No Good Deed

Five for Fighting and a Murder Misconduct

There are few smells better than the ice at a hockey rink.

I sat in the empty stands and watched the last River City Flyers practice before opening night. The team jerseys were orange, just like the NHL Philadelphia Flyers, with a stylized ‘R’ in place of Philly’s ‘P.’ I’d read somewhere that there was affiliation between the two teams, but if that were true, River City’s Flyers would be like a Single A baseball team to Philadelphia’s Major League.

Even so, the skill of the players was amazing. They flew up and down the ice like bullets, turning and cutting back at unbelievably sharp angles. Passes zipped from stick to stick. When a shooter teed up a shot, the crack of the stick on the ice was like a gunshot. More amazing yet, two of the players were padded up a little heavier than the rest and actually stood in front of those shots, protecting the net.

The old injuries in my shoulder and knee ached just watching.

“Enjoying the show?”

Matt Sinderling made his way down the steps and into my row. He dropped down into a seat two spaces over from me. His ball cap and sewn name tag identified him as arena security, not a role you would figure him for, given his slight frame. He ran the office and coordinated efforts during events. They had sides of beef to do the heavy work.

Earlier in the year, I’d done some work for him, helping find his teenage daughter. The cost had been high, for her and for me, and since then, he’d stayed in touch. We had coffee together once or twice a month. He’d tell me how she was doing, then ask how I was. I usually lied about that part.

I nodded toward the ice. “They’re good,” I said, telling the truth.

He smiled. “Better than last season. They’ll probably finish first in the division.”

“Good.”

“They traded Beaves away to some team in Ontario and brought up this new kid just out of Junior. He’s a hell of a goaltender.”

“Good.”

“Got a couple of goalscorers this year, too.”

“Good.”

“And a scrapper.”

“Good.”

“That all you can say, Stef? Good?”

I shrugged. “None of it matters until the games get played.”

“True.”

“But I appreciate you getting me in to watch the practice.”

“No problem,” he said, rubbing his chin and looking out onto the ice. Then he shook his head. “It’s too bad.”

“What?”

He pointed. “Number Twenty-Three, see him? That’s Phillipe Richard.”

He said it with a French accent, Fill-eep Ree-shard. I followed his finger to Number Twenty-Three. He was a lumbering skater at least half a head taller than most of the other players and built like a bulldozer.

“They say he’s a grandnephew to Maurice Richard,” Matt said. “But he plays the game like Dave Shultz.”

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. Shultz was a fighter that played for Philadelphia during the 1970s. They called him ‘The Hammer.’ It’d be nice to see a little of that toughness here at the hometown arena.

“What’s the problem? He can’t keep up with the rest of the players?”

“No,” Matt said. “I mean, he’s not the fastest guy on the team, but he’s got some skill. I guess.”

“Then what?”

Matt shrugged. “I don’t know if I should say. It’s personal.”

It was then that I realized Matt was playing me. It ticked me off. I thought about getting up and leaving. Then I thought about just ignoring it. Finally, I said, “Don’t try to run a game on me, Matt.”

He affected a shocked look. “What do you-”

“You want to ask something, ask.”

His face turned bright red and he looked away, watching the players skate. When he finally looked back at me, he said, “Sorry. I just didn’t know how.”

“Ask.”

“Okay,” he said, and looked back out to the ice.

He was quiet again for a while. The sounds of skate blades cutting into the ice and wooden sticks slapping into frozen rubber filled the silence. I was beginning to think he was going to drop it altogether when he turned back to me.

“The thing is, he trusts me. That’s why he told me about it.”

“Richard?”

“Yeah. He told me one night after a practice. He was sitting in the stands, staring off into space while I was making my lock-up rounds. I could just tell something was wrong and when I asked him about it, he trusted me enough to confide in me.”

“About what?”

Matt clenched and unclenched his jaw. “His problem.”

I sighed. “I gathered that. What problem?”

“It’s about a woman.”

That didn’t surprise me. Back when I was a police officer, the maxim had been that there were two things that would cause a cop more trouble than anything else. A wine glass and a woman’s ass. I thought cops were something special when I was one of them. Now I realized that they were just people, too, and that particular maxim applied to most of the men of the world.

“Would you talk to him, Stef?” Matt asked me. “Maybe there’s something you can do to help him.”

I looked out onto the ice and watched Phillipe Richard take a pass from the corner and launch it toward the net. It went wide and clacked hard into the glass behind.

“I don’t know what I could do,” I said.

“Please? I’d appreciate it.”

“I’ll talk with him,” I said. “That’s all I’m promising.”

Matt smiled, and I knew why. That’s what I told him when he said he wanted my help with his teenage daughter.

You’d think I’d learn.

A long shrill blast from the assistant coach’s whistle signaled the end of practice and the players left the ice. Matt told me it would be about thirty minutes before Richard would be changed and suggested I wait in the sandwich shop directly across from the arena.

I walked slowly across the street, my knee stiff and forcing a painful limp. There was an empty table near the window and I took it. I wanted to see Richard approach.

Thirty minutes later, he sauntered across the street to the cafe. His thick, black hair was gelled back casually and he wore an expensive tan shirt to go with his pleated slacks. I knew that there were team dress codes, but I was pretty sure that was only on game days. The few players that had wandered out of the arena ahead of him were in jeans.

Richard entered the diner and looked around. I raised my hand and caught his attention. He gave a disarming smile and took the seat across me.

“Phillipe Richard,” he said, offering his hand.

“Stefan Kopriva,” I answered and took it. He squeezed and the iron strength in his hand was apparent. It was like shaking hands with a table vise.

“Kopriva?” He cocked his head. “That is a Czech name, no?”

I nodded, surprised. “My grandmother’s side. How’d you know? Most people guess Russian, if they guess at all.”

Richard grinned and rolled his eyes. “Yes, Russian, I imagine. Especially here. I read in the newspaper that over ten thousand Russians live in this city now. Is that true?”

“It might be more. I don’t know. But how’d you know my name was Czech?”

Richard waved his hand dismissively. “Ah, you play long enough hockey, pretty soon you learn the difference. I can tell you if a name is Norwegian, Finnish or Swedish. Much harder than the difference between Russian and Czech.”

“How long have you played?”

“Since I was three.”

The waitress approached our table and we both ordered coffee.

“I meant professionally,” I said.

“Oh, of course.” Richard thought for a moment. “Eight years getting paid. But I played Junior in Val d’Or for four years before that. That is not technically professional, but it is the very highest level of hockey for players under twenty.”

“Where’d you play before River City?”

Richard grinned. “In Quebec, in a Senior League. My team was called the Chevaliers. Do you know what that word means in English?”

I shook my head.

“It means Knight. Like Sir Lancelot? Did you know he was French?”

I shook my head. “I thought King Arthur was British.”

“Oui. But Sir Launcelot was French. Perhaps that is why he ended up with the woman, no? Anyway, last season, in Quebec, we won the championship.”

“I thought you were traded here from Trail.”

“Trail?” Richard snorted. “They signed me away from Quebec during the off-season. Players make twice as much in this league, so I signed the contract. I came there right after the season ended. I did a lot of community service as part of the team, worked hard at training camp, but they traded me to River City, anyway.”

“Quite a trip.”

“It all pays the same to me,” Richard said.

Our coffee arrived and I sipped the hot brew. Richard flashed a smile at the waitress, but didn’t touch his.

“Matt said you might need some help with something,” I said.

Richard turned back to me. His face tightened momentarily, especially around the lips. “I am not sure how it is here in U.S. Are you a private investigator?”

I shook my head. “No.”

His eyes narrowed a little. “No license?”

“I don’t need one in Washington State, as long as I don’t advertise or portray myself as a private investigator. It doesn’t matter, though, because the only one I’ve ever really helped was Matt.”

“Oh, yes, he told me.” Richard reached down and brought his cup to his lips. “That thing with his daughter.”

I nodded.

Richard watched me for a moment, then sipped his coffee again and put the cup back on the table. “It does not matter. When I said I was not sure how it is here in U.S., I meant something more.”

“What?”

“I do not know how it is with…problems with women.”

I stared at him, noting the square jaw and the slight bend in the bridge of his nose. Although he was clean-shaven, coarse facial hair already darkened his cheeks and chin. He looked like the high-speed, low-drag personality I would expect from a professional athlete. Or a cop, for that matter. But he didn’t look like a wife-beater.

“Domestic violence laws are pretty stiff,” I said. “There’s a mandatory arrest provision and-”

He shook his head and waved his hand at me. “No, nothing like that. I would never beat a woman. I love women. That is the problem.”

“How so?”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “There is a woman. She follow me from Trail. She is saying that she is pregnant and that the child, it is mine.”

“Is it?”

Richard clenched his jaw and sat back. Then he shrugged. “I do not know for sure.”

“So you slept with her.”

“Yes, yes, many times. But this woman, she also had a husband. I think that she was already pregnant, you see? That it is the husband’s baby.”

“Get a blood test.”

He nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, of course I will. But that will be after the baby is born. Many months from now.”

“So?”

Richard sighed. “Monsieur Kopriva, this is an important time for me. This contract to play here is not very much money. But the way I play the game in Quebec, it catches the eye of some NHL scouts, you know? And so I come to this league, a higher league, to show that I am not just a big fish in a small pond. I will show the scouts that I can play in the NHL. And if they believe me, I will get an NHL-sized contract.”

“How much?”

“At least five hundred thousand. Maybe a million dollars even.”

I whistled and drank some more coffee. My meager medical pension wouldn’t add up to that in fifteen years.

“You see,” Richard said, “I am not a young man anymore. This is perhaps my last chance, so I must be focused on what I must do, and nothing more. Not some woman and perhaps a baby.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “But what do you want from me?”

I walked across the newly opened Monroe Street Bridge and paused to look down. The Looking Glass River rumbled below. It was cold, but only because my body was remembering summer. By January, I’d think back on this day as balmy.

In my jacket pocket, I had two hundred in cash that Richard had given me, a pair of tickets to the season opener tomorrow and the last known location of Anne Marie Stoll, the woman that was claiming that she was pregnant with Richard’s child. The address was a cheap motel on the north side of town and I wanted to drive up. Since I’d been foolish enough to walk to the arena from my apartment in Browne’s Addition, that meant I had to walk back.

Two hundred dollars plus my expenses wasn’t a lot of money, but for what Richard was asking, it was a fortune. All he wanted was for me to broker a pay-off deal with Anne Marie. His reasoning was that if all she was doing was extorting him for some cash, she’d jump at the offer.

Even more important, Richard told me, was my read on her. He put great stock in my being a cop years ago and he wanted to know if she was lying or not. Then, he said, he wouldn’t have to worry about a blood test in the future. He could deal with the problem and focus on playing hockey.

“No,” said the desk clerk, looking offended. “I’m sure. I keep good records.”

“Did she leave a forwarding address?”

He gave me a look that said I was clearly the biggest moron he’d met today. “How many people do you think leave a forwarding address?”

I ignored his comment. “How about a previous address?”

He eyes were suspicious. “Why?”

“I’m trying to find her.”

“No kidding.” The clerk brushed his thick, greasy hair from his forehead. “Why?”

“It’s personal.”

“So’s the information you’re asking for.”

We stood at an impasse for a few moments, then I sighed. “All right, look. I work for a bank. Her relative left her a lot of money, but she doesn’t know it yet.”

“So you’re trying to find her to give her this good news?”

“Right.”

“What’re you, Ed McMahon?”

“It’s not a bad job.” I played out the ruse. “I get to make people happy.”

“Baloney.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s baloney.” He pointed at my 1982 Toyota Celica. “No way does a prize guy drive that piece of junk. You’d at least have a mini-van.”

“It’s in the shop.”

“Uh-uh. I get junk email like this all the time. Some rich guy from another country needs to deposit money in my account to avoid taxes or an evil dictator. It’s a con job.” He looked back at me. “And so are you.”

I pulled a twenty dollar bill from my pocket. “You’re right. But this is real.”

It ended up not being worth twenty dollars. I got an address in Trail for Anne Marie Stoll that Richard probably could have supplied. There was no vehicle information listed on the registration card. So much for his keeping good records.

The only other thing that was worth the price of admission was that she’d left over a week ago.

Opening night at the arena was a spectacle. The players skated out onto the ice through a wall of fog as the rink announcer boomed out, “Here…are your…River…City…FLYERS!” Rock music played in the background and the crowd clapped along.

Once all the skaters were on the ice and lined up along the blue line, the rink announcer introduced each of them, one at a time.

“In goal,” boomed the disembodied voice of the announcer, “from York, Saskatchewan, number one, Derek Yeager!” There was a huge cheer. Word had circulated about the new goalie, even though he was just out of Junior, and expectations were high.

When Richard’s turn came, the cheers for him were polite but unspectacular. If what Matt said about him were true, that would change soon.

The opposing team was from Trail, British Columbia, and that seemed to suit Richard just fine. He didn’t start the game, but about three minutes in, he climbed over the boards for his first shift. He was a powerful skater, driving forward with his thick legs. There was nothing graceful in his stride, just unbridled power.

A Trail forward skated up the left wing and cut to the center at the Flyers blue line, dragging the puck around a River City defenseman. He tried to dipsy-doodle around another defender and glanced down at the puck as he stick-handled.

Richard skated along the blue line and as the forward glanced down, he drove his shoulder into the other player’s chest, sending him flying backward. The River City defenseman gathered in the puck and zipped it up the wing.

One of the bigger Trail players, a red-headed giant named McHugh, immediately went after Richard for the check and neither one of them needed any more coaxing. Gloves and sticks hit the ice and they clenched, each struggling for find purchase on the other’s jersey. Richard threw two booming rights. One glanced off McHugh’s shoulder and the second knocked his helmet off.

A great cheer went up from the crowd. McHugh fought back gamely, lashing out with rights of his own, but Richard slipped them. He threw another heavy punch with his right hand, then grabbed a fistful of jersey near the collar and threw a left hook just as McHugh was drawing back to punch. The blow landed along his jaw and McHugh slumped to his knees. The crowd roared and the linesmen intervened, separating the two players.

Richard skated to the penalty box, nodding his head to the fans who cheered in appreciation. After a moment or two, his opponent rose on shaky legs and skated to the other penalty box. The two chattered at each other across the scorekeeper’s box. The crowd loved it.

The checking picked up after that and the game was intense. Three minutes later, Wayne Langer, a skater I recognized from last season, wristed one past the Trail goaltender and the crowd went nuts. The River City goal song blasted out of the sound system and eight thousand voices cried, “Whoa-oh-oh-oh” in unison.

I smiled and sipped my drink.

When the five minute penalties ended, Richard and McHugh were allowed out of the penalty boxes. Each man skated along his own blue line, still jawing at the other all the way to the bench. Before the puck was dropped, the Trail coach made a line change, sending McHugh out on the right wing. The River City coach responded by putting Richard on the left wing.

The puck dropped.

So did the gloves.

The second tilt was more of an even affair, with both men trading punches to a stalemate. After a dozen or so, the linesmen stepped between and broke it up. McHugh and Richard spent another five minutes in the penalty box jawing at each other.

The crowd was electric. I heard fans around me asking each other who number twenty-three was and consulting the program flyer.

As soon as their five minutes were up, the two heavyweights squared off again. This time, Richard fought with an intense fury, pummeling McHugh with his right hand until the Trail player collapsed to his knees. The linesmen separated them and Richard skated straight for the bench and down the tunnel toward the locker room.

“Where’s he going?” the girl next to me asked her boyfriend, who shrugged.

“Three fights is a game misconduct,” the old man behind us advised.

Two of McHugh’s teammates helped him off the ice and down the tunnel to his own locker room. River City fans jeered him.

Even the public announcer’s voice seemed excited when he announced the penalties. “Trail penalty to number seven, Kevin McHugh. River City penalty to number twenty-three, Phillipe Richard. Both receive five for fighting and a game misconduct.”

At Richard’s name, a cheer started. It built up over the announcement and washed down onto the ice.

It was official. The crowd loved him.

I spoke with Richard after practice the next morning. The coach put them through a light skate, since they played the night before and had another game that night. He saw me in the stands with Matt and waved me down into the tunnel.

“What news?” he asked.

“None,” I told him. “She’s not at that motel anymore.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. Maybe she left town and went home.”

His brow furrowed. “No. She called just yesterday afternoon.”

“She called you?”

He shook his head. “No, my agent. She bother him all the time.”

Patrick Bourdon was exactly like I expected a French lawyer to look. His suit was cut to fit his slender frame and his hair was gelled perfectly into place. The only thing that spoiled the image was the fact that I met him in his hotel room and not some swanky office in Montreal.

He offered me coffee and I accepted. Instead of the complimentary packets in most hotels, he had his own coffee-maker, complete with gourmet beans and grinder.

“There are some luxuries one cannot do without,” he told me. “Besides, I am very pleased at the selection of beans here in your city, Mr. Kopriva.”

I shrugged. I preferred black coffee and though I wouldn’t turn up my nose at a more exotic roast, I wasn’t particularly fond of the foo-foo gourmet stuff.

While the coffee brewed, Bourdon and I sat across a small table from each other. His laptop lay to his left, running but with the top closed.

“You do much of your work out of hotels?”

He shrugged. “I have a small office in my home. But when I have a strong client on the verge of a signing, I like to be where he is. Besides, a telephone and an Internet connection is all I really need.”

“Is Richard on the verge?”

He spread his arms with a flourish. “Well, I am here, after all.”

“Signing with who?”

“Several teams are interested. My duty is to ensure that he goes to the right team at the right price.”

The aroma of the brewing coffee floated over us. I had to admit it smelled pretty good. “He said he might sign for a half million dollars.”

“Oh, surely,” Bourdon said. “But it will likely be two or three times that. It just depends.”

“On what?”

Bourdon smiled. “On how well he plays. And who gets hurt or traded up in the show.”

“So he’ll go to the NHL?”

“Oh, certainly,” Bourdon said. “But he will have to toil for a bit in the American Hockey League, to prove he is no fluke.”

“Like he’s doing now, in this league?”

“Precisely. Now, Mr. Kopriva, Phillipe told me you were trying to help him with this Stoll situation.”

I nodded. “That’s right.”

“What are you intending to do?”

“Just what he asked me to do. Find the woman and make an offer.”

“Which Phillipe has no intention of paying.”

“No,” I said. “But he seems to think that I’ll be able to tell whether she’s lying or not.”

“Yes, he said you used to be a constable of some kind?”

I didn’t answer, only nodded.

Bourdon didn’t push the matter. “Well, if it will put Phillipe’s mind to rest so that he can focus on what is most important right now, then I am all for it. What can I do to help?”

“He said that Anne Marie Stoll called you recently?”

“The woman calls me at least once a week.”

“When was the most recent call?”

“Yesterday.”

“What was the call about?”

“Same as always. When is Phillipe going to sign his big contract? How much will I get for him? And so on.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” Bourdon said, indignant. “She is not my client.”

“Did she say where she was staying?”

Bourdon’s look of indignation faded to amusement. “No.”

“What’s so funny?”

“She said she was hiding to avoid trouble from Phillipe.”

I watched his eyes. They were a stony gray and the amusement in them was genuine. “Why would she hide from him?”

“I don’t know. But she wasn’t any good at it.”

“Why?”

“Because her telephone number appeared on my caller ID.” He brought out his cell phone from his jacket pocket and pushed a few buttons. His smile grew and he turned the phone around toward me. “Can you do anything with that?”

I scrawled the number down. “Thanks.”

He replaced the cell phone and rose. “The coffee is finished,” he said.

That afternoon, I met Adam at the Rocket Bakery. He showed up five minutes late, ordered his latte and sat down across from me.

“What’s happening, Cochise?” he asked me.

“I have a job,” I said.

He took a drink and licked the foam from his lips. “Doing what?”

“It’s more of a favor,” I said, and explained it to him.

When I was finished, he shook his head and held up his latte. “I knew I should have let you pay for this.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to ask me for something.”

I didn’t answer right away. When I worked Matt Sinderling’s case, Adam gave me some important help. He put his career on the line for me, even though I was an ex-cop that most of the agency held in contempt. I rewarded his help by getting myself arrested. On the plus side, I found Matt’s daughter and I kept my mouth shut about Adam’s help. Our friendship had been a little dicey for a while, but it endured.

“What if I buy the next one?” I asked.

“What if you buy the next three?”

An hour later, he called me at my apartment.

“You’re only on the hook for one,” he said. “I didn’t even have to work on it. The number was in the printed reverse directory.”

“Where is it?”

“The Celtic Spirit, up on Division.”

I thanked him and hung up.

I drove to the Celtic Spirit Motel. It was right on Division Street, the main thoroughfare through the city. The motel was really a series of small cabins butted up to one another in a giant, square U-shape. The parking lot was only half full and I found a spot easily. I wandered around for a minute, getting my bearings and then located room twelve.

Light music came from the other side of the door. I listened for a moment, identified it as Enya or some rip-off of her, then knocked.

The music stopped. The door opened four inches and a pair of suspicious eyes appraised me.

“Who are you?” There was no trace of an accent.

“My name’s Stefan Kopriva.”

“I don’t know you. What do you want?”

“Phillipe Richard sent me to discuss something with you.”

Her eyes widened at Richard’s name, then narrowed as they swept over me again. I waited, trying to look casual and not at all dangerous. My small frame probably helped. I was maybe five-ten. In boots.

She made her decision and let me in. As the door swung open, I did what every man does. I looked at her breasts. They were nicely shaped and some cleavage was showing. My gaze swept downward to her belly, looking for tell-tale signs of pregnancy. She looked healthy, not too thin, but I saw no real signs of impending motherhood.

Anne Marie either didn’t notice my own appraisal or she was used to men doing it and ignored it. She closed the door behind me and pointed to one of the chairs at a small kitchen table.

I sat down. The room was neat, but in the sterile way many motels were. I didn’t get the sense that it was anything she did that kept the place tidy.

She sat down opposite me. She had auburn hair, probably well past her shoulders, but it was done up in a braided bun. Her nose and lips were thin in a way that suggested elegance, but her eyes were tired and wary.

“How did you find me?” she demanded.

“Were you trying not to be found?”

She scowled.“What does Phillipe want?”

“To solve this situation,” I said.

She crossed her arms and examined me some more. “Solve it how?”

I smiled at her. “The same way most situations get solved. With money.”

She laughed then, a sharp bark that disintegrated into a rueful chuckle. “You are not from British Columbia, Mister…Kopriva, was it?”

I nodded.

“Fine. Well, Mr. Kopriva, in the Western Provinces of Canada, we solve many of our situations with blood.”

“You don’t want money?”

She shook her head. “No, money is fine. Money will do. It will solve this situation.”

“Good.”

She cocked her head at me. “That’s why you are here? To dicker with me? Are you Phillipe’s negotiator?”

“Something like that.”

She laughed again, a mirthless bark. “Oh, Phillipe is such a coward. Big, strong hockey player, eh? But he can’t even come settle with me himself. He has to send some messenger.”

“Miss Stoll, I-”

“It’s Mrs. Stoll,” she snapped. “Or didn’t Phillipe tell you that?”

“He did. I’m sorry.”

She stood suddenly. “I don’t think we have anything else to talk about. You tell Phillipe that he was with me when this situation started. He can be with me to finish it, no? And it will be finished when I know the terms of his NHL contract. Not before.”

I frowned. “Mrs. Stoll-”

“I realize that it doesn’t look it, but this motel does have security. Do I need to call them?”

I shook my head and left. She slammed the door behind me.

Richard started the game that night against the Creston Otters and when the opening puck dropped, he and an Otter player dropped the gloves and removed their helmets and waded into each other.

“Why do they do that?” I wondered aloud.

“Do what?” a voice behind me asked.

The fight ended with Richard sending a brutal uppercut to the Otter player’s chin. The crowd went wild.

I glanced over my shoulder at the old man behind me. He wore a battered Flyers ball cap. “Take off their helmets before a fight,” I said.

“It’s the Code,” he told me. “The code of honor.”

I gave him a quizzical look.

He smiled back at me. “Just the rules between enforcers,” he said. “Let’s see. It’s goes something like this.” He began ticking off fingers. “Don’t challenge a guy near the end of his shift. Or when he has an injury that prevents him from fighting. Take all comers. No punching on the ice or once the linesmen step in…”

“And take off your helmet?”

He pointed his finger at me. “Right. But only when it’s a planned thing, like that last one. If it just starts up, well…” he shrugged. “That’s different.”

I thought about what he said. “Code of honor, huh?”

“Yes,” he said, “just like the knights of old.”

I met Patrick Bourdon the next morning and told him where I’d located Anne Marie Stoll.

“And you spoke with Madame Stoll?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She wasn’t interested in settling just yet,” I said. “She wants to wait until he signs his NHL contract.”

Bourdon pressed his lips together and sighed. “Shrewd.”

“She didn’t look pregnant, either.”

Bourdon gave me a surprised look. “No?”

I nodded. “She wasn’t showing at all.”

Bourdon swallowed and took a sip of coffee. “Of course not. She is probably only three months along.”

“So the affair occurred over the off-season?”

“It ended over the off-season,” Bourdon said. “I’m not certain when it began. Anyway, the important part is that we now know where we stand.”

He removed his check book and wrote out a check. When held it out to me, I shook my head.

“Richard already paid me.”

“That was a retainer, no doubt,” Bourdon said. “This should complete the transaction.”

I took the check. It was written for another two hundred dollars and drawn on Bourdon’s own account.

“Thank you for your help, Monsieur Kopriva. If you ever need tickets to a game, you have my cell number…as long as Phillipe is on the team, of course.”

I had my own connection for tickets, but I didn’t bother telling him. Instead, I slipped his check into my pocket and left his hotel room.

“Something’s not right,” I told Clell.

We sat in the lobby of one of the buildings he guarded at night. He was a conscientious security guard and made his rounds regularly, but that still left plenty of down time. I brought him coffee and company a couple of nights a week.

He scratched his chin and drank from the thermos cup. The coffee was Maxwell House, nothing fancy. I think Clell would spit out anything Patrick Bourdon brewed.

“They paid you four hundred dollars?”

I nodded.

“To do what?”

“I told you already.”

“I know. Tell me again.”

I sighed. “To find the woman and feel her out about a settlement. To offer my professional opinion on her honesty.”

“And how hard was that?”

“Not too hard.” I told him about the number on Bourdon’s cell phone and Adam’s help.

“Those reverse directory thingies,” Clell said. “Are those restricted to law enforcement only?”

I shook my head. “No. They’re public documents. But they’re expensive.”

“A lot less than four hundred dollars, though. Access to ‘em, anyways.”

I saw his point. “Any top-flight private detective firm would probably have the reverses. Bourdon could have used that phone number on his caller ID to find out where she was staying for less than fifty bucks.”

“That’s if he wanted to see her in person,” Clell said. “It sounds like she was making herself pretty available on the phone.”

“Yet she didn’t want Richard to know where she was.”

Clell grunted. “Afraid of him, but wants his money.”

“Maybe.”

“Fear and greed, two pretty powerful competing emotions.”

“She didn’t look too scared when I talked to her. She looked pretty confident.”

“Putting on a strong front, maybe.”

I shrugged. “Could be. She didn’t want any part of a deal, that was for sure.”

“That was one part of what they were paying you for, right? Just to see what her reaction was?”

“Yeah. Richard said he wanted my opinion about whether she was lying or not about the kid being his.”

“That makes you a consultant,” Clell joked.

I smiled. “I should get little business cards printed up.”

He waved his hand around the lobby. “You could get an office here, huh?”

We chuckled together and drank some more coffee.

After the laughs faded, we sat and thought for a bit. Finally, I said, “Here’s the thing. Bourdon didn’t ask me for my opinion. He just paid me and that was it.”

“Easy money,” Clell said, a hint of disapproval in his tone.

“Easy money is never easy,” I said. “Something’s not right.”

“You know who you should call?” Clell asked me.

I nodded. “Mr. Stoll.”

I didn’t have long distance service on my telephone in my apartment, so I had to get a roll of quarters from the MI-T-Mart and use a payphone. The first few quarters got me through to a woman with a lovely voice, but she spoke only French. When I asked for an English speaking operator, she put me on hold. That cost another seventy-five cents. Then a gruff-voiced male came on the line and took my request. Only twenty-five cents later, he came back with the number. He offered to connect me for a dollar more, but I was afraid I’d run out of change while talking to Mr. Stoll, so I direct-dialed.

There were six rings, then a man’s voice came on the line, rimmed with sleep.”Yes?”

“I’m sorry for calling so late, sir, but I need to speak with Mr. Stoll. My name is-”

“Is this some kind of a cruel joke?” he snapped.

“No,” I said. “I realize it’s late, but-”

“Mr. Stoll was a good man,” he said. “Why can’t you jackals let him rest in peace?”

Surprised, I said nothing. A moment later, he spat a curse, and broke the connection.

When I returned to Clell’s building, he was making his sweep, so I headed home instead. My mind was whirring. Mr. Stoll, Anne Marie’s husband, was dead. Maybe that was what was wrong with this situation and was why my gut was reacting.

Why hadn’t Richard told me? Or Anne Marie? Or Bourdon, for that matter?

I wasn’t sure, but I knew one thing for certain. I wasn’t going to ask them now.

The next morning, I drove north for about four hours. I was grateful that my single criminal conviction was only a misdemeanor, so leaving the country was not a problem. I made good time to the Canadian border and passed through with only a slight delay.

Trail was a small town. I knew small towns, having grown up in one. From my vantage point, the positive thing was that everyone probably knew everyone else’s business. The negative thing was that they weren’t likely to share the information with a stranger, particularly an American.

I tried a local bar first, but most of the faces were unfriendly that time of day. I wandered into a couple of feed shops, but no one wanted to talk about much beyond chickens and hogs. I paid to have a lube, oil and filter done at a local garage and found out a little bit more there.

Stoll was dead, I learned, and it had been a suicide. He’d taken a handful of sleeping pills. A farmer named Martin, who was waiting on a brake job, refused to talk about it any further. “Wouldn’t be right to speak of the dead,” he told me, “so soon after he’s been put to rest.”

Eventually, I wandered into the small newspaper office. The secretary’s desk had an ‘out to lunch’ sign, but a single reporter sat at a computer two desks away. I caught a glimpse of his solitaire game before he minimized the window.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you a reporter here?”

He smiled. “I am the reporter here. It’s a small town.”

“Did you cover the Stoll death?”

His smile faded and suspicion crept into his features. “I did.”

“I was wondering if you could tell me a few things about that situation.”

“Why would you want to discuss a tragedy like that?” he asked me. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m American,” I said. “And I’m investigating a possibly related matter.”

“How could a suicide be possibly related to anything?”

“It’s complicated,” I said, holding out my hand. “But maybe you can help me. My name’s Stefan Kopriva.”

He eyed me for a few moments longer, then took my hand and shook it. “Fred Warren.” He motioned to the chair next to him. I smiled disarmingly and took it.

“What is it you want to know?”

“Well,” I said, “being a newspaper reporter, how did you see the story?”

“What do you mean?”

“Every reporter has an angle. How did you look at it?”

He frowned. “It was a tragedy, plain and simple. All the more so due to all the ugly rumors.”

“Rumors?”

He nodded. “Yes. Before…and after.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Mr. Stoll was a wealthy man,” Fred said. “Or so it appeared to all of us. Everything seemed to be fine on the surface, except of course for what Mrs. Stoll was doing.”

“You mean with the hockey player?”

“You know about that?”

“I heard it at the garage.”

He nodded sagely. “Yes, well, pretty much everyone suspected it. Some probably knew it for certain. The two of them weren’t very subtle about it, particularly when Mr. Stoll was traveling.”

“Did he travel a lot?”

Fred shrugged. “A fair amount. More lately, it seemed. I suppose, looking back, it makes sense.”

“What do you mean?”

Fred shook his head. “I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? We were discussing the wife and her indiscretions.”

I made a mental note to return to this point and asked, “How did he find out?”

Fred shrugged again. “I think he suspected for some time. I’m sure that once he had the nerve to ask one of his friends, he got an honest enough answer.”

“Not knowing might have been better for him,” I said.

“Because he killed himself?” Fred asked. “I thought so, too. Most people did. But then after the funeral, it all came out.”

“What came out?”

“His financial troubles. He had lost everything and his company was on the verge of bankruptcy.”

“It folded?”

“I’m sure it will,” Fred said, “given enough time. Mr. Stoll only passed a month ago.”

“A month?”

He nodded. “Yes. And the biggest question everyone had was whether he killed himself over his wife’s affair or over his financial troubles. Or was it a combination of both?”

That wasn’t the biggest question I had.

Fred didn’t have any more worthwhile information, except for the name of the local constable that had investigated the case. He promised to call ahead for me. Before I left, he let me look at the archived stories on the Stoll suicide. The only thing of note was the name of Stoll’s personal attorney, Brian Carter. I looked him up in the phone book and on the way to the police station, I stopped at his office.

Brian Carter had a florid face, pitted with acne scars. He wore a fashionable suit, but it wasn’t flashy. He would have been at home in any business meeting.

His secretary was out to lunch, too, and I wondered if, in a town so small, she was out with the secretary from the newspaper.

Carter’s handshake was firm but not crushing. He offered me coffee and a seat in a comfortable, high-backed chair. His friendliness faded a bit when I told him why I was there.

“I don’t think there’s anything I can tell you that wouldn’t violate attorney-client privilege,” he said.

“I’m not asking for that,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure things out here.”

“Who is your client again?”

I paused. “I guess I don’t really have one.” I told him about being hired by Richard. His lips pressed together in distaste at the hockey player’s name.

“I don’t know anything about that man’s situation with Mrs. Stoll,” Carter said. “Frankly, I’m glad to see both of them have left town.”

“Why?”

“He was arrogant and a francophone, for starters. And she…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“She was what?”

He met my eyes. “She was my client’s wife.”

“But you didn’t like her.”

“That is irrelevant,” he said.

I shrugged. “At one time, it probably was. But now that he’s gone, I think you can safely say how you felt.”

He didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, “Death does not sever an attorney’s obligation to his client.”

“I’m just asking if you liked her, Mr. Carter.”

“No, I did not.”

“Why not?”

“It was my considered opinion that she was marrying him for money.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Did she sign a pre-nuptial agreement?”

“That’s confidential.”

“It’s a matter of public record, isn’t it?”

“No, Mr. Kopriva, it is not. If it were to exist, it would be a private contract between my client and Mrs. Stoll.”

I frowned. “Isn’t Mrs. Stoll your client now?”

“No. I worked directly for Mr. Stoll.”

“She didn’t hire you after his death?”

“I don’t know that I’d have taken her on if she had,” Carter said. “But in any event, she had her own attorney.”

“Who was that?”

“Someone from Quebec, I believe.”

“Patrick Bourdon?”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s it.”

I found Lynn Petruk at the small police station downtown. She, too, was alone in the building. Once I told her that Fred had sent me, her severe features lightened a bit, though with her broad forehead and full mouth, she’d never be beautiful.

“He called ahead,” she said, and offered me a chair in her office.

“How many police officers do you have in Trail?” I asked her.

“Four,” she said. “We work twelve-hour shifts. The Provincial Police back us up when we need it.”

“Is that what happened at Mr. Stoll’s suicide scene?”

She nodded. “Anything that serious, they take right over.”

“Sounds like the FBI.”

“I’m sure they’d get along.”

“Still,” I said, “a local cop was probably the first on scene, right?”

“Perry Winfield was, yeah. All he really did was secure the scene and make a phone call, though.”

“Could I talk to him?”

Lynn checked her watch. “He’s probably deep in REM sleep right about now.”

I shrugged. “I was just curious if he saw anything strange at the scene, is all.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked at me, an odd expression on her face. “What exactly are you looking for, Mr. Kopriva?”

I sighed. “I don’t know that, either.”

I told her everything, from Richard hiring me to Bourdon paying me. She listened carefully and didn’t interrupt. When I’d finished, I spread my hands. “What do you think?”

Lynn pursed her lips. I could tell she was measuring her words. “I think that I’d be suspicious, too. But most people would take the money and be done with it.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I shrugged. “I’ve got the time to look into things, I guess. And more than that, I don’t like the idea of being used.”

She watched me for a moment, then said, “I don’t know what you want from me.”

I leaned forward. “I want your cop sense of this thing. Did Mr. Stoll kill himself? If he did, why? If he didn’t, who murdered him and why?”

Lynn shook her head. “I can’t help you with that, Mr. Kopriva, other than to say the official ruling by the Provincial Police was suicide.”

“Was there a note?”

“Yes, but-”

“Did he say why he did in his note?”

“Yes. Now-”

“What was his reason?”

Lynn sighed in exasperation. “You told Fred you used to be a cop, right?”

“No,” I answered, and I hadn’t.

She cocked her head at me. “Really? He must have researched that as well.”

“Researched?”

“Fred did more than just call ahead, Mr. Kopriva. He did some background on you. He told me about your famous shootout when you were a police officer.”

I didn’t respond, though I could feel the tension in my jaw. I knew what was coming next.

“He told about the little girl you let die.”

“That was a long time ago,” I whispered.

She shrugged. “I don’t know you. All I know is that I don’t want you being some kind of a cowboy in my jurisdiction, or screwing things up.”

“That was a long time ago,” I repeated, a little louder this time.

“It’s all I know,” she said, just as loud. “Now, do you need directions out of town?”

I was two hours away and a little more than half way to River City before the burn from that conversation faded enough to think. I stopped for gas in Colville and bought some convenience store coffee, mixing in a little cocoa to temper the bitterness. Poor man’s mocha, we used to call it when I was a cop.

A picture was beginning to form in my mind. There were a lot of soft spots and more than a few what ifs, but it fit what I knew. Anne Marie and Richard were having an affair. Both of them admitted it. Most of the town knew it. If Anne Marie was unaware of her husband’s financial troubles and still thought he was loaded, there was a motive there for her to kill him and make it look like a suicide. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was killed for their money. Then she could run off with Richard.

I set my Styrofoam cup on the hood of my car and rubbed my palms together. It made sense, but at the same time, it didn’t. She already had the money and Richard. What would she gain by killing her husband? Was he tight-fisted with money by nature? Or had his financial troubles forced him to become that way?

Maybe he found out about her affair and planned to divorce her. But in that case, wouldn’t she get half of his assets? She would, unless she signed a pre-nuptial agreement of some kind. And Carter wouldn’t let on either way about whether one existed or not.

Drugging Stoll would be easy enough, I figured, but there was the suicide note to fake, too. Then again, how close would they look at a situation where it came out that the dead guy’s business had failed and his wife was having an affair? Would they even do a handwriting analysis?

The gas nozzle clicked off and I replaced it on the pump and put the gas cap back on my car. Then I grabbed my to-go cup and got back on the road. It was another sixty miles to River City.

As I drove, I wondered where Richard came in. If she murdered Stoll, did Richard know she killed him? Did he help her cover it up? Do it for her? Or was he involved at all?

It seemed that I had more questions coming home than I did leaving.

Clell sipped his Maxwell House and shook his head. “It’s an awful lot of guesswork,” he said.

“Sure it is. But what if it is true?”

“If it is true, then that woman killed her husband for money.”

“Of which there was none.”

“That would be the irony,” he said, sipping again. “Seems a terrible shame when someone dies, but all the more so when he dies for nothing.”

“I’m guessing pretty close to nothing is what Anne Marie is getting, whether she killed him or not.”

“So she’s blackmailing the hockey player?” Clell asked, his voice doubtful. “Why would she do that? Why not just wait and go through the courts? A public figure like him wouldn’t be able to avoid paying child support of some kind.”

“Unless the baby isn’t his and she knows it,” I said.

“That’s as much a long shot as her killing the husband for his money, you ask me.”

“Something’s not right,” I insisted. “Why did they pay me four hundred dollars for nothing?”

We sat in silence, drinking coffee and listening to the light hum of the building’s heating system.

“I saw something on TV once,” Clell said.

“TV?” My voice was doubtful.

“Uh-huh. It doesn’t fit exactly, but it seems there was a guy on a show that needed a witness, so he hired one.”

“Hired a witness?”

“Yup.”

I thought about that. The longer I thought about it, the less stupid it seemed. “You might have something. After all, who would make a better witness than an ex-cop? But a witness to what?”

Clell shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. You’re not the witness. Your friend is.”

“Matt?”

Clell nodded. “I think so. I don’t think the hockey player or his lawyer planned on you getting involved. But once your friend insisted that you could help, they had to go along with things to avoid suspicion.”

I considered his words. They were sound.

“They gave me some make-work and paid me off,” I said, shaking my head.

Clell nodded. “It would seem so.”

“That still leaves the question, what did they want a witness to? To the woman blackmailing him?”

“That,” Clell said, “and maybe to her being obsessed or unbalanced.”

“Unbalanced?”

Clell nodded. “Yeah. In case she killed herself.”

My stomach sank. “Oh, Christ.”

Several marked and unmarked police units were parked at the Celtic Spirit motel. The area was roped off with yellow crime scene tape, but I slipped under the outer perimeter simply by walking with purpose. When I approached cabin twelve, a muscular, young black officer stood in my way.

“Who are you?”

“What’s going on?” I asked, ignoring his question.

“A crime scene,” he said. “How’d you get past the outer perimeter tape?”

“Is she dead?”

“Are you family?”

That answered the question. I sagged and shook my head.

“Then who are you?”

“He’s Stefan Kopriva,” a voice came from behind him.

I looked up to see Officer Rick Hunter approaching. I glanced down at his sleeve and saw sergeant’s stripes. That didn’t surprise me.

“You’ve never heard of Kopriva?” Hunter asked the officer, who shook his head no.

I gave Hunter a neutral nod, hoping to cut him off. He ignored me.

“Kopriva was a folk hero for a little while, back in the early nineties. Had a little shootout with a robber. Oh, and he let a cop and a little girl die.”

“Rick-”

“My name’s Sergeant Hunter,” he said coldly. “And you are about to be under arrest for violating a crime scene.”

“I just want to know-”

“McClaren,” Hunter said. “Get him out of here.”

The black officer grabbed my right arm at the wrist and the elbow. He had a grip as strong as Richard’s.

“-if she’s dead,” I finished.

“Hold it,” Hunter ordered.

McClaren stopped.

“You know something about this situation, Kopriva?” Hunter asked me.

I almost laughed at his choice of words. “Pound sand, Sergeant.”

Hunter scowled. “Get him out of here.”

McClaren walked me to the edge of the perimeter and released me. “If you come back inside, I’ll have to arrest you for obstructing an investigation, sir.”

“I won’t. Tell me something, though.”

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Just tell me how she was killed. That’s all.”

McClaren stared at me, then said, “It was suicide. She took some pills.”

I sat in the darkness of my apartment, staring up at the ceiling. A ray of light from the streetlight outside cut a large swath through the center of the room, and I stared at the yellowish tint and ran things back and forth through my head. I asked the hows and the whys and in the end, I decided I was trying too hard to make the thing too complicated. It was never anything more than it seemed to be just below the surface. All you had to do was follow the money.

Of course, I didn’t have any proof.

And then I knew what I had to do.

Phillipe Richard came out of the dressing room and into the hallway. Sweat matted his hair and rolled down the sides of his face. It was in between periods of the Flyers game versus Nelson. Richard had a goal and fight in the first period.

“I will get some fine for this,” he told me, wiping his sleeve across his forehead. “Coming out of the locker room.”

“You should get prison,” I told him.

“For what?” His expression was one of surprise, but irritation rimmed his eyes.

“You killed Aaron Stoll,” I said. “You poisoned him for his wife. Or the money, I don’t know which.”

“You’re crazy.”

“It’s true. We both know it. And when it turned out that he didn’t have any money left, things got rough between the two of you. That’s why you broke up.”

“I broke it off with her because I was traded here,” he insisted.

“And then she followed you here.”

“Yes, and blackmailed me.”

“Over the pregnancy?”

“Yes, of course. What else?”

“I think she blackmailed you over your part in killing her husband,” I told him. “I think she held onto some evidence and rather than pay her off, you made it look like she-”

He lashed out then, his huge fist catching me on the chin. I flew back into the wall and crumpled to the floor.

“You’re some kind of smart guy, huh?”

I shook my head to clear it. Warm blood flowed over my lip and down my chin.

“Well, let me tell you something, smart guy. You better shut up and stay away from me or I will kill you. Do you understand?”

“Will you do it with sleeping pills, Phillipe?” I asked.

He snatched me up with his left hand and punched me again with his right. The world tilted on its axis and there was a shuddering, strobing of light.

“Shut up!” he said.

“You killed her,” I said wetly. “You killed them both.”

He brought his face close to mine. “Yes,” he hissed softly, “but so what? You can’t prove anything. And if you get in my way, I will kill you, too.”

I gave a sputtering laugh, sending a light spray of blood into his face. He recoiled and shoved me backward into the wall.

“Disgusting slime,” he said, wiping his face with his sleeve.

“Tell me one more thing,” I said.

“Shut up.”

“Whose baby was it? Was it his or was it yours?”

There was no reaction in his eyes. “Who cares?” he said.

At that point, an assistant coach stepped out of the locker room. He saw me against the wall and gave Richard a quizzical look. Richard shook his head and the coach shrugged.

“Time to go,” he told Richard.

The players filed out of the locker room. Some were too focused to notice my presence. Others glanced at me curiously. I met and held those glances, hoping they remembered my face. Richard tapped gloves with each player as they filed past, studiously ignoring me. When the last player walked by, Richard fell in behind them, never giving me a backward glance.

The crowd cheered as the hometown boys took the ice. When Richard strode out of the tunnel, the cheers doubled.

The crowd loved him.

“You’re no Lancelot,” I wheezed and spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

With a slow effort, I rose, my body aching. I wiped the blood off my chin and reached into my jacket pocket. The small mini-recorder was still running. I stopped it, rewound it and listened. Richard’s hissing, deadly voice made me shudder. Then it made me smile.

Limping, I made my way out of the arena.