Read Online Quid Pro Quo by Vicki Grant - Free Book Online Page B

years while heritage activists struggled to raise money for its restoration. During that time, homeless men often camped out in the five-story Victorian building. An illegal drug- making operation is believed to be the cause of the fire. Sources say a worker on a construction project next door provided evidence linking Mr. Cuvelier to a crack cocaine operation.
    Mr. Boudreau suffered from mental illness and diabetes. Friends say Mr. Cuvelier was often seen helping him with a weight loss program.
    Halifax Police ask that anyone with information regarding the Masons’ Hall fire or the whereabouts of Byron Clyde Cuvelier to please contact Sergeant Hannah Gautreau at 431-TIPS.

chapter
twenty-two

Conspiracy
    The agreement of two or more people
to perform an illegal act
    T hat woke me up fast. I ran into the living room and turned on The Breakfast Show . I had to sit through about ten minutes of this irritating guy making jokes about the weather, but it finally came on. “Masons’ Hall Fire Break-through!”
    The reporter did a big thing about how the hall had welcomed home our troops from both world wars, and then another thing about all the famous people who’d had their wedding receptions there. I was absolutely screaming at the TV by the time she got to the part about the hall’s sad years of decline, and how more than once it had been saved from the wrecker’s ball by heritage activists who fought against a new condo development or shopping mall.
    I was just about to try another channel when the reporter finally got to the part about the fire and Byron Clyde Cuvelier. They flashed that old picture of him on the screen, and then she interviewed a bunch of his buddies at the men’s shelter.
    You’d swear they were talking about some guy who’d just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Byron Cuvelier could do no wrong as far as they were concerned. One old grampa with about three teeth in his head and a bad eye said Byron was teaching him to read. Somebody else said Byron helped him give up smoking. A kid who looked about two years older than me said Byron gave him money when his eight-year-old needed a new snowsuit.
    Then this guy named Stan Berrigan started ranting away about how the whole thing was a conspiracy. “Byron ain’t done nothing wrong. Just ’cause he made a mistake a few years ago and done time, the police is pinning it on him. They always takes it out on the homeless. Like, just because you don’t have a roof over your head means you ain’t as good as the rich folks. Byron knows that ain’t true. He knows a few other things too. I’ll bet he knows a few other things that some of them rich folks wouldn’t like him spreading round neither.”
    You could tell the guy wasn’t half finished, but the reporter wrapped it up anyway. “And now back to you, Josh, and today’s sports!”
    Somehow I didn’t feel like hearing about the Leafs’ season opener. I turned off the TV and stared at that stain on the ceiling again.
    Okay, I thought, so this is what happened: Byron Cuvelier, counselor to the homeless by day, was making crack cocaine by night. In his drugged-out state, he set a historic building on fire and killed a man.
    It at least explained that big blister on his arm.
    I never liked the guy, so I really wanted to believe my theory was true. But I couldn’t.
    It just didn’t sound like Byron to me.

chapter
twenty-three

Hearsay
    Evidence that is heard secondhand
    I got a bag of Nacho Krispies at Toulany’s and headed off to the shelter to find Stan Berrigan. The whole way there I thought of all the things I could have believed about Byron. I could have believed he conned an old lady out of her last tube of denture cream. I could have believed he was a terrorist spy for the Home and School Association. Under certain circumstances, I could probably even have believed he was first runner-up in the Miss Nude Universe