Lightning at 200 Durham Street

by Ron Finch

  I know that these are not real voices, and I know that Walter doesn’t ‘sound’ like a man, but that’s how I ‘hear’ him, even though it’s not through my ears. Now I was hearing or sensing a woman’s voice. The voice sounded a bit like my mother’s. I was so happy.

  There was a pause and I said, or thought, or sent: “Do you know Walter?”

  The voice sent back: “Yes. Walter lives in your house.”

  “I came here because I wanted to establish communication with you,” I said. “Walter told me I might be able to help you.”

  “God bless you,” she said. “It appears we can communicate.”

  “I know the police are working very hard on trying to find out how you died. They are very suspicious. They think you were poisoned. Tell me what happened.”

  “I was poisoned,” said the voice of Louise. “When I came here to the cabin there was a bottle of wine still slightly chilled sitting on the counter. I was very pleased, thinking that someone had planned a nice surprise for me, so I poured some into a glass. It was a warm day and I was thirsty after my trip. I noticed a peculiar taste as I drank it and was immediately frightened and suspected the drink had been doctored. Then I felt in extreme distress. I knew I was dying. I did not know who would do this to me.

  “I know from Walter that the police have found some cups and a whisky bottle,” she continued. “Then, last weekend, the wine bottle was discovered. I know there is something else here that is somehow connected to the wine bottle. Something has been left somewhere in or near the cabin. You must find it for me.”

  “Do you know anything about this object?” I responded. “Do you know how large it is?”

  “I know it’s connected to the wine bottle,” said Louise. “I think it’s some kind of personal item. I don’t know anything else about it.”

  “I’ll start my search in the group of small trees where the wine bottle was found,” I said, rushing out of the cabin.

  It wasn’t difficult to find the right group of trees once I pictured where we had played scrub baseball. The faint outline of base paths had survived the past week and today’s rain. I was thankful that the area I’d be searching wasn’t very large. There were just a few trees there. I thought the best thing to do would be to get down my hands and knees, start up at one corner of the copse, and make my way in a back and forth pattern until I had completed a search of the entire area.

  I began my search carefully, parting each clump of grass with my hands, and lifting each piece of undergrowth, as I scuttled on my knees in a crab-like fashion. The rain earlier in the day made certain that I would be a mess by the time I got home. I was going to have to come up with a reasonable explanation.

  Good fortune was on my side. In just under five minutes I came across something of interest. It was a heavy medallion with some kind of inscription on it. Attached to the medallion was what appeared to be a gold chain, about 18 inches in length. The inscription was unreadable because the medallion was covered with mud and assorted bits of grass and weeds.

  I was excited by this discovery. It fit the category of personal item, and I was certain it was what Louise and I were looking for. I was reluctant to pick it up, however. I didn’t want to get my own fingerprints on it. This would have to be turned over to the chief of police.

  Finding the medallion meant I could keep my reputation for honesty intact. I would not have to tell a lie to my mother. Everyone would have to know that I came out here to satisfy my curiosity, but if this turned out to be a valuable clue, I don’t think my mom, my dad, or the chief of police would give me too hard a time. I needed to transport the evidence, but I had a good container for it: my knapsack. I returned to the cabin, put my knapsack on the table, and pulled up a chair.

  Closing my eyes, I concentrated once more on Louise, sending her the message that I had found the medallion. She responded immediately. She was very thankful and very excited. I communicated to her that the medallion had been found in the same group of trees that the wine bottle had been located. I told her there was an inscription on the medallion that wouldn’t be readable until it was cleaned up. I informed her I had to take the medallion to the police and that they would clean up the medallion and find out if the inscription was helpful. She thanked me again. She now felt certain that I had found the item that was the personal connection to the wine bottle. She told me to let her know what came of my discovery.

  “I’m not sure how easy it will be for me to come back out here,” I warned her. “If the medallion is a valuable clue, police may close off the cabin and the surrounding area until they’re satisfied there’s nothing else to find here. I’ll keep you informed through Walter.”

  I opened my eyes, emptied my knapsack, and had my lunch. Then I took my empty knapsack back to the small group of trees and picked up the medallion by the end of the attached chain. I went back to the cabin and got my bike, and, with my knapsack over my shoulder, I headed back to the closest country road. I decided it was important for me to get back to town as quickly as I could. There would be no visit with Herbert and Emeline today.

  The ride home took me just under 30 minutes. It was almost 5 o’clock when I walked through the door. I know I looked a mess: my work pants were now brown from the knees down. I had almost forgotten about my dirty clothes because I was so excited by the success of my search.

  My mom took one look at me and said: “Don’t take one more step. Leave your shoes outside. Ralph go upstairs and get another pair of pants for your brother.” Somehow those words, and the commotion, were comforting. “Get cleaned up and come down to the table immediately,” said my mother, turning to me. “Supper’s ready.”

  My dad said grace and the food was passed around.

  “We want to hear what happened, Joel,” said my dad. “We want the truth.”

  So I confessed. I admitted that I hadn’t visited Emeline and Herbert like I’d planned to, and that curiosity had gotten the better of me. I told them about searching the treed area, which explained my muddy pants. Then I told them about finding the medallion.

  “We have to get that medallion to the chief of police right away,” said my dad. “I’ll call him at home as soon as we’ve finished supper.”

  Once supper was over and the table was cleared, Ralph and Emmylou were sent to the kitchen to do the dishes.

  “You stay in the kitchen until I call you,” my mother said to their retreating backs. She then proceeded to give me a good 20-minute scolding while my dad talked to Chief Petrovic on the phone in the sitting room.

  When my dad had completed his call, he took over for my mother and lectured me for another 20 minutes. At that point there was a knock on the door. It was the chief of police himself.

  Oh no, I thought. I’ve got another 20 minutes coming!

  The chief was all business. He told me that he was disappointed I had moved the medallion.

  “I apologize, sir, for moving it,” I said. “I thought if I brought it back with me it would save you some time. I hoped you could start examining it first thing tomorrow morning. I was also concerned that whoever lost it might be coming back to look for it, sir.”

  I brought my knapsack to the table and opened it up for the chief. He took the end of the chain and carefully pulled the medallion out. He was clearly excited.

  The chief of police looked at me and said: “Joel, you’re forgiven for removing the medallion from the site. Hopefully, we can clean this up to make it readable. This inscription may be an important clue in our murder investigation. You may have played an important role here.”

  He placed the medallion in a container that he had brought with him, thanked us for contacting him so quickly, wished us a good Sunday evening, and left.

  Monday, July 9

  AT THEIR MONDAY MORNING meeting at the chief’s office, the medallion was the big topic of conversation.

  Chief Petrovic lifted it out of the box by the end of the chain and placed it carefully in the middle of the table so e
veryone could get a good look at it without touching it.

  “It looks like an expensive piece of jewelry,” said Cst. Smith.

  “That’s not jewelry, constable,” said Det. O’Neill. “That’s an award of some kind. There’s a message inscribed on it. It’s an impressive looking medallion.”

  “It certainly is an interesting discovery,” said Cst. Herman. “Chief, I know you’re not happy with young Joel Franklin going onto the site without permission, but you have to appreciate his determination. He was one of the boys who found the body and he obviously feels obligated to help us as much as he can.”

  “I was initially upset,” Chief Petrovic admitted, “but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the boy had good intentions. He seems like a clever kid and he has been very helpful. Who knows, maybe he’ll become a detective someday? Or maybe he’s just caught up in the Hardy Boys craze. My daughters are reading those books. They have the first three in the series and they can’t wait to get their hands on the latest one. ‘The Missing Chums’, I think it’s called. They’re interesting stories, but they don’t provide a very accurate picture of actual police work.”

  “I think they’re pretty well done,” said Cst. Herman. “I’ve read a couple of them.”

  Chief Petrovic and Det. O’Neill looked at one another.

  “Hmmm,” said the chief. “Well, I think we need to talk a little bit more about the medallion. We need to clean it up so we can read the message. I want Det. O’Neill to take it with him to London today. They can examine it for fingerprints there and clean it up so the message is legible. Joel Franklin told me he didn’t touch anything but the chain and I handled it the same way, so our prints shouldn’t be on it. It’s unlikely they’ll be able to find prints, though, because there’s so much dirt and other detritus on it. But a clear read of the inscription could be very helpful. The medallion was the big breaking news over the weekend. Other than that, there’s not a lot to report.

  “I think we need to run one more search on the murder site,” he continued. “Cst. Smith and Cst. Herman, I want you fellows to go back out to the crime scene. Put up some signs indicating that no one’s to go on that land until the police remove the signs. Then I want you to spend another full day doing a thorough search of the cabin and the nearby area. I don’t know whether we’ll find anything but we need to take another close look.

  “I’m hoping there will be some more developments during the week. I had Cst. Herman drive to Toronto to personally deliver those bottles and tin cups to the forensic scientist, Dr. Whitehead, last Friday. As soon as the containers arrived, Dr. Whitehead called me. He said he hoped to have the analysis completed early on Wednesday at the latest. I’m also hoping we can get a report back on the medallion sometime on Wednesday. I’m feeling optimistic. Things finally seem to be coming together. We’ll just have to wait and see what unfolds during the week. I want everybody back here at 9 o’clock Thursday morning for another roundtable meeting.”

  Thursday, July 12

  CHIEF PETROVIC WAS up by 4:30 AM. He had received a couple of phone calls late the evening before that had prevented him from getting much sleep. He was too excited.

  Tired of tossing and turning, he decided his favourite armchair in the front room downstairs was the best place for him to be. He dozed in the chair for a while, but by the time 6:00 AM came around he had to be up doing something. So he reviewed his notes on the murder case.

  He jotted down a few additions to his notes and by 7 o’clock he was cleaned up and ready to go. He said his goodbyes to his family and was out the door, heading to Mabel’s diner for an early breakfast. Although it wasn’t really that early for some of her customers. Mabel was always cooking breakfast or baking pies by five in the morning.

  It was the usual crowd. Once again there was a lot of moaning and groaning from the Indians and Tigers fans. This morning, however, there was also a bit of talk about ‘The Jazz Singer’, a movie he was sorry he had not attended. He still had to keep that promise to his wife. Frank Whittles, the coroner, was there for breakfast as well. On the way out, the chief dropped by Whittles’s table and checked with Frank to make certain he would be attending the 9 o’clock meeting in his office.

  THIS TIME, THERE WERE five of them sitting around the table in the chief’s office. The chief opened the meeting by turning to Dr. Whittles.

  “Frank, we’d like to hear a report on what Dr. Whitehead found out about the contents of any of the cups or bottles we sent him.”

  “I’ll give you the abbreviated version,” said Dr. Whittles. “I’m sure when the written report arrives it’ll be almost incomprehensible because of all the technical, scientific, and medical words and phrases.”

  “I think we’re all highly in favour your oral report,” said Det. O’Neill.

  “I’ll start with the tin cups,” said Dr. Whittles. “They were examined and tested thoroughly, but there wasn’t a large enough quantity of any kind of residue to indicate what was in them the last time they were used.”

  “What about the whisky bottle?” said Cst. Smith.

  Dr. Whittles turned to him with a smile. “They didn’t find your lip prints on the bottle if that’s what you’re worried about, constable.”

  This comment got a good laugh out of everyone except Cst. Smith. He merely turned a nice shade of pink.

  “With the whisky bottle,” Dr. Whittles continued, “there was enough residue to determine that it had actually contained whisky. Whisky of a poor quality and likely homemade.”

  This produced some more smiles.

  “Now for the wine bottle,” said Dr. Whittles.

  His facial expression became more serious and the rest of them knew an important statement was coming.

  “There were two main components to the fluid that remained in the bottle. One of the components was indeed excellent wine from Krug Collection 1928. The other component was Conium maculatum.”

  “Please translate that for us, Frank,” said Chief Petrovic.

  “The common name is poison hemlock,” said Dr. Whittles.

  “So she was poisoned,” said Cst. Herman.

  “Apparently so,” said Dr. Whittles. “When Dr. Whitehead called me from Toronto he was pretty excited. He said he’d never come across a case of deliberate hemlock poisoning in Canada. The only other cases he was even aware of were historical. The Greeks used hemlock for condemned prisoners. The most famous person to die by hemlock was Socrates.”

  Chief Petrovic thanked Dr. Whittles and asked him if he could stay for the next part of the meeting. Dr. Whittles reassured him that he had set his morning aside for the meeting.

  “There are more revelations to come,” said the chief, turning the meeting over to Det. O’Neill.

  “I brought some interesting news back with me from London,” said the detective. “The medallion cleaned up quite nicely. There’s no name on the medallion, but it does have some significant information on it. It was awarded for outstanding achievement in the botanical research of herbaceous biennial flowering plants of Ontario. We know these prestigious awards in botany are awarded to only one person in Ontario each year. The good news is that there’s a date on the medallion. It was awarded in 1912. That date proved to be of vital importance. Late yesterday, I contacted the Horticultural Society that presents the award and was able to use that date to identify the award’s recipient. The winner of the 1912 horticultural award was a botany professor currently at the University of Western Ontario who goes by the name of Benjamin Frankel.”

  They were all too stunned to say anything.

  “I was stunned, too,” said the chief. “I know what you’re thinking. I have been in contact with Assistant Chief Rutherford in Ottawa and we are in the process of verifying if Bella Frankel and Benjamin Frankel are related. I’m going to London with Det. O’Neill later this afternoon and we’re going to interview Benjamin Franklin and obtain his fingerprints. It’s quite possible that the discovery of the medallion has b
een a breakthrough in this investigation. This meeting is now over.”

  Friday the 13th

  CHIEF PETROVIC LEFT Chaseford a little after 9 o’clock on Friday morning. He would be meeting Det. O’Neill at the London police station. The interview was scheduled for 10:30 AM.

  Det. O’Neill had informed Chief Petrovic that when he’d contacted Benjamin Frankel on Thursday afternoon, he’d given Frankel the option to have the interview conducted at his home; a suggestion he’d said he often made if the situation warranted it. Frankel had surprised the detective by agreeing to come to the police station for the interview instead. In both Chief Petrovic’s and Det. O’Neill’s experience, if a suspect voluntarily goes to the police station for an interview, there’s a reason he doesn’t want the police at his residence, and repeated investigations had borne this out. Out of curiosity, then, on Thursday evening, Det. O’Neill had driven by Frankel’s home. It was a large home on a large lot in North London. Det. O’Neill knew Frankel was a professor, but he’d said he was surprised that Frankel could afford a house that appeared so magnificent from the outside.

  When Chief Petrovic got to the police station in London, he asked the desk sergeant if he would notify Det. O’Neill that he had arrived. The sergeant left the front desk and returned two or three minutes later with the detective. As Chief Petrovic and Det. O’Neill walked down the hall to the interview room, the chief said:

  “O’Neill, you realize this is Friday the 13th?”

  Det. O’Neill gave the chief a wry smile. “I think it’s going to be a very unlucky day for someone,” he said.

  The two of them had about 15 minutes to chat before the interview started so they talked about Frankel’s willingness to come to the station and what they thought that meant.

  “I think we need to get into his home as soon as we can,” said Det. O’Neill. “We have to move quickly. Which means we need to get a search warrant. But my boss, the Chief of Detectives, tells me that I don’t have enough evidence to get a warrant.”