Sunny knocked on the door of the small house in Richmond to which he was given the address by a tearful woman, dreading the scene he would witness when he got there. He'd heard wailing and screaming in her background when he called earlier and imagined her children had just had their worlds shattered.
The house was in a pretty cul-de-sac in the western section of the city, close to the water, a little post-war with a front porch. It would be a tight fit for Agnes, her two kids and her two parents. He hoped they'd move, now. Patrick's new house would be perfect for them, and by all rights it should be theirs. He was here at least partly to start the process to make sure that would happen.
When Rachel called him this morning, her voice evoking dirty images in his head of what he'd done with her last night, he wondered uncomfortably if she was going to ask him how he was feeling about last night, because even though his body reacted to her voice, his head and heart were feeling something a little more nuanced. That wasn't what happened, though, and as he reacted with shock to her news, his arousal disappearing instantly, he felt a little relieved as well that they didn't have to have that conversation.
The door opened and Agnes stood there, her face tear-streaked, her eyes bloodshot and heavy with bags. The woman had probably gotten no sleep. As soon as she saw him, her face crumpled, and she threw her arms around him and began sobbing again.
"I'm so sorry, Agnes," he said, squeezing her gently. "This must be a terrible shock for you and your family."
After a few seconds of crying into his shoulder, she broke away, sniffing and wiping her eyes. "You can come in for a second," she said. "I'm not quite ready to go yet."
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he stepped inside the house. Agnes's children sat in between her parents, sunk into their loving embrace, dazed and wet-eyed, all cried out, it seemed, at least for the moment. The older Asian couple looked at him in confusion until Agnes said, "This is Sunny Parhar. He's my lawyer, representing me in the divorce, which I suppose is unnecessary, now, but he's been a great friend to me these past two months, and he was good enough to come here on a Sunday to help me get things sorted."
Sunny felt warmed by her praise, but he felt like he needed to add a few things. "Mr. and Mrs. Chu, I'm also here to accompany Agnes to the Coquitlam RCMP detachment, so she can talk to detectives investigating the... incident."
Mr. Chu frowned and asked, "Is this necessary? She was here when it happened, nowhere near the incident. She'd been estranged from Patrick for two months."
"Of course, and there's absolutely no reason to think the police suspect her of anything, but she does need to speak with them, primarily to make a formal... identification." Sunny cast a sidelong glance at the children, who gazed at him in a kind of wonder, this stranger in a turban who seemed to have appeared out of thin air, maybe to grant them a wish like a genie, and he knew what that wish would be, and he felt terrible that he couldn't grant it. "She could either talk with them at the station, or they could come to her here, and I think it's least disruptive for your family if she goes there."
Agnes had been getting her coat and purse while Sunny was talking to her parents, and when she was ready she knelt and embraced her kids, who pleaded for assurance that she would be home soon. He imagined they were terrified of losing a second parent.
"I'm bringing her back as soon as I can," he told them, though he wasn't sure they were even listening. "She can call you with updates as often as you like."
In Sunny's Prius, Agnes was silent, and he didn't try to make her talk. She looked wrung out with grief, and the last thing he wanted to do was pull pleasantries from her like teeth. It took until they were just crossing the border from New Westminster into Coquitlam before she said, "Thank you for taking me. I don't think I could have made the trip myself, and I didn't want to take the kids with me."
"It's my pleasure," he said. "Mandeep will be joining us there."
"Are you sure I'm not taking time away from your family? I really only need him there to make sure my rights are protected."
"I want to be there, Agnes. I want to make sure any effects he has that weren't destroyed in the fire are returned to you. I'm thinking in particular of house keys."
"You think I should take his house."
"Why not? It's as good a house as any, and you and your kids need it. I'm sure he would have wanted you to have it. That brings up another subject, I regret to say, that needs to be discussed. Did he have a will?"
Agnes sighed. "Yeah. We both do. They're locked away in a safety deposit box back in Kelowna." To his surprise, this was what made her start crying again. "I never even thought to bring them with me," she blubbered. "I don't know if he did, either."
"I'll make enquiries. Do you have the name of the lawyer who drew up your wills?"
She nodded and wiped her eyes. "I'll text you his number." She opened her phone. "I used to have it in my contacts before I got a new phone when I came here. I'll look it up on the Net." She chuckled ruefully and said, "I thought I was being so clever, leaving my phone behind, thinking Patrick wouldn't know where I went because he couldn't track my phone. But I went to the one place he knew to look for me, because he knew I came from Richmond. I probably had the address in an old address book. It wouldn't have taken him long to find me. It probably took him longer to get a transfer to Langley."
Sunny smiled at her tenderly and said, "Don't be too hard on yourself. It takes someone with a lot of skill to disappear completely, someone willing to go off the grid, no paper trail, no credit or bank cards, avoiding every single security camera, switching your plates with someone else so the police won't be able to track you. That's hard enough for anyone to do on their own, and you had two kids to look after."
She barked a laugh and said, "I withdrew only enough cash from my bank in Kelowna, the same bank that has our safety deposit box as it happens, to get me here. I opened a new account here so VPL could deposit my paycheques. Jesus, I was an idiot."
"No, you were just a scared wife and mother trying to do your best."
She said no more in reply, and soon enough they were at the Coquitlam detachment of the RCMP. Mandeep was waiting for them in the front lobby, and when he saw Agnes he said, "My condolences to you, Mrs. Marinville."
"Thank you," she said. "Are we meeting someone here?"
"The detectives are waiting, we just need to tell them we're here."
After they informed the Desk Sergeant, they were escorted to an interview room, and two detectives, an older woman and a younger man, entered not long after. If they were surprised by the presence of two turbaned Sikh men accompanying the widow of the victim, they didn't make any remark about it.
"Agnes Marinville?" the woman asked. When Agnes nodded, she said, "I'm Detective Winning, and this is Detective Wainwright."
Agnes shook their hands and said, "These are my lawyers, Mandeep Randhawa and Sunny Parhar."
Winning and Wainwright shook their hands. Winning said, "We're investigating the explosion of a vehicle that took place at ten o'clock last night on Rochester Street. We are unable to determine by visual recognition the identity of the victim, but the plate number of the vehicle the victim was driving was registered to one Patrick Marinville, who, we've been informed, is your ex-husband." Winning presented the insurance documents showing the plate number and the name to which it was registered.
Agnes looked at them and nodded. "I heard he was driving away from the house of the woman he was dating."
"That's correct. We've gotten the statement from her. We're hoping that we can obtain DNA evidence from the remains to confirm his identity, as well as match his dental records. Once we have that confirmation, we will call and inform you, but we thought we should give you this notification before anyone else told you."
Agnes shrugged. "My friend already told me, but I appreciate it."
They waited for her to say more, to cry or make some other lament, but everybody grieved in different ways, and Agnes had all night and all morning to cry it out. Maybe they saw the pouches under her eyes, her worn face, and determined she was already aware of her loss.
Detective Winning, who appeared to be doing all the talking, cleared her throat and said, "Mrs. Marinville, we just need to ask you a few questions, just to eliminate you as a suspect, and we hope you won't be offended."
Agnes nodded. "You want to know where I was last night."
Mandeep put a hand on hers and gave it a gentle squeeze of warning.
"That's right," Winning said, surprised. "Can you give us a timeline of your day yesterday?"
Agnes looked to Mandeep, who nodded. "I was with my children in the morning, at my parents' house. I'm living with them until my divorce goes through. In the afternoon, I went to work my shift at Vancouver Public Library. I'm a librarian working auxiliary there, and I was at the Central Branch on West Georgia Street in Vancouver until six p.m., then I went back home to have dinner with my family. I probably got home at six-thirty. Then I helped my kids do homework and read to them in bed... we all share one bedroom, it's not ideal, so I left their room after they went to sleep and went out on the porch to listen to an audiobook on my own. That's where I was when my friend called me and told me the news."
Wainwright had been scribbling in his notebook the whole time she was talking, and when he finished, he passed over his notebook and asked, "Could you write the address and phone number of your parents' house so we can call and confirm your story? Also the address and phone number of your work so your supervisors can confirm you were there yesterday?"
Agnes' jaw clenched in irritation, but then she cleared her throat and said, "Sure."
After she wrote the details in the notebook, using her phone to check her work number, Winning asked, "Mrs. Marinville, do you have any idea who would want to harm Patrick?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. You must know by now he's an RCMP officer just like you are?" When they nodded, she went on, "I'm sure he makes enemies at least once a day on patrol, but I have a more specific person in mind."
"Detective Winning," Mandeep interrupted, "I need to step in here and mention that Mrs. Marinville submitted a deposition to the Public Prosecutor's Office two months ago that led to the serving of a search warrant of the former premise of the Marinvilles in Kelowna. I will let my client tell it in her own words, but I want to make it clear that she did her civic duty at the risk of losing her husband."
The two detectives' eyes widened, and they looked at each other as if wondering if the other heard what they had. "Let me see if I can guess where you're going with this," Winning said. "You're saying, Mrs. Marinville, that your ex-husband, Patrick Marinville, was suspected of a crime for which you gave evidence? Eyewitness testimony?"
"Yes," Agnes said. "Would you like to confer with your colleagues at the Kelowna RCMP, where Patrick used to work?"
"We will, but first we'd like to hear it in your words."
So, with Mandeep's guidance, Agnes gave the detectives the story she gave them two months ago, perhaps diminishing the part she'd played in not telling anyone about it until the deposition.
Detective Winning looked flabbergasted while Wainwright scribbled furiously. Finally, she said, "And this family, the Mercers, you think they wanted revenge for what Patrick did?"
Agnes shrugged. "J.J. was the heir to the throne, so to speak. His death hit the family hard, and when they discovered it was murder, and that the most likely suspect was his wife's lover, they made it clear to me that they wouldn't stop until Patrick paid for what he did. I'm sure they would have preferred it if he was arrested, tried and convicted, but they suspected Patrick's colleagues were helping him escape prosecution, and they were more than willing to resort to other means to get justice. Patrick told me once that there were crimes on the books in Kelowna that would never be solved because they were committed by people the Mercers hired to carry out their wishes. It's possible some of those people might have come down here to exact their revenge; two months ago Patrick was involved in an altercation on the road that caused a major accident in Langley. The other car involved bore plates that were stolen in Kelowna. The guys driving that car ended up in hospital from their crash, so they weren't successful. If at first you don't succeed..."
"When we spoke to Sergeant Mara last night," Wainwright said, to Sunny's surprise, "she mentioned the Mercers, but she only mentioned Patrick ran afoul of them, not why."
"I'm not surprised. Patrick's not going to tell her that, not when they're both police and he wants to get in her pants."
Wainwright blushed, but Winning rolled her eyes. "You think Sergeant Mara would feel obliged to turn him in if she knew the truth. You don't think she'd keep his secret, knowing he did it to protect the previous woman he was having an affair with, his own partner, mind you?"
Agnes shrugged. "I don't really know Joanie, but I heard she's some kind of hero. Someone like that couldn't turn a blind eye to such a heinous crime, could they?"
"You couldn't either, or at least not for long," Wainwright said, smiling. Sunny had an inkling the man had a small crush on her. It had to be her jilted wife/widow appeal, in addition to her frankness when discussing uncomfortable subjects. "Was that what led to your filing for divorce?"
"Well, when the Mercers paid me a visit at my home, I realized it was time to stop standing by my man and start thinking about my and my children's safety. That's why I fled back to my parents."
"About the divorce," Sunny said. "I'm representing her interests in that matter. Patrick recently purchased a house in Queensborough, and he had the kids staying there when he had them. Agnes hasn't found a place of her own yet due to financial difficulties, and as the divorce has been quite recent, we'd like to make a claim to the house for her to raise her children there. What we were wondering is if you recovered his house keys from the wreckage."
Winning's eyebrows rose. "I can understand why you'd want to secure the victim's house for his widow, but we do need to have a look around in it first, just to see if there's any evidence there were other parties who might have been involved in his death. There's also the fact that anything that might have been on him either burned to ash or melted in the explosion, so we'll need to get a locksmith in there to open the door; they can rekey the lock for you at the same time, if you like, and once we're done they can give you the new keys, which you can then keep in the interim until the probate process wraps up."
"Perfect," Sunny said, and Agnes smiled at him. That alone was worth the pro bono work he'd done so far.
"Do you have the address of the house in Queensborough?" Wainwright asked as he examined the insurance documents again. "These still show his address in Kelowna."
Agnes beckoned for his notepad, and Wainwright handed it over again with another smile. Yup, definitely a crush.
"He gave me the address, but not a spare key," Agnes said. "I guess he didn't want me popping by when he was with the new woman."
"So, he's dated two separate women who are both members of the RCMP?" Wainwright asked.
"I guess it's a pattern with him," Agnes said resignedly. She looked up at Wainwright and said, "I've had enough of relationships with cops, myself."
Wainwright's face fell. Crush unrequited. Sunny felt sorry for him.
Thanks for reading this far! If you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. If anything doesn't ring true about police interview procedure or probate law, leave a comment and let me know; I strive for authenticity.
To see how the LSDC rallies around the two women grieving the loss of Patrick, click on "Continue reading."