A Delicate Matter Page 26

  It was the most delicious soup Jack had ever tasted and it paired well with the wine. He gazed across the table at Tina. She’d lost the coin-flip to Laura and was toying with her soup. Too bad you have to pretend to be sick. The food is fantastic. Note to self — bring Natasha here someday.

  While waiting for their entrees, Aaron smiled at Laura. “So you’re heading up to see your brother in Alaska?”

  “Actually he flies a seaplane, so — Ouch!” Noise under the table indicated that she’d been kicked. She made a face at Jack.

  “They call it family business because it’s supposed to stay in the family,” Jack warned.

  Aaron and Chuck gave each other a knowing look.

  “I guess I’m not supposed to talk about my other brother,” Laura said. “Too bad, ’cause he’s the nice one.”

  After an uncomfortable silence Jack said, “How about I order another bottle of wine?”

  “I’m all for that,” Chuck said.

  When the entrees arrived, Jack was pleased with his choice. Like Aaron and Chuck, he’d ordered steak and it was perfectly done. Tina waited until Laura had finished her halibut before excusing herself to go to the washroom, leaving her own plate of roast chicken only half eaten.

  Ten minutes later Laura expressed her concern and went to check on her. When she returned she said, “She’s in there being sick. I’m going to take her back to the hotel.”

  Disappointment was evident on Chuck’s face.

  “Are you coming back after?” Aaron asked hopefully.

  Laura shook her head. “Sorry, no, I think I should stay with her.” With a nod toward Jack she added, “If things work out, we’ll be coming up here every couple of months.”

  “We don’t know yet, Laura,” Jack said. “They’re still waiting to hear back from someone.”

  Laura gave Aaron and Chuck an apologetic smile. “I sure hope it works out and that you give us another chance. I know Tina feels really bad, too.”

  “How long do you plan on staying in Vancouver?” Aaron asked.

  “Let’s see what tomorrow brings,” Jack replied. “I was given the name of someone else that I can talk to — but he lives in Penticton. Vancouver would be more convenient, but I guess that’s life. If I have to go elsewhere, I will.”

  After Laura and Tina left, Jack enjoyed a milk-chocolate mousse with chocolate-almond crunch, roasted almond, and dark chocolate. Yes, I’ll definitely be bringing Natasha here. He glanced across the table at Aaron and Chuck. Am I wasting my time with these goofs? Even if they do connect me to someone, who’s to say any of them had anything to do with Dwayne’s murder?

  Chuck drained the heel of another bottle of Pinot Noir into his glass, then looked at Jack questioningly.

  “Sure, why not?” Jack said and gestured to the waiter. Laura and Tina had the easy job. I’m stuck with these two.

  It was 11:00 p.m. when Jack said that he was calling it a night. He paid the tab and they descended the stairs to the street.

  Chuck’s voice was slurred and he swayed on his feet as they stood on the sidewalk to say goodbye. “I’ll call ya tomorrow. Don’t know why that guy hasn’t called back yet. Betcha he does in the morning.”

  “Whatever. You’ve got my number,” Jack said.

  Aaron had stayed relatively sober during the evening. “Thanks for a great meal. Hopefully we can do it again. Next time we’ll pay.”

  “Yeah, the food was great,” Chuck said. “Too bad Trina and Laurie missed out.”

  “It’s Tina and Laura,” Aaron corrected him.

  “Really?” Chuck looked surprised. “Anyway, JB, call ya tomorrow.”

  “Either that or I’ll drop by the store,” Jack suggested. “Speaking of which, hope you guys don’t have headaches when you open in the morning.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Aaron said.

  “Me, too,” Chuck said. He giggled, gesturing with his hands apart like he was telling a fishing story. “I only drank this much!” He staggered backward.

  One of four men passing by behind was bumped and Chuck flailed his arms to maintain his balance. By the looks of the men, they could easily pass for professional football players, Jack thought.

  “Hey, careful there, little buddy,” the man said.

  “Who ya calling little?” Chuck shouted. “Ya big dumb ape!”

  Jack grabbed Chuck by the upper arm. “My apologies, gentlemen. His girl left him tonight and now he’s had too much to drink. I’ll deal with him.”

  “No worries,” the man replied and continued on his way.

  “Those guys were huge,” Jack said as he let go of Chuck’s arm. “They could have turned us all inside out if they wanted.”

  “Fuck, I don’t care!” Chuck looked at Aaron. “Ya hear that guy diss me?”

  “I heard everything,” Aaron stated. “You’re drunk. Let it go.” He looked at Jack. “Good night, JB, and thanks again.”

  “Good night, guys,” Jack replied.

  Aaron gestured for Chuck to follow him and headed down the sidewalk.

  Chuck paused, scowling in the direction of the man he’d bumped. “That’s one fucker I’d enjoy seeing gut-shot and capped in the skull,” he muttered.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Jack knocked on Laura’s and Tina’s hotel-room door. As he waited Dwayne’s last sobbing words replayed in his mind. He shot me, Officer Taggart … in my tummy. I’m going to die, aren’t I? The sound of the second gunshot echoed in his mind. His body jerked when Laura opened the door at the same time.

  He saw Laura glance down the hall. “No, I didn’t invite them back. I need to make some notes and write down something Chuck said. When I’m done I’ll be back and making us all a martini.”

  “Celebratory?” asked Laura.

  “Chuck was there when Dwayne was murdered.”

  Laura looked at Jack in surprise.

  “I’ll explain when I come back. Give me twenty minutes.”

  Laura understood the need for Jack to write down as much conversation as he could recall as soon as possible. Every minute of delay was ammunition for a defence lawyer to say the notes weren’t accurate. She glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll get Tina out of her sickbed and explain the olive-soup tradition. Hurry, I can’t wait to hear.”

  Laura and Tina listened raptly as he, busy preparing the martinis, described how the evening had gone. When he reached the part where Chuck staggered into a man on the sidewalk, he paused and handed them their glasses.

  “What do you think?” he asked Tina with a nod at her drink.

  Tina took a sip. “Not as bad as I expected.”

  “That’s what I thought the first time,” Laura said. “Jack told me they were an acquired taste. Work with him and they tend to grow on you — perhaps out of need, I’m not sure.”

  Tina smiled, then looked at Jack. “So? Come on! Don’t keep us hanging here. What happened? Did the little fart get his ass kicked? What makes you think he was there when the murder happened?”

  “Unfortunately he didn’t get his ass kicked,” Jack replied, reaching for his notebook. “But when the guy walked away, Chuck said, and I quote, ‘That’s one fucker I’d enjoy seeing gut-shot and capped in the skull.’”

  Laura and Tina looked at each other in shock.

  “He said he’d like to see the guy gut-shot, which Dwayne was, before he was likely ‘capped in the skull,’” Jack said. “To me that indicates Chuck was there but didn’t do it himself. Otherwise he’d have said, ‘I’d like to gut-shoot him.’”

  “You think maybe Aaron did it?” Tina asked.

  “Whoever did it had a boat,” Jack said. “It’s possible it was Aaron, but so far we haven’t connected either one to a boat. “Dwayne told me there were three guys. I’m thinking whoever pulled the trigger was someone else. But I bet Chuck and Aaron were both there
.”

  “How’d Aaron respond to Chuck saying that?” Laura asked.

  “He was walking away at the time. Chuck muttered the words, so I don’t think Aaron heard him.”

  “Muttered, eh?” Tina said. “Meaning, Defence will say you didn’t really hear what he said, either.”

  “Exactly,” Laura agreed. “A defence lawyer could convince a jury that Chuck said something along the lines of ‘The guy with the big gut who shot his yap off is someone I’d like to slap on the skull.’ Then it would be intimated that you either lied or just hadn’t heard properly.”

  “Only takes one in the jury to believe the Defence version,” Tina noted.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jack replied. “We’ll continue the UC until we get all the details.”

  “Hopefully we’ll find out who the third man is soon.” Tina glanced at Laura. “What a fun job. I get to date a drunken little bald guy who likes to pick fights — although your sweetie isn’t any better.”

  “Yes, who knew that working UC could be so glamorous,” Laura said. She looked at Jack. “So what’s next?”

  “We’ll stay here tonight. If I don’t hear back from them in the morning, I’ll drop by their store around noon and put a little pressure on them. I’ll say you both feel bad for bailing on them. Then I’ll talk business and threaten to go elsewhere if they don’t get their act together soon. I think they’ll do their best to accommodate me.”

  “Hope they do it fast,” Tina said. “If I have to see them again, I won’t be pretending to be sick.”

  It was 2:00 a.m. when the three of them decided to call it a night. Jack was heading for the door when he received a call from the Interpol office in Ottawa.

  After hanging up, he smiled at Laura and Tina. “Six major European players arrived at the Hôtel de Toiras in Saint-Martin-de-Ré. Investigators managed to pick up conversation between three of them, along with both Satans Wrath members. The boat is expected to arrive at about ten o’clock tonight their time, which will be one o’clock this afternoon for us.”

  “Eleven hours from now,” Laura noted. “Any mention of the cocaine?”

  “Not specifically, but plans were discussed to unload the boat at six the following morning — which would be nine tonight here.”

  Laura looked reflective. “Even if we’re stuck dating Goofus One and Two at that time, I’ll still be smiling.”

  “Likewise,” Tina said. “A metric ton … what do you think it’s worth?”

  “Once it’s seized, I’d say it’s worth about four martinis each,” Jack replied.

  The bed was one of the most comfortable Jack had slept on, but the first half-hour passed with him fretting about the investigation in France. When he finally put that to rest, the events of the evening, along with Dwayne’s cries for help, replayed in his mind.

  It was 3:30 a.m. when his thoughts returned to having coffee with Aaron and Chuck in the backroom of their store. He recalled Chuck going to the front, ostensibly to look after a customer. Funny. I remember thinking I never heard the bell over the door — but heard it twice before he returned.

  “Son of a bitch, I’m stupid!” He sat bolt upright in bed.

  Ten minutes later he crawled under his rented Mercedes and spotted the tracker. He cursed himself for not thinking to look earlier. He’d thought because Chuck had been unable to contact whoever he was trying to reach, taking that precaution wouldn’t be necessary.

  He gave a grim smile as he stared at the tracker. Thanks for the confirmation, assholes. You think you’re tracking me? Better look behind you. I’m on your trail — and the end is near.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Jack left the tracker where it was and returned to bed, but sleep eluded him for the better part of two hours. It was 5:30 a.m. when he finally drifted off to sleep.

  Two hours later, he was awakened by an incoming call on his regular phone, which he had left on the bedside dresser beside the cellphone he had purchased for the UC.

  “I’ve got an update,” a man said, not bothering to say hello.

  Jack recognized Damien’s voice. “I’m listening.”

  “The boat is due to arrive before midnight Wednesday their time. Unloading is to take place at six the next morning.”

  “You sure?” Jack asked, not wanting to disclose that he already knew.

  “I’m sure. Pure E is calling a meeting with everyone for tonight, including some from Alberta. He’s gathering the executive members at nine o’clock to tell them. With the time difference, that’ll be when the first shipment hits the docks. He wanted to know if I was coming.”

  “Are you?”

  “My presence would put a damper on the party.” With that, Damien hung up.

  Jack managed to go back to sleep, but at ten past nine his regular phone vibrated again. The call display blocked the details of the caller, but he answered with a sleepy hello.

  “Jack, are you still in bed?” His caller was a woman.

  “As a matter of fact I am,” he replied, trying to put a name to the voice.

  “At the Pan Pacific Hotel?” she asked.

  “Uh … yes.”

  Jack heard her speak to someone in the background and say, “Yup, it was Jack.” She turned back to the phone. “Still in bed … tsk, tsk. Too many olive soups, I bet.”

  “Who is this?” Jack asked.

  “You don’t even recognize my voice? Typical man,” she said. “Last time I had olive soup with you was in a hotel room in Edmonton. After that you never called. You never wrote. Bet you found some other girls — like Laura and Tina — to keep you company.”

  “Vivian Mah!” Jack smiled. Vivian was a civilian member who worked in Victoria, where she was responsible for monitoring wiretaps. They’d worked on a joint project years earlier that had taken a group of them to Edmonton for a court case. It was there that he’d introduced several of them to his olive soup. “How’ve you been?” he asked.

  “Good. Same old, same old. “And you? How are Natasha and the boys?”

  “Good. We’re all good. I presume Rose told you I was here.”

  “Rose?”

  “My boss. Rose Wood.”

  “No, it wasn’t her,” Vivian replied. “I monitored some conversation this morning about some hotshot by the name of JB who drinks what he calls olive soup, stays at the Pan Pacific, and has a good-looking sister whose friend is Asian. I had a hunch it’d be you.”

  Jack immediately swung his feet over the side of the bed. “You got Chuck or Aaron on wire?” he asked.

  “It was a Chuck who called initially,” Vivian replied. “We don’t have him identified any more than that. That call came in at one-thirty yesterday afternoon.”

  “His name’s Charles Atwood.”

  “Atwood … okay. Then another call came in last night at eleven-thirty from a different guy saying they’d had a great dinner and that Chuck was drunk.”

  “That’d be Chuck’s partner. His name’s Aaron Goldsmith. I’ll give you the pertinent details in a moment. Who were they calling?”

  “Our primary target. A fellow by the name of Todd Doringer who a source says is running B.C. bud down to the States.”

  “I don’t imagine you’d know if the source is in tight with him, would you?” Jack asked.

  “The investigator who got the wiretap is in court at the moment, but from what I heard, the source is connected to someone Doringer sells to and not to him directly.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Do you want to hear the calls?” Vivian asked.

  “Give me the gist of them now. That’ll be faster. I don’t know when the bad guys will be calling me and want to be prepared. I’ll listen to the calls and make notes later.”

  “Okay. There isn’t much. We only got Doringer hooked up yesterday morning.” Vivian snickered. “I think it’s pretty
funny that the first call we get would involve you. The investigators will be happy. You’ve made the wire positive right off the bat.”

  “Peaks and valleys,” Jack said. “Sounds like I hit a peak. What’s interesting is yesterday afternoon I was with Chuck at one-thirty. I was trying to score and he said he’d call someone. I saw him use his phone, but he told me he couldn’t reach the guy and left a message.”

  “He lied,” Vivian said. “Chuck told Doringer that he met an American who was looking to buy two king salmon.”

  “Make that two hundred pounds of marijuana,” Jack said brusquely.

  “Sort of what we figured. He said he —”

  “Vivian,” Jack interrupted, “interesting he uses a code like that. Does Doringer have access to a boat?”

  “More than access,” Vivian replied. “He lives on a boat.”

  Jack found himself staring at his knuckles. They had turned white as he gripped the phone. He didn’t know if he was going to let loose a tear or scream with delight.

  “It’s old … about a fifty-footer with a wooden hull,” Vivian continued. “He’s an ex-navy guy and calls it Awol.” She waited for Jack to respond, then asked, “Why? Is that important?” There was still no response. “Jack? Are you there?”

  Jack took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. “Yes … yes, I’m here.”

  “I asked if Doringer having a boat was important?”

  “Important? Viv, I could kiss you right now.”

  “Why? I mean, other than the fact that I’m sexy and used to men throwing themselves at me.”

  Normally Jack would’ve joked back, but an unwanted flashback to Dwayne’s dying moments precluded any joviality. “I didn’t approach Chuck and his partner to catch them dealing dope,” he said. “They’re suspects in the murder … the murder of …”

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear,” Vivian said. “Who was murdered?”

  Jack swallowed. “An informant of mine. He was looking after a grow-op on Bowen Island when three guys did a rip. He was on the phone to me when it was happening. I heard the shots and … it was, uh … he was killed before I could get much in the way of details.” He paused to gain better control of his voice. “Whoever did it came and went by boat.”