DANIEL STARED LONGER than was probably polite at the silvery shield lying on the thin wooden table. “MacKinnon,” it read. The police detective leaned forward in his chair on the opposite side to continue what he had promised would be a friendly chat. “And you had no prior relationship with Mr. Forrestal before this meeting?”
Daniel tore his gaze from the shiny symbol of local authority. Power and authority were certainly what the Halifax Regional Police headquarters had put him in mind of when he had approached the building a half hour earlier. From the outside, it resembled a gigantic strongbox. But it was unclear whether the architects wanted to keep the criminals from escaping or keep the community from seeing what occurred deep in its bowels. He scanned the concrete walls of the office, seeing a framed degree hanging on a tilt and a faded family picture of the detective, flashing a confident smile, beside an athletic wife wrapping her arms around two teenaged sons.
He focused on the detective’s gruff face. “He only called me yesterday and asked to meet to discuss a business venture.”
“What sort of venture?” MacKinnon removed his glasses and placed them on the table.
“He never told me.”
“Any guesses?” He twiddled his pen.
“Something local, I suppose.”
MacKinnon consulted his notes. “And what relationship exists between Mr. Forrestal and Halifax?”
“Nothing that I know about. He’s a big fish.”
“What do you mean?”
“Important and prominent, I mean. He invests in Toronto, London, Tokyo — New York, too. Big cities. I wouldn’t have thought Halifax was big enough for him.”
Forrestal would have found Halifax positively quaint, Daniel thought. Certainly an odd choice. It was a city some had accused of never quite living up to its potential. A military fortress that never fired a shot in anger. A major source of Allied military power in the First World War that was virtually obliterated when two ships collided in its harbour. Although once a commercial and financial boom town when Canada was a young country, it had long ago abdicated its crown to more dynamic cities farther west.
“But he contacted you,” MacKinnon pressed.
“I guess there was something here he was interested in.”
“Any ideas?”
“Most of his high-profile investments are — were — in real estate. He would always beat the market.”
“How did he do that?”
“Most analysts credited his unique mix of properties in his portfolios.”
“How did that work?”
“It’s all about risk balancing. If one property goes down in price, provided your portfolio is broad enough, there’s probably another one increasing in price somewhere.”
MacKinnon scribbled furiously then stopped. “Did he have investments beyond real estate?”
“Yes. He had the banks, of course, and some blue-chip stocks, companies that traditionally do well. And he also invested in high-growth high-technology companies. Computers. Telecommunications. Internet. That sort of thing. Those were the ones that made headlines. But those were a while ago.”
“Would you say investments are your expertise, Professor Ritter?”
“Sort of.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“I used to be a business consultant. If a company wanted to expand its business in foreign countries, they called me in to advise.”
“What kind of advice did you give?”
Daniel waited two seconds longer than an innocent response would take. “I helped them assess the worth and the risks of the proposed country and target company.”
“How did you do that?”
“By getting to know the country and the people involved.”
“So it’s reasonable that Mr. Forrestal would seek your expertise?”
“Well, yes, assuming he wanted to buy a foreign company. But he could have asked any one of my colleagues or my professional competitors. They would be much more knowledgeable about the local opportunities. I only moved here at the end of last year.”
“I’m interested in why he chose you.”
“I don’t know why he chose me.” Daniel regretted his answer as soon as he said it. Repeating a question was a sure sign someone was on the defensive or looking for time to construct a plausible lie. He was sure that’s what MacKinnon was thinking.
MacKinnon stared at the floor for a few seconds then returned his gaze to Daniel. “You said that you’ve never done business with him before. How would he have known about you?”
“From TV perhaps. I have a weekly show on CBC about local business news.”
MacKinnon nodded slowly. “Yes, I remember seeing you on the news. Do you ever talk about businesses in Montreal on your show?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“And did you ever mention him or any of his businesses?”
Daniel shook his head.
MacKinnon scribbled more notes and then returned to look at Daniel. “And what did you do before you became an expert business consultant?”
Daniel had only a second to continue the smooth rhythm of the conversation. “I had many different jobs. I worked in a restaurant. I was a teacher. Tour guide, too, for a while.”
MacKinnon leaned closer. “And you left it all to return to school? Is that right?”
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“And now you’re a professor. A teacher.”
“Scholar, yes.”
MacKinnon scribbled something on his pad then pulled from his pocket a clear Ziploc evidence bag containing a wallet-sized photograph. He slapped it onto the table in front of Daniel. White lines were slashed across the image at random angles where the photo had been digitally reassembled after having been ripped up into tiny pieces. The image was only three-quarters complete; there was a big bite out of the top left corner. It showed a man, a woman, and a boy standing together in front of an amusement park. Walt Disney World in Orlando, Daniel guessed. The top of the man’s face was missing. From its faded, orange-brown tinge, he guessed it had probably been taken with a cheap camera in the 1970s or 1980s.
“Let’s change the subject. We found this picture at the crime scene. We couldn’t find all of the pieces. Do you recognize any of these people?” MacKinnon pushed the photo forward. The man and the woman posed stiffly; the boy and the woman stood together on the right side of the image, and the man, standing apart on the left, held a briefcase and stared seriously into the camera. All looked a bit nervous. Nobody smiled.
Daniel knew that his immediate reaction was being judged. It’s what he would have done. “No, can’t say that I do.”
Why would a kid look sad at Walt Disney World? While the picture had faded, the tension on the faces of the three subjects was clear. Daniel guessed that maybe the parents’ relationship was on the rocks, and the trip was perhaps a last-ditch attempt to save a doomed marriage. Perhaps the son was desperately trying to keep them together, but his fatalism was clear in his expression.
“Who are they?”
“Are you sure you don’t recognize anyone?” asked MacKinnon.
“Is one of them Mr. Forrestal?”
“This photograph was found near the body.”
Daniel looked closer. The torn photo made recognizing the man difficult. Maybe there was a faint resemblance between the man in the picture and Forrestal, although he’d only ever seen his picture online. Trying to meet him in person hadn’t helped.
“Is that him?” He pointed to the man. He looked young, strong, tall. Different than the recent photos he’d seen of Forrestal.
MacKinnon said, “Do you know the woman and the boy?”
Daniel wondered whether Forrestal was killed because of what he did to the boy or what he did to the woman. He looked again but found nothing else familiar. He shook his head.
MacKinnon scribbled more notes and switched off the recorder.
Daniel was only partly content. Yes, he had stick-handled most of MacKinnon’s questions, answering clearly without revealing too much. But he had also felt surprising pressure from a skilled interrogator. He smiled.
“You get the answers you were looking for?”
MacKinnon said nothing for a moment. “Perhaps, but I’m more interested in what you’re not telling me, professor.”
Shit.