A Striking Death (14 page)

forty-two

Drumm had the chilli at the School District’s cafeteria. Very good it was, too. He was able to sit at a quiet table out in the atrium and relax. Surrounded by potted plants and bathed in soft light from the glass ceiling overhead, he’d enjoyed his meal while people watching and thinking about Lori Singh. He was amused by Lori’s concern. It was understandable, given what had happened, but he knew how to look after himself. His amusement faded as he thought about Emily and the conversation he would have with her later. He pushed those thoughts away.

And now he was arriving at the residence of one William Donnelly, retired principal. Donnelly lived in a seniors’ retirement community located on the outskirts of York. It was one of those condominium developments where the owners had to agree to strict conditions. No trucks on the driveway, no signs and you couldn’t even plant a bush without approval. In return the residents had their snow removed, grass cut and they had the use of an attached golf course and recreation centre. For this they had to pay a large monthly maintenance fee. It wouldn’t have been worth it to him but it was a popular place to live with retirees, that was for sure.

Donnelly turned out to be a man in with thin grey hair and a white neatly-trimmed beard. He was tanned and fit-looking and was dressed in black slacks and a grey sweater over a purple dress shirt. He looked poised and professional.

“I remember Arthur well, Detective Sergeant. I was shocked to hear he was killed.” The two men were sitting in Donnelly’s living room. “How’s the investigation going?”

Drumm said, “I can’t say, sir.”
And I don’t think you’d be too impressed if I said we’re nowhere at the moment.
“Right now we’re looking into his background, talking to as many people as we can.”

“I’ll be glad to help. What do you want to know?”

“You were principal of Addison Road when Billinger taught there, right?”

“Yes, I was. He and I arrived at Addison the same year but he retired one year earlier than I did.”

Drumm looked at his piece of paper. “So you and he transferred there in 2002, is that right?”

“September, 2002, yes. I got to know him fairly well. We’re the same age, roughly.”

Drumm leaned back in his chair. “What kind of man was he?”

“He was quiet. He came and went and did his job and a lot of people wouldn’t ever notice him. I never had any trouble with Art.”

“A competent teacher, then?”

“Oh, very competent. Professional. Art was an FSL teacher and good at it. That’s rare, at least it was then. Good FSL teachers were hard to find. I put him in intermediate because he could handle the older kids. I had very few discipline problems to deal with from Art’s classes.”

Drumm leaned forward. “You knew he was gay?”

“Sure I did.”

“Did you ever talk to him about it?”

“About being gay?” Donnelly was surprised. “Of course not. First of all, I just wouldn’t. His sexual orientation was none of my business. Second, he could have filed a human rights complaint if I had.”

“Did you like him?”

“Yes, I did. I didn’t know him well, you understand. Not to go out with, or anything like that. But we’d chat in the halls and at staff parties sometimes. He was a good guy, and smart, and being almost the same age, we had a number of things in common.”

“How about the rest of the staff? How did they feel about him?”

Donnelly raised his eyebrows. “About his being gay? I have no idea. About Mr. Billinger, the teacher? I imagine they thought as I did, that he was good at his job.”

Drumm asked, “Who knew him the best, do you remember?”

Donnelly thought for a few seconds. “That would be Cameron, I think, Cameron Garmand. He was an intermediate teacher. Art did his French. They got along pretty well. He’s the one I would talk to.”

“We already have. He’s the one who found the body. Anyone else?”

“Poor Cameron.” Donnelly thought some more. “No one else comes to mind.”

Drumm pursed his lips. He wasn’t getting anywhere and he was becoming frustrated. “Did any of your staff dislike him? Argue with him? Any of the teachers? Or the janitor? Any parents ever come to you complaining about him?”

Donnelly said, “I can’t remember anything like that.” He put a finger up. “But it was many years ago. I’ll think about it tonight and let you know if I come up with anything.”

“Fair enough. What about the students? How did he get along with them?”

Donnelly said, “Same thing. He had remarkably few run-ins with students. He ran a tight ship in his classroom. He was fair but strict. As far as I remember, the kids at least respected him. They might not have liked him, but they at least paid attention to him.”

“And you had no complaints from teachers or students about him? That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

Donnelly shook his head. “I had no complaints about Cameron either. You have to understand, Detective Sergeant, these older teachers knew how to survive. They’d been at it for decades, knew how to keep the parents happy, how to keep the kids happy, how to keep the principal happy.” He smiled. “That’s the recipe for success.”

Drumm knew that this was true, even though he hadn’t been able to do it himself. “It doesn’t sound like we’ll find anyone from Addison Road who hated him enough to kill him. You’ve been helpful. Thanks for your time, sir.”

Perhaps Donnelly could sense Drumm’s discouragement because he said, “If there was anyone I could think of who held a grudge against Art, I would let you know, Detective Sergeant. But I’ll keep considering it. Maybe I’ll remember something. It was a long time ago.”

Drumm stood up. “One last thing. Do you know why he transferred to Addison Road?”

Donnelly thought for a few moments. “No. If I ever knew, I’ve forgotten.”

“So you couldn’t say whether he transferred in voluntarily or whether the School District did an administrative transfer?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

Drumm thanked Donnelly for his time and walked slowly out to his car. That was a waste of time, he thought.

forty-three

Detective Richard McDonald was relaxing at Celeste Chappell’s home. He was sitting on her couch with his feet up, allowing her to spoil him. He had a bottle of beer on the table beside him and he was watching wrestling on her large television. Celeste was in the kitchen; he could hear her bustling around, presumably laying the table in preparation for the Chinese food she had ordered.

Strictly speaking he shouldn’t be drinking alcohol, but it had been a long, boring day and he had allowed Celeste to persuade him. He deserved it.

Dutifully following Celeste around all afternoon, he had seen exactly nothing. There had been no white van anywhere near her. Lunch at Raymond’s had been tasty but dull, as he waited for Celeste. He hoped he never had an assignment again where he watched two women talk non-stop for an hour and a half. Nobody in a blue hoodie had shown up, no one suspicious at all. There hadn’t been any young men of any description paying attention to her at the restaurant. Just him, and he had quickly tired of watching her.

It was the same at the food bank. Parked outside the building, he had kept the entrance under observation. Celeste was working in the back, he could see her through the window, which meant that anyone else could too, but nobody had paid any attention to her at all. She’d done her two hour shift while he grew bunions outside watching and waiting.

And then they’d come home. Soon it would be dark outside and he would have to change locations. The doorbell rang. First, Chinese food.

forty-four

Lori was at her desk in the station. She was actually using two desks, McDonald’s as well as hers, because she had so much spread out that she needed the room. She had the crime scene photos from Billinger’s and Levine’s murders arranged, financial and telephone records, witness statements, her own notes, the lab and autopsy reports and a long list of names and phone numbers that they should contact. These were the people who had called in “tips”. Tips almost always turned out to be completely useless but they all had to be followed up. And without McDonald around, getting through the list would be a challenge.

The truth was they needed more help. But instead of assigning extra officers to the two murders, Staff Inspector Chappell had temporarily reassigned Detective Dick. Lori shook her head. It was crazy, that’s what it was, but Drumm just accepted it. She supposed a large part of the reason was office politics and that was not something she wanted to get involved in. She turned her attention back to the accumulation of information in front of her. Arrange it as she would, the mass of papers and photos wasn’t telling her anything.

She sighed and picked up the phone. Might as well call a couple of the tipsters. Some noise behind her distracted her and she twisted in her chair to see a couple of uniformed officers, each pushing a whiteboard into the Violent Crimes Unit.

“Hallelujah!” she said. “Just leave them right there.” She had been after Drumm for months to get whiteboards for the unit. She thought it was ridiculous that they had to make do without, shuffling paper around constantly and pinning things up on bulletin boards. The Violent Crimes Unit was getting busier all the time as the more serious problems afflicting Toronto migrated north. Robberies, drive-by shootings, rapes and other assaults were becoming more and more common. It appeared that Drumm had finally got the necessary approval.

The whiteboards were reversible, as well as being wheeled, making them doubly useful. One of the uniforms returned and threw her a small package.

“Almost forgot these,” he said. The package turned out to be markers, magnets and erasers.

Lori had learned a long time ago that it was easier to get forgiveness than receive permission, so she set to work immediately. One side of each whiteboard was devoted to Arthur Billinger and Daniel Levine. She was beginning work on setting up a third side as an overall summary of all the violent crimes currently under investigation when her cellphone rang.

“Detective Singh, this is Dean. Dean Barber.”

It took her a few seconds to remember who Dean Barber was. “Oh, yes. The bartender.”

“You asked me to call Craig and get back to you. Turns out Craig popped in tonight to talk to Guido. Um, Guido’s the manager.”

“I know who Guido is. What have you got to tell me?”

“I showed Craig the two photographs, you know, of the two men who were murdered. He recognized them. And then I asked him if he’d ever seen anyone watching them, like you asked me. And he said he had.” Dean sounded pleased with himself.

Lori was suddenly alert. “What! Is he still there?”

“No, he’s gone already. I couldn’t stop him. It’s Friday night, he always goes out drinking Fridays. He just stopped in because Guido owed him some wages.”

That was disappointing, but Lori was still excited. “You did well, Dean, thank you so much. Give me Craig’s full name, please, and his address and cell number.”

The bartender said, “He has no cellphone. Can’t afford one, he says. But he can drink every weekend. Go figure. Anyway, his name is Craig Buleman and he lives on Caswell Street. I don’t know the exact address, sorry, and I have to get back to work. Break’s over.”

Lori thanked him and then asked, “Do you know where he’s drinking tonight? And with whom?”

“He’s usually by himself. And it could be any of a hundred bars. He moves around a lot, tries his luck.” She could almost hear him grinning. “He strikes out a lot, too. Gotta go!”

Lori put her phone down on her desk. A lead, finally, and they couldn’t follow up on it until tomorrow. It was frustrating. She pondered whether to try getting a description of Craig Buleman and looking for him at all of York’s bars and nightclubs, and then she realized it was a ridiculous idea.

Lori was able to discover that Craig Buleman lived at 88 Caswell Street, Apt. 1203. The phone at that address rang and rang; he didn’t even have an answering machine.

Her cellphone buzzed again. It was Drumm.

“Lori. Where are you?”

“I’m at my desk, admiring our two new whiteboards. Good on you for getting those for us.”

“It was Chappell’s doing, not mine. How did you get on with Garmand?”

Lori said, “In a minute. Nick, we might have a breakthrough.” She told him about her conversation with Dean Barber, and her inability to reach Craig Buleman.

She could hear Drumm exhale explosively. “Damn! Every young person in York has a cellphone except the one we want to talk to.” He paused. “Can’t be helped, can it? We’ll put a uniform on his apartment building. He’ll need a photo of this guy. What’s his name again? Buleman? When he comes back from his night on the town, we’ll bring him in to get his story and a sketch done.”

Lori told him about her conversation with Garmand. Drumm wasn’t surprised at the lack of anything concrete.

“It was the same with Billinger’s last principal - Donnelly’s the name. I got nowhere with him. I mean, he was cooperative, it’s just he didn’t know anything. Arthur Billinger was a wonderful guy, everyone liked him, he was a great teacher, blah, blah, blah. It’s too good to be true. There had to be something about him! Or why was his head smashed in like that?”

Lori’s stomach was rumbling. “Nick, where are you?”

“On my driveway. I just got home. I was going to eat some dinner and relax for a few hours.”

He sounded a little strange. And she was disappointed. She had been hoping they might eat together. Carefully, she said, “Is everything okay? You sound a little off.”

“No, I’m good. 5.5 was my latest reading.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. She wondered what he might be thinking, sitting in his car in the dark. “Emily’s here, that’s all.”

Now she was sorry she had asked. There was another awkward silence. “I should go. I want to pop down to Larry’s and pick up some dinner and then follow up on some of these tips.”

“Lori, just leave all that stuff for tonight. Go home and have some proper food. Nothing there is urgent. You know that.”

She did know that but she sensed that being busy would be better for her just now. “We’ll see.”

“Let me know if anything comes up.” And he hung up.

Lori sighed heavily and went to satisfy her hunger.