Foul Deeds: A Rosalind Mystery (17 page)

“I'm just putting it all together now,” I said. “Believe me, I'm not holding back.”

“You're not holding back but suddenly you know what he drives. Give me a break!”

“Look, I now realize that this guard is actually the same guy who was tailing me last Thursday. I didn't recognize him when we arrived here because the day he followed me he was wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket. He's also the same one who was driving the car the night McBride was roughed up, the night his cellphone was taken. McBride was on an assignation that night to meet up with an anonymous caller—whom we think was Aziz—to obtain some information on the murder that I referred to earlier. That meeting was hijacked—probably by this guy and the other one we sent to the hospital tonight. I'm convinced they're both working for someone else, and I believe I've got evidence pointing to who that is, but I'm not prepared to talk about that here.” I glanced meaningfully towards O'Toole, who was still on the phone with his back to us. I was reluctant to discuss our suspicions of Carl Spiegle in front of O'Toole.

“Anyway,” I concluded, “the important thing is I was right about Sophie, wasn't I? She was here. We are on the trail.”

“But still one step behind. Don't you realize that if you'd let me in on your suspicions about the guard we might have found her before he pulled her out of that office?”

“You're right,” I said. “I wish I'd recognized him earlier. He got away with sending us a kilometre down the tunnel so he could get her out of here. Thank god McBride left the group and came back here in time to see them escaping. With any luck, he's on to him now.”

“Let's hope we're not too late—and that the boot came off a girl who was still alive and kicking.”

O'Toole hung up the phone, having finally gotten the code. He went over to the controls, punched some keys and, to our great relief, the lift began to descend. We all got on the elevator—O'Toole, Arbuckle and the duty sergeant who had accompanied him, Speed and his wrangler, Molly and me. We ascended in dead silence.

There was a car waiting for Arbuckle and a van for Speed, the wrangler and the sergeant. I got into the car with Arbuckle, who was already on the phone to the station.

“Anything?” he asked. I looked at him as he nodded. “So our boy's coming 'round, is he? Good, I'm on my way to the hospital.”

“I'll drop you off,” he said to me as he snapped his cellphone shut.

“No you won't. I'm coming too. You're stuck with me.”

When McBride got to the top of the ladder
he was sorely winded from the rapid climb in the severe cold. Fortunately he'd had gloves, or it would have been an impossible feat.

He quickly got his bearings and realized he would have to take a different exit out of the site than Sophie and the security
guard would, because the elevator platform was on the other side of the huge dig. Near him, a wide-gated entrance for trucks was barricaded with chains and a “Keep Out” sign. He had no problem scur
rying under the metal gate. Finding himself just at the bottom of Cornwallis Street, he moved up the hill to the corner of Barrington and tried to assess the situation.

He had a good overview but there wasn't a soul anywhere. Just then, cross corner from where he stood, a car squealed onto Lower Water Street. It was a dark sedan, but it was not quite light enough outside to see anything more. The curious thing was that the car turned the wrong way on the one-way access road, convincing McBride that it must be the guard and Sophie. They were headed south into the city and apparently in a hurry.

Standing at Cornwallis and Barrington, McBride spotted a lone vehicle coming towards him. It was a Casino taxi heading south. He hailed the cab, jogged across Barrington and jumped in.

“Quiet morning,” the driver said.

“Stay left,” McBride ordered. “Go Hollis. And fast.”

“Whatever you say, buddy. Where you off to in such a hurry?”

“I'm looking for someone in a car. We might be too late to spot them.”

“Fellow steal your girl?”

“You must be psychic.”

They were coming to the stoplight on Hollis at Duke. Ahead of them were very few vehicles, but the lone car that had turned right a couple of blocks ahead could be the one. In the increasing dawn light McBride could see that it was a familiar dark blue Dodge.

“I'm an idiot!” he blurted out as it struck him hard who the night guard really was.

“Got it bad, eh buddy.”

“Just turn right at Prince.”

The driver moved into the right lane and turned. McBride caught sight of the car. It was still climbing—going all the way up to Citadel Hill. It turned left at Brunswick.

Luck was with them and they just made the light at the top of Prince in time to see the Dodge taking the right turning lane onto Sackville.

“Take Sackville,” McBride said.

The Dodge was stopped at a red light at South Park. As the light changed it took a left, heading along the Public Gardens towards Spring Garden Road.

“Left at—”

“I'm on him,” the driver said.

They stayed behind the Dodge all the way down South Park, and followed when it took a right. McBride stopped the taxi when they reached the Robie Street intersection, paid the driver, then stood looking up the empty street to the house where the car had turned in.

“Well I'll be damned,” he said aloud.

* * *

I wasn't eager to stare into Scarface's piggy eyes again, but more than anything I wanted him to spew out information about where Sophie might have been taken. On the drive to the hospital I filled Arbuckle in on the evidence that implicated Carl Spiegle in the death of Peter King. I explained how there were direct references to him in the material that Aziz had gathered at King's office—all of which was in a file that Sophie had received from Aziz and which, I admitted, I now possessed; how McBride would be seeking a permit to exhume Peter's body to establish poisoning; and how I had a pretty good theory on the substance that was used. What we needed was proof that these two, Scarface and Matrix-man, were Spiegle's boys. And we needed real motive—proof that King's unrelenting interference with Spiegle's money-grabbing schemes had led to murder.

I knew I owed these details to Arbuckle now. I was serious and succinct, and he listened carefully. Everything that had happened during the last day—starting with the cellphone landing in my hall, the ransacking of Sophie's apartment, her disappearance, the violent attack on Aziz, the attack on me, and the startling occurrences at the sewage treatment site—all corroborated what I was saying. I respected him for not admonishing me any further about withholding facts or holding me responsible for Sophie's involvement. He could see I was already wracked with guilt and apprehension.

When we arrived at the hospital, we left Molly in Arbuckle's car and went directly to Outpatients to see if Harvie was still waiting for someone to look at him. He was nowhere in sight and I hoped he'd been attended to and was home in bed. We went up to the fifth floor where they were treating Scarface.

We stepped off the elevator and turned the corner, looking for B14. There, sitting on a bench outside Scarface's room, his right cheek bandaged, was Harvie. My heart gave a funny little leap when I saw him, and I smiled. He stood as we appeared.

“Good, oh good,” he said. “I was pretty certain you would show up here eventually. Is everything okay? What happened at the site?”

“Oh my god, Harvie, too much has happened.” I spoke quietly. “And we still don't have Sophie. She was there, but the site's security guard turned out to be Scarface's partner in crime, and he managed to get her out before we realized who he was. McBride's on the trail, I hope.”

“How are you, Greenblatt?” Arbuckle was undoubtedly experiencing his own pangs of self-reproach about Scarface getting back into my house in the midst of the grand search his team conducted in my backyard, while he himself was sitting in my kitchen drinking tea.

“I'm good,” Harvie replied, patting him on the back, “oh yeah, no worries—just fine. They stitched me up pronto. Okay, so now what's happening?”

“I'm going in to see if we can get some information from buddy-boy here,” Arbuckle said, and with that he opened the door and entered the room. There was a constable in the room who rose when Arbuckle entered.

“Let's go in,” I said to Harvie.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Your friend Arbuckle's a good guy, Harvie, and we're getting closer to solving the case, but I'm frantic about Sophie and Aziz. I'm very relieved that you're okay, though. As you said earlier, too many people are getting hurt.”

“Keep the faith,” he said, and pushed open the door for me.

Scarface was propped up, a bandage on his head, looking like a circus-mirror image of McBride the day Sophie and I had visited him in the hospital. He was staring straight ahead, mute. It seemed Arbuckle hadn't gotten anywhere. He gestured for me to go ahead and say something.

I looked at him and rallied my nerve. “So the tables have turned. You thought you had me, and you thought you had your hands on the information, but life is full of surprises.”

“Shut up,” he shot back.

“Charming as always,” I said.

Arbuckle picked up the interview. “You can talk after all. Well, we have another surprise for you. We know that your partner was holding Sophie in the treatment plant site. Were you in on that part of the scheme?”

He stared out.

“I hope not for your sake,” Arbuckle continued, “because now that the girl's dead and your buddy's on the run, things are going to get very serious for you.”

He twitched. “She's not dead.”

“I'm afraid she is. Your buddy got carried away, just as you did with the boy in the railway cut. How many murders will you be taking the rap for, while your partner skips town?”

“She's not dead. He was taking her to the house for a meeting. That was the deal.”

“What house?” I interjected.

“If she was really dead, why would you care what house?” he shot back.

“And what deal? Who are you protecting?” Arbuckle asked.

“I want a lawyer. Now get out.”

“Well, get one today because we'll be back.”

Harvie, Arbuckle and I exited the hospital room.

“What house?” I repeated.

“
I'll drive you home,” Arbuckle said. “There's a possibility he's referring to your house, since that's where he went to find the file. They may have originally intended to drop Sophie there after scaring you into giving up the goods.”

“Well, even if that was the plan, Matrix-man just saw me with you at the plant. He would never take Sophie there now.”

“I'm going to take you to your house anyway, check it out.”

Arbuckle waited inside the front door while Harvie and I took a quick look around. Molly seemed unperturbed. Nothing was out of place and there was no one there. Arbuckle left us and went to the police station to see if anything had come in from the APB.

H
arvie went into the kitchen to make us a breakfast of coffee and fried eggs while I trudged upstairs to take a shower. In my room remained the chaos from when Scarface crashed to the floor a few hours earlier. He had knocked over the bedside table on the way down and the lamp was lying on its side. I stood the table up and replaced the lamp. In the closet, the boards were undisturbed and I neatly rearranged my shoes and boots. Pulling off my T-shirt, I walked over to the desk and saw my message light flashing. McBride?

“Hi Roz. It's Daniel King. I'm just calling to tell you that I'm back home in Ontario and have been proceeding with the work on my father's estate. I thought you'd like to know that my mother's been in touch. She should be flying into Halifax this weekend because she needs to sign some papers at the bank to complete the transfer of my father's funds. I know you wanted her permission to exhume his body and I thought you might get it if you talk to her in person. I hope you're making progress. Please let me know. Bye for now. Oh, I forgot to say, she'll be staying at the house…”

I stood under the hot water for almost a full minute before it hit me. I turned off the tap and jumped out, barely drying off as I scrambled into my clothes. “Harvie!” I yelled down the stairs.

“Breakfast is ready, Roz,” he called back.

“No, I've got it. I've figured out where they are. We need to call Arbuckle. See if you can get him on the phone for me.”

Mc
Bride was on his belly in the snow,
camouflaged by evergreen shrubbery that was planted up against the back of the King residence. He was moving slowly towards a basement window, where he could see a glow through the frosty glass. He thought he could hear voices but the sound was indistinct. He needed to get inside. And it would seem that his best bet would be to enter through the basement somehow. A second window farther along at ground level showed no light, so was likely in a different section of the basement. The danger now was being seen from the kitchen window. If someone stood at the window and looked down, McBride would be visible.

He continued to wiggle along the wall of the house, partially hidden by the emerald cedars and juniper shrubs until he was in front of the second basement window. On close examination, it was well sealed and he wasn't convinced he'd fit through, even if he could get it open. He let his face drop onto the cold ground and sighed.

He was startled by the extremely clear and present sound of a woman's voice. Quickly, he looked around but could see no one. He shifted onto his back and looked up. He was staring at the underside of a small balcony that extended off the second floor, probably from the main bedroom. A hand holding a cigarette extended over the balcony rail. He pushed himself tighter against the wall.