I also knew that there was no point arguing. The quicker we got started, the quicker we’d be out of there. Again I started with the bathroom, and again came away empty-handed. I moved to the living room and was meticulous, even checking under and between couch cushions and looking at each of the boards on the hardwood floor to see if any of them looked like a hiding place. I could hear Cobb upstairs as I turned my attention to the living room and dining area. I was still a little spooked after the Burkowsky visit but tried to stay focused and thorough as I examined bookshelves and the entertainment centre. I paid special attention to the photo area.
I studied every photo in the hopes of seeing a face I could recognize, but it wasn’t until I turned one of the photos over that I found something of interest.
On the back of a photo of three people — two men and a woman — I noticed that the cardboard backing looked worn at one corner, an indicator perhaps that the backing had been removed on a somewhat regular basis, or at least more than once or twice. I eased the little metal pieces holding the cardboard in place and eased the cardboard off. Inside was a folded piece of paper.
It was old and felt like it could crumble if I handled it at all roughly, so I slowly and carefully unfolded it and spread it out on the kitchen table. It was a note with the words Five Minutes to Midnight scrawled across the top of the page alongside an almost comical logo or symbol. It was the face of a clock with the hands at — no surprise — 11:55.
The note read:
February 11, 1965
The time of our proud moment draws near. Each of us must maintain our silence, our courage, and above all, our belief in the inevitability and rightness of our cause. In just days we will rewrite the history of our nation and avenge the atrocity of the Suez at the same time as we destroy the hated flag that Pearson wishes to inflict on a proud people.
With victory in our sights, I rely on each of you to do what must be done to ensure our victory.
Abdel Fayed
It was childish in its fervour and desperate appeal to whomever the intended readers were and would have been almost funny if it weren’t for the seriousness of the subject matter, which I was sure included the attempted assassination of the prime minister of Canada.
I reread the brief note, then turned my attention once again to the photo. I wished there was a way to enlarge it to get a better look at the three people. I was fairly confident that I could rule out Fayed being one of the people in the photo based simply on the description I’d been given of him as a well-built man who looked as if he could be Middle Eastern. Neither of the men in the photo fit that description.
The two men flanked the woman in the photo, and I concentrated first on her. I thought it might be Ellie Foster, but I wasn’t certain. Her hair was different, and she was somewhat in the shadow of the bigger man standing next to her. I checked against the photo Tomlinson had showed us the day before and was fairly certain it was Ellie. I wished we’d thought to bring the photos Monica Brill had left with us, but they were at our hotel. I recalled that Tomlinson had said there was only one photo on the table that pertained to The Tumbling Mustard. He might have lied.
I looked again to the two men, concentrating first on the man on the left, the tallest of the three people, thin, with hair that was longer, though not long, and an unkempt beard. I tried to see any resemblance between this man, whom I would have guessed was twentyish, and either Tomlinson or the old man. I couldn’t say, but lose the facial hair and long locks and add fifty years, and who the hell knew?
The man on the right looked a little older and was clean shaven, with shorter hair. He was wearing a sweater that looked like it cost more than the other man’s entire ensemble. I was wishing I could get a look at Tomlinson and the old man again to try to compare the facial structures, see if I could get a read on whether one or both of them were in the photo.
I got my wish.
Thirteen
“Research for the article?” The voice dragged out the word article, making all three syllables into words of their own.
The voice was maybe ten feet behind me, and I knew without looking that it wasn’t Cobb. I set the photo back on the table, straightened up, and turned slowly, just in case the speaker was as hostile as the flat, monotone voice indicated.
Turned out it wasn’t a bad idea to exercise caution.
Ben Tomlinson was standing there with a pissed-off look on his face and a shotgun in his hands. He had to have arrived while we were searching the garage and wouldn’t have heard a vehicle or someone entering the house. The shotgun, a double barrel, was aimed at me. I moved my hands out to the sides, away from my body, to indicate I wasn’t a threat. I wasn’t at all sure that right at that moment it made a difference.
“Hey, asshole!” Tomlinson yelled. “I’ve got your friend right here, and if you aren’t out here in less than five seconds I will blow this son of a bitch into the great beyond.”
I didn’t turn my head toward the stairs, just in case Cobb had some plan to come in, gun blazing, and catch Tomlinson off guard before he could send me into the great beyond.
Cobb did not have that particular plan in mind, and he appeared at the top of the stairs, moving with the same caution I had exercised earlier.
He didn’t say anything, and Tomlinson was silent as well, choosing to gesture with the barrel of the gun to indicate he wanted Cobb standing next to me. Cobb, hands raised slightly, reached the bottom of the stairs, crossed the floor to where I was, and turned to face Tomlinson.
“Burkowsky?” he asked, the hint of a wry smile at the corners of his mouth.
“Pays to get along with the neighbours,” Tomlinson answered, his thin lips stretched into a decidedly unpleasant horizontal line.
“So what now?” Cobb said. “Seems to me you’ve got a decision or two to make. Right now what we’ve got is our suspicion that you were a member of Five Minutes to Midnight and that you may have had something to do with the disappearance of Ellie Foster. That, and maybe a charge of illegal use of a firearm. You take this any further, and you end up in some serious shit.”
Tomlinson laughed, without a trace of mirth. “I believe what we call that is trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The only people in shit here are you two, and all of us know that. I shoot both your asses, tell the police that here’s me, a helpless senior citizen finding you in my home, and I panicked a little and shot to protect myself, my father, and my home. Might get a reprimand — more likely a hero’s reception.” He looked at me. “You’re a newspaperman — be a great story, wouldn’t it? Too bad you won’t be the one writing it.”
“Yeah, about that father thing,” Cobb said. “Speaking of not being 100 percent honest — you feel like telling us who the old man really is?”
I wasn’t sure Cobb’s strategy of challenging Tomlinson, even verbally, was the one I would have employed. But I decided to keep my mouth shut and concentrate on having my legs continue to keep me in the upright position.
“I don’t feel like telling you shit.” The look on Tomlinson’s face reminded me of the one I’d seen on Marlon Kennedy’s a couple of times.
“Which brings us to the only other question we have,” Cobb went on. “What did you do with Ellie Foster?”
“No, that isn’t the question at all.” Tomlinson shook his head. “The one question is, what do I do with you? Which, by the way, I already have an answer for, but then we’ve been through that, haven’t we?”
I was convinced the verbal sparring was about to come to an end, and if Tomlinson actually planned to shoot us, that he would do it sooner rather than later. There was a movement behind him, and I saw the front door open and the old man in the wheelchair enter the house, his eyes moving from us to Tomlinson and back to us as he rolled farther into the room. He took up a position a little to Tomlinson’s right.
“I told you to wait in the car,”
Tomlinson barked, his eyes never leaving Cobb and me.
The old man nodded. “Yes, you did.”
It had to have taken a tremendous effort for him to get himself and the wheelchair out of the car, transfer himself into the chair, and roll it in here without help.
I looked at him and realized that if I was looking for a saviour, this frail little man, who looked like what he’d done had taken a tremendous toll on the little strength he had, was not that person.
“Get into the bedroom.” Tomlinson growled the command with a quick glance at the old man before returning his attention to us.
“Shortly,” the old man managed in his husky wheeze.
“Now!” Tomlinson’s voice carried the threat of what would happen if he was disobeyed.
The old man shook his head and placed his withered hands on the wheels of the chair, as if he could somehow keep it from moving. Like a child making a fist. Determined.
“There are things I want to know. Things I want to say.”
“There’s nothing you need to know. And you’d be wasting your breath saying anything to these two. They’re not leaving here alive.”
Cobb was looking at the old man. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m wondering if you’re okay with a few more killings … to go along with the ones at The Depression, for starters. Were there others? Ellie Foster?”
The tug-of-war between Tomlinson and the old man wasn’t about to settle. I watched the old man. Whoever he was, he wasn’t intimidated by the shotgun or by Tomlinson’s menace.
Tomlinson was alternating between watching us to make sure we weren’t trying anything and glaring at the man in the wheelchair. And still the frail old man made no move to leave the room.
I was willing him to stay. I thought as long as he was there, Tomlinson might not pull the trigger. But I realized that even that thought wasn’t rooted in reality as Tomlinson’s fury continued to mount. He was clearly not accustomed to being disobeyed. And now I feared that the old man’s stubborn refusal to leave might actually prove the snapping point in the man holding the shotgun. I wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t turn and shoot the old man first. Except that he would be left with only one shell for Cobb and me.
Cobb must have been thinking the same thing, because I noticed he was inching away from me — very slowly.
“It doesn’t really matter now, sir, but I would like to know your name.” I spoke to the old man, partly to keep Tomlinson’s focus on me and partly because I really did want to know who this man was.
The old man looked at me, and there was a small smile playing at his eyes and mouth.
“You shut the fuck up,” Tomlinson snarled in the old man’s direction. He was waving the shotgun around now, and I knew there was a danger that we could push him too far.
“Daniel Gervais,” he said softly. “Not words I have said in a very long time.”
“The third owner of The Tumbling Mustard,” I said, watching Tomlinson as I spoke.
He turned again on Gervais, spittle flying from his mouth as he yelled, “I told you to shut your goddamned mouth!” He spun back to me, and I knew then that he was close to the breaking point. I held my hands up in a gesture of surrender and to show I wouldn’t ask any more questions. I hoped he received the message.
But Gervais wasn’t finished. “The Tumbling Mustard was nothing but a front for a bunch of amateur anarchists. And I was one of them. I actually believed —”
Tomlinson raised the gun, aimed it at Cobb. He was savvy enough to realize that of the three people in that room, Cobb posed the greatest danger to him. Take him out, then me, and he’d have all the time he needed to reload and shoot the old man, too, if that was what he decided to do.
I know I winced and maybe even closed my eyes for a second, almost missing Daniel Gervais as he used the only weapon he had. In what for him had to be a superhuman effort, he rolled the wheelchair into Tomlinson, hard enough to almost take him down. The old man’s spindly arms flailed uselessly as he pummelled Tomlinson with blows that had the force of a small child’s. They were no more than an irritant. And a distraction.
Tomlinson didn’t go down. He was knocked back a step by the wheelchair but recovered his balance, reaching down instinctively to his lower legs, which had been hit by the chair’s footrests. He swore at the pain as he stepped forward again and raised the shotgun over his head, clearly intending to bring the butt end down on Gervais’s head.
“Hold it right there!” Cobb yelled, and I turned to see that he had his own weapon — the Smith & Wesson .38 Special he often carried — out and aimed at Tomlinson. Cobb had assumed the attack stance, the two-handed grip of his police training.
“Put the gun down, Ben,” Cobb said, quietly at first, then louder a second time. “Put the gun down!”
Tomlinson hesitated, and I watched as reason duelled with fury, the internal conflict playing out on a face contorted with rage and surprise. But I thought I saw something else on that face. Hard to know, but maybe he was resigned, knowing it was over and it wasn’t ending as he’d wanted.
He’d made his decision.
He swung the shotgun around, bringing the barrel back toward Cobb and me. The move was fast, so fast that when I heard the two loud bursts that echoed through the room, I wasn’t sure at first which gun had fired.
Tomlinson hadn’t been fast enough.
The force of Cobb’s shots jerked him back, and the shotgun fell to the floor behind the wheelchair. Tomlinson crashed down, one horrible final curse, if that’s what it was, escaping his lips.
For several seconds, no one moved. No one spoke. I looked to my left and saw Cobb, still in the position, his weapon still aimed at the fallen Tomlinson.
When it was clear Tomlinson was not moving, Cobb stepped forward. I followed him, Cobb kneeling next to Tomlinson, me moving to Gervais to see if he was okay.
Cobb straightened. “Are you all right, sir?” he addressed Gervais.
The old man, shaken by all that had happened, nodded to both of us. Then he turned his gaze to the man on the floor and, in a voice filled with hate and rage, said, “Amateur son of a bitch. Didn’t check for weapons.”
“Call 911, Adam,” Cobb said, as he looked back to Tomlinson. “He’s alive, but I’m not sure for how long.”
I made the call, my fumbling fingers struggling to hit the right buttons, watching Gervais as I spoke to the operator. I knew the old man was ill, perhaps even terminally so, and I wasn’t sure his body could withstand the shock of what had just taken place.
I gave the operator the information she demanded, her voice all business after I told her the reason for the call. I wasn’t on the phone long. The woman I was talking to — she told me her name was Susan — was both efficient and fast. She told me an ambulance and the police would be dispatched immediately and I could expect both very soon.
She wanted me to stay on the line until they arrived.
“I have to go,” I told her. “I’m needed here.”
I could see that Tomlinson hadn’t regained consciousness and Cobb had holstered his weapon. I realized that Tomlinson and Gervais weren’t the only ones feeling the effects of what had just happened. I was shaking violently and couldn’t make myself stop.
Watching someone who was quite possibly in the final throes of a violent death was a horror I hadn’t expected and had never wanted. Yet here it was. The shaking continued.
“You okay?” I heard Cobb’s voice off in the distance somewhere.
“Adam!” The voice was near now. In fact Cobb’s face was inches from mine, and I could feel myself coming back from wherever I’d been.
“I need you to focus,” Cobb told me, his voice sharp, staccato. “I know this is tough, but I don’t want you folding up on me now. Are you okay?”
I blinked a couple of times and nodded.
“Get yourself
a glass of water, and bring one for Mr. Gervais.”
I forced myself to do as I was instructed. I had to act, believing that if I didn’t do something, keep moving, I’d slump down in a corner and end up staring at the floor, useless to Cobb and not a hell of a lot of good to myself, come to that.
I walked to the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, and gulped one down before returning to the living room with the other gripped in two hands to keep it from spilling.
I made my mind concentrate on something other than what had happened moments before. As I handed Gervais the glass, I said, “Daniel Gervais. D.G. You are a fine artist, sir.”
Gervais was able to take the glass, and after a long drink he handed it back to me, then looked at Tomlinson, the pool of blood beneath him spreading across the hardwood floor. “You got what you deserved,” he said, and spat in the direction of the fallen man.
I knew Cobb would have questions for him, but I had one, and it wouldn’t wait.
“Mr. Gervais, can you tell us if Ellie Foster is still alive and where we might find her?”
I watched him turn slowly in my direction; then, after a few seconds, he shook his head, a look of great sadness creasing the gaunt features.
“Ellie died four years to the day after she was kidnapped.”
The room was very still, even Tomlinson’s gasps now near-silent in his attempt to breathe.
“Did he kill her?” I asked.
The old man looked at me for a long time before he said, “I suppose he did. I think she died of a broken heart … but yes, he was the one.”
Fourteen
The was little Cobb could do for Tomlinson, other than try to stop the bleeding as best he could.
As he did that, the wounded man spoke only one word: “Cold.” Cobb and I covered him with blankets and bedcovers. While Cobb and I worked over Tomlinson, Gervais, unprompted, began the telling.
And while the old man’s body may have been in its final stages of life, his mind and memory were remarkably intact and his ability to recall details of long-ago conversations was singular.
Last Song Sung Page 27
