Chapter 17 #2
“So the one woman who exposed it all ended up with a partner, a long-term relationship, but the other one, the one jilted, never really let up about how that woman’s involvement had deliberately ruined the infertile woman’s engagement.
Yet she didn’t seem to have a problem getting in the middle of the other woman’s relationship.
” She sighed. “I don’t know all the details at this point.
You’ll have to contact the parties in question if you think it’s really important.
I understood that there was potentially some other affair and that man recently died too. ”
Kate sat up, ever alert. “I need the names of these two women, please. And, if you have any contact information, that would be helpful.”
“You could certainly get it from the church.” Then she winced. “Or maybe not.”
“Right,” Kate agreed. “Maybe not is quite true. I don’t know how much they’ll be willing to hand out at this point, but I do need the contact information for both women. And when you shared how another man died recently, how do you know this?”
“I have been running in theses circles for a while. I do get up and about at times, and someone from church told me.”
“Do you know where he worked?”
“No, but I think he was an insurance adjuster somewhere.”
Beside her, Rodney muttered, “Bingo.”
The woman frowned at him. “What do you mean, bingo? I don’t think they played bingo.”
Kate stood up and looked over at Rodney. “We’ll need to contact these women.” She turned back to their witness and asked her, “When did you last see either of the women?”
She pondered it for a moment and frowned. “Not all that long ago. … A couple days ago maybe.”
“And where did you see them?”
“Oh, they were over at the church,” she replied.
“I just happened to be—I may have seen one of them today. But two days ago I was out working in the garden, and I know it’s way too early, even in Vancouver for fussing with gardens.
However, I took advantage of the bit of a break in the weather.
I have so much thatch out there and the weeds and whatnot,” she explained, with an aimless view toward the front garden.
“And I did see one of their vehicles, maybe today,” she announced. “I just caught it out of the corner of my eye. But I couldn’t be positive,” she added.
“Of course not,” Kate noted.
It was so typical of people to hedge by saying they weren’t positive, so they couldn’t be taken to court and forced to give evidence and be proven wrong. Everybody wanted to have a whole lot more security in their answers than what they were often willing to suggest they had.
When Kate finally got the names out of this woman, the witness added, “I don’t have phone numbers for them.”
“That’s fine. We can round them up,” Kate said. “Do you know what they drive?”
“Yeah, one is—They’re both driving similar vehicles. Those little cars, the ones that look to be chopped in half, the smart cars?”
Rodney pulled up a picture, and she looked at it and nodded. “Yeah, that. One’s got a blue one, and the other I think is red. I haven’t seen that one for a long time.”
“Now, are you saying that both of their partners are now dead?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “That is my understanding.”
“Interesting.” Kate eyed Rodney and then spoke to their witness. “I need your contact information in case we have more questions.”
“Oh, my.” She seemed half-thrilled and half-horrified at the idea, yet provided the requested information.
Kate thanked her. As she walked out, she asked, “If you see either of the women coming around here over the next few days, can you call me, please?”
“Sure,” the woman replied. “I don’t know why they would though.”
Kate asked her, “Why wouldn’t they?”
“I mean, they had been really good friends up until that point in time, I think, until they both started attending the classes. Something was between them that just didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I mean, I think that’s what bothered Father McCain.
He mentioned it to me once, about something just being off. ”
“Interesting. Thank you for your time.”
Kate headed back outside, with Rodney rushing along behind her. She walked back to the parking lot, and Rodney repeated, “Something off?”
“Yeah,” Kate agreed, “something is very off. But I think I may have just found what made it off. We need both these women in the station at the same time, please.” When he looked at her in surprise, she shrugged. “This is a case that will be solved in the box, not out here on the streets.”
“If you say so,” he muttered.
“I do say so,” she declared, “and let’s really try for tonight. I need a good night’s sleep.”
“There’ll be paperwork to file.”
“But the puzzle will be solved, and that’s all we need … for now.”
*
Simon was back home, resting on the couch, his mind playing tricks on him. He was sure of it.
This woman kept bobbing in, bobbing out, crying, upset, then defiant. When the phone rang, he knew it would be Kate, and he just answered it. “I presume you’re not coming home tonight.”
“I’m not coming home right now,” she clarified. “I’m trying to find a couple women and get them in tonight for questioning, if at all possible.”
He sat upright and frowned at his phone. “Have you got something?”
“I think so,” she claimed. “In a way, it’s just a little too far out to believe, but I’m hoping,” she added.
He heard the exhaustion in her tone, but something else was there too, a hint of excitement perhaps—as if she finally had something to bite on.
“It would be a very sad end if this is what’s happening, but I don’t know. I could still be barking up the wrong tree.”
He smiled because Kate hated to make a statement and then be wrong. “I highly doubt you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
She froze and then asked, “Are you getting any information?”
“No, nothing,” he said. “Wait. No, that’s not true. I mean, Sarah is in my head, out of my head, in my head, out of my head.”
“How does she sound?”
“She’s a basket case,” he declared. “She sobs. She’s all upset. She’s sad. Then she’s really defiant. Her emotions are all over the place, mercurial even.”
“Interesting,” Kate noted. “I’ve got shit to do, and, with any luck, I might still get some sleep tonight. However, for the moment, I am all over this case, so please take care of yourself.”
“Oh, I will,” he told her, “but you need to look after yourself too.”
“I’m working on it.” With that, she ended the call.
Simon frowned. Just something about Kate’s tone meant that she had obviously snapped onto something—something that mattered. But she didn’t know how much or just how important it would be, so she thrummed with both excitement and dread.
He found the dread part interesting. He got up, poured himself a glass of wine, then sat back down again. Suddenly the woman in his head popped in again, and this time Sarah was bawling, that absolutely at the end of her rope kind of bawling.
He tried to shut her down, but she was so intense in his head that it was hard. And just as he was ready to get up and go for a jog, do anything for a distraction, his phone rang. He looked down to see it was George, from the bank board, getting back to him as promised.
George greeted Simon in a quiet tone. “So, you may have solved your problem,” he began, “but you’ve given me one.”
“I’m not sure if that’s right or wrong, but I feel as if it never should have been mine in the first place.”
“I agree,” George replied. “It shouldn’t have.
For your information, the one slandering you was, indeed, Leonard’s nephew, Stanley.
We are now in the process of pulling him off the board.
Leonard’s pissed, calling for legal action, all kinds of caterwauling.
However, when it was revealed exactly what his nephew had been up to, how he leaned into the defamation, Leonard has now gone very, very quiet. ”
“Which is probably even more dangerous.”
“Exactly,” George exclaimed, his tone bitter. “So, there could be some backlash and maybe even more anger directed at you, which is why I’m letting you know. Yet I’m also telling you that, as far as the bank is concerned, you’re free and clear.”
“Which I was anyway.”
“You were,” he agreed, with a note of amusement.
“So, let’s not push that whole defamation line.
Just know that there isn’t any issue as far as we’re concerned as members of the board, and no issue was directly affiliated with the bank.
What we’ll do from here, I don’t know. It depends on how expensive it’ll be to get rid of Leonard and his nephew. ”
“Which it shouldn’t be at all, if things were run properly.”
“Yeah, well, the banking industry is all about trust and confidence, and we have to do whatever we can in order to make that happen. So, I very much appreciate you bringing this to our attention.”
“Right, so we thank you, but please forget about it?” Simon chuckled.
“Yeah, something along that line,” George admitted, and he ended the call.
With that, Simon lay back down, feeling a certain amount of relief. He quickly texted both his lawyer and accountant, then David.
David phoned him right away. “I’ve been offered my job back as of today,” he shared. “I’m not sure that I want it though, given how quickly things went south because of something that wasn’t even in my control.”
“I hear you, but the banking investment firms are pretty rough right now too. So I suggest you just think about it. Then, if you want to go to a different one, you do that.”
“Maybe, I don’t know,” he muttered. “I’ll let you know down the road.”
As he went to hang up, Simon added, “And thank you.”
After a moment of silence, David replied, his tone warm, “You’re welcome, and I am so sorry for the way it all came down.”
“Me too, but just think, we managed to make something good happen out of it. Leonard has been booted off the board, along with his nephew. I haven’t decided on the defamation lawsuit yet. George is really hoping I’ll just put this all off to the side.”
“Which, as you well know, if and when you need financing, and it’s looking a little bit on the tight side, it would be good to have them in your corner.
I don’t want to say in your pocket because that reminds me just a little bit too much of the weasels that we’re just getting rid of.
However, it’s never a bad thing to have somebody like George on your side in the future. ”
“I was thinking about that,” Simon replied, “and lawsuits are bloody expensive, even when you have lawyers on retainer. Maybe especially then. I swear to God, they’re more expensive because of it,” he declared, with a laugh.
They spoke for another few minutes, and then he ended the call and stretched back out again to try and sleep, at least for a little bit.
He could go to bed later, but right now he just wanted to remove some of the stress that had been ramped up in his system over the last few days. As he lay here, a smile on his face, Sarah came shrieking back into his psyche, screaming at him.
Get her away! Get her away! Don’t you understand? Get her away from me!
He bolted to his feet, glanced around, hating that instinctual reaction to turn and fight the danger, and yet he wasn’t even in the same damn room as the shrieking woman.
As soon as Sarah shrieked one more time, he asked, “Get who away? I can’t help you if I don’t know who you’re trying to chase away. ”
Sarah kept screaming at him, She’s yours. Get her away, or I’ll kill her too.
And, with that warning, his brain went completely quiet. Simon had no doubt who Sarah planned on killing next.
He immediately grabbed his phone.