Seaweed in the Soup (4 page)

“Mr. and Mrs. Wasserstein? Oh, they have been away in Switzerland for over a month.” She smiled up at us vacuously from a bench seat.

Bernie shook his head and looked at the sky. “Are you here every day, Mrs. Milton?”

“Oh no. When the Wassersteins are away, I'm only here three days a week. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Today is Monday, of course. I generally get here about nine and I usually leave around four.” After pondering for a moment she added, “I wouldn't mind putting in a little extra time. When you people get finished, Mr. Wasserstein will want things put back to rights I supp . . . ” The large woman's voice faded.

Mrs. Milton's inanities had brought Manners to fury again. Without bothering to mask his impatience, he snapped, “So you got here this morning around nine?”

“I think it was about five to nine, sir,” the housekeeper replied.

“Was the house locked up?

“Oh yes, I used my key to let myself in. Everything seemed normal, at first.”

“All right. Just before nine o'clock this morning, you unlocked the door and came into the house. Then what did you do?”

“Oh let me see,” she said merrily, her equanimity fully restored. “I took my coat off and hung it in the pantry. Then I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. I knew that Ronnie was home, because the house reeked of cigarettes. It was obvious that he had had company over the weekend, although he really isn't supposed to take such liberties. Mrs. Wasserstein would be furious if she found out that her gardener had been so free with his hospitality. Ronnie and some of his friends had evidently been smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol in the lounge. Partying, I suppose you'd call it. What I did, sir, I opened a few windows to air the place out. Tidied things up a little. Collected empty glasses. Emptied ashtrays and that and took everything to the kitchen. By then, the kettle had boiled.”

“And so you made yourself a nice cup of tea?” Manners said, grinding his teeth in frustration.

“I made myself a cup of instant coffee, if you want me to be perfectly accurate. I was going to wash the dirty dishes right away, but then the phone rang. I picked the phone up and said hello. But you know, I think it must have been a wrong number because the party hung up on me without speaking.” Mrs. Milton's eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “By then I was beginning to think it was a bit unusual, not hearing Ronnie moving around the place.”

With knitted brows, she went on, “So I thought, well, I'll get the vacuum cleaner out and do the carpets. Make a bit of noise to let Ronnie know that I'm here. And that's exactly what I did. I was downstairs going to the utility closet, where I keep the basement Hoover. As I passed his room I saw him, covered in blood. For a minute I was frozen stiff, I couldn't move. Then I screamed. I ran screaming out of the house, because I knew that he was dead. It was obvious that poor Ronnie was quite dead.”

Mrs. Milton might have been talking about the weather. There was no fright or horror in her voice.

From out in the woods came a sudden wolflike baying. Loud enough to flush birds from trees and send small animals scurrying through the undergrowth, the baying told us that Nicky Nattrass and his K-9 sidekicks had started work.

I said to Mrs. Milton, “You spoke about Mr. Chew's friends. Can you tell us who they were?”

“I'm sorry, I wasn't speaking literally. I've never met any of Ronnie's friends.”

“Too bad,” I said. “Okay. So you emptied ashtrays, picked up glasses and tidied the house. How many people do you suppose Mr. Chew was entertaining here last night?”

“Oh heavens, I've no idea. Three or four perhaps?”

“Those ashtrays that you emptied. What happened to all the cigarette butts?”

Mrs. Milton's merry laughter made Manners cringe. “Oh, I dumped them all into the garburator. I can't stand the smell of stale cigarette butts, can you?”

Bernie shoved his hands into his pockets; his eyes closed for a moment. “Right. Down into the garburator. You garburate stuff but you wash dirty dishes by hand?”

“Oh well that depends, sir. There's no way I'd put Mr. Wasserstein's expensive drinking glasses into a dishwasher. Or any pieces of real silverware. It would be a sacrilege. Why some of those glasses are the finest cut crystal, worth thirty or forty dollars apiece. We only use the dishwasher for ordinary cutlery and pots.”

“Are any of last night's dishes still left unwashed?” Manners asked her.

Mrs. Milton shook her head; her vapid smile faded.

Manners frowned when Bernie turned to me and said, “Any more questions for Mrs. Milton?”

I asked Mrs. Milton who had hired Ronnie Chew.

“Mr. Wasserstein did, at my suggestion.”

“I see. How did you and Mr. Wasserstein go about hiring him, exactly? Did Mr. Chew answer an advertisement?”

“We didn't advertise. Ronnie just showed up at the house one day. Knocked on the door and asked for a job. I suppose he must have heard that our previous gardener—that's old Mr. Tantino—had retired and guessed that we'd need a replacement.”

“So you and Mr. Wasserstein interviewed Mr. Chew,” I continued. “You checked his ID and put him on the payroll?”

Mrs. Milton hesitated. “Well, not quite. Ronnie began as a day labourer. I paid him out of petty cash. His work was very satisfactory. More than satisfactory. He's Chinese, you know, and they are very industrious. Ronnie knows everything about plants, pruning, soil maintenance and so on.”

I smiled. “Very nice. Now. How about documents? Did Ronnie show you any references? Identity papers?”

“Ah, well no, not exactly,” she answered evasively. “Our arrangement just sort of developed. By the time we realized how wonderfully satisfactory he was, Ronnie had proved himself, in my eyes at least. We were more than happy to let him work here full time and give him a room downstairs.”

“Who are ‘we'?”

“Well, Mr. Wasserstein and me. He was more than pleased to have a replacement for old Mr. Tantino.”

“Does that BMW belong to Mr. Chew?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, with a cheery laugh. “It certainly doesn't belong to me!”

I allowed myself a quiet chuckle. “So this man shows up looking for work. He's driving a late-model BMW sports car. He's wearing a nice suit and expensive shoes. He may have been wearing gloves to protect his long manicured fingernails. Weren't you just slightly suspicious when Mr. Chew asked if you were in need of a day labourer?”

Her eyes as round and guileless as before, she answered, “Well, it does sound a bit peculiar when you put it like that, I suppose.”

“Just so we're clear on this,” Manners interjected sarcastically, “You and your boss hired an undocumented Asian, a man with no papers, and you paid him under the table. Is that right?”

“Under the table?”

“You know what I mean. You continued to pay him cash. You never asked to see his papers?”

Mrs. Milton didn't respond.

Manners asked her to repeat her account of how she'd found Chew's body.

“Again? How many more times? And why are all these people here?” said Mrs. Milton, radiating sudden hostility and pointing at Manners, Tapp, me, Ricketts and finally at Cynthia Leach, who was all ears outside the gazebo.

Manners looked as if he had just chewed and then swallowed a whole lemon. “It's standard procedure,” he snapped. “These days courts are inclined to discount important evidence when it has been witnessed by only one policeman. You have to have at least two officers present. And as for why we like witnesses to repeat their accounts, it's because people tend to forget or overlook vital information the first time round.”

“Witnesses? Are you suggesting I witnessed Mr. Chew's murder? Am I a suspect? How dare you? Do you think I'm a murderer?”

Tears appeared in Mrs. Milton's innocent blue eyes. Before Manners could respond, she ran sobbing into the house. Bernie told Cynthia Leach to go after her and calm her down.

“Stupid cow,” said Manners. “People like that are too brainless to live.”

“Having a shitty day, Inspector Manners?” Bernie snapped. “How about trying your interrogation techniques on Tudor Collins?”

“Tudor Collins?” Manners asked, startled. “Who's he?”

“The guy who called 911, and sussed us onto the two Aboriginal women suspects. See how long it takes before your insolence reduces Mr. Collins to tears.”

Flushing at Bernie's affront, Manners stalked off.

Grinning, Bernie said, “Do you think I overdid it?”

“Maybe, but there's something about this place,” I said, staring at the handsome house. “It has bad vibes.”

“Cut the crap. Bad vibes my ass,” Bernie said, although his eyes narrowed when I told him about the petroglyph and the shaman's medicine bag.

≈  ≈  ≈

Bernie and I were in the kitchen putting Ricketts through the wringer again when Nicky Nattrass came in with a newspaper-wrapped parcel clenched in the crook of his elbow. The dog master said, “A present for you, Chief. Casey's compliments.”

Bernie raised his eyebrows. “Which is Casey?”

“The grey crossbreed with one droopy ear.”

Bernie told Ricketts to go home, sit tight and keep his mouth shut till somebody got back to him. “I especially don't want you and Lightning Bradley swapping stories,” Bernie snapped.

Ricketts went off like a lamb to the slaughter.

Nicky Nattrass placed his parcel on the kitchen table. Bernie put on a fresh pair of latex gloves and carefully removed the parcel's paper wrapping to reveal a transparent Ziploc bag. The bag contained an object about the length of a man's forearm. After staring at it for a moment, Bernie removed the object from the bag. It was heavy. At first glance, it resembled a tomahawk. The business end was a fist-sized chunk of granite, roughly cylindrical in shape, lashed to a wooden handle by leather thongs. The granite was speckled with reddish-brown stains that looked like dried blood.

“It's a slavekiller,” I said, recognizing it instantly. “There was an article about these things in the
Times Colonist
a few weeks back.”

Bernie's eyes widened.

“In the good old days,” I explained, “before White men came along and spoiled our fun, slavekillers were used at potlatches and other Native feasts. Slaves were valuable. To show his wealth and power and to amuse his guests, a chief would sometimes kill a slave or two between courses.”

Bernie said, “Kill them how, exactly?”

“Beat their brains out with a club like this one.”

“Nice people, these chiefs. Think one of 'em killed Ronnie Chew?”

“No, I don't.”

“Why not? I don't like coincidences, and there are a lot of them stacking up already in this case.”

“Such as?”

Bernie reached into his pocket and pulled out a corncob pipe. He said after a long pause, “We can assume that two Native women are involved in this case. Then there's Ricketts' almost unbelievable story about what he thinks he saw near a Native petroglyph. We have a shaman's medicine bag. Finally, we have a Native slavekiller club. I'm no mathematician, but I know this much: The odds against that particular combination of events coinciding randomly is billions to one against.”

Bernie put the corncob in his mouth and grinned. The pipe moving up and down as he spoke, he said, “So I'm asking you again, Silas. Do you think it's possible that a Native chief killed Ronnie Chew?”

“Hell no, Bernie. Anything is possible, but the chiefs that I know are all way too smart to drop a slavekiller where a dog could find it.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Let me ask you this, though. Is it a Coast Salish club?”

“It might be, although slavekiller clubs were widely used. They're usually more elaborate than this one. Designs varied. Some slavekillers were made of solid stone and shaped like animals. Some slavekillers were two-headed.”

“So what you're saying is, this one could be a Coast Salish club, a Nootka club or a Kwakiutl club?”

“Any or all of the above. I know it's not a nightclub.”

“Or a comedy club,” Bernie said.

“Or an ace of club,” Nicky Nattrass added for good measure.

Bernie grinned. “Okay, Nicky. Get back to work. Give Casey a dog biscuit from me.”

Smiling, Nicky went off.

Bernie looked happy. He was relaxed, smiling. Acting as he used to act. It was a good sign.

CHAPTER THREE

By the time Bernie turned the murder house over to the Serious Crimes squad, Nicky Nattrass' GMC muttmobile and several other emergency vehicles were parked along both sides of Collins Lane. Uniformed policemen and sniffer dogs combed the woods. Motorcycle cops were stopping motorists, asking questions, checking IDs and registrations, and ticketing people for not wearing seatbelts or other minor infractions. Manners fussed around, barking unnecessary orders.

Driving back to Victoria, Bernie asked me if I had any ideas about the identity of the two female suspects. It was a long shot—hundreds of Native Indians live in the greater Victoria area, and the population is constantly changing. But I told him about the two Native raven watchers I'd seen on Pandora Street a few days previously. Bernie didn't have any better suggestions, so he told me to look into it.

I asked Bernie to drop me outside the Bay building at the Fisgard Street corner. As I was getting out of the car, Bernie made a fist, pointed a stiff finger and said, “Exsanguinated.”

“What?”

“Drained of blood. It's that word I couldn't think of earlier. Stay close to the phone, Silas. I'll be talking with you later.”

He drove off in a hurry. I ambled south along Douglas Street.

A murmuration of starlings flew in from Vic West and settled on the utility cables flanking City Hall. Twittering gaily, the birds dumped a fresh load of guano onto the cars parked beneath them. In Centennial Square, a dishevelled middle-aged bag lady was standing on the tree-shaded grass guarding the treasures piled up on her shopping cart.