck, he was that close.
The man sitting across the table didn’t take his eyes off Henry. Nor did his expression—an expression of interest, nothing more—change one iota as the two last words Henry would hear in his life came out of his mouth. “Kill him.”
—
Lloyd heard the shot and lowered his book to his lap. It was near. He was a long way from town out here, but he got hunters passing through now and again, even in winter. Their occasional shots were usually not much louder than a twig snapping, and they didn’t come at night.
He stuck his bookmark in the novel he was reading, closed it and put it on the side table. He got up, pushing himself up from the chair, and went to the picture window. The heavy curtains were closed, not because there was much chance of anybody breaching his privacy out here but because even the double glazing wouldn’t keep out the northern Ontario cold when winter got into its more serious stages. Lloyd parted the curtains about face-width, feeling the cold from the glass, and looked out.
The lights were on in the bunkhouse. The curtains in Henry’s small windows were closed, and Henry’s shadow moved across them. Lloyd thought Henry would come out on the stoop to take a look, but he didn’t. Nothing much visible out there, other than the thin coverlet of snow between the house and the bunkhouse, and Henry’s tracks between them.
Lloyd let the curtains fall back and went and switched off his reading lamp and the kitchen light, and then he switched on the outside lights. Nothing. Nothing on the dock. Nothing by the boathouse. And no tracks anywhere. Just the white snow and the still trees and the near edge of the frozen lake. Snow clouds hung low. No moon or stars. Beyond the lake the world fell away to darkness.
Lloyd switched off the outside lights and went back to his chair and his reading lamp and his book and settled down again. Hunters. The only thing you could hunt this time of year, legally, was pheasant and rabbit, and even the most avid hunters don’t do that at 10:45 on a moonless, starless night. Occasionally they’d let rip with their shotguns after drinking too many beers, just to make a noise. Trying to fill up all that darkness.
But he hadn’t heard any trucks or snowmobiles or anything like that all day.
He opened his book again. Bleak House by Charles Dickens. It was one of Lloyd’s retirement projects—along with building Algonquin Lodge—to read the entire works of Charles Dickens. To his surprise, he had discovered that Henry knew Dickens’ work very well. Though why that should have been a surprise, he didn’t like to think. Sheer prejudice probably.
Anyway, once he found that out, he started ordering two copies of the books from the online outlets, and he and Henry talked about the story and the characters almost every day. Henry was a little ahead of him in Bleak House, but that was because Henry slept even less than Lloyd.
The old man sat in his chair reading for a few more minutes, but standing by the window had chilled him, so he got up, finger holding his place in the book, and took it with him to his bedroom. He was just taking off his slippers when the front door burst open and three men he had never seen before made their entrance into his world.
13
RANDALL WISHART WAS ON THE PHONE with a young couple named Jessup. The wife was at home, but Randall had set up a conference call with her husband, who was in Toronto on business. Every so often two of them would speak at the same time and there would be audio dropouts, leading to confusion and repetition.
Randall was underlining the importance of presentation—you had to make a place look both homelike and yet depersonalized so that people could imagine themselves living in it—when his wife and her father pulled up in the parking lot. He had a sudden panic that they knew about Sam, but they waved to him as they got out of Mr. Carnwright’s Mercedes, both smiling like crazy.
“I’m sick of fluffing,” the wife said. “We’ve been fluffing the place for weeks.”
“And you’re doing a great job,” Randall said. “Trust me, Brenda, all your hard work is going to pay off. Now I told you I want to list it low. I’m thinking two eighty-five.”
“Two eighty-five!” Mr. Jessup had been mostly quiet until now. “That’s ridiculous. Out of the question.”
“I know, I know,” Randall said in his most soothing voice. “It’s a shock to you because you know and I know that it’s worth quite a bit more than that.”
“A bit?” This from the wife.
“A significant amount. And you’ll get it. Trust me, this is the smart way to go. We’ll hold an open house, and that low price is going to get people bidding against each other. Once that starts happening— …”
“Yeah, but what if it doesn’t?” Jessup said. “We have to sell, we’re moving in two weeks, but we can’t take any two eighty-five.”
“It’s much less than Thatcher’s Realty was suggesting,” the wife said.
“Well, then they’re wrong. They may be used to a different market—they take on properties we wouldn’t touch. By all means go with them if you think they’ll do a better job. But I’m telling you, a lowball asking is the way to go. You’ve got a charming house, beautifully cared for, and a sizable lot. I’d hate to see you take any other route. I’ve gotta go. You think about it, and let me know your decision.”
That was good; you didn’t want to look like you cared too much. He got up and crossed the reception area to Lawrence Carnwright’s office. His father-in-law was standing with his back to the window. He was not a big man, but he had an authoritative manner that made him seem so, and today some triumph was making him look particularly tall. Laura was sitting in a wing chair, blond powerhouse in blue pinstripe.
“What’s up with you two?” Randall said.
“Tell him, Laura.”
Laura was a woman who prided herself on her ability to keep cool, a considerable asset in her daily dealings with the stock market. But now she jumped up and grabbed Randall by the biceps. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “The Conservatives want me to run for office.”
“You’re kidding.” Randall found he was grinning, although he was not at all
certain this was good news. “That’s great.”
“We’ve just come from Bob Sloane’s office,” Carnwright said. “He approached me last week and asked me what I thought Laura might say, and I said I didn’t know but I thought she might be pleased.”
“Bob Sloane? You’d be running for federal office?”
“For MP,” Laura said. “Isn’t it fantastic?”
“It is. It really is. Congratulations, honey.” He hugged her tight. She didn’t usually like to be rumpled, but she hugged him back. “Wouldn’t you have to be in Ottawa all the time?”
“Part time. And that’s only if I win.”
“She’ll win,” Carnwright said. “I’ve never been so certain of anything in my life. You’ll win.”
“But I can’t sell Algonquin Bay real estate from Ottawa.”
“You could do a lot from there,” Carnwright said. “And you and I have to talk about this, something I’ve been mulling for a while now.”
“Dad’s been thinking of expanding. Opening offices in other cities.”
“And why not start with Ottawa?” Carnwright said. “Listen, Randall, you’re the only agent I’d trust with something like this. And of course it could mean a lot more money for you. But you and I’ll talk. It’s Laura’s day, and you two have to sort out how you feel.”
“I know how I feel,” Laura said. “I’m pumped.”
Randall could see this was true, and it touched him to see his wife—normally beautiful but ungirlish—alive with almost adolescent high spirits.
“We’ll have to be on our toes,” Carnwright said. “Absolute top of our game, all of us. No parking tickets, know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean,” Randall said.
“And it wouldn’t hurt if you produced a couple of grandkids along the way.”
“Dad, they’re hardly going to want me to run if I’m pregnant.”
Carnwright put his hands up in instant surrender. “I know, I know. I’m just thinking long-term. Thinking big. Did we take that sign down out at the Schumacher place?”
“I drove out there, but it was already gone.”
“Good. It burns me up to see our name every time they show a clip from the crime scene. Talk about bad PR. Ten to one they’re going to want to unload that place after what’s happened, and you know what?”
“We shouldn’t handle it,” Randall said.
His father-in-law cocked a well-manicured finger at him and said, “Right on, pardner. Anyway. Whatever you two decide to do, I think this calls for a toast.” He opened a Bombay Company sideboard and pulled out a bottle of Macallan eighteen-year-old, something he hadn’t done since two years previously, when Randall had sold the local senator’s house for two hundred over asking.
14
CARDINAL WAS HEADING INTO THE meeting room when Delorme called him over to her desk. “You have to hear this.” She switched on the speakerphone and replayed her voice mail. The synthetic voice gave the time stamp as 11:45 the night before. Then a girl’s voice.
“Hi. I don’t want to give my name, which is why I’m leaving a message instead of speaking to an actual person. I have information about the murders on Island Road. I was there. I was in the house and I heard—I heard people talking and I heard shots fired. I don’t know anything more than that except that the guy who did it did not sound Russian—the woman did, but he didn’t. I can’t come forward because—I know I shouldn’t have been in that house. I’m a thief. I steal stuff sometimes. I was looking for stuff to swipe and then I heard voices and hid. When I heard the shots, I ran. That’s all I know. Please don’t try to find me. I hope you get this.”
“What do you think?” Delorme said. “You think she’s for real?”
“She certainly sounds nervous. More than nervous.”
“We know someone ran. We know someone hid under the bed.”
“A girl burglar. She sounds, what, sixteen? Seventeen?”
“I don’t know,” Delorme said. “Could be early twenties.”
“Let’s hear it again.”
Delorme replayed the message.
“I’m not sure I buy it,” Cardinal said. “Not all of it, anyway.”
“No one knows about the runner.”
“‘I’m a thief,’” Cardinal said. “‘I steal stuff sometimes.’ Does that sound real to you?”
Delorme shrugged. “Kind of.”
“Lise, I’ve been fighting for truth, justice and the Canadian way for thirty years and I’ve never heard anyone say ‘I’m a thief.’ And a kid?”
“Maybe not a kid.”
“Someone that young? ‘I’m a thief’? Do you get a lot of thieves calling you up to confess?”
—
When they were all assembled in the meeting room, D.S. Chouinard issued a stern reminder that they could not afford to let other investigations slide—particularly any involving weapons or violence. “So Szelagy, for example—I’ll be expecting you to bring me a plan on your warehouse arson sometime today. Same with Delorme and the ATM robberies. The citizens of this town do not lie awake nights worrying they’re going to be attacked by Russian mobsters. They worry about being mugged taking cash out of the ATM.”
“I don’t think we should do anything else,” McLeod said, “until Cardinal has wrapped up Scriver.”
After that, the meeting turned into an ident show and tell. Arsenault manned the digital projector—he was vain about his technical virtuosity—and Collingwood manned the flip chart, writing things in wildly coloured fluorescent markers. For someone so reserved, he was surprisingly effusive with circles and arrows.
“This is a case where we have a ton of leads,” Arsenault began. “We’re practically buried in leads. With any luck they may eventually turn into evidence. We’ve got blood, hair, fibre, fingerprints, shoe prints and tire tracks. We’re running every single item through all available tests and databases. We’ve made some progress and some connections, but so far … well, you can judge for yourselves where we are. You’re gonna want to take notes.
“All right. Blood first. Since we live in the real world and not on CSI, we do not have DNA back. No surprise there. But we do have blood types. Lev and Irena Bastov are both B-negative. Blood on the windowsill and outside is Rh-positive. Schumachers are A and Rh-positive, but I don’t see Mrs. Schumacher smashing that window and diving into the snow.”
Collingwood wrote locations and blood types on the chart, Magic Marker squeaking.
“Next, hair. Irena Bastov’s hair is faux blond, brown roots. Lev Bastov’s is short, salt and pepper, mostly silver with some black at the back of his head. We didn’t find any hair at the table or on their clothes other than their own. However, in the master bedroom we found a long black hair on the window side of the bed, here.” He indicated a space between the pillow and the bedside table. “Obviously it does not belong to the Schumachers, so it would be good to know who it belongs to and how it got there. In the meantime, fingerprints. To answer the question I know you all want to ask: no, we do not have a match on any known evildoers. But there’s some interesting stuff. The last supper.”
He clicked his remote and the screen showed an image of the table where the victims and their killer had been sitting.
“Prints on the glasses belong to the Bastovs, matching the set we took from them, and the prints in their hotel room and on their passports. Far as we can tell, they don’t seem to have touched anything else at the scene. Prints on the bottle could belong to as many as three people, but you have to expect that with people in the liquor store, warehouse, et cetera.
“The thumbprint, which is right where it would be when you’re pouring—left-handed, I should point out—matches a thumbprint we lifted off the knife in the male victim’s back. This individual did not seem at all concerned about leaving prints, which makes me pessimistic about our chances of finding a record on him. Or them—we have no evidence that there was more than one killer, but this could well be the work of two or three. We have ma
tches to that thumbprint with one on the front door knob, and partial matches on the back door, and the door to the master bedroom.”
He flashed close-ups of the vodka bottle and images of the various doors one after another. Collingwood drew circles and arrows.
“As you know, most of the house appeared undisturbed, except for the rear door, which was jimmied, and the master bedroom, where a fourth party smashed out a window and took a runner. First the window.” He clicked on an image of the broken pane, then a close-up of the sill. “We have a very good print in the blood on the sill. No matches in the databases so far. But perhaps not surprisingly, that print does match the latent we lifted off the chair that was used to smash the window. Now, here’s the interesting part. We also have a match with the bedside table on the window side of the room. Not the table itself but the bedside clock radio. All the other prints on that table belong to Mrs. Schumacher.
“As you know, our very tentative theory was that some individual fled the scene and was chased by the killer. We don’t know what said individual was doing there, but it appears they may have been hiding under the bed—we didn’t get any usable prints from under there—so that may mean a person who was at the scene in some separate capacity, maybe a break and enter. I know it seems unlikely—two separate criminal enterprises at the same time—so if you have any better ideas …”
Images of the chair and the clock radio appeared, followed by a wide angle that took in the bed, the chair, the smashed window.
Delorme spoke up. “Someone left a message on my machine last night. A young woman maybe around twenty? She claims she’s a thief and she was in the house when she heard people coming. She hid, and when she heard shots, she ran.”
The air in the room was suddenly charged. People shifted in their seats, everyone looking at Delorme.