Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

“Okay, Benny, what does all this mean? You used to feed rabbits for Blackstone the Magician when you were little, right? What’s going on?”

“Your paper has the number from Vanessa Moss’s locker, right?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Fine. This is the number I wrote down in the shed behind Bob Foley’s place. You know, the one with the motorcycles inside?”

“Yeah. So Foley …?”

“Foley put his own lock on Vanessa Moss’s locker. It makes it more than a little probable that Foley picked up the shells at the scene of the Renata Sartori murder and took them to the NTC building where he put them in the locker. First, he had to cut off Vanessa’s own lock.”

“Does that mean that he killed Renata Sartori?”

“It makes him a damned good suspect. It also makes sense: he was a professional electronics technician. He had access to tools, including bolt cutters, and keys to offices.”

“But what’s the point? Why would he do it?”

“Foley and Vanessa go back a long way together. He attempted to rape her years ago at the CBC, and at the time, Vanessa tried to get him fired. She was trying again three weeks ago. He hated her guts.”

“That’s interesting, but what does it explain about the murder? Was Foley out to kill Moss but killed Sartori by mistake? Or does it mean that Sartori was the intended victim all along and that Moss engineered it all?”

“Who’s Moss?” asked the waiter.

“Could you find us some cinnamon toast?” Chuck asked through his teeth. The waiter, hurt, moved back to the kitchen.

“It means that Foley’s lock was on Vanessa’s locker. That’s all we have that we know for sure.”

“Okay. But on that premise, what may we build?”

“Let’s see. It means that if Foley wasn’t at Moss’s house for the shooting, he arrived later and took the spent shells. It means that he saw the body and that he probably took it to be Vanessa’s unless he knew for sure that Vanessa was still up north.”

“So, you think that Foley may not have been the principal bad guy here?”

“Could be.”

“There’s stuff missing. You know something you haven’t said. What is it?”

“I know-and I don’t want to say how I know right now-that Sartori’s murderer left the scene with the spent shells lying next to the body. I have a witness who will come forward, if we need him.”

“So that makes Foley the clean-up man for the real killer.”

“Fits him, doesn’t it? He was the gofer for Dermot Keogh. He was the boat wrangler, the buyer of arrowroot biscuits for the cello player.”

“Huh? Arrowroot biscuits?”

“What are you having to eat?” The waiter was hovering near again. If it wasn’t for more games, it could be that he was waiting to get on with his job. He placed some cinnamon toast between Chuck and me. I told him I now wanted some dry brown toast, a fried egg, orange juice and more coffee. With the addition of some back bacon, Chuck Pepper ordered the same. We didn’t talk again until the breakfast was partly demolished. And, even then, it didn’t prove very interesting.

When I arrived at the twentieth floor, twenty minutes later, Sally was at her desk, wearing a broad pink hair band. “Benny! There are two men in Vanessa’s office waiting for you!” She paused and added in a whisper: “I think they’re policemen.” I don’t know whether the last bit was to give me a chance to make a run for it or what. I squared my shoulders, gave Sally my best “damn the torpedoes” look and vanished into Vanessa’s sanctum. The cops were Jack Sykes and Jim Boyd, as I’d expected. Both were wearing the same clothes I’d seen them in last time. They looked the same, anyway. Maybe they had whole closets full of these mass-market outfits, designed to show off every overweight ounce they were carrying. Boyd was wearing that silly straw summer hat in his lap, like it was the only thing handy to protect his otherwise naked body.

I gave each of them a friendly grin and the opening for some wisecracks. They were not in the mood. “Benny,” Sykes said, “I gotta know when your boss is coming down here. I can’t get anything from the girl out there.”

“‘Girl’ usually means pigtails and freckles, Jack. You know: sugar and spice, skipping ropes and hopscotch, barrettes and-”

“I didn’t come here for a lecture on political correctness, Cooperman. You know goddamned well who I mean: the receptionist, secretary thingy, whatever she is. I know Moss is back from Los Angeles.”

“Back from the coast, you mean? That’s how we say it around here.”

“Save it, Ben,” Boyd said, showing that he was in a sober mood. He crossed his long legs, hiding most of the hat.

“She got back yesterday.”

“We know that. We know what plane she was on and where she went from the airport. We know what she did last night and who she was with until two-thirty this morning. What we don’t know is when she’s going to walk in that door.” I blinked at the efficiency of the local cops. I didn’t give them enough credit. I had been planning to skip the end of Tuesday, since it didn’t seem to advance the story any. But, perhaps I owe a word or two to the unsatisfied. From the Montreal Bistro we went back to Vanessa’s temporary residence. I would like to flatter myself that it was my company that recommended me to my employer, but I have to be honest. Any company would have done as well. We went through the motions, without the handgun this time, and I let myself out into the quiet street at the time noted by the stake-out guys, wherever they were hiding. On the way back to the hotel, I thought of Anna and groused inwardly about what a low-life I can be on occasions. The thought of Tuscany and the Californian mushroom king salved only twenty per cent of my conscience. I spent the remainder of the night sweating out the rest.

Sykes cleared his throat theatrically.

“There’s a big PR reception and press conference this afternoon,” I said. “She’ll be there. She won’t miss that. Why all the interest?”

“You can guess the answer to that. The shells that killed Renata Sartori that we found in Ms. Moss’s locker were fired from the shotgun you left with us on Monday night. That makes her our leading suspect as of right now.”

“That was fast work. Good on the boys in Ballistics. Must be a new record: this is only Wednesday.”

“Whatever. Anyway, we know now what we only suspected before. She’s moved up a rung on the ladder of suspicion.”

“What are you talking about? That shotgun didn’t belong to my client! You don’t know where I found it. I’m the one you want to question. Vanessa can wait. Hell, you let her skip off to California for the weekend. If she was going to do a bunk, do you think she’d be here now?” I’m glad Vanessa missed this welcoming committee. A jetlagged suspect, even one who has just outfoxed the network brass and saved her skin, is hardly better than no suspect at all.

Jack Sykes ran his fingers through his hair. Besides some red fuzz, there wasn’t much of it. He moved his hands to a fallback position with his fingers intertwined at the back of his head. “Our bet is that she had access to the shotgun, and she had the spent shells. Benny, Jim and I are thinking of driving north to check out that cottage of hers.”

“Wait a minute and think before you waste the taxpayers’ money on trips to Muskoka. Why would she bring the shells back here? I found the shotgun on Lake Muskoka. If she drove back with the gun, why didn’t she get rid of the used shells along the road, toss them into a lake or a ditch? Why did she plant these deadly mementoes in her own locker? It doesn’t make sense.”