There it is...the Marr Residence.
What it ;s...the oldest building in Saskatoon.
Where it fs...on its original location.
But where is what it is...the oldest building in Saskatoon...where it wasn't?
The poem wanted me to answer the question. The answer was where I needed to go next. That had to be it! Or so I hoped.
I had an idea. According to what I'd just read, the Marr Residence was one of the first to be built...but it wasn't the first. It was the oldest building in Saskatoon on its original location. Was there a house older than this one still standing in Saskatoon, but not on its original location? That would be what it is where it wasn't. Wouldn't it? My head was hurting.
Fortunately this was a Sunday in August, which, according to a poster in the front door's window, meant the Marr House was open today. I pulled open the screen door, turned the knob of the wooden door behind it, and indeed, it was unlocked. I stepped into the porch and just as I reached for the door into the house, it opened, revealing a middle-aged woman with a beaming face.
"Hello," she greeted me warmly. "I saw you out here. I thought I'd come say hello. Have you been to the Marr Residence before? Can I answer any questions for you?"
I debated using the code word thing again, but quickly abandoned the idea as passe. Maybe it worked for World War II double agent operatives and the Pink Panther, but it just wasn't doing anything for me. Maybe one of these days...
"Actually, yes," I told her. "I see by the sign out front that this house is the oldest in Saskatoon on its original location. I was wondering if you knew whether there is an older house in town that isn't?" Let's see how good she is with riddles.
"You mean Trounce House?"
I wanted to hug this woman. "Uh, yeah, I think so. Is that what it is where it wasn't?" Couldn't hurt to ask.
She gave me a blank look, then, "I don't know about that, but Trounce House is actually the oldest house in Saskatoon. It was built in 1883, a full year before the Marr house. Wait until you see it. It's just the cutest, teeniest, weeniest little brown thing. And if you can believe it, the family ran a store out of a lean-to addition, and even rented one of the rooms. And it only had three! Isn't that something?
"It's not far from here. Up on Tenth Street
just off of Broadway. You'll have to go down the back alley to see it, though. They moved it to the back of the property to make room for another bigger house at the front. And that," she smiled sweetly as she reported, "is why it's not the oldest house on its original location."
I thanked the woman profusely, got the address, and headed for Trounce House.
I didn't get too far. Just as I hit Broadway Avenue
, my cellphone rang. It was my home security company. Someone was trying to break into my house.
Chapter 4
Barking is not a means of communication favoured by Barbra and Brutus. They much prefer pointed looks or wet noses in delicate places. Barking is meant to call attention to something irregular. So when I screeched to a halt in front of my house and heard them, I knew my dogs were not pleased.
I hopped out of the car and was almost run over by a speeding vehicle.
White truck. Ford F-150.
Holy moly! The same damn vehicle I'd almost been flattened by the night before! What the hell? How had he found me? Then again, I knew he had my name and number. It didn't take a professor to look up my address in the phone book.
I could hear my house alarm blaring in competition with increasingly agitated howling and growling. I wanted to go after the white truck, but the screaming alarm won out over the mysterious vehicle. This time.
I bolted up the pathway to my front door. The alarm was making a ghostly whooping loud enough to wake Dracula from a daytime nap. Upon any activation of the alarm, my home security company was instructed to first contact me. If that failed, they were to call Sereena. If they couldn't reach Sereena, it was time to dispatch the boys in blue. Fortunately, I'd been available to take their call and, because I was only a few minutes away from home, asked them to hold off on alerting the police until I had had time to check things out.
I unlocked the front door and Barbra and Brutus bulldozed into me like Dalmatians fleeing Cruella De Vil. After a few reassuring words and head pats, I raced into my house, disabled the alarm, and did a quick inventory of each room. My last stop was the kitchen. And there it was. One of the windows in the nook area had a large crack in it.
Zipping out the back door, I found a shattered clay pot on the deck below the window. The crack, and ensuing alarm, hadn't been caused by an unfortunate bird collision. This was no accident. Someone had tried to get into my house. Fortunately the glass had held, but the impact caused the alarms to go off and scare away the would-be intruder.
I could see how he or she would choose the back side of the house for the break in. My backyard is extremely private, with no easy sightlines from outside the property. Even so, it was a pretty ballsy move in broad daylight. That being said, I was pretty sure that whoever did this was not an experienced burglar. Tossing a clay pot against a window? Come on.
Back in the house, I further placated the dogs with a couple of their favourite treats. They appeared satisfied, and after wolfing down the bits of faux bacon, insisted on being let out into the backyard to carry out their own investigations of the distressing incident. Grabbing the cordless phone from the kitchen, I followed them out and settled on a chair around the patio table. I called the alarm company to confirm everything was all right, then left a message with a window company (it was Sunday) about replacing the glass. When I set the handset back on its cradle, I noticed the indicator light was furiously blinking. Again. I didn't need to check the calls. I could pretty much make a good guess who they were from. Instead, I called Darren Kirsch. Sunday or not, I knew he'd be in the office working on his juicy new murder case.
At first he actually scoffed when I told him I wanted to report a break-in. He took me more seriously when I added that I had some information on Walter Angel he might be interested in. With some persuasion, he finally agreed to meet me for lunch. I used (cringingly) one of my mother's favourite lines: You have to eat anyway.
It's an odd sight indeed. At the corner of 21st Street
and Spadina Crescent
, downtown Saskatoon, right across from the Bessborough Hotel, is a bright red, double-decker bus. It never moves. It just sits there, looking like something from EastEnders. Come the first warm day of spring, one side flips open and, voila, it becomes a wildly popular hotdog stand until the first flake of snow flies in the fall.
Kirsch and I each ordered a Riverbank dog loaded with good stuff like hot chili peppers, sauerkraut, and spicy salsa. While we waited for our order, I tried my hand at small talk, and Kirsch tried his hand at grunting and scratching his butt. He was wearing a pair of what I think of as Texas Ranger sunglasses, with reflective surfaces he could see out of, but no one could see in. I knew that as a cop, it was sometimes preferable that bad guys and /or suspects not catch a glimpse of whatever might be going on in your eyes—anger, doubt, maybe fear. But come on, this was lunch with me.
Once the food and cold drinks arrived, we took our bounty across the street into Kiwanis Park. We found an empty bench facing the South Saskatchewan River and started chewing and sipping.
Seeing as I was the one to call this meeting, I knew I'd have to start the dialogue. Otherwise I wouldn't put it past the burly cop to finish his meal and walk off without uttering a single word.
"Have you made any progress on Angel's murder?" I asked with what I thought was respectful politeness.
"None of your business. Next."
With few people do I have as short a fuse as with Darren Kirsch. And now he'd pissed me off. "You know," I said with mock sincerity, "I really love it how our relationship has progressed over the years and blossomed into something I've really come to cherish. I hope you feel the same."
Darren gave
me his snarly-Elvis-lip-curl. I mimicked it back.
Hotdog halfway between lap and mouth, he stared at me for a count of two. His jaw was tight, his lips tighter. And then, he couldn't help himself, his face broke. He grinned. And that was it. That smile was exactly why I even bothered to keep up a relationship with the big lug. Every so often, the broomstick wedged in his ass at birth dislodged just enough to reveal a real person with a decent sense of humour. Well, that and the fact that as a private dick it helped to have a contact in the local police department. And none of the other cops returned my calls.
If I let him be, Constable Darren Kirsch would likely slip into comfortable homophobia like many men of his background, position, and mentality. But I wasn't about to let that happen. I'd been muscling my way into his life ever since we first met at the police academy several years back, and I wasn't giving up anytime soon. I think he finally got that, and, for the most part, had given up trying to resist with any real force. He didn't know it yet, but I'd won. The prize? Well, that part wasn't so clear, nor was the reason I'd played the game to begin with. But like many worthwhile things in life, it was the journey that made things interesting and not the destination.
The hotdog found its mark. "We're making inquiries but don't have nothing much yet. This being a Sunday ain't helping any," he muttered, revealing the shocking insider details as he stuffed the last of his lunch into his mouth.
I sighed impatiently. Why was I here? I was getting nothing from Kirsch. I looked away and chewed on my own dog.
Why wasn't I spending a lovely Sunday with someone other than this pug? Was I really that desperate to avoid my friends and family? Why? Was it simple post-vacation depression? I glanced down at my ring finger. Or was it because if I saw them I'd have to explain the white gold band I was wearing there?
Kirsch, of course, would never even notice it. Or if he did, he couldn't care less. Another reason I like hanging with the guy. No silly questions about rings.
The cop swiped some mustard off his chin and said, "Quant, this is all great and everything, having lunch in the park and all, but let's cut to the chase. You said you had some information on Angel. Let's have it."
For a second, I hesitated, feeling proprietary over the information I had. But I quickly realized the error in my ways. There had been a murder, and I might know something that would help solve it. It was my duty—private detective or not—to divulge that information. So, I told him about the map, how I'd come to be in possession of it, and my halting success thus far in deciphering it.
Kirsch listened with the intensity of a practiced interrogator. His eyes were narrowed and his brain chugged away so speedily I could almost hear it through his thick skull. When I finished, he waited for a second or two to ensure there was nothing more, then he asked with a face that was nearing what I might call fuming: "And you never thought to tell the police about any of this before now?"
"As I already explained, I didn't know I had the map until I got home last night."
"You knew about the map's existence on the plane," he correctly pointed out, his voice growing increasingly annoyed. "You knew about it when the man who it belonged to was found strangled to death in the parking lot at the Saskatoon airport. You knew about it when you were being questioned by members of the Saskatoon Police Service. You've known it had been slipped into your carry-on for the past twelve hours. Quant, I should arrest your ass right now for withholding significant evidence in a murder investigation."
Despite the fact that he was right about everything, I was indignant. "All that may be true, but I didn't know—and I still don't for that matter—if this map has anything to do with Walter Angel's death."
He eyes narrowed even further, like knife slits in his face; the frown stayed where it was. "Then why are you coming to me now? What's changed your mind?"
I told him about the threatening white truck. Well, most of it. I left out the bit about first seeing it while I was parked outside Ethan Ash's home, all doe-eyed.
The look on the policeman's face changed. Despite our tendency to get under each other's skin—on purpose—neither of us wanted the other to be in true danger. It suddenly occurred to me, as it had to Darren Kirsch, that I was.
His measured voice was low as he warned me: "You have something the murderer wants, Quant."
I gulped. I hate when that happens.
"When you searched the body," I began haltingly, "did you happen to find a business card, say, with my name on it?" If the answer was no, I'd have a pretty good idea how White Truck Guy had gotten my cellphone number. And, it would pretty conclusively tie him to the murder.
Kirsch shook his head. I figured as much.
The cop held out a hand. "It's time you handed over the map."
The disturbed look on his face told me what I already knew. Giving him the map wasn't going to make one little bit of difference to the killer. Not unless he or she was watching us right this second. Not if they suspected I'd never hand over the map to the police without making a copy for myself. (Which of course, I had.)
It wasn't that I didn't trust the SPS to do a thorough job. But I just wasn't the kind of guy to put my fate entirely in the hands of the police. Sure, the SPS was a good police force. I'd been a part of it once upon a time. But in the early hours of a murder investigation, their focus was going to be widespread. Mine, however, would be laser sharp: getting my butt out of the mess I'd landed in.
As the woman from the Marr Residence had told me, Trounce House was indeed teenie, weenie, and brown. I didn't know if it was all that cute, though. It looked like any other old garage or storage shed in need of a major overhaul—except for one thing.
A fence, maybe four or five feet high, had been built around the structure—quite recently by the look of it—as if it were in need of protection. Or maybe to keep it from the prying eyes of nosey tourists with a Sights of Saskatoon guide book? I wondered how many people walked down this nondescript back alley every day just to see the oldest structure in Saskatoon? Would they take pictures? Circle around it? If they did, their route would take them out of the public alley directly into the private backyard of whoever lived in the main house. Would they want to touch it? Try to get in? The owners had probably gotten fed up with having a municipally designated historic site next to their barbecue. I felt for them.
Unfortunately, I couldn't comply with their wishes. I needed to get a good look at Trounce House.
I pulled my copy of the treasure map out of my pocket and read the third verse:
Morning, noon, night, Behind a door too high, Years and weather ingrain, Now to fame's portrait in a frame.
Behind a door too high. Hmmmm. At least that gave me something specific to work with. Even from my position on the wrong side of the fence, I could still see several doors on the house. The one at the east end looked to have been the original front entrance. On the alley side was another pair, over what in a newer construction might have been considered a bay window. But the door that caught my attention was up high—too high you might say—at the apex of the gabled roof. It might have been a window at one point, but now it was a door, made of the same dog-brown clapboard. That had to be it: the door too high. I'd found it.
Elation quickly wilted into frustration. There's an obvious problem with doors that are "too high": they're too high. I needed to get a look behind it. How the heck was I going to do that?
I stood and stared at the door too high for quite some time, considering and abandoning various plans of action. But I wasn't in the mood for failure.
In all the time I'd been in the back alley, I'd yet to see another person, a car, or even a roaming pet. And especially, I'd not seen a white F-150. (I'd taken extra precautions getting to Trounce House, and my stealth had apparently paid off.) So, as interesting as Trounce House was, apparently it didn't draw a big crowd on a regular basis. This was good news for me, especially since the plan I'd finally settled on involved some not-exac
tly-legal activity I'd rather carry out without witnesses.
This was yet another example, I rationalized to myself, of why I was better suited to pursue the treasure map clues than the police. By the time they had jumped all the hoops to be nicey-nicey with the house owners and get official permission to check behind the door too high, it could take days. My way was much more expedient, if not exactly neighbourly.
The way I saw it, the only way to get to the too-high door was via the roof. If I could get on the roof and scale it to its topmost point, all I'd have to do was reach down, open the door and see what was behind it. Sounded simple. Looked simple. It wasn't simple.
The first obstacle was getting on the roof in the first place. The damned privacy fence was a problem. It was doing its job, keeping me well away from the historic house. How could I get on the house's roof if I couldn't even get to the house?
As I studied my circumstances, I began to wonder if the fence might actually be part of the solution rather than a problem. I stood back to get a better overall view. I judged the distance from fence line to house to be about five feet. I'm not the greatest at estimating distances, but it didn't matter anyway. All that mattered was whether or not I thought I could leap from the top of the fence onto the roof.
With no other readily identifiable options, I decided I could.
As it turned out, I was only partially correct.
After scaling the fence and squatting atop it, all wobbly-like, like a drunken cat, I leapt towards the roof. This wasn't exactly a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon move on my part. It was more Humpty Dumpty. I didn't jump because I was ready to, I jumped because if I didn't I'd have toppled off the narrow fence and all the king's horses and all the king's men would have laughed me out of the back alley.
Only half of me landed on target. The other half, meaning my lower torso and legs, missed the mark. As I flailed madly, trying to find purchase on something that would help me up, I could only hope that some good Samaritan wasn't witnessing my Mr. Bean moment and calling 9-1-1.
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