I thought for a minute. “It’s funny, but I can remember sitting at the kitchen table with my dad and reading the newspaper on Saturday mornings. He’d go down to the corner store and get the paper and we’d sit there and read it. He’d be drinking coffee and we’d trade sections of the paper — I was mostly about sports but my dad made sure I at least looked at the news and some of the other stuff. And sometimes we’d talk about what was going on in the world as we read about it. It was kind of cool actually.”
It was cool and a memory I’d all but forgotten until right then.
“So, that’s when you knew?”
“That I wanted to be a newspaper guy? No, I don’t think so, not right then. I don’t remember thinking seriously about journalism until I realized I was never going to be a ball player.”
“Rotator cuff,” she said. I’d told her before about my baseball dream dying during my third year at Oklahoma State, during a game against Texas Tech.
“Uh-huh. For a while I didn’t know what I was going to do. But I’d always liked writing — even those essays in English classes — so I figured maybe I’d better switch gears and take a look at journalism. See, that’s what I mean about how things can change along the way.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Are you thinking about anything in particular right now?”
“Yeah, I think so. Kind of.”
“You want to tell me about it or is it still a secret?”
“No, I can tell you … but I don’t want you to laugh.”
I reached over and touched her on the arm. “Sweetheart, I can promise you, I won’t laugh.”
“I was thinking about the police.”
I didn’t laugh. In fact, for several seconds I wasn’t sure how to react or what to say. It hadn’t been one of the careers dancing around in my mind as we were chatting.
“Wow,” I said.
“You think it’s dumb?”
“No, Kyla, dumb is the last thing I think wanting to be in the police service is. In fact, I think it’s amazing. And, for the record, I think you’d be a terrific police officer. But don’t forget, it’s okay if next week or next year you decide that being a doctor or a pilot or a writer is what you want to do.”
“A writer?” She screwed up her face. “You guys make any money?”
“Not a lot, no.”
“How about a baseball player?” She was grinning as she said it.
I laughed. “Well, it would be okay with me, but I’m not sure your mom’s heart could stand it.” Jill, sometimes fan, sometimes coach, was, let’s say, passionate in her support of her daughter and her daughter’s team.
Kyla’s voice got quieter. “There’s just one thing I was thinking about,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I just wondered if they let people become police officers if they, you know, have Crohn’s disease.”
It was a good question. “I don’t know, Kyla. My guess is they do, but I’ll tell you what, how about I check it out?”
She looked at me. “Can you do that?”
“I think I can. How about I see what I can find out and report back to you?”
“Yeah … yeah, thanks.” Her voice had regained its enthusiasm and she was smiling again.
“Anyway,” she said, “I just wanted to tell you.”
“I really appreciate that you did. It means a lot to me.”
“Okay, well, good night.”
“Good night.”
She hugged me and was gone.
It had taken me a while to get used to how Kyla often ended conversations. Not rudely but abruptly. She finished saying what it was she wanted to say, and she was off to the next thing in her endlessly busy mind.
I refocused and reviewed my notes again, then decided to put in a call to a long-time colleague and friend, Lorne Cooney — brilliantly funny, proudly Jamaican, and one of the best diggers I knew among my journalist pals.
He picked up after three rings, and as it almost always did, hearing his voice instantly raised the level of my mood. I say almost, because there was one terrible time when it did not. It was the night he had urged me to go home as quickly as possible — he knew something was wrong, and though he wasn’t certain what it was, he had suspected it was bad. And he was right. That was the night a hate-crazed arsonist had set fire to the home my wife and I had lived in and loved. The fire had taken Donna’s life, and though years later Cobb and I finally caught up with the killer, Lorne and I had both hated that he had been the one to sound the alarm bell.
We were past that now, and I was glad that someone who laughed and made me laugh as much as he did was back in my life.
“I recognized the number,” he boomed, his voice fully accented, a feature he turned on and off at will. “And I know you want something — money, romance, advice, or maybe a winning horse at Aqueduct. Which is it?”
“Shut up and listen … mon,” I said.
We both laughed, exchanged how are yous, and laughed some more.
Finally, I got around to the reason for my call. “You’re right, I do want something,” I said. “Wendell Claiborne. You know him?”
“That’s knew him, brother. Past tense. Don’t you read the newspapers?”
“Yeah, I know Claiborne’s dead. Did you know him?”
“Everybody knew Wendell Claiborne. Now, if you’d asked me if I liked him, well, that’s a whole different thing.”
“You know much about him? Professional life? Vices? Things I might need to know?”
“You and Cobb on this one?”
“Seems a possibility.”
“I heard the homicide boys have the daughter’s boyfriend under lock and key. The kid shoot him?”
“Also possible,” I said. “But I don’t think so.”
“Anything specific you want to know?”
“Like I said, we’re kind of interested in the dark side of Claiborne.”
“I can probably help you with a few things. Might cost you a beer or two.”
“Tomorrow too soon?”
“Let me see what I can pull together. Give me the morning. Maybe we can meet in the afternoon.”
“You have a preferred drinking establishment?”
“I prefer quite a few, as a matter of fact, but how about the Kensington Pub — say two?”
“Two it is. See you then.”
FOUR
I spent the next morning checking out the younger siblings of first Mrs., then Mr. Claiborne. I struck them both off my list of people we should talk to. Lance Coverdon was still on the straight and narrow in London, working and raising his family, with nothing more serious than a parking ticket in his recent past. As for Wilson Claiborne, while it appeared that Wendell’s little brother might have wished to continue to skate on the fringes of the legal pond, with occasional forays into the out-of-bounds areas, all of that ended when he’d been diagnosed with ALS a year and a half ago. Those few words instantly moved him from potential villain to sympathetic character in my mind’s catalogue. I didn’t pursue how he was doing now. I knew the diagnosis was a death sentence and I found myself feeling bad for someone I’d never met and probably never would.
Lorne’s head was down and he was a tapping on his cellphone as I walked into the pub. It gave me a chance to study the guy who had probably been my longest-serving best bud.
I noticed he had more facial hair this time, some of it black but a lot of it grey. His ensemble was part grunge, part seniors’ home. Lorne was the only person I knew who could make that combination work. The face that most often reflected the hilarity with which Lorne viewed the world was not smiling now. Instead, there were furrows — deep lines that cut across cheeks and forehead. Lorne Cooney looked worried.
“Penny for your thoughts,” I said as I moved alongside him.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” He looked up and simultaneously moved the phone from hand to breast pocket. “It’ll take more than that to get into my treasure trove of information
. Shit you need, mon.”
“Okay then, mon,” I said. “What are you drinking?”
He gestured at the empty table. “I’ve been saving myself for you.” He stood up; we embraced and he laughed, becoming the Cooney I knew best.
A young server arrived and Lorne greeted her by name — not a surprise, given his affinity for pubs in general and the KP in particular.
I raised an eyebrow in his direction and he said, “Stella, please, Corey.”
“Two of those,” I said.
“Okay, small talk until she gets back,” Lorne said as he sat back down. I slid in on the other side and the exchange of how ya doin’s and keeping busys lasted maybe three minutes.
The arrival of the Stella Artois triggered, as Lorne had said it would, the business part of the discussion.
“Where do you want me to start?” he asked.
I leaned forward, took a pull on my bottle of beer and shook my head. “Your call.”
“Well. A good place to launch a discussion of Wendell Claiborne might be with a list of his ex-wives and assorted mistresses, some of the latter graduating to be among the former.”
“Bit of a rake,” I said.
“Shit, Adam, rake doesn’t even warm up this guy’s escapades.”
“Libertine,” I said.
“Try asshole.”
“Ah.”
He pulled out a battered notebook, flipped it open to a page near the back, and set the notebook down, adjusting glasses that looked as if they had last been cleaned when the first Trudeau was prime minister. “Cindy Marsh, the first Mrs. C, was probably the best of the lot. He said as much in a Maclean’s interview a few months ago. As you might guess, that did not go down well with the incumbent.”
“What do you mean by best?”
“Normal … not nuts … not obsessed with Claiborne’s money, that sort of thing. And she was a few years older than him, as was her successor. After that he apparently gravitated toward younger women.”
I nodded, took a sip of my drink, and waited. It was best to let Lorne find his own pace for relaying information. He’d get there eventually.
“She came from a good family, not mega-rich, but not hurting either. She earned a master’s degree from McGill in child psychology, did a lot of volunteer work with kids, but didn’t really get into the field professionally until after she and Claiborne said their goodbyes. She lasted four years, no kids. Stumbled across some incriminating texts and confronted her husband, who apparently was only too happy to confess his transgressions and move to his next amour. Rumour has it she wasn’t the only love interest he had on the go at the time. Cindy got a nice settlement and moved on to different though not likely greener pastures. She’s apparently writing a book now, but I don’t know if her ex is a character. I met her once at a fundraiser for the Calgary Zoo and I can’t say she struck me as the type to off somebody, even somebody who was as big a dickhead as charming Wendell.”
“Should I be taking notes?” I asked.
“I made a copy for you.” He grinned at me. “Which is why this will be a two-beer meeting.”
“Check.”
He tossed back about half of his Stella and glanced down at his notes. Two fingers waggled in the air. “Numero deux. Susannah Hainsey, eight years older than ‘da man.’ She’d just buried her last younger man after he had an unfortunate encounter with a forklift at the warehouse full of the power tools his company manufactured.”
“Sounds like it was an okay gig for Susannah … I mean, until the forklift incident.”
Lorne nodded. “On the surface I think it was, but Dennis Hainsey was flawed in his own way. Apparently liked to zip down to Vegas, ostensibly on business, but was known to drop some serious cash at the tables.”
“How serious?”
“Word is there were a couple of occasions that topped out at over a hundred large.”
“Ouch!”
“Yeah, and a lot of smaller but still significant losses along the way, some of which were still outstanding at the time of his untimely demise. The result was that Susannah came out of that one with not much in the way of assets.”
“Any hint that the forklift thing was anything less than adventitious?”
“Adventitious. You a writer by any chance?”
“Was it?”
“Deliberate? I never heard anything to suggest that. But I wasn’t there.”
“Fair enough.”
“Anyway, Ms. Hainsey never became one of the Mrs. Claibornes. She moved in, stayed a while, a couple of years, I think, and left in a lot better situation than when she’d first taken up with him.”
“Boring,” I said.
“Wrong.” Lorne shook his head. “Because the successor to Susannah, whose maiden name, by the way, was Pettimore, was a woman named Janine. Janine did become the next Mrs. Claiborne. Interesting thing about Janine is that her last name was … wait for it … Pettimore.”
“Sisters?”
“Bingo, bro. Bing-go.”
“Seems like that could have led to a little family tension.”
“Does seem possible.”
“So, Susannah, who has already lost a husband to unfortunate circumstances, sees her boyfriend take up with her sister; then that guy gets snuffed. Suze seem the type to carry a grudge?”
Lorne shrugged. “Can’t answer that. Pretty much the same story as with Cindy. I may have met her at a cocktail thing or something, but if I did, it didn’t register. I certainly didn’t interview her.”
“Too bad.”
“Janine, who, by the way, was several years younger than her sibling, was also short-lived — couple of years, maybe less. Wasn’t able to learn much about her. She’s still around, but I’m told lives a quiet life. She’s a church secretary at Central United downtown. Don’t know much more.” Lorne looked down at his notes, then back up. “Which leads us to the current Mrs. C. And I have met her. I interviewed her for a piece my editor called ‘The Power Women Behind Calgary’s Power Men.’”
“Catchy … and maybe a bit sexist?”
“Hey, baby, I just write ’em.”
“Mrs. Claiborne the third, the former Rachel Coverdon — she a power woman?”
“Oh, yeah.” That got an emphatic nod. “I remember thinking when I talked to her that Claiborne had met his match this time. In a lot of ways.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning she is maybe the sexiest over-forty lady I’ve ever met. Power and … well, you know.”
“They have a daughter?”
“Yeah, had her in the first year they were married. I remember her telling me that.”
“So, in addition to power and sex, the lady has staying power — like fifteen or sixteen years’ worth. Must be some kind of record.”
“Uh-huh.” Lorne nodded. “He kind of smoothed the stormy seas with money for the others. I’m not sure that would work with the current. She’d leave when she was damn good and ready to go.”
I thought about that. “Interesting.”
Lorne didn’t reply.
“Okay,” I told him, “now I’ve got a story for you.”
He touched an ear. “Listening.”
“Off the record.”
“The good ones always are.”
I told Lorne about my visit with Danny Luft and what had happened since, while we worked on our second round of Stellas. When I got to the part about the kid’s prints on the gun, he whistled: “Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Now I get your interest in the women in Claiborne’s life.”
“And anybody else who might be intriguing.”
“Tell you what. I’ll keep the ol’ antennae on high def. If I hear something, I’ll call you.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
He leaned forward. “And if something comes of this that might earn a poor hard-working scribe a CJF, well, that scribe would appreciate a little quid pro quo.”
“I think the Canadian Journalism F
ederation insists on at least some ability to write before it hands over awards.”
“Shut up. We got a deal or not?” He stuck out a hand.
“Deal,” I said.
We shook on it.
I stayed the night at Jill’s, and though we had a wonderful dinner — seafood lasagna and a Tuscan salad Jill had discovered in a travel magazine — followed by a quiet night of wine, soft talk, and softer music, then easy, comfortable love-making, I slept poorly.
That was a rarity when I stayed there, but on this night my sleep was intermittent when it happened at all and was punctuated by dreams that seemed to be a non-stop pulsing of images on a brick wall — first of Wendell Claiborne, then Marlon Kennedy, and finally Faith Unruh. All of them dead, all of them victims of violent crimes.
Every time I woke up, I felt worse than I had the time before. When the sun’s first rays pushed their way into the room, I was relieved that the night was coming to an end, again a feeling I had seldom — no, never — experienced with Jill lying beside me.
I was first to the kitchen and had cantaloupe sliced, croissants warming in the oven, and the coffee perked and ready when the two ladies I loved entered the kitchen.
Kyla said, “I think he’s a keeper, Mom.”
“Hey,” I protested. “This isn’t a one-off. I’m not one of those guys who never sets foot in the kitchen or can’t handle a vacuum cleaner.” Even I sensed the unnecessary edge in my voice that ended what should have an exchange of humorous jibes.
I started to say something, decided that whatever I came up with would probably make things worse, and instead poured coffee for two and juice for Kyla. It was a quieter breakfast than usual until Jill asked Kyla what was on her schedule for the day and we got the rundown of sports, lunch activities (library club was the highlight), and a request for help that evening with her science project — the creation of a balloon solar system with special emphasis on the planets.
“I feel bad for Pluto,” I said, trying for levity. “It must be tough being punted as a planet when you’ve been one for a few billion years.”
Polite chuckles from my audience.
Kyla headed off to brush her teeth and gather her books while Jill and I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. Kyla stopped for hugs and paused for a moment to look at me. Then she said, “I hope you have a good day, Adam.”
None So Deadly Page 5
