Speak Ill of the Dead

by Maffini, Mary Jane

  “My, my.”

  “And then there was the other one. The TV lady, Jo Quinlan.”

  “What about her?”

  “Everybody seems to have seen her. More than once too.

  Trying to get some dirt on Mitzi. She talked to the chambermaids and the kitchen staff. I heard she even tried to get her hands on the garbage that got taken from Mitzi’s room. She tipped people so they didn’t mind telling her stuff. Mitzi didn’t tip anybody, and she treated everybody like dirt, so no one minded shafting her.”

  “How did they shaft her?”

  “Well, they didn’t because I guess they didn’t have enough dirt on her. She was cheap, cheap, cheap. And they figured she did a bit of coke on the side herself too. But there wasn’t anything really, um, newsworthy about what she did when she was at the Harmony. Except for the politicians.”

  “What politicians?”

  “Lots of them. The people I talked to didn’t know too much about it, but Jo Quinlan got pretty excited about some of the people who went there.”

  “How did she know who went there if they couldn’t tell her?”

  Alvin looked down at his Docs. There must have been something fascinating about them, but I couldn’t see it myself.

  He sighed.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, it’s just that these people didn’t want to tell me all this. Their jobs could be at stake, you know. So I had to give them a little something to help out.”

  “How much of a little something?”

  “Jeez, there were a lot of people. About eighty or ninety dollars.” He looked at me through his eyelashes.

  “Fine.”

  “More like a hundred, really.”

  “I’ll give you your alleged hundred dollars. But in return I want to be able to talk to any one of your sources, whenever I need to. That means names, Alvin. Names.”

  “Jeez, I forgot a couple guys. It cost me more like one twenty-five by the time I was through.”

  “You’re close to being through again.”

  “Like, I really hate it when you don’t even trust me.”

  I’m afraid I snorted.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Where did you get all this money you so generously gave to your sources?”

  He drew himself upright. “I work here. You pay me. I got other things going on the side. I get by. You can’t go around trying to get information in this town without a bit in your pocket to help people relax.”

  “Hmmm. Okay. I’ll write you a cheque. You start by giving me the list of who saw whom do what at the Harmony.”

  We were both in the middle of writing when a black shadow loomed against the door and Merv barged into the office, without knocking.

  “Whoa,” he said, “you sure know how to get yourself in deep doo-doo.”

  “Why, Merv, how poetic.”

  He shrugged, “If you got it, flaunt it.”

  “Why am I in doo-doo?”

  “Well,” he said, lowering himself into a visitor’s chair and giving Alvin a nasty look, “a couple of reasons.”

  I nodded to encourage him.

  Merv was still narrowing his eyes at Alvin.

  “Alvin,” I said, “you’ve been working pretty hard. Why don’t you take a little break, get some air?”

  Alvin picked up his half-written list, slithered past Merv and vanished out the door.

  “Gives me the creeps,” Merv said.

  “Merv, Merv, you’ve got to learn to broaden your horizons.

  It’s a whole new world out there.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “Back to the topic, Merv. Why doo-doo?”

  “Ho. I’ve been over to Robin’s. You are most unwelcome there. Do not darken the door and all that.”

  “According to whom?”

  “Jeez, you know I hate that whom shit. According to everybody, that’s whom. Mrs. Findlay and Brooke are pissed off. Maybe even Mr. Findlay, who knows. You’d never get past the front door.” Merv took out a cigarette and lit up. He kept watching me for a reaction.

  I didn’t even tell him to put it out.

  “There’s no way to get to her.”

  “We’ll see about that, Merv.”

  “And anyway, that’s not all. I heard that you screwed up your sister’s date with McCracken, and that everybody’s pissed off about that, even your family.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Bit of police gossip.”

  I thought for a minute. “That didn’t take too long to get around.”

  “Hey, you just got to have coffee with the right people.” Merv heaved his shoulders. “Anyways, I can’t hang around here chewing the fat with you all day. Some of us have to work.” He lumbered through the door, leaving me with an additional set of problems.

  The first one rang on the phone while Merv was still thudding down the stairs. Alexa.

  “How could you?” she said.

  “How could I what?” I said, knowing perfectly well.

  “You know perfectly well. You’re the one who ruined my date.”

  There was nothing to do but take my lumps.

  “I’m sorry. I had no idea that Alvin’s investigations would ruin, I mean, interfere with your date with Conn McCracken.”

  “You never wanted it to work out. Admit it. All those nasty remarks about him having a wife. All those little digs. I have a right to be happy. Sometimes you are a selfish brat and I wouldn’t put it past you to set up Alfred or whatever his name is to commit that burglary just to get Conn to go down to the station and leave me there to get home on my own.”

  “I’m sorry, I…”

  “We didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

  “I know what you mean, my own date didn’t work out either.”

  But she’d already hung up.

  It was only when peace descended on the little office that I remembered. Alvin hadn’t told me about Large-and-Lumpy.

  Who had seen Denzil Hickey behind the scenes at the Harmony and when?

  Of course, Alvin was gone for the day.

  Seventeen

  I spent the early part of the evening puttering around the apartment. I had a lot to do, mostly involving making sense out of what I knew.

  It is easier to concentrate in an apartment that does not house five cats. Not only did the kitty litter need to be emptied and the cat dishes filled, but the cats wanted company.

  I ran into Mrs. Parnell while I was putting out the garbage.

  “Home alone tonight, Ms. MacPhee?”

  I didn’t want to get into my social life, disastrous as it was, with a neighbour whose nose just wouldn’t quit.

  “All work and no play, Mrs. Parnell,” I said, opening the door of my apartment and scooping up two escaping cats. I closed the door behind me without looking at her again. One more second and she would have been asking me about Richard. I wasn’t ready for that.

  “Now, buzz off,” I said to the cats. “You’ve been fed, you’ve had something nice to drink, you’ve got clean kitty litter.”

  But they were all over me. Jumping up on the table where I was laying out my notes about the Mitzi Brochu case. Sitting on the nice, fresh pad of lined paper. Batting my pens and pencils onto the floor. And just getting between me and anything I wanted to do. The fat little calico had trouble jumping up and cried until I sat her on my lap.

  “Behave, or I’ll never solve this case and get you back to Robin’s where you belong.”

  That brought me back to earth. I had to convince Robin to tell me what she knew about Brooke’s involvement. But how was I going to get past the dragons?

  I think it was watching the ginger cat, washing his paws perched on my writing paper , that gave me the idea.

  I put the calico down and fished out the phone book. She followed me to the sofa.

  “No wonder you’re so fat,” I said, lifting her again.

  I was just a little edgy as the phone rang in my quarry’s home.

/>   “Camilla MacPhee here. I wonder if you can do something to help Robin?”

  Ted Beamish muffled the surprise in his voice.

  “Anything,” he said.

  No questions asked. I like that in a man.

  “Good. Here’s what I need.”

  I was smiling when I hung up. Let Ted deal with the dragons. It would develop his character.

  I had other fish to fry. Such as, how to confront my suspects with their presence in the Harmony without getting myself hit on the head.

  The doorbell rang before I had made any progress.

  Mrs. Parnell. I guessed that closing the door in her face wasn’t quite subtle enough.

  She clomped past me into the living room, where five cats greeted her like a long-lost relative, although there was nothing catlike about her. If you had to liken her to an animal, it would be an elderly elkhound.

  “I know I’m butting in,” she said, taking the chair and looking around with interest. “But I couldn’t help but notice you seem to have more than your fair share of troubles. Breakins, assaults, and last night I believe you had to race out of here with that nice man and go to the police station.”

  Was she at that goddam door every minute of every day and night? Didn’t she ever sleep? I had to admire such unrelenting, unabashed nosiness.

  Even as I was admiring it, she pulled herself to her feet and moved toward the balcony door using her walker. She had excellent upper body strength, as far as I could tell. Just one leg seemed to drag a bit.

  “Nice view you have on this side of the building,” she said. But I could see her eyes stray to the notebook and the other materials on the dining room table.

  She looked over just in time to catch me catch her. But there were no hard feelings. When I’m her age using a walker to get around, I hope I’ll have the energy to annoy people too.

  “So,” she said, “is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like watch your apartment. Like notify the police if you don’t come home. Like help you rig up booby traps.”

  “Booby traps?” I couldn’t suppress the laugh.

  “Fine,” she shrugged, “you’re the one with the dead cat, not me.”

  She had a point. But I still couldn’t imagine her having the strength to construct booby traps. On the other hand, there were those weights back in her apartment.

  “Mrs. Parnell,” I asked in a dizzying departure from the conversational track, “those weights in your apartment, what do you use them for?”

  “Why Ms. MacPhee, I bake cakes with them, of course. I expect more intelligent questions from you. What do you think I use them for? Weight training, of course. Trying to get back a bit of the old get up and go. After this damn stroke. Trendy kind of treatment for us old crocks now.”

  Stroke. And I hadn’t even known it.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Parnell,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder, “didn’t mean to get you all steamed up. Let’s forget the booby traps and weights and all that. What I need now is someone plugged into the gossip at the House of Commons.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  I gave her a second look. “Let’s have a drink, shall we? I have some very good Armagnac that’s just going to waste.”

  I waited until we were well into our drink, before I mentioned it again.

  “So do you have any contacts there?” Maybe there was a bit of truth in the neighbourly speculations about Mrs. Parnell’s powerful past.

  “The Senate. Close enough. Well, used to. Most of them are dead now. Or in Florida. Same thing if you ask me.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said, sipping my drink with regret. “Lovely weather we’ve been having.”

  “Of course, I might have a few connections left. I’m not dead yet.”

  “Or in Florida,” I said under my breath.

  “Is it about that Goodhouse woman?” she asked So much for any idea I might have had that she didn’t get a good look at the notes on my dining room table.

  “Right. I’d like to know what the late Mitzi Brochu might have had on her. Something publishable, anything from embarrassing gossip to something nastier.

  “Oh, I think we can find that out,” Mrs. Parnell smiled, putting her empty glass back on the table between us, next to the bottle, where I could not ignore it.

  * * *

  Robin and Ted were just visible at the end of the outdoor café as I strolled up to the Canal Ritz the next day. Summer weather at last and Robin’s pallor was highlighted by her flowered sundress. Her hair was in a French braid and she’d put on a bit of make-up. I stood and watched for a minute, searching for more signs that she was getting better. She sat facing the water, shaded a bit by the large umbrella. Her eyes were hidden by sunglasses, but she was smiling as she listened to Ted tell what I expected would be some tedious work tale. The smile became a laugh. They were drinking Coors Light, and neither one of them noticed me.

  “Gosh,” I said, “what a nice surprise.” I reached over to hug her. “Imagine seeing you here.”

  The smile slid down Robin’s face, and her Coors light teetered on the table. I could see her face crumple, all the nice effect of the pink lipstick and other stuff lost.

  “Don’t let yourself fall apart here.” I slipped into the chair that would shield her the most from the view of other diners. “This is a place you want to come back to after all your problems are over. Just keep telling yourself, Camilla’s my best friend and she wants to help. Maybe I should trust her.”

  She turned to Ted, the poor sap.

  “You were in on this, too?” The note of betrayal in Robin’s voice was unmistakable, and Ted didn’t mistake it for one minute.

  He turned the tables on me. “She didn’t tell me you wouldn’t want to see her. I’m sorry.”

  I had to restrain myself from reaching over and belting him. “Excuse me,” I said, “but let’s use a bit of logic here.”

  “I don’t want to use a bit of logic. I want to go home.”

  “You heard her, she doesn’t want logic. She wants to go home,” said Ted.

  “So, twenty-seven years have passed since that first day in Grade One when we shared the red crayon. I may not be the nicest person in the world, but in that entire twenty-seven years have I ever been anything but a friend to you?”

  “It’s okay, it’s time to go. I’ll take you home now. I didn’t know she was going to ambush you like this.”

  “Time to shut up, Ted. Robin and I have something to discuss. What about it, Robin? Have I ever been anything but a good friend to you?”

  She shook her head, fighting for control now. I knew she’d never made a scene in a restaurant in her life, and she wasn’t about to start.

  “It’s okay, Ted, I’ll talk to Camilla and then you can take me home. Would you mind waiting over there? Some of this is quite private.”

  Once Ted was settled two tables over with another Coors, we eyed each other with caution.

  “Look,” I said. “I know this is painful…”

  She shuddered.

  “…and I don’t want to hurt you. Believe me. But you’re hurting yourself. Let me help find out what really happened.

  The police or the newspapers are going to dig it up soon enough. I think I can help to minimize the damage to you…and to your family.”

  I knew the time was right, and Robin needed to share her fears. I waited. Finally she said, “You know, I wanted that red crayon all to myself. You just made me so nervous.”

  Good, I thought, I hope it still works.

  I signalled to the waitress for two more Coors Light. “Tell me,” I said, “what happened.”

  I waited while Robin paused to try and control herself.

  “Well, you know I tried to reach you that day,” she said with a shudder. “She, Mitzi, had called Brooke and told her she would never get her big break, because Mitzi was going to splatter terrible things about Brooke all over the papers. Mitzi was
furious because Brooke was seeing this Wendtz person.” She shuddered and looked at me. “Brooke would have lost the ‘Walk in the Woods’ account. They would have dropped her.”

  I nodded. We didn’t have to talk about the terrible things Mitzi was going to write.

  “Brooke called me from Toronto the night before. She told me all about what Mitzi was planning to do. Write an exposé on recreational drug use by certain top models, with Brooke being one of them. Brooke was hysterical. Completely out of control.” She paused to blow her nose in the paper napkin.

  “First she wanted me to get an injunction to stop the story.”

  “Not good,” I said, “even if you did, a street fighter like Mitzi would get her story out of the injunction. So would a lot of other people who might not pay attention to Mitzi’s write-up in the first place.”

  “Exactly what I said to her.”

  I should have known.

  “Then she wanted me to go and see Mitzi and tell her that we would sue her for libel the minute she published anything detrimental to Brooke. I spoke to Mitzi on the phone first, and she more or less told me that she didn’t give a shit, the pleasure of seeing Brooke get hers would be worth any legal repercussions. I couldn’t believe it.”

  I could believe it.

  “But she agreed to see me that afternoon.”

  “Right,” I said, “she was looking forward to twisting the knife.”

  “I imagine,” said Robin.

  I looked at her with surprise. Now that she was telling the story, she was calm. I could see the old Robin swimming to the surface again. Calm, articulate, practical.

  “I called you to come along because I thought you would be tough enough to support me if I got upset. I wanted to talk to you first and fill you in, but I figured you could just wing it if you had to.”

  “I was right behind you.”

  “I know that now. But Mitzi told me that I’d better be on time, because she had just fifteen minutes for me. I was flustered. I guess I should have waited for you.”

  I shrugged. “She’d still be dead.”

  “You’re right.”

  But perhaps Robin was thinking that if she had waited for me, we would have either found Mitzi together or left when there was no answer, leaving the nastier bits of dealing with a suspicious police force to someone else. But Robin still would have had her problem.