by Anne Emery
“Was he close to his brother, Rolf, do you know?”
“I am sorry, I did not know them when Rolf was still living. If one can call it ‘living’ in the prisons we had here. And it would be difficult to get that information. Ernst would be a hard man to find, because he frequently crosses borders for his business interests. And frequently changes residence. So, I doubt I can help you there.”
“No, I don’t suppose I’ll be able to track him down. And if I do, I’d better hold onto my wallet.”
“Oh, no, you would have nothing to fear from E.A. Baumann. He would not steal from you, and he would not cause you harm. He might try to talk you into making an investment, but he really is not a bad man. Just someone who sees plenty of opportunities in the new Germany and knows how to work the system. I say, good for him!”
His wife gave him a look again and said to Brennan, “My husband has not shut his mouth since the Stasi went away.” She raised her arms and wiggled her fingers as if to illustrate something dispersing into the air.
“She is correct. After all those decades of fear, yes, I talk all the time!”
“Your mouth never stops. But, now, isn’t it time for us to go and work in the free market out there? We both work at a hotel in the city centre,” she explained. “We start in half an hour from now. And he yaps so much to the guests when they arrive at the desk that they should be given a discount, because they spend so little time in their rooms!”
Brennan thanked them for their hospitality and wished them well. He could see no point in trying to track down Meika Keller’s late husband’s entrepreneurial — piratical? — brother. That left him with one person to try to see. He was not looking forward to an encounter with the dead woman’s daughter.
* * *
Brennan was in bed in his hotel room, just about asleep, when the phone rang and he picked it up.
“Brennan, I don’t like to ring you this late your time, but I thought you should know this.” It was Monsignor O’Flaherty.
“What is it, Michael?” Brennan braced himself for whatever it was.
“Lieutenant-Colonel MacNair is dead.”
“What?”
He heard a voice in the background, and he thought he heard “killed himself.”
“What’s that, Michael? Who is there?”
“Em, it’s Mrs. Kelly here in the kitchen with me, Brennan. She’s saying she thinks MacNair killed himself, because . . . what’s that, Mrs. Kelly? Sorry, Brennan, just a minute. Her idea is that he killed himself because . . . No, Mrs. Kelly.”
Christ, wouldn’t you know she’d get in on this. Likely she materialized out of the mist just as Michael spoke his first words into the phone. Brennan well knew that in Mrs. Kelly’s expert opinion, the evidence pointed at one man, and it wasn’t Lieutenant-Colonel MacNair. The errant Father Burke was the culprit after failing to meet with Meika Keller the night of, or before, her death in the water. Good thing Kelly didn’t know that MacNair had asked to meet with Brennan — how long ago now? — more than three weeks ago. Imagine the theory she’d put together then.
Michael said again, “No, Mrs. Kelly. The police charged the lieutenant-colonel with murder; they must have had evidence against him. And now the Mounties say this death, too, is a homicide. They’re not saying why they think so. You know how they are, keeping details to themselves. It’s the Mounties investigating; the killing took place outside of Halifax, out at MacNair’s family cottage.”
“You know who they’re going to suspect now!” The housekeeper’s voice came through loud and clear along the transatlantic line. She obviously had her beak right up against the telephone.
“Who, Mrs. Kelly?” asked the ever-patient Monsignor O’Flaherty.
“The commodore! Because he probably thinks the lieutenant-colonel really killed his wife. But I know the commodore would never do anything like this!”
How she knew the mind of the man in charge of the Canadian Fleet so well was not explained.
“Is that the doorbell?” Michael O’Flaherty asked, out of the blue. Then, in a hushed voice, “I’m sorry, Brennan. To be passing along this disturbing news. And to have made the mistake of calling from the kitchen, rather than in the privacy of my own room! She shuffled in as soon as she heard me say your name. Here she is now. Nobody at the door. As you might have guessed. The blessings of God on you, Brennan.”
Brennan tried to process the stunning news he had just heard. Somebody killed MacNair, and Mrs. Kelly was not far off the mark in thinking suspicion would fall on the grieving husband of Meika Keller. But Brennan’s investigations in Germany had uncovered things about Meika Keller — Edelgard Vogt-Becker — that were not known in Halifax. Or, at least, Brennan was not aware if these facts were known there. From everything he had heard, it was an accepted fact that Meika had made a hero’s escape from East Berlin, mother and daughter running away from the checkpoint with bullets whizzing past them. That legend had not survived Brennan’s visits to Berlin and Leipzig. And Brennan had met a man who had passed secrets to the East German regime, passed secrets to Meika to send along to an apparatchik of that regime. So, what now accounted for the murder of Alban MacNair? Revenge by Commodore Hubert Rendell for the death of his wife? Revenge by someone else aggrieved by MacNair’s actions, personal or political? Or was it something else altogether, a spectre risen out of MacNair’s own past?
Chapter XXX
Piet
Piet Van den Brink was far from satisfied with what he had heard from the Mounties about their interview with Commodore Rendell. But it wasn’t his place to be satisfied; it wasn’t Piet’s investigation. And his dissatisfaction was not with the investigators in any way; it was with the answers Rendell had given when questioned. As far as Piet knew, there was no evidence as yet that Rendell had been at MacNair’s cottage, let alone that he had battered him or smashed his head against the corner of a metal trunk. But if anyone had a motive for a violent encounter with MacNair, it was the husband of the woman MacNair had killed.
So, when Piet got a call from RCMP Corporal Gilles Broussard inviting him to meet again at Tims at Young and Robie, Piet dropped everything else he was doing and made a beeline for the coffee shop. The two cops got their double doubles and found a table. After a bit of small talk, they got to the subject at hand.
“Piet, we spoke to Commodore Rendell again. Went to his house yesterday evening. This time, his car — silver Toyota Camry — was in the driveway. We decided to have a look before knocking on his door. First thing we noticed was dried salt spray on the body of the car. You don’t get that when you’re parked in the driveway of a house on the Northwest Arm in the city of Halifax. No crashing surf in the Arm that would splash up to Emscote Drive. So, he had been out to the shore. We went up to the house, knocked, and he was there. ‘Still at it, Corporal?’ he asked. I said, ‘Yes, sir, we are.’ And could we have a word with him? He stood aside and let us in, and we all sat in the living room. He perched himself on the edge of his chair and waited for us to begin.
“I have a copy of the transcript of the interview. Easier for you to just read it than have me act it out for you. Here it is. Take your time.”
Piet put down his coffee cup and took the papers in his hands. The transcript showed that Rendell had been questioned by Corporals Broussard and McKenna. A few notes had been pencilled in on the margins. Piet began to read.
“Have you been out driving in the country, sir?”
“The country?”
“Yes. Outside the city.”
“Is that a crime now?”
“If you’d just answer the question, sir, this will go a lot easier.”
“For you, maybe.”
“Sir, where were you in your car in the last couple of days outside the city?”
“I wasn’t anywhere committing murder, I can assure you.”
“Where did you get the salt spray
on your car?”
(R. hesitates, looks disturbed.) “I was out in Lawrencetown Beach visiting a friend.”
“When was that, sir?”
“The night of Tuesday, March twenty-sixth.”
Piet looked up at Broussard. “Contradicting the story he gave you the first time, that he had not left home that night.”
“Right.”
Piet returned to the transcript.
“What time were you out there?”
“I don’t know. Left here at nine or so.”
“And you returned when?”
“Late. I don’t know what time it was.”
“How did you get there?”
“Well, I drove, for Christ’s sake. Didn’t you say I have salt spray on the car? The waves were huge along the road there.”
“Your car was not here when we spoke to you last time. Wednesday evening.”
(R., no reply.)
“Sir? When we spoke to you that night, we were present here on Emscote for some time after we talked. We saw a young woman get out of an old Chevy Blazer and let herself into this house. Was that —”
“I left it out there.”
“Sorry, what was that?”
“My car. I left it out at my friend’s place.”
“Why was that, sir?”
“Guess. You’re the investigators.”
“Why don’t you just tell us?”
“I was drinking.”
Piet looked up again and said to Broussard, “Why was he so hesitant to admit he’d been drinking and not driving? Being a good citizen!”
“Finish reading and then I’ll fill you in.”
Piet resumed reading.
“When did you start drinking?”
“Oh, when I was fifteen or so.”
“And on Tuesday night?”
“I had a drink before I went out there.”
“We’re not here to charge you with an impaired driving offence.”
“No, you’re here to charge me with murder.”
“You can easily clear yourself of suspicion if you can account for your movements, Commodore Rendell. What is the name of the person you went to visit?”
“Petty Officer J.C. Lesage.”
“And what happened? Did he drive you home?”
“Yes, in the wee hours. Two o’clock or something.”
“And how did you get your car back?”
“My son drove me out there to retrieve it.”
“All right. What’s the petty officer’s address?”
(R. writes out address, gives it to Cpl. B.)
“Out in Lawrencetown, I see.”
(Cpl. McKenna) “If you’ll excuse me for a minute, sir.”
The transcript ended there. Piet said, “McKenna went out to check the alibi, I assume?”
“That’s right. Got the number, made the call, and the lieutenant denied that Rendell had been there.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. The petty officer is a she, by the way.”
“So, what’s happening now?”
“We’ve taken Rendell in for questioning.”
“Right.”
“So, I just wanted to get your impressions of the commodore from your time with him.”
“Honestly, Gilles, up to this moment I would have given him a pass. I really felt he had nothing to do with his wife’s death. I have to tell you, though, that there were some hinky aspects to all this.” Piet told the Mountie about the scene described by the daughter’s boyfriend, Rendell flipping out over the postcard and asking where his wife had really gone during her trip to Europe. “And maybe he had good reason to be suspicious. She had tickets to the opera in Vienna, and the Crown lawyer told me she never showed up. Yet she claimed she had enjoyed the opera. Or at least Rendell told us she did.”
“Whoa! That certainly puts a new spin on things.”
“Yeah, but I still didn’t figure him for her death. We had MacNair for that.”
“And why would Rendell take it out on MacNair in a fit of rage, if Rendell had killed her himself?”
“Maybe you’ve hit on it right there, Gilles. Rendell knew his wife and MacNair were getting it on, and he finally snapped and killed him. Same old motive, as old as time.”
Chapter XXXI
Monty
You never know, when you hang out a shingle advertising yourself as a criminal defence lawyer, who might appear on your doorstep. But the events of Monday, April 1, were extraordinary even after a quarter of a century in the business, even after all the surprises in the Keller-MacNair case.
Monty was sitting in his office in the morning, reading the news stories about the amalgamation of his city with the city of Dartmouth, the town of Bedford, and the county of Halifax. The police were now one regional force. As usual with a plan like this, some people were gratified and some were outraged. He was reading some of the comments, from both ends of the spectrum, when his secretary popped in to say that someone was here to see him. Lieutenant-General John Joseph Patriquin. Sure, send him in. The retired Air Force officer — and hero of the Sinai Desert — had been ready and willing to provide glowing testimony about Monty’s lately deceased client, Alban MacNair. What did Patriquin want to see Monty about now? He rose from his seat to welcome the old flyer when he walked into the office. The man seemed to have aged twenty years since Monty had seen him last. Despite his stocky build, he looked weak now. Stooped over. He had lost the confident air he’d had when they’d met before.
“Good morning, sir. Have a seat. Would you like a coffee?”
“No. Yes, yes, sure, a coffee.”
“Cream? Sugar?”
“No, thanks. Black is fine.”
Monty picked up the phone and asked the receptionist to bring two cups of black.
“So, what can I do for you today, John?”
Patriquin turned and looked behind him, then back at Monty, and was about to speak when Darlene came in with the coffee. She smiled at both men, gave them each a cup, and left the room. Patriquin got up and closed the door behind her.
“They’re looking at Rendell for the murder of MacNair. They took him in for questioning.”
“Yes, I know.”
Patriquin started to speak, stopped, and cleared his throat and began again. “Rendell is . . .”
“Rendell is?”
“Innocent. Didn’t kill MacNair.”
“What? How do you know this, John?”
“How in the hell could I know it?”
“You were with Rendell that night? Is that it? You’re his alibi?” Monty didn’t give voice to the other possibility.
“No, that’s not it.”
Monty was getting uneasy with the conversation. “Please explain what you mean, sir.”
“Anything MacNair told you is protected by your oath of confidentiality, am I correct?”
“Solicitor-client privilege, yes.”
“And now that he’s dead?”
Jesus, what was Monty to infer from this? “Yes,” he replied.
“And the same privilege would cover me if I was your client, true?”
“True, but we don’t have a solicitor-client relationship, at least not yet, unless . . .”
“I want you to represent me.”
“Represent you for?”
“I killed MacNair.”
Monty tried to hide his astonishment. He’d had long years of practice in court, maintaining a deadpan expression, obscuring his reaction to the unexpected and the unwelcome.
“So, I want you to represent me.”
Monty made an effort to stay on track, though his mind was reeling. “I wouldn’t feel right about it, John. How would it look to MacNair’s family if I represented him and then the man who killed him? And whatever happened b
etween you and MacNair before . . . his death would undoubtedly be traumatic for the family to hear. But I’ll get you someone who will do a stellar job for you, give you the best defence possible.”
“No need, Mr. Collins. I intend to plead guilty. No sensitive information has to come out. All we’re talking about here is some effective plea bargaining.”
“Well, I’ll have to think about this.”
“I don’t know what MacNair told you to explain that shouting match between him and Meika the night before she died.” He put his hand up to ward off Monty’s objections. “I know you’re not going to tell me. But he probably came up with some boy and girl story, forbidden love or some nonsense like that.”
Monty made no reply. He remembered MacNair’s claim that Meika Keller had been chasing him, putting pressure on him for a commitment.
“If he told you something like that, it was bullshit. If there was anything like that between them, it was long ago. When he met her in Germany. And even then, I doubt it. But back to the matter at hand. I would claim self-defence, except that I don’t want a trial.”
“Why not, if it was self-defence?”
“Because I can’t take the chance that my history with MacNair will come out. And if I was fortunate enough to be acquitted at trial, suspicion would fall again on Rendell. I ask you again: is our conversation covered by lawyer-client confidentiality?”
Monty made his decision. For now, at least, Patriquin was his client. The privilege would attach and remain in place. “Yes, it is.”
“I went out to MacNair’s house in Armdale but he wasn’t there. Family was away. I figured he’d gone out to his cottage, as he often does. He was plastered, been drinking for hours. I knew he’d given up the stuff; hadn’t been drinking in years. He sometimes got crazy when he was drunk. And that’s the way he was Tuesday night. I took a drink, too. We got into an argument and it escalated. Got to the stage where we were standing chest to chest, shouting at one another. We threw a couple of punches. He gave me a shove. I got my balance and put my hands around his throat. He wrenched my hands off, and I backed away. Then I came at him and knocked him on his back. He hit his head on the corner of a metal trunk there on the living room floor. I thought, Jesus Christ! He was dying before my very eyes. I thought I could get away with it. I wiped any place that would have had my prints. Left no traces in that cottage. Nobody saw my car parked a hundred yards away.
