Foul Deeds: A Rosalind Mystery (30 page)

Arbuckle entered last. “Okay,” he said, “let's get rolling.” He set up the recorder and identified the date and the participants.

McFadden pronounced that he was expecting something new and exciting to take place in the interview, and Arbuckle ignored him and jumped in.

“So, on that day in October when you visited Peter King, did you go to the front door or did you just go straight into the garden?”

McFadden bleated. “Did you hear what I just said? This is not new!”

“You're welcome to leave if I'm keeping you from something more important.” Arbuckle turned back to Spiegle and asked if he should repeat the question.

Unlike his lawyer, Spiegle seemed unperturbed and confident, as though he had nothing to hide. “King had told me on the phone he would likely be in the garden, so I just went through the gate at the side of the house.”

“And at any point during the visit did you go into the house?”

“King and I went in not long after I arrived.”

“And when you went into the house, you saw Mrs. King for the first time that day?”

“No. When I first got there, she was in the garden too.”

Arbuckle, clearly surprised by this new information, asked what she was doing there.

“Cleaning up the yard, I suppose.” Spiegle continued in his unruffled manner. “She was carrying around a bucket of clippings or something. But just after I arrived she went into the house.”

“What kind of a bucket was she carrying around?”

“A bucket is a bucket!” This was McFadden.

“It was one of those collapsible canvas buckets from garden stores.”

“What did she do with this bucket of clippings?”

“I don't remember.”

“So then a few minutes later you went into the house with Peter King.”

“Wait.” Spiegle sat up straighter and leaned forward. “Now I do remember what she did with it because when we went in to the house, the bucket was sitting on the walk just by the side door. In fact, King asked her what it was doing there, and she said something about taking it to the compost, and then he instructed her not to do that because he was planning to incinerate it.”

“I see. And then you entered the house?” As the questioning continued, I found my mind going back to the bucket of arils sitting just outside the kitchen door.

“We went up into the kitchen. He said he was going to wash his hands, and he went into the hall, to the water closet out there.”

“So you must have had a conversation with Mrs. King at that point?”

“She wanted me to try this winter tonic she had cooked up with rosehips. She had it in the blender.”

“In the blender?” Greta had not said anything about a blender. Arbuckle was intrigued with this new development. I leaned forward on my stool. Things were getting interesting.

“Yes. She said she had added apple juice to sweeten it. She poured me a glass and handed it to me. She told me to drink it all—that it would be good for me. Then the doorbell rang. She went out into the hall to answer the door.” Arbuckle nodded. This corroborated what Greta had said about the Mormons. He then asked, “Did you drink the tonic?”

“I'd had rosehip tonic before—when I was kid. I never really liked it. I just set it down on the counter.”

“And she returned to the kitchen?”

“No, Peter King came back then and he asked me if I'd gotten coffee. I said no, that she'd offered me the tonic but I told him I would prefer coffee. So he poured me a cup of coffee and then picked up the glass and drank the tonic himself, right down. Then we went back outside, and while he worked, I helped him with this and that and tried to talk with him about the project in Germany.”

“Did the conversation become heated? Were you arguing?”

“I was frustrated. But I had come over to try to make him see reason and so I just kept trying. And then he suddenly stopped talking and sat down on a bench and said he wasn't feeling well. He seemed a bit shaky. Then he grabbed his chest and looked like he was in terrible pain. That's when I rushed to the house and told his wife to call the ambulance.”

“And did she do that?”

“She became very distraught when I told her. But yes, of course, she called.”

“Did she say anything?”

“She just kept saying, ‘No, oh no, oh no.'”

Arbuckle stopped the interview at that point and suggested a short break.

McFadden leaned back in his chair and stretched. He loosened his tie. “Well Arbuckle, I hate to disappoint you but what I heard during that interview was the testimony of an innocent bystander.”

Arbuckle came into the observation room and said, “Let's go to my office.”

When we got there, we sat down and looked at each other.

“So Spiegle didn't do it?” I said. “What are you thinking?”

“It looks like a real fluke—she was trying to get Spiegle but Peter ended up drinking the poisoned tonic. She inadvertently killed her husband.”

“So, she would have taken the arils from the bucket outside the kitchen door and put them in the blender with the tonic and apple juice. That would have been an efficient way to grind the seeds and release a maximum amount of taxine.”

We continued hashing it over and tried to figure out why, if Greta had intended to kill Spiegle, she would help him later by retrieving the file and trying to get Aziz out of the way. Arbuckle also wondered why, if Spiegle hadn't killed King, he would go to such risky extremes to try and get Aziz's evidence.

“Time to get back in there. Why don't you join me this time?” Arbuckle said.

“You're on,” I said. “I do have a few queries.”

“I thought you might,” Arbuckle said.

Just as we were leaving Arbuckle's office, Harvie appeared.

“What's happening? They let me out of court early and I thought I'd plug in.”

“Good timing. The observation room is all yours,” Arbuckle said. “We're both going in to interview Spiegle.”

As I entered the interview room with Arbuckle, he said to them, “This is Roz. She's going to join us for this session.”

“Who's this exactly?” McFadden asked.

“I'm working with the Prosecutor's Office,” I said. “Nice to meet you too, Mr. McFadden. You're a legend.” I held out my hand to McFadden. He looked wary, but shook my hand. His hand felt kind of damp and meaty.

Arbuckle set up the recorder again, entering the time and adding my name to the list of people in the room. He looked at me and gestured for me to begin.

I said, “Mr. Spiegle, do you have an official business connection with Aqua Laben, the bottled water company in Germany, that you were trying to talk with Peter King about that day?”

“No. I have a moderate financial investment in that company.”

“Really? So you're not on the Board of Directors or anything.”

“No.”

“That company is attempting to secure the rights to Canadian bulk water, aren't they?”

“They were, until Peter King got a temporary injunction.”

“As an administrator working for our fair city, would you think it inappropriate to also be a member of such a board?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where's all this going? My client has just told you he's not on the Board of Directors of that company. Are you deaf or stupid?”

I levelled an unflinching look at “the Pugilist” and started firing my imaginary rockets in his direction, one by one.

“Well, I think there's a reason why your client hired those so-called security boys to prevent Mr. Aziz Mouwad from passing his file of information to the private investigator and a reason why the information in that file could be dangerous to your client if it got into the wrong hands.”

“Okay. Cut the drama. What's the reason?”

“That file contained many pertinent facts about your client which Mr. Mouwad got from Peter King's office back in August, and there's one tiny detail in that file that could almost go unnoticed.”

“I'm all ears.”

“It's the suggestion that your client Carl Spiegle conducts some if not all of his business affairs in Europe under another name. And under that name he is—are you ready?—a prominent member of the Board of Directors for Aqua Laben.” There was a moment's pause while the bomb dropped.

“That's the most—What do you think you're talking about?” McFadden sputtered, hitting the table with his meaty hand. “A suggestion, you say? A suggestion is not proof. Where's the proof?”

“I have proof, Ralph. I have Peter King's recent detailed research on this. Research that is far more thorough and up-to-date than what Aziz had in that file. Research that indicates that the bulk water that Aqua Laben was after was to be obtained through a very sweet deal being arranged by your client right here in Canada's Ocean Playground!” I turned to face Spiegle. “Because of your position here, you were able to facilitate access to Nova Scotia water for this German corporation at a cost of next to nothing, and you intended to personally profit by it when it was sold on the world market in the form of Aqua Laben bottled water. Would that be considered, let me see, a conflict of interest? Or maybe just plain illegal? In fact, isn't that an indictable offence?”

I glanced quickly around the room. McFadden was narrowing his eyes at me. His cheek was twitching. Arbuckle was clearly enjoying the show. I knew I couldn't drop the ball now—I kept going.

“And Mr. Spiegle, the real reason that you went to see Peter King that Sunday in October was because the jig was up. He had already obtained a temporary injunction, and his next step would be to call you up on the carpet and expose your second identity and your position with Aqua Laben. A conflict of interest that could cause you to lose your job, and probably land you in jail for quite some time. Isn't that right, Carl—or should I say Heinrich?”

“I need to speak to my client.” McFadden shouted. “What is this Heinrich stuff? What's she talking about?”

“Oh good question,” I said. “It's a question with a very long answer. But the short answer is Heinrich Brunner, isn't it Carl? A name that you come by somewhat honestly because it's the name of the man that took you in when you were orphaned. And that man was Greta King's father.”

I stopped short and looked at Arbuckle. “Oh, my god.”

“What is it?” Arbuckle asked.

I got up and paced around the room for a moment to try and think clearly. I was nodding my head every few seconds as the picture began to come into focus. I knew they were all looking at me like I'd just lost my mind, but I needed to put it all together and I really didn't want them to take a break.

I looked at Arbuckle again. “Bear with me. I just want to go over the story of that afternoon in October one more time.”

“Oh for Christ's sake! This is beyond reason!” McFadden threw up his hands.

“Sorry to tax your patience, but we have your client's version and we have Greta King's version, but neither of those is the truth. When you arrived in the garden, Mr. Spiegle, you did help Peter out with some tasks, just as you said. One of which was trimming the arils from the yew tree. Peter likely even explained to you why he was doing it: to prevent small animals and birds or neighbourhood children from poisoning themselves.

“At the same time, you were trying to talk to Peter about the Aqua Laben deal and he adamantly refused to back down and give you a break. That upset you—understandably. King had already been instrumental in the collapse of the Europa deal with the City. Then he had turned around and forced Europa out of the privatization scheme you were involved with in West Africa. And now, this very lucrative secret arrangement was going down the toilet, and you were about to get nailed. So, when Peter suggested that you come inside for some coffee, or for a taste of Greta's rosehip tonic, you agreed. As he headed in, you followed, taking a pocketful of those freshly trimmed arils with you.

“When you got inside, Peter went to wash his hands and Greta offered you some tonic sweetened with apple juice. She was just ready to turn on the blender when someone came to the front door. So she turned it on, and left it with you. Then she left the kitchen. And that was the perfect opportunity—you added the arils to the tonic in the blender, and blended them in. Then you poured it all into the glass, set it on the counter and waited.

“When Peter came downstairs and re-entered the kitchen, you told him that Greta had prepared you the tonic, but you'd rather have coffee. He poured you some coffee and you invited him to drink the tonic instead, and, without hesitating, he picked up the glass and drank the tonic down, then set the glass by the sink. And that's how you engineered the death of Peter King.”

Spiegle was shaking with rage by the time I finished my version of the story.

“He was a self-righteous bastard!” he seethed. “He deserved it—he took everything from me.”

“Everything? You mean, money, power and Greta?” I asked.

“Don't say another word Spiegle!” McFadden said. “What's going on here Arbuckle? I've heard enough of these outrageous fantasies.”

I ignored McFadden and pressed on. “You do mean Greta, don't you? She was yours once, wasn't she Carl? When you moved into that house, you two became deeply involved with one another. And then her father committed suicide and everything fell apart.” He looked at me. I could see him struggling hard to cope with the force of the truth as it began to come forward. He had his fist pushed up against mouth, as if to stop the words from coming out. But they came out anyway.

“At first, she blamed herself. Then she blamed me. But I…I didn't know. How could I know? He had never told me.”

I decided it was time to take the leap. “Heinrich Brunner hadn't told you that he was your real father. Isn't that what you mean?”

There was a pause as we all looked at Carl Spiegle.