Death on a Short Leash (2 page)

• • •

JUST FOUR MONTHS LATER
, on Monday, September 12 1960, Margaret Spencer moved into her freshly painted house. She had taken a slightly larger mortgage than needed in order to replace the ancient plumbing and wiring and install an electric stove and a refrigerator, both in Harvest Gold, and—her pride and joy—a washing machine that actually spun-dried. To her great surprise Harry had agreed to everything. “Because,” as he stated, “it will add to the house's value, Margaret. My accountant tells me that Kitsilano is an up-and-coming neighbourhood, and when you've come to your senses and returned home, we'll be able to sell it for far more than we've paid for it.” It was with great restraint that Maggie had managed to bite her tongue and not point out that he had only co-signed for the mortgage—she was the one doing the buying.

“You've got a nice little place here, Mrs. S,” Nat said as he set another container down on the wooden kitchen table. “Hope you don't want me to carry this one upstairs too,” he added wearily.

“It stays right here,” she answered. “See? It's marked, ‘kitchen.'”

“Thank God; I couldn't carry another thing,” he replied, sinking his slightly overweight bulk into the nearest chair. “Maggie, why is that damned cat making such an awful racket?”

“Poor Emily,” Maggie crooned and bent down to open the cat carrier. The cat, her white fur ruffled, struggled out of her prison and stalked around the room, sniffing. “Here,” Maggie said, picking her up. “Let's put some butter on your paws.”

“Butter on its paws!” Nat exploded. “What the hell for?”

“She'll lick it off and get the scent of her new home. Everyone knows that.”

“Ha! I didn't. What do you want me to do now?”

“Just take me out for dinner,” she answered sweetly, ruffling his curly brown hair. She couldn't help thinking how different he was from her ex. Harry, who rarely smiled, was so stiff and formal, and Nat was good-natured, careless with his appearance but with a happy face that was always ready to break into a smile.

• • •

ALTHOUGH MAGGIE AND NAT
were more than great friends, he didn't stay after they returned from supper. He sensed that she wanted to be on her own to sort things out and to gloat. She did just that, and then, tired but happy, she and Emily retired to the surprisingly large bedroom in their new home. “It's been quite a day, puss,” Maggie said as she snuggled down under the quilt. Emily's answer was a deep contented purr.

The first thing she did on Sunday morning was to call her two daughters and give them her new phone number.

“I'm sorry I couldn't come and give you a hand with the moving,” Barbara, the elder of the two, said, “but I had a bad night. Oliver's cutting teeth. But I'm sure you had plenty of help from
that man
,” she added maliciously. Maggie never ceased to marvel at how alike her ex and her first-born were.

When she phoned her second daughter, Midge, she responded with, “Wish I could've have been there to lend a hand, but I thought about you all day while I was changing bedpans.” Midge was a nurse at the Royal Columbian Hospital.

“I'm sure you would have had much more fun changing bedpans than helping me move,” her mother replied, laughing. “And I'll have you all over once I get straight.” She spent the rest of the day emptying boxes, filling cupboards and revelling in her very own place. Emily, keeping a wary eye on Maggie, even ventured outside and sniffed the bushes and plants in the overgrown garden. “It's going to be hard going back to work tomorrow,” Maggie said, picking the cat up and burying her face in the soft fur.

It turned out to be harder than she expected. To begin with, she failed to give herself an extra fifteen minutes to get to the agency's office on West Broadway, her usual parking spot on Fir had been taken, and she had to drive around to find another. The ancient elevator to their third-floor office had died once again, and as she inserted the key into suite 301, the place was ominously quiet. She knew that Nat had an early appointment with a downtown client, but Henny, their office help, should have been there.

After a hot weekend the place smelled stuffy, and Maggie couldn't get to the window quickly enough to fling it open. “Where can that dratted woman be?” She was tired from unpacking the endless boxes, and the thought of doing her own work as well as Henny's appalled her. “Perhaps one of her kids is sick,” she thought guiltily as she sat down at her own desk and pulled the telephone toward her to dial Henny's home number. She let the phone ring for awhile before giving up and dialling the answering service.
Perhaps she's left a message.
But no one had called over the weekend.

It was eleven before Nat returned from his meeting, and one look at Maggie's face told him all was not well. “What's up?”

“No Henny!” she replied with tight lips. “That's what's up.”

“Where is she? Sick?”

“I've tried to get her on the phone, but there's no answer.”

“Must be something wrong,” Nat answered. “It's not like her.”

Maggie shrugged. “All I know is I'm up to my eyes trying to get these reports finished and the accounts and the filing . . .” Maggie, who had been promoted to assisting Nat in most of the agency's cases, was finding Henny's absence a real strain. “To think I used to do both jobs,” she complained, banging a cup of coffee down in front of him. “How did we manage?”

“But we've doubled our clientele in the past year, Maggie me gal. We're making a name for ourselves.”

“If we go on at this rate,” she replied, “we'll need another Henny.” His look was enough. “Just teasing,” she laughed. Their Dutch office assistant was one-of-a-kind.

“Relax, Maggie. She'll turn up.”

But it was after twelve before Henny, pushing a reluctant, petite woman in front of her, suddenly erupted into the office.

“Henny, where have you been?” Maggie exploded.

“This is my friend Marie,” Henny answered, totally ignoring Maggie's question. “She in a lot of trouble. We need Mr. Nat to help.”

“What trouble?” Nat asked suspiciously from the doorway to his office.

“It is Johanna, Marie's daughter. She's gone missing and we can't get help from the police, and Marie has just come back from England.” She stopped for breath. “So we need Mr. Nat to find her.”

“Calm down and
sit
down, Henny.” He turned to the distraught woman beside Henny, who was literally wringing her hands. “Now . . . Marie, is it? Tell me what's happened.”

“Marie Evans,” Henny interjected.

“So tell me what happened, Mrs. Evans,” Nat said again.

“I don't like to bother you but, Henny insisted,” she began tearfully. “My daughter Johanna was supposed to have met me at the airport yesterday.”

“And she didn't,” Maggie quietly prompted, turning one of the visitor chairs around from her desk. “Here, Mrs. Evans, sit down.”

The woman ignored the chair. “It is so unlike her, and . . . and . . . then I thought perhaps she got caught up in traffic.” She paused and looked toward Henny, who nodded encouragement. “So . . . so I waited for a long-time, then I found a telephone box and I phoned. But she didn't answer.”

“Then what did you do?” Nat asked.

“I found a taxi and went to her apartment on No. 3 Road in Richmond. It's not all that far from the airport, you see,” she explained. “But . . . but she wasn't there.”

“You don't have a key?” Maggie asked, motioning toward the chair.

“Thank you,” Marie said, “but I'm too upset to sit. No, I don't have a key, but I knew her friend across the hall had one, so I knocked on her door, but she wasn't there either.” She dabbed her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. “I just didn't know what to do.”

“So then you called me,” Henny chipped in.

“Yes. I walked to the corner drugstore and I called Henny and she very kindly picked me up.”

“Marie is like a sister to me,” Henny explained. “We went to school together in Holland.”

Ah,
thought Maggie,
that explains the slight accent I heard in Marie's voice.
“There isn't a janitor in the building?” she asked.

She shook her head. “There are only six apartments. Anyway, I kept calling both the girls all evening and neither of them answered.”

“How did you get this other girl's phone number?” Nat asked.

“I knew her name was Laura Pearson, and I found her in the telephone book,” she explained. “And then when I called again this morning, she answered. She said she'd been away for the weekend.”

“And Johanna?” Maggie asked.

“Laura said she hadn't seen her for at least ten days.”

“Ten days? Wasn't she worried?” Nat asked.

“They're not close friends and she just thought Johanna had taken the ferry to Gibsons to see her papa and me. When I said how worried I was, she got me to hold on while she ran over to Johanna's apartment.”

“And?”

“She said there was no sign of my little girl.” Her eyes were now brimming with tears and she sank into the chair.

“You called the police?”

“First I called Dr. Williams at the animal hospital. That's where she works. He yelled at me. He said he hadn't seen or heard from her for nearly two weeks. He was very mad because he had to hire someone to replace her.”

“Then you went to the police?” Nat asked.

Marie and Henny both nodded. “They took a description and told me not to worry, as she's bound to turn up. How could they say that to a mother?” she asked tearfully. “And I'm very worried.”

“You're married?” Nat asked.

“Yes, but my husband David is still in Wales.” Then, seeing the confused look on Nat's face, she continued. “You see, my father-in-law died suddenly and we went to Wales for the funeral. My husband stayed on to help his mother.”

“I think we ought to have a look over your daughter's apartment. Can you call this Laura for the key?”

“That is good idea,” Henny said, getting up from her chair.

“Hold it, Henny,” Nat said firmly. “We need you right here.”

“But I should go with Marie.”

“Don't worry. We'll bring her right back.”

“I told Laura that I would come back this morning,” Marie Evans said impatiently as she waited for Nat and Maggie to slip into their coats. “I told her to leave the key under the mat. But she said she would be in, as she doesn't have to go to work till this evening.”

J
ohanna Evans' place was in one of the small apartment blocks that had sprung up along No. 3 Road in Richmond since the war. It consisted of six apartments, two to a floor, separated by a central staircase. “Naturally,” Nat muttered as he struggled up the last flight, “she would live on the top floor.”

Laura, a striking redhead, was waiting for them when they reached the landing.

“Here's the key,” she said, handing it to Marie Evans. “I do hope Johanna's okay. I feel real bad not checking up on her.”

Marie took the key and slowly opened the door to her daughter's apartment, then stopped suddenly, blocking the way.

“There must be some mistake,” she gasped, backing out. “This isn't Johanna's place.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asked, gently pushing past the woman. “But this is really lovely.”

“That is what I mean. My Johanna can't afford furniture like this!” The three of them surveyed the bright, cheerful room. It looked like something out of the Hudson Bay's Heritage showrooms.

“She only works part-time. She can't afford furniture like this,” she repeated. She turned to leave. “I will ask Laura.”

“Let's have a look around first,” Nat said quickly. “Perhaps you'll recognize something belonging to your daughter.”

Marie Evans shook her head as she took in the matching green and rose three-piece suite, the long glass-topped coffee table, the two highly polished walnut end tables and the ceramic table lamps. The rest of the furniture was made up of a record player, a sixteen-inch TV and a bookcase, and the polished wooden floor was covered in an area rug of rose and green. “Where would she get the money for such things?” she asked.

“Perhaps she's paying for it on time,” Maggie suggested.

“All this?” Marie said, waving her arms to encompass the large room.

“But you've been here before, haven't you?” Maggie asked.

“Only when Johanna first moved in. But that was two years ago. We don't come to the city very much. She likes to take the ferry to come and see us in Gibsons.”

“Do you see
anything
that you recognize?” Nat insisted.

Marie started to shake her head and then, stopping in front of a watercolour depicting a sailboat heeling in the wind, she said, “Oh, this one was painted by my husband!” Gently she touched the canvas. “Johanna especially loves this one.”

“Why don't you two look in the kitchen,” Nat said as he opened the closet door, “while I go through all these outer clothes.”

“Good idea,” Maggie said, shepherding Marie toward the kitchen door, “and then we'll look in the bedroom. Perhaps you'll recognize something else.”

Marie, her eyes full with unshed tears, gave another look at the painting and then allowed herself to be ushered into the up-to-date kitchen. Except for a row of well-used cookbooks, it was clinically clean, with a shining tiled floor that reflected fairly new appliances. The modern twin aluminum sinks and faucets shone like the floor.

“Your daughter obviously likes to cook,” Maggie said, indicating the books.

“I gave her most of those,” Marie said, taking down a Fanny Farmer. “See, I wrote in it.” She was quiet for a moment. “I still don't understand . . .” Maggie moved her gently out of the kitchen and into the large master bedroom at the back of the apartment.