Running Cold: A Novel, page 15
I got out of the car. The snow was falling from every direction all at once, stinging my face and blurring my vision. It was as dizzying as what had just happened, and as surreal as what was about to happen next.
“What a crazy night!” Christa said as she and Suki climbed out of the back seat.
“Could it get any crazier?” Suki asked, thinking her question was rhetorical.
“I don’t know about you ladies,” Izzy said, “but I need a drink.”
“Hot toddies!” Christa said. “I’m frozen to the bone.”
I was the last to step into the lobby. My friends waited for me at the threshold. They were scheduled to fly out in the morning. I just had to get through a few more hours of pretending I wasn’t in the jaws of a blizzard of lies.
“I’m soaked—I’m going to go change,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.” So much had happened in the last two hours that I had almost forgotten I was wearing Ceci’s clothes. I didn’t want a guest or coworker to recognize those red leather pants. It was scary enough that they might recognize me as a fellow employee.
“Want us to order for you?” Suki asked.
“Vodka soda.”
Suki gave me the thumbs-up. As they started up the stairs, I banked toward the elevators. One step, two step, three steps, then—
“Hold it right there!”
A uniformed RCMP officer with a Grizzly Adams beard stepped out in front of me, one hand on his holstered gun, the other extended like a crossing guard stopping traffic. For a second I thought he was talking to someone else. I almost looked over my shoulder to see if there was a worse criminal behind me. But then another cop—a woman in Patagonia pants with a badge on her hip—stepped in front of him.
“I got this, Jarvis,” she said to the uniformed cop. Then to me, “Mrs. Adler, I need you to put your hands on your head.”
I placed my hands on the back of my head like I was doing a sit-up. In a flash, the woman cop had them cuffed behind my back.
“Julie Adler, you’re under arrest for the murder of Cecile Rousseau,” she said, and the floor fell out from under me. Hearing those three words in one sentence—arrest, murder, Rousseau—was not shocking, it was nonsensical.
“You have the right to remain silent . . .”
She grabbed my arm. As she spun me around, I saw Izzy, Christa, and Suki staring at me from the stairway to the bar. Their expressions were pure astonishment. As I imagine mine was too.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law,” the policewoman continued. She was pushing me toward the exit. I wanted to cry out—What do you mean murdered? And why on earth would you think I did it? But for some reason I was as mute as a mime.
Her fingers dug into my arm. She was strong, but I was stronger. Not that I considered resisting arrest. I was too stunned to do that.
“You have the right to an attorney . . .”
I felt a hundred eyes on me—desk clerks, valets, guests, the three women I once called friends were all staring.
“Please,” I finally managed. “You’ve made a mistake.”
And I was telling the truth. I wasn’t responsible for Ceci Rousseau’s death. But I couldn’t say the same about the next one.
PART 3
Third to Die
CHAPTER 37
Monique
My first arrest was a sixteen-year-old kid who stole a mickey of Jack Daniel’s from a liquor store. He was underage, and this was not the sort of crime we pressed charges for here in Banff, so after sticking him in the drunk tank for an hour, we let him go. I don’t know if he learned his lesson, but I never saw that kid again.
Since then, in my ten years on this force, I’d locked a few dozen other perps in that jail: a handful for fighting (separate cells), an assortment of drug dealers and shoplifters, a vandal, a homeless guy we nabbed so he wouldn’t freeze to death on the street. But Julie Weston Adler was my first murderer, and I was determined to do it by the book.
“Watch your head,” I said to my suspect as I guided her into the back seat of Jarvis’s police-issue Ford Explorer and shut the door. J. J. was the one who’d spotted her, so I wanted to give him the honor of hauling her in. The chief had instructed us to wait for him outside the hotel and was on his way. It was cold, but we were amped as we stood by the hood with our hands jammed in our pockets and our faces flushed with pride. Our rinky-dink team had cracked a murder case in under two hours. It was nothing short of a miracle.
“Nice work, Officer Jarvis,” I said to my veteran cop. I didn’t know if it had been instinct or divine intervention that led him to look up at the exact moment our suspect had stepped into the hotel lobby, but his timing had been perfect.
“Got lucky” was his modest reply.
“It was still a heads-up play,” I said, then offered my fist for him to bump. When his gloved hand tapped mine without a hint of enthusiasm, I knew something was wrong.
“What’s going on, J. J.?”
I thought maybe he was disappointed that someone he’d admired had turned out to be a killer. J. J. and Julie Weston Adler were both Alberta natives. I imagined he knew who she was long before tonight, maybe even was a fan. But his melancholy had nothing to do with his hometown hero falling off her pedestal. It was more personal than that.
“I think this may be it for me,” he said, his eyes betraying his forced smile.
Officer Jason Jarvis was the beating heart of the Banff police force. He had not only seen the town morph from a rough-and-tumble mountain hideaway to a premier tourist destination, but he had helped transform it. The stories of him chasing coke dealers and meth heads back to the big city were legendary.
“You can’t retire now,” I said. “We just bagged our first big perp!”
He smiled at the word perp, so I smiled too.
“It’s the perfect time,” he countered. “Why go out with a whimper when I can go out with a bang?”
His smile faltered, and I wondered if seeing a murder scene had shaken him.
“Take a few days off,” I suggested. “See how you feel.”
He fiddled with his beard. For a man in his sixties, he looked surprisingly young. He acted more like a man at the beginning of his career than the end—always early for work, willing to take the most unpleasant assignments . . . and with a smile.
“I have three grandkids now—did you know that?” he asked. “Two in Toronto and one in Revelstoke.”
I did know, so I nodded.
“The wife is always whining that we never see them.”
And then I realized he had already made up his mind. He was just looking for the right moment to tell me.
“You’ve had an admirable career, Officer Jarvis.”
“Leaving in a blaze of glory,” he joked.
“If I had known this was your last hurrah, I would have let you make the arrest.”
“It’s all good. I’ve done more than my fair share.”
Just as I thought I might have to find a tissue to dab my eyes, the chief pulled up in his police-issue SUV.
“Chief’s here,” I said, pointing. We walked over to greet him as he got out of his car. To my surprise, he was in full dress uniform and freshly shaven.
“Good evening, sir,” I said. We were not normally formal with each other, but his appearance, and the events of the night, were stark reminders that police work is serious business, even in a small town like ours.
“As if a citywide power outage wasn’t enough,” the chief groaned, shaking his head.
“Do they know what caused it?” Jarvis asked.
“Tree fell and took out the transformer, triggered an automatic shutdown of the whole grid. They’re working on it. Hopefully we’ll be back on line by morning.”
“Well, that’s good news,” I said.
“Speaking of good news, where is she?” the chief asked.
I indicated Jarvis’s car with my head. “Cuffed and ready for transport, sir.”
“You sure about this, Detective?” I didn’t want to use the word sure, but yeah, I was confident.
“The evidence is compelling.”
“I hope so,” he said, then looked down at his midriff. “Is my shirt horribly wrinkled?”
It was, but I shook my head no.
“You look sharp as a tack, sir.”
“I have to do a press conference.”
“About the power outage?” I guessed.
“Both. Word got out.”
I was only a little surprised.
“Who leaked it?”
“Probably someone who saw us rolling the victim out in a body bag. Doesn’t matter. We have a suspect in custody, best to just get it over with.” He pulled at his shirtsleeves. “Damned shirt must have shrunk since I last wore it.”
“I have the same problem, sir,” J. J. said, tugging at the waistband of his coat. I didn’t want to interrupt the male bonding, but I was eager to wrap this up.
“I can process the suspect,” I offered. But the chief shook his head.
“She’s not going to the drunk tank, Detective.”
“Sir?”
“Our jail’s not secure enough for a murder suspect. We can’t even turn the lights on right now. She’s going to Calgary.”
“You mean in the morning?”
“No. Now.”
The snow was falling so hard you could barely see your hand in front of your face. Calgary was over a hundred kilometers from Banff. In these conditions it could take half the night.
“But sir—”
“The decision was made by someone higher up than me.” The chief’s tone was stern, like he wasn’t happy about it either. “Once she’s processed, I’ll do the presser. They don’t want the public knowing there was a murder until she’s behind bars.” And I imagined that was ordained by someone higher up too.
“I volunteer to drive, Chief,” Jarvis said, stepping forward.
“Officer Jarvis, that’s not necessary—” I interrupted. I didn’t want to send any of my men out in this storm, especially the one who’d just said he’d had enough.
“I’ve been driving these roads for almost fifty years,” Jarvis said. “In all kinds of weather.”
“All right then, Officer Jarvis,” the chief said. “She’s your perp. Don’t dillydally. I want to make my statement and get out of these clothes. Pants got small too,” he added, shaking his head.
I couldn’t let J. J. go alone. Not with a murder suspect, not in this weather.
“I’ll ride shotgun.”
Jarvis opened his mouth to object, but I was his superior. It would be disrespectful for him to contradict me.
“Call when you get there,” the chief said. “And good luck.”
“Thanks,” I said, not knowing luck would not be enough.
CHAPTER 38
Izzy
“This way, please,” the frat-boy cop said as he escorted Suki, Christa, and me into a banquet hall that looked like the forbidden sitting room at your grandmother’s house. The carpet was an aggressive swirl of crimson and indigo flowers, and the domed ceiling was high enough to fly a kite. On the far wall, heavy emerald drapes were cinched by tasseled gold rope. There was a pair of wingback chairs in front of a fireplace framed by a mantel with gargoyles carved into its underbelly. The walls may not have had ears, but the fireplace did.
The hunky policeman directed us toward the rectangular cherrywood dining table in the center of the room, which was lacquered so heavily you could see the reflections of our terrified faces in the top. We sat down in silence. None of us dared utter a word. Our friend had just been arrested for murder—murder!—while we watched from above like spectators at the Kentucky Derby. I had thought being trapped in a gondola during a blizzard would be the low point of the trip, but things had gone from bad to horrific.
“I’m Simon Stafford of the RCMP,” the cop said, sitting down across from us. “I’m just going to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right?”
We all nodded. I knew RCMP stood for Royal Canadian Mounted Police, because I’d looked it up after seeing a trooper at the airport. “Just like Dudley Do-Right!” I’d said to the girls, but neither of them had watched enough cartoons to get the reference.
The cop smiled at us, revealing teeth so perfect I knew they must be fake. It was presumptuous to assume he was a former hockey player, but his forearms were as thick as bread loaves, and this was Canada. If you called central casting and asked for someone to play young Wayne Gretzky, this was the guy they would send.
“Where are you visiting from?” Young Gretzky asked.
“Ventura County, California,” Christa said, taking charge like the lawyer she was.
“What brought you all to Banff?”
“We came to see our friend, Julie Weston Adler,” Christa replied. She was sitting in the middle, so not only qualified to be our spokesperson but also perfectly positioned.
“And how do you all know Ms. Adler?”
“We’re friends from back home.”
“In California?”
“That’s right,” Christa said. “She’s Canadian, but she moved to LA when she got married.”
“Her husband’s dead now,” Suki blurted, and Christa and I both looked at her like she’d farted in church.
“Is that why she moved back to Canada, you reckon?”
“Oh, she didn’t move back,” Christa said. “She’s just on vacation. Here, at the hotel.”
The police officer made a face, like what Christa had said confused him.
“I think she has a boyfriend here,” I offered. “That’s why she came.” I could feel Christa’s and Suki’s eyes on me, but I didn’t meet their accusatory stares. “His name is Remy,” I added. “He’s French.” And the hockey cop perked up.
“Remy Delatour?”
“I don’t know his last name.”
He went on his phone, pulled up a picture of the handsome Frenchman.
“Is this him?”
“Yes,” I said confidently. The cop’s arms flexed as he made a note on his pad.
“Has your friend Julie Adler ever mentioned a woman named Cecile Rousseau?”
We all shook our heads no.
“Or Ceci Rousseau?” he asked. And Suki perked up.
“Yes! That’s her fake name!”
“What do you mean fake name?”
“Julie’s famous. She won a gold medal at the Olympics. So she checked in to the hotel under a fake name,” Suki explained.
“I see.” Officer Simon Stafford tapped his pen on his pad like he’d rather be playing hockey.
“Why did you arrest her?” Christa asked. Her tone was aggressive, and for a second I thought she might have hurt the cop’s feelings.
“She’s a suspect in a murder investigation.”
“Do you have evidence?” Christa pressed.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the evidence—”
“Because we can vouch for her, she was with us all day.”
“You’ll have an opportunity to provide an alibi—”
“You can’t just go arresting hotel guests.” Christa was getting heated now. I kicked her under the table, but she ignored me. “I know we’re not in America anymore,” she went on, “but we still have rights.”
Then the cop said something that surprised us.
“She wasn’t a hotel guest. She worked here. As a chambermaid.”
And we all stopped squawking.
CHAPTER 39
Remy
I was in my office when they arrested Julie. I didn’t want to watch. Julie had gone from champion to chambermaid to charlatan, all in one week. What an epic fall from grace.
With the downfall of the woman I once adored came the destruction of a dream I’d held close for over seven years. I knew why Julie didn’t want me when we met: I was a lowly assistant manager at a hotel, whose past was more promising than his future. Jeff was an MIT graduate being courted by some of the richest men in Canada. Of course she chose him. I bet on him too. Not just to get the girl. I bet on him with every penny of my life savings. If he was going to get rich, I was going to get rich right along with him. I figured, if he was smart enough to win Julie’s heart, he was smart enough to make me a millionaire. And once he did, I’d be everything Julie wanted—the whole package, with the bank account to match.
I was disappointed when Julie told me Jeff had proposed, but once they were engaged, I stepped into the role of dutiful friend. I knew she would eventually tire of him. Jeff may have been smarter than me, but Julie and I were a much better match. We had a common Canadian heritage, and a shared love of sports and the great outdoors. Training for the Olympics had taught me patience. I knew she’d come back. And when she did, I would be worthy.
When Jeff started coming to Banff every month, at first I thought it was to see Julie. But she was just the sideshow. The primary purpose of his trips to Alberta was to court big oil money, much of which vacationed here in Banff. Jeff had big ideas and needed deep pockets to fund them. Once he got what he wanted, he took the money, and the girl, and ran.
The technology Jeff was working on was called quantum dots. Quantum dots are man-made nanoscopic crystals that can bend light. While scientists were theorizing they could be used to make solar panels, Jeff was already making them. His prototype was five times more efficient than any solar panel on the market, at half the price. His tech had the potential to put utility companies out of business. That’s why one of the big ones was ready to pay hundreds of millions to buy it.
Calgary was a gas-and-oil town. But that didn’t mean the people who got rich off it weren’t also pursuing other ways to get rich. Call it diversifying, hedging your bets, or just plain greed, they wanted what Jeff was selling.
And so did I.
Jeff’s lead investor was an Alberta oilman who sold shares in his drilling projects to accredited investors. Green tech was new to “Megabucks Mackenzie,” but he fashioned himself as a cowboy, and the green-energy market was the Wild, Wild West. He loved to talk about how “there’s gold in them thar hills,” and investors were lining up to get their share.
