A Little More Free

by John McFetridge

When they finished the two guys started another song right away, singing about being on a plane, “On your way up north,” and how Canada is so far from where you want to be. A couple of people sang along, not many. Dougherty didn’t know the song, but a few more people joined in with the words about what you always wanted to be, always wanted to be was just a man and then the whole place was singing, “Fulfilled but a little more free, a little more free.”

  Dougherty noticed a couple of guys on the far side of the room who might’ve been Black Panthers, they had the sunglasses and leather jackets and the serious looks on their faces. And they were weren’t singing along or mingling.

  This time when the song finished one of the two guys at the mike said, “We’re here for David.” Then he gave a good speech, short and not very personal, Dougherty thought, and he drifted into, “what we all have in common,” and then he seemed to talk about himself more than about David Murray.

  Then the guy said, “Colleen, would you like to say a few words?” and Colleen Whitehead stepped up to the mike.

  She stood there for a moment and then it stretched into a long moment, and Dougherty thought someone else was going to have to say something and help her out but finally she said, “I don’t think any of us really knew David. Not really.” She paused and looked at all the faces looking back at her and then she said, “But we all knew his struggle, his battle. The battle that was going on inside of him.”

  Then there was a lot of murmuring and agreeing.

  Dougherty looked at the woman beside him, the one he’d held the door for, and she was nodding, looking at Colleen.

  “It’s different for each of us, of course,” Colleen Whitehead said into the mike, “and we never really know what anyone else goes through, how they arrive at their decisions. I know that for David the decision to come to Canada instead of going to Vietnam consumed him. It tore him apart.”

  It was the kind of thing Dougherty was hearing a lot lately, but he wasn’t sure he was buying it. Americans and war, he wasn’t so sure. His own father had joined the navy in 1938 when everyone in the world knew what was coming but, of course, the Americans didn’t get into it for years, not until it actually came to them. So now, for once, they were getting involved up front, keeping the communists on the other side of the world, and it’s tearing them apart.

  Then Colleen said, “From the moment we arrived we found so many people going through what we were going through.” She paused and then she said, “We found so many people willing to understand … to try and understand … us.”

  Dougherty looked around the room as she continued, talking about what David was like in high school and how she felt he’d always been looking for a community he could be a part of and how the closest he’d ever come was here, “with all of you.” Dougherty noticed she didn’t say “all of us,” but he wasn’t sure if that meant anything, and then he wondered if anyone in the room had seen David the day he was killed. The day before? Did these people have any idea what he was really doing?

  Colleen finished, “I hope David has found his peace now.”

  And then Dougherty finally saw the tears on her face, saw how they had been streaming down her cheeks the whole time she was talking and now she put her hands over her face and started to sob. One of the folk singers put his arm around her shoulders and helped her away from the mike and the other guy started to play the guitar.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Dougherty turned and saw Judy MacIntyre and he said, “I didn’t recognize you without the workboots.”

  “I recognize you without the uniform.”

  The woman Dougherty had held the door for was still standing beside him and she said, “Hey, now I recognize you.”

  Judy said, “Did he arrest you, too?”

  “No, he didn’t, that’s why I remember.”

  “You come back looking for another chance?”

  The other woman said, “I’m Corky King, what’s your name, Officer?”

  Dougherty could tell the two women knew each other but he didn’t think they were close. He looked at Corky and said, “Édouard,” as French as possible.

  Corky was holding out her hand and Dougherty shook it, and Judy MacIntyre said, “Edoo-ard Dougherty, he’s an English oppressor.”

  “Only on my father’s side, on my mother’s I’m under the boot of the capitalist pigs.”

  Corky said, “Yeah, I thought you were conflicted.” She looked at Judy and said, “You remember, just before the evictions on Park Avenue? We had that demonstration.”

  “Yes, I remember, Concordia called the cops.” She looked at Dougherty and said, “And you rushed right over.”

  He still wasn’t sure what they were talking about so he didn’t say anything.

  “Concordia is the development company,” Judy said, “that’s throwing everyone out.”

  “There was a big demonstration on the street in front of the building, a big crowd, and the police came and they were talking to us, remember?”

  Judy said, “I don’t remember any talking.”

  “Yeah, they were kind of mingling for a while. I remember because I had Noah with me. It was just after his birthday — he’d just turned two. I was holding him,” she looked at Dougherty and said, “and you let him wear your hat.”

  Dougherty said, “Oh yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Corky said, “you were there for about an hour, just talking and walking around and then you came up to me and you said, you whispered to me, that you were getting orders to arrest everyone so if I wanted to, I could step behind you, you said.”

  She looked at Judy MacIntyre then and said, “I felt bad, I felt disloyal, but I had Noah with me and I didn’t know what would happen so I did it.” She looked at Dougherty. “I stepped behind you. Lots of people got arrested that day, but Noah slept in his own bed that night.”

  No one said anything for a moment and then Dougherty said, “You’re American.”

  Corky laughed a little. She said, “People keep telling me that’s okay,” and he said, “Well, you know, the news and all.”

  She shook her head and said, “Canadians,” and Dougherty said, “We’re not Canadians, we’re Mont­realers.” Dougherty looked at Judy MacIntyre when he said it and saw her nod a little.

  Then Dougherty said, “Did you know David well?”

  “Be careful,” Judy said, “he’s working.”

  Corky said, “Not really. I met him working with the deserters. I’m a nurse. I was in Vietnam for a while. I don’t mean I was in the jungle but I saw enough.”

  “But you didn’t know David very well?”

  “I’m not sure anyone did.”

  “That’s the feeling I’m getting,” Dougherty said. “A real man of mystery.”

  “I can’t believe someone killed him. His whole life was about peace.”

  “Are you sure?” Dougherty said. “I mean, if you didn’t know him that well?”

  Corky turned to face Dougherty and said, “I saw David help people. I saw men, boys really, come here scared and alone, no idea what to do, and I saw David help them. Sometimes he would drive them back across the border so they could enter Canada legally and get the help they needed. Do you know how much of a risk that was for him?”

  “Yes, I do,” Dougherty said.

  “So, I guess I knew him that well,” Corky said. “For whatever that’s worth.”

  Dougherty said, “Thank you.”

  Corky said, “Right, well …” and she nodded a little and walked away into the crowd.

  Dougherty watched her and looked the place over, looked at all the people and didn’t see anything to make a note of really. The Black Panthers were standing pretty much exactly where they’d been all night, but now a few people were talking to them, a couple of women and one guy. The rest of the place was just people standing around
drinking out of beer bottles and paper cups.

  The folk singers were finished and recorded music was playing, Bob Dylan, singing about the times a-changing, and Dougherty could certainly agree with that.

  “You’re not going to find anything here,” Judy MacIntyre said.

  “It sounds like you don’t want me to.” He looked at her and said, “You don’t want somebody to get away with murder, do you?”

  “Of course not. You’re just wasting your time here.”

  “Because none of these peaceniks could kill anyone?”

  “No one’s going to talk to you.”

  “I don’t get that,” Dougherty said. “These people are supposed to be his friends, why don’t they want to find out who killed him?”

  “They don’t have any idea who killed him.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  Dougherty said, “You know, we don’t even know what might be important. Right now we’re just trying to find out where he was the day he was killed, or where he spent the night before that, the days before. No one seems to know.”

  “It’s true,” Judy said, “he wasn’t around much.”

  “So look around,” Dougherty said, “who here did he spend time with?”

  She looked around and Dougherty thought he saw her pause over a couple of guys, older guys, maybe in their late thirties, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “What did Gardiner tell you?”

  “The lawyer?” Dougherty said. “The same as everyone else: David Murray was a man of mystery.”

  “I’m still getting used to that.”

  “Man of mystery?”

  “No, that he was. That he isn’t anymore. I walk past his room and I’m used to seeing it empty but there were usually signs he’d been there.”

  “Like what?”

  Judy shrugged and as Dougherty looked past her he saw Corky King on the other side of the room talking to the older guys. She was laughing and doing most of the talking but Dougherty couldn’t tell if she was nervous or not.

  “Oh, you know, dirty clothes, clean clothes, maybe, in a laundry bag. Just some sign of life.”

  Dougherty said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Judy looked at Dougherty and said, “Well, I didn’t really know him.”

  “No, but you had some things in common.”

  She said, “Don’t try and be my friend.”

  Dougherty said okay, and they stood next to one another in silence for a moment. People were drifting out of the club, the evening was winding down.

  He said, “Look, if you do remember something, anything, give me a call, would you?”

  “There’s nothing for me to remember.”

  “All right,” Dougherty said. “But if you do.”

  He watched her nod a little and he couldn’t tell at all what she was thinking. He figured she was probably right, there probably wasn’t anything for her to remember, but if she did … would she tell him? If he was going to be a detective, a homicide detective, he’d have to be able to get a read on people better than this, he’d have to be able to work informants better than this.

  Then he was wondering if that’s what he was doing, if he was trying to work her like an informant or if it was something else.

  She said, “Well, see you around,” and wandered into the thinning crowd and Dougherty stood by himself for a while. No one called him pig, but it was clear no one was going to talk to him. After another fifteen minutes or so he left.

  Outside the Yellow Door, Dougherty was walking along Aylmer heading back to where he’d parked his car when he heard a voice call, “Officer, Edoo-ard, hey,” and he turned around to see Corky King.

  She said, “I just wanted to say …” and she paused until she was standing right beside him, “Maybe there’s someone you should talk to.”

  “Who?”

  She looked around as if they were in a movie and then she said, “A guy named Smith,” and Dougherty said, “You’re kidding, right?”

  “That’s his name, Kenny or Kevin or something. David called him Two Fingers.”

  Now Dougherty was thinking they really were in an old movie and he said, “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to be involved.”

  And she walked away without looking back.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Dougherty walked into Station Ten at five o’clock Mon­day afternoon, an hour before his shift ended and the desk sergeant, Delisle, said, “Eh, qu’est-ce que tu fais?”

  “I’m doing that surveillance, the museum thing.”

  “Still, you’re doing that? Nice to get the overtime.”

  Dougherty walked towards the locker room saying, “As long as they tell me,” and Delisle said, “They don’t tell me anything.”

  He changed into jeans and a blue shirt that looked a lot like his uniform shirt without the markings and a leather jacket.

  He was window-shopping on Sherbrooke Street across from the museum fifteen minutes before Mullins came out of the building.

  Dougherty was walking towards Côte-des-Neiges, where Mullins would catch the bus heading north to his apartment, but this time the guy crossed Sherbrooke and walked down Guy, almost bumping into Dougherty as he passed him.

  At de Maisonneuve, Dougherty thought he was going into the Métro but Mullins stopped in front of the Guy Cinema, and Dougherty thought he’d have to spend a couple hours watching a porno. Mullins read the poster — a double feature, Her Private Life and Suburban Housewives — but then he started walking again, south towards St. Catherine.

  Dougherty felt exposed on the wide sidewalk of St. Catherine Street — even in the crowd he thought he was standing out as a cop and tried to stay far back from Mullins, but then he felt he was too far back.

  Then he thought, screw it, he was just thinking that way because of the draft dodgers and the hippies, they thought everybody looked like a cop. None of these people going home from work or going out for a meal gave Dougherty a second look.

  And Mullins never looked back. He stopped in front of the Seville and looked at the poster for Billy Jack, and Dougherty thought that would be okay, he hadn’t seen it, but then Mullins started walking again.

  At Atwater, Mullins got in line waiting for the 107 bus, and Dougherty realized he was going to Verdun. They were going to Verdun. Dougherty got on the bus, too, and they rode down the hill to Verdun Avenue.

  Mullins got off at 6th Street and Dougherty crossed the street and stayed back as far as he could as Mullins walked along the line of three-storey walk-ups, exactly the same kind of building Dougherty had grown up in on Fortune Street in the Point, wrought-iron stairs on the outside up to the second- and third-floor apartments and just like Dougherty’s old place, Mullins went into the apartment on the ground floor.

  The street was lined on both sides for blocks with row houses so Dougherty couldn’t just stand around. He made a note of the address, 485, and then walked back to Verdun Avenue.

  A few minutes later, Mullins came down the street with an older woman Dougherty figured was his mother. They turned onto Verdun Avenue and walked a block to a restaurant, the New Verdun, and went inside.

  It looked like something Mullins and his mother did often. Dougherty figured it was probably a weekly event. He watched them take a seat in one of the booths by the window and figured he had an hour while they ate their spaghetti and garlic bread and rice pudding and had a cup of tea but he couldn’t take the chance of wandering off in case someone came by and spoke to Mullins.

  Someone said, “Eddie Dougherty?”

  It was a guy about Dougherty’s age standing on the sidewalk beside him. The guy was smiling and he said, “From Verdun High.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Scott Leary.”

  “Oh y
eah, Scotty. How you doing?”

  “Good, good, you? I heard you were a cop.” He paused and then said, “That shit with Arlene Webber’s sister.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, that’s right,” and then he said, “You still hanging out with Danny Buckley and the Higgins brothers?”

  “No, I was working at Northern Electric.”

  “The big factory on St. Patrick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you mean,” Dougherty said, “you were?”

  “You didn’t hear? They’re shutting it down.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Leary said, “the whole thing. Everybody getting laid off.”

  Dougherty said, “Holy shit.” Growing up half the kids in his class had parents working in that factory making telephones. “That’s gotta be a couple hundred people.”

  “Three-sixty.”

  “Wow.”

  “On top of the seven hundred at SOMA.”

  Dougherty was looking past Leary at the New Verdun — he thought he saw Mullins leaving, but he was still sitting in the booth across from his mother.

  “SOMA,” Dougherty said, “I thought that was staying open? That’s the car plant, right?”

  “On the South Shore, yeah.” Leary shrugged. “One shift still working, couple hundred guys, supposed to be till Christmas anyway, but they lost the contract with Renault so they’ll be shutting down.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “Yeah, and fifteen hundred guys laid off from GM.”

  “In Sainte-Thérèse?”

  “Yeah, over the last year.”

  “Laid off,” Dougherty said, “maybe they get called back.”

  Leary shook his head. “No way. So, there any openings on the police force?”

  “I don’t know,” Dougherty said. “Tu parles Français?”

  “Oh yeah,” Leary said, “I forgot your mom was French.”

  “She still is.”

  “Yeah, well, name like Dougherty, you just got in under the wire.”

  “I guess.”

  “You better keep your head down.”

  Dougherty said, “It’s not that bad.”