The Poisoned Pawn Read online

  But Castro was still recovering from an undisclosed illness. His brother, Raúl, was the acting president. This had changed the usual dynamics. When imagining a future without Fidel Castro, Cubans alternated between hope and fear.

  “Were there the typical speeches?”

  “Of course,” said Sophia. “But much shorter with El Comandante in the hospital. Raúl only spoke for three or four hours. I hear you are going to Canada soon, Inspector.” She sounded wistful. “I hope someday I can leave the island, too. To see what it’s like to live in a country that has cows and chickens. Sometimes I think I would kill for a pencil.”

  Ramirez chuckled. “I’m sure that day will come, Sophia. Not when you will kill someone for—or even with—a pencil, but when we will be able to travel more easily. Things are changing quickly. The fact that I’m going to Canada is proof of that. Don’t be envious. A week ago, I expected to enjoy the first days of the New Year drinking añejo. Now it looks as if I will spend it in a country whose citizens come here to get away from their harsh winters. I’m starting to wonder just which orisha I have offended.”

  Sophia chuckled. “Did you throw out a bucket of water on New Year’s Eve?”

  “Of course,” Ramirez said. “But we had to pull ours from the ocean. We had no running water.”

  The Cuban custom was to wash away bad luck by throwing water out the window at the stroke of midnight. Maybe that’s why Cubans are so unlucky, thought Ramirez. We seldom have clean water to throw away.

  “Enjoy your trip,” Sophia said, as she transferred the incoming call. “Be sure to come back. Not everyone does.”

  “Hola, Señora Jones,” said Ramirez warmly. “I was planning to call you. I should be arriving in Ottawa around 11 P.M. tomorrow night, but my visit will be brief. I have to fly back Friday evening.”

  “I wanted to call you as soon as I heard. One of our detectives has been assigned to take you around to your meetings with the RCMP. His name is Charlie Pike. He’s aboriginal.”

  “An Aborigine? From Australia?” asked Ramirez, puzzled.

  “No, sorry, not Aborigine. Indian. I guess ‘First Nations’ is the politically correct term these days.”

  So Ramirez would be working with an indigenous police detective. He had not known there was such a thing. There were no indigenous people left in Cuba; the Tainos were extinct.

  “I thought perhaps Señor Ellis would be working on this case. As I recall, he’s in your Sex Crimes Unit, isn’t he? Is that not the unit dealing with the arrest of Rey Callendes?”

  “Oh, I thought you knew. But of course, how could you? Mike’s on bereavement leave. His wife died while he was in Cuba.” Jones hesitated. “She took ill on the plane. Everyone’s shocked. She was only thirty-nine.”

  “Died of what?” Ramirez glanced at the two small black audiotapes sitting on his desk.

  “The chief medical examiner is waiting for lab results to find out for sure, but they seem to think it was food poisoning. All I’ve heard is that she had really high blood pressure and deep-pink skin. She was in a coma from the moment she stepped off the plane.”

  The image of a zombie—the undead dead—lurching down the airplane steps crossed Ramirez’s mind. But he doubted that was what Señora Jones meant.

  “Poor Mike,” she continued. “He didn’t even know she’d been sick until he got back to Canada. By then, she’d already been cremated.”

  “Even without knowing the cause of death?”

  “The coroner’s office did an autopsy. There was nothing to suggest foul play. They don’t keep a body long if they don’t have to.”

  “Señor Ellis must be stunned.” And maybe even relieved, thought Ramirez. Death was much less expensive than divorce in a country like Canada, from what Ramirez understood. In Cuba, people simply separated, with regrets that things didn’t work out. With so little property to fight over, a few pesos to a notary and it was done. But Ramirez had heard stories of how vicious North American lawyers could be about such matters.

  “Honestly? I don’t think it’s hit him yet,” said Jones. “Anyway, it’s not Mike’s unit that’s handling the Callendes matter but the RCMP. They’re the ones who arrested him at the airport. We’re working with them because we have overlapping jurisdiction.”

  Ramirez picked up one of the black cassette tapes and rolled it in his fingers.

  Ordinarily, given the circumstances and timing of Hillary Ellis’s sudden death, Ramirez would be suspicious. But Ellis had a strong alibi. Ramirez and Sanchez had personally investigated his whereabouts for the hours leading up to Arturo Montenegro’s death, from the time the couple argued on the Malecón to the wife’s early departure to Canada.

  Still, that would be impressive, thought Ramirez. If Ellis had found a way to murder his spouse from another country, he was a genius. He decided to mention it to Apiro, who was good at puzzles.

  Ramirez glanced at the cigar lady, raising his eyebrows. She shrugged her shoulders. As he watched, the old woman removed the flower from her bandana. She plucked at the petals as if playing the children’s game his American mother had taught his sister when they were small. He loves me, he loves me not.

  “Tell me, will I be able to shop during my brief visit? Francesca has perfume and chocolates on her list, but I think she would settle for soap. Getting soap here requires one to line up for hours at a bodega.”

  “Absolutely. Where will you be staying?”

  “Somewhere downtown. It sounds like a French castle.” Ramirez shuffled through the papers on his desk, looking for the reservation.

  “You must mean the Chateau Laurier. It’s a great old hotel. It’s supposed to be haunted by the ghost of its founder. He died on the Titanic a week or so before it opened. Some people swear there’s a dead child there, too.” She chuckled. “I hope you’re not afraid of ghosts.”

  “Not at all,” said Ramirez. “But our government would never let them stay at a tourist hotel.”

  Jones laughed. “You’ll be right across the street from the Rideau Centre. It has every type of retail you can imagine: restaurants, clothing, shoe stores.”

  “Excellent,” said Ramirez, pleased. If he brought home tacos, women’s shoes, all would be forgiven.

  “By the way, Alex and I have three tickets to the opera on Thursday night at the National Arts Centre. It’s Pagliacci. Would you care to join us? We can go out to dinner first. Celebrate your visit to Canada.”

  “How kind of you.” Opera was Ramirez’s passion. It was the original basis of his friendship with Apiro, since he had proven wholly incompetent at chess. And Pagliacci was one of his favourites, an opera about a play within a play. Canio, acting out his role as an actor in the internal play, killed his real wife and lover in his jealousy over their off-stage affair.

  “Yes, of course I’d love to come. My wife and I went to see The Beggar’s Opera at the Gran Teatro yesterday. Do you know it?”

  “I love it,” Jones said. “I saw the one where Macheath died at the end instead of being let out of jail.”

  “Ah, yes. It’s one of those operas where the ending can change. I had not heard of that particular version,” said Ramirez. “But the theatre owner and the writer of the original opera were Gay and Rich, which I found amusing.”

  Ramirez glanced at the spectre. With the burned end of her cigar, she pointed to the knife buried in her chest and then impatiently at his watch. She’s lost her life, but not her personality, thought Ramirez. His Vodun grandmother had always said it was easier to change a person’s future than their personality.

  “The one we saw was terrific,” said Jones. “All the main female characters were really men. And the audience was supposed to call out warnings like, ‘Watch out, he’s behind you!’ ‘Don’t drink it!’”

  The dead woman threw the flower at his feet and applauded madly. It’s as if she’s watching a performance, thought Ramirez. What is she trying to tell me?

  “I will look forward to it. And please pass
on my condolences to Señor Ellis if you see him. I can’t imagine how I would manage if something happened to my Francesca.”

  Ramirez looked again at the small black tape in his hand. When Ellis confessed to Ramirez, Ellis had no idea Hector Apiro was standing on the other side of the mirrored glass in the interview room holding a tape recorder. Ramirez slipped the tape into his inside jacket pocket. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to carry out his assignment. But if Canada was anything like Cuba, it couldn’t hurt to have a little leverage.

  “Before we say goodbye, Señora Jones,” said Ramirez, “I have some news for you about the child in the orphanage. I’m afraid it is not good.”

  A hesitation on the other end of the line. “Your government won’t let her go?”

  Ramirez described the child’s medical issues.

  “But that’s outrageous,” Jones said, shocked. “She’s dying because she can’t get antibiotics?”

  “I agree,” said Ramirez, “but there is nothing we can do about it. It’s because of the trade embargo. As you know, we are very short of supplies, including medicine.”

  “Couldn’t Alex and I bring her to Canada for surgery and adopt her here?”

  “I’m afraid adoptions these days can be quite political. Fidel Castro has personally intervened to prevent any child from leaving Cuba since the 1960s, ever since Operation Peter Pan. The Catholic Church persuaded Cubans to send thousands of children to the United States for a better life, but many were abused.”

  “Is it a matter of paying someone money?”

  “It’s not that simple,” said Ramirez.

  Jones sighed. “Now that I know all of this, I want that little girl in Canada more than ever.”

  “I had not thought you would still wish to proceed, Señora Jones, once you found out how sick she is.”

  “I probably forgot to tell you this, Inspector, but Alex is a cardiologist. That child deserves a chance with a family that will love her.”

  “Let me speak to Dr. Apiro. He may be able to make the case for a medical transfer. Perhaps we can negotiate things from there. But you must understand, this won’t be easy.”

  Almost as daunting as persuading a foreign lawyer to swear a false affidavit, thought Ramirez, as he hung up the phone. Although his odds of success might have dramatically improved. The child’s illness could bring him a step closer to securing the lawyer’s assistance.

  He looked at the apparition. She held her cigar like a scalpel and drew an X across her chest.

  NINE

  Charlie Pike looked through his third-floor window. The back alley was dark and secluded this early in the day. It was littered with used condoms and dull needles that glittered dimly, frozen in the hard ice until spring thaw.

  The old man didn’t know Pike was watching. But an elderly man who shot up in an alley behind a police station was definitely past caring. The old man was careful to tighten his tourniquet just so. He wanted to make sure the vein he chose was a good one.

  You’ll have fewer and fewer to choose from, once they collapse, thought Pike. You’ll start using your toes, the backs of your legs. When you start injecting in your neck, you won’t have much time left. Maybe then I’ll find out your name.

  The junkie plunged in the needle. Pike watched his expression change, saw the pain melt from the old man’s face as the drug took hold.

  A hooker weaved unsteadily into the alley; she slipped a little on the ice. But the old man didn’t notice. He was essentially gone now. Still physically there, but mentally far away.

  In a few minutes, when the rush wore off, the dull weight of heroin would carry him back to earth, his euphoria gone. He would be heavy with exhaustion, lethargy.

  The woman rifled through the man’s pockets for money that wasn’t there. She pulled out a new syringe in its plastic package and tottered back to the street triumphantly.

  She was rock bottom too, Pike figured. Stealing another junkie’s fixings so she could escape for a few minutes from the emptiness and isolation of living in a mostly white world.

  Pike shook his head. The bulletin board in the Rideau Regional Police Homicide Unit was full of posters of missing Anishnabe women. They had hitchhiked from their remote reserves to the city. They couldn’t wait one more day, one more hour, to have something more.

  The hooker was still alive. That made her one of the lucky ones. She just didn’t know it.

  He could arrest her for theft, but the City of Ottawa was about to start a program to give clean needles to addicts anyway. And the old man would forgive her; he had no interest in white man’s justice.

  In a few minutes, Detective Charlie Pike would walk downstairs to make sure the old man was okay. He’d stop at the canteen to buy him soup, or coffee, as he had done every day that week and the one before. He’d give him some money, make sure the old man had enough blankets to keep his legs warm.

  It was doubtful the old man was hungry, or that he noticed the cold much anymore. Smack did that. It killed your appetite first. Then your soul.

  But Pike’s father had been Ojibway. Anishnabe. And Charlie Pike had been raised to make sure that elders were fed first.

  The old man had initially refused to accept Pike’s food. Instead, he’d carefully placed the hot soup on the frozen ground, an offering to the manitous. He had the translucent look of those with little time left. He wasn’t as old as Pike had thought when he first saw him at a distance. Maybe late sixties.

  “I have nothing to give you back,” he said to Pike softly. “If I accept this, I will owe you.”

  Pike nodded. To the Anishnabe, accepting a gift brought with it a corresponding obligation. The old man was right to be cautious.

  “Then how about if you tell me a story, mishomis?” The word meant “grandfather.” Pike used it as a term of respect.

  And so the old man told Charlie Pike about Nanabush, or Nanabozho, as he called him. About the legend of how the first spring began.

  The old man held the hot container of soup in both hands, blowing through his missing teeth to cool the surface before he took small sips. There were jail tattoos on his fingers.

  He spoke quietly. Pike strained to hear the soft words of his own, unused language.

  “Nanabozho was the oldest boy of four brothers. Chipiapoos was the next. After him came Wabosbo and Chakekenapok. Nanabozho was responsible for living things, Chipiapoos for the dead. Chakekenapok was supposed to look after winter. But when Chakekenapok was born, their mother died. Nanabozho blamed Chakekenapok. He chased him and tore him into pieces. Where his body fell, the drops of blood turned into smooth rocks.

  “After Chakekenapok died, Nanabozho ordered Chipiapoos not to leave the lodge. But Chipiapoos was a little boy; he wanted to play. He ran outside to slide on the frozen lake and fell through the ice. Nanabozho searched everywhere until he realized Chipiapoos was dead. He was angry and bitter that the manitous took his little brother. He shaved off all his hair to show his grief. And every day after that was winter.”

  “And then what happened, mishomis?”

  The old man breathed lightly. He shook his head. “I am sorry. I am too tired to keep talking. I get weak after I put this poison in my arm. But it helps with the pain. That and telling these old stories. The soup went down good, miigwetch. I will tell you next time I see you, if you still want to hear it.” He pulled himself up, gathering his blankets. “It was good to speak in my language. Giminadan gagiginonshiwan.”

  Pike nodded. “Gigawabamin menawah.” See you again.

  Pike looked out his office window every day after that, looking for the old man. Their routine was now well-established.

  After he shot up, the old man would tell Pike a story in exchange for coffee, soup, or a sandwich. As the old man came to trust him, he gave Pike a little more information. Pike felt sometimes as if he was ice-fishing on a frozen lake. Letting out the line slowly, gradually. Waiting for the fish to come to him.

  “I’m dying,” the old man
said during one of their visits. There was no sadness in his voice. He presented it as a fact. “I don’t have much time left. I have hepatitis.” From drugs or from the water on his reserve, Pike wondered. But he didn’t pry.

  They sat together in the cold on a bench, on the thick, faded blankets the old man had collected. He refused to go to a shelter.

  “I want to hear the wind blow at night and the birds sing in the morning. I want to see the sun when she comes up. I grew up in the woods, you know, before they took me away to that school. The forest, up till then, that was my church.”

  Pike liked the old man, his humour, his gentleness. “If you feel well enough today, maybe you can tell me the rest of the story about spring.”

  The old man nodded and pulled his woollen blankets around him. His breath rose like puffs of smoke.

  “Many moons passed with only winter. The manitous were afraid Nanabozho’s grief would destroy him and everything else. They decided to hold a feast to honour him. They filled a pipe with tobacco and gave Nanabozho a beautiful otter-skin bag. Nanabozho’s pain and loneliness began to ease when he saw these things, and realized how much they cared. As the cold in his heart melted, ziigwan, spring, finally came.”

  “What is your name, grandfather?” asked Pike. “Is there someone I can call for you? Do you have any family?”

  “I have no name,” the old man said. He looked away, his eyes tearing up. “They took me from my family. And then they took away my name.”

  TEN

  “How very interesting, Ricardo,” Hector Apiro exclaimed. He was standing on his stepladder, leaning over the old cigar lady’s remains. There was no sign of the spectre in the autopsy room, but then Ramirez’s ghosts tended to avoid the morgue. Perhaps they felt that being killed once was enough.

  “I’ve only seen North American Indians in movies. They are always portrayed as large half-naked men carrying tiny axes and wearing face paint and feathers. They grunt instead of speaking and are usually the last of a dying breed. Their horses jump on their hind legs quite frequently. And they whinny a lot.”