Sara’s death, I lost my enthusiasm for law enforcement.” And, for a time, just about everything else, he recalled. Two days before Sara had died, he’d asked her to marry him. She’d said yes.
Matthias finished his coffee before Shoe had drunk a third of his and dropped the empty cup into a waste bin beside the bench. “Trumbull told us something else.” Shoe waited. “He told us that unless you’d changed a lot in ways that most people don’t usually change, there’s no way in hell you’d be involved in your friend’s death.” Shoe waited some more. Matthias shrugged. “Anyway, I put my money on the wife. Nine times out of ten, it turns out to be the wife.”
“You’d lose this one,” Shoe said.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Matthias looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “The guy that whacked O’Neill was a pro. Or at least a talented amateur. Left the murder weapon behind but bugger-all else. We didn’t find so much as a nose hair we could tie to him. We’ve got reports of someone answering his description boarding the SkyTrain, but then nothing. Probably removed his disguise on the train then ditched it. Cool. Not the kind of psycho dimwit wives usually hire to off their husbands. They usually leave a trail like a slug leaves slime.”
“What about the weapon?” Shoe asked.
“An old .38 Smith & Wesson service revolver, probably a souvenir from World War Two. The serial number was intact, but it won’t do us any good; the gun’s too old. There were no prints on either the gun or the shell casings. The MO is similar to another shooting a few years ago in Surrey, but otherwise we got squat. The victim back then was an informant who ratted out the wrong dealer, but there’s no evidence O’Neill was connected in any way to drugs. Anyway, most drug-related killings in this city these days involve Indo-Canadians. Still...” He shrugged again.
“What about other suspects? Sean Rémillard, Patrick’s cousin, could there be anything there?”
“I doubt it. Rémillard is what you might call colourful, but so far no one’s been able to come up with a plausible motive. Or even an implausible one.”
“What do you mean, ‘colourful’?”
“After passing the bar on his third try,” Matthias said, “he chased ambulances for a while before discovering politics. He was an independent city councillor for a few years, a real hair in the ass of both Harcourt and Campbell’s administrations. Since losing his seat in ’93, he’s worked as a Liberal party mouthpiece and fundraiser. Now I guess he’s decided to make a run for the brass in a federal by-election. Some say he’s being groomed to be prime minister someday. The theory being, I suppose, that a perfectly bilingual French Canadian from B.C. could restore the Liberal’s fortunes in the West and reunite the country.” Matthias made a face. “He’s tight with a big cheese in the party, um, I forget his name...”
“Allan Privett,” Shoe supplied.
“Yeah, that’s it. Rémillard’s married to his daughter.”
“What’s she like?” Shoe asked.
Matthias looked up at his partner.
“It’s hard to say,” Worth supplied. “She’s a bit on the cool side—”
“Cool?” Matthias snorted. “She’s cold as a frozen mackerel.”
Worth scowled at him. “Are you going to let me finish?”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” Worth said. “She’s of high average intelligence, I’d say, and well educated. She’s an only child and a bit spoiled. Attractive enough, but ...” She hesitated.
“She’s built more like a brick than a brick shit-house,” Matthias interjected.
Worth sighed. “She could use some time in a gym,” she agreed. “Good clothes, though,” she added as an afterthought, which brought a grin to her partner’s face.
“She knew Rémillard and O’Neill when they were kids growing up in Quebec,” Matthias said. “She had some emotional problems when she was fifteen or so, just after she moved out here with her family in ’76. She’s a do-gooder now, sick kids, the environment, women’s rights.” Worth scowled again, but Matthias ignored her. “The perfect wife for a politician,” he concluded.
“When I talked to Patrick on Friday,” Shoe said, “he told me there were a couple of business opportunities he was looking into. Anything there?”
“We got the number of an outfit in Nanaimo named LogiGraphics from his cellphone log. He called them just before he was killed to postpone a meeting. We had the Nanaimo cops talk to them. Bunch of computer nerds, they said, live like moles. They were pretty upset about O’Neill’s death. He was considering buying in and helping them go public to raise development capital.”
Shoe weighed his loyalties for a few beats, then said, “What about Victoria O’Neill’s friend, Kit Parsons?”
Matthias looked at Worth, whose eyebrow lifted again. He turned back to Shoe.
“Have you met her?” Matthias asked.
“Once, the day of Patrick’s murder. She was at Victoria’s house.”
“What’s your take on her?”
“She’s very protective of Victoria.” This time it was Worth who snorted. “How’s her alibi?” Shoe asked.
“She was in her studio with a client from two to four p.m.,” Matthias said. “He confirms it.” He sighed heavily. “She’s got motive, I guess, and attitude to spare, but unless we can connect her to the shooter somehow, we’ve got nothing. You’ve been poking around. Have you come up with anything we might be interested in? Anyone he work with look good for it?”
Shoe shook his head. “Not so far.” He hesitated, knowing it probably wouldn’t do any good to ask, but he asked anyway. “Did Patrick have his palmtop computer with him when he was killed? Or his laptop?”
“We’ve got his Palm,” Matthias said, “but he didn’t have a laptop with him. We didn’t find it in his car or at his home, either. Any idea where it might be?”
“The Palm was his own,” Shoe said, “but the laptop belonged to the company. We haven’t been able to locate it.”
“If it turns up, maybe you could let us know.”
“I’ll do that. Do you think I could get a copy of his appointment file from the Palm?”
“I’m not sure we could give it to you if we wanted to,” Matthias said. “O’Neill’s Palm is password protected and we haven’t been able to unlock it. According to our techs, the only way to bypass the password is to do a hard reset, which erases everything. They’re working on it. You wouldn’t happen to know his password, would you?”
“Sorry, no.”
Matthias was silent for a moment, then said, “Look, I could tell you not to nose around, although I get the impression that it wouldn’t do any good. But if you get in the way, or if we think you’re obstructing our investigation in any way, we’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks. A metric tonne at that.
