She laid a hand on my leg. “I knew, when I saw him there without Lindsay, and just in and out like that — I knew it wasn’t going to be good.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes until, at a red light, Jill put into words the question we were both thinking: “What happens now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know.”
Once we were in the house and Kyla was tucked away for the night, I sat down at the laptop I kept at Jill’s, figuring I’d look for more news about what had happened earlier that night.
I went to my inbox first. There was an email from Marlon Kennedy. It had been sent at 7:12 p.m. I shivered as I considered the reality that Kennedy had sent the email in the minutes before he crossed the street and returned to the alley for the last time.
The email was cryptic. It read, “I promised, and I know you’ll want to see this.”
Below that line of text was a photo of tally marks: two groups of five … and two more lines.
And below that, Kennedy had typed: “Twelve marks.”
Acknowledgements
I am indebted again to Dr. Adam Vyse for his wisdom; to Mike O’Connor for his knowledge and encouragement; and to the editorial team at Dundurn under the steady, guiding hand of Jenny McWha. I found Ken Rockburn’s book We Are as the Times Are: The Story of Le Hibou both helpful and a delightful read, and the online notes for A History of Folk Music in English Canada by Gary Cristall were also useful. Special thanks to the owners of the Amantea Restaurant that, when I began this project, sat above what was once the basement home of The Depression; and to Chad Ares from Parm, which is the newest (and very cool) incarnation of that location.
Mystery and Crime Fiction from Dundurn Press
Birder Murder Mysteries
by Steve Burrows
(Birding, British Coastal Town Mysteries)
A Siege of Bitterns
A Pitying of Doves
A Cast of Falcons
A Shimmer of Hummingbirds
A Tiding of Magpies
Amanda Doucette Mysteries
by Barbara Fradkin
(PTSD, Cross-Canada Tour)
Fire in the Stars
The Trickster’s Lullaby
Coming soon: Prisoners of Hope
B.C. Blues Crime Novels
by R.M. Greenaway
(British Columbia, Police Procedural)
Cold Girl
Undertow
Creep
Stonechild & Rouleau Mysteries
by Brenda Chapman
(First Nations, Kingston, Police Procedural)
Cold Mourning
Butterfly Kills
Tumbled Graves
Shallow End
Bleeding Darkness
Jack Palace Series
by A.G. Pasquella
(Noir, Toronto, Mob)
Coming soon: Yard Dog
Jenny Willson Mysteries
by Dave Butler
(National Parks, Animal Protecttion)
Full Curl
Coming soon: No Place for
Wolverines
Falls Mysteries
by Jayne Barnard
(Rural Alberta, Female Sleuth)
When the Flood Falls
Foreign Affairs Mysteries
by Nick Wilkshire
(Global Crime Fiction, Humour)
Escape to Havana
The Moscow Code
Coming soon: Remember Tokyo
Dan Sharp Mysteries
by Jeffrey Round
(LGBTQ, Toronto)
Lake on the Mountain
Pumpkin Eater
The Jade Butterfly
After the Horses
The God Game
Max O’Brien Mysteries
by Mario Bolduc
(Translation, Political Thriller, Con Man)
The Kashmir Trap
The Roma Plot
Cullen and Cobb Mysteries
by David A. Poulsen
(Calgary, Private Investigators, Organized Crime)
Serpents Rising
Dead Air
Last Song Sung
Strange Things Done
by Elle Wild
(Yukon, Dark Thriller)
Salvage
by Stephen Maher
(Nova Scotia, Fast-Paced Thriller)
Crang Mysteries
by Jack Batten
(Humour, Toronto)
Crang Plays the Ace
Straight No Chaser
Riviera Blues
Blood Count
Take Five
Keeper of the Flame
Booking In
Jack Taggart Mysteries
by Don Easton
(Undercover Operations)
Loose Ends
Above Ground
Angel in the Full Moon
Samurai Code
Dead Ends
Birds of a Feather
Corporate Asset
The Benefactor
Art and Murder
A Delicate Matter
Subverting Justice
An Element of Risk
Meg Harris Mysteries
by R.J. Harlick
(Canadian Wilderness Fiction, First Nations)
Death’s Golden Whisper
Red Ice for a Shroud
The River Runs Orange
Arctic Blue Death
A Green Place for Dying
Silver Totem of Shame
A Cold White Fear
Purple Palette for Murder
Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries
by Janet Kellough
(Pre-Confederation Canada)
On the Head of a Pin
Sowing Poison
47 Sorrows
The Burying Ground
Wishful Seeing
Cordi O’Callaghan Mysteries
by Suzanne F. Kingsmill
(Zoology, Mental Illness)
Forever Dead
Innocent Murderer
Dying for Murder
Crazy Dead
Endgame
by Jeffrey Round
(Modern Re-telling of Agatha Christie, Punk Rock)
Inspector Green Mysteries
by Barbara Fradkin
(Ottawa, Police Procedural)
Do or Die
Once Upon a Time
Mist Walker
Fifth Son
Honour Among Men
Dream Chasers
This Thing of Darkness
Beautiful Lie the Dead
The Whisper of Legends
None So Blind
Border City Blues
by Michael Januska
(Prohibition Era Windsor)
Maiden Lane
Riverside Drive
Coming soon: Prospect Avenue
Cornwall and Redfern Mysteries
by Gloria Ferris
(Darkly Comic, Rural Ontario)
Corpse Flower
Shroud of Roses
Copyright © David A. Poulson, 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover image: City: istock.com/ ImagineGolf; Blood: isto
ck.com/redhumv
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Poulsen, David A., 1946-, author
Last song sung / David A. Poulsen.
(A Cullen and Cobb mystery)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-3986-4 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4597-3987-1 (PDF).--
ISBN 978-1-4597-3988-8 (EPUB)
I. Title. II. Series: Poulsen, David A., 1946- . Cullen and Cobb mystery.
PS8581.O848L38 2018 C813’.54 C2017-905724-3
C2017-905725-1
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.
dundurn.com @dundurnpress dundurnpress dundurnpress
Last Song Sung Page 30