Читать книгу Speak Ill of the Dead - Mary Jane Maffini - Страница 9

Four

Back in my apartment, I was so well-stuffed with lamb and rice and broccoli that I was ready to settle down for the rest of the evening. I shifted from novel to novel, from task to task. The phone at the Findlays’ was busy. And there were too many cats, everywhere you looked. I was getting used to them and even recognized the damn things. The black one, the white one with black markings, the ginger Tom, the tabby and the grey Persian. And the plump little three-coloured number, which Robin said was a calico cat. I didn’t know their names and didn’t plan to find out.

It was just before nine and I decided to try a few chores to bore me to sleep. Reading the week’s papers, locating the week’s laundry, washing up the week’s dishes. Not that I cherish these chores, just that I find it better in the long run if I attend to them. And they are soporific.

But the visit from my sisters earlier in the week had thrown the schedule off. The laundry was done, and there were only the breakfast dishes in the sink. Most of the papers had disappeared. Figuring I could limp on for another week without indulging in drudgery, I shook the Persian off the remaining papers and retired to the balcony with a lamp, an extension cord and a clear conscience.

My apartment building is perched on the edge of the parkland which borders the Ottawa River Parkway. The balcony looks down on the Ottawa River from sixteen stories. To the North lie the Gatineau hills, green and rippling even in mid-May. I can see the bike and pedestrian pathways like ribbons along the river. And to the East, the green-roofed Parliament and Supreme Court buildings. A turn of the head shows downtown Ottawa, highrise clusters with more blotches of green, some with green rooftops and others consisting of mundane blocks of concrete and glass, creating wind tunnels. I could make out the mellow pink of the Harmony Hotel, the top stories glowing between two office towers.

The Harmony Hotel, where Mitzi Brochu had checked into a spacious peach suite, expecting luxury and finding death.

The Harmony Hotel, where Robin had kept an appointment and discarded her mental health.

The Harmony Hotel, I thought, is the key to understanding everything.

I chucked the papers back into the corner of the living room and lifted a cat from my favourite pair of running shoes.

It was time to start sticking my nose in. And I knew the place to start.

Forty minutes later, I walked into the lobby of the Harmony Hotel.

Another girl with big hair was working the Reception Desk. This one’s tag said Naomi and she didn’t trill, she chirped.

I flashed my driver’s license in front of her, and said, “We found a few gaps in the Mitzi Brochu investigation. Can you confirm a few facts, ma’am?”

It wasn’t my fault if she mistook me for the police. Her eyes widened.

“What kind of facts? I wasn’t on duty that day. But I’m sure one of the others…or even Mr. Sandes could…”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine. I just need you to check the files to see if anyone was sharing Suite 815 with the victim on this trip. Or on any of her previous trips.”

“One minute, please,” she breathed and vanished through a door behind the counter.

I was drumming my fingers on the marble surface, when a voice behind me said, “Good evening, Ms. MacPhee, will you join me in my office?”

The day had not been good to Richard Sandes, perhaps because he was still at work at night. His hair was a little greyer than I remembered it and there seemed to be extra space in his suit. I remembered him being very sick in the powder room after we’d found Mitzi’s body. Very sick and for a very long time.

“Smoke?” he said, passing me the package.

“No, thanks.”

But his smile was still in working order. His eyes were rich and dark, like Belgian chocolates.

“Naomi seems to be under the impression you are a police detective, Ms. MacPhee. I wonder why?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “What can I say? Young people, they’re very impressionable.”

The crow’s feet around his eyes crinkled up, but his mouth was busy with the cigarette. I couldn’t tell whether or not he actually smiled.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I’d like to know a few things about Mitzi Brochu. How often she came here. And if there was anyone who usually stayed with her.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to find out why my friend went to see her and asked me to come along.”

“Didn’t she tell you?”

“Well, I didn’t actually talk to her before the murder, it was all accomplished with messages. And after, she hasn’t been well enough to badger about it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She’s tranked to the ears because she was so traumatized by finding the body. Well, you remember the state she was in when we got there?”

“How could I forget? I was pretty traumatized myself. You mean the poor girl’s still out of it?”

“Right. Can’t or won’t eat. Can’t get out of bed. Starts to shake if there’s the slightest reference to Mitzi Brochu. Dead or alive.”

“That’s too bad.”

“So, you can see why I would like to get a handle on why Mitzi wanted to see her.”

“Weren’t the police any help?”

He raised an eyebrow when I snorted.

“Okay,” he said, “I think I understand how traumatic it must have been to find the body. The whole tragedy is still haunting me.”

“You’re going to help me?”

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “I remember the state your friend was in.”

“Thank you.” I slumped back in the chair.

“Do you want a cup of coffee or something?”

“Something,” I said, not knowing what. My stomach was clenched.

“All right, shall we chat in the bar? It’s pretty quiet on Sunday night.”

“Good.”

“I’ll just check a few details and be back in a couple of minutes.”

While I was waiting, I looked around. The office reflected the aqua theme of the Harmony foyer and hallways. Very restful with the oak furniture and the silk flowers. But all business, except for two photos on the bookcase. A plump blonde girl, about ten years old, grinned from one. An older version of the same girl, svelte and elegant, even in sports clothes, stood with Sandes and a woman in front of a boat.

Richard Sandes looked different in the photo. Heavier, happier, casual in beige boating gear.

I was still standing by the photo when he came back.

“Your family?”

He nodded.

“Your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“She’s beautiful.”

He smiled and I realized I was disappointed. I’d been hoping for his sister and his niece or something. It had been a long time since I’d felt the pull towards a man, a long time since Paul.

The bar was peach rather than aqua. We settled into peach-patterned tub chairs. The waiter materialized immediately. There are advantages to sitting with the manager. It occurred to me the tension in the tummy was nothing more than nerves, but even so I chose a double order of suicide wings and a light beer to wash them down.

Richard Sandes had a Perrier and a cigarette.

“So,” I said when the order had been taken, “what can you tell me?”

I guess someday I’ll have to work on smoothing out my conversational skills. But he didn’t seem to mind.

“Miss Brochu stayed here whenever she stayed in town. She liked the Harmony and the brass always insisted on making a big deal out of her. There was talk about using her in an ad campaign for the Harmony Hotel chain. She got preferential treatment, so I guess that’s why she chose us over the Hilton or the Westin or the Chateau.”

“Hmm,” I said, “she didn’t strike me as too harmonious.”

“True,” said Richard Sandes, “but she was very well known and popular, well, maybe not popular, but she got good media coverage and people liked to read about her and liked her broadcasts, so it must have seemed like a good idea to the decision-makers.”

“Did she get free rooms?”

“No, but she got the suite for the price of a standard room, provided we weren’t booked solid for a convention or something.”

“How long has that been going on?”

He stopped for a second and looked at me.

Maybe I was getting goopy from those suicide wings. I dabbed at my mouth and fingers with a napkin. I’d lost the habit of worrying about how I looked to a man.

“I don’t know,” he said, “I’ve only been here for six months. I’d have to check the files.”

“Oh,” I said, distracted from my Mitzi probe, “where were you before?”

“Toronto.”

“Quite a change to Ottawa. How does your family like it here?”

Richard sipped his Perrier for a second before answering.

“I’m here on my own.”

I didn’t know quite what to say. There are many reasons for being in a new city on your own. Most of them you shouldn’t pry into.

“Do you like it here?”

He shrugged. “I don’t get out much. I’ve been putting in pretty long hours. But I like that and I like the Harmony.”

“It’s a beautiful hotel. I can see why you like it.”

“Yes. I hope I can stay on.”

“Would they move you without…”

He smiled at me. A crooked smile with a lot of sadness in it.

“I’m the manager at a showcase hotel where a star client was murdered. In a very showy way. The Official Philosophy of Harmony Hotels is to provide a place where clients don’t have to worry. There’s a lot of heat right now. Somebody’s got to carry the can, and I’m the ideal candidate.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life isn’t always fair, Ms. MacPhee.”

“Right. Tell me about it.”

He waved the waiter over to refill our drinks. I was surprised to see mine was empty. There’s something about suicide wings.

“So,” he said, “what did you want to know about Mitzi Brochu?”

“Everything. How often she came here. Who stayed with her. Who came to see her. What she was like.”

“Oh, is that all?”

I noticed he was laughing.

“Well, whatever you can tell me,” I said, laughing too.

“Let’s see, she came down about once every two months. I have no idea who came to see her. Hotels are not in the business of keeping tabs on clients.”

“What was she doing here?”

“In the hotel?” His eyes twinkled.

“In Ottawa.”

“The scuttlebutt is she was writing a book on federal politicians. On their personal style or something.”

“A book on Members of Parliament?”

“I heard on M.P.’s, Senators, the Prime Minister, the back room boys, everyone and everything.”

“Have you ever read her stuff?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you know what she was like. A lot of people would want to avoid being in her book.”

“Perhaps not enough to kill her.”

“Humph,” I said, getting back to the suicide wings.

“Even though you might like it to be a conspiracy of parliamentarians.”

I thought he had a point, so I tried another approach.

“Did you know her well?”

“Not really. She only stayed here three times since I’ve been here.”

“Did you like her?”

“Not in the least.”

I raised my eyebrows and sipped my beer.

“She wasn’t very likeable.”

I had to agree.

“And she upset a lot of people before she died,” he added.

I knew what he meant. She’d been able to upset me a lot even after she died. Case in point, here I was on a Sunday night in a bar with a man I’d just met. Something I’d never done before in my life.

“I know. Robin was one of them.”

“And you say she’s still in shock.”

“That’s right. And the police want to talk to her as soon as she’s well enough.”

“Too bad,” he said. With sympathy.

“Right.”

Our conversation slid into personal matters, likes and dislikes, what chance the Jays might have this season, what it was like to live alone in Ottawa.

Much later I looked at my watch and shook it. The time couldn’t be right. I had to get home to bed like a good little girl or I wouldn’t be able to catch up on the Benning case tomorrow.

“Gotta go,” I said, whipping out some cash and looking around for the waiter.

“It’s on the house,” Richard said.

“Thanks.” I was on my feet, still marvelling at the fact I’d had two beer on a work night.

“Something I said?” he asked, rising.

“No, just pressures of work. Time for me to hit the hay. Do you mind if I call you if I have other questions?”

“No problem.”

As we walked back to the foyer, where the big-haired receptionist was chirping at new arrivals, I decided to grab a cab. It was very late by my standards, and the walk by the river was just a little too isolated at night. I’d had enough big, strapping clients who were victims of vicious predators to be under any illusions.

“Thanks, again.” The front doors opened, and I walked towards the cab stand.

Richard took me by surprise as he caught up to me. He took the Blueline driver by surprise too.

“Can I give you a lift?”

The last surprise was when I realized how much I wanted that lift.

I found myself smiling as I waited for the parking valet to arrive with Richard’s car, and I was still smiling as we pulled on to Wellington Street and turned left.

“Usually I walk,” I told him.

“It must be nice. Especially with all the tulips.”

“What tulips?”

“The million or so tulips that are about to bloom,” he said, flashing a look at me.

“I guess I haven’t really noticed them. You sort of take them for granted when you’ve lived here most of your life.”

As we slipped along the Parkway, the river glittered in the May night. In five short minutes, we drew up in front of my building, and I felt a jab of regret.

“Good night,” I said, regretting the regret.

“We seem to have gotten off topic. Aren’t you going to ask me about her boyfriend?”

“Whose boyfriend?” The words slipped out before I could stop them. Mitzi’s boyfriend, of course. “What about the boyfriend?”

“I think he lives here in Ottawa, but he was always in her room. Every time she was in town.”

“But not this time.”

“Oh yeah, this time, too.”

“Well, where was he when…”

“According to the hotel staff, they had a knock-down drag-out dust-up, the night before. Bad enough for the other guests on the floor to phone and complain about the noise.”

“Do the police know?”

“They do.”

“This is good news. They might leave Robin alone.”

The little question still nagged me inside. If the boyfriend was the bad guy, why would Robin be lying?

“What’s his name? Mitzi’s boyfriend.”

“Wendtz. Rudy Wendtz.”

We said good-bye for the second time and I smiled at the memory of Richard Sandes, all the way from the car to the elevator and from the elevator to the sixteenth floor and all along the hallway to my apartment. I kept smiling up to the point where I spotted my neighbour, Mrs. Parnell, moving her walker back to her apartment after her outing to the garbage chute. It’s hard to keep smiling once you’ve spotted Mrs. Parnell.

I nodded to her and made a futile attempt to pass without engaging in conversation about anything I might have done to provoke her. She might be in her seventies, but she is a woman who embodies the word “formidable”. I’ve heard other neighbours speculate about her links to power in former governments, even insinuations about intelligence work in World War Two. Whatever the scuttlebutt about her past, at this point in her life Mrs. Parnell was content to occupy her time being a pain in the butt.

“Excuse me, Ms. MacPhee,” she said, staring down at me over her remarkably long nose, reminding me of every nun who ever caught me making a paper airplane in Religion class. Her ability to terrorize was not diminished a whit by the fact that she leaned on the walker. Somehow she managed to hang on to a cigarette in a long holder everywhere she went.

Mrs. Parnell is the sixteenth floor’s keeper of the public morality. She has two passions, music, opera in particular, and making sure no one, but no one, gets away with anything, but anything.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Parnell,” I said, once I was sure there was no escape. “Lovely evening.”

She was five-eleven if she was an inch and I could feel myself shrinking as she continued to stare down at me. Why I, a thirtysomething lawyer, nasty as the next guy, should be intimidated by a tall, awkward old lady in a mud-coloured sweater with holes in the elbows was beyond me.

“Ms. MacPhee, is it possible cat noises have been heard coming from your apartment?”

“Cat noises,” I said, shocked. “Certainly not, Mrs. Parnell. What would ever give you that idea?”

“I have ears, Ms. MacPhee.”

Yes, and the less said about them the better, I thought. What the hell, the best defense is a good offense, somebody once said. It seemed to me to fit the occasion. I gave it a try.

“I also have ears, Mrs. Parnell, and may I suggest you have confused the howling of vowels from one of your gruesome operas with feline sounds in the vicinity. And who can blame you?”

“Well!” she said, moving herself and her walker back into her apartment with remarkable speed and slamming the door.

I whipped open my own door, slid through and closed it. A great chorus of meows greeted my arrival.