The Lady Burns Bright

by Warren Court

  Melanie found it morbid, she told him, being only a couple of blocks where Armour had been shot in the face and had almost died. To this day, four months later, they rarely spoke of it. Armour had only gotten out of the hospital three weeks ago. His face still bore the scar, and he was far from being his old self. And for some strange reason, his hands were bandaged. A skin discoloration, almost like third-degree burns, had appeared on the backs of his hands and up his wrists.

  The surgeon hadn’t been able to remove the .22-calibre bullet, and he had a small circular scar on his cheekbone where the projectile had entered. The doctors said it was lodged up against a blood vessel in his brain and that to remove it would almost certainly kill him. They couldn’t rule out that it wouldn’t cause him to go into a coma, or that it might kill him eventually. The burns on his hands might be psychosomatic. The bullet must be pressed up against some nerve endings. That might be the cause of it. Armour had been contacted by medical researchers who wanted to photograph the burns and put him a textbook, but he declined.

  There were other side effects. More than once since being released from the hospital, Armour had suffered paralyzing migraines. He had called out strange names: “Elizabeth.” “Tom, you bastard!” “Reagan.” Melanie had been there during a couple of these episodes and had written the names down. She’d shown them to Armour after the headaches passed. They meant nothing to him.

  When Armour was released from the hospital, he started talking incessantly about the unsolved Holt disappearance. He’d begun scribbling down notes, drawing diagrams of houses and backyards. “X marks the spot,” he said one day.

  “The spot of what?” Melanie had asked, and Armour had told her about the body.

  When he told her he was going to Toronto to speak to that homicide detective, the one who had captured the guy who’d shot him, Melanie had insisted on coming along. They’d come into the city four times now, pleading with the detective to listen to Armour, but no dice.

  After the shooter had been convicted, Armour’s testimony, recorded from his hospital bed, had helped send him to jail for twenty-five years. The detective then found he had time to listen to Armour. Armour had laid it out for him, telling him where a body might be found. The house was still there; Melanie and Armour had found it. They had knocked on the door, but no one was home. Melanie had restrained a weakened Armour from going around the back. It would have been trespassing.

  “Call that detective,” Melanie had said. “Get him to look into it.”

  The waitress came over again to tell them they had to give up the chairs. Melanie gave her a sanctimonious smile and ordered a late lunch. She was forever ravenous. Armour got another coffee as well.

  Finally, the detective came into the coffee shop. He sat down across from Armour. The way he plopped into the seat and squeezed against Melanie irritated him.

  The detective looked annoyed. He had on a trench coat, the collar turned up like Columbo, his hands shoved in his pockets. His name was Detective John Temple.

  “Anything, Detective?” Melanie asked.

  Armour sat there sheepishly, sipping the dregs of his coffee, waiting for his refill.

  “I just talked to the forensics at the scene. The cadaver dogs have got a hit.”

  Melanie clapped her hands. A barely perceptible grin crossed Armour’s face, then his brows furrowed. There was more.

  “It’s not a hundred percent,” Temple said. “One of the dogs didn’t hit on anything. The other two did; they always use three dogs. The hits were right where you said they would be.”

  “What are the next steps, Detective?” Melanie said.

  “They’ll do methane probes. If those come back positive, then they’ll start to dig. The people in the house aren’t happy. It’ll cause a bit of a commotion when the press gets hold of it.”

  “It’ll be a big story,” Melanie said. “Famous disappearance finally solved.”

  “Is that so?” Temple said. He looked with steely eyes at Armour. “Explain to me again how you knew there was a body there.”

  “I never explained it in the first place,” Armour said. He coughed to clear his throat. “I can’t explain it to myself. I just know that’s where Colin Holt’s body is buried. He’s been there for almost a hundred years.”

  Temple shook his head. Armour knew the man had good reason to doubt him; he knew that even Melanie had doubted him. During their multiple trips to Toronto to speak with Temple, they’d spent hours in the reference library. They’d pored over old newspaper clippings, made a list of what they could confirm. It was true that the harbour commissioner, a man named Colin Holt, had disappeared in 1920 and been presumed drowned. The case had been closed after an exhaustive search of the lake. It had been a big story at the time, but had been dropped after the search was called off.

  The clippings they looked at had also reported that there was trouble with a gang of Irish criminals in Toronto at that time. Relations between Protestants and Catholics had been tense. The Italian mafia had also been very active; there were reports of shootouts. The Pegasus Theatre had burned to the ground, but it was determined that the fire had started in the basement when a stack of newspapers had been left next to a coal fired furnace. There was no mention of the showgirls dying; the fire had started at night when no one was there.

  Armour could not find any story about a man being gunned down in Kingston. There was a showgirl called Melanie Franklin who was the lead in a show at the Pegasus, but she’d never made it famous. No word on when she’d died. They could find no further mention of her.

  Temple was staring at Armour’s bandages. “Those don’t seem to be getting better,” he said.

  Melanie said. “The bullet in his brain is lodged against certain receptors. At least that’s the doctor’s theory. He said they would go away in time.”

  Armour scratched at the bandages.

  “Anyway,” Temple said as he got up to go. “If we do find a body, I’m going to want to speak to you again.”

  “I understand,” Armour said.

  After the door had closed behind Temple, Melanie turned to Armour, her eyes full of questions.

  “I can’t explain it,” he said, not looking at her. “Can you please just resign yourself to that?”

  “Okay, sure,” she said, then narrowed her eyes at him. “But can you? Can you resign yourself to it? To never knowing why you knew where Holt was buried?”

  “What choice do I have?” he said.

  The End.

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  About the Author

  Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Warren Court currently lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter. When not writing he spends his time cultivating cold hardy palm trees and working on old cars. The Lady Burns Bright is the third release in the Armour Black series.