“I guess so,” he said. “Will you be up to it then?”
“Yep. Come after dinner for drinks. I can’t count on getting things organized.”
“Tell you what, why don’t I bring dinner? I’ve got excellent connections in the kitchen here. Think you could rustle up two plates and a bit of cutlery?”
“Sure. See you about seven.”
I gulped down the coffee when it came, but pushed away the cake. The taste of dust from the office floor and the smell of blood had done bad things to my appetite. And even though Wendtz and Hickey had been bottom crawlers, I had still seen them die.
I went over and over the sequence of events with McCracken. So much better here than in the office. In the course of our discussion, we each had two more coffees and McCracken ate my cake.
I talked while he ate.
“Who do you think killed them? And why do you think they didn’t kill me? And why did they call the police? Or if they didn’t, who did? Could this be some kind of turf war between rival drug distributors? How were Mitzi Brochu and Sammy Dash connected? Who were Wendtz’s rivals? And how did that link up with my office? Are you going to talk to Brooke Findlay? Her miserable life might be in danger too.”
McCracken blotted his mouth with a napkin. “Do you really want me to answer, or are you just going to keep spewing questions?”
“And that poem,” I said, referring to the scrap of paper McCracken had picked up by the door when he arrived, “that’s the same motif as Sammy and Mitzi. What do you think about that?”
“I think that the deaths are most likely linked to the industry. After all, they all knew each other.”
“Unusual to have poetry written to commemorate murders in the drug trade.”
He shrugged. “You see a lot of real strange stuff in this business. C’mon, I’ll drive you home now. Maybe get Alexa to come over and keep you company. Have a drink together or something.”
“She’ll be more upset about hearing this story than I was living through it. You have a drink with her. It’ll do everybody more good.”
“Maybe. But you better take care anyway. One good thing.
Since you have no idea about any of this stuff, at least you’ll stop playing detective. Wouldn’t want you to run into those tan shoes again and get hurt.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
For the first time since I’d met him, I felt good knowing Conn McCracken.
* * *
My phone rang at 8:30 in the evening.
“Camilla,” Robin breathed. “Dad just called. The police took Brooke in for questioning as soon as she got in tonight.
My mother’s hysterical.”
“Gosh,” I said.
“She’s going to need a lawyer.”
“I suppose she will.”
“Couldn’t you…?”
“Robin, your sister took part in a plot to lure me into my office, where I was terrorized by two thugs, who are incidentally now dead. This will have the effect of depriving Brooke of her much-needed cocaine, but aside from that they will not be mourned. So let me make myself clear. Your sister is in much greater need of protection from me than from anyone else.”
“She took part in a…?”
“She phoned pretending to be someone in great danger knowing I would present myself in my office, alone in a deserted building on a Sunday, to be met by two very dangerous men.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh’ is right. And do you know why she did that? She did it because she let her relationship with Wendtz and her need for drugs override her resistance to anything. She was willing to have me threatened and maybe even assaulted. She’s nothing but trouble, and more to you than to me.”
“Even so, she’s my sister.”
I had to let it drop there. My own sisters had been calling all afternoon, trying to entice me to spend the night with them.
Edwina had ended up by slamming the phone down in my ear at my final refusal. But I’d felt safer sipping Harvey’s Bristol Cream with Mrs. Parnell, which was what I’d been doing all evening.
I hung up after Robin’s call and returned to my guest, who was amusing herself by coming up with new and unlikely suspects.
“Humph,” said Mrs. Parnell, showing no sign of ever returning her peach-faced lovebirds. “Are you sure you trust that boy in your office?”
“I trust him to be Alvin, who, with all his faults, is not a killer.”
“Tell me what the poem said again.”
I managed to cover my sherry glass with my hand before she refilled it. I waited until she’d filled her own before I repeated it from memory.
Ruining lives and still unjailed It’s time you bastards both got nailed Perfidy should be unveiled To let you live would mean I’d failed
The police could make all the statements they wanted to about Denzil and Rudy being killed by underworld elements, but I knew it was the same person who had crucified Mitzi and perforated Sammy. The same person who had deliberately left me alive.
“Well, it’s not Shakespeare.”
“You’re right, Mrs. P., but who is it?”
The phone rang again ten minutes after Mrs. Parnell had finally teetered home.
“You okay?” asked Richard.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. See you tomorrow night.”
I found myself smiling into the phone, even after he had hung up. But the smile disappeared soon enough as I lay stiffly in my bed, replaying the day’s events. The night was just as bad, drifting through dreams, flashes of gunfire, running feet, tan shoes. I woke up at three, sweating, remembering where I’d seen those shoes.
* * *
Monday was suitably grey. A decent follow-up to murder in the office. I decided to give Justice for Victims a miss, since it would have been impossible to concentrate on clean-up and insurance matters. Anyway, the police were probably still hanging around.
I read both the papers. The headlines were sufficiently gratifying to clip. “No Justice for These Victims” one paper chirped, while the other one screamed “Bloody Shootout in Refuge for Crime Victims Leaves Police Baffled.” The shot of the crime scene added a jolting dose of reality.
I stood on the balcony and savoured the warm air. The hot-pink geraniums were flourishing in their cast-iron container. Summer was on its way. Too bad it was blighted by what I had figured out. Whatever thoughts I’d had on human motivations before were nothing compared to what I had now.
I took some satisfaction from waking Alvin.
“Whoa,” said Alvin, once he figured out what was going on, “right in our own office? That is amazing. So, what about work? Will the cops still be there?”
“Probably in and out. It’s best for us to stay away. I haven’t really been thinking about work.”
“Yeah, well, thanks, I could use a holiday. But I might want to get a look at the place.”
“Not a holiday. Just a day or so away from the office. But, wait a minute, since you’ll still be on the payroll, such as it is, I want you to find out something for me.”
“What?”
I