Deadly Fall (18 page)

Paula rang the bell. Inside, a dog barked. A second dog joined in, and another. The door opened to a cacophony of yaps. Three toy dogs darted between a woman's legs.

Paula looked up at the face framed by cropped, black hair. “Bev Berwell?”

“What can I do for you?” The deep, husky voice brought back memories of the funeral where a wide-brimmed hat had concealed Bev's square face. Shaped eyebrows arched perfectly over unwrinkled eyes. Was the crimson sneer her usual expression or one aimed at strangers who disturbed her morning work? A fourth dog, identical to the rest, was chasing its mates. Paula introduced herself.

Bev accepted her business card. “I thought you might turn up. Cappuccino?”

Evidently, Janice had phoned Bev last night. Paula had anticipated that, but not this easy invite in. Bev led her down a center hall, its walls covered in black and gold embossed wallpaper. Watercolor sketches of Asian landscapes hung between closed doors. One of the dogs hobbled beside Paula. Bev's spicy perfume recalled the catty woman behind Paula at the funeral. Was it good or bad that Bev was prepared for her visit? Good, so far, since it had got her in.

Bev's haircut was 1920s flapper-style. She wore a man's tailored shirt tucked into beige, linen slacks. Her broad shoulders and muscular limbs made her seem taller than six-foot-two. The hallway's ceramic tiles flowed into a kitchen. Its black cupboards and appliances matched the adjacent family room's black walls.

The dogs were a good distraction. Paula squatted to pat one. “Are these shih tzu?” A second dog nuzzled in. “What are their names?”

“Tao, Xiang, Chu-Hua and Fred.”

Paula laughed. This wouldn't work if she couldn't reign in the nervousness. A third dog squeezed through the others and almost toppled her.

“My husband chose little Fred's name.” Bev's voice rose to a baby pitch. “Him's hurt his paw jumping off Mommy's and Daddy's bed.” The tone sounded weird on someone her size. The voice plummeted to normal. “I can see you're a dog-person.”

Paula untangled herself from the shih tzu. “We had a family dog. My daughter kept her when I moved into my new place. I miss her. The dog, I mean. I miss my daughter, too. Sometimes.”

Bev smiled as much as plastic surgery would allow. “What breed is she? I mean the dog.”

“Mutt, German shepherd-ish.” So what if Bev caught onto the ruse. All she could do was throw Paula out.

Bev took a knife from the chopping block and cut into a pan of apple strudel. She placed two plates with strudel and glasses of cappuccinos on a tray.

Paula followed her to the family room. “Black paint in a house is different. Your decor seems to have an Asian theme.”

“You think?” Bev opened the patio window blinds, exposing a Japanese garden with bonsai trees, ponds, waterfalls, and bridges back-dropped by distant downtown high-rises.

“What a lovely yard,” Paula said. “I like those lion statues guarding the pathway entrance.”

“They're lion dogs. Shih tzu, to ward off evil spirits.” Bev carried a cappuccino and pate of strudel to the sofa facing the patio doors. She lifted Fred onto a cushion.

This left Paula the love seat. She faced a fireplace flanked by enormous painted silk wall hangings, one of a pagoda, the other a pair of giggling geisha. Two of the dogs trotted out of the family room; a third one settled on the Oriental carpet. Paula balanced her plate on her lap. The situation felt similar to an interview with an insurance claimant—aside from the creepiness and the fact she was here under a false pretence to discuss murder, not whiplash or theft. Bev stretched her long legs on the sofa's built-in hassock. Fred snuggled next to her.

Paula finished a first bite of strudel. “This is delicious. Did you make it?”

“My cleaning lady did,” Bev said. “Let's cut to the chase. Why are you here?”

“I'm an insurance adjuster who has been retained—”

“Cut the crap.” Bev's lips curled into a peculiar smile. “What's your interest in Callie's murder? More importantly, what's my interest in someone I haven't seen in years?”

Hands shaking, Paula set her plate on the coffee table and grabbed her cappuccino glass for support. Fred's eyes peered through strands of fur, following her movements. Bev would have had all night to consider the logic of Paula's police outsourcing pretext. Paula had thought it through all night as well.

“You must have heard about the city's shortage of police staff?” she said.

“The cops are always complaining so they'll get more money.”

“It makes sense for trained civilians to handle minor police work matters, in this case, interviewing outside witnesses.”

“How did you get my name?”

Paula sipped cappuccino to appear hesitant. “From Kenneth Unsworth, Callie's ex-husband, who lives a few blocks from here.”

Bev's forehead grew impossibly tighter. She strode toward Paula, who forced herself not to cringe. Wafting spicy perfume, Bev took her cigarettes and lighter from the coffee table. She held the pack out to Paula.

Paula hesitated. Even during the highest stress of her divorce, she hadn't slipped off the track. Bev's smirk taunted: goody-two-shoes. This was so high-school, but could be good for bonding and calming her nerves. Paula slid the cylinder from the pack. Bev lit the cigarette for her. Paula dragged on it. Bitter. She willed herself not to cough, as she had that first time she and Callie tried it behind her house.

Bev returned to her seat next to Fred. “So, this is about me and Sam.”

Paula coughed. She bit the cigarette tip to stop.

“Have you told the police?” Bev said.

“Not yet.” Damn. That implied the cops hadn't sent her.

Bev's red lips crooked up in a smile.

“I presume Kenneth has kept quiet, too, or the real cops would have come after me.”

Paula flicked the cigarette into the ashtray. The shih tzu on the carpet buried his muzzle in his paws. Fred appeared to be dozing.

“That is precisely why I stayed home to meet you,” Bev said. “My involvement with Sam is irrelevant to Callie's murder. Why spoil dearly departed Callie's happily married image?”

Paula dragged on the cigarette to stall. “Are you sleeping with Sam?”

“No.”

“That's not what Kenneth said.”

Bev stroked Fred's flowing mane. “Our affair ended two months ago.”

“When did it start?”

“January.”

Six months. “How often did you meet?”

Bev drew on her cigarette, not replying.

Paula looked at the Asian screens. “Did you meet here?”

“God no, never. I'm not nuts. We met in hotels.”

“What ended the affair?”

Bev shrugged and flashed a smile that was probably meant to be worldly. “They always end.”

“Did Callie or your husband find out?”

Bev stood, causing Fred to slither down the sofa. He dropped to the carpet with a yap of pain and hobbled to a collection of rubber toys by the window. Two other dogs ran into the room. One joined Bev on the sofa; the other sniffed the strudel on the coffee table.

“Chu-Hua has a sweet tooth,” Bev said. “He usually ends up eating half the pan.”

Paula inhaled the cigarette. She had never been hooked on the taste. What had kept her smoking through her twenties was the feel of the cigarette in her hand, its link to coffee and the fact most of the people in her Montreal office smoked. She gave it up mainly to set a good example for her kids.

Paula had got what she came for: confirmation of Bev's and Sam's affair. This was a murder case. Nothing could convince her to keep this from the police. She should finish her snack and drink and smoke as fast as possible and get out.

Bev dragged on her cigarette. “My husband and I are a couple in every sense of the word, but have our separate needs.” Smoke billowed from her nostrils. “He appreciates other women. I appreciate other men. We have two ground rules: safe sex and discretion. We're both prominent in the community and do not wish to be the subject of gossip.”

“Unfortunately, that's hard to avoid when your lover's wife is murdered.”

“Ex-lover.”

“Did Sam break it off or did you?”

Bev's lips smiled; her eyes stayed hard. “I wish I could say it was me. I accepted Sam's decision and moved on. It turned out to be extremely easy.”

“No hard feelings?”

“If you think I was angry and murdered Callie in a jealous rage, you're barking up the wrong tree.” Fred's ears perked up. Bev patted the head of the dog beside her. “Had I still been sleeping with Sam at the time, which I wasn't, the last thing I would have wanted was Callie's death. I only date married men.”

“No commitment?”

“Singles go into it agreeing to no strings, but they have this habit of getting involved and trying to ruin my marriage, when my marriage satisfies me in every other respect.”

Coming from Bev, it seemed strangely believable. “Why did Sam break up with you?”

Bev squeezed her eyes shut. Had her pride been hurt and not yet recovered? The dog crawled onto Bev's lap. Chu-Hua nuzzled Paula's legs. She patted the love seat, inviting him to join her. Fred, on the floor, looked back and forth between her and Bev. The fourth dog gnawed a hard plastic rope.

Bev stroked Tao or Xiang. “Sam told me he wanted to work on his marriage. I didn't believe it, but when a man doesn't want me, I don't beg.”

“Why didn't you believe him?”

“I have an instinct about men who are basically alone. There was no marriage to work on.”

This fit Sam's and Isabelle's reports. “Aren't men in empty marriages at risk for getting involved?”

“Not the ones I pick.”

Something else Isabelle had said. “Did Sam wear a wedding ring when you and he met?”

“At the hotels? No. Before that? I don't recall him wearing a ring. For men, it's a personal choice.”

According to Isabelle, Sam only started wearing one after Callie's death.

“I see you're not married,” Bev said.

“Divorced.” Paula butted out her cigarette. “What did Sam tell you about his marriage?”

“Before your divorce, did you have affairs?”

“No.”

“Too bad, they can be refreshing.” Bev's lip curled. “You would also know that cheating spouses avoid discussing their partners.”

“I hear some talk obsessively about the spouse.”

“What would be the purpose of that? Sam told me nothing about his marriage. I assumed the spark died and he looked elsewhere. Old story.”

Paula scratched Chu-Hua under the ear. She might like a dog if they weren't so much work and didn't tie you down and shed over everything, like these slacks she would be wearing to work. “If the affair was over, why did you phone Sam after Callie's murder?”

“To find out what he told the cops so I could be ready for any police visits. Sam forgot to warn me about insurance adjusters.”

Paula smiled. She could enjoy Bev, in small doses. “When you were together what did you and Sam talk about?”

Bev snubbed out her cigarette. “We weren't much into talk.”

Paula felt herself blush, which would confirm Bev's goody-goody image of her. “Did he ever mention his son, Dimitri?”

Bev's eyebrows rose, “The politician? He ran for office last spring. Sam mentioned him occasionally. Why?”

“What did he say about him?”

Bev slid a new cigarette from the pack, without offering to share this time. “He seemed fond of him, as parents are, and proud of his achievements, although I don't think Sam's into politics. More cappuccino or strudel?”

Paula shook her head. “Do you think Sam is capable of murder?”

“I believe anyone is, if pushed to his or her limits.”

“What are Sam's limits?”

“I wouldn't know. Ours was not a soul mates affair, which is why there is no point dragging me into this. I can't tell the police anything of relevance. It's over between me and Sam. I didn't kill Callie to get him and he sure as hell didn't kill her to get me.”

Such anger hinted at more than damaged pride.

Bev shuddered. “It would be horrible to have this splashed in the press.”

“You could ask the police to keep it quiet.”

“Would you trust them? I don't. Some cop will leak it to the media, which adores taking down the successful and rich.” Bev looked at Fred on the carpet. His ears wriggled with her rising voice. She lowered it to the husky drawl. “About five years ago, the newspaper published a photo taken at an architecture awards gala. This was before our affair, when I knew Sam casually. I was wearing high heels. He stood a little behind me, and with the perspective and my heels he looked like, well, Xiang here trying to hump a Great Dane.”

Paula laughed.

“All of Calgary will laugh if they dig that picture up from the archives. And they will. Do I want that photo staring at me beside that image of sweet, dead Callie? I'd be Camilla to her Lady Di.”

Tao bounded to the sofa. After several attempts, he hoisted himself onto the cushion.

“You're going to tell the cops about me,” Bev said.

“I'm not sure.”

“Or do you plan to use this against Sam?”

“I wouldn't blackmail.”

“Or do you want something else from him?” Bev drew on the cigarette. Her unlined face scrutinized Paula so intently that Paula turned to Chu-Hua. The dog's eyes closed as she scratched beneath his ears. Paula wanted nothing from Sam for herself. She was doing this for Callie.

Smoke streamed from Bev's perfect nose. “If you stay away from the cops, I'll tell you something interesting.”

Lots of deals were being made these days.

“It concerns Sam,” Bev said. “This might encourage you to keep it from the cops for a few days, while you investigate a little more.”