Jasmine, are you all right?” I said, lurching through the door and careening into the nearest wall with its huge soft wall hanging.
“I am now,” she said.
I heard soft sobs from the corner. I had a shadowy impression of Kate Westerlund, hunkered down, weeping. She appeared pathetic, but I wasn’t fooled.
“Thank God, you’re okay, Jasmine,” I said.
From the corner, Kate wailed, “No. She killed him.”
“What?”
“Joe. She killed Joe. She’s insane. What harm could Joe do? He was helpless.”
Jasmine said crisply, “But he’d already done plenty of harm in his life, hadn’t he? The people your precious Joe killed were just as helpless. But unlike him and unlike you, they were innocent.”
Jasmine didn’t sound distraught.
Kate said, “He did what he believed in. He always lived by his principles.”
“Interesting principles,” Jasmine said. “You can shoot innocent people to get enough money to live out your delusions of grandeur. You can complete your education and masquerade as an exemplary citizen.”
“Joe lived a good life. He taught at the university. He . . .”
Jasmine said, “There’s the thing. He lived. You see that’s the difference between him and his victims. Life. He owned the nice house, had the artwork and the beautiful wife who was just as guilty as he was.”
“He gave back to his community. He gave to his students. He made amends.”
“How could he make amends? Could he bring back a woman to life? Could he give a mother back to a daughter who never got to know her? Amends? He made me sick, and so do you.”
Kate screamed, “You shot him in cold blood. What’s the difference between you and him?”
“Here’s the difference. I told him why he was going to die, and he understood. He got to think about it and what it meant. My mother never had that chance. She was just a nice young woman with one baby and another on the way who went into the bank to get enough cash to buy a playpen. She never knew why she was cut down. She didn’t understand why she had to drown in her own blood.”
My knees buckled, and I crumpled to the ground. I slid the cellphone over behind a shadow that I took to be a planter. I couldn’t see well enough to tell if either of them saw me do it.
“Joe’s dead?” I said, trying to comprehend what I was hearing.
“That’s the good news,” Jasmine said. “It’s working out beautifully. I’ve got nearly all of them now. They’ve paid the price for their actions. Kate will be next, then I’ll track down Bianca. Of course, they’ll let their guard down once they hear you’ve killed yourself, Camilla. Then I’ll finish my job.”
“But who else is left besides Bianca?”
“Norine, naturally. Stupid bitch. Where do you think she got the funding for that restaurant? But then they all had such wonderful false lives, didn’t they?”
I was still having a bit of trouble with all this. “You mean they all moved to Ottawa? Isn’t that a bit odd?”
Jasmine said, “Not too smart maybe, but you can see why they would. It was Canada, easy to get to, easy to blend in, using dead people’s identities, but away from the FBI. And I think Joe Westerlund still had a big hold over them. These women had a shared history. No one else knew what they’d done. I suppose they acted as a vile support group.”
“I imagine they’d need to help each other.”
“Help each other, my ass. They had everything they wanted. They had money from those robberies. They each got themselves a good education, graduate degrees. Houses, cars, careers. Did you see Laura’s portfolio? Do you think I had a wonderful life growing up?”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said.
Jasmine said, “I had a father who never got over his wife’s death. He never held a proper job after. Do you think it’s easy getting through school on welfare? I can tell you it’s a lot harder than buying your way in with blood money and stolen identities.”
“You planned this whole thing,” I said.
“I planned it wonderfully. But the best part is that I was the last face they saw, the last voice they heard. I made sure they all knew why they died.”
“But how did you find the Settlers?”
“Remember all the fuss about Kathleen Soliah? During that time, Frances Foxall wrote an opinion piece in an online forum discussing the beliefs of groups like the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Settlers. She did a great job of justifying her actions. ‘Life goes on,’ she said. Don’t you just love that? She truly believed that she, and all the others, should be left alone because time had passed, enough punishment that she had needed an assumed identity for all these years. I didn’t share that view. I’d been reading everything about the Settlers for years. I knew it was just a matter of time until I found one of them.”
“But an online forum should be anonymous. How did you find her?”
“It took a bit of work to track her down, but it was worth it. She mentioned her horse farm in her article. She let a few other things slip. It took some digging to find out where her farm was, but then it all paid off. I showed up one day, said I was interested in horses. It wasn’t hard to feign interest. She wasn’t the least bit suspicious. She had an ego the size of Ontario. I knew she kept in touch with the others. In her article she said ‘We are living good lives. We are productive useful citizens.’ Wasn’t that nice for them? I learned she met a lot of friends in Maisie’s. I sweet-talked her into asking Norine to give me a job. Couldn’t be simpler. I figured out who was who soon enough.”
“The horse,” I said loudly. “You frightened the horse. And it threw her.”
“That’s right. And I made sure she knew why.”
“Sylvie Dumais in the canoe. The same thing?”
“It’s not hard to put an unobtrusive hole in a canoe. I watched from the shore. I was almost sorry when the hypothermia got her. I had a lot of venting to do.”
“I see that.”
“Yes. And your precious Laura Brown. That was my best.”
“You were her special dinner guest. You wore the straw hat,” I said, trying to prop myself up. I hoped like hell Alvin or Mrs. Parnell was hearing this on the phone. “What did you do? Tinker with her insulin?”
“That was a good guess. I put it back afterwards. That’s when I ran into you in the night. I’d been searching her house for a couple of hours looking for information on the others. Then you showed up. I’m glad you didn’t die then, because you’ve come in very handy. Now I’m through, and you get to be the guilty party.”
“Laura must have liked and trusted you.”
“Her actions killed my mother and ruined my life. Then she meets me at Maisie’s, and without knowing anything about me, wants to help with my education. Don’t you just love it?”
“She obviously liked you very much and trusted you. She didn’t bother to hide her code number from you. You didn’t want her to die in the house.”
“The house would have been fine. A fall down the stairs. But every time I was there, this stupid woman with those miserable wiener dogs would walk by and wave, or else this nosy old geezer next door would be drooling over her. Couldn’t take the chance. It turned out for the best, because now we know that people survive falls down the stairs.”
By this time, I was on all fours, trying to struggle to my feet.
Jasmine said, “She really didn’t want to go over that cliff.”
Kate whimpered in the corner.
“How did you get her on the other side of the fence?”
“I had a knife. Knives are persuasive.”
“But there were people around.”
“Around, but not close enough to see that.”
“You wouldn’t have used the knife on her, because you wanted all these deaths to look accidental.”
“Laura didn’t know that. Everything came as a surprise to her. And now, of course, with you in the picture, the deaths don’t have to look accidental.”
Kate whimpered in the corner. Not much hope of her getting us out of this trap.
“You seem to understand. It’s too bad I need you to be dead.”
“Maybe so, but there will be an inquest. Police investigations.”
“But at the end of the day, everything will still point firmly to you. I’m just a server in the restaurant. No connection at all, except when you visited me and threatened me.”
She had a point.
I said, “I gather you attacked one of the police officers and took his weapon. That was useful to pin on me too.”
“Wasn’t it?” Jasmine said.
It was a small chance, but I hoped like hell Alvin was on the phone, picking up some of this.
“That reminds me,” I said. “Chelsea was your friend. Why kill her?”
“Friend, my ass. Greedy little thing. She figured out I knew them all. She wanted money from me. She became a little more collateral damage.”
Jasmine was just a blurred shape. As much as I needed to see, I was glad I didn’t have to look at her face. “And I conveniently provided you with props to mislead the police. My jacket. Crashing around making a fool of myself. You hid my cash card.”
“Funny, you made me nervous when you came to Maisie’s. I just forgot to give the card back to you. Norine must have taken it to get your name. She was quite suspicious about you. It sure came in handy. Helped to make you look guilty.”
“Speaking of guilty. That silver Neon of yours. I saw that car outside Bianca’s place. Someone else will have seen it too. If she regains consciousness, she’ll tell the police.”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t regain consciousness.”
The room was tilting strangely. I felt my head whirling. My stomach heaved. I had to stop Jasmine. But there was no way I could get to her.
“I’m glad you’re here, Camilla,” she said. “It saves me a lot of trouble.”
“You lied about everything,” I said, stalling. “You lied about Elaine.”
“It doesn’t take much to get you to turn on your friends,” Jasmine said. “It’s surprisingly easy to start a rumour with the police.”
“You lied about Kate too. And Joe.”
“That was the truth. They were the core of the group. I got that much from Sylvie before she died. Not their new names, though. I had to rely on you for that.”
A dim shadow rose slowly behind Jasmine. I did my best to appear to look straight at Jasmine. Anything to distract her. I sensed rather than saw Kate lurch forward. Kate loomed behind Jasmine and slammed into her. Jasmine lurched forward and lost her balance. She staggered, whirled at Kate. A shot reverberated. Without a sound, Kate crumpled to a heap on the floor. The smell of cordite filled the room.
I stood, stunned, unable to react. Even with my limited vision, I could see the stain spread around her, clearly red. Jasmine turned back to me.
“Now look what you’ve done, Camilla,” Jasmine said. “The authorities will not be pleased. Fortunately, I happened along to check on Kate and was able to struggle with you and save myself. It pays to be younger and taller. I was too late for poor Kate, of course. But as Frances Foxall liked to say, life goes on.
I saw the shadow as she raised her arm.
“This is the police,” a familiar voice came from behind the door to the dining room. “Put the gun down and step away from it.”
Jasmine said, “Thank heavens you’re here, officer. I have been able to wrestle the weapon from your fugitive, but I didn’t know how much longer I could hold her. Is there an ambulance here? My friend, Kate Westerlund, has been shot by Camilla MacPhee.”
If I hadn’t been scared shitless, I might have admired her audacity. If it struck her as odd that the police would pussyfoot through the dining room, there was no sign in her voice.
“The game’s over. Put the weapon down. And move away from it. Slowly.”
If I had one small thing to feel happy about, it was that Jasmine didn’t know Bunny Mayhew. She turned slowly.
“Can you come in here, officer?” she said.
Something told me that Bunny hadn’t passed the cop test.
Bunny said, “The house is surrounded, Jasmine. Put the gun down.”
I was pretty sure the house was not surrounded by anything but wishful thinking. I figured Bunny was about to be dead. What was worse, to shout a warning? Or hope like hell the ruse was working? The decision was taken from me when Jasmine raised her arm and fired the Glock. As far as I could tell, she fired right through the wall. Bunny screamed. Jasmine was more than smart enough to figure out that if the man in the next room didn’t come out firing in a Kevlar vest, then he was either out of commission or not a cop. Jasmine edged along the wall in front of me, heading for the door, raising her arm. I had to stop her from killing Bunny.
Across the room, Kate Westerlund gurgled as if her lungs were filling with blood.
“Not dead enough, Kate?” Jasmine said. “We can fix that.”
That was my chance. I had nothing to lose. I grabbed the wall hanging and yanked with every bit of strength I had left and hurled it at Jasmine’s back. The heavy sheet of fabric came off the wall with a shower of dust. I tumbled after it. The wooden frame behind the hanging hit Jasmine. Something clattered on the floor. I hoped like hell it was the Glock. I fell forward, jarring my head. The grey mist turned black. Now I saw nothing. Where was Bunny? Where was Jasmine?
I yelled, “She dropped the gun. Get help, Bunny. Tell them what you heard.”
Kate gurgled again. She was probably dying. I couldn’t even find her, let alone help her.
Jasmine spoke, it seemed, from a distance.
“That wasn’t at all nice, Camilla. But it gives me another opportunity. Two birds with one stone.” She chuckled.
“Someone heard everything you said, Jasmine.”
“Someone who didn’t mind impersonating a police officer. I don’t think I have to worry. Even if anyone believed his story. But here’s something more immediate for you and Kate to worry about.”
I heard a half dozen small clicks a few seconds apart. A familiar sound, but what was it? Not a gun. I didn’t think a Glock would click. I struggled to my feet, reaching out and happy to touch a table to steady myself.
Kate moaned. It sounded like she was just a couple of feet from me. If I guessed right, I had just bumped into the coffee table. Kate must have been by the corner window. I couldn’t be sure. My head was buzzing, my thoughts jumbled.
The first whiff of smoke took me by surprise. What was that smell? I inhaled a whiff of acrid smoke, like burning fabric. Seconds later, smoke seared my throat. Everywhere I turned, the smoke seemed thicker. I knew now the clicks were from Jasmine’s lighter. Jasmine must have ignited the wall hangings. My eyes streamed.
Vainly hoping someone would hear, I yelled, “Help, fire.”
Kate was coughing now. I was confused, disoriented. Where was the door? Where was the window? I tripped over the low table. Something rocked and rattled. I remembered the huge vase with the sunflowers. Vases contain water. I pulled off my tank top and felt around. I tossed out the flowers and soaked the shirt. I put it over my mouth and dropped to the floor, hoping the smoke would rise and I could stay below it. I fumbled around in my pack for another piece of cloth. I dragged out something, the Sens shirt perhaps. I soaked it too. I crawled to where I thought Kate was lying. Even with the wet fabric over my mouth, breathing was difficult. I tried to remember what I’d seen in this room on my previous visit. In the corner, a table, lamp and rug, I thought. I prayed I was going in the right direction and not just deeper into the smoke-filled house. I finally connected with Kate’s body. I pressed the cloth to her face. I could feel the small rug on the floor. Coughing and spewing, I rolled her onto the rug. I felt for the edge, got a grip and crawled toward what I hoped was the way out, pulling the rug along with me. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do that on a normal day, let alone blind and concussed. That’s the power of fear. I figured the smoke would get us before the fire did.
Was Bunny going to die because of me? The irony was, I might save Kate, who could have saved everyone, and hadn’t.
Hacking and gagging, I pulled her toward what I hoped was the front entrance. I said to Kate. “If you have any strength left, push.” But Kate had even stopped coughing.
I don’t believe in giving up. I didn’t plan to die without a fight. But I was too exhausted to move.
Something pulled against me, waking me up. Voices, yelling. Jasmine? I did my best to fight back, connecting fist to face. Someone yelled.
“For Christ’s sake, Camilla. Stop fighting.”
Mombourquette?
“You have to get Kate,” I said, trying to help whoever was pulling me from the building.
“We got her out.”
Bunny?
“Don’t let the cops shoot me,” I said.
Maybe that was a dream.