Last Song Sung

by David A. Poulsen

  I shrugged. “I guess he could argue that he didn’t lie, that we just assumed when he said ‘Dad,’ he meant his own father.”

  “That seems a bit of a stretch. My turn to make a call. I’ll be right back. If you touch my tiramisu, I’ll have to kill you.”

  He was a lot quicker than I had been, and was back after just a couple of minutes. Before we could go any further with the conversation, the tiramisu arrived, and even Paula Pendergast’s revelation didn’t keep us from falling onto the dessert with purpose. But after the first few bites and the obligatory visit from the server to see how it was, we slowed down and looked up from the food.

  It was Cobb who finally spoke: “I called Beacham — he’s going to have one of his former colleagues check with Stats Can — find out if Tomlinson ever married, and if so, the name of his father-in-law and whether that person is still alive. In the meantime, I think we need to go back there. Tomlinson said the old man had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and then they would be going somewhere for lunch. I want to look around the place, see if we can turn up a few things — the real identity of the old man, for starters, and who knows what else.”

  “So we break into the place and do a little snooping. Is that what you’re proposing?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Why does this worry the hell out of me?”

  Cobb shrugged, then grinned. “I’ve kept you out of trouble so far, haven’t I?”

  “Actually, no, you haven’t. What you’ve done is get me into a fair amount of trouble, and then get me out of it again. That’s not the same as not getting into the mess in the first place.”

  “Eat your tiramisu.”

  By just after seven the next morning, Cobb had found us a spot sheltered by a canopy of trees from which we could observe the driveway to the Tomlinson house. The plan was to wait until Ben Tomlinson and the old man (whoever he was) left for their appointment, then get into the house and see what we could learn about the identity of the man Tomlinson had masqueraded as his father. And we’d see what else we could find that might be interesting. It all sounded so innocent when Cobb described it — like a visit to a realtor’s open house on a Sunday afternoon.

  We drank Tim Hortons coffee and ate old-fashioned plain doughnuts while we waited for the men to leave.

  We had been there only about twenty minutes when Cobb’s phone rang; it was an actual ring — Cobb, the old-school guy. He answered, mostly listened for a couple of minutes, said a couple of things in French, thanked the caller, and ended the call.

  “Staff Sergeant Lapointe, RCMP. Beacham’s connection. No record of Tomlinson ever having been married. He also checked if Tomlinson has a stepfather, and he doesn’t — so the dad thing is a charade. I’d really like to find out why.”

  “What if the doctor’s appointment was as big a fiction as the father thing?” I said between bites of my second doughnut.

  “I thought about that,” Cobb said, “but he didn’t say it to us. He was talking to the old man at the time. Of course it might have been for our benefit, but to what end? And looking at the old man, I’d say he’s probably a fairly frequent visitor to one or more doctor’s offices.”

  I chose not to debate the point. Instead, I finished my coffee and doughnut and tilted my seat back. I closed my eyes. “How about you take the morning shift, and I’ll handle the afternoon?”

  “Whatever I’m paying you, it’s too much.”

  “Actually, that whole pay issue is one we should discuss sometime soon.”

  “How about we discuss it right after your surveillance shift?”

  “The world hates a whiner,” I said, and slid into a sleep that ended twenty minutes later (it felt like five) when Cobb shook me awake.

  “Contact,” he said. “Ford Explorer just went by, heading south, two male occupants. Time to move.”

  I sat up, pulled the seat upright, and shook my head to dislodge at least some of the cobwebs. Cobb started the car, put it in gear, and we moved out from our hiding place. We made the three- or four-hundred-metre run to Tomlinson’s house and parked behind the garage. I hoped Tomlinson was the person driving the Explorer and wasn’t sitting in the living room reading the paper as we prepared to break into his home. I took some comfort from Cobb’s having done this sort of thing before and his being completely calm. Or oblivious. I opted for calm.

  In case we were spotted and aroused the interest of neighbours, Cobb had brought along two white jackets that read Eastern Electric. I suspected the jackets had already made a few trips here and there.

  I liked the fact that Eastern Electric could mean a lot of things and might fool at least some people some of the time. I’d have been much more confident in the ruse had we been driving a van that had Eastern Electric emblazoned on its sides instead of a nondescript Toyota Corolla that looked exactly like what it was — a rental car.

  Before we exited the car, Cobb said, “In case anyone happens to be watching, act like you belong here. Walk like you have someplace to go, and don’t look around. We go straight around the back and see if we can get in the back door. I checked yesterday, and it doesn’t look like the place is alarmed.” Then he said, “Here,” and handed me a clipboard. I wondered if Eastern Electric employees would be expected to carry clipboards but decided this was a question for another time.

  We climbed out of the Corolla in unison and strode purposefully to the back gate. I hoped there wasn’t a dog back there waiting to devour us and wondered if the clipboard could be pressed into service as a weapon, if need be.

  There was no dog, so we opened the gate and headed for the back door. Cobb knocked, then again, harder. No one came to the door. First hurdle cleared.

  Cobb pulled two pairs of latex gloves out of an inside jacket pocket and handed one pair to me. “These won’t protect you from being cut or punctured, so be careful where you stick your hands. Don’t reach into areas you can’t see into. If you’re in doubt, call me, and we’ll figure out another way.”

  I nodded as he tried the door’s handle. As both of us expected, it was locked.

  Cobb shrugged. “Worth a try.” He pulled a small tack hammer from a pocket and, without hesitation, broke the glass window that sat two-thirds of the way toward the top of the back door. He carefully cleared the remaining glass shards from around the frame, then reached in and down. It took a few tries, but finally he was able to locate and undo the lock, and seconds later we were inside the house.

  He had told me on the way there that we would split up in our search — he’d take the main floor, while I searched the upstairs for anything at all that might provide answers. Cobb was especially interested in learning the identity of the man Tomlinson had passed off as his father. And, of course, anything that related to The Tumbling Mustard.

  Wordlessly, we separated and I headed upstairs. There were four rooms on the second level of the house. Two of them were bedrooms, one was an office, and the fourth was a full bathroom. There was an ensuite off one of the bedrooms. I decided to check the bathroom first, my reasoning being that there might be a prescription or two that may have been filled in the old man’s name.

  I was disappointed that the only two pill bottles up there bore the name B. Tomlinson. Not surprising — yesterday we’d seen that the old man’s bedroom was downstairs, and his prescriptions were more likely to be found down there as well. There was nothing else of interest in the bathroom.

  I decided to tackle the office next. I opened every drawer, sifted through every piece of paper, and carefully examined each card in a fairly substantial stack of business cards, some in English, most in French, a few in both languages. I was hoping to see a name or a business that might have some significance, but there was nothing that set off any alarm bells.

  I returned each pile of papers to what it had looked like before I handled it — again, an instruction from Cobb. Next, I ta
ckled the two bedrooms. The first was almost barren; I took it to be a guest room. There was some linen in one closet, but all other drawers and spaces in the room were completely empty.

  An easy but disappointing search.

  That left only the final bedroom. It was clearly occupied, and I guessed it was Ben’s room. I opened drawers and rummaged through the closet, checking pockets of jackets and shirts. I looked under the bed, in the night table, and even flipped through the paperback books Tomlinson had stacked there — his reading taste leaned toward fantasy — but found nothing remotely incriminating or even interesting.

  I started back downstairs and almost overlooked a small table that sat inconspicuously on the landing halfway up the stairs. It had a sewing machine sitting on it, which might explain why I hadn’t noticed it or given it a thought on my way upstairs. I thought about it now. It wasn’t a sewing table. This was a sewing machine sitting on an ordinary end table.

  I began checking it out. More meaningless stuff in the drawer, but when I went to the two doors that opened in the middle, just below the drawer, I saw only one item: a scrapbook. I pulled it out, and realized the second I opened it I’d finally found something significant.

  The first third of the scrapbook was filled with yellowed newspaper clippings, all of them held in place by aged and weakened Scotch tape. Some of the tape had given way, leaving several of the clippings hanging precariously aslant.

  I leafed through them quickly, my excitement building as I did. The clippings were all from the period just before and just after Ellie Foster’s disappearance. There was a section that focused on the teach-in that had been staged by Five Minutes to Midnight, followed by pages of coverage of the failed attempt to rob the armoured car. Next came a series of clippings that focused on the coverage of Prime Minister Pearson’s various meetings, pronouncements, and public appearances.

  Only one of the clippings had any kind of notation on the scrapbook page. That was above a comprehensive Globe and Mail story on the impending unveiling of the new Canadian flag, scheduled for February 15, 1965. The story, dated three weeks before, talked about the celebration that was planned on Parliament Hill for that day and focused on Pearson’s involvement in the ceremony.

  Above the clipping was written the word “Midnight,” and a bull’s eye had been painted on the prime minister’s chest in the accompanying photo. To me, that was just another indication of the adolescent way this group of activists, if that’s what they were, had conducted themselves. But there was more to what I was seeing than juvenile silliness. These had been dangerous people, and I paused at the thought of how different so many things might have been had they carried out was at least a preliminary plan to assassinate the prime minister.

  The clippings took up about a third of the scrapbook. Several blank pages followed before I came to another significant section — this one a series of photographs. Though I hadn’t been to the Parliament Buildings in several years, I recognized the Peace Tower. On the next page was a sequence of photos with a handwritten note underneath identifying an RCMP constable who was in each of the photos. The note identified him as Constable Joseph Secours, whose job it would be to lower the Red Ensign for the last time and raise the new Canadian Maple Leaf flag above the Peace Tower.

  There were crowd shots taken at Parliament Hill — I guessed maybe from a previous July 1 celebration. In two of the photos, the prime minister, Lester B. Pearson, was at a podium. The thousands of onlookers gathered in front of him looked to be taking in whatever it was he was saying.

  There was one photo that gave me pause. It was of the policeman and the prime minister together, both smiling and looking at the camera. Behind them, the new Canadian flag flew above the Peace Tower. The photo clearly had been taken in the minutes just after the first raising of the flag. This time, a large X had been drawn through the photo. Frustration at not being able to carry out the plan?

  The last few pages were like a catalogue — lists and pictures of high-powered rifles and the ammunition they fired, details about several kinds of explosives, and instructions on how to use them. I didn’t take the time to read any more, but picked up the scrapbook and took it downstairs to show Cobb, who was just emerging from the old man’s bedroom.

  He looked up at me and shook his head, an indication that he hadn’t found anything useful.

  I held up the scrapbook.

  “This looks like pay dirt,” I said, and headed for the kitchen table, where I set it down. I let him open it and look at it. I looked over his shoulder but didn’t comment — I wanted to let him make his own assessment of what we were looking at.

  Twenty minutes later, he finally straightened and turned to look at me.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “It looks to me like Five Minutes to Midnight had planned or at least thought about assassinating Pearson and maybe the RCMP guy who raised the flag that day.”

  “I get going after the PM, but why the cop?”

  “Symbolism?” I shrugged. “It would have been pretty powerful if, as Constable Secours was raising the new flag for the first time, both he and the PM were gunned down or killed in some other way. You can imagine the chaos and confusion that would have followed, not just here but across Canada. I mean, it’s so outrageous it doesn’t even seem possible, and clearly if that’s what they had planned, they didn’t pull it off. We know there was no attempt. I wonder what happened.”

  Cobb tapped the scrapbook and nodded. “That’s what I take from this, too,” he said. “And I’m betting that whoever put this together was a member of Five Minutes to Midnight. Tomlinson, or the old man … or both?

  I shrugged. “Or someone else who then gave the scrapbook to one of them.”

  “We need to know what happened,” Cobb said. “And that isn’t in here.” He tapped the scrapbook again.

  “The other big question remains. Who is the old man?”

  “Roger that,” he said. “Come on, I want to check out the garage.”

  We’d taken only a couple of steps toward the back door when the front doorbell rang. I stopped moving and stopped breathing for a few seconds, trying to take comfort in knowing it was unlikely that Tomlinson would ring the doorbell of his own house. Cobb moved to a front window, pulled a curtain back, and peeked out.

  “I think it’s one of the neighbours,” he whispered. “Grab your clipboard and look like you’re inspecting stuff. I’ll get the door.”

  I grabbed the clipboard off the kitchen table and bent down over an electrical outlet. Cobb opened the door. I forced myself not to look up, thinking a real electrical inspector wouldn’t give a damn who was at the door. I glanced from the clipboard to the outlet and back to the clipboard, hoping whoever was at the door knew as little about electricity as I did.

  “Hi,” I heard Cobb say. Very cheery.

  “I live across the way,” I heard a male voice say. “Thought I saw somebody over here, and I knew Ben and his dad weren’t home. Thought I’d better check it out.”

  “Good idea, Mr. …”

  “Burkowsky. Who are you guys?”

  “Private contractors,” Cobb answered, still the soul of congeniality. “The power company hires us to inspect the older homes. They haven’t got enough manpower. Burkowsky, did you say? You got a Burkowsky on your list?” he called.

  I knew the last bit was directed at me so I made a show of checking the clipboard. “Burkowsky … Burkowsky. Yeah, we got him down for next week.”

  I went back to intently examining the electrical outlet.

  “I don’t blame you for checking, Mr. Burkowsky,” Cobb said. “Mr. Tomlinson’s lucky to have a neighbour like you. We’ll see you next week. Marge in the office will call to make an appointment. And, by the way, there’s no charge for the service call.”

  “Never had an inspection before.”

  “I know. New go
vernment regulations. Pain in the butt for everybody, believe me.”

  I still hadn’t looked back, so I couldn’t tell if Burkowsky was going to be difficult or not. I heard the door close and glanced back for the first time. Cobb was back at the window, I assumed to make sure the neighbour was actually leaving. He stayed there for a few more seconds, then turned back into the room.

  “Okay, he’s heading back toward his place. We’d better pick up the pace. We don’t know that he won’t call Tomlinson to ask him about the electrical inspection that’s happening in his home.”

  “You ever think of switching teams, you know, maybe becoming one of the bad guys? You’re a natural with the bullshit,” I said.

  Cobb snorted and pointed to the back of the house. “Let’s get out to that garage.”

  The next three quarters of an hour we spent rooting under benches, opening boxes that were stored on shelves, moving equipment and tools to peer into grease-stained corners. And we found nothing. We were halfway through the morning, and all we had was the scrapbook. And though I knew it was important, there was nothing there to incriminate Tomlinson, the old man, or anyone else. I hadn’t seen names or photos of anyone associated with Five Minutes to Midnight. Tomlinson could say he’d found the scrapbook, or it had been given to him, or he’d bought it at a garage sale, and there was nothing in it to disprove that.

  I looked at my watch — just after ten. I was beginning to get nervous. I’d heard Tomlinson talk about the doctor’s appointment and the lunch after, but I was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable hanging around the place. If Tomlinson and the old man did show up and found us prowling around, things could become a lot more uncomfortable.

  I looked at Cobb, but he didn’t seem to share my concern.

  “Back to the house — this time, you take the main floor and I take the second level.”

  I’d read enough cop procedurals to know that this was often the way searches were conducted in order to give every part of the search area two complete looks. That knowledge did nothing to alleviate my growing nervousness.