Last Song Sung

by David A. Poulsen

  I liked Jack Beacham right off, and I think Cobb did, too. He was already set up at a table in the main part of the place when we arrived. Beside his chair was a briefcase, open. In it we could see file folders, notepads, and computer discs. He was carrying an iPad and had it sitting on his lap. Ready. We probably liked him even more at that point.

  But first came the job of sampling three or four of the baked items that graced display cases along two sides of the place. That, and coffee. Small talk that morphed into Cobb and Beacham trading cop stories: some hair-raising, others pretty funny.

  The food dispensed with — quite industriously — it was time to see if the inspector could tell us anything that might be helpful.

  Cobb had already spoken to him on the phone, but went over again what we were looking for some help with.

  “I have to be vague, Inspector, because the truth is, we don’t know what exactly we’re after or even if we’re in the right area code when it comes to finding out what happened to Ellie Foster.”

  Cobb went over first what we knew and second what we theorized. Beacham listened carefully, nodding a couple of times and asking only one question — he wanted Cobb to repeat the name of the third possible owner of The Tumbling Mustard.

  When Cobb was finished and I’d arranged refills of coffee, Beacham leaned forward. “Okay, first of all, a little background. You’re right, those were turbulent times. President Kennedy had been assassinated, and that seemed to be the trigger — and I realize that’s a terrible pun — for so much of what followed. Vietnam had taken centre stage; Cuba wasn’t all that far in the rear-view mirror, and groups like the Black Panthers were pissed off and wanting to do something. People tend to think that it was all happening in the States, and that’s true to some extent, but we had our pockets of dissidents up here, too. Most of them were relatively benign, but don’t forget, we were only a few years away from the FLQ Crisis.

  “After you called me, I did some digging.” He held up a hand. “And don’t say I shouldn’t have gone to the trouble, because this is the stuff I’ve lived for all my life. It wasn’t trouble; it was interesting, and it was fun to be back in the game even in a limited way. By the way, I studied the lyrics of the song you sent me, and I found them interesting, too. I’ll get to that later. The bad news is, I don’t know how much good I’ve been able to do for you.”

  “Anything you’ve got, Inspector, is likely more than we’ve got now, and it’s much appreciated,” Cobb told him, as I nodded my agreement.

  “Okay. For starters, you don’t have to call me Inspector. Jack will do nicely. So what I did was try to focus on stuff we were looking at during late 1964 and into 1965. And you’ll be interested to know that The Tumbling Mustard was on our radar, although not in what I’d say was a big way. And that’s not as much of a rarity as you might think. We also looked at Le Hibou, not because it was some kind of radical hotbed but because we were interested in any places that brought poets, musicians, playwrights — the artistic types — together.” He looked at me with a slight smile. “Everybody knows what a breeding ground of dissent you damn writers are.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Guilty as charged, sir.”

  He laughed, then reached down into the briefcase to pull out a file folder. I glanced at Cobb, and he put a finger to his lips — the message being that it might be best not to ask Jack Beacham how he had come to possess the stuff that was in that briefcase.

  We were quiet for a few minutes as Beacham rifled through papers, sorted, organized, finally narrowing his search down to just a few pieces of paper that he looked at long and critically through half-frame reading glasses. Finally, he looked up at us again, removed the glasses, and used them to tap one of the pages he’d laid out in front of us.

  “By the way, I was in the force at that time, but it was early in my career and I wasn’t immersed in this stuff until a couple of decades later. But it appears my colleagues were interested in three different groups around that time. TFR, which stood for Time for Revolution — you can tell from the name alone this wasn’t a group that had a lot of deep thinkers in it. Their chief claim to fame was having Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary up here to speak. Their ‘revolution’ was all about LSD and not much more.

  “They drew big crowds for those two, and it looked like this was an organization with some traction, but it fizzled and disappeared within a few months of that event. That was in ’64. The second group was interesting. But it was really in its infancy in ’65; became more of a force in ’67 and ’68, when the protests against the Vietnam War became bigger and better organized. The group was first called Part of the People, acronym POP, but they changed their name to Doggers in ’67. I think they wanted to align themselves with Diggers, which was a pretty prominent radical action force in the U.S. The American group was led by Peter Coyote. I don’t know how closely aligned the two groups became, but several members of the Doggers were arrested, some repeatedly, as they protested the war and the ‘fascist campus leadership’ — a lot of the same stuff that was going down all over North America and elsewhere.

  “As near as we can tell, the Doggers just kind of faded away; we didn’t hear much from them after ’68 or ’69.”

  “Either of those groups have any real connection to The Tumbling Mustard?” I asked.

  “Didn’t find any references to it or Le Hibou, which isn’t to say they never went there, but I don’t think we can look to The Tumbling Mustard as any kind of headquarters.”

  I nodded.

  “Which brings us to the third group, a little more colourful … and maybe a little more relevant.”

  Cobb glanced at me, noncommittal but interested. I leaned forward, took a drink of the now-cool coffee.

  “They were called Five Minutes to Midnight. I don’t know the significance of the name other than as a kind of countdown, maybe — midnight being the time they were going to do something dramatic?” He shrugged. “They staged a teach-in at the University of Ottawa during the first week of classes in September 1964. That’s really the first we heard of them. Then, not much but a couple of meetings and a protest against a prof, guy with a Polish name, at Carleton, some student boycott deal — got the prof suspended for a term. Don’t know the reason the group disliked him. That was it until the last week in December that same year. There was an attempted armoured car holdup in Little Italy; it was late at night, not far from The Tumbling Mustard, now that I think about it. Not that we saw any link to the place at the time, and there’s no particular reason to lean that way even now. We’re not sure how many people were in the gang; it was dark, but the guards thought five or six. There were shots fired on both sides, first by the robbers, then by the armoured car guards. One of the guards received a minor wound, but two of the gang members were hit. One was dragged off by fellow gang members, and they tried to take the other one as well. The two guards were veteran guys and, by all accounts, pretty damn fearless. They were able to drive off the bandits, leaving the one guy lying on the ground. He died in hospital two days later without regaining consciousness.”

  Beacham tapped a finger on the paper in front of him. “The guy’s name was Calvin Bush. Born in Ottawa, but the family moved to upstate New York, came back in 1959. Bush finished high school here and was kind of an on-and-off student at Carleton. Was one of the organizers of the teach-in at the University of Ottawa a few months before. By the way, the guard who wasn’t injured — his name was Payne — insisted that one of the people involved in the attempted holdup was a woman. It was dark, so he couldn’t be 100 percent certain, but it was a claim he stuck to right up to his dying day.”

  “Shades of Patty Hearst,” Cobb murmured.

  Beacham nodded. “Except Hearst was ten years later.”

  “Any idea as to whether the woman in Five Minutes to Midnight was forced to participate, like Hearst alleged she was, or if she was a willing participant?” I
asked.

  Beacham shook his head slowly. “I’ve read a fair amount of stuff on the attempted holdup, and it doesn’t look like that was ever determined.”

  Cobb and Beacham started to look through some of the documents Beacham had brought. I said, “Ellie Foster’s manager’s last name was Bush. I don’t have a first name.”

  Cobb looked up. “That’s right — the guy you’ve had trouble tracking. Maybe now we know why.”

  Beacham looked up and whistled. “Interesting. I wonder if it’s the same guy.”

  Cobb thought about that, then said, “Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that the Bush in the holdup was Ellie Foster’s agent and manager. She obviously had a number of bookings, including Le Hibou and The Depression, after the guy was killed in the attempted armoured car heist. I wonder how she got those bookings.”

  I said, “Most performers’ bookings — I think even back then — were made a few months ahead of the actual gigs. So it’s possible that they were made by Bush before he died — if this guy is the same Bush. Let me make a call.” I stepped away from the table and walked outside, where I dialed Armand Beauclair’s number. I hoped he was close to his phone.

  He was, and clearly he recognized my number. “I don’t talk this often to my kids,” he greeted me.

  “Yeah, and I’m sorry to bother you again. Just one quick thing.”

  “Sure … shoot.”

  “You mentioned that you booked Ellie with a guy named Bush but couldn’t remember his first name.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How about I throw a name out there? You think if you heard it, it might ring some bells?”

  “We can try it. I’m not sure the bells are ringing as clearly as they were a few decades ago, but go ahead.”

  “Calvin Bush.”

  A pause. “Calvin,” he said slowly. “Calvin … I won’t say yes for sure, but I won’t say no either. It sounds like it might be right, but that’s about as definite as I can be — which I realize isn’t very definite at all. Sorry.”

  “You remember a shootout involving an attempted armoured car holdup? Tail end of ’64?”

  “Yeah, maybe. That does ring a bell. What about it?”

  “A guy named Calvin Bush was shot and killed by the armoured car guards. We don’t know if there’s any connection, but we’re just trying to make some pieces fit the puzzle.”

  “Guess that makes me look like a putz — here’s this guy that I might know, gets killed trying to rob an armoured car, and I don’t put it together. I can’t remember, but either I didn’t read the reports all that closely or I didn’t tie the name to Ellie Foster’s manager. Or it’s just possible I was stoned at the time and it didn’t really register. There was some of that happening back then. Sorry again.”

  “No need to apologize,” I said. “One more for you — ever hear of a group called Five Minutes to Midnight?”

  “Group as in musicians?”

  “Group as in sixties radicals.”

  “Sorry, that’s not registering at all. Calvin Bush part of that group?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it would really help if I could confirm that Calvin Bush was also the guy I booked Ellie through.”

  “That would make my day.”

  “Wish I could.”

  “Hey, you’ve helped us a lot, and I appreciate it.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I’m still hoping you find her. And I don’t mind you calling, I really don’t.”

  “That’s also appreciated, Armand. Have a great night.”

  I went back inside and joined Cobb and Beacham at the table.

  “I phoned a guy who used to help run Le Hibou — he’s not sure, but says it might have been Calvin Bush who did the booking for Ellie. I’ll keep chasing that.”

  “Might have been,” Cobb repeated.

  “He couldn’t say for certain.”

  Cobb nodded. “Fair enough.” He then turned to Beacham. “You have any other names of people that were part of the Five Minutes to Midnight group?”

  Beacham nodded, pulled another sheet of paper out of the manila folder. “Three of them: Andujar Nuno, deceased July 6, 1977; Jonathan Kempner, deceased November 9, 1990; and Hazen Tribe, name suspected to be an alias, whereabouts unknown. Clearly there were others, but those are all the names on record. Or at least that I could access.”

  He passed the list to Cobb, who stared at the names for a time, then shook his head. “Mind if I keep this?”

  “That’s a photocopy,” Beacham replied. “I made it for you.”

  Cobb nodded. “We appreciate what you’ve done. One last thing — the deceased former members of Five Minutes to Midnight — Nuno and Kempner — any details as to cause of death?”

  “Not in the file, but let me ask around, see if I come up with anything.”

  Cobb shook his head. “You’ve already gone way above and beyond. I can’t ask you to do any more.”

  “You didn’t ask. I offered. Let me see if I can find anything.”

  Cobb, as he usually did, looked at me to see if I had anything I wanted to ask.

  “Just the three events?” I said to Beecham. “The teach-in, the attempted armoured car holdup, and the boycott of the professor. Doesn’t seem like they were very active.”

  “At least in terms of things we knew about, but yeah, I agree.” He nodded and leaned back in his chair. “This is just me talking now, but I’m betting they had some more plans. Having a couple of people get shot tends to be a bit of a deterrent.”

  “Any rumours around that time about somebody wanting to mount something against the prime minister?”

  “I never heard any, but I wouldn’t have. I was pretty junior. Again, let me talk to a couple of people.” He held his hands up before Cobb could object. “Listen, I’m at a point in my life where having a reason to get up in the morning is a blessing. So don’t take away the blessing.” He smiled.

  Cobb returned the smile. “Just so you know, we appreciate it, and we don’t expect it.”

  “Understood.”

  “There’s something else,” I said. “Five Minutes to Midnight — there’s a midnight reference in the song lyrics. Nobody said much about that during our lyrics-deciphering bee, probably because no one was able to make any sense of it. But this might be a connection. I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, I’d mentioned I had a thought or two about the lyrics — especially that line about midnight.” Beacham pulled out the copy of the lyrics, and the three of us grouped around the lone copy. Beacham read aloud, “Midnight. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. A time with no day of its own.”

  “It’s repeated twice, once in the middle and once at the end,” I said.

  “But does it mean anything?” This time it was Cobb who was casting doubt.

  “You told me on the phone some of the thoughts your group came up with on the lyrics,” Beacham said.

  Cobb nodded. “What I don’t know is how accurate our deductions were.”

  “I’ve always been a where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire kind of guy. To me, a line like that and a group like Five Minutes to Midnight that was active at the time you’re looking at — that looks and smells like smoke to me. Like I said, if midnight is a kind of D-Day-now-we-go reference, and you’re thinking Pearson could have been a target, that song starts to become pretty damn significant.”

  I tapped the paper. “If there were only one or two things that sounded meaningful in something like this, it might be hard to give it much credibility. But the truth is, there are a lot of references that might be linked. And now here’s another that seems to be pointing in one direction.”

  “And what direction is that?” Cobb asked.

  I looked at Beacham. “Which way to The Tumbling Mustard?”

  The former RCMP inspector to
ld us it wasn’t far, and recommended walking if we wanted to get the feel of Preston Street, the central artery of Ottawa’s Little Italy. We took his advice, and the three of us headed south. Preston was a busy, bustling thoroughfare with noisy energy. I liked it.

  The potpourri of smells, most of them to do with food, some less pleasant than others; the rise and fall of shop and street noise; and always the hurried motion of people, some from the neighbourhood and others, like us, clearly not — all of it provided a vitality that made me like Ottawa much more than I’d thought I would.

  After fifteen minutes or so, Beacham pointed to a building up ahead on our side of the road. “That’s where The Tumbling Mustard stood. The building was torn down in the mid-1990s. I think it was offices — low-end real estate types, maybe — at the time of its demise. It was pretty decrepit by the end.”

  “And where was the shootout?”

  Beecham pointed. “Again, not all that far — corner of Booth and Somerset. Not sure what business the armoured car was picking up at, but it’s likely long gone too. There’s been a fair amount of renewal in this area.”

  The opening bars of “The Boys in the Bright White Sports Car” emanated from the inside breast pocket of my jacket, so I wandered off a few feet to take the call. It was Jill.

  “Hey, cowboy, how are things in our nation’s capital?”

  “Slow going so far, but we remain ever optimistic.”

  “You are not going to believe what’s happened.”

  “Kyla’s been admitted to Harvard,” I said.

  “How did you know that?” Jill laughed. “No, not that, but almost as good. Celia just called, and an anonymous donor has stepped up with twenty-five thousand dollars for the shelter. We’re back in business.”