Chapter 11

There was a silent truce between Detective Cooper and Jennifer Marsh as she followed him into the police station with her knapsack over her shoulder.

The room went silent when they entered it. Inspector Shouldice, who headed the RCMP fraud squad looked up from her lunch. “Is this the woman you were talking about?”

Detective Cooper nodded. “It took some doing but we’re finally here.” He pointed at the knapsack. “She’s brought all her stuff on Nick James, too.”

Lieutenant Harris interjected. “I heard about the shoot out. Glad to hear you’re both okay. We’re holding those two punks for questioning. It looks as if they were sent by Maurice Dupris, the Montreal mafia head. What we can’t figure out, is why he would send his goons after Ms. March.”

“We’ll worry about that later. Right now, I’m interested in seeing what she has learned about Nick James,” Inspector Shouldice said.

Jennifer hated the way everybody talked about her as if she weren’t in the room. All they cared about was the evidence she gathered on Nick James, and that stupid detective hadn’t even bothered to introduce her. Well, she might as well set things straight before they continued to run all over her.

She introduced herself to the room in a loud voice. “I’m Jennifer Marsh, owner of a blog called Around the City. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Detective Cooper tells me you’re interested in Nick James. So am I. I got interested in him a few weeks ago because something about him seemed way off.”

The room was silent. She ignored Detective Cooper’s motions to shut up and sit down. “You should know I worked hard digging up a lot of dirt on him. I don’t know whether he’s a crook, but I can prove he’s not what he claims to be. Therefore, I don’t think I’m out of line asking for an exclusive story when you bust him.”

Detective Cooper was so angry he interjected. “I don’t believe Ms. Marsh has any right to make such an outrageous demand. She’s not even a real journalist.”

Inspector Shouldice had come up through the ranks of the RCMP the hard way. She’d joined the force when it was still considered mostly a man’s world, and she ran into all kinds of difficulties on her way to the top. She sympathized with Marsh, and decided to give her a break.

“She interrupted Cooper’s objection and exercised her authority. “Fair enough Ms. Marsh. If you got something that can help us nail Nick James, you got your scoop, but you have to play it our way. You don’t publish a word about him until we give you the okay.”

Jennifer was elated. She shot Cooper a smile of triumph, not caring if it made him angry, then sat her knapsack on the table and began lining up her evidence in the proper order. With each item she pulled out of it, she explained to her captive audience how it was related to Nick James.