The Icing on the Corpse (14 page)

L
ook. I just called to apologize, Conn. I guess I've been a bit hard-nosed lately. But I
am
going to pick out a dress. Probably later today. Check with Alexa, she'll confirm we've already made a start. We're heading to Holt's in a handbasket. I'm being held up a bit because I have to research the exact timing of the arrival of the late Mr. Benning in Confederation Park on the night of his demise.”

“You'll get all the information you're entitled to in plenty of time to prepare for the preliminary hearing, unless of course, your client continues to plead guilty, and then you won't need it at all. I hope you aren't asking me for information outside the normal channels. Again.” Conn McCracken's voice had an edge, but then it so often does.

“Certainly not. I don't know how you can even suggest such a thing. I would like your special day to go perfectly. But until I get the timing of the murder nailed down, I'm not free to shop, even though I know how important it is. I'm sure, you, as a seasoned investigator, will understand my priorities.”

“You must think I'm stupid,” Conn said. “You get off your arse and stop upsetting your sister and get that dress before I start dusting off your files. Might find unpaid parking tickets, information on cases in the dead files, attempts to extort information from an officer of the law. Get my drift?”

I got it.

I figured Mombourquette might take a different view.

“No can do,” he said, when I phoned.

“Hey, no hard feelings. I was hoping I could find out the time Benning was deposited in the Crystal Garden, then I could make a better case to help Elaine. It must be torment for her in the RDC, but what the hey, she brought it on herself by confessing. I think I'll give the case a rest until after the wedding. I should be out buying an outfit to wear anyway.”

“The wedding's not until the 14th. You mean you're going to let Elaine wait until then?”

“What can I do? My family's on my back. You don't know what that's like. But trust me, no options here.”

“I'm beginning to learn about that,” he said mysteriously. “But even so, I don't think you can let your client just hang.”

“Oh, she won't
hang
, Leonard,” I chuckled. “Twenty-five years without parole's the worst that can happen to our girl.”

I swear to God he gasped before he said, “Just after two. Off the record, of course.”

“Of course.”

Okay, so I was stopped. I couldn't proceed to build any defence without key information: for instance, what exactly did the police know about the state of Benning's body when it was found. On the videotape, you could clearly see the kneeling figure of Benning encased in ice.

But a body wouldn't freeze solid in a few minutes. These things take time. Plus they take facilities. Benning had been over six feet tall and at least one-eighty. It would take a full chest freezer to do a number on him. I figured it had been somewhere around eleven p.m. when the gang at Lindsay's, and the cops guarding us, had conked out.

Three hours. I can't get ice cubes to freeze that fast.

Unless Benning's body had lost all its warmth, would a coating of ice even stay frozen? In order to make the case against Elaine, the cops would have to demonstrate that three hours was enough time to find Benning, kill him, decorate him for the ice sculpture, load the van, assuming she had one in the first place, and drop the body off at the WAVE section of the Crystal Garden.

What's more, if Lindsay had gone out to meet someone, it couldn't have been Benning. So something didn't make sense.

I wouldn't expect much luck getting McCracken to give me the info I needed. I might do okay with Mombourquette, but I'd need to play my cards right. In the meantime, I needed to know how long it would take to get a body to freeze like that and under what conditions. Then I had to work back in time to demonstrate that Elaine couldn't have killed him. Piece of cake, you'd think. But until I lucked into that info, I was stopped.

I don't like being stopped. I put a call in to the pathology department of the Ottawa Hospital and asked for Dr. Harry Varty. Just my luck, Dr. Varty was down with bronchitis. Apparently, the latest strain of the flu had decimated the staff.

“It's a horrible winter,” the assistant at the path lab said.

“Tell me about it.”

“I'll leave him the message, but we don't expect him to be on his feet before next week.”

For some reason, she didn't want to give me his home number. What the hell, I figured, another brick wall.

Speaking of brick walls, I gave P. J. a call. He was always plugged into what was happening. If I could reach him and stay on the ball, there was a small chance I could get a bit more information about the case than I'd reveal. I left a message on his voice mail asking if we were still supposed to go skating with his sister's kids. Or was it too damn cold?

I also left a message for Alvin suggesting he check the medical sciences library for information on the effects of freezing on humans. I also wanted to have a look at exactly what else might have been going on at the site where the videotape captured the deposit of Benning's body. While I was at it, maybe I could clear up who'd had access to the coffee and the pizza and who could have lifted Elaine's coat and hat.

“What hat?” The look of utter serenity on Elaine's heartshaped face didn't match the small stark legal interview room at the RDC. She had also said “what coat?”

The session would have been a write-off if she hadn't slipped and answered one of my questions. Turned out the coffee had been left, in the thermoses, in the SUV, outside the Colonnade, while she picked up the pizzas. Of course, the SUV was locked. Did I think she was demented?

“Look,” I said, “don't push me on this. Do you think I have nothing better to do with my life than to watch my friends get saddled with murder charges?”

“Do you?”

“Well, yes I do, Elaine. Lots.”

“Like what? You have no life at all outside of Justice for Victims. Since last spring, you're grouchier than ever.”

“
I
have no life? This is not about me. It's about you, Elaine.”

“Well, then why did you ask me if I thought you had nothing better to do?”

“I was making the point that you are wasting time. Yours. Mine. The justice system's. Everybody's time is getting seriously squandered here. If you leave out the media field day, the only person who benefits is the guilty party.”

“But I have explained to you that I am the guilty party.”

“Put a sock in it, Elaine. Someone killed that asshole and with good cause. And we both know it wasn't you.”

“Well, holy moly, if it wasn't me, I certainly couldn't tell you who it was.” She gazed up at the ceiling.

I watched my hands, afraid if I took my eyes off them they'd wrap themselves around her neck and squeeze.

“I'm not suggesting you know who killed him. But since someone who looked a lot like you wheeled a body out of a van and into the Crystal Garden on a dolly, I have to ask questions, and since the someone was wearing what looked a lot like your faux fur hat and coat, I have to ask myself if you are protecting someone. Say someone who had access to your clothing. My question is, are you? And if so, who?”

She looked surprised. “My leopard hat and coat? Why? They were locked in the SUV.”

“Listen, you were wearing your parka at Lindsay's. It was still there in the morning. Yet the video shows you wearing the coat and hat. You claim they were locked in the SUV. So tell me, did you change outside when it was minus thirty-five? And then change back again? And why?”

She didn't miss a beat. “Sure I did. They don't call me The Ice Queen for nothing.”

She was enjoying this far too much, especially the media habit of calling her the Ice Queen. I had a half-baked theory she might be protecting someone else at WAVE, but the more I looked at her grin, the more I wondered if I'd ever extract the truth from her.

“Don't be such a turkey. Who has a key to the SUV?”

“No one. I wish you'd believe me that I killed him, Camilla. Alone and without any help. It would save everyone a lot of trouble. We could plead guilty with justification, and we'd be away to the races.”

“If that's how you want to refer to maximum security, sure. We'd be away all right. I don't know how much trouble it would save, though.”

“I can take it.”

“I'm sure you'll love prison. Especially with the new regional arrangements for women. Plenty of social projects to keep you busy for the next twenty-five years.”

“Couldn't you try to understand, Camilla?”

Was everybody in the entire world demented? “All right. Let me be fair. Maybe you did do it. Who's to say? Why not?”

“I'm glad you're coming around, Camilla.”

I leaned in until I was about a half inch from her face. “Look, I'm willing to try to think that you might have done it, but you're going to have to work with me here. How did you drive the van?”

“Van?” Elaine frowned.

“You know what a van is, Elaine. You've almost collided with enough of them. So a van arrived and a person looking like you wheeled out a large box using a dolly and that box contained the body of Ralph Benning encased in ice.”

Her eyes widened. “Really? I mean, yes, that's what happened.”

“We're getting somewhere. So tell me, since when are you strong enough to load a box containing the body of a large man onto a dolly and wheel that dolly off the van you think you drove?”

“In an emergency, you find strength you didn't know you had.”

“And the Valium you drugged us all with? Where did you get that?”

“Valium? It's everywhere. The whole thing was just too easy.”

Bingo. She had no clue about the Rohypnol. I knew she hadn't done it. “It's frigging amazing all right. So who were your accomplices?”

She leaned back against the bare wall and smiled again. “I acted alone. And I'm proud of it.”

“I want to tell you something, Elaine.”

“No, it's time for me to tell you something.”