Dead & Buried (32 page)

“This came out in the book of minutes you removed from the boardroom?”

“Why yes, but I put it back later. It didn’t seem right to alter history. I couldn’t sleep until I put the pages back.”

“You’re an honest man, Fred.”

“Yes. You know, I’ve been hearing that all my life. It haunts me. Well, it’s too late to change now, I suppose. Too late to start dealing in old books and maps. I’d have liked to run a little second-hand bookstore. Isn’t that funny? That’s a little joke I’ve only shared with Miss Biddy.”

“How is she?”

“I just left her. Not much change, I’m afraid. She can’t talk or move. It’s terrible. She was trying to will me to understand her moaning. It was very upsetting. The poor woman can’t speak. What a horrible thing for a literate and sensitive woman.”

“I hope she rallies, Fred. I know you’re very fond of her.”

“For more years that I care to remember,” he said, turning away from me. I didn’t try to follow him.

I looked up at the portrait, shifting my haunches so that a highlight moved from the large disapproving face. Here was a face that might have been valanced with whiskers from the last century. Unsmiling, it judged all of us. Had the Commander ever known a moment’s doubt? Only Biddy would know that and she was unlikely to tell us.

“Getting acquainted with the Commander, are you?” It was Ross again. Some of the tension of the times was
showing on his face. What would the painter see there? Nothing to hang on a panelled wall above a fireplace.

“I was also looking at some of your books,” I lied. “Your mother’s collection?”

“About half, I’d say. The rest are mine. Does that surprise you?” he asked.

“I have a low opinion of businessmen, is that what you want me to say? To be honest I shouldn’t have thought that books would mean a lot to a man like Norman Caine.”

“Cooperman, book people aren’t the doers and moulders any more. The game has moved on from books.”

“To people like Caine? To the bottom-line people?”

“It’s too late for books, Cooperman. They were a good idea, but they didn’t work.”

“I’m still working my way through the Russian writers, Mr. Forbes, slowly. Maybe I’ll never finish. I’ve got a friend who’s always pointing me in the direction of new books. Seems to me there are a lot of questions and answers out there, if I don’t lose my library card. Maybe your printout doesn’t include all the available data. Maybe you need a reinterpretation. Maybe there’s something going on that your computer isn’t fast enough to catch?”

“Every year they keep coming out with a new generation of computer, Cooperman. In the end, they’ll get it right.”

“And in the meantime?” Forbes pulled the corner of his mouth higher. It could almost pass for a smile. Not
one of his usual cynical inverted scowls, but an honest beginner’s smile. Five out of ten.

“Mr. Forbes, to change the subject if I may …”

“Be my guest.”

“You told me a few minutes ago that you’d joined AA.” The scowl was back. “You hinted as much the other day at lunch.”

“So?”

“And you told the Commander in the sauna? Is that right?”

“Sure, I told him. So what?”

“This is important: Who else knew?” Forbes looked at me and then began to scan the faces in the sitting-room.

“There’s no one else,” he said at last. “I planned not to tell anyone. Then I mustered courage to tell Dad before the wedding. Thought it might make a difference. Things haven’t been—”

“Never mind about that. Who else did you tell? Did your wife know? Or your old drinking pals?”

“I didn’t tell anybody else. I’m sure.”

“Why did you tell me, then? I’m nobody special to you. In fact we aren’t even friends. You don’t like me really. Why did you tell me?”

“I wasn’t trying to build an alibi, if that’s what you mean. I told Dad because he and it were on my mind. And you’re the sort of ingratiating son of a bitch who gets people to say more than they mean to say.”

“I wasn’t asking about your boozing.”

“Well,” he was twisting his mouth again, “maybe I thought it might get back to Teddie through you. Hell, I don’t know why I told you!”

“Who else knew you’d stopped drinking?”

“Damn it, Cooperman, I told you. Nobody except me, you and dad. Unless you count the people down at AA. But they don’t talk about things like that to outsiders. Why is this so important? Am I going to get an answer?” He was doing his best to glower down at me like his father. By my guess it would take him another eighty years.

“Not right now, but you will. I promise.” I left him standing in the alcove with the books and made myself free of the staircase and then the front room. Edward had my coat ready for me seconds before I hit the bottom step.

THIRTY

After the upper-class wake on Church Street, I went back to the one still going on in Frank Bushmill’s apartment. I felt a need to touch the earth. There were still enough people there to keep Martin Lyster’s memory green. Bill Palmer from the
Beacon,
for instance, was still in good form. I was surprised to see Chris Savas sitting in a corner. I knew that he’d known Martin, but I didn’t know he’d known him well. When I went over to where he was sitting, he explained:

“Martin got me the books I needed to get my stripes, Benny. A cop has to be educated these days and Martin got me through it.”

After the drink ran out, Chris and I went looking for Anna up at her father’s house on the escarpment. She was surprised to see us again, since she’d said good-night to me less than three hours earlier. Jonah Abraham, Anna’s father, was both surprised and amused at our late visit and insisted on pouring a round of drinks and showing us a new painting by Wally Lamb he’d just purchased for his collection. “Old Wally hasn’t lost his touch,” I said, looking at a platter of beautifully rendered green apples.

Anna had changed from the linen jacket and flowered skirt to a sweater and dark green cords. When we finished our drinks, she kissed Jonah affectionately and the three of us got into my Olds.

“Anna, don’t let these fellows keep you up all night,” Jonah called from the front door. “Remember you’ve got school in the morning.” The effect of this was to turn Anna into a thumb-sucking teenager as we drove out from under the
porte-cochère.
Jonah quickly went back into the house as we made for the highway.

It had been some time since I’d ended an evening at Lije Swift’s place outside St. David’s on the road to Queenston. Savas had introduced me to it maybe ten years ago and I’d been back a few times, but not for the last year at least. Lije, which was short of Elijah, used to run a boat above Niagara Falls packed with illegal Canadian booze during Prohibition. He now owned a roadhouse that ignored all federal, provincial and local laws regarding strong drink and licensed hours. I don’t know whether he paid off the authorities or whether they left him alone as a kind of living human monument to a colourful bygone age. Whatever the reason, Lije carefully screened his customers through a slot in the door before welcoming them out of the night. He was known as the provider of good food as well as teller of bootlegging tales from along the Niagara. Since the last time I was at Lije’s place, his son and daughter had taken charge of the practical management, leaving Lije, who was getting on in years, free to bother the customers with his stories.

The place was about half-full. I recognized a few of our most distinguished citizens sitting at some of the tables, which Don and Maggy attended to. Lije insisted on looking after Chris, Anna and me, himself. He plied us with illicit drinks, while Savas went to make a phonecall. He never served booze in teapots. Lije was used to living dangerously. After the drinks he brought a large platter of hors d’oeuvres to the table. It was plain that this was going to be a memorable night. About twenty after twelve, Pete Staziak walked into the room. He’d just come off duty in town and had taken all of the short cuts to get there. More baked beet salad, tapénade and chorizo in cider were brought to the table. In Lije’s short arms, the platter looked huge.

“You both missed the best part of the wake,” Chris said, looking at Anna and me, after Pete had settled in. “Frank Bushmill recited a very funny piece about sucking-stones. You should have heard it.”

“That’s right, Chris, rub it in,” Pete said, chewing on a piece of celery filled with Stilton. “Remember I had to miss the whole show trying to make sense of a couple of murders.”

“I had a few questions to ask Ross Forbes,” I said, “so I visited the wake going on up at his house.”

“Bet nobody sat on the floor there,” Anna said.

“I got a few important answers, though.”

“When do you think you’ll begin to see the light, Benny?” Chris asked. “Before or after the provincials inquiry into toxic dumping and tainted fuels nails your
friend Ross Forbes to a permanent address in a minimum security institution?”

“I’m beginning to see light, Chris. A glimmer. Maybe more. Nothing that would do any of us any good in court, but I don’t think this case is going in that direction?”

“What kind of murder case doesn’t go to court, Benny?”

“The unsolved ones,” Anne suggested.

“Political ones?” said Pete, answering his own question.

At that moment, Lije was back with a great silver platter with roast duck on it along with a rosy garnish of red cabbage. Chris began to carve and we passed our plates to his end of the table. Anna helped him by dishing out the vegetables. I added gravy. Pete just sat there with his knife and fork already in hand. When we had all been served and Chris had added him comments to the rest of the ones we larded on Lije about the food, we settled down to serious eating. I discovered that I was hungrier than I’d felt; I even ate the slices of orange that had bedizened the golden roast duck. For a full twenty minutes we made table talk and laughed at Pete’s jokes. These weren’t all that funny, but the wine helped. There’s hardly a joke that wine doesn’t make better. Then Chris looked across at me and asked:

“Are you serious about talking about this thing, Benny?”

“Chris, it’s not talk yet, just thinking out loud.”

“We’ll buy it,” Pete said.

“At least we’ll listen,” said Anna, who hadn’t had as much to drink as Pete.

“I can’t believe that you think you’ve done it again,” said Chris, chomping on a wing.

“If you’ve done it, you took a lot longer than in the other cases we worked on. You used to wrap these things up in under a week. Maybe you’re losing your touch?” Pete was digging more stuffing from the bird’s cavity and carrying it to his twice-emptied plate. He looked from one face to another to find agreement. Figuratively, I kept my mouth shut, while I went on eating. There would be time to talk when coffee came.

Then it came and they were all sitting back looking at me. Three or four herds of angels flew by and they were still looking at me.

“Honestly, I’m stuck. I don’t know where to start.” I took a sip of Lije’s famous coffee to see it I could find inspiration there. When I came up for air, things were still in a tangle in my head. “Let me try to sort through this,” I said. I took a deep breath and started in. “We know that Kinross Disposals has been getting rid of toxic wastes for industry in and around Grantham. It has also been doing the same service on a contract from the city. Last spring, Alex Pásztory nearly blew the lid off part of their operation when he wrote those pieces in the
Beacon
that were also printed in the
Globe.
That was the tainted-fuel selling and tax-evasion aspect of the much bigger story that has come to light at Fort Mississauga. Here at the fort, they are dumping terrible things directly into the lake and
they are burying drums of other nasty stuff under the earthworks of the old fort.

“Now, Kinross isn’t alone in this, Sangallo is in charge of the restoration work at the fort. They have also buried a few tons of poisonous garbage under a floral clock on the Niagara Parkway. Both of these companies have cooperated in this illegal activity. The responsibility for this rests with Harold Grier and Norman Caine, the CEOs of the two companies. In the background, Sangallo has Anthony Horne Pritchett and his mob lurking and giving professional advice. But remember, for Pritchett, Sangallo is a way to clean up his dirty money. He’s not interested in turning it into another of his rackets.”

“How’s that?” asked Pete.

“As a semi-legal business, Sangallo has its uses for Pritchett. He doesn’t want it to become another of the string of shady clubs, tourist towers, gambling rooms and other vice-related games he controls in the Falls. The cleaner Sangallo stays, the happier Pritchett counts his money. That’s why I couldn’t get past your conviction, Pete, that Pásztory had been taken out by a pro. Pritchett’s the closest professional, and I could never make it dance in time.”

Chris and Pete both turned towards the other. Chris spoke first. “Benny, we just found out this morning that the slug that killed Pásztory was fired from the gun that killed the Commander.”

“Yeah, it kinda smothered my theory, eh?”

“Well, it makes me feel better about what I was going to say,” I said, feeling like the last pieces were fitting together.

“Benny, you took us over a lot of this ground before. We know about Kinross, but have never been able to make a charge stick. They’ve got a bunch of lawyers working right around the clock. They make it hard.”

“Working around the floral clock. Can’t you see it?” Pete said looking rather rosy and sinking down in his chair.

“We’ve got three deaths to deal with: Jack Dowden’s, well over a year ago—remember we talked about him at the Di?—Alex Pásztory’s a week ago last Thursday and the Commander’s last Friday night. Let’s look at them in reverse order. Chris, you think that Ross Forbes killed his old man. And you’ve got some solid reasons: He was at the club, saw and talked to his father, admits they talked in the sauna. He and the senior Forbes had long been at one another’s throats. No love lost, right? This feud was particularly bitter right now because the old man threatened to oust Ross from his CEO position at Phidias at the scheduled board meeting on Monday—that’s right, it would have been today. With Caine married to Sherry Forbes, the Commander could argue that Caine was the new blood the firm needed. So, Ross is your favourite suspect. He looks like a guilty man.”