There was an Old Woman (7 page)

Cath Bracken drives from work to visit McStu at his house. Meanwhile, McStu is out in his car driving to see Catherine Bracken at her house in Papertown. What meaning could I read into these facts? They know one another well. That went without much thinking. They could practically read one another's minds, or they tried to. They didn't make detailed arrangements, kept things casual. His place, her place, it was all the same to them.

On his way out of the Di, Bill Palmer of the
Beacon
stopped at my table. He was a middle-sized, shaggy man, who looked as though he kept all of his wardrobe in a tangle for the cat to make a nest in on the floor of his single room. He was wearing an overnight beard. I indicated the empty space in the booth and he slid into it. I didn't say anything and won points for it. I waved to the waitress who brought a fresh cup of coffee and set it down
quietly in front of Bill. He placed a paper napkin under the cup, not to sop up spillage but to deaden the noise of moving crockery. The waitress gave me a refill, part of the Di's bottomless coffee policy. Up the street, at the Venus Art Club, they had a topless policy. What was the language coming to?

“That feels better,” Bill said, replacing his cup and lighting a Player's. “It always takes three cups. Funny, eh?” I nodded, just to keep the racket down. He noticed and added, “I'm okay now. I've climbed over the hump. I'm restored to the human race. How are you, human?”

“Middlin',” I said, for no good reason.

“Barney and I got in a poker game last night and we ended up driving to Buffalo for cigarettes for some stupid reason. And me with a column to finish.” We let a few dozen angels fly by.

“What do you know about the people who do the news over at the TV station?” I asked. He tilted his head, thankful I wasn't probing his misspent evening any further.

“There are about six of them. Most double as readers on camera, but they swat their own stuff together. Orv Wishart is the senior man. Remember, he used to do the weather? Now he just keeps the house in order. I don't know how they do anything; they don't have room to move in their shop. If they were in a union, the union would grieve on grounds of subnormal working conditions. Frank Hawkins is a bit of a pain: always whining. The sports guy, Larry Singh, knows his stuff. I like Cath.
She's got a good head on her shoulders. Nice head, nice shoulders.”

“I agree. What's her story?”

“You're too late, Benny. McKenzie Stewart got there first.”

“Who the hell is he?”

“I thought you read detective stories?”

“I do. What's that got to do with it?”

“Stewart's the creator of Dudley Dickens. You know, the sleuth who is supposed to live in Hamilton. Dud's a black, ex-steel company security guard. Stewart's written half a dozen books:
Dudley Earnest
is the best known. Haven't you read him? He's like a Canadian Walter Mosley. Or aren't you an Easy Rawlins fan either?”

“Sure, I like his stuff, but Stewart's new to me. I'm always discovering new people and old ones I should have read years ago. When I get through the last part of
War and Peace,
I'm going to blitz all the mysteries I've been neglecting.”

“Start with
Blood on the Floor.
That's a good one.”

“I will, I will. What else does he do?” Doing my research in the Di has always been the best part of my job. And usually my informants bought their own coffee.

“He teaches up at Secord. Finds time to write magazine articles in
Harper's
and
The Atlantic.
He used to review crime novels in
The Toronto Star,
but he gave it up.”

“Making too many enemies, I bet.”

“Could be. I don't think he's rich by any means, but he's not on the dole either. Maybe he's got the Canada Council and all the other arts councils funding his activities. Who knows?”

“Since when have mysteries counted as fundable art, Bill? Next you'll be telling me they give grants to pet barbers.”

“Listen, Benny, I know a reformed bank robber who hasn't hit a steel box since he discovered the Canada Council and the word processor.”

“Bill, I've lived too long. I'm out of my time. What's happening to the world?”

“Read my column in tomorrow's paper. Tell you all about it. If I live to finish it, Benny. Thanks for the company. Here, let me get your coffee,” he said scooping up my check. “See you later.”

There was a cold wind blowing up St. Andrew Street when I came out of the Di. I let it decide my next move. By turning my back to it, I let myself be blown along towards the corner at Queen Street. Once in the lee of the bank, I was able to make decisions again for myself. I went into the bookstore across the street from the
Beacon.

“Benny! It's a long time since I've seen you!” It was Susan Torres, who ran the place. It was her reminders of my long absences that kept me away, I think. She always made me feel guilty I wasn't reading four or five books a week.

“I got a message that you had the book I ordered,” I said, using this gambit as a club to beat her back. She
reached under the counter and opened a bag with my name on it, after blowing the dust off rather theatrically. It was a feminist book I'd heard Anna talking about; so I'd ordered it. Susan looked at me suspiciously, as though my sudden interest contaminated the whole movement. She rang up the sale and I handed her my plastic.

“Do you have any of McKenzie Stewart's crime novels?” I asked as an afterthought.

“Are you kidding? McStu is never out of stock in this store. He's a dear, even if he does rearrange the shelves near his books when he comes in. We're going to have a big signing for him when his next one comes out.”

“When's that?”

“Here's your personal invitation,” she said, handing me an orange piece of paper with a date that was less than two weeks away. “We'd hoped to have the book sooner, but I guess the printers were held up.”

“What have you got of his that I would like?”

“Let's see, let's see, let's see.” She was sucking or chewing on the temple of her half-moon glasses, which hung around her neck on a black cord. After a moment, she pulled two paperbacks from the shelf. “He's really very naughty, you know. I straightened these shelves on Saturday. Now look at them! All of his covers are showing and only the spines of his competitors' books. Poor Kit Small and Heather Sigworth. And they have such nice covers too!” As a sample she showed me a cover with a picture of a woman in a nightgown dangling by the neck from a curtain rope. “Benny, I think you might like
these.” I looked at the titles:
Dead Letter,
which had a bloody hand peeking out of an envelope, and
Dudley Earnest,
which showed a pair of scissors sticking out of a mass of blonde hair tied up in a ribbon. I picked up
Blood on the Floor
as well. “I think you'll love these, Benny. If you do, I've got more.”

“You sound like you know him quite well. What's he like?”

“Oh, he's a real charmer, Benny. Not that he tries to be. He's as little aware of his effect on one as a good dinner. When he tries to turn on the charm, it's really quite funny. He's shy too: he'd never dream of asking to have his books put in the window, but it gives him great pleasure to see them there. I think you'd like him. You've probably seen him around town.”

“He doesn't sit at the counter in Diana Sweets, does he? Scribbling?”

“No. That's Malcolm Binny. He's another story.”

“I call him the Mad Scribbler.”

“Bit of an understatement, if you ask me,” she muttered, smiling, with her glasses dangling from the corner of her mouth. “No, McStu looks like a school teacher: tweeds and corduroys, you know. He never wears a winter coat, but has a long woollen scarf that he can't be separated from.”

“Is he the guy I've seen with Catherine Bracken?” 1 tried this on just to see if it would fit.

“She's really quite bright, you know. Not just another pretty face. I think they're well suited. I hear that
McStu's a wonderful cook. That wife of his was never at home long enough to cook a meal. But that's talking out of school.”

Armed with my introduction to the work of McKenzie Stewart, I wandered towards my office by way of the farmers' market. What it was about a few dusty baskets of beets and apples, a few links of smoked sausages and blocks of Cheddar cheese, I'll never know, but they gave me a feeling that the ozone layer isn't as cracked as it's reputed to be, that the earth still has a corner or two where the sod can't be traced back to the Love Canal. Maybe I'm living in a fool's paradise, but that's the feeling the market gives me.

On my way up James Street, I picked up a coffee-togo at the Crystal, and carried it upstairs to the familiar sound of the running toilet mingled with that of my telephone. Naturally, the phone stopped ringing as I was in the act of lifting the receiver. Save me from triflers.

I opened
Dead Letter
and the rest of the morning vanished into the streets of Stewart's crime-ridden city, where the streets weren't so much mean as they were ill-tempered. There wasn't a body behind every garbage can, but he did enjoy having Dud Dickens hit over the head regularly. I wondered whether the beautiful police reporter was Cath Bracken in a clever disguise. The fact that she kept her clothes on throughout the novel while dozens of others were losing theirs supported my theory. Dud Dickens was okay: no Sam Spade, but no slouch either. He made a few deductions that could have brought
a smile to the face of Sherlock Holmes. The ending caught me completely off guard. I turned the pages back to see if the crucial clue was where it was supposed to be. It was, but deftly placed where it would not scream out at the reader. It didn't scream out at me at least. I put the book down with a feeling that I knew something of the life in the underworld of Hamilton, Ontario. And I felt that I knew the writer and his girl-friend better too. It helps to get inside the head of a client or even a near client. I now knew that the girl-friend loved fast cars and had no family and that the writer counted his money and had trouble with his drinking. Now, you couldn't really call that taking the morning off, could you? I left the question dangling, like Susan Torres's glasses, while I opened the second of his books.

NINE

Feeling guilty about taking off time to read a novel, I went downstairs and bought a paper. The
Beacon
always brings me down to earth. The first thing I saw was that the inquest into the death of Lizzy Oldridge had concluded. Those things are usually over in a day and forgotten in two, but Lizzy's was different. There had been two days of testimony and the verdict was announced after the weekend. Barney Reynolds had written it up, although I don't remember seeing him in the courtroom while I was there. Barney was the true pro. He could make me believe he was there listening to every word, even when he wasn't. He had an eye for salient details. He knew how to arrest the attention of a TV-distracted reader. Some of his conclusions packed a wallop. It came as a surprise to me that Lizzy had more than eighty thousand dollars in term deposits in her safety deposit box at the Upper Canadian Bank. That made a fair contrast with the less than ten dollars in her savings account. Another stunner was the fact that Liz had left her estate to the Guild of the Venerable Bede, the outfit that had been founded by Thurleigh Ramsden, who also just happened to be the sole executor of her will. The fact that didn't surprise me was that it
was unlikely that any criminal charges would be laid following the jury's verdict that the woman died of emaciation, dehydration and malnutrition primarily induced by her despondency over losing control over her financial affairs. There was no mention in the actual verdict of Thurleigh Ramsden. I looked through the two columns and couldn't find words that directly linked Ramsden to the cause of death. Was I wrong to think he should be? Maybe coroner's courts aren't empowered to be that subtle. Anyway that wasn't any of my business, was it? I had a job, and if I was on it, I wouldn't be sitting around on my butt speculating about something that concerned only Kogan, of all people. Kogan, who made my life a misery of running water and unemptied waste baskets.

The other item in the paper concerned Clarence Temperley:

Niagara Regional Police are increasing their efforts to contact the manager of the Upper Canadian Bank. Clarence Temperley, 49, of Lisgar Street, failed to appear as a witness in the just-concluded inquest into the death of Elizabeth Oldridge, 78, of Brogan Street. “While he hasn't been missing long enough to be considered a ‘missing person,'” Detective-Sergeant Chris Savas told the
Beacon,
“his absence at this time is causing some anxiety and we are looking into it.” Temperley has been manager of the bank since 1969.

The article went on to describe his wife and family of three boys who were joined by neighbours in searching the course of the Eleven Mile Creek above its junction with the Old Canal.

When it was getting on towards one-thirty, I went around the back of the office to see if the Olds was up to a run back to Papertown. It was and when we got there, McStu's car was still parked outside Cath Bracken's house. In daylight, I could see that the place had the scale of a cottage from the last century. It reminded me of a picture I'd seen in the library of the house in St. Helena, where Napoleon spent his last days. It was compact, without the horizontal spread of suburban bungalows of the 1950s. There were no large picture windows to help me in my research. There were no lights or any signs of movement through the two windows facing the veranda.

I pushed in the car lighter while I waited and sucked on a Halls cough drop. I did this a few times as though I really thought I was going to like cough drops better than cigarettes.

After about forty-five minutes, I turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb. What had I accomplished? I wondered as I pointed the Olds back to town. What does surveillance ever accomplish? It looks good in a report, but there is rarely much that tells you about the characters you are following. In the old days when I used to do a lot of divorce work, you weren't interested in character as such, just the movements: from home of subject to the Black Duck Motel and back again.
It was crude but it told enough for a judge to make up his mind.