Good Year For Murder (9 page)

“Right there. That red mark.”

“It's just a red mark.”

“You've got to get it in the proper light.” Tretheway bent closer. “Damn. Can you see anything from your side, Jake?”

Jake leaned closer. “I think it's faded.”

“What's faded?” Wan Ho asked.

Tretheway looked again. “I think you're right. It's gone.”

“What's gone?” Wan Ho was close to shouting. “A cross,” Tretheway said. “A what?”

“So help me,” Jake said. “A perfect Maltese cross.”

Wan Ho looked again. “Well, it's not there now.” He stood up. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Tretheway replaced the tarp. “Jake saw it too.”

“That's right,” Jake confirmed.

“Now let me get this straight.” Wan Ho organized his thoughts. “You saw an impression of a cross. A Maltese cross. Actually indented in the skin of Miss Tommerup.”

“As plain as day,” Tretheway said.

“Well, what's it mean? A signal? A sign of some sort?” Wan Ho shook his head. “This is real Charlie Chan stuff.”

“Chief Zulp'll know what it means,” Jake said.

“Maybe we shouldn't mention it,” Tretheway said. “For the time being,” he added.

“It might be the best thing,” Jake agreed.

They looked at Wan Ho.

He shrugged. “I didn't even see it.”

That night, as Tretheway lay on his double-mattressed, double-springed bed listening to the wet rustling of the oak leaves outside his bedroom window, he wondered, just before he dropped off, whether it would rain for forty more days.

“All right, Tretheway. I don't want any more surprises.”

Tretheway was standing rigidly at attention in front of Chief Zulp's desk. He had been summoned there first thing. It was Monday morning again, seven days after the murder of Ingird Tommerup; seven long, arduous and disappointing days for the FYPD—especially for Zulp.

“Do you know how many people have called me every day? Including the week-end?” Zulp continued.

Tretheway shook his head needlessly. Zulp stretched out the stubby fingers of one hand and jabbed at them with the index finger of the other, enumerating the callers.

“The Mayor. Always the Mayor first. Then the judges that sit with him on the Police Commission. Then that damn
Expositor.
Twice a day. And today, I had my first call from Edgar Tommerup. The deceased's father. President of STELFY. Very important man. Influential.”

Tretheway nodded imperceptibly, still at attention.

“He was very angry. To put it mildly. Sore as a bloody bull. Threatened to use the STELFY Security Police to find the killer. His very own homicide squad. Can't do that. Illegal. Took me aback, though. He was so polite at the funeral.”

“Sir?”

“Eh?”

“You said something about surprises?”

“I did?”

“When you first called me in.” Zulp thought for a moment. “That's right,” he said finally. “Surprises. I don't want any more surprises, Tretheway. Like the twenty-fourth of May. Or Father's Day. Or this last one. St. Whatshisname's Day.”

“Swithin's.”

“Let's get down to business. What's all this scuttlebutt about you? Your predictions. Did you have prior knowledge of these events? A hunch? A lucky guess? As I understand it, you weren't as surprised as me. I suggest you clear this up. From the beginning. Sit down.”

Tretheway let his breath out and his chest down. Squatting gingerly, he squeezed between the arms of the office chair. “As you remember, St. Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day caught us all by surprise. And they were still just pranks. When April Fool's Day came along, it set a pattern. Once a month, holidays, politicians. But still a prank.”

“That's correct.”

“It was at this time that I said, more as conversation than anything else, that the next logical holiday for our man to strike was the twenty-fourth of May.”

“Why the twenty-fourth?”

“It seemed to fit the pattern. The flamboyance. Fireworks as the method. I made an educated guess. A lucky one.”

“What about Father's Day?”

“Also logic. It's the only holiday to speak of. Now don't forget,
it was still in the nature of a guessing game. No one had been killed.”

“But what about St. Swithin's Day? You're the one that called out half the bloody force. On your own initiative. And too late.”

“I know.” Tretheway looked worried. “I thought something would happen on Dominion Day. I'd forgotten about St. Swithin's Day until my sister Addie reminded me.”

“How did she know?”

“She didn't. There was a rhyme we memorized as kids about St. Swithin's Day. Addie recited it that morning. When I asked her about it, she went into the whole story.”

“Spare me that. But why St. Swithin's?” Zulp prompted impatiently. “No one's ever heard of it.”

“I'm not sure. Maybe the killer's trying to confuse us. Keep us off balance.”

Zulp smacked his fist loudly into the palm of his other hand. “Couldn't agree more!”

“Sir?” Tretheway was always amazed when his superior's train of thought leaped sideways like a rabbit escaping a predator.

“I've been doing some homework,” Zulp confided. “Come up with some facts. Startling.” He stared at the ceiling. Tretheway waited.

“When's the next one?” Zulp lowered his gaze. “Civic Holiday? Labour Day? Hallowe'en? Will there be another one? And who's the victim? Would you like to guess, Tretheway?”

“Not really, Sir.”

“I wish you would, Tretheway.”

Tretheway knew an order when he heard one. He cleared his throat. “Well, I'd say if anything does happen, it would be in August.”

“Go on,” Zulp encouraged.

“And, once again, the logical day would be Civic Holiday. Let's see.” Tretheway checked the Stanley Cup wall calendar showing the World Champion New York Rangers. “The first Monday in August. Two weeks today. August five.”

“Nonsense!”

“Sir?”

“And who's the victim?”

“That would definitely be a guess. Nobody knows.”

“I do.”

Tretheway stared at Zulp for a moment. “Sir, if you have any new information …”

“I have the same information you have, Tretheway,” Zulp interrupted.

“Nothing new?”

Zulp shook his head. “Think, Tretheway. Use the old noodle.” Zulp rubbed his hands together. “It won't wear out, you know.”

“I'm sorry, Sir. I don't understand.”

“Aha!” Zulp jumped up and started pacing excitedly. “Tretheway. Do you know what the twenty-fourth of August is?” Tretheway checked the calendar again. “It's a Saturday.”

“Nothing else?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Exactly.” Zulp sat down again. He leaned back in his chair, and basked in the warmth of withheld knowledge. But he couldn't contain himself. “The twenty-fourth of August is St. Bartholomew's Day!”

Tretheway tried to look as though he'd just heard something meaningful.

“Do you know who St. Bartholomew is?” Zulp asked.

Tretheway shook his head without changing his expression.

“An apostle,” Zulp explained. “Of royal birth. Spent a life of hardship as a missionary. Met a tragic end. An Armenian hung him up on a cross. Head downward and flayed him alive.”

“Flayed?”

“Skinned.” Zulp rummaged in his desk drawer, ostensibly looking for a toothpick, but really to refresh his memory with the notes he had made at the library while poring over an obscure book entitled
High Days the World Over.
He found both. “St. Bartholomew had a special power over thunderstorms. Also cured people of rare diseases. Like catalepsy.” Zulp fenced with a stubborn piece of back bacon wedged between two molars. “But here's the zinger, Tretheway. In the olden days, in some churches, they'd give knives to the congregation to mark St. Bartholomew's Day. Because of the flaying. Matter of fact, he appears with a knife in more than one famous painting.” Zulp narrowed his eyes at Tretheway. “Now doesn't that give you any ideas?”

“Ah, not right away.”

“Then how about”—Zulp cleared his throat—'St. Bartholomew/Brings the cold dew.' “

Zulp kept staring at Tretheway. Tretheway shook his head.

“Who are the Aldermen in ward three? Your ward.” Zulp asked.

“Ah…Ammerman and Gum.”

“Gum?”

Zulp smiled knowingly. “And what's his first name?”

“Bartholomew.”

“Exactly.” Zulp rose from his chair. He felt that his next statement was much too important to be made from a sitting position. “On August the twenty-fourth, early in the morning when the dew lies on the grass, the politician Bartholomew Gum will be stabbed to death. Or maybe flayed.”

After an awkward pause, Tretheway spoke. “I don't believe it.”

“Neither did I at first,” Zulp said. “But logic and reason persisted. Discipline in thought, Tretheway.”

“There's just one thing, though.”

“Hm?”

“Well, to simplify matters, St. Swithin killed Vikings. And on St. Swithin's Day, a Viking was killed. That's Miss Tommerup.”

“So?” An edge of suspicion crept into Zulp's voice.

Tretheway attempted to twist into a more comfortable position. The chair twisted with him. “You're saying that on St. Bartholomew's Day, someone called Bartholomew will be killed. With a knife. Now to follow the pattern, shouldn't someone who Bartholomew killed in legend be murdered?”

“What do you mean?”

Tretheway bit his thin lips and plowed on. “St. Swithin killed Vikings. Who did St. Bartholomew kill?”

“I told you what he did, dammit! He did things with lightning. Cured sick people. He had a knife.”

“But who did he kill?”

Zulp didn't answer.

“I mean,” Tretheway persisted, “he didn't kill anyone called Bartholomew, did he?”

Zulp placed his beefy, clenched fists on his desk blotter and leaned toward Tretheway. His voice was controlled. “If you can't follow a simple, straightforward line of reasoning, it's just as well your duties are confined to the Traffic Department.”

Tretheway, realizing the discussion was over, jumped to his feet. The chair came with him.

“I repeat, Tretheway. Your duties are confined to the Traffic Department.”

Tretheway pushed the chair off his backside and saluted.

In July, 1669, Sieur de LaSalle set sail from Ville-Marie (Montreal) in search of the Ohio River in order “not to leave to another the honour of finding the way to the Southern Sea and thereby the route to China.”
Two
months later, he entered Fort York Harbour. The expedition anchored off the North Shore across the bay from the future site of Fort York. A small boat ferried a landing party to shore where LaSalle himself jumped out and became the first white man to set foot on the sandy beach.

In 1922, the Fort York Historical Society fastened to a large, immovable, but convenient boulder resting on a bluff above the historic landing a bronze plaque that briefly described the French explorer's feat. The city purchased the surrounding five acres and named it, appropriately, LaSalle Park.

Every Civic Holiday, the City of Fort York threw a mammoth picnic at the park for all city employees, including policemen, firemen and local politicians. Everyone would remember the 1940 Civic Holiday.

“Don't crush the sandwiches, Albert,” Addie said.

“Never mind me,” Tretheway said, clutching the many cumbersome bundles of food Addie had carefully prepared for the picnic. “Make sure he doesn't drop the beer.” He jerked his head back toward Jake, who was struggling and clinking with the day's supply of Molsons.

“Are you all right, Jake?” Addie asked.

Jake smiled stoically. The ice that surrounded the beer he was carrying melted rapidly under the hot sun. It ran out through the small holes in the old dented wash tub, soaked his white shorts and mixed with the perspiration on his thin bony legs. “Just fine, Addie.”

Even in his discomfort, Jake admired the way Addie easily carried the cutlery, an umbrella, several books and magazines, her knitting and a heavy blanket, and still managed to look fresh. She wore a flowered summer dress with a matching floppy-brimmed
picture hat. Controller MacCulla rounded out their party. He was there partly by choice; partly because the Master Plan had been re-invoked for the Civic Holiday. But as Chief Zulp had confidently announced on the evening before the holiday, “Stay on your toes, men. But don't worry. Tomorrow will only be a rehearsal for St. Bartholomew's Day.”

Tretheway's party found an empty table about fifty feet from LaSalle's rock. For the next fifteen minutes, they settled in comfortably for the holiday. Addie cleaned the table and covered it with the heavy blanket. The knives, forks, glasses and paper plates were arranged into four place settings. Jake stored the beer under the table along with Addie's umbrella and reading matter. Addie placed her hat on the table over her knitting while Tretheway threw his navy blue blazer on top of both.

“Be careful, Albert,” Addie said.

Tretheway grunted, but folded his coat neatly and placed it on the bench beside him with the colourful, 2nd Life Guards' crest in plain sight. Jake kicked off his wet tennis shoes while MacCulla uncharacteristically loosened his tie and undid the top button of his vest. Addie handed out cold bottled beer to Tretheway and Jake, poured her own in a glass and gave MacCulla his first lemonade of the day. They sat back, finally—Tretheway on one side of the table, Addie, Mac and Jake on the other—to begin the day's enjoyment.

From under their stand of mature red maples, they had a flattering view of Fort York. Two miles across the sail-studded blue water of the harbour, the late morning sun dramatically picked out the white puffballs of train smoke and, at the same time, softened the man-made skyline of steel-making equipment. In back of the industrial area came office buildings and then residences, marching in orderly fashion to the limestone ridge of Fort York Mountain. And sprinkled generously throughout the picture were green, green trees.