Читать книгу Stonechild and Rouleau Mysteries 3-Book Bundle - Brenda Chapman - Страница 24

Monday, December 26, 6:10 p.m.

Rouleau left for home before Kala finished typing her report. He told her just to file the report electronically in the records system and he’d read it after supper. Grayson and Malik soon followed, leaving her alone.

She looked up as they were getting their coats on and assured them that she wouldn’t be far behind. She tucked her head back down so they wouldn’t read her lie. She had no intention of leaving until she’d finished the work she’d laid out for herself. She’d already resumed typing before the door shut behind them and she didn’t look up until she’d gotten through transcribing her notes. She kept the report factual, not forming conclusions as Grayson would have her do. Her name would be on the report, not his, and she wouldn’t put her name to a theory she didn’t believe … yet. She was deliberately ignoring Grayson’s instruction to point the investigation in one direction. Hell, let him write his own report, she thought.

Once done, she saved the file, then poured a cup of coffee one step removed from sludge. After a few sips she accessed the system and opened the folder of reports submitted by Malik and Grayson over the course of the week. She was looking for inconsistencies in statements, timelines, and alibis. She occasionally jotted a note for follow-up on her notepad. Nothing jumped out except a feeling of unease at Laurel’s disappearance just before Christmas. The tingling grew as she remembered Hunter arriving at Laurel’s house just after she came home, his Jeep parked a good distance away. Tom Underwood had stolen Laurel from Hunter, but now Tom and Laurel slept in separate bedrooms. Their betrayal could be nothing. It could be everything.

Kala closed the folder and stretched. It was close to nine o’clock and her stomach was rumbling with hunger, but she wasn’t done yet. She liked the silence of the office. Being alone was when she felt most comfortable. It was sad that Whelan’s kid was sick, but she was just as happy not to have a partner. She’d always worked alone up North. Her favourite time was the night shift, driving the back roads with the moon and stars the only light in the ink black sky. She could deal with wolves and bears but this city might be another matter. The wild life here wore pants and drove fancy cars. The rabid ones weren’t as easy to spot.

She searched through the records system until she found the file on the man who was groping women in apartment lobbies. She shared Rouleau’s concern that this guy was escalating. They’d been pulled off the case, but somebody had to follow up. It might as well be her. She didn’t have any family waiting for her to come home from work. This would keep her mind busy. It would also be a nice Christmas present for Rouleau if she broke the case.

She leaned in to read through every incident report and made notes as she went. She paid careful attention to the pattern of buildings where each attack took place He’d only ventured out of the Lincoln Fields area once and that had been the first time when he’d picked a high-rise tower near the Ottawa River. It must have been out of his comfort zone because ever since, he’d targeted women in high-rises along the Richmond Road corridor behind Lincoln Fields Shopping Centre. She was certain he lived between the two sectors, probably closer to the river where he’d made his first strike. He picked middle-aged women alone, grabbing them from behind. One woman said he’d wrenched her breast hard and left bruising. Two said that he’d called them a bitch and two said he muttered the word cunt in their ear before shoving them into the wall. For the latest victim Glenda Martin, he’d figured out how to grope and strangle at the same time. She was the only one he’d attacked early afternoon. The rest had been closer to suppertime. Everything that she read confirmed that Rouleau was right to be worried.

She closed the file. If the groper’s pattern was predictable, he’d be grabbing another woman soon, maybe by the weekend, probably late in the day when the sun was beginning to set. She bit her lip and thought over what she should do. The perp was getting bolder and more violent. The next woman he grabbed might not be as lucky as the others.

She did a Google search and clicked on a map of Ottawa’s west end on the computer screen and enlarged the area where the attacks had taken place. Then she hit print and crossed the room to pick up the copy to take back to her desk. She numbered each location with a red felt-tipped pen in the order they occurred and studied the results, tracing her finger along the route. He was working his way east and she could see a pocket of high-rises not far from his last outing. She jotted down the addresses in her notebook. The neighbourhood was unfamiliar to her but she would swing by and scout out the street and pick up some supper. She’d have to work quickly if she was to have a chance of catching him.

Richmond Road was an assortment of shops, restaurants, and condominiums in the area called Westboro Village. Heading west, the apartment buildings got older and higher. She knew the Ottawa River was somewhere to the north, not many blocks away. There were stretches of parkland, a large field, and tree-lined bike paths. If she was going to stay in Ottawa, she might look for an apartment in this neighbourhood. She slowed as she neared the high-rises behind Lincoln Fields Shopping Centre, scouting the streets and peering into lobbies. It was a quiet evening, not many people about, the snow beginning to fall like confetti tossed out of a shaker. There was no sign of a man dressed in black or anyone acting suspiciously. She spotted a pizza take-out restaurant and pulled into the recently plowed lot. The kid behind the counter sold her two slices of deluxe that she ate as she continued her drive east on Byron and north on Churchill to the Queensway. It was the quickest route back downtown.

The ByWard Market was becoming familiar to her now. She made another sweep of the side streets, looking down alleyways and checking intersections, but it was a quiet night in the city’s downtown. A few people were walking, snow glistening from their coats in the street lights. She stared into the corners of buildings but couldn’t find any Aboriginal women or young girls who met the description of her cousin and niece. She checked the time on the radio. It was just past eleven and time to call it a night. She was tired and badly needed a few hours of sleep so she’d have a clear head when she began more Underwood interviews in the morning, starting with a visit to Hunter’s property.

Kala put in an appearance at the station before her trip to Hunter’s. Rouleau had been called to a meeting with Vermette and cancelled their morning brainstorming session. She poured herself a cup of coffee and asked Bennett if he’d seen Malik and Grayson. Bennett was busy reading through emails they’d confiscated from Underwood’s computer. He shook his head but said, “They’re bringing Belliveau in for questioning. I’ll be going through his correspondence with my fine-toothed comb next.”

“So are Underwood’s business dealings the focus?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Looks that way for now. Gage went with the others to start looking through files.”

“I’ll be on my own today.”

“I’d say so.”

“No problem.” She zipped up her parka. “I’m going to start at Hunter Underwood’s place and will be back in town before lunch. I can always be reached on my cell.”

Bennett nodded. “I’ll tell the others to call you if they need anything.”

“I’m sure they won’t, but thanks.”

She drove slowly out of the city toward Hunter’s. The temperature had dropped steadily overnight and a frosty haze hung suspended over the fields like white smoke. The sky above the mist was pastel blue and cloudless. She felt herself relaxing the further she got from the high-rises and shopping centres. Trees wrapped in ice and stretches of snowy flat land replaced the horizontal line of buildings on each side of the highway.

Hunter’s turn off arrived too soon for her liking and she slowed the truck even more as she left the highway. Her eyes swept the road ahead. There wasn’t much traffic this time of day heading east. Most cars were heading downtown. The schools were out and many had taken holidays between Christmas and New Year’s. Today was also a stat holiday since Christmas had fallen on a Sunday.

A few miles further on and she reached the junction that led her to Hunter’s road. It was a narrower country road, not as well plowed as the highway or secondary road. The truck tires gripped without problem. She carefully pulled closer to the side of the road as a delivery truck flew past coming the other way. “Idiot,” she said under her breath. She could see the turn off to Hunter’s driveway up ahead.

A black Mercedes was just pulling out from Hunter’s side road. As Kala watched, the car turned in a tight arc onto the road ahead of her, facing in her direction. She leaned forward to get a glimpse at the driver through the sun reflecting off the windshield. It wasn’t until the car was alongside that she recognized the tumbling red hair and slender profile of Laurel Underwood. She passed by without glancing in Kala’s direction.

The plot thickens. Kala craned her neck to follow the Mercedes until it was out of sight. It was curious how two people who said they had nothing to do with each other kept being caught in each other’s company.

Kala parked in the same spot as her first visit. She could see the tire tracks from Laurel’s Mercedes and her boot prints to and from the front door. Laurel couldn’t have been there overnight or the prints would have been filled from the snowfall that ended early morning. Kala followed her own frosty breath up the walkway.

Hunter opened the door almost immediately. “Did you forget…?” he began, but stopped when he saw Kala standing in front of him. “Oh, it’s you.” He recovered quickly and stepped aside. “Come in out of the cold.” He checked the parking area as he moved behind her to shut the door.

“Sorry to bother you so early,” she said. “I just have a few more questions.”

“Would you like coffee?” he asked.

She could smell coffee brewing and was suddenly thirsty for a cup. “Please,” she said slipping out of her boots. She undid her parka as she followed him into the kitchen.

“I’ll make a fresh pot. This one’s been stewing for a while.” He patted Fabio behind the ears on his way to the stove. The dog was lying near the hot air vent. He got up and stretched and made his way to Kala. She reached down scratched him behind the ears. Fabio thumped his tail against the table leg before retreating to the warmth of his corner.

She took a seat and watched Hunter pour water from a jug into a kettle. He measured coffee grounds into filter that fit into a clear coffee pot on the stove. Then he poured milk from a carton into a small pitcher and set it on the table with teaspoons and mugs. His fingers were long and his hands strong and tanned. When the water boiled, he poured it carefully through the filter. The coffee dripped steaming dark and rich into the waiting pot.

“You’re a coffee purist,” Kala said. “I make it the same way at home.”

“Anything worth having is worth extra care,” he said, with his piercing grey eyes that had turned a charcoal shade in the kitchen light.

She smiled. Surely he didn’t think she was that easily taken in by charm. She looked down and busied herself by taking out a notebook and pen while he poured the coffee into their mugs. She had to admit it smelled as good as she made at home. She set her notepad on her knee and added milk.

He watched her while she took a sip and smiled at her expression. “Good?”

“Wonderful.” She set the mug down and picked up her notepad. “I want to get a better understanding of your father and his relationships with family members and colleagues. It’s come to our attention that you were engaged to Laurel before she married your father.” She paused and waited.

Something changed in his eyes. It was a flash of pain that crystallized into something unreadable. “I wondered how long it would take you to dig that up. Did my mother tell you?”

“The person who told me isn’t important.”

“I guess you’re right.” He sighed and stretched out his legs, then took a drink of coffee all the while watching her. “I met Laurel at university. She worked in the admin office. I thought I’d never seen a woman so beautiful but I didn’t think about approaching her. I was a few years younger and she was out of my league. She actually introduced herself to me at the university pub one evening and we hit it off. I asked her out the next day, and we dated my senior year. I brought her home in the summer to meet my family after we got engaged. My father offered her a job, which she took. A few months later, she called off our engagement for no reason that I could understand. I found out why a few months later when she moved in with my father, who’d not so coincidently moved out of our family home into an apartment downtown.”

“Do you blame Laurel for ending your parents’ marriage?” Kala was still fishing for a reaction. He’d told the story as if it was about somebody else.

“I’ve thought about it recently with my father coming around to see me and asking to make amends. I think if it hadn’t been for Laurel, he would still be married to my mother, or if he hadn’t died that is. Laurel was the catalyst.”

“So your mother and father had a good relationship before Laurel?”

“I’d say yes. They were comfortable with each other and always said they were in it for the long haul. They’d been together since high school.”

“You must have taken Laurel’s defection hard.”

“I distanced myself from her and my father and soon got over it. I was blinded by her but came to realize that we didn’t have anything in common. It wouldn’t have been a good marriage.”

“You say that like you’re certain.”

“Because I am. Laurel definitely is not my soul mate.” He looked directly into her eyes. “You know how it is when you meet somebody and know right away that you fit? There’s just something about them that feels like coming home. It wasn’t that way with me and Laurel. I was infatuated and mistook it for something deeper.”

Kala broke his stare and looked past him out the window. The depth of his gaze was disconcerting. Maybe he’d meant it to be. “Your mother and Geraldine. How did they take your father marrying Laurel?”

“About as you’d expect. My mother was a wreck for a few years. I think in hindsight that she had a breakdown, but we didn’t recognize it then. She started seeing a counsellor and that helped her to recover her equilibrium. It also helped that Geraldine and I sided with her, and of course her best friend Susan was always there. Geraldine forgave our father after a little time passed and they’ve stayed close. He was excited that she was having a baby.” Hunter smiled and spread his hands wide, “I didn’t want to hear about my father at all, but Geraldine wouldn’t give up. She kept telling me things and it got so I looked forward to her updates. When Dad asked to see me at the beginning of the month, I was ready to see him. More coffee?”

Kala looked down at her empty cup. “No, I need to get moving.” She began packing up her notebook and began to stand. She stopped partway and sat back down as if she’d thought of one last question. It was the question she’d wanted to ask all along. “What was Laurel doing here this morning?”

Hunter grimaced. “I thought you might have seen her leaving.”

“I’m finding it odd that I keep finding the two of you together.”

Hunter stood up and crossed to the stove to refill his coffee cup. With his back to her, he said, “I didn’t conspire with Laurel to kill my father. She drove here to tell me that there wasn’t going to be a service. Dad wanted to be cremated with just his family to accompany his ashes to the vault. She wants me to organize Geraldine and Max, my mother, and Susan and Clinton.”

“She could have phoned.”

“Anybody who knows me knows that I rarely answer. I like my solitude.”

His explanation was weak, just like the one about parking his Jeep far away from Laurel’s driveway. Kala got up and walked to the front door. She bent to put on her boots and he stood leaning against the wall. When she straightened, Hunter was next to her. He waited until she was looking at him.

“I’m not involved with Laurel. If you start thinking that he was murdered because we wanted to get rid of him so we could be together, you are going entirely in the wrong direction.”

Kala zipped up her jacket and opened the door. She turned to him before she stepped outside. “Perhaps you weren’t involved, but I’ve only known you a little while and I have the impression that something is going on between you two. I wonder how many others thought the same, even if it’s not true as you allege.”

Rouleau looked across the table at J.P. Belliveau. His face was a purplish-red in the glaring fluorescent light of the interview room. He’d refused coffee or water and at the moment was glaring at Grayson, who was tinkering with the recording device in preparation for the interview. Rouleau leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. This was Grayson’s show.

“Let’s begin,” said Grayson. He leaned into the microphone and named the people in the room, date, and time. Malik sat next to him ready to play good cop if needed. “How long were you and Tom Underwood business partners?”

“Going on twenty-five years. We built the business together. If I’d wanted to off him, I wouldn’t have waited so long.”

“For the record, we’re not suggesting you killed him at this time.”

“Good to know.” J.P.’s eyes let them know he didn’t believe it.

“What was Underwood working on when he died?”

“He was setting up a contract with an engineer in Montreal to test a design with an eye to manufacturing a vehicle that could withstand land mines. He was getting the contract ready to send the day he died.”

“Who takes over the file?”

J.P.’s eyes narrowed. “Max Oliver. He’s leaving for Montreal as I speak to reassure the client and work on getting the contract signed. You can’t seriously think Max or I had anything to do with this. We needed Tom. He was our closer.”

“So you keep saying, but it looks like you’ve managed to carry on without him.” Grayson paused and looked down at his notes. “Did you know that Tom Underwood was planning on getting out of the business?”

“Who told you that?” J.P. looked at Grayson, but when he didn’t respond, J.P. shrugged. “Tom mentioned a few times over the past year that he was tired and considering a career change. The problem was he had an expensive young wife and kid to worry about and a certain lifestyle to maintain. I don’t know where else he’d make the kind of money he was making in our firm. He wasn’t serious.”

“What would have happened if he was?” Rouleau interjected.

J.P. took his time answering. “From what I know about Laurel, she might have taken the kid and left him. She’d fight him for a big chunk of change. He couldn’t afford that drop in fortune.”

“That doesn’t say much for his marriage,” said Rouleau.

J.P. let out a harsh laugh. “Anybody with eyes could see that she was just sticking around for the money. He had a lawyer come by to discuss a separation. His concern was having the kid half-time.”

“You know this for a fact?” Grayson asked.

“Yeah. I was there a few weeks ago when this woman in a fancy suit showed up asking for Mr. Underwood. I told her that he got called away and asked if I could help. She asked that he call her to set up another time later in the afternoon because she had to be in court. She left her card. It said ‘Sandra Woosley, divorce lawyer,’ plain as day. I asked Tom about it when I passed on the message and he said he was investigating his options.”

“You never mentioned this before.”

“You never accused me of killing my partner before.”

“For the record, we have not accused you of killing anyone. So that would fit in with Tom deciding to leave the business,” said Grayson. “Ditch his wife and make a lifestyle change.”

“You might think so,” agreed J.P., “except that after Tom spoke to the lawyer, we went out for a beer and he told me that he’d decided to get a few things in order before he made a move. He told me the best thing he could do was hire a hit man and be done with her. He said it all jokey like, but with everything that’s happened, I wonder if she got to the hit man first.”