“Summer sun and summer fun could be the Parliament Buildings,” Lindsay said.
“Where I’m betting there are gentle paths,” Jill added.
“You put it together, it sounds like an indictment of the prime minister that maybe ended with a shooting. An assassination attempt? Only trouble is, to my knowledge, nobody ever shot at Pearson,” I pointed out.
“It would explain the shaking hands reference, though,” Lindsay said. “Nerves.”
“Except it didn’t happen,” I repeated. “Which means we could be totally off base.”
“Let’s set that aside for now,” Cobb said. “There’s something else here that’s interesting. We know one of the shooters at The Depression was tall, and there’s a mention of a tall man in the lyrics. And didn’t Paula Pendergast tell you one of the guys who ran The Tumbling Mustard was tall?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Laird. She said he was tall and skinny … but, yikes, there are millions of tall guys. That really feels like a stretch.”
Another period of silence followed. I looked around the table, and it looked to me like the kids and maybe a couple of the adults were fading.
“I say we wrap this up,” I suggested. “We’ve made some progress here. Why don’t we call it a night, sleep on it, and if anyone comes up with anything else, we all stay in touch.”
Cobb looked from face to face. “You guys are amazing. I may have to hire all of you.”
“Thanks, but this is as close to the action as I want to get,” Jill said, laughing.
“Besides,” I said, “you can’t afford all of them and me too.”
Cobb looked at me. “You’re right, Adam.” He reached out his hand. “I want to thank you for all your effort. See you around.”
That had the whole table laughing, as I shook my head and finally laughed too.
The party, if that’s what it was, broke up.
“Seeing as this is my last day as part of the Cullen and Cobb team, I’ve got the bill,” I said.
“No, you don’t.” Cobb held out his hand, wanting the bill I’d already laid claim to.
“I insist. Besides, I came into some money today, so I’m good with this.”
Cobb shook his head, continued to gesture for the bill.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
He finally withdrew his hand. “Hell, if I’d known I’d get a free dinner out of it, I’d have fired you a long time ago.”
I was the last one out to the parking lot, and when I got there everyone was in the two cars except Cobb.
“Thanks for the dinner,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Actually, I did,” I said. “Kennedy insisted on it.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “This was useful. Hard to say how useful, but there are some things that came out of this that we need to talk about.”
“Sure. When do you want to do that?”
“How about in the morning? My office. Say, ten?”
“See you then.”
We shook hands, and I climbed into the Accord. Kyla looked like she was already asleep in the back seat.
I looked over at Jill. “Thanks for your help in there. You were amazing, which doesn’t surprise me.”
“Do you really think it was helpful?”
“Cobb does. We’re going to talk about it in the morning. And yes, I think we’re further along in attaching meaning to the lyrics than we were before.”
“Good.” She smiled at me with a glance over her shoulder at Kyla, who was definitely in dreamland. “I hope that means I’ve earned the right to have my way with you tonight.”
“I believe that is a distinct possibility.”
She pointed at the ignition.
“Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.”
When I got to Cobb’s office, he was at his desk, staring again at the lyrics to the Ellie Foster song. He had a coffee on his desk, so I crossed to the coffee maker and Keuriged myself a cup.
I sat, took a couple of sips, and said, “What do you think?”
He looked up at me, and his eyes were narrow and red. I knew he hadn’t slept much.
“What do you know about Lester B. Pearson?”
I shrugged. “Beyond what we learned in school and what was said last night? Not much. Although I seem to remember he was the big push behind Canada getting its own flag.”
Cobb nodded. “I spent a lot of last night and this morning learning as much as I could about him.”
“I thought research was my job.”
“It is, and you’re a lot better at it than I am, but I couldn’t sleep and decided if anything could possibly make me drowsy, it would be delving into Canadian political history.”
“Did it work?”
He laughed. “Yes, but regrettably not until about five-thirty this a.m.”
“Thus, the coffee.” I pointed.
“Thus, the coffee.”
“Find anything interesting in your studies?”
“A few things. First of all, you were right — there was never any record of an attempt on Pearson’s life.”
“Pretty bland stuff back then?”
“Yes and no. Peter mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize that Pearson won.”
“Before he became prime minister.”
Cobb nodded, sipped coffee. “Feel like a history lesson?”
“Professor Cobb.” I grinned. “It has a nice ring to it.” I leaned back, coffee cup in hand. “Hit me.”
“Pay attention; there’s a test.” He smiled, then turned serious. “First of all, the Suez Canal links the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. It was built by Egyptian workers, but it was owned by the Suez Canal Company, which was itself jointly owned by the British and the French. The canal opened in 1869, and it was a big deal as a main transportation artery for … guess what.”
“Oil,” I said.
“You just might ace this course. The canal was a vital route for oil travelling to Britain. So now let’s fast-forward to the mid-twentieth century. By the 1950s, things were a little complicated in the world. You had the Cold War going on between the United States and Russia; there was growing Egyptian dissatisfaction with the two Imperialist powers — Britain and France — and, of course, there was the ever-present Arab-Israeli strife going on. Nasser was the president of Egypt, and he was worried that Britain was trying to increase its influence in the region by establishing closer ties with Iraq and Jordan and would use that as a way of controlling Egypt. So Nasser did a couple of things. First, he bought a huge quantity of arms from Russia in the fall of 1955, and then in 1956, he seized the Suez Canal. Obviously, this was a major headache for Britain.”
He paused and looked at me for some kind of validation.
I nodded and said, “With you so far.”
Cobb glanced down at his notes, but it was clear he didn’t need them. “I’m not going to go into all the reasons for Nasser doing this — it’s not important for our purposes — but clearly the political problems in the area were instantly amplified. So Great Britain, France, and Israel launched an attack on Egypt, wanting to take back control of the canal and oust Nasser from power. A couple of little problems. They neglected to inform the United States of the plan, and the Soviet Union, wanting to back up their guy, Nasser, threatened to use nuclear weapons.”
I sipped some of my coffee, nodded. “I remember some of this, but not well and not in detail.”
“I’m going to keep this as short as I can,” Cobb said.
“You’re doing fine,” I told him. “I’ll let you knew when I get bored.”
“Okay, so the invasion was a big success militarily but a nightmare diplomatically. Instantly there was a big-time rift between the U.S. and Great Britain, and there was a worry that the action would drive the rest of the Arab world into the
welcoming arms of the Soviet Union. Enter Lester B. Pearson, who was at the time the Canadian secretary of state for external affairs. He’d already served as president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1952, so he was a player on the international stage. He managed to get the United Nations to agree to form a United Nations Emergency Force and send it to the region to settle things down and separate the warring parties. This allowed Britain, France, and Israel to ease their way out of the conflict — and the area — without losing face. Essentially peace and stability were restored, and Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1957.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Even though things cooled down somewhat, there were leftover hurt feelings and pissed-off folks all over the place.”
“Of course. The British prime minister had to resign, the French and Americans didn’t trust each other for decades after that, and Arab-Israeli tensions were ratcheted up several notches. Even in Canada, there were people who weren’t happy with their own Nobel winner because they felt he and the government had abandoned Mother England in her time of need. So, yes, there were lots of grudges that carried on for a long time.”
I scratched my chin and thought about what Cobb had said.
“And you think there might have been motivation in this long-simmering anger that could have led some individuals or groups to want to do something — if not assassinate the PM, at least do something to make a statement?”
Cobb shrugged. “It’s possible. And one more thing. Pearson’s crowning glory, the new Canadian flag, was unveiled in February 1965.”
I whistled. “And Ellie Foster disappeared in February 1965.”
Cobb said, “It’s entirely possible that the two are totally unrelated and all my overnight reading was a pleasant exercise in learning some Canadian history and nothing more.”
“Why is it I have a feeling you don’t believe a word of what you just said?”
Cobb shrugged, drank some coffee, and made a face.
“Cold?”
“Ice cold.” He set the mug down, glared at it like it was at fault, then looked up at me. “It would damn sure help give this whole thing some meaning if there was a connection between Ellie’s disappearance and that section in the song.”
“Can’t argue that.” I sat and watched Cobb as he gathered up the pages of notes he’d written throughout the night. When the stack of paper was relatively neat, I said, “So what’s next?”
“Next?” He stood up. “Next, we walk over to Red’s for breakfast. And we think and we talk … and maybe we plan.”
Red’s Diner was about four blocks from Cobb’s office, and the walk seemed to revive Cobb at least a little. We studied the menu for a couple of minutes. I went with eggs Benny, and Cobb opted for chorizo hash and eggs. We were only a couple of bites in when Cobb set his knife and fork down and looked hard at me.
“Am I crazy on this thing?”
“Depends on which thing you’re asking about.”
“I keep asking myself the same damn questions. I’m sick of the questions, and I’m even sicker of my non-answers.”
“The key question being the importance of the lyrics?”
He nodded. “They have to matter. Don’t they? And another question. I’ll throw this one to you. Did last night’s family gathering amount to nothing more than a fun parlour game to pass the time while our dinner digested, or did we learn something? Did we actually figure out some stuff?”
“Valid questions, and pretty much the same ones that have been rolling around in my head as well. Unfortunately, the questions — that’s the easy part. Answers are a little tougher.”
“Humour me,” Cobb said. “Throw some answers out there.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “I agree that there has to be some significance to the song. I might be less convinced than you are that it’s a key element in our investigation. But let’s assume it is — because you’re right in asking why someone would have placed the CD in Monica Brill’s car if it didn’t matter.
“But whether we broke new ground last night — who the hell knows? There was a good discussion and some really creative ideas being thrown around. And obviously it led to some interesting historical research. But I don’t know if we’re any closer to knowing what happened to Ellie Foster. I just don’t know that.”
Cobb looked at me for a while, then picked up his knife and fork and went back at the food. But it didn’t look to me like his heart was in it. And sure enough, half a dozen bites later, he pushed the plate aside and pulled out a notebook and a pen.
“You keep eating,” he told me. “I just want to jot down a couple of things.”
“Okay,” I mumbled between bites. “Feel free to verbalize.”
“Let me throw out a theory … actually, a bunch of theories I’ve woven together to suggest a direction we might want to pursue.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Here’s the thing. I’m making a lot of assumptions, and I know some of them are shaky. But I’m just trying to construct even one possible scenario for us to kick around.”
I shrugged, mostly because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say.
“So, first of all, let’s assume that Ellie knew her abductors, that the ‘You bastard’ was directed at a person or persons known to her. And let’s assume that the two band guys who were shot that night were collateral damage. Wrong place, wrong time. We know that one of the shooters was tall. So now we’ve got two guys, and Ellie being forced into a car that is leaving the back alley behind The Depression. We have to ask ourselves why. I see this as a well-orchestrated abduction required having someone in the club — either one of the kidnappers or an accomplice — let the bad guys know when Ellie went outside for a smoke.”
He stopped and raised an eyebrow to invite a response.
“Go on,” I said.
“So let’s go back to why. I find any suggestions that involve jealous or desperate lovers, no matter how enchanting Ellie Foster may have been, to require more of a leap of faith than I’m prepared to make. And we know it wasn’t a robbery. There was never a ransom demand, so that rules out the most common reason for kidnapping — financial gain. That takes us down some less-travelled roads.”
He paused as the server came by with a coffee pot in hand. She eyed Cobb’s abandoned food. “Was there anything wrong with your breakfast, sir? I can get you something else, or —”
Cobb held up a hand. “The food was great. I’m sorry, I’m just not hungry, but please tell whoever prepared this that there was absolutely nothing amiss with the food.”
The server smiled. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to do that,” she said. “More coffee for you, gentlemen?”
“Please,” Cobb said, and I nodded.
After she’d gone, I said, “I’m guessing one of the less-travelled roads you see us travelling down has a political overtone to it.”
Cobb nodded, a little more animated now. “It was a time of political upheaval. I came across another note last night. February 11, 1965, Malcolm X was killed. I’m not suggesting there’s any connection with this case, but I am saying it indicates the kind of political … I don’t know if turmoil is the right word, maybe turbulence … anyway, there was a lot going on.”
“And you think there might have been some political element behind what happened to Ellie Foster?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but there are two strands of this I keep coming back to that I can’t help but feel are interconnected: the song lyrics and The Tumbling Mustard.”
I thought about that. The same two things I keep coming back to. I finally nodded. “Seems like a pretty good bet.”
“And I think we took a pretty good run at the lyrics last night,” he continued. “And it felt like they were maybe pointing to a political thread in there somewhere. Which brings us back to …?” He stopped talking and look
ed at me.
“The Tumbling Mustard.”
“Bingo.”
“That might be a bit of a challenge,” I said.
“Understood,” Cobb agreed. “But you’ve already made some progress there, in your conversations with the guy from Le Hibou and the singer from Saskatoon.”
I didn’t answer but thought back to my conversations with the two of them. As far back as my first chat with Paula Pendergast, I remember thinking that The Tumbling Mustard might be worth concentrating on.
“How would you feel about taking another run at them?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “Anything in particular I should be concentrating on?”
“I’m not sure. We know a little more now than we did when you first talked to them. How about you just see what else you can find out? And see if you can get us a few more names — staff, performers, regular customers — anybody else we can talk to.”
“Got it.” I pulled out my own notebook and dashed off a few notes.
“Meantime, I’m going to see if I can find out anything from any of the law enforcement folks down there. I realize all the cops will be retired or deceased, but maybe I can find someone in Ottawa who might recall something. If there was anything that had a political feel to it — especially something that smelled a little bad — there ought to be some records somewhere.”
“So you’re saying The Tumbling Mustard is our focus for now.”
Cobb nodded. “And I’m saying that for two reasons: First, I have a feeling there’s something there. And second, we’ve got bugger-all else.”
“Both excellent reasons,” I said.
The Saskatoon Princess picked up on the third ring. After we exchanged hellos and she brought me up to speed on the weather situation in Wanham, I decided to get right to it.
“Paula, I was wondering if you’d thought any more about The Tumbling Mustard since our first conversation.”
“Actually, I haven’t thought about much else. See what you did?”
“Sorry about that.” I chuckled. “Come up with anything that might help us with our investigation?”
“I don’t know for sure if it’s helpful, but there was one more thought I had, something I remembered.”
Last Song Sung Page 18
