Book Read Free

Last Song Sung

Page 30

by David A. Poulsen


  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

 

 

 


‹ Prev