The Poisoned Pawn (26 page)

“I’ll take care of it, Miles. I’ll drop them off on my way home tonight.”

“There’s a box and a carry-on bag; they’re in my office. Thanks, Celia. My God, this is a year I’d already like to start over.
It’s as if the universe has decided to play games with us. Every now and then, I think maybe God exists after all. And gets his fun kicking the shit out of us, one by one.”

Jones looked out the window. “If I’m going to do that, I’d better go now. It’s getting late, and with the bad weather the traffic will be crazy. If I don’t leave soon, I’ll never get home tonight.”

“Go ahead, Celia,” said Britton. “There’s nothing more you can do here. I’ll wait with the inspector and swear up that affidavit for him. Can we stay here and use your office?”

“Of course. Thanks, Andrew.” She stood up and removed her parka from a hook. “Ricardo, it’s been really great to see you, despite everything that’s happened. I’m glad we had a chance to show you around Ottawa. Please don’t worry about these charges. It’s not your fault that the laws in your country are different from ours. We’ll work it out.”

“Thank you, Celia, for all your courtesy. Please tell Alejandro how much I enjoyed meeting him. I hope the day will come when both of you can visit Cuba. When you do, we will break the law together: Francesca will cook you a private dinner in our home. And I promise, I will keep in touch about the other matter. As soon as we have a free moment, Hector and I will start working on it.”

“Thank you for that,” Jones said, smiling. She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “We’ll keep our fingers tightly crossed. I’ll speak to you next week, Andrew. See you Monday, Miles. And for God’s sake, call me if anything else happens. I have my cell with me; it’s fully charged. Goodbye for now, Ricardo. Have a safe trip home.”

“Tell me, Andrew,” Ramirez said to the prosecutor after Jones left. “If a child is adopted in this country, what are the legal implications for the biological family?”

“I’m not a family lawyer, but from what I can remember, it’s as if they never existed. I think they issue a new birth certificate in the adopting family’s name. Why do you ask?”

Before Ramirez could answer, someone knocked on the door. Charlie Pike stood on the other side with Corporal Tremblay and an elderly man. Under his heavy coat, the old man wore the black suit and white collar of a priest.

He looked surprisingly ordinary, thought Ramirez. Nothing about him hinted at the terrible things he’d done. A small man with reddish skin, he appeared confident, relaxed. Not like a prisoner, but like a person one might trust.

Tremblay walked in and handed a brown package to Ramirez.

“The laptop, Inspector. I’ll need you to sign for it. And I have a statement for you to swear to as well. Mr. Britton said he would notarize it for you, is that right?”

Andrew Britton nodded.

“I’ll wait outside with Detective Pike and the prisoner while you do that. To avoid problems, our lawyer said I have to transfer custody of Rey Callendes to the Rideau Regional Police first. Then they’ll transfer him into your custody, Inspector.”

More paperwork. To avoid liability, thought Ramirez. Everyone in this country was concerned about liability. It was the only advantage of living in Cuba, where people knew better than to use the courts.

“I’ve got the transfer papers here,” said Charlie Pike.

“Good. Here’s the affidavit,” said Tremblay, and handed it to the prosecutor.

“Not a problem,” said Britton, looking at his watch impatiently. “That’s why we’ve been waiting.”

FORTY - EIGHT

Celia Jones stood on the doorstep of the big house. She tried to balance the large cardboard box on her knee with one hand. With the other, she had pulled Hillary Ellis’s heavy green Roots bag all the way behind her through the increasingly dense snow.

She was trying to execute two contradictory actions: ringing the doorbell with one hand while holding a box that required two. She finally gave up and put the box down, keeping it off the wet snow by resting it on top of one of her boots.

She rang the doorbell. The door had a knocker shaped like a mortar and pestle. Cute, she thought. She looked at the neighbouring homes as she waited. The Kellys lived in a nice part of the city, on a very good street.

Island Park was full of stately older brick and stone homes. The adjacent areas, Wellington Village and Westboro, were rapidly changing. The turnover started after a Mountain Equipment Co-op store was built, and continued with the construction of the new Superstore. Nearby retail couldn’t easily compete. Mom-and-pop convenience stores were being rapidly replaced with yoga centres, condos, and trendy restaurants and bars.

Even so, it was one of the prime locations to live in Ottawa. It was a neighbourhood of embassies and private mansions. Expensive real estate.

It was a busy street, though, at this time of day. Island Park was a main artery between Ontario and Quebec. To the north, it led directly to the Champlain Bridge, which crossed the Ottawa River, linking the two provinces.

Traffic was already building from the Queensway to the Ottawa River Parkway as thousands of public servants lined up to take the bridge home to Gatineau and Aylmer. With the falling snow, cars inched along, bumper to bumper.

She rang the doorbell again and then hammered the pestle.

When no one answered, she was tempted to leave the packages behind and run, the way she had when she was a teenager. She and her friends would leave paper bags full of dog shit on people’s front steps on Halloween night, set fire to them, and flee, giggling.

She tried again one last time. The door finally swung open. A white-haired man with a sweet face looked out the door at her, puzzled. She struggled to keep the box upright as the carry-on bag tipped over.

“Yes? Here, let me help you with that.”

“Mr. Kelly? Thanks very much. My name is Celia Jones. I work with the Rideau Regional Police Force. Chief O’Malley asked me to drop these off for you. They have your daughter’s belongings in them. Her things from the flight. They were left behind at the hospital. We thought you might want to have them. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you for bringing them by,” Kelly said. “That was kind of you. You should be home with your family, getting ready for supper, this time of day. Particularly with that storm moving in. Thanks for doing this, young lady.”

He reached for the cardboard box.

“I’m sorry, I do have to go over a bit of paperwork with you before I can release them. To make sure everything is in there that should be. If that’s okay? It won’t take too long, I promise.”

“Come on in. May I call you Celia?”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.”

She was grateful to get out of the cold and snow.

She hated snow, had hated it ever since she’d lost the man she tried to talk down from an icy ledge when she was a police negotiator. Not because he didn’t come down, but because he did. Just not the way he was supposed to.

The mental image of the man, folded in half in the snow, the baby he’d been holding spiralling, head first, slipping from her grasp. It made Jones think of how close she came that day to dying. And then the hostage-taking in Cuba. She pushed these thoughts from her mind.

Nothing to worry about here, anyway. And she’d be home soon. Alex probably had dinner started. He loved to cook, and he was good at it. They would have
fabada
tonight, he had promised. A Cuban stew made with large white beans,
fabes de la Granja
. He had soaked them overnight and would fry them up with bacon, morcilla, and chorizo. She planned to stop at the LCBO on the way home and get a nice bottle of robust red wine.

Walter Kelly picked up the carry-on. Jones lifted the box and carried it inside.

She pulled off her high-heeled boots and left them on the mat in the foyer. She followed Kelly into the spacious designer kitchen. The grey quartz countertop, she noticed, was littered with empty bottles; they seemed out of place in the immaculate home. Some were Havana Club, but there were also some glass bottles with white labels and black print.

“Please, Celia. Sit down.” He pointed to the wooden stools around the large kitchen island.

“Your home is lovely. Someone has exquisite taste.” Jones put down the box.

“Thanks very much. That’s my wife’s doing,” Kelly said.

He pulled open a drawer and took out a linoleum knife. He cut through the tape on the lid of the box.

Jones opened the flaps and took out a list of items from the brown envelope inside. She reached for a pencil in her purse. She removed each article from the box, marked it off the list of Hillary’s belongings, and placed it on the kitchen island.

A woman’s leather billfold containing a driver’s licence, Ontario health-care card, Visa credit card, two hundred Canadian dollars in twenties, a taxi receipt, a Blockbuster movie rental card. A tube of red lipstick. A bottle of prescription medication in Mike Ellis’s name.

She looked at the label on the bottle as she put it down. It was for diazepam, prescribed by Richard Mann.

Jones wondered why Hillary Ellis had Mike’s pills. And then she noticed the dispensing information: Kelly’s Pharmacy on Wellington Street. The street bisected Island Park Drive; the drugstore was only a few blocks away. Well, that made sense, she thought. Mike would have called Walter Kelly if he needed any medication; he and Hillary lived close by.

“I’d forgotten you owned a pharmacy, Mr. Kelly.”

“Please, call me Walter. Everyone does. Yes, we’ve had it for years. ‘Your Friendly Neighbourhood Pharmacy,’ that’s our motto. But we’re closing it down soon, getting ready to retire. This business with our daughter really hit us hard. And retail is getting tougher all the time. That Superstore on Richmond Road almost killed us.”

“I can imagine how difficult that must be. Not to mention the shock of what happened to your daughter. Again, I’m so sorry. It must be very hard for you both, particularly coming so close to Christmas.”

“It’s everything, Celia. There was a time when we enjoyed working in the drugstore. Now it’s become a chore. We’re hoping to sell the business, maybe leave Ottawa altogether. We’re thinking of going somewhere warmer. Like Florida.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that. I drive by your drugstore all the time. Now I’ll have an excuse to stop in to say hello. At least while you’re still there.”

She smiled at the kindly old man. She removed a turquoise silk top, a beige skirt, and a pair of silver sandals from the box. A woman’s bra, size 36C. Underpants, polyester, pink, medium. A book,
The Taming of the Shrew.

She was unzipping the green Roots bag when a woman shouted from upstairs. “Who was that at the door, Walter? Has that asshole son-in-law of ours OD’d yet?”

Jones jumped, a little startled. The indomitable Mrs. Kelly, no doubt. The “untamed” shrew.

“Someone from the Rideau Police, dear. She’s still here.”

June Kelly clumped down the stairs. Celia Jones looked from husband to wife and back again. No information about Mike’s suicide attempt had been released to the public. No mention of drugs or an overdose. There was no way that June Kelly should have known anything about it.

No visitors all day
.
Except for a prescription delivered about an hour ago.

“She’s not here about that, June,” Kelly said, and Jones heard the warning in his voice. “She came to return Hillary’s things.”

Jones stood up slowly. She pretended to look out the window. “You know, I think I should maybe leave. You’re right; that is a bad storm moving in. Traffic looks snarled. My husband is expecting me for dinner. He’s cooking tonight. I’m supposed to pick up the wine. It looks like all of Hillary’s things are here.”

She kept her back to the counter. Kelly still had the linoleum
knife. He was gripping it a little too tightly for her liking. He didn’t look quite as kindly anymore.

“Aw, shit,” said June Kelly. “You should have said something, Walter. We can’t let her go. Now she knows.”

Jones looked again at the glass bottles on the counter, saw the small black skull and crossbones on the labels. The Kellys were the residual beneficiaries under the insurance policy. They would get the two-million-dollar payout if the principal beneficiaries, Mike and Hillary Ellis, died.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” said Jones. “You poisoned Mike. The medication that was delivered today was from your pharmacy. You put something in it.”

Walter Kelly narrowed his eyes and gripped the knife tightly. “There must be a syringe around here somewhere, June. You go find one for me, alright? A hundred-cc needle should do it. That’s enough to cause an embolism.”

June Kelly nodded and made her way back up the stairs as her husband extended the blade.

FORTY - NINE

Ricardo
is
good, thought Hector Apiro. He had picked up Ramirez’s message after Maria left, and made his way to the exhibit room.

He found the green plastic disk taped to the bottom of Rita Martinez’s desk drawer: a package of birth control pills, with several pills missing.

Apiro now stood in the laboratory, the contents of the mini-bar in Room 612 at the Parque Ciudad Hotel lined up in neat rows along the counter. He started with the bottled water as Ramirez had suggested.

He dusted each bottle for prints but found only smudges, nothing useful. He was almost relieved. Elimination prints would have been problematic. Probably dozens of tourists had pulled bottles in and out of that mini-bar as they considered their selection. The maids would have moved things around each day as they replaced missing bottles.

For the next half-hour, Apiro checked each bottle of water carefully, using the tests he had available. He found nothing out of the ordinary in any of them. They seemed to contain only water.

That left the beer, the cans of Coke, the orange juice, and the rum.

He opened a bottle of Havana Club and used a pipette to extract a drop, which he put in a test tube. He applied various reagents as well as metallic sodium and watched the fluids react.

By the time Apiro was finished his tests, he was certain that the small brown bottles of rum held something besides alcohol. It would take hours to be sure, but given the circumstances, he felt sure it was fluoroacetate.