Crang Plays the Ace

by Jack Batten

  I knelt down beside Alice Brackley and felt the carotid artery in the right side of her neck. No beat. I thought about applying other medical tests but rejected the idea. Touching a corpse wasn’t turning out to be much fun. Besides, Alice’s neck told me enough. It felt cold and stiff. Ms. Brackley had been alive at twenty after four when she phoned me. Eight hours later, her body had no warmth and rigor mortis was right around the corner. She must have died not long after she got off the phone, and the likeliest cause seemed to be a broken neck. There was a high red mark on her right cheek that looked like it had come from a blow. It wasn’t makeup. I stood up and shook off a small attack of queasiness.

  Alice was dressed for an evening alone. She had on a quilted dressing gown and fluffy slippers with heels. One of the slippers had fallen from her foot. The gold Rolex was on her left wrist. She was lying on beige carpeting that went wall to wall, and around her the living room was furnished in pieces that glowed and shone. Silk fabrics on the armchairs and dark wood tables with a high polish. The paintings on the walls didn’t go with the rest of the decor, stolid nineteenth-century landscapes and formal portraits of men with spade beards. Family heirloom stuff. Nothing in the room had been disturbed. Except Alice.

  I went upstairs. The master bedroom was at the back of the house. Mistress bedroom. Powder blue was its dominant shade. There was a duvet on the bed, and it and the sheet underneath were lightly rumpled, not as if someone had been sleeping between them but as if someone had been lying in them reading or watching television. A glass filled with brown liquid sat on a bedside table next to a push-button phone. The phone was powder blue. I sniffed the glass. Scotch and not much water. Two video cassettes for the VCR across the room lay among the bedclothes. I leaned over to read the titles without touching the cassettes. The first was a Fred Astaire movie, Funny Face, not one of the ten with Ginger Rogers. Audrey Hepburn. The other movie was titled Going Down on Stud Ranch. Alice had a dirty little secret.

  Two doors opened off the bedroom on the right side, one to the bathroom and the other to a dressing room. Whoever had done in Ms. Brackley seemed to have visited the dressing room and not tidied up afterwards. An ornate jewellery box had been knocked over and its contents dumped across the top of the French Provincial dresser. Some of the contents had probably departed with the intruder. The pieces on the dresser top were costume jewellery of the bauble sort that Alice would wear for slumming. There was no sign of the fabulous Brackley gold collection.

  I opened the top drawer of the dresser. It held three smaller jewellery boxes. I looked inside one of them and thought the contents seemed intact. The box held mostly shiny earrings in many shapes and sizes and materials. None of the materials was gold. I shut the box and pushed it into a corner. The edge of an envelope peeked out from under the box. It was an envelope from the Eddie Black photography people, and inside it was a bunch of colour snaps. I shuffled through them. They’d been taken on the patio of a beach house, probably Caribbean judging from the vegetation in the background, and they showed two people. Charles Grimaldi and the late Alice Brackley.

  All the photos but one had Grimaldi alone or Alice alone. Grimaldi wore a white swimsuit and tennis shoes. The rest of him was bare and tanned. He had more hair on his chest than Gene Shalit has on his head. Alice was in a yellow bikini. Good figure, and breasts substantial enough to get her a job at the Majestic. Grimaldi must have snapped the pictures of Alice and vice versa. The last photo showed Alice and Grimaldi together. Maybe a passing tourist took it for them. Alice was giving Grimaldi a lovey-dovey look in the photo. Grimaldi was beaming into the camera.

  I put the pictures back in the drawer, went downstairs, walked around Alice’s body, and left through the opened glass door. The kids on the bikes down the street remained engrossed in their conversation, and unless someone was spying from behind a curtain, I fled the scene of the crime undetected. I stopped the Volks at a phone booth outside the subway station near the bottom of Bedford Road and dialled 911. The cop wanted to know what I meant by trouble at the Brackley address and who was I, sir? Trouble that went with a break-in, I said, and told him I was a concerned citizen and a very influential chap. The cop sounded like he doubted it. I hung up and drove home to tell Annie about the murder of Alice Brackley.

  Poor thing, she’d probably say.

  22

  ANNIE CHANGED HER MIND about another cup of coffee. I opted for a large vodka.

  “Most conspicuously,” I said, “the burglary that went with the murder wasn’t the kind that professionals commit.”

  Annie couldn’t keep the small tremble out of her hand when she lifted the coffee cup.

  She said, “You’ve just told me that Alice’s gold necklace and bracelet and whatnot were taken.”

  “Or even that a sensible amateur would commit.”

  “You were there, Crang,” Annie said. “You’ll have to explain what you’re talking about.”

  “Whoever bopped Alice rigged the house to look like a break-in after the deed was done in the living room,” I said. We were talking in the kitchen and Annie had her feet tucked under her in the chair closest to the window. “The broken glass gave it away. It was on the patio side, which means our intruder punched out the sliding door from the inside. Obvious stuff. And, another item, if he was so intent on Alice’s gold, why did he leave the Rolex on her wrist? Everything about the set-up smacks of contrivance. Not very sophisticated contrivance.”

  I was leaning against the kitchen counter. My body wanted me to pace, but no one paces anymore: Doesn’t look hip. I settled for leaning and drinking.

  Annie said, “Well, how did this intruder get into the house in the first place? If he was some sort of threat to Alice, surely she wouldn’t open the door to him.”

  “Maybe intruder isn’t the right description.”

  “It’s not bad for characterizing someone who murders the occupant of a house.”

  “Ex post facto intruder,” I said. “Alice let him in because he posed no danger. He was a friend, an acquaintance, a late-night date, and afterwards he turned nasty.”

  “Killed her, you’re supposing,” Annie said, “and then arranged the rooms to make it seem like the killing happened when Alice caught a burglar in the act?”

  “But why was he so sloppy about the cover-up?” I said. “We don’t need to summon Sherlock Holmes from 221B Baker Street to spot the flaws in the faked robbery. It was as if the killer were making a show of his arrogance.”

  “Or his panic.”

  I’d drunk three ounces of Wyborowa. It was beginning to kick in with a muzzy warmth in my chest.

  “I choose arrogance,” I said. “This guy showed the same disdain when he killed Alice. The way it looked to me, the mark on her cheek, the position of the body on the floor, he smacked her hard and he broke her neck and she died. Gave her the back of his hand, you might say.”

  Annie said, “I can’t believe we’re speaking like this.”

  “I’ll talk, you listen,” I said. “It helps.”

  The words came out more sharply than I intended. Annie’s mouth tightened around the corners, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she reached for her coffee cup. Her hand was no longer trembling.

  “Presupposing Alice’s murder is tied in to whatever’s going on at Ace,” I said, “the company payroll has unlimited candidates for the role of murderer.”

  “May I speak?” Annie said. There was no anger in her voice, but plenty of firmness.

  “Be my guest.”

  “In my book, the list of candidates wouldn’t exclude Charles Grimaldi,” she said. “If anyone exudes arrogance, it’s Alice’s boss.”

  “Even if they were lovers?”

  “We don’t know that for absolute certain.”

  “A packet of photographs in Alice’s dresser drawer seems to confirm the romance.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “And there’s another problem with pointing at Grimaldi as the kil
ler. On arrogance, okay you’re right. But Grimaldi comes from a mob background. Death by smacking isn’t how these people handle office problems. They get rid of annoyances with a bullet behind the ear, and the body’s more likely to wash up on the shores of Lake Ontario next year, not on the broadloom next day.”

  Annie said, “You’ve just reopened the possibility that the killer isn’t necessarily an Ace person.”

  “Nothing about the murder is professional, I’ll go that far,” I said. “But it’s got to be Ace.”

  “Well, old sport,” Annie said, “whatever the explanation is for all this horror, it’s a horror that’s been taken out of your hands.”

  “Not really.”

  “The police are involved now,” Annie said. “They’ll make the decisions whether Alice’s killer is one of those creepy men at her company.”

  “Cops have no reason to suppose Alice’s death and Ace are tied in,” I said. “They’ll light on the phony robbery fast enough, and down the line, middle of the week probably, they’ll put it together that Charles Grimaldi is connected to the mob. But right now, up at Alice’s townhouse, all the cops have is the body of someone who happens to be a businesswoman and got herself bumped off by person unknown.”

  “Unless some responsible party tells them better.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “When Wansborough hears the news about Alice, he might be spooked enough to summon the cops and speak of his concerns about Ace’s surprising prosperity.”

  “The responsible party I had in mind,” Annie said, “was a criminal lawyer of my close acquaintance.”

  “Call me irresponsible.”

  I swallowed more vodka. Something was making me feel giddy, the vodka or the murder. Likely a combination of both. Call me irresponsible. Catchy melody. I hummed the first bars and took another swallow from the glass of vodka.

  “Call me unreliable,” I was half singing. Giddiness had gained the upper hand.

  “Crang,” Annie said from her chair, “don’t you dare.”

  Her look had a warning in it.

  “Throw in undependable too,” I sang, none too tunefully. I was holding out my arms like Sinatra without the hand mike.

  “You idiot,” Annie said, “a woman’s just died.”

  But Annie was beginning to show a small grin.

  “Call me unpredictable.”

  Annie’s smile occupied more of her face.

  “Tell me I’m impractical,” I sang. It was more wobble than croon.

  Annie got out of the chair. Her hands reached toward me in a choke grip.

  “Tell me I’m impractical.” I was racing the words. “Rainbows I’m inclined to pursue.”

  The last line came out strangled. Annie had her hands around my throat and she was laughing.

  “Crang,” she said, “you’re disgusting.”

  “So now you’re a music critic,” I said. “Pardon, reviewer.”

  Annie and I hugged and swayed and laughed in the kitchen.

  “Bet you don’t know what movie the song’s from,” Annie said after a while. She was talking into my chest.

  “I know Jimmy Van Heusen wrote it.”

  “Papa’s Delicate Condition,” Annie said. “Early 1960s. Jackie Gleason, Glynis Johns, I think Elisha Cook.”

  Annie leaned on the counter beside me and I put my arm around her shoulder. She was still wearing the terry cloth robe.

  “You really aren’t going to speak to the police?” she said.

  “No, but I’m really going to speak to Matthew Wansborough,” I said. “If he goes to the cops right away, my name will come up and that’d leave all sides distressed, me because I don’t have any solid answers and the police because they’ll conclude I’m holding out on them.”

  “Holding out what?”

  “That’s the point,” I said. “Give me a couple more days and maybe I’ll have explanations to deliver.”

  “Wansborough’s bound to get word of Alice’s death some time very soon,” Annie said.

  “Well, he’s family,” I said. “Somebody’ll call him. Even if not, the murder’s going to catch tonight’s news for everyone to see and hear and feast upon.”

  “Imagine what the Sun’s going to do with the story tomorrow.”

  “Take a guess at the headline.”

  Annie thought for a moment.

  “‘Sexy Socialite Slain’.”

  “The proper alliteration,” I said. “Don’t know about the sexy.”

  “We’re talking about a newspaper that measures sexiness on the Sunshine Girl standard,” Annie said. “By comparison, Alice Brackley is a knockout. Was.”

  “How about ‘Annex Asks Action On Attacker’?”

  Annie said, “That’s for the follow-up story later in the week.”

  Annie was past the first shock of the news of Alice’s death, and time, vodka, and the sneak attack of the giddies had levelled out the jumpiness I’d brought back from the scene of the crime.

  “You’re going to keep on playing the intrepid adventurer,” Annie said. She was back sitting in the chair. “Okay, but one suggestion. For backup or support or whatever you legal people indulge in, another opinion, why not put Tom Catalano in the picture right away?”

  “The sort of job this is,” I said, “the law society doesn’t smile on.”

  “Just because one lawyer may get himself disbarred, no sense making it a double disbarment,” Annie said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Something like that.”

  23

  THE WOMAN ON THE PHONE spoke in the language peculiar to Rosedale matrons. She doubled up on the vowels. Matthew came out “Ma-ah-tthew.” The woman was Mrs. Wansborough and she could lay honest claim to the accent. The Wansborough address, when I looked it up in the white pages, was in deepest Rosedale. Very proper and establishment Rosedale is, with a British tilt to it. Mrs. Wansborough said her husband was playing golf. She didn’t mind telling me the name of the club where he was playing, the Royal Ontario, but she had a warning.

  “Ma-ah-tthew,” she said, “dislikes intrusions on his golf match.”

  “Diphthong,” I said.

  “Pa-ah-rdon?”

  “What you do with the vowels,” I said, “I think they call that a diphthong.”

  “Thank you so very mu-uh-ch,” Mrs. Wansborough said. I had no doubt she was truly grateful.

  I dropped Annie off at the CBC Radio building on Jarvis and kept going north to the Royal Ontario Golf and Country Club. It was an old stomping ground of mine. When I was married to the beautiful and wealthy Pamela, her father enrolled me in the club. Family tradition, he said, all the males belonged, including quaint sons-in-law. Pamela’s father paid my initiation fee, five thousand dollars back then, five times as much today. I went into the club with the notion that golf was an effete activity for snobs. I was half right. Royal Ontario thrives on snobbery, but golf is a sport that plays hard tricks on the mind and body. I couldn’t get my handicap under twelve, and after Pamela and I broke up and her father nudged me off the membership rolls, I never played another round.

  Royal Ontario is the last Toronto course that still lies inside the city limits. From the first tee, you can hear the big transports changing gears up on the 401. I turned the Volks into the parking lot. Made of white clapboard, the clubhouse is two storeys high and shaped in a U that faces inward away from the course. Around it there are stands of tall rowan trees and flowerbeds that are long on snapdragons. I circled the clubhouse to the lawn that looks over the course’s first holes. The course drops gracefully into a valley and makes a wide sweep through the valley’s floor until it begins to climb up the back nine toward the clubhouse.

  On the lawn, three or four dozen people were sitting in wicker chairs. Stewards in white jackets moved among them serving drinks and tea. You got six fingers of buttered toast with each cup of tea. Ancient club rule. One of the stewards recognized me. His name was Will and he’d served at the club for half a century. Each morning
, in season, Will raises the flag beside the clubhouse and lowers it at sunset. Will mourned the passing of the Union Jack. So did the members.

  I stood at the edge of the crowd of wicker chairs and Will came over to me. He was slim and erect and had a clipped moustache from his days as a colonel’s batman in the Great War. Will thinks all wars are great.

  “We haven’t had the recent pleasure of your company, Mr. Crang,” he said. Will knew that Pamela’s father had banished me. His code forbade the mention of such seamy details.

  “Other duties, Will,” I said. “Other obligations.”

  “There’s something we can assist you with this afternoon?” Will asked.

  “Man named Wansborough,” I said, “I’d like a word with him.”

  “The gentleman is in Mr. Thompson’s foursome,” Will said. He had a quavery voice. “That would be our Mr. Thompson the banker.”

  “Of course.”

  “Not Mr. Thomson the architect without a ‘p’. They teed off not long past eleven.”

  “That ought to put them about the fifteenth hole by now.”

  “Mr. Thompson likes his quick pace.”

  “Maybe the seventeenth?”

  “I should think.”

  “I’ll pick them up at the eighteenth green.”

  “The gentleman you spoke of isn’t a member,” Will said. It was an accusation.

  “Wansborough?” I said. “Didn’t think I remembered him from my time.”

  “A guest,” Will said. He walked away with his tray.

  I wandered over to the eighteenth green. Four men were finishing their round. A young guy in lime-green slacks crouched behind his ball and lined up the putt. “For all the marbles, partner,” one of the other players said to him. The speaker had a broad, flushed face and was leaning on his putter at the side of the green. The young guy hunched over his ball in a stance that was part Jack Nicklaus, part vulture. He hit the ball with a firm stroke and it ran in a right-to-left curve and curled into the centre of the cup. “Not too shabby,” the man with the flushed face said in a loud voice. He and the young guy gave one another polite high-fives and walked away with their two opponents. No one glanced in my direction. Probably took me for a greenskeeper.