by Howard Engel
The place was still humming with mourners. New ones on the porch weren’t of the crowd from the cemetery. They were mourners who disliked funerals. They were washing up on the porch as I tried to remember where I’d left my car.
EIGHTEEN
The old man was nowhere in sight when I banged on the Bolduc front door. Inside I could hear the professional tones of a TV host cajoling a husband to tell all about the first time he was alone with his wife. A give-away show. Lots of laughs. I banged on the door again, but either the viewer inside was caught up in the program or the set was running unattended. I tried the door: not only wasn’t it locked, it opened to a little prodding.
“Alex!” I called, and the studio audience laughed. The living-room was empty, but the velvet cushions looked appreciative and reflected the colour of the TV screen. I called for Alex again, and got no more than an echo in reply. I let myself out the front door and wandered around to the back of the house. A spade was standing up in the garden where the old man had abandoned it. The ribs of the abandoned home-made canoe made the yard look bigger and emptier than on my first visit. I followed the garden hose around to the front of the house, and got back in the car.
Alex was the next person I had to talk to. I might as well wait. I lit a cigarette and checked the glove compartment for something to read. I found a murder mystery I’d been working on for the last nine months: nothing special, but it was good to have something on hand when you couldn’t get away to restock on cigarettes, sandwiches and newspapers. In theory I always kept an extra pack of Player’s on hand in case I was pinned in the car. In practice I used them up to prevent them going stale. A book was harder to consume in that way, so I’d often gone hungry and smokeless, but this old dog-eared mystery with the stub of a parking ticket serving as a bookmark went on forever.
One of the things I liked about reading mysteries was the way things happened bang-bang-bang one after the other. Nobody in print ever sits around listening to the shadows growing longer. It’s like in the movies when the scene where the detective is waiting dissolves to the same scene four hours later and there is the hero just as fresh as he was in the last shot. I wish I had a dollar for every hour I’ve wasted in the front seat of my car waiting for the shot to dissolve.
Old man Bolduc was coming up the street with a pack of beer in each hand. He was moving slowly, with the left foot dragging a little. He slid away a piece of green lattice-work and put the cardboard cartons under the porch. As he moved the lattice-work back into place he looked up and down Nelson Street to see if any of the neighbours were watching. He didn’t see me slouched down in my seat.
I gave him five minutes, and then I walked up on the porch and banged again at the screen door. I heard the old man stir and then slowly, maybe even suspiciously, make his way to the front door. “Yes?” he said, keeping the screen closed between us. “You lookin’ for Alex? His shif’ not finish yet. Come back later, mister.”
“Mr. Bolduc,” I said, and he turned back to look at me with his washed-out blue eyes. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”
“I got nothin’ to say about anythin’ around here, mister. Alex says you’re some kind private police. Whatfor you bodder my son? Alex’s a good boy. He no mix up in nothin’ crooked. You understan’?”
“Your son’s in no trouble, Mr. Bolduc.” He looked at my face like I’d just said the opposite.
“I think you go ’way from here now. I don’ want to talk about bad things Alex get mixed up in. Mister, you come back when Alex is here. Hokay?” I went back to the car and slouched in my seat again wondering what the old man was so frightened about.
An hour later, Alex drove up in a blue Dodge that made my ten-year-old Olds look good. The winters had eaten big helpings from his fenders and the bodywork under the doors. A woman in a dark coat over a white uniform got out from the passenger side and went up into the house. Alex drove the Dodge into the garage and closed the door on half-empty paint cans, a rusty bicycle and a collection-of back issues of the Beacon for the past ten years. I hailed him from my open window as he crossed the grass to the porch and he came over.
“Benny! Hello. Glad to see you. Will you come in and meet the wife?” He said the words but he wasn’t putting much into them. They zipped away over his shoulder like deflating balloons.
“Thanks, Alex, but not today. I was just passing. But I do want to talk to you. You must have been spending some time talking to the cops over the weekend, and I guess you’ve got me to blame for it. I got there just as you were leaving.”
“I thought it was you, but I couldn’t be sure. But as far as the cops go, no sweat. I guess it was wrong for me to take off like that. I panicked, that’s all.”
“Sure,” I said, “I’ve done the same thing in my day.” I was beginning to sound like Pete Staziak with a suspect. He can make a suspect feel secure by agreeing with him about everything from poisoning grandpa to burning down City Hall. He’s even tried that line on me a couple of times. “Now who hasn’t wanted to get the jump on the cops from time to time,” he suggested, trying to make it easy for me to spill my guts. But I saw it coming and bit hard on my tongue. Now I was using the same technique.
“They sure do ask a lot of questions, Benny. I even got so I didn’t know whether I was telling the truth myself. Everything sounded made up.”
“Why did you go to Nathan’s?”
“I can’t tell, Benny.”
“I understand. What did you say when they asked about finding anything at the scene of the crime.”
“I just said I didn’t, that’s all.”
“Good. That was the right thing to say. But you could still get into a lot of trouble.”
“Why, nobody saw anything. You weren’t even there yet. So how come you think you know so much, Benny? I was on my way out when I heard your car.”
“When you heard the car, Alex. But you didn’t hear me earlier when I came on foot.”
“Tell me another, Benny. You can stick-handle better than that.”
“Look, Alex, you’re a bright character. You know that the cops have determined the time of death and that puts you in the clear. The coroner has made it easy for both of us. The cops aren’t going to bother with either one of us. I figure you picked something up at the studio. You’ve got incriminating evidence that you lifted from the scene. It’s highly illegal, but you see it all the time on television. The tube shows us what’s right and wrong these days, not the letter of the law. Come on, Alex, I’ve done the same thing in a good cause. Was it to protect a lady’s good name by any chance?” Alex gulped while his Adam’s apple shifted like a wary defenceman near his own net.
“Okay, Benny. I’m not trying to get away with anything. But supposing I did find something?”
“If you keep it to yourself, you’re likely to end up the way Nathan did. We’re both mixed up with people who don’t think twice about killing. Look at poor Nathan. He knew a secret too many, and now look where he is. If you know something, and you want to go on breathing, I’d tell as many people as I could. It’s the only guarantee that your breath won’t be interfered with.” Alex creased his brow as though he imagined that useful thoughts would begin to flow automatically to his brain.
“Suppose I did find something?”
“Then you’re as good as dead right now.”
“Hell, you’re kidding me, Benny. Who’d want to kill me? Why would anybody want to hurt a broken-down hockey player?”
“Somebody’s done in a sculptor and a panhandler in this town. Maybe there’s no connection, but secrets can be deadly company, Alex.” He thought a minute, then went to the porch where he shouted something through the screen door. Returning, he came round to the passenger side and got in.
“Let’s drive around the block, Benny.” We did that. A couple of times, Alex looked over his shoulder to see if we had won a popularity contest. I didn’t see Geoff, Len or Gordon in their car following in the rear-view mirror either.
; “What exactly did you tell the cops?” I asked. It seemed a reasonably low-key beginning. I turned into Welland Avenue and headed west. We passed Tarlton Avenue and Albert Street in silence. Somewhere in the block between Woodland and Francis he started opening up.
“I didn’t lie to them. I just said I went to see Nathan. When I found him dead, I got scared and left. That’s all.”
“Why did you say you picked Saturday morning to pay your visit?”
“I told them I was on the company entertainment committee, which is true, and I went to try to talk him into giving a talk at the PPA.”
“The what?”
“Paper Producers’ Association. It’s a joint management-union thing. Arranges Christmas parties and a few cultural events every year.”
“Then they asked if you touched anything and you denied laying hands on anything but the doorknob on your way out.”
“Something like that. I told them how shocked I was, and then, when I heard you coming, I went out the back way as fast as I could.”
“I’d believe you though thousands … Never mind. Now tell me what you took with you.” I kept my eye on the street, but I could feel him staring at my profile.
“I never said I took …”
“Alex, this is me, Benny, you’re talking to. Remember what I told you about secrets.”
“Well, I …”
“Just tell me what you took and why you took it. I don’t need names. Not at this point.”
“Okay. I got a call Saturday morning from a friend of mine. This friend told me that Nathan was dead and that … this friend had left something with initials on it at the scene of the crime.”
“This must be some friend for you to stick your neck out like that for her.”
“I didn’t say it was a woman.”
“You didn’t but all those ‘shes’ you avoided told me plain enough. Besides, I can’t see you going back to cover for a guy. It had to be a woman. What was the object? The one with the initials?”
“It was a lighter. Fancy job. Easily traced, she said.”
“How do you know your friend didn’t ice Nathan herself?”
I felt that look again on the side of my face as I pulled up to the stoplight at Welland Avenue and Ontario. I turned and he suddenly found the white house on the corner, where the rabbi used to live, much more interesting.
“How do you know anything, Benny? You just think you know people, that’s all. People don’t change when you’ve known them, just because other things change.” He was now looking along towards the Hôtel Dieu Hospital, and added, “My mother died in there. Three years ago. My old man’s drinking had a lot to do with it.” He was moving away from the target area. Is it something about cars that makes people ramble in their thoughts? I thought about that myself for a few blocks, sparing a moment to Wally Moore as I passed Montecello Park.
“You knew Pia Morley pretty well. Do you think she’s changed much?” I thought I’d slid her name into the conversation with skill, but Alex’s head spun around like I’d pulled out a fingernail.
“Huh? Pia? She doesn’t have anything … You don’t think I’ve been talking about …? Benny, she doesn’t know anything about this business. Keep her name out of this.”
“I told you I’m not interested in names yet. I meant it. But she does own an initialled Dunhill. Probably just coincidence. Doesn’t matter. When did this unnamed female friend call you?”
“Saturday morning. As soon as she told me, I got dressed and picked it up. It was on the coffee-table. I didn’t like to leave … Nathan like that. But I could see there wasn’t anything I could do.”
“You returned the lighter?”
“Yeah. Must have been nearly noon.”
“Did she explain herself?”
“Didn’t want to talk about it. She thanked me and said she’d call me in a few days. That’s the truth, Benny, I just acted as a messenger boy.”
“For auld lang syne, right?”
“Yeah. For auld lang syne.”
“One more thing, Alex. Why is your father frightened?”
“What do you mean? I haven’t noticed …“ He broke off like he’s just discovered he was talking to himself. His expression shifted and he changed the chewing rate of his jaw on a wad of Spearmint “Come to think of it he has been acting strange. And jumpy, like the last thirty seconds in the penalty box. I wonder what’s got into him.”
“Could it have anything to do with Pia?”
“Naw. He didn’t like me running around with her years ago, but he took that out on me not her. He always liked her. He’s got good taste, the old man.” Alex smiled at me and we started in talking old times again. He remembered the time I played the guard in The Valiant, a one-act play in which I said “Yes, sir” seven or eight times and then went offstage to be ready for my curtain call.
After I dropped Alex, I returned to Martha’s house in the west end. On the way I bought a dozen eggs at Carrol’s grocery store and a few other things including Martha’s favourite brand of instant coffee. She was nowhere in sight when I plunked the two bags of groceries on the counter. I washed out a few dishes and dried them while my eggs bubbled on the stove. I found the toaster and was nearly in business when Martha came in the door with bundles of her own.
“Okay, I always knew you could boil eggs, how are you at making a martini?” She told me what to do, and didn’t complain when she tasted my maiden effort. “I usually make a whole jar of them and keep ’em in the freezer. If they freeze, I know I used too much vermouth.”
I made two sandwiches, toasted on white, and washed them down with coffee. I stayed away from the martinis. In fact, I didn’t really need to eat at all, I was still stuffed from Nathan Geller’s funeral.
When I’d cleaned up the kitchen, including Martha’s discarded coffee mug from the morning and her ashtrays, I went into the bedroom to change out of my good suit. I wore it for funerals and weddings. For bar mitzvahs I had developed a more informal approach. I intended to make a fast visit to my office to see whether anything negotiable had come through the letter slot since I’d last looked. But as I was cruising with the one-way traffic on St. Andrew Street prospecting for a parking spot under a street light, I saw a familiar shape walking along the sidewalk in the same direction as the cars. I was having trouble finding a parking spot anyway, so I didn’t mind the distraction. I think I’d done away with the notion of parking behind my office. Too many dark places and long shadows back there. And there was the alley to negotiate coming and going. No, better to stick with old Luc Bolduc ambling along the south side of the street with a small case of beer in his hand. The light turned red against me so I stopped and watched him move east up St. Andrew.
When the light changed, he was passing the Capitol Theatre. I crept along at less than fifteen miles an hour until the car behind me honked. I let him by and turned down Chestnut Street. I pulled over next to a union headquarters, turned off my lights and locked the car. Bolduc was still in sight when I regained St. Andrew Street on foot. I stayed well to his rear, wondering whether this was one of the cases he had hidden under the front porch of his house on Nelson Street, or whether this was a second lot to be used for some other purpose. He walked past the Presbyterian church and the Lincoln Theatre and continued along towards the point where St. Andrew ends abruptly by sending out three streets like branches from the main trunk. Queenston continued the curve along the canal, while Geneva and Niagara started off in two straight lines that would both finally stop at Lake Ontario.
Between Geneva and Niagara, not far from Etherington’s Carpet Works, lay the site of the new fire hall. It was a triangular piece of land surrounded by a green wooden fence. On the Geneva Street side there was a high gate, hinged on a stout post that rose high enough to attach a wire which supported the swinging end. Bolduc walked directly to the gate and fitted a key into the lock in the chain that held the gate closed. He slipped through, closed the gate again, but did not reattach the chain. As so
on as he was out of sight, I crossed the street and approached the gate.
There was one street light near the entrance, and from this bright spot, the shadows began. I crept through the space between the fence and the gate without either moving the gate or even sucking in my breath. Inside I was in the lee of the light. Only the unshaded light bulb now burning in the construction hut competed with the shadows of scaffold and fence.
To an architect or an engineer, a building site has a logic and a geography to it that make sense, but to me it just looked sloppy. I recognized the construction hut on the ground level and the ramp that led down a steep grade to the bottom of the excavation. Here and there stakes were planted with the tops painted red. In one place the stakes even had string running between them. It was loose and looked about to be blown away. Would that matter? I didn’t know. From where I stood looking down I could see a little more logic showing. On the right were wooden forms filled with metal rods waiting for the cement trucks to arrive in the morning. Next to these stood several footings with the wooden forms still intact, but with hardening cement oozing through cracks in the wood. Beside these stood columns rising from the footings that had been poured some time ago. Here the wooden frames had been removed, and on the cement, when the available light hit the curved surface at an oblique angle, I could see the grain of the wooden frames etched into the cement surface.
With a light burning in the hut, I felt free to move about. I knew that if Bolduc was inside the hut he was concentrating on his beer, and the light in the shack would turn everything out here into blackness. I worked my way down the mud ramp and came to the bottom of the excavation. Here I got a new perspective on the footings I’d been looking at. I mean, if you’re walking around at night in an excavation, what are you going to look at? I must have been thinking about that, or about some other deep thought, when I blundered into a stack of steel rods. They seemed to jump out at me. In changing directions, I hit a wheelbarrow and it fell over on me, emptying itself of some noisy pieces of metal. I cursed under my breath, and ran through a puddle down one of the unused footing frames.
