AFTER JP dropped me off in the Land Rover, I carried Jerry in his carrier over to Isabelle’s house. She made an appropriate fuss over him, as did Angela, who had already served Cooke an early dinner.
Cooke was apologetic about having to leave as ordered by Martello earlier in the day. He wheeled his motorcycle out of Isabelle’s barn and headed up Prince of Wales back toward the city.
I managed to reach Sandy at her hotel in London, and we talked a little until the cell phone I’d been issued by Tony started ringing in my shirt pocket.
“You should know, Conn, that the poop has really hit the fan now,” he told me.
Turned out that the Globe and Mail would be running with an updated story that linked Rodney Morrison, recently deceased Executive Assistant to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, to the card scam.
“One of the victims mentioned to the reporter that he’d been shown Morrison’s authorization note on official letterhead by one of the consultants as an inducement to hand over his five grand for a PR card. We’ve had to confirm with the reporter that the former Public Works employee known as Robert Short is wanted in connection with the scam and is chief suspect in the murder of John Phillips and likely connected to the suspicious deaths of Morrison and Archambault.
“The paper will be running the photo of Short, and we’ve also issued details of a Toyota Corolla that’s registered to him, plus the suspicion that he’s also sometimes driving a gray late model Chevrolet sedan, licence plate unknown.
“We also felt we had to add arson at your place of business to the list, along with suspected crack cocaine dealing. We’re advising extreme caution in approaching this guy.”
“Okay, thanks for the tip.”
Tony sighed over the cell phone line.
“I’m really hoping that we’ll get a lead on this guy’s whereabouts soon.”
“You and me both, Tony,” I replied.
“Oh yeah, that’s not all,” Tony went on. “The computer forensic people at the PR card-processing centre in Sydney identified an employee they suspect was producing the PR cards for the consultants’ clients. Somehow she was able to input the data to put these people in the system and print off the cards without being detected. All she’d need from the consultants was a passport-type photo and the basic data for each client. They’re still counting, but it looks like she managed to produce almost a thousand of these things over a few months before the centre was shut down on Monday.”
“Hmm, that’s …”
“Yeah, at five grand a pop, about five million dollars. Not a bad return, just for the cards. Dealing cocaine to the consultants and unloading foreign passports as well would be icing on the cake.”
“So all in all …”
“All in all, the CIC Minister is toast, everyone figures. My guy at PCO says the minister will be visiting Sussex Drive tonight to fall on a sharpened pencil.”
“What’s the story on the employee at the processing centre?”
“She never turned up for work Tuesday morning. Once the computer geeks were swarming all over the centre Monday, she must have figured the jig was up and left town. So she’s being sought on a warrant, too. Jennifer something … yeah, Jennifer Bryson, aged twenty-three.”
“Did you say her last name was Bryson, Tony?”
“Yeah, why? Wait a sec …”
There were muffled voices for a couple of moments on Tony’s end of the line.
“Conn, I gotta go. I’m being signalled here. Talk to you later.”
I looked at my watch. Just gone 6 p.m. I went into my galley kitchen, made a ham and cheese sandwich and ate it standing up, looking out my living room window at Isabelle’s house. I reflected it was a nice evening for a drive back to Ottawa. Maybe I’d visit someone in the Glebe, one of my favourite parts of the city. Isabelle should be all right for a couple of hours.
Deputy Ministers make good salaries. The federal government realized some years ago that to attract the brightest and the best to public service, salary scales had to be brought up to match the private sector.
My former boss, Jill Bryson, had risen quickly through the ranks of the public service to the DM level. I had some vague memory that her spouse was also a public servant. Looking up her address on the card I’d kept from my time at the Minister’s Office with home phone numbers and addresses on it, I wasn’t unduly surprised to find that she lived on Clemow Avenue. One of the top streets in arguably Ottawa’s second most prestigious neighbourhood, mature maples and oaks lining it shield eighty- and ninety-year-old large brick homes that still have quarters for servants.
I left the Mini Cooper one block up on Powell just in from Bronson, then backtracked on foot down Bronson and entered Clemow from its west end.
I’d waited until dusk to make the drive into the city, and now, around 9 p.m., ornate streetlights situated on the landscaped boulevards of the avenue were giving off dim pools of light. House numbers are discreetly placed on this street, and in the comparative darkness were difficult to read. But halfway down the block, I was able to identify the Bryson address, on the north side mid-way between Bronson and Percy.
I strolled by the house, slowly, to get a feel for things. Even in the semi-darkness, I could see Bryson’s house was a Younghusband design from the off-white stone corner molding complementing the dark red main structure brickwork. Trust Jill to live in one of only half a dozen homes drawn and built in the Arts and Crafts style by one the premier architects of Ottawa in the 1930s.
I strolled to Percy, crossed down to the other side of Clemow, and walked back. The street was quiet, and I saw no other pedestrians. While the streetlights glowed in the centre of the avenue, the sidewalks were barely illuminated. I hoped that anyone looking out from a window would see nothing but a lone walker taking the spring night air. It was times like this I almost wished I had a dog to walk. It would make me appear less out of place, especially if I had a little plastic bag fastened to the leash.
From the opposite side of the street, Bryson’s three-storeyed, multi-gabled home was in almost total darkness except for lights behind leaded living room windows to the left of what would be the centre hall.
Another lamp glowed at one of the second-floor windows. A bedroom, presumably. Perhaps the bedroom, still kept clean and complete with furniture and teddy bears, of first a young girl, then a teenager, and now a young woman with a career of her own. A daughter, Jennifer, who came home for Christmas and other holidays from her exciting job at CIC’s cardprocessing centre in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Now home again, unexpectedly.
A paved driveway ran alongside the west edge of the house, which like most of them on this street was sitting on a half-acre lot. Parked half-way along the driveway close to the front of the house was a newish black Volvo crossover wagon. At the far end of the driveway loomed what must be the garage, a twostorey structure about the size of my own building on Isabelle’s property.
My main worry was motion detector lighting, but that can be set off by small animals, so I decided to risk it.
I crossed the street, and walked quietly up the driveway, past the Volvo, then ducked down close to its front end, well hidden from the street. I could feel warmth from its radiator, so it hadn’t been sitting here that long. Interesting that it hadn’t been garaged, though. I waited a bit, crouching in the dark. No lights suddenly going on, no barking by man or beast, still no pedestrian footsteps on the avenue that I could hear.
I scuttled forward to place myself under the living room windows. I could hear muffled voices but couldn’t make anything out.
I crabbed back to the front of the Volvo, then stood up slowly and made my way along the driveway to the garage structure at the back of the house.
Two sets of wooden double doors, complete with windows, showed it was indeed close to the size of my own garage. Presumably there was living space above, too. I stood still and listened and heard nothing from anywhere in it. I walked around the side, and found the single entry door where I expected it to be. It wasn’t locked and I went in. Until now I could have talked my way out of being on the property. Looking for a fictitious missing dog, perhaps. But not once I had entered the garage.
Standing in the entranceway, I could see two cars in the garage. To my immediate right was a wooden staircase, leading up to the living quarters, presumably behind a lockable entrance door at the top of the stairs.
I stood listening for any creaks or movement from above, peering closely at the cars in the meantime. From the windows set into the garage doors, there was some ambient light, but not quite enough. Hearing nothing, I pulled out my small flashlight from my jacket pocket, and, shielding it as best I could, approached the cars.
One was a late model red VW Golf with Nova Scotia plates, bugs splattered all over its front end and windshield. Jennifer Bryson had indeed come home.
The other car was a dark blue Toyota Corolla, rusty, at least ten years old. What had I heard about a Toyota Corolla recently? Oh yes, Public Works guy Robert Short had one. He’d kept it at his townhouse in Lebreton Flats, and now police departments across the country were looking for it, along with the gray Chev he also drove. I opened the passenger door, and the interior light came on. Rummaging around in the glove compartment with the flashlight on, I found the registration and insurance documents in a little blue plastic folder.
Bingo. Robert Short was listed as owner on both forms.
I replaced the documents in the glove compartment, and quietly shut the car door. I turned the flashlight off, leaving the garage the way I’d come in. All was still quiet outside.
I was making my way to the front of the house, then froze in the shadows as another car pulled up and sat idling, blocking the end of Bryson’s driveway. I wasn’t terribly surprised to see that it was a gray Chevrolet Caprice sedan.
Jill got out of the rear of the car, slammed the door, and the driver accelerated away. She trotted up her sidewalk and entered the house.
I gave her a couple of minutes, then went around to the front of the house and rang the illuminated doorbell.
It was a little late for a social call, but what the heck.
Bryson blanched a little when she realized who was at her front door. But her manners were intact. Breeding is all, as they say.
She led me to the living room.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Conn? Or something a bit stronger?”
“No thanks, Jill.”
She had chosen one end of a long sofa, directing me to a wing chair facing her. The room was a very pleasant one, with bridge and table lamps illuminating good quality antique furniture. A floral screen covered the wood-burning fireplace. Above the mantle what must have been an original A.J. Casson winter scene was displayed. From somewhere, the adjacent dining room perhaps, an old clock was ticking rhythmically.
I just sat saying nothing.
Bryson cleared her throat.
“Well, Conn, nice of you to drop by. Was there something in particular …? It’s been a bit of a week, one way or another. I’ve just been with the Minister who’s pretty livid as you can imagine. There will be a very bad story for us in the Globe tomorrow.”
She paused.
“Yes, I know.”
“Yes, of course, you’re still pretty connected with things, aren’t you? I realize you must still be a bit upset about the car that poor Rodney died in, the Jaguar burning at your place of business, but from the stories I noticed in the media there wasn’t much damage, was there? What a strange thing to happen, quite a coincidence. And Rodney getting involved like that. I think that was the last time I saw you wasn’t it? Just before …”
“Jill, things are kind of falling apart for you, right now, aren’t they?” I said quietly.
She sat up a little straighter on the sofa, crossed her legs, tugging at her skirt. She had nice legs, no doubt about it.
“Well, I guess I can tell you; it’ll all come out tomorrow. The Minister is offering his resignation tonight – he’s probably at the PM’s residence right now.”
I held up my hand.
“I wasn’t talking about the PR card scam as such. Or Rodney.”
“Well, if you must know, I’ll probably have to move from the department, get an ADM position somewhere …”
She had adopted the same haughty look I had seen at a meeting or two.
“Hmm,” I said. “Public Works, perchance?”
She stared.
“See, the thing is, Jill, I’ve been pulled into this quite deeply, thanks to your dumping the Jag on me. Whose idea was it to torch the car?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Conn.”
She looked ostentatiously at her watch.
“I have to meet with PMO first thing; it’s going to be a really long …”
I had to admire her stonewalling ability. Of course, you don’t get to be a Deputy Minister without that skill in your quiver of arrows. Time to change tack.
I lifted my right hand, and pointed my index finger up toward her second floor.
“Tell me, how are you going to handle your daughter’s predicament?”
Bryson’s poise deserted her at last. She looked down at her lovely rug.
“My husband is taking her to our lawyer’s office tomorrow morning. They’ll all meet with the RCMP from there.”
“Where did Short, your driver, go just now?”
“I don’t know. He’s been staying over the garage out back. He put all his clothes in the car trunk today. Said he had to do one more thing.”
“How did all this start, Jill?”
“Are you here in some official capacity, Conn? I mean why do you want to know?”
“Just curious, I guess. Bad habit. But, after all, you came to my shop, told me about Morrison’s so-called suicide, arranged for the Jaguar to be delivered there for servicing …”
“We were so proud of Jennifer. After getting her BA at Carleton, she wanted something more practical. She took computer science at Algonquin and got interviewed for the job at the processing centre in Sydney all on her own. I didn’t try to influence anybody to hire her.”
This was likely true. But while Jill would not have put any word out on her daughter’s behalf for fear of a charge of nepotism, it probably hadn’t hurt her chances that her mother was the Deputy Minister of the department.
Bryson smoothed her skirt and brushed at her hair with her right hand.
“The crack addiction started well over a year ago. Then she met Rodney and his boyfriend …”
“Albert. Albert Archambault.”
“Yes, she met them at a coke party somewhere in the Byward while home on vacation leave from Sydney. They convinced her to produce the PR cards for them. By then she was spending a lot of money on her habit. They paid her a percentage for the cards in cash, crack, and powder. She realized she was in over her head but couldn’t stop.”
“How did Short get assigned to you as a chauffeur?”
“He’d left Public Works after organizing the car for Rodney. He also knew someone in the Transport pool and managed to fiddle getting assigned to me. My previous driver had retired.”
“He knows that Jennifer is here now? That she’s suspected of being the employee producing the cards, and that this whole thing is blown wide open?”
“Oh yes, yes. I don’t expect him back here, really. I don’t care any more, as long as Jennifer is safe. I’ll resign … I really thought that Rodney had committed suicide. I didn’t know anything about … Archambault.”
“Okay, but I’m still curious. Why torch the car? Why even take it anywhere for a so-called service?”
“Quebec Sûreté had cleared Rodney’s suicide. The car was registered with CIC so back it came. I suppose we could have just handed it back to Public Works, but Robert … Short was nervous. If it was returned to Public Works, questions would have been asked since he got it for Rodney at an auction outside the usual process and made the paperwork disappear. He’d left Public Works by then, but the car could have been traced back to him.”
“And the Sûreté would have wondered if it wasn’t collected from their compound by someone official.”
“Yes. Short remembered having the car serviced in January at your shop and thought if it ended up being destroyed there, anyone could be blamed for torching it – kids, whatever – and it was out of our hair.
“Then, and this was my mistake, Conn, I said I knew you, that you used to work for us.”
“But I left over two years ago.”
“Yes, but Short got nervous about you, too, especially when Albert told him you’d come around to his and Rodney’s apartment, asking questions about the car, the arson, how Rodney got the car. You still have connections around town. I knew you weren’t the type to let it go.”
“So after providing this help to Short, you were content to watch him try to get me out of the picture, too?”
“I was afraid of him. He … he’s crazy. He told us that we weren’t to interfere, that Jennifer had to keep working for them out of Sydney, that otherwise he would hurt her.”
Bryson started crying at this point.
I turned my head to see a bespectacled, balding, and pudgy man in his late forties, wearing a nice green knitted cardigan sweater, enter the room. He looked at me, and then went to his wife, sitting beside her on the sofa and taking her hand.
I stood up, as did he. I explained a few things. He left the room, returning with a scrap of paper on which he had written the licence plate number of the gray Chev Short was driving.
I left the house, walked over to Bronson, then north to Powell, where I’d deliberately left the cell phone on the floor out of sight in the locked Mini Cooper. I turned the corner, walking up to the Cooper parked on the south side of the street while feeling for the car keys in my pants pocket.
The next thing I remembered was seeing a spider crawl close to my face. I was lying on my left side on a gurney, facing a white wall, having my scalp stitched back together in a grubby little room at the Civic Hospital.