Collateral Murder

By David Bernans

Marifel Landas knows that Samir Haddad is no terrorist, but how can she prove it when the charges he’s faced with and the evidence against him are secret under a so-called “security certificate” issued by the Canadian government?

Tactictec President Ted Whitmer died under suspicious circumstances. Montréal police have been pulled from the investigation by federal authorities who have arrested the Arab computer consultant as a suspected Hezbollah sympathizer.

To say that Marifel is new to the international spy game is an understatement. She is the Whitmer family’s nanny and maid. But because she is ordered by Mr. Whitmer’s widow to clean the embarrassing mess of alcohol and drug paraphernalia in the midst of which Mr. Whitmer’s half-naked dead body was found, the Filipina immigrant is the only person to see crucial murder scene clues.

The victim, Ted Whitmer, is the head of Tactictec, a multinational security firm with mercenaries operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. The prime suspect is Samir Haddad, an Arab businessman, husband and father of six. Marifel ends up working to help Samir’s wife clear his name. In the process she uncovers a conspiracy involving the CIA, private security firms, corrupt Afghan officials, drug smuggling, arms dealing, black prisons and torture.

As an immigrant working in a menial job, Marifel lacks the resources of police investigators. But being a domestic employee in the mansion of a security firm executive gives her opportunities to eavesdrop and allows her to enlist the help of Tess Whitmer, the teenage daughter of the deceased who also happens to be a computer whiz.

Tess ends up learning more than she would like about her father’s dubious activities. Marifel does her best to prove that Samir Haddad is not a terrorist, but in the process she discovers that he is not the paragon of Muslim virtue he pretends to be. Like everyone else in Collateral Murder, the computer consultant has a skeleton or two hiding in his closet.

Finding the murderer is one thing, but bringing him to justice and getting Haddad out of jail is another. In the war on terror, the only murderers are the terrorists. Those killed by “the good guys” must be either terrorists, or “collateral damage.” There is no such thing as collateral murder.

To right the wrong done to Samir Haddad, Marifel must improvise; threatening the corrupt authorities with the thing they fear most – exposure. WikiLeaks becomes the vehicle for the Filipina immigrant’s approximation of justice, but as both Bradley Manning and Julian Assange know, exposing international corruption is a risky business.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Bernans
• Release date: Mar 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301247110

David Bernans

Dr. David Bernans spent most of his youth in Ontario but is now a Québec-based writer and translator. He has a Ph.D. in Political Science from York University (1998) and a graduate diploma in Translation from Concordia University (2007). David’s only nonfiction book, Con U Inc.: Privatization, Marketization and Globalization at Concordia University (and Beyond), was published by the Concordia Student Union in 2001. While he continues to write nonfiction articles and blog posts as well as political satire, most of David’s work these days is of the fictional variety. David’s first novel, North of 9/11 (Cumulus Press, 2006), made international headlines (with a little help from Concordia University whose security team spied on the author and whose “risk assessment committee” banned a reading planned for the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks). The fictional plot of North of 9/11 is set in the corridors of Concordia’s urban campus in the burning autumn of 2001. Rebellious pierced and tattered punks and proud uncompromising youth of the Arab Diaspora naively brave the flames of chauvinism unleashed by the exploding planes of 9/11. Because they so forcefully reject the calls for vengeance on Afghanistan, the anti-war activists become targets of an intelligence agency keeping a watchful eye on “subversive” student organizations. Paranoia and incompetence are rife in Concordia’s bureaucracy and the RCMP. Plans for non-violent anti-war direct action are mistaken for the activities of a terrorist sleeper cell. Intelligence failures result in tragic consequences. The real-world actions of Concordia’s risk assessment committee targeting the author of the fictional story on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 seemed designed to prove the political moral of North of 9/11 and gave the work much more publicity than any promotional campaign could have done. The story made the front page of the Montreal Gazette; it was picked up by news services and student newspapers across Canada and even internationally. (See http://artthreat.net/2009/11/concordia-university-spied-novelist/) With Collateral Murder (Kindle edition, 2012), David continues to raise questions about the US-led war on terror and the role it has played in perpetuating the violence it is supposedly combating. As a mystery novel, Collateral Murder is not as overtly political as the historical novel, North of 9/11. However, the murder mystery genre allows the unlikely sleuth, the Filipina domestic Marifel Landas, to ask important questions about crime and punishment in the post-9/11 moral universe. Although most of Collateral Murder is set in Montréal, its author no longer lives in the metropolis. David now lives part time on a small farm in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli (where he writes) and part time in Québec City (where he works as a translator). Follow him on twitter @dbernans.

Book preview

Chapter 1 – The Master’s Ruin

The master of the house once had a great fortune and the most imposing defences to protect it. His manor was a luxurious fortress of stone and mortar, bordered by a foreboding wrought iron portcullis. It looked down on Montréal, nestled comfortably in the tree-lined streets of Westmount’s loftiest heights. But the master of the manor lost everything in one night. The foul grin on his corpse silently chuckled at the irony. Shards of colour from the morning light danced playfully across his pallid skin to the music of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. The way the sun’s rays weaved through the oak leaves and filtered through the stained glass windows made the library my favourite place to be at this hour. It was like going to church – the manor’s own private little chapel. Maybe that is why I immediately broke into prayer upon seeing Mr. Whitmer’s lifeless body.

I was more religious in those days. My belief in God was not any stronger than it is now, but it was a faith learned by rote and ritualistic practice. I had little time to reflect on the Roman Catholicism that punctuated every aspect of my daily life in the Philippines. The series of events set in motion by Mr. Whitmer’s death changed all that, an unlikely way to broaden my horizons. Thanks to my employer’s murderer, I no longer change sheets and clean toilets. Now I discuss existentialism and post-modern literature with students and professors at McGill University. But I should not get ahead of myself. You cannot know who I am now without first understanding who I was then.

On that September morning, I was still just an ordinary mail-order live-in nanny. Seeing Mr. Whitmer lying on the floor, I reacted just like any devout Catholic would react. I crossed myself with my dust buster and whispered, Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

As the gold embroidering on his silk bathrobe glittered, I imagined for an instant that my prayer was being answered. But did I really wish him eternal rest and perpetual light? The Sisters drilled all the tenets of Catholicism into me at a young age, so I knew it was my duty to forgive him, especially now. If Jesus could forgive him, so could I. But I don’t know if even Jesus could forgive him.

And there were others who could never forgive him. Others had suffered far more than I at the master’s hand. Women and men had been wronged by the lord of the manor. His bathrobe was open below the waist, exposing the fountain of much of that misery – that little bit of shrivelled ugly flesh peeking out from behind white tangles of dead and brittle shrubbery. How could something so trifling have been the source of such grief?

I considered closing his bathrobe for modesty’s sake, but then I thought better of it. The proper thing to do was to leave everything in the room exactly as it lay. I quickly resolved to leave the corpse, the mess, and Wagner playing on the stereo. Better call the authorities and let them deal with it.

A clutter of liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia had colonized the better part of the normally clean surface of the oak bureau. That wicked cocktail of hard alcohol and cocaine seemed to me the most likely cause of death (given the septuagenarian’s drug habit, it was a wonder that he had not expired earlier than he did). I had no reason to suspect foul play, but, even then, something seemed out of place. People often claim, with the benefit of hindsight, to have known all along. I’m not one of those people. I don’t pretend to have known at the time that Mr. Whitmer had been murdered. I just had a vague feeling that his death was more than a case of an old man suffering the effects of drugs and alcohol.

A half-full ornate silver ashtray bore witness to the presence of at least two others who had participated in the master’s final night of debauchery. My employer never smoked tobacco and there were two brands of cigarettes in the ashtray among the roaches. One of the guests had to be Ziggy, his dealer, who smoked Gauloises. The other was someone who smoked a less recognizable brand. And some of the non-Gauloises cigarettes had lipstick on them, a hot pink lipstick, not the kind the lady of the manor would use. Of course I knew that Mrs. Whitmer did her best to pretend that her husband’s all-night benders were, in fact, business meetings. She wouldn’t have been present. It was most likely one of Mr. Whitmer’s companions.

The larger-than-life Colonel sternly looked down on the mess from his place above the mantel, cloaked in his overcoat from the Great War. The library would always be the domain of the original Whitmer patriarch. He was painted as everyone seemed to remember him, in sombre tones of grey, beige, brown and khaki. From what I knew of the Colonel, he would not have approved of his son’s debauchery. The Colonel had enjoyed fine cognac and cigars, but he would have harshly sanctioned the use of illegal drugs. The drawing room, the bar and parlour were where the Whitmers entertained. But the library was a serious place. It was a sanctuary from the gossiping busybodies of Westmount. The Colonel would invite dignified gentlemen colleagues for drinks, cigars and important discussions of business and politics. The heir to the Whitmer Empire added drugs, sex and who knows what else to the mix. Surrounded by works of great literature and scientific tomes arranged neatly upon ancient oak shelves, Mr. Whitmer would continue to discuss business and politics with much the same attitude as his father in the company of the same sort of dignified gentlemen. But the Colonel’s son would also snort cocaine and laugh loudly at his own crude jokes told in the company of men and women of less repute. And now the heir to the Colonel’s Empire lay half-naked and surrounded by filth and sin, under his father’s uncompromising gaze.

The washroom door stood open, revealing a frantic mess of jars and pills that had showered the sink, counter and floor from the open medicine cabinet. Perhaps he had been searching for something to dull the pain in his final hours.

Although his vacant stare and his eerie grin left very little doubt in my mind that Mr. Whitmer was dead, I thought it best to check his pulse just to be sure before alerting the authorities. When I picked up his wrist, my heart jumped at the beep of the cell phone in his right hand as it dropped to the Afghan carpet, briefly coming back to life. Once the pounding of my own pulse subsided enough for me to be sure that Mr. Whitmer’s wrist no longer had one, I wondered if he had tried to dial 911 before passing out. I took a closer look at the phone, and saw that it was offering a Montreal 514 area code number for redial, with the name Ziggy. He had been calling his dealer? He needed more drugs? But there were lines of cocaine still untouched on the bureau. It didn’t make sense. He must have been too far gone to think rationally by that point.

Leaving my master and his mess for somebody else to deal with (for once), I waddled as fast as my short legs would carry me through the door connecting the library to the parlour and bar, into the corridor, through the foyer, the dining room and, finally, into the familiar security of the kitchen. Waddling is not a very flattering way to describe my walk, but that is how I moved most mornings at the Whitmer residence. At four-feet and eleven inches, I can manage to move my 150 pound frame around the house pretty gracefully most of the time, but not early in the morning after having spent a full 14 hours on my feet the day before. My ankles get sore and swollen while I sleep and it takes a few hours for them to loosen up. Stacey, the Whitmers’ youngest, called me a duck. For me, it was a compliment. I can live with that, I thought at the time. I am a four foot, eleven inch, 150-pound duck. Not a squat, pudgy, little 51 year-old Filipina nanny with hair growing out of the mole on her chin. I had yet to realize that I could enjoy my little round body.

Once in the kitchen, I took a moment to catch my breath before calling the authorities.

Friendly fire, came a voice just inches from my ear. I jumped. You’ve never seen a 150-pound duck jump like that!

I whirled around to stare into the face of a one-eyed rabid beast. His right eye was darting in all directions at once, while his left eye – the glass one – just stared straight past me. The glass eye was the only thing that stood still on Vincent’s face, making it impossible to focus on anything else. The remainder of his leathery, scarred features was a mass of twitches.

It was friendly fire. Friendly fucking fire. It’s always friendly fire when the shit’s in the air. That’s what you’ve got to watch out for. It’s the friendly fire. Watch out for that.

Yes Vincent, I said calmly to the master’s oldest from his first marriage. I will. I’ll watch out for friendly fire. But, you know, there’s not too much fire here. We’re in Westmount, Vincent, not Afghanistan. You know that, right? Don’t you Vincent? I wondered how long Vincent had been observing me. Had he followed me up to the library? Vincent had a habit of spying on and stalking people. The rabid weasel stalking the duck.

The wounded soldier nodded sheepishly as his eye darted down towards ornate tiles of the Whitmer kitchen. "Oh, yeah, sure, now we are, Vincent agreed. We are right now." He scratched nervously at the scar carved into the back of his head.

Vincent’s qualified admission about the reality of the current situation did not exactly help me gain the composure required for calling the police. But I pressed on, taking the wireless off the counter and dialling 911.

A disturbingly calm and patient woman from Montréal’s emergency services took the address and assured me that two officers and an ambulance were on their way. As I continued to explain the situation, Mrs. Whitmer walked into the kitchen.

Yes, he’s right where I found him, I said, in the library.

No, I didn’t touch a thing. Well I checked if he had a pulse…

With that Mrs. Whitmer lost what little colour she had in her face. She ran out of the kitchen in the direction of the library. As I continued to talk on the phone I heard her scream reverberating through the empty halls of the masterless manor.

Oh, that’s Mrs. Whitmer. She just found her husband. She’s very upset. I better go. I put down the phone and trundled my way as fast as I could back to the library.

By the time I had made it to the foyer, I was almost knocked over by Mrs. Whitmer running back to the sanctuary of the kitchen.

Oh Marifel, she said. Oh my God. I don’t believe it. Oh Marifel. She gripped my hand in her slippery fingers, still slick from the generous application of hand cream she applied as part of her morning ritual. It was an expensive brand from Switzerland. My hands would smell of sweet apricots for the rest of the day.

Mrs. Whitmer, I wheezed as I tried to catch my breath. Mine is a body not built for running through the spacious corridors of the Whitmer manor. I know… it must be just awful… to find him like…

This can’t be happening! she yelled back. Tell me this is a dream, Marifel, a bad dream. It sounded like an order. Her voice suddenly recovered the confidence that had been blown away in the initial shock.

Normally I would accept her orders without question, but this time I shook my head, continuing to pant with exhaustion. I rubbed the cream into my dry little fingers and dishpan palms, the smell of apricot mixing with the air I was sucking into my lungs. No, it’s not a dream. I wish it was…

Who were you talking to on the phone? she demanded.

I called 911.

You what? Without seeing me first? Her eyes were full of heat now, dark and smouldering. She hadn’t put her blue contacts in yet.

I shrugged helplessly.

Mommy, squeaked Stacey’s little morning voice. Mrs. Whitmer and I looked up to see her youngest, in her pink flowery pyjamas, peering down at us from the top of the staircase, rubbing her eyes as if to make sure she was seeing us properly. What’s going on? Why did you scream?

It’s nothing dear, Mrs. Whitmer said in a voice that was probably meant to be reassuring. Just give me a minute with Marifel, and we can go to the kitchen and have some breakfast, okay?

I want Marifel to make me breakfast, Stacey whined.

Marifel is too busy this morning, sighed Mrs. Whitmer. I’m making you breakfast and that’s that. The embers in Mrs. Whitmer’s eyes that had been doused by Stacey’s interruption were now coming back to life. She turned away from her daughter and aimed those merciless eyes directly at me, whispering angrily, Honestly Marifel, what do you think people will say if we let them find him like that? He’s not a cokehead. He’s not an alcoholic. But that’s what they’ll say if they find him like that. Imagine the scandal! The CEO and President of Tactictec dies on drug binge. That can’t happen. I won’t let it. Get rid of all that shit in the room. I don’t care what you do with it. Just make it go away so they don’t find it.

But we’re not supposed to touch anything, I whispered in protest.

And you’re not supposed to lose your job if you want to stay in Canada, Mrs. Whitmer said coldly.

I was a little Filipina doll in her soft apricot-smelling hands. I didn’t belong to Mr. Whitmer anymore. Now I was all hers. The lady of the manor was ruthless, and she was keenly aware of my vulnerability. She knew how much I needed to stay in Canada to sponsor the immigration of my elderly parents. She knew how my sister and her children in Davao depended on my paycheque. The employment agency file provided all the tactical information required. But the file could not tell my employer who I really was. It could not tell her about the songs my mother sang to me, or how my father worked his fingers to the bone to send his two daughters to school, or the beauty and the sadness in my godson’s deep brown eyes. I doubt Mrs. Whitmer could ever understand any of that. And there was no time to explain.

The authorities are already on their way ma’am, I said. I might not have enough t-

Then you’d better get moving.

Yes ma’am.

And with that I began my covert cleaning operation. Straightening out Whitmer messes was the six- (and sometimes seven-) day-a-week job I had been specifically selected to come all the way from the Philippines to perform. After more than a year, cleaning tasks had become so routine I practically did them in my sleep. But, on this particular morning, the thought of being caught in the act of unlawful tidying gave my efforts a sense of urgency bordering on total panic. Nevertheless, my haste did not reduce the thoroughness of my enterprise.

I wheeled in my cleaning trolley from the bar and stocked it with the bottles and glasses that had been strewn all across the vast expanses of the desk and the oak reading table. I carefully swept all the loose drugs and paraphernalia off the desk and into a garbage bag. I then wiped clean the desk, the laptop computer, and the reading table. I threw some soiled towels that were lying on the couch into the bathroom’s laundry hamper, and for good measure I vacuumed the carpet all around the desk, the reading table, the couch, and the other furniture. The contents of the waste basket also found their way into my drug-filled garbage bag. I left the cell phone on the floor. I was not sure about the jars and pills littering the bathroom sink and floor. Were they covered by Mrs. Whitmer’s directive? I was pretty sure all the pills were legal, either prescription or above the counter, but just to be safe I swept them into the garbage bag too. I then wheeled the trolley back into the bar, where I put all the bottles and glasses into their proper places.

As I was washing the glasses (noticing the same hot-pink lipstick on one of them), I heard the doorbell ring. My trembling little fingers would not obey my commands to stop the clinking of the glasses as I stacked them with the others on the shelf. My fear of being discovered transformed the muted tinkle of glassware into the harsh racket of a bull in a china shop. As I tiptoed to my trolley and removed the incriminating garbage bag, I could hear Mrs. Whitmer talking to the men entering the foyer.

I crept out into the hallway. Officers’ boots were tapping their way towards me on the varnished pine of the empty hallway. They were just around the corner, and there I was with a garbage bag full of evidence. I was about to run back to the library. The library connected to Mr. Whitmer’s office and his office had access to the manor’s side entrance. That was how Mr. Whitmer’s less reputable friends arrived, under the cover of darkness. But the side entrance could be observed by a police officer or security guard making the rounds to secure the perimeter as it were. Without thinking, I took refuge in the darkness of the broom closet. The tapping came closer, and then continued on through the hallway and into the bar. He’s in here, said Mrs. Whitmer. Our live-in found him.

Okay Madam, said one of the men. The detectives will need to talk with her. Make sure she don’t go nowhere. The man spoke with a noticeable Québécois accent. I just have to make sure your husband is in fact deceased. Please do not enter into the room madam.

I opened the door a crack, making sure that the coast was clear, and then silently made my way back through the grand foyer and dining room to the kitchen where Stacey sat, intensely occupied by the task of sculpting mountains out of the soggy remains of her morning cereal. Was it my imagination, or was she humming Wagner? I went through the back door of the kitchen, through the pantry and into the more modest foyer dividing the pantry from the atrium. Then I heard a voice reverberating through the atrium glass. Fearful that it might be another policeman, I quickly crept to the door that would allow me to descend to the familiar safety of the basement. But I tripped over Stacey’s doll, sending it crashing to the floor from its toy potty. Pausing for a moment to hear if I had been discovered by the people in the atrium, I could hear the words, Just give it to me then. I’ll make sure he gets it. You can trust me. Can’t trust the commanders. Can’t trust the government. But me, you can trust. You have to trust your buddy. It was Vincent. Probably talking to himself again. Strangely reassured by the insane ramblings of the wounded soldier, I continued to the basement and the familiar territory of the laundry room, the children’s playroom and my bedroom. In the musty dungeon of their castle I found a secure place to stow the Whitmer skeletons.

I then splashed some water on my face from the laundry sink, took a few deep breaths, and made my way up to the scene of my crime.

Once the uniformed officers had confirmed the lack of vital signs in my former employer, they set up watch over the already thoroughly compromised potential crime scene. Once the paramedics arrived, the police allowed them to enter the library long enough to examine the corpse and officially declare Mr. Whitmer dead. I wished Mrs. Whitmer were not so vain. Why should she make such a fuss about respectability while her husband’s corpse lay in the library? But I suppose that is precisely when a lady like Mrs. Whitmer becomes the most concerned about respectability. The widow knew she was now the head of the family, and the reputation of the Whitmer household was entirely her responsibility.

But wouldn’t the police be doing tests to reveal the drug and alcohol use she was trying to hide? I suspected they would be doing blood tests, but I suppose a statistical summary of elevated alcohol and drug levels in a dead man’s blood does not have the same potential for scandal as the image of his partly-clad corpse surrounded by copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, not to mention the evidence of extra-marital sexual relations that had likely occurred in the hours before his demise. Of course, adding sex to the mix made all the difference. A powerful CEO boffing some young floozy just before dying in a den of debauchery – now that was a story. It was a story for the general public, and an especially tasty little morsel for the idle class of Westmount gossipers who knew the Whitmers. It was not so interesting a story for me, the live-in who spent one or two days a week cleaning the soiled sheets and towels left by the master and his companions. The master’s sexual exploits were just more dirty laundry for me to wash. But there was one piece that did not fit – the condom in the wastebasket. I don’t mean it didn’t fit Mr. Whitmer’s organ. As far as I could tell, he was quite average in that department. What the condom did not fit was the master’s sexual habits. He never wore those things. He was the head of a top security firm, yet he systematically engaged in one of the most high-risk practices of our times – unprotected sex. But there it was in the wastebasket – the wastebasket whose contents were now in a garbage bag in the Whitmer basement. The one night he decided to wear protection was the night of his death. That slimy little piece of rubber got stuck in the back of my mind. It was a little thing, probably nothing. But it just didn’t fit, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what a wrong thing it was for me to remove it from the scene. It was the job of the police to rule out foul play and I had thrown away the one physical indication that something out of the ordinary might have happened that night. There was nothing particularly sinister about the condom. It just didn’t belong there, and there could not be a proper investigation of this death without it. So there would always be a doubt in my mind about what had happened in the library that fateful night and what I could have done to shed light on it.

Chapter 2 – Truth and Consequences

My hands worked mechanically, preparing another pot of coffee, but my mind was elsewhere. I had been in the library with Mr. Whitmer in his last hours of depravity, hanging over the scene in a cloud of tobacco and cannabis smoke. The old man was slurring his words and laughing loudly at his own jokes. His companion shared his executive swivel chair, sitting on his lap and running her fingers through what was left of his hair, stroking the old man’s ego as only a professional can. Ziggy, always the loyal vassal, was preparing lines of coke crisscrossing the territory allotted for the task on the vast expanse of the Whitmer oak desk while another man sat quietly in the shadows, cigarette burning. He had no voice and no face, but he had eyes and they were watching.

Marifel, why are the policemen here? asked Stacey, perched at the kitchen table carving milky canals through cornflake valleys.

Lost in my lurid musings, I had forgotten all about the child. Her question brought the weight of the patriarch’s death crashing down on me. Filter and grounds slipped from my fingers, making a dark mess on the spotless white kitchen tiles.

I hid the tears forming in my eyes by ducking under the sink in search for the dustpan to sweep up my mess. Before I was able to gain enough composure to respond to Stacey’s question, her older sister Tess entered the kitchen and answered coldly, It’s dad.

But how did she know? I stood up and looked at the sixteen-year-old whose back was turned from me as she rummaged through the cereal cupboard. The skirt of her school uniform was so short I could practically see her panties as her pubescent figure leaned into the cupboard. Tess redirected her attention for a moment to cast a sardonic glance at her kid sister, Insider trading. He’s going down for sure. And we’re gonna have to move into a trailer park. Mom will have to go back to being a secretary. And no more equestrian adventures for Princess Heidi. She’ll have to sell her precious ponies to keep the creditors at bay. Then, she casually returned to her foraging expedition.

What’s insider trading? asked Stacey with an earnest frown.

It’s cheating, explained her older sister, closing the cupboard in frustration, and slouching into a seat at the table. Dad’s a cheater. He got caught and now he has to go to jail. She took her iPhone out of her purse and began unwinding the earphones.

You don’t go to jail for cheating, Stacey giggled in protest. She was still too young to appreciate the teen’s biting sarcasm, but the child was starting to catch on.

Maybe your right, Tess mused. He’s got a good lawyer. If anybody can get him out of this mess, it’s Bergman.

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I allowed myself an inward chuckle as I bent to sweep up the coffee grounds, imagining the diminutive bespectacled Maitre Bergman humbly pleading Mr. Whitmer’s case before St. Peter at the gates of heaven. Bergman would be good at it too. But Mr. Whitmer was on his own now. And his sinner’s soul was naked before the judge.

Allo girls, said a deep voice of authority. "I’m Detective Lieutenant Bigras. Can you tell me where is the fille au pair?"

You mean Marifel? asked Tess. Can’t really call her a fille-au-anything. She’s our nanny.

I stood up from behind the counter to see a thickset little detective. Hearing the deep voice, I expected bigger. But the squat plainclothes officer was only about half a foot taller than me. I’m the nanny, I confessed, Marifel Landas. I’m just making some coffee now. Would you like some Detective?

Yes, that would be nice, responded the officer, a