Deadly Jewels (26 page)

It was ironic that fear could be manipulated to the point they had. But hatred always did, I thought. Fear of the “other,” fear of loss. Julian was right about that, anyway.

“Didn't happen right away,” said Julian, signaling for the check. “They were formed in the 1800s down in the States, and they reached Montréal in 1921. They targeted Catholic institutions in Québec, burning them down. Then they headed west, burned Université de Saint-Boniface in Winnipeg, killed some students. And except for a little activity here around 1980, they've pretty much stayed in the west.”

“So what do they have to do with Aleister Brand?”

“Nature,” said Julian, “abhors a vacuum. So do people attracted to hate groups.”

“So anyone here who would have otherwise joined the Klan—”

“—could well find themselves in sympathy with neo-Nazis. The hatred's the same. The fear's the same. The need for violence is the same.”

I thought about it. “I don't know. From what Gabrielle said, I'm thinking that the violence is a little different here. That it's not violence for the sake of violence.”

“What, then?”

“That it's used to transcend. That the cruelty is somehow necessary in order to get past normal accepted decent human boundaries.” I remembered about chaos magic and how it decimated taboos.

“I don't know that people who want violence care about taboos.”

“Brand cares,” I said. “He may have recruited people who don't. If he did, then he'd have to indoctrinate them. This is sophisticated stuff, Julian. This isn't about galloping through a village wreaking havoc, or even stringing someone up from a tree. This is about concentrated evil.”

“All the more reason to pay him a visit.”

“And do what?” I asked again. “Walk up to his house, introduce ourselves? Hi, we think that you're doing something bad, and we'd like you to please stop it? Isn't that a bit more information than he needs about us?”

“If he's the magician you seem to think he is,” said Julian, “then he already knows.”

*   *   *

He'd been wrong about the escapes. There'd been quite a few, most of them successful, and all carried out by the same group of people.

They met in the cellar under the canteen.

Elias had been sensing an undercurrent ever since he'd been brought out of the quarantine of the Little Camp, a sense of some of the prisoners being closer than others, having some sort of shared secret. He ignored it, by and large: his plan was to do what he was supposed to do and stay alive. Some days, that alone felt like a tall order. The workshop, the daily report to the camp commandant, the hours spent standing still in the Appellplatz; they were all taking a toll on him. Elias had no interest in joining any groups, or factions, though he was well aware of their presence.

But if he'd been ignoring them, they weren't ignoring him.

He was awakened one night, a rough hand shaking his shoulder, a light shining in his eyes. “Come on, Kaspi.”

“What? What is it?”

“Come with us.”

It wasn't even all that secret, he thought as they marched him across the square; now that they were out in the blinding spotlights he recognized several of the kapos, the high-ranking prisoners, the ones who really ran the camp. No guards were in sight. “What have I done?”

“Shut up! Come on!”

Under the canteen the cellar was oddly cozy. A stovepipe extended from the chimney, and a wood-burning stove offered welcome warmth. There were chairs, and tables, and lamps hanging from the low ceiling.

About twenty men were in the room.

Elias was forced into a chair and the others grouped themselves around him. One of the kapos, a Russian called Vladimir, was directly facing him. “So, the Diamond Man,” said Vladimir.

“Yes,” said Elias nervously, his eyes darting around at the men. “I don't want any trouble.”

“You hear that?” Vladimir demanded of the room. “He doesn't want any trouble!”

They laughed as though at a joke.

“No trouble, Diamond Man,” said Vladimir, holding up his hand for them to stop. “No trouble. Do you know who we are?”

Elias shook his head.

“We're the ones who will liberate this camp someday,” said Vladimir. “We're your comrades. Do you get it now?”

“Communists,” Elias said. There was no secret of their presence in the camp; at least a third of the inmates were Communists. Some said the guards were afraid of them.

Vladimir nodded. “We're the resistance,” he said. “We're the ones who make life better for you here, by not letting those sons of bitches get away with what they do in other camps. We're organized. We have a printing press. We have a wireless.”

“Why are you telling me this?” It couldn't be good, he was thinking.

“Because you're one of us. You're a worker, like we are. You're exploited, like we are. And you can help us, Diamond Man.”

“How?”

Vladimir nodded as if Elias had just confirmed something for him. “You meet with Commandant Koch every day,” he said. “You are in his office. He trusts you.”

“I don't think he trusts anybody.”

“All right, all right. See that? Did you all hear that? I told you!” Vladimir cried to the other men. “Diamond Man is smart! All right, he does not trust you. But he needs you, and that is even better.”

“What do you need me to do?” Elias asked.

He knew already that he would say yes.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

We deferred the trip out of town when Julian got a call from headquarters. “Marcus has something to show me.”

“I thought Marcus wanted you off the face of the earth.”

“We cops,” said Julian airily, “can separate out our personal feelings from our professional work.”

“Uh-huh.”

What Marcus had, in point of fact, was a slideshow. “You got me interested,” he said to me, wheeling over to the table where the laptop was connected to the projector. “So I did a little digging.”

“Into what?”

“The New Order of the Black Sun.”

I exchanged a quick glance with Julian. I was reasonably sure we hadn't talked to Marcus about that—in fact, I hadn't heard about it until Gabrielle told me about it, up on the mountain.

Marcus was still talking. “Very interesting, how they've managed to stay under the radar,” he said. “We usually get wind of any activity … there's an echo. I'm a little like a spider, you see,” he added, looking at me, winking as he shifted metaphors. “I sit here at the center of the web, and I can usually tell when something hits one of the lines I have out there—it sets up a vibration, you might say. And I feel it. I check into it. I look and see who might have been setting it up.” He shrugged. “Didn't get a feel for this one right away.”

“When did you first hear about the New Order of the Black Sun?” Julian asked.

Marcus got it, then. “Gabrielle Brand told me,” he said easily. “She's one of my best contacts for the neo-Nazi world. Having had some experience of the former one, don't you know.”

“But she didn't,” I said. “Her father didn't even know she existed.”

“Beside the point,” Marcus replied. “Allow me to show you what I have.” He turned on the projector and an image came up on the wall, a large imposing building with water behind it. “This is Aleister Brand's headquarters,” Marcus said. “In—”

“—Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu,” Julian finished for him. “We're heading out there ourselves.”

“Are you? Good, then.” He touched the laptop and a new image appeared. “Photo taken last year, in Calgary, the center of Canada's neo-Nazi movement. That's not the term they use, by the way: they prefer to call themselves nationalists. Here's Aleister Brand with Kyle McKee, Calgary's leading nationalist. Look to be on friendly terms.”

It was my first look at Gabrielle's son, and the contrast between the two men was stark. While McKee looked the stereotypical skinhead—dressed in black, covered in tattoos, his head shaved—Aleister Brand was wearing a button-down shirt and khakis. Kyle McKee looked like he belonged in the streets; Aleister Brand looked like he belonged in the boardroom.

Marcus had more images. A march in some large western city, could have been Calgary, could have been Edmonton, Aleister discreetly visible on the sidelines. A rally, with Aleister present but not on the podium: standing beside it. Then a photograph taken from behind, of an unidentifiable person wearing a cape. The stylized swastika of the Order of the Black Sun was front and center on the cape.

“When did you find these?” asked Julian. He was frowning.

“I collect them,” said Marcus, turning off the projector light and wheeling around to face us. “You forget my job. I keep an eye out on all the right-wing groups in Canada.”

“The spider image,” I said helpfully.

“Indeed.” Marcus's gaze was benevolent. Nothing to see here, folks, move along. “You would be surprised at what tidbits come my way.”

“And yet,” said Julian, “you didn't mention any of it the last time we were here.”

Marcus was unfazed. “I thought it better for you to speak to Gabrielle first,” he said blandly. “I wasn't positive there was even a connection to your—case.” He made it sound questionable. “But I think that your researcher, Miss Mason, was onto Brand.”

“Onto Brand in what way, exactly?” asked Julian.

“Well, it stands to reason that there was some connection,” said Marcus. “He wanted the missing diamond; she had the missing diamond. The moment she had someone valuate it, people would start talking, he'd find out about it. Montréal's a small town in a great many ways, and no doubt Aleister Brand has his own sources of information.”

“His own spiderweb,” I suggested. Why was Marcus throwing Aleister at us? He couldn't be any clearer about accusing him of murder.

“As you say.” He smiled. “I must do my investigations online, alas, as I find my lack of mobility to be an obstacle in getting around to question suspects. You have no such limitations.” He beamed at us. “I wish you luck.”

His door had no sooner closed behind us than I rounded on Julian. “And what was that about?”

He was jiggling keys and change in his pants pocket. “Not exactly subtle, was he?”

“He might have been clearer if he'd put watercress around the platter he's serving Aleister up on, but only a little,” I said. “If he's so desperate about it, why didn't he tell us about Aleister before? Why wait?”

“Something changed,” Julian said. It appeared to be his mantra. “Let's find out what.”

*   *   *

I told Julian about Ivan and Margery and Claudia and Lukas on our way down to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. “I feel like if I say yes, then a huge chunk of my life is going to get subsumed, and I don't know if I have the energy,” I said, closing my eyes briefly as we passed a slower-moving car with inches to spare. “On the other hand, if I say no, then that pretty much makes me the Wicked Witch of the West.
And
I lose my marriage.”

“Why?” He looked startled. “Ivan would leave you?”

We were advancing quite quickly on a stationary car and my right foot automatically sought the brake. Hard. Deep breath. “Yeah, he has to say yes. They're his kids. He loves them. The worst part of the divorce, for him, was losing the kids. Of course he wants them to live with him. And if I don't…” I let my voice trail off.

“I see,” said Julian.

I glanced across at him, suddenly curious. He was probably about eight years younger than me, handsome in a way that comes from generations of good breeding and a whole lot of money. And he was, after all, one of the Westmount Fletchers. “Why aren't
you
married, Julian? Seems to me you'd be quite a catch.”

He surprised me. “I was, once.”

“Really? What happened?” I prepared myself for a tale of dramatic woe and expensive alimony.

“She died,” he said shortly.

There was nothing constructive to say to that. “I'm so sorry, Julian,” I said, inadequately, and he didn't answer. We crossed the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in silence. After a moment, Julian said, “Sorry. Didn't mean to be so abrupt.”

“That's all right. It was my fault. I didn't mean to pry.”

“You had a right,” he said, and I could feel his shrug next to me. “So here it is. Her name was Elizabeth. She wanted to go to law school, but she wanted a baby first. Her mother was forty-two when Liz was born, and she always said she didn't want to be an old mother, too. So she got pregnant almost as soon as we were married.”

“How old were you?”

He frowned at the road. “Where's— Oh, there's the turnoff.” He negotiated the turn, managing to keep all four tires on the road. “I was twenty-one,” he said. “She was a year older, twenty-two. Anyway, long story short, things went wrong, she had to have a caesarian long before the baby was due, and she died.”

She died. No intruders in that thought; I didn't intrude. I let the silence go on for a few heartbeats before asking the question. “And your baby?”

“He lived for ten days,” Julian said. “I spent all of them in the hospital with him. Ten days, ten nights.” A pause. “So tiny, so incredibly tiny. In an incubator, you know, but I could touch him, they let me touch him. I sang to him, sometimes, when we were alone, during the night. Beatles songs, mostly. I don't know where those came from.”