And Then is Heard No More, page 12
“I have bad news,” said Roxanne. “Professor Dyck’s body was discovered this morning.”
Budgie paused mid-bite. “He’s dead?” Her eyebrows arched in surprise.
“Stabbed.” Roxanne watched Budgie flinch. “Where were you today before the police and the locksmith arrived here?”
Budgie Torrance thought for a moment, then rose to her feet. She put down what was left of the sandwich and smoothed her skirt. It was short, worn over her usual black tights. “I don’t think you are allowed to ask me questions like that without a lawyer present, Sergeant.” She spoke the words as if she was delivering lines from a play. “I need to call someone.”
“Don’t go anywhere without informing us,” Roxanne said to her retreating back. Izzy stood aside to let her pass. She saw Budgie raise her phone to her ear as she left.
Margo Wishart was sitting at the dining room table, the large Inuit carving behind her, Gerald’s inventory notebook open in front of her.
“I’ve discovered something,” she said once the door had swung shut. “I think two more pieces are missing. Both by local artists, both paintings. Worth several thousand. One by Bruce Foot, quite large. Another by Ivan Waters. I can’t see them anywhere.”
“The Annie Chan was big too,” said Roxanne. “Whoever took them must have been able to transport them away from here. They’d have needed a vehicle.”
“Some of the collection is new, bought within the last few years.” Margo continued. “Most of it Canadian. He liked figurative work and abstracts with some emotional clout. Dramatic pieces. But then there’s that.” She indicated the large green soapstone carving behind her. “It’s a Cape Dorset carving. That one is museum quality. And he has some other Indigenous work. There’s a nice Morrisseau. Two Baker Lake prints. An Odjig. They’re older. They’re awfully good. He has a nice Kurelek as well.” She pointed at a winter prairie landscape, a child skating.
“Worth a lot?”
“Shall I find out for you?”
“That might be useful. Thanks.”
Roxanne looked out the window. It faced onto the alley. She watched Budgie Torrance strut across the back lane towards the theatre, then her phone buzzed. “I need to get this.” She stepped out into the condo hallway. It was the worker from the Youth Centre.
Tracy Ross had said she was taking Zeke home, he told her. She’d taken him up north. He mentioned a reserve community in the northern Interlake. He did have a cellphone number for her. She called it.
“This is Tracy. I’m in the bush. Can’t talk. Back in a week or so,” said a recorded message. Roxanne found Izzy and Margo back in Gerald’s study, searching through papers.
“He had to have this collection insured,” said Margo. “There are over fifty pieces. It’s got to be worth a small fortune.”
“His accountant will know.” Izzy waved a financial document.
It was after four-thirty. Rush hour had started. They began to clean up. Roxanne needed to go look after her son and his cousins. Her sister had a meeting to go to. She’d promised.
“I need to get up the road, too,” said Margo Wishart. “Send me the copy of that notebook soon, will you?” she said to Izzy as she left. “I’ll get going on it right away.”
Roxanne managed to connect with Inspector Brian Donohue later that night, after Finn had gone to bed.
“Heard that there’s another body,” he said. She told him how Professor Dyck had been found that morning, lying dead in a city park and therefore out of RCMP territory. But obviously, the cases were linked.
“I’m going to have to work alongside a city DS called Cooper Jenkins,” she complained. “Do you know him?”
Brian laughed. “Coop Jenkins? He’s still around? I was on a committee with him years ago. One of those guys that needs to be out there, working cases in person. Not happy at a desk. He’s still a sergeant, eh?”
Roxanne liked working out in the field herself. She wasn’t ready to sit behind a desk yet, either. But this was her first year as sergeant. She had a few years to play investigator before she tried to move up a rank.
“He calls me Foxy Roxy,” she said.
“Could be worse,” Brian said. “Surprised nobody’s thought of it sooner, with the hair. Hey, are we going to be able get together soon?”
She felt a twinge of guilt. It had been a couple of weeks now. “You know how it is,” she stalled. “A case like this. And I have to find time for Finn. I haven’t been at the gym for days. I’ll never make next year’s marathon if I don’t get back to it soon.” Roxanne liked to run. She was getting out of shape. “But maybe on the weekend?”
“Dunno,” he said. “I’ve got stuff happening. We should talk.”
“Okay.” She was distracted by a text coming in. Coop Jenkins. “Maybe early next week?”
Cooper Jenkins had written Meet tomorrow? My office? 9?
Sure, she texted back as soon as she’d hung up.
13
Thursday morning brought a drop in the temperature and grey skies. Rain turned to sleet, the city’s bridges iced up and a major accident snarled traffic heading into downtown Winnipeg. By the time she reached the large, sprawling building that housed the local police service, Roxanne was running late and the parkade was full. She found a space in an open lot two blocks away and hurried back to the entrance, dodging puddles, ice pellets stinging her face, cold and wet. When she asked for directions to the Homicide Unit at the front desk, Cooper Jenkins came to fetch her. He must have just arrived himself. He still wore his bomber jacket.
“Hey, Foxy,” he greeted her. “You look like a half-drowned coyote.” She lifted her head from shaking frozen raindrops off her coat. “Guess we should get coffee,” he said and headed towards the door.
There was a basement café in the next block. Windows ran high along one wall, drizzled with icy rivulets. Lights on each table illuminated the gloom. She went to the washroom and dried off her face and hair as best she could. Ran hot water over her cold hands. Cooper had gone to the counter to get their drinks. She had seen him nod as he passed a couple of occupied tables. The police obviously frequented this spot. When she got back he was standing beside an officer, a patrol sergeant, by the look of his uniform. The guy looked in her direction, turned back to Jenkins and laughed. She found a table by a heating vent and hung her wet coat on a chair to dry. Jenkins passed her a mug, pulled out the chair opposite her and sat. He dumped the contents of a packet of sugar in his coffee, screwed up the wrapper and dropped it onto a tray.
“Whaddaya think, then?” he said, lifting a speculative eyebrow. “Are we both looking for the same guy?”
Warm air rose from the heat vent at her wet feet. She smelled damp wool rising from her coat. “Like I said before, maybe,” she replied, the mug in her hands warming her cold fingers.
“Oh, come on,” he protested. “Both the guys that got killed are in the same kind of business. Both knifed. ’Course we are.”
“Unless yours is a copycat killer.” She sat back and sipped her coffee. “Someone wanted the professor dead and wants you to think it’s the same. As a distraction.” The patrol sergeant Jenkins had been talking to stopped at their table on his way outside, a carry-out coffee in his hand.
“Hi,” he grinned. “Hear you’re a Gravel Road Cop. Here to work with Coop on a real murder.” Roxanne had heard that comment before. In French, the RCMP was the Gendarmerie Royale du Canada. When she was in uniform, the initials GRC were emblazoned on her shoulder. The officer didn’t wait to talk. He punched Jenkins’ arm as he swaggered off. “Good luck, mate.” Jenkins shrugged.
Roxanne didn’t bother to comment. Best to get back to business. “There are differences, right?” she reasoned. “Like Abdur said, Thom Dyck was stabbed. Gerald Blaise was slashed. The killer left the knife with Dyck. Didn’t with Blaise. Dyck’s body wasn’t hidden. Blaise’s was.”
“Oh, come on, Foxy. You gotta be kidding. They were pals, right? Hung out together sometimes. You said yourself that my victim was at the theatre yesterday. They have to be connected. Wanna bet?”
“And stop calling me that,” she said.
“What. Foxy? How come? Suits you.” He pointed at her red hair.
“My friends call me Roxanne.”
“What do your enemies call you?” He smirked, pulling one ankle up across the other knee. Who were Roxanne’s enemies? She had them, most career cops did, and not just felons they had once put behind bars. Jenkins would have his too. He grinned, lopsided, not expecting an answer. “My pals call me Coop.” She permitted herself a smile of acknowledgment. If she was going to be stuck with working alongside him she might as well try to get along. He carried on talking:
“So how well did they know each other, really? Blaise and Dyck? Some folks say they got real cozy now and then.”
“That was long over and it didn’t last long. Gerald Blaise slept with lots of people, men as well as women. And he stayed on good terms with lots of them, like Professor Dyck. I don’t think they were all that close, but they were friendly enough. Socialized. You’ve been talking to people at the university. What do people there say about him?”
“He was a loner. Was married once, but that was years ago and it didn’t last long. His ex lives in Halifax. He’s been out of the closet all the time he’s been here. That’s ten years. Isn’t seeing anyone special as far as people know. Workaholic. They all expected him to be there forever. His students called him Harry, you know, Thom, Dyck and… They thought he was okay. That’s all I’ve got so far. Your turn. Who’s your main suspect?”
“Gerald Blaise’s wife.” And she told him about Budgie Torrance, how Gerald might have been planning to leave her and how much Budgie stood to benefit financially from him dying right now.
“Where was she yesterday morning?”
“In her apartment. The Ident guys got there at nine. She’d just stepped out of the shower. She doesn’t have a car of her own and we still have Gerald’s Audi. I don’t know how she could have got to Riverside Park unless she took a cab. That could be traced.”
“Have you thought that she might be working with someone else?”
“Someone who’s doing the killing for her?”
“Well, you said she likes other guys too, right?” Budgie did. Was it possible that she was as tired of Gerald as he appeared to be of her? That she had taken another lover and together they had planned to murder her husband so she would be free of him and inherit all his wealth?
“And that person was someone Thom Dyck knew as well?” It was entirely possible.
“I guess that would let the Sinclairs off the hook,” he said. The city police were still keeping an eye open for Jem Sinclair for assaulting the kid at the school who had told everyone about Zeke stealing a car with the dead body in the trunk. “Unless she hired Jem.”
“How would she know him?” Roxanne asked. “And none of this explains why someone has stolen Gerald Blaise’s artwork. I’m not completely done with the Sinclairs, though. I need to know if Zeke lied about throwing away the keys. Maybe the murderer took Blaise’s house keys but left the car keys in the car. Zeke’s been released from the Youth Centre on a promise to appear in court in a couple of weeks. Into the care of his aunt. She’s taken him up north meantime, but he’ll be back. Maybe I should talk to Jem.”
“Don’t you go looking for Jem yourself.” Cooper Jenkins’ fingers tapped on the side of his mug. “He’s an evil little bastard.”
She stared at him. “You’ve told me that already. I can take care of myself.”
“Sure, you can,” he said, “but I’m telling you, Jem Sinclair is mean. And tough.”
“So am I.” She tried not to sound riled. “And I can run real fast. Thom Dyck still had his keys on him?”
“Yup.” He stretched back and ran a hand through his hair. “A debit card and his driver’s licence too. Looks like whoever killed him didn’t take a thing. Blaise’s wallet was emptied, right?”
“Zeke could have lied about that. He could have stolen whatever was in it. Maybe he didn’t find the cash to buy hot dogs in the glove box.”
The woman constable who had been at the site of Thom Dyck’s murder appeared in the door of the cafeteria. She signalled to Jenkins.
“There’s Meera. Guess I’m wanted.” He rose to his feet. Roxanne reached for her coat. It wasn’t quite dry. Meantime, they agreed that they would check in with each other. Pass on information. Cooperate, if they had to. As she walked out the building, she thought about the idea that Budgie could have persuaded someone to do her killing for her, someone with whom she was in a relationship. Someone in Winnipeg. That person could have killed Gerald as well. If it were true, Budgie herself wouldn’t be forthcoming but no doubt someone at Prairie Theatre Centre would be happy to tell.
Outside, the sleet had turned to rain. Eighty kilometres north, Margo Wishart sloshed through the downpour. She’d grown up in Scotland. She knew how to dress for weather like this. She wore a hooded oiled linen raincoat and rubber boots that reached her knees. Bob, her black dog, ran through the puddles. He didn’t mind the rain either, and his morning walk was late. Margo had slept in. It had been almost three in the morning when she’d finished working on Gerald Blaise’s notebook and got to bed, and after ten when she had wakened. She wasn’t planning to walk far. Sasha Rosenberg’s house lay not far ahead, with the promise of a blazing fire in the woodstove and brunch.
Soon Bob had been towelled off and lay by the warm hearth alongside his pal, Lenny. Margo sat at a small table in Sasha’s tiny living room, opposite Roberta Axelsson. Roberta had brought eggs, fresh laid by her own hens.
“So,” Sasha said, bringing omelettes to the table. “What’s this job you’re working on?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you. It’s police business.” Margo spread butter on her toast.
“She’s checking out all the artwork in Gerald Blaise’s apartment. You know, the guy from Prairie Theatre Centre that got murdered. Sergeant Calloway asked her to.” Roberta scooped up a forkful of egg. “To find out what’s been stolen as well as Annie Chan’s painting.”
Sasha turned to Margo. “You’re working for them? The RCMP?”
“I am. Just advising.” Margo tried to think of a way to change the subject.
“But more stuff’s disappeared, right? A painting by a guy called Bruce something or other…” said Roberta.
Margo put down a forkful of egg. “Who told you that?” she asked.
“Budgie Torrance told the whole cast of Macbeth and Jazz Elliot told me,” Roberta waved her own fork, cheerfully complacent. “Jazz says it’s a real pain. The RCMP keep wrecking her rehearsal schedule and they get Budgie all worked up.”
“You’ve been talking to Jazz?”
“Sure, I have. She phoned last night. About knitting. She checked out my site on Ravelry. Wants to come out here and see my dyed wool. It’s Thanksgiving weekend coming up and she has Monday off so I told her to drive out and I’ll stuff a chicken. Early dinner or a late lunch. She said she’d rent a car. Can you both come?”
Margo had forgotten about Canadian Thanksgiving. She hadn’t grown up with that feast and now her kids lived elsewhere. But if Roberta was cooking and Jazz Elliot was going to be in attendance, she’d make a pumpkin pie and be there.
“You couldn’t have just been working on Gerald Blaise’s art collection until three in the morning.” Sasha refilled their coffee mugs, pottery ones, fired in her kiln. “What else are you doing that’s so important?”
Margo sighed. Both her friends looked at her expectantly. She put down her fork.
“I told you. I can’t tell you,” she said. “Not for now. It’s confidential police business.” She looked at them regretfully, her two best friends, her confidantes. “Let’s just eat our eggs.”
“Ha,” said Roberta. “Bet Jazz will know. We’ll find out on Monday.”
Roxanne sat in her cold car in the downtown parking lot watching rain stream down her windshield while the engine ran. The temperature had risen above zero, just. She was wet again, and cold. She turned the heat up high and checked her phone. Margo Wishart had sent the transcribed copy of Gerald Blaise’s diary. That had been quick. There was a message from Frank Moran asking her to call him. Right away.
The secretary patched her through to Moran’s office. He did not sound pleased. He had heard from Annabel Torrance, he said. It seemed the police were harassing her. Didn’t she, as a woman officer, understand the strain Ms. Torrance was under? How difficult it was for Annabel to tackle the role of Lady Macbeth when she was so recently bereaved? Especially given how Gerald had died, and how recently? It was important that she succeed. The theatre company was depending on it. Pressure from the RCMP was not helpful at this time. Roxanne listened to the lecture, watching the wipers sweep the glass in front of her clean, again and again.
“Confidentially, sir, Annabel Torrance is a suspect,” she stated. She looked down the street towards the tall building that housed Frank Moran’s large, warm office. She could just make it out through the misty haze. “She inherits a great deal of money from Gerald Blaise’s death. She has the motive and the means.”
“She was in Regina,” Frank Moran snapped back, as if that ended the matter. Budgie could have driven to Winnipeg and back overnight, she told him. “I have to talk to her again,” she continued. “There has been a second suspicious death.”
“Thom Dyck, right?” He knew about that already. “Go easy on her,” he insisted. “You don’t really imagine she killed Gerald, do you?” He made the suggestion sound ridiculous. “Those two got along perfectly well. And the professor? She barely knew him.”
