The Cooperman Variations

by Howard Engel

  Sykes cleared his throat theatrically.

  “There’s a big PR reception and press conference this afternoon,” I said. “She’ll be there. She won’t miss that. Why all the interest?”

  “You can guess the answer to that. The shells that killed Renata Sartori that we found in Ms. Moss’s locker were fired from the shotgun you left with us on Monday night. That makes her our leading suspect as of right now.”

  “That was fast work. Good on the boys in Ballistics. Must be a new record: this is only Wednesday.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, we know now what we only suspected before. She’s moved up a rung on the ladder of suspicion.”

  “What are you talking about? That shotgun didn’t belong to my client! You don’t know where I found it. I’m the one you want to question. Vanessa can wait. Hell, you let her skip off to California for the weekend. If she was going to do a bunk, do you think she’d be here now?” I’m glad Vanessa missed this welcoming committee. A jetlagged suspect, even one who has just outfoxed the network brass and saved her skin, is hardly better than no suspect at all.

  Jack Sykes ran his fingers through his hair. Besides some red fuzz, there wasn’t much of it. He moved his hands to a fallback position with his fingers intertwined at the back of his head. “Our bet is that she had access to the shotgun, and she had the spent shells. Benny, Jim and I are thinking of driving north to check out that cottage of hers.”

  “Wait a minute and think before you waste the taxpayers’ money on trips to Muskoka. Why would she bring the shells back here? I found the shotgun on Lake Muskoka. If she drove back with the gun, why didn’t she get rid of the used shells along the road, toss them into a lake or a ditch? Why did she plant these deadly mementoes in her own locker? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Benny—!”

  “If she wanted to take credit for the murder, why didn’t she call the chief of police, or send a note to Whatshername, Barbara Turnbull at the Star? Why not give an exclusive interview to The Toronto Sun?”

  “Benny—”

  “And while she was at it, how did she pop back into town and head back up the highway to Muskoka without anyone noticing? Have you checked her gas receipts? Maybe she flew? Maybe she knows a road that hasn’t been discovered yet by people trying to beat the traffic on a Victoria Day weekend.”

  “Benny, shut up for a second! We don’t like it any better than you do, but it’s the best we’ve got.”

  “That’s not enough to run her in.”

  “Who said anything about running her in? We want her to assist us in our inquiries. What’s the matter with that?” He looked into Jim Boyd’s blue eyes: the final arbiter of what was reasonable.

  “You already talked both her ears off. Now you’re after blood.”

  “We are just looking for things that we might have missed the first time around. We’ve got her statement, sure. We just want her to amplify it, that’s all.”

  “That’s a load of garbage and you know it, Jack!” I wasn’t going to fall into the trap of thinking they weren’t already building a case against my client.

  “What can you tell us that will make our trip north— when we make it—as short as possible? And I don’t mean tips on where we can buy worms and fishing licences.”

  “It’s a clear conflict of interests, Jack. I’m working for Vanessa Moss. When she cuts me loose, I’ll tell you what I saw up there. In the meantime—Hell! I brought you the gun in the first place! What more do you want from me?”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t rupture yourself. I hear you.”

  “Jack, I had breakfast with Chuck Pepper this morning. Talk to him about the tie-in with Bob Foley. I think it’s important.”

  “To you everything’s important except the answers to my questions.”

  On their way out, I introduced Jack and Jim to Sally, who looked worried they were going to take me downtown with them. She disguised it by appearing decorative enough to make them run for the elevator in disorder. She was still wearing that expression when I came back from seeing them off.

  “A call came for you while you were in there with those men. I didn’t think I should interrupt you.” She handed me a blue slip of paper, and I went over to my desk and dialled the ten-digit number. The phone was answered by a bright-sounding youngster named Hugh. He was Vanessa’s nephew. The things I learn in this business! He told me that he was home from school because he’d injured his knee long-jumping at the school field day.

  I asked to speak with his mother, Franny, Vanessa’s sister. When she came on the line, she said, “I’ll be happy to talk to you. But call my sister ‘Stella.’ That’s her name. I don’t know where she picked up ‘Vanessa,’ probably from her arty friends in Toronto.”

  We went on from there to have a pleasant chat. In the course of it I discovered that Franny’s ten-year-old son, Hugh, had been notoriously neglected by his auntie Stella for all ten of his years. Hugh and his mother were in Calgary on the day that Renata was killed. I thought that with the kid along, it would have been harder to concoct an alibi than it was for Barry Bosco. I dropped that line of inquiry. Franny, it turned out, was the head psychiatric nurse in a Calgary hospital. She had not been in Toronto for three years and didn’t expect a Christmas invitation to visit her sister this year or the next. I got off the line as soon as I could, feeling vaguely guilty. I neglect people too. I thought of a few of them as I wandered into the outer office where Sally sat nibbling on the corner of a sandwich.

  “I hope you aren’t in some kind of trouble, Benny.”

  “Naw. It’s just that the cops want me to do all their work for them, that’s all.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  The big event of the day to all the regulars of NTC was the press conference and reception at the Royal York Hotel that introduced the joint creation of Dermot Keogh Hall by the network and the Keogh estate. The hall was to be located deep in downtown Toronto, on a site between Jarvis and Church Streets, north of Carlton.

  Instead of describing what was said, I should just attach some of the many PR releases that were available all over the Library Room on the mezzanine floor, but maybe you’ll take my word for it. In a few words, the Dermot Keogh Hall would change the centre of gravity of the music scene in the Ontario capital. It would, according to the speeches, surpass in acoustics, comfort and intimacy all the older halls in the country. Ted Thornhill made a fine speech, so did Raymond Devlin. One called it “the event of the decade,” the other “the first great architectural marvel of the century.” They introduced the architect, whose firm had been engaged to carry out the plans designed by I.M. Pei and to do all the work involved. They answered questions from the press before everybody was released from being on their best behaviour and allowed to resume their eating and drinking at the bar and buffet provided. Vanessa was there, but she kept her public comments to a minimum. Ken Trebitsch was there, pressing flesh for a news angle. His rival, Philip Rankin, spoke briefly, but only to introduce Raymond Devlin to the hundred and fifty journalists and guests crowded into the attractive room.

  I stayed close to Vanessa through most of this. Press cameras reminded me of assassinations in old Hitchcock movies. One reporter tried to quiz my boss about the ongoing murder investigation but didn’t make many yards with her. She was magnificently turned out for the occasion in a suit by Donna Karan. I had read the label when the jacket was hanging in her office earlier. She didn’t have much to say to anyone and, when asked a question, gave short answers or forwarded the question to either Thornhill or Devlin. The overhead light shining on Rankin’s head did nothing for the illusion his hairpiece was attempting to create. He was talking to a tall Japanese reporter. His expression was stuck in a pout, which was supposed to look like rapt attention, I guess. “Why, yes,” I heard him say, “NTC can only become more and more involved in developing its own label of high-quality recordings. I needn’t remind you,” he went on—and I guessed at what he was going to say—“NTC has a duty to bring out and m
ake available the works that Dermot Keogh himself had recorded before his untimely death last year.”

  As the crowd began to thin out, I grabbed some smoked salmon on a dry biscuit. There was quiche for quiche aficionados and, to the evident delight of Ray Devlin and Ted Thornhill, no trays of orange and yellow cheddar lumps on toothpicks. The booze included wine, rye, gin, vodka and Scotch. There was even a bottle of Campari. The Perrier ran like water.

  “Well, Mr. C., how do you think that went?” It was Barry Bosco.

  “I’m no judge, you know. I’m off my turf. But if appearances are anything to go by—”

  “Mr. C., in television appearances are everything to go by.”

  “Mr. Cooperman! Good to see you!” It was Ray Devlin. “Still guarding Vanessa’s lovely backside, are you? Think we have assassins among us?”

  “You never can tell, Mr. Devlin. You looked mighty fine up there,” I said, inclining my head in the direction of the microphone-bedecked podium.

  “I’ll have to get used to doing this sort of thing, won’t I, Barry? Not much like talking to a jury, I can tell you.”

  “Will you be personally supervising the building of the hall, Mr. Devlin?”

  “Please call me Raymond. I’d like that. And you’re …” Here Barry helped out with a full reintroduction. This time Devlin took it all in. “So, it’s Ben, is that right?” I nodded. “And as to the building of the hall, I intend to keep my distance from the builder’s people— give them a free hand once we are all agreed on the direction of the project. You know the local architect’s a direct descendant of one of the architects of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. I didn’t know that until today. No, I will keep my distance this summer. I can be reached on my boat in Toronto harbour or up on Lake Muskoka if I’m needed. And heaven help anybody who bothers me unnecessarily.”

  “You’re quite a sailor, I hear.”

  “Oh, I like to knock about in boats, you know. Are you a sailor at all, Ben?”

  “Only in a small way.” I quickly reviewed my knowledge of canoes and rowboats at Camp Northern Pine. And wasn’t the phrase “mess about in boats”? I was losing confidence in Devlin’s abilities as a sailor before I’d even seen him in his commodore’s cap.

  “Well, you must come out with us one day, when your duties here will allow it.”

  “I’d like that,” I said, grinning broadly, I suspect.

  “Do you know Muskoka?”

  “I was there over the weekend. I went to pay a visit to an old colleague of yours in hospital in Bracebridge.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. You might have run into Ed Patel on the lake. Unfortunately, he’s in a bad way just now. He loves talking about Lawrence of Arabia and about Dermot Keogh. We had a very interesting chat. Even now he’s a mine of information.”

  “Bit of a bore on Lawrence.”

  “Maybe, but illuminating on Keogh. He seems to think that Mr. Keogh left his motorcycles to a British collector. But I could find no reference to that in Keogh’s will. Funny, isn’t it?”

  “Ed must be far gone at this stage. I wouldn’t credit too much of what he says from now on.”

  “He also spoke of a palliative care unit that Keogh was going to have set up. Did you ever hear about that?”

  “You didn’t know Dermot, did you, Ben? Well, Dermot had a new scheme every ten minutes. He had a wonderfully fertile mind. He took a lot of time from the people closest to him. He was a great one for delegating jobs. Right and left. Tote that barge. Lift that bale! That was Dermot.”

  “I see, you think Ed Patel’s reference to a palliative care unit was just one of those flights of fancy?”

  “Wonderful idea, great scheme, but he just didn’t have time enough to bring it off. We often talked about it.”

  “You were a great friend of his right to the last?”

  “May I be bold enough to say that I felt like a brother towards the man? He often asked my advice in areas well beyond my capacity as his legal counsel.”

  “Ed Patel was his lawyer too, wasn’t he? I’m not at all clear about that.”

  “Ed was a small-town country lawyer. He did small local favours for Dermot. Things where a local knowledge is an advantage. For instance, there was an easement for a road crossing Dermot’s property on the lake. Ran right through the house! Ed took care of it. No man better. I’d have tried to make a federal case of it and made a mess, I’m sure. Ed’s well liked up there, Ben.”

  Vanessa hove into view. I could see her taking in the conversation between me and Devlin. She weighed it and fixed it somewhere in her memory for later use. It was part of her system. I was beginning to understand her more and more.

  Meanwhile the conversations of other NTC people and reporters raged around us:

  “… He can get Leo any time he wants. Day or night …”

  “… I’m going on his boat this weekend. Then it’s off to Thailand …”

  “… Power goes to my head like fast food. It’s not good for me …”

  “… Everybody in town’s playing up this murder thing. Our News isn’t on top of it. Trebitsch is sitting on his hands. It’s like that Palango thing last year.”

  “Yes, that was an unnecessary scandal. Less said about it the better.”

  “Save us from necessary ones too, old boy.”

  “Say, isn’t that Hy Newman over there?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Where? My God! Yes, it is. Hy Newman!”

  I followed the direction of their gaze and recognized Hy Newman, the burned-out producer that Vanessa had banned from the building. He’d got in somehow and was cleaning up one side of the buffet with efficient ease. Next to him stood a little man with fuzzy salt-and-pepper hair exploding out of an impressive dome. He looked as though he was wearing a pair of party glasses, the kind that come with large plastic noses attached. On closer inspection, I could see that the nose was his. He was working hard on the smoked salmon.

  I was nearly derailed on my way to the buffet by a tall woman in a black suit making her way to another woman. I skipped out of the way.

  “Trish Jackson, how are you?”

  “How are you, Bev? Tell me, how did the date go?” Trish looked like a lawyer. She was beautifully turned out in a cool grey suit in which she could reargue Magna Carta and have it come out any way she wanted.

  “I told you I was taking a chance dating somebody who said ‘very unique.’ It compromised my standards. He knew that if he said ‘between you and I,’ he’d never get laid.”

  “You came down equally hard on ‘good’ and ‘well,’ I remember.”

  “That’s right, but he split all his infinitives, which is very with it at the moment.”

  “How does he stand on ‘hopefully’?”

  “Trish, I led him down that path, but he wouldn’t bite. He confuses ‘loan’ and ‘lend’ and ‘lay’ and ‘lie’ too, but that’s cute and he’s putting it on. But I think he’s on to me. He’s starting to sound like Henry James. I’d better watch my step.”

  Devlin allowed his eyes to farm the crowd. In the end, I was left to my own devices as Devlin and Bosco began talking about a case I’d never heard of. Bosco saw my distress at being excluded, but did nothing about it. He wasn’t much better than his colleague Cavanaugh, the one who gave him his alibi for the night of the murder. They both knew where the money was coming from.

  Vanessa was over by the buffet, three reporters away from Newman. I joined her. “Benny, are you carrying any aspirin?” I had a secure vial in my pocket and handed it over. She swallowed two with the aid of some white wine. “What do you think of all this?”

  “It reminds me of the part of Alice in Wonderland where Alice shouts ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’ Remember that?”

  “No. Beatrix Potter was never my thing.” I decided not to correct her. She was, after all, still paying the bills. What works for Bosco and Cavanaugh rubs off on me. But does it stop me criticizing? Not a bit. Corruption, thy nam
e is pay-day.

  “You know, Vanessa, the cops want to talk to you again.”

  “Benny, now that this is over, I don’t give a damn. Today was a special sort of hell, but I weathered it. And look! Everybody’s still talking! Who’d have guessed?”

  A tap between my shoulder blades proved not to be the tip of a silenced Walther, but the knuckles of Ken Trebitsch’s right hand. I turned and saw what he was wearing as his public face for the occasion. “Look, Cooperman—”

  “I got your message. I don’t need it repeated.”

  “I deserved that. Look, is there a way for us to try this again? If I admit to being a horse’s ass for a start? I’ve called off the hounds, by the way. You may move about the city as you please without my knowing all your moves.”

  “Why the change of strategy?”

  “Practical reasons. The other wasn’t working. When you leave here, can I tempt you to a glass of beer somewhere? You name the place, just to put off my execution squads.”

  “What do you want to tell me? Why not tell me now?”

  “You can’t have a conversation at a press reception: too many interruptions. Besides, what I have to tell you is for your ears only.” Trebitsch frowned meaningfully. What a flim-flam artist he was!

  “You know that I’m on Her Majesty’s Secret Service. She has first call on my time,” I said, cocking my head in Vanessa’s direction.

  “I suspect that you can get around that. Give me twenty, twenty-five minutes. Choose the place.” I tried to think.

  “There’s an Irish pub up on Bloor Street, near Walmer Road, called the James Joyce.”

  “I know it well.”

  “Say in an hour? And come alone. Acolytes and disciples make me nervous.” He paused a moment, as though decoding a message, then nodded assent.

  “That’s a promise.” Having said that, he shook my hand, which I didn’t remember holding out, looked at his watch and vanished into another conversation it was impossible to have at a crowded press reception. I went back to the refreshments to rescue some salmon. The little man with the fuzzy hair was still there.