Murder in Focus (27 page)

“Andy, could you collar someone out there to do something about it?” Cassidy got up and left the room. “It would have been very helpful, Inspector Sanders,” said Deschenes, the ironic edge to his voice getting sharper and sharper, “if you had let us in on these secrets a little earlier.”

“I realize that,” said Sanders. “But I had a certain problem about it all.” He paused. Deschenes regarded him steadily. “The local police seemed to regard me as a dangerous maniac addicted to arson. I wasn't really excited about letting anyone here know, either, because I wasn't sure what was going on. You see, when I was in Brockville, Green made a telephone call.” He reached into his pocket and found the piece of heavy paper still sitting there. “To this number.”

Deschenes looked at it, impassive. “Interesting. Did you recognize the number?”

Sanders shook his head. “Not at that point.”

“Odd that you should write it down, then.”

Sanders was about to describe the mynah bird and checked himself. No need to develop a reputation for insanity at this point. “I don't know. I'd been driving for hours on no sleep and I suppose I wasn't being very rational. I heard him punch in the numbers and jotted them down. He dialed twice, you see,” added Sanders, trying to give an air of possibility to his tale. “It was the second time around that I caught the numbers.”

Deschenes didn't react. “It's fortunate you were sitting close enough to the phone to hear.”

“By the time he called, the place was deserted,” said Sanders.

“What did he say?” asked Deschenes.

Sanders saw the trap and hedged. “He was muttering. I could hear him, but I couldn't make out the words clearly enough to get a sense of the conversation. Besides, I had no reason to try to listen in. So you see, I really didn't know what was happening.”

“What in hell were you doing out in Stittsville?” asked Cassidy, who had come back in and was listening again.

“I went out to see Bartholomew's landlady,” said Sanders uneasily. “An odd type. You know, beads, long hair, bare feet, and organic food. She let me see some of his stuff.”

“The devil she did!” said Cassidy. “There wasn't a cracker crumb that belonged to Steve Collins in that place after Tuesday night. We cleaned out everything.”

“Then you didn't look in Miranda's Christmas cake tin,” said Sanders. “She was hiding stuff for him in there.”

“You mean she managed to hold out on us?” said Cassidy. “Jesus! Why?”

“You turned up as the heavies, the forces of law and order,” said Sanders. “And she didn't trust you. Now I turned up pretending to be an unsuccessful writer, and she thought I was pretty great.” There was a certain bitterness in his tone. “Of course, since I was probably followed out there, trusting me wasn't the best thing she ever did.”

“I wouldn't worry about that,” said Cassidy dismissively. “Anyone who was after Steve knew he was staying at Miranda's. He never tried to hide that. What did she have?” he asked, and leaned forward across the table, his arms stiff with tension, his eyes bright with nerves.

“A notebook,” said Sanders. “Entitled ‘Dawn in Vienna.' It was filled with jottings in his own sort of shorthand, semiclear, most of which I can't remember because they meant nothing to me. What I could remember, I wrote down after I left the place.” He reached into his inside breast pocket and took out his own notebook, opened it, and placed it in front of Cassidy. “Inside the notebook,” he said, drawing out his words and conscious of an almost sadistic quality in his enjoyment of their suspense, “was a slip of paper headed up ‘R.T.'” He paused again and fished into his breast pocket once more. “Here. I palmed it. Which is just as well, since you guys seem to have burned the place down along with the landlady and the notebook.”

“Hey, we didn't burn the place down. We thought you did.” Cassidy took the paper and opened it up very carefully. He looked at it for a while before placing it neatly in front of Deschenes. “That's it,” he said. “And I suppose that's how you turned up at the Echo Drive address, too.”

“Sure,” said Sanders. “Does that help?” he asked innocently.

“It's our key, Inspector.” Cassidy's voice danced in triumph. “The key I've been turning Ottawa upside down for.”

“Clearly a simple book code,” said Deschenes. “Do you know what the book is?”

“Doesn't he say?” asked Cassidy, leaning over. “Sure, there. Hardy, F.F.T.M.C.”

“You have the advantage over me,” said Deschenes. “I wasn't educated in English. Is this a common book?”

“Well,” said Sanders, “it'll likely be Thomas Hardy.” He thought for a moment. “Ah,
Far from the Madding Crowd
. It doesn't say which edition, though. There'll be a lot of them, you know.”

“The one in his apartment, I imagine,” said Cassidy. “He had a hell of a lot of books.”

“Then take the file and get over there and see what you come up with,” said Deschenes. “Just a minute,” he added, raising a hand. He went over to his desk, picked up the telephone, and spoke briefly into it. “I'm sending you with an escort, Andy, in an official car. Just as well to have witnesses, I think.” He sat down again at his desk. His face was gray with fatigue and he was beginning to breathe shallowly. “I think we might take a break, Inspector,” he said after a minute. “The constable out there will locate Miss Jeffries for you and you might want to get some dinner if she is feeling recovered.” He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

The hotel corridor was quiet and deserted. Most guests were at dinner or out for the evening, many to the official events of varying levels of prestige lavishly scheduled for the end of the first day of the trade conference. The elevator stopping at the floor below made a distinctive pinging sound that could be heard in the silence of the floor. It would have taken excellent ears, though, to hear the soft footsteps on the staircase, or the door being gently opened. A tall man stepped into the carpeted hallway, glanced around to check the sequencing of the room numbers, and padded noiselessly toward the other end. When he reached Room 507, he pulled a key on a heavy tag out of his pocket and slipped it into the lock. It turned without a sound, and he opened the door a fraction of an inch. No reaction from inside the darkened room. He pushed it open a little farther. He was assuming that she would be at dinner, but he was a cautious man, and quite prepared to back discreetly out of the room again if she was in there. He stepped inside, gently pushed the door closed behind him, and blinked to accustom himself to the dim twilight created by the tightly drawn curtains.

Hands grasped him from each side at his next step, two pairs of hands. They drew his arms behind his back and snapped handcuffs around his wrists. Another hand reached out and turned on the overhead light. “Sergeant, what in hell do you think you're doing?” said the man as soon as he saw his captor.

“Sorry, Inspector Higgs, sir. Orders from the superintendent. He would like you back at headquarters.”

“Like this?” said Charlie Higgs, moving his arms slightly. “Sorry, sir.” And the three men headed out toward the elevator.

An hour and a half later, Harriet Jeffries and John Sanders were sitting once more in the outer office, waiting for Superintendent Deschenes. He had come out of his office a few minutes before, this time looking not merely tired, but stricken with a hideous illness. “I'll be with you soon,” he said curtly. “Something has come up.”

Whatever further he might have considered saying was interrupted by the sound of rapid footsteps in the corridor outside the office. A fist was raised and banged on the glass once and then the door was flung open. It was Sergeant Carpenter, red-faced and furious-looking. “Excuse me, Superintendent,” he said. “They told me downstairs that you were still in.”

“What's the problem, Sergeant?” said Deschenes, pushing aside the In tray and sitting down on Sylvia's desk. “And who is that cowering behind you in the corridor?”

“It's Corporal Fletcher, sir,” said Carpenter, looking even more ruffled. “And it's about him that I came in.”

“Yes?”

“I was going over the reports on this afternoon's activities, sir, and I discovered that according to at least two different people, Corporal Fletcher wasn't at his station this afternoon.”

“Look, Frank, I know things are tough out there. You've had a lot of problems, but so have we. More than you can imagine right now. Write it up and we'll deal with it after the conference. We can't even afford to suspend someone right now. We need every man we've got out there.”

“No, sir. It's not that. I wouldn't have bothered you for a simple breach of discipline. I hope you realize that, sir. It was what he said when I called him up on it.”

“And?”

“He said that he had been posted in Sector LG by a senior officer, with orders to shoot an army sniper as soon as the man fired his weapon.”

“What?” said Deschenes, sitting up erect again.

“And I called Lieutenant-Colonel Williamson—he was in charge of that group of men the army lent us—and he said they didn't send a sniper. Got real mad at me, sir, said that no one had asked for army snipers, thought we did that sort of thing on our own, and on and on, like I was criticizing him for not having a sniper there. But Fletcher saw the man, said he was in army uniform and carrying a rifle. Sat in a tree, Fletcher said, facing the house. Then Fletcher said he was really bothered about it because he was supposed to shoot to kill. Fletcher's a crack shot, sir, and felt that he was capable of disabling the man temporarily without killing him. So he didn't like to kill him. Isn't that so, Corporal?”

A mutter from behind him could have been taken for assent.

“Did he say who the senior officer was?” asked Deschenes.

“No, sir, he refused to say. He said that he had been told that there would be the severest consequences if he said anything about it. So I brought him down here.”

“Come into my office, Fletcher,” said Deschenes, standing up again. Sanders watched the superintendent walking to his door, erect, but like a man going to the gallows.

Charlie Higgs was standing at the window, looking out at the dark outlines of the trees against the night sky, thinking of nothing of all, when the door opened to admit the two men. “Hello, Corporal,” he said wearily. “What are you doing here?” Two shadowy figures lounged by the boardroom table, watching and taking notes.

“Reporting to the superintendent, sir. We had some excitement out at the secure site this afternoon.”

“So I heard, Fletcher, so I heard.”

“Now, Fletcher,” said Deschenes sharply, “tell me who it was gave you those extraordinary orders. Right now. This needs to be sorted out tonight.”

Fletcher looked around in panic. “Excuse me, sir, but I can't say, especially in front of three people who don't know anything about it, sir. I mean, I was told it was top secret, sir. That no one was to be told without authorization. I told Sergeant Carpenter too much already. And he told everyone in the outer office—”

“You mean there is no one in this room who, to your knowledge, had anything to do with those orders you were given?”

“No, sir,” Fletcher said firmly, gathering up the shreds of his self-respect. “No one here.”

“Once again, Inspector Higgs,” said Deschenes suddenly. “What were you doing in Miss Strelitsch's hotel room?”

“I told you, Superintendent. I was afraid, sir, when I heard that Lang's organization had a contact in Ottawa, that it might be one of us, an RCMP officer,” he said miserably. “And if it was one of us, she might have been in some danger, sir. With Hoffel off seeing the ambassador, I didn't want her ambushed before she could tell us what she knew. I figured she was probably safe in the hotel dining room, and so I was going to wait in her room. No one seemed to have been detailed to watch her, as far as I knew.”

Deschenes pulled the telephone toward him and began to dial. He was biting his lip with impatience as he waited for the call to connect. When it was answered and he heard the voice, a brief smile flickered across his face. “Ah, Miss Strelitsch. Superintendent Deschenes. Are you all right? Good. And are you alone? Excellent. Who is with you? Good, put him on, will you? Mr. Hoffel, we may have been premature. Perhaps you could keep an eye on Miss Strelitsch until we get some more people over there. Thank you.”

As he put down the phone, he looked thoughtfully at Charlie Higgs. “Charlie—” he began slowly. He was interrupted by a hurried knock on the door. He turned to see a grim-faced Andrew Cassidy looming in the doorway.

“Excuse me, Henri. Here it is.” He was waving a file folder slowly in front of his face.

Deschenes looked at his watch. “You drove over to tell me this? Why didn't you call it in?”

“It only took me five minutes to get here and I didn't think it was a really terrific idea to use the phone. I didn't know who would be answering it.” Cassidy placed a piece of paper on the desk. Deschenes walked over, sat down, and pulled the paper toward him.

“So it's him,” he said.

“Yes, if it checks out, and I suppose it will. It's all there. Location of banks, account numbers, size and dates of deposits—two of them correlated with a couple of big drug deals. It goes back over ten years.”

“Charlie, come here,” Deschenes said, his finger pointing at the page. “I want him found. Check that hotel, his apartment, the train station, bus station, the airport here and at Mirabel as well,” he added, looking at his watch. “He'd have just about enough time to get to Montreal by now. Take Sergeant Carpenter and get moving.”

“Shall I call from here?” Higgs asked. “It'll be faster.”

“No,” said Deschenes. “I don't want to listen to it.”