Date with a Sheesha (34 page)

I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet. With one last look at that blasted, black hole to hell in the centre of the previously 236

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unspoiled pond surface, I made a mad dash for the Babamobile. I jumped inside and started the engine with the keys I was still gripping with ice-cold fingers. Although they’d failed to help save my life on the pond, they would be of inestimable use to me now.

As soon as the engine turned over, I flipped the heat to high. Of course, the vehicle had sat too long in the frigid environment. It needed time to run before it gifted me with warmth. I couldn’t wait. I shifted into drive and spun out of there.

Within minutes I pulled up in front of the wide staircase with its wheelchair ramp that led up to the front porch of Ash House. I jumped out of the van, ran up the stairs, crossed the porch, and was in the front door. Running through the house, I passed by the main living room. About fifteen pair of eyes landed on me, most of them belonging to thirteen-year-old girls. I screeched to a halt like some kind of cartoon character. I stared at the girls. They stared at me. I quickly realized what a scary sight I must be. I scooted off in search of heat. Lots of heat.

Ash House is a deluxe facility. In some ways it resembles a luxury hotel or posh vacation getaway, with plush accommoda-tions including a fully equipped spa. That’s where I was headed.

Specifically, the sauna.

Without bothering to shed any clothing, I threw open the door of the steam room and dived in, immediately soaking up the glorious warmth like a dried-up sponge in a sink full of hot water.

Seconds later the door swung open. Ethan and Jared ran in.

Ethan was wide-eyed and shocked, Jared not looking much better.

“Russell, are you okay? What the hell is going on?”

I fell into a sitting position on a handy bench. Ethan sat next to me and began rubbing my arm.

“There’s a police car, and another car with Darren Kirsch in it, that pulled up right behind you,” Jared informed me.

“Russell, are you in trouble?”

I can’t imagine what they must have been thinking. It couldn’t have been good. And I didn’t blame them. As for me, I must have been in shock, because the first thing out of my mouth was: “Who are all those little girls?”

Ethan’s eyes grew even wider as he stared at me with silent 237

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incredulity, still valiantly trying to rub warmth into my arm.

Jared answered. “They’re Simon’s friends, Russell. She’s having a birthday party.”

I looked up at him as if trying to make sense of the Pythagorean theorem. “But her birthday isn’t until Sunday. I thought we were having a party on Sunday.”

“We are,” he said. “But that’s just for family. Today she wanted to have some of her friends over after school.” I saw him shoot Ethan a quick look of concern, then back at me: “Russell, what is going on here?”

The door to the sauna opened again. The big, hulking figure of Darren Kirsch filled the space.

“He’s freezing cold!” Ethan barked. Barking was extremely unusual for him. Actually, I don’t think I’d ever heard him sound angry before. “Close the door! You’re letting out the heat.”

Darren stepped inside, fully dressed in a winter overcoat and boots. Just like me. As he quickly worked up a sweat, he stepped forward and half knelt in front of me. “Quant? You called.

Something about a threat at Ash House pond? This better be good.”

“A threat?” Ethan spoke up again, looking from me to Darren and back again. “At the pond? What are you talking about? Who was threatened?”

I grabbed onto Ethan’s suddenly wild eyes with my own. He deserved to know the truth. “You,” I whispered. “And Simon.”

He fell silent.

“Get your men here,” I told Kirsch in a monotone. “There’s a body at the bottom of the pond.”

“What?” From all three of them.

“And someone needs to start searching the woods around the pond. There’ll be shell casings. And tire tracks from the vehicle they used to get away .”

“What?” Same trio.

“Quant, you need to start at the beginning,” Kirsch wisely suggested. “And, if at all possible, can we do this somewhere a little less hot and sticky?”

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By early evening, things at Ash House were beginning to settle back down. At least as settled as a dozen hyperactive septa- and octogenarians could be.

I was wrapped in a thick, fuzzy blanket in front of a hearty fire in Ethan’s—our?—bedroom on the top floor, far away from the maddening crowd. As I sipped on the last of the hot chocolate Jared had made for me, liberally doused with dark rum, I rumi-nated on what had happened that afternoon.

It hadn’t taken long for the Saskatoon Police Service divers to retrieve Hema’s body from the bottom of the small pond. Her remains revealed no obvious signs of trauma. The only hint that this was something other than a tragic but typical wintertime accident was the fact that she was found so lightly dressed. And, of course, that I’d almost gone down with her. Darren agreed that the culprits must have lured or forced her outside. She hadn’t been expecting a winter walk.

I reflected on Hema’s last message to me, the “C” on her bloody palm. What did it mean? Maybe she’d meant to write out an entire word…perhaps a name…but run out of time. Run out of life. Why had she done it? Why was she so determined to tell me something? Had I been wrong about her? Either she hadn’t been working for the bad guys to begin with or they’d turned on her.

Either was possible. If it was the former (which I hoped it was), then maybe she’d been taken from Saudi Arabia by force. Made to find and buy the Zinko, then return to the University of Dubai to verify its authenticity. Then, when she, as the least suspicious of the bunch and with the accreditation allowing her to export an antique carpet, successfully got the Zinko out of the Middle East, they were done with her. So they killed her. She knew too much.

But why lure me to the pond? Why kill me too? I guessed it was because they wanted to tie up all possible loose ends. Because they had seen me at the Bedouin camp, they knew I also knew about the existence of the Zinko. Obviously they thought I’d try to horn in on the profits, or instigate an investigation into the legality of their procurement of the Saudi Arabian treasure. Either way, their life would be simpler with me out of the way.

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It was becoming clear that Neil Gupta, like his cousin, had been killed because of what he knew about the Zinko. Perhaps the men who killed him in that souk in Dubai had done so in the process of trying to get information out of him about the whereabouts of the rug. Or maybe Neil had somehow learned of the goons’ intention to steal the rug for themselves, transport it out of the country, and sell if for their own personal gain. He threatened to expose them. So they killed him. The big questions remained though: Who were “they”? What was Hema trying to tell me? As I sat and mulled further, I began to believe I knew at least some of the answers.

Ethan was aghast when I pulled on a sports coat over the crisp white shirt I’d borrowed from his closet. They went well with my extraordinary wonderpants. Everything did. But it wasn’t my hastily assembled getup that concerned Ethan. It was my intention to go out that night. He felt it was unreasonable that on the same day I’d almost been killed, I should have to go to work. In almost any other career I can think of, that would probably be true. But not in criminal justice. And that’s what I was. A criminal justice professional. Someone kills someone else, or tries to kill me, or threatens the ones I love, I hunt them down and make them pay. Simple as that.

Ethan only relented when I told him I’d convinced Constable Darren Kirsch to accompany me as my date. We were attending the World Antique Carpet Symposium’s opening night banquet, being held that evening at TCUP. Somehow, my having a police-man as an escort made him feel better. Come to think of it, I felt better too.

The upper hall of TCUP, with its spectacular floor-to-ceiling glass walls facing 22nd Street, was done up as well as a room that huge can be done up. There were lush carpets draping the walls, carpets made to look as if they were flying through the sky, rolled up carpets artfully arranged in nooks and crannies. Carpets, carpets, 240

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carpets. Everywhere. Overkill if you ask me. And most of the effect was lost in the crush of fourteen hundred people, all hob-nobbing, schmoozing, or looking for a cocktail before finding their assigned seats in the massive ballroom.

Colin Cardinale, in all his splendid, satanic handsomeness, was doing duty at the door, greeting guests as they arrived. I shook his well-moisturized hand and gleefully introduced Kirsch as my “partner.” Kirsch gave him a curdled smile. I expected some snootily snide remark from the man, but instead he just gave us a sullen, dismissive nod. I tried to ask him if he knew where our table was, but his dark eyes, unaccountably dull, had already moved on to the people behind us. With a tight fist around my bicep, Kirsch moved me off.

“What was that for?” he spit out.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, all innocence.

“The partner bit?”

“Aren’t we partners in solving this crime tonight?”

“You know that’s not what it sounds like.”

“You have a problem with being undercover?”

“Of course not. And I’m fine with people thinking I’m gay.

What I’m not fine with is having them think I settled for someone like you.”

My eyes narrowed. Without taking them off the cop, I reached out and stopped a woman who was passing by with her husband and another couple. “Oh hello!” I greeted them with an exuberance that made it seem as though I knew them. The foursome, not wishing to be rude, nodded politely and smiled. “I don’t know if you’ve met my sweetiekins, Darren?”

I repeated the charade several more times as we made our rounds of the room, at the same time keeping an eye out for bad guys. I was rather enjoying myself. Kirsch, not so much.

With only a few minutes left before we were to take our seats, I finally hit pay dirt. Stretch and Squat. And, to make matters even more interesting, they were chatting with Colin Cardinale. Colin was indisputably the man of the hour. As one of the organizers of this shindig, and curator of the upcoming permanent collection of antique rugs at the U of S, everyone wanted a piece of him.

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Including, apparently, my carpet robbers. And now, so did I.

Leaving Kirsch shaking hands with a well-endowed blonde with too much jewellery, who thought he was “darling, just darling,” and might have some good interior decorating tips for her, I raced off in the direction of Colin and the chatty crooks.

“Raced” might be overstating things a bit. With every square inch of the place crammed with carpet devotees and their plus-ones, it was a bit of a challenge to get through at a pace much faster than one “excuse me” at a time. By the time I got to where I’d last seen Colin, Stretch, and Squat, they were long gone, and the MC of the event, a slick local radio DJ, was calling on people to take their seats.

Pranav had arranged for Kirsch and me to sit with him and Unnati. We were joined by two other couples. They seemed to speak very little English. This was fine with me. I didn’t need any added distraction from the task at hand, which was to find Stretch and Squat again as soon as possible. Once I eyed them sitting down to dinner, I’d be on them like lint on a rug.

As for Pranav and Unnati, both seemed preoccupied and sullen. I’d convinced Kirsch that it might not be a good idea to inform them of Hema’s death until after the banquet. It wasn’t that I was worried about ruining their evening. I just didn’t want anything coming between me and pinning down her murderers, which I had every intention of doing that night.

While we waited for our appetizers to arrive, I showed Pranav and Unnati the cellphone picture of Stretch and Squat. They studied the picture with blank stares, and shook their heads when I asked if they recognized the men.

“You say they are delegates here?” Pranav asked. “Do they have something to do with Neil’s death? Is that what you think?”

I tilted my head to one side as I put away the phone. “Possibly.

And yes, I’ve already seen them here tonight.”

“Then we know who they are,” he said hurriedly, giving his wife an inquiring look. “You have a record of every delegate, yes?

We must at least have their names, isn’t that so?”

She nodded as she regarded her husband with pursed lips.

She said, “Yes. But there are over seven hundred registered dele-242

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gates. And then the same number of spouses and special guests. I certainly don’t know each by name or face, Pranav.”

“What about Colin?” I asked. “Would he be likely to recognize these men?”

“I cannot say,” she responded. “You must ask him.”

“Your husband tells me you haven’t heard of the Zinko carpet,” I said, briskly changing the subject. I found this to be a good technique when interviewing someone. It put them off guard, and tended to result in more truthful answers. For most people, a convincing lie takes some time.