What Kills Good Men

by David Hood

  Seeing Wallace flinch gave Baxter a needle jab of satisfaction. In the second it took to pass he realized this might be as close as he and the people of the city would ever get to knowing what had really happened that night at Clarke’s Place. Wallace had come to find out how much danger he was in and now he knew. No doubt he already had people scouring the city for Sarah Riley. Now he would pay them double if he had to. Once he found her, he would see to it that Sarah Riley had nothing else to say about that night. And he was done talking to the police. “Well, a man as busy and important as you can’t remember every acquaintance.”

  “I am very busy. In fact, I’m on my way to a meeting at the medical school. I’m on the board. The city needs physicians. You will let me know if you should run into any good applicants.” And now it was Baxter’s turn. It wasn’t like being punched or kicked. At first it felt shaming and humiliating, like the slap Jane might give him if she were someone else and she knew what he had done. Then came the fear and vulnerability. How could Wallace know? And what was he suggesting?

  “It was good of you to take this time.” Baxter spoke to the floor as Wallace tapped the roof and the coach moved to the curb. He reached across Squire for the door and was on the ground before the driver could pull the horses completely in. He wanted to stare back at Wallace like an empty plate, give him nothing other than his worst imaginings to chew on.

  “Not at all. Sorry to be of so little help. If you should need anything else…”

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow.” It was said without thinking, not an intentional threat. And for that it was better than any parting shot he might have managed if he had been able to try. Wallace had regained that look of banality on troubles that were not his, yet this assertion seemed to rattle him. Baxter’s shoulders squared and he checked the angle of his hat in the shine of Wallace’s coach.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Victor’s funeral.”

  “Yes, of course.” The door slammed shut and Baxter watched the coach turn the corner onto Duke Street. The driver had to pull the horses back against the steep downhill slope. Wallace would not risk a stop on Albemarle Street in broad daylight, having left the police only a block away. That didn’t change the fact that Baxter didn’t have much time. Before he could say what he was thinking, Squire began muttering. Then he bent down and came up with a rock the size of an apple. He took a couple of quick steps then let fly. The coach was never in any danger. The rock found mud, then a puddle, which caused a seagull to flap a few feet into the air before resettling over its breakfast. Squire grunted, and turned to Baxter as he pointed down the street.

  “That bastard is guilty of something and I want to be the one who escorts him to jail.”

  “Fortunately we no longer sentence people to stoning. Pull yourself together, Mr. Squire, we have work to do.” Baxter didn’t wait for any reply, he was already headed down George Street. Squire simmered for a few seconds longer, and then ran to catch up.

  “Well, well, look who’s back, but you brought yer daddy again.” It was going on eleven, but Clarke was still in pyjamas and a robe that Baxter had to look twice at to be sure wasn’t his. Were bathrobes like Christmas fruitcake and children’s mittens, finite in number, indestructible, re-gifting themselves through time? Baxter couldn’t tell what bothered him more, the idea that he and Clarke had the same robe or that Clarke looked as formal and well dressed in his as a palace footman.

  “Don’t try me, Mr. Clarke.” Baxter barged forward as he spoke, drawing Squire in his wake through the door behind him.

  “Well, come on in.” Clarke stepped aside and bowed slightly, as if playing up to Baxter’s thoughts and annoying his guest all the more.

  “We know Victor was here Friday night. It’s time you told us the truth about what happened.”

  Clarke took on a look of worried sadness and spoke to Squire as if they were commiserating about a misbehaving child. “When he’s like this, yer boss, he reminds me of my father.”

  “That’s Victor’s blood by your back stairs, Mr. Clarke.”

  Continuing to ignore Baxter as if he were a petulant toddler, Clarke said to no one in particular, “You know, I been askin’ about that forever. Course you know what landlords is like.”

  They were standing in the front parlour. In the dreary light, through sheer curtains, the heavy chairs on three walls looked in on Baxter, pouting, blaming him for their emptiness. Preacher was lying still in his nest box, a tiny patch of moss in the forest breathing gently. The floorboards creaked. Baxter inhaled the melancholy, let it assuage his anger, and Clarke reappeared as the dark pieces from the corner of a puzzle waiting desperately to complete the picture. “Do you think that’s what Martha and Annie and Sarah Riley will say?”

  It wouldn’t be that easy. Clarke had remained in the hall, his look even farther away. “I guess I’ll make some tea.” He turned and moved slowly out of Baxter’s view.

  “This is not a social call.” Baxter stayed where he was, but raised his voice and sent it in pursuit down the hall. Preacher stared up at him.

  The voice that came back up the hall didn’t care if it was heard or not. “I don’t recall offerin’ you any tea.”

  “I could arrest you and hold you in a cell until you’re willing to talk.”

  “I’II be in the kitchen, you know where ’tis.”

  Baxter stared back at the bird, its tiny pearl eye unblinking. He wondered if it could talk. Finally he looked to Squire who broke the silence with the only possible response. “After you,” he said, nodding toward the door. The sound of their heavy shoes began to roll like thunder. Farther down the hall Clarke moved along softly in his slippers. Otherwise the house was silent. It was a small victory. Baxter would enjoy it nonetheless.

  The kitchen was larger than the parlour, kept wide awake and sharp by bare windows either side of the sink. Clarke was in the far corner, back to, filling the kettle and placing it on the stove. His words were strong now, searching Baxter out, and looking straight at him. “How long you and the rest of the do-gooders in this town been trying to close me down, ten…fifteen years?”

  A kitchen table with bench seating stood ready in the corner near the door. Squire sat. Baxter stayed on his feet, weight even, shoulders at an angle. “We’ll die trying, is that it?”

  Clarke quietly scuffed along the length of the kitchen to the large ice box opposite the table. He bent over and spoke into it as he reached for milk and a plate draped in a tea towel. His words came back as cold as they were matter of fact. “Sin sells, Mr. Baxter, always has.”

  Baxter followed Clarke to the table with a scathing look. “Don’t make excuses for what you do.”

  Still matter of fact, though perhaps with a hint of invitation, Clarke replied, “You don’t know nothin’ about what I do or why I’m in this business.”

  Baxter waved him off. “That is not my concern. Victor Mosher was murdered here, that’s what matters to me.”

  Clarke was halfway back to the stove. He stopped and stood square, taking a full measure of Baxter from a few feet away. “So his life’s important and mine ain’t?” The face that danced in smile and played at the door had now frozen into an opera mask of hate.

  “Places like this destroy the lives of good people, they’re a cancer.” Baxter’s eyes burned on Clarke, glowing embers scorching holes through his clothes and his flesh.

  The mask spit back through the smoke. “And yer the worst sorta hard-on.”

  “I’m a devout Catholic.”

  “Like I said.”

  Squire had gotten up from the table and made it to the space between Baxter and Clarke just before it closed. He kept his eyes front toward the shelves near the stove. He spoke out of both ears to the men at his sides. “I think the water is ready. I’ll get the cups.” He paused for a three count, and then stepped off the middle ground. Another pause followed, and
in that time the deafening whirl of pent-up rage unleashing that had filled the room disappeared like a funnel cloud, leaving behind an eerie, edgy silence. Each man now focused on staying out of the way of the other in the course of making a cup of tea, and coming to rest at the table.

  Clarke was the first to regain his voice. He spoke through a mouthful of biscuit while nodding toward the plate. “It’s ok to like ’em. I learned to cook in my mother’s kitchen.” With his free hand he gently herded a few crumbs into a pile. He drew the flakey white flesh towards his mouth again then stopped to look at it instead. “I opened a restaurant. Coloured folks came…when they could. I needed white customers to make any money. Not many come to a coloured place for food. Plenty come for liquor, though. So that’s what I did. Then women started coming to meet the soldiers. One night when I was lockin’ up I hear something round back. So I go see. He paid her two dollars. She give him what he paid her for. Then he want his money back. She was a awful mess.” Clarke washed down the bitter memory and the last of his biscuit with some tea.

  Baxter stared at the plate but kept his hands round his cup. The worst of his anger had passed and taken his appetite with it. His tea was bitter. Its heat was still soothing. He wondered how long it would take Clarke to finish his plea for sympathy. He might have some to give him if he would just stop with this nonsense and get to the truth. Maybe he would start carrying a small mirror. He could hold it up to men like Clarke so they could see how ridiculous they looked; offer them a chance to preserve some dignity. For now he would have to rely on patience. He would concede the point in order to move on. “So this place isn’t a brothel, it’s a rescue mission. And you’re a saint, not a common bawd.”

  The smile returned for a moment, incredulous this time and directed inward not outward, a reflection of genuine bewilderment. “Jesus Christ, what d’you care? Why you so bothered with folks, and with this case, what’s Victor Mosher to you anyhow?”

  Sometimes Baxter wondered if he spoke Greek. Of course he didn’t. People hear what they want to hear. “Victor Mosher is a victim who deserves justice. And what you see in me, Mr. Clarke, is commitment, someone trying to pull this city out of the muck, make things better. Of course a man like you would be confused by the sight of decency.”

  Clarke turned to Squire, clearly unconvinced. “That’s a real nice speech,” he said blithely as he reached for a second biscuit.

  Baxter took one hand off his teacup and drummed the table in a slow, firm rhythm that matched his voice. “I’m not here to convince you of anything. It’s you that needs to do the convincing and very soon. I’m running out of time and patience.”

  Clarke seemed more concerned with the quality of his baking. “So you say.” He took more tea, then continued, as if the chief inspector had left the room. “He really does remind me a my father.”

  Squire looked across the table. Baxter couldn’t tell if he was seeking direction or wondering what he would do if his boss committed an assault. Before Baxter could decide, Squire answered, “Is that relevant?”

  “Yer father relevant to you?”

  “Go on.”

  Clarke reached for the teapot and refilled Squire’s cup then his own before setting it back on the table. Baxter ignored the slight. Clarke began. “My father’s name was Marcus. He was born a slave in Georgia. He had an older brother name a Henry. One day the master just up and shot Henry. My father said he never knew why. They buried Henry behind the family cabin. Next day my grandmother, she looked my father in the eye and told him to run before he ended up in the ground next to his brother. His Uncle Benjamin run with ’im. Took a whole year to make it to Boston. They was ok there for a year. Then they run into a couple a bounty hunters. There was a fight in an alley. Benjamin was kilt but my father got away. He landed here in 1853.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Dead five years.”

  “You still miss him.” Baxter wanted to yell across the table at Squire or better still reach across and shake him. Don’t let him draw you in! We have no time for pointless stories! he screamed to himself in silence.

  “Course I miss ’im. I’m happy for ’im too, though. He lived here a free man for more than thirty years. But deep down he still a slave, always looking over his shoulder, afraid to look a white man in the eye. Now he finally restin’ easy knowing ain’t nobody gonna up and drag his black ass back to Georgia.”

  Now he had had enough. Baxter simultaneously pushed away his cup and himself up from the table. “Mr. Clarke, you’re just wasting time.”

  Clarke looked up, undeterred. “No, Mr. Baxter, I’m tryin’ to help you. You see, my father talked every day ’bout how good it was to be free. He could say free, he just couldn’t live free, never really knew what it felt like. Finally that contro-diction grew bigger ’an he was and crushed his heart. I look at you and I see the same thing. There’s some kinda contro-diction in you. Something eatin’ at you and ’til you…”

  It was all a ploy. Clarke had no insight, merely a strong and cunning survival instinct. But Baxter felt his face flush. He heard a defensive tone creep into his voice. “That’s enough about your father, Charlie, and the only contradiction I see is the one between what comes out of your mouth and the truth. I came here for the truth and I will have it. Do you understand?”

  Squire set his cup down, clinking it against the saucer. Clarke’s attention turned toward the sound. “Mr. Clarke, do you know what projection is?” Squire asked.

  “What?”

  “Projection. It’s a new idea from a man named Sigmund Freud.”

  “Let me guess, man’s a preacher.” Baxter took a step away. Not because he was rebuffed by the judgmental look Clarke threw at him. He moved because he feared Clarke’s latest imprecation might finally bring on that long overdue lightning bolt of almighty judgement.

  Squire waited until he had regained Clarke’s attention. “No, he’s…What he says is that people often deny their own troubles by finding fault with others. Sometimes people do it without realizing. I think maybe you are your father’s son and all this is just your way of denying the truth, trying to hide something.”

  The young man hadn’t been taken in; he was working on taking Clarke in. There might be a detective in that uniform after all. Now he would take it from here. “What are you hiding, Mr. Clarke?” Baxter saw his man fumble for words. He stepped forward.

  “I ain’t my father’s son, not the way you say. I’m not denyin’ anythin’. I’m free and I intend to stay that way. My conscience is clear, ’spite what you think. What about you, Mr. Baxter…?” Clarke pointed a self-righteous finger. Baxter was having none of it.

  “Victor owed money for gambling, did he refuse to pay? Is that what happened?”

  “Looks to me like you the one gamblin’.”

  Baxter had both hands on the table now, leaning in on Clarke. “Or did Wallace and Victor get into it over something to do with the city tramway?”

  Clarke didn’t cower. If he had lost any composure, it had now been found. “I should take the tram more oftin. Most days, though, I’d rather walk.”

  “We know Victor didn’t just come here to play cards and have a drink. He was paying for…he was coming here to see Sarah Riley. Did something happen between them? Was she blackmailing him?”

  Clarke had been looking straight at Baxter. Now he turned back to Squire. “What’s that thing you said?”

  “Projection?”

  “Yeah, pro-jection.” Now Clarke’s dark eyes despised the chief inspector. “You should learn to pro-ject a little good on people, stop actin’ like yer the only one capable of doin’ any.”

  Baxter tightened his grip on the edge of the table. He lifted it slightly then slammed it back to the floor. The high treble of teacups hopping and jittering in their saucers was underscored by the bass of Baxter’s raised voice. “You need to give us some answers.”


  Clarke drew himself up slowly. He raised his arms and leaned back in a great stretch. Then he untied and retied his robe. Blinking slowly, as if he had just come awake and all that had just gone on was a bad dream, he said, “I need some more tea, maybe with a little somethin’ in it this time. You two stayin’?” He looked from Squire to Baxter as if they were two cousins who always wore their welcome thin and were never turned away.

  Baxter released the table and levered himself back upright. He checked his uniform then pulled his coat back on, seeming to find his words in the process. They came without anger or huff but with no less warning. “I can’t tell if you’re just pretending or if you are fool enough to believe this game can work. We just spoke to Wallace. He knows that we know about the gambling debts, that this is the place where Victor died. He knows we are aware that he and Victor were mixed up in some business to do with the city’s tramway company. Wallace knows we can prove he was here on Friday night and that we are going to keep on investigating. He knows it is only a matter of time, and not too long, before Robert White or James Seabrook or Samuel Lovett lose their nerve and start singing like canaries. And when that happens everything that Sarah Riley has to say will become spun gold. Now do you really think that Mr. Maynard Sinclair Wallace is just going to stand idly by? No, sir. Before any of that can happen, he is going to be the one projecting, projecting blame. And you know where it will land. He is likely with the chief of police right now.”

  Clarke pushed his lips together, tilting his head one way then the other. He picked up the teapot and made his way to the sink. As he rinsed away the dregs, he said, “I can’t speak for Mr. Wallace, don’t know the man. And so long as I ain’t under arrest, I think I’ll keep my peace. Time comes you take me in, anythin’ I got to say, I say to a lawyer.”

  “Well then, you enjoy your tea. Meanwhile I’ll wait…and watch the jackals circle. Then when I come back to arrest you, Charlie, anything you might have to say won’t matter anymore.” Baxter’s prophecy hung in the air like flypaper, waiting to still the tiny wings of any secrets that might escape through a pressure crack in Clarke’s remorseless outer shell. What he got instead was the crack of a sardonic, “not today” smile. It sent Baxter off in a stomp. Squire had gotten up from the table and was at the kitchen door. As Baxter blew past, Squire started to bid their host good afternoon, then checked himself and gave the door casing a curt rap of his knuckles instead, gavelling the meeting to a close.