How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
-Lawyers can’t change light bulbs. But if you’re looking
for a lawyer to screw a light bulb...
Eventually, after being shuffled from lab to lab, I found myself back in hospital never never land. Dr. Hasheem’s soft grey replacement showed up, tail twitching. I’d been expecting Leonard Mombourquette. He was not amused, no surprise there. Even the bizarre tale I had to tell him didn’t help his mood.
I did my best to look him right in his bright beady eyes.
“Start at the beginning,” he said. “Explain what were you doing in the parking lot again.”
“I’ve told you a half-dozen times. I was just checking it out to see if there was anyone suspicious there. Someone had broken into Mrs. Parnell’s apartment, and I thought I might be able to head off their confederates before they got away.”
“Right. You did tell me that. Now, why don’t you tell me a story that makes a bit of sense? Don’t overdo it. I don’t want to pass out from shock or anything.”
“Why don’t you believe me? Did you check out Mrs. Parnell’s apartment? It’s obvious that someone broke in there. You can clearly see the damage to the door frame. I have a key, as you know.”
“That part makes sense. It’s why would you run out to the parking lot and check out the vehicles there, that’s what I don’t get.”
“I didn’t want her stuff to…”
Damn.
“Right. You mean the stuff that wasn’t taken?”
“I didn’t take time to search for everything. She keeps a bit of money and some credit cards hidden here and there. She has items of sentimental value.”
“Tell you what. Keep sticking to that story, and I’ll keep you here talking.”
“Come on, Leonard. Give me a break. You know I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I know you cost the province a good bit of money today and took some poor devil’s spot on a gurney and I also know that you’re harbouring that greasy little con.”
“What greasy little…? Oh, you mean, Bunny? I’d hardly call him greasy. He’s actually very fastidious.”
“Go ahead. Keep it up. I got all night. In fact, I got every day and night until I retire. I might even sit here as a volunteer afterwards if you want to stonewall me that long.”
“Look, Leonard. Bunny wasn’t there. He used to be a burglar and a good one. He never would have left the door looking like that. This was some person that didn’t have the skill level and finesse of a… Don’t make that face. No matter how you feel about him, Bunny didn’t burgle Mrs. P.’s place.”
It might have been the right time to tell Mombourquette that Bunny had the keys to the apartment making burglary unnecessary, but that was one can of worms I didn’t care to open.
“In that case, I’d like to hear exactly how his prints got in her apartment. I’m sure you could come up with a good story for that.”
I have to admit I blinked. I wasn’t about to say uncle though. “Bunny knows Mrs. Parnell. I think he might have been in her apartment legitimately. He’s not on a wanted list. You have a bit of tunnel vision where he’s concerned.”
“Maybe that tunnel vision is what made me notice his fingerprints turning up in her bedroom, bedside table and in the bathroom. What else you wonder? Let’s see. There’s the fridge, the toaster, the oven, the air conditioner and… Shall I continue?”
“Fingerprints are not against the law. I’m telling you that Bunny didn’t break into that apartment. I don’t know why you don’t believe me.”
“Me neither. Especially since you always tell the truth.”
“Leonard, you have to trust me. Bunny didn’t run me down, and he’s not the person who was in that apartment. I admit he may have been there at some other point, but he was not there today when this happened.”
“Here’s the thing: this fastidious criminal you seem to be so fond of is the number one suspect in a case of premeditated murder. So if you know where he is, you’d better spit it out, or you are going to find yourself charged with obstruction and anything else I can throw at you. You don’t have many friends in the Crown Prosecutor’s office, so they’ll probably come up with a few doozies themselves.”
I raised my hands in defeat. “Hey, Leonard, go ahead. Throw the book at me. Bunny didn’t kill that woman. He was the intended victim, and I believe I can prove it. He was due to be home with his family at the moment his house caught fire. He would have been killed. His wife and child would have been too. The real question is: what was Annalisa Fillmore doing there?”
There was a sharp intake of breath on Mombourquette’s part. “What makes you think that Annalisa Fillmore was there? What would she be doing there? What’s her connection with Bunny Mayhew?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did Bunny go? Did you take him somewhere?”
I could handle this without actually lying outright. “I saw him that day at his house, but I left before the fire and explosion. I thought that perhaps the whole family had died. Annalisa Fillmore never crossed my mind.”
“Where is he now?”
Good question. “No idea, Leonard. And I am happy to say that’s the truth. But I would like to know if the investigators found the remains of a toy dog anywhere near Annalisa Fillmore’s body? Maybe a huge green dog?”
“Okay. You do go too far, MacPhee. You’re not too badly off to get hauled into the station. Maybe we’ll have to beat it out of you.”
Dr. Hasheem reappeared at that key point. He stood behind Mombourquette, cleared his throat and said, “I don’t think either of those two things will be happening.”
I said, “Leonard here is just being whimsical. However, on the off chance he’s not, I’ll trust you to remember this conversation, Dr. Hasheem.”
“I could hardly forget it,” Dr. Hasheem muttered as he left the room. He turned and said, “Speak to the nurses before you leave, and make sure someone lets me know if this person tries to take you in for questioning before we get your results back.”
After he left, I said, “You see. Good citizens take care of each other. Here’s the deal. I haven’t been straight with you, Leonard, mostly because you wouldn’t believe me about the joke situation. So you can be mad if you want, and you can take it out on me if it makes you happy. You can even arrest me, but I have some information for you. You’ll have to work with me, though.”
Mombourquette was silent for a long while.
Finally, I said, “Evidence doesn’t interest you?”
“What is it?”
“You’ll find it of interest?”
“Talk.”
“It’s surveillance footage of Annalisa Fillmore heading into Bunny’s house after he left and while the house is empty. And afterwards. It’s pretty grim.”
“How do you come to have that?”
“I knew someone was going to go after Bunny today, so I installed a camera in the tree across the street to catch anyone trying to go in the front door. There was one by the back door too, but the fire probably destroyed that. I have a DVD. I would have told you about it if you hadn’t practically thrown me off the scene.”
“Why would you have something like that? It doesn’t make sense. Even for you, MacPhee.”
“Because I received a burglar joke. And you left me no choice.”
“Forgive me if, as usual, I don’t follow your thinking.”
“Three people are dead: Rollie Thorsten, Judge Card-arelle, Roxanne Terrio. Your police colleague Steve Anstruther is seriously injured. As far as I can tell, they all received jokes. I got the same jokes. So did Bunny. The day they died or were injured, he and I received their names, including Steve Anstruther. Remember? I have always figured it was Brugel. He’s capable of doing it. Completely. And there’s no way that Annalisa Fillmore would do anything for him or with him. Don’t you think I’m right there?
Mombourquette nodded dourly. “Love her or hate her, she wasn’t the front woman for a gang lord.”
“But she was involved somehow. We need to find out how she was connected with any of these people.”
“She was definitely connected to Thorsten. We all accept that. I myself checked that out. She couldn’t have killed him. She was with a number of people who couldn’t stand her and would have loved to point the finger..”
“Well, maybe she had someone to do her bidding. We thought that Brugel could use others to do his dirty work. Why couldn’t Annalisa?”
“First of all, for the last time, there is no ‘we’. Second, I want that DVD.”
“Sure thing,” I said. “I’ll ask Alvin to bring it over.”
“Never mind. I’ll send a uniform for it.”
“Good idea,” I said, thinking fast. “I’ll ask him to let your officer in and hand the DVD over.”
Lucky for me, Mombouquette had to go to the little boy’s room. That meant I could tell Alvin, when I got him on my cell, to make sure to copy the DVD before the uniform showed up to get it.
“You’re where?” Alvin bleated.
“Emergency. Don’t even ask. Better yet, can you pick me up here and bring a copy of that DVD for Sgt. Mombourquette? That’s a copy. Don’t forget. Don’t mention it to anyone. Bring the original too. We need to show it to Mrs. P. And hurry up.”
“Good news,” I said to Mombourquette as he returned. “I reached Alvin. He’ll bring the DVD here. By the way, how’s the officer who hit his head? He seemed to be pretty badly injured. Will he need surgery?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“What about the guys who hit him? That Mustang must have been damaged after that.”
His eyes narrowed. “We haven’t found them yet.”
“But you will,” I smiled encouragingly. Of course, Mombourquette was pretty well immune to deceitful types like me.
“We will. We got the car.”
“You did? Really?” I said admiringly.
“Not me personally, so you don’t need to lay it on quite so thick, but it’s been found. Abandoned. They must have fled on foot.”
“But you know who owns it? The Mustang, I mean.”
Mombourquette watched me with narrowed eyes. “It was reported stolen earlier today. But there will be a link to whoever was driving. For sure. Fingerprints, hair. Something.”
“Of course, although they don’t usually do any amount of forensic follow-up on stolen cars, do they?”
“This isn’t usual. This was an attack on a police officer.”
“Right. Of course. Sorry, I was just thinking out loud, and face it, I have my own interest in it. Those guys tried to run me over. They were coming after me when the first police cars arrived. I owe you guys a lot.”
“That’s weird, isn’t it, that a pair of complete strangers would try to kill you. You sure you didn’t know them?”
My jaw dropped. “Of course, I didn’t know them. The people I know don’t try to kill me. They just get pissed off.”
“They sure do. Don’t go anywhere. I’m going to make some calls. I’ll be back.”
After about twenty minutes, I was really glad to hear Alvin’s voice.
“Alvin, I need something else from you.”
“You could say hello first,” he sniffed. “And what happened to you, anyway? Do you know that you missed the girls’ second race?”
In the interests of redeeming myself, I filled him in on events, perhaps adding a bit of drama here and there, in case the missing burglar, the invaded apartment, the injured cop, and the attempt to run me over weren’t enough. Alvin can set the guilt bar quite high. Sometimes he’s worse than my sisters.
Finally, he sniffed, “I guess if you were in the hospital, it would be understandable. I’ll make sure the girls hear the story behind it.”
“Perhaps I should call Ashley and Brittany to apologize.”
“I don’t think so, Camilla. You’ll probably just make things worse. You know what you’re like.”
“Fine. Okay. Can you take me over to Clearwater to pick up my car? While you’re there, we can look for my digital camera. It got knocked out of my hand when that Mustang came after me. I’m hoping I captured a picture of the people who hit me. I’d like to get a look at that. Oh wait, here comes Leonard now. Do you have the DVD for him?”
“Why don’t you get him to pick up the camera?” Alvin said.
“Shh. Don’t mention the camera to Mombourquette because—oh hi, Leonard, how are you?”
Mombourquette just shot me a look. I made a big deal out of accepting the DVD from Alvin and passing it to him.
“Don’t thank me,” I said.
“I don’t plan to,” he answered. “You could have saved us a lot of trouble if you’d told me about it and don’t bother to pretend I wouldn’t let you.”
I just shrugged and turned to Alvin. “Let’s head home. Dr. Hasheem told me to take it easy.”
Dr. Hasheem, whishing past at that moment, said, “And try to stay out of fights.”
Alvin was driving Mrs. Parnell’s former vehicle, the seemingly indestructible 1974 LTD that she’d given to him. It practically knew its way back to her apartment, leaving Alvin and me time to argue.
“I still don’t see why you didn’t just tell the police where in the parking lot your camera is and leave it to them.”
“If Mombourquette gets the camera before I do, he won’t let me see anything. He doesn’t want me interfering in his so-called investigation, which I have to say would be going nowhere if you and I weren’t involved. And Bunny is the second reason. I don’t want the cops around the building any more than they have to be. I’m willing to take the risk. Illegal, I know, unwise for sure, and possibly even insane. But Bunny went to the wire for me when I needed him, and I would do the same for him. Anyway, the camera might be behind the recycle bins or maybe it dropped when I jumped over the barrier at the end of the lot. It could be on the patch of grass by the edge of the parking lot. Let’s hope it’s still there and that there’s something worthwhile on it. If we find it, I’ll tell Mombourquette that I forgot all about the camera in the shock of being attacked.”
“The fun never ends,” Alvin said.
The camera turned up on the grass, just as I’d hoped. Alvin scooped it up. I peered at the indistinct image on the small screen. I could barely make out the cars, let alone who might have been sitting in them.
“Fine. We’ll drop off one of the cars at home and take the camera to Mrs. Parnell’s. She’ll be happy to print out my shots for us. She might be able to improve the image of the guy in the Mustang. And there are a few more things I’d like her to look up.”
“Okay. But are you sure you should be driving?”
“I’ve had lots of excellent painkillers. Unless you’ve figured out how you can drive two cars at once?”
Alvin sniffed. “Fine. But I hope I don’t have to drag you back to Emergency.”
“Not everything’s about you, Alvin,” I said as I hurried off before he could respond.
We chose to drop off the LTD first. As we both pulled up to the house, Jacki Jewell was just getting out of her black Mercedes SUV.
“Wow,” Alvin said. “She’s had her photo and name vinyl-wrapped on her car. That’s so—”
“Egotistical?” I muttered.
“Well, looks like I caught you,” she said with just a hint of accusation.
“Likewise,” I said. I tried not to stare at the giant scary vinyl teeth on the side of her pricey vehicle.
“We have an offer,” she said, the way anyone else might say the patient died.
“Told you,” Alvin muttered.
“Why the long face? I thought that was what we wanted,” I said.
“Well, I’m certain we can get a better price,” she said. “Give it some thought.”
“Is it much under what we asked?” I said.
“No. They didn’t quibble about price at all. But that’s a sign. Perhaps we can get a higher offer from someone else and then get a bidding war going. That’s where…”
“Is it that couple who were here earlier?” Alvin said, “Because they were lovely and I don’t think that Camilla wants to rip them off. Do you?”
“Of course not. We’re in a hurry, Jacki. Can you give us the offer, and we’ll take it with us to read it over before we sign it.”
“I’ve indicated those items you need to note,” she said haughtily.
“Camilla can never forget she’s a lawyer,” Alvin piped up.
“Is it a conditional offer?” I asked. “Maybe we shouldn’t get too excited, Alvin.”
“No conditions,” she said in clipped tones. “They have the money. They won’t even need a mortgage. They sold their house in Vancouver. Could have bought a much more expensive property if they wanted.”
“Possession date?”
“Flexible. Up to three months if you need it.”
“Is there anything unreasonable?” I asked.
“Not really, but I do believe we could have gotten a better price if you—”
“Thank you, Jacki,” I said extracting the envelope from her hand. “I’ll go over it tonight, and you can pick it up tomorrow. And now if you’ll excuse us, we have to get out to visit our friend before it’s too late. Alvin, do we have any good quality photo paper?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t even have a decent printer. But we can get some on the way.”
“Did you ever find the wires to connect the camera to the computer?”
“Lord thundering Jesus, Camilla, you’re the one who’s always losing things.”
Mrs. Parnell had no trouble uploading the images from the camera to her laptop and displaying them on her large screen television. Apparently, it’s easy if you know how and have thousands of dollars worth of the right kind of software.
We were crowded into her small space in the Perley, mostly because the Major and the Colonel had decided to join us. We were more than a little sombre as we had all just watched the surveillance DVD of Annalisa Fillmore’s approach to Bunny’s house and her horrifying fiery exit.
“I got good shots of all the cars in the parking lot. They were all empty, but I’m not certain I actually got an image of the Mustang before it tried to run me over,” I said as Mrs. P. quickly clicked through photo by photo. Sombre or not, she was enjoying the task.
Click click.
There were pictures of a silver Mazda 3 and a black Acura, almost a twin of my own, only with Manitoba plates.
She clicked onto the candy red Yaris, then the black cherry Honda Accord from the late nineties, a ribbon of rust showing around each of the wheel wells. All were empty, all had Ontario plates.
Click.
The glossy Ford F-150 King Ranch truck had no plates in the front, meaning either it was straight off a dealer’s lot with a temporary plate or it was registered in Quebec. I’d stepped behind it to check that. Sure enough, Quebec plates. Click. I’d been approaching the mustard-yellow Mustang, starting to wonder if I had been wasting my time when all hell had broken loose.
Click.
“Did you see anyone in the car that tried to eliminate you, Ms MacPhee?”
I shook my head. “No. It all happened so quickly. I barely saw it coming at me. I guess I heard the engine rev before my brain recognized what was happening and I ran for cover.”
“There’s an image of the license plate, so surely we can trace the owner. I might even be able to hack in and—”
“Won’t do any good, Mrs. P.,” I said hastily. “The vehicle was stolen earlier.”
Alvin said, “You can see the profile of a person on the passenger side.”
“I don’t even remember seeing him. I was just clicking away. These shots are not too well focused.”
Mrs. Parnell swirled her mouse. “I can enhance that shot a bit more. It’s somewhat blurry, but my photo software can produce miracles.”
I squinted. “It’s not quite enough to identify anyone though.”
Alvin said, “Give Violet a chance.”
Mrs. Parnell beamed and swirled her mouse again. All too technical for me. The picture sharpened. I stared. “That’s funny. That person looks a lot like…”
“What?” Alvin said.
“Who?” Mrs. Parnell added.
The Major or possibly the Colonel said, “Don’t hold back. It’s not sporting.”
I said, “Well, that just doesn’t make sense.”
“Who?” Alvin raised his voice. The other three reminded him that we were in a medical facility, and we didn’t want to get turfed out.
“It looks like Jamie Kilpatrick.”
Mrs. Parnell glanced up sharply. “You asked me to research the demise of a pair of Kilpatricks.”
I sat on Mrs. Parnell’s bed and stared at her. “I did indeed. His grandparents. They were killed by a drunk driver. But that doesn’t explain why he would be in the passenger seat of a stolen Mustang that tried to run me down.”
“From my time in Intelligence,” the Major said, “I learned that things are not always what they seem.”
“Very astute, Major,” Mrs. P. said. “Very.”
So if things weren’t as they seemed, what were they? I’d been sleuthing around Kilpatrick’s grandparents’ house, and someone had called the police on me. What if it had been Kilpatrick himself and not the English lady with the dog? But what would that accomplish? Unless he didn’t want me looking too closely at anything to do with him. If people weren’t as they presented themselves, who were they? Annalisa had presented herself as a campaigner against crime, and yet as far as I could tell, she’d had a plan to murder Bunny and his family. The people in this strange game of cat and mouse, victims and villains, were connected somehow. Would I ever figure it out?
“I don’t know why he’d try to kill me, but he was Rollie Thorsten’s assistant, and he is definitely connected to Brugel. I don’t think there’s any link between him and Annalisa, but it’s worth exploring. I think I need to sit back and think of everyone who is even vaguely related to this and then perhaps, if it isn’t too much trouble, Mrs. P., see if we can find photos of them and print them. It’s time to talk to the people who knew the victims.”
Within fifteen minutes, we had several decent photos printed out: a shot of Brugel, thuglike, one of Annalisa Fillmore, giving a speech, another of Judge Cardarelle gazing frostily into the camera at a formal event. Madame Cardarelle, elegant as usual, stood beside him with a pro forma smile on her beautiful face. Roxanne Terrio standing by her bicycle, shielding her eyes from the sun. Bev Leclair was waving in the background. Rollie Thorsten striding out of the Courthouse, and Constable Steve Anstruther at his swearing in ceremony. We came up empty on Jamie Kilpatrick. Eventually, even Mrs. Parnell gave up.
I didn’t though. I pulled out my cellphone.
“P. J.,” I said merrily. “Glad to catch you. I think I have a few scraps of very newsy stuff for you.”
“You’re always saying that, Tiger, and yet, to date? Big fat zero.”
“Take heart. I was almost run over today, and it looks like the passenger in the car was the junior lawyer in the Brugel case. I think he’s involved in this whole joke set-up and these deaths. I don’t know why, but his grandparents were killed a year and a half ago. There has to be some connection. His name is Jamie Kilpatrick. Do you have a shot of him? Maybe leaving the court? I know you take lots. I noticed one you took of Rollie Thorsten made the paper after his death.”
P. J. sighed.
I said, “By the way, the cops aren’t saying anything, but that body outside Bunny Mayhew’s house? That was Annalisa Fillmore.”
I enjoyed P. J.’s gasp more than the preceding sigh. “You can ask if they’ll confirm or deny it. I suggest starting with the lovely and talented Sgt. Leonard Mombourquette.” I added, “That might get you something before the paper goes to bed tonight. Make sure you send me that photo soon. The best address is Mrs. Parnell’s, but send it to me too. Just in case.”
P. J. said, “I’ll see what I can find, and I’ll email you. Just give me a bit of time. This is smokin’.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, smugly.
The group was watching me as I finished making sure he had the right email addresses. When I hung up, Mrs, Parnell said, “I wonder why it is that you would be receiving these jokes, and why your former client Mr. Mayhew would have been at risk?”
I said. “The questions are the easy part. What I need is answers.”
“Perhaps it’s not the only question,” the Colonel said. “It’s important to ask the right questions in order to produce the best answers.”
Frankly, while I thought he was just trying to keep up with the Major in Mrs. P.’s estimation, he went way up in mine.
“You’re right,” I said. “We should all be trying to find relationships between and among each of these people. Let’s work on that on our own. Use your imaginations. Let them run wild.”
“Oh, that reminds me, Ms MacPhee. In all the excitement, I quite forgot to tell you that I have learned that Annalisa Fillmore and Judge Cardarelle owned adjacent rental properties in Lowertown. Condos in that new development on George Street. Not sure if that’s a fit, but it’s a fact.”
It was after nine when we got home, a bit later than I’d hoped because Mrs. Parnell, the Colonel and the Major had been keen to offer opinions and suggestions and because I was waiting to see if P. J. actually could send the photo. If the staff hadn’t given us the boot we might have been there until midnight.
The girls, big surprise, were out.
Alvin said, “They invited me to go with them and their team, but I couldn’t leave you here high and dry.”
“Why don’t you go now? There’s nothing I’d like better than to be high and dry,” I said, checking my phone. “Oh look, P. J. sent me a photo of Kilpatrick. Can you take a minute to print a couple of copies? Don’t whine about the quality of our printer or the paper, just do it.”
I walked Gussie quickly while Alvin managed to print the photo on our crappy printer. That boy can move fast enough when he puts his mind to it. I waved goodbye to him and plunked myself down on the sofa to try to connect the dots. I was really pleased to be home alone. The photo had turned out fine. There was a clear shot of Kilpatrick, slightly dwarfed by Constable Wentzell outside the courthouse. I figured that P. J.’s real goal had been to get a shot of the amazon-like Wentzell, the girl of his dreams.
The day seemed to have been about forty-eight hours long, but by ten o’clock I was frustrated. I knew I’d never be able to sleep. I hadn’t connected a single dot. Annalisa hated Rollie with good reason but couldn’t possibly have killed him. Jamie Kilpatrick had tried to run me down, but had been in the cop shop at the time of Rollie’s death. He was definitely involved somehow, but until I’d seen the photo of his face on the passenger side of the Mustang, I never would have thought he was capable of anything. But who was on the driver’s side? Yet another player with no clear relationship?
I paced around a bit and drew arrows and question marks between people, then scratched them out. I would have liked to get Ray’s take on the situation, but you can’t have everything. Sometimes you can’t have anything.
Of course, I needed to talk to people who might identify relationships between any of the individuals whose photos I’d collected. That would make sense. I glanced at the clock.
Was it really too late to call? My sisters would have said yes, but they were out of town, weren’t they? Anyway, I was a big girl, even if I couldn’t connect the dots, and all the people I cared about were unavailable, as were most of the people I didn’t care about.
What to do?
I picked up that proud low-tech device, the telephone book, and took a look to see if I could locate Bev Leclair, the office manager at Terrio and Fox. Sure enough, I found a couple of listings for B. Leclairs, none too far away. Was it best to call first or try surprise? I opted for surprise. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do.
There was no luck at the houses of the first couple of B. Leclairs, and half an hour later I was checking out the third, cruising through the leafy neighbourhood of Sandy Hill, not far from Mombourquette’s own tiny mouse house. I took a slight detour and drove past it. The lights were out, his car gone. I popped a set of the photos into his mailbox. I imagined he was at Elaine’s place for the evening, surrounded by clutter and non-stop chatter. Clean carpets too.
Oh, well. As Mrs. P. would say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I called Mombourquette and imagined him sitting on Elaine’s new orange leather sofa, surrounded by stacks of political books and staring at my number on his call display as he didn’t pick up. I tried twice more and left a helpful message telling him about the set of photos in his mailbox and suggesting that he find a way to show them to Constable Steve Anstruther if he regained consciousness, taking special note of Anstruther’s reaction to Annalisa Fillmore and James Kilpatrick. I felt a bit better after that.
Bev Leclair lived in a well-maintained building with a small lawn that someone must have cut with nail scissors, it was so precise. The lobby smelled of citrus cleaner, and I could practically see my reflection in the polished marble floor. It was exactly the type of place I would have expected for Bev. The leather sofa and pair of matching club chairs also looked well-cared for. Maybe this was the kind of building I’d like for myself once the house sold.
B Leclair appeared on the list of residents. I pressed that button and waited. A disembodied voice said hello, a hint of surprise in the tone. Or was it apprehension?
“Camilla MacPhee,” I said. “I have information that might shed light on Roxanne’s death, and I would like to know if you could help me by looking at some photos. You could meet me in the foyer if you’re more comfortable.”
“Come on up,” she said. “Apartment 843.”
The door was open when I arrived. Based on my years as a victims’ advocate, I wanted to suggest that a woman at home alone might show more caution, but of course, this wasn’t the right moment for that. Moxi, the bouncing chihuahua, greeted me with a blizzard of barking.
The apartment was like Bev herself, bright, colourful and neat. Her dark red hair was in a French twist, and her black jersey cotton dress and glittery flipflops showed a sexy side I hadn’t noticed in the crisp office manager. She wore her curiosity like a piece of jewellery. The man who stood behind her sported baggy plaid shorts, a T-shirt and an expression that indicated he’d be happier if I was vaporized on the spot.
“Won’t take long,” I said.
He nodded grimly, took his shaved head and his Celtic tattoos and swaggered out to the balcony, along with a package of cigarettes and a glower. Moxi scampered after him. The boyfriend tried and failed to keep Moxi inside.
I plunked myself down next to Bev on the striped IKEA sofa and spread out the photos.
“I need to know if any of these people look familiar, if they might have had a relationship with Roxanne, business or personal, or if they’d ever come to the office.”
She nodded. “Sure. Do you think that one of them caused her to crash her bicycle?”
“I think so. I wasn’t entirely up front with you and Gary the time I came by the office. Let me go through the whole thing for you: Roxanne died just over a month ago, a Judge Cardarelle died a few weeks before that, Rollie Thorsten was murdered several days ago and a police officer was critically injured this week. Someone set fire to another person’s home yesterday. I and one other person received a lawyer joke before each of these deaths. It didn’t sound too serious to us until the next day when a sheet of paper with the name of the victim arrived. I think the victims also received the jokes.”
“You asked about the jokes and I told you Roxanne got one that I knew of.”
“I believe someone is sending a message. Every victim is connected with the legal system in some way, hence the jokes. And the pace is picking up.”
Her hand shot to her throat. “You mean you think someone killed poor Roxanne because of some twisted idea of revenge? That’s too horrible.”
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“The jokes were some kind of message to the person?”
“I believe so.”
“But Roxanne wasn’t upset by that dumb joke. Annoyed maybe, but not upset. She had no idea it meant anything.”
I searched for the right words to reveal what I had concluded during my long stretch of thinking. I took a deep breath. Bev stared at me, her brown eyes huge.
I said, “I wonder if she didn’t learn it at the end.”
“You mean the person would have told her she was going to die and why?”
I shrugged, apologetically. “It makes sense to me.”
“Well, not to me. It’s horrible!”
The man on the balcony reacted to the sound of her raised voice. He stepped toward the door, and she waved him away again. He turned his back to us. Sulking, I thought.
“Your friend doesn’t like me much.”
The grin made it all the way to her eyes. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t think he’s a keeper. Unlike Moxi. Moxi’s here for good.”
I said, “That’s terrific. So, now that you understand where I’m coming from, let’s have a look at these pictures.” I passed her the one of Rollie Thorsten.
She said, “I saw his picture in the paper recently, but I’d never seen him before. And never in person. Next.”
I passed her a shot of Annalisa at her most impassioned, and accompanied it with the grainy image of her heading up to Bunny’s door.
Bev shook her head. “She’s quite memorable. I wouldn’t be able to forget her.”
“This next guy also had a bicycle, so that may be a connection. I produced the photo of Jamie Kilpatrick, small and stick-like next to the strapping Constable Wentzell as they exited the courthouse. P. J. was so besotted that the shot was really of Wentzell with Kilpatrick as an unfortunate addition.
Bev stabbed a French-manicured finger at the photo. The patio door opened, and the non-keeper boyfriend stepped in, cigarette finished, leaving Moxi yipping on the balcony. Bev didn’t give him a glance.
I said to Bev. “Thank you. That’s what I need, a connection between him and Roxanne. Did you see him around here? He said he rides his bike everywhere. Did he used to ride with her?”
“Not him,” she said, firmly, pointing to Wentzell. “I’ve seen her talking to Roxanne. On a bike too.”