Last Song Sung

by David A. Poulsen

  I waited for him to regain control. It didn’t take long. In his own way, Daniel Gervais was tough. “What about the CD?” I asked. “Was that you?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t know Ellie … had a granddaughter until a few months ago. Tomlinson let it slip. I figured Ellie would want her granddaughter to have something. Afrer she died, Tomlinson burned all the songs Ellie had written — pissed off that her dream of a big comeback died with her. But I’d had that one tape for a long time. Made sure he never found out about it. It took some doing, but I knew a guy out in Calgary, thought he might be able to get it to her. It was a song Ellie had written just before the day of the flag raising — like an anthem. I got some money and the tape, and one day while he was getting a haircut, I rolled over to the post office and sent the CD and the money. I told the guy I wanted him to break into the car. I had this crazy thought that if there was a little intrigue involved, and especially with that song, maybe she’d go to the cops or somebody … somebody like you. I wanted her … or someone to know about her grandmother.”

  “Something I don’t understand,” I said. “Tomlinson seemed almost dedicated to you yesterday when we were here. Concerned — taking you to the doctor … I heard earlier that he was reading seniors’ magazines, presumably to be able to help you, and even served on the board of a senior’s organization.”

  Gervais weakly waved a hand. “All part of the charade. Every day of his life, everything he did was play-acting. If he read a seniors’ magazine it was to learn strategies that would help him exercise control. Not that he needed help with that.” He laughed a bitter, gurgling laugh. “The neighbours thought he was a devoted family guy … a great guy.”

  I thought about Burkowsky coming by to check up on his neighbour’s place.

  The phone rang again. I looked at Cobb, and he nodded. But as I crossed the room to the phone, I heard him ask Gervais one more question: “Mr. Gervais, would you like us to arrange a meeting with your granddaughter?”

  Fifteen

  I hadn’t seen it, hadn’t sensed it. I asked Cobb about it after.

  “I wasn’t sure,” he admitted. “But there were clues, not so much in what Gervais said, but in how he spoke of Ellie. He said he’d known her before The Tumbling Mustard, so the timing was right for them to have had a relationship. And his staying with her through all those years of what had to be hell with Tomlinson when he could have left, that got me to thinking. I knew he felt guilty, but I got a sense there was something more there. He loved her, of course, but I started to wonder if he felt a greater bond than even love or guilt. And his being the father of Ellie’s child just made sense.”

  We’d gone through several hours of questioning by the cops, not knowing for sure if Daniel Gervais would live long enough to corroborate our story. He and Tomlinson were both taken away in ambulances. Tomlinson’s death was confirmed not long after his arrival at the hospital.

  I was still shaken by all that had happened there that day, and knew it would take some time for me to recover. A doctor in Ottawa who worked with soldiers with PTSD spent time with me and recommended a colleague he thought I should see when we got back to Calgary.

  It was the third time I had been face to face with someone threatening to kill me. And it was the second time since I’d begun working with Cobb that I’d seen someone gunned down right in front of me. The second time wasn’t any easier than the first time had been. Both of the victims had been extremely bad men, but that didn’t lessen the horror.

  We remained in Ottawa for a few days while the police completed their investigation and introduced Monica Brill to her grandfather. She virtually lived at the hospital and was at his side when he died three days later.

  Cobb and I visited Gervais a couple of times at the hospital, too, but though we both had questions, we asked none of them. The old man had given us all he had, and it would have to be enough. He did manage a smile when I told him I admired his art.

  When Monica learned we had been staying at a Super 8, she booked us rooms at the Lord Elgin, despite our objections. When we checked in, we were told our bill had already been taken care of.

  It was our last day in Ottawa, and we were having lunch with Monica at the hotel’s Grill 41. She and I had opted for salads, hers a Caesar, mine roasted beet, while Cobb went with the butternut squash ravioli.

  Cobb eyed my selection suspiciously, and after what looked like a particularly satisfying bite of his ravioli, said, “You should have gone with this instead of the purple stuff.”

  I told him the “purple stuff” was penance for having run only once since I’d arrived in Ottawa. He said he could see that. “Looks like something that would do the job as penance.”

  Monica laughed. “If you two can quit bickering, I want to ask you something.”

  “Geez, I don’t know.” Cobb chuckled. “We’re all about bickering.”

  I wasn’t feeling quite as buoyed by our success as he was. There was still the matter of the MFs and the inevit­able call that would be coming one day — that thought left a black cloud in even the bluest skies.

  I nodded at Monica. “Ignore him. What’s your question?”

  “I remember our first meeting,” she said, “and your reluctance to take the case — especially you, Mike. I know it had to be frustrating trying to track people and leads that had disappeared a long time ago. I guess I’m wondering why you stayed with it. I mean, I’m so glad you did, but I wouldn’t have blamed you for a second if you’d put this one aside and got on with more … user-friendly investigations.”

  Cobb smiled and nodded at me, offering me first kick at offering an answer to a question I’d asked myself several times along the way.

  “I guess for me it was such an intriguing case,” I told her. “This wonderfully talented singer who simply disappeared; it became personal. Ellie Foster mattered to me, and I wanted — actually I needed — to know what happened to her. For you, but for me, too.”

  Cobb set his fork down. “This is how I make my living, but it’s more than that. I’m a stubborn bastard. I don’t want to let go — ever. I won’t lie. There were times when I thought this thing wasn’t doable. We were out of people to talk to, we had nowhere else to look, but it seemed that every time we got to that point, there was some little ray of light, one last thing to check on that led to one more thing, then finally … here we are.”

  I wasn’t all that happy with my answer to a question I had never been asked before. Why do we do the things we do? Why did I become a journalist in the first place? And why do I still write today? Maybe the answers to those questions changed with the times we lived in. I knew that in a world that seemed to value truth less and less, I cared about writing it more and more. Despite my stumbling answer, I liked that Monica had asked. And I liked what she did next even more.

  She signalled our waiter, who disappeared for a moment, then came to our table carrying two wrapped parcels, one for Cobb, one for me. We opened them, and inside each was a painting by Daniel Gervais. I was delighted that the one I received was the one of the boy by the stream that I’d seen on the wall of the house in Aylmer.

  We expressed our appreciation, and both of us meant it. It was a nice end to a case that had had more than its share of unpleasantness about it, the most unpleasant part being that we hadn’t found Ellie Foster alive. I would have loved to meet the woman whose voice and personality had captured so many hearts.

  Maybe if our plane hadn’t been delayed, I wouldn’t have told him, at least not then. But, sitting around an airport for over an hour with nothing to do but talk and drink coffee, I guessed the time seemed right.

  “You did what ?”

  “I was desperate — I had to do something.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.” Cobb’s voice was low, controlled, but there was no denying the disbelief and the anger that were simmering below the surface.

 
“The shelter was going to close if I didn’t do something. They’d exhausted the more conventional fundraising methods, and it was either start making random calls and talking as fast as I could before people hung up on me or see if I could get Scubberd to do a good deed.”

  “That’s how you see this? The MFs doing a good deed?”

  “I don’t know, I was just —”

  “This isn’t a joke, Adam! Take me through it. Tell me exactly what they said.”

  “I just did.”

  “Do it again. I want every word they said, especially the lovely Mrs. Scubberd. Don’t leave anything out.”

  I’d seen Cobb boil over before, and I knew his anger was a force it was better not to unleash. And I’d never seen that anger directed at me before.

  “Can we just be rational about this?”

  “Rational? I’ll tell you what’s not rational. Making a deal with gangsters. Tell me again.”

  I took a sip of coffee, then went back over the evening at Kane’s Harley Diner in painstaking detail. When I finished, Cobb said nothing for quite a long time, which I discovered was considerably less pleasant than when he was speaking, even when he was angry.

  When he finally did say something, his voice was flat and cold. “You really don’t know how it works, do you?”

  “Listen, I realize I was a little naive about the whole thing,” I said. “But if I had it to do again —”

  Cobb held up a hand. “If you finish that sentence the way I think you’re going to finish it, then you are even stupider than I thought. Let me explain how this works.”

  “Scubberd’s wife already did that.”

  “She told you nothing. Here’s what you’ve done. One day, they will come to you wanting you to do something. I guarantee you it will be something you will not want to do, but you’ll do it because you have no choice … and believe me, you have no choice. And when it’s done you’ll think to yourself, ‘that was bloody awful, but at least it’s over.’ And that’s where you’ll be wrong. They’ll be back, wanting something else. And then again … and again.”

  “Mike, I know all this …”

  He rumbled on, unstoppable: “Let’s say a couple of years from now you’re assigned a feature, or maybe a series of features, on Calgary’s underworld. And you labour over this thing and you’re about ready to see it published, and you are paid a visit. It might be Scubberd, or it might not be. It damn sure won’t be Mrs. Scubberd. The message will be simple and painfully clear. And it won’t be, ‘Leave out the part about the MFs.’ It will be, ‘Here’s what we want you to write, and we want to see it after you’ve written it.’ And you will do exactly as they say because you owe them and, more important, because they know where you and Jill and Kyla live, and if you fuck with them they will not hesitate to hurt those you love in ways you can’t even imagine. And there will be other things they will want you to do, and you will do them because there are no options. No options at all.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but shut it again, the words unsaid. Because I knew that what Mike Cobb had just said was exactly the way it was. I’d known it since the night I’d walked out of the diner. I’d hoped I was wrong — told myself I was wrong. But I knew better. I knew what I’d done. And Mike Cobb, who’d spent much of his life pitted against forces like the MFs, had just confirmed it.

  “What do I do, Mike?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. “I don’t know, Adam. I do not know.”

  “Jill doesn’t know. She thinks the money came from some anonymous philanthropist. I figured … Jesus, Mike, I’ve put the people I love in danger. I’ve …” I stopped talking then and held my head in my hands, my body shaking with fear and, most of all, self-loathing.

  Mike sat for a long time, staring into the distance. He was silent but for the sound of his hand rubbing his chin, which sported two days of growth.

  Finally he turned to me. “I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.”

  I nodded.

  “If you are contacted by any of them — phone, email, or in person, I don’t care if it’s just ‘Let’s have a cup of coffee’ ­— you agree to nothing, you do nothing, except get ahold of me.”

  “Mike, I don’t want you taking this on for me. This is on me, and I’m the one who has to see it through.”

  “I repeat” — he leaned a little closer to me, and I’m pretty sure if we hadn’t been in a public place he might have hit me — “you listen to what they are saying, and then you call me. I need you to understand me on this, Adam, and I need to know you’re going to do exactly what I just told you to do.”

  I looked up at him and nodded. “I understand. I’ll call.”

  “And now we say no more about it. Because if we talk about this anymore I might forget we’re friends and kick your ass around the terminal.” As he said it, there was no hint of a smile on a face that loved to smile.

  We didn’t talk about it anymore.

  The launch of my new book, the sequel to The Spoofaloof Rally, this one called The Spoofaloof Goof, took place on a cold November night. There was a pretty good crowd on hand.

  Despite Cobb and me agreeing that the inevitable publicity and associated interviews arising from the solving of one of Calgary’s longest unsolved cases would be left to Monica Brill, I knew that at least some in the audience were curiosity seekers, wanting to catch a glimpse of and maybe chat with someone who’d been in the news lately.

  The launch was at Owl’s Nest Books, and I’d been looking forward to it. During the two or three weeks before, I had begun to feel more like my old self, recovering at least a little from the trauma of what had taken place in the house in Aylmer.

  The evening went well. Kyla and I did the reading together. She was awesome; I managed not to screw up. The question-and-answer session afterward was actually fun, with lots of thoughtful questions — none of them about Ellie Foster or The Depression. The presentation completed, there was a healthy lineup of book buyers waiting to have me sign their copies, reminding me again that the improbable had happened — I was an author of children’s books. And loving it.

  The lineup had thinned, and I looked up at the last couple of people wanting to have their books signed. One of them was Cobb. He wasn’t holding a book. We hadn’t seen one another since we’d returned from Ottawa, and I hoped his being there was maybe a sign that all, or at least some, was forgiven after my MFs blunder. I had yet to receive the dreaded call from the bikers. With every day that went by without a call, my hope built that there wouldn’t be one, but I knew that was completely unrealistic.

  “Congratulations,” he said. “Looks like it went well.”

  “Thanks, and yes, it was a pretty cool evening. I didn’t see you in the audience. Sorry I missed you.”

  “You didn’t miss me. Lindsay and I had planned to be here, but something came up. I’m sorry to do this, but I wanted you to get it from me and not hear it on the news or see it on Facebook or something.” He looked serious, and I had a feeling that what I was about to hear wasn’t likely to add to the amiable atmosphere of the event that was just wrapping up.

  “What’s up?”

  He stepped closer to the table, bent toward me, his palms down on the tabletop. “Kendall Mark … Marlon Kennedy … is dead. They found his body in the alley behind the house where Faith Unruh’s body was discovered. I just came from the scene.”

  For a long moment I said nothing. Trying to make sense of the senseless. “It wasn’t accidental.” I didn’t phrase it as a question because I already knew the answer.

  “No, it was a hit and run. The driver hit him, then drove back and forth over him three or four times. Making sure.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, sorry to put a damper on the celebration.”

  I waved him off. “Anyone see it happen?”

 
He shook his head. “A couple people heard the squealing tires and roaring engine. But by the time anyone got out there, the car was gone.”

  I shook my head sadly, remembering the man who had dedicated his life to trying to right a wrong, to finding the person who had committed an act so horrific that even a cop’s tough mind had not been capable of coping with it. Now he would never know the answer he so desperately wanted to find. And he himself was a victim of an equally brutal crime.

  “Mike, the tapes!” I blurted out, loud enough to turn the heads of the people still remaining in the store. I brought my voice down to a whisper. “It’ll all be on tape in Kennedy’s place — the upstairs camera was pointed at that spot all the time.”

  Cobb shook his head. “There is no tape.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told the cops exactly what you just told me. They checked it out. Somebody — likely the killer — had been in the house. Both of the surveillance locations were ransacked — there was stuff strewn everywhere, and I know that’s not how Kennedy operated. There was no tape in the upstairs camera.”

  I stared at Cobb, the reality of what he had just said hitting me like a hammer. “Then the killer had to know about the surveillance.”

  “That would seem extremely likely. I’m heading back there now to see what else I can find out.”

  “Do you think this is Faith Unruh’s killer at work again?”

  “I don’t know,” Cobb said slowly. “You know how I feel about coincidence, but I can’t say for sure. Again, I’m sorry to interrupt the party — you’d better get over there and have a glass of wine with your fans. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  Mike gave Jill a quick hug on the way out, then was gone. I did as he’d suggested and went over to where store owners Michael and Susan Hare were pouring wine. I had two glasses.

  On the way home, with Kyla asleep in the back seat, I told Jill about Cobb’s reason for stopping by the bookstore.