“Try the city police. I can’t dig up a lot of information without people starting to notice.”
“It’s a situation I understand well, Merv, but I don’t want you to dig up information on a lot of people, just one. Just one person, and I have his picture. And I would rather avoid talking to the city police since they don’t seem to take me seriously.”
There was silence on the line. I shook the phone. “After all, it’s for Robin, in case you’re forgetting, Merv.”
“Yeah, all right. One picture. Drop it by. At the desk. Don’t come in. You’ll just give people ideas.”
“Thank you, Merv.” I stopped short of slathering him with all that partner bullshit.
My last call was to set up a meeting with my old friend, Elaine Ekstein. Elaine was hard at work setting up a support network for refugee women. She was glad to talk to me.
“Sure,” she said, “I’ll find her for you. She’s probably scared to death. Especially if she’s a new arrival and she doesn’t speak much English. I’ll translate for you.”
I just had time to hop into the car and hightail it back to Elmvale Acres. My little visit with Robin confirmed what I’d hoped. Brooke was still home, but preparing to go out. Her mother was parked in front of the television watching Days of Our Lives and steaming Brooke’s going-out outfit. She didn’t even glance over when I snapped a picture of her.
“Be careful,” Brooke called down, “it’s new and it’s linen. I don’t want anything to happen to it, Ma.”
“My God,” said Ma, “can you believe Marlena would let him do that?”
Mr. Findlay followed me up the stairs with fresh sandwiches, chicken on brown bread, cut in little triangles and some lemon custard for dessert. Hot tea, too. That man knew how to put a tray together.
“Say cheese,” I said, capturing the moment on film.
He grinned. “Just like old times, you and that camera.”
From the sounds of preparations and shouted instructions, Brooke was quite a way from take-off. I could enjoy my lunch and try to get Robin to enjoy hers as well.
“Don’t even think about taking my picture,” Robin said.
I knew she meant it.
“How are the pussies?” she asked as we settled in with our little sandwiches and tea.
“Great! They miss you! But they seem to be enjoying life.”
Robin put down her tea cup and stared at me.
My God, I thought, could she tell what had happened to the tabby just by looking at me? Did the words DEAD CAT appear on my forehead?
“They communicate with you?”
“No, but they…purr. And then every now and then they get a faraway look in their little green eyes, and I know they’re thinking about you and about how they want you to get well and go home and be with them again.” I folded my hands in my lap.
Until I noticed that tears were streaming down Robin’s cheeks. She also appeared to have stopped breathing.
“My God, I’m sorry, I’m only trying to…”
“Hahahahahah.” At least she was alive.
“Stop laughing, or I’ll eat all the sandwiches. Then you’ll be sorry.”
“You can tell all that from their eyes? You should go on Oprah.”
The door shot open and Brooke bellowed through: “Keep it down, will you, I’m trying to catch something on the radio.”
Robin’s laugh was cut off mid-whoop.
“Don’t mind her. She can’t help it. She’s under a lot of career pressure lately.”
Nothing like she’s going to be, I thought as I ate my sandwiches.
When I left the Findlay house, still ahead of Brooke, I pulled away from the curb, rounded the corner and pulled in again. I had a few minutes to sit there and admire the trees leafing out in the warm weather.
I was fiddling with the car radio when Brooke drove by in her fire-engine-red BMW. I wasn’t too worried about following her, not even when she checked her rear view mirror. She was far too self-absorbed to notice anyone else.
I drove along with a smile on my face, wondering where she’d be meeting Sammy Dash this time. And what they’d get up to.
It wasn’t always easy trailing Brooke, since she showed a disinclination to signal lane changes or even turns. We wound along Alta Vista and down Pleasant Park to Riverside Drive, and then followed Riverside to Bank. Except for having to keep an eye on Brooke, it was a pleasant drive, water, lots of green space. Brooke turned right on Bank, drove to the Glebe and parked on Fourth Avenue.
I watched, slouched down in my car, as she headed for the ATM. I had to admit, she would make a first-rate representative for “Walk in the Woods”. Her blonde hair just cleared her shoulders and fluttered in the breeze. The vanilla-coloured linen suit with its elegant wrinkles showed off Brooke’s slim shape. The cut of the skirt above the knees confirmed my long-held suspicion that Brooke was eighty percent legs.
She smiled into the sunshine. Her public smile. A middle-aged man stopped walking and stared.
Too bad she’s such a bitch, I thought. Some of my reaction may have been related to my short legs. Who knows.
I almost lost her as we edged onto Bank Street again. Brooke headed for the Queen Elizabeth Driveway, which winds along the canal on the opposite side to Colonel By.
It’s amazing, I thought, this beautiful woman in her red Beamer is cruising along this beautiful road, and her activities are somehow tied to a murder.
I’d been keeping well behind her, and yet I still had to stand on my brakes to avoid her as she whipped, without a signal or a brake light, into Rudy Wendtz’s driveway.
I pulled over to the side of the road and crouched down again.
Seconds later, Wendtz pulled in after her and parked his black Mercedes.
I don’t suppose they see that many passionate clinches on Queen Elizabeth Driveway. But this one would have made up for any lack. Two tall people, pressed together, for all the world to see. Of course, the world wasn’t looking. Only me.
They deserve each other, I told myself, glancing away towards the front door of the house. That’s when I noticed Large-and-Lumpy watching back.
* * *
Elaine kept talking as she ran the red light. I just pressed myself to the back of the seat and tried to remember my Act of Contrition. The Jeep, which accelerated at the green light, missed us by an inch.
“You have no idea,” she said, “how often these people faced death. And how that must feel.”
“I think I do.”
“It’s very difficult for them to find themselves in such a different culture. They’re frightened a lot.”
“I don’t want to frighten her, Elaine. I’m not very frightening, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Elaine took her eyes off the road.
“You believe that, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, Elaine, I do.”
She was still watching me, shaking her head.
“On the other hand, you, Elaine, are terrifying and should not be allowed on the road.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’m serious. You can be quite intimidating for such a small person.