Speak Ill of the Dead

by Maffini, Mary Jane

  “It’s time for you to go,” he said.

  “Thank you for your help,” I said as we stood to leave.

  “She doesn’t want to talk to the police,” Maria’s husband said.

  The door closed behind us.

  * * *

  “Oh, it’s you,” I said.

  My unexpected visitor stood at my doorway, holding a box.

  “I’m really busy right now. Can we do this some other time?”

  I gestured around the apartment, which I was cleaning up to pass the time while I waited for McCracken to call or show up. I still had to hide the dirty laundry in the closet and put the unwashed dishes under the sink.

  “No, it’d better be now,” she said, pushing her walker forward.

  The box was precariously perched on the handles. Mrs. Parnell kicked the door closed behind her and it snicked shut. I could never figure out how she had such great balance in some directions and none in others.

  “You’d better sit down,” she said, blowing smoke in my face.

  “Five minutes,” I said, “is all I have. Do you want me to carry that box?”

  “No, you sit.”

  I perched on the edge of the sofa, irritated. Mrs. Parnell inched her way to the armchair and settled in. But not before she had placed the box on the floor. I was relieved to note that she didn’t have the bottle of sherry in the pocket of her walker.

  “Well,” I said, when I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Stick your nose in that box, why don’t you.”

  I could think of a dozen reasons why I didn’t want to.

  “Go ahead,” she said, her narrow, mud-coloured eyes watching me.

  I inched toward the box.

  Mrs. Parnell chuckled. The chuckle gave me goosebumps.

  “What are you expecting in there, a severed head or something? Go ahead, open it.”

  I couldn’t stand being taunted. I flipped the lid up and gazed into the contented face of the little calico cat.

  “Surprise,” said Mrs. Parnell.

  “Are those…?”

  “Indeed,” she said, heaving out of her chair and looking down at the calico cat in the box at her feet. “I’m lucky I didn’t have another stroke when I found that animal in my linen cupboard. No wonder Lester and Pierre have been in such a twittery state.”

  The calico cat rolled over to give her four kittens a better chance at dinner. She licked her paw with barely concealed self-satisfaction. Top that, she purred.

  “Good thing one of the kittens is a calico. You’ll be able to return this amorous little creature to your friend Robin with interest.”

  I looked at the kittens. Two the colour of marmalade, one inky black one and another tiny calico. They looked just like rats.

  After Mrs. P. left, I pondered what to do with four kittens and a cat while I chucked the rest of the junk in the apartment out of sight.

  I put Ma Calico in the bedroom while I vacuumed. She was still there purring when I finished. The cardboard box added a decorative touch to my bedroom. The only other decorative touch was the little dog with the big bark. That would get a rise out of Alvin, I thought. Chortling, I tucked the batteries into it and took it to the living room to put it next to my briefcase. I didn’t try to improve the look of the bedroom in any other way. Why bother?

  When the phone rang, it was Alvin. I listened to his report.

  “What are you yelling at me for?” he asked. “Wasn’t that what you wanted me to find out?”

  It was.

  I called McCracken again and left another message: “Just tell him I figured it out. And tell him it’s urgent, life and death.”

  “Excuse me, it’s time to get myself fixed up a bit now,” I said to the cat.

  In the shower, I thought a lot. The key was to remain calm and dispassionate. I could manage that.

  I towel-dried my hair and hunted around for something to wear. The red dress didn’t seem right. But it was clean and even hanging up. I decided to sit down with a glass of wine to calm my nerves while waiting.

  The doorbell jangled. I looked at the clock. Five to six. Richard wasn’t due for more than an hour. No one had buzzed to get in.

  It must be McCracken, I thought, and about time too. I whipped open the door and felt myself being shoved back into the apartment, the door slammed behind me. For once, there was no sign of Mrs. Parnell.

  “What a surprise,” I said. “But I thought you were bringing dinner.”

  Richard stared at me and began to smile, slowly.

  “Well, anyway, I’m glad you’re here, we can relax for a little while.” I chattered. My voice was as close to normal as I could make it. “How about a little bit of wine?”

  “It’s not a social call,” he said, invading my space, walking toward me.

  I found myself backing up. And hating it.

  “Of course, it’s a social call, Richard. And if you want, we can go out to dinner. I’m feeling much better now. And the police believe they’re about to locate the guys who killed Wendtz and Hickey. Underworld connections. So that takes a load off my mind.”

  “Does it?”

  I looked at him, really looked at him. And, for the first time, saw behind the long lean body and the deep brown eyes, saw the fire that had been eating at Richard for years. And I knew that he knew that I knew that no underworld connections had been the killers. When I turned away, I tried not to stare down at his tan shoes. The shoes I’d first seen in the family photo in his office.

  “Sure it does,” I said.

  “It was a mistake to phone around to find out what my daughter died of. I know it was you. You’ve been like a steamroller all through this. No respect for anybody.”

  Oh, Alvin. How ham-handed have you been, I thought.

  “One of my old friends gave me a call,” he said.

  Now that I found myself alone in the apartment with the man who’d killed four people, I had to ask myself why I hadn’t just told McCracken my theory instead of getting Alvin to check it out.

  “And you did a little more snooping, didn’t you? Calling Harmony Head Office to find out who offered Mitzi Brochu the special deal at the Harmony. Don’t bother lying. I already got a call from Corporate. There was no special deal. Just me getting Mitzi where I wanted her.”

  Think, I ordered myself, while fighting to keep my face neutral.

  “Mitzi was such a stupid, greedy bitch, she fell for it,” he said, apparently not expecting any comment from me. “All I had to do was wait for the right time to make her pay. I wanted her to know before she died, just why she was dying. I told her the whole story. I watched her eyes.”

  I thought of Mitzi, tied and gagged, listening to Richard’s explanation of her coming death. A shiver ran through me.

  It was too late to pretend I didn’t know anything, to hope he’d just go away. He hadn’t made that revelation to someone he expected would live to pass the information on to the police.

  I had nothing to lose by asking. Everything to gain by stalling.

  “How did you get into Mitzi’s bedroom without alarming her? How did you tie her up without her screaming the roof off the Harmony?”

  His fists clenched when he talked about Mitzi.

  “I told you she was stupid,” he said. “Vain, too. She thought every man had to be interested in her. She thought I was coming on to her and she was willing. Imagine, a disgusting, ugly harpy like that.” His face twisted as he spoke. Mitzi was dead, but Richard’s hatred still burned. In his mind he must have been back at the scene, raging. “It made me sick to touch her. Before and afterwards.”

  Not before you wrote on the walls in her blood, I thought. I fought to control my shivering.

  “You had your reasons,” I said.

  “Yes, I did. And I could tell my wife that the witch was dead.”

  I nodded, and he seemed to bring himself back to the present and me.

  He shook his head.

  “But as I said, it was stupid of
you to go digging around.”

  “I disagree, Richard. It would have been stupid if I hadn’t mentioned it to anybody. But I did.”

  He loomed in a little bit closer. Where I’d felt warmth and attraction just the day before, now I felt nothing but fear. Trickles of sweat soaked my hair. The red dress clung to my back.

  “Really?” he smiled. “Who did you mention it to?”

  I wasn’t about to tell him about Alvin and Elaine and Maria who all had Richard’s name. I didn’t want them to find themselves with poems before they thought to take their information to the police.

  “I told the police.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “The police would never have agreed to let me come here, if you’d told them what you knew.”

  “Exactly. It’s not seven yet. McCracken will be here any minute.”

  “I’m afraid not. McCracken and Mombourquette got a message from you sending them over to search Jo Quinlan’s farm in Chelsea. I imagine they’re butting heads with the Quebec Provincial Police right now.”

  My heart beat wildly in my chest. He was telling the truth, I was sure. I’d played right into his hands all through my investigation, even telling him about the personalities of the investigating officers. There would be no reinforcements.

  “But even so,” I said, “they won’t find anything there. And they’ll be back here afterwards.” I was surprised at how calm I could sound with my cardiovascular system in crisis.

  Richard’s smile hadn’t changed. The emotionless grimace of the damned.

  “But they will find something there,” he said, “Sammy Dash’s wallet. And a pair of Mitzi’s shoes. Souvenirs from Wendtz and his stooge too. And they will come back here. But it will be too late for you. I’m afraid you’ll be dead.” Regret fluttered over his face and was gone. The chocolate eyes radiated pain for himself, maybe even for me.

  He doesn’t want to kill me, I told myself. Try to reach him. Keep talking.

  “You don’t want to kill me, Richard,” I said.

  “I didn’t before. But you wouldn’t stop digging.”

  “I thought you cared about me. I thought we had something special.” I could feel my stomach heave as I said the words. “Didn’t you feel it too?”

  “I did. I felt it,” he said. “But now it’s too late. I have no choice.”

  “Don’t be too hasty, Richard. I think we can get people to understand your actions. After all, your life was ruined by Mitzi, who promoted an artificial ideal of thinness and made life hell for anybody who didn’t fit the mould.”

  At least he was listening to me. I forced myself to lay my hand on his arm without recoiling.

  “It wasn’t fair,” I said, “a beautiful young girl like your daughter, struggling to make it as a model, fighting a slight tendency toward plumpness, reading fashion magazines, soaking up junk from people like Mitzi, soaking up ideas that sparked the anorexia that killed her.”

  “She wouldn’t listen to us, her mother and me, everything was the fashion gurus. Mitzi…” he spat the name, “Mitzi was the worst. We heard about her all the time from my daughter. Mitzi Brochu this, Mitzi Brochu that. Even when we could see my little girl’s ribs sticking through her clothes, Jenny kept on talking about Mitzi’s latest witticisms about plump people. I wanted to make an example of Mitzi, with her vicious physical pronouncements on the right way for people to look. Mitzi and the scum like Wendtz who make money pushing drugs to kids like Jenny.”

  “But Richard, no one knows what your motivations were, they don’t realize you were making an example of Mitzi…and the others. If you tell them, and I’ll help you, it will make people think about these things.”

  “I don’t think so. There’s still a lot of people out there who need to pay the price for what they’ve done. They’ll lock me up and I don’t want that to happen until I’m finished my work.”

  Shit. We had edged close to the patio doors to the balcony. The balcony I loved, where I savoured warm summer air. Now I caught the faint odour of death. Buy time, I screamed to myself, buy time, buy time.

  “Did you kill Robin’s cat?”

  The man who had murdered four people looked offended.

  “Of course not. I figure it was Wendtz trying to scare you off. The kind of thing he’d do.”

  “Hmmm. How did you know Wendtz and his muscle man would be at Justice for Victims yesterday?”

  “I didn’t. I was following them, looking for my opportunity.

  When they went into your office, I knew they were going to try to hurt you. I had the gun. I was waiting for my chance.”

  “And you probably saved my life.”

  He nodded.

  “Then why the change now?”

  “You know what happened. I have no choice.”

  “Really? And did you write a poem for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “What, um, does it say?”

  The little smile played around his lips. I watched it, horrified, wondering how I could ever have wanted to be close to him. His eyes had once reminded me of chocolates. Now they were cold, hard, dark and dreadful. Like dog turds in the snow.

  “You wouldn’t like it. It’s a suicide note,” he said. “It will explain your guilty feelings about the other deaths. Your involvement in them. Your suicide note is next to the items they’ll find in the woods.”

  All the time he was talking he kept shoving me toward the balcony door.

  My wonderful balcony, where I could see all of Ottawa and no one could see me. Or us, struggling. Where a six-foot-two man could flip a five-foot-two woman over it. Where all traces of violent struggle would be obliterated after the sixteen-story fall. I tried not to think of what that fall would feel like. Instead, I decided it was as good a time as any to put up a fight. But the only weapon I had was distraction.

  “Get him,” I shrieked, looking over his shoulder.

  In the seconds when he turned to look, I picked up the little dog by my briefcase, flicked the switch and flung it toward the other end of the room. A blizzard of barking filled the space.

  Richard stared at me with contempt. “I can’t believe you’d think I could fall for that. And what’s that dog thing supposed to do? Scare me?” He had to yell it to be heard over the barking, but it didn’t detract from his menace in any way.

  I hollered and kicked as Richard pried my fingers away from the door. Just as he peeled the last finger off, I aimed a kick at his crotch. It stopped him, but not for long. As I streaked across the living room towards the front door, he brought me down with a body tackle. The boom must have shaken the ceiling fixtures in the apartment below.

  The dog kept barking.

  I was gasping for breath as Richard slung me over his shoulder and moved toward the balcony again. I grabbed at his hair, pulled with one hand and raked my fingernails across his face with the other. If he was going to kill me, there was goddam well going to be evidence of it on my body and on his. As I took a tearing bite at his earlobe, he slammed the side of my head and I slumped.

  “Why?” I pleaded. “I understand why you killed the bad guys, but I’m one of the good guys. Why are you killing me?”

  “You know too much. I’m not done yet. I owe it to my wife.”

  What the hell, I thought, it’s a Sunday afternoon in a highrise apartment complex in peace-loving Ottawa. Someone must be going to call the police.

  “But still,” I yelled, praying I had an audience somewhere, “it must not feel right. You don’t want to kill me.”

  “You get used to it,” he said, just before I elbowed him in the eye.

  I grabbed the curtains as we passed through the door and held tight. I felt the fabric tearing in my hands. None of me touched the balcony floor.

  “Good-bye, Camilla.”

  I looked over his shoulder and shrieked, “Get him.”

  “You don’t think that will work again,” he said, too softly, as he lifted me higher. Over the edge.

  I clung
to the wrought iron railing of the balcony, screaming. My body dropped, and I could feel the skin on my palms shredding. I fought the thoughts of the sixteen-story fall as Richard pulled at my hands.

  “Hang on, Camilla!”

  I hung. Richard whipped his head around and slumped, half-stunned. Mrs. Parnell whacked him in the chest with the leg of her walker. He reached over to loosen my hands. I heard the sound of metal hitting bone as Mrs. Parnell loomed behind him.

  I heaved and managed to climb back onto the right side of the balcony, my legs without bones.

  Mrs. Parnell continued to slash the walker at him. He staggered and lurched towards her. He struck with both fists in her direction. Mrs. Parnell dropped her walker and tumbled forward.

  I flung myself at him with enough force to throw him off-balance. I picked up the walker and hurled it at him, pushing him back to the edge of the balcony, striking the side of his head.

  Mrs. Parnell crawled toward him. A woman who never gives up.

  Richard lurched against the balcony rail and kicked Mrs.

  Parnell. She slid and lay still on the balcony. He picked up the walker and dropped it over the side of the balcony.

  I could hear my breath in harsh rasps as he turned toward me. I stepped back and leaned down. With every bit of failing energy mobilized, I picked up the cast-iron pot of geraniums and heaved.

  The thonk of metal against skull reverberated in the fear-filled air.

  Richard’s head snapped back. His arms flailed and he grabbed for the rail. Blood spurted from his forehead, washing into his eyes. He staggered, blinded, stumbling against the balcony rail. Crying and sweating and hardly believing he could still be conscious, I pressed myself against the wall.

  He made a growling sound and surged forward, one final vicious lunge. Against the balcony rail, he reached and found only air.

  I stared as Richard plunged tearing and grabbing through the sixteen story drop, his scream echoing back on the wind.

  Mrs. Parnell’s shrivelled paws shook as much as mine did when we locked hands. She leaned against the wall and gasped for air as I collapsed on the chair.

  “You’re pretty good with that walker, Mrs. Parnell,” I said, when I could talk again. “Thank God for those weights.”