Chapter 3: Kit Cassidy

That evening Bahn drove to the Hotel Novotel and parked in the lot adjacent to the Sears store across the street. Entering the hotel, he walked past the front desk and into the bar of the Trio restaurant which was lightly crowded with patrons.

Bahn scanned the faces in the room and easily spotted her, sitting at one of the high tables and nursing a red-coloured drink in a stemmed cocktail glass.

She was wearing a sheer, form-fitting evening dress that showed off her thin waist and wider hips. The dress both presented the cleavage of her breasts and was cut short to reveal a pair of shapely crossed legs up to mid thigh. She had strawberry blonde hair cut short to frame the sides of her freckled cheeks and her face was adorned with bright, wide blue eyes, a pert nose and a mouth with full, pink-coloured lips. Spotting Bahn, she smiled widely, revealing two rows of perfectly straight white teeth.

Bahn walked to her and offered his hand which she took as he said, "I'm Inspector Hamilton Bahn."

"I'm Kit Cassidy," she gushed. "I've heard so much about you back in Winnipeg. You're a bit of a legend there."

"Really," he said, noticing the French manicure on the nails of her slender fingers as he let go of her hand and sat in the chair opposite. "I can't imagine why."

"Of course you were stationed there ... for a while. They talk about you all the time and how you worked that Stephenson case and nabbed that whole group of counterfeiters by yourself."

"That was nothing," Bahn said, waiving the matter away with his hand. "They were amateurs using a copy machine for Christ's sake."

"Still they talk about you and the cases you solved. Your photo hangs on the wall behind the Superintendent's desk."

Bahn laughed. "Just about everyone who ever worked there gets a picture on the wall somewhere. I'm just glad to hear they don't have me hanging in the latrine."

Constable Cassidy laughed, her eyes sparkling brightly at Bahn as the bar waiter approached their table.

"Something for you, sir?"

Bahn turned to him. "A Molson Ex please."

"Certainly. And will you be dining tonight?"

"Yes, we will. We have a reservation. The name is Bahn."

"I'll get your beer, sir, and see if your table is ready."

"Thank you," Bahn said, before turning back to his tablemate and eying her pretty expression. "So," he asked her, "how long have you been stationed in Winnipeg?"

Constable Cassidy sipped her drink and answered, "For two years now. Ever since graduating from Depot when I was twenty. It's my first assignment and I've been trying my best to make good."

"I see."

"I'm rather competitive, I'm afraid. When you grow up the only girl in a family that consisted of just my two older brothers and my father, you have to be tough and competitive."

"Just two brothers and your father?"

She nodded. "My mother died when I was six."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Bahn said, seeing her eyes glaze over in some far distant thought. "It must have been hard on you."

She seemed to shake the thought from her head as she said, "What? Yes. Yes, it was hard but I persevered and set goals for myself and now I'm where I am which, for now, is here assisting you."

"Yes, well, I've been pursuing some ideas today but have no real leads in the case. What about you Constable?"

"Call me Kit, Inspector, please," she smiled.

"Only if you call me Ham," Bahn offered. "It's what my friends and my family used to call me."

Her face brightened noticeably as she said, "Certainly, Ham. I would be honored if someone as mature and experienced as you would consider me among your friends."

Bahn laughed. "Don't make me sound so [I]old[/I]", he chided her.

"Oh, I didn't mean..."

He smiled now as he told her, "Don't give it a thought. I know what you meant and ... well, I don't have many friends so I surely welcome a new one."

As Bahn's beer arrived, she told him, "I've followed a few leads."

"Oh?" he said, raising his eyebrows in query as he took a sip from his glass.

"They assigned me to the case when the locals found Judge Mackenzie's body," she went on. "We dusted everything and came up with no prints other than the victim's. The blood soaked razor was a resharpened antique and untraceable. The card was a Hallmark. I checked out the Hallmark stores in Winnipeg. There were ten of them. The woman at the Polo Park store recalled having just sold a box of mixed holiday cards, the day before the murder, to a man she described as tall, blond haired and nervous and possibly from the states."

"An American?"

"She thought maybe so. By the way he talked and how well he was dressed, in a vested suit and all. He didn't look to be from any of the prairie provinces anyway. So she said."

"Hmm, that's interesting. Doesn't make a lot of sense though. Did she get his name from his credit card?"

"No. She remembered him because he paid with cash and all loonies and toonies which she totaled on the counter and gave him eighteen cents in change. Then later the Neeley killing happened in Toronto. Same M.O. and so they sent me there. I checked around. Asked the desk clerks and lot attendants if they had seen any tall, suspicious-looking Americans in the hotel but none of them were sure. A lady who occupied the room next to the alderman said that she thought she heard two men loudly arguing during the night but it went quiet and she hadn't seen anything. Nobody saw or heard anything when I checked out the New Year's killing here in Ottawa. But the concierge at the Montreal hotel thinks that she saw a tall, blonde, well dressed American talking to Pierre Leclercq, in the lobby, the day of his murder."

"That may be the man we are looking for," Bahn said to her. "We'll get on to customs to have passports cross-referenced near the days of the murders. That was a very good bit of police work, Constable."

Kit now smiled broadly and sat proudly upright just as the waiter approached.

"Your table is ready," he said, "if you will follow me."

Bahn took Kit by her soft upper arm and guided her, behind the waiter, to their dining table. As they walked, he noticed that she was about half-a-head shorter than he and thin but very curvaceous, her behind swaying seductively within the short skirt of her dress as she walked.

As he seated her, he couldn't help but notice a very fleeting glimpse of pink panty, just before she crossed her shapely legs in her chair.

Taking his seat and his menu from the waiter, he chastised himself for having even glanced that way. He wondered if she'd noticed and, if she saw, did she realize that it was inadvertent on his part.

"You order for me, Ham," she told him after silently scanning her menu for a time. "They didn't have food like this back in Moose Jaw where I was raised. Our idea of gourmet cuisine was Timbits and a double-double at the Horton's on Diefenbaker."

Bahn laughed at her disarming wit, thinking of how at-ease and cheerful and alive this very pretty, young woman was making him feel. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed being in female company this much.

Clearing his head to the business at hand, Bahn told her, "I'll get in touch with the FBI tomorrow and check on this American angle you've come up with. I'm sure that they can be of assistance to us."

"And me?"

"You can get on to the Border Services Agency and check their passport records as far as U. S. passport holders coming in on (and before) the dates in question."

"Yes sir," she told him enthusiastically. "I'll get on that first thing."

The waitress came and Bahn ordered another Molson for himself and another cosmopolitan for Kit. The menu consisted of many chef selected regional entries served on small plates to be shared. He ordered several of the ones that looked the most appetizing and a bottle of the Inniskillin vineyard's wine from Niagara which the waitress had recommended.

Bahn noticed Kit's wide eyes appraising him over the rim of her fresh drink and he smiled back at her.

"This is such a nice place," she said, looking at her surroundings.

"Yes, it's actually the first time I've been here," he told her now. "I usually dine at the local Timmy Ho's myself."

Kit now laughed and, when she did, she reached across the table and placed her soft, warm hand on his. "I know that our meeting is business but I'm having a very nice time, here with you, Ham."

Bahn took her hand in his and held it. "I'm feeling the same way, Kit. I find you to be very charming company."

Soon the waitress returned and arranged their plates of entries before them and poured them each glasses of the accompanying wine before they began sipping and sampling the artistically arranged morsels of food with their forks.

"This is so good," Kit stated as she wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin. "I'm simply overwhelmed."

"I'm happy that you're enjoying it," Bahn told her.

"And the wine and the drinks," she added, "I'm afraid that they've gone right to my head. I hope I'll be able to find my room."

"I'm sure you will," Bahn told her. "But I should accompany you just in case."

After signing for the check – CSIS would take care of all business related expenses – Bahn placed his arm around Kit's slim waist and led her to the lift and then to her room on the sixth floor. As they stood before her door and she extracted the plastic entry card from her clutch-purse, Bahn could see that she was standing erect and seemed to be more alert and in control of herself now.