by Anne Emery
My brain then fastened onto the Leaman case. And I had one of those flashes of insight that seem only to come at three in the morning. This time it was: if I couldn’t find the connections and conclude once and for all that Leaman’s death was really a murder, the lawyers for the other side in the damages suit would not be able to do so either. Of course, the burden was on us as plaintiffs to prove our case. But if the only reasonable conclusion left to draw was that Leaman had wielded the gun, I might as well give up on my investigation, file the claim, and start working towards a profitable resolution. This was obvious, and I wondered why I had not considered it before. After all, the reason I had started digging into it was to reassure myself that our suicide case would not be torpedoed by counsel for the treatment centre. True, we would have to prepare for an attack on the softest spot in our case, that is, that there was no known link between the disadvantaged Corey Leaman and the privileged Graham Scott, so why would Leaman take out Scott before killing himself? But enough was enough. I would get to work first thing in the morning, and file the pleadings with the court. I drifted off to sleep.
I awoke again a couple of hours later, not with the allegations against the treatment centre running through my head, but with strains of Handel drowning out all other thought. “Who may abide the day of His coming” melded into “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron!” I saw myself at the gated compound in Lunenburg County with Handel’s music playing and hostile eyes peering through reinforced windows. What was going on there? The woman who lived in the house was the woman who had been in to see Warren Tulk the day Brennan was in the bookshop. People had seen a couple, one of whom seemed to be a cop, picking up young people in the Tex-Park garage. Another cop — Phil Riley? — told me Tulk had fixed a case. Or at least impeded the prosecution of a woman charged with assault on a child. A spanking case. What was the woman’s name? Sybil? Sybil Kraus. But why worry about her? I had made up my mind to file the papers and commence the lawsuit. Well, maybe I’d look into the spanker first.
†
I made a couple of calls that morning, after downing two cups of coffee in a vain effort to clear my head, and found out when the Kraus case had been in court. She had been acquitted, possibly because the investigating officer didn’t do his part when the case went to trial. Whatever the situation was, I had the date, so I walked over to the library on Spring Garden Road at lunchtime and went upstairs to search back issues of the Herald for clippings about the case. That night I headed to Gottingen Street, armed with a copy of a grainy photo of Sybil Kraus with a scarf around her head and a haunted look in her eyes. There was a cloudburst, and I needed my wipers on top speed to see through the pelting rain. But the person I was looking for was nowhere to be found, so I took a break and went to Tomaso’s for a pizza. I scoffed half of it down, took the rest to the car, cruised down Gottingen again, and parked. Half an hour later I saw her getting out of a beat-up old Chev with tinted windows. I waited until it drove away and opened my door.
“Candy!”
“Hey! You looking for a — Mr. Collins. What are you doing up here again? You must be looking for company.”
“I’m looking for you. Why don’t you get in for a minute.”
She climbed in with a sigh, and wiped the rain from her face. She looked exhausted; she was far too thin, and her skin was a mess.
“This life doesn’t suit you, Candy. For Christ’s sake, get some help.”
“You didn’t come all the way up here to talk me out of hooking, did you? Because forget it. I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re going to wind up in a Dumpster.”
“Not me. I’m a smart girl, remember my file? So, how can I help you?”
“Have some pizza.”
“I’m not hungry.”
I shook my head and reached into my pocket. “I have something to show you.”
“I just saw one in a different shade. Ha ha.”
I ignored that and continued. “It’s a news photo. Do you recognize this woman?”
“I don’t know. Am I supposed to?”
“Look at it for a few minutes. Think.”
“I think it’s the lady I saw in that car. The gingerbread lady. She looks skinnier or something here, but I think that’s her face. Charged with beating a kid. Figures.”
Sybil Kraus, the spanker. Sarah MacLeod, the gingerbread lady. Which aspect of her persona was dominant at the compound in Lunenburg County?
“Can you tell me anything else about her?”
“No. Just that she was with that cop, and they were cruising for young stuff.”
†
The next day I was saddled with a most unwelcome obligation, a partners’ meeting. Since my synapses had not been firing at optimal levels lately, I had not plotted my customary evasive manoeuvres and could not get out of it. I hadn’t even got it together enough to bring my Walkman.
I met Rowan Stratton on the way into the boardroom. “Monty, my dear fellow, you look all in. Come over to the house for dinner soon. Stephen and Janet say they haven’t seen you in ages. I’ll have Sylvia ring you, shall I?”
“Sure, Rowan. Thanks.”
“You’ll be pleased to know Sylvia has been taking a French cookery class. Don’t worry; we can all order in after she’s retired to her room for the evening. Ah. Blake. You’re our chairman for the day, I believe. Perhaps we’d better get on with it.”
“Yes, Rowan. We have a full agenda, and there are some incidental matters I intend to bring up.”
I tuned him out, then remembered I had forgotten to bring the files that were to be discussed at the meeting. I went to fetch them and returned. Vance “the Undersigned” Blake was still droning on. Felicia Morgan glided into the boardroom, sat down opposite me, and gave me what she must have thought was a beguiling smile. Then she busied herself with her stack of files. Before we even got started, however, Felicia’s secretary came in and whispered in her ear. Felicia looked annoyed and got up, announcing to the rest of us that she had been called to respond to an emergency chambers application. She pushed the stack of files in Blake’s direction and gave him a look. I decided it might be interesting to go through some of her work myself. So I reached for them, but she subtly moved them beyond my grasp while pretending she hadn’t seen my hands. Another significant look at Vance Blake, and the files were placed beside his own. Felicia made her exit, and I stood up, leaning over and pulling the stack of folders to my place at the table.
“Collins, do you mind?”
“Not at all, Vance,” I replied.
“But she made it quite clear —” he whispered.
“Steady on, Blake,” Rowan Stratton growled. “Let’s proceed.”
Monique LeBlanc was grinning at me from her place down the table. I winked at her in return.
I didn’t know how long Felicia would be gone, so I took the opportunity of rifling through her papers while Blake conducted his meeting. But there was little of interest. As I went through the stuff, I wondered why she wanted to keep the files away from me, but then I came upon a family law file with a name I recognized. One of the parties to the divorce was a lawyer I knew, and I had heard he had been involved with Felicia a few years before. If her name was in the record somewhere she might not want me to see it. I guess Vance Blake didn’t count; he would rather conduct a meeting than a love affair. But I had no interest in her life, either, so I closed that folder and moved on. She did have something on the Bromley Point development project, but who didn’t? She was representing one of the many companies in the massive project. The material was divided into subfiles, but nothing caught my eye. I listened in as Blake wound up his conversation with the lawyer on my left. When it was my turn to discuss my work, I did not mention the Leaman case; the less said the better. Ross Trevelyan was circumspect as well, saying little more than that we hoped to get our claim filed in the next couple of weeks.
I returned my mind to the Bromley Point file in Felicia’s stack. It occurred to
me that her subfiles had been numbered sequentially from one to eleven. I flipped through the papers. There was no number four or number nine in the folder on the table. I wondered why they had been left out. Blake had reached the part of the meeting dearest to his heart, trolling for new business. Much of my clientele was criminal, and nobody wanted me out beating the streets for any more of that, so I excused myself with the promise of a quick return and went snooping in Felicia’s office. Behind her desk, along with several pairs of pricey Italian shoes, I saw a pile of manila envelopes and, underneath those, the missing subfiles. I took them to my office.
Subfile number four contained an informal rating by a Toronto consultant of several local construction firms, a few of which were our clients. Some of the consultant’s comments were less than favourable, and I could see why Felicia might not have wanted them passed around. Subfile number nine looked more promising, dealing as it did with man-about-town Ken Fanshaw. We were not his primary law firm but, like many other firms in the city, we did work for him from time to time. There were notes scribbled on the inside of the folder, phone numbers and dates. The initials “MC” caught my eye, though I didn’t seriously think Felicia would be writing my initials in her files. The note read: “More ‘mail’! K: libel action MC? Cautioned him no, let settle down. Maybe no more now she has int!”
Who was “she”? Ken Fanshaw was being libelled by a woman? What was it about? Was MC the woman? And what did “int” mean? Interest? Interest meaning the earnings from an investment, or interest meaning a share in a property or venture?
The materials in the Bromley Point subfiles were several years old. I was not a corporate lawyer — corporate jargon generally put me in a coma — but I was able to follow the process by which Fanshaw amassed a bigger and bigger piece of the action. So what?
I was about to drift into that corporate-law-induced coma when I saw a few sheets torn from a legal pad. What caught my eye was the name Campbell, then: “DC keen to be in but needs financing. Wants no appearance of confl. w. cli.” So Dice Campbell wanted to invest on his own behalf, but would have to borrow the money. He wanted to ensure that his own interest did not appear to conflict with the interests of the client or clients he was representing in connection with the project. The notes went on: “Not saying but imp — pressure fr. ux for more?” This I interpreted as: Dice was not letting on but Felicia’s (or Fanshaw’s) impression was that Dice was under pressure from his “ux,” Latin and legal shorthand for wife, to make a bigger investment. Which brought me back to the scribbles on the folder. Did MC stand for Mavis Campbell? If so, what was she doing to provoke Fanshaw into considering a libel action? What was the “mail” that was the subject of the note? Was she sending him nasty letters? I could see why Felicia had not brought these subfiles to the partners’ meeting. I had little doubt that she was aware I was looking for a link between the death of Dice Campbell and the Leaman-Scott shootings; Felicia would not want to draw attention to any connection between her friend Fanshaw and the Campbells.
†
Felicia’s files made me curious about Dice Campbell’s role in Bromley Point. There was no point in trying to worm anything out of his widow, particularly if she stood to gain a significant sum of money from the development project, and if she had been brewing up mischief for Ken Fanshaw in the pursuit of her ambitions. A lawyer I knew slightly had been a friend of Dice; I called and arranged to meet him at Perks for coffee. Wade Evans and I engaged in some small talk, then I got us on to the subject of the late Mr. Campbell.
“I saw Dice a few days before he died,” Wade told me. “He was in a pretty good mood. And I do remember having the impression he had a scheme going, or some kind of plan. Guess it didn’t work out.”
“Did he say something about a plan?”
“No, it was just an impression. I suggested we go out. We’d gone on a tear a few weeks before that. We started here and ended up in Montreal! Don’t ask. Anyway, it turned out Dice didn’t have any money on him, and his credit cards were up to their limits, so the weekend was on me. I didn’t give a shit, but I could tell it was on Dice’s mind. So later on when I suggested a night out, he said: ‘Come by and see me in a couple of days, and then we’ll go out in style.’ He seemed to be saying it would be his treat. But I never saw him again.”
“You got the feeling he might have been coming into money.”
“I guess so.”
“Could this have had anything to do with the Bromley Point development?”
“Oh, he was keen on that, all right. But the project had been halted, so if he was coming into a bag of cash around the time I’m talking about, it wasn’t from Bromley Point. Could have been anything, with Dice and Mavis.”
“You didn’t have Mavis in Montreal with you, I take it.”
“Nope. He had Mavis in the detox at the time.”
“What?”
“Yeah, he twisted her arm and got her to sign in. Of course, she didn’t stay. And those counsellors must have been glad to see the end of her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I heard, on fairly good authority, that she went berserk one night and trashed the place.”
“Really!”
“Really. And these people are used to drunks. And crackheads. And all the rest of it. I guess they just weren’t prepared for what this well-dressed, well-spoken, middle-class woman would do if she was kept off the sauce too long!”
“What did she do?”
“She was abusive to the staff. Verbally, I mean. Apparently she threatened one of them. Tore down curtains, smashed some glass. A real shitstorm.”
“Which detox are we talking about?”
“The Baird Addiction Centre. But, as I say, she wasn’t there long.” Mavis in the Baird Centre! Why hadn’t this occurred to me before? But, then, why would it? I knew she was a drinker; that didn’t mean she was looking for a cure. And if she was, there were several other detoxification centres.
“When was this?”
“Back in 1985.”
Wade and I finished our coffee and said goodbye.
Nineteen eighty-five. The year of Leaman’s first admission to the centre. Yet again, I was stymied by the fact that I could not talk to anyone on the other side of the case, namely, the doctors and other professionals at the Baird Centre. If the case went to litigation, I would be able to question them on discovery and demand to see their records. But that scenario seemed increasingly unlikely. I did have Doctor Swail-Peddle and his notes. I had skimmed through them with the intention of reviewing them in more detail later. A number of entries in the diary were blanked out, which was only appropriate, because they most likely referred to other patients. Something struck me then about the psychologist. Something had upset him about the diary or the notes the first time he brought them to me. And, for some reason, my mind made a leap from that to Mavis Campbell. I tried to recall what had happened. We were at the Midtown. Ed Johnson was giving Swail-Peddle and his wife a hard time, or at least they must have perceived it that way. But the psychologist had reacted to something else. Then I had it. Ed had mentioned Mavis’s name. And it was then that Swail-Peddle’s wife noticed her husband had spilled his beer. He took off to the washroom. Then he came back, took me outside, and gave me a big song and dance about needing the diary and notes back, because he hadn’t finished editing out the confidential entries. Was it Mavis’s name that had set all this in motion? I intended to find out, under the cover of looking for a connection between Mavis and Leaman. What I really wanted was to witness Swail-Peddle’s reaction to her name. I gave the psychologist’s office a call and set up an appointment.
Gareth Swail-Peddle’s office was located in an old brown saltbox house on Fenwick Street. The reception room was painted a soothing shade of pink, and the padded chairs were arranged in groups as if to encourage conversation. The only thing more prominent on the walls than the inspirational and affirmative posters were the framed certificates displaying the psychologist
’s credentials. His patients may have been the centres of their respective worlds, but he, Swail-Peddle, was the expert.
He peered out from his office, saw me, and beckoned me inside. He was on the phone and made an apologetic face while motioning me to a chair beside his own.
“Penelope, in all fairness, I think I should speak to Theo’s teacher myself. You must admit I have some expertise in the area. Theo is gifted. Therefore, he does not need remedial help in reading. If he ‘can’t read,’ as you put it, that says more about the way the school is presenting the material than it does about our son. There are different kinds of ‘intelligence.’ We’ve been through this before, and —” I heard a click, and he stared at the receiver as if it had taken it upon itself to terminate the conversation.
“I’m sorry, Montague. Every family has issues. Even that of a trained therapist! Now, how may I help you today? I hope my notes on Corey were helpful.”
“Yes. Thanks. I have another question for you, though. Did you ever have any contact with a woman named Mavis Campbell when you worked at the Baird Centre?”
The psychologist’s small eyes didn’t waver as they met mine, but his left hand darted to his face and shoved a few hairs of his beard into his mouth; he proceeded to gnaw on them.
“Mavis, yes,” he said at last, in what was almost a drawl. Then, in a rush, he went on: “But Mavis didn’t suffer the same unfortunate fate as Corey Leaman, and therefore I feel a bit hesitant to disclose —”
“Right. She’s still alive. But there may have been a connection between Mavis and Corey,” I claimed, “and anything you can tell me may help clarify things.”
“Well, there’s not much I can tell you about Mavis while she was at the Baird.” I waited, and he added: “She was there for a very short time before she was either released or transferred to another treatment centre. And although I reached out to Mavis and tried to engage her, she was . . . well, people react to treatment in different ways.”
