Law and Disorder. Mary Jane Maffini
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he went from puce to the colour of his dropped papers. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him crumple onto the floor on top of them. But I had to give him credit for trying to brazen it out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one’s threatened me, unless that’s what you’re trying to do.”
“Nice save,” I said, with admiration.
“As I said, no one’s threatened me.”
“No one suggested that it might be better for your girlfriend if you backed out?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend. There’s the door.”
“Did your car have slashed tires?”
“I bike to work. No money for a car yet.”
“Fair enough. Getting strange phone calls? Breathing on the line, nothing else? Finding your door open when you left it locked? Things mixed up on your desk?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”
Liar liar pants on fire. “Really?”
“I’m going to call the police now.”
There are guys who can utter a threat and your life flashes before your eyes. Jamie Kilpatrick wasn’t one of them. He couldn’t have scared a toddler if he was dressed as the devil on Hallowe’en. I wondered how he’d ever make a go of it in criminal law. Not a good job for a guy who can’t bluff.
“Go right ahead. I have lots of contacts there. They’ll be interested to know why the Brugel trial is delayed yet again. Some of those cops have a real hate on for Brugel. If they thought you had dropped the case in order to help him get a delay, they could start hassling you. Big time.”
He shrugged. “Let them.”
That told me something. Jamie Kilpatrick was not afraid of the cops hassling him about withdrawing. He wasn’t afraid of me, although lots of other people seemed to be. But he was afraid of something. What? Lloyd Brugel was on the top of my list of possibilities.
“Okay,” I said, “did he kidnap your cat?”
“What? Are you crazy? What cat?”
“That’s probably a good thing with Brugel’s people threatening you. Your dog then?”
“No dog. No pets. No threats.”
“You need some new lines, Jamie. I understand the part where you’re afraid of something. And there’s some reason for it. You should really tell me, for your own good.”
He leaned over and picked up the phone. He pressed nine. Then one.
I raised my hands in submission. “Fine. Sorry I got you all steamed up.”
He lowered the receiver, slowly, but didn’t hang up. I glanced at his shelf as I backed from the room. A framed photo of a graduation day. A solemn Jamie with a beaming couple who looked to be in their eighties. The photo had been taken in front of a small post-war bungalow. A vast spreading maple shadowed the tiny house. Parents? Not likely. Grandparents then. I stared at the photo, then met his eyes.
I knew, and he knew I knew.
“Elderly,” I said. “Vulnerable. Sitting ducks.”
He whispered, “Get out.”
I said, “I am not your enemy. Keep that in mind.”
I left him alone.
I knew that if his grandparents had been threatened, he would never reveal that. Knowing Brugel as I did, I would have kept my mouth shut too.
My day was evaporating between pouncing on people, checking out my sisters’ houses and watering their finicky houseplants, and phoning home to make sure Alvin was busy getting the boxes of office files out of the third bedroom to prepare it for Ashley and Brittany.
But there was one thing that I really needed to do. I pulled up into the parking lot of the Rideau Perley Veteran’s Health Centre and walked across the lot to the building, past a group of residents in wheelchairs parked by the entrance, and through the automatic doors.
The commissionaire nodded.
“I’m visiting Mrs. Violet Parnell,” I said. “She’s in the convalescent unit.”
The commissionaire at the desk said, “Oh yes. Violet. Along here. Then the first corridor on the left.”
I knew the way, but I nodded my thanks. The corridor might have been ten miles long. Or it might have been that I was dragging my feet. Usually I am in a rush to see my friend, but usually I am not quite so worried about her. Of course, the Perley was spotless and pleasant, but there was no doubt in my mind that the people who came in here by and large weren’t getting out again. Mrs. Parnell had been betrayed by her hip after a tumble in the shower the week before. I couldn’t help worrying about my fearless old ally ending her days in a place with IVs and strangers in uniforms. It didn’t bear thinking about. Guilt and fear were duking it out for top emotion as I trudged along the hallway.
Her door was open because you kiss privacy goodbye in a hospital. My heart constricted. I could almost hear it snap. The bed was made with military precision, but there was no sign of Mrs. P.
I leaned on the wall in shock. I knew people often die after broken hips. Maybe some of them even want to. But for Mrs. P. to pass away without me and Alvin with her, that would be unbearable. I found it hard to breathe, and my hands were shaking as I turned to hunt for a nurse. I found one at the nursing station, concentrating on a clipboard. She was round-faced and pleasant and looked happy in her pink scrubs. “Violet?” she said.
I nodded, mute for once, my heart thundering.
“Oh sure. She’s down in the Pub. She said that the sun was over the yardarm, and one of the aides helped her into a wheelchair. I saw her fly by not long after. Are you all right? You’re awfully pale. We don’t need anyone bringing the flu in here, you know.”
I grinned like a fool.
Her smile vanished. “Nothing funny about that. There are a lot of fragile people in this wing.”
“I’m not sick,” I said. “Just happy that Mrs. P. is all right.”
She nodded and went back to her paperwork. I hightailed it down the hall. The song in my heart had spread to my feet.
The Pub was on the first floor, near the main entrance. It smelled and looked pretty much like any other pub, which I thought was a good sign. Spilled beer is a great equalizer. Sounded like any other pub too, judging by the sports blaring from the large wall-mounted television and the laughter from the bar. I found Mrs. P. holding court. A pair of gents I took to be into their eighties were following her story intently. The story seemed to involve fighter planes, if her gestures were anything to go by.
“Ms MacPhee!” she said. “How splendid to see you!”
“You look great,” I said. “I thought…”
“Old war horses,” she chuckled. “We just have to pick ourselves up and get on with the battle.”
Her colleagues nodded. No arguments there.
“And speaking of war horses, Ms MacPhee, have you had an occasion to meet the Colonel and the Major?”
Both men got to their feet, somewhat unsteadily, but fast enough. The Colonel leaned on a walker. The Major got by with a cane.
The Colonel nodded gravely. “Pleasure,” he said.
The Major held out his hand. “Any friend of Violet’s a friend of mine.”
Mrs. Parnell’s eyes were shining. It may have been the impact of the new friendships. May have been the Harvey’s Bristol Cream. Hard to say.
“Get