Amuse Bouche (24 page)

I watched as the gay gang made their way to the front door where they met up with Colleen and Norma who were putting on their coats.

Colleen gave me a nod of recognition. I turned back to Father Len and asked, "Who is Kent Melicke?"

"Tom and Kent were lovers several years ago. Before Harold."

It made sense now. The signs were there. I guessed Kent had not been the one to end the relationship. "Some unsettled business perhaps?"

"Not as far as Tom was concerned. But I think Kent believed Tom was still in love with him and would not go through with the wedding."

The crowd was pushing in on us and I knew the priest had many others to attend to.
"1
think I'll be leaving soon."

"It was nice to see you again. I wish it was under much different circumstances."

I saw the woeful look on his face and wanted to embrace him. Instead I reached out and gave his arm a quick rub that I hoped conveyed a message of caring and sympathy. As relatives and other mourners swallowed him up, I began my pilgrimage to the exit.

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I was halfway there, feeling like a football player in a game with no one else on my team, when I saw Randy Wurz. No wife. He was standing alone near a large potted plant wearing a lustrous black suit, Hugo Boss I thought.

He looked the way people do when they're in shock. I headed towards him, faking out a few boisterous babas intent on spilling their plates of food on me.

"Mr. Quant," he greeted me with unfocused eyes.

"I'm sorry to see you again under such terrible circumstances."

"The worst," he agreed, doing his best to look miserable despite his perfect hair. "Thank God they've got the bastard behind bars."

"You mean Harold Chavell?"

He finally looked me in the eye as if just realizing something. "Did you have something to do with that? Did your investigation lead to the arrest?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm afraid that credit goes to the Saskatoon Police Service."

He just nodded and made a muffled sound.

"Do you believe Harold Chavell would kill Tom Osborn?"

"Well, yes, I guess I do," he said with a stut-ter as if he hadn't considered an alternative. "It just makes sense, doesn't it?"

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"You're not the only person to think that," I said, remembering Kent Melicke using almost the exact same words.

"You don't think they'll let him go, do you?"

I shrugged. "They will if they can't prove he did it."

"God, I just..." He looked down at his untouched drink. "1 just can't believe he's actually dead."

I could see it was time to give the man some room to grieve. I could be sensitive when 1 put my mind to it. I said my farewell and struggled through the crowd towards the front door. I glanced back once and noticed another mourner approach Randy Wurz. He was a short, dark-haired man with a wide face and pronounced moustache. I stopped and studied the two from a temporary spot of inactivity behind a group of nuns. It took me only a moment to identify the familiar looking man. I'd seen his picture in the local paper several times. Dave Biddle—owner of a company called Quasar. Quasar is a local giant in the communications industry that regularly snaps up almost every award handed out by local and provincial business organizations. I wondered what he was doing at Tom Osborn's funeral. Might be worth following up. Another tidbit for the Herrings file.

Amuse Bouche

A short time later I was sitting in my car in front of Tom's apartment mulling over the last few hours and how the Herrings file was getting so damn full So far this day had done little but raise more questions. I thought again about Tom's bike. Knowing full well that he wouldn't need it again before the snow flew, Tom may have lent the bike to someone before leaving for France. Or perhaps it was sitting in a repair shop somewhere, waiting to be picked up. 1 fingered the key I'd found in Tom's apartment. I had gotten into the habit of taking it with me wherever I went. Could it be for a bicycle lock?

Where was that bike?

Tom could have ridden the bike somewhere and not returned. Maybe he hadn't used his truck on the Saturday he disappeared at all. I thought about where Tom could easily get to from his apartment by bike. Colleen and Norma lived nearby. Saints Peter and Paul Church was not too far, so he could have visited his brother, Father Len. Innovation Place, where the QW

office was located, would be a bit of a jaunt but certainly doable for a serious cyclist like Tom. I could check out the backyards and garages of everyone that knew Tom and lived nearby. But, not only would that take too long, 1 probably wouldn't find anything for the same reason bicy-Anthony Bidulka cle thieves are rarely caught. The evidence is too easy to hide.

I laid my head back on the car seat and closed my eyes. What else? What would he do with a bike he babied but knew he wouldn't use for a while...of course! He'd store it! There had to be storage facilities somewhere in his apartment building.

I jumped out of my car and rushed across the street to the front door of Tom's building. I punched in a security number I'd not used before and announced myself as the furnace service guy there to check things out before winter. I was buzzed in. I found the door that led downstairs. The basement was a good-sized room, floored in cheap but clean linoleum and well lit—all in all, not bad as far as basements went.

Bingo! Four bikes were neatly arranged in one corner, each securely padlocked. I quickly pulled the mystery key from my pocket.

Kneeling beside the bicycles I dutifully began on the first lock. It was too big for the key. I moved on to the second. Same story. The third bike had a combination lock and the fourth a fancy digital lock. It was this last bike that caught my attention. Bright blue. And in styl-ized letters along one shaft: Trek 5200.1 remem-277

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bered Colleen's description of Tom's bike. This had to be it. Another dead end. And the key was still a mystery.

I didn't know any more than I did before I'd gotten here. The damn key was beginning to irritate me. I stuffed it back into my pocket and began heading up when I noticed a series of small doors along die wall that ran beneath the stairs. They looked like oversized post office boxes. Each of the doors was clearly labelled with a number. They seemed to coincide with the apartment numbers. Storage lockers! I raced back down.

I found number 303. My hands were shaking as I pulled the key out of my pocket for a second time. I knew it was going to work. And it did. I swung open the door and peered inside. The space was much too small for a bike but I found a box that at one time held a brand new pair of Sorel winter boots. I pulled it out and flipped off the lid. Inside was an assortment of papers, but the first thing to catch my eye was a 3 l/2"x 5"

navy blue booklet. It was faux leather with gold embossing. I quickly recognized it. Tom's Canadian passport. My luck had just changed!

With this I'd be able to confirm the exact date he had given mc the slip and returned to Canada. I allowed myself a self-satisfied smirk as I realized the police had obviously missed this little 278

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treasure trove and would undoubtedly be interested in my find. Darren would owe me big time. I flicked the pages of the passport, carefully noting the immigration stamps.

My heart leapt into my throat.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Or rather what I wasn't seeing.

There were no stamps for France. Going to or returning from.

Tom Osborn had never left Canada.

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I GAVE MY HEAD A SHAKE and started from the beginning. Yes, it was a real passport. Yes, it was for someone named Tom Osborn. Yes, the picture matched the photo I had of Tom Osborn.

Yes, the date indicated it was his current, valid passport. I flipped through each page, much slower this time. Tom had done a fair bit of travelling in the past three years since he'd gotten this passport—but not to France. 1 looked through it one more time to convince myself I wasn't missing something. I wasn't.

I sifted through the balance of the box's contents. I paged through tax returns and noticed Tom's income from QW, although not insub-stantial, had decreased in recent years. I skimmed through student loan documents, insurance policies, warranty cards and instruction manuals but there was nothing I wanted to spend time on. Nothing that would tell me how my client's dead lover got to France and back without using his passport. Nothing that would tell me who, if it wasn't Tom, I had been chasing after in France.

Had Tom been using a different passport?

Perhaps he was travelling under an assumed name? Why? Was Tom Osborn actually an 280

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international spy or crime lord on the run, rather than the computer geek he was known to be? Doubtful. And besides, he had used plane tickets purchased by Chavell who would have used Tom's real name. Or had he?

It hit me.

It was a niggling little detail that had bothered me all along but I was never able to pin it down in my mind until now. The messengers.

The old lady in Cliousclat and the sultry-eyed man in Sanary-Sur-Mer—neither could speak English. Both spoke only French. Yet, according to Chavell, Tom barely knew any French. But somehow he managed to give detailed instructions to both these messengers? In Paris, absolutely, in Sanary maybe, but in a town the size of Cliousclat, a translator would have been extremely difficult to find on short notice.

Someone else had arranged the messengers and the messages. Was it Chavell after all?

The only way the passport made sense was if Tom was never in France in the first place.

But that idea made the least sense of all.

It was nearing 4:00 p.m. when I drove back to my office in a daze, my mind reeling with a host of bizarre possibilities that might explain the passport I'd found. By the time I slumped 28I

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dejectedly behind my desk with a Diet Coke I had concluded one thing. I had learned an important lesson. Never trust a fact, until you've proven it to be one.

I had no real proof Tom Osborn was ever in France. Harold Chavell said it was so and I'd believed him. In my defense, I had no reason not to. The ticket was gone, the apartment was abandoned, his luggage was missing, and most importantly, there was an eyewitness, Solonge Fontaine. The first hours of the investigation were hasty but I still chastised myself for not demanding the time to do my usual background checks before I got on that plane to France. I'd been distracted by the romance of being sent abroad to solve a case. Well, it was spilled milk.

If it wasn't Tom I was following in France, then who was it? Perhaps I was chasing a ghost.

I'd never actually seen Tom Osborn. I'd only had hints that he was near. Solonge Fontaine.

The clerks at the hotels. The messengers. Could they all have been in on it? Or had they simply been duped as I was? Who else knew the details of the itinerary? Only Chavell? Was he lying to me? Had he indeed sent me on this elaborate wild goose chase as part of a dastardly, clever murder plan? Chavell was certainly bright enough and familiar enough with France to 282

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have set the whole thing up. I squirmed as I once again experienced doubts about my client's innocence. But where was the proof? 1

had none.

I picked up the phone and dialled Darren's number. Since the morgue had released the body for the funeral, the autopsy results had to be in. Tom's time of death could be critical in proving Chavell innocent or guilty. I wondered if anyone was even paying attention to it, especially now that the police had their prime suspect in jail. If Tom had never left Canada, he could have been killed as early as the night before the wedding. Weeks ago rather than days ago. That possibility would open up a whole other group of suspects to the police. Suddenly the clues I had picked up in Tom's apartment before leaving for France (and had stuck in the Herrings file) were becoming more important.

The half-heart pendant. The vegetarian meal.

Who else had been in that apartment? Were they connected to the murder? Had someone been impersonating Tom Osborn?

Darren was not answering his phone.

I checked my e-mail. Nothing from TWirp.

Was I wrong about TWirp? Maybe all I'd managed to do was scare the pants off of some unsuspecting computer friend of Tom's.

It took me a while to get it right, but I finally Amuse Bouche

figured out how to dial the international number for Solonge Fontaine in Paris. I forgot about the eight-hour time difference, but fortunately Madame Fontaine was a bit of a night owl.

"Monsieur Quant, how charming of you to call again. Of course you will slip by for a night-cap?" she said in French.

I smiled at the invitation but doubted its sincerity. "I'm afraid I can't do that, but thank you.

You see I'm back in Canada."

"Canada! How wonderful! I love Canada.

All those red leaves."

She must have seen pictures of Ontario in autumn. In Saskatchewan, we have some red leaves in the fall, but mostly they're different shades of yellow, orange or brown. "I was wondering if I might ask you a few more questions."

And quickly dammit, this is costing me a fortune.

"Of course. Of course. How is my Harold?

And did you ever find his little friend?"

Did I just ask permission for
her
to ask
me
questions? "Harold Chavell has been arrested for the murder of Tom Osborn."

I listened carefully for her reaction. At first there was nothing, then a release of pent-up air.

After clearing her throat she continued, now serious and without the melody in her voice I'd come to recognize. "How can that be, Mr.

Quant? How can that be? I cannot believe that.

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You must be mistaken. The police must be mistaken. Is he... is he in jail?"

"Yes."

'"Oh my." And then she used some French words I wasn't familiar with, but from the tone of her voice I guessed Madame Fontaine was swearing a blue streak. "What can I do? Tell me."