Thirteen
Before Detective McCabe had returned to the Chartwell home, she’d gone to the local Toyota dealership in search of Ray Stanhope,
Leah Kennard’s former boyfriend who’d lived with her, for a period of time, at her Galen Street address.
She parked between a new Camry and a Prius hybrid and went into the showroom, heading straight for reception. She didn’t introduce
herself to the young, blond woman when she asked where she could find Stanhope.
“Parts,” the woman said.
The parts department was adjacent to the service area, where McCabe found four people waiting for work on their vehicles to
be completed, leafing through old issues of Toronto Life and Canadian Living. She went to the parts window, tapped a bell to get someone’s attention, and waited until a short man in a red polo shirt
with a Toyota emblem stitched to it approached.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Looking for Ray Stanhope,” she said.
“Hang on.”
He turned and called out, “Ray! Someone to see you!”
A burly guy who stood about six two came out from behind some metal shelving. He was fiftyish, had a full beard, and weighed
in, McCabe guessed, at two seventy easy.
“Yeah?” he said.
She flashed her ID. “Detective Janice McCabe, Yorkton Hill Police. Is there someplace we could talk?”
“What’s this about?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
She said, “Maybe someone’s office, or outside?”
He muttered something that sounded like “just a sec” and vanished from the window, presumably to find a way to join her on
the other side. But when almost a minute had passed, McCabe started to think he wasn’t coming.
She ran out the closest door and saw Stanhope striding toward a pickup truck. He was getting behind the wheel and closing
the door when McCabe started running his way, shouting: “Mr. Stanhope! Stop!”
McCabe was fifty feet away as he started the truck and put it into gear. She stood in the vehicle’s path and drew her weapon,
aiming it directly at the man behind the windshield.
“Stop!”
The truck braked to a stop. Stanhope, wide-eyed, his fingers still gripping the steering wheel.
“Step out of the vehicle with your hands where I can see them!”
The door opened and Stanhope slowly got out, arms in the air. The man McCabe had encountered at the parts counter had come
out. “What’s going on?” he shouted.
“Go back inside, sir!” McCabe said, and when the man didn’t immediately do as he was told, she repeated the order. He complied.
To Stanhope, she said, “Lie down with your arms above your head!”
He looked incredulous. “On the pavement? It’s all oily and shit.” McCabe stood there with the gun trained on him and said
nothing. “Okay, okay.”
Stanhope went down, stretched out his arms. McCabe straddled him, holstered her weapon, pulled out a pair of handcuffs, had
Stanhope put one hand behind his back, cuffed it, then ordered him to bring down his other hand, and cuffed it. She patted
him down for a weapon, found none, then reached into the truck and turned it off.
He was too heavy a man to grab under the shoulders and haul to his feet, so she ordered him to do it on his own.
It was a struggle, a bit like watching an upended turtle right itself, but he finally managed it and when he did, McCabe turned him toward the truck, leaning him up against the front fender.
“Am I going to find any weapons in there?” she asked him.
“No,” he said. “Shit, I think I dislocated my shoulder.”
“Why’d you run?”
“I wasn’t running. I just didn’t want to talk to you.”
“And why’s that?”
“Look, the other guy started it.”
“What other guy?”
“I didn’t get his fucking name. I don’t know how the hell he knew mine. Louis rat me out?”
“Louis?”
“Runs the place. He show you my credit card receipts? Isn’t that a violation of my rights? Should’ve paid cash.”
“Why don’t you tell me your version of the story,” she said.
“I’m having a beer, minding my own business, when this guy, he says, ‘Hey, I thought Chris Farley was dead.’”
McCabe had to think. Farley, Farley. “The Saturday Night Live comic?” Stanhope did bear a passing resemblance to the late performer.
“I ignore him at first, minding my own business, but then he says, ‘You ever heard of Weight Watchers?’ Like, I’m the only
heavy guy in the bar? I don’t even know this asshole and he’s making cracks at me, so yeah, maybe I got a little pissed off
and I might have hit him.”
“Might have?”
“It all happened so fast. I spun around, had the beer bottle in my hand, and it kind of crashed into the side of his head.
But it’s not like it broke or anything. The bottle, I mean. Not his head either. No blood. He just went down. But I waited
to see if he woke up, and he did, so I figured he wasn’t dead.”
“Which bar was this?”
He turned around, looked at her, puzzled she didn’t already know this.
“Village Idiot.”
A bar named after its clientele, McCabe thought.
“Where’d you go after you left the bar?”
“Home.”
“And what time’d you get into work today?”
“Seven thirty. You don’t believe me, ask Terry.”
“Mr. Stanhope, I’m going to remove your cuffs. Try not to do anything else stupid.”
He was quiet while she freed him. He turned around, rubbed his wrists, rolled his head on his shoulders.
“So, like, did the guy file a complaint or something?”
His brow furrowed. He waited.
“Tell me about Leah Kennard.”
“Oh, man,” he said, shaking his head. “What shit from the distant past is that bitch dredging up?”
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
“I don’t know. Got to be a year, at least, but even then, I didn’t talk to her. She was here getting her car fixed. I saw
her waiting. But I didn’t say shit to her. We were done. Look, I admit, there was this one time, we kind of got into it, and maybe I kind of—it wasn’t even like a hit, more just
a slap—and it was really more like an accident, and I’m sorry about that, but there was blame on both sides. I was basically
defending myself. What am I supposed to do when she starts swinging a frying pan at me?”
“When’s the last time you actually talked to her?”
“When she kicked me out.”
“When was that?”
“Couple years ago. What’s this about?”
“Do you know a Brent Chartwell?”
He nodded. “Oh yeah. He’s the rich asshole she was seeing when she broke up with me. Married guy.”
“You must have been upset.”
“I thought we had a good thing going for a while there. Ups and downs and shit, but it was okay. But you could never make
her happy so it’s just as well it’s over. You have to move on, right?”
“Leah ever talk about how she got along with him?”
“Far as I know she’s still seeing him.”
“Who’s Tom?”
“Tom?”
“She has a photo album full of pictures of someone named Tom.”
“I have no— What’s this about, anyway?”
“Leah’s dead.”
His shock appeared genuine. “Dead?”
McCabe nodded.
Stanhope’s entire frame seemed to sag. “Oh shit, that’s awful. Are you serious? She’s really dead?”
“She is.”
“What happened?” His face sagged and his eyes were starting to mist.
“She was shot.”
His mouth opened.
“Oh man. Oh Jesus.”
He lost it, put his hands over his eyes. His large frame seemed to shrink as he bent over in despair. “Oh man,” he said again.
When Stanhope took his hands away McCabe saw genuine tears.
“Shit shit shit,” he muttered. “I really loved her.” He lifted his head, fixed his eyes on McCabe through his tears, and asked,
“Who did it? Who shot her?”
“Our investigation is continuing,” she said gently. “Did you keep in touch at all? Did you know what her relationship with
Mr. Chartwell was like?”
“It was him?” he said. “He did it?”
“That would surprise you?”
He thought a moment, shook his head. “I mean, he doesn’t seem like he’d have it in him. You arrested him? He confessed?”
“No,” McCabe said. “Mr. Chartwell is also deceased.”
Stanhope blinked the tears out of his eyes, as though trying to see McCabe better. “What? Someone shot the both of them?”
“At this time, it doesn’t appear anyone else is involved.”
She let that sink in. Watched Stanhope put the pieces together. He slumped against the truck, using it to prop himself up. “Oh man,” he said quietly.
McCabe asked whether Leah had any nearby next of kin. Stanhope said her parents had both passed, that as far as he knew, she
had nobody. He took some persuading, but McCabe got him to agree to come to the morgue within the day to make a positive identification
of the body. And she’d still see if she could track down an actual relative to do the same.
Back in her car, McCabe tried Catherine Chartwell again. This time she reached her, but the woman hung up before she could
get her location, and McCabe could only hope she would find her at the house by the time she got back there.
She found her in the backyard, with her son. Dismissed him politely, because she wanted to question Catherine alone. They
each took a seat on the back deck.
“You were at a luncheon?”
“Yes. The arts council. I’m a member.”
“What time did lunch begin?” the detective asked.
“Half past eleven. I can give you the names of the other women who were there. They’ll confirm I was with them the whole time.”
McCabe blinked. “Thank you. I might get back to you on that.”
“I just thought . . . when things like this happen, you want to know where everyone was.”
“Of course. Can you tell me, when did you leave the house?”
“Around ten.”
“Isn’t that kind of early? How long would it take to get to Benjamin’s? Ten minutes tops?”
“I wanted to wander around the downtown first. I thought I’d pop into Angela’s.”
McCabe knew it. High-end ladies fashion store. Not that she ever shopped there on her salary.
“Did you speak to your husband before you left?”
Catherine nodded.
“I told him I’d be back midafternoon.”
“And Ms. Kennard had not arrived before you left?”
Catherine gave the detective a sharp look. “You must be joking.”
McCabe smiled apologetically. “I always ask what might seem like stupid questions. Sometimes I hear something I’m not expecting.
So she arrived after you had left.”
“Clearly.”
“Did you know Leah Kennard?”
“I didn’t . . . know her. It’s possible we might have met at some point. But it’s not an encounter I remember clearly.” She
bit her lip, as though that would help her recall.
“She’s not someone your husband worked with?”
“No,” Catherine said quickly.
“Was your husband retired?”
“Yes, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“He had his own consulting firm that he wound down in recent years but he still did the occasional assignment if someone begged
him hard enough and was offering enough money.”
“He’d always worked in this field?” McCabe asked.
Catherine hesitated before answering. “Years ago, he worked for Wiffel-Smith.”
“The pharmaceutical company? The one that got in trouble over—”
“Yes. That one. They made Oxy-Mirac before they were forced to pull it off the market. It was very unfair. It was an excellent
pain reliever. But people abused it, just like with other drugs, or alcohol, but you don’t see them banning vodka, do you?
All that trouble happened after my husband left.”
“What did he do for them? Was he a researcher, a scientist?”
“Sales. He was very good at it.” She said it with some pride. “He traveled all over Canada and the United States. But he decided
he’d had enough. He could see what was coming. All the legal problems.”
“You tried to reach your husband while you were out?”
“I wanted him to check something in my datebook,” Catherine said. “I tried his cell and then the home phone. And texted him. I couldn’t raise him so I asked Reece to go by the house but he was already here.”
A pause, and then, “Did she look like me?”
There you go, McCabe thought. Sometimes I hear something I’m not expecting.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Chartwell?”
“This woman. Did she look anything at all like me?”
“That . . . seems like an odd question, Mrs. Chartwell.”
“I’m sorry. I was just . . . wondering.”
“What?” McCabe walked on eggshells as she asked, “That maybe your husband, even when unfaithful, wanted to be with someone
who resembled you?”
“Something like that, I suppose.”
McCabe pondered whether that would be flattering in some strange way. She said, “Her hair color, maybe. And it was about the
same length.” She waited a beat, then asked, “You’re not suggesting Ms. Kennard was shot by someone thinking she was you?
Your husband could hardly have made that mistake.”
“No, I’m sorry, it was a ridiculous question,” Catherine said. “Do you have any more questions or can I go tell my other son
what’s happened before there’s a news crew at his door?”