Getting Away With Murder

by Howard Engel

“Are you always called Victoria?” I asked. “It seems such a formal name.”

  “Believe it or not, I was named after Queen Victoria. My father wanted only the best for me. Before I met Mickey, my friends called me Vicky, but the combination of Mickey and Vicky was too much. And Mickey refuses to go back to Mike or Michael. When I was in high school I envied a girl with the same last name as me. She was called Lally Tate. Isn’t that marvellous? Wouldn’t you die to be Lally Tate? Are you always called Benny?”

  “I hate to admit it, but I can’t get anybody to make it just Ben. I can live with anything, even Benjamin, but I’m hoping one day to meet somebody who’ll take a shine to just Ben.”

  “I’ll try it on,” Victoria said just as the plates began to arrive. First there was a beige-coloured paste called “hummus” which went well with the flat pita bread, then came some vegetable salads with rice and tomatoes, followed by pieces of grilled chicken on skewers. There was some eggplant too. When I asked what that was, she gave me a name that sounded like a sneeze.

  “Where did you learn about this stuff?” I asked her. Victoria threw her head back and laughed.

  “I may have been born here, Ben, but I have lived all over the place. There’s a place in Old Greenwich, north of New York, where I used to live, with the same menu. There are dozens of places like this in Toronto and New York. My first husband was a broker and, because of his clients, he enjoyed all the varieties of Middle and Far Eastern cooking. Do you know the cookbooks by Madhur Jaffrey?”

  I told her that I hadn’t run across them. Then she started in on traditional Jewish cooking and I found I knew as little about that as I did about the food we were eating. “I eat simply,” I said. “Soup, a sandwich. Basic fare. That’s me. Were you always interested in food?”

  “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. The kitchen is the heart of a home, for me anyway. I’ve always loved to cook.” That seemed to stop further conversation in the food line so we ate in silence for a few minutes.

  “How did you two get together?” I asked, wondering what kind of answer I might get. They both answered at the same time.

  “Victoria came to cook for—”

  “Mickey was working—” We all laughed, attracting the attention of the waitress, who smiled at our pleasure.

  “Mr. Wise had business in Old Greenwich, and when he heard …” Victoria looked at Mickey for help.

  “Victoria’s husband was in a boating accident. They never found him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said inadequately.

  “So, I came to Grantham to live,” she said, and added, taking Mickey’s hand in hers, “and I haven’t regretted it.” Mickey moved in the direction of a blush, but he strangled it at birth.

  “I dug that slug out of the hutch in Mr. Wise’s office, Benny,” Mickey said, biting into a round, brown meatless meatball. “It was a smallish bullet like a .32.”

  “Is the glass in that room anything special?”

  “Antique, like the rest of the house. But, I see what you mean: it wasn’t bullet-proof, just ordinary window glass.”

  “Wise talked to me of two attempts on his life: the shot and then the steering on the Volvo. Were there other attempts that you know about?”

  “We watch him pretty well,” Mickey said. “Victoria does all the cooking in the house. Next door, the boys manage on their own. Fast food, mostly pizza.”

  “Give them their due, Mickey. They fry up a storm for breakfast.”

  “When they’re not filling their faces, they’re a good team.”

  “I didn’t get a very good look at where exactly the house is in relation to the rest of the nearby houses. Do you have a good view of traffic in and out?”

  “That’s why Wise picked that place. Dorset Crescent is a dead-end street. No through traffic. There’s always a lookout checking who’s coming and going.”

  “Mr. Wise is pretty strict about the lookout, Ben,” Victoria said. The mail gets delivered next door, where one of the boys sorts it and checks odd-looking parcels.”

  “There’s no way a letter bomb could get through to Mr. Wise,” Mickey added. “And if anything came to his uptown office, they’d catch it there.”

  “Tell me about uptown, Mickey.”

  “The legit operation. Wisechoice Import and Export.”

  “Gotcha. You were talking about security?”

  “He doesn’t even use the Volvo all that much. But if he uses any of the cars, that’s the one he likes to drive.”

  “So, whoever it is, it’s someone who knows Mr. Wise very well,” Victoria said, echoing the thought percolating in my head.

  Soon the bouncy waitress brought coffee served in little brass ewers. Victoria caught me admiring the bounciness and we both smiled. The coffee inside the ewers was sweet and thick. I liked it. The meal was rounded off with some cake made of puff pastry with green pistachios bathing in honey. I liked that too. Anna would have enjoyed the meal. I promised myself to suggest the Beit al Din the next time it was my turn to be inventive.

  “Was there a special reason you wanted to see me again, Mickey? So soon after our chat in your car?”

  “Mostly I just wanted to get out of the house. He’s been hell to live with since that cop’s funeral yesterday. He tore my head off six or seven times. I was glad Phil got an abscess.”

  “What is the link between Wise and Neustadt? That’s what I want to know.”

  “It’s just cops and crooks. Nothing strange about that,” Mickey said.

  “No, there’s something more. I’ll be damned if I know what it is.”

  “The deputy chief could never make a charge stick against Mr. Wise,” Victoria put in. “He says that all the time. But why would that make Mr. Wise angry? I see what you mean, Ben.”

  “It’s a puzzlement, all right. Mickey, was Mr. Wise upset about Neustadt before his death?”

  “Mr. Wise hated that cop’s guts. He hasn’t talked about it lately, but after Neustadt’s accident, you couldn’t shut him up.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Victoria said.

  “If Wise felt that bad about Neustadt, Mickey, he could have done something about it. Would you know about that?”

  Mickey took a moment to answer, sipping his coffee. “I’m his regular link with his usual people. But, he has a phone in his office and one by his bed. He knows people who do that sort of work. Beyond that, I can’t say.”

  I couldn’t quite get over this sudden glasnost in the air between me and Mickey. Maybe his wife had softened him. I guess it made better sense keeping an eye on me from across a table. It beat sitting in a chilly car or trying to keep out of the wind on St. Andrew Street. From my point of view, I didn’t mind sitting opposite them. It’s easier to study faces close up. And Victoria’s face, which I hardly had noticed that early Monday morning, was beginning to grow on me. She was attractive in a more subtle way than the waitress, and concealed her age very well. She had a style of dressing all her own. Sort of arts-and-crafts school. I doubted whether Julie had been giving her fashion tips.

  When they said goodbye, I thought that it was at last time to go to work.

  FIFTEEN

  At the office, my service passed on the facts that I’d had a call from the Registrar of the Ontario Provincial Police and a message from Har Twize, according to the spelling I was given. I thanked my service for passing on my home number to the OPP and told her never to do it again. When I called Hart Wise, I got an answering machine, which gave me the best idea I’d had all day. I left my number and put my shoes up on my desk. I formed them into a “V” for “Victory” and thought of Joe Tatarski fighting through the war and then coming home to an early grave. It was dirty luck, no matter how you looked at it.

  I called Duncan Harvey’s office. Apart from being the big authority on the Tatarski case, next to McStu, he was in a partnership with a couple of people I was in high school with. When Pat Voisard’s voice came on the line, I could still hear him reading out the athletic a
nnouncements to the senior assembly. It was a breathless staccato that made me feel young again. I told Pat who was speaking and with only a moment’s delay I was talking to Duncan Harvey. I told him about just finishing McStu’s book and that I was wondering whether I could see him.

  “An architect has all the time in the world these days, Mr. Cooperman. The economic climate can’t be helping you either. Do you want to meet me here at the office, or would you like to meet outside?”

  “Your place will be fine,” I said. We set a time, just an hour away, and I hung up. I was a little surprised and a little flattered that I didn’t have to explain my line of business. If Duncan Harvey was anything to go by, it was common knowledge.

  I took a yellow block of foolscap and wrote a few names on the top page:

  Margaret Tatarski (sister)

  Freddy Tatarski (brother)

  Mrs. Neustadt

  Neustadt’s daughter

  Dave Rogers

  Major Patrick

  I put in a call to Dave Rogers and another to the Sally Ann officer who had been such a great pal of Neustadt’s. The policeman’s family could wait. They had their hands full just managing their grief. I might never have to bother them. Pete Staziak would help me with the whereabouts of the leftover Tatarskis I hoped, if I couldn’t get the information from Harvey or McStu. They weren’t listed in the local phone directory or in the Buffalo or Hamilton books. I tried Toronto and struck out again after a few wrong numbers.

  While I was killing time waiting for people to phone back, I compared the photographs in Haste to the Gallows with the list of names. There was Joe, the sergeant in uniform with a big grin and his arms akimbo. It was battle-dress he was wearing, with a short tunic and a wedge cap on the side of his head. From the look of him, the army had been a home away from home for Joe. He looked comfortable, like a foreman getting a bottle from his work gang. Ready for a scramble-net or a three-day pass, he had found his full achievement in a khaki uniform. Since he was murdered in 1946, he only had a few months to adapt to Civvy Street.

  Across the page was a blurred picture of Anastasia, his wife. She was a big-boned woman, strong, by the look of her arms and back, and determined, if the line of her jaw was any guide. Her dark hair was mostly covered in a babushka. She had been a handsome woman, but in this photograph, taken according to the cutline just after Joe’s murder, she appeared middle-aged, even older. Was this the girl Joe came home to?

  On the next page were pictures of the children of this unlikely couple: Margaret, in rimless glasses, wearing a wartime nurse’s aide or Red Cross uniform; Freddy, the youngest, a weedy lad in a Boy Scout outfit, holding a large roll of what might have been aluminum foil; and the biggest picture: Mary Tatarski, the second-last woman to be hanged in Canada, looking very much alive and ready to go out dancing. She had her mother’s strong features, but with a lightness and vivacity. Her lips, coloured red in real life, but here in the picture looking nearly black, were parted in a smile that showed even teeth and a memorable smile. Was this the face of a killer, I asked myself. Not at first glance, no.

  Duncan Harvey’s face was a familiar one when I saw it in his bright studio-like office. I’d seen it on King Street and around town over the years. It was a rugged, handsome face, the sort that comes with ski clothes and Alpine peaks. Behind his desk he was dressed more conventionally, but there was a trace of the great outdoors about him and the sun-filled room was as close to that element as could be found away from the Beacon’s Travel Section. When I came in, he and Pat Voisard were talking shop. I heard “Abu Dhabi” and “Shiraz,” which sounded like nice places to visit, but they broke this up when they saw me, and, after an exchange of greetings with Pat, I was left facing Duncan Harvey, who sat back in a chrome and black-leather chair that inspired confidence. I told him again that I had just finished reading McStu’s book about the Tatarski case, which he applauded with a smile.

  “McStu’s book is an excellent beginning, Mr. Cooperman. All the facts are there. He did a first-rate job. The next trick is to get enough publicity so they’ll reopen the case.”

  “But the woman’s dead, Mr. Harvey. I don’t get it. Why are you carrying the banner?”

  “Some of my friends would say it’s because I’m a damned fool. Others think it’s because I’m one of nature’s born crusaders. One in every hundred thousand of the population. I don’t know, I think it’s because you can’t let them get away with it. Maybe. I guess I want to show that we have to be careful with human life. Look at the Marshall case. Who gave a damn about what happened to him? Harry Wheaton, the Mountie who dug up the evidence that cleared him, that’s who. Some of us have to wave the banner so that there’s some direction to the march. I don’t know. And, you’re right. Mary Tatarski will be just as dead at the end of a retrial as she is right now.”

  “I’m interested in the part that Ed Neustadt played in the story,” I said. “I’m also curious about what happened to the people who survived.”

  “Yes. Nobody survives a trauma like that intact. Mary’s sister …”

  “Margaret,” I added to be helpful.

  “Yes, well, she moved away, as did the others. She killed herself in Sarnia about four years after Mary was executed. You can’t tell me that those deaths aren’t related.” I shook my head in disbelief.

  “You see, Mr. Cooperman …”

  “Benny, please.”

  “Well, Benny, a case like this is like a great plane crash. Not only are there out-and-out casualties, but there’s all kinds of indirect fallout. Casualties on the ground, lives bent out of shape, careers ended, relationships forever altered. You can see that operating here. Margaret is just the most dramatic case. The young brother, Fred, had to get out of town too. Grew up in foster homes. Only he came back here with a changed name and made a big success of his life. He was a credit to the Children’s Aid, if you disregard his alcoholism and occasional violence.” Harvey’s voice was deep and touched with the echo of an English accent, although I would bet he was native-born. Maybe he’d worked abroad or married into the Old Country.

  “I guess that just adds more reasons for staying away from the death penalty.”

  “We see that now, it’s just too bad we didn’t see it earlier.”

  “When did Fred Tatarski die?”

  “It was a little over two years ago. Bone cancer.”

  “How did he make his big success?”

  “Ever hear of the Nuts & Bolts garage chain? That’s Fred Tatarski. Only he changed his name to Tait.”

  “Any family?”

  “A boy, Charles Edward, who died young. Meningitis or something. And a girl, Drina. She’s Mary’s daughter. He brought her up as his own as soon as he was settled and working. Joe Tatarski had a brother who used to work at Patterson and Corbin in the shop. Retired now, I guess. He’s changed his name too. He’s Bill Tarson, lives over on Eastchester. Glengarry Apartments. We did that building back in the seventies. Needs updating, but we can’t—”

  “Wait a minute! Back up a bit. Who was the father of Mary’s kid and what happened to him?”

  “Now that’s a mystery that leads nowhere. He was a kid who had dropped out of school. Grew up next door. He went out with Mary when she could escape from that house—old Anastasia used to guard the doors like a prison warden—and he had vanished from the scene before she knew she was pregnant. He went to work in a winery in Jordan and then went out to Delhi to the tobacco farms. I found him in Kitchener, working in a hostel for unemployed men. There wasn’t a lot he could tell me. It wasn’t a case of somebody erasing a bad memory from his mind so it wouldn’t torment him; he just couldn’t remember Mary very clearly and had never heard about his daughter until I told him.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “For what it’s worth: Thaddeus Nemerov.”

  “Thaddeus Nemerov,” I repeated.

  “Now don’t tell me you’re going to remember that?”

  “It might turn up again.
You never can tell.”

  “As Shaw is always saying.”

  “What! Shaw?” I surprised Harvey with my sudden animation. “What about Gordon Shaw?”

  “I don’t know a Gordon Shaw; I’m talking about the writer: George Bernard Shaw. Benny, are you feeling unwell?”

  “I’m fine, Duncan. Just fine,” I said, relaxing my grip on the arm of the chair. “I know it’s not in the book, but do you know of any connection between Abram Wise and the Tatarski case?” I was shooting wild and blind, but what the hell?

  “Abram Wise? You mean the crime boss? No, I haven’t seen any mention of his name. There wasn’t any involvement with organized crime in this case. Just incompetent investigation and incomplete disclosure to the defence lawyer. Neustadt was responsible for both.”

  “What was behind Neustadt’s zeal, do you think? Did he know the family?”

  “No. After the first blunders, I think he was covering up for himself. He was an ox of stubbornness. Of course, he was the first officer on the scene when the father was killed. That’s in the book. So he knew the family. Did you know him, Benny?” I shook my head. “He didn’t want me getting together with McStu on this book. He knew it wouldn’t do his name or character any good. He was right. He died just in time.”

  “Not quite. I think he had time to write to the papers denouncing the book.”

  “What else could he do? If we are right about Mary Tatarski, he was wrong. I don’t want to be too hard on Neustadt. He’s an easy target: a prisoner of old-fashioned ideas, a certain inflexibility of character.”

  “Would you include dishonesty?”

  “In a manner of speaking. He wouldn’t call it that, though. Any shifting of facts in aid of a foregone conclusion was legitimate as far as he was concerned. If a nasty fact got in the way, he’d dispose of it somehow, just as we have to get rid of older buildings when we put up new ones.”

  “The law’s supposed to be different. If the facts don’t fit, you’re supposed to look for a new theory. That’s what makes it scientific.”