Ogrodnik

by Gary Coffin

  “I don’t want to think about JFK, or the case that was. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  “I can’t compete with that kind of story. By day I’m a boring administrative assistant for a couple of overfed executives. By night I’m just as boring. I read or watch TV. I don’t go out much. If I discount the occasional dinner out, I haven’t had a relationship in a few years. When I want to get away, I drive out to the Eastern Townships. I don’t have any family in the area. My parents are no longer with us, and I have a step-brother whom I don’t keep in touch with.”

  “Sounds like you lead a....a tranquil life,” was the best he could come up with.

  “Tranquil? If you mean boring, you’re right. But I can’t complain. I live my little life. I’m quite happy where I am. I’m a homebody. I have to admit that I miss your father. I enjoyed the time we spent together.”

  “So if you don’t mind me probing, why no relationships?”

  “I’m damaged goods, Elliot. You’ve heard the story before: abusive relationship, self-esteem issues, afraid to let go, so it went on too long. And, as they say, once bitten, twice shy.”

  “Well, you didn’t seem shy last night.”

  “If you’re not working on the case, then what do you say we take a drive out to the country today?”

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  “When I want to get away from it all, I drive out to North Hatley and stay at the Ripplewave Inn. What would you think about spending a couple of nights there, just you and me? It’ll help take your mind off the case and let you unwind. You’ve been through a lot in the past few weeks.”

  Elliot thought about it for a moment. “Make it so, Number One.”

  Anne got up out of bed and opened her closet to find some clothes. Elliot watched as she flittered about the room picking out clothing before she showered. The fact that she was completely naked while a man she barely knew watched her did not seem to faze her. She went about her business completely unaware of what affect her exposure was having on him, or did she?

  Once her clothes for the day were neatly arranged on a chair beside the closet, she made her way into the ensuite shower. Elliot thought about joining her but decided that there’d be plenty of time for that when they got to the inn. As he lay in bed, he couldn’t help but think of the case.

  What was Biovonix doing?

  Why would they kill his father?

  Why did they hire mercenaries?

  How did they manage to gain control over the police, especially the chief?

  What role did the big man play in all this?

  Was he really the Stungun Killer?

  What was his relationship with Biovonix?

  His contemplations were interrupted when Anne came out of the ensuite. She was wrapped in a towel that was ridiculously too small to hide anything, and her hair was still wet and brushed back. Elliot couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Have you never seen a nearly naked woman before?” she said as she laughed.

  It took Elliot a moment to snap back to the present. “None as exquisite as you. Can I borrow your towel?”

  “Save it, horndog. If we’re going out to the townships, we need to get going. You know what the traffic can be like on a Friday."

 

  As Anne was putting on her face, Elliot pulled out his phone and called Rivka. Rivka answered and didn’t give him a chance to speak.

  “Elliot, please don’t call me anymore. You did what you needed to do, and I’ll do what I need to do.”

  The phone disconnected.

  He dialed her number again to explain himself but it went directly to voicemail. Rivka had turned her phone off.

  Elliot and Anne headed south on the Bonaventure Expressway, across the Champlain Bridge and continued south onto the Number 10 Highway. After forty minutes of driving, the striped farmland slowly gave way to rolling hills and then into the low rounded mountains of the Eastern Townships. The conversation was light and easy, and Elliot thought about the previous evening. It was the first time he felt physically and mentally attracted to a woman since his wife had passed and was surprised he felt no guilt. He considered it a sign that he was ready to move on in his life.

  With some navigational assistance from Anne, they arrived at the Ripplewave Inn by late morning. The Ripplewave is a privately owned inn on the shores of Lake Memphremagog and has long served as a weekend and vacation getaway for Montrealers who prefer the quaint hospitality of the Eastern Townships over the more heavily commercialized cottage country north of Montreal.

  Anne was greeted at the reception desk as though she were an old friend, and Elliot thought that based on their conversation, they probably were.

  “It’s early for lunch. I’d like to go down for a massage and iron out my sore muscles from last night. Care to join me?” Anne asked.

  “I don’t think so. I saw fishing boat rentals when we came in. I’ll take a short cruise around the lake and meet you in the dining room for lunch.”

  Elliot let the boat drift along the shoreline. He wasn’t really interested in fishing; he just wanted an excuse to soak in some spring sun. The little bit of breeze was enough to slowly drift him down the lake without him worrying about going too far. Elliot used an extra lifejacket as a backrest and settled in for a little nap. Every once in a while, the leftover wash from a distant boat would come in close to shore and bob the boat gently. He could smell the fresh, earthy growth of spring in the air, and the sun was strong on his face. It felt good. His mind wandered, and he found himself going over the case.

  As much as he wanted to let it go, he was way too invested to just drop the case altogether. In his mind, it was like a Rubik’s Cube. Each of the small colored squares was a piece of evidence, a shred of information. At the beginning, all he had was a few scraps of data; each one a different color with no alignment between them. As he gathered more data and started making connections between the pieces of information, the cube was starting to take shape. The colors were being consolidated so that now, instead of visualizing dozens of disconnected squares of different colors, there were half a dozen groups of the same colors. Elliot knew that when all the squares within a color group were aligned and there were connections between the groups of colors, the case could be broken.

  A flurry of activity on the shore roused him, and he looked over to see a big dog chasing a furry critter on the shore some fifty yards away. No, it wasn’t a dog; it was a coyote, and the furry critter was a black cat. The coyote was fast, but the cat was quick. Every time the yote would knock the cat off stride and try to grab it with its muzzle, the cat would dart off to the side and avoid the gnashing teeth. The chase went on for a good thirty seconds, and the cat looked to be slowing down, but in the seconds before meeting its certain fate, it leaped up off the shore and caught hold of an old cedar growing out of the cliff face. That cat scurried up that tree like his tail was on fire and with little fanfare settled onto a pair of branches well out of reach from the disappointed yote below.

  The coyote stood at the base of the cedar and looked up at his lost meal for a moment and then dropped down into a sphinx-like position to think about what he’d done wrong. Meanwhile, the cat relaxed in the tree above with no more worries than if it were sitting above Grandma's stove. The yote quickly got bored and trotted down the shore back the way he had come.

  It was only then that Elliot saw the beauty of the coyote’s trap. The shore consisted of a rocky flat about 10 feet deep that was bordered by water on one side and a straight cliff on the other. About 50 feet past the cedar where the cat lazed, the shore narrowed until there was no shore at all, just a straight bluff down into the water. The yote had trundled back up the shore toward the only way out and, once past a bend in the shore and out of sight from the cat, settled in behind a rocky outcrop.

  The cat thought he had won. He thought he had outwitted the clueless canine and was now baski
ng in the glory of its own cleverness. Little did it know that it would have to go back up the shore at some point, and the yote would be waiting.

  Elliot thought about it. The cat had been in mortal danger and, through some clever maneuvering and more than a little luck, had evaded his foe. Thinking he was safe, he was taking the time to relax and enjoy himself. He was still in mortal danger; he just didn’t realize it.

  He felt a wave of unease pass through him. The contentment he had enjoyed only minutes earlier was gone, replaced by an anxiety he could not explain. His thoughts turned to Rivka, and he was afraid.

  Elliot started the electric motor and turned the boat around.

  Elliot walked into the dining area and found Anne in the far corner engaged in an animated conversation with the hostess. He was greeted at the table by Anne wearing a huge smile.

  “That massage must have been really good.”

  “Just discussing lunch options. Elliot, this is our hostess, Marta.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Marta.”

  “The pleasure is mine, Mr. Forsman.”

  “Marta, can you give us a few minutes to decide on lunch?” she said dismissing the hostess.

  “I’m not too hungry. I think I’ll just have a salad,” said Elliot obviously distracted.

  “What’s the matter? You seem disturbed.”

  “A lot has happened in the past twenty-four hours. I think I was premature to think I could get away from everything. I’ve left too many things hanging. Anne, I hate to ruin our plans for the weekend, but I really feel I should go back to the city. The case might be over, but I still have a lot of loose ends to take care of. I’ve abandoned my partner, my house is half burned down, and here I am at a countryside Auberge running away from my problems.”

  “Then let’s have a quick bite and go back. There’ll be plenty of time to do this later.”

  “Here ya go, Miss Daisy,” Elliot pantomimed as he stopped in front of his father’s house. “I’m sorry to have to cut our weekend short.”

  “You’re not coming in?” inquired Anne.

  “I’ll be moving in upstairs, at least until my house is fixed, so in the interim I’ll need some clothes. I’m also going to pick up a new laptop. I’ll be out for the rest of the day and then some.”

  “Okay. Call me if you get lonely,” said Anne as she leaned into the car to kiss him.

  Elliot headed over to his house and filled a suitcase with essentials. He was glad to see the front of the house was boarded up. He also saw a brochure from a local construction company advertising their services. He pulled it off and thought that the early bird would get the worm.

  He stopped at the computer shop and picked up a sturdy looking laptop and had them load the software while he waited. He called Rivka, but his call went directly to voicemail. He didn’t bother leaving another message. Hours later his laptop was ready, and he returned to his father’s house and unpacked his bags.

  Rivka had spent much of the day running errands and trying to keep busy. Every time she let her thoughts wander back to Stungun and the case, she got irritated, so she kept busy until she could sort out her next moves. She didn’t know if she still had a job and, quite frankly, didn’t care. After a day of weighing her options, she had made up her mind.

  Screw him, she thought. I’ll do this myself.

  Now back at home sitting in front of the tube absentmindedly moving hand from bag to mouth, she started making plans. She was not about to take a seat on the sidelines and watch the killer walk. She was a battler, just like her mother, and she was taught that in Yiddish there’s no “i” in quit.

  She thought about how she had walked out on the force and how her parents had reacted. Her mother was nothing but supportive, but Rivka knew her mother. She could tell from the way her mother avoided eye contact and steered the conversation away from her old job that she was disappointed. Not just disappointed, she was wounded. It was not that Rivka had changed careers. It was that she let herself get pushed out. Rivka, always a battler, just like her mother, had given up without a fight. She turned her back on her job, her duty, her co-workers and ultimately herself.

  There would be no turning back this time. Rivka thought about Rhonda Carling and what else needed further investigation. She made mental notes to talk to the other workers at Eco-Sys and poll the neighbors who weren’t interviewed the first time. Elliot may be a coward, but his theory about the Stungun Killer felt right. Satisfied that she had thought things through, Rivka rolled up the nearly empty chip bag and went to bed. Tomorrow she’d see Mr. Carling.

  Elliot went upstairs and sat on the bed. He was finding it difficult to let go of the case. Nobody liked to be bullied. He started unpacking his bag and came across the two case files. He took them out and hesitated before putting them off to the side. He was curious to see what else the police may have discovered during their interviews on the mountain, so he flipped through the case file without really reading until he found the interview results. The first thing that jumped out at him were the names Rene Duval and Robert Durocher as the interrogating officers. He read through the entire section and didn’t see anything of import. The only item of interest to him was the omission of the witness on the mountain who described the two men in the van. This confirmed there was direct police tampering. They were suppressing information that could have led to an arrest. Disgusted with the way the case was being manipulated, he tossed the case file into the recycle bin.

  Elliot looked down at the worn case folder from Sarah’s death. He knew every word in that file. There was a time in the months following her death that he’d open that case file every day. The file contained the last photos ever taken of her. As part of the chain of evidence, there were half a dozen shots from the subway cam of Sarah standing on the subway platform just prior to her fall. He absentmindedly opened the folder to look at the photos just as he had dozens of times in the past. The photos were timed to snap every five seconds. The first photo showed her standing at the front of the platform, staring straight ahead with a grin on her face. The second photo showed her slightly turned toward what would be an oncoming train. The man on the platform to her right was also starting to look to the left toward the oncoming train. The third photo showed much the same, but the man to her left had moved in closer as if in anticipation that the oncoming train door would stop to his left. In his movement, he had partially exposed the man standing directly behind Sarah. The partial face caught Elliot’s attention. He knew that man! From where? Recently! The recognition slammed into his mind like the oncoming train. The man standing directly behind Sarah was Head and Shoulders, the guard from Biovonix.

  Elliot tore through all six photos to see who else might be in the photos. The man to Sarah’s left was almost certainly Paul Kulas, the man who murdered his father. The last photo exposed a man in the background, standing against the wall a dozen feet away. He appeared to be looking toward Sarah and the killers, toothpick in mouth.

  Elliot’s head was spinning, and his temples throbbed. He needed to absorb his discovery so he lay down in bed knowing full well that there would be no sleep. He didn’t need sleep; he needed his mind to process and digest this newfound reality. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts go. Images and conversation snippets from the past three years besieged his mind. A clinical diagnosis might indicate he was in shock, but Elliot understood what was happening. He envisioned a million-million synaptic connections in his brain being torn up and rerouted. All the memories and feelings that were founded on the circumstances of Sarah’s death were being ripped out and reconstructed. He forced recollections out from the depths of his memories and played them out against this new truth, laying a new mental foundation.

  The entire night, Elliot drifted in a place somewhere between sleep and consciousness, neither sleeping nor awake. At some point close to morning, he awoke from his trance with an understanding of what must be done.

  Elliot showered and ate a hug
e breakfast. There was no urgency in his actions. He thought through his next steps and readied himself for the tasks that lay ahead. He felt that he had gone through a metamorphosis overnight. The old Elliot no longer existed. In his place was the new Elliot, more focused, more resolute and with a renewed sense of duty that justice would be served.

  He scrolled through his task list mentally. The first thing on the list was to call Rayce Nolan.

  “Rayce Bike Shop.” There was no mistaking Rayce’s gravelly voice.

  “Rayce, this is Elliot Forsman.”

  “Forsman, what can I do for you?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “It’s your dime, pardner.”

  “In person.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Without getting into details, it concerns the recent murder of my father and the death of my wife.”

  Rayce paused for a moment before responding. “I’m sorry to hear about your father, but what does that have to do with Sarah?”

  Elliot had no inclination to beat around the bush. “During my father’s murder investigation, I’ve come across evidence that indicates that my father’s killers are also responsible for Sarah’s death.”

  Again, a pause from Rayce. “Are you saying that her death was no accident?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  This time there was no hesitation. “Meet me here, at the bike shop tonight, any time after 6:00.”

  “I’ll be there.” Elliot heard the phone click on the other end.

  He thought about the conversation to come. He didn’t know Rayce well, not at all really. He knew that there had been a bond between Rayce and his wife, a bond that pre-dated his marriage with her. She often talked about Rayce early in their relationship, and although she always maintained it was a platonic relationship, it did not quell Elliot’s feelings of jealousy. As time wore on, those feelings dissipated and Elliot learned to accept the periodic late night calls she had with Rayce. He had never asked her why or how this bond existed; he didn’t want to know.