Miss Montreal Read online

  Praise for BOSTON CREAM

  “From start to epilogue, Boston Cream is a mystery thriller of insight, compassion, with an infectious sense of urgency that drives to a conclusion both real and satisfying. Author Howard Shrier masterfully links the dialogue to the pace, the setting and the plot with an energy that makes readers feel they’re absorbing the story at a rate almost too fast to take in.… I suggested in an earlier column that Shrier was an author to watch. In Boston Cream, he’s arrived.

  —The Hamilton Spectator

  “Crime writers should look over their shoulders: Howard Shrier started strong, and he’s only getting better. Boston Cream is a well-paced, atmospheric tale, with assured writing, believable characters and engaging protagonists.”

  —Spinetingler Magazine

  “Shoot ’em up action mixed with clever dialogue and thought provoking conundrums.”

  —Women’s Post

  “As with his previous books, Shrier keeps the pace moving at a brisk clip, ups the ante with surprising … plot twists, and makes the reader care about Geller and Jenn.”

  —Quill & Quire

  “I am so glad to have discovered Shrier. Geller is a richly different character.”

  —Crimespace

  “There is a reason Shrier consistently wins the Arthur Ellis, Canada’s highest crime fiction award: he tells a really good story. Relish the local color, cultural nuances, and successive waves of action.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Explosive.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  Praise for HIGH CHICAGO

  WINNER OF THE ARTHUR ELLIS AWARD FOR BEST CRIME NOVEL

  “Shrier … writes with an easy assurance and a killer sense of humour.… High Chicago is a great addition to the mystery shelf.”

  —NOW (Toronto)

  “Howard Shrier’s first novel, Buffalo Jump, won the Arthur Ellis Award for best first novel. High Chicago, his second, will definitely be short-listed for another. It’s got the same stellar characters, the same clever plotting, and, if anything, an even better story.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “High Chicago confirms Shrier as an author to watch for, both in Canada and abroad. It’s a mystery that peels away the urban layers of big business civility to expose the raw flesh of reality underneath.”

  —The Hamilton Spectator

  “Combining fast-paced action with well-structured plots, and featuring a complex but likeable protagonist, Shrier’s novels are fast winning him legions of loyal fans. If you enjoy contemporary hard-boiled tales with nuanced characters, check out High Chicago; you won’t be disappointed.“

  —Sherbrooke Record

  “Shrier is one of the most exciting new voices in the mystery genre. This sophomore effort is sure to please.”

  —Village Post

  “With High Chicago, Shrier cements his reputation as a fine mystery writer. I suspect and hope that he and Jonah will be around for a long time to come.”

  —Canadian Jewish News

  “High Chicago is tighter, tauter, and speedier than its predecessor. I am looking forward to the next American city to receive a flying visit from Jonah Geller and his crew.”

  —Yvonne Klein, reviewingtheevidence.com

  “Shrier’s first Jonah Geller mystery was terrific; High Chicago is even better.”

  —Linwood Barclay, bestselling author of

  No Time for Goodbye and Too Close to Home

  “A plot brimming with greed, deceit, violence and murder makes High Chicago a fast-paced, entertaining read.”

  —José Latour, bestselling author of Crime of Fashion

  “A fast-moving and violent tale that proves your deadliest enemy is probably the person sleeping right beside you. I hope Geller returns for a third book.”

  —Lee Goldberg, writer and producer

  “High Chicago is often funny, sometimes violent, and always thoughtful, with a powerful sense of place throughout. Toronto may have just found its Spenser in PI Jonah Geller, and I can’t wait for his next case.”

  —Sean Chercover, award-winning author of

  Trigger City and Big City, Bad Blood

  Praise for BUFFALO JUMP

  WINNER OF THE ARTHUR ELLIS AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

  “Howard Shrier’s first novel, Buffalo Jump, is a winner.”

  —National Post

  “Contemporary Canadian crime writers are not exactly plentiful in number, and … Howard Shrier is a welcome addition to their ranks.… Continue[s] the tradition of Robert B. Parker and Robert Crais with a hearty and promising Maple Leaf Twist.”

  —Quill & Quire

  “Delivers a fast plot with the requisite brutalities.”

  —Joan Barfoot, London Free Press

  “A great debut novel from Montreal-born Torontonian Shrier, and it introduces PI Jonah Geller in what is certainly going to be a fine series. The plot is tight, the characters engaging, and this one even has a believable—and sympathetic—bad guy.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “A debut novel with a well-juggled storyline brimming with dry humour, a cast of oddball characters, and graphic scenes that come alive with action. A must-read for summer.”

  —The Hamilton Spectator

  “This first book by Shrier is top-notch, a page-turner to rate with the best of them and with some memorable characters. It also contains just the right dose of cynicism and dark humour, both of which mark the best of the private-eye novels.”

  —The Guelph Mercury

  “A cast of compelling oddballs; a complex, funny and always surprising hero, and a plot as fresh and twisty as today’s headlines—Shrier juggles them all deftly and nails his first crime novel with the aplomb and impact of a seasoned pro. A completely satisfying read that made me wish Jonah Geller could work cases on my shows.”

  —René Balcer, Emmy-winning executive producer/

  head writer of Law & Order, creator of Law & Order

  Criminal Intent, winner of the Peabody Award, and of four

  Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America

  “A crime story that is both thrilling and thoughtful.”

  —Kelley Armstrong, bestselling author

  of the Women of the Otherworld series

  “Jonah Geller has a strong and individual voice.… He is contemporary, appealing, and fresh in several senses of the word.”

  —Yvonne Klein, reviewingtheevidence.com

  “Journalist turned actor turned author Howard Shrier has a great new first novel.”

  —Craig Rintoul, bookbits.ca

  Also by Howard Shrier

  Buffalo Jump*

  High Chicago**

  Boston Cream

  * Arthur Ellis Award Winner for Best First Novel

  ** Arthur Ellis Award Winner for Best Crime Novel

  VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2013

  Copyright © 2013 Howard Shrier

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2013. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited.

  Vintage Canada with colophon is a registered trademark.

  www.randomhouse.ca

  Lyrics from Blue Rodeo’s “Montreal” used with permission from Jim Cuddy/Greg Keelor and Thunder Hawk Music.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Shrier, Howard

  Miss Montr
eal / Howard Shrier.

  (Jonah Geller mystery series; 4)

  eISBN: 978-0-307-35959-9

  I. Title. II. Series: Shrier, Howard. Jonah Geller mystery series; 4.

  PS8637.H74M57 2013 C813′.6 C2012-908595-2

  Image credit: Superstock/Getty Images

  v3.1

  In loving memory of my grandmother,

  Jean Wolfson Seidman (1911-2012)

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 01

  It was me who gave him the nickname Slammin’ Sammy. At Camp Arrowhead, the summer we were twelve—what turned out to be my last summer there. The next year our family went to Israel for my bar mitzvah, and the year after that my father died unexpectedly and uninsured, and we fell out of the middle class like skydivers. We moved from our house to a cramped apartment, and there was no more summer camp for the Geller boys, at least not out of the city.

  Sammy Adler was without doubt the least coordinated, least athletic person, male or female, in the camp. Tall, gangly, flat-assed, he ran like Frankenstein’s monster, knees knocking together, ankles weak, his feet slapping the ground like a bird headed for extinction. His height made him of occasional use in basketball or volleyball, but on the softball diamond he was what we then called a spaz. And still would. A glove on his hand was like a metal pan ready to clank. Balls hit or thrown to him caromed off his shins or bounced through his legs cleanly. To say he threw like a girl would be an insult to most girls in the camp. There was nowhere to hide him in the field, unless you needed a guy to turn and watch a ball sail over his head while everyone else yelled, “Go!” And at the plate, he’d stand flat-footed, with the bat on his shoulder, and swipe at the ball, stiff as a turnstile, usually after it had crossed the plate. His strikeouts or accidental grounders elicited groans, forehead slaps and sometimes thrown hats. If he came to the plate with two out, his teammates went to find their gloves. The rally killer was up. The automatic out.

  The counsellors, who were supposed to be our coaches, were no help. Natural athletes themselves, they didn’t have the patience or know-how to break his swing down and rebuild it. They just barked a stream of the usual stuff at him: Bend your knees. Draw that bat back. Keep an eye on it. Don’t be afraid to swing away. A walk’s as good as a hit. Swing! Not at that. That’s eye level. There—why didn’t you swing at that one?

  Sammy needed someone else to help him, and he needed it soon. Colour War had just been announced: an intense three-day competition when the campers split into two teams, Blue and White, and took each other on in all sports, land and water. The winner was always declared by means of fireworks set off on a floating dock in the lake, a burst of either blue stars launching and slowly showering down, or of white. Cheers from the winning side, cries from the other. Hugs here; over there a few boys trying to over-console teary-eyed girls.

  I was on the Blue team, as was Sammy. Going into the third and final day, the teams were neck and neck. White was killing us in land sports but we were winning everything on the lake, mainly because we had Victor Blum, the future Olympic qualifier, and he could do everything in water but walk on it juggling. There was a good chance it would all come down to Sunday’s final event—softball—and our age group, twelve and up, would play last.

  After dinner Saturday, I grabbed Sammy by the elbow and steered him out to the ball field. The piney smell of the woods crowded in on us; the mosquitoes came out for blood. The equipment was all locked away in a shed behind the backstop but one kid, Teddy Packer, had his own eighteen-ounce aluminum bat that he kept under his bed. I’d brought it with us and as the sky drew darker, more bruised around us, I stood Sammy at the plate and worked with him for a solid hour.

  I was all about sports then. It was the one area where I was much better than my brother, the scholar and future lawyer. I couldn’t out-study him, outperform him at school or outdo him at potential fulfilled, but I was a natural athlete—and baseball was my game. Our game, my dad’s and mine. The mid-eighties was a great time to be a Blue Jays fan. They were a rising power in the American League East, sudden contenders with their great core of young players: Bell, Moseby, Barfield, Stieb, Fernandez. My dad and I would go to games when they still played at Exhibition Stadium, sitting in the cheap seats in left, on soft August nights with the lights of the midway flashing over the centre-field wall, the two of us screaming ourselves hoarse as the Jays kept pace with the Yankees, Tigers and Orioles—then the beasts of the East. He was proud, my dad, of what I could do with a glove and a bat. I wasn’t big but I could drive the ball on a line to any field and catch anything hit my way.

  For an hour that night, until darkness was full and the mosquitoes had bled us dry, I worked with Sammy on his swing, drawing on my extremely limited knowledge of physics to explain weight shifts. I wasn’t expecting miracles. I didn’t think I’d suddenly unleash a swing like George Bell’s. But good things happened when you made contact in softball. Defences were suspect. Balls got over-thrown.

  I started by standing at home plate with the bat, swinging easily through imaginary pitches, moving my weight back foot to front, thinking of how I could explain it to him.

  “Have you ever played tennis?” I asked.

  “My mother got me lessons a couple of years ago.”

  “So it’s like that,” I said. “Just like a backhand. You’re meeting the ball as it crosses the plate. Your front arm moves through the ball and ends up behind you.”

  “Jonah,” he said, “it’s not like I got it then either.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  I showed him where to stand: a foot away from the plate, feet square and shoulder width apart. Then I stood just in front of him, my back to the mound, my glove held straight out.

  “Use your front arm only,” I said. “Move from your back foot to your front and use one hand to swing through like a tennis backhand. Here comes the pitch,” I said. “Are you ready? Is your weight on your back foot? Okay, it’s coming.”

  I moved my glove closer. “Start the bat slowly. Come on, bring it through.”

  As it crossed the plate I moved my glove in to meet it and said, “Stop.” No yelling at him like the counsellors did, always barking everything twice. Swing away, Sammy. Swing away. Or Walk’s as good as a run, Sam. Waaaaalk’s as good as a run. Softly I spoke, the Sammy Whisperer. I had him bend his knees, draw the bat back and step through his swing again, letting it smack my glove.

  “Back foot to front foot. Back foot to front. That’s it, Sammy. That’s where you hit the ball. You watch it come in and only start your swing when it’s here. Got it?”

  He smiled for the first time. “I actually think I do.” He stood square to the plate, at my prompting, and swung through with some perceptible level of coordination.

  I had him choke up, shorten his swing. Got him to keep his head down. I tried to break that stiffness in his body with a hand here, a touch there, make his swing less mechanical and more fluid. He listened well. With no one shouting at him, no pressure heaped on his bony shoulders, he started striding into his swing more, looking bet
ter with each try. Finally I took a ball to the mound and lobbed him an easy one. He put a pretty good swing on it, shifting his weight, head down, driving the bat head through the zone. And missed it by a good foot.

  I had an idea, watching him swing late on the pitch.

  “Sammy,” I said, “what I told you before about stepping straight ahead with your front foot? Forget that.”

  I knew that if he made contact, a ball up the right side could get through. As long as it got past the pitcher, there’d be no play at first. Even Sammy, with his awkward gait, could beat one out—if he made contact.

  “When you swing, Sammy, step toward first. Not the pitcher, ’kay? First base.”

  “How?”

  “Like this.” I took the bat, got into the box and got him to walk in on me with the glove, like I had for him.

  “You’ve watched me hit, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Hit it a mile to left. Most of the time, anyway. Which is funny ’cause you’re way smaller than a lot of the kids, but I guess it’s physics, not size.”

  “How I do it,” I said, “is I wait until a pitch comes inside and I step toward third. I hit it early, and all my weight answers the pitch.”

  “And changes its direction at a greater velocity.”

  “That too. But you swing late. You can’t come around on an inside pitch. So what you’re going to do, Sammy, is look for a pitch on the outside part of the plate and put that late swing on it right … here.” I put the glove on the outer part of the strike zone near the back of the plate.

  “You put a late swing on that, you won’t miss it.” Not by a foot anyway.

  Sammy always batted ninth. His first time up Sunday was in the second inning, no one on and two out. Most of our team got their gloves on. Surprise them, Sammy, I thought. Show them what we did last night. Because by the time we left, sticky with sweat and bloody bites, Sammy had found a swing. I won’t say his swing, because he didn’t own it yet; that would take months of practice. But if he choked up and watched the ball come in on him like we practised, he could push the ball up the right side between second and first. It was limited but effective. The last ten pitches I lobbed him, at least four would have been base hits.