Howard Engel - Getting Away With Murder (A Benny Cooperman Mystery)

PENGUIN CANADA

GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER

HOWARD ENGEL is the creator of the enduring and beloved detective Benny Cooperman, who, through his appearance in twelve best-selling novels, has become an internationally recognized fictional sleuth. Two of Engels novels have been adapted for TV movies, and his books have been translated into several languages. He is the winner of numerous awards, including the 2005 Writers Trust of Canada Matt Cohen Award, the 1990 Harbourfront Festival Prize for Canadian Literature and an Arthur Ellis Award for crime fiction. Howard Engel lives in Toronto.

Also in the Benny Cooperman series

The Suicide Murders

Murder on Location

Murder Sees the Light

The Ransom Game

A Victim Must Be Found

Dead and Buried

There Was An Old Woman

The Cooperman Variations

Memory Book

East of Suez

Also by Howard Engel

Murder in Montparnasse

Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell

HOWARD ENGEL

A BENNY COOPERMAN MYSTERY

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1995

Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1996

Published in this edition, 2008

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright Howard Engel, 1995

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 above publisher of this book.

Publishers note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada.

ISBN-13: 978-0-14-316751-8

ISBN-10: 0-14-316751-0

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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For my son Jacob Harry Engel

and his grandparents

Arthur and Doris Hamilton

and

Lolly and the late Jack Engel

Getting Away

with Murder

PROLOGUE

The trees were leafless, holding black fingers against the sky. Stubborn and sullen, the snow was receding from the front yards on Henrietta Street. The white wood siding of the old houses along the eastern side were bathed in late afternoon sunlight. It wasnt a warm light; there was little warmth in it at all. Still, the tall man with white hair brought out a red metal box of tools and a mechanics castered board for working flat on his back. He placed the tools beside his ten-year-old Buick before returning to the garage. There was almost too much equipment for a little job like changing his winter oil. If he waited a week or two, the weather would be gentler. He wheeled out a hydraulic jack and proceeded to position it under the car. After hoisting it above the driveway, he stretched himself out on the creeper board and rolled himself beneath the car. From time to time an arm appeared to reach for a wrench or a greasy rag. The man was humming to himself so he didnt hear the footsteps in the driveway.

The car looked as though it had been washed every other day since it left the showroom. There were no rusty patches on the fenders or doors where highway salt eats freely of cars in the Canadian winter. His tools looked well cared for. The jack, for instance, was in mint condition, the sort rarely seen away from a professional service garage. There was a handle, the up-and-down working of which raised the car incrementally above the driveway. There was also a valve, the turning of which lowered the car again so that its weight rested on its four regularly rotated tires.

The song that he was humming was an old army song, something off-colour, and only half-remembered. The tune changed pitch as he stretched to reach for an oily rag, which he pulled out of sight. The leg that was visible was mottled with marks of age. The flesh looked grey above a navy blue sock.

The footsteps stopped by the jack. The humming stopped.

Whos that? the man under the car asked, seeing feet standing in the drive. That is all that was said. A hand turned the valve and the car settled. The weight of the Buick returned to the driveway. Footsteps retreated. There was no one nearby to hear the scream.

ONE

Get up!

There was a swimmer somewhere out in the lake. I could see a flashing line of rope playing out. It was a life-preserver thrown from a boat. I felt myself sinking. I was the swimmer. I was in trouble. The water was sucking me down.

Come on, you bastard! Get up!

Show a leg, Cooperman!

Let me get him going, Phil. I know how to do it.

My dream evaporated. The lake and the rope vanished just as I could begin to feel the tug of the line getting taut, shaking bright beads of water out of the rope. I was awake now, although my eyes were still closed. I felt a hand on my shoulder shaking me. I tried to locate where the various parts of me were lying: hand, head, feet, groin. I could feel hot, peppermint breath on my face.

Get out of bed! You heard me, damn it!

I struck out with all my strength, aiming at the smell and the heat of his face. I connected. I felt the pain in my wrist and fingers. At the same time, I opened my eyes. Id knocked one of them to the foot of my bed. But there were two others. I knew it was all over then. Even as the man with the Lifesaver breath, the one called Phil, was rubbing his chin, I could feel the futility of resistance. I pulled my legs from under the covers and touched the carpet with my feet.

Good! said the man with his back to the door. Now put your clothes on. Youre coming with us.