Murder in a Good Cause (20 page)

“That's it,” he said. There was triumph in his voice.

“What's it,” said Dubinsky, sounding even less impressed than usual. “Your horse come in or something?”

“Better than that. That was Tom Gardiner with a message from Volchek. It seems the owner of Rawlinson's Gold Exchange called in. He's just been offered a valuable gold ring containing a large emerald and two diamonds in what they call a fantasy setting. Very distinctive.”

“Mrs. Wilkinson's?” said Dubinsky cautiously.

Sanders nodded. “Sounds like it. They have a security camera by the cash, and they taped the person who brought it in. But after a couple of minutes he got twitchy and ran. Volchek's on his way over there now.”

“I wonder which one it is?” said Dubinsky.

“Volchek said it sounded like Walker, the one at Mid-City. Get a team to check his alibis. Carefully this time.” Dubinsky scowled and picked up the phone. “And then I'm going for lunch. You coming?”

Carlos was beginning to wish that he hadn't changed his clothes when the phone call had come. His shoes were pinching his feet, and his tie had taken on a malevolent life of its own, growing tighter and itchier as he darted back and forth, following the goddamned girl from one narrow little shop to another. Without a chance to close in on her, either, not after that impulsive and abortive try at the corner. So far, she had been into almost every women's clothing store on Bloor Street, and whatever she was looking for didn't seem to exist. At last, she had wandered into a place that sold mostly Irish tweeds; she had been there for over thirty minutes, and now he was getting nervous.

Veronika looked at herself in the plum-coloured suit and slightly darker silk shirt and smiled. She liked it. The sales clerk held her breath. It was the eighth complete outfit she had put together for this girl. “I'll take it,” she said.

“The suit?”

“Everything—suit, shirt, belt, scarf.” She stepped into the changing room and began to strip. “And I'll wear it now,” she added. “Just take the tags off.”

“You wouldn't have shoes, would you?” asked Veronika a few minutes later as she stepped out of the dressing room in her stocking feet, carrying her brightly coloured cloth purse and Klaus's sweater.

“I'm afraid not,” said the clerk. “And that came to thirteen hundred and eighty-nine dollars,” she added, handing her the bill.

“Ah,” she said, pulling out her cash and peeling off fourteen hundreds. “And could you put this sweater in a bag for me? The rest of the clothes in there you can throw out. Oh, except my running shoes. I'll need them to get to a shoe store.”

New shoes and a matching purse took the better part of Veronika's remaining cash, but not of her time. She had an hour and twenty minutes before she was to meet Harriet, and she was, at the most, ten slow, ambling minutes from the museum. She stood on the sidewalk and looked around her for inspiration.

After a brief and unsatisfactory lunch, Sanders sat at his desk, brooding. Volchek had clearly staked out the matter of Mrs. Wilkinson's ring. Dubinsky had dispatched a team to deal with the disappearance of one of the key witnesses in the von Hohenkammer case, although Sanders was willing to bet that Milanovich was flying over some ocean or other by now. His current problems must have made foreign travel seem irresistible. In short, Sanders had delegated himself out of legwork. Everything else to be done was going to require perception, enthusiasm, and thought. He looked at his watch. It was getting on to three o'clock. He reached for the phone and checked the motion. He couldn't face hearing that smug little message one more time. “I'll be back later,” he said to anyone in the room who cared to listen, and headed out the door.

The third hairdresser whose establishment Veronika von Hohenkammer visited in this little corner of town admitted that he could arrange for her to have her hair washed and dried, and her makeup done, before ten minutes to four. Since it was, after all, a Tuesday, and Tuesdays weren't that busy. She lay back in the chair, quiet, like an obedient child, and let people do whatever they wanted with her for the next fifty minutes.

Manu stepped off the bus across the street from Mid-City Security Systems and stopped to check the time. Almost three o'clock. He considered what kind of approach was likely to gain him access to Don. Humble friend desperate to see him? He shook his head. Arrogant would-be customer unhappy about an estimate? That was infinitely more promising. But while he was mulling over his approach, circumstance pulled a fast one on him.

Three white-and-blue patrol cars drew up onto the sidewalk in front of the building; six uniformed officers climbed out of the cars. Manu began to stroll along the street away from the bus stop, staring with casual interest at what was happening.

Ten minutes later, as Don Walker was being hustled into one of the patrol cars, Manu left his observation post at the front table of a grubby little café, paid his modest bill, and headed across the street to catch a bus back to the vicinity of his flat.

Once inside the flat, he made a phone call, walked into the kitchen, poured himself a small glass of red wine, and sat down at the table with a pad of paper in front of him. He considered the causes for the alarm he was feeling at the moment and decided that they were sound and real: Carlos was a dangerous fool; Don, a weak, greedy, frightened fool; the fence was on the point of betraying them. He had tried on the bus to reckon up the number of hours that Don would withstand police interrogation and concluded haste was essential. He set down his observations and conclusions in brief, reasoned language, reread them, made a few revisions, reached for a battered copy of the works of Miguel de Unamuno that sat on the shelf, and swiftly cast the letter into a simple code. That done, he showered, shaved, put on a sober business suit, packed one small suitcase, and threw the copy of Unamuno into the briefcase containing the money. From a drawer he took a new passport, slipped it into his inside jacket pocket, picked up the letter, and ran lightly downstairs. Once outside, he turned toward the backyard, where a wiry boy of eleven was practicing indefatigably with a battered soccer ball. He handed him a twenty-dollar bill and the letter, made him repeat the address twice, and watched him head off to deliver his message to the buru. That taken care of, he set off at a brisk pace for the subway and the airport bus.

Completely processed, Veronika glanced at herself in the broad mirror behind the cash desk. She was indeed a new her; so new as to be barely recognizable. She regarded the phenomenon with interest but without emotion or opinion. Tomorrow would be time enough to judge whether she liked the new her or not. The receptionist counted out her change with an automatic smile. “You look marvelous,” she said. “Simply marvelous. I hope you have a good time tonight.” She leaned back and studied the young woman critically. “Actually, Toni didn't do a bad job on you. Your husband should like it.”

“My husband?” said Veronika, and turned to stare, hard, for the first time at her image in the mirror. It was a shock. Considering the violence of the change in her appearance, she would not have been surprised to discover that both outer and inner self had suffered drastic upgrading. Perhaps she had magically acquired a husband, and even an occupation of some sort. She shook her head, bemused.

“He came by earlier to find out how long you'd be,” she said. “Made me promise I wouldn't tell you he'd been here. I think he wants to surprise you. I'll bet you didn't even know he was downtown, did you?”

Veronika shook her head slowly. “No . . . no, I didn't.”

“Good-looking, too,” she said. There was disapproval in her voice. Maybe girls who walked around with shaggy hair and shiny faces didn't deserve to marry handsome men. “You're lucky.”

Suddenly, Veronika's brow cleared. Klaus, the seducer of many, in pursuit of his sweater. She smiled. “I suppose he is, if you like the type,” she said. “Sort of—”

“All dark and brooding,” interrupted the receptionist. She grinned. “Men like that give me shivers down my back.”

“Dark and brooding?” Nikki pushed some bills into the little jars on the counter marked with the names of lesser personnel in the establishment and, puzzled, went out the door. You
might
call his soft brown hair dark, she supposed, though it would be a strange description of it, but anything less brooding than Klaus Leitner she couldn't imagine. Besides, how did Klaus know where she was? She stepped onto the sidewalk and looked up and down, searching for her cousin. Not a sign of him. If he had been into that establishment, he hadn't bothered waiting. She shrugged and headed for the museum.

Sanders leaned on Harriet's doorbell. No response. He rang again. Nothing. He raised his fist, hit the door, and stumbled forward as it swung open under the force of his blow. Now he stopped, feeling for the reassuring bulk of his pistol. He listened, motionless, his eyes fixed on the staircase for any sign of movement. Nothing. He stepped across the patch of light flooding in behind him and quietly pulled the door shut after him. He padded silently through the ground floor. Bedroom, darkroom. All empty, all neat and undisturbed, except for a few pieces of clothing draped over a chair and on the bed. Up half a flight, the bathroom was empty. He moved up the staircase without a sound, pausing when his head reached floor level to check the second floor. No one. Even the dust curls were undisturbed. Bloody Harriet, in addition to driving him mad for two days, had walked out for her lunch date with that murdering brat Nikki and left her front door open. He headed for the refrigerator, helped himself to a beer, sat down in her most comfortable chair, and stared out onto the deck, letting his mind roam where it would.

Harriet frowned as she parked behind an anonymous-looking blue car. It had to belong to John. With his usual arrogance, he had abandoned it a foot from the curb right in front of her door, blocking access to her driveway. Unsure whether she was more annoyed or amused, she looked up and down the street to see where he was lurking, ready to pounce, but he must have found waiting too boring and gone off for coffee. Bastard. Now thoroughly irritated, she flicked her hair out of her eyes and began to pile equipment onto the sidewalk. It had already been a frustrating day. She had awakened at nine o'clock that morning in her motel room, looked at her watch, and panicked, positive that she would never get that damn shoot finished today. Everything she had left to do needed morning sun; the project would be a washout after eleven-thirty. She had exhausted herself working well into the night, doing the south and west faces before sunset and then tackling the interior shots of the model suite. She had spent hours shifting enormous pieces of hideous furniture out of her way. But when she had twitched aside the heavy curtains that had allowed her to sleep so late, she saw that the weather had changed. It was raining. She had packed up her gear, eaten breakfast, and headed back to Toronto.

The door opened before she put her key in the lock, and she jumped back, startled. “You sure take a helluva lot of gear with you when you go to lunch, don't you?” said Sanders.

“I haven't been to lunch,” she said coldly. “I've been to Orillia.”

“Orillia! What in hell were you doing there?” he asked. “And you could have told me you were going. I've been killing myself trying to find you.”

“Do you mind if we hold this conversation inside?” she asked, making a futile attempt to push by him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and reached down to pick up her overnight bag and camera case. She followed with knapsack, tripod, lens case, and cooler.

“Get me a beer,” she said, relenting slightly, and headed into the bathroom, “and then I'll tell you all about it. It's very mean and petty. Not the kind of thing you'd want to tell someone whose opinion of you means anything.”

“Well, there you have it,” said Harriet, settling herself a few minutes later into a corner of the couch with a glass of beer and some crackers. “I took off because I couldn't stand giving any more help and comfort to someone who really needs it. I told you it was mean and petty.”

“But why you?” asked Sanders. “That's what I can't understand. I would have thought you'd be the last person in the world she'd go to for help
or
advice.”

“What in hell do you mean by that?” asked Harriet, affronted. “Oh, I see. You mean, because of you. Us. Well, I don't think she actually realizes that I . . . that we . . . are whatever we are,” she finished lamely. “I don't believe I ever mentioned it. After all, she's only really interested in her own problems at the moment. She never asked me about mine. And if you think about it, the only time she's seen us together we didn't exactly fly into each other's arms, you know.”

“Typical,” muttered Sanders, ignoring the last comment. “Selfish, spoiled brat. So you decided to take off.”

Harriet nodded. “It was very last minute. I just bolted without telling anyone.”

“And without closing your door,” said Sanders. He had walked around behind the couch and was staring out at the deck as he spoke. “I hate to keep preaching at you, but for chrissake, Harriet,” he said, and turned back to the room, “you do take awful chances.”

Harriet stopped herself in the middle of a slow stretch. “What do you mean? I checked that door as I was leaving. I always do. It was locked.” She dug her back into a pillow propped against the armrest of the couch and drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them and looking sideways over at Sanders. “And you can't resist preaching. It's part of the very fabric of your soul.” She tossed that off with a fleeting grin. “Anyway, did you really find it open?”

He nodded.

“Damn. I wondered how you managed to get in, but it didn't seem tactful to ask.” She frowned, rescued her drink from the floor, and took a sip. “Must have been the landlord,” she said at last. “He comes in every once in a while, and he's careless as hell. If you look around, you'll probably find a greasy tap he tried to fix, or something like that. And he'll turn up tonight to tell me all about it. He's not a great plumber, but he's a great explainer. He's the reason I have a chain for the door.” She pulled her legs up closer to her. “And would you stop looming around all over the place? Come and sit down.”

Sanders looked down at his long legs as if he'd never noticed them before. “Looming?” he said, and walked over to the couch. He threw himself down on it, head back, legs straight out in front, and yawned. “Has he done this before?”

“Mmm,” said Harriet. “But he's stopped trying it while I'm home. In my bleakest moments I have an awful feeling he creeps around looking for love letters or pawing through my underwear or something like that. But he's probably just checking that my housekeeping is up to standard. I must speak to him about the door, though. That really is too much.” She bent forward and stretched an arm along the back of the couch. “Anyway, what's wrong with you? Feeling sick?”

Her hair swung forward and brushed against his hand in thousands of searing fiery sparks. He held himself very still. “No,” he said at last.

She pulled her head back. “I see. Then I suppose that look on your face means you're angry,” she snapped. “Furious because I went off to work without asking permission, is that it? And I'm not supposed to do that. Would you call and ask me if you could go off and poke around looking for an ax murderer?” The words crackled with anger.

“It's not that . . .” he started.

“Well, then, what in hell is it?”

“It was the—” He stopped, unable to say it, acutely conscious that Harriet's body had stiffened with resentment beside him. “It was the—” Suddenly he started to laugh, deep wrenching gasps of laughter.

“What in the name of God—” Harriet started to speak and stopped again, looking at him in amazement.

He took a deep breath and tried again. “It was the answering machine,” he said finally.

“The answering machine,” said Harriet, completely mystified.

“That goddamn message on your answering machine,” he said, still laughing. “You have to change it. It's too damn cute, and there's nothing worse than cute when you're in a rage. And I was in a rage.” She stared at him, and he began to laugh again. “Oh, Harriet,” he said, reaching for her and pulling her forward onto her knees beside him. “I am so goddamn glad to see you again.” He put a hand through her hair, drew her close, kissed her, and then cradled her face in his shoulder. “How in hell do we get into these ridiculous arguments?”

“They're always your fault, you know,” she murmured, and twisted herself gently sideways until she was in his lap.

His hands slipped under her shirt and ran over the soft skin of her breasts, her shoulders, and down her back; she pressed herself up against him with an urgency that twisted his gut and dizzied him. He pulled back and looked at her, touching a finger to her lips as they parted in the beginnings of a question. “Shh,” he said. “Is the chain on the door?”

“I'll check on the way to the bedroom,” she answered, her voice growing hoarse and faint.

Veronika stood on the broad pavement where the Royal Ontario Museum rose like a vaguely Romanesque fortress and looked around for Harriet. All around her there was a sense of things closing down. The last orange school bus was pulling away from the curb, and the sellers of hot chestnuts and popcorn and small toys on sticks were rearranging their wares, preparing to pack up for the day. She hesitated. Harriet was probably waiting for her inside; there was little point in standing out here. She moved cautiously in her slippery new shoes up the wide stone steps and into the vast lobby.

She looked around. A couple of security guards were chatting near the admissions booth; two women with a scholarly air strolled past her up the main staircase. No Harriet. She paid her admission fee and wandered into the museum shop to pass the time. Stationing herself in the midst of a collection of terra-cotta reproductions—horses, amphorae, odd-looking beasts and birds—she began to examine each one, methodically checking the descriptions, reading the prices, from time to time looking up through the glass walls in the direction of the admissions booth.

Harriet lay sprawled on her stomach, her head perched comfortably on Sanders's shoulder, one leg tossed over his. “If you're not careful,” she said, “I could go to sleep like this.”

He lifted her hair out of her eyes and tossed it back, then patted her affectionately on the hip. “I should be at work,” he said. “I have no reason at all for being here. It's not even my lunch hour.”

“Do they know you're here?”

“Not even that,” he said, running his index finger down her backbone for the pleasure of feeling her writhe sleepily against his naked side. “And they can bloody well get on without me.”

The telephone rang. “So that isn't for you?” asked Harriet.

He reached over for it. “Leave it,” she said, touching his arm. “The machine is still on. We don't have to answer it.”

“The hell it is,” he said. “Your machine answers on the third ring. I should know. I've listened to it often enough for the past two days.”

“Hell,” said Harriet, struggling up to a sitting position. “You're right.” She reached over and snatched up the receiver, trailing the cold cord over Sanders's chest. She listened for the space of five seconds and snarled, “No.” She handed him the receiver and curled up beside him.

“Who was that? Or is it confidential?” he asked, and winced at the hurt vibrating ever so slightly in his words.

“Very confidential,” said Harriet, allowing her voice to drop five tones. “I have this lover,” she said. “A girl named Sheila. When she calls, she asks me if I need a new furnace, and if I say no, then— Hey!”

Sanders had grabbed his pillow and was waving it menacingly over her head. “You can be the most irritating, supercilious—”

“My, my, Officer. Such big words.” She threw herself up against him and wrapped her arms and legs around him. “I'm cold,” she complained. “You have allowed the temperature of the room to drop.”

“And at least Sheila—”

“—would have brought a new furnace over. Anyway, there must be hot water. I'd better take a shower,” added Harriet. “Or you'll never get back to work. Come and soap my back.”

Don Walker slouched in his chair in the interrogation room and maintained a stubborn silence. He had looked up briefly when his lawyer entered the room; but Charlie Mitchell's arrival did nothing to loosen his tongue. It just made him look desperately in Mitchell's direction before refusing to answer. Charlie, meanwhile, ignored his client; he yawned and listened to the questions posed first by Volchek and then, fifteen or twenty minutes later, by Dubinsky, who had also wandered into the room.

Finally, Mitchell raised a hand to stop the questioning, yawned again, and spoke in bored tones: “Could I have a few minutes with my client? I don't think he's quite grasped the situation.”

“Sure,” said Dubinsky. “Be our guest. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

It was more a lecture than a conference. Charlie Mitchell's sibilant hiss poured into his client's ear without interruption for ten minutes. From time to time, Walker would nod in miserable agreement and then hunch farther down in his chair. By the time Charlie was finished, Walker seemed to have lost at least half his substance and to be in danger of collapsing into himself, melting into a gray puddle on the chair.

“My client,” said Charlie at last, “has one or two things to say that could be of interest to you. But he would like to know first if the Crown is willing to take his helpfulness into consideration when it comes to the laying of charges or the drafting of a sentencing report.”

“Just a minute,” said Volchek, and disappeared. The men left in the room sat or stood and stared everywhere but at each other until he finally returned. “Crown wants to know are we talking a straight ‘guilty' plea on all counts?”

“Could be,” said Mitchell, calmly ignoring his client's whisper of protest.

“You've got it. Degree of mitigation depends on degree of helpfulness.”

“What does that mean?” asked Walker suspiciously.

“The more you talk, the less you get,” said his lawyer. “So let's get going. With luck you can talk it down to two years less a day. Otherwise . . .”

“Uh, yeah,” said Walker. “So, what do you guys want to know?”