Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

Friday

When I awoke, the sun was stealing the colours from my bedclothes, and the bed was not quite fixed firmly to the floor. The phone was ringing. I don’t know when the ringing started. It was Vanessa. “Benny, Sergeant Sykes just called me and told me all about it. What a narrow escape!”

“Thanks. What time is it?”

“Time you started looking for another job, Benny. I don’t need protecting any more. You’re fired!” I thought that there would be more, but she’d left the line. I was fired, and she’d hung up.

I pulled myself from the bed and into the shower. My body felt tender all over. A few bruises had appeared where I don’t remember hitting myself. My face in the steamy mirror looked wraith-like. I tidied it as well as I could and took the elevator down to the ground to find something to eat.

Sykes and Boyd were waiting for me in the Open Kitchen. Pepper was late, by the look of it. He arrived after I’d got down my first swallow of morning coffee. We sat staring at one another. I crunched dry white toast. Orange juice helped. So did a second cup of coffee.

“Are you going to tell us about this or what, Benny?” Sykes asked. “We tried to discourage you from getting involved with this thing, but you didn’t listen. Now it’s time to pay the consequences. Spill your guts, or we will spill them for you.”

“Jack, I wouldn’t hold out on you. Just let me wake up a little, okay?”

“Sure, take all the time you need, just so long as you’re talking in ten seconds.”

“Where do you want me to start? I’m not sure where the beginning is. Where a guy like Devlin steps off the curb into a set-up like this is more a matter for a shrink. He had a screw loose, that’s certain.”

“Save the theorizing. We’ll settle for a few gory details.”

“Okay, okay. The basic scam was this: Devlin and his pals tried to suppress the last will and testament of Dermot Keogh, late of this parish.”

“What? What are you talking about? All through this case we keep bumping into Keogh’s will. That’s what set up the Dermot Keogh Hall. That’s what Devlin was administering.”

“That was Keogh’s second -last will, and as such, it doesn’t count. The will that set up the concert hall, that put Devlin and Foley and Rankin in the business of managing Keogh’s estate, was superseded by a later will, which they tried to bury.”

“Take your time, Benny. We’re listening. When did all this take place?”

“Dermot made the first will-well, it may not have actually been his first , but it is the first one that involves us-while he was pals with Devlin, Foley and Rankin. It set them up in good style forever. Only trouble was, Raymond spoiled things. He got Dermot peeved at him trying to research Dermot’s past: visited his sick father, asked him to paint for him a portrait of the artist as a young man. Guess who became angry at him and went off and made a new will? Ed Patel was the lawyer who drew it up. He’s in hospital in Bracebridge and unaware that the earlier will is the one probated. Renata Sartori was a witness to this will. So was Alma Orchard, Patel’s long-time secretary. Both of these women were murdered to keep them quiet. Dermot was killed too, so that he couldn’t make more trouble and to get the estate established. Only a few people knew about the new will.”

“Three murders! Is that what you’re saying?” Chuck Pepper looked stunned.

“More than three. Bob Foley was killed too, because he was getting out of hand. He planted the spent shotgun shells in Vanessa’s locker. He thought it would confuse things. That undermined Devlin’s plan. Foley was turning into a liability. Loose cannon rolling across the gun deck. His petty crimes, such as keeping Keogh’s Jaguar and motorcycle collection, threatened to expose the bigger deception.”

“Correct me if I was hearing things, but did you just say that Dermot Keogh was murdered?”

“I said that.”

“Who killed Keogh?”

“Foley, under orders from Devlin. He monkeyed with the regulator of Keogh’s aqualung after they picked up the equipment at McCordick Brothers’ Marina. Renata was there, as well as Hampton Fisher and some strangers. Nobody’d suspect Foley because he was always tuning up the gear. That was the only killing last year. For a few months it looked like Renata was going to be a team player. She kept quiet about the suppression of the new will for nearly a year. But the conspirators could see that she wasn’t going to stay bought. At any time she could go public with her story. She had a new boyfriend; she could easily tell him. Ray killed Renata and Alma Orchard the same day. He drove up north, collected the shotgun from Patel’s place, where he’d seen it many times hanging over the fireplace. He took shells from there too. He dropped in on Alma, Patel’s legal secretary, surprising her on her way to a church bake sale and thumped her on the back of her head. He removed her clean clothes, put her in the tub and added the radio to the bathwater.”

“Nasty touch,” said Boyd. Sykes just made a face.

“Then he went through Patel’s office using her keys. That’s when he destroyed copies of the new will. He returned the keys and drove home to Toronto.

“That same night, Monday, the fifteenth, he shot Renata. She was about to spill her guts to Barry Bosco, her boyfriend. While he headed north again, to return the gun, Foley came in and took the spent shells. For him, it was easy to get into Vanessa’s office. He used a bolt cutter to remove Vanessa’s lock on her locker. When he’d put the evidence inside, he snapped on his own lock, thinking that nobody would check the combination of a cut-off lock.”

“Still harping on that damned lock!”

“Things remained calm for a while. First, everybody was convinced that it was Vanessa who’d been murdered. That suited Devlin fine. Later, the idea that Renata had been an accidental victim suited him just as well. Everything was coming up roses, until Foley walked off the Vic Vernon show. He was showing an independence above his station. That worried Devlin. It drew attention to Foley’s powers under Dermot’s will. When you test the fingerprint you found on the rubber glove in Foley’s kitchen with one of Devlin’s, I think you’ll get a match.”

“What did Trebitsch have to do in all this?”

“Not much. He didn’t kill anybody. He’s basically a busybody; has to know what’s going on. Insecure, you know?”

“What about Philip Rankin? How deeply involved was he?”

“He kept his mouth shut about suppressing the later will. He made the most of his Keogh connections at the network. But I don’t think he had the guts to kill anybody. But he knew that the killing was part of the plan. He was guilty of keeping his mouth shut, of conspiracy, of fraud and of being an accessory to one, two, three, four murders. Take your pick. He may not have known the details, but he collected all the benefits, including a cello named Hector.”

“Rankin was stabbed all right. We established that much before you left. But, Benny, there wasn’t a knife found at the scene. Not a knife, blade, shiv, nothing that could have made that single, deep, deadly wound in Rankin’s chest. I’m not talking about a tiny weapon: this one had to be at least a foot long.”

“Yeah,” said Jim Boyd. “And our searches haven’t turned it up. We’ve been into every sewer and gutter in the neighbourhood. We’ve been behind billboards and in empty warehouses: no murder weapon. Nothing like what we’re looking for at Devlin’s home or office.”

“That’s right. It wasn’t at the scene and it wasn’t in the vicinity. Nor did we get reports of somebody running down the street with a bloody knife in his hand.”