by Howard Engel
“Not today. But I’m due to testify before the end of the week.”
“I see. Well, I won’t keep you any longer, Mr. Cooperman.”
The interview was over and there were still oatcakes to be returned to their box for another five or ten years. My last sight of Gladys Ravenswood was a mauve smile as she gave me her hand before I gave myself up to her driver to be returned to my office.
The old woman lived to celebrate her eighty-ninth birthday. After her death, Orv and Antonia split their marriage without splitting up their working arrangements. Antonia went to the Beacon, where she introduced some overdue changes. She enjoyed being a “hands-on” publisher. She continued, changes notwithstanding, to employ some alcoholic friends of mine. Orv Wishart, left with a free hand to run the broadcasting centre, brought Cath Bracken into the management team, which gave her an important voice in how the broadcasting wing of the Ravenswood media empire was run. Her official title was Head of Radio, but she was elevated to the board of directors, while continuing to read the evening news on TV, to my father’s secret delight and mine.
Cath and McStu got married quietly in the new year, shortly after McStu’s new book came out the day before Christmas Eve. The book did well. I bought an armful myself at the launching party in Susan Torres’s book store on Queen Street. I was behind in my Christmas shopping and the book made a great choice for friends and family. The antiques I bought in Grimsby also found favour with some very special people.
I remember at the book launching, with Anna and Cath getting to know one another and Anna listening to Cath go on and on about the pleasures of a skiing holiday at Fonthill and Susan Torres trying to maintain some order around the cheese and crackers, that McStu took me over to one side of the store, leaned me against the wall of books and asked: “Why did Newby get you to follow Cath, Benny?”
“To get me to stop snooping around Ramsden.”
“Who was he fronting for? Who was his client?”
“McStu, there wasn’t a client. Newby was doing this for himself. It was a way to control me, he thought.”
“And what about Cath? Why her?”
“He wanted me to hinder her getting the Oldridge documentary on the air. That’s why he tipped her off that she was being tailed. He wanted to add confusion, just to slow her down. He needed quiet to complete his deal with Ramsden. And Ramsden wasn’t making it easy. Newby knew that once the papers got hold of the Bede Bunch flimflam, the Public Trustee would swoop down on the whole enterprise, delaying things indefinitely. Of course, that became irrelevant as soon as Ramsden threatened Newby. Quite simply, Ramsden had to be killed. Newby was like that about people. He dealt with them unsentimentally. Just as he did with poor Dora. As soon as their little affair threatened the course of Newby’s planned future, Dora had to be eliminated.”
“Brilliant! Just brilliant!” said McStu.
“He hasn’t explained away Temperley yet,” said a voice I knew. It was Chris Savas chewing on some orange cheese.
“Yes,” said McStu, “what about Temperley?”
“Cath’s interview with Temperley frankly scared him. Maybe it was his conscience or maybe it was the smell of prison, Chris. He told Ramsden he wasn’t going to cover for him any more. So, Ramsden took him for an old-fashioned ride in the cemetery just before closing time on Monday night. He popped him with that Japanese piece you haven’t been able to trace and dumped him into a freshly dug grave. He kicked some loose dirt on top of him, but by then it must have been getting too dark to see. Six feet down, Temperley must have looked gone forever.”
“That’s just talk, Benny,” Chris said.
“Try the little museum Ramsden set up for the Royal Grantham Rifles. The gun is in their collection. Ramsden took it, used it and had it back in the collection before it was even missed.”
“What if it is? That still doesn’t make it Ramsden.”
“You can tell quickly enough if the piece was used recently or not. And, hell, Chris, since Ramsden’s dead, I didn’t think you’d need an airtight case. But, for what it’s worth, have a look at the muddy shoes Ramsden was wearing the night I had my tussle with him. They can compare the mud on his shoes with the mud in the grave, can’t they?”
“You bloody well know they can!” Chris said, biting down hard and sending chips of biscuit into McStu’s hair.
Trying to change the subject, I turned on McStu, who was now being pulled by Cath back to his autographing table. “Tell me,” I said, “why do you change the names of some of the Hamilton streets and not change others? You change the names of some of the places near Hamilton too and not others. Why is that?”
“Ah,” said McStu, pouring red wine into a plastic glass, “that’s a secret known only to me, my editor and God almighty.”
“What’s going on here?” said Frank Bushmill, pushing a book under McStu’s nose for signing. He had made his way through a growing crowd of admirers. He looked completely recovered from the bang on his head. “Benny, did you ever figure out who it was who was trying to get into your office that night?”
“What’s this?” Chris demanded.
“Oh, it’s just one of those loose ends. You get them at the end of every big case,” I said. “It may have been Mendlesham trying to see what I had on Ramsden. It might have been Newby himself, but I doubt it. We can’t lay everything at the feet of our villain, can we?” I looked up at McStu for support, but he broke up and started laughing. Savas joined him and so did Cath Bracken. But Frank shouted his way through the laughter.
“Benny,” he said. “When are we holding a tenants’ meeting?”
“Meeting? What meeting?” I asked.
“We have to find a replacement for our old friend Mr. Kogan.”
“Kogan? This all started with Kogan. Has he finally eaten a bad can of cat food?”
“Not a bit of it,” Frank said. “I was talking to Rupe McLay over at the Nag’s Head. He tells me that Kogan has just come into a lot of money. Turns out he was Liz Oldridge’s heir in the hole. He’s inherited everything! Rupe says he plans to buy our building on St. Andrew Street from Mrs. Onischuk. Damned if he isn’t threatening to turn our offices into a hostel for vagrants. We’re going to have to move, Benny! As Kogan says, ‘How do you like them apples?’”
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM PENGUIN CANADA
THE COOPERMAN VARIATIONS
Howard Engel
A BENNY COOPERMAN MYSTERY
Vanessa Moss, an executive with the National Television Corporation, thinks somebody’s trying to kill her. To protect herself, she engages the services of former classmate and gumshoe Benny Cooperman to go undercover as her personal assistant. Benny discovers a warren of competing executives, backbiting lawyers, arrogant producers, and sycophantic flunkies.
Find out more about Howard Engel mysteries at
www.penguin.ca/mystery
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM PENGUIN CANADA
MEMORY BOOK
Howard Engel
A BENNY COOPERMAN MYSTERY
Benny is recovering in a Toronto hospital from a serious blow to the head. He was found unconscious beside a dead woman in a dumpster, so he figures he must have been close to solving a case, though he has no memory of the events. With his girlfriend, Anna, working as field agent, he tries to piece together the events that led to a murder—and his own injuries.
Find out more about Howard Engel mysteries at
www.penguin.ca/mystery
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM PENGUIN CANADA
EAST OF SUEZ
Howard Engel
A BENNY COOPERMAN MYSTERY
Left with short-term memory loss and unable to read, Benny Cooperman is ready to pack in his career as a private investigator. But an old schoolmate convinces him to locate her missing husband—or at least the family savings. Benny’s quest takes him to the seductive environs of Murinam, a former French possession in Indonesia, where nothing is as it appears to be. The heat is on as mayhem and murder ensue among the colourful
denizens of the tropics, but Benny keeps a cool head.
Find out more about Howard Engel mysteries at
www.penguin.ca/mystery
