The Evil That Men Do Page 7

  “About that,” I said. We hadn’t spoken since he’d prepared the powers of attorney for Rocky and me. “How have you been?”

  “No complaints,” he said. “Getting older, but that’s not something you can do anything about, is it? Are you still travelling the world?”

  “Not so much. I’ve been living on the west coast of Scotland for the last few years. Got back Thursday.”

  “How is Gracie?” he said.

  “That’s why I’m calling,” I said. “I’m hoping it won’t be necessary, but we may have to sell the house and move her into a long-term care facility.”

  “I wasn’t aware it had gotten that bad.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t seen your mother in, crisse, nearly five years.” Although he was pretty thoroughly anglicized—his proper name was François—he still swore in French. “I’ve been busy, especially recently, but that’s no excuse. I should have tried harder to keep in touch. How bad is it?”

  “Her short term memory is pretty much shot,” I said. “Every time I go into her room it’s like it’s the first time she’s seen me in years. Half the time she thinks I’m still in school, keeps asking about an old girlfriend from twenty years ago. She called me by my father’s name a couple of times this morning.”

  “And you want to know if your powers of attorney will let you sell the house. Have you spoken to her about it?”

  “I don’t see the point. It would only upset her. And she likely wouldn’t remember.”

  “Maudit,” he swore. “You would need to get a certificate of competency from her doctor, but there shouldn’t be a problem with that, if it’s as bad as you say. How does Rocky feel about it?”

  “She hates it. I don’t blame her. So do I.”

  “Rocky’s power of attorney doesn’t supersede yours, but she could make it difficult if she fights it. Will she?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not, when push comes to shove. She knows it may be the only way we can afford to pay for Grace’s care.”

  “Well, that’s good. I can’t tell you how terrible I feel about not keeping in touch with Gracie. Or Rocky,” he added as an afterthought. Although his relationship with my mother had been purely platonic (I think), he’d been one of Rocky’s lovers. When he was between wives, anyway. At last count he’d had four.

  “You’ve been busy, you said.”

  “That’s no excuse. How dire is her financial situation?”

  “I wouldn’t call it dire, exactly,” I said. “She has the equity in the house, of course, and some money coming in from pensions and the annuity from the airline settlement. If she were healthy and able to look after herself, there wouldn’t be a problem, but she’s going to need full-time professional care before long. Rocky does her best, but, well, I think she finds it a bit overwhelming at times. I would.”

  “Just be thankful,” Gendron said. “Your mother is better off than some of my other elderly clients.” He snorted. “Listen to me. Elderly. Like I’m not. In any event, I’m representing some folks who lost everything to some slick fraud artist in a goddamn Ponzi scheme. Their homes, their life savings, everything. Bastard didn’t leave them two pennies to rub together.”

  I felt a chill down my spine. “Are you talking about Charles Brandt?”

  “You know about him,” Gendron said, surprise in his voice.

  “Teresa Jardine is an old friend.”

  “Ah,” Gendron said. “I am constantly amazed at how small the Montreal English community is. Like a village in which everyone knows everyone else’s business.”

  “It seems that way, doesn’t it?” I said.

  “How good a friend is she?”

  “We lived together for six months or so, before I hit the road.”

  “I should watch what I say then. Have you seen her recently?”

  “I spoke to her earlier today and saw her last night in Hudson at Nina Sparrow’s album launch.”

  “Ah,” he said. “I know Madame Sparrow. She works for the law firm representing Madame Jardine.” There is no equivalent of Ms. in French and Gendron’s demeanour had become more formal, his English, normally colloquial, acquiring a slight French character. “I did not realize she knew Madame Jardine personally.” He paused for a moment, then said, “You and Nina Sparrow grew up together, did you not?”

  “More or less,” I said. “Were you aware that Terry was assaulted by a man named Fredrick Strom outside the hotel in Hudson last night?”

  “No, I was not.”

  “His mother was one of Brandt’s victims.”

  “Yes, I know who he is,” he said. “I’m not representing his mother, however. I don’t believe anyone is. She’s not well, I understand. Is Madame Jardine all right?”

  “Strom threw a cup of water at her.”

  Gendron grunted. “He is a very unstable individual,” he said. “Possibly even borderline psychotic. He became hysterical at a victims’ meeting last year and was arrested for disturbing the peace and uttering threats.”

  “He thinks Terry knew about Brandt’s Ponzi scheme and that she has some of the money.”

  “With respect, Atticus,” Gendron said, “is that so unlikely? After all, she was married to the man for five years. Trust me when I tell you that a man cannot keep that kind of secret from his wife for five minutes, let alone five years.”

  That struck me as a rather silly thing to say. Husbands have been keeping secrets from their wives—and vice versa—for as long as the institution of marriage, however you define it, has existed. But, I reminded myself, Gendron was a lawyer, after all, and would say whatever he thought necessary to make his case. “He was a con man, Frank,” I said. “A good one, by all accounts. And likely a sociopath, good at keeping secrets.”

  “That may be so, but I’ve met Madame Jardine. She is not stupid. Perhaps you are letting your emotional involvement cloud your judgment.”

  “I haven’t been emotionally involved with her for twenty years,” I said. “But the woman I knew would never stand idly by while her husband defrauded elderly people out of their life savings.”

  “People change,” he said, a shrug in his voice.

  “Not that much,” I said.

  “You have more faith in human nature than I have,” Gendron said. “Forgive me for taking liberties, Atticus, but perhaps you could pass on some advice to Madame Jardine or her lawyers through Madame Sparrow. If she is aware of Charles Brandt’s current whereabouts, or has access to any of the money he stole, it would go much better for her if she came forward now rather than later. It is just a matter of time before the police locate Brandt. When they do—and they are getting close, I understand—it will be too late for her to negotiate a plea bargain. It may also be too late for my clients, many of whom are in their eighties and nineties. Three of Brandt’s victims have already passed away. One was a client of mine. Perhaps it is not at Madame Jardine’s direction, but her lawyers are waging an unconscionable war of attrition against Brandt’s victims.”

  “So much for watching what you say, Frank,” I said.

  The conversation with Frank Gendron left me feeling angry and uncertain. He had to be wrong, I told myself. People don’t change that much. Terry Jardine had been one of the most honest and ethical people I’d ever known. It had been a basic component of her psychological makeup, not to mention an essential element of her self-image. I remembered that for her twenty-second birthday I’d taken her shopping at a Le Château clothing boutique. When we got back to the apartment, she realized she’d inadvertently walked out of the store with an item, skimpy panties in a tiny plastic envelope, I hadn’t paid for. She’d promptly dragged me back to the store to pay for them, much to my annoyance and the sales clerk’s astonishment.

  If the Terry Jardine I’d known had become aware of her husb
and’s Ponzi scheme, there was no way she would have—could have—tolerated it. I was certain I knew her well enough, even after twenty years, to know that if faced with the choice between preserving her marriage and her lifestyle and exposing his fraud, thus saving his victims from financial ruin, she’d have taken the more difficult path, done whatever she could to stop him. That that hadn’t been the case was sufficient proof, to me anyway, that she hadn’t known a thing about his scheme.

  I tried calling Nina, but got her voicemail. It was nearly 4 o’clock. She was probably half-way to Cornwall. I left a message for her to call me at her first opportunity.

  I spent half an hour visiting with my mother, during which she told me how happy she was that Nina was doing so well with her piano lessons, her parents would be proud. She wished I would practice more, though, and expressed concern that I looked tired. Was I getting enough sleep? I assured her that I was. At four-thirty I went into Rocky’s studio and told her I was going out, that I’d try to be back in time to have dinner with Grace and her, but not to wait if I was late.

  “I wouldn’t anyway,” Rocky said, looking up from the male figure she was bisecting. “Gracie doesn’t like it when her schedule is disrupted.”

  I was feeding quarters into a parking meter up the block from the real estate office when the phone began to vibrate in my pocket. Most of Montreal’s boroughs had upgraded to electronic pay stations, decades behind Europe and the U.K., which accepted credit and debit cards as well as coins, but Westmount at that time still used individual parking meters retrofitted with LCD displays, which accepted only coins. Fortunately, Rocky kept a handful of quarters in the car. As I dug the phone out of my pocket I made a mental note to replenish her supply.

  The display showed Nina’s name and number. “Hi,” I said. “How’s Cornwall?”

  “Nice enough place to live, I suppose,” she said. “But you wouldn’t want to visit. What’s up?”

  “Do you remember Frank Gendron?” I said, as I walked south toward Boulevard de Maisonneuve and the real estate office, which was located next to the old post office building.

  “Yeah,” Nina said. “I think I remember him. Sort of. Someone named Frank, anyway. He was one of Rocky’s boyfriends, wasn’t he?”

  “He was—still is, I suppose—my mother’s lawyer. He prepared the powers of attorney for Rocky and me.”

  “A lawyer?” Nina said. “A lawyer named François Gendron represents a group of Chaz Brandt’s victims.”

  “That’s him.”

  “I’ve seen him around the office,” Nina said. “But I never made the connection between him and Rocky’s old boyfriend. I was just a kid when he was sniffing around Rocky, and I don’t remember ever actually meeting him. Nor did he indicate he knew me. Louise says he’s a low-rent ambulance chaser. As if there’s any other kind.”

  “He was a good friend to my mother,” I said, “after my father left.”

  “Even though he was shagging Rocky every chance he got? Okay, sorry. What about him?”

  “He told me the police are closing in on Brandt, and if Terry wants to cut a deal, she should come forward with what she knows before it’s too late.”

  “That’s bull. The police haven’t got a goddamn clue where Chaz is, and Terry doesn’t know anything to cut a deal with. But I’ll give Louise a heads-up. Have you spoken to Terry?”

  “Yes,” I said. I was outside the storefront real estate office. A woman with a dramatic cascade of kinky blonde hair eyeballed me through the window. “I asked her if she’d have lunch with me, but she graciously declined. I don’t think she wants anything to do with me.” I held up a finger to the woman: one minute. Her smile turned icy. Not someone who liked to be kept waiting.

  “I gotta go do a sound check,” Nina said. “Look. You kinda dropped on her out of the blue, didn’t you? Probably threw her off balance. Hell, you threw me off balance, and I knew you were coming home. I bet if you tried harder, she’d loosen up. She hardly ever goes out, you know, and except for Rebecca and Lionel, she’s all alone in her house most of the time.”

  “Who’s Lionel?”

  “Her assistant.”

  “What about Lawrence Thomason?”

  “What about him? Anything that gets him out of the picture is okay with me. Why don’t you take a drive out to Pointe-Claire and pay her a visit? She’ll probably be glad to see you. I gave you her address.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. “Besides, it’s not my style. Go do your sound check. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 9

  The meeting with the real estate agent went smoothly. I had no reason to expect otherwise, and while it felt good—well, not good, exactly—to get the process underway, I left the real estate office feeling anxious and depressed. It took everything I had to stop myself from going back inside and telling the agent to forget the whole thing.

  After dinner with Rocky and my mother, I booted up Rocky’s MacBook and Googled “assisted living in Montreal,” confining my search to the western part of the city, including the West Island suburbs. The search generated a list of more than twenty institutions, private and public. Rocky’s printer wasn’t working, so I emailed the list to Nina, asking her if she could print it out for me. Then, after sitting with my mother until she fell asleep, I grew restless. I searched the bookshelves in the living room for something to read, but nothing struck my fancy. Television didn’t interest me, besides which, excepting the set in my mother’s room, the only TV in the house was a tiny portable in the kitchen.

  Had I been at loose ends in Fort William, for a change of scene from the pub at the Ben Nevis Inn I might have hiked into town to the Crofter for a “dram and a jam” with a local band, or to the Volunteer Arms—the “Volly”—to shoot pool or watch “footy.” There was a pub on Monkland Avenue, a short walk from my mother’s house, but the establishments in Montreal that style themselves pubs don’t have quite the same egalitarian conviviality as in Scotland. But what the hell? I thought. It beat moping around the house feeling sorry for myself.

  I was sitting at the bar and sipping a lightly watered Laphroaig, for which I’d paid too much but which was the only Islay in the pitiful selection of single malts, when someone called my name. I turned to see a beefy, florid-faced man with a fringe of fine blond hair and an almost invisible blond moustache.

  “Jesus,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder and nearly knocking me off my stool. “It really is you.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Or my mother’s made a terrible mistake.”

  “Eh? Oh, right.” He stuck out a hand. I took it. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “I’m afraid not,” I said, although he did seem somewhat familiar.

  “Well, it has been a long time.” He asked the fellow on the stool next to me if he wouldn’t mind shifting to another stool. He didn’t. The beefy man then climbed on to the vacated stool and placed his phone face up on the bar. Without being asked, the bartender put a bottle of Michelob Pale Ale in front of him. “Simon Chesterton,” he said. “We used to live down the street from you and your mom. You went out with my sister Sally for a while.”

  I smiled, memories of Sally Chesterton still vivid, even after nearly thirty years. You tend, I suppose, to remember the girl who relieved you of the burden of your virginity—more than once. I’d forgotten she had a brother, though. Sally and her family had moved away the summer before I’d started university.

  “Of course,” I said. “I remember you now. How are you?”

  “You’re a lousy liar,” Chesterton said, with a laugh. “That’s okay. You were a few years older than me. And I was a shy kid, afraid of my own shadow. I remember you, though. Of the guys my sister banged, and there were a few, you were the only one she really liked. You actually talked to her, she told me.”

  A memory clicked into place in the back of
my brain, of a pale and silent boy who’d never met my eye. “Sy?”

  Chesterton beamed. “Yeah. That’s me.”

  “You’ve changed,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess I have,” he said. “Blame it on Charles Atlas and Norman Vincent Peale.”

  “How is Sally?”

  “She’s fine. Married an American. A doctor, would you believe. Lives in Boston. Got so many kids I’ve lost count. How come I’ve never seen you in here before?”

  “Probably because I’ve never been in here before.”

  “That would explain it. What’re you drinking?” He leaned over my glass. “Scotch. Smells like cough medicine.” He waved to the bartender. “Kelsey, my sweet. Give my friend Riley here another of whatever he’s drinking. Make it a double, that’s a girl.”

  “A double Laphroaig coming up,” the bartender said.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said.

  “I know, man,” he said. “But I want to.”

  “Then thanks,” I said, as the bartender placed another glass in front of me and poured a double shot of Laphroaig. I combined the contents of the glasses then added a drop or two of water.

  “Do you still live around these parts?” Chesterton said.

  “My mother does. I’m just visiting.”

  “From where?” I told him. “That explains the Scotch,” he said. “So, how long has it been? Must be twenty-five years.”

  “About that,” I said.

  “Are you still doing music?”

  “Not much these days.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m between careers,” I said.

  “I get it,” he said. “How’s your sister? She was into music, too, wasn’t she? Nina, right?”

  “You have the name right, but Nina’s not my sister. She just spent a lot of time at my house because her parents travelled. She’s fine. She just released a new album.”

  “No shit,” Chesterton said. “Would I have heard of her?”