by John Farrow
The hockey league president held his fedora at his left side, his right hand in his coat pocket. A relaxed posture. Only wisps of hair covered his pate, and his face sagged into his jowls. He had a stout middle. He did not seem to be the sort of man to be keeping the company of three women, but one was his sister and all three were rather dowdy in the style of their day, despite wearing half-veils that hung from their hats, and earrings and bright lipstick. Their coats bulged beneath their waists from the fabric of their dresses and crinolines.
Campbell paused—stopping so suddenly that one of the three women inadvertently stepped into him while she fiddled with her purse. The sight of a shotgun-toting cop at the entrance to his office had shocked him. He took a breath, apologized to the lady who had bumped into him, and carried on.
“Is that really necessary?” he asked the man in blue.
“I’m holding it for someone, that’s all,” Miron replied, somewhat bashfully as he tipped his cap to the ladies present. “It’s not loaded, sir. I’m not planning to shoot anybody with it.”
“That’s heartening, Officer.” He stepped past the policeman and entered the crime scene just as Detective Sloan and Captain Touton emerged.
“Did you have to suspend him for the playoffs?” Sloan asked without thinking. “I mean, he’s the Rocket, for crying out loud.”
“Sloan,” Touton said, and the cop shut up. Then he said, “Mr. Campbell.”
“It’s good to see they have Montreal’s finest detective on the case, Captain Touton. The dagger is infinitely valuable. It goes beyond the probable millions it’s worth. An historic relic.”
“We’ve found the knife, sir,” Touton revealed.
“You have! Oh. That’s good news. What a relief. Where?”
“It’s across the street. In the park.”
“The crooks went to all this trouble just to toss it away in the park?”
“We’re still sorting it out. Do you know why anybody would do that?”
Campbell shifted his hat from one hand to the other as he shook his head. “Beats me. People steal things. That happens. But who steals something of value, then throws it away? I’m stumped.”
Touton nodded. “We’ll have to confiscate the knife for a time, sir. Material evidence.”
Campbell did not offer immediate compliance, and instead squared his shoulders. “I’d feel much more comfortable if I received the dagger back tonight, Captain.”
“That’s not possible, sir. Anyway, your vault’s been blown open. You can’t keep it safe.”
“I see. May I have a look inside? At the damage?”
Usually, Touton would keep civilians out, but this man was the president of the NHL and had been a war crimes prosecutor. In that latter sense, they had both fought the Germans, and had both worked on the right side of the law. “Go ahead, sir, only, please, don’t touch anything. I know it’s your office, but wait until the boys are done. They’re dusting for prints right now.”
“Thank you, Captain. Your fast work on the dagger is appreciated.”
“Lady Luck got us the knife back. Our investigation is only getting started. Now, sir, another matter, when you’re ready to leave—”
“Certainly, Captain.”
“Sir?”
“I’ll accept your escort, if that’s what you’re offering.” He smiled. “I have the safety of my ladies to consider. I won’t be walking around the streets of Montreal anytime soon. If I do, as we both know, I won’t get far.”
As though he’d been on slow simmer, Sloan barged in again. “Five games, for instance. That would’ve been a reasonable suspension—pretty severe. Five games would’ve taught the Rocket a lesson. I could live with that. But the playoffs—”
“Sloan,” Touton said quietly.
“If you went to a tavern to break up a fight, Detective,” Campbell argued back, “and you arrested a fellow who’d taken a baseball bat and smashed it three times across another man’s back, and you’d had to deal with his violence before, what sentence would you expect him to get? Jail time, or a tap on the left wrist?”
“That’s different,” Sloan complained. “This is hockey, not a public tavern.”
“If the Rocket had missed and hit the guy’s head, he’d have killed him. Or maybe he did miss … maybe he was hoping to hit the guy’s head. What sentence would he get for murdering a man on the ice? Or would you recommend that he be let off for that, too, that we just call it hockey?”
“That’s different.”
“Sloan,” Touton hissed.
“Why is it different?” Campbell pressed on. “If people go to a hockey game, or sit in a tavern, they don’t expect to see one man try to hack another man to bits.”
“It’s the Stanley Cup!”
“Sloan, out the door and shut up!” Touton burst out, rather more loudly than he had intended. The detective looked at his superior, then broke off and angrily strode back to the corridor. Touton was stepping around the women to join him when he turned to face Clarence Campbell. “Sorry about that. Like everybody else—”
“No problem, Captain. I understand it’s not a popular decision.”
“It’s your job, I suppose,” Touton sympathized. Then he shook his head, and added, “But I don’t know … the playoffs,” as he went out the door.
In the corridor, Touton shot Sloan a glance, but chose to speak to Miron first. “Come with us. Bring the shotgun.”
Sloan said, “What? Is the shotgun for me? Look, Armand, sorry about that in there. It just rots my socks, you know?”
“If you were investigating a murder scene, and you knew who the murder weapon belonged to, who would you suspect for the crime?”
Being older, Sloan was not usually put in the position of being tested, and he felt momentarily flummoxed. He particularly did not enjoy being dressed down in front of a uniform. “The guy whose weapon it was, of course, but—”
“So what’s different about this case?”
Sloan was still confused, even as he pushed the call button for the elevator.
“No, wait, you don’t think—”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Clarence Campbell … he’s—”
“What? A Nuremberg prosecutor? A big-shot? League president? Therefore beyond suspicion? Okay. That’s fine. But it’s still his knife in the heart of the victim.”
“My God,” Sloan whispered as the elevator doors opened and the three men stepped in. “You don’t think—”
“I don’t, actually. I think his alibi is airtight. He’s been busy. Fourteen thousand people were trying to kick his butt. They were joined by another fifty thousand. I don’t see him getting here fast enough, although it would have been possible. I also don’t see him breaking through upper-storey windows or climbing down to the street by rope. That’s pretty funny, actually, when you think about it. On the other hand, he is under attack. Who knows how nimble that makes him? But my point has nothing to do with Clarence Campbell being a suspect or not.”
“What’s your point?”
“Your head’s not in the game. We have a pretty daring robbery here, don’t you think? Well planned, well executed, from what I’ve seen so far. All this to acquire a weapon that was then used to kill a man. Wake up, for God’s sake. You can’t be going off half-cocked about some dumb-assed suspension.”
Contrite, Sloan put his hands in his pants pockets and hung his head most of the way down. As they reached the main floor, he asked, “So you agree?”
“About what?”
“It was a dumb-assed suspension.”
“Totally.” Touton smiled as they headed outside. “Officer Miron.”
“Yes, sir?”
“If Detective Sloan brings up the Richard suspension again, or even mentions the name Rocket Richard—”
“Yes, sir?”
“Load two shells into the shotgun, peel his overcoat off his back and shoot it full of holes.”
“Ah, shoot his back, sir, or his coat?”
“His coat, for crying out loud. I’m not asking you to commit murder.” “Yes, sir,” Miron agreed.
They were on their way down the outside stairs when Sloan thought to say, “Miron?”
“Yes, sir?” the young cop asked.
“You know he’s kidding, right?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the officer in uniform deadpanned. “Whether he’s kidding or not, I’ll do it anyway.”
Touton laughed under his breath as Sloan gave the young cop a second glance. He might have to alter his initial opinion on the young man in uniform.
With the street blocked off due to the riot, they didn’t have to look for traffic as they stepped off the curb and crossed to the park and a crowd of cops. Dominion Square occupied a short city block, a park with the usual complement of trees, open spaces and benches to provide a measure of rest amid the haste of the city. Grass showed through here and there, but snow had been ploughed into piles to keep the walkways clear, and these drifts, hard packed and dirty, would be the last to melt.
The Sun Life was a building associated particularly with the English, and to a degree the park possessed an English motif as well. The Frenchman Laurier, who had been one of the fledgling country’s early prime ministers, had a statue here, but another monument paid homage to the fallen heroes of the South African War, which held no interest at all among the French—and not much among the English, either, as it harked back to British colonial rule. The poet chosen to be honoured was Robbie Burns, a Scot who had never set foot in the country. On the steps below the Burns statue, the poet’s back to him, lay the sprawled, inert body of the murdered victim.
Cops had driven onto the walkways, and the area was lit by the headlights of their cars. Touton was quickly able to spot the coroner, Claude Racine. A small, wiry man, around fifty-five, with a salt-and-pepper moustache and greying temples, he was wearing a Montreal Canadiens jacket with Richard’s famous number 9 across the biceps, perhaps a deliberate ploy to manage his way through the crowds on this night. His trip to the crime scene had been slower than usual, given the ruckus in the streets.
“Claude,” Touton said, both to acknowledge the man’s presence and to announce his own.
“Armand.”
“What do we have here?”
“Go look for yourself. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Touton was about to do so when the coroner thought twice, put a hand to his chest and stopped him. “Wait.” He addressed Sloan. “Does he know yet?”
“Know what?” Sloan asked him back.
“Do you even know?”
Sloan was befuddled. “What am I supposed to know?”
“What is it, Claude?” Touton asked him gently, for something told him that matters in this place might be serious. All he could see from his current vantage point was the dead man’s boots.
“Prepare yourself, Armand. You’re not going to like it. He’s not your best friend or nothing like that, but you know the victim.”
Touton stepped around the coroner and moved cops aside to get a proper view of the corpse. He knelt down beside the dead man, and tipped his fedora back from his brow, his sadness palpable to all who could see his face. The coroner crouched next to him. The dead man was square-shouldered and square-jawed, with a boxer’s big chest and a drinker’s swollen paunch.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Roger Clément,” Touton acknowledged. “How do you know him?”
“Coincidence. We’ve been witnesses at the same trials a couple of times.”
“He wasn’t the accused?”
“A defence witness. Paid to lie. But I’m right? You’ve been friends?”
“Acquaintances. More or less. I’ve busted him a few times. We respected each other—that’s probably fair to say. He could punch, this guy. A strong man, but I never knew him to really hurt anybody. Even though he was hired to do so, from time to time.” Touton glanced over his shoulder at Sloan, standing behind him. “Do you know him?”
“No, sir. He has a record?”
Touton stood up. “He was still a decent guy. Shit. I’ll have to tell his family.”
“We could send someone,” Sloan suggested. “He’s only a hood, right?”
Touton was looking up at the highest level of the columns on the Sun Life.
“He was never only a hood. I just told you, he was a decent guy. It wouldn’t take much for me to have been him, or for him to have been me. We have the same physique, similar background. He’s a family man. To his family he was never a hood. He was a father, a husband. Make sure nobody gets to his house before me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He was also an ex-hockey player. He played for Chicago, and somebody else. New York, I think.”
They waited for him to lower his gaze, and when he didn’t, the other cops around him and the coroner also looked up at the Sun Life.
“He could have done it,” Touton stated. “He had the balls. The strength. He could have broken in and slid down by rope. But he never could have planned all that. Not Roger. He’s not that kind of thief. He would’ve been hired to carry it out.”
“Then he gets back down here and somebody kills him with what he stole,” Sloan pointed out. “Makes no sense, no matter how you cut it.”
“Unless somebody else stole the knife and he crossed paths with the thief in the dark. Still doesn’t make sense, though. To go to all that trouble to steal a million-dollar dagger, then to lose it in a guy’s heart.”
The coroner returned to the corpse and, with his gloved hands, tried to extract the knife from the body. The weapon did not slide free easily. He had to remove instruments from his bag and use them to slowly extract the weapon, working it loose with difficulty. Finally, the dagger slid up into his hands.
“I wish I could reward you with the crown of England, for pulling Excalibur from stone, Claude.”
“I’ll settle for a good night’s sleep. And a chance to hold this in my hands.”
“Interesting, though. Whoever implanted it might have had the same trouble getting it out. Then he might’ve had to take off before he succeeded.”
“That’s possible. Look at this thing.”
The handle was made of bear bone, the blade of stone. The cutting edge was serrated, not naturally, but had lost its edge over time and was quite jagged. The very tip of the knife had snapped off, Touton noticed.
“Look, the leading edge, the change of colour. I bet that piece is still in him.”
“I’ll be looking for it,” the coroner assured him. “Do you see the jagged edge? That’s what made it difficult to extract. It caught on the breastplate, a rib. The blade isn’t steel, after all. It’s soft. It’s only stone.”
The bone handle was partially wrapped with hide—very old, so that it was conceivable to think it was original. A remarkable aspect to the knife were the gold and diamonds embedded in the handle. They were not finely cut, but rough-hewn in a primitive fashion. The weapon was now centuries old.
“You’ll take care of this?” Touton asked him. “Don’t leave it lying around.”
The coroner nodded. “There’s a safe I can use, back at the office.”
“Probably it’s more secure with you than at the police station.”
“Definitely, I’d say.”
Touton grunted.
“All right, I’m going to bag the body now, Armand. Need anything else?”
He moved his chin slightly. “I could use that good night’s sleep you were talking about, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”
In the distance, the wail of sirens and the roar of the mob still sounded. Closer to them, fire smoke drifted by and mingled with the exhaust fumes of their cars.
“This could go on for days,” the coroner concurred.
“The Rocket should talk,” Miron suggested.
“What?” Sloan asked him.
“The Rocket, he should get on the radio. Tell the people to calm down.”
“Th
e Rocket! On the radio!” Sloan challenged him. “To save Campbell’s ass?”
“He should get on the radio,” Touton butted in, lending authority to the suggestion, “to save the city.”
The men nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation, when Miron disrupted their mood. “He mentioned the Rocket, sir. Do I get to shoot his coat?”
“You little shit!” Sloan burst out.
Touton glanced at the young cop. “Now you know you goaded him, Miron. That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But keep your ears open. You may get to shoot his coat yet.” Sloan glowered at the young guy, then said, “Speaking of the radio, Captain, he has one on him. In his pocket. One of those fancy new transistors. The Regency TR-1.”
“Sophisticated. Imagine that, eh? A radio you don’t plug in. Damn thing costs fifty bucks, but I might buy one. Anything else?”
“A flashlight and a penknife, also in his coat pockets. A bit of putty. We picked up a woman’s kerchief that was lying beside him so it wouldn’t blow away. We can’t say if it belonged to him or just blew in.”
Touton shook his head, then nodded back at the Sun Life. “Look at that building. I don’t know what Fort Knox looks like, but it must be similar. Are you telling me he broke into that building with a transistor radio and a penknife?”
Sloan shrugged a little. “He also must have had several long stretches of rope and a few sticks of dynamite.”
“Dynamite, a kerchief and putty.” Touton blew out a gust of air.
The coroner bagged the knife and placed it in the glove box of his van, which he locked, then he locked the van. He came back for the body, which his assistants had bagged, and, while Touton questioned other cops on the scene, he loaded the corpse onto a gurney. The captain wanted to hear what the other cops had learned or guessed, if anything, and to know if any witnesses had stepped forward. This was a public park, one that was used at night, although, admittedly, the night had been exceptional. The cops confirmed what he’d expected: that the usual thrum of people had been drawn into the cacophony of the riot, and so far only one witness had turned up. That man had spotted a group of adult males, at least two of whom looked old, huddled over the victim. Suspiciously, aggressively, he said. He’d dashed away to call a cop. When the officer went to investigate, the men ran.