by David Hood
They were behind a small storehouse, out of the wind for a moment. Baxter held up the march. He pulled the lantern out of his coat. He passed it to Squire then began digging for some matches. He spoke as he went through one pocket then another. “This city is full of drunks and people with no self-respect who refuse to work,” he said with a flat unsympathetic tone. “Ellen Reardon is the worst female reprobate in the city. She’s been arrested more times than I can count. She knows we won’t take a statement from her if she is drunk. There likely is a body under Mitchell’s Wharf, the last remains of some poor sod tired of working or tired of seeing his children hungry because he isn’t. His last act will be one of charity, giving our Miss Reardon a bed for a night or two while we sort matters out. Maybe it will help him with Saint Peter.”
“And if she is lying?”
“Then, Mr. Squire, I will see to it that a few of Miss Reardon’s cronies are sent to Rockhead for thirty days and I’ll let them know she laid information against them with the stipendiary magistrate. They will make up eventually, they always do, but not before making Ellen miserable for a few weeks.”
Baxter kept searching as he spoke, looking directly at Squire. He was waiting to see if this new officer would question such methods.
Squire pulled off a glove and opened the top buttons of his uniform greatcoat. Then a bare hand, iridescent and floating in the darkness like a ghost, passed a box of matches. “Here, Detective, strike one of these.” Squire moved closer to make more shelter from the wind and pulled up the glass chimney of the lantern. It took three tries. Then the two men came out from behind the building a little closer together, moving forward in a ten-foot circle of flickering yellow light.
Kenny Squire was just twenty years old. He had grown up in the town of Pictou a hundred miles northeast of Halifax. His father had had no interest in seeing his only son follow him into a makeshift life of farming, logging, and working the mines of Pictou County. He’d sent his son to school. It was a bittersweet gamble that had paid off. Kenny took to book learning. By the time he graduated from the Pictou Academy he was desperate to get out of the classroom and the town he grew up in. As soon as he could, he headed to the nearest city in search of breathing space and an opportunity. He had read A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and enjoyed it. There was no desire to be Sherlock Holmes, but he needed a purpose and the city needed policemen. What he needed just now was a sense of direction. They were in a passageway between two long warehouses. The wall of another building stood at the end of it. “Which way is Mitchell’s Wharf, Detective?” Squire asked, the nervousness still evident in his voice through the howl of the wind.
Baxter had not forgotten his way around the waterfront. He had gone to sea as a young man. He had made a dozen or so voyages. Then he had come ashore for good, and had gone where his temperance was more appreciated. After only seven years on the force he was promoted to sergeant and lead investigator. Five years later he was given the title special investigator, which meant most of the important cases came to him. In his fifteenth year he was made chief inspector. He preferred Detective Baxter. When the final promotion came at last and the reins were his, then he would be chief. “The building in front of us belongs to Mitchell and Sons. We go around it to the right. The wharf runs straight out behind.”
The tide was close to its lowest point. There was at least ten feet between the underside of the wharf and the water, which was angry now, whipped up by the gusts. It crashed and foamed and whirled about, louder in the closed spaces under the wharf between the thick supporting columns. Ships tied up at wharfs on either side rose and fell, their hulls grinding against rope fenders. Sails had been taken in and tied down. Loose corners flapped and cracked in the wind. Every wooden surface along the entire waterfront seemed to be heaving and creaking in the wind. “Can you see anything?” Baxter yelled over the noise. He was standing on the starboard side of the wharf, one arm fully extended, the lantern swaying at the end of it, now struggling to produce even a weak sputtering light.
Ten feet farther out, Squire had gotten down on his hands and knees. Holding onto a bollard, he was leaning over as far as he dared, looking into the dark forest under the wharf. “All I can make out is wooden beams. I don’t see a body, Detective, but in these conditions, who can be sure?”
“Ellen Reardon was sure, Mr. Squire. Let’s move on to the end.” Baxter dropped the lantern to his side and strode past Squire, who was struggling to get back to his feet. The young policeman had been out in the cold now for nearly three hours. The few minutes in the station had not thawed the stiffness that had crept into his joints. Baxter thought of offering him a hand then decided against it. You need to dress warm for night patrol, a greatcoat alone isn’t enough, he thought, recalling what he’d learned the hard way from his early days on the force. And you need to get inside for a few minutes at least once an hour. Check in with folks at the hospital or the poorhouse or the fire hall. Good politics keeps the chill from setting in too deep. Let him suffer, he thought. It will teach him. Or rheumatism will finish him before he starts.
Mitchell’s Wharf was thirty feet wide and ran more than a hundred feet into the harbour. Standing at the end in a high wind, with the water a good drop below, Baxter could imagine what it felt like to be a ship’s captain at the end of the plank, a mutineer’s sword at his back. Farther down the harbour the dark hump of Georges Island loomed up out of the water like the back of some horrible sea monster. Baxter shuddered against the wind and the frights of imagination brought on by the cold and perhaps the guilt of being at work instead of home next to his wife. At least if Ellen was just having them on, Jane might still be awake when he got back.
The sound of cold boots trying not to trip over themselves on the wooden planks said Squire had finally gotten back on his pins. With his back still turned and bent over as he struggled to see anything, Baxter pointed to the opposite side and said, “Have a look from over there, Mr. Squire.” Then he went back to thinking about his wife as he strained his eyes against the swirling void under the wharf. Jane’s mother had a birthday a week away. Baxter had never cared for the woman. When her husband died a year ago, she told her daughter she would rather stay in her own home. Baxter had argued against it, pointed out all the reasons she would be better off with them. She wasn’t fooled, neither was Jane. One agreed with him, honest in that sentiment, the other pretended to be grateful while declining. Baxter was angry with himself for not saying what they all knew. There was enough money in the family. Any help or looking after could be provided for. Of course, all that had really been required of him was an honest show of affection. It was late, but he would make the effort. He would quietly pick up something nice without Jane’s help. On the morning of, he would bring the carriage round to the front door and ask Jane if she was ready to go, as if visiting her mother on her birthday really was a given.
As though it had been following his thoughts and agreed with them, the wind that had been making life so miserable showed a change of heart. It began to ease into something that did not blow through the soul, something that allowed the freshness of the salt air to be appreciated. The clouds did not suddenly disappear, but they did permit the face of a three-quarter moon to begin showing itself in fleeting glimpses. The sky flashed with what looked like heat lighting, flashes that found their way under the wharf.
Squire knew what he was looking for, and the walk to the waterfront had allowed him time to prepare, time to reassure himself of his sturdiness. Maybe he thought he was ready and his body betrayed him. Or perhaps he became so focused on the search, he lost whatever edge he may have honed. Whatever the case, when a flash of moonlight seared him with the horrible image of the bloated waxen face, his stomach reacted with a violent spasm and his supper splashed into the harbour. When the heaving stopped, Squire managed to say in a voice that needed the remaining wind to carry it on, “Detective, you better come have a look at this.”
By the time Baxter had walked over from the opposite corner, Squire had turned away from the front of the dock and was wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his greatcoat. Without looking at Baxter he simply pointed and said, “Miss Reardon was telling the truth, Detective.”
Baxter held up the lantern and studied the young policeman for a moment, then nodded. “Any idea who it is?” he asked.
Squire simply shook his head, taking deep breaths and trying to let them out slowly while he told himself this was part of the job and he had better get used to it.
Baxter got down on his hands and knees, and leaned over the edge, holding the lantern out as far as he could. He thought himself to be a moral man. There were moments of anger; he could be jealous and sometimes rash. However, his life could bear scrutiny, he had no darkness to hide, no terrible secrets. The same could be said for the man hung up in the crossing timbers, staring back through an empty socket and the blindness of a doll’s eye. Yet that life, a life that measured up, a life he had respected and at times envied, a life that deserved to be much longer and to end gently was now done and dead and being tossed about in the backwash under a wharf. Baxter was struck immediately by a sense of loss, a loss that would be shared by many in the city, from its leaders to its lowest followers. A loss that would be felt most particularly by his wife, a loss he would have to bring to her, a loss she would want him to explain.
Then a strange relief came over him as a sense of urgency began to push his feelings of loss aside. He was the city’s best investigator. It was up to him to find out for the family and the people of Halifax what had happened. And if there was blame to be assigned, and most likely there was, it must be assigned swiftly, completely, and with the full weight of the law. He spoke now, his voice full of force and mission. “Mr. Squire, listen to me very carefully. I don’t want to wait for the morgue to open. Go to 71 Hollis Street. Tell Doctor Trenaman he needs to open his office, a body is on the way. Then go back to the station. Tell Sergeant Mackay I need a half dozen men here immediately. And tell him no one, and that includes him, is to go near Ellen Reardon or say a word to her. Do you understand?”
Squire didn’t really have to listen all that closely. Even with only a few months on the force he knew a medical exam was required. And of course Baxter needed help to get an investigation started and he would want to be the first person to question the only witness in the case so far. What had Squire’s attention was the change that had come over Baxter. The man had snapped to full alert, and a little anxiousness seemed to have crept into his demeanour. Clearly the dead man under Mitchell’s Wharf was someone important. This would be Baxter’s case, it should be. Still, he was the one who had found the body, and he wanted to know who it was, wanted some way to gauge the significance of the moment and what might come next. “Who’s down there, Detective?” he asked.
Baxter wasn’t angry that Squire seemed to have ignored his instructions for the sake of morbid curiosity. He wanted to keep the victim’s identity quiet as long as possible, until he knew more and had time to decide what he wanted to do. The realization that Squire failed to recognize the victim, that he would not have to trust Squire to keep his mouth shut while Mackay demanded details, eased his mind. “Did you hear what I said, Mr. Squire?” Baxter asked, stepping away as he spoke. He didn’t go so far as to point in the direction Squire was to go, as one might for a child. Instead he let the distance he created between them say clearly that he was done talking. Squire paused for another moment. He seemed about to say something, then just pressed his lips together in a thin flat line and let out a short huff through his nose. He turned on a heel and started off down the wharf.
Baxter listened to Squire’s hard, quick steps fading down the wood planks. Already he was looking over the side of the wharf, hoping to see a small tender or a barge. He checked the other side then went back to the front of the wharf. An hour, maybe two, before the water would be high enough to make the work easier. Too long. A pilot ladder and some rope would have to do. Baxter looked around again. The hawser in the opposite corner was too heavy. No ladder anywhere in sight. He reached inside his coat and felt around for his watch chain. It was going on ten thirty. There would be no getting home before the wee hours of the morning, perhaps not even then. He felt some consolation in knowing Jane’s sleep would not be worried as it had been in his patrolman days. She would assume he had fallen asleep at his desk, which happened sometimes when he worked late. It would be another half hour at least before Squire returned with whoever he and Mackay had been able to corral. Baxter returned his watch to its vest pocket. He had better see to some rope and a ladder. The Queen’s Wharf was to the right. At the end and a short ways down the waterfront were military stores and a sentry box.
The wind continued to blow, but without the meanness it had showed earlier. The sky was clearer now and the light of the moon almost steady. He stood still for a moment on the end of the wharf watching and listening. The creaking and heaving, the sound of straining wood, was gone. The wind and water were playing gently now. A meringue of small waves lapped against the wharves and hauls and swagger of the Halifax waterfront. If there was a warning in the calm, Baxter never heard it. He did hear sailors talking to one another as they checked lines and fenders. He could not find them in the darkness. There was shadowy movement and hollering through the dim circles of gaslight along the streets that rose sharply from the harbour going west toward the Citadel. There were always a few soldiers AWOL from the garrison on a Saturday night. Men enlisting to fight the Boers were on a last run. The regular drunks needed no excuse. The army had beefed up their shore patrols. The police had had extra men on nights for a week, which reminded him he still had the schedule to finish. Meagher had better be in tomorrow. One of his knees cracked in protest against the dampness. Was he getting too old? He started walking, a bit stiff at first.
Movement helped him focus and for the first time he began to think past the shocking fact that a popular city alderman was dead. People were going to demand to know what had happened. What did he know about this man that might help him find the answers? His stride was smoother as he turned right at the end of the wharf.
Baxter knew that Victor had grown up in the upper streets, in a time when they were even rougher. Wilfred Mosher had been a mason, a fortunate thing for Victor. Wilfred had had work when many fathers didn’t. The family was poor, but not so poor that Wilfred’s children could not go to school. Wilfred insisted his two sons go as far as the sixth grade, no matter how long it took them. Victor was the youngest by nearly two years. That did not stop him from being the first to meet his father’s request. He was smarter than his older brother Carmine, smart enough to get on with things rather than play hooky. He had continued to make good choices, learning his father’s trade and saving his money. Just after he’d turned twenty-one, Victor had bought a rundown place on Grafton Street just a few doors down from where he’d grown up. He’d worked on it day and night. Everyone had assumed he would move in, begin looking for a wife. They were wrong to assume. Victor put the place up for rent and looked for tenants who could pay. Not long after that came a second place, and then an office with his name on the door and a real estate and construction business. Soon enough there was a Mrs. Victor Mosher, a woman supportive of ambition. Victor had a labourer’s hands, was able to drive a spike home with just three swings of a hammer, but he preferred to settle things with words, to offer the benefit of the doubt. He ran for alderman at the age of thirty and won; that was fifteen years ago. His seat in City Council was uncontested in the last two elections. He was the sort of upright self-made man Halifax wanted more of. So how had Victor Mosher wound up dead under a wharf?
By the time he had gotten to the sentry box, Baxter was repeating the question aloud to himself. The hut was tall and narrow with a squat pitch roof on top. No door, just a ledge off the back wall for a seat. He could hear the sentry snoring from ten yards away. Baxter
fell asleep at his desk sometimes, but never when he was officially on duty. He kicked the side of the box. The sentry woke with a yelp as if Baxter had kicked him. His rifle clattered onto the cobblestones in front of the box. There was some cursing, then boot scuffs on a dirty wood floor followed by a thud. “Oh Christ…Who’s there…?” The sentry stepped out, holding his head with one hand, reaching for his rifle with the other.
“Good work, Private. Her Majesty’s wharf is secure.’’ A gaslight stood over one side of the sentry box. Baxter spoke from the shadow on the opposite side. ‘’Private, I need you to find me a pilot ladder and some lengths of rope.’’
As soon as the private heard Baxter’s voice, determined that Baxter wasn’t British, his body relaxed for just a second, then he moved the rifle from his side, held it in both hands across his chest. He spoke with an accent that was hard and common and very British. “Yeah…and who might you be, gov’nor?”
“My name is Culligan Baxter. Chief Inspector Culligan Baxter of the city police force. Inside your sentry box there are a number of keys on the wall. One of them is for that storehouse over there. Get it please and follow me.” Baxter spoke slowly and with exaggerated clarity as if he were instructing a small boy or a dog. The soldier hesitated. Half awake in the amber of gaslight, he stared dumbly at Baxter as if he were a spectre from a lingering dream. “Hurry, man, there is no time to hum and haw.” Baxter kept his voice steady, but added an edge to it and pointed as he spoke. Slowly the private peeled off his spot, unstuck by the force of Baxter’s will.
