by Anne Emery
Chapter XVIII
Monty
The month of March started off with a massive snowstorm. By the time Monty’s street was plowed and he made it into the office, he had missed two phone calls from clients who could not get into the centre of the city in the snow. But he had an insurance investigator waiting for him, with a report about a plaintiff in a motor vehicle accident case. Monty was representing the insurer for the defendant. The plaintiff claimed that he could not return to work because he couldn’t sit, stand, bend, or lift. Now here was the investigator with a surveillance video showing the plaintiff bending over the left rear wheel of his truck, removing it, hefting it up, biffing it into bed of the truck, and then replacing it with another wheel. Monty took the videotape, thanked the investigator, and went into his office. The same old stories over and over — enough to induce a coma in a lawyer who seen it all a thousand times before. What pissed him off more than the dishonesty was the contrast between the malingerers and the people who had suffered real and devastating injuries, people who deserved to be handsomely compensated. He swept the faker’s file aside and turned to R. v. MacNair.
The discovery that Hubert Rendell had lied to the police when he claimed he had slept through the night of his wife’s death, that he had made at least one angry call trying to track her down, made Monty curious, to say the least, about Rendell. Monty knew very little about the naval commander, and what little he had heard was the stuff of hagiography; the bereaved husband was nothing short of a saint. Well, it now sounded as if he had a temper and wasn’t above embarrassing himself by phoning another man, demanding to know whether his wife was with him. It was time to learn a bit more about Rendell. Monty could not go to Rendell’s fellow officers looking for dirt, or even make inquiries about him. It would hardly enhance the reputation of the legal profession to have a lawyer defending the accused killer of a man’s wife going about with the obvious intention of casting suspicion on the bereaved husband. But was there a more subtle way he could ferret out some information?
You couldn’t spend your entire life in a big Navy town like Halifax without making the acquaintance of a few naval officers and men. And women. In fact, a few years ago, one of Monty’s old girlfriends had gone out in a ship, Nipigon, which was the first warship to take part in NATO exercises with a mixed crew of women and men. But, although Monty was on cordial terms with her, he couldn’t quite see himself taking advantage of their relationship in this way. Asking someone to snoop around above and below decks for information on a high-ranking officer could bring grief upon the head of the person doing the snooping. The client list at Stratton Sommers of course contained the names of several members of the military as well. And then there were Monty’s dad’s old buddies on land, at sea, and in the air. He couldn’t think of anyone who, as far as he knew, worked in any kind of records office. No such luck. He’d have to settle for someone who would be willing to ask around. Without drawing attention to himself or herself. The name he came up with was Doug Sawyer. Monty was a bluesman, a member of a group called Functus. Doug had started out with the blues, in another band, but later went country. He still played steel guitar with the Darn Barn Doors now and then, when he wasn’t out on patrol duty with the Navy. He and Monty had known each other for decades, and Monty decided to give him a call. It was a delicate matter, and Monty explained it as best he could over the phone: in order to give his client the best representation possible, he had to know if there was anything about the victim’s husband that might be related to the case.
Sawyer could read through the lines, but he said he’d be willing to help. “As long as it doesn’t require me to sneak in under the radar and break into anybody’s pers files.” Monty assured him that he didn’t expect anything of that nature, while at the same time saying to himself that he wished such a thing were possible. “It shouldn’t be hard to get a casual conversation going these days about Commodore Hubert Rendell,” Sawyer said.
“True enough,” Monty agreed. “It goes without saying, Doug, but I can’t stop myself from saying it anyway. This little project is utterly confidential.”
Doug laughed, as well he might. “You’re telling me? You think I want anyone to know I’ve been working undercover for the lawyer representing the man charged with killing the wife of the commodore?”
Doug Sawyer had never been shy about speaking his mind.
“I take your point, Doug. And I’m very grateful for your help.”
Sawyer was sitting in Monty’s office three days later, his coat dusted white from another snowfall.
“Well, as you might imagine, Monty, Commodore Hubert Rendell has an exemplary record.”
“Well, that’s pretty well what we’d have expected.”
“Yes.”
Sawyer was quiet for a moment and then said, “There was one thing.”
“Oh?”
“Old complaint. Nine years ago.”
“What was the complaint?”
“It was filed by a woman. A lieutenant. We have something called a Redress of Grievance procedure, but I’m not sure that it went that far, you know, whether the process was actually started, or she let it be known that she had a grievance and she might go forward with it. I didn’t want to grill the person who mentioned this to me.”
Monty tried not to look too keen. “No, I understand. What did she say happened?”
“Said he acted inappropriately towards her.”
“In what way?”
“My ‘informant’ didn’t have the details. Just that she felt his behaviour, or his attitude, might be holding her back from promotion.”
“I see.”
“And that’s all she wrote.”
“Do you have a name for me?”
Sawyer hesitated, and Monty was loath to try and drag it from him. But eventually it came out: “Lieutenant Diane Borowitz.”
“Where could I find Lieutenant Borowitz these days?”
“Jesus, whatever you do, don’t tell her you got this from me.”
“No, of course I won’t.”
“You’ll find her at the dockyard. She’s task group staff.”
“Where was this incident, or behaviour, supposed to have happened?”
“Here in Halifax. Summer of 1987, so it must have been just after the commodore got back from Europe.”
“Oh, he was in Europe?”
“Well, the North Sea. He was serving in HMCS Algonquin when she took part in NATO exercises there.” Sawyer laughed. “Maybe the boys enjoyed some time in the ports of northern Europe, and old Hubert was still a little wound up when he got home!”
Brennan
It was rare for Brennan to receive a personal letter in the mail, unless it was from his family in New York. But on Monday, March 4, he found an envelope with his name and address handwritten and a post office box shown as the return address. He took the envelope upstairs to his room and opened it. Mail delivery must have been delayed by the weather, because by the time the letter reached Brennan, he barely had time to do what was asked of him. The message was brief: “Father Burke, could you meet me at Perks at one thirty p.m. on Monday. There is something I would like to discuss with you.” It was signed “Lt-Col. A.J. MacNair.” Today was Monday. Why in the world would MacNair want to see Father Burke?
Brennan felt like a spook in a John le Carré novel, all the more because his identity was all but obscured by a high collar and scarf and a peaked tweed cap pulled down over his eyes to keep out the blowing snow. He slipped and slid his way to the coffee shop on Lower Water Street, arriving ten minutes before the appointed time. MacNair was in place ahead of him. Brennan stamped his feet to get the snow off and walked to meet his contact. He recognized him from his newspaper photo, although today he was in civvies — jeans and a sweater, with a heavy winter parka hanging on the back of his chair. Brennan joined MacNair at the table. Did not call him by name.
“Coffee for you, Father?”
“I’ll have a cup of tea. Thank you.”
MacNair ordered the tea and coffee, paid for them, and brought them to the table. Brennan made no attempt at small talk. Whatever this was about, idle chatter was not the order of the day.
MacNair was of the same mind. “I have of course heard the talk about Meika asking to see you the night of her death. As you can imagine in the situation I’m in, I have searched out every detail, every rumour, relating to this tragedy. I did not kill her, Father. It is important for you to understand that.” Brennan merely nodded, said nothing. “I believe, and perhaps you do as well, that she took her own life.”
Brennan did not express what should have been obvious: that the last thing he wanted to consider was that the woman had taken her own life. The grim possibility that she was murdered by the man sitting across from him in the coffee shop was Brennan’s selfish, shameful, unconscionable hope.
“So,” MacNair continued, “as a man facing life imprisonment for a murder I did not commit, I wonder whether you have any information that might help me.”
“Well, you seem to be in the know about the fact that I failed to meet her as I had promised to do, a failure I will regret to the end of my days. I do know that something was troubling her, but I have no idea at all what it was.” What he did know, now — or at least suspected — was that MacNair’s motive in seeing him was to suss out whether Meika had said anything to Brennan that might be incriminating for MacNair. Was Brennan sitting across from a killer, who hoped to use the priest’s relationship with the victim in his defence? Brennan was on his guard, but he would see the meeting through.
“You say she was troubled. That makes it even more imperative that I hear about any little detail,” MacNair said, “no matter how trifling it might seem, about Meika’s conversation, her demeanour, that night. Or any other time you saw her at the university or at the church. I realize that if it was a confession, you wouldn’t be able to tell me, according to Catholic doctrine, but some other conversation . . . ?”
“That’s right, but I can tell you this much. There was no confession, or even a request for a confession. If she was seeking the sacrament of reconciliation, she did not tip her hand to me about that when we had our brief encounter at Saint Mary’s.”
“If I’ve heard about your encounter with her, you’ve no doubt heard about mine.”
Brennan had read and heard about the voices raised outside the Atlantic School of Theology the night before the body was found.
“I can’t emphasize this enough, Father Burke. I had an argument with Meika that night, but when I left her, she was alive and well. Not happy, but not injured in any way.”
“Why was she unhappy, Lieutenant-Colonel? You have asked me that question. But it seems to me that you have the answer.”
“I know something she was upset about, yes. But I don’t know whether that is what she hoped to confide in you.”
MacNair took a sip of black coffee and looked around the room. He drew out a pack of smokes and offered the pack to Brennan. Brennan thanked him, took a cigarette, and they both lit up. MacNair inhaled, waited a few seconds, turned his head, and blew out the smoke. When Brennan remained silent, MacNair said, “We had an argument. It was just a personal matter.”
That was stating the obvious, Brennan thought; what else could it be but personal?
“The sort of thing that can develop between people who have known each other a long time. We raised our voices, made fools of ourselves, I guess, if any of the good citizens of Francklyn Street heard us, but she walked away under her own steam. I didn’t hurt her.”
Brennan, like the police, found it hard to see the combination of events that night as coincidental: a shouting match near the shore, a big emotional row between the two of them, and Meika found dead in the water hours later. But the Army officer was hardly going to cop to that. “What do you think happened to her then?”
“You know what I think, Father Burke.”
“She killed herself over you.”
This brought MacNair forward in his seat. He mashed his cigarette in the ashtray and said, “No! She killed herself because of her own unhappiness. It was her own state of mind that drove her into the water!”
The man was overwrought. Little wonder. But Brennan decided to use that if he could. “The news reports about you said you served in Germany with the military. Did you ever meet her over there?”
“‘East is east and west is west,’ Father Burke. ‘And never the twain shall meet.’ Don’t you know that expression?”
“Kipling. I believe it goes on to say, ‘Till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat.’”
Brennan had not expected MacNair to be rattled by his recitation but something about it hit a nerve, because MacNair shot back, “Leave it to a priest to spin this around to Judgment Day. Well, I’ll have you know that I have nothing to answer for on that day or any other day. Forget about Germany, forget about murder. I’m not responsible for the actions of a woman unhinged by whatever was going on in her own head. I was hoping you might have something that could shed some more light on that, but apparently you don’t. I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Father Burke.” And with that he got up and walked out into the blinding snow.
Monty
“Lieutenant Borowitz, thank you for agreeing to speak with me. You may want to put the run to me when you hear what I have to say, but I’ll give it a try.”
“That doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence, Mr. Collins.”
Diane Borowitz was a tall, fit-looking woman in her late thirties, with short dark curls under a grey woollen tuque. She had agreed to meet him but far from her place of work in the dockyard on Halifax Harbour. She suggested the Chickenburger, a popular eatery in Bedford. It was about a fifteen-minute drive from the city, if you took the scenic route along the Bedford Highway, and Monty drove out there at lunch time on Wednesday.
“No. Well, as I said to you on the phone, I’m a lawyer working on a case here in Halifax. I am in fact representing the man who is charged in the death of Meika Keller.”
The Navy lieutenant stiffened and she looked wary, as well she might. She didn’t speak.
“Lieutenant-Colonel MacNair, as I’m sure you know, is the man who’s been arrested.”
“Right. But I don’t know MacNair, except to say hello in passing. And I did not know Commodore Rendell’s wife at all. Saw her, but I don’t recall ever being introduced. I have spent much of my career on the West Coast, at Esquimalt, so I’m not as plugged in to the social scene here as others would be.”
“I understand.”
“So, I don’t see how I can be of any help to you.”
“Well, I’ll explain. First of all, what can I get you?” He looked over at the counter.
“I was thinking of sushi with a spinach and goat cheese salad on the side.”
Monty laughed. “Would you like fries with your chickenburger?”
“Naturally. And a large glass of orange pop.”
“I’ll have the same.”
He returned with their orders, and they took their first bites. After what he hoped was a decent interval, he got to the point. “What I’m hoping, Lieutenant, is that you’ll tell me something about Hubert Rendell.”
That wary look again. On his way out to Bedford in the car, Monty had tried to come up with a cover story that would disguise the true reason for his interest, that is, his interest in trying to cast suspicion on the bereaved husband of the victim. He tried out his story on Lieutenant Borowitz. “In putting together a defence for my client, I am trying to find out as much as I can about the backgrounds of the key people in Ms. Keller’s life. Any conflicts she might have had, her husband might have had, any history she had with other people in her time in Halifax.”
The lieutenant didn�
�t look any more convinced than Monty himself would have looked, upon hearing such a yarn. “How is it you think I can help you, since I had only a passing acquaintance with the people involved?”
“Well, I know you worked with the commodore.”
“Worked with would not be an accurate description. He was, and is, senior to me in rank.”
“I’ll be open with you.”
“Yes, I’d appreciate that.”
“In my conversations over the past few days, I heard that there was an incident. Or a complaint that you filed against the commodore.”
“You’re fishing around to see if he’s the type who would kill his wife.”
“I don’t know if I’d go as far as that.”
She gave him a look that said she’d been around the block — around the world in a series of Iroquois-class destroyers, more likely — and knew exactly how far the accused man’s lawyer would go in cobbling together a defence. Finally, she said, “I’m not going to get up on the stand and say Rendell strikes me as a killer.”
“No, no, I’d hardly expect that.”
“Wouldn’t do much for my career.”
“It could be a black mark against you, for sure.”
“I’m no fan of Hubert Rendell. But if you repeat that, I’ll deny it.”
“Fair enough. Can you tell me what the complaint was about?”
“Again, I have no intention of testifying or giving a statement.”
“All right. I understand.”
“This was years ago. Back in 1987. I think he had just returned from the operation off the coast of Europe. The North Sea. I ended up alone with him outside the Fleet Club. Or he contrived to get me alone.”
Here it comes, thought Monty. Now it was Rendell’s turn to get a woman alone and show himself to be less than an officer and a gentleman.
