Dead Air

by David A. Poulsen

  “Smart kid.” I was having trouble with Cobb’s explanation and he could tell.

  “Hell, you worked the thing out — I have no doubt the kid either figured it out or thought he had with enough certainty that he could kill four people.”

  “But we don’t know for sure that one or more than one of the conference organizers actually killed Derek Beamer.”

  “No, we don’t and probably never will. What we do know is that Shawn Beamer believed it.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “There might have been something his dad com­municated home while he was at the conference — maybe a call to his wife that there was some weird stuff going on or that he was being watched or stalked, and eventually maybe Shawn heard about that from his mother. We just don’t know and, like I said, we probably never will.”

  “There’s something else I haven’t been able to reconcile in my mind. Shawn Beamer was bent on killing the people he held responsible for his father’s death; I get that. And framing Larmer for Hugg’s murder, that’s just good business. Ultimately you want to get away with the crimes you’ve committed, so you point the cops to a guy you think is despicable and whom society would be better off without. I get that, too.”

  Cobb nodded.

  “But what about the threats to Larmer before Hugg was killed? What was that about?”

  “Good question.” Cobb nodded again. “I’ve thought about that, too. And like you, I’m puzzled. Unless he was trying to set up a motive for Larmer to have killed Hugg. And it worked, sort of. The cops theorized that Larmer found out about the threats and that was part of why he killed Hugg.”

  “It just seems odd to me. He didn’t really need it. The bloodstains in the car provided the physical evidence the cops needed.”

  “Can’t argue that. If this was a TV cop show there’d be a scene where the killer is holding off the cops — or two guys like us — at gunpoint, but before pulling the trigger explains the whole case to them and the TV audience. This isn’t TV. I’ve lost track of the cases that we supposedly solved but had all kinds of unanswered questions at the end. It’s bloody frustrating. There’s nothing I want more than to talk to Shawn Beamer, but obviously that isn’t going to happen.”

  “I should have had you follow up on my interview with him. That was my screw-up.”

  Cobb shook his head. “You told me you had some reservations about the kid and it was me who didn’t follow up. I would have eventually, but we ran out of time. Sitting here and coming up with all the things we could have and should have done is counterproductive. Our job was to prove our client hadn’t killed Jasper Hugg. We did that. End of story.”

  Of course, it wasn’t the end of the story. I knew that, and I was sure Mike Cobb did, too. Both of us would second-guess ourselves for a long time.

  “What about Larmer? Guess he’s pretty relieved.”

  “I’m meeting up with him and Shulsky at a news conference later today.”

  “Celebration time.”

  “For them maybe. For me — and you — it’s payday.” He patted the breast pocket of his blazer. “Invoice is right here.”

  “So he’s been released from custody?”

  “You’ll see it on the news tonight. The Crown dropped the charges and he was released a couple of hours ago.”

  “News conference,” I repeated.

  Cobb smiled. “Yeah, it’s set for three o’clock this afternoon. Riverfront Stage at Prince’s Island.”

  “That sounds more like a public event than a news conference. I’m guessing Larmer Nation will be out in force.”

  “And I’m guessing you’re right. You going to be among the adoring throngs?”

  I started to shake my head but stopped. “Not sure,” I said. “Might be an interesting, albeit depressing, way to spend part of an afternoon.” I glanced outside. “He’s got the perfect day for it. And you can never hear too many rants against the bumbling local constabulary and the corrupt establishment, both of which are trying to quash the voice of the one man who stands up for the little guy.”

  “Sounds like you could have written his speech.”

  I laughed, but really I wasn’t finding the whole thing all that funny. Now that we had done what we’d set out to do and proved Larmer innocent of the murder, my loathe metre was rising to its maximum once again.

  Cobb must’ve been reading my mind. “Even though he was my client and even though I’m glad we were able to prove his innocence, I will admit the man is a pompous prick. Wouldn’t be the worst thing if someone could take him down a peg or two.”

  “Yeah, that would be nice,” I said.

  Cobb left for the pre–news conference meeting with Larmer and Shulsky. I placed a call to Martin Gathers at the Omaha World-Herald, gave him the story, then stayed on at the Starbucks reading the Calgary Herald and taking in more caffeine. I soon tired of that and settled for staring out the window watching people coming and going. I watched them park their cars along the narrow boulevard just metres from where I was sitting.

  An eclectic bunch, Starbucks patrons. There were SUVs, compacts, sporty little cars, a couple of pickup trucks, and a handful of the dull, tan-coloured station wagons favoured by hockey parents and the terminally boring. And one Lincoln Navigator. I wondered how similar to Larmer’s Navigator this one was. I lingered on that thought.

  And there it was at last. The answer to that niggling, annoying feeling that there was something I’d missed. It was right there.

  I set my coffee down and raced outside, leaving the other patrons wondering if I was suddenly in a huge hurry for a forgotten appointment, or if I was just weird.

  Unlocking the door of the Accord, I reached in and grabbed the file folder containing all my notes and hurried back into the Starbucks, smiling reassuringly at my fellow caffeine consumers as I returned to my seat.

  I opened the file folder, skipped past all my handwritten notes and transcriptions of interviews and conversations to the one piece of paper I hadn’t really looked at since the first time I’d seen it. It was the list Shawn Beamer had provided for me of the cars driven by RIGHT TALK 700 employees. I remember being grateful at the time for the speedy and thorough job he’d done in putting together the list, grateful because I’d wanted to know if anyone drove a blue Jetta, yet unaware that there was something else on the list, something potentially significant. Something that I had been unaware of until now.

  I scanned the page and came to what mattered — the note on Larmer’s Lincoln Navigator. The colour, gold, was noted, as was the licence number.

  And that’s what was wrong. There was no way Beamer could have learned the licence number as the vehicle was already in the police impound lot when I asked him to put the list of employee vehicles together. And Larmer was in the remand centre — incommunicado — so Beamer couldn’t have asked him.

  While it could be argued that Beamer would have seen the vehicle in a staff parking area and might have recalled the licence number from those occasions, it seemed unlikely. Who remembers the licence numbers of vehicles belonging to colleagues or even friends? Next to nobody. I couldn’t recall the licence number on Cobb’s Jeep or even Jill’s Dodge Caravan, and I’d been a passenger in both countless times.

  But what if Beamer had driven Larmer’s vehicle the morning of Hugg’s murder? He’d have taken it first to the gym, then to the station where he’d stabbed Hugg to death, then back to the gym where he’d cleaned up himself before returning the Navigator to Larmer’s garage. He’d have had to park on the street at the gym and at the station, which meant he’d have had to put the licence number into the parking ticket dispensers. Not that any of it mattered now. But perhaps if I’d noticed that before …

  I took some comfort from the fact that Beamer hadn’t committed any further crimes in the time since I’d completely missed this potentially important piece of evidence
. Would it have made a difference to the final outcome? Maybe. It might have led to his arrest rather than his flight and eventual death. But that was hypothetical and not something I could do anything about.

  I scanned down the page and noted again the rides of some of the other RIGHT TALK 700 staff, mostly to get my mind off my screw-up. I even managed a smile as I noted again the coma-inducing Bernie McCready’s station wagon. “Canary yellow,” Shawn Beamer had jotted in the margin.

  Bernie, you risk-taking son of a bitch. I looked up and was relieved that nobody was looking at me. Apparently that thought was just that — not something inadvertently verbalized, prompting the stares and glares of other patrons.

  I packed up my file folder and decided it was time to take to the streets, not because I had anything to do, but I knew if I didn’t move soon, I’d be in danger of full-body atrophy.

  I surprised myself by deciding I’d actually take in the Larmer news conference. It would be painful, I knew, but it might be interesting to see the man at work. And to see if any of the media would actually ask tough questions or if Larmer would answer them. I suspected neither would happen and the event would be Larmer doing his rock-star thing without the music.

  I’d left it a bit late, but didn’t have far to go, so I figured I’d be there for most, if not all, of the fun. I wheeled the Accord through the downtown streets to Eau Clair Market, where I figured I could park and make the short walk to Prince’s Island and the Riverfront Stage, home to the Calgary Folk Festival, which would be taking place in just a couple of weeks.

  I was almost wrong about the parking. Most of the parking areas in and around the mall proper were jammed. I cruised for a few minutes and got lucky; a Chrysler 300 piloted by a white-haired gentleman in a suit that had to be hot on a day that I was sure would approach 30-plus degrees eased out of a spot just as I was about to run through most of my profanity vocabulary one more time.

  I parked and glanced at my watch — about ten minutes to show time. I climbed out of the Accord, pulled off a sweater I wouldn’t need, tossed it in the back seat, and locked the car. I hesitated momentarily, wondering if I really needed to do this to myself, finally deciding that I’d at least check out the setup and decide once I was closer to the stage whether to stay or leave.

  I hadn’t walked far when I got a surprise, the first of several. A canary-yellow Ford Focus occupied a parking spot not far from mine. Bernie McCready had come to listen to the man he so admired. As I walked past McCready’s car, I decided it wasn’t that big a surprise, after all. This was a big day for RIGHT TALK 700 and Bernie clearly wanted to be a part of it. I wondered how many more of the station’s staff would be on hand.

  I was wrong about a few other things, too. The music, for instance. I had underestimated Larmer’s ability to mount a medium-scale musical extravaganza on a few hours’ notice. As I made my way across the pedestrian bridge onto the island, I could hear — and feel — the high-volume, high-energy blast of one of Calgary’s better bands, the Dudes, presumably getting the crowd pumped up for what was to come.

  The crowd. Another miscalculation on my part. As I swung left upon entering the park area and looked toward the stage, I stopped dead. A sea of people were dancing, singing, yelling, and drinking beer — all of them between me and the stage I’d hoped to get close to, at least close enough to take in Larmer’s performance. That possibility suddenly was in doubt.

  With my first glance at the crowd I set the demographic at late teens, early twenties, and I marvelled again at Larmer’s appeal to young people — I would have thought that they either didn’t know or didn’t care about politics. And I wondered about Larmer’s audience. Surely this youthful throng wasn’t representative of the RIGHT TALK 700 listeners. But it was, I guessed, the group that could be the most quickly mobilized for the show that Larmer was producing. The man was, in addition to being the smoothest orator I had ever met, a brilliant marketer and PR man.

  Again I considered turning away, getting back in my car, and finding a quiet lounge somewhere.

  But the masochistic side of my psyche won out. Besides, if Bernie McCready could do this, surely I could, too. I began trying to work my way through the bobbing, weaving throng, but after several dirty looks and a couple of shoves, decided to abandon that plan. Instead I decided I’d see if I could ease my way around the crowd and get closer to the stage by following the bank of the Bow River where it looked like there were fewer people.

  That worked much better than the barge-through-the-throng approach. The cottonwoods and spruce that bordered the park offered a bit of an escape from the crowd, which appeared to be growing in number. The Canada geese that lived and shit in the park had taken to the edges, clearly thinking, as I did, that there lay the only refuge.

  The Dudes wrapped up “American Girl,” a single I recalled and liked from a couple of years before. An emcee, big voice, big hair, came to the microphone.

  “Hey, how about Dan Vacon and the amazing Calgary band the Dudes!”

  The crowd roared for a long time, finally easing off just enough for the emcee’s follow-up announcement that there was time for just one or two more songs before “The Man” would be coming out onto the stage, an announcement that was greeted by the kind of cheer that a Flames overtime winner might produce.

  I worked my way farther west, ending up even with the stage but still a fair distance away. Curiosity took me to the area behind the stage. I figured Larmer would be camped out in one of the backstage dressing rooms, but I also thought it would be interesting to see who was out back. I might even catch a glimpse of Cobb.

  In fact, Buckley-Rand Larmer was out there, surrounded by several women, all of them gorgeous, all of them adoring, all of them captivated, as well as a couple of guys who looked like they were helping with the production. What I didn’t see was a lot of security. With Shawn Beamer dead, Larmer must have felt that the threat, at least this threat, was over. There would be, I was sure, more in the future as Larmer destroyed more reputations, careers, lives.

  I didn’t see Cobb and wondered if he had already been relieved of his duties as bodyguard or if Larmer had kept him on the payroll until after today’s return to the public eye. Just in case. With the kids and the beer, I could see a few getting overexuberant and maybe out of hand. If I were Larmer, I’d have kept Cobb around at least for today.

  I eased my way closer to the stage. The youthful audience obviously liked to be directly in front of the stage, not off to the side. From where I stood, I could survey most of the crowd. The Dudes announced their last tune, appropriately titled “Do the Right Thing.”

  As I scanned the audience, I noticed Bernie McCready, dead-centre and a short rock throw from the front of the stage, looking slightly out of place in a shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up, jacket draped over his arm. He seemed oblivious to those around him — kids gyrating, singing along, the noise at a decibel level I was pretty sure was foreign to the man who epitomized dreary.

  But it was the look on McCready’s face that got my attention. This wasn’t the adoring gaze of a disciple, a dedicated follower. It was a look I’d seen before. It was the look I’d seen on his face during our interview when he was discussing Larmer’s exploits with the ladies. What was it he’d said? “Ladies’ man, philanderer, seducer …”

  I’d mistaken the look on his face then, but I didn’t now. This was hatred, pure and simple. I thought back to the photo of McCready’s gorgeous wife and wondered if McCready knew first-hand about Larmer’s talent for attracting women. Hugg’s ex-wife had made it clear her times with Larmer had been about only one thing. What if the same scene had played itself out, but with Larmer and … I tried to recall the name she’d scribbled on the photo. “Tammy,” that was it. To my Bernie. Love you, Sugar. Tammy.

  I tried to edge closer to McCready without his seeing me. But there was no danger of that. His eyes never moved. He stared at the ce
ntre of the stage, seeing, hearing nothing else, waiting for the man who would walk to the microphone there and proclaim that he was back; that a badly flawed justice system would not, could not keep him from doing the important work that was his life; that he had overcome the insanity of the liberal, progressive, left-leaning conspirators who had sought to muzzle him and failed.

  That Buckley-Rand Larmer was ready to fight harder than he ever had before.

  And right in front of him, Bernie McCready wanted to see him fail, to see him fall. McCready’s eyes had not flickered or moved even a centimetre in either direction since I’d spotted him.

  That’s when I knew. Bernie McCready realized, as I did, that Larmer would not fail and he would not fall. There was only one thing that could stop him.

  I fumbled for my phone, turned from the stage, keyed in the numbers.

  “Answer the goddamn phone!” I hissed into the device in my hand, willing it to reach the man I needed to talk to, praying that the noise from the band didn’t drown out the ringing at the other end.

  “Yeah?” I heard Cobb’s voice.

  “It’s me!” I shouted. I was moving away from the stage again, thinking foolishly that McCready might overhear me.

  “Yeah, where are you?”

  “I’m here by the stage. Listen, we don’t have much time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “We were wrong all along. The threats to Larmer didn’t come from Shawn Beamer. They had nothing to do with the murders. It was a different thing altogether. There’s a guy right at the front of the stage, name’s Bernie McCready, one of the guys I interviewed. I think he’s here to kill Larmer.”

  No beat. No hesitation. In those few words, in those few seconds, Mike Cobb got it.

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Medium height, build, fortyish, balding, shirt and tie, glasses. He’s holding his suit jacket over his arm. I think maybe he’s —”

  “I’m moving. Stay back.” Then he repeated it. “Stay back.”