Death in Cold Type

by C. C. Benison

  A busboy, obviously young, obviously inexperienced, and just as obviously concerned to prove himself adept, misjudged the balance of a heaped tray of dishes he had been carrying shoulder-high from a vacated table. From his vantage point Leo could see in the dangerous tilt of the tray the accident before it happened and when it did, when the tray fell to the floor in an explosive cascade of forks and plates and water glasses, he didn’t jump in his seat as the others did. He simply asked, “Why the hell didn’t you go to the police?”

  Liz had given them a precis of her encounter with Richter. Now she turned from the spectacle of broken crockery to meet his puzzled eyes.

  “Because…” she began, then looked away. “Because I’ve been having an affair with him.”

  Leo and Stevie greeted this in silence, Stevie because an affair had killed her marriage and she had a low opinion of such recreation; Leo because a new wrinkle had been added to the front-page story that was already percolating in his brain.

  “You sure know how to pick ’em,” Leo said lamely, purging such observations as wow, you’ve been fucking some Nazi!

  Liz said nothing, toyed with some white rice with a chopstick. She couldn’t get it to her mouth.

  “He killed Michael.” The realization, the enormity of it, stunned Stevie.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Leo responded.

  “He must have gone to Michael’s before that dinner party.”

  “I asked him,” Liz said. “I asked him if he’d killed Michael.”

  “You asked him?” Stevie regarded Leo’s colleague with a mixture of horror and distaste. “He denied it, of course.”

  “Actually, he didn’t answer.”

  “The wonder,” Leo muttered, watching the kid, returned with a brush and pan, bend to sweep the broken crockery, “is that Richter’s been able to hide his identity all these years.”

  “Not such a wonder,” Stevie snapped. “If a former secretary-general of the United Nations like Kurt Waldheim can do it, then some symphony conductor in Manitoba can do it, too.”

  Leo’s mind roiled. Front page. Query Saturday Night. No. A book! Screen rights! Money! Opportunity! Screw you, Zit! Never to have to work under the likes of the Guy Clarks of the world ever again!

  A bubble burst. He had been reminded of something. “When you came in, Liz, you said you thought you were responsible for Guy’s death.”

  “I put Michael’s package to me on Guy’s desk.”

  “Christ.”

  “I couldn’t deal with it, Leo. I guess you could say it was a complex conflict of interest that Michael could never have anticipated when he sent me the stuff. I couldn’t personally expose someone…well, someone I believed I had fallen in love with. But I couldn’t just toss the file away, either. It’s too…” she faltered. “I mean those men on that island… So I kept Michael’s letter to me—I locked it in my drawer at work, and I typed a new, anonymous one, attached it to the inside of the file, and put it on Guy’s desk. I figured Guy—of all people, can you believe this!—was my best hope. He was moving cityside Monday, could take the story with him and assign it to someone in that section, and I would be left completely out of it. So I waited until he left his desk for a few moments, went over and laid it on top of some other things.”

  “There was nothing on Guy’s desk last night.” Leo unintentionally bit into a chili in the gai pad kaprow.

  “You were there?”

  “We went up to the paper after the concert,” he gasped, reaching for the limeade. “But Axel and Merritt were there ahead of us. They found him.”

  Liz appeared to absorb this. “Had he been dead long?”

  “Unlike with Michael, Guy’s time of death is pretty precise.” Between cooling sips, he gave Liz a condensed version of the evening’s events.

  “Then Paul couldn’t have—” Liz began.

  “Why not?” Stevie forked chicken off a skewer. “The orchestra had lots of breaks, and it’s only two minutes across a dark parking lot.”

  “But the newsroom has a security door.”

  “Leo says half the city knows the combination.”

  Leo watched Liz push a pink and oily shrimp around and around her plate with her chopsticks. “How,” he asked, “would he have known Guy was in the newsroom on a Saturday evening? How would anyone have known?”

  “The meeting had to have been arranged,” Stevie supplied.

  They ate in silence for a few moments. Leo itched to pull out his notebook, still snug in his pants pocket with jottings from his monastery visit.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “How did Michael get the goods on Richter in the first place?”

  “Chance, according to his cover letter,” Liz replied. “For some reason, he’d taken a couple of the symphony programs from last season to Europe with him, and he was showing them to a German woman he knew, or met, or something. The woman recognized Paul immediately. Even after all these years.”

  Leo and Stevie stared at each other, each with the same thought: What’s her name Dankmar, the mother of Michael’s son. The woman who recognized Richter was probably the Dankmar woman’s mother, or her grandmother, or some member of her family.

  “Paul said he’d been a child in the war,” Liz continued. “His parents were killed in the bombing of Hamburg. He said he’d been raised by an old aunt.” She shrugged. “All lies, probably. If only I’d checked.”

  “But what reason would you have had to be suspicious?” Leo argued. “Being orphaned in the war isn’t unusual.”

  “Besides,” Stevie added, “with his looks, it’s easy to believe he was a child in the early 1940s, not a young officer.”

  “In journalism, you take things on faith, then end up repeating old lies.” Liz smiled at them glumly. “Would I be correct in thinking there was no file found?”

  Leo shook his head. “Guy’s desktop was clean as a whistle, but then, he’s neurotically tidy. Frank took a quick look through the drawers while I was with him, but there wasn’t anything that looked unusual.”

  “It’s something you might miss. It was thick, but otherwise it was just a plain ordinary brown manila folder.”

  “Full of photocopied stuff, was it?”

  Liz nodded. “Michael must have done a lot of research. Berlin. A place called Ludwigsburg, where there’s a central office investigating war crimes. Washington—”

  “Washington?” Stevie’s head snapped.

  “That’s where the photocopy of the trial transcript seems to have come from. Or part of it.”

  Liz flicked her a puzzled glance. “Is it important?”

  Stevie shrugged, oddly relieved and wounded that Michael’s mission in Washington had been unconnected to their own personal history.

  “I wonder where the file is now?” Leo mused, “He probably wouldn’t have carried it back with him to Galleries Portáge. People would remember him holding a big fat file. I suppose he could have gone down to the parking level and stuck it in the trunk of his car.”

  Liz shook her head. “He would have walked. He and Else have a condo on Central Park.”

  “Threw it in the trash then.”

  “There’s the big drums in the newsroom and the library.”

  “Or outside.”

  “Possibly.”

  “I don’t remember any bins between the mall and the paper the route we took,” Stevie remarked.

  “There might be a city-owned one at the Zit’s front entrance.” Leo strained to recall details of a streetscape he passed by a dozen times a week. “Or on Portage Avenue. Depends on how he exited the building.” He thought about the Zit library lights being on. But would Richter have known about the interior maze of the Citizen building? Was that the kind of stuff Liz and he talked about?

  “Or maybe Guy hid it somewhere? He must have realized what kind of a ticking time bomb it was.”

  “I should drive over to the Zit,” Liz said with sudden urgency. “Maybe it’s still there in some bin. And Michael’s o
riginal letter is locked in my desk drawer. If I give it all to the police, they won’t think I’m a crazy person pointing to one of the city’s most prominent citizens.”

  Leo regarded her gravely. “There are three people who have had their hand on that file, Liz. Two of them are dead.”

  Liz stared at him a moment, then looked away. “He had his opportunity.”

  Leo looked to Stevie. “We’ll go with you.”

  “It’s okay. There’s staff there Sunday evening.”

  “Listen, I’m phoning Frank, and then we’ll join you at the Zit.” Leo signalled the waiter, then glanced toward the maitre d’s pulpit.

  “You won’t be able to make yourself heard anyway, even if they let you use it,” Stevie remarked.

  Leo’s eye went to a fleck of satay at the corner of Stevie’s mouth. “I know where there’s a phone.”

  “Where?”

  “Down the street.”

  Stevie started. “At Michael’s?”

  “I thought we might pick up your camera.”

  “But—”

  “I have a key.” Leo fished in his jeans’ pocket. His stop-off at Sharon Bean’s had been fruitful.

  “But how—?”

  “Never mind.” He turned to Liz. “Let’s bill this meal to the Zit. We’re on a story.”

  37

  Mnemonics

  Leo watched as Liz in her black trenchcoat crossed the street and melted into the shadows on the other side, black on grey. He almost thought her vanished, but then she stepped into a shaft of hazy sunlight in a lane between two buildings, casting her own deep shadow onto the street. The door of a car parked at the curb not ten steps ahead of her opened at that instant, a tall figure stepped out and darted in her direction. Leo’s pulse raced. But it was a skinny kid in a baseball jacket, racing to demonstrate his gallantry to a girl on the passenger side who’d already opened her own door.

  “He’s probably fled the country,” Stevie remarked as Liz reached her own car and gave them a reassuring wave.

  “Richter?” Leo turned to study her face. The fleck of satay still clung endearingly. He bent and kissed her, his tongue reaching out to swipe at the peanutty crust. “But why kill, then flee? Better to just flee.”

  Stevie fingered the corner of her mouth and frowned. “What was that for?”

  “I lost my head.” The satay fleck was still evident. “Anyway, we’d better hurry.”

  He took her hand and tugged her along.

  “I don’t really need the camera that badly, Leo,” Stevie said, resisting.

  “But I need to make the call.”

  “There’s a phone booth across the street. Look.” She pointed.

  “C’mon.”

  “What are you up to? You didn’t get the key from—was it Sharon?—anticipating the need to use Michael’s phone.”

  Leo let go of her hand. “Okay, I confess. I thought we could go over the same ground as Tuesday. I was thinking ‘feature.’ I didn’t know about Richter. I never expected Guy to—”

  “I feel like I’m being used.”

  “You’re not. I just want to make the story authentic, real…we can go back to the car if you want.”

  Stevie studied his face for a moment, trying to interpret his sincerity. He was not bad at the puppy-dog look. “All right,” she said slowly. “Although I’d rather go away and forget the past week ever happened.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just have to do this. It’s what I do.”

  Leo took her hand again and they walked in silence for a few moments around the corner and up the street. The neighbourhood, Stevie noted, didn’t look quite as it had earlier in the week. The trees had been robbed by wind and rain of half their foliage, and the result, drying in rekindled October sun, crackled beneath their feet. The air was hazy and mellow, but with just a sting of coolness. In its mix of perfumes she thought she could detect the aroma of burning hay creeping once more into the city from outlying farms, and her mind, charged by the visceral power of smell, was seized by the memory of Tuesday night. Oh, screw me for agreeing to go along with this, she thought, feeling more and more reluctant. With photographic clarity she saw herself again on these streets, the trees before her more abundantly cloaked, a wind rising, the sky darkening.

  Leo felt a pressure run along Stevie’s fingers. “It’ll be okay,” he said. They passed through the stone gate. “What are you thinking about?” he prompted.

  “Rabbits.”

  “Rabbits?”

  She told him.

  New lede:

  It was rabbits that gave Stevie Lord her first premonition of Michael’s death. More than a decade earlier, on her way to university one morning, Waverley Avenue had turned into a carpet of blood, fur and viscera from rabbits fleeing the burning stubble in an adjacent farmer’s field. It was that aroma, which blankets Winnipeg every fall like a shroud, that acted on her like a powerful mnemonic…

  Mnemonic’s too literary.

  …as a powerful reminder —

  Stevie’s hand gripped his harder. “I’d come along the path here and was just about to turn into Michael’s house,” he heard her say. “I guess it had been so many years since I had been back in the city in September that the odour was all the more bizarre, and it seemed particularly strong that evening with the wind rising. Then I noticed that there were no lights on in the front of the house—like there’s no lights on now—and I thought, well, this is odd. It looked like no one was home.”

  They continued down the path, more quickly now, turning the corner toward the back door. The sky didn’t seem to Stevie as dark as it had been the evening she had last trod the path—she and Leo were earlier than she had been that evening—but the sun had already begun to sink behind the thorny crown of trees on the west side of the yard, flaming the red brick of the house, superimposing a feverish web of shadowy lines against the staid horizontals.

  Leo found the scene divertingly malevolent. Just the stuff he needed. He pulled his notebook from his jeans, a pen from his jacket, and began scribbling.

  “How can you see?” Stevie asked.

  “Don’t worry. I can usually read my chicken scratches.”

  Stevie hugged herself, seeing the scene as she had Tuesday night, a dark massing broken by bands of warm yellow light that poured forth onto the lawn. Then, she’d felt relieved the lights were on. It had meant Michael was at home. Now the windows were blank, lifeless. She shivered.

  Leo shifted the pen and pad to one hand and fished deeper in his jeans pocket.

  “What’s that?”

  A ray of sunlight caught the metallic finish of the key in his hand.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “Aren’t we violating some law?”

  “Probably.” Leo began steering her toward the porch. “Was the inside door open on Tuesday?”

  Stevie sighed. “A crack.” She eyed the door. It was all coming back, damn it. She felt the railing, as she had that night. It was cool and damp. She could almost see the porch light gleaming. She pushed back against Leo as they climbed the steps. Her heart was beginning to thump. Leo gently nudged her forward.

  “And then what? You knocked?”

  “Doorbell. That’s when I noticed the inside door was open. I could see into the kitchen. There was this buzzing noise.”

  “Buzzing noise?” Leo pulled at the screen door as Stevie stepped aside, and fit the key into the lock.

  “It was a wasp, one of those yellowjackets that seem to come out of nowhere in the late summer or early fall. It was sort of flopping around near my feet. Fitfully.”

  “Did I tell you Father Hart was blind?” Leo grunted. The key was a bit sticky.

  “No.”

  The key turned. Leo pushed the door open and reached around with his hand to find a light switch. “He was stung by a wasp. Seems he was severely allergic.”

  He turned. The porch light made a halo of Stevie’s head. “C’mon,
it’s safe.”

  He switched on the kitchen light. The room blazed up like a candelabra.

  Stevie stalled. She couldn’t make herself go over the threshold. She stared down, the way Alice did when she was about to address her footwear. “I thought it was stunned or drowsy,” she said stupidly.

  “What was?”

  “The wasp. Maybe it had stung someone.”

  Leo stared at her. What she had said seemed to work on him like a yeast. He gripped her arms and pulled her over the threshold into the kitchen.

  “What?” She struggled a bit.

  He gripped her harder. Stared at her. Suddenly, his tongue darted onto her face. He licked her, just above the lip.

  “Leo!” Stevie recoiled. She stared back at him, wide-eyed. He wore the most peculiar expression on his face. His breathing had turned heavy. “Oh, no,” she cried, misinterpreting. “Not here. No way. Oh, Leo, this is sick. Let me go.” She wriggled harder in his grasp.

  Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” He continued gazing at her wild-eyed. “Allergy,” he muttered.

  “What is the matter? You’re frightening me, Leo.”

  “Allergy,” he muttered again, gripping her harder. His tongue darted out to lick her again.

  “Stop doing that! Why are you doing that?”

  “You’ve got satay on your lip.” His tone was wondering. He seemed to be staring through her. “Satay. Don’t you see?”

  “See what?”

  “He’s not allergic to peanuts.” The truth hit him like a knock to the head. There was a burst of pain, and then a flood of well-being as shock gave way to the peculiar pleasure of knowing.

  “Who’s not?”

  “Mellish. The next morning at work he ate an entire chocolate bar right in front me. Stevie, the fucking thing was full of peanuts!”

  Stevie stared at him, uncomprehending. And then she, too, felt a sudden rush. “He was sneezing. And wasn’t he wearing a turtleneck? As if to cover—”

  “He’s been wearing a turtleneck all week.”

  “I pushed it with my toe through the space between the stoop and the house.”

  “What?”

  “The wasp.”

  Leo released her. She sped back out the door and down the steps and began rummaging through the hollow space under the stoop. Just enough natural light remained to silver the outlines of shapes, including a papery ball, a wasps’ nest, clinging to the underside of the wood. She thrust her hands into the accumulation of dead leaves, turning them aside, and then, there it was, protected from rain and sun by vegetation and the stoop’s overhang, the tiny perfect carcass of the insect, its body ringed with black and yellow stripes. Leo looked over the railing into the palm of Stevie’s hand, illuminated by the light falling from the kitchen, and wondered that something so small could be so powerful and so important. Its venom could blind one man. Or it could make another swell and itch.