Barrington Street Blues (14 page)

“Yes, it is. Downstairs, with the curtains closed.”

“Slides?” Burke asked.

“Yeah, my father took a whole pile of our photos, ones when the kids were little, and had them made into slides. He was a real slide buff. Had the projector, the screen, all the gear. This was before videos.”

“That much I know.”

“So I have all that stuff now. Every once in a while they demand a slide show and they make me lug all this antique equipment —”

“Retro, Dad,” Tom offered. “I'll go set it up. Come on, Klumpf.” Tommy knew he could always get a rise out of his sister by calling her Fräulein Klumpenkopf, for the unmanageable clumps of hair that adorned her head after a night of twisting her hair while she slept.

“Don't call me Klumpf! I'm coming with you.” “We're in for it now. Call us when you've got it going.”

They had it going twenty minutes later, and we all got seated in the family room, facing the enormous white screen. My daughter was at the controls. “Ready?”

“Roll it.”

“Jazes! Is that you, Monty? How old were you when you fathered this child? You don't look any more than seventeen.”

I thought for a minute it was Tommy I was looking at, but it was me, years ago, with a humongous smile on my face. Tommy was the bundle in my arms. All you could see of him was blue blankets and a little fist.

“Oh, I was a good ten years older than that. I started aging fast once this little bugger came into my life.”

Normie clicked the button, and we were looking at a family shot. I was in an armchair leaning over a golden-haired toddler while he took baby steps towards the camera, a proud grin on his little face. Maura was behind the chair, with her arms around my neck, her face resting against mine. Burke gazed at us in silence. This was followed by me, naked from the waist up, standing in the bathroom with a razor in my hand.

“A picture of you shaving?”

“Yeah, well, she was making fun of me. When we had Tommy, I was worried. His skin was so soft and delicate I was afraid that when I kissed him or put my face against him, I would hurt him, so I got into this habit of shaving twice a day. New father, what did I know? Maura, coming from a big family, thought it was hilarious.”

“Really?” Tommy asked.

“Did I have soft skin too, Daddy?”

“You? I had to shave hourly for you, Normie.”

“I thought so. Let's call Mummy!”

I reached over and dialled her number.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Oh.”

“Settle down, MacNeil. Didn't your mother ever teach you to play it cool when a guy calls?”

“I'll try to control myself.”

“Good. What are you up to? I was just looking at a very lovely picture of you.”

“Let me guess. You're about to ask me what I'm wearing, and then you're going to tell me that you have nothing on and —”

“You obviously have me confused with one of the lower life forms that make up your circle of admirers today, but no. This is the father of your children speaking and we are all sitting here watching slides of the kids as babies.”

“We haven't even got to me yet!” Normie complained. “It's all Tom!”

“So I thought maybe you'd like to join us.”

“Uh, well, I can't.”

“Other plans, have you? Maybe I should have asked what you're wearing after all.”

“I'm sitting here wrapped up in cellophane, barely held together with duct tape, and a big pink bow on top, just waiting for someone to come in and claim the prize.”

“I take it that if I show up, all I'll get is the consolation prize.”

“Yeah. For you, I'll put on a baby-poop yellow velour track suit.”

“So I'm hearing a
no
.”

“Your intellectual growth astounds me.”

“Brennan's here too.”

“And he's been
listening to this conversation
?”

“No, until you raised your voice to an operatic shriek, he could only hear me. Now everybody can hear you.”

“Tell the kids I'm sorry, and I'd love to watch the slides another night.”

“I am in possession of the slides.”

“So you're part of the deal. Well, I'll just have to grit my teeth and bear it.”

“I'm looking forward to it too. Good night, my love.”

Brennan looked at me with his eyebrow raised.

“I've got her eating out of my hand,” I told him. “Next slide there, Normie.”

She clicked through the slides at warp speed until we got to her, then resumed a more leisurely pace and lingered over every image of her babyhood. The kids drifted away when the show was over.

“You and herself looked happy enough in the early days,” Burke remarked.

“We were.”

“So, tell me. Not in excruciating detail, but what in the hell went wrong?”

I sighed and put down my beer. “Where to begin? MacNeil and I had planned everything out. We would not let work rule our lives, we would devote our time to each other and to the six children we intended to have. We spent a year in London, where she got her master's degree in law and I worked in a storefront legal clinic in the city's east end. We had the time of our lives. We came back, and I joined Legal Aid; she was teaching at the law school. We had Tommy Douglas. We were ecstatic. A few years of Legal Aid work and I was starting to burn out, or so I thought. Sometimes I had two trials in a day, plus arraignments, sentencings, client appointments, on and on. Rowan Stratton, after my brother married his daughter — well, you know Stephen and Janet — Rowan began his campaign to lure me into private practice. He wanted me for civil trials but offered to let me take on criminal clients as well because he knew I wouldn't move otherwise. You know how popular that has been in the firm. Anyway, I left Legal Aid, a move I question to this day. I was on the billable hours treadmill and ended up working evenings, weekends, and holidays. We had two children, and I hardly ever saw them. The tension between me and MacNeil grew in inverse proportion to the amount of time I was able to enjoy at home.

“We spent a year looking forward to a vacation in New Brunswick, to get ourselves back on track as a family. We had rented a cottage and we lived for the day we could get out of town and have three whole weeks with the kids on the beach. It ended up I had to work; had to fly to Toronto at the insistence of a client. That was it for Maura. Either I cared more for work than I did for her and the
children — not true — or I was a pathetic lackey who didn't have the balls to tell the firm to stuff it. I like to think that wasn't true, either. I cut down my hours, with a corresponding reduction in pay, so I could spend time with my family. Who by then were living without me in my beloved house on Dresden Row. But at least when it was my week for the kids I had the time for them, time I have jealously guarded to this day.”

“So why couldn't you work it out, once you'd cut back on your hours?”

“Because by that time, which is par for the course in these things, we had both done things that we are still throwing in each other's faces to this day. Everything turns into a shitstorm. Everything. It all came to a head when I went away for a weekend and came back to find she'd taken all my belongings from the house and put them in storage.”

“She what?”

“After that, I cleaned out our joint savings account.”

“You what?”

“We had a special high-interest account in both our names, and after she gave me the boot, I cleaned it out.”

“That doesn't sound like you, Collins.”

“It's not as bad as it seems. It all started when I went away for a weekend. I had tickets for some Expos games in Montreal. This was a long-planned getaway for me, Ed Johnson, and a couple of other guys. But coming on the heels of the missed summer vacation, it was not a popular move. Which I can understand. And she thought that, with Ed along, it would turn into a weekend of boozing and going to strip joints and Christ knows what else.”

“And did it?”

“No. We went to the games, we did some bar-hopping. It was all quite civilized. But when I got home there was nobody there. All my things were gone. All I saw was an envelope saying Collins. That's all she wrote, as they say. And in it was a key to a storage warehouse in Dartmouth. She had kicked me out. Of my own house.”

“The family home.”

“You're getting wild all over again.”

“So would you. And don't bother to deny it; I know you too well.
Anyway, it's a good thing she made herself scarce. She'd taken the kids to Cape Breton for the week. I rented a hotel room and went house-hunting the next day. The day after that, I found this place. Instead of getting a mortgage, which she would have been required to sign, I went for the savings account. That and some investments I had on my own were enough to pay for the house. By the time she showed her face in town again, I was the owner of a new house, and the money was gone.”

“Mother of Christ!”

“The thing about this bank account was that it was meant for the children's education.”

“This is getting worse by the minute.”

“Not really. It just sounds it. The way my wife grew up, money was a scarce commodity, never to be squandered. Her dad was a coal miner with seven kids. They didn't have much. And she was determined to put aside every cent we could spare for Tom and Normie's future. This money to her was sacred. Untouchable.”

“You knew it would be devastating to her, and you stole it!”

“I didn't steal it. It was half mine, and I merely reinvested it. She went thermonuclear when she found out. But she knew there was no loss of the kids' money. The money was now in this house, which would increase in value. Which it has, greatly. As long as we were still married, I couldn't sell it without her signature. If we divorced I would have to settle with her. If I died, it would all go to them anyway. Plus I had other money stashed away for the children. She knew all that but wasn't about to admit it during the firestorm over the bank account. To this day, if you want to get her wound up —”

“No, thank you.”

“And since then, it is I — old faithful Monty, patient, shit-eatin' Monty — who has made all the efforts to reconcile.”

“This Bev must be a bit of a stumbling block,” Brennan suggested. “MacNeil walks in on the two of you here at the house, and then Bev shows up and makes a grab for you at the Metro Centre. This woman has been nothing but a jinx for you, Collins, when you think of it.”

“Maura blows it all out of proportion. It's not hearts and flowers with Bev, on my part or on hers. It's physical. Period. And MacNeil
took up with that Giacomo character —”

“All right, all right. How's the investigation coming along?”

It took me a few seconds to calm down and refocus. I told him about Dice Campbell's gun. “And,” Brennan said, “Campbell was tied in with the Colosseum.”

“Right. My secretary is picking up the
CHECA
award photos tomorrow. We'll present them to Vernon, see if he recognizes any of Halifax's top citizens from his time as a Gladiator.”

†

The next morning, Friday, I dialled the rectory at St. Bernadette's, but Burke wasn't in, so I left a message with the priests' housekeeper, Mrs. Kelly. “Get Father Burke to call me right away. Tell him I have the negatives.”

He called me in the afternoon. “Jazes, Murphy, and Jameson, would you ever be drivin' an oul woman into an early grave? Poor Mrs. Kelly looked as if her heart was going to give out when I got in and she rushed me at the door. She usually avoids me like the Antichrist. ‘You had a call, Father! He says he has the negatives!' So, what have you got?”

“I've arranged all the esteemed citizen photos in a little package. I glanced at them. The usual suspects. Where can we find Vernon?”

“At his regular table, I imagine.”

Brennan met me at the door of the rectory, and we set out on foot to Cornwallis Park, where Vernon had taken up residence.

We took him once again to the South End Diner, got him seated, and then I spread out my sheets of photos. I knew a number of the people who had received the
CHECA
award, and I recognized most of the other names. Rowan Stratton, my boss, was there, and his wife, Sylvia. Our other founding partner, Adrian Sommers, was one of the earliest recipients; he died shortly after he received the honour. I saw Angus Rennie Baird on the list; he would be the son, or perhaps the grandson, of the Wallace Rennie Baird for whom the treatment centre was named. Justice John Trevelyan was there, real estate developer Kenneth Fanshaw, a local newscaster, a rabbi, Canon Alistair Scott, and a number of Rotary and Chamber of Commerce stalwarts.

“All right, Vernon, you know what we're trying to do,” Brennan said. “Monty will show you a series of photographs. Take your time with them, and tell us if you recognize any of these people from the Colosseum.”

The photos were four to a page, with short biographies, presented in alphabetical order. I passed the first sheet to Vernon. No reaction. Next page and the next, same thing.

“Looks like you struck out, young Monty!” Vernon announced, with a superior smile. “We're wasting our time here, gentlemen! If there's no further business, I suggest we adjourn!”

I flipped a couple more pages at him. He had his arms folded across his chest; he shook his head at each sheet of pictures. Then his face went rigid.

“Do you recognize someone?”

“Oh, no. No, no. This won't work.”

“Let me see the picture, Vernon.” He reached over and swept all the pages off the counter. “Vernon, show us who it was.”

“It was the whole bunch of them! They were all in on it! Don't try to find me!” And with that, he fled the diner.

“Jesus Christ. What do we do now? I didn't count the number of pages I gave him before he reacted. But even if I had, they're all —”