Pleasantly Dead (14 page)

“I have some questions for you, Mr. Thomas.”

Thomas picked up the tie, slipped it under his shirt collar. “I hope not too many, Detective. As you know, I’m the emcee for the evening.”

“Yes, we know.” Brisbois made himself at home on the desk chair. Creighton leaned against the window frame.

“You don’t mind if I finish dressing.”

“Not at all.”

Thomas picked up the jacket, went to the mirror. “Shoot.”

Brisbois balanced his notebook on his knee. “Mr. Thomas, the dead man in the cellar — you said you didn’t recognize him.”

“Yes, I believe I did say that.”

“You should have.”

Thomas pulled the chair out from the dressing table, placed it facing Brisbois, and sat down.

“Joe Conway.” Brisbois watched for Thomas’ reaction, got the flicker of an eyelid. “Why did you say you didn’t recognize him?”

Thomas sighed. “The man had some unsavoury connections, Detective. I came here for a vacation. To relax among nice people. The man on the floor…his face was bloated. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t him.”

“I could charge you with obstructing the investigation.”

“I suppose the price to dissuade you is a little conversation.”

“That’s right.” Brisbois reviewed his notes. “According to the Chicago police, Joe Conway had mob connections.”

Thomas sniffed. “Joe was the grandson of Frank Conway. Frank was a soldier in the old Cabrezzi gang — now defunct.”

“And you were his lawyer.”

“I represented him in a minor tax issue involving a bar and grill he owned. Joe’s connection to the mob was purely genetic.”

“So what was he doing here?”

Thomas shrugged. “You tell me, Detective.”

Brisbois studied him for a moment. “The Cabrezzi gang is almost a legend in these parts, isn’t it? The Cabrezzis owned the Pleasant at one time. Used it to conduct various criminal activities. They were raided by the RCMP. Some of them got away; some of them didn’t. The legend is the Cabrezzis left behind a fortune in diamonds, maybe even cash, when they skedaddled. But nobody ever found anything.”

“I’m aware of the legend, Detective. It’s in the brochure the inn hands out. I believe you’re holding a copy.”

“Charlie Taylor was your uncle.”

“The Chicago police are rather chatty.”

“Charlie represented Frank Conway.”

“He did.”

“Your uncle was a lawyer for the mob.”

Thomas smirked. “Please. Uncle Charlie was a drunk. He had a rather seedy practice, not the sort that attracted the Gold Coast crowd. He represented various disreputable types. Some of them were lower echelon gang members to be sure.”

“He represented Frank. After Charlie died, you acted for him.”

Thomas smiled. “If you could call it that. There wasn’t anything to act on. Frank was serving a life sentence for a myriad of nefarious acts. Charlie exhausted his appeals a lifetime ago. I was there more as a friend, to make him feel he was still in the game.”

Brisbois held his gaze. “You understand how strange it seems. A man known to you, with criminal connections, ends up dead at the very inn where you’re staying. At the very same time you’re staying here.”

“I can see why those coincidences would pique your interest.”

“I’ve put together a theory. If you’ll hear me out.”

“Certainly.”

“Rumour is your law practice hasn’t been doing so well lately. You’ve been a little down on your luck. You start to think about the legend, about the jewels, the cash, whatever. You enlist the help of your old friend Joe. You quarrel. You kill him.”

“I assure you, I did not kill Joe.”

“All that loot must have been irresistible for a guy down on his luck.”

Thomas’ face clouded. “Being down on my luck is a temporary condition, Detective. My wife died two years ago. A lengthy illness. Costly. I spared her no expense. I don’t regret that. While I was attending to her, my practice suffered. I have plans. I’ll probably relocate to a mid-sized town, start a quiet, steady little practice. Wills and real estate and the like.”

“You like to live rather well, don’t you?”

“Who doesn’t?” Thomas took out a cigar, nipped the end. “I never believed the story about the money, gold, vast quantities of precious stones. The inn has passed through several sets of hands since Antonio Cabrezzi built it. If there was anything to be found, I’m sure someone would have found it by now.” He raised his brows. “Besides, I always assumed, if there was anything, a crooked cop got it a long time ago.”

Brisbois stared at him. “What brought you to the Pleasant?”

Thomas’ face softened. “Ah, the Ambre-Gris — that’s what the Pleasant was called then — the romance of my youth. A name brought to life in the unsavoury men and beautiful women, also unsavoury, drifting in and out of Uncle Charlie’s office. Sentiment brought me, Detective.”

“My information is you saw Frank Conway just before he died.”

“I visited him in prison for years.” Thomas averted his eyes. “It was a great blow to me when he died, more difficult than I could have imagined. Charlie was dead. Frank was the next thing to family after all those years. My wife had died. There was no one. I remember Frank talking about the inn. He said it was a wonderful place to fish. After he died, the desire to come here became a bit of an obsession. I expected to walk into that elegant place, dove grey with amber fixtures, step back into those wonderful colours and styles of the thirties and forties. It wasn’t like that, of course. As Wolfe says, you can’t go home again. What I found was just a pastiche of upper middle-class comfort and a group of people you’d normally expect to meet in the fun house at the arcade.” He smiled. “The fishing’s been good.”

Brisbois studied him for a moment. “You came here out of sentiment, and Joe just happened to be here getting himself murdered.”

Thomas rolled the cigar between thumb and index finger. “I think there’s a simple explanation.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Joe heard I was coming to the Pleasant. It wasn’t a secret. I assume he jumped to the conclusion I was coming for the loot. He and a buddy came up with a plan. They got here, couldn’t find the goods. The buddy thought Joe was double-crossing him and killed him.”

“And who might that buddy be?”

“I have no idea. Joe wasn’t mob but he had some shady connections.” He stood up, smoothed his lapels. “Now, if you don’t mind, gentlemen, I must go.”

Creighton looked at Brisbois. “Music Hall.”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Thomas entered from stage right, took his place at the microphone. “The Pleasant Inn is pleased to present Music Hall. In the proud tradition of British vaudeville, you will be treated to entertainment ranging from the sublime to the grotesque.” He paused and smiled. “Perhaps grotesque is an overstatement. But I’ll let you decide. My name is Garrett Thomas and I will be your guide for the evening. And a wonderful and exciting evening it will be.” He took a program from his pocket. “We have our, er, professional entertainment, but anyone who wishes to step forward with an impromptu number is welcome. Not only welcome, but encouraged. We have all the time in the world.” He chuckled. “If you don’t come forward, I warn you, I’ll be forced to do a few numbers myself.” He laughed. “In a moment, our opening number. But first, a big round of applause for our hosts, Margaret and Trevor Rudley.” He waited out the applause. “Thank you so much. Now, without further ado, Tim and the Great Gregoire will perform a dance with a Latin flavour.”

Thomas moved from centre stage and sat down on a chair positioned stage right. Tim entered, stage left, elegant in top hat and tails, and bowed to the audience. The music soared and Gregoire entered. He swayed across the stage twitching his skirts, his stiletto heels keeping time with the music. The audience roared.

Brisbois sat at the table nearest the door to the ballroom, his gaze drifting over the room. He thought his staff had done a good job blending in. Guy looked like a good old boy with Patsy as his long-suffering wife. Petrey and Frankel were quite acceptable as the young executive couple. Jacques and Deley could have been any working couple. Rickey wouldn’t have fooled anybody, but what was unusual about an off-duty cop in a crowd that size?

He thought Thomas made a good emcee and was surprised. He found the guy stiff and joyless otherwise. He felt uncomfortable watching Gregoire. Knowing the guy was gay was one thing — he had taken sensitivity training — but he felt uneasy with transvestites. He couldn’t figure out what they wanted. The possibility they might be interested in straight men made him uncomfortable. Still, he had to admire the act, which was at once skilful and funny. He checked to make sure his staff wasn’t getting too caught up in the show.

The act ended. Tim and Gregoire took a bow.

Thomas returned to the microphone. “Thank you, Tim and Gregoire. That was…unbelievable. Now, please welcome Jim and Eileen, who have something to promise one another.”

They look like Marg Osborne and Charlie Chamberlain from
Don Messer’s Jubilee
, Brisbois thought as the couple took the stage. He saw Tim — minus his tails — enter the room from the corridor. He slipped into one of the chairs placed along the side wall. Marg and Charlie were halfway through their number when Gregoire entered in his whites. He checked the buffet, then joined Tim.

Brisbois’ attention shifted back to the audience. Normal-looking holiday crowd enjoying the show. Tim got up and joined Trudy and Mrs. Millotte as hands shot up here and there for drink orders. Gregoire checked the wine.

In spite of his admonition to his officers, Brisbois found it hard to avoid being swept up in the wave that was Music Hall, the numbers varying from the splendid to the glitzy to the inane, with never a dull moment. He even enjoyed the old judge playing ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ on the spoons.

A shudder went through the crowd as Lloyd rambled onto the stage and commenced to dance a dark, shuffling version of ‘Me and My Shadow.’ He noticed how the staff grew especially attentive. He realized how close these people were and felt lonely and shut out by their intimacy. He wished he had been able to invite his wife. Maybe, when all the nastiness was over, he could bring her here for dinner.

Aunt Pearl had stood and was making her way toward the stage, grabbing at the backs of chairs as she went.

“Miss Dutton.” Thomas leaned down and smiled as Pearl grabbed his sleeve and whispered into his ear. He straightened. “Miss Dutton will now perform, for your pleasure, ‘I’m Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage’.”

Aunt Pearl warbled through the number quite nicely, then tottered off stage right. There was a pause, then a crash.

Gregoire leapt up and ran down the hall. He entered stage right, came to the footlights, and scanned the crowd. Spotting Rudley, he beckoned to him. Rudley hustled out into the hall, followed by Tim.

Creighton was at their heels. “What’s wrong?”

“Aunt Pearl fell into the costume box,” Tim said. “She’s down for the count.”

“Drunk?”

“At least,” said Rudley. He gripped her firmly under the arms. “Let’s just get you to your room, Pearl.”

Tim took her legs. Together, they hustled her up the stairs.

“Miss Pearl cannot take a bow,” Thomas announced. “But let’s give her a good send-off.”

Brisbois swivelled toward the hallway. Creighton had abandoned his post. Unnecessarily, he thought, since he didn’t believe Tim, Rudley, and Aunt Pearl were conspirators in murder. He took a deep breath. God, he needed a cigarette.

He caught Guy’s eye and showed him the package of Rothman’s. Guy nodded.

The hallway was empty. A young officer named Owens was at the door.

“Everything quiet?”

“Yes, sir.”

He noted their man on the dock with a fishing pole. He lit a cigarette and wandered around the side of the building.

The shadows drew him in. Piano music drifted to him faintly. Nothing he knew. Classical. Soothing. Intimately connected to the lap of water against the shoreline. He noted a pinpoint of light a hundred yards away where a second officer was conducting perimeter rounds under the guise of collecting night crawlers. He squinted as the breeze shifted, wafting smoke into his eyes. There was a soft scraping on the porch roof. He glanced up. Saw nothing. Branch, he guessed. He leaned against the wall with a sigh of contentment.

Brisbois opened his eyes to darkness. The last thing he remembered was stepping outside for a cigarette. He wondered if he had died and gone to hell. He chuckled. His wife always said smoking would do him in.

He tried to stand up and knocked his already sore head against something. His hands were tied. From the looseness of his collar, he deduced his jailer had used his necktie. He sat down and scooted backwards a few feet. Hit a wall. Hitched sideways. His shoulder struck stone. He scooted ahead. His feet hit a wall. He decided he was in a crawl space. But where? There was nothing in the layout of the Pleasant to suggest such a place existed.

“Who’s there?” he mumbled around the gag he assumed was his pocket handkerchief.

No answer.

“You won’t get away with this.”

Nothing.

“I’m a police officer. Do you know how much trouble you can get into kidnapping a police officer?”

No answer.

Dumb, he thought. If anyone else were here, he would have bumped into him by now. He wriggled his fingers and leaned back. Felt a damp, gritty floor. He had to be at the Pleasant. His kidnapper couldn’t have smuggled him past the officers manning the perimeter. Shouldn’t have been able to. Of course, not one of those officers had noticed him getting clobbered either.

He cursed. Now he had to go to the bathroom. He wished he had never met Rudley and his star-crossed inn.

Music Hall howled past the second intermission before anyone noticed Brisbois was missing. Creighton missed him first.

“Where’s the boss?”

“How should I know?”

“Didn’t you notice he was gone?”

“He stepped out for a cigarette,” Guy said.

“How long ago?”

Guy checked his watch. “Just after the ‘Me and My Shadow’ number. Must have been an hour and a half ago.”

“And you didn’t notice if he came back?”

Guy gave him a sour look. “I thought we were supposed to be watching the crowd. I didn’t know we had to babysit Brisbois.”

Rudley and Margaret took the stage.

“Don’t ask me,” Gregoire said to Creighton’s increasing consternation. “I’ve been slaving over these chafing dishes since I finished my number. I’ve hardly had time to notice an errant detective.”

Trudy and Mrs. Millotte shook their heads.

Rudley and Margaret danced into the wings.

Creighton accosted them in the dressing room. “Have you seen Brisbois?”

Margaret waved Creighton off. “They’re calling us back for an encore, Rudley.”

Creighton paced until they returned, Margaret smiling, Rudley mopping his brow.

“At times like this, I think we should consider air conditioning.”

“It would destroy the ambiance, Rudley.”

“Brisbois,” Creighton rasped. “Have you seen him?”

“Are you telling me he’s missing?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t say that pains me.”

“On Music Hall,” Margaret said. “I’m sorry, Detective. He’s probably just out investigating something.”

“That wasn’t the plan.” Creighton spotted Lloyd wandering past the door. “Have you seen Brisbois?”

“He was watching my song.”

“I know that. When did he go out?”

“Before Tiffany.”

“And you didn’t see him again?”

“Nope. When I saw him he was holding up his cigarettes and pointing.”

Creighton’s shoulders slumped. “So nobody’s seen him for almost an hour and a half.” He considered calling in reinforcements, surrounding the property in search of Brisbois. He got on the phone to the inspector sergeant, Max Mallen.

“What do you need more men for? You’ve got half the detachment there now.”

“They have specific assignments.”

“Well, reassign a couple to go out to crawl around. When the evening’s over and everyone is tucked into bed and you still can’t find him, you can send the whole damn detachment looking for him.” He paused. “If I know Brisbois, he’s thought of something and he’s gone to check it out.”

“He would have let me know if there’d been a change of plans.”

“No, he wouldn’t. I partnered with him for two years. He’s the kind of guy who would go out to pick up coffee and decide to take a side trip to the warehouse district to check out a drug dealer.”

“Brave.”

“Stupid.”

“So you’re advising me to do nothing.”

“No. I’m advising you to spring two guys to look for him. If you don’t find him by the time the crowd clears out, reassign the rest of the crew to look for him — except the guy on the door.”

“Owens?”

“Yes. And if you still can’t find him, I’ll come down myself.”

I don’t want you to come down yourself, Creighton thought.

“When you find him, tell him to give me a call.”

Creighton knew he was supposed to say ‘yes, inspector sergeant’, so he did.

“And he’s wrong about this being an inside job. He should have deployed most of his people at the perimeter. Isn’t that what you would have done?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s what I would have done. This is what happens when you get too fond of a theory. You get yourself boxed in.”

“Sir.”

“Don’t try to defend his damned theories.”

Creighton wasn’t about to, but it didn’t matter. The inspector sergeant had hung up.

What the inspector sergeant was saying was true. Brisbois did work with blinkers on most of the time. But eighty per cent of the time his theories were right. Those, Creighton thought, were good numbers. The inspector sergeant was correct about another thing: Brisbois was a loner. That could be dangerous.

If only he weren’t so fond of his cigarettes. If only they hadn’t banned smoking in public places. Creighton took a deep breath. For the time being, at least, he was in charge.

Brisbois licked his lips. He was thirsty and wanted a cigarette. Desperately needed a cigarette. The package mocked him from his left breast pocket. He shivered and was glad he had worn a tweed jacket. He tried to distract himself from his craving by trying to make sense of his predicament. Clearly, he had not been kidnapped for ransom. The inspector sergeant wouldn’t pay for him. He suspected his boss would be happy to have him go missing for a few days. He concluded he had been taken because he had interfered with the commission of a crime.

He considered the available suspects. The Sawchucks? He attempted a laugh, imagining the old lady thumping him over the head with her stick and the old man trundling him off to wherever he had been trundled off to. The Phipps-Walkers? He might worry about them if he were a bird. He shook his head. Who knew what anybody was capable of? He comforted himself with the knowledge his boys and girls had been watching. When he reviewed their notes, something would shake loose. Once he got out of this mess. If he got out of this mess.

Guy came back up to the veranda. “We’ve combed the property, Creighton. There’s not a sign of Brisbois.”

“He couldn’t have left the property.”

“Maybe he crawled in behind the steps for a nap,” Lloyd said.

Creighton turned to him. “What steps?”

“The steps at the side. They swing out and there’s a little room in behind.”

Rudley stared at him. “What little room?”

“Behind the steps.” Lloyd persisted. “I knocked against them one day, and lo and behold, they swung open. And there behind was a little room. There wasn’t anything in it.”

Rudley’s eyes crossed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I figured you knew.”

Creighton blew out a long breath. “Does anyone here have a flashlight?”

Miss Miller led Edward Simpson to his room and leaned against the wall while he opened the door.

“I don’t know, Elizabeth,” he said. “With everything that’s happening around here. With Brisbois missing.”

She followed him into the room. “All of this intrigue has made me hungry for action.”

“You’re such a tiger, Elizabeth.”

“I’ll keep my claws in, Edward.” She pursued him across the room as he backed away in mock horror.

Simpson rounded the bed and without warning, crashed to the floor.

“Edward?”

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but I believe I’ve broken my leg.”