Torch Song

by Jo A. Hiestand

  Nora had known how to interest him, how to crack the core of his emotions. When he had protested again that he had pending dry stone walls that needed fixing and that he was too old to be running around the county tracking down a murderer, she had scoffed, replying that he couldn’t be forty years old yet and that he was in better shape than most twenty year olds.

  McLaren had begrudgingly admitted to her that he was thirty-eight and had enjoyed working on the last two cases he’d taken on. But he hadn’t admitted that the surge of adrenaline he got from investigating cases made him feel more alive than anything else in his life at the moment. And, he confessed now, in the privacy of his home, he yearned for that feeling again.

  “Then Janet’s case should prove just as satisfactory to you as the others have,” Nora had countered. “And as long as you’re confessing to me, Mr. McLaren, I will open my soul to you. I know my dementia is worsening. My doctor has given me an idea of what to expect. That, coupled with the Parkinson’s I have, doesn’t paint a rosy future for me. Even if I escape the deterioration of memory and thought process that the later stages of Parkinson’s bring, I believe Alzheimer’s will claim me. I’m just selfish enough to want to see my daughter’s killer caught while I am aware of the event. I can face whatever health future is in store for me if I know her killer has been brought to justice.”

  Which hadn’t seemed like dementia talking at all, McLaren admitted to himself. So he had told her he would investigate the case, hugging her as she stood up to leave and giving her a pep talk.

  But now, seated in his back room, with the evening creeping over the landscape, he wondered if he shouldn’t have looked into the case a bit before telling Nora he’d take it on. Had his hope-filled words been more for her benefit or for his? Besides wanting to tangle with Harvester again, was he really motivated by the injustice Nora had received at Harvester’s hands?

  Yes, he told himself minutes later. He was incensed about the whole damn thing: about the coppers’ indifference, about Harvester’s martyred attitude, about a tragic end to a young life. About the five years of suffering Nora had endured and no one caring enough to help her. So he had jumped in, without fully knowing the details, ready to blow the cobwebs from the case and drag it in front of Harvester’s nose. Ready to crack old alibis and stubborn heads, ready to bring justice to the two women.

  He looked up from the paper before him, drawn suddenly to the photo on the wall opposite him. Dena, his girlfriend, smiled at him. Encouraging, believing in him, silently giving her blessing and telling him that he needed to do this. He smiled back at her, downed a quick swallow of coffee, then scanned the sheet of paper again.

  The case boiled down to reports and rulings. Police and fire service investigation and reports, forensic chemists’ decision, the coroner’s inquest and the resulting verdict. No witnesses, no clear motive. So the ruling came down as death by accident, and the cops were standing by that. Case closed. The end.

  But not so fast, McLaren thought as he read Nora’s account. It didn’t differ from the police report except with regards to the manner of death. The police favored accident; Nora and Janet’s friends favored murder. The case may have never made it to a real jury but this self-proclaimed jury was hung.

  The case story and details were becoming familiar to McLaren as he re-read the story in the quiet of his house, imagining the scenario and placing Janet in it. It looked to be straight forward enough. She had been found dead in her artist’s studio in the rear of her back garden. Fiancé Miles Tyson had come over at eight for dinner that September Saturday. He had arrived a few minutes early, saw the fire tender and the police cars, and wandered into the thick of things.

  The police questioned him, at first suspicious that he’d had something to do with the fire and Janet’s death. But unless he was a superb actor, his grief seemed real enough, and he was not charged with anything.

  McLaren leaned back, his head resting on the top edge of the sofa, and let the sheet of paper flutter onto the top of the coffee table. His fingertips found the wooden and ceramic beads of his necklace and rolled them, much in the fashion of worry beads. He liked the feel of them and toyed with them often when he thought. Outdoor sounds of cawing rooks and barking dogs filtered through the half open window but McLaren barely heard them. Rubbing his fingertips over his forehead he tried to remember what Nora had told him. Not that it had been complicated or that he’d been pelted with information. But after Nora had enlivened the conversation with Harvester’s name, McLaren had found it difficult to focus on anything else.

  He sat up, downed the last of the coffee, Harvester’s face shimmering before him in the growing dusk. This is a hell of a way to begin an investigation, he told himself. Prejudiced and focused on avenging myself on Harvester. Anyway, I don’t even know if I will investigate it. I’ve got those two walls to fix near Bakewell, and I need to paint the garage door this autumn. Besides, I’d like to spend the day with Dena, perhaps go ’round to Haddon Hall or Calke Abbey, have a picnic before the weather turns, see about a gig with my group at that fair. McLaren exhaled heavily and stood up, his gaze on the opposite wall where Dena seemed suddenly to mock him from her photograph. She’d know he was avoiding something if he suddenly rang her up and proposed a day out among the delights of Derbyshire. Not that he was completely devoid of a romantic gesture or candlelit dinner, but it happened so infrequently that the suggestion would have the whiff of a fishmonger because they’d spent the day together last Saturday.

  McLaren’s gaze drifted to the photo neighboring Dena’s. He and a mate from early in both their careers eyed him, silently laughing like a drain at his idea. He picked up the coffee mug and walked into the kitchen, scowling. Bloody marvelous. I can’t even fool myself.

  He fixed himself a salmon and cucumber sandwich, heated up a bowl of potato and leek soup and took his meal into the back room. He put a recording of Chopin nocturnes in the CD player, and sat down to eat. But several minutes later he put down his untasted sandwich, got up and switched the CD for the one Nora Ennis had given him, brought along in the small, battered manila envelope because she’d been sure, or hopeful, of his help. He punched the Play button, not expecting much. After all, Janet Ennis wasn’t a Name. She had dabbled in singing torch songs as she had everything else in her life, evidently. Singing was another creative outlet, along with her cooking and painting and gardening. But as the lyrics of the first song washed over McLaren, he found himself standing by the large back window, gazing out into the deepening dusk, listening intently to the smooth, warm voice. Janet was singing ‘The Very Thought of You’ and the sound washed over him like liquid silk. They seemed to be alone in the room, her standing beside him and singing only for him. He turned, half expecting to see her sultry eyes and impish smile, disappointed when he didn’t see her perched on the arm of the sofa or sitting beside the fireplace.

  He shook his head, slightly surprised he had such a strong reaction to a song and a woman he had never met, and wandered back into the kitchen for another cup of coffee. When he returned to the back room Janet was crooning ‘These Foolish Things.’

  You’ve got it right there, McLaren thought, tilting back his head in a long swallow. I’m too old to act so foolish. But the singer and the lyrics drew him again into her world and McLaren succumbed to the magic, sagging against the sofa cushions and imagining her leaning against a baby grand piano.

  The voice lulled him to sleep, sweeping over him like warm waves of a tropical ocean. So it was with a start that he woke some time later, confused. She was singing a song he had never heard before. Of course he wasn’t a student of the bluesy unrequited love songs, but he was a student of music. He’d have thought sometime in his thirty-eight years of life he’d have heard of the title. He listened, the lyrics searing into his mind. When the song had finished, he got up, walked over to the stereo cabinet and started the song again. This time he heard it all the way through.

  Where does the sun go

>   When it leaves the sky?

  How do all the winds blow

  Or a robin fly?

  How can my poor heart beat

  Now that you are gone,

  Marking off Time’s slow creep

  To a lost love song?

  Spring turns into summer

  And still you are not here.

  Time becomes the drummer,

  Months fade into years.

  This world spins through its seasons,

  The stars traverse the sky.

  You never told the reason,

  Just left without good-bye.

  Just the other night I

  Cried aloud your name.

  Got no one to love and

  Got no one to blame.

  Drowning in my mem’ries

  Is a painful way to die.

  Throw a lifeline to me

  And never leave my side.

  He punched the Repeat button on the CD player, programming it to replay a dozen times, then reclaimed the sofa. He lost track of the repeat number as he fell asleep.

  Tuesday morning woke McLaren with a murder of crows squawking outside the back room window. He blinked rapidly, momentarily floating in his dream. Then, as the birds’ squabbling grew louder, he realized where he was, and that it was the next day. Standing up, he stretched and watched the crows separate into two groups and fly off. Two ways of looking at every problem, he thought, grinning. He blew a kiss to Dena’s photo and reminded himself that he was a lucky man to have the love of a woman who might have ended up with some bloke from her own social status. He gathered up Janet’s photos and case notes and put them back into the manila envelope. Then he took his shower, dressed in trousers and a short-sleeved polo shirt, and poured a cup of coffee before settling himself at his desk. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, then lifted the phone receiver on his desk and punched in the number for Jamie Kydd. His friend answered almost immediately.

  “Mike! It’s a little early for a beer but I’ll make an exception for you.” Jamie’s voice sounded welcoming and eager to talk, his laugh reminding McLaren of previous evenings together at the pub.

  “It’s even early for me,” McLaren returned.

  “Good.” Jamie didn’t need to elaborate. The months of McLaren’s depression had shown Jamie that his friend could down a beer or whiskey or gin at any hour. Jamie was glad McLaren was pulling himself free of the drinking dependency and the depression that fueled it. Quitting the job had swiftly turned into a double-edged sword. “So, what’s this in aid of? You don’t usually chat in the morning.”

  “Business, I’m afraid, though I’m not adverse to that drink later.”

  “It’s a date. Now, what business? Police business, obviously, or you wouldn’t be phoning the best copper in the Derbyshire Constabulary.” He laughed, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet on the front edge of the desk. “You have another case?”

  McLaren grimaced, feeling foolish as he explained about Nora’s quest to find Janet’s murderer. “Am I grasping at straws?” McLaren asked when the silence had followed his rendition. “Am I grabbing at something that’s unsolvable just because I want to be back in detective work?”

  “You’re asking, not too subtly, if the investigating police screwed up the case. And if you have a chance to solve it even though they didn’t.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Harvester wasn’t involved in the original investigation, Mike.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So I have to assume that your desire to jump into this mess isn’t a personal vendetta—other than showing him and others what a berk he is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You want to find Janet Ennis’ killer…if there is one.”

  McLaren nodded, his gaze fixed on the corner of his desk that held the small, framed photo of Dena.

  “I don’t know why you’re asking me, Mike. You’ve made up your mind to go ahead with this thing, haven’t you?”

  “I guess so. Yes.”

  “So what did you really ring me about?”

  “If you can locate some details on the case. I don’t know anything other than what the victim’s mother and the newspaper article related.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard. I’ll need some time to locate the file. It’ll be in storage, unless it’s sitting on Harvester’s desk.”

  “Knowing him, and knowing what Nora Ennis had to say about their latest talk, I doubt if Harvester drags the case notes out every time she pops by. He probably ignores that with the same ease he ignores her.”

  “Could be. Call me back in an hour…can you?” Without waiting for a reply, Jamie rang off.

  McLaren filled the time by catching up on household chores. Not that he was a neat freak, but he wasn’t a slob, either. He washed the few dishes from his meals, made the bed and ran a small load of clothes in the washing machine. He tried to look up an article on the Internet, but was too impatient to sit, so he washed his car. By the time he’d coiled up the garden hose, put away the sponge and soap, and towel-dried the car, the hour was up.

  He went back into the house, dried his hands on a kitchen dishtowel, and rang up Jamie.

  “Mike.” Jamie glanced at his watch. “Even if you’re not the world’s best detective you’re certainly punctual.”

  “To the minute. Do you have it?”

  “It being the police report and not animal magnetism. Okay, I’ll let that pass. Give me a minute to get the file. I put it down when I got back here. The damned phone was ringing.”

  McLaren heard a thud as Jamie laid the phone on the desk, then the tap of hard-soled shoes diminished in volume. A faint rattle of metal against ceramic, followed by a loud thump and a muttered oath, then the hard soled shoes tapped louder and louder. There was a sharp rap and a dull sliding sound before the phone receiver rattled and Jamie spoke again in McLaren’s ear.

  “Damn. That file slid across the table. Wait a minute while I…” He grunted as he reached for the manila folder. “Got it. Hold on, it just fell…” He laid the receiver back on the desktop, stooped to gather up the fallen pages, straightened them into a neat pile and laid them back into the folder. “Got it,” he said, the phone receiver wedged between his left ear and his shoulder. “Computers are our friends, I know, but the Powers That Be want it all backed up in reliable paper and filed away. For who knows what.”

  “For just this purpose. At least if someone comes in, your computer screen saver will cover up your nefarious deed.”

  Jamie said something uncomplimentary about people never appreciating other people, opened the file, and read the case details to McLaren.

  “Your Nora Ennis has been regular as clockwork, Mike, inquiring of various officers at Buxton, Ashbourne and Matlock police stations, wanting to know the status of the case.”

  “And told, in various ways, to leave them alone.”

  “That’s about it. She’s not missed a year, talking to inspectors, detectives and a chief inspector or two, when she can grab one. The last three times she’s unfortunately wound up talking to Harvester.”

  “Poor woman. She should go to a different police station next time.”

  “She’s gone to you, Mike,” Jamie reminded him, then went on. “Janet Ennis died from smoke inhalation.”

  “Yeah, Nora told me. Damn.”

  “Yes.” He grabbed the receiver in his left hand and leaned over his desk. “Nasty way to go.”

  “Horrific. I feel for Nora having to live with that memory. I assume the house wasn’t damaged at all. The incinerator probably set back toward the rear of the property. Do you know where it was?” McLaren’s eagerness came through in his voice.

  “No. Well, not specifically. At the rear of the back garden, but, evidently, near enough to the little studio so it figured into the cause of the fire. By the way, her body was found in the debris of her studio. It was a small, detached, wooden building at the rear of the property. A sort of artist’s studio. The assumption�
�”

  “Sounds like Harvester had charge of the case. Assumption. What police officer assumes anything in an investigation?”

  “The assumption,” Jamie reiterated forcibly, “was that the fire began accidentally, spreading from rubbish she was burning in the incinerator, that it had been too near to the studio, and that the wind fanned the flames or burning rubbish onto the structure and it caught.”

  “She couldn’t smell it? Well, I guess not, if she was burning rubbish. Probably thought it was part of that fire.”

  “Does sound bizarre, doesn’t it? Especially from the viewpoint of hindsight.”

  “So she walks into her studio and calmly sits there, leaving the debris in the incinerator unattended and doesn’t try to escape? Even Harvester, or whoever the SIO was at the time, would know that’s implausible.” In irritation he ran his fingers through his blond hair. “If she smelled the wooden structure on fire, surely she could get out. Wouldn’t have erupted in flame all at once.”

  “Are you going to let me tell you or do you want to keep interrupting?”

  “I’m waiting to be told but you aren’t saying much.”

  “The assumption,” Jamie said again, “was that she tripped in her hurry to escape, maybe fell into her table and bumped her head, and lay there unconscious.”

  “What does the postmortem report say? Is there evidence to support this? Even the SIO would want some medical statement to point a finger at that conclusion.”

  “Postmortem examination revealed a curved indentation of the soft brain tissue, consistent with something hitting the side of her head and producing an injury severe enough to cause her to lose consciousness.”

  “Gets better all the time, this.”

  “There are a lot of things in an artist’s studio to hurt yourself on, Mike. Think about your own house, too. Besides the edge of a table, there are pieces of artwork, lamps, a small desk…”