by Anne Emery
Monty
Monty dropped in to the Dalhousie Arts Centre and made some inquiries. Yes, Mr. Habler was in his office, number 510. Monty walked up the stairs, found the office, and knocked on the door.
A booming voice invited him to enter.
“Good afternoon, Herr Habler. I was wondering if I could have a word.”
“Certainly, certainly.” He got up and bent over the guest chair facing his desk; he began scooping up papers and musical scores so Monty could sit.
“My name is Monty Collins, and I am the lawyer for Lieutenant-Colonel Alban MacNair.”
Habler stopped moving and fixed his eyes on Monty.
Monty thought a bit of lightness would put Habler at ease, so he said, “I’m here with a question about opera. Have I come to the right place?”
Habler’s shoulders relaxed a little, and he smiled. “Ah, yes, you have come to the right man.”
“More specifically, I’ve heard that there might have been a bit of operatic composing done recently here in Halifax. I mean —”
Habler’s mouth quivered and he moved back a little in his seat. The question seemed to have hit a nerve. Whatever it was, Monty decided to probe that exposed nerve. He had no idea, so he had to wing it.
“The story is making the rounds, so I thought I should get it straight from you rather than, you know . . .”
“You are thinking that Edelgard — Meika — was with . . . was with that group? She was not! What I have heard is that she was with the man you represent!”
What was this? Habler thought Monty was talking about the night Meika died. Why was the man so rattled?
Monty would see what else he could get. “So, the group that night . . .”
“That had nothing to do with her!”
“Then why do my questions disturb you?”
“I am not disturbed.”
“Well, you certainly reacted to my question.”
“Please explain why you are here, Mr. Collins.”
Monty was unlikely to get any more on this subject. “I’m sorry, Mr. Habler, we seem to have got off on the wrong foot here. There was a suggestion that Meika Keller may have been composing . . .”
“Composing? Meika Keller?” He looked completely baffled then.
“The suggestion has been made that she was writing an opera about her time in East Germany, the repression there, her escape across the border.”
This was met by amusement. Relief, more likely. Habler put on a big grin and said, “One would expect a lot of dark, bass notes in that! And some high shrieks from the soprano! But I should not make jokes about it, or about the long-lost German Democratic Republic. Or about Edelgard. Meika. God bless her.”
“But she never mentioned it to you.”
“No.” Habler leaned forward then and said, “You are the lawyer for a Canadian Army officer who is accused of the killing. Why do the police think the Army man killed her?”
“Well, I can’t talk about the case. Except to say they have the wrong man. My client is innocent.”
Habler smiled at that. “Of course, that is what I would want my lawyer to say if the police accused me of a crime. But I read in the news, or I heard it somewhere, that the Army officer was with Meika the night she died.”
“Lieutenant-Colonel MacNair and Ms. Keller had known each other for many years. Any time they spent together, nothing improper happened. And certainly nothing criminal.”
“No, of course not! But I am thinking that if her husband telephoned Lieutenant-Colonel MacNair’s home in the middle of the night looking for his wife, that call would not be welcomed by the lieutenant-colonel’s own wife!” There was a trace of amusement again in the grey-green eyes that looked into Monty’s.
“Called? What do you mean, if Meika’s husband called . . . ?”
“I just mean that if he called me looking for her, he may have called every man she knew!”
What was this now? “Commodore Rendell called you?”
Habler’s dropped his gaze.
“Mr. Habler?”
Habler still did not look up. But eventually he said, “Yes, he phoned, but I . . . didn’t hear the phone ringing because I was so much asleep.”
“Where is your phone?”
“It is in my bedroom, but, as I say, I was deeply asleep when it rang.”
“How do you know it was Hubert Rendell who tried to reach you?”
“He left a message on my answering machine.”
“What time was the message recorded?”
“It was just around midnight.”
It was Monty’s turn to try to mask his reaction. Hubert Rendell told the police he had gone to bed at something like ten o’clock or before and had slept through the night until six thirty the next morning. Now, Monty was hearing that he was awake and on the phone, looking for his wife at midnight.
“Mr. Habler. It is important that I hear that voice message from Commodore Rendell. Could I stop by your place at a time convenient to you and —”
“I am sorry, Mr. Collins, but the message is no longer available.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, you know, I don’t keep my messages.”
“You erased it? Why?”
Because he didn’t want the police to see him as someone Rendell thought of as a possible companion to his wife in the middle of the night? And what about his claim that his phone rang beside his bed and he didn’t hear it? How could he not have heard it if it was in his bedroom? Was he home at all when the call came in?
Habler affected a shrug as if a message from a man whose wife had died in suspicious circumstances the night of the message was of no more importance than a call from a telemarketer.
“When did you erase the message?”
“When?”
“Yes. Was it before or after you learned of Ms. Keller’s death?”
“You are making me sound like a criminal, Mr. Collins!”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound accusatory. It’s just that a message from the victim’s husband would be a significant element of the case. What did Rendell say?”
“Oh, he was angry. He demanded to know if his wife was with me!”
“Angry.”
“Yes, his voice was calm and cold-sounding, but he was angry indeed.”
“What were his exact words, do you recall?”
“It was ‘Mr. Habler, is my wife there with you? Have you seen her?’ Then it was no longer ‘Mister’ but just ‘Habler.’ He thought I was ignoring him. ‘Habler. Pick up the phone and speak to me.’ And then a long silence and a click, ending the call.”
“Mr. Habler, were you really at home when that call came in?”
“What? Are you asking me for my alibi?”
“I’m just trying to get a clear picture of who was where. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes, I do understand. You are representing the man charged with killing her and you are looking for other suspects!”
“I don’t imagine you’re in the frame for this, but I like to have all the information I can get so I can do a proper job at the trial.”
“I . . .” He leaned forward then, hands clasped on the desk. “I had too much liquor to drink. I was passed out!”
“Where were you drinking?”
“At home. In my house.”
“You were alone and you drank —”
“Yes.”
“At first when I asked you about Ms. Keller and composing, you mentioned a ‘group.’ And I had the impression you were talking about the night she died. What were you talking about then?”
“There is no other information I can give you.” He turned to a side table and began sweeping some papers into a pile and said, “I am sorry, I have to go and meet one of my students now. I am sorry to have to rush away.�
�
And rush away he did, leaving Monty with more questions than he had had when he arrived. And not only about Habler. What about Commodore Rendell? He had told the police he had slept all through the night. He hadn’t known until morning that his wife had not come home. Two men claiming to be sound sleepers and it seemed one had made a phone call and the other had missed it.
Now what was Monty going to do with this new information? Rendell, not Habler, was Monty’s main concern. When a woman dies in suspicious circumstances, her husband or boyfriend — or former husband or boyfriend — was always the first to be suspected. And with good reason, given the high proportion of cases in which the man in her life was the culprit. And now Monty had caught the husband in a lie. So how could he best make use of this revelation? Save it for cross-examination when the husband was on the stand as a Crown witness? Raise suspicion against him in the minds of the jurors? Or inform the police about Rendell’s jealous phone rant, which he had denied by stating that he slept through the night? No, putting the police on the trail this soon could very well backfire; they would almost certainly be treated to an agonized admission from Rendell — a convincing declaration that he had loved his wife, had been worried about her, and would never have caused her any harm. Even though, in Monty’s long experience, love did not rule out murder; in fact, it was often the motive. Love, possession, jealousy. For now, Monty would keep the discovery to himself. But he would make a point of learning more about the bereaved husband of Meika Keller.
* * *
The Crown’s office had a couple more items of disclosure for Monty. There was the family’s denial of any knowledge of the German postcard. And there was a short supplementary statement provided by Hubert Rendell to the police.
“I just wanted to correct something I said earlier. Or add to it. You remember I said that Meika was troubled when she returned home from her European trip in January. It didn’t have her down in the dumps, but there was something.”
“Right.”
“I asked her what was wrong and she said she was disappointed that the pictures she took of the trip didn’t turn out. The photo supply place here in town told her the film had been ruined in some way, and there were no pictures.”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“Well, Meika always used the one camera. German camera, a Leica. Of course there were all the goofy jokes about Meika’s Leica and all that. But anyway, my son decided to use the camera last week to take pictures at a party he attended. So, he borrowed the Leica. He noticed there was a film in it, with several shots left, so anyway he snapped his own pictures and dropped the film off at Precision Photo, and he just got them back. They turned out fine. But here’s the thing: there were four other pictures on the same film, taken of Navy ships in the harbour, all lit up for Christmas. Before her trip to Europe. So as much as I hate to face this, she was telling me a fib about the film not working. As far as we know, she hadn’t even taken the camera to Europe. Certainly hadn’t taken any pictures over there. Whatever had her worried, that wasn’t it.”
“And you have no other idea of what accounted for her being upset.”
“Not a clue. My take on it now was that I caught her worrying about something, and she came up with the film story on the spot to cover whatever was really bothering her. So I have something else eating away at me, the fact that she lied to me. And now I’ve got it in my head that MacNair had something to do with it!”
“With her being upset after the trip?”
“Well, you’ve got the bastard charged with her murder. Maybe you should check and see where he was the week of January twenty-sixth to thirty-first!”
“We’ve already done that, sir.”
Monty saw with relief that there was a note clipped to the back of the statement, indicating that the police had confirmed that MacNair was accounted for all those days in Halifax.
He thought then of his conversation with Fried Habler, who had said Hubert Rendell left a message on his answering machine the night of his wife’s death. Rendell had told the police he had slept through the night and did not know she was missing until he awoke in the morning. Why had he made that statement? Was there anything else the victim’s husband had left out or misstated about that night? Monty knew he could not try to make a case against Commodore Rendell as the real killer. That would be seen as a desperate ploy to deflect blame from his client, and it would alienate the jury. And he could hardly interview Rendell himself. But when the time came and Rendell was on the witness stand, he could cross-examine him about his statement and this and any other inconsistencies — lies? in his statements to the police.
Chapter XVII
Brennan
Brennan had never been convinced that it was Albert Einstein who defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. But whoever had coined the phrase, he or she could have been describing the behaviour of one Brennan Xavier Burke. These days, it seemed, Brennan was the very embodiment of doing the same thing over and over and expecting not to be feeling like shite the next morning. Once again, he’d been at it to the extent that his hangover nearly had him destroyed. But he had work to do, so he heaved his ailing body out of bed, stood upright, felt everything in his stomach slop to the bottom, and made a beeline for the bathroom. Brennan was a man who couldn’t bear sickness and couldn’t bear the filth that came with it; that should have been motivation enough to change his ways.
He didn’t feel much healthier when he met with his children’s choir at nine that morning to rehearse their music for the season of Lent. In fact, it was several days into Lent already, and Father Burke, priest of the Roman Catholic Church, had not given a moment’s thought to giving up the drink for the penitential season. And, O Domine, what was this now? Was he seeing double? Had he reached the point in his downward slide that he was hallucinating? There were two little red-headed girls standing in the front row where there should have been only one, that one being Normie Collins. There were only a handful of redheads in the entire school, which was still an overrepresentation of gingers in the general population. This reflected the prevalence of Scottish and Irish families in the province. But on a global scale, they were the smallest visible minority in the world. Now he had two where there should have been one. He looked at the other choristers and was relieved to note that he was not seeing double with any of the rest of them. Ah. It was Kim, Normie’s best friend. Either she was wearing a wig or she had dyed her light-blond braids a flaming orangey-red. They were twelve-year-old girls; he was a man. Discretion was called for here, and he affected not to notice.
He greeted his students and they replied with “Good morning, Father.”
“Do yez all have the new piece I handed out, the Croce?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Grand so. O vos omnes, qui transitis per viam. Attendite et videte si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus. Who can tell me what the words mean?”
Normie always knew her Latin, but Brennan did not want to call on her too often. Give the others a chance. And, for her part, she never put herself forward, afraid of looking like a show-off, which she was not. Unlike some of the kids who waved their hands in his face claiming they had it, and they had it all wrong. One of the lads in the back raised his hand.
“Alastair?”
“It means all you guys, or all of you, who pass by on the road, pay attention and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow.”
“That’s it. Usually translated as ‘if there be any sorrow,’ but I’ll leave that to your grammar teacher. Well done, Alastair.”
Brennan looked at them all, raised his arm for them to begin, and noticed tears in Normie’s eyes. A very sensitive little girl. Feeling sorry for Jeremiah and his lamentations or for Jesus on the cross, or something else altogether? Well, this wasn’t the time to find out.
The choir of children sounded like angels out of heaven as th
ey sang the achingly beautiful piece. Except for Chadwick Soames, slouching in the back row and singing off key, looking for all the world like someone who was above it all. Soames once again acting the maggot; it was all Brennan could do to be civil to him. “Chad Soames, sit up straight, sharpen your tone, and lower the volume, would you?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“What?”
“Okay.”
They sang it again. Soames clamped his lips together in protest, and that suited Father Burke just fine. Without Chad’s flat tenor overriding the others, the sound was exquisite.
Chad Soames offended more than the lovely Renaissance music of Giovanni Croce. Brennan heard him when the kids were filing out. “What happened to you, Kimmie? Somebody set your head on fire?”
“Shut up!” Good for her. “Shut up” was a mild version of what Brennan would say to the little gurrier if he heard another nasty word out of his mouth.
Brennan caught up with Normie in the hallway and said, “Could you come in and help me with something, Normie?”
“Okay.”
She went ahead of him into the classroom, and he followed and closed the door.
“What’s the trouble, Normie?”
“Nothing,” she claimed, avoiding his eyes.
“What is it, acushla? You were in tears in there. You’ll tell me if there’s anything aggravating you here at school, won’t you?”
“But I can’t — couldn’t — tell you even if there was something. I’m not saying there is!”
“Why couldn’t you tell me?”
“Because then I’d be a tout!”
So, there it was. Something here in the school, presumably someone, had her agitated. Now, how to reassure the child that she wouldn’t be a tout — an informer — if she told him about it? It seemed she’d spent too much time in Ireland last year! Too much time with the Burke family, the “well-known republican family,” for whom there was no form of life lower than someone who would inform on someone else to the authorities. Just when he was about to utter words of reassurance, she made her hand into the shape of a gun and pointed it at her knee. Oh, God. Having herself kneecapped as an informer. The age-old lament of parents came to his mind: Where did we go wrong?
