Law and Disorder (7 page)

“Well, apparently they’re arriving this week for the Dragon Boat Races. And they are staying here, in this house. Sleeping arrangements have been all worked out. Isn’t that great? Everyone knows about it. Except me, of course.”

Alvin swallowed. “Didn’t I talk to you about all that?”

“I don’t think you did, Alvin.”

“I meant to. I had a chat with Ray one night when he was looking for you. I don’t know where you could have been at the time.”

“Walking the Ferguson family dog, I imagine. That is the extent of my social life lately.”

“Whatever.”

“And what all did you work out with Ray? Be precise.”

“That they’d stay here, of course. What else would you plan to do with them? They’re practically family. That’s what I said to Ray. And he told me when they were coming and all that.”

“That must have been when you filled me in on the details.”

“Okay, okay. So I forgot. Lord thundering Jesus, Camilla, you always go on about everything. I have a whole lot on my mind lately. Now that you’ve shut down Justice for Victims, I have to find another job, and if you sell this house, I have to get another place to live. I’m working really hard to build my cooking skills and that’s taking a lot of time and psychic energy.”

“Spare me, Alvin.”

“Everything is not about you, Camilla,” he sniffed.

I have learned not to be distracted into losing my temper.

“But this is about me. Don’t you think I might want to know when they’re arriving, for instance?”

“I suppose.”

“So did you write down the arrangements?”

“I knew I’d remember them.”

“Fair enough. And do you remember them?”

I tapped my fingers on the table during the longish pause.

Eventually, Alvin said, “Not exactly.”

“Oh, great. Well, they’re going to be here sometime, so you’d better figure out what needs to be done and how you’re going to do it. Consider it a matter of life and death. I’d like a plan after I get back from my first meeting.”

Alvin said, “But you don’t have meetings any more.”

I met P. J. Lynch for breakfast at the Second Cup near the Courthouse. I was already waiting with an iced latte and a blueberry muffin when he blew in the open door. His carroty hair was a bit rumpled, as were his yellow T-shirt and his cargo shorts. Maybe he’d slept in that shirt. Or maybe not, as he cultivates a wrinkled style. Particularly on a Saturday.

He stood in line until he snagged a double espresso and three chocolate biscotti.

“Any word?” I asked when he sat down.

“About what?” he said when he had inhaled his breakfast, setting some kind of chocolate biscotti eating record.

P. J. was a reporter who put his nose for news above all else, including confidences from his friends. I definitely didn’t want to tell him about the lawyer joke that had preceded Rollie Thorsten’s demise or the note with Thorsten’s name on it.

I said, “I don’t know. Anything.”

“Could you be a bit more vague, please?”

“Hey, you’re the reporter, P. J. You tell me.”

“I gather you didn’t read my piece in the
Citizen
this morning.”

“It’s early, P. J. And I didn’t get much sleep. Oh, come on, don’t get sulky. Do you want me to run to Mags and Fags and buy a
Citizen
? I’ll do it if that means I don’t have to look at your protruding lower lip.”

“Funny. It was just about the weirdness of Rollie Thorsten dying right when Brugel’s trial is coming to an end.”

I feigned a total lack of interest. “Oh yeah?” I yawned to further the point.

“Am I boring you? I thought it was great human interest.”

“Hmm. Did you hear anything about how Rollie managed to drown himself?”

“No reports available yet, but there’s something funny going down. The cops aren’t saying diddly.”

“Really? Didn’t you get anything out of Officer Wentzell?”

P. J. shot me a dirty look. “Don’t mock me.”

I said, “She just seems like such a nice girl. I don’t know why they wouldn’t release the cause of death. He was supposed to have drowned, but I heard a rumour that he was shot.” I didn’t let on that a joke was the source of the rumour and that Mombourquette had confirmed it.

“I heard that too.” P. J. actually quivered. And he was lying. I can always tell.

“Maybe the cops are being cautious about information so the relatives don’t get upset.”

P. J. snorted. “Be serious. The path lab and the coroner might be discreet, but all the cops I know hated Rollie. They probably have a flock of plastic flamingos outside the station today.”

I thought of Mombourquette and his visceral reaction to Brugel and his lawyer. “I suppose they all did hate him.”

“Sure. He used to shred them on the witness stand. I know one guy had to take stress leave afterwards.”

I shrugged. “They’re trained to cope with that kind of treatment on the stand. They just say what they observed. They’re not being accused of anything.”

Unlike Laurie Roulay. She’d been accused of lying and of being in part responsible for the death of her daughter and that of the child’s father. Specious for sure, and the judge rapped Rollie’s knuckles for it, but the damage was done.

P. J. said, “Rollie had special talent.”

“So they all hated him.”

He narrowed his eyes, watched me with more suspicion than usual. “Do you know something about his death?”

“Me? What could I know?”

“My spider senses are tingling.”

“Really? Have you thought about getting a job in a comic book?”

“Funny. But if you did know something, you’d tell me.

Right?”

“Sure. And you’d tell me too, right? You want another espresso?”

“Nope. I’m heading out to dig up dirt. You better not be holding back, Tiger.”

“Me? Dirt? I never touch the stuff. But I’d appreciate you keeping me in the loop.”

He tilted his head. “Why’s that?”

“Because I hated Rollie at least as much as any cop, and I’d salivate over the details.”

The second item on my plan was a trip to Rollie Thorsten’s office. The space was pretty much what you might expect: a straightforward legal office in a nicely converted old house on Somerset just west of O’Connor. It was a Saturday, but I figured the day after his death, someone might be there trying to figure what to do next. It was still before ten in the morning when I pushed the unlocked door open. The receptionist’s desk was empty. No big surprise.

The furnishings were fairly new and typical, heavy on the sand and taupe. Good quality. The sense of dinginess and sleaze was all in my mind, I knew.

I heard a small sound from around the corner, and I stepped further into the office. I knocked on a wall and said, “Hello.”

Jamie Kilpatrick, the fresh-faced junior lawyer who had been in court when Rollie failed to show up, jumped. He followed that by dropping the sheaf of papers in his hand.

“Let me help you with that,” I said pleasantly.

I guess he wasn’t reassured by my presence because he was practically trembling. “No, just leave them. Who are you? How did you get in?”

As this was not the time for sarcasm, I resisted. “The door was open. I was expecting a receptionist, actually.”

“It’s Saturday.” What was that in his voice? Irritation? Or just plain fear?

He couldn’t have been more than twenty-six, and if I read his body language correctly, he was a man who would leap backwards through the double-glazed window at the sound of a nearby hiccup.

“My name is Camilla MacPhee,” I said, soothingly. “And I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

He said, “I’m not taking any new cases just now. And as you can see, I’m really quite busy.”

“Won’t be more than a minute. First of all, my condolences on Rollie’s death.”

“What? Oh. Yeah. Thanks. But really, I hardly knew him. I’d just joined the office last year and…”

I smiled understandingly. “I understand. Not to trash the recently diseased, but I imagine you’d just discovered that Rollie was sleazy, difficult and inclined to take advantage of the staff.”

He loosened his collar. “I wouldn’t exactly…”

I added, “And now he’s dead.”

He sat down and nodded. For a moment he seemed like a little boy, lost and most likely in big trouble over it.

I said, “Murdered too, which just makes it even worse.”

He glanced over at me. “What do you want?”

“Just to talk. I’m trying to understand what’s going on. Did you see the lawyer joke that Rollie received before his death?”

“What do you mean? A joke? Rollie’s death was horrible. Why are you talking about jokes?”

“I heard a rumour that he got one in the mail and then got a piece of paper with his name on it on the day he died.”

“Look, I don’t know what you want from me, but I don’t have time for this kind of sick nonsense.”

“Fine, but then, of course, I’m also interested in why you backed out of the Brugel case.”

He stared at me, took his time. “It was really in fairness to the client.”

“It sure was. I’d say it was Christmas in June, with a hint of Easter Bunny for Brugel.”

He flushed. I think they call that shade puce. He sputtered. “I don’t have enough experience to conduct this case. Rollie had all the background.”

“Give me credit for a brain. First of all, Rollie was so lazy, he probably didn’t wipe his own butt. You were the one required to do all the digging. You did the work, and probably knew the case cold. So let’s not bullshit about that.”

He straightened up and tried to save his dignity, although his lingering blush undercut that somewhat. “This is a private office. I believe I asked you to leave.”

“Sure thing. But I imagine the court will find it interesting to learn that you’ve been threatened by Brugel and that’s why you’re backing out.”

Amazingly, he went from puce to the colour of his dropped papers. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him crumple onto the floor on top of them. But I had to give him credit for trying to brazen it out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one’s threatened me, unless that’s what you’re trying to do.”

“Nice save,” I said, with admiration.

“As I said, no one’s threatened me.”

“No one suggested that it might be better for your girlfriend if you backed out?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend. There’s the door.”

“Did your car have slashed tires?”

“I bike to work. No money for a car yet.”

“Fair enough. Getting strange phone calls? Breathing on the line, nothing else? Finding your door open when you left it locked? Things mixed up on your desk?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

Liar liar pants on fire. “Really?”

“I’m going to call the police now.”

There are guys who can utter a threat and your life flashes before your eyes. Jamie Kilpatrick wasn’t one of them. He couldn’t have scared a toddler if he was dressed as the devil on Hallowe’en. I wondered how he’d ever make a go of it in criminal law. Not a good job for a guy who can’t bluff.

“Go right ahead. I have lots of contacts there. They’ll be interested to know why the Brugel trial is delayed yet again. Some of those cops have a real hate on for Brugel. If they thought you had dropped the case in order to help him get a delay, they could start hassling you. Big time.”

He shrugged. “Let them.”

That told me something. Jamie Kilpatrick was not afraid of the cops hassling him about withdrawing. He wasn’t afraid of me, although lots of other people seemed to be. But he was afraid of something. What? Lloyd Brugel was on the top of my list of possibilities.

“Okay,” I said, “did he kidnap your cat?”

“What? Are you crazy? What cat?”

“That’s probably a good thing with Brugel’s people threatening you. Your dog then?”

“No dog. No pets. No threats.”

“You need some new lines, Jamie. I understand the part where you’re afraid of something. And there’s some reason for it. You should really tell me, for your own good.”

He leaned over and picked up the phone. He pressed nine. Then one.

I raised my hands in submission. “Fine. Sorry I got you all steamed up.”

He lowered the receiver, slowly, but didn’t hang up. I glanced at his shelf as I backed from the room. A framed photo of a graduation day. A solemn Jamie with a beaming couple who looked to be in their eighties. The photo had been taken in front of a small post-war bungalow. A vast spreading maple shadowed the tiny house. Parents? Not likely. Grandparents then. I stared at the photo, then met his eyes.