The Devil's in the Details (31 page)

Oops. Blinding flash. I had taken the wrong Pathfinder and left behind the replacement photos which I needed to show Jasmine. But I didn't want to get distracted by that. I went back to stewing about Elaine. I wasn't ready to discount my friend, but I couldn't put myself at her mercy either. I decided to follow Rule Two and get myself a lawyer. I called Mombourquette.

To my surprise, he picked up the phone. “Are you okay?”

“Not bad for being on the run. Can you do something for me?”

“Camilla. Turn yourself in before an officer spots you and decides you're resisting arrest. Let the police help.”

“Right. Like they're helping so far? I need to find this killer.”

“Listen, every officer believes you killed two women and seriously injured another. They're nervous. They think you're armed.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Turn yourself in before you get shot.”

Armed? What could I be armed with? Talk sense, Leonard.”

“They got a tip you're carrying a weapon. Might have been Elaine.”

“That's just plain nuts. What kind of weapon am I supposed to have?”

“A gun. So some nervous constable thinks he's facing an armed murderer, shoots first and asks questions later. Think about that.”

“Come on.”

“Or, you get arrested, you kick up a bit of fuss. The officers use reasonable force to subdue you. Your head gets rattled a bit. On top of your concussions, the additional injury leads to brain damage. You want to spend the rest of your days in a rehab centre? You think you got troubles now.”

“Holy shit.”

“Exactly. So where are you? I'll come and get you and make sure there's medical personnel available as soon as you come in. Conn will show up too. Nothing will happen with us.”

“If you want to do something for me, get Sheldon Romanek on the phone. I want him to represent me.”

“Romanek? That shithead defence lawyer? I wouldn't talk
to that snake if you did have a gun, and you held it to my head.”

“Don't use clichés, Leonard. He's a snake, but he's the best snake.”

“I've had cases thrown out because of him.”

“I'm not asking you to date him.”

“It's not exactly office hours.”

“That's pretty lame, Leonard. Romanek has a criminal practice. His clients call when they get arrested. They don't make appointments at convenient times. Please just make the call. I'd do it myself, but I don't have his number.”

“You think I have his number?”

“You have a phone book. This cellphone is running out of juice.”

“You can't get legal aid. Who'll pay his exorbitant fees?”

“Well, not you, Leonard. So don't worry.”

There goes the
RRSP
, I figured.

“Camilla, listen . . .”

“And tell Romanek I won't submit to a dehumanizing strip search.”

“Be serious. You're a lawyer, you know the rules.”

“And I want it in writing. Take it or leave it. Damn. I'm losing power. Don't let me down, Leonard.”

I didn't want to squander my cellphone charge arguing with Mombourquette. Plus I had the Elaine problem. Was Mombourquette right? Was Elaine capable of telling the police I had a weapon?

What did I really know about Elaine anyway? She'd moved from the States to go to Carleton. I'd never met any of her
family, not even her diabetic brother, Eddy. Estranged from her parents, she'd said. Period.

But Elaine had been my friend through every tough time that had happened to me for the past eighteen years. She'd been part of my elopement plan and a witness at my wedding. Still, I had to be cautious.

I'd been so shocked, I'd forgotten to tell Mombourquette about the clippings. He could have followed up on the Settlers. And I hadn't been able to reach Jasmine. I was counting on her to make connections between Laura and the women at the restaurant. Were there other contacts besides Bianca? Was someone else in danger? Was Jasmine?

Without the photos, I had nothing to show Jasmine. Which brought me back to Elaine. She had gazillions of photos, if I could get my mitts on them. Tricky. The police would have her place staked out. That added an element of challenge.

And police or no police, Elaine's place was like a fortress. How could I get into her second floor apartment? Like they say, when in doubt, ask an expert. I knew just the one. The talented Bunny Mayhew, the best second-storey man ever. The good news: I had his telephone number.

“Wow, Camilla, you are sure in the deep weeds.”

“I noticed that myself, Bunny.”

“Canada-wide warrant,” he said. I detected pride in his voice.

“Can you help me?”

“Name it.”

“Okay. You can't talk to the police or the media. And especially your friends.” I refrained from saying your shallow-end-of-the-gene-pool
friends who always needed information to trade to the cops.

“Hey, you've done a lot for me. I've never even served time. You always got me off, even when I was guilty.”

True. If anyone had been primed for the slammer, it was Bunny Mayhew. I couldn't take credit. Female jurors fell in love with him.

“Suppose, speaking hypothetically, I needed to get into someone's house when they were in it, what would be the best way? Not that this would happen or that you would counsel someone to commit a crime.”

“Like you said. Hypothetical. They got a security system?”

“Hypothetically, yes.”

“It usually means there's alarms on all the ground floor entrances and windows. What kind of system?”

“Don't know. Say an extremely good one.”

“Motion detectors?”

“Yes, and a lot of locks.”

“No problem. First, you find a place to hide where the cops won't look afterwards, and then you work on the motion detector. You could wave a branch so the shadow triggers the alarm.”

“But . . .”

“A thick tree is a good hiding place. Then when the cops show up four to five minutes later, they check out the house. Okay? That takes maybe fifteen minutes. Ten minutes after that, you wave your branch and set off the alarm again. You go back to your hiding place.”

“A tree? I don't know . . .”

“Cops come, cops check, cops go away again. They don't think you're hanging around in a tree, they think you ran away. Speaking hypothetically. Ten minutes later, you do the
same thing. Cops come, cops get a bit pissed off with the resident, cops suggest they'll be charging for all three false alarms. Resident calls the security system and gives them hell. Turns off system. You're in like Flynn.”

“Brilliant. But there would be cops outside the house, and they wouldn't think it was a false alarm. They'd think it was me. In this far-fetched scenario.”

“Wow. And you're armed and dangerous, eh. They'll just shoot you.”

“Ouch.”

“You need a better hypothetical plan. Is there a second floor?”

“Yes. That's where I need to be, if this were a real situation.”

“Any security there?”

“Motion detectors. Window alarms wouldn't surprise me.”

“It's an apartment?”

“Yes. Top two stories of a house.”

“Okay. I'll bet you anything there's no security on the third floor.”

I closed my eyes again. “I don't know.”

“No one ever thinks you can get in on the third floor. But it's a piece of cake. All you need is a ladder.”

“I can't carry a ladder around the way I am now. Even if I had one.”

“Say you've got a ladder, then you hustle up to the window.”

“The window is on the third floor.” No point in boring Bunny with my various ailments, such as losing balance and seeing quadruple. I decided to let him finish, then try to find another solution.

“Third floor windows are easy. People leave them open all summer.”

“This apartment is air-conditioned.”

“Practically impossible to cool off the third floor. Windows will be open.”

“Even if a window is open, which I doubt, there will be a screen.”

“Nothing to a screen, Camilla.”

“For you, maybe. But I would be, hypothetically, up on a ladder, three-stories high, and new to the game.”

“Just cut it out.”

“I'm merely stating the facts, Bunny.”

“I mean just cut out the screen. A box cutter is best.”

“It's three in the morning, where's a person going to get a goddam box cutter?”

“So just give the screen a push. That's all it will take. They come away like nothing. Particularly if it's one of those converted places with older windows. You just push it, hard. And either the whole screen, frame and all, comes off or the screen breaks loose from the frame. Either way, you're in.”

“If the frame were to fall in, wouldn't it hit the floor and make a lot of racket?”

“Well sure, if you let it fall. You have to be fast. When I was allegedly in this game,” Bunny paused, “that's what I would have done.”

“I don't think I could pull that off.”

“For me, the thing that worked the best was visualization.”

“What?”

“You know, mentally rehearsing the outcome, seeing yourself succeed. You never heard of this stuff, Camilla? All the sports guys use it.”

“I've heard of visualization, but I just never realized it could be used for . . . this line of activity.” How many times had my father advised me to see the desired outcome in my mind? Of
course, he hadn't been thinking about burglary.

The phone beeped, indicating low battery.

“Phone's running down.”

“Where's the hypothetical house?”

“Near Spruce.”

“Wait half an hour and go to the alley between Spruce and Danton, you'll find a ladder.”

One long beep, and the line went dead.

“Thanks, Bunny,” I said.

I lurched to the rear of Elaine's place on the bike and peered into her Pathfinder. No sign of the photos. That left Bunny's not-so-easy hypothetical plan. In the alley between Spruce and Danton, a lightweight, extendable painter's ladder was propped against a shed. I didn't want to lose Donalda's bike to some other prowler. I slid it into a slim space between two garages. After that, I struggled for a good twenty minutes to drag the ladder to the back of Elaine's house. The less said about how I looked and sounded the better.

First, I groped my way to the front of the house and peered around. I caught the gleam of a dark sedan parked one house down. Not good.

As far as I could tell, only one of Elaine's third floor rear windows was open. I positioned the ladder under it. Grappling with that ladder was the hardest thing I'd ever done. But climbing it turned out to be worse. In my visualizations, I saw myself crumpled on the ground. I felt my neck snap. I heard myself scream. I decided to visualize nice things. Like good Samaritans feeding Mrs. Parnell's cat and Gussie adapting well to Mombourquette's.

The real-world problem was the swaying of the ladder. All the thoughts of the cat and Gussie couldn't override that. By
the time I reached the third floor, my heart was beating so loudly, I was surprised the neighbours didn't fling open their windows and tell me to shut up. I realized I should have left my stupid backpack on the ground. My knees shook, my mouth was dry and everything swirled.

The window was in Elaine's office, if my calculations were right. I stared at the screen. I hung on to the ladder with one hand, the window ledge with the other and gave a firm push with my elbow. Technically, that turned my activity from unlawful entry to breaking and entering, a definite notch up on the offence-o-meter.

The screen stood fast. I tried giving it a sharp rap with my palm. What if the cop got out of the car and checked the back of the house? That thought brought a surge of adrenaline, and I whacked the screen. The screen fell in, silently. But in what seemed like slow motion, the ladder swung away from the wall. I visualized a slow arc to the ground, and my life ending in a clatter. I grabbed the window sill and clung. The ladder swayed, stuck on my feet. With every scrap of strength, I pulled myself toward the window. The ladder came forward, hitting the wall with a clunk. After a bit of panting, I disengaged my feet and launched my body into the dark room. At that point, I didn't care if I landed at the feet of the tactical squad.