Booking In Page 12

  Chapter Nineteen

  I came through the door at home around six, not feeling nimble after a day of gumshoeing, my yen for a martini peaking. Annie called down from the second floor. She must have finished her latest overnight interview trip to Meg Grantham’s summer place earlier than either of us expected.

  “Crang,” Annie said, just loud enough to reach downstairs, “I need you up here.”

  “Down here’s better,” I said at the same volume. I turned toward the kitchen. “It’s closer to the vodka and the vermouth.”

  “I got a mystery that needs solving,” Annie said.

  I switched directions and headed for the stairs

  “On my way,” I called. Crang, the Solutions-R-Us guy.

  The house smelled heavily of floor wax and lightly of somebody’s sweat. Every second Monday was Mercedes’s day at our place. She was the cleaning lady, an ample woman born on the Canary Islands, a wizard with mops and brushes and rags, but not overly vigilant. “Accidents happen,” Mercedes said whenever she busted something, as she had a month earlier with one of Annie’s three-hundred-dollar Scandinavian dinner plates.

  Upstairs, when I got there, Annie was standing in the hall outside the bathroom, her right hand extended in a voilà gesture.

  “Voilà,” she said, waving her hand at the bathroom’s interior.

  Thanks to an inspired reno job by the previous owners, the main bathroom was one of the house’s glories. The owners had blasted out a small bedroom, doubling the bathroom’s size. It featured a clawed bathtub, a separate stand-up shower, a bidet, and a long counter with his-and-hers sinks, his-and-hers cabinets, and plenty of counter space for everything.

  Annie’s hand was pointed in the direction of the countertop at my end, which seemed more crowded than usual. It took me a couple of seconds to realize what the extra tubes and bottles and packages were all about.

  “Mercedes must have set these up,” I said.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Annie said. “But what are they?”

  “I left them in the cabinet down below in a Shoppers Drug Mart bag.”

  “And?”

  “And they’re stuff to improve a person’s teeth, gums, the whole interior mouth’s workings. Eliminate halitosis.”

  Annie made a closer inspection of the equipment. “So they are,” she said. “But how come?”

  “They’re a gift for Fletcher.”

  Annie smiled, then giggled, then lost it completely. She laughed so hard she needed to leave the bathroom. I followed her downstairs.

  “Please make the martinis, sweetie,” she said between laugh spasms.

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said.

  By the time I’d mixed the martinis and carried them to the dining room with the garden view, Annie had taken control of her laugh attack. She accepted a martini from my hand and motioned me closer for a kiss, which we executed delicately, not spilling a drop of our drinks.

  “Giving Fletcher the anti-halitosis potions and equipment wasn’t my idea,” I said.

  “It’s not to be mocked, actually.”

  “Charlie Watson thought it up.”

  “The pretty woman in the store? The one you saw in the bikini on your stakeout the other night?”

  “She’s a predecessor of yours in one negative sense.”

  “Fletcher treated her to his lovebird tactics?” Annie said. “I might have guessed that.”

  Annie sipped her martini and thought for a bit. “You should take Charlie up on the idea,” she said.

  “Me getting Fletcher on an anti-halitosis regimen?”

  “This may sound conceited of me, but the chances are he’ll think you’re operating on instructions I gave you, and since I’m so recently at the top of his list of possible inamoratas, he could very conceivably embrace the whole notion.”

  “And you think I’ll end up in his good books?”

  Annie nodded. “Right where it’s probably helpful for you to be.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I won’t be going loaded with admiration for him as a client.”

  “Do I take it you showed the forged poems to my guy Ish as scheduled?”

  “Did I ever.”

  I outlined for Annie my morning in Ish Standwin’s pen-and-paper shop. She came close to another fit of giggles when I got to the part about the writing from a BIC Cristal on the document that was supposed to date from the 1890s.

  “It hardly took any time or effort for Ish to spot the flaws,” I said.

  “The man knows his business.”

  “So how come Fletcher hasn’t been able to do the same?” I said. “He told me he didn’t have the time to study the poems yet, but how much time would be involved? Ish handled it in ten minutes.”

  “You smell fishy behaviour?”

  “And what’s the intel on Fletcher’s money problems?” I said.

  “Where did you flash on hints about his financial shortages in the first place?”

  “It’s more information that came from Charlie.”

  “You trust her word?”

  “There were wobbles on her trustworthiness with the fibs she told me the first time we talked,” I said. “But on the subject of Fletcher’s cash grief, I tend to believe her without reservation. One thing for sure, she works right alongside Fletcher, which puts her in a position to pick up vibes about money and the shortage thereof.”

  Annie nodded. It was a grudging kind of nod.

  “There’s another thing entirely I’m wondering about,” I said. “How come Fletcher got all close-mouthed when I asked him who sold the poems to Meg?”

  “More and more of this semi-suspicious activity is pointing to good old Fletcher.”

  “So, as a sleuth, I really need to call on the guy again for another round of interrogation.”

  Annie was getting through her martini — on the rocks, two olives — at a lickety-split rate.

  “If you add things up,” she said, “by which I mean the hints and bits and pieces you’ve taken from the interviews you’ve done so far, I’d say there are a ton more people you need to talk to. Not just Fletcher alone.”

  “Like who else?”

  “The woman at the Fisher library one more time,” Annie said. “Berrigan, you told me she was called?”

  I nodded.

  “Berrigan brought up anther antiquarian book dealer in Toronto. Thorne-Wainwright, that’s the guy?”

  I nodded again.

  “What you do, you quiz Berrigan about whether she has other leads on who else in Canada could be responsible for faking the Reading Sonnets. And in the meantime, you definitely also grill this Thorne-Wainwright.”

  Annie paused in her listing of names, but not for long. “The Hickey woman,” she said.

  “Anita Carmen,” I said. “Acey for short.”

  “I’ll tell you why she’s important for your interview list.”

  “I already know why Acey’s important.”

  “That’s good,” Anne said. “But hold your thought for a minute while I give you my own personal explanation.”

  “You’re going to be floored by the reason Acey’s key in all of this.”

  “How exciting for me, but I need to unload something first.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Sooner or later, you’ll have a sit down with Meg,” Annie said. “It’s inevitable. Are we agreed?”

  “No way it can be avoided.”

  “That’s what I want to prime you for,” Annie said. “Meg, I’ve already observed this, is extremely exacting with her assistants and managers and other minions who bring reports to her. Whatever the subject is, Meg wants to be assured that the assistant or manager or minion has interviewed every person who could conceivably shed some light on the subject at hand, no matter how faint the light
might be, no matter how slim the aspect of the subject is that the light shines on. Meg wants to know it all.”

  “You’ve been privy to this when you’re interviewing Meg for the memoir and one of these assistants or managers comes knocking on her door?”

  “Meg never tosses me out of the meetings.”

  “You switch off your tape recorder and sit there in the room?”

  “Quiet as a mouse.”

  “You soak up Meg’s style?”

  “Very exacting.”

  “You want me to keep this in mind for when Meg and I talk about what I’ve learned? I need to be ready for her questions, all my homework done, my interviews complete?”

  “By telling you all of this, I’m doing my duty to you and to Meg.”

  Annie and I smiled at one another.

  “Now you’re ready to hear my bombshell?” I said.

  “A bombshell?” Annie said, looking a little surprised. “You said it was important, but it’s more than just that?”

  “It will be of bombshell quality to Meg.”

  For the next few minutes, Annie sat quietly, not even sipping the last of her martini, while I told her the story of Brent Grantham’s misbegotten financial life. How he’d lost the ten million to a guy in Jamaica named Cedric. How he wooed Charlie under false pretenses and stole both the Hickey letters and his own mother’s forged Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems, how he planned to run the con on Acey Hickey, and how the con could have blown up in his face when Acey put the MacGillivray brothers on Brent’s ass.

  “This is appalling,” Annie said when I finished, with her sitting up on the edge of her chair. She stayed quiet for a minute or two. “Most of this comes from Charlie?” she finally asked me.

  “I’ve got no reason to doubt her,” I said. “She looked horrified when she was telling me what Brent involved her in.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Charlie was sharp on all the details of her story. And the way she told it was supported, at least by implication, by what the MacGillivray brothers revealed.”

  “Poor Meg,” Annie said. “It’ll hit her like a load of bricks when she gets wind of Brent’s corruption.”

  “A revelation that will come from me, more likely than from anybody else.”

  “Which means you’ve got all these interviews to cover.”

  “Like you said, that’ll include Kate Berrigan at the Fisher, the mysterious Christopher Thorne-Wainwright, and I shouldn’t forget Acey Hickey.”

  “Meg will want to know about them all.”

  “Anybody else you think I should speak to?”

  “Meg will for sure ask you what her younger son Hughie knows. Has he heard anything about his older brother’s shenanigans?”

  I thought about Annie’s new suggestion for a moment and decided it made sense. “Okay,” I said, “I concede Hughie as a logic­al subject for interrogation.”

  “And Brent himself, of course.”

  “He’ll be super resistant.”

  I put my martini glass on the table, stood up, and stretched my arms straight up in the air, eyes shut and groaning the whole time. It wasn’t futility I was signifying, but maybe something close to it.

  “There’s not enough hours in the day,” I said.

  “No kidding,” Annie said, now lighthearted.

  “How am I going to get around to quizzing everybody we’ve named?”

  “You need to strike fast, preferably before Brent gets flattened by some heavy or other.”

  “It’s a load, I’m telling you.”

  Annie stood up and took my hand. “Tell you what, sweetie,” she said. “I’ll cook hamburgers on the barbecue while you make phone calls. Line up people. Get appointments for tomorrow.”

  “Can I have another martini first?”

  “Not till you’ve punched in some phone numbers,” Annie said. She dropped my hand and made shooing gestures. “Get moving. Use my office. I mean right now. Get your sweet self out of the dining room. Go on. Scat.”

  I scatted.

  Chapter Twenty

  My taxi pulled up in front of a large and sprawling stone house on Lake Shore Boulevard in the old Mimico neighbourhood of west Toronto. It was eight thirty on an overcast morning. The night before, Hughie Grantham had told me on the phone he was keen to talk to “Fletcher’s lawyer,” which was how I’d introduced myself. I didn’t ask what it was about my status as the lawyer of the piece that drew Hughie’s interest. I was just happy to get the appointment. Hughie said early morning at his house suited him best for a meeting.

  I rang the doorbell, and a rosy-cheeked young woman wearing a long dark-blue apron answered the door. When she’d confirmed my name, she led the way down a long hall to a living room with generous picture windows that looked out over Lake Ontario.

  “Would you care for a cup of green tea?” she asked me. “It’s Hughie’s favourite. Strong on antioxidants. Tastes scrumptious.”

  “That’ll hit the spot with me,” I said, lying through my teeth. I felt pretty sure the stuff would make me gag, but I intended to get on the good side of everybody I needed to interview, beginning with Hughie Grantham. Judging from everything I’d heard about Hughie, he was a health food fanatic. Annie thought he might be commercially involved in the pure lifestyle industry.

  The view from the windows in the living room focused back across the water toward the city’s downtown, taking in stacks of high-rises and condos. Not a single feature distinguished the architecture of the buildings. I could make out the dark and looming Toronto-Dominion Centre, the Mies van der Rohe high-rise I’d once thought of as the last word in oppressive design, though now, compared with the tacky condos, the TD Centre shaped up as a work of art.

  “Thanks for coming, Mr. Crang,” a friendly voice said from the doorway.

  I turned. “Mr. Grantham?”

  “Call me Hughie.”

  We shook hands.

  Hughie was medium height, with a trim build and a bright-eyed look. He was carrying a cup. I imagined it held green tea.

  “Trina’s getting you something to drink?” Hughie asked.

  “Green tea.”

  “Not that there’s much other choice,” Hughie said. “Trina’s my food and drink consultant. She comes in three times a week, whips up all the meals I need, and sticks them in the freezer. Vegan, as you might imagine. Green tea is usually the only available beverage in the house.”

  “Health food’s your business, am I right? And other wholesome concerns?”

  “Not a business,” Hughie said, shaking his head. “I do a little consulting for people who want the benefit of what I’ve learned about cutting-edge modalities. Ozone therapy, biofeedback, rife, and so on.”

  “Rife?” I said. “That’s a new one on me.”

  “A frequency generator with the potential to heal all kinds of diseases.”

  “Your interest is in healthy living in general, is that the way to describe life the way you live it?”

  “To make a long story short,” Hughie said, indicating we should both take a seat in a pair of facing wing chairs, “I quit my smoking, drinking, and dietary bad habits when I turned twenty-one, and ever since I’ve concentrated on personal and planetary healing.”

  “Sounds ambitious.”

  “Let me tell you what I’m championing currently.”

  “I’m all ears,” I said, sounding more fascinated than I really felt.

  Hughie put down his teacup on a small table beside his chair and leaned forward. “Mercury amalgam removal,” he said.

  “You got me there.”

  “I consulted a biological dentist who took out my fillings. They were filled with toxic mercury. Killing me by the day.”

  Hughie’s eyes seemed to glitter more actively. “My intention is to spread the word,” h
e said. “Get more dentists offering the same service, the accent on rebuilding mouth care, institute post-hydrargyria treatment before it’s too late for the patients.”

  Trina came into the room with a cup and saucer. The tea was a greenish shade, not unlike the colour of water draining from a city pipe. To me, it smelled the same way. I’d heard that green tea was supposed to increase a person’s brainpower and cut down the chances of Alzheimer’s. Maybe so, but I still couldn’t stand the smell. I took a sip anyway, drawing an approving smile from Hughie. The stuff tasted a bit like I imagined raw sewage did.

  “About Fletcher and me, Hughie,” I said, resisting the urge to spit.

  “Thank you so much for dropping by on this, Mr. Crang,” Hughie said. “I wanted to get the timing of the debt repayment down pat. Due the first day of September, if my accountant and I have it right?”

  “The debt,” I said, working hard to keep the question mark out of my voice.

  “Can you just verify for me this sum?” Hughie said, pulling a piece of paper from his hip pocket and reading from it. “I make it $179,321.”

  “As of September first,” I said in as authoritative a tone as I could come up with.

  “I’m glad you agree.”

  “On Fletcher’s personal debt to you.”

  “Exactly.”

  I hesitated. How the hell did Fletcher get in debt to Hughie? The money wasn’t as huge as Charlie thought, not up to the level of the value of Fletcher’s entire enterprise, as she’d estimated. Still, it was an impressive sum. The question was why had he tapped Hughie for the money? And how could I find out from Hughie the reason behind the debt without alerting him to my fundamental ignorance of the whole indebtedness event?

  “Is there anything wrong, Mr. Crang?” Hughie asked.

  “As you are undoubtedly aware, Hughie,” I said, “I wasn’t active on the Fletcher file at the time of the loan.”

  “I see what you mean. You want to double-check the prior negotiations.”

  “I like your phrasing, Hughie.”

  Hughie smiled. “It goes back a few years to the time you’re probably aware of when my mother gave my brother and me a gift of a house and ten million dollars each. From that time on, many people I’d regarded as friends, both rightly and wrongly, came to me for loans. Usually, to my chagrin, the borrowers treated the loans more like gifts. That’s when I learned to be businesslike about the whole lending operation. Or I should say, as it turned out to be in many instances, the not-lending operation.”