by Warren Court
Dale Macintyre allowed his wife to pull him back and Armour relaxed just a little.
“Go on, go back inside.” She turned Dale around and he headed back up the steps to his house.
“I don’t know what you want or what you said but leave now,” she said.
“I meant no harm. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of it.”
“We don’t care anymore,” the woman said. “We’ve been through enough. We all have.”
“What about your son. Doesn’t he deserve justice?”
“He does,” she said as she turned to go back inside. Her husband was at the front door watching.
“Our son paid the ultimate price.”
“He was freed. Eventually,” Armour said.
The woman stopped. “Haven’t you done your homework? Is that the kind of lazy journalist and crackpot who is coming to us nowadays? We thought you people had grown tired of this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our son is dead. He killed himself. If you’d done your homework you would know that.”
Armour felt deeply ashamed and almost turned to go.
“Why did he do that?” he said.
He couldn’t believe he had just said that. It was like he was outside of himself hearing the words come out of his mouth.
“Because he couldn’t live with it. With the shame, with the stress,” she said. The words spat out of her mouth. “Now go write your article.”
“I’m not here to write an article. Or a book. I lied to your husband. I’m here because I know that your son is innocent. And I might be able to prove it.”
That stopped the woman. She was almost at the steps and turned.
“Oh really? Little late, aren’t you?”
“I had never driven down the Scotch Line road before.” Armour told her. “Maybe if I had sooner I could have gotten involved sooner.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I have spells, black outs. I had one about your son. Well not really, about the murder your son was convicted for. I’m trying to figure it out.”
“Ah a psychic. We’ve seen them before too. Trust me.”
“I’m no psychic. Believe me, I would like nothing better not to have these spells. But once they’re on me I can’t shake them.”
“Until…?”
“Until I figure them out. And If I figure this one out I’ll know who murdered that girl. You can finally clear your son’s name.”
“His name is already cleared.”
“I mean for once and all. Put an end to it, full stop.”
“You certainly have a unique approach, I must say.” The woman was no longer incensed, curiosity had gotten hold of her.
“I’d just like to talk to you about it. It might help me get there sooner.”
“I’m not having you come in the house, Dale won’t hear of it. Around the back, we have a patio.”
9
At the rear of the house was a simple concrete pad and a table and chairs. When Armour sat down he heard a screen door bang open and saw Dale come out.
“Dorothy, are you out of your mind?”
“You gotta hear this one, Dale. He’ll only be five minutes. Five minutes, right?”
“You bet,” Armour said.
He talked for twenty minutes, told them all about his spells. There were questions asked, mostly from Dorothy. Dale Macintyre had stood at the back door at first, arms crossed. Then gradually he moved closer to the table and chairs and eventually took a seat next to his wife. He sat there passively, arms still folded across his chest.
Armour told them about the other cases he’d worked on, went over the details briefly of the Krantz torso murder case without going into specifics. Don’t make the same mistakes on this one Armour had told himself in the morning when he got dressed. Don’t kill anybody or cause anybody to be killed.
While Armour was talking, Dale got up and went through the back door to the garage. Armour heard the distinctive plunking sound of pop cans dropping in a pop machine and he came out with three cold cokes.
“I’m a bit of a collector. I see you’re into antiques yourself,” Dale said, the anger from before gone, at least for now.
“Huh?” Armour said and Dale nodded at Armour’s bowler hat. Armour took it off and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and put the hat on the table. Dorothy picked it up and studied it. Armour would have normally protested or at least cringed. He said nothing.
“So, what do you want to know?” Dale said.
“Your son was with the girl that was murdered.”
“Sheila? Yes, he was. Two hours before she got in that car.”
“What car?” He consulted his notes.
“There was a brown foreign job seen on that road that day but nothing conclusive. Just a witness report from a twelve-year-old boy. They never found it though.”
“I’m a little at a loss for resources but I have a friend. She has this square thing, an ‘I’…”
“iPad, yeah we have two of those,” Dale said. “The wife and I play contract bridge on them.”
“Contract bridge, I love that game.”
“You play bridge? Thought the only people played bridge anymore were over sixty-five.”
“I haven’t in a long time. I play euchre with my friend, Melanie.”
“Bridge is sort of an addiction between us.” Dorothy laughed. “That reminds me we have to get to the legion in an hour.”
Armour pulled out his pocket watch and Dale laughed. “You’re all in,” he said.
Armour didn’t know what that meant but knew it wasn’t an insult.
“Getting back to that day. Your son was with Sheila. Gave her a ride on his bicycle.”
“Yeah, he was sweet on her. I remember that. I caught him on the phone one time he was talking to her, it was honey this and sweetheart that.”
“Did that come up in trial?”
“There was no goddamn trial. They got a confession out of him.”
“Right. I forgot he confessed.”
“That’s not what I said.” Dale was getting angry again but Armour knew it wasn’t entirely directed at him. It was an old wound that Armour had scratched, one that would never heal but the father was angry at the wound, those who had inflicted it, not at the scratcher.
“They got him alone in that confession room for eight hours. We tried to get a lawyer to him but they kept saying he hadn’t asked for one. And that he murdered and raped a girl, strangled her. No way they would allow us to see him. Not until they came out all proud as punch with a piece of paper that he had signed. We were in the lobby of the police station watching them high five each other. They didn’t care. The detective on the case, that son of a bitch, I wanted to leap over that counter and punch his lights out. Confession my foot. They beat my boy down and made him say what they wanted him to. Got him to change his story. The time of day he was with her. Where they went. How she had broken up with him.”
“Had she?”
“Yes. She broke up with him two days before but he told me they were back together again the day she was murdered. I remember when he came home that day, he was happy. The sullen mood he had been in for two days was gone. It was genuine.”
Dorothy put her hand on her husband’s arm and gave him a sad look.
“Anyway, confession in hand they railroaded my boy right into prison, an adult penitentiary. I don’t have to go into what happened to him there. When he was finally freed he came out a different person, I didn’t know him,” Dale said.
“How was he freed? Something about DNA?”
“Yeah. It’s this organization. We wrote them letters, dozens of them. They help the wrongfully accused. They took up the case. Had the evidence tested and it came up negative, meaning somebody else did it. That’s all it took, to get my boy released. They never cleared him though. They never gave him a full pardon, or whatever you want to call it. Said they just had no longer reasonable grounds to keep him i
n jail, that there were unanswered questions. Well that destroyed my boy more than jail, to come so close and have that hanging over his head. That detective son of a bitch, he went on the television saying how he was convinced my boy was the guilty party, that he didn’t believe in the DNA viability. Some sort of bullshit.”
“Dale, take it easy,” Dorothy said. He forced himself to crack a grin at her. He cleared his throat and sipped his now lukewarm coke.
“He hung himself, in our garage. Dorothy found him.” Dale had to look away, a tear rolling down his cheek.
There was an uncomfortable pause then Armour cleared his throat and pressed on.
“Who was the detective?”
Dale shook his head, could not answer, he looked at a slowly spinning windmill on a farm in the distance.
“Burke,” Dorothy said. “OPP detachment.”
Armour repeated the name to himself. “Mr. and Mrs. Macintyre, thank you. If I find anything out I will let you know.”
“No,” Dale said. “Don’t come back. My boy is buried, let the past be buried with him. I don’t have much time left, I’ll be damned if I give one more second to those bastards who did this to my son.”
“And to that poor girl,” Dorothy said and Dale nodded.
10
Back in his car Armour summarized what the Macintyres had told him. He wrote down in his notebook about the car, a brown foreign job being seen on the road but never found.
It was a short drive over to the OPP detachment. Armour had spotted it on his way to the Macintyre home. Something told him that he would eventually end up here. There were two marked black and white OPP Chevy SUVs in the parking lot. Armour parked in a visitors’ spot and headed in. A constable looked up from some paperwork as he approached the desk.
“Help you, sir?”
“Yes, I am looking for a detective. I’m not sure if he’s still on the force. Last name is Burke.” There was a sergeant passing by and he stopped. The young constable looked puzzled, didn’t know who Armour was talking about but the sergeant did.
“That’s okay, Luke, why don’t you go help with the STAT reports?” The young constable left.
“He won’t remember Burke, never met him,” the sergeant explained. His name tag said Kenny.
“But you do?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve been on for twenty-five years. Burke was a legend.”
“Is Burke retired?”
“Deceased,” Kenny said. “What do you want with him?” Armour could detect a note of hostility in his voice.
“I wanted to speak to him about the Truscott murder.”
“What for?”
“Some new evidence has come up but I wanted to get his take on it. You don’t know where he lived do you? Maybe his wife might have some insight.”
“Why would she?”
“He may have spoken to her about the case in the past, maybe he had his own theories.”
“I know where he lived, he used to have a summer barbeque. But I can’t give you that information. We protect our staff; living or dead.”
“I see.”
“But he’s in the phone book. His wife is, at least.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“What’s the new evidence?” The sergeant asked.
Armour was reluctant to say anything. He had been interested to learn about the car being seen on the road at the time of the abduction but he wouldn’t really call that evidence. And he was certainly not going to bring up the controversy around the Macintyre boy’s confession.
“We studied that case when I went to Aylmer. They caught a kid, convicted him. It was a big win for Burke,” Kenny said.
“He was freed, couple of years ago. DNA.”
“Right I remember that. So, I’ll ask again, what is the new evidence?”
“Do you know anything about a car that was seen that day? In the same area.”
“There were reports, the detectives ran that lead down. Never could find it. They stopped looking when the boy confessed.”
“Was forced to confessed.”
“Oh really. Were you there in the interrogation room?”
“No of course not.”
“He confessed alright.”
“His parents say otherwise.”
“They always do. You don’t have new evidence at all, do you? Got the license plate of that car?”
“No, I can’t really get into it.”
“You have a nice day then.” The sergeant dismissed Armour with a look.
The Burkes lived just a couple of blocks from the Detachment. Armour pulled up in front of their household and saw a ‘for sale’ sign on the lawn. He was getting here just in time. He rapped a little harder on the front door than he intended and he heard some shuffling behind the door and a clump-clumping sound. The door opened a crack and a silver-haired head and glasses poked around.
“Mrs. Burke?” Armour enquired.
“If you’re here to see the house, you have to contact the agent. His name and number are on the sign.”
“No, that’s not why–”
“This is really unfair, you have to make an appointment. I can’t just drop everything to let every Tom, Dick and Harry in who wants to buy my house.”
“No, no, nothing like that. I want to ask about your late husband, he was detective Burke, wasn’t he? OPP detachment here in town?”
“Yes… he was. What’s this about?”
“The Truscott murder.”
“Oh dear.” She sighed.
“I went to see the parents of the boy they arrested, the Macintyres. Do you know them?”
“Only too well. The husband… he punched out my son, he was thrown in jail for it.”
“They say your husband got a confession out of the boy. Forced it out of him.”
“I know what they say. Come in. I don’t want to catch a cold.”
She let Armour in and he removed his shoes and took a seat on an antique wing back chair. His hat was in his lap.
She took her time, moved slow going from one piece of furniture to the next until she sat opposite him on the settee. The clumping sound he’d heard was a walker but she left it at the front door.
“My husband was a good man.”
“I’m sure that’s true.”
“That boy did it. My Arthur went to his grave knowing that.”
“DNA cleared the boy.”
The woman scoffed and waved her hand at Armour. He had to play this one correctly. He could be asked to leave at any moment if he said the wrong thing. Play it right down the middle, don’t take the parents side, nor hers. Just get information out of her. Don’t be stupid, Armour, or you might very well be plagued by this particular spell to the end of your days.
“My husband always thought there might have been two boys. Wouldn’t that account for other evidence.”
Armour, despite his preference for living in the early twentieth century could speculate what DNA in a rape murder case might mean. “I suppose. But I’ve never heard of a second suspect. I don’t think it came up during the boy’s… confession. I don’t think he’s ever made a statement to that affect. I did hear about a car on that road. Seen just before the murder.”
“Yes, and my husband looked into that. I can assure you. Do you want to see?”
“See what?”
“His case files.”
Wow. Armour thought, amazing. “Yes please, if it’s not too much hassle.”
“No hassle at all. You’ll be the one crawling in there to get them.”
She led Armour to the top of the stairs to the basement and told him where the crawlspace was. Armour descended and flicked on the light. There was some dusty exercise equipment in the corner. The orange shag carpeting had a large stain on it and there was a bar built out of bricks in one corner. It looked like a world war two pill box. Three stools made out of thick bamboo poles were positioned in front of it. On the back bar behind it were strange looking bottles coated in the same thick dust as the treadmi
ll and rowing machine.
There was a space on the carpet, a large square where the shag fibres had been pressed down and saved from the ravages of time. It was bright orange in contrast to the rest of the room’s muted colour. Must have been a large television there for some time.
He found the wooden door to the crawl space, it was about two metres square and raised up from the basement floor about three feet. There was a small ladder propped up against the wall below it. He stepped up on the creaking ladder gingerly and opened the door. He saw a string hanging down from a bare light bulb and pulled it, filling the confined space with harsh white light.
The ceiling of the crawl space was aluminum pipe work of heating ducks and exposed pink insulation. In one corner was several suit bags lying on top of each other. Pushed into the farthest corner was a solitary cardboard box. Armour climbed up and further into the space to get to them. As he moved into the space, the door closed behind him with such a bang it gave him a start. But the light was still on, he was not going to get too freaked out.
He dragged the box towards the crawlspace door and banged his head on a pipe above him.
“You alright?” he heard the woman say in a muffled voice.
“I am, ma’am.”
He got the door open and dragged the box through the entrance and set it on the floor. Then he crawled back up to turn the light off and closed the door. As he carried the box up the stairs Mrs. Burke backed away to give him some room.
He paused to catch his breath and noticed that his shoulders were dusty. He patted them off and then his knees.
“You could have done that down there,” Mrs. Burke said. “I am trying to sell the place you know.”
Armour apologised and carried the box into the living room.
“Do you want a tea?”
“If it’s no bother, sure,” Armour said. She disappeared into the kitchen and he heard the kettle start to boil. He started slowly pulling papers out and didn’t get past the first couple before she came back in with a tea and coaster. He thanked her.
“I’ll be upstairs. I’ll leave you to it. I have to fold some laundry,” Mrs. Burke said. He heard her laboured breathing as she climbed the stairs.