Windfall

by Byron TD Smith

  He was so distracted by her thick accent that he almost missed the words themselves. He snapped out of it when she looked back at him, making eye contact, before stepping on the escalator and disappearing down from view.

  Henry tried to appear calm as he bought a three-zone ticket for as far as the train would go and followed the stranger through the same stile and escalator, for trains heading north.

  He found her seated in the last car and got on just as the doors closed. There were only a half dozen other riders, mostly wearing headphones or earbuds, all paying the customary zero attention to anyone else’s business.

  He sat with one space between them, and, when she spoke again, he decided that her accent was Russian.

  “I’m supposed to tell you that I will take you to Kat Hunter.”

  Bernadette dimmed the lights in the hospital room. Ron snored lightly. Her eyes took a bit of adjusting until she could again see Ron’s daughter, Bonnie, seated in one of the two chairs on the far side of his bed. The doctor was gone for the night, but the nurses would soon be making their rounds. She figured that the small subterfuge with the lights might keep them from being thrown out after visiting hours.

  The family resemblance between Ron and Bonnie was undeniable in the half-light.

  Ron’s surgery had lasted four and a half hours, during which time Bernadette had managed to eat only an apple from the cafeteria and skim through every issue of Maclean’s magazine from the last six months. Bonnie’s company was much appreciated.

  “It sounds like he did pretty well,” Bonnie said. “Still needs plenty of rest, though.”

  “I was supposed to see him you know,” Bernadette said in a whisper. “That day, I mean. I was going to get him out, go around the neighborhood or something. Maybe I could have found him sooner, or maybe this wouldn’t even have happened if we weren’t home.”

  “You can’t go down that road.” Bonnie shook her head. “If you had been there, then maybe the two of you might even be sharing a room.” She reached across her father and placed a familiar hand on Bernadette’s arm. “There’s no reason for you to go beating yourself up, Bernie.”

  “I need to show you something,” Bernadette said, walking around the foot of the bed and taking the seat next to Bonnie. She picked up her purse and rummaged through it, squinting in the poor light. “The man who did this. He dropped some papers on the lawn and Frieda picked them up. Where’d they go?”

  “Your tenant’s niece?”

  “What? Yes. Why can’t I find them?” Bernadette bent to look under the mechanical hospital bed, pain pinching in her waist.

  “Did you lose something?” Bonnie asked, standing.

  “There was a card. And a list. One of the pages that this criminal dropped was a list of all of us in the house. I think we can infer that someone’s been watching the house and trying to figure out something.”

  Wherever they were, the papers were not in the room.

  Bernadette sensed old feelings coming back. It seemed like they’d only just stopped looking over their shoulders.

  “Don’t go there,” Bonnie said. “We all know the FBI stopped looking for Cooper in 2016. It’s over.”

  “Is it, though?” She lowered her voice again. “This is someone who doesn’t know us. They’re gathering information on us, and they are particularly interested in your father and the company because their names were circled. A part of you must have been thinking it, because you went there right away, didn’t you?”

  Bonnie looked at her father, sleeping, exhausted from the surgery. “I just took for granted that everything was wrapped up in a perfect bow.”

  “Me too. I guess knots can be undone.”

  Bernadette placed her hand lightly on Ron’s chest. It rose and fell steadily, but weakly. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You’re strong, old man. You’re going to make it.”

  She saw Bonnie reach out to take Ron’s hand.

  They stayed like this until a nurse came in, unfooled by the turned-down lights, telling them it was ten o’clock and time for visitors to leave. Bonnie had dozed off with her head on her father’s arm. Bernadette was still sitting in the same position, her mind running over all the things that had transpired to bring them here.

  She knew in her heart that her chance meeting with Ron in 1971 was one of the best things that ever happened to her.

  Bonnie rose, groggy, and fumbled with her coat. “I should get going anyhow. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  The two women embraced with the intimacy of decades of sisterhood.

  “Can I call for a cab?” the nurse asked Bernadette.

  “No, that’s all right. We live close enough that I can walk. I’ll just be another minute.”

  “You’re sure?” Bonnie asked.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You can come both back any time after eight tomorrow,” the nurse said.

  She wrote some numbers from the various machines onto a clipboard, considered each of the liquid-filled bags hanging next to Ron, and slipped out, closing the door behind her. Bonnie followed.

  Bernadette shuffled over to the chair that Bonnie had been sleeping in and felt it still warm. Ron’s skin was pale, fitting in with the white walls, curtains and sheets. She pressed her lips against his arm.

  “Ron?” she whispered. His hand was cold and didn’t return her gentle squeeze. She held onto him, willing her warmth into his limbs. Unconsciously, her breathing matched his mechanical rhythm as she stared out the window.

  “If I had to live alone all these years, old man, I’d have gone mad.”

  The lump beneath her ribs ached and felt larger. It had been quiet through the evening, as she worried through Ron’s surgery.

  She shifted in her seat, leaning back, one hand never leaving Ron’s. With the other, she turned her phone off, removed earplugs from her bag, and pushed them in. She rested her feet on one of the bars beneath the hospital bed and let her chin fall to her chest. Her free hand pressed into her side, which somehow provided comfort to the dull pain.

  She would stay until Bonnie could come back after work tomorrow. In the meantime, she closed her eyes and gave thanks that the worst had passed.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The spiral staircase was well made but it was so narrow and tightly wound that it couldn’t have been original to the house; the design suggested secrecy over utility. Keller emerged from a similar pantry in the apartment above that of the numbered company.

  This is the old lady’s apartment. What does this mean?

  He walked through Bernadette’s kitchen with soft, deliberate steps, laying his feet down first on their sides, then rolling onto them carefully with his weight. The house made no sound, though. The apartment was bright for the large open window in the kitchen.

  Outside, he looked across at the café, where he had spent hours upon hours preparing to get this far. He imagined himself sitting there at his booth, eyes peering into the apartment, and saw this version of himself inside looking back. He felt exposed and backed away from the window.

  At the first sense of anxiety, Keller’s hand instinctively reached into his bag for his pills. Finding nothing, he crouched on the floor and rummaged through the crumpled papers.

  Dammit!

  A lump rose in his throat as he tried to take a deep breath.

  His hand shot to his mouth and Keller bit down on the back of his middle finger, hard, trying to distract himself from the panic rising in his chest, moving into his head. He sucked deeply on his knuckle until the fire began to subside.

  He needed to finish this and get some more pills. He took several long blinks and tried to settle.

  Bernadette’s apartment.

  She knows something.

  He opened and closed drawers and cupboards, slamming each with increasing frustration, uncertain as to what he was looking for.

  His eyes rested on an old answering machine on the counter next to the telephone. It was the kind with micro-cassettes
.

  Keller remembered bringing home an almost identical version once. It had been state-of-the-art then, with the ability to pick up your messages by calling in from another touchtone phone and entering a code. His wife thought it was extravagant, but she was more than happy to show it off to her friends.

  An LED number flashed on the corner of the machine: 3. He pressed play and listened.

  “Hi, Bernie. It’s Bonnie. I’m heading in to work today. I figure that you’re going to VGH to see Dad, but I just wanted to confirm. If you’re not, could you please give me a call? Thanks. Love you.”

  A long beep separated the messages.

  “Hello, Bernadette. It’s Pam calling from VGH. I’m not sure what time you’re planning on visiting Mr. Benham, but I thought I’d let you know that we’ll be moving him out of ICU and onto seven this morning. Take care. Bye.”

  The third and final message.

  “Bernadette, it’s Tess. Call me.”

  Useless. Why was he looking in the kitchen?

  In the living room, a black cat had been watching him silently from the couch. Unpredictable, sharp little beast. Keller slowly reached into his bag for his knife. Keeping a measured distance, the cat coolly leaped from its perch and trotted into another room.

  His knife out, Keller scanned the living room. It would take him all day to search this apartment. He needed to speed things up. Eventually the police would spot his car parked on the side street. He wondered when Bernadette was coming home and whether he should just wait for her here. That would be easier than searching everywhere.

  She’s got to have some answers.

  Keller walked into the next room, as though he were stalking the cat.

  Her bedroom.

  A double bed was at the far side of the room, beside a short bedside table, with a lamp and a small pile of books. Keller read the titles: Treating Your Cancer Naturally, Balance: Nature’s Way to Heal the Body, and Fifty Shades Darker.

  He pulled the drawer out of the bedside table and emptied it onto the bed. An eye mask, ear plugs, hair elastics, and night creams. Nothing of interest or use.

  Across the bed, next to the door, was a roll-top, dark wood desk. He’d walked right past it, coming into the room. He had never seen one in real life, only in movies. He tried rolling back the top, but it was locked. Each of the drawers was locked, too. His heart pounded.

  This must be it. People lock up secrets.

  Keller jammed the knife between the desk and the roll-top, below the lock, and leaned hard on the handle. Everything was moving so quickly for him now. There was a loud snapping noise, and the knife slipped a little in his hands. The lock was broken.

  He rolled back the top of the desk, skimmed a few papers and tossed them aside. He broke the lock on one of the drawers and opened it.

  More papers?

  The drawer contained stacks of bank statements in the name of 121702 BC Ltd. He flipped through the pages. None of these pages were the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he should be finding. He wiped his forehead and licked the moisture on his top lip.

  Where is it?

  I could wait until she gets home, and she’d give me answers. If the old man isn’t Dad, this old bag will know what’s going on. The trail leads here.

  He spun left and right. Nothing was jumping out at him, telling him where to look.

  The bill takes me to this house. The house takes me to the company. But why?

  I’ll tear this place apart.

  He kicked the other drawers which remained resolutely closed. He stabbed the desktop with his knife, carving deeper and deeper scars into the wood. Screaming, he grabbed the back of the desk and toppled the entire thing into the middle of the room.

  He stopped cold.

  The knife dropped from his hand.

  An envelope had been taped to the back of the desk.

  The tape was yellow with age and it fell away in stiff strips as Keller peeled the envelope away. He couldn’t catch his breath. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose and onto the paper as he tore off the end and shook the contents out into his hand.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Henry’s first impression of Luba was one of confusion; his own, that is.

  Her stern Russian accent suggested she was a deadly super-spy, but her demeanor was too playful, and she was clearly amused by all the subterfuge. She introduced herself briefly on the Skytrain as a friend of Tess’s and explained that they were going to her place, in Yaletown. The ride lasted only minutes as they emerged on the other side of False Creek. She spoke as fast as she walked, leading them among the tall glass condo towers and along anachronistic cobblestone streets which belied the industrial history of the neighborhood. Tess had asked, she said, if they could spend the night.

  “You were not so long with the police as I would have thought,” she said.

  Luba’s condo had a design to match her fashion aesthetic. Beneath her coat, she wore all white, in contrast to the gray concrete floors and black furniture. The walls, meanwhile, were littered with brightly painted covers and pages of various comic books. By their size, Henry presumed this was all original art. It stood to reason there was more to his Russian host than met the eye; Henry knew how Tess lived as a comic artist and he wondered whether someone could fare so much better as a writer alone.

  He was overjoyed to see Frieda and Tess, and particularly touched by the group hug. “Thank you,” he whispered, his lips close to Tess’s ear.

  Relief sank in as they both peppered him with questions. He wondered how much of Freida’s joy was from seeing him, and how much came from discovering her element among like-minded women.

  Henry was too emotionally exhausted to attempt to decipher his Slavic host who sat cross-legged in a huge leather chair. He just sipped gratefully at the hot ginger tea Tess had made for them as Frieda and Tess filled in their side of events. “So, we put food down for your cat, packed up some overnight things, and here we are,” Tess concluded.

  “I brought your backgammon set,” Frieda added.

  Henry thanked them both and recounted the interview with Sergeant Khatri. Everyone feigned sympathy for Stubbing’s gaff with the fingerprints. What little Henry knew about Julian’s death was met with silence.

  As she listened, Luba picked quietly from a bowl of bright orange Cheezies, which sat alone and out of place on an expensive glass coffee table.

  “Maybe,” she said, looking at Henry but speaking to Tess. “Maybe he is not a paranoid after all.”

  She slapped her palms against her thighs in decision. “There is room here. You will stay until the police catch this person. Tomorrow you even get your cat, yes?” Pleased with herself, Luba popped a Cheezie into her mouth, crunching and smiling.

  Henry instinctively started to protest, but he had nothing better to offer. A hotel was the best he had come up with. And, now that Luba was already caught up with the whole story, it was a moot point. This was a better solution. Tess had saved them.

  “Wouldn’t it be incredible, though, if your neighbor was this hijacker Cooper?” said Luba.

  “But he isn’t,” Henry said. “Our villain is Jack Keller. It’s some guy with a massive, untreated chemical imbalance. He may think he’s on the trail of Cooper and his ransom money, but he’s just delusional.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Luba persisted.

  “There is a resemblance,” Tess said, pulling her phone from her jeans. “I’ve got an old picture of Mr. Benham.”

  Frieda got on board. “There’s so much information online, it’s crazy,” she said, retrieving her laptop from her backpack. “There might even be something that you can use in Time Doctors. Like, if the team went back to 1971 but their hop-pods were broken. So, in order to get back—”

  “Stop.”

  It had come out impulsively, louder than Henry expected. Even Tess froze, her hand poised over her phone.

  Henry gave an unconvincing smile at their host.

  “I apprecia
te your letting us stay here, Luba. We’ve had a long day, though, and Frieda should get ready for bed.”

  “Hen,” Frieda protested.

  “I’m tired, too. Maybe let’s pick this up in the morning,” he said, hoping they might forget.

  Luba showed them the bathroom and the spare room where Frieda and Tess could stay. Henry would sleep alone on the couch, she suggested, speaking directly to Tess.

  Henry and Frieda brushed their teeth in silence. Frieda pouted in protest, and Henry tried to figure out how to play down his outburst; Luba’s curiosity was to be expected. And, he still had Frieda.

  When they emerged from the bathroom, Luba made the couch into a bed, and Tess and Luba retreated to the kitchen. Both women opened their computers and started on a bottle of wine. Henry and Frieda went to say their goodnights.

  Before Henry could utter either his goodnight or his excuse, Tess spoke excitedly.

  “Look at what Luba showed me.”

  She switched tabs in her browser and showed them the cover of a comic book. A pilot with a maple leaf on his helmet looked back at the screen, his arm raised as though about to give a thumbs up. An oxygen mask covered much of his face. A second jet was flying parallel in the background. In bold, bright gold and red, the title read: Dan Cooper: Les Rochers de la mort.

  Tess’s head cocked to one side. Henry squinted at the screen from where he stood.

  “The Adventures of Dan Cooper is an old Belgian comic about an air force pilot,” Luba explained. “A Canadian Air Force pilot.”

  “Like Benham,” Tess said.

  “Interesting,” Henry said, recognizing he was being baited. “But we already know that the RCMP and the FBI are certain that Mr. Benham is not DB Cooper.”

  “Oh, right,” Tess said. “Would they tell you? Or would they be afraid to kick off a massive treasure hunt for the money?”

  “No.” Henry refused to bite. He wagged his finger in the air.

  “Okay, that doesn’t matter so much. I know you don’t want to hear it, Hen, but look at this.”