Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (142 page)

“I knew it wasn’t,” Lionel said, turning to Charles. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Dan continued. “But the question remains: why make a call and send a text? Why? To frame someone for the murder and cover up for the missing money that had been siphoned from the bar. Someone wanted to make it look as though Yuri was still alive, when in fact he’d been dead since the third of February.” He turned his gaze on Charles. “Probably not long after your argument with him.”

“I didn’t kill Yuri!”

Dan watched him. “I believe you now, but for a while I thought you had. Still, there was that call and the text from Yuri’s phone. They had to have been made by someone else, since Yuri was no longer alive.”

Everyone stared at Dan.

“But how do you know?” Charles ventured.

“The orchids.”

“What orchids? What are you talking about?”

“You know, I couldn’t figure it out. Here’s a man who is supposedly crazy about orchids with a greenhouse full of dead plants. He’d paid a lot of money for those plants. They should have had flowers on them. They should have been alive. But most of them were already dead when a cleaner arrived and vacuumed the petals off the floor. That was a Thursday. Yuri’s body was discovered two days later, on Saturday. The coroner’s report said he’d been dead for two or three days at most, but in fact he was dead well before that. The house was nearly freezing for a week. The thermostat had been turned down to keep the body from decomposing. That’s why the doors were double-locked, to keep anyone with the code from entering and turning it back up until a few days before your return from Mexico by a cleaning woman who always cleaned house on Thursday.”

“Then who made the call and sent the text?” Lionel asked.

“Your lover.”

Lionel looked to his husband. “But Charles was with me by the time I got the call. Besides, he changed his plans for business reasons at the last minute. His boss insisted. It wasn’t anything he planned.”

“Yes,” Charles broke in. “I changed them for business.”

“Nevertheless, Charles came later. He met you two days into your vacation in Mexico, as you both pointed out. It would have given him ample time to do the deed before turning down the thermostat and heading off to Mexico. As I say, he
might
have done it, but Charles didn’t have the code to Yuri’s house. In fact, he told me himself he never had the code.”

“Then how could he have made the call or sent a text?” Lionel asked. “You just said —!”

“I didn’t say your husband made them. I said your lover did. The same person I saw standing on the stoop when I arrived at Malevski’s house this morning. I thought I saw a delivery man trying to get into the house with an old code, but in fact he had just changed it after removing some very expensive orchids from the greenhouse. It was Santiago.”

Lionel shook his head. “But Santiago’s dead!”

“No, he’s not.”

“Then who —?”

“A boy who had already threatened suicide. Ziggy was pale as a ghost, even under all that make-up. Didn’t you notice the discrepancies on the body you identified as Santiago’s?”

Lionel looked bewildered. “His face was damaged badly. I … I told you, he didn’t look right. He was all swollen up!”

“Yes, and Ziggy told me Charles said he looked like Santiago’s younger brother. True, they looked a bit alike, but they were essentially different in obvious ways. Santiago has olive skin where Ziggy’s is pale. Santiago was hairy, while Ziggy was smooth.” Dan held Lionel’s gaze. “Ziggy told me he got the new code from Yuri’s phone. He would have had to pick it up to read it. Then later he sold it to a pawn shop, along with a few other items. That was a problem. They weren’t Santiago’s fingerprints on the phone, they were Ziggy’s. As his lover, you would have known you were identifying the wrong corpse. I saw Santiago’s picture about an hour ago, in fact, so I have a pretty good idea where the police will find him. He seems to have found an adopted mother. She keeps his picture beside the orchids he gave her for safekeeping.”

Charles set his suitcase on the floor and looked at Lionel. The anger had been replaced by fear and uncertainty.

“Why?”

“Why?” Lionel looked away. “Why were you running around with that stupid little boy in girl’s clothes? And all those other scum you picked up, thinking I would never find out? You made me sign that prenuptial agreement, virtually locking me into marriage. Is that your idea of fair — tying me down and making me risk all my savings if I left you?”

“That wasn’t the purpose …” Charles started to say. “I was protecting us. I was just doing what lawyers do.”

“Protecting us?” Lionel spat at him. “And I was just doing what accountants do, balancing the accounts and tidying up your dirty little affairs all over the city. Santiago is twice the man you are.”

From the corner of his eye, Dan saw Inspector Lydia Johnston move quietly toward Lionel.

Epilogue

Home

Dan was just edging up to the curb when his phone rang.

“Hey, Dad!”

Ked’s voice nearly leapt out of the phone at him.

“Hey! What’s up?”

“I won!” He waited a beat. “The science contest! I won with my sling psychrometer!”

Dan laughed. “That’s amazing!”

“Old world technology,” Ked said. “It’s still the best.”

“So are you going to give up your cellphone and revert to tin cans tied together with strings?”

“That’s
too
old world for me. It probably even predates you.” There was a pause. “This will really help with scholarships.”

“Great! I guess that’ll make it easier for you to move away from Toronto when you go to school.”

“I guess.” There was a longer pause. “You really want me to move away?”

“I want you to see what the rest of the world looks like. You have to leave home to do that. But it doesn’t mean you can’t come home again whenever you want.” He paused to consider. “How does Elizabeth feel about this?”

“She thinks I should go, too.”

“Then there’s your answer.” Dan put the car in park and turned off the ignition. “I’m truly thrilled for your win, but I just arrived somewhere and I need to do something. Can we talk about this later? Maybe over a little celebration?”

“Sure.” Hesitance crept into Ked’s voice. “I’m busy tonight, though. Elizabeth and I are going out. Sorry.”

“No worries. We’ll arrange something.”

Dan got out of his car and stood looking up at the house that had relinquished nearly all of its secrets to him. For a moment, he wondered about the future owners, then decided he’d let them discover the secret panel on their own.

He punched in the four numbers of the entry code, gratified to see red turn to green once again. Still welcome, after all. He was beginning to feel like part of the family. Maybe that was Yuri Malevski’s influence, creating a place where everyone could be at home.

Most of the plants had been removed from the greenhouse. The few that remained were dead or too large to be moved easily. He hoped whoever took them knew their worth. Or maybe not. Why not just let them be plants, with no special price tag attached to them?
Let them be appreciated for their beauty
, he thought.

Dan bounded up the stairs to the third floor and pushed on the panel. It swung open. He looked around the tiny space. The diary was gone — police evidence. The fingerprints on it had confirmed what he’d already known, that it was Ziggy who was pushed from Overlea Bridge.

He nudged the curtains aside and looked out on Yuri Malevski’s lush garden. Who knew, but the fruit trees and flowers might have dated to the time of its construction, back when it was just becoming known as the Lockie House. It was a pleasant thought, all that stretching back into antiquity.

It was a cozy hiding spot. Dan could have benefited from something like this as a boy escaping his father’s drunken aggression. He lay on the futon and stared at the beams overhead. Three words were scribbled in chalk on the wood:
Ziggy was here!
He felt a lump in his throat.

Just then, his cell buzzed. It was Donny.

“Are you still angry with me?” Donny asked.

“Angry with you? Why?”

“For introducing you to them and getting you mixed up in that sordid tale.”

“Not your fault. You couldn’t have known. And no, I’m not angry with you.”

“Thank god. Prabin told me I was imagining it, but I’ve had nothing but sleepless nights ever since.”

“In fact,” Dan said, “if I’d listened to you in the first place, I might have been further ahead. You made the whole thing sound like a bad TV drama, and in fact that was what it was. I need to learn to think in clichés if I’m going to be more successful. It really was all about the protection money, but not because of the police. It was Lionel and his Cuban boyfriend scheming to steal from Yuri and have a life of luxury.”

“So who did the killing?”

“I thought you were above asking such sordid questions.”

“Humour me this one time.”

“Ziggy felt protective of Yuri, so he told Yuri about Santiago’s affair with Lionel after he saw them together. It wasn’t long before Yuri threw Santiago out. I think that was when Yuri discovered the missing money. His private file showed they’d been siphoning it out of the bar for months. When Yuri confronted Santiago, he killed him in his kitchen. With Lionel’s help, they made it look like Yuri died while Lionel was in Mexico and Santiago was off with the girlfriend at Jane and Finch. Lionel had an old recording of Yuri’s monthly meeting reminder. Santiago played it back to him over the phone while he was away.”

“When did you catch on?”

“It took a while. There were so many things telling me I was wrong, particularly the coroner’s report on the timing of the death. But once I reconsidered that in light of their affair, everything made sense. Lionel even made threatening calls to Santiago’s girlfriend to warn her off. He would probably have married Santiago himself if he hadn’t already been married to Charles. A divorce would have cost him dearly. I first began to suspect Lionel because he tried too hard to convince me it was Charles, when he should have been protecting him. It would have been all too convenient for them if Charles had been convicted of Yuri’s murder.”

“Hmmm …” Donny said meditatively.

“I blame myself for Ziggy’s death,” Dan said, running his fingers across the lettering overhead. “I don’t think anyone knew he was in the house till I mentioned it. The decision to make it look as though Santiago committed suicide figured neatly into their plans. Santiago lured Ziggy to the bridge, saying Charles wanted to meet him, only Charles wasn’t there when he arrived. Lionel planted his card on Ziggy to make sure he would be asked to identify the body. Being an illegal, there was no record of fingerprints or family to come looking for Santiago when he disappeared. Ziggy was perfect.”

“How long will you beat yourself up for that one?”

“How long have you got? I feel culpable. That won’t change.”

“But in reality, Ziggy started the ball rolling by telling Yuri about Santiago and Lionel. With or without you, it would have come back to him once they knew. And you have to remember you saved Charles’s life, at least.”

“I suspect the trip up north would have resulted in another fatality, made to seem accidental. Lionel hated that Charles was able to lord it over him once he’d signed the prenuptial and then went all over town having affairs. I was wrong about Charles, though. He may have ordinary human flaws, but he wasn’t the cesspool of immorality I thought he was.”

“Glad to hear. So does this mean I can stop worrying about you for the time being?”

“Why would you worry about me?”

“Oh, I don’t know — getting beaten up in Quebec didn’t exactly quell my fears.”

“A couple of thugs hired by some renegade cops, nothing more. Lydia thinks she knows who to pressure for an answer. I doubt I’ll be looking over my shoulder for that one the rest of my life.”

“I just wish you’d stop taking chances. By the way, where are you?”

“Yuri Malevski’s mansion.”

Donny sucked in his breath. “Okay — I don’t even want to know.”

“It’s all right. I wouldn’t tell if you tortured me.”

“That sets my alarm bells ringing.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Besides, you know what they say: wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me.”

A match flared on the other end.

“Question,” Dan said.

“Shoot.”

“If you were single and knew a very sexy cop who was also single, would you date him?”

“If I were me, sure. If I were you? Definitely not.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a cop and you’re a private eye. Isn’t that a little like dating the enemy?”

“Kind of. It’s okay, I just wondered. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait!”

“What?”

“If you do date him, will there be coercion?”

Dan smiled. “If there is, it’ll be willing.”

“Then it won’t be coercion. But in any case, take pictures.”

Dan was seated at his kitchen table. He glanced up at the cupboards that once held his alcohol. What would they hold when Ked went away to school in the fall?

He pulled out Nick Trposki’s card, pushing Hank’s orchid aside as he reached for his cell. The cop answered right away. There was a pause when Dan identified himself.

“I’m not in a bar, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Dan said. “I’m not calling you to rescue me.”

“Glad to hear. How can I help?”

“Do you ever think about the future?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“Not really. I’d like to know.”

“All right. Then, yes. Sometimes.”

“That’s it?”

There was a laugh. “Okay, here’s what it is. Mostly it depresses me to think about the future. I can barely stand to think about tomorrow let alone the distant future, but every once in a while I think about what I’ll be doing a year from now and whether I’ll be with anyone in another five. How’s that for a true confession?”

“Pretty good,” Dan said. “I’ve got one, too. I don’t want to grow old alone. Especially since I’ve come to the realization that I can’t live with alcohol in the house. Imagine that — a grown man who can’t trust himself.”