A Victim Must Be Found (29 page)

This list was used with unconscious, very ill and confused patients. I saw further down the page that Tallon did not have a prosthesis listed—no eye, wig, dentures– upper/lower, or cane. Alison explained to me that Tallon couldn’t have come in DOA, or the file would never have been made up. “If they aren’t viable when they get to Emerge, there’s no Emergency Report. We just log those cases. They don’t get numbers except their order in the log.” She leaned in closer and read over my shoulder. “This was a routine cardiac infarction, a heart attack. See, there was no autopsy ordered and it wasn’t referred to the coroner. But I see they took some tissue samples, which they’ll probably still have around. When did this happen? Oh, the end of February. Oh, yes, we’ll still have them at the Tissue Centre.”

I thanked Alison and asked after her sisters. That too helped to pass the time. My thoughts began to stray to the patient now in Dr. Leung’s care on the floor below.

* * *

Twenty minutes after I started bringing Chris Savas up to date on what had been going on, there was a uniformed guard reading
Sports Illustrated
outside Mary MacCulloch’s door. Savas suggested that we both leave in his car for the destination he had in mind. I left the Olds in the hospital parking lot with an old parking ticket under the windshield wiper Chris gave me a long-suffering glance and cleared the family belongings off the front seat for me. He headed in the direction of the Contemporary Gallery on Church Street.

“I’ve had a belly-full of this case,” he told me. “Why don’t these people leave crime to the people whose business it really is?” I grunted agreement and kept my eye on the road. I’m a terrible passenger. Chris went on soliloquizing and I kept grunting approval when it suited me and kept silent when, as he sometimes does, he went overboard. “Knocking off one another and then trying to start a fresh page by faking a suicide! Jeez! And I can’t even
look
at some of the pictures this is all about. What’s wrong with
September Morn
all of a sudden? Don’t tell me I’m short of couth; I got couth I never used yet.” He drove down Queenston Road and took the turn to the right onto Church Street where the last horse trough in town still sits at the point of a tiny green park. We drove past the synagogue at the corner of Calvin, passed Welland and headed up the slight rise where King Street begins. As we got closer to the gallery, we began to see parked cars under the street lights. Grantham is a town that rolls up its streets after six at night, but tonight, somebody had a licence to run a major party. Every big car in town was parked in a row on both sides of a usually abandoned Church Street. There were two stretch limos looking expensively sinister.

“Pull up here, Chris.” I saw a spot, but missed the fire hydrant. I avoided making further suggestions and Chris got parked by himself, but a block and a half from where we were going. As I got out I could see well-dressed people still moving in the direction of the unimpressive brick arch and the door to the second floor.

“We may throw a monkey-wrench into this fancy shindig,” Savas said. We continued down the street to the door. “How does he get people to come to look at that stuff, Benny?”

“It’s like olives, Chris. You have to get used to them.”

“Don’t try to tell a Cypriot about olives, Benny. I won’t tell you about gazing through keyholes and taking dirty pictures and you stay off my case, okay?” Savas was just filling in the time by letting off nervous energy. I was thinking about how his big, brave front was a great piece of theatre, when I spotted a familiar dark Volvo.

“That’s Paddy Miles’s car,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I walked past Chris, who went on ahead of me, and went over to examine the car more thoroughly. I had a moment of doubt, but I dismissed it when I saw that the back seat had a stack of paintings with their edges protected with cardboard corners. The colour of the car was right too. I reached into my pocket for a familiar shape, while planting myself at the front end of the car.

Chris had meanwhile interrupted his own progress. A police cruiser had pulled alongside the parked cars. The roof lights were still and unflashing. The two occupants watched Chris make his way off the sidewalk and through a narrow space between two top-of-the-line imported Japanese sedans. He was large enough so that it was a difficult squeeze. As he moved to them, the window was rolled down on the driver’s side. I finished doing the little job that the Volvo inspired, and walked along the outside of the line of cars with the cruiser double-parked in front of the gallery entrance. By this time Chris was in conversation with the two uniformed men in the cruiser. As I caught up, I recognized my old friends Kyle and Bedrosian. I was surprised that they were still partners. I first met them a few years ago when they were still apple-cheeked and bright-eyed, new to the force and dedicated to taking a reported Breaking and Entering suspect into custody. I remember that night very well. I was the suspect. I was surprised that Kyle and Bedrosian hadn’t

either left the force for greener fields or risen to become deputy chiefs by this time. It just shows how wrong you can be. As I hove alongside, Savas was finishing his instructions. “… and stay close. Keep the front door in view at all times and try not to be seen by people going into the gallery. Leave the car up the street and keep your eyes peeled from across the street. We’ll be inside and we’ll yell if we get in trouble.”

“We?” asked Bedrosian, leaning out the window and looking at me. Savas shot me a quick look too, but put his face close to Bedrosian’s and said, somewhat louder than necessary:

“Go to hell, Bedrosian! He’s a goddamned key witness!” Bedrosian pulled his head back into the cruiser faster than he had done lately. There are lots of things cops learn to do to heads hanging out car windows. I was glad I wasn’t tuned into Bedrosian’s imagination. Savas and I turned and went up to the gallery entrance, while the car slowly moved off to hunt for a place to park.

TWENTY-FOUR

Upstairs, on the gallery floor, the room had been transformed from a few hours earlier. The walls, where I could see them, were familiar but the room was so full of welldressed people that it was difficult to see whether Martin Lyster had finished the job he’d started or not. Everybody was standing in groups of twos and threes, stuck like photographer’s models on the green summer grass of a fancy shoot. This party looked impressive, except the drinks were, in keeping with tradition, the worst wine available. “Plonk” Miles called it, and that’s the way it hit the stomach. But I didn’t see anybody actually drinking any of it. This was a wine to hold while engaging in conversation. It held very well without losing any points for bitterness, mustiness or letting its high tannin content embarrass anyone.

Looking around for familiar faces, I took a stand beside a table which only had a tray with cheese cubes and crackers on it. Maybe I was foolish to hope for cold cuts, but, judging from the gownage and tailoring, to say nothing of the blue hair in evidence, I should have thought I’d find more than those cheese cubes. Alex Favell was deep in conversation with a large woman with upswept wings to her glasses. He kept looking towards the door over the woman’s red velvet shoulder. She was talking, he was nodding vaguely, like he wasn’t listening. I know the feeling.

“Mr. Cooperman! Good to see you.” It was my boss with his daughter on his arm.

“Hello, Benny,” Anna said. “Are you improving yourself or still working?”

“Oh, I forgot for a moment that you two know one another,” Jonah said. “Have you been here long?”

“Just arrived. Hello, Anna.” Once again, I was rendered speechless by Anna Abraham. It was a power she had, even when those smouldering eyes were turned on the paintings, or when she was doing her best to make me throw her out the door. She was dressed rather more informally than most of the older people at the gallery. She was in a bluish grey outfit with generous lapels, puff sleeves and a Chinese green turtle-neck top. The skirt was cut fashionably short. Right away I began wondering if the top was full or just a dicky. Her earrings were jade pieces with intricate carving I couldn’t quite see clearly at this distance. She smiled at me and I tried to make polite conversation with her old man.

“I think there’s been some movement in the last few hours, Mr. Abraham.”

“You mean you have it? The list, I mean?”

“Oh, the list. Um, yes, I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Thinking? I hope your efforts are more substantial than that.”

“You’ll see what I mean in a few minutes. Will you excuse me?” I tried to say it the way they do in the movies. I think my cigarette should have been newly lighted for the full effect; mine was a small nub of a butt between my stained fingers. I spotted our host greeting guests at the top of the stairs. I went through the talking throng in his direction.

“Madeleine! How wonderful to see you! Martin,” he called as though his half-brother was standing at his side, “get Madeleine a glass of wine!” He disengaged himself from the comfortable-looking Madeleine and went on working the crowd. From a distance I could see him place a
bon mot
in the ear of one silver-haired man in a business suit. He looked like he would feel undressed without his cheque book in his inside breast pocket. Over his shoulder, I saw Peter MacCulloch come in alone. Favell was watching too, but made no move. Miles continued working the crowd with skill and the right word for every guest. He caught my eye at last. “Ah, Mr. Cooperman! You are very welcome! You were saying that you’d never been to one of our
vernissages
before. What do you think?”

“Feels like a nice party, Mr. Miles.” Before I could put in another word, he was off shouting the name “Tilly” at the top of his voice. Tilly was a lustrous blonde in a pale pink diaphanous thing that had been imported to Grantham for the occasion. I got this news by circulating and keeping my ears open. I also heard that I wasn’t the only one to think that Wally Lamb had gone to where all good painters go when they die. Being dead was a good cover story for dealers, since dead artists are artists you can be sure about. They fetch a higher price at sales and auctions than live ones. And in a sense poor old Wally was as far away from the arts scene there at the Contemporary Gallery as his girlfriend Ivy was. I caught up to Paddy Miles again. Savas was behind me now. It seemed like a good time. Several of the guests had butted their cigarettes among the cheese and crackers. I was being disillusioned on all fronts, like I’d been living in a cave for the last five years.

“Mr. Miles,” I said, taking Paddy by the arm, “I’d like you to meet someone I don’t think you know. This is Staff Sergeant Savas of the Niagara Regional Police.” The smile came automatically to Paddy’s face and his hand shot out at once.

“Any friend of Chief Carr …” he said, letting the name drop loudly. “I hope you will enjoy yourself, Sergeant.”

“Sergeant Savas is investigating the suicide of a friend of yours, Mr. Miles.” Paddy put on a grave expression. It came out of the same box the rest of his expressions came from. What we got was deep concern such as he might feel for the fall of the dollar on the international market or the overthrow of a Middle Eastern government by a bunch of army colonels. “You’d better prepare yourself for a shock,” I said.

“I see,” said Paddy Miles, running a thumb along the top edge of his glass. “Well, you’d better tell me then. That’s all I need tonight: a shock. Well, the wine wasn’t doing it. You’d better tell me.”

“It’s Mary MacCulloch,” I said as simply as I could.

“Oh, no! Mary? I don’t believe it! That’s a cruel joke. I mean, well, it’s impossible!”

“Steady on,” said Chris. “Would you like to sit down?”

We found the pouffe that had looked so isolated earlier in the day. One end was free and Paddy Miles sat down hard. Neither of us said anything and he just looked at the floor and shook his head.

“I know things may have been looking bad for her, but to take her life! I just can’t …” He looked up at Chris waiting for him to tell him what else he knew.

“Can you give me some idea what her motive for suicide might have been?” Savas asked. I could see how subtle he could be with people. It was a new side of the old bugger. I kept learning from him.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “She was distracted, I guess, about all this pressure.”

“Pressure?”

“Mr. Cooperman, here, has been on her tail pushing pretty hard all week, even before Mr. Kiriakis was killed.”

Savas gave me a dirty look. “Pushing, was he? I want to learn all I can about that.”

“Well, there’s not very much to say, except that he’s pushy. He frightens people, intimidates them. If I was the nervous type and had him pushing me like that, I might take an overdose too.”

“Well, you know, Mr. Miles, these investigators are licensed by the province. We don’t regulate them locally. Most of them have very little police training. Right now, there’s not much we can do about it.” Savas repeated the dirty look, and I fell to the bottom of the birdcage of my chosen profession.

“Luckily,” Miles went on, “I’m not easily scared. I’m not the type to scare easily. Poor Mary. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should say a word to …”

“Just a moment, Mr. Miles,” I said. Miles shot a look at Savas to show that he shared Savas’s own sensitivity at having me around. They exchanged a glance at my expense, while I tried to keep my big, dirty feet from breaking anything valuable on the floor. “With your permission, could I ask you one more question?”

“Yes, but please make it a short one. I have guests.”

“How did you know that Mary MacCulloch took an overdose?” Eyebrows shot up on at least two faces. Miles tried on an uncertain smile.

“Did I say she’d OD’d? Well, I guess she didn’t strike me as the type to cut her throat or shoot herself. She’s gentle, the no-fuss, no-muss type. She’s not going to jump off the roof, now, is she?” He looked to Savas for confirmation of his natural guess. I’d caught him out in one of those traps that TV thrives on and courts of law have very little patience with. But, I had more. “Would you say she was a jumper, Mr. Cooperman?”