Deadly Fall (11 page)

“That's all I heard. My guess is she agreed to withhold something from you in exchange for his letting her stay in Calgary. Tony, her father, seems in on it, too.” When Vincelli didn't respond, she continued. “I've been thinking: why would Tony go along? He wants Isabelle out of that house. He made a remark about preventing someone from murdering again. Maybe Isabelle refused to go home, so he made an opposite deal with Sam. He would stay quiet if Sam could convince Isabelle to leave. That put the squeeze on Sam. Isabelle would tell what she knows if Sam kicks her out; Tony would tell if Isabelle stays. No wonder Sam was edgy.”

She refreshed her dry throat with water. There was no point asking Vincelli if he agreed with her theory. He didn't disagree, so must think her speculations were worth his time.

“After the fight in the den, Isabelle came out all sweetness and light. At the door, Sam asked me out for lunch. He was visibly upset by my earlier questions. I think he wants to know what I learned from Callie and how much I overheard between him and Isabelle. That's why I contacted you. Should I have lunch with Sam, or not?” She leaned back on her chair.

“That's your decision.”

“You warned me that someone might probe to find out how much I knew. Sam probed at the reception. This lunch is more probing. Would I be safe going out with him?”

“Do you want to?”

With the darkness outside and the room's sole light shining down from the ceiling, this felt like an interrogation room. Yes, she wanted to go. She honestly thought Sam might reveal things to her he wouldn't to a cop. She couldn't shake the image of Sam's stunned stare when he came out of the den. Bewilderment and guilt were all over his face, although she couldn't say if it was guilt for murder. If it was, for Callie's sake, she should do what she could to get him thrown in jail. If it wasn't, whatever his flaws, he had been Callie's husband. Callie would want him out of this mess. Probably. Paula hadn't been there for Callie when she was alive, but she could do this small thing for her. Vincelli wasn't warning her of the risk. Did this mean he didn't think Sam was the killer?

“To answer your question,” he said. “It's up to you whom you meet for lunch.”

If Sam wasn't the prime suspect, who was? “Would you warn me off anyone in Sam's circle?”

Vincelli averted his eyes for a second, just enough to suggest he would. Who? Someone she had met at the funeral? Her meeting with Sam would give her access to his circle, which could be useful for the homicide unit. This could be Vincelli's first major murder case. He must be eager to solve it.

“Another thing I thought of,” she said. “This is similar to what I do for work. At lunch, I could turn the tables on Sam and probe.”

“No. That is our job,” he said. “For which they pay us the big bucks.”

“My job involves probing whiplash claimants suspected of faking or exaggerating injury.”

“Stiff necks are a long way from murder.”

That hurt. It was also true. Her job might involve similar skills, but it dealt with matters less vital, and less dangerous.

Vincelli's lips narrowed. “If you're going in order to probe, stay home.” He finished his water, savoring it to the last drop. “If it's a social visit with the husband of your late friend, I can't object to that.”

She was probably going for both reasons, and he hadn't argued strongly enough against the first one.

Lily's Café bustled
with lunch patrons. Paula walked past tables ringed with senior citizens and a long-haired artsy-looking group to a vacant two-person table at the back. Altadore, like her Ramsay neighborhood, was aging-turning-trendy, although more upscale and further along in the process.

She removed her jacket and waited for Sam, surrounded by green. A few years ago, when she discovered the café with her daughter, it was called Lily's Pad. Paintings of emerald lakes still graced olive walls; fake ivy wove along a ceiling border; green candles sat on chartreuse tablecloths. It had probably been a mistake to wear her green sweater.

It was twelve fifteen. They had agreed to meet at noon. Was Sam, like Callie, the type who was habitually late? Paula drummed her fingers on the avocado placemat. She hadn't seen that shade since her 1970s apartment fridge that froze her lettuce and thawed her ice. She left the table to check out the crafts for sale on the shelves. Ceramic frogs. Lime candles. Kiwi incense.

The café door chimed. Two young mothers maneuvered in baby strollers. Had Sam forgotten about their lunch? She should have given him her cell phone number so he could call if something came up. At last, something non-green in the place: a candle in the shape of a monkey seated lotus-style. He wore a sailor shirt and looked up at her with an open mouth and wide eyes that reminded her of Sam's deer-in-the-headlights stare before he slammed the door in her face. The monkey's cauliflower ears weren't small and neat like Sam's. The door chimed. Sam burst in and scanned the room. She held up the monkey to catch his attention.

He strode over. “Sorry I'm late,” he said between breaths. “I got tied up this morning. The detectives came by, and my father.” Raindrops rested on his gray-black hair. He dug his hand in his bomber jacket pocket and jangled the car keys. “I have to leave in half an hour. Let's grab some food. Looks like you order at the counter.”

She studied the chalkboard menu and chose a chicken wrap and chai latte. Without looking at the board, Sam asked for the same. She realized she was still holding the candle and told the counter clerk she would return it to the shelf.

“I've already rung it up,” the clerk said. “I'll have to redo the bill.”

The monkey's wide eyes pleaded; so much for her vow not to clutter her new home with knickknacks. She told the clerk she would take it. Sam insisted on paying for lunch to make up for being late.

At the table, she placed the monkey candle beside the centerpiece. “Is your father sick? I didn't notice him at the funeral.”

“He's only sick in the head.” Sam took the seat across from her. Not removing his jacket, he tilted his chair back. “The cops came by to tell me they traced the murder weapon to its owner. This was news to me. Last I'd heard the gun hadn't been found.”

This was still the official word, according to this morning's newspapers, although she had guessed it had been located with the cell phone. “So, it was a registered gun?”

“Unregistered.” Sam rocked the chair. “That's why they can't be sure he's the owner.”

“Who's ‘he'?”

Sam tilted the chair back so far she thought he would topple to the floor. He jerked it forward. The chair legs landed with a clunk.

“My father,” he said.

She glanced at the monkey face and pictured a feeble man nurturing his vegetable garden, which had been Callie's description of her father-in-law.

Sam scraped the chair toward the table. “I thought—hoped—he had gotten rid of the thing. The cops turned up at his house early this morning. They dragged him out of bed, checked the shed and discovered it gone.”

“Your father kept a loaded gun in his shed?”

“I don't know if it was loaded; neither does he.”

“The cops aren't sure the gun they found was his?”

“I told him years ago he should register it. Did he listen?”

Paula struggled to connect the dots. Callie had told her Sam's father lived in Bridgeland, which was directly across the Bow River from Ramsay and the murder site. A stranger stealing the gun and killing his daughter-in-law would be an unlikely coincidence.

Sam absently reached for the candle monkey. “The cops are checking taxi records and asking bus drivers on the routes near his house if a little old man got on and rode to the Elbow pathway the morning Callie died.”

“Could buses have gotten him to the pathway early enough? What time in the morning do they start?”

“I don't think the cops had checked into it yet.”

“Do they seriously think he did it?” The detectives might be bluffing or exaggerating the depth of their investigation into bus routes and trips to put pressure on Sam and his dad.

“My father is eighty years old. For his age, he's not in bad shape, a little arthritis. Physically, he is capable. I suppose he might have killed her for some bizarre reason.”

“Like what?”

He bounced the monkey from hand to hand. “He told me, once, she reminded him of my mother.”

His mother died when he was in university, Callie had said. His father had been devoted to his wife and crushed by her death. Surely, Sam wasn't suggesting his father had killed her?

The counter clerk appeared with their meals. Sam set the candle on the table. His expression seemed a jumble of anger, distress and annoyance.

She picked up her mug. “In what way, did Callie remind—?”

“We can thank Felix for this.”

“Felix Schoen?” The morose, heavy-drinking journalist from the funeral.

“The cops visited Felix on Friday. They questioned everyone whose name showed up on our phone records. I guess you know that.” He removed his jacket and let it drop to the back of his chair. “Felix is a gun nut. He must have twenty of them all over his house. The cops' questions shook him up. He's the sort who looks guilty when he goes through customs, whether he is or not.”

Sam's rust dress shirt coordinated well with the café's green. He twisted his wedding ring around his finger, reminding her he had been married to Callie. He noticed her staring at the ring and stopped turning it.

He picked up the candle. “During the interview, the detectives asked Felix if I owned a gun. Felix, thinking this will help me, tells them not only do I not own one; I'm such an ignoramus I wouldn't be able to tell them the make of my father's gun. ‘What gun?' the detectives ask.” Sam flashed a wry smile. “For some reason—maybe they took the weekend off or figured it was a long shot, pardon the pun—the cops didn't follow up right away. Today, they descend on my father. Bingo, his gun is gone from the shed.”

Paula finished her sandwich bite. “Maybe he moved the gun somewhere and forgot.”

“He's tearing the house apart, trying to find it. Even if he didn't kill her, he's in shit due to the illegal possession and storage. Serves the old bugger right.” His tone was matter-of-fact, with no hint of malice. He took his first bite of wrap.

“Why wasn't your father at Callie's funeral?” she asked.

“He's an atheist who scorns all religious rituals. He hates cops, too, and institutions. That attitude won't endear him to the police.”

“Did he buy the gun to keep squirrels from his garden or something?” That was a dumb suggestion. No one would do that in a city. Well, maybe in Calgary, although they'd be more likely to use a rifle.

Sam placed the wrap on his plate. “He bought it to kill my mother.”

She squeezed her mug handle. Foam spilled to the tablecloth. She scrunched up her napkin to clean the mess.

“She had cancer,” Sam said. “He bought the gun to end her pain, should it be necessary.”

She looked up, stopped wiping liquid from the tablecloth.

“She died quicker than we thought. I doubt he'd have had the guts to use it on her.”

She dropped the soiled napkin on her plate. His mother was likely in her forties when she died. If his father's gun was the murder weapon, the killer had to be someone who knew about its existence. Sam did. So did Felix.

“Who knew he kept the gun in his shed?” she asked.

“In theory, everyone, thanks to my big mouth. After my mother died, my father bought a large vase and stored her ashes in it, along with the gun. Every spring, he sprinkles a little of her on his garden for luck. That's how he knows the gun was there on the May long weekend. Whenever the subject of death or cremation comes up, I tell that story. There must be people rolling their eyes from having heard it before and who knows whom they told. My father told his neighbor down the street, which means half of Bridgeland knows.”

Half of Bridgeland had no motive for murdering Callie. Sam would want to cast a wide net to keep suspicion far from him. Had he really told the story that often or were those-in-the-know limited to his circle?

“I gather the cops showed your father the gun they found,” she said. “Did he identify it as his?”

“He's as dense about guns as me. All he could say was it might be his.”

“Where did they find it?”

Sam picked up the candle monkey. “A man out partying Friday night saw someone standing on a bridge drop an object into the Bow River. It struck him as odd. He thought it might be drugs or something and called the police hotline.”

“Lucky break.”

He scraped the monkey's shirt. “Most Septembers are too cold for parties outside. If it weren't for this unusual mild spell, the gun might have stayed buried forever.”

She shivered beneath her sweater. He sounded like he didn't want the gun found.

He picked at the wax eye. Was he an ex-smoker, like her, whose hands turned fidgety when he was tense?

“I doubt they could prove in court it was his gun,” Sam said. “I promised the old man I'd come over right away. Sorry to cut out on you. Shit. Isabelle. I was supposed to drop off her stuff at Felix's.”

“Isabelle? Felix?” That name was turning up a lot.

He plunked the candle on the table. “Yesterday Tony put his foot down and insisted Isabelle had to go back to Montreal. I was tired of getting caught in the middle and told her she couldn't stay with me. Isabelle was pissed. I came up with the idea of asking Felix to take her in. He has a huge house and is used to friends bunking over.”

This would explain the argument she had overheard between him and Isabelle. She nodded her acceptance of the official view. Nothing would be gained by having him think she was suspicious of him.