Not Safe After Dark, and Other Stories by Peter Robinson

Author:Peter Robinson [Robinson, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Short stories, Mystery & Detective, Short Stories (single author), Police Procedural, Police, Detective and mystery stories; English, Banks; Alan (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 9780771075599
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2004-10-26T16:56:48+00:00

•

The phone started ringing, the way they do, the minute I stuck my key in the door that afternoon. I put the groceries I’d bought at Publix on the kitchen counter and picked up the extension.

‘Jack, it’s Mike.’

My partner. ‘You were quick.’

‘Well, partly it’s a slow week.’

‘And…?’

‘And partly there’s not a hell of a lot to report.’

‘Go ahead anyway.’

‘Nothing on any of the people on the list. Squeaky clean, every one of them.’

‘What about Schiller?’

‘That’s the only interesting part. As far as I can make out, nobody knows him. I checked out the Kingston address you gave me. It’s owned by a couple called Renard. They confirmed that a man called Bud Schiller rents it from them and the cheques come in regularly.’

‘Where from?’

‘That they wouldn’t tell me. Anyway, I got the name of the guy next door to the Schiller place, and he said the house is empty most of the time.’

Now what the hell did that mean? ‘Anything else?’

‘That doctor in Waterloo, Joseph Brady, he checks out. He’s Edward Brennan’s family doctor, has been for years, and he rented the condo to Ed for the first time a few years back. Apparently the poor guy needed to recuperate from some illness – nothing specific, you know doctors – but I got the impression this Ed character had suffered various health problems on and off over-’

‘Mental or physical?’

‘Can’t say. But Brady’s a family doctor, Jack, not a shrink.’

‘OK. Go on.’

‘So it was a kind of convalescent holiday. He liked it and kept coming back.’

‘How about EscapeItAll?’

‘Perfectly legit. They own a few condos down the Gulf Coast and rent them through local agencies. Quite a lot of the Toronto travel agents do business with them, and the ones I talked to said they never had any problems.’

‘And the timeshare?’

‘Also legit. There is one thing, though. Virginia Fraser, one of the names you gave me?’

‘Right.’ Ginny Fraser.

‘I talked to the woman she rented from, and it turns out that the dates Fraser got weren’t available originally.’

‘So?’

‘So she paid over the odds.’

‘Ah-ha. On welfare, too. Is that all?’

‘Just about. Gardiner Holdings, that company in the Caymans? Looks like it’s the front of a front of a front. I couldn’t get even get a whiff of the real movers and shakers behind it.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thanks a lot Mike. You did good work.’ Then I hung up and mulled over what I’d learned.

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