“IT’S too bad you both weren’t picked up at the same time. Could have saved the taxpayers a few bucks for the police escort.”
My lawyer, Derek Skinner, had always been a joker. A lawyer who had ‘Skinner’ for a last name would need a sense of humour. Most of the time, I enjoyed his wit. I wasn’t laughing tonight, though.
At least now, pushing midnight, I was back in my own office, Derek was lounging across from me with his tie askew, and JP was presumably back with Michelle at her flat.
JP answered the general description of a tallish youth who had tried to use one of Jaguar club president Jim Bartlett’s credit cards in Maniwaki, Quebec, about two hours’ drive north of Ottawa, on the weekend. Most of the young man’s face had been covered by sunglasses and he had a toque pulled down over his forehead. The cash desk clerk at the hardware superstore where said youth had presented one of the cards to buy a cartload of expensive power tools had run the card through the system. The card was refused.
Bartlett had put a stop on his missing credit cards, and the flustered clerk said something to this effect to the youth. He took off, grabbing the card out of the clerk’s hands, shoving her into the adjacent payment aisle. He was last seen jumping into an old Honda and driving quickly out of the parking lot.
Witnesses noticed a girl waiting in the car. No one managed to record the licence plate number, but one witness said the car was wearing Ontario plates and noticed an Ottawa dealership sticker on the rear of the car.
The credit card company contacted local Maniwaki police. They contacted Ottawa PD.
With Bartlett’s formal complaint about his lost or stolen wallet already in the police system, JP had been taken to the main Ottawa Police station at Elgin and Catherine Streets. He had vehemently denied taking anything. He was placed in a holding cell while police searched his apartment. There they found Bartlett’s wallet, containing his cards but empty of any cash, concealed under some junk in the cupboard under the kitchen sink.
JP still denied it, saying that he didn’t know how the wallet got there. He hardly spent any time at the apartment, which he shared with roommates, preferring to spend most of his time at his girlfriend’s.
When the constables had arrived at Britfit and taken JP away, I had told JP that my lawyer would meet him at the police station and I would be right behind him. I had been waiting for a call back from Derek when my own police escort arrived, Ottawa PD detectives Quinn and Phillips.
JP had been charged with possession of stolen property and locked up. The night court justice took some convincing to release him on a promise to appear plus conditions. At my urging, Derek had been able to reach Odette Johnson, my Public Safety contact and JP’s parole officer, who cancelled her bridge game to come to court to testify that JP had turned a corner and had a good work record, an employer willing to stand surety, a stable relationship, and so on.
Derek, too, was persuasive that perhaps all was not as clear as it appeared. The justice accepted my standing surety and ordered JP released. By 11 p.m. or so, JP was on his way to Michelle’s flat in a taxi.
My own late afternoon and evening had been a little more Kafkaesque.
Quinn, the female DS, and her partner, Phillips, hadn’t said anything to me on the drive to the station. Before Derek had arrived, they sat me in the proverbial small windowless room, but didn’t keep me waiting too long before I was escorted to an inner office.
“Mr. Anderson. Tell us what you did Saturday,” Quinn started by asking.
I knew Derek was likely on his way to the station, but I was determined to go ahead without him. I had nothing to hide. I began to tell them, yet again, about working on Morrison’s S-Type in the morning, taking the Land Rover south of town to my home …
“No, no, Mr. Anderson, we’re talking about the Saturday we’ve just had, April 25 – not the weekend before the fire at your business.”
Quinn, wearing a black pantsuit, white blouse, and no jewelry whatsoever that I could see, had short black hair, was about five foot eight inches tall, and looked to be in her thirties. She was trim and fit and had a pleasant face with brown eyes set fairly wide apart. Those eyes didn’t look as though they missed much and were glinting with a bit of impatience now.
Phillips, gray-suited, older, with thinning gray hair and a thickening middle, sat and said nothing. He wore tortoiseshell reading glasses and fiddled with his notebook.
“Okay. I went to the Byward Market in the morning …”
“From your home south of Ottawa?”
“No. I stayed overnight at the shop in the loft.”
“What time did you go to the market?”
“Around 10 a.m.”
“Where exactly did you go?”
“I parked in the public parking garage, the George Street one, then walked over to Clarence.”
Phillips stirred.
“Do you have a receipt from the parking garage?”
I thought for a couple of seconds.
“I stuck it in the bin of the car.”
“The bin?”
“The car’s an old Mini Cooper from the sixties. It doesn’t have a glove compartment but it’s got open bins on each side of the rear seat for storing small things. I’m sure the slip’s still there, probably on the passenger side, that’s where I put parking stubs and stuff.”
Phillips made a note on his pad. Quinn resumed.
“Why did you go to Clarence Street?”
“What’s this all about anyway? I’m happy to answer your questions, with or without my lawyer, but what’s going on?”
Quinn just looked at me.
“Fine. I’ve told you already about Rodney Morrison, who had the blue Jag that was burned at my shop …”
I went on to give them a rough outline of my visit that Saturday morning with Albert Archambault, Morrison’s partner and flatmate. I say “rough” outline – I didn’t provide any details about pushing Archambault a little to talk.
“Why did you want to talk to him in the first place?”
I sighed. “Because I’m mad. Someone set fire to my shop and hurt my cat. It’s to do with that damned Jaguar Morrison had, and I thought maybe Archambault would tell me, would know, who provided the car in the first place.”
Quinn held up her hand and exchanged a quick glance with Phillips.
“Hold it. What do you mean hurt your cat?”
I explained what I’d been told about Jerry’s injuries by the vet. They both just looked at me.
Phillips now spoke. “You wanted compensation or something? From this guy Albert?”
“Look. I don’t expect you to understand. Some jerk is out there, torched my business, nearly kicked my cat to death, and you guys seem really busy with other stuff, maybe selling raffle tickets or something …”
I was standing up by now, and Derek chose this moment to enter the room after a brief knock.
Which was just as well, as it turned out.
They all left me for about an hour or so to cool off. After about the first ten minutes, Phillips had stuck his head in and asked where the Mini Cooper was. I told him to call Marjorie at the shop.
I sat staring at the walls for what seemed like quite a while. Obviously, something was going on about Archambault. Quinn had not asked whether there had been any violence during my visit, and there hadn’t been really any to speak of. I couldn’t believe he’d do any complaining to the police, given his obvious nose candy habit, but you never know.
I also got pretty agitated thinking about JP. At this point I didn’t know about the police finding Bartlett’s wallet at JP’s apartment, but things looked bad enough for the kid. I really couldn’t believe that he’d be so stupid as to steal something from one of our customers when things were going so well for him. It just didn’t hang together. When I’d first asked him about it – how many days ago? – I’d been absolutely convinced that he hadn’t seen the wallet, let alone taken it.
Finally Derek walked back in.
“Conn, they’re coming back in a couple of minutes …”
“What’s this all about, Derek?”
“Hang on, they’ll tell you.”
In the meantime, we switched over to JP’s situation. I’d given Derek my assurances that whatever it looked like, JP hadn’t done anything wrong, that Derek should contact Odette, his parole officer, get her down here, get JP released – whatever it took. Derek left to attend to all this and a few minutes later Quinn and Phillips came back in.
“Mr. Anderson, we found the parking slip in your Mini,” Quinn said. “Your employee, Marjorie Howard, drove over in it, and the receipt shows the car entered the George Street multi-storey garage at 10:05 a.m. Saturday, April 25, and the car was retrieved at 11:13 a.m. Does that sound right?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“The attendant, where you paid on leaving, remembers you and the car. He said you were both pretty distinctive.”
Quinn allowed herself a slight smile.
My protruding ears again. Never mind. I was glad I’d used the garage and kept to my habit of keeping every receipt.
“Okay.”
“When you talked to Mr. Archambault, did you lose your temper like you did with us?”
I hesitated. Derek was out of the room trying to sort out JP’s situation. Then again, there didn’t seem to be any point in denying it.
“Yeah, a bit. I held him in his chair to get his attention. But that’s it. I didn’t hit him. If he’s saying I did, he’s lying.”
“Mr. Archambault isn’t saying anything, Mr. Anderson,” Phillips said softly. “He was discovered this morning by a friend. Dead.”
I was stunned, then asked the first thing that came to mind.
“Overdose?”
Quinn and Phillips exchanged glances, and this time it was Quinn who spoke.
“That’s a good guess, Mr. Anderson, but no. He was garrotted. Expertly.”
Derek leaned back and yawned in my visitor’s chair at the shop. He still had some whiskey in his cup from my office stash. He took another sip.
“Okay, Conn, I guess that’s all we can do for now.”
“Thanks, Derek.”
He drained the last of his whiskey, stood up, pulled his necktie back up to its proper position, and brushed imaginary lint off a lapel of his black suit jacket. He was known for his very, very fine suits in a profession where competitive haberdashery is an art form. Jingling the keys to his Boxster, he headed to the front door of the shop, turning his head back to me with a pearly white grin as I followed him out.
“So, how’s your love life, pal?”
“I’ve met a nice girl named Sandy.”
“Yeah? That’s great!”
“Mind you, with all this trouble, she may decide that I’m more of a liability to know.”
“Hey, this will all blow over. You’re in the clear, obviously, and I believe your little guy, JP. We’ll get to the bottom of that, don’t worry. You’re in my hands.”
We walked together to Derek’s car. It was cool but a beautiful clear night, stars everywhere.
As he boomed his Porsche into life on the shop forecourt, Derek lowered his driver’s window and wagged an admonitory finger.
“See you Thursday. And don’t forget what that nice detective said, pal.”
Thursday I was to take JP to Derek’s office for a thorough chat about his case. Odette Johnson would try to be there, too. I reflected that it was a good thing that Marjorie had deposited the Austin Healey sale proceeds into the Britfit account this morning. Derek’s fees were astronomical.
Detective Quinn hadn’t minced her words when I was finally able to leave the Elgin Street station with Derek, who’d returned by 11 p.m. from Magistrate’s night court down the street, having successfully secured JP’s release.
“Leave this to us, Mr. Anderson. When we’re not selling raffle tickets, we have been working on your arson. We’ve talked with Lieutenant Cardinal about his report, we’re dealing with Quebec Sûreté about Mr. Morrison, we’ve got the drug squad involved concerning the crack cocaine in the Jaguar, and now we’ve got a murder investigation connected with all this. You just concentrate on fixing nice old cars and leave this to us. We’ll get back to you, don’t worry.”
As we turned to go, Quinn had a parting comment.
“Oh, and Mr. Anderson. I have two cats of my own.”
She held my eyes, nodded, then turned back to her office to rejoin Phillips.
They’d been more forthcoming with me than with most civilians, probably because of my former career in government immigration intelligence work and the high security clearance I had held. None of which would have helped if they didn’t have clear evidence that I was unlikely to be Archambault’s killer.
Albert’s body had been discovered Monday morning by a friend with a key to his flat, two days after my visit. The pathologist estimated time of death at around 6 p.m. Sunday evening, about the time I had been sitting down to dinner with Isabelle, Sandy, and Jane in what was turning into a regular weekend ritual. Phillips had reached Isabelle, who told him in no uncertain terms where I was at the time, what I was doing, that I was a “dear boy” who worked hard, paid my debts, and was very good company, and likely lots of other things he didn’t really want to know.
Through the arson file handed over by Cardinal, they’d matched my fingerprints to a coffee mug and the chair I’d held Albert in. But my explanation of my visit to Albert accounted for their presence.
But how had they found out about my visit to Albert’s place in the first place? Turns out after I had identified myself, still in the foyer, Albert had written my name on a calendar pad he kept near his door buzzer. A careful cocaine addict – it made some sense. From their previous visit to the shop once the arson file was handed over to them, Quinn and Phillips obviously knew who I was, and arson file fingerprint comparisons in Albert’s flat confirmed my presence. There were no other names written down after mine on Albert’s calendar pad.
The employees in the rug shop below Albert’s apartment had heard bumps, voices and my clumping down the stairs as I left the flat Saturday morning. But no one was in the closed rug store to hear Archambault’s killer at work around 6 p.m. on Sunday.
They spared me the full details of Albert’s actual demise. That he was a cocaine addict was clear from physical giveaways, toxin tests during the autopsy, and various paraphernalia in the flat. But being garrotted is a pretty specific cause of death and not easily confused with drug overdoses.
At any rate, that was as much as they felt they needed to tell me.
Sighing with fatigue, I now went through the familiar rituals of closing up the shop before heading to the loft. Tomorrow, Tuesday, would bring who knew what. There’d be lots of explaining to the others about everything, hopefully more cars in and out for repair, and a pretty serious chat with JP. I would need to phone Isabelle, and with luck I’d speak to Sandy as well. I also wanted to talk to someone in the Jag club – but not Bartlett. I knew the club’s librarian pretty well. There was something about “innocent until proven guilty” that should apply to JP’s case in terms of business from the club as well as in law.
And I also wanted to speak to someone else I knew. After my visit with Albert Saturday morning, I’d called Tony Martello’s home number from my flat in the country and left a message. He’d returned my call today, according to one of the slips left on my desk by Marjorie.
Tony was Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and I wanted to bounce a few things off him. Ottawa PD Detective Quinn’s admonishment to me to butt out of the case and leave it to them was good advice. But a little chat with Tony might not hurt.