My Darling Detective

by Howard Norman

  Approx. 11:50 p.m. Robert Emil seen in car, corner Sackville and Brunswick. Officers engage with megaphone. Emil responds by taking flight. Approx. 12:05 a.m., April 19, 1945. Robert Emil apprehended at ferry crossing, Upper Water Street. Approx. 1:15 a.m., April 19, 1945. Robert Emil questioned at police building by Detective Maurice Chalmer and Detective Sergeant Benjamin Humphries. During which Robert Emil exhibits heavy intoxication from liquor. Emil somewhat incoherent. Claims being distraught over relationship with Mrs. Nora Rigolet. Claims “gang of Jews have been in pursuit of him.” Claims “every police officer is in danger from Jews in Halifax.” Questioning ends approx. 2:35 a.m., April 19, 1945. Robert Emil incarcerated in police lockup.

  “Your mother would be so proud,” Detective Tides said, looking up from the timeline. “Running around the city like a rabid dog or something, maybe they should’ve tested you for rabies, huh? I don’t see they tested you for rabies in the report. And I’ve read every page.”

  Robert Emil said, “Is my son hearing all this?”

  When I telephoned Martha and told her what had happened during the interrogation, she sighed deeply and said, “There’s enough now to lock him up. They’ll lock him up.”

  Ours Is Not a Lending Library

  The case of Robert Emil was on the front page of the Chronicle-Herald on November 19—“1945 Murder Case Resurrected”—one column, lower right, continued on page 4. My mother’s photograph from 1945 was included on page 4, fitted next to Emil’s latest mug shot. Martha thought it best that I bring the article to my mother’s attention before some attendant did. So on that cold, rainy day, Martha and I took the ferry over to Dartmouth and a short taxi ride to the hospital. We found Nora sitting alone at a corner table at Arts and Crafts, in the common room. We knew right away she’d found out about the article. When we sat down at her table, we saw that she had cut out the photographs of herself and Robert Emil and was gluing them onto some sort of collage. It was Martha who noticed that a photocopy of Death on a Leipzig Balcony was also part of the collage. “This is not good,” Martha whispered to me. “It may be she’s experiencing a relapse.” My mother then crumpled up the collage, which had been about the size of a page of the Chronicle-Herald.

  “My, my, look at you,” my mother said, touching Martha’s belly. “You know, I’m really fine, Martha, dear. That collage was just a little . . . well, let’s call it a little fall from grace, shall we? No, let’s not call it anything. I’ve scrunched it all up and now it’s gone. Did you know that Jinx Faltenbourg was here, and she has offered me five hours a week. One hour per day at the registration desk, that is. The board has to approve, but Jinx is persuasive, you see. I could not be more pleased.”

  “Your room is ready and waiting for you, Nora,” Martha said. “You know that when you leave the hospital, we have to bring you in for a monthly evaluation, right?”

  “From now on, it’s all about attitude and spirit,” Nora said.

  We stayed for about an hour and then met with one of Nora’s psychiatrists, Dr. Kathe Radnoti.

  “Medically—that is, psychotherapeutically—Nora has my complete confidence,” Dr. Radnoti said. “When I took over her case, I want you to know that I reviewed it thoroughly. I studied it left to right, right to left. I’ve given a lot of thought to the precipitating episode—the attack on the photograph. Nora and I have discussed it at length. Perhaps she mentioned this.”

  “Not to us,” Martha said.

  “I can summarize my report. Basically, I feel that on March 19, 1977, at the Lord Nelson Hotel, Nora suffered—and I won’t use clinical language here—a terrible episode. Notice of the auction of that particular photograph, where her husband can be faintly seen—but still he is seen, still he is recognizable—in Death on a Leipzig Balcony. My goodness, how could she not be filled with turbulent emotion toward it? This is all in my full report. Suffice it to say that radically disparate elements, individual and aggregate insistences, suddenly, at the Lord Nelson Hotel, overwhelmed Nora Rigolet. For months I have been presenting one thing and one thing only to my colleagues here—that a single episode, no matter its intensity, does not by definition portend relapse or relapses. In fact, every exhibit of Nora’s person, since her initial episode a the Halifax Free Library—poise, awareness, her insatiable appetite for books, the depth of comprehension of her present confinement—all and everything indicates a return to sanity. It remains my opinion that Nora has been done a great injustice. That immediately following the precipitating episode or incident at the Halifax Free Library, that perhaps six months of outpatient therapy, along with a leave of absence from work, would have been the appropriate course. I even suggest that, had such a course been taken, it may well have alleviated the preoccupation with the photograph leading to the dramatic incident at the auction. While I cannot say it was all shackles and leg irons, and I do feel there are some very fine qualities of care here at NSRH, along with vast amounts of room for improvement. Still and all, Nora’s long inpatient stay was, to my mind, completely lacking in sound analytical procedure.”

  “When can she go home?” I said.

  “There are more meetings, I’m afraid,” Dr. Radnoti said. “Hospitals are bureaucracies, you see. But I am her advocate. I will push for the earliest date possible.”

  “We just want to get her home,” Martha said.

  “You already have the name of the therapist she’s to see once a month, Dr. K. V. Mori, and she is excellent.”

  “Yes, I did my research, and she sounds great,” Martha said.

  “Did Nora mention Jude the Obscure today?” Dr. Radnoti asked.

  “Novel by Thomas Hardy?” Martha said.

  “Yes, that’s the one,” Dr. Radnoti said. “Nora’s reading it—for the third time, she tells me. And I may be violating her confidence telling you this, but Nora has said emphatically that she hopes she doesn’t leave Nova Scotia Rest Hospital until she completes it. ‘Ours is not a lending library here, in case you haven’t noticed,’ she said to me. I tell you this because Nora’s maintained her sense of irony. When there’s no irony, a person’s life goes a little gray. There’s a flatness to the affect. Nora is far from that—‘Ours is not a lending library.’”

  I Couldn’t Bear It If Something Terrible Should Befall Leah Diamond

  After stepping off the return ferry, Martha suggested that we get some takeout Italian food and have dinner at home. Serving it up at our kitchen table, Martha said, “Leah Diamond—did I tell you? Leah has a stalker. Creep named Dundee Alcove. You’ll hear about it in tonight’s episode, I’m sure. Does this guy have the slightest notion what’s in store for him? Detective Levy’s been alerted to it, also the whole cohort at the hotel. They are all out looking for Dundee Alcove. He’s dead in the water, is my guess. I couldn’t bear it if something terrible should befall Leah Diamond.”

  “Of course you couldn’t.”

  “They’ll have to do him in, Dundee Alcove.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But sometimes an episode doesn’t end in murder. It ends sort of implying—you know, in the language, it’s more implied.”

  Martha said, “‘All their shadows carrying revolvers followed his shadow into the alley,’ or ‘Since we’re in this love clutch, baby, it means that pistol is as close to my heart as it is to yours,’ or ‘Layla House wept all the way to identify her husband at the morgue. Out of happiness.’”

  “How do you remember all of that?” I asked.

  We had eaten lightly, even for Italian, and when I was clearing the dishes, Martha said, “Maybe it was some spice, or maybe it’s something happening to my body, or maybe it’s something else—I don’t know what—but Jake, you need to take me to bed. I need to go to our bed with you immediately. Leave the dishes.”

  This sort of imperative never required further explanation, only, to quote Martha’s favorite author, Thomas Hardy, “obedience to the insistences of love.” The first time I ever heard that phrase was in fact when Martha was reading a H
ardy novel in bed, I forget which one, and she stopped reading, looked at me, and said, “Listen to this: obedience to the insistences of love.” But she didn’t want a response; more that she wanted me to hear the phrase. She really just wanted to get back to her book.

  Let me put it this way: leaving the dishes was the least difficult thing I have ever done in my life. What Martha called the acrobatics of making love when she was so pregnant were tender and funny: “Let’s get inventive with the pillows.” Finally, when I lay pressed against her back and we were bathed in sweat, both of us desperately needing to sleep, Martha said, “Well, that problem got solved nicely.”

  Martha rallied awake for Detective Levy Detects, but it required a cup of coffee for me to get through the complete episode, which was titled “The Laughable Demise of Dundee Alcove.” What happened was, this Dundee had an old beef with Leah Diamond, but at the same time was crazy in love with her. Now Dundee was threatening Leah’s life. Leah had been completely honest with Detective Levy about the fact that there had never been anything romantic in her past with Dundee Alcove. “If you see his Quasimodo mug, you’ll understand,” she said as they were having coffee in a luncheonette somewhere in Toronto. During that same conversation, Leah uttered one of Martha’s favorite lines: “I may eat a lot at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, honey, but deep down in my soul I’m really living on coffee.” Given the combined brainstorming of all the gangsters and gun molls, add to that the deeply worried and protective instincts of Detective Levy, and add to that Leah Diamond’s always being on high alert, not just for her own life but for that of their daughter, Dundee Alcove didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. And here, what was clearly a murder got detoured through radio language into euphemism: “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” the narrator said, “at this point all you need to know is Detective Frederik Levy left the men’s room of the Blue Sundays lounge, on Queen Street, with one less bullet than he arrived with, the loud construction-worker crowd at the bar acting as a silencer, and the world a better place absent one Mr. Dundee Alcove.”

  “Jeez,” said Martha, turning off the radio, “I guess Dundee Alcove met a bad end. That was Detective Levy in a kind of jealous revenge killing. I didn’t expect that.”

  “Seeing as he’s been such a nice guy all along.”

  “Compared to the coterie of thugs wearing fedoras, sure.”

  “Are you happy Leah’s out of danger now?” I asked.

  “Danger is her middle name, though.”

  The telephone woke us at about 3 a.m. The phone was on Martha’s side of the bed, so I got up and walked around the bed to pick it up. When I did, Detective Hodgdon didn’t even wait to hear a hello before saying, “Shit has hit the fan—good morning, Detective Crauchet.” I said, “It’s Jake. Should I wake Martha?” “Well, Robert Emil’s flown the coop. Some bureaucratic mix-up and an . . . inexperienced fellow at the station let Emil out. Dunderhead. That kind of thing happens now and then, but what’s unusual—and listen carefully here, Jake—is that Emil has made threats of violence against all three of his interrogators, which means myself, Detective Tides, and of course it means Martha too. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Yes, I definitely understand.”

  “Now, on the basis of Emil’s written threat, we’re out looking for him. Out looking for him again, I should say. In the meantime, we’re sending an officer to your house. He’ll stay parked out front with two-three thermoses of coffee.”

  “All right,” I said. “How serious should we take this threat, do you think?”

  “Emil’s a nutcase. A nutcase with a knowledge of firearms.”

  Martha had woken and listened in. She deduced certain things from my side of the conversation. “Have they sent an unmarked car yet?” she asked. I looked out the bedroom window just as an unmarked police car pulled up to the curb. Then I detailed the phone conversation to Martha.

  Deeply Communing with the So-Far Invisible World

  Next morning, about 7:30, a knock on the door. It was Officer Drew Sorensen, who, as it turned out, was the nephew of Officer Katherine Sorensen, who had shot and wounded Robert Emil in the Halifax Free Library on April 18, 1945. “Hello, sorry to bother you so early in the morning, but I need to use your bathroom,” he said. I let him into the house, and by the time he had emerged from the bathroom, Martha, dressed in her outsize pajamas and robe, was putting on coffee. When I walked into the kitchen, she said, “I recognize Officer Sorensen, of course. But why is he in our house first thing in the morning like this?”

  “Apparently, your people assigned him to look after us, Martha.”

  “Well, all right. This is our life just now. They’ll find Robert Emil and then our life will return to normal. But Officer Sorensen—and I assume they’ll send someone else to relieve him—he should stay inside the house. Sitting out in a car like that is a nightmare.”

  I carried a tray of coffee and coffee cake out and set it on the dining room table. “Sit down with us,” Martha said to Sorensen.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Car’s not all that good for the sacroiliac.” He bent backward and groaned, then sat down. “This looks great, thank you.”

  “You’re Katherine’s nephew, if I remember right,” Martha said.

  “That’s correct, Detective Crauchet,” Sorensen said. He was about thirty, tall, with a slight stubble of beard, a head of luxurious black hair kept at regulation length, and deep blue eyes. A very handsome young man with a slightly nervous bearing. “Actually, I’m hoping to make detective someday.”

  “I know about your aunt Katherine’s heroic conduct back in April of 1945,” Martha said. “I read about it in our present cold-case file.”

  Sipping his coffee, taking a forkful of the coffee cake, Sorensen said, “I can’t walk or drive past the Halifax Free Library without thinking about my aunt Kathy, even though the incident occurred before I was born.”

  “She was tried and true that night,” Martha said. “How is Katherine, anyway?”

  “Fine. She lives near Peggy’s Cove. She got remarried—my uncle Peter died five years ago. She married a boat mechanic, Tobin Pierpoint. Semiretired. Tobin, I mean. Aunt Katherine stays active in civic duties.”

  “Did they tell you much about why you’re out at our house?” Martha asked. She was being the interlocutrix a little, and I could tell it was because she was anxious. She recognized her own tone and said, “It’s just that”—she tapped her belly—“I’m thinking for two, you see.”

  “I certainly can see,” Sorensen said. “Well, yes, I got the details, Detective Crauchet, and I know that’s why you brought up my aunt’s heroics, because all these years later, it’s the same Robert Emil. I don’t expect I’ll have to discharge my weapon like she did at Emil, though. I’m confident we’ll track him down long before he can carry out his threats.”

  “The Beelzebub Robert Emil raging through the streets again,” Martha said.

  “Seems like half the police force is out looking for him,” Sorensen said.

  “Were you shown his threats?” Martha said. “I mean, the physical evidence.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sorensen said. “I did indeed read the piece of paper they were written on. He outright threatened to kill you, Detective Tides, and Detective Hodgdon. I hope you don’t mind my putting it so bluntly. But it’s true.”

  Martha poured Sorensen a second cup of coffee, smiling slightly. I could see Sorensen was worried he’d upset her. “I understand the policy is that you get three whole months maternity leave,” he said. “My own wife, Patricia, she’s not quite as far along as you, Detective, but when our baby arrives, I’m putting in for a week’s leave myself, pay or no pay. But anyway, Detective, you’ll be back on the job in no time. You have the most solid reputation I’ve ever heard of. And you know how people talk.”

  I could see Martha was surprised and pleased. “You keep sucking up like this, Officer Sorensen, I may have to write you a letter of recommendation when it’s t
ime for you to come up for detective.”

  “You know, my aunt Katherine, what happened with her and Robert Emil became kind of a family story. But I’m going to talk out of school here, because what everyone outside of our family doesn’t know. When she discharged her weapon that night? It knocked my aunt off the rails. And she never got back on. Not really. That’s why she asked for a transfer to a desk job. She figured if she got the desk job, she’d be able to sleep again.”

  “Did that work out for her?” I asked.

  “As it turned out, yes,” Sorensen said. “She could sleep again, and according to her, the rest of her tenure, which was twelve years, she was bored to tears.”

  “Can’t win for losing,” Martha said. She looked at me and said, “I’m going back to bed, Jake. I’ve got to call in sick to the office. No, I won’t say ‘sick,’ I’ll say ‘deeply communing with the so-far invisible world.’”

  “Oh, can I listen in?” Sorensen said.

  “I was just alluding to—” and Martha again patted her belly.

  “No, no, I understood right away, Detective Crauchet,” Sorensen said. “Your child. The invisible world. ‘Communing with the so-far invisible world’—that was more poetry than I learned in high school.”

  “All right, then,” Martha said. She walked to the telephone and dialed her office. “Yes, this is Detective Martha Crauchet calling on behalf of myself. I won’t be in to work today.” There was a pause. “Reason? I’m deeply communing with the so-far invisible world.” Another pause, Martha listening. She then set the receiver down on the cradle. “That was the dispatcher, Anne Anderson. She said, ‘Oh, I get it. I’ve been pregnant twice myself.’”