Why? I asked myself. I’d seen the same body, minutes afterward. Why was she so psyched out? Not that it wasn’t distressing. Not that you wouldn’t have nightmares. I still jerked awake in the night with Mitzi’s dead eyes winking at me. But I wasn’t reduced to a psychiatric case. Logic told me that stable, sensible, unimaginative, dependable old Robin should have been in the same state I was. After all, it wasn’t someone she loved or even someone she knew as far as I could tell. I knew it could be explained, and I knew Robin was keeping something from the people who loved her. I wanted to grab Robin and shake the truth out of her.
So instead I said, “You look like roadkill.”
It was intended to make her laugh. But all it got was a little nod of agreement.
“I know,” she said.
“More coffee, Camilla?”
“No thanks, Mr. Findlay,” I said, watching him wipe his hairy hands on his blue and white checked apron. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen Mr. Findlay without an apron.
“A little lemon coffee cake?”
He slid the lemon coffee cake towards us on small blue-rimmed plates. Forks and blue napkins arrived on the table seconds later.
Mr. Findlay’s coffee cake is not the sort of thing I’m ever going to turn down. I was through mine in a flash. Mr. Findlay had replaced the first piece while both of us watched Robin fiddle with her little plate, never even touching the fork. Her nails were bitten to the quick.
I took a deep breath.
“Tell me what the police asked you.”
Mr. Findlay scuttled from the room.
She looked at me with unfocused eyes.
“A lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“What was I doing there, did I know her, was I angry with her, did I kill her.”
I nodded. I understood why the police would ask that sort of thing. Of course, they didn’t know Robin like I did. You couldn’t blame them for seeing guilt in Robin’s refusal to say why she went to see Mitzi Brochu that afternoon.
“It was awful,” said Robin. Whether she meant finding Mitzi or being grilled by the police was unclear.
“Who questioned you?”
“I don’t remember his name. But he came here to my parents’ house and he badgered and badgered. He thinks I killed her. I know it.” She bit her lip.
“Was it the retriever or the rodent?”
A tiny flicker of Robin’s old smile twitched.
“It was the ratty-looking one. He kept trying to trick me.”
Mombourquette. I shivered. I hated the thought of his rodential mind. And even more the idea of him invading the Findlays’ blue-flowered territory, trying to trap Robin for a murder she could never have committed.
“They’ll be under pressure from the media to get an arrest. I was there with the body. Covered with blood.”
She caught me by surprise. The old Robin spoke for just a minute before disappearing back into the sedative-induced mental mire.
“You’d better get a good defense lawyer. You don’t even need to talk to them without a lawyer present. You know that.”
She half-smiled.
“You’re a good lawyer.”
“I mean a defense lawyer. One of the big ones.”
“I want you.”
Robin had always been stubborn, even from the first day when we met in kindergarten and she wanted the red crayon. Some people might have interpreted her collapse as wimpiness, but I knew it was just another way of being obstinate.
“I don’t get people off,” I said, “I try to keep them in jail. This is not the right attitude for your case.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, if you don’t care about yourself and your chances, do you care about your parents? And your sister? They’ll want you to have the best.”
I had felt the parental presence of the Findlays throughout the conversation. I hoped they would rush in to offer reinforcement, but it was just Robin and me, locked in a struggle of wills.
“You or nobody,” she said, with that little smile.
“Shit.” But I knew I was hooked. She had gotten the red crayon, too, way back in kindergarten. I’d backed right off because I was so happy to have a new friend with blonde curly hair and eyes like cornflowers. Only then did she share it with me.
I knew why she wanted me. In practical terms, I was just as good as the next guy. My five years in criminal law before starting up Justice for Victims gave me the tools I’d need to mount a competent and spirited defense. But more than that, I was the only lawyer around who loved Robin and would do damned near anything to make sure she was all right.
Having won her point, Robin closed her cornflower eyes. Her smile faded. So did her colour. I didn’t think she could get any paler, but I was wrong.
“I have to go back to bed now.”
As I helped her up the stairs to her bedroom, I tried again. “You’ll have to tell me why you were there, if you expect me to help.”
“Not now,” she said, as she slipped between the pink sheets with the white ruffles, looking like a sallow stranger in this familiar room. “Not yet.”
Mr. Findlay was waiting for me, with what looked like tears in his eyes, when I got down stairs.
“She’s asleep already,” I told him.
“Thank you for taking her case. We hoped you would.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t the best thing at all. That you get what you pay for. In this case, the fee would be nothing, and the defense lawyer would be blinded by affection, and someone who usually played for the other side.
Mrs. Findlay was staring at the television as someone’s previously unknown illegitimate child inserted herself as a new character on Another World. She didn’t hear me say goodbye. “It will all work out,” Mr. Findlay called out to me, as I climbed into my car.
* * *
“That’s right. Wendtz,” I said to Conn McCracken when I reached him by phone that afternoon. “Rudy Wendtz.”
“What about him?”
“Do you realize he was Mitzi Brochu’s boyfriend?”
“Your sister has an unlisted telephone number. Do you realize that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“She’s a bit hard to locate.”
“I suppose she is.”
“I was trying to get in touch with her soon.”
“So, this Rudy Wendtz, you talked to him?” I asked.
“I can’t seem to remember. I got a lot on my mind.”
“I think I have that number somewhere.”
“Oh yeah, right,” he said. “Wendtz. It’s all coming back to me now.”
“My sources tell me he and La Belle Mitzi had a major battle the night before she died.”
McCracken coughed.
“Right,” I said, spitting out Alexa’s number.
“The guy’s a vampire,” said McCracken, “just like the victim. Even looked a bit like her.”
“What about the fight?”
“What about it?”
“Check the statistics, Detective. Eighty percent of women who are murdered are murdered by their significant others.”
“Coincidentally, a substantial portion of killers turn out to be the person who reported the murder.”
“That would be me, in this case. Bring on the cuffs.”
“Course, we don’t know, maybe you ducked in, did the deed, ducked out again, disappeared and dashed back in time to discover the deceased with Robin.” A long, wheezy chuckle followed this.
“You have the mind of a poet, too bad you’re developing asthma. Should see a doctor.”
He kept on chuckling.
“Back to the subject of Wendtz,” I said. “I hope Mombourquette put him through the wringer and then hung him out to dry.”
“I interviewed him myself. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Wendtz had a business meeting with three associates between the time Mitzi was last seen alive and the time you called in.”
“Oh,
sure,” I said. “Like some so-called promoter’s associates would never tell a fib to the big scary policeman. And what do you mean sicking Mombourquette on defenceless women while you get the vampires?”
“Sorry you don’t like it, but your little friend is still our prime suspect.”
“Fair enough, but you’re the one who’s going to look like a putz in the local media when the killer turns out to be someone else.”
“Would you mind repeating that number?” he said, just as I hung up.
I was alone in the office and that was good, since I could swear in private.
I nibbled at my nails and tried to work on what they call a three-pronged strategy. One, try to keep Robin from getting arrested. Two, work out a foolproof defense in case she did get arrested and, even worse, had to stand trial. Three, try to find out what her real involvement with Mitzi Brochu had been.
My mood was not enhanced by the five person-to-person collect phone calls for Alvin.
I picked up the sixth and snarled, “I told you he’s not here.”
“Camilla?” Alexa’s voice came through after a pause.
“Sorry.”
“I just wanted to tell you I’m going to the lake for a few days to open up the cottage. I wanted to check you’d be all right.”
“Why wouldn’t I be all right?”
“Well, you know, finding that body…”
“That was last week.”
“Even so, it must have had an effect on you.”
“Have a good time.”
“I don’t suppose…”
“You don’t suppose what?”
“Never mind, I’ll call you when I get back. If you need anything, Edwina and Donalda are there. And Daddy.”
“Good-bye.”
Great, I smiled to myself, Edwina and Donalda and Daddy. I could put them to work. Shadowing Rudy Wendtz maybe.
This was such an amusing thought, I was still smiling when Alvin’s shadow darkened the door.
Anyone else but Alvin and I would have felt sorry for him, his face was so grey, his eyes so clouded, his pony tail so wilted.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Some people called for you this morning,”
“Who?” I said. “I didn’t see any messages.”
“They said they’d call back.”
Any single-cell scrap of sympathy I might have felt evaporated.
Alvin reached over and picked up his backpack from the floor. “Gotta go,” he said. “Family emergency.”
“What a shame. Well, take your time. We all have to have our priorities. And if you can’t get back from Cape Breton, I’ll understand.”
My facial muscles ached from suppressed joy.
“What are you talking about? It should all be settled by tonight. By the way, I did a little research on your friend Mitzi Brochu. That pile there’s got every article she ever wrote and that pile next to it is newspaper articles about her and reviews of her TV specials. Everything’s in date order with the most recent items on top. See you tomorrow.”
When Alvin’s good, he’s very, very good. He’s particularly good in absentia. I spent the rest of the afternoon combing through the articles by and about Mitzi Brochu. It proved to be a potent dose of a poisonous pen. Mitzi had been a lot of things. Nice was not one of them.
Alvin had been very thorough. There was even a picture of Wendtz. Rock promoter Rudy Wendtz, according to the caption. He was shown sampling sushi with Mitzi, she glittering and malevolent in black velvet and metal, he with a two-day growth of beard and slicked back dark-blond hair ending at his shoulders. He looked like a man who worked out. And weren’t those tattoos an adorable touch?
Articles on Mitzi were plentiful and while one or two bleated about the effect her call to “diet or die” had on the already precarious eating habits of teenage girls, most gushed about Mitzi’s wicked wit and unflagging sense of style.
When I had finished wading through the world of the late La Brochu, I slapped the magazines on the table and considered taking a Gravol.
She had her favourite targets: actors, politicians, TV personalities and a Toronto model she compared to a grouper.
Deb Goodhouse had been the butt of insults for years. I thought Mitzi’s jabs had been a one-time random effort to skewer women M.P.’s in general. But Mitzi articles dating way back had rearview shots of Deb and curare-tipped remarks about her sense of style. Running a close second was Jo Quinlan, who averaged two major slams a year by Mitzi. I wasn’t sure who suffered the most slings and arrows: Deb or Jo.
I flipped through the magazines and checked the little credits area in the front. The photographer was the same for all the Deb and Jo pictures and many of the others. He smiled out from a photograph that made him look very, very good. I fished the scissors from the desk and snipped out the picture of the photographer.
Sammy Dash was his name, a man who obviously loved his work.
Six
Alvin was settled in at the desk, humming, so I found myself huddled in the back of the office, surrounded by work I should have been doing. It was just after nine in the morning, but already I did not feel like working. All I could think about was rat-faced Mombourquette waiting for his chance to scurry through the Findlays’ front door and drag Robin off to the station, still in her pink pig slippers.
No, the best thing, I told myself, was not to sit in the office listening to Alvin sing his favourite Fred Eaglesmith song for the eighty-second time. The best thing would be to get out and stir up a little dust to distract Ottawa’s finest from my very, very vulnerable client. I had a few strong options based on reading about Mitzi’s favourite victims. A phone call was all it took, and I was on my way.
“You’re spooking the horses,” Alvin sang, “and you’re scaring me.”
“Good,” I said, just before I slammed the door.
* * *
Deb Goodhouse was one of those rare women who look good in red. Very good. Her hair was still dark brown, almost black, cut in a dutch-boy style. Her dark eyes and ivory skin showed to advantage with her red blazer and matching slash of lipstick. She looked like Snow White, grown middle-aged and professional. She smiled and shook my hand till my bones ached. But I could tell she was not at all glad to see me.
“Well,” she said, “imagine. Alex and Donnie’s little sister. What can I do for you?”
I wondered if she could have been one of the handful of Ottawans who had missed the sight of Robin and me being hustled away from Mitzi’s murder site by the cops. Somehow I doubted it.
Still, she’d been willing to see me, which was the only way I could have gotten past the long-faced security guards and into the labyrinth of offices in the West Block of the Parliament Buildings.
Deb Goodhouse’s assistant, tall, beautiful and black, had ushered me in through the antechamber to the M.P.’s office.
“Thanks for seeing me. This is great,” I said, gawking like the rest of the tourists on the Hill. I had got past the area designated for the public.
The soft leather padding on the door made me wonder, but Deb Goodhouse’s office was less opulent than I expected, even taking the leather sofa, the brass floor lamp, and the very good rug under the mahogany coffee table into consideration. A television set stood within easy view from the desk or the sofa. Citations from dozens of civic organizations hung around with portraits of former Prime Ministers. A small Canadian flag sat on the desk.
“I always wondered what it was like inside a Member of Parliament’s office.”
Deb sat behind her massive desk, her fingers pressed together in a tent. She wore red nail polish and a chunky square-cut silver bracelet with matching earrings. Her body language said “shut up and get out of here”, but her red lips stayed curved in a tight little smile.
Mitzi had done a real number on her. I thought back to phrases such as “Polyester Goes to Parliament”, “Pound for Pound the Voter’s Choice” and “The Hulk on the Hill”. It seemed absurd to think of Deb Goodhouse in th
ose terms. She was a large woman, but polished and attractive, looking younger than her fortysomething years. Her overall image was one of competence and calm. Of course, she was a little tense, but that was because I was there.
“Mitzi Brochu.” I met her eyes as I said it.
“What about her?”
“I’m sure you know she’s been killed, and in a most gruesome manner. A client of mine is being investigated for the murder and, as part of the background work for the defense, I’m looking into what kind of woman the victim was.”
A little snort escaped from Deb Goodhouse’s red lips.
I stopped.
“Go on,” she said.
“Well, there were some Ottawa people she liked to skewer in her columns and on her broadcasts. You were one of them. That makes me think you couldn’t be a fan. I wanted to get a sense of how the non-fan would describe her.”
I sat back in my chair. Alex and Donnie’s little sister from hell.
“Well,” she said, “how would you like to pick up your mail some day and see your flowered butt in full-colour spread across the pages of one of your magazine subscriptions? Of course I wasn’t a fan. She didn’t want me to be a fan. She wanted me to be one of her victims.” She paused and watched my face. “I don’t make a good victim, Ms. MacPhee.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. But what did you think of her? What emotions did she arouse in you?”
She laughed.
“You don’t get elected, you know, by giving in to your emotions on every little thing. You’ve got to save your energy for what counts.”
“So she didn’t bother you?”
“Of course, she bothered me. Wouldn’t she bother you?”
“She did bother me. And I wasn’t even one of her victims.”
“Neither was I, Ms. MacPhee. She wanted me to be, but I wasn’t.”
Speak Ill of the Dead Page 6