There was an Old Woman

by Howard Engel

  “Is he the guy I’ve seen with Catherine Bracken?” 1 tried this on just to see if it would fit.

  “She’s really quite bright, you know. Not just another pretty face. I think they’re well suited. I hear that McStu’s a wonderful cook. That wife of his was never at home long enough to cook a meal. But that’s talking out of school.”

  Armed with my introduction to the work of McKenzie Stewart, I wandered towards my office by way of the farmers’ market. What it was about a few dusty baskets of beets and apples, a few links of smoked sausages and blocks of Cheddar cheese, I’ll never know, but they gave me a feeling that the ozone layer isn’t as cracked as it’s reputed to be, that the earth still has a corner or two where the sod can’t be traced back to the Love Canal. Maybe I’m living in a fool’s paradise, but that’s the feeling the market gives me.

  On my way up James Street, I picked up a coffee-togo at the Crystal, and carried it upstairs to the familiar sound of the running toilet mingled with that of my telephone. Naturally, the phone stopped ringing as I was in the act of lifting the receiver. Save me from triflers.

  I opened Dead Letter and the rest of the morning vanished into the streets of Stewart’s crime-ridden city, where the streets weren’t so much mean as they were ill-tempered. There wasn’t a body behind every garbage can, but he did enjoy having Dud Dickens hit over the head regularly. I wondered whether the beautiful police reporter was Cath Bracken in a clever disguise. The fact that she kept her clothes on throughout the novel while dozens of others were losing theirs supported my theory. Dud Dickens was okay: no Sam Spade, but no slouch either. He made a few deductions that could have brought a smile to the face of Sherlock Holmes. The ending caught me completely off guard. I turned the pages back to see if the crucial clue was where it was supposed to be. It was, but deftly placed where it would not scream out at the reader. It didn’t scream out at me at least. I put the book down with a feeling that I knew something of the life in the underworld of Hamilton, Ontario. And I felt that I knew the writer and his girl-friend better too. It helps to get inside the head of a client or even a near client. I now knew that the girl-friend loved fast cars and had no family and that the writer counted his money and had trouble with his drinking. Now, you couldn’t really call that taking the morning off, could you? I left the question dangling, like Susan Torres’s glasses, while I opened the second of his books.

  NINE

  Feeling guilty about taking off time to read a novel, I went downstairs and bought a paper. The Beacon always brings me down to earth. The first thing I saw was that the inquest into the death of Lizzy Oldridge had concluded. Those things are usually over in a day and forgotten in two, but Lizzy’s was different. There had been two days of testimony and the verdict was announced after the weekend. Barney Reynolds had written it up, although I don’t remember seeing him in the courtroom while I was there. Barney was the true pro. He could make me believe he was there listening to every word, even when he wasn’t. He had an eye for salient details. He knew how to arrest the attention of a TV-distracted reader. Some of his conclusions packed a wallop. It came as a surprise to me that Lizzy had more than eighty thousand dollars in term deposits in her safety deposit box at the Upper Canadian Bank. That made a fair contrast with the less than ten dollars in her savings account. Another stunner was the fact that Liz had left her estate to the Guild of the Venerable Bede, the outfit that had been founded by Thurleigh Ramsden, who also just happened to be the sole executor of her will. The fact that didn’t surprise me was that it was unlikely that any criminal charges would be laid following the jury’s verdict that the woman died of emaciation, dehydration and malnutrition primarily induced by her despondency over losing control over her financial affairs. There was no mention in the actual verdict of Thurleigh Ramsden. I looked through the two columns and couldn’t find words that directly linked Ramsden to the cause of death. Was I wrong to think he should be? Maybe coroner’s courts aren’t empowered to be that subtle. Anyway that wasn’t any of my business, was it? I had a job, and if I was on it, I wouldn’t be sitting around on my butt speculating about something that concerned only Kogan, of all people. Kogan, who made my life a misery of running water and unemptied waste baskets.

  The other item in the paper concerned Clarence Temperley:

  Niagara Regional Police are increasing their efforts to contact the manager of the Upper Canadian Bank. Clarence Temperley, 49, of Lisgar Street, failed to appear as a witness in the just-concluded inquest into the death of Elizabeth Oldridge, 78, of Brogan Street. “While he hasn’t been missing long enough to be considered a ‘missing person,’” Detective-Sergeant Chris Savas told the Beacon, “his absence at this time is causing some anxiety and we are looking into it.” Temperley has been manager of the bank since 1969.

  The article went on to describe his wife and family of three boys who were joined by neighbours in searching the course of the Eleven Mile Creek above its junction with the Old Canal.

  When it was getting on towards one-thirty, I went around the back of the office to see if the Olds was up to a run back to Papertown. It was and when we got there, McStu’s car was still parked outside Cath Bracken’s house. In daylight, I could see that the place had the scale of a cottage from the last century. It reminded me of a picture I’d seen in the library of the house in St. Helena, where Napoleon spent his last days. It was compact, without the horizontal spread of suburban bungalows of the 1950s. There were no large picture windows to help me in my research. There were no lights or any signs of movement through the two windows facing the veranda.

  I pushed in the car lighter while I waited and sucked on a Halls cough drop. I did this a few times as though I really thought I was going to like cough drops better than cigarettes.

  After about forty-five minutes, I turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb. What had I accomplished? I wondered as I pointed the Olds back to town. What does surveillance ever accomplish? It looks good in a report, but there is rarely much that tells you about the characters you are following. In the old days when I used to do a lot of divorce work, you weren’t interested in character as such, just the movements: from home of subject to the Black Duck Motel and back again. It was crude but it told enough for a judge to make up his mind.

  When I parked behind the office and came up the alley breathing heavily, Kogan was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. I walked past him and unlocked the office door. He followed me in.

  “So, Mr. Cooperman, what have you found out?”

  “I don’t usually report whenever a client drops in, Kogan. Besides, didn’t you tell me that you weren’t interested in my services?”

  “I only meant I can’t afford to pay you. I didn’t say I didn’t need your help,” he protested. Kogan grinned. Even he could see the funny side, and he was straight enough to let me see that he recognized hypocrisy as well as the next man.

  “How far does that argument get you at the liquor store?”

  “There’s a branch where I get credit.”

  “Credit! I don’t believe you. Booze is strictly cash and carry.”

  “Except when I deal with Norton. Norton’s an old school friend. It’s a question of the old school tie. That’s what private schools are all about. It’s a brotherhood, really.” I’d heard that Kogan had attended Cranmer College on the other side of the canal, but from the look of him now, you wouldn’t believe it. Even in a blazer and flannels, he didn’t have the look of a Cranmer old boy.

  “Kogan, you have a way with everybody. How come you haven’t figured me out yet?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Cooperman. What you’re doing on the Lizzy Oldridge case—”

  “You got a name for it already. Good. Keep going.”

  “—is for her, not for me. You would have liked her. She had a swell voice.”

  “Great! Too bad she didn’t think enough of it to play up to some of the people who tried to help her.

  “She ha
d an independent streak.”

  “You’re telling me!” I walked around and sat behind my desk. “Kogan,” I said, “I don’t know any more about your friend than you can see in the paper. Thurleigh Ramsden doesn’t come off as a hero, but he won’t land in jail. He’s covered his tracks too well. The question that’s bothering me, Kogan, is why did Ramsden do this to Lizzy Oldridge? Why did she trust him with her money and her life and why did he take her on?”

  “They both belong to the Bede Bunch.”

  “The what?”

  “The Guild of the Venerable Bede. It’s a place for people to go who want to listen to patriotic speeches and then have an old-fashioned ‘Knees up, Mother Brown.’”

  “Sorry, Kogan. I don’t follow.”

  “It’s mostly old dears like Lizzy, you know; getting on and remembering the old country through rose-coloured glasses. They sing the old songs, salute the flag and toast the Queen on her birthday.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well, if you ask me, the old country never did all that much for them and half of them have forgotten what it was like over there. They give themselves airs, talk about the UK as though a bottle of milk never went sour on a window-sill. Some of them are harmless, but there are a few like Ramsden, who think this country’s going soft because it did away with the noose and lash. They need their heads examined.”

  “Apart from that, Kogan, it doesn’t sound like they eat their young. This is still a free country. You can join the Flat Earth Society if you want to.” Kogan gave me a look. He wasn’t convinced. “Apart from wringing its hands at the creeping disintegration of society, Kogan, what else does the Guild of the Venerable Bede do?”

  “Sponsor scholarships for poor bluebloods.”

  “Is it a wealthy organization?”

  “Lizzy could have told you. You better ask Mr. Ramsden. He’s the executive officer.”

  “Have you any idea why Ramsden singled Lizzy out, Kogan? There were other old-timers. Was Lizzy richer than the others?”

  “None of ’em is rich. Lizzy had her own place, that’s all. She had a few dollars put by, like you heard at the inquest. And the house is worth something, being downtown and all.”

  “I still don’t—”

  “The thing about Lizzy is that she did everything her own way She never listened to advice; she never would have taken it. She had her own ways for everything.”

  “I had a look at that house of hers.”

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t see that in House Beautiful.”

  “Who holds the mortgage on it? Do you know?”

  “Oh, there’s no mortgage. Lizzy didn’t hold with mortgages. She paid that off years ago.”

  “So Ramsden, as executor, passes on her house to the Bede Bunch.”

  “Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”

  “But he’s part of the executive, isn’t he? Wouldn’t he have some say in what happens to the property?”

  “Place like that needs a lot of upkeep. Could become the international headquarters of the Bede Bunch.”

  Kogan went on talking, but I tuned him out. Slowly I was becoming aware that there was an unusual situation developing on Brogan Street. For the first time within living memory a big, established business, Foley Bros., closes down. At the other end of the street, a pub that has been doing a fair business over the years prepares to close down in the New Year. In between, the Oldridge property has passed into the hands of a hang-’em, flog-’em outfit that has resisted every innovation since the invention of the wheel. I didn’t know borscht about real-estate values in Grantham, but I had a good nose and it told me to find out more about this nearly forgotten strip of land behind St. Andrew Street. Something was going on. I knew that much.

  “… so I spent a couple of hours fixing it.”

  “What? Fixing what, Kogan?”

  “The back fence. At Lizzy’s place. She wouldn’t have me working underfoot in the house, so I propped up the fence for her. Least I could do.”

  “Kogan, I sure would appreciate your spending some time with the plumbing in the little room down the hall. If you listen closely, you can hear it singing to us. Please, Kogan! It’s driving away my business. I’m on my knees, Kogan!” Kogan retreated, embarrassed at my unmanly show of emotion. Whether he got anywhere near the toilet, I don’t know. But I hoped.

  TEN

  I made a few phonecalls. In each case, at the last minute I chickened out of saying what was on my mind. There was something wrong. Mind you, I’m not badmouthing my contacts: they’ve done the firm some service. I won’t say a word against them. But, in each case I decided that I would be starting a rumour trail that would lead back to me. So, I dropped around to Scarp Enterprises just before lunch and caught Martha Tracy coming out the big glass door.

  “Benny! As I live and breathe! I thought you were away for the winter already. I was expecting a card from Miami Beach. Something to brighten up these gloomy days.”

  “Are you busy for lunch?”

  “Now I am. Where shall we go? I’ve only got about forty-five minutes. Benny,” she said smiling, “you’re looking well, you little devil! Have you sold your soul for a good complexion? Is that your secret?”

  We walked up to the end of James Street and then west on St. Andrew. We found a place for two in the centre area of the Di, where a stained-maple partition separated us from a couple of teenagers and their Cokes. I ordered my usual, accepting Martha’s banter of abuse after she gave her own order to the waitress. While we waited for our sandwiches, I told her about the last six months of my life and heard about her difficulties with a tree that is dying at the corner of her lawn on Monck Street.

  “I had Dr. Bett, next door, put cement into the hole, but it didn’t do any good.”

  “You got a specialist?”

  “Dr. Bett is a doctor of music at Cranmer College,” she explained. “He’s only an amateur gardener, but I’m impressed by anyone who has a load of manure delivered every autumn. It has a serious look about it. And I’ve seen him weeding his lawn for hours at a time. He doesn’t know the meaning of ‘quittin’ time.’ The only lawn to beat Dr. Bett’s is Mr. Hill’s, the vicar at the English church on Lisgar Street.”

  “Martha …”

  “Here it comes!” She leaned forward and looked pleased.

  “What?”

  “Benny, I knew you didn’t just happen to run into me. You’ve got another problem. I know it. Don’t lie to me.”

  “It’s not a problem. And I was thinking about you anyway.”

  “Oh, sure. You and a million others. Okay, Cooperman, let’s have it.”

  “Martha,” I began, swallowing the last of the first half of my chopped-egg sandwich, “I have to find out whether somebody is putting together a series of properties behind St. Andrew Street.”

  “Hmmmm. You came to the right place, Cooperman. I’m up on all the information. I should have held you up for a fancy lunch in that seafood restaurant near the market. But I’ve only got another twenty minutes and I hate to rush a lobster.”

  “I’m all ears, Martha.”

  “When aren’t you? I wonder if people can see the wheels going around inside me as easily as I see them going around inside others?”

  “You’re fey, Martha. It’s the little people’s way of thanking you for not disturbing their crock of gold.”

  Martha took a long sip of her coffee and then settled back against the much-initialled panel behind her. “When Foley Bros. went out of business, Benny, a lot of people started thinking about the properties on Brogan Street. You had Foley’s on one side and the backs of other places across the street. And there’s the Nag’s Head at the corner and an old cottage belonging to that—”

  “Lizzy Oldridge.”

  “That’s right! Well, when we noticed the pattern here at Scarp Enterprises, we soon discovered that Foley’s had sold to Steve Morella and the Nag’s Head was in the process of being acquired by … guess who? Steve Morella
. Morella was in there before anyone knew the properties were for sale. I heard that about a year ago he found out that Foley’s was only ordering stock up to August. That’s what tipped him off.”

  “Who is this Morella? I thought I knew everybody in town.”

  “Remember the ‘Stop Me and Buy’ truck that used to sell French fries at the corner of Queen and St. Andrew?”

  “Sure. But that’s going back a long way.”

  “While you’ve been walking with your head in the clouds, Benny. Steve Morella traded in his truck for a restaurant across from the Lincoln Theatre.”

  “I think I remember that. Sure.” It was the same sunny face over the frying vats. I could see it clearly. “So, what are you telling me, Martha?”

  “Benny, Steve Morella has expanded and expanded since those days. You’ve heard of Frenchie’s Fries, I presume? Well, Frenchie is Steve. He must bank at least a quarter of a million every week—what with the US and trans-Canada sales.”

  “And it all started with nickels and dimes and a ‘Stop Me and Buy’ truck?”

  “Makes you think, doesn’t it?” We both thought about it for about ten seconds. Then Martha added: “Benny, not only has Steve assembled a food chain that ranks with McDonald’s and Wendy’s, but he’s into real estate and even film production. He’s got a finger in a lot of pies and they all come up ‘finger-lickin’ good.’”

  “My memory of Morella is of a big, wide face under a blond military haircut. Is that Steve Morella?”

  “That’s him. He comes from the north of Italy. Not all Italians are Mediterranean types, Benny, just as all Italian cooking isn’t done with tomato sauce.”

  “Martha, if that’s an invitation to dinner, I accept.” She gave me a dirty look. To change the subject back again, I asked: “Where does he do his business?”

  “In the Venezia Block. He owns it. You know, the building that replaced the old post office on Queen?”

  “‘Venezia.’ He comes from Venice, right?”

  “Right neighbourhood, wrong street. Ever hear of Friuli? He knows a lot about fine Italian wines.”