To catch a fox, p.1
To Catch a Fox, page 1
To Catch a Fox
By Susan Calder
Digital ISBNs
EPUB 978-0-2286-0626-0
Kindle 978-0-2286-0627-7
WEB 978-0-2286-0628-4
Print ISBNs
BWL 978-0-2286-0629-1
B&N 978-0-2286-0630-7
Amazon 978-0-2286-0631-4
Copyright 2019 by Susan Calder
Cover art by Michelle Lee
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
“—but the cruelty that condemned an unfortunate man to a living death. To catch a fox and put him in a box and never let him go.” – Agatha Christie, The ABC Murders
Dedication
To Vivienne Mary Carty Arnold
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Judith Pittman and BWL Publishing Inc. for bringing To Catch a Fox into the world. To editors Maya Berger, Susan Davis, and Rachel Small, for understanding my story and making it better. And to Catherine Bush and Lawrence Hill, my perceptive and encouraging mentors at the Sage Hill Writing Experience.
Thanks to my manuscript readers Will Arnold, Jean Humphreys, Stephen Humphreys, Shaun Hunter, Marilyn Letts, Pearl Luke, and Bernice Pyke, for helpful and appropriately challenging comments; Ruth Daly, Leslie Gavel, Lianne DesBrisay, and Pamela McDowell, friends on this writing journey.
And always, for your love and support, Will, Dan, Matt, Anne, and Vivi.
Chapter One
The code opened the gate, but Stuart hesitated before entering the yard. No matter how cool he played it, his father turned him into the kid. What harm will it do to ask? Her voice urged him onto the tile walkway. You haven’t spoken in three years. It can’t make things worse.
Fake gaslights illuminated the deck. The old man reclined on a lounge chair by the pool, alone, as Stuart had expected. They were creatures of ritual, his father with his evening swim followed by a glass of brandy, the trophy wife on her spa getaway the first weekend of the month. Except tonight, the old man holding the glass wore shorts and a shirt instead of a terry robe.
His father sat upright. “Stuart. This is a surprise. How did you get in?”
“You haven’t changed the codes on me yet.” Stuart stopped a few feet away. “No swim tonight?”
“I’ve come down with a cold.” He sniffed, as though to make the point. “It’s worn me out. What brings you here? Something other than money, I hope.”
Stuart glanced at the pool shimmering in the faint light, and then at the dark windows in the house. The staff would be gone for the day. He’s sitting on all that money. Her voice. Why not put it to use while you’re still healthy and young?
“For your information, I bought the property you wouldn’t pay for.” Stuart straightened his stance. “Actually, with the delay we got it for a better price, thanks to the housing bubble crash.”
“You’re still with that woman?” His father sipped from the brandy glass. “How did you two come up with the down payment?”
“Work.”
“What kind of work?”
Stuart looked at the pool. Fuck. Who cared? The old man would see through whatever he said. “Now we need to develop the property.”
“With your foolish idea of a fantasy resort?”
“You might consider it an investment.”
“Do you have a business plan?”
“Of course.” A plan in their heads. But they could draft something on paper.
“Take it to a bank.” His father coughed. “If it’s viable, you’ll get a loan.”
They had tried. “Banks don’t dole out money to people with no business experience.”
“Exactly.” His father set the glass on the side table and rose. He was almost Stuart’s height. “Prove to me you can get this idea off the ground.”
“How?”
“What work have you done the past few years?”
Surfing. Teaching people to surf. Hanging out on the beach. Scamming an even older man with too much money and inattentive relatives.
“I thought so,” his father said. “Stuart, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “I’ve worked hard for my money, and I don’t want you blowing it on some pipe dream—her dream, I suspect.”
“Mine too.”
“Or, for all I know, blowing it up the pipes.”
“I’ve given up drugs.”
“They all say that.”
“You don’t know fuck all.”
His father stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket. “I’ve given this a lot of thought and have decided.” He cleared his throat. “I’m changing my will so that everything I built when I was with your mother will continue to the future, to our family. Your sister and her children—”
“They’re getting my share?”
“Your sister will get her half after my death. Yours will go to any progeny you might have when I die, or on their twenty-fifth birthdays, whichever comes later.”
Stuart rubbed his jaw, trying to absorb this. No money for him. Ever. Even when the old man expired. “You’re disowning me.”
“I see it as providing for your children.”
“Fuck you. This is her idea.”
His father coughed again and stroked his throat. “If you turn your life around—”
“You’re doing this to manipulate me. That bitch talked you into it. She’s always hated me.”
“Don’t talk about your stepmother like that.”
“Or was it my bitch sister? So she and her snotty kids can rob me of my share?”
“If your line doesn’t continue it will go to them, but that isn’t the point. I don’t want to contribute to a wasted life and schemes that are certain to fail.”
Heat fanned out from Stuart’s chest to his fingers. His father coughed once more, and his Adam’s apple bobbed, exposed. So weak. Was that her voice? So easy to get rid of him, make everything easy for us.
Stuart raised his hands up to the grizzled neck.
No one will know.
He grabbed the bobble and pressed, pressed.
The old man coughed. Choked.
Teach him a lesson. Wasted life?
Surfing, fighting the waves, wasn’t “wasting life.” It made you strong—strong enough to kill a man withered by weakness.
The old man gasped, his eyes wide. Stuart’s hands let go, released the body. It collapsed to the tiles.
Stuart jerked backwards, blinked at the shape twisted on the deck, unmoving. He squatted and felt the wrist for a pulse. No beats. No sounds of breathing. He leapt up, stood astride the torso, formed his hands into position for chest compressions.
If the old man lived, he would cut him out of his will. If he died? His existing will would give Stuart more than he’d hoped for when he entered the gate, would give him the cash they needed now.
Stuart’s gaze shot to the house windows, still barren and dark. When the wife or staff person found him, could the old man’s death be taken as a heart attack or natural choking? Probably not. Fifty-eight wasn’t technically old, and to Stuart’s knowledge, his father had no heart or lung problems. There would probably be an autopsy, which might point to strangling. Trying to cover that up rarely worked on cop shows. Stuart scanned the deck. Fingerprints. What had he touched since he arrived? Had anyone seen their car in the lane, where she was waiting? She probably thought it was a good sign, his taking this long. It would be good if he could set it up right.
Stage a robbery.
His father would have left the house unlocked when he went out to the pool, and if he hadn’t, Stuart knew the codes and where to find the valuables a thief would snatch. Jewellery, cash, expensive trinkets. With all the security, the cops might suspect an inside job. Stuart would be questioned, though only if they could find him—he had no phone, email, or fixed address. Service workers would be targets, someone his father might willingly let in. But cops always looked to the spouse first. The younger wife, who stood to inherit more than the children from his first marriage. They’d speculate she hired a hitman while away at the spa. Knowing his father, there were bound to be rifts in the marriage. Unlikely the old man had abandoned his habit of cheating.
Stuart looked down at the body crumpled on the deck, foam coating its lips. Strange the old man had held such power over him while alive. Dead, he was a mass of flesh and bones. Insects would be crawling all over the corpse by the time his wife found him. Stuart wouldn’t mind if the bitch took the fall. Better her than him.
Chapter Two
Julie Fox formed the clay into a miniature barn roof. Smooth and perfect. Her psychiatrist called this self-directed art therapy. Creating the farm was supposed to keep her mind on concrete tasks and her goal of pleasing her daughter; away from self-indulgent thoughts. To Julie’s amazement, it worked.
Someone knocked on the apartment door. A neighbour? Or had she been too absorbed to hear the downstairs buzzer? She hurried through the dining room and galley kitchen.
Through the peephole, a distorted face came into focus. Close-set eyes, thin nose, five o’clock shadow. The man turned to leave.
Julie opened the door. “Dad.”
“A woman on her way out let me in,” her father said.
“Why aren’t you at work?” Julie asked.
“Doctor’s appointment.”
“Are you sick?”
“My cholesterol’s still too high. He’s talking about medication.”
“You want a coffee or tea?”
“Anything warm,” he said. “I only put an hour in the parking meter.”
In the kitchen, he selected a packet of Irish breakfast tea. While the bag steeped in the teapot, they chatted about Calgary’s arctic weather and the previous night’s heavy snowfall.
Julie told him that she’d almost fallen on the slippery sidewalks during her morning jog that day.
Her shrink liked that she followed a regular routine. Jog, breakfast, art therapy, lunch, errands and cleaning, jog, dinner, and then reading or TV. Tuesday evenings she watched NCIS with her neighbour down the hall. Thursday was pub night with friends from university. She couldn’t wait to return to work on Monday after two months away.
They carried their teacups to the living room. Her father took his usual chair by the patio doors so he could look out at the office towers downtown. She sat across from him on the sofa. Her grandmother had left her the Queen Anne–style furniture. It had suited the old house Julie had shared with Eric, her estranged husband, better than this high-rise. Her father blew on his tea. The cup and saucer shook in his hands.
He wouldn’t normally drop by for an impromptu visit, especially knowing she’d be at his house tomorrow. “Is it more than cholesterol, Dad? The doctor—”
“He says I’m otherwise in A1 shape for a man over sixty.”
She leaned forward. Was there a problem with her daughter? “Is it Peyton?”
“Peyton’s fine. She’s sleeping over tomorrow night. Eric has some kind of poetry event.”
“So, is this about your work?” There had been talk of another round of downsizing at the oil company where her father worked.
“Looks like I’ll hang on a few years more until retirement.”
“So?” What else could have brought him here? A rift in his marriage? Was he cheating on Rosemary, or leaving her? Impossible. Although, this past year he had lost an inch off his waist and grown the shadow-beard to look cool, or perhaps to compensate for his thinning hair. Was he going through a midlife crisis? For sure, Rosemary wasn’t leaving him. She’d never do that unless he provoked her.
Her father clunked his saucer and cup on the side table. “I wanted to talk to you, alone, without Peyton around.” He cleared his throat. “Last month, I hired a private investigator to look for your mother. Your natural mother.”
Julie carefully set her tea on the coffee table so she wouldn’t spill it. She exhaled slowly. “Why?”
“First, I did my own search on the internet. Delilah tried too. She’s good with the computer.”
Julie stumbled to her feet and moved to the wall for support. Her father also stood. He didn’t quite match the height she’d inherited from her mother. Julie had scoured the internet, too, years ago, and more recently while off work. Every link resulting from “Marion Fox” or “Marion Dejong,” her mother’s maiden name, had resulted in a dead end.
“The PI was Rosemary’s idea.”
“Rosemary.”
“She thinks you need closure. And that I do, too.”
Julie’s ears roared. She hated buzzwords. “But last month? Why didn’t you tell me?” He’d involved her stepsister, Delilah, before her.
“We didn’t want you fussing before we got the result, one way or another.”
“What did you find?” Julie’s voice cracked.
“We knew Marion had been in LA, so Delilah found a Los Angeles PI online.”
Through the fog in her ears, Julie heard her father explain that some twenty-five years ago—when she was about thirteen—a man had phoned their home and asked for Marion. Her father was at work, Julie at school. Rosemary took the call. The man said he was Marion’s former surfing friend, but when Rosemary questioned him, he hung up. They didn’t have call display, and the man didn’t phone again.
“We got our number unlisted after that,” her father said. “To avoid other cranks.”
Julie felt dizzy. “What makes you think he was a crank?”
“Oh, he might have known Marion, I suppose.”
Her back was sticky with sweat, the rest of her chilled. “So. You unlisted our number so her friends couldn’t reach us. So she couldn’t call us, if she wanted. And you kept this from me?”
“That PI was a mistake,” her father continued, ignoring her question. “A sleazeball. Talks like some kind of Sam Spade. Do you know what private investigators charge these days?”
“What else did he learn?”
“Not much.”
But something. She rubbed her freezing arms, afraid to hear what would come next.
“He located another man, who worked with Marion at a bicycle shop in the late eighties.”
Her mother had left them in 1985. “She was into bikes?”
“She might have taken up biking after she split. I’m sure she took up a lot of things.” He edged closer to Julie and stopped a few feet away.
Frost coated the balcony’s sliding door frames and sealed them to the wall. Outside, the steel and glass towers acted as a fence that blocked any view of Nose Hill Park and the sky beyond.
“The man from the bike shop was high on drugs,” her father said. “The PI couldn’t get any more details out of him. Now, he wants another deposit to try the stoner again.”
Julie turned to him. “He might not be stoned the next time.”
“I suspect the PI is stringing me along.”
But the man had found a lead. “It’s worth a try.”
Her father scratched his chin, as though irritated by the stubble. “He thinks I’m too far away in Canada to do anything except send money for his so-called sense that the stoner’s holding back something.”
“What makes him sense that?” Julie held his gaze, her stomach tight.
He kept scratching. “It’s a scam, in my opinion. I have doubts this stoner exists. Delilah couldn’t find him in any phone directories.”
“You aren’t listed in them either. Do you actually want to find my mother?”
“That’s why I hired the guy.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Her turning up would throw a wrench in your marriage.”
“What are you talking about?” His hand left his face. Blood dotted his chin.
Julie rubbed her damp hands on her pants. “You have to give the PI the deposit. You can’t just let it drop. If you don’t want to spend the money, I’ll pay.”
“Rosemary came up with another plan.” He stepped behind the sofa, so it stood between them. “We’re sending Delilah to Santa Monica, where this stoner lives.”
“Why her?”
He rested his hands on the sofa back. “Apparently, the stoner mumbled something about Marion’s family not caring enough to look for her personally.”
“Delilah isn’t her family.” Julie raised her arms, wanting to knock sense into him.
“She’s your sister.”
“Stepsister.” She focused on the blood, which was crusting, not dripping from his chin. Sending Delilah was wrong. But why was it?
“She’ll talk to the guy, find out what, if anything, he knows, and pursue any leads he gives. Same as the PI, without charging me by the hour.”
“The PI has the skills. He’s a professional.”
“Delilah has time. She’s not working.”
Julie leaned forward, over the sofa cushions. “Neither am I.
“You start back next week.” He gripped the sofa back, holding his ground.
“Otherwise you’d send me.”
He gulped. “We—”
“You wouldn’t send me because you think I’m not competent.”
“Julie, of course you are.”
“You think I’m fragile.” Her voice trembled. Dammit.
“Like I said, it’s probably a wasted effort.”
