Last Song Sung

by David A. Poulsen

  “Was it in a case?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what was the CD of?”

  “It’s a song.”

  “One song,” Cobb repeated.

  A slow nod. “Yes, one song … and …” Her voice trailed off, and she looked down at her hands.

  “And what, Ms. Brill?”

  “I’m sure it’s my grandmother singing.”

  “Did you recognize the song?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve heard my grandmother’s voice before. On some old reel-to-reel tapes. She’d signed a record deal but hadn’t recorded anything before she disappeared, at least nothing commercial — just those tapes. But I’ve listened to them, and I’m quite certain it’s her voice on this CD, even though the recording is poor quality.”

  “Poor quality as in old?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. It’s quite scratchy, and there are a couple of places in the song where her voice fades out almost completely.”

  “And the song she’s singing on the CD wasn’t on any of the tapes you’d heard previously.”

  “No. I went back and listened to them all again, and this song isn’t on the tapes.”

  “Anything identifying the CD?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know — an image, a graphic, like an album cover?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Any writing on the case or on the CD itself?”

  “No, nothing. The case was dirty, but there wasn’t anything about what was inside.”

  “Is this the only thing you’ve ever received that might connect to your grandmother?”

  “I … I think so.”

  “And no phone calls, letters, nothing else that you or anyone else in your family might have found out of the ordinary?”

  “Nothing. And I’m sure if anything like that had come to someone else in the family, I’d have been told about it.”

  Cobb looked down at the folder again. “Is the CD in here?”

  “I made a copy. The copy is in there.”

  “The copy.” Cobb repeated.

  “As I told you, I was afraid you’d think I was a nutcase and refuse to take this on, so I didn’t bring the original … if the one I received was the original.”

  I was having trouble with her thinking that the first CD would make her seem like a nutcase but a copy wouldn’t. I wondered if Cobb would let that go. He did.

  “I’ll need you to bring the original CD with its case and the tapes of your grandmother performing earlier,” he told her. “I’ll see if a voice analyst can match up the voices.”

  He looked over at me, eyebrows raised, offering me the chance to ask some questions.

  “What about your mother, Ms. Brill?” I asked. “Is she with you on this investigation into finding her mother? Is she aware of it?”

  “My mother passed away four years ago. Breast cancer. She was only forty-seven years old.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Monica Brill’s expression didn’t change. “Her name was Alice; she changed it to Alicia as a young woman. She moved to Calgary when she was twenty, married my dad, and they divorced after ten years. We talked about my grandmother several times before my mother died. She never knew the woman who was her birth mother and never heard a word from her or about her after that night.” She pointed in the direction of what was once The Depression. “My mother was raised by an aunt — one of my grandmother’s sisters. Who, by the way, also knew nothing about what happened to her sister.”

  When I didn’t have any more questions, Cobb looked back at Monica. “What was your grandmother’s stage name?”

  “She didn’t have one. She went by her real name.”

  “And that was?”

  I answered the question. “Ellie Foster.”

  Monica Brill turned to me. “Wow, good memory!”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t around during The Depression days, but like I said, I’ve read about the place and what happened in that alley that night.”

  “If your grandmother had made any commercial recordings, Mr. Cullen would probably have them in his collection,” Cobb said, with a nod in my direction. “He has an accumulation of Canadian music that is likely unmatched.”

  “Accumulation?” I said.

  “It means you have a lot.” Cobb smiled.

  “Thanks for clearing that up for me.”

  Monica continued to look at me. “Sounds like you could be the perfect guy to have on the case.”

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh.” I pointed at Cobb. “He’s the investigator. I help out once in a while with research. Maybe I can contribute in that area.”

  She looked at Cobb.

  “One week,” he said after a long pause. “Then we meet again to determine if there’s any point in continuing.”

  “And that week will cost me …?” Cobb quoted the figure, and she nodded her agreement. “Do you require a deposit?”

  While they sorted out payment, I picked up the file folder from Cobb’s desk and glanced through it. It was thick and heavy — further testament to the work Monica Brill had done on her own.

  I picked up one piece of paper, the eyewitness account of someone named Guy Kramer, who had stepped into the alley just as the car had come racing down it. He had dived behind some garbage cans as the first shots were fired, so he didn’t see much, although he indicated in his statement that he had peeked over the bins at one point and had seen two men dragging Ellie Foster to the car and pushing her inside. He’d identified the car as a 1962 or ’63 Ford, dark in colour. Kramer didn’t get a licence number. Other than noting that there were two men and that one was tall, he wasn’t able to offer a description of either man. He thought, though he couldn’t say for sure, that both men were carrying guns. Someone had written at the bottom of the page, “This witness passed away in September 2003.”

  I set the page back in the folder and looked up as Ms. Brill stood up and reached across the table to shake Cobb’s hand. I also stood and returned the smile she offered as she shook my hand.

  “I’ll see you in a week,” she said.

  I nodded, afraid to say something that would offer encouragement in what looked to me like the biggest long shot since the 1962 Mets.

  When she’d gone, I offered the folder to Cobb. He shook his head. “Why don’t you take the first run at it? Lindsay and I are doing dinner tonight at her brother’s, and it’s a command performance. Get it back to me tomorrow; I’ll read through it then and we can compare notes.”

  “Does that mean this is another Cullen and Cobb extravaganza?”

  “Maybe. Like the lady said, who better to have on this case than an expert on Canadian music? There is one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’d rather refer to them as ‘Cobb and Cullen’ extravaganzas.”

  “I’m a writer. I know what sounds better. ‘Cullen and Cobb’ rolls off the tongue. And the pen,” I said.

  “This may require further discussion.” He smiled, then nodded toward the folder. “Impressive.”

  “Yes, quite an accumulation,” I said, grinning.

  “Happy reading.”

  Two

  The reading was a long way from happy.

  Cobb had wanted to get home to have time to get ready for the evening’s social function, so I gathered Monica Brill’s file and pulled on my peacoat — a bit of overkill, as fall had been easy on southern Albertans so far. My destination was the Purple Perk seven or eight blocks away; one of my favourite coffee haunts in that part of the city.

  Monica Brill’s file wasn’t comprehensive, but there was enough there to answer some of the questions I had and to prompt some I hadn’t thought of. It contained at least part of the homicide file. Having already read the statement of the lone eyewitness about
what had happened in the alley behind The Depression fifty-one years before, I decided to go to the police report next.

  It looked to my untrained eye like the work of the two police investigators, Norris Wardlow and Lex Carrington, had been both thorough and well documented. They had interviewed club management and staff, as well as several, though not all, of the patrons who had been there that night. The officers acknowledged and were frustrated by the fact that some of the audience had fled as word of what was going on in the back alley had spread inside the club. The two cops even talked to a couple of cleaners who had been working in a nearby building. The cleaners had heard the commotion but seen nothing. Because the area was commercial, there had not been the usual canvas of nearby residents.

  During the first days of the investigation, Wardlow and Carrington had focused on two things: learning all they could about Ellie Foster and the two shooting victims, and trying to find the car that had been used by the two gunmen. They had checked out several cars that answered the minimal description given by Guy Kramer. They were unable to find the one used in the commission of the crime. As for Monica’s grandmother, while the two officers were able to put together a fairly detailed account of Ellie Foster’s early years, they’d been less successful at discovering much about her life as a professional performer or anything that might have provided a motive for her kidnapping.

  Ballistics identified the murder weapon as a Colt Python and determined that both victims had been killed with the same gun. Six rounds in all were fired — three struck one of the victims, two hit the other, and one round missed both men and ended up embedded in the back wall of the building that housed The Depression.

  The investigators surmised (admitting it was only a theory) that one man had driven the car and that the second man, the passenger, was likely the shooter. Though the witness, Guy Kramer, had been very sure both men had gotten out of the car, he wasn’t able to say for certain which one was the shooter. And though he thought both had been carrying guns, he hadn’t been willing to state that fact with certainty. The investigators had guessed that the reason for his uncertainty was that he had ducked for cover behind the garbage cans as the shooting had started and may have had only a couple of glimpses of what actually happened — afraid to take a longer look for fear of being seen and ending up as the next victim. Understandable.

  Carrington and Wardlow had also interviewed Ellie’s family members: a sister, June, who was three years older and lived in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (it was she and her husband who had raised Monica Brill’s mother); Ellie’s mother, who lived in London, Ontario (Ellie’s father was deceased); and a cousin, who lived in Walkerton, Ontario, a couple of hours from London. I read the transcripts of the interviews, and beyond shock and sorrow, none of the family members were able to shed any light on what had happened in the back alley, or why.

  Only one comment of even mild interest came of those interviews. In response to the question, “Had your daughter seemed worried or anxious in the days or weeks before she was kidnapped?” Ellie’s mother had replied, “No, not worried or anything like that, but she seemed different. Sort of cold and unhappy, and that wasn’t my daughter.” Though Carrington and Wardlow had asked follow-up questions, Mrs. Foster had no explanation for her daughter’s altered personality other than, “Maybe she wasn’t handling becoming successful very well.”

  The detectives also spoke to the caregiver who had looked after Ellie’s baby girl, Monica’s mother, in London, Ontario, where Ellie had lived for the previous two years when she wasn’t on the road performing. Again, nothing. The investigators were not successful in finding the baby’s father. It was one of the questions they’d asked in every one of their interviews, but apparently Ellie Foster had not divulged that information to anyone — at least not to any of the people the cops questioned. Either that, or the people who did know the father’s identity had been sworn to secrecy and weren’t willing to betray a confidence, not even after the death of the person who had asked for that confidence.

  I read a while longer. What I found in those pages confirmed my belief that the two officers had worked hard. Wardlow had flown to Ottawa and talked to several people at Le Hibou, the club Ellie had performed at before her Depression gig. The two detectives also contacted a club called The Bunkhouse in Vancouver, where she was scheduled to appear the following week. The trail quickly became cold, and as I read and re-read the police report I could sense the growing exasperation of the two men. There were virtually no leads, nothing that would even remotely explain what had happened that night. They dug into the backgrounds of the two band members who were shot, thinking that maybe Ellie Foster wasn’t the main target of the attack. Again, nothing.

  Eventually I sat back in my chair, drank espresso, and thought about what I’d read. I concluded that, a half century after the fact, the chance of our solving this case — one that two apparently competent and dedicated cops with the advantage of working it right after the crime had taken place had struck out on — was next to nil.

  After pondering that sad reality for several minutes, I pulled the CD copy out of its paper-bag wrapper and, with earbuds in place, spent the next half hour listening to the lone song over and over, trying to find some hidden clue or message buried in the lyrics. I struck out. With authority.

  I figured Cobb would repeat my effort the next day, after which he’d decide there was no investigation to be conducted, admit defeat, and move on to something — anything — more promising.

  My cellphone rang. This week the ringtone was Robbie Robertson and the boys: The Band. A few bars into “The Weight,” I clicked answer and was listening to my favourite voice in the stratosphere, that of Jill Sawley, the woman I had been seeing for almost a year and with whom I was very much in love.

  “Hey, what’s up, Mister? There are two women over here who are hoping you’re having a lovely day and that you’re up for what folks in these here parts refer to as a strawberry shortcake fest. Kyla knows it’s one of your favourites, and apparently thinks we should spoil you. I tried to talk her out of it, but without success.”

  “Hnh,” I said.

  “Excuse me, but that sounds just a little south of enthusiastic.”

  “That’s because, as I am outnumbered two to one, said fest is likely to be followed by my being subjected to a chick flick, a film genre that ranks just slightly above horror on my ‘most hated’ list.”

  “Colour me guilty.” She laughed. “Sorry, but the testosterone extravaganzas offered by the likes of Stallone and Schwarzenegger are seldom on the bill at the house of Sawley.”

  “‘Seldom’ as in …?”

  “Never.”

  “Exactly. However, the promise of strawberry shortcake will offset the pain of having to watch Love Actually one more time.”

  “Thought that might happen.” Jill laughed again.

  I turned serious. “Is strawberry shortcake okay for Kyla?”

  Jill’s nine-year-old daughter, who had stolen my heart within minutes of our first meeting, had been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease a few months before, and I was constantly wary that this or that food item might cause her discomfort, or worse.

  “It’s not something she should be having often, but in moderation I think we’re okay.”

  “Then count me in. Want me to pick up a movie on my way over?” While most of the video stores had disappeared over the last couple of years, there was still one that I frequented and it seemed to stay busy, perhaps because the selection rivalled, and likely surpassed, that of any online carrier.

  “Already handled.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  I had a couple of hours and spent much of that time writing out and studying the lyrics from the Ellie Foster song, hoping I had missed something in my listening. Scratched out on paper, the words offered no more meaning than they had through the earbuds. I stared long and hard at them. />
  Summer sun. Summer fun. Some were done

  They walked the gentle path

  At first asking only that the wind and rain wash their shaking hands

  Stopping peace to fame

  That person’s name

  Man at the mike … so, so bad

  But good at play

  And always the sadness, the love over and over

  The long man points and tells

  An owl sits and stares, sound around and through his feathered force

  So much like the other place. And so different …

  Midnight. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. A time with no day of its own

  The last of sun. The last of fun. The last time won

  They circle the windswept block

  At first telling the youngest ones it’s only a dream

  See the balloons, hear them popping

  Are they balloons?

  No more the sadness, the hate over and over

  The long man points and tells

  An owl sits and stares, sound around and through his feathered force

  Midnight. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. A time with no day of its own

  Eventually my eyes ached and my frustration level had me shaking my head and tapping the page hard enough to break one pencil and threaten the welfare of another. And still I saw nothing. The inaccessible ranting of a pharmaceutically modified mind? Or a message? Or something else? Or nothing?

  I was having trouble believing that a CD containing one song would suddenly appear fifty years after the disappearance of the person singing the song without there being anything significant about it. It made as much sense to me as the lyrics themselves. I hoped that Jill or Cobb would have more luck deciphering the thing and closed my notebook.

  I decided to try something else. I’d been in situations before when having a story appear in the Herald and other national newspapers had been helpful. This was one time when I thought we really had nothing to lose. If reading and remembering the story jarred even one mind to recall a detail that had previously been unknown, then the story would be worth the effort.