City of Ice (23 page)

“Where’s his lawyer?”

“What difference does it make? Kaplonski will clam up and call him. After he talks to him he’ll go real quiet.”

“He can try,” Cinq-Mars demurred. “It’s not so easy to say nothing.”

The sun on the windshield warmed them.

The cellular phone rang, and Cinq-Mars retrieved it and uttered his own name and no further word. He powered off and smiled at Mathers. “Golly gee, Bill,” he said, with mock surprise. “Kaplonski’s lawyer just went into court. Gitteridge has a trial—judge and jury. He could be incommunicado for hours.”

Chuckling, Mathers shook his head and sat up straight. “Émile, we can’t talk to Kaplonski. He lawyered up. You know that.”

The argument evoked little more than a shrug from Cinq-Mars as he called on the two-way for Déguire to come around. He and Mathers clambered out and strolled down the block, taking their time.

“Seems to me we picked him up on suspicion of car theft and possession of stolen property,” Cinq-Mars mentioned. “That’s my recollection. Now I’m arresting him for murder. Different story. He never lawyered up for that.”

“You’re splitting legal hairs.”

“Too bad for him his lawyer’s in court. Gitteridge could’ve guided us through the hairsplitting, given us a few pointers. Unless you’re offering to be his counsel?”

“Émile, he won’t talk to us.”

“At the station? Never. Kaplonski values his life too much. But HQ’s a distance—who knows?—we might get to chat along the way. A little human discourse, Bill—it’s rumored to be good for the soul.” Cinq-Mars stood at the foot of the stairs, gazing up. Yard space was precious and sloped. Children, sliding on their fannies, had plowed troughs through the snow on the lawn down to the bare sidewalk.

“Straight on, Émile? Murder won’t stick to this dope. Accessory, maybe. Material witness, good chance. Homicide? Never.”

“I doubt he did it myself—but does Kaplonski need to hear that from me? Follow my lead, Bill.”

“Once in a blue moon, it’d be nice to know what’s going on ahead of time.”

Cinq-Mars cracked a wide grin. “Simple as pie, William. LaPierre gave this man a gentle rubdown and a manicure, trimmed his hair. I don’t plan to sprinkle him with talc. I’d prefer to see him itch. I want Kaplonski to feel an insatiable urge to scratch himself.”

The squad car braked at the foot of the stairs to Kaplonski’s place, driving a front tire onto the sidewalk, narrowly missing a hydrant. Déguire and the uniform jumped out, and the four men leisurely climbed the first set of stairs in the morning light with the rhythmic flash of the car’s rooftop cherries reflecting off the brick. Déguire looked peeved. His partner’s archrival had selected him for this duty, and he looked worried about that, his heavy forehead sinking lower over his eyes. He seemed lost in troubling thoughts. At the initial landing Cinq-Mars signaled him and the uniform to circle around through the snow to the rear as he and Mathers carried on.

“So why’s Déguire here?” Mathers asked quietly.

“No special reason.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Cinq-Mars gestured with his chin. “It’s a test.”

“You test us all, don’t you, Émile?”

Cinq-Mars removed his revolver from its holster, pocketed it, and with his free hand rang the bell. “East of Aldgate,” he stipulated.

“East, west, north, south—makes no difference to me. Who knows what you’re talking about?” Mathers knew enough to take out his gun and snap the detective shield off his belt.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, Bill. Anything on for the weekend, you and your wife?”

Mathers shrugged. “No plans, no. Why?”

“Come out to the farm Saturday night for dinner.”

The interior door opened. “You’re kidding me.”

“Why would I? Our wives can meet. I’d like to show you the place.”

Wrapped in a bathrobe and smoking a cigar, Kaplonski answered the door. He snatched the cigar out of his mouth to more effectively sneer. “What’s this?”

Cinq-Mars ignored him and pressed his partner instead. “What do you say?”

Mathers sputtered, “Sure. Thanks. Look forward to it.”

“Sevenish all right?”

“Fine.” He couldn’t fathom his partner’s timing.

Turning, Cinq-Mars inquired, “Mr. Walter Kaplonski?”

“Dickface, you know me.”

“Police.”

“I know who you are, Asswipe. You got a warrant?”

“Sir, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Hagop Artinian.”

Kaplonski was shaken. He visibly paled.

“May we come in?”

“What for?”

“So you can change your attire, sir,” Cinq-Mars pointed out. “Otherwise, we’re obliged to take you downtown dressed as you are.”

Kaplonski checked his bare legs under the housecoat. “You limp dick,” he seethed, looking up again.

“Thanks for the invitation.” The two policemen followed Kaplonski into the house, and before they’d gone ten feet he had his hands on a telephone. Cinq-Mars stepped up and clicked the line dead. “No calls,” he informed him.

“Hey! I got a right to talk to my shyster!”

“Sure you do.” Cinq-Mars took the receiver from his hand. “Your guy’s in court, I’m just saving your breath. Make the call downtown.”

“Pig Pussy,” Kaplonski muttered.

“Put out that cigar, sir.”

A blustering Kaplonski suggested to Cinq-Mars that he preferred carnal relations with swine and goats.

“True, but you’ll do in a pinch. Now put out that damn cigar.”

Kaplonski shot a look at Mathers, who merely grinned, his pistol in evidence at his side. Taking one last contemptuous drag, the prisoner crushed the cigar in an ashtray on the telephone table and glared back at Cinq-Mars.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Despite the prohibition against the pastime, Kaplonski seemed wrenched by thought. He considered his options carefully, and chose to blow his smoke away from the detective’s face.

“Where’re your clothes at?” Mathers asked.

“Pig Puke.”

“Where?” Sticking an edge of his gold shield up the man’s nostril, he lifted.

“Upstairs.”

“So let’s go there.”

On the way up, Mathers wiped his shield on the shoulder of the man’s robe.

In an untidy lump, Okinder Boyle lay on his bed, the knock reverberating in his head like pistol shot. “Who’s there? What the hell do you want?”

A young woman’s voice replied, “I’m looking for Mr. Boyle.”

“Can it wait? I’m not up.”

“It’s important. I need to speak to Mr. Boyle.”

The act of swinging both feet off the mattress onto
the floor started his head spinning like a wonky gyro-scope. Groggily, Boyle hoisted himself upright and tied the sash of his dressing gown. “Are you a bailiff, a rent collector, a bill collector, or an employee of any government branch whatsoever?”

The pause intrigued him, as though the visitor needed a moment to reflect on her choices. “None of the above. It’s urgent that I speak with you, Mr. Boyle. Whether it’s right this instant or in five minutes won’t make or break me.”

Urgent.
The need to talk had been moved from
important
to
urgent.
Boyle dressed hurriedly and did his best to tame his morning hair. About to admit his guest, he decided that brushing his teeth and gargling with mouthwash might be prudent, if for no other reason than to oil his Sahara tongue, the result of a wretched hangover.

He checked his look in the mirror again.
Life is hard and then you die.
He was the author of his own calamities. He just couldn’t come up with enough good daytime stories. The interesting people came out at night, and he hung out where they did. He knew why so many of the older reporters down at the paper were drunks. He was determined not to follow that path, believed he didn’t have whatever it took to be a real drunk. But he was a night owl, and loved that part of his life. Finally prepped, he flung open the door.

Before him stood an attractive, severe young woman, fair, trim, with delicate features, a large mouth, and smallish green eyes.

“Mr. Boyle? Okinder Boyle, the reporter?”

“Half in spirit, barely in body.” He held on to the door for support.

“My name is Heather Bantry.”

“Who?”

“You wrote a story on my father, Carl Bantry. You said he lived in a tunnel.”

“I wrote a story on Carl Bantry—”

“The Banker, you called him.”

“That’s right.”

“I saw your piece a couple of weeks ago. A friend sent it to me. My mother and I live in Seattle now, but I go to school in Vancouver. Since I was coming to Montreal with my debating team, I waited until now to get in touch.”

“I know who Heather Bantry is,” Okinder Boyle told her.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve met her. I’ve met Carl Bantry’s daughter.”

“Mr. Boyle, I’m sorry. I’m Heather Bantry. We’ve never met. I’m Carl Bantry’s only daughter.”

He suffered her accusatory gaze a few moments longer and found that the uncompromising nature of her regard obliged him to be civil. “Come in for a minute,” he invited. “We’ll talk about this.”

The night had been feral, a fact that was evident as he viewed the detritus of his room. Boyle scooped underwear off the chair he offered his guest, raked clothes from the desk and floor. Part of the mess he bundled up on his bed, and the rest he chose to ignore.

“Mr. Boyle—”

“Call me Okinder.”

“—my father does not live in a tunnel.”

“Few fathers do. However—”

“Why would you write such unadulterated crap?”

Time to sit up and take notice. The young woman’s rage was becoming apparent, her ability to fight equally obvious.

“I have to tell you, I had a rough night. You’ve taken me by surprise.” He grinned in his best sheepish, teddy-bearish manner.

“I don’t give a shit.” She sat pin straight in his office swivel chair. “You’ve caused my family embarrassment,
pain. We’ve suffered on account of my father’s illness, then you come along and exploit it. You embellish what he’s gone through. You take a grain of truth and out of that concoct ridiculous lies. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Wait a minute. Hang on here. I don’t know who
you
are—”

“My name is Heather Bantry—”

“I
know
Heather Bantry. I have
met
Heather Bantry!”

In a trice the young woman was on her feet fishing through the pockets of her coat. She pulled out a billfold and scattered several pieces of identification, many with photos, across his desk.

“There is only one Heather Bantry who has a father Carl Bantry who was a banker in this city and that’s me. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but let me tell you something, if there’s any way I can sue, I’ll do it. You can’t get away with this crap.”

She was up and headed for the door with her bits of identification in hand.

“Stop,” he urged.

She opened the door.

“Heather!” he called. She paused, turned, a hand on the door. “Hey, look, I’m confused. If I made a mistake, it was out of ignorance. Please. Stay a minute. Help me understand this.” The young woman wavered for only a moment longer before venturing back into the room.

She returned her identification to her wallet. “Why did you write that my father lives in a tunnel?”

Her razor anger impressed him. He could detect no guile in her. “Tell me something, Miss Bantry—Heather—how did you find me?”

“I asked for you at
The Gazette.
They said you’re not usually in the office, and they don’t hand out home addresses. I asked around but nobody could help. Then I found out you used to work for another paper,
that alternative rag thing? They had no qualms about passing out your address.”

A better story, Boyle considered, than the one provided by the first Heather Bantry, who had merely followed her nose and been guided by strangers on the street. “Heather, why do you think your father doesn’t live in a tunnel? When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Yesterday. I come up from time to time. He lives outside the city, way out. He’s in a nursing home on the south shore.”

He sat back to absorb the news. He needed help here, guidance. If the woman proved to be who she claimed to be, he might have been responsible for a serious breach of conduct. He’d have to own up, and the potential for public embarrassment was extreme, but a different concern contested for attention. If he’d been duped, the question arose, why? Who had claimed to be the tunnel-dwelling Carl Bantry? And why? Who was the woman who had posed as Heather?

“The nursing home—who pays the bills?”

“His old bank. The one he worked for.”

A contradiction, as the bankers he’d consulted to verify the original story hadn’t mentioned supporting Carl Bantry. Still, neither her conviction nor her identity could be readily dismissed.

“Miss Bantry, do you have a number where you can be reached?”

She did. She was staying in nearby Westmount. The original Heather Bantry had made an excuse not to offer an address. She had promised to keep in touch but had not.

“If what you say is true, I’ve been duped. I’ll apologize in print, submit to a stoning, jump from the Jacques Cartier Bridge, whatever you decide. Suing me, well—look around you. Not much future there. Suing the paper means fighting lawyers who win those
suits every day. If you can give me a little time, a little latitude, I’ll get back to you.”

Mollified, the young woman scratched out her address in Vancouver, her numbers there and locally, and provided the address where her father could be found. After she said good-bye, Okinder Boyle turned back to the cramped, dreary confines of his room. “What the hell?” he whispered aloud, and shut the door. “What the
hell
?”

Kaplonski came down the staircase dressed, cuffed, and grim. The uniform held his arm above the elbow, Mathers followed, and as he reached the bottom step Cinq-Mars sauntered over to the front door, hands in his pockets, jiggling his change. He peered around the lace curtains. A few curious Nellies were milling about outside, attracted by the squad car. Turning back, the policeman regarded his captive.

“Pig Fart,” the man said.

“Mind your manners,” Cinq-Mars warned him. “You’re better off if I’m in a good mood. I mightn’t do you any favors otherwise.”