Death Spiral (5 page)

Whenever Wilf had thought of his home, which hadn’t been too often, he’d thought of this room. Something had been added though, stacks of transcripts from the trials that were still going on in faraway Nuremberg. His father had become enormously inspired by those proceedings and had been collecting everything he could find. He’d even purchased an oak filing cabinet to house newspaper clippings. It was sitting in the one corner, filled to overflowing.

“Something brand new is happening,” his father had announced just as soon as Wilf had stepped into the study for the first time in years. “Thanks to these trials we have detailed records of state-directed atrocities against civilian populations. We can establish precedents in international law. World courts and so forth.” His father’s eyes were becoming luminous with deeply felt emotion. “The United Nations is open for business now, fifty-one countries in New York negotiating their differences. Just think, Wilf. Never again will we see concentration camps or forced work camps or death camps or the willful destruction of civilian populations because never again will anyone dare to commit such crimes.”

Wilf had limped into the middle of the study, his eyes trailing across the familiar books of poetry and philosophy, across the white stacks of transcripts. He’d wished he could share his father’s enthusiasm, he knew it was meant as a consolation for his own wounds suffered, but all he could muster then was a perfunctory smile.

“For chrissake, don’t start your own investigation,” Andy had said, looking at him as if he thought Wilf was still suffering from the after-effects of the war. Wilf should just wait until his father returned and the will was officially read to the Cruikshank family and to Adrienne O’Dell. Everything would come clear at that moment.

“All right,” Wilf had said.

Later on, as Andy was heading out the side door to go to work, Wilf had called out, “Have a look at the report for me, will you? Find out what Mary’s last name is and give me a call?”

“Who’s Mary?”

Wilf leaned against the kitchen door. “Cruikshank’s housekeeper.”

“Oh, right. The housekeeper.”

“I upset her. I should call her sometime tomorrow and apologize.”

Andy had grinned at that. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Wilf eased himself down onto one of the leather chairs. An invisible weight was beginning to bear down. He’d become familiar with it over the last year or so. He’d decided it was somewhat like the weather. He’d even entertained himself with this thought during his long convalescence, perhaps it had even helped. What were the probs? Sometime tonight there’s a good chance that it will begin to rain hopelessness. By morning, a possibility that the rain could turn to despair.

Wilf pushed himself out of the chair and began to think everything through again. Unlike all the people he knew in town, Samuel Cruikshank had made a habit of locking his doors. Which begged the question, what or who was the old man afraid of? Wilf felt immediately better. The weight of his depression faded away, the pain in his hip sank below conscious monitoring. He moved around the room.

The housekeeper had a key in her possession. Of course she’d need one if he locked his doors, just in case he was out. But he wasn’t out, he was inside the house; but the doors were still locked. He kept his doors locked all the time. No forced entry, according to Andy. Which meant he must have unlocked the door to let his murderers in. Or they had a key.

Wilf hadn’t seen any cuts or scrapes on the old man’s body. More to the point, neither apparently had Doc Robinson. But if he’d been dragged up the stairs, forced into the tub and drowned, why hadn’t he fought back?

Because he was already in the tub, Wilf thought. And it had to be the night of the storm, or earlier. Otherwise, just as Mary had said, the old man would have had George, the odd job man, shovel out his driveway and his sidewalk.

When Wilf had looked through Cruikshank’s files it had seemed to him that Frank Cruikshank had tried to stay out of the family fight. That was smart of him, of course, because he’d naturally assume that his inheritance was on the line. It had to be a difficult stance to maintain though, because he was living with his mother and working with her and his mother was making the old man angrier and angrier. Frank Cruikshank seemed angry too, face flushed, pushing through the racks in the dress shop. A tall man. Easily as large as his father.

Wilf leaned up against the stacks of transcripts on the library table. He could see the snow pelting down. He could see a shadowy figure moving through the dark toward the house, unlocking the side door, creeping up the stairs. The bathroom door opens. The old man looks up through the steamy air. To see who? His son? His wife?

Adrienne O’Dell?

The sound of the phone in the kitchen rang through the empty house. Wilf crossed the hall and picked it up.

“Mary Barron,” Andy announced on the other end of the line. “That’s the name of his housekeeper. Want her phone number?”

“Sure.”

“Eight four two.”

“Are you looking at the report now?”

“Yeah.”

“Did the fellows check for forced entry or not? What’s it say?”

“Wilfred, are you questioning the competency of our police force? Yes, they did, and it says, no, there wasn’t.”

“Okay. Anyway, like you said, I’ll wait until the solicitor gets home.”

Wilf put the phone down and picked up the phonebook. He leafed through until he found Mary Barron’s listing. She resided at 62 Walsh Street.

* * *

Backing his father’s car out of the garage proved to be a more difficult task than Wilf had anticipated. For one thing he had to use his good hand to help lift his bad foot up on the clutch. He tried putting the driver’s seat back as far as it would go so that he was half lying down. That allowed him to lift his left leg by force of will only and by bearing the pain, and freed up his right hand to either change gears or to steer, he couldn’t do both at the same time.

The new Buick Roadmaster his father had washed and polished at the garage downtown every week come rain or come shine jerked into reverse, barely missed creasing a front fender on the way out, shot across the road and hit the snowbank on the other side.

The big car stalled.

Fighting the pain once more, Wilf depressed the clutch, restarted the car and put it into first gear. He let his foot slip off the clutch and pressed on the gas. The car headed across the road toward the garage again.

Wilf corrected the trajectory, released the steering wheel, jammed the car into second while depressing the clutch and then made another one-handed grab for the wheel. The car jumped down the middle of the icy road, picking up speed. And into third gear. And accelerating. And finally smoothing out, soaring like a low-flying plane under the lights lining the one side of the street.

He drove down the front hill with increasing confidence, cruised past the police station in his half-prone position and thought of Andy, climbed an even steeper hill and came to an abrupt stop in front of an old stone mansion.

The rundown building had been renovated into a warren of small apartments.

Wilf got out, limped up to it and looked for Mary’s apartment number beside the front door. He climbed a staircase and knocked at apartment six in a shabby hallway. Mary’s plump face peered out, strips of paper rolled up in her hair.

“Hello again,” Wilf said. “Sorry to bother you, I know it’s late, I know you’ve had a long day.”

“That’s not half of it, is it?” Mary’s bright eyes widened in a kind of accusatory way.

“No, it isn’t.”

“I’ve had the shock of my life, I have. It’s a wonder I’m still breathing.”

“Me, too,” Wilf said.

“I know.” Mary’s expression didn’t seem particularly sympathetic, though. Her eyes searched Wilf’s face as if she were afraid he might go mad again right there in the hall.

Wilf leaned against the opposite wall and began to work his galoshes off. “Could I come in for a minute? There’s something important I need to ask.”

“And what would that be?”

“I suppose you know McLauchlin and McLauchlin?”

Mary shook her papered head.

“No? Well, my father was Mr. Cruikshank’s lawyer but he’s out of town for the rest of the week. I was delivering some legal papers; that’s why I was there. Look Mary, you’re the only person I know who knows anything about Mr. Cruikshank. Unfortunately I need to know who his next of kin are now. And a few other things. I was hoping you could help me. Am I right that he lived alone?”

Mary nodded cautiously.

Wilf moved a little closer. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I thought Mr. Cruikshank was still breathing and all I could think to do was to get him out of that ice.”

“It’s a sight I won’t soon forget, I can tell you.”

“I’m very sorry.”

Mary’s face softened. “You’re a flyer, ain’t you? One of the coppers said.”

“Yes.”

“I’m a fright to look at, I was just doing my hair.” She opened the door the rest of the way and backed up a little.

Wilf stepped into a small sitting room crowded with a collection of old furniture, sundry knickknacks and an array of porcelain figurines. A very small person wrapped in what looked like a shroud was sitting in a corner.

“Mother don’t say much. Just ignore her,” Mary said.

A tiny, wizened face was peering intently into the middle of the room but not at Wilf.

“Hello,” Wilf said.

“She won’t talk back, Ducks. You’re wasting your breath.” Mary was wrapped in a faded red kimono, a pair of men’s wool socks had collapsed about her stubby feet. She pointed to a wooden chair guarded by two plaster gnomes. Wilf sat down.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know that much about the poor old toff myself.” Mary aimed her broad bottom down on a slightly splayed sofa. “He was not a great talker, he was more of an orderer. A regular General, he was. Debbie Banks, that’s his old cleaning lady, when she gave him to me she told me that he was a regular dragon, but we’d get on because I was a bit of a dragon myself. ‘Just give him back as good as you get and you’ll see that he’s not such a bad sort,’ she said. So that’s what I did and we had a laugh every once in a while. We had a glass of scotch every once in a while, too. Truth is, I got to kind of like the old bloke if it wasn’t that he was so god-loving particular. A man like him living alone hardly makes a mess but oh, he had to have the bloomin’ place cleaned every week. Not that I complained, you see, because it meant more lolly for me.” Mary’s eyes went sly.

“Right,” Wilf said. He glanced over at her mother. The old woman continued to be transfixed by the presence of someone unseen. “What do you know about his family?”

“He had a wife, I know that much. They lived apart and she was always trying to take his money. He called her ‘That bloody old cow.’ And when we were having our scotch he’d say, ‘If we get married you won’t try to take my money away from me, will you, Mary?’ I think he fancied himself a bit of a lady’s man.”

“Did he?”

“Seemed like it. He had a son, that’s the one thing I know for sure. Tall and good-looking he was. He looked me up because he couldn’t get his father on the phone. It was the heart business, you see. His son was worried, which of course he would be, wouldn’t he?”

“But why did he come here?”

“To borrow my key, Dearie. He didn’t have one. There was some falling out over his mother, he said, and of course I knew all about her, didn’t I, and he was very worried about his father so of course I lent him mine.”

“And how was his father?”

“The old goat was fine.”

“Seems a bit strange, doesn’t it? Why wouldn’t he just knock on his father’s door?”

“Well, I asked him that. He said he had, but the old man hadn’t answered, so he was worried. Wouldn’t answer most likely. I felt sorry for him. Families, you know how it is.” Mary cocked her head toward the old lady.

“Did he bring the key back?”

“Of course he did, that same afternoon. He’s the one you should get in touch with.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Oh, two months. Three, maybe.”

“Do you know his first name, where he lives?”

“He’s a farmer, he is, I remember that much.”

“And did you ever see anyone else in Mr. Cruikshank’s house? I mean anyone who wasn’t a family member?”

Mary looked a little surprised. “Why?”

“It would be someone else I could talk to.”

“It was just always himself, Ducky.”

“No younger person then? Some young woman?”

Mary seemed to be growing nervous again. “No.”

Wilf got up. “I appreciate this. You’ve been very helpful. There’s only one other thing. Since McLauchlin and McLauchlin is Mr. Cruikshank’s executor, of course we’re responsible for his estate until we can pass it on to his legal heirs. Which means we have to secure his house and all his property. So if you don’t mind I’ll have to collect your key to his house. It’s just the law.”

Mary seemed taken back by this and a little dubious. “It is?”

“Yes, it is. But before you hand it over you could call Constable Andrew Creighton down at the police station. He’ll confirm what I’m saying. Just to put your mind at rest.”