The Devil's in the Details

A Camilla MacPhee
Mystery

by Mary Jane Maffini

Text © 2004 by Mary Jane Maffini

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.

Cover art: Christopher Chuckry

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

Napoleon Publishing/RendezVous Press
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

11 12 13 14     5 4 3 2 1

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Maffini, Mary Jane, date-
                The devil's in the details / Mary Jane Maffini.

(A Camilla MacPhee mystery)
ISBN 1-894917-12-X

I. Title.   II. Series: Maffini, Mary Jane. Camilla MacPhee mystery.

I am indebted to many people in the writing of this book. While some of them are innocent bystanders, others were willingly generous with their expertise. Special thanks to Sergeant Sheila Maloney of Ottawa Police Services, Professional Standards, for her time and insight. Once again, I am happy to report my friend, Janet MacEachen, has kept me out of legal quicksand. John Merchant's eagle eye and lightning speed are excellent traits in a brother and most appreciated. The Ladies' Killing Circle: Linda Wiken, Sue Pike, Joan Boswell and Vicki Cameron offered their unique observations followed by no-holds-barred recommendations and, as usual, made things better. I am thankful that my husband, Giulio Maffini, has the strength of character to cope with dangerous writerly emotions and I thank Barbara Fradkin, Lyn Hamilton, Mary MacKay-Smith and Lois O'Neill for their friendship, support and laughter. As usual, the redoubtable Cheryl Freedman of Crime Writers of Canada ensured that Alvin Ferguson got airtime. And of course, without my long-suffering publisher, Sylvia McConnell, music-making editor, Allister Thompson, and agent, Leona Trainer, there would be no book.

Any errors in the text are entirely my own. At the time this book was written, the path behind the Supreme Court of Canada was open and unobstructed, although that just goes to show you that dangerous things can happen in beautiful places. As usual, some restaurants, streets, intersections and private homes in Ottawa and elsewhere are figments of my imagination. Unfortunately, this means there is no Maisie's Eatery featuring white and dark chocolate cheesecake with raspberry cognac coulis and caramelized pecans on the dessert menu. Deal with it.

She no longer flinches when his hand strokes her cheek, long fingers gentle but powerful, tracing her jaw line. She reaches deep and brings forth her best smile. Why should she shrink from him? He is the protector. They are powerful with him in charge. They are safe. She wills herself to forget the past, memory brings only weakness. Her parents, a blurred mental image. The others: white faces twisted with terror, howling amid the shriek of gunshots, white flames from the Molotov cocktails, the silver spikes of cascading glass. And Kimmy, dark blood pooling around her perforated body, surprise on her small face.

They know the price to be paid for a new world. Her past is gone. The future belongs to the Settlers. The right names are on the lists. When the time comes, the oppressors and their lackeys will be eliminated. The world will be put right. He will see to that.

The van rumbles along the rough backcountry road, lurching through potholes, swaying wildly, flinging bodies against the sides. Every five minutes, someone pitches over, the sound of bone slamming into metal reverberates. No one laughs.

He moves slowly on cushioned soles, from one to another in random order, whispering to each one, stroking a forearm,
an earlobe a chin. Handing out round white mints. Keeping each girl calm, reminding them of the job they had done and the tasks that lie ahead of them. Special words and touches for those who had let down their guard. You did not want to be responsible for a setback. You did not want a special touch.

There is sweat in the air she breathes.

He reaches her at last, in the corner where she has pressed herself, trying for balance. Her heart near to exploding. He says, “But you will be careful.”

“Yes.”

“Now and forever.” These days he uses his soft voice. The voice that makes you focus totally, completely, absolutely, on him. To listen is to forget you are in a stolen van, driving without lights on dirt tracks leading to nowhere, anything to evade the state troopers. The soft voice reminds her why she is fighting, what she has lost and what she will gain. What she stands for. The voice binds her to him.

She is careful. Always.

His words, so light, she has to lean forward to hear. “Do you believe it?”

“Now and forever.”

“The future is ours.”

“The future is ours.”

“What do we believe?”

“Those who represent evil will die. Those who are deserving will live in harmony.”

“Who will make the difference?”

“The Settlers will make the difference.”

“Some of the others were not so careful. You see what happens when you let your guard down.”

“Yes.” Six girls are left. She wills herself to be strong, to have a full voice, the voice of the powerful. She pushes away
thoughts of Kimmy, left alone in her lake of blood.

The smell of urine fills the van. Behind her, somewhere in the dark, one of the careless ones has wet her pants.

Please, let her be strong enough to survive.

It was the dog end of a wasted summer. As a fitting finale, a Crown Prosecutor had dropped the ball in the case against the con artist who'd swindled my seventy-five-year-old client.

The creep who had wiped out her retirement savings reacted to his “not guilty” verdict with a smirk. By now, he'd be in his Porsche Boxster heading for a golf foursome. My client was still in shock from the vicious grilling by his lawyer. No golf club for her. She'd be lucky to afford Kraft Dinner in her one-room apartment. And she could forget the satisfaction of seeing that shit-heel go to jail. I'd given her a hug and cab fare home. My goddam car was on the fritz again.

Sometimes the life of a victim's rights activist is just plain crap. You care too much about your clients. You long to give the prosecution a kick in the pants. You take the defence tactics personally.

I wasn't happy when I found myself nose-to-nose with the swindling scumbag's lawyer. Sheldon Romanek stood like he owned the place on the wide stone steps of the Elgin Street Court House. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the Friday afternoon traffic fumes and the swirling, end-of-August dust and grit. I marvelled. Such a dumpling. So harmless looking with his dirt-green suit, gunky tie and dangling
shoelaces. Sheldon was forty-five, but on a good day he could pass for sixty. A jury member might easily imagine him bumbling through the park with his beloved grandchildren. But Sheldon was single, without friend or family as far as anyone knew. A persistent rumour around Court had it that his heart belonged to a collection of arachnids he kept in his bed. That might have been the mutterings of the defeated.

He grinned at me.

I said, “Hey, Sheldon, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'd never guess you were the embodiment of evil.”

“You win some, you lose some, MacPhee,” he said, adjusting his comb-over.

“As long as you can sleep nights.”

“I sleep like a baby.”

“You know about babies?”

He leaned forward. “You want some advice?”

“From you? Hell, no.”

“No charge for the insight. Here's my secret: I win my cases.” His grin showed nicely greying teeth. Whatever Sheldon spent his money on, it sure wasn't dentists.

“You mean let the bastards walk.”

“Rule of law in this country, MacPhee. Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Sure. Let the fraud artists and drug dealers run free and happy.”

“By all means, fall back on to your knee-jerk, left-leaning conspiracy theories, if it makes you feel better.”

“You know what I fall back on, Sheldon? Principles. You might consider picking up a six-pack of them for the weekend.”

“My principle is called victory.”

“At any cost.”

He chortled. “At least I don't have the shame of letting my clients down. Give that a try.”

“Give this a try,” I said, raising my middle finger.

“Funny. You used to be a smart girl, MacPhee. You did some gutsy defence work a few years back. Forget the lost causes. Get back to the law.”

I didn't dignify that with a response. I don't dismiss running an advocacy agency for victims of crime as a lost cause. Even if that pretty much summed up every one of my recent files. On the other hand, I was getting sick of steering some poor soul through the justice system, only to watch the Crown cut a deal.

Maybe I was just spoiling for a fight.

Sheldon turned as a pair of Assistant Crown Prosecutors scurried down the stairs, avoiding eye contact with him.

The evil gnome actually winked at me.

“If you bottom out, you could always work with them,” he said.

For historical reasons, I am
persona non grata
at the Office of the Crown Prosecutor, so that wouldn't be happening. I'd had enough of Sheldon. I adjusted my backpack and headed down the Courthouse steps.

“I might be able to find a place for you,” he shouted after me.

“Not a chance.”

“Call me if you want a real job, MacPhee.”

“You kidding? I love what I'm doing.”

No longer quite the truth, but damned if I'd admit that to Sheldon Romanek.

I was still smouldering as I approached my office a few blocks down Elgin Street. I'd stopped long enough to get a late afternoon caffeine fix at the Second Cup. Despite the fall nip in the air, I'd chosen an iced latte. I had stuff in my life that required a clear head. For instance, finding a new office location, since our landlord had decided to renovate the building and given us notice to quit the premises, such as they were. And more to the point, figuring out if I was wasting my time trying to hold Justice For Victims together. Period. No one seemed to believe my services to crime victims did much good. Not that I care about the opinions of others. Still, our contributions from private benefactors had shrivelled to zero, our clients were rarely in a position to pay for services, and government funding was harder to come by at every level. Alvin Ferguson, my so-called office assistant, was supposed to handle grants and fundraising. But Alvin had not been a peak performer in recent months. At least he used to come into the office occasionally to lick stamps and make long distance calls to his extensive family in Sydney, Nova Scotia. That was before he and my neighbour, Mrs. Violet Parnell, discovered hot air balloons.