WEDNESDAY morning began easily enough. Jaguar club president Jim Bartlett collected his shining black E-Type at about 8:45 a.m., writing a cheque from a booklet in his matching black briefcase. Guys like this, who usually wear monogrammed shirts for some reason, are never really satisfied. He couldn’t bring himself to personally thank JP for the detailed cleaning and polishing job.
Roofers approved by our insurance company showed up to repair the damaged section at the rear of the shop and soon were hammering away replacing boards then adding insulation and new shingles. The TR6 owner arrived in a taxi to take his car away to the paint shop for repair to the bodywork damaged by debris from the firefighters’ efforts. His wife came with him to pick up our vintage Mini Cooper loaner so she could follow her husband to the paint shop. Reg first walked her through the controls of the little car, a lethal weapon in the wrong hands, then returned to lubricating the orange Spitfire on the second hoist.
Dougald, meanwhile, had the blue MGB’s hood up and was tuning the carburetors. A customer showed up with a very nice bright red TR3 for a minor service, and another with a Jensen Healey that needed a new timing belt. This would be a time-consuming job that no one would want to do.
Marjorie took care of the paperwork for these customers and moved their cars into the back compound for temporary storage. JP was in the basement finally getting to the crates of parts I’d collected in Arizona. He had seemed to want to talk to me about something on his arrival, but I was already ensconced with Saleh in my office drinking coffee.
By 10 a.m., I had a headache from the roofers’ hammering. Saleh and I had each had three cups of strong coffee, and we were winding down our somewhat baroquely formal discussion.
He had been glad, again, that damage from the fire was not serious. I had been sorry, again, that his sleep and the sleep of his family had been disturbed. He was glad no one had been injured and that my business was not unduly affected. I was thankful for his attention and sorry if I had been less than communicative on the telephone when he had called about the fire so late at night.
He was only too glad to help, and hoped that the perpetrators were captured and punished. I was also hopeful that the authorities would be successful.
He wished me continued prosperity, and I wished that he, his wife, his children and grandchildren, and his grandchildren’s children would prosper also.
It was fine weather, and both the shop’s front main car access doors were open. I walked Saleh out of the shop through the open door nearest my office, which meant I was the first to see the three kids with their wagon and the bundle on it.
“Hey, Mister, is this your cat? The poster said we’d get two hundred dollars!”
Marjorie was beside me instantly as I unfolded the grubby towel on the kids’ wagon.
It was Jerry all right, but it was hard to tell at first if he was alive. His head was tattered and singed, and one eye was closed and matted with blood. The rest of his body looked soaked and filthy, and one rear leg was strangely folded over the other. He wasn’t moving. I couldn’t see his tail at all.
Marjorie dropped down beside him. The kids suddenly looked frightened.
“We just found him, Mister, in the alley behind our house.”
“Conn, look, he’s still breathing.”
He was, in fact, purring. Dougald joined us.
“Dougald, get the Land Rover. There’s a pet clinic on Sunnyside. Marjorie, take Jerry and go with Dougald.”
By the time Dougald had screeched the Land Rover to a halt at the front of the shop, Marjorie had bundled Jerry up in her arms and was stammering out thanks to the kids who were still standing by their now empty wagon.
I turned to the kids and addressed the tallest, a boy of about eleven. Having a day off school while their teachers underwent professional development seminars, I assumed.
“Okay, you found our cat fair and square. But I’d like you to come back here with your mother or father, and then I’ll give you the reward money.”
They didn’t look too happy about this, but left anyway.
At this point, an Ottawa fire department red four-door sedan pulled up at our forecourt. Cardinal, his assistant Fleming, and Bill Tate, the Public Works bureaucrat, got out of the car.
“Mr. Anderson,” Cardinal said. “Something’s come up about that Jaguar. I’d like to talk to you in your office. Corporal Fleming here will interview the employees we haven’t talked to yet. I want Mr. Tate to sit in with us, though. Is Ms. Howard here as well? We’d like to go over the work order from January with her.”
“She’s not here right now.”
“Was that her in that old jeep that just took off from here?”
“Yeah. Our shop’s cat was just found. He’s been missing since the fire. They’ve taken him to an animal hospital.”
Tate made a big mistake by sniggering.
I had him slammed up against the shop’s wall pretty fast, my left forearm across his throat.
I guess it was a combination of too much coffee with Saleh, a headache from the roofers’ hammering, and seeing the mess that was Jerry that set me off. I was blaming Tate and his whole department for the firebombed Jaguar and everything connected with it.
“Take it easy,” Cardinal snapped as he and Fleming pulled me away from him.
Tate was looking white-faced. His hair was dishevelled and his tie was askew.
I took a deep breath.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m frustrated with all this, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
Tate just nodded, and sat down, still pale.
Cardinal turned to Fleming, his red-haired assistant.
“Why don’t you talk to the others here? Reg Pritchard and Jean-Paul Desrochers, right?” he asked me.
I nodded and told them to use Marjorie’s office.
Just then, the phone rang. I thought it might be Marjorie or Dougald checking in from the pet hospital. I held my hand up to Cardinal and Tate.
“Just give me a second.”
I picked up the receiver.
“Anderson? Jim Bartlett.”
It was the Jaguar club president and he sounded a bit brusque.
“My wallet’s missing.”
“I’m sorry?” I wanted to add, “your point?” but stopped myself in time. In any event, he soon made it.
“I always leave it locked in my glove compartment. It was there when I brought my car in yesterday, and now it’s gone.”
I thought for a second.
“Well, I don’t think it’s here. One of us would have found it and called you by now.”
“Well I had better get it back. If your cleaner took it, he’ll be arrested and you won’t have business from our club again.”
I thought for another second, staring at Cardinal and Tate across from me. They were both looking a little restive waiting for me to get off the phone.
I slowed down my breathing, and spoke slowly into the receiver.
“Tell you what, Jim. If it’s lying on the floor here somewhere, we’ll call you back. If it’s not, we don’t have it. It’s that simple. And concerning your accusation, you’re way off base. Find another shop from now on. Goodbye.”
I put down the receiver gently and turned to Cardinal and Tate who were both looking a bit curious.
“One of our more prickly customers. Please tell me what’s going on.”
Cardinal spoke.
“One of our technical guys analyzed a melted substance he found on the inside floor of the car, underneath the springs where the rear seat used to be. It wasn’t a huge sample, just a melted liquid. Turns out it was originally cocaine, probably in the form of crack.”
I just stared back blankly.
“We managed to lift a couple of your fingerprints from the car.” Cardinal continued.
I started to stand up.
“Hey, settle down. We had copies of your prints sent over from your last security check when you were still with government.”
“Of course you’d find my prints on the car. I serviced it myself on Saturday morning right here. I was all over the engine compartment, checked the exhaust system, took it for a test drive …”
“Okay, okay. Look, this is turning into a real dog’s breakfast. Mr. Tate here says …”
Cardinal turned to Tate, who coughed, then started talking.
“I can’t find anyone in my area of Public Works who knows anything much about this car. There’s a purchase form on file. It was bought through an auction house. It may have been seized property, seized through proceeds of crime.”
Tate continued, still watching me warily.
“Then there’s the lease agreement we have with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and insurance forms that show we’re responsible for the annual premiums. But we have nothing on the work done on the car here in January. I’ve added copies of the requisition form for when it was brought in last week, and I guess I’ll need your invoice for that, although …”
“Wait a minute, let’s back up. Public Works sent us a cheque for the work we did in January, and we got it pretty fast, too.”
“Yes, I know. I saw all that paperwork you had when I was last here, dealing with your …”
“Her name’s Marjorie.”
“Right, right … anyway, our file doesn’t have any of that.”
Cardinal intervened at this point.
“Look, the main thing about all this paperwork is that no one seems to know who this supposed Public Works guy was who brought the car here back in January. Fine. That’s an issue for you, Mr. Tate, and for the Ottawa Police. After finding cocaine in the car, and confirming that the back fencing had been cut with bolt cutters, it’s an outside job as far as I’m concerned. I’ll be filing a report today with Ottawa PD to that effect. They’ll be in touch with you pretty quickly, Mr. Anderson, to start their own investigation.”
“Great.”
Tate spoke up again.
“Our insurance company is going to have to contact yours about the loss of the car,” he said to me. “Can you get … Marjorie … to call me back on this?”
Insurance agent Kelly was going to be a busy boy all right. At this rate he’d be able to buy a Rolls-Royce with his commission on my resulting higher premiums alone.
“I know you have other fish to fry, lieutenant,” I said to Cardinal.
I glanced over to Marjorie’s office, where Cardinal’s assistant Fleming was now talking to JP. Reg had returned to the orange Spitfire on the second hoist.
“But I want to try and get this straight.”
I looked over to Tate.
“Someone from Public Works procurement bought the Jag at an auction. Public Works then officially leased the car to Citizenship and Immigration and holds the insurance. But there’s no record of who exactly did this for your department.”
Tate nodded.
“And aside from the paperwork you’ve generated about the servicing we just did, just before the fire, there’s again no record about who requisitioned, whatever, the work that we did on the car in January and were paid for a few weeks later.”
Tate nodded again.
“Is it normal for Public Works to buy cars in the first place?”
“No way,” Tate replied. He was looking more comfortable now. “We lease them from dealerships who can give us fleet discounts, then provide them in turn to departments to be used chauffeuring Ministers and Deputy Ministers. The cars get turned in and replaced by the dealerships every three years. That way we don’t have any capital costs. When we hand them back to the dealerships, they sell them off as used stock, whatever.”
He paused, then spoke again.
“And another thing. We wouldn’t lease a Jaguar S-Type, let alone buy one.”
I nodded, remembering it had already occurred to me that a somewhat exotic looking car like a Jaguar was an unusual car for a federal department to use, even if it was technically a Ford.
After they all left, I went over to Reg, who had lowered the Spitfire after finishing up greasing it.
“All right, Reg?”
“Yeah, sure Guv. Turns out that Fleming guy was in Australia last year on holiday. He wants to go back, so I gave him some pointers.”
I rolled my eyes. Everyone seemed to be either coming back from or going to Australia.
“He was fine. He asked me a bunch of questions, but no worries.”
I went to the basement to talk to JP.