Good Year For Murder (12 page)

“Tretheway,” Zulp began. “How sure are you …”

“Inspector.”

“Don't interrupt,” Zulp said.

“Inspector,” Jake repeated. “There's something here.”

Tretheway walked over. The others pushed closer.

“Give me a hand, Jake.” Tretheway and Jake cleared several bundles of newspaper from the body. The crowd became quiet. Some early arrivals from the RFYLI Brass Band tuned up in the pavilion.

“It's a child,” someone in the crowd said.

Tretheway gently rolled the body over. The beautiful features of Henry Plain faced the darkening sky.

“Shall I get Doc Nooner?” Jake asked.

“Yes,” Tretheway said. “But there's no hurry.”

When Doc Nooner arrived he confirmed Tretheway's opinion. “Nothing you could've done. Death by suffocation,” he said, after a cursory but experienced examination. “What the hell was he doing up there, anyway?”

Zulp glared at Tretheway. “Do you know anything about this?”

“Perhaps I should clear the air …” Tretheway began.

“That'd be nice,” Zulp encouraged.

Tretheway went on to explain why he had left the tug-o-war so suddenly. He told about the figures or shadows at the top of the pile.

“Did you actually see anyone?” Zulp asked.

“I think so.”

“Think? That's just great. Aren't you sure? Could you identify anyone?”

“Not really,” Tretheway said. “And at that distance even if I saw …”

“If?”

“I'm afraid so.”

Wan Ho entered the conversation. “You mean, it could've been Henry Plain by himself that you saw?”

“It's possible,” Tretheway admitted. “But it still doesn't explain why he was up there.”

“To get a better view of the proceedings,” Zulp said. “You know how short he was.”

Tretheway grimaced. “I doubt that.”

“Dammit, Tretheway! There's no evidence to support foul play.”

Tretheway sulked.

Zulp turned to the Doctor. “Nor any medical evidence either. That right, Nooner?”

“I guess so. Some bruises again. Nothing conclusive.”

“Well, then.” Zulp took a deep breath. “Okay. Let's not panic. Cool heads. It's a tragedy. But he had been drinking. Wine. Warm day. Where's Mrs Plain?”

“She's with Addie and some of the other women,” Jake said.

“Good. Best not bother her. Let's wrap it up. Call it a day. Nasty day.” Zulp walked away. “Nasty.”

No one objected. There wasn't much anyone could do. Even if there was a killer out there somewhere, Tretheway thought, it would be fruitless to search for him now. It was getting dark. Hundreds of people were milling about. Where would you look? he asked himself. And who or what would you look for?

Later that evening, Tretheway, Jake and Fred sat on their back porch and enjoyed, as much as they were able to under the circumstances, the star-filled, balmy night. They had rehashed the day, from parking the car to the dance cancellation, including Tretheway's possible sighting of pointy-headed people, but nothing helpful had come to the surface. Henry Plain was resting at a convenient local undertaker while his shocked family had been billeted with friends. Everyone had left LaSalle Park by ten o'clock except for five policemen stationed at the paper pile. They were there to prevent another tragedy and to preserve any evidence for daylight scrutiny.

“It could've been an accident,” Jake said.

“I don't think so,” Tretheway said.

“But Zulp said …”

Tretheway glared at Jake. Jake didn't finish. Tretheway took a six-ounce pull on his quart of Molson. He repositioned his upper body and belched.

“It fits too well.”

“Hm?”

“The head civil servant. On Civic Holiday. Smothered in paper. Too pat.”

“When you put it that way …”

“He could've been lured behind that pile. Chased up it. Head
forced into a bundle. Held there. By one or more persons. Then the avalanche.”

“All conjecture.”

“True.” Tretheway watched a firefly buzz around his stockinged feet. “I liked Henry.”

“So did I.”

Tretheway waved the fly away. “He never hurt anybody.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Go to bed.” Tretheway stood up and stretched. “At least, that's what I'm going to do.”

On their way through the kitchen, Tretheway grabbed two quarts of beer from the ice box in the the fingers of one hand. The bottles clinked together as he mounted the stairs.

On August 24, St. Bartholomew's Day, Chief Zulp, or at least Mrs Zulp, informed the switchboard at Central Police Station that her husband would not be in to work.

“He has a slight temperature and a nasty cough. Touch of the flu. Nothing serious, but I think he should spend the day in bed. No,” she said in answer to the switchboard's question. “He can't take any calls. Surely you can get by for one day.”

Alderman Bartholomew Gum received no extra guards or care on August 24. The day passed without mishap.

Two things made the September murder different from the others. First, it was unexpected. Second, they caught the murderer red-handed. Or, at least, Chief Zulp said they did.

The month started sensibly enough for the season. Sunday dawned warm and sunny. Higher humidity and showers were predicted for later in the week. Fort York football fans were optimistic about their beloved FY Taggers demolishing the hated Toronto Argonauts in the traditional Labour Day game. Most of the people who had summer cottages were back in the city. Schools opened on Tuesday. So, except for the war news (the Battle of Britain was just beginning) it was a normal start for September.

The Labour Day parade began early Monday morning. It was less militaristic than the Dominion Day parade, but there were just as many uniforms in evidence. The politicians who disagreed with Zulp's theory of accidental death in the Henry Plain affair were influential enough to demand, and get, extra police protection, especially on another holiday.

All off-duty regular policemen had been called in, a detachment of Ontario Provincial Police was actually marching in the parade, extra Military Police lined the route and the Federal Government, with the idea that one Mountie could still quell an Indian uprising, sent one Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Constable.

The main body of the parade was made up of hard core labour. They were unmilitarily jolly and marched out of step, but their raucous banter gave a sort of industrial Mardi Gras flavour to the procession.

Once again, Mayor Trutt took the salute in front of the City Hall. Labour, military, police, Scouts, Marion Day celebrants, CWACS, Six Nation Indians and others he couldn't identify filed past Trutt's sincere, hat-over-the-heart gesture without incident. At the finish of the parade, most of the participants enjoyed a cold cuts and beer lunch—courtesy of the FY Labour Council—
before they attended the football game (Fort York triumphed over Toronto in a boring, one-sided match).

While the city held its collective breath, Labour Day drew to a close in every union hall across the city's wards without a report of homicide.

By the time Tuesday was half over, most Fort York inhabitants hoped with all their hearts that Henry Plain's death had been accidental. They hoped that, for some reason, the St. Swithin's Day drowning was the end of it; the finish to the strange chain of events that had plagued Fort York.

There was a slight scare at the end of the first week. A
FY Expositor
reporter mentioned to Chief Zulp that Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, both fell sometime in September. Before this could be properly researched, Zulp dispatched a Flying Squad (his substitute for the abandoned Master Plan) to the home of Harold Ammerman, the only Jewish member of Council. Four cruisers, sirens screaming, emptied eight policemen onto the Alderman's front lawn. They came close to causing another political fatality by bursting into the old gentleman's home and shaking him out of a deep nap. It was Ammerman himself who explained to the protectors that the Jewish holidays started in October this year. This was explained later to Zulp. The
Expositor
reporter couldn't be reached.

As each day of September passed, the inhabitants of Fort York grew more optimistic. They endured Maryland Day, September 12, the anniversary of the defense of that city in the War of 1812. Nothing happened. The fifteenth was Independence Day for Central America. A small number of Costa Ricans, wearing gaily-coloured native costumes, jiggled around on the City Hall steps at noon for about five minutes. But nothing happened. The occasion, rather than the holiday, of American Constitution Day, September 15, went slowly through its twenty-four hours. Chilean Independence Day came and departed unnoticed on the eighteenth. A few Anglican churches celebrated the Feast of St. Matthew on the twenty-first. But it was very orderly and religious. Nothing happened.

So by Saturday night, the twenty-eighth, most people went to their beds feeling that the crisis was past. The next morning, however, something happened.

“Beautiful Sunday for your walk, Albert.” Addie bustled about the kitchen. It was early for Tretheway (7:30) but Addie had been up for the last hour cleaning the kitchen after Saturday night's euchre session. She had also made breakfast already for O. Pitts who had an early sermon practice.

Tretheway looked out of the back window. “Always nice after a rain.” He stretched his arms over his head, lifting the 2nd Life Guards' crest on his sweat shirt a foot and a half. “Flowers look good. Specially the daisies.”

“They should, Albert.” Addie threw the day-old cigar butts into the garbage pail. Tretheway wouldn't let her throw them out the same night. “Particularly today.”

Tretheway stopped in mid-stretch. He had the sudden, spooky feeling that he didn't want Addie to go on.

“Ah…today?”

“Yes.”

“What's so special about today?”

“You know what kind of daisies they are?”

“Yes. Michaelmas daisies. What about it?”

“Today is Michaelmas Day.”

Tretheway shivered in the warm sunlight.

At about the time Tretheway shivered, O. Pitts discovered, to his surprise, that the front door of University Hall was unlocked. He entered and stood for a moment in the silence. Hearing nothing more alarming than the characteristic complaints and creaks of an old empty building, O. Pitts advanced down the spacious hall and paused again outside the heavy double doors of the chapel. The soft coo of a mourning dove startled him. He pushed quickly through the doors.

Once inside, he was comforted by the familiar surroundings. Warm oak panelling lined the walls. Tall, leaded Gothic windows, sculptured replicas of Baptist Saints glared down on polished wooden pews built to contain a repentant congregation. O. Pitts took pleasure in the orderly fashion in which the rows of seats marched toward the front of the chapel, stopping just before a small stage and a single large stained-glass window. Ordinarily, the stage held a lectern or, as his professors called it, a practice pulpit, but today he saw two persons there, one seated, the other lying down. O. Pitts blinked.

“Hello. Who's there, please?”

He squinted towards the stage. No one answered. O. Pitts stepped on something soft. He jumped back. Looking down, he saw several purple flowers, daisies with yellow centres, scattered over the floor. His gaze followed more daisies down the aisle and onto the stage. He inched his way toward the strange twosome.

“Do I know you?”

Still nobody answered.

When O. Pitts got close enough to stop squinting, he saw that the man sitting on a chair had a large sword in his grip. The blade was stained a deep red and appeared charred. For the first time, O. Pitts noticed the acrid smell of smoke. He switched his attention to the man flat on his back. It was obvious, even to O. Pitts, that the man was dead. Congealed blood from what looked like a stab wound in the stomach covered the area around the body. The shirt around the wound was badly stained.

“Who … who …” O. Pitts stammered.

Alderman Morgan Morgan rose and pointed the sword at Lucifer Taz, his fallen comrade. “Lucifer,” he whispered. “Lucifer …” Morgan sat down again.

O. Pitts' eyes lifted to the stained-glass window in the background. It depicted St. Michael, greatest of the Archangels, a glory round his head, in a suit of shining armour with his flaming sword raised to the heavens. The fallen Devil lay at his feet.

“Shit,” O. Pitts said.

At the very same time Tretheway was listening to Addie explain the legend of Michaelmas Day, O. Pitts pulled himself together enough to scream and run outside the chapel to call for help. When his index finger steadied down long enough to dial the operator, he called the police; then the Tretheway household. As luck would have it, Zulp was the first one to arrive in a Flying Squad car. He sized up the situation immediately.

“Alderman Morgan. You're under arrest.”

Morgan hadn't moved since O. Pitts had fled. He still sat clutching the stained sword and didn't appear to have heard Zulp.

“Did you hear me, Morgan?”

Morgan turned toward the voice. Questioning wrinkles lined his forehead. He didn't speak.

“Constable. Disarm that man,” Zulp ordered. “I don't think he's quite right.”

Morgan gave no resistance. He handed the sword over to a
policeman when asked and followed him obediently to a quiet corner of the chapel, where he sat for the next half hour—still without speaking—while the investigation proceeded.

As it worked out, Zulp was correct about Morgan not being quite right. Dr Nooner confirmed this. He arrived shortly after Tretheway and Jake. Wan Ho and a small army of investigators, fingerprint men, photographers and uniformed men who were no longer the novelty they had been on Father's Day, made up the group.