Читать книгу Speak Ill of the Dead - Mary Jane Maffini - Страница 11

Six

Alvin was settled in at the desk, humming, so I found myself huddled in the back of the office, surrounded by work I should have been doing. It was just after nine in the morning, but already I did not feel like working. All I could think about was rat-faced Mombourquette waiting for his chance to scurry through the Findlays’ front door and drag Robin off to the station, still in her pink pig slippers.

No, the best thing, I told myself, was not to sit in the office listening to Alvin sing his favourite Fred Eaglesmith song for the eighty-second time. The best thing would be to get out and stir up a little dust to distract Ottawa’s finest from my very, very vulnerable client. I had a few strong options based on reading about Mitzi’s favourite victims. A phone call was all it took, and I was on my way.

“You’re spooking the horses,” Alvin sang, “and you’re scaring me.”

“Good,” I said, just before I slammed the door.

* * *

Deb Goodhouse was one of those rare women who look good in red. Very good. Her hair was still dark brown, almost black, cut in a dutch-boy style. Her dark eyes and ivory skin showed to advantage with her red blazer and matching slash of lipstick. She looked like Snow White, grown middle-aged and professional. She smiled and shook my hand till my bones ached. But I could tell she was not at all glad to see me.

“Well,” she said, “imagine. Alex and Donnie’s little sister. What can I do for you?”

I wondered if she could have been one of the handful of Ottawans who had missed the sight of Robin and me being hustled away from Mitzi’s murder site by the cops. Somehow I doubted it.

Still, she’d been willing to see me, which was the only way I could have gotten past the long-faced security guards and into the labyrinth of offices in the West Block of the Parliament Buildings.