Booking In

by Jack Batten

  I sucked in my breath. Fletcher was aiming his pistol at Pony’s chest, and Pony was swinging his hori-hori backhanded at Fletcher’s shooting arm. Who would strike first? It was a gun against an ancient Japanese gardening tool. Ordinary common sense put all the odds in favour of Fletcher.

  Ordinary common sense was wrong.

  Pony’s hori-hori landed first, before Fletcher could fire his Beretta. It wasn’t the sharp metal blade on the gardening tool that caught Fletcher. If it had, the blade might have sliced off his arm. But it was the hori-hori’s wooden handle that hit home. Judging from the popping sound of handle striking bone, Fletcher would almost for sure come out of the clash with a fractured arm. He seemed to think so. He clutched his left hand over the arm, moaning agonized complaints. Then he went into a swoon, conscious but still moaning until his falling head smacked against a large decorative rock among the greenery. Fletcher’s left hand still gripped his right arm, but his moaning had stopped, and his consciousness seemed to have fled.

  “He isn’t dead, is he?” Pony said.

  I bent over and pressed my fingers at Fletcher’s neck.

  “His heart’s beating as strong as ever,” I said. “He’ll be fine, but his head’s on the way to a monster ache when he wakes up. Probably a broken arm too.”

  I straightened up and clapped Pony on the shoulder. “That was a smart swing with the hori-hori. You saved my bacon.”

  “Who is he?” Pony said, looking down at Fletcher. “This idiot with the gun?”

  “A bookseller who’s got problems,” I said. “I’ll fill in the details later if you’re interested. The thing right now is you stayed cool with the hori-hori when it mattered.”

  “Just instinct. I don’t think I’m the sort of person who would ever plan on doing something sort of brave on purpose. All I want right now is a coffee to steady myself.”

  “Don’t relax yet,” I said. “I got a couple more favours to ask.”

  “From me?”

  I knelt down beside Fletcher and felt through his pockets until I found a ring of keys.

  “Our attacker’s name is Fletcher,” I said to Pony. “If he comes to in the next five minutes, Fletcher won’t feel like going anywhere. All you need to do is stand over him and remind him you’ve still got the hori-hori in your hand.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “One quick errand.”

  I turned away from Pony and trotted up the house’s side alley to the street. Fletcher drove a silver Toyota sedan. Weren’t all Toyotas silver? I spotted two of them parked on Major, both farther north, close to Bloor. When I walked up the street and checked out the two cars, I realized Fletcher had made it easy to identify the second of the two Toyotas as his. The sticker on the front bumper was the giveaway: “I’ve been taken hostage by a book. Please don’t rescue me.”

  I tried the car key on the chain from Fletcher’s pocket on the driver’s door. It worked. I slid into the front seat and made a quick search of the interior, front and back. I didn’t find what I was looking for. Not that I expected them to be in such obvious full view. I got out of the car and tried a key on the car’s trunk. Once again the first key worked. I lifted the trunk’s door and struck instant paydirt. Bundled into the trunk’s side pocket was a well-worn Brooks Brothers oxford cloth shirt and under it, a pair of baggy dark-grey flannels. It didn’t take much close-up examination to locate the speckles of blood on both the shirt and the flannels. An especially large blob of blood marred the shirt’s left sleeve. The clothes for sure belonged to Fletcher. The blood must be the late Freddie Biscuit’s. I replaced the clothes where I’d found them, locked the car, and went back to the garden.

  Things were as I had left them, Fletcher on the ground, Pony standing over him, except that Fletcher was now conscious and Pony appeared to be on maximum alert. I leaned over Fletcher and slipped the keys back into his pants pocket. He didn’t react.

  “Has Fletcher said anything?” I asked Pony.

  “Just a lot more moaning.”

  “One thing, did you happen to notice where Fletcher’s gun ended up?”

  “It’s there,” he said, pointing to a very pretty low-lying plant. Nestled among the plant’s leaves was the Fletcher Beretta.

  “Nice spotting,” I said to Pony.

  “The plant’s a Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola,’” Pony said, the Latin tripping off his tongue.

  “A mouthful, considering its modest size,” I said.

  “Hak, for short,” Pony said. He stooped down to pick up the gun.

  “Don’t touch it,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “The whole garden’s now a crime scene.”

  Pony straightened up and took another look at Fletcher. “Oh right, because the silly bugger tried to kill you. And kill me too.”

  “And there’s more to come,” I said.

  “What do you mean? Not more of something from Fletcher?”

  “Not him,” I said. “The next part is where the cops come into it. That’s what I’m worried about.”

  Pony looked baffled.

  “Listen, Pony,” I said. “We’ve got a half hour to prepare ourselves for the police. All you’ll have to do is follow my lead.”

  Pony’s expression hadn’t changed.

  “The look on your face,” I said to him, “it’ll work fine for what’s going to happen next.”

  “What’s the look?”

  “Baffled.”

  “It’s how I feel right now.”

  “Perfect.”

  “What it is we have to do?”

  “Save the garden from destruction by the cops.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  When Rolly Mallenhauer arrived at my house carrying a briefcase, Pony, Fletcher, and I were sitting at the dining room table with cups of coffee and a plate of cookies in front of us. Pony and I had gone through one cup each and several cookies. Fletcher hadn’t touched a thing. He seemed totally subdued, still clutching his right arm and occasionally moaning.

  Rolly nodded in Fletcher’s direction.

  “This is the guy I’ve been looking for on the Biscuit murder?” he said to me.

  “Fletcher Marshall in person.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Broken arm is my guess, and maybe a concussion,” I said. “He’s not confirming or denying.”

  “I demand a lawyer,” Fletcher said. They were his first words in thirty minutes. His voice sounded scratchy.

  “Sir, just be quiet for now,” Rolly said to Fletcher. “You’ll get your chance to talk, but first we’re going to look after your physical needs.”

  Rolly went to the front door. A bunch of official vehicles were parked out there. Rolly called in an EMS unit and a pair of uniformed cops. The EMS guys examined Fletcher’s arm, being gentle about it. After a couple of minutes of tapping and testing, they strapped Fletcher on to a rolling stretcher, ready to wheel him out to the ambulance. But Rolly held them up while he searched Fletcher’s pockets, coming up with a wallet, keys, and money. He put the items in evidence bags, then dumped the bags in his briefcase. The EMS guys took over again, pushing Rolly on his stretcher out of the house, accompanied by the two cops. Fletcher’s good arm was handcuffed to the stretcher.

  Rolly joined Pony and me in the dining room. Rolly was a tall, fortyish, dark-haired guy, good-looking in a Dudley Do-Right fashion. He had a prominent jaw and clean features, and he carried himself in an upright posture.

  I made the introductions, Rolly to Pony, homicide dick to expert garden hand, and poured Rolly a cup of coffee.

  “Something I noticed out there in the garden,” Rolly said to Pony. “Is that tree what I think it is, something my wife talks about all the time, the large tree halfway back, over on the right?”

  “You mean the Kentucky Coffee Tree?” Pony said. �
�Gymnocladus dioicus.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You’ll have to brush up on your Latin, Rolly,” I said.

  “Maybe so,” Rolly said. “But my point is that I can’t believe these trees grow in Toronto.”

  “They’re good for southern Ontario,” Pony said. “The species is native to anywhere in the Carolinian forest, which you might know reaches all the way to Toronto.”

  “My wife would absolutely die to have one of those in our garden,” Rolly said.

  “This garden we’re in, Annie and Crang’s,” Pony said, “it’s full of rare plants and trees. Lot of endangered species, the Kentucky Coffee Tree, for one. You don’t see gardens like this every day.”

  “I agree,” Rolly said. “My wife says it’s the most beautiful private garden she’s seen in the entire city.”

  “She might be right,” Pony said.

  Rolly leaned over and lifted his briefcase onto the table. He opened it and took out a spiral notebook. “Okay, gentlemen” he said. “What happened here today? You first, Crang.”

  “You better get Fletcher’s gun first,” I said, pointing into the garden. “Out there on top of the pretty little plant.”

  Rolly went through his routine with the evidence bag and his briefcase, putting the handgun away for safekeeping, then sat down again, his pen and notebook at the ready.

  “Fletcher came in here about an hour and half ago with the gun,” I said. “According to him, his plan was to kill me and frame a guy named Brent Grantham for the murder. This was all part of a cover for the killing of Freddie Biscuit, the burglar.”

  “He killed Biscuit?” Rolly said. “He admitted that one?”

  “And a lot more.”

  “Keep going, Crang.”

  It took me about fifteen minutes to cover Fletcher’s activities in the garden and his twisted rationale for killing me. Then Pony took his turn, pleasing Rolly with his crisp description of the hori-hori’s effective separation of Fletcher from his Beretta.

  “Just the one shot fired?” Rolly said.

  “One was one too many,” Pony said.

  Rolly turned to me. “Attempted murder, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Two attempts, Rolly. First on me, then on Pony.”

  “I’ll need to get the troops in here,” Rolly said. “Do the photography of the crime scene, search for the bullet, see what else in the way of evidence might be lying around out in the garden.”

  “How many cops you think it’ll take to cover the entire garden?”

  “I’m going to need a full forensic unit, the photo people, a lot of uniformed personnel to do the searches. Altogether a couple of dozen, probably.”

  “Tramping over the plants?” Pony said. He wore his baffled look.

  “I’ll caution my officers to take care.”

  “You’re going to tear the garden apart?”

  “I of all people appreciate what we’re dealing with in this beauti­ful garden.”

  “Annie’ll be so pissed off,” Pony said. “She’ll totally freak.”

  “This is a double attempted murder case,” Rolly said. “I have no choice in the matter.”

  “Maybe you do,” I said.

  “Crang, please,” Rolly said. “Let me to do my job.”

  “How about you charge Fletcher with discharge of a weapon in a public place?”

  “That’s allowing him to walk on two serious charges.”

  “But it doesn’t call for two dozen cops crushing the greenery.”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “With what I’m suggesting, charging him with firing the gun, you can do all the legwork yourself, the photography, the evidence-gathering.”

  “Fletcher has got to be brought to justice, Crang. Don’t you understand?”

  “You’ve already got him for killing Biscuit.”

  Rolly paused. “That case is going to take more work if we want a conviction.”

  “You got him confessing to both Charlie Watson and me.”

  “Not enough. I need physical evidence, something that puts Fletcher at the murder scene in the bookstore.”

  “Then, my man, you’ve come to the right place.”

  “Crang, what in heck are you talking about?”

  I told Rolly about the bloody clothes in the trunk of Fletcher’s Toyota, about the car keys in Rolly’s collection of evidence, about the silver car parked up the street. I could see that the news pleased Rolly. He didn’t suddenly break into smiles and laughs, but he developed a more purposeful air in a properly Dudley Do-Right style.

  For the next three quarters of an hour he gathered the clothes from Fletcher’s car, took photographs on his iPhone of the locations in the garden where the action had taken place, and asked Pony and me a list of supplementary questions.

  “I’m not making any promises, Crang,” Rolly said when he’d finished. “But for the time being anyway, I’m going with the charge against Fletcher of improper discharge of a firearm.”

  “No ransacking of the garden by the policing hordes?”

  “I’ve already told you when it comes to gardening, I’ve got my sensitive side.”

  “You think the improper discharge will stick? The Crown won’t ask for more?”

  “Not unless the case on the Biscuit murder falls apart.”

  “Here’s a tip, Rolly,” I said. “You test the blood on Fletcher’s clothes from the Toyota, you’ll find it’s A Rh Negative.”

  “Rare type. That’s what Biscuit’s blood reads?”

  I nodded. “It gets you partway home.”

  “It does.”

  Rolly jammed his notebook in the briefcase with all the items of evidence. He stood up, ready to leave, but took one more survey of the garden. It wasn’t an investigative look. It was more a look of longing.

  “My wife’s been here several times,” he said.

  “Annie introduced me to her. Lovely person, your wife.”

  “She’s crazy about the whole garden, but it’s the Kentucky Coffee Tree she always talks about.”

  “That one out there,” Pony said, “it’s a mature tree. It would cost thousands of dollars.”

  “I guess you have to pay for beauty,” Rolly said.

  “But a new Kentucky Coffee Tree, a young one, it would run about four hundred dollars, and in a few years, you’d have something like Crang and Annie’s tree.”

  Rolly perked up. “Four hundred? That’s within my range. Easily.”

  Pony went into his back pocket and pulled out a small stack of business cards. He peeled off one and handed it to Rolly. “This is my boss’s card,” he said. “I’ll tell her you’re interested.”

  Rolly beamed a mighty smile Pony’s way. He picked up his briefcase of evidence against Fletcher and left, still smiling.

  Pony and I sat back down in the dining room, both of us suddenly weary.

  “Is that the way it works?” Pony said.

  “The way what works?” I said. “If you mean the way bad guys get caught, today’s episode was on the unorthodox side.”

  “I was thinking more about the overall total justice system.”

  “Not a bad example, given the results we’re probably going to get,” I said. “But you’re the guy newer to Canada, Pony. You think justice got done?”

  “Definitely.”

  “How so?”

  “We saved Annie’s garden.”

  Pony and I slapped our hands in a high five.

  Chapter Fifty

  Annie came home from Meg Grantham’s Georgian Bay retreat a day earlier than she had planned. It was my report to her about the shoot-up in the garden that made her scurry south. The first thing she did after Meg’s driver dropped her off at the house was give me a big hug. Once she’d satisfied herself that I was all in one piece, sh
e shepherded us both out to the garden. She asked me to walk her through the confrontation that had ended with Pony and the hori-hori going at Fletcher with the Beretta.

  “Show me where Fletcher was facing when he pulled the trigger,” she said.

  “Something in particular you’re wondering about?”

  “Fletcher’s hand holding the gun wasn’t pointed at all vertically?”

  “Straight ahead at shoulder level,” I said. “According to Pony, he could feel the rush of the bullet passing his head.”

  “Poor Pony, he must have been petrified.”

  “Took it like a warrior.”

  “Go over the bullet’s path once more,” Annie said. She held up her right arm, aiming it into the foliage. “About on this trajectory?”

  “Little more to the right.”

  Annie made the adjustment in her arm’s direction.

  “You’re setting up on a hunt for the bullet from Fletcher’s pistol?” I said.

  “Judging by what you’re telling me, Myrna Mallenhauer’s husband hasn’t even looked for the damn bullet. Not yet anyway.”

  “Myrna’s her name?”

  “You met her a couple of times. Big fan of our Kentucky Coffee Tree.”

  “Myrna’ll be coming into her own Kentucky tree if Pony’s sales job on Rolly holds solid.”

  “Good for Myrna. But what’s on my mind is a killer bullet buried somewhere among the plants in our own garden. It’s an aesthetic offence.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me.”

  “It also happens that the bullet’s loaded with poisons that could damage anything out here.”

  Annie pushed deeper into the garden, checking the line she was following, taking the time to examine each plant at the level the bullet may have zipped through the greenery.

  I figured Annie was on the search for the long haul, and I went back to the dining room. It was coming up to five o’clock. Too early for a martini. I poured a glass of orange juice and settled in a dining room chair with the latest New Yorker. Jeffrey Toobin had a long piece about the shape of the current U.S. Supreme Court. Three quarters of an hour sped by, my head still buried in Toobin’s prose.