(2012) Cross-Border Murder (33 page)
“I think most of her hostility was directed towards you,” Gina offered.
“Towards me?”
“Yes.” I must have looked offended because Gina added, “you’re an Anglo-Quebec male journalist working for a newspaper she probably has reasons to despise.”
I could not deny the possibility. “Then,” I said, “I’m hardly the person to approach her.”
“We agree,” Phil commented. He seemed almost relieved, “we think Gina should speak to her.”
“But Gina doesn’t speak French.”
“Oh, I picked up some of it in the eight years I went to school here. But I agree it’s not enough!”
“I’m sure,” Phil said, slightly amused at our discussion, “that Naomi’s friend can speak almost perfect English when and if she wants to. I’ll go along with Gina to keep her company, but I’ll stay in the background. If they run into a language problem, I’ll be there to help out.”
“And what about ensuring that the police are involved?” Mary asked. The question pained Phil. He was still having difficulty thinking of himself as no longer a part of the force.
“I’ll get in touch with Leclair as soon as possible,” he promised.
“And you’ll make sure she understands the danger she may be putting herself in?”
“Yes.”
Mary looked at me. I shrugged. I felt check-mated. I did not like being cut out of the action. I still had some minor reservations but I chose not to voice them. Phil pushed himself away from the table.
“Well let me make the first phone calls. See what I can set up,” He said, “wish me luck.”
“Break a leg,” I muttered.
He gave me a puzzled look.
“It’s a theater term for good luck.”
He still looked puzzled.
“You’re trying to set up a little drama and you’re expecting Gooden to walk into your trap.”
He smiled weakly and gave me a dismissive shrug as he went up the stairs.
While Phil was on the phone, I helped clear the table. He returned as we were putting on the dishwasher.
“So far so good,” he said, “she finally agreed to meet us. But not at her place. We have an appointment in an hour and a half at a place called the Bistro St. Denis.”
I was familiar with the place. It was run by a landed immigrant from Paris. It was a favorite haunt of French writers and media people. She had obviously selected a place where there would be friends she could rely on if she had to. I explained the layout of the place and the kind of people who would likely be there.
Phil nodded. “Figured it would be like that. A place where a cop would stick out like a sore thumb.”
“I wouldn’t worry. You’re beginning to look like one of us.” I grinned. “Just don’t go around sniffing, trying to identify the source of the sweet-smelling smoke.”
He gave me a dirty look. “We don’t do that sort of thing. Haven’t for as long as I can remember. We let people alone with their petty vices. This is still Montreal after all.”
Mary threw me an odd look. The tension between Phil and myself obviously puzzled her.
“Well, I’m ready any time,” Gina said.
“What about Leclair?” Mary asked.
“I left a message with his office,” Phil muttered, “asked him to call me later tonight at home. I promise I’ll bring him up to date on everything.”
I tried to extinguish the very slight ember of resentment I felt as I watched Phil leaving with Gina. After all, I was the one who had asked him for help. I guess it was his penchant for assuming command which had begun to irritate me. He had a thirst for moving rapidly into action which I lacked. But then he had been a cop, and I had been a reporter and not a very aggressive one at that. In fact, I had to remind myself, that I had yet to write a single word about any aspect of this case. I decided I would call Mel Vogel later and bring him up to date. That was the least I could do. Moreover I would begin to sketch out the article the paper would need urgently if Gooden stepped into the web that Gina, Phil and Naomi’s friend might soon be spinning.
It was not what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend a quiet evening with Mary. I found myself wondering whether she wanted the same thing. At some point I was going to have to put my toe in the water, test the relationship, see if it had anywhere to go once this investigation was over. But now was probably not the time. In life as in death, timing is everything, I tried to tell myself.
We settled in the living room with another cup of coffee. Idly, I flipped through the television channels. I paused briefly at the sports channel where the Expos were playing the Atlanta Braves, but out of courtesy I continued to click to see if there was something which might interest both of us. My momentary flicker of interest in the sports channel had not escaped her.
“I think you would like to watch the ball game,” she said.
“Only sort of,” I replied, “wouldn’t mind checking out the score, but what would you like to watch?”
“Nothing really. I checked the TV schedule this afternoon. The amount of junk listed is depressing. Quite amazing when you think about it.”
“Orwellian in fact.” I muttered.
“Well, well,” she observed, raising a mock eyebrow, “from baseball to trenchant social criticism in under thirty seconds!”
“I’m becoming paranoid in my old age,” I admitted, “a steady diet of violence to stun the mind, and channels of meaningless junk to narcotize the emotions. Duty calls,” I said finally, “I should brief my editor.”
“Maybe you should call Symansky as well,” she observed.
“Oh? Why?”
“It would be dangerous for everyone involved if he suddenly got an urge to call Gooden, don’t you think?”
“You’re right, of course.” I was annoyed with myself for not having remembered to admonish Symansky against doing so this afternoon.
Her suggestion had touched upon one of my weaknesses and I didn’t want her to know about it. I tended to think my moves out only to a point of personal satisfaction, and then lose interest. Too often I failed to follow up in ways which were often crucial. There were baseball pitchers like that, I told myself. Once they had blown two strikes past a batter, they felt they had proven their mastery of their opponent. It was then that they lost their concentration. And it was then that the very next pitch sailed gloriously out of the park.
“I’ll go make those two phone calls. And maybe I’ll jot down some ideas for the article I’ll have to write eventually.”
“I may be in bed by the time you finish,” she said, “although I’d like to be awake when Gina gets back.”
“If you fall asleep,” I suggested, “I’ll have Gina wake you.”
“Please do. I’m afraid this is one of those times when a mother seems to have nothing to do but stay at home and worry.”
I finally reached Vogel at home. And once again I found myself giving him a cautiously edited version of what I had been up to. But then it was only the bottom line that really interested him. He perked up when I told him that an arrest might be imminent and that it might involve a prominent member of the Montreal academic community. One who might also have been on the RCMP payroll. I promised to have a story ready to go the moment an arrest was made. And once again I asked him to put a hold on the Washington piece about the Symanskys because running it might derail the last stages of the police investigation. He naturally had a slew of questions. Some I answered, some I deliberately evaded. Perhaps it was because he was at home, but he did not pursue his questioning with the same aggressiveness he would have used had he been in his office.
Then I called Symansky. I asked him if he had called Gooden since our conversation. He said no. I asked him not to do so until the investigation was over.
“Believe me, I have no reason to want to talk to Gooden,” he said with an uneasy chuckle.
But I pushed it a step further.
“He may call you. If he does, I would prefer that you not mention our meeting or reveal any of its substance to him. It could seriously interfere with my present inquiries.”
“I won’t. You have my promise on that.”
“Good. By the way the paper has agreed to put the Washington story on hold at my request.”
“Thanks,” he said. There was a long pause. “If I can be of any further help, please call me.”
“I will.” I detected no special plea in his voice, only a very careful calculation of the situation. After I’d hung up I turned on my computer. Putting the first words to an article was something I always hated. Instead I worked on a rough outline. I knew that at some point the right kind of opening phrases would occur to me. I had been working for about two hours when I heard Gina at the front door. As I went downstairs I saw a light shining through the transom above Mary’s door.
“How did it go?”
Gina did not look happy. “I think if Naomi’s friend could have thought of a way to go after Naomi’s murderer without us, she would have done so. But she finally agreed,” Gina acknowledged but without any sense of accomplishment. “There was a desire for vengeance in her eyes that, to be frank, scared me. For a moment, I thought I saw a bit of myself reflected in her eyes. I don’t want to be doing what I’m doing if that kind of vengeance is my primary motive.”
“Is it?” I asked in a tone which suggested that I knew it couldn’t be.
She gave a disturbed, tired sigh. “I hope not. But I don’t know. I thought I came here wanting only to vindicate my father’s reputation. But if Gooden is guilty, I find that I want him to suffer at the very least the same fate as my father. I really want him publicly disgraced and his career in ruins until the end of his days. And that’s a form of vengeance, isn’t it? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It’s not a very noble feeling.”
“True.” I tried to prevent my eyes from reflecting a paternalistic empathy. In truth I did not know how I would feel under similar circumstances. Her eyes studied my face. I could not tell what she was thinking.
“Why don’t you go up and say hello to your mother. I think she’s been waiting up for you.”
She nodded and started for the stairs.
“Shall I put on some coffee?” I suggested.
“Please. Yes.”
I had time to brew the coffee, pour out two mugs, and put out the cream and sugar by the time she had returned.
“So?” I asked as she put a little cream and one spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “What did she agree to?”
“First of all, that tomorrow we will all try to have a meeting with Leclair. And if he is willing to play along, she will call Gooden and follow the plan we devised.”
“And how did Phil react to all of this?”
“He’s worried about Leclair.”
“In what way?”
“He’s afraid Leclair will not have the manpower available for what we want to do.”
I nodded. It was one of the weaknesses in the plan which had also worried me. I figured he would need to deploy about six men for two or three days.
“Phil wants to offer to employ a private detective agency to supplement Leclair’s limited resources.”
I suddenly remembered that I had yet to see a bill for the duo we sent to Vermont. “I suppose he has the same people in mind that he and I used to follow Hendricks.”
“He suggests we offer to use them to stake out the approaches to both the apartment and the cottage leaving Leclair and his men to move in if and when Gooden makes his move.”
“Did you mention this to your mother?”
“Uh, Uh.”
“How did she react to the idea?”
“She just wants to be sure that neither I nor Naomi’s friend gets pressured into anything, particularly if Leclair is negative to what we want to do.”
“I’m with her on that.”
“It may not be that simple.” Gina was staring into her coffee cup.
I raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips like an overly concerned parent. “Why?”
“Naomi’s friend, Francine, is pretty determined. Even if I want to pull back, there’s nothing to prevent her from finding a way to go ahead without us: not now that we’ve laid out a plan that practically had her licking her lips.”
It was a twist on events which had not occurred to me.
“We’ll just have to take it a step at a time,” I said, “but let’s be sure we all consult about every major decision along the way.”
Gina gave me a look which managed to convey both amusement and vexation at the same time. “That’s what my mother said just before she turned off the bedside light.”
I got up early. I made a pot of coffee, took a cup of it back upstairs to the den, closed the door, and began to work on my article for the newspaper. After about an hour at the computer, I heard noises in the background as Mary and Gina rose and made their way downstairs for breakfast. I struggled for another five minutes to give clarity to the paragraph I was working on, and then went downstairs to join them. They were both munching through bowls of Special “K”. I put on my usual two pieces of toast. As I was buttering them the phone rang. Gina answered it. Mary and I chewed quietly and eavesdropped. But we found out very little.
Then she hung up and turned to us. “Phil has arranged a meeting with Leclair for ten o’clock this morning. He’s already phoned Naomi’s friend. He’s going to pick me up in twenty minutes. Then we’re going to swing by and pick her up and go to Leclair’s office.”
“Does Naomi’s friend have a name?” Mary asked. Gina smiled. “Of course. Sorry. It’s Francine Lemelin. I’d better get ready.” She went upstairs leaving me to munch on my toast and Mary on her Special “K”.
“It doesn’t sound like they need or want us,” Mary said. “I suppose,” she suggested, “it comes down to what Francine Lemelin would prefer. Our presence would only complicate things. Make it more difficult for her or Leclair to come to a decision.”
“Phil probably wants to go one on one with Leclair: cop and ex-cop arguing over how best to catch a killer, with two young women as their audience.”
“Thomas! You actually sound miffed at being excluded!”
“I am a little. I’m not sure I want to be cut out of the action at this stage.”
“I would be happier if both you and Gina were out of the action. Let Phil and Leclair deal with Gooden particularly if he’s guilty. It’s their job and he’s really their problem.”