Chapter 35
“I’m so glad you could come for brunch.” Frank waved from the front porch.
Kiera smiled. “This is a beautiful place, Frank.”
“I can’t take any credit for it but I wish I’d had the courage to invite you out before now.”
“It wouldn’t have worked. Grant would have given you too much grief. But he’s mellowed.”
“Did they call you?”
“They did. I set them up with one of the better juniors that works for me.”
“And it’s going well?”
“Yes. And that’s all I can tell you. If you want to know more, ask Grant or have him give me permission to talk to you.”
Frank shrugged. “I don’t need the details right now. I’m sure they’ll all come out eventually.”
Cassie came rushing out. “I’m sorry I wasn’t watching the time, Frank. Mother and I are making cookies with Sophie. Have I missed…?” She noticed Kiera and came forward to give her a hug but backed out quickly when Kiera stiffened. “Sorry.”
Kiera sighed. “It’s me that should be sorry, Cassie. I don’t get very many hugs these days. I’m still not that comfortable around men and a lot of women are leery of me.”
Now it was Cassie’s turn to sigh. “That’s just silly of them. I’d rather hug my friends than shake their hands but if you aren’t comfortable doing that…”
Kiera looked sheepish but came forward and gave Cassie a hug. “I was just surprised, that’s all.” She looked up at Frank. “What are you looking at?”
Frank put his arms around both of them. “I’m looking at my two best friends.”
Dorothy came out with Sophie. “The oven has pre-heated, Cassie. What do we do next?”
Frank and Kiera trailed them to the kitchen and took a seat in a corner. Cassie waved them over to the prep island and said, “No freeloaders in the kitchen. Come help.”
She handed everyone a pair of teaspoons and showed them how to drop the batter onto the cookie sheets. Grant came sauntering in and said, “Kiera, I heard you were coming for lunch. I wanted to say thanks for finding Andrew for me.”
Frank replayed the introduction. “Wait a minute… If Andrew is one of your juniors… When did you make partner?”
Kiera got a bright smile. “The week before Dorothy called to set up the appointment.”
“Congratulations.”
“I thought about calling to brag but you guys were in the middle of the murder investigation and the funeral. I thought it could wait.”
Cassie said, “It would have been okay to call. Good news is never unwelcome. We’ve had too much bad news recently.”
“Hey. Is this a kitchen party?” Dale came sauntering in with Supriya.
“Well, Geraldine took off for her sister’s last night so the coast is clear. She’s counting on Cassie and Bonnie to make sure we don’t starve today.” Dorothy replied. “Come on in.”
Lita and George came in. Lita commented, “Something smells really good.”
Sophie beamed with delight. “I’m making cookies with Grandmother and Aunt Cassie. I really hope they’re good.”
Gray and Bonnie poked their head in as Jan entered by the door to the porch. Gray said, “If Cassie helped, they’ll be good.”
Cassie said, “They’ll be much better than usual because I have a great assistant.” She ruffled Sophie’s hair then began to pass out more teaspoons.
Dale preened then said, “So, you’ve had too much bad news recently?” He looked a question at Supriya.
Supriya leaned into Dale and said, “Well, if it’s good news you want, does the fact that I’m four months pregnant count?”
Dorothy rushed over to give Supriya a hug. “Congratulations, dear.” Then her brow furrowed. “Four months?”
“Well, eighteen weeks to be precise. We didn’t want to say anything until we were far enough along.”
Jan blurted, “Why not?”
Supriya sighed. “I’ve had several miscarriages. They’re pretty common in my mother’s family so we don’t tell anyone until we’re almost showing.” There was a flash of regret in her eyes as she replied to Jan. “But the good news is that once we get this far along it’s almost always smooth sailing.”
Cassie said, “Granny had troubles like that, too. I hope I won’t.”
The timer chimed. “The first batch of cookies is ready.”
After a round of hugs for Supriya and Dale, people drifted off with fresh cookies and their drink of choice. After the last batch finished baking, Frank asked Cassie and Kiera to sit with him in the side porch while they waited for Stephen to arrive.
Kiera started things off. “How is the murder investigation coming along?”
“Toxicology confirmed that Mum overdosed on fentanyl but she had a big dose of Oxycontin already in her system, so they suspect that Gord waited until the oxys knocked Mum out then injected her with the fentanyl. They got some partial prints from the syringe that match his. His real name is apparently Réal Charbonneau but I still think of him as Gord Sanschagrin.”
Frank looked like he was trying to remember something. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I forgot to tell you that Alain called on Friday to update me just before I left work to pick you up at school. I’d have remembered sooner if I hadn’t left my portfolio at work.”
“You promised you’d leave it there this weekend.”
“And I did.”
“So what did he say?”
“They found fingerprints from someone Interpol has been hunting for a while. They think that Vlad might be a real slime-ball named Roman Maravich. They found his prints on the inside of a jewel case they found under a sofa cushion and on a dirty glass in the sink. He’s wanted for distribution of child pornography and snuff films. They found a DVD in the case but Alain didn’t want to talk about the contents. There were two more sets of prints on the case, Deion Stricker’s and an unknown that they hope Interpol can identify.” He sighed. “Alain said that one of the girls in the movie looked a lot like you.”
“Do you want me to call Alain when we get back?”
“He can be there when the city police talk to you, if you want a friendly face there. They have some photos of Maravich from his US Army ID that they’d like you to look at. He was last seen in Philadelphia. They also ran Gord’s prints through Interpol and got some hits in the US. Apparently Gord is also wanted in a couple of states under other names for various things, including back child support.”
Cassie shuddered. “He has kids?”
“A son in New Hampshire.”
“I wonder if that’s where he went.”
“They’re checking on it.”
Kiera said, “So they aren’t any closer to finding him?”
“Unfortunately, no. Alain did say that the people Maravich is associated with are very good at creating new identities. Some of their suppliers and customers need to disappear occasionally.”
“It would be best if they disappeared into a hole at the bottom of the Atlantic.” Kiera sounded bitter.
“No argument here. But Stricker’s been threatened with a conspiracy to make child pornography charge. The Crown Prosecutor has offered to delay laying the charges for as long as Stricker is fully cooperative. Stricker claims that he only watched the movies and didn’t know what Gord and Vlad were up to. He’s apparently telling lots of stories about Vlad and his friends.”
Kiera commented, “I’d bet he isn’t ratting on his fellow gang members.”
“He isn’t but Alain is mostly okay with that because catching Vlad is more urgent. They don’t really know much about Maravich and his network. And the police have other ways to get information about the gang. Stricker will probably get out in six months and doesn’t want to be gunned down as soon as he goes back to the clubhouse.”
“As opposed to the kind of treatment he’d get from his fellow inmates if he was charged with making child porn.” Kiera continued, “At least the gang would just kill him. The guys in prison would make h
im suffer first.”
A blue sedan pulled into the parking area and Frank rose to welcome Stephen.
———
“So how is the investigation going?” Cassie asked Alain as he rolled up his sleeves to help with the dishes after most of the guests had left.
Alain looked like he was selecting his words and realized there was a silence building. “I’m sorry. I have to think about what I’m allowed to share with you.” He began to scrub a casserole dish as Frank came in with a tray of mugs to load into the dishwasher.
Alain nodded to himself. “No news about Gord, so far. And we still haven’t gotten any word from Interpol about the extra fingerprints but the analysis team thinks that the film we found was shot in Hungary.” Alain looked troubled. “I’m glad I didn’t have to see more than a couple of minutes of it. It was pretty gruesome.”
Cassie swallowed and gave a prayer of relief. “Actually, as awful as it is to contemplate ending up in one of those movies, I was more interested in Tony Leonidas and his cronies. Lady Cecilia buttonholed us at a charity function on Thursday and basically admitted that Tony arranged everything so she had enough money to keep ‘moving in our circle’.”
Alain looked relieved. “Oh, that.” He shook his head. “I really don’t know how the homicide guys keep sane. But then again, they get lost when I start to talk about following money through sixteen related shell companies.”
Frank grinned. “Worst part of being an accountant, really, trying to explain things to normal people.”
Alain grinned in agreement. “It’s going slowly, Cassie, like usual. Joanne and her crew have about six hundred banker’s boxes of invoices and payroll records to cross-index and prepare for the court case. Everyone, including Tony, is out on bail waiting for their court dates. He managed to convince the judge that his trip to Ogdensburg was an honest mistake on his part.”
“When will the trials start?”
Alain shrugged. “Don’t know. This is a really big case with multiple jurisdictions so they still have to decide where to prosecute and if it will be individual trials or groups.” He paused, “Lady Cecilia is in the clear, though Tony’s son isn’t. He said some interesting things to the Windsor detachment about how he got his car.”
Cassie took a big bowl from the rack and began to dry it. “Cecilia is clear? How?”
“She was a salesperson on commission. There is plenty of evidence that she actually did the work she was paid for and was fairly effective at it, although she got double the commission that other salespeople did. We could try to argue it was unreasonably high but it’s up to your employer to decide what you’re worth.” He snorted. “I remember one restaurant owner who paid his sixteen year old daughter fifty dollars an hour for clearing tables when everyone else was getting minimum wage. But because she showed up for work every shift and paid all her taxes we couldn’t say a thing. Cecilia is a bit sleazy but she’s not doing anything illegal that we can see. But her brother is about to lose his scholarship because we have a link between Tony and three other student athletes who got money and cars from the Hamilton subsidiary with the full knowledge of the assistant athletics director at his college in Michigan. And the athletics director is driving a brand new Hummer that only cost him the license fees. The NCAA and the FBI are very interested in our findings.”
Frank said, “Joanne and her team are muttering a lot but they’re still finding cross connections and new potential kickbacks.”
“That one makes me mad.” Alain took a deep breath. “Public servants take an oath to serve the Crown faithfully. Not serve the Crown and line their pockets, too. I expect we’ll see a wave of early retirements and at least two prosecutions, hopefully more. The Crown Prosecutor here in Ottawa wants us to concentrate our immediate efforts on getting enough evidence against the procurement manager and the Navy staffer who’ve been taking bribes. At least enough so that we can get them fired.”
Cassie smiled. “Well, I’m very glad that it’s going so well.”
Alain raised an eyebrow. “Frank’s teaching you accountant-speak, isn’t he?”
“A little. But Mrs. Lepinsky was a records specialist with the Toronto Police for years. She told all sorts of stories about how frustrated the detectives she tried to ride herd on would get with their cases. She loved watching Law and Order with me but she’d point out all the places where Canadian procedure was different and she snorted at how quickly and neatly everything would wrap up. Makes a nice TV show but she said it gives the general public false expectations about what the police can do.”
Frank said, “Mrs. Lepinsky is another of Cassie’s spare grannies. She wasn’t able to come to Penny’s funeral. She taught Cassie how to make the kielbasa we ate today.”
Alain looked at Cassie appreciatively and sighed. “You make me wish you had an older sister who was single. But I know you don’t.” Then he dried his hands and said, “By the way, thank you for not inviting a small herd of single thirty-something women for me to fend off. My sister was disappointed that I came here rather than heading to Montreal to visit with her family.”
Frank said, “After what I went through with Mother and Grandmother Murcheson?” He shuddered. “I’d never consciously do that to anyone, man or woman.”
Cassie snickered. “Caitlyn van der Broek is single.”
“And she’s the same age as my oldest niece.”
“She’s older than me.” Cassie folded her arms. “Well, I’m not going to avoid inviting single women to our dinners just so you don’t have to fend them off.”
Alain grinned. “It really isn’t a problem, Cassie. I just haven’t felt comfortable about the idea of making a commitment to anyone, at least until recently. Now that I’m off the beat and working reasonably sane hours I might be able to find someone. Too many of my colleagues are divorced. It’s hard to be married to a patrolman.”
Frank moved behind Cassie and pulled her close. “Well, I’m biased of course, but I think marriage is wonderful.”
Cassie wriggled closer and leaned her head back onto Frank’s shoulder. “Me, too.”
Alain gave them an envious look. Frank said, “If I’d paid attention to the matchmakers in my family, I would never have found Cassie. I’ll pray that you find a good woman, Alain. Not a nice woman, though. I don’t think a nice one would suit you all that well.”
Cassie twisted. “Are you implying that I’m not nice?”
Frank squirmed a bit. “You are always as nice as you need to be. But sometimes I need you to be good more than I need you to be nice, especially when I’m acting like a jerk.”
Cassie humphed but drew Frank’s arms closer. “Well, I should give Hannah and Jon a ride home like I promised.” She turned around and gave Frank a fond kiss before stepping back. “Thanks for helping clean up, Alain.”
“You’re welcome, Cassie.”
They watched as she headed around the corner towards the stairs to the basement. Frank started the dishwasher and leaned back against the counter. “Thanks for coming, Alain.”
“It’s my pleasure.” He crossed his arms. “It’s nice to see Cassie start to relax. She’s a sweetheart. Did she ever say what Gord did to her?”
“Some of it. I’m sure you’ve heard too many stories about control freaks and guys who think they’re above the law.”
“Yeah. They don’t mind taking away someone else’s choices or rights but they scream like mad about their own rights when we finally catch them. At least Cassie’s still alive. Interpol’s been trying to catch Maravich since he deserted after raping a nurse twelve years ago and leaving her for dead at a base in Germany. He’s also implicated another six or seven other murders they know about and maybe more if he’s recruiting victims for the makers of those awful films. He’s really bad news.”
“At least Cassie confirmed that Vlad is Maravich. She will probably be ready to talk more about it with the investigators in a few weeks but it might be January.”
“That’s okay. We
have a lead on Maravich thanks to Stricker. Charbonneau is a bigger concern for me. I think he’s got some unfinished business with Cassie.”
“That’s what I worry about, too. At least I got the alarm system upgraded and she carries a panic button with her.”
“Good idea, at least until Charbonneau is caught.” Alain stood straight and said, “Well, I should be going. Thanks for dinner.” Then he joined the group as Cassie and her friends passed the kitchen on the way to the cars.