None So Deadly

by David A. Poulsen

  “His father murdered Faith. And Terry killed Kennedy. He told me.” I had to say that much in case I didn’t live to tell it later. They had to know.

  Cobb nodded. “Good job, partner. You did damn good. Oh, and, by the way, you were right about the Fas Gas guy except you might owe him more than a tip of the hat. You might want to buy the guy a coffee. Now just take it easy, I hear the siren — the ambulance will be here in a few seconds.”

  He was right. I could hear it now, too. It was the last thing I heard before that curtain — the same one as before — like the ones at the front of theatres, thick and dark, slowly descended — taking me into the world of unconsciousness one more time.

  Terry Maughan didn’t survive the night. When he’d realized he was trapped, he’d stopped the Blazer, leaped out, and run at the vehicle that was blocking the far end of the alley, a gun in hand and firing. Likely blinded by the headlights, he fortunately didn’t hit anyone. From both sides of the Cherokee, Cobb and Jean-Luc returned the fire, and Maughan was hit three times.

  The Medical Examiner’s office said later that two of the three wounds Maughan had suffered could have proved fatal.

  It was two days before I was able to give a statement to Detectives Landry and Chisholm. I told them exactly what Maughan had told me. There were, of course, some unanswered questions, but there were also answers, and most importantly, the resolution of two investigations.

  Cobb, who had been at the hospital most of the time since I’d been hurt, came into my room as I was completing my statement to the police. When I was finished and had answered all of the questions the detectives had as best I could, Cobb filled in the blanks about what had happened two nights earlier. It was the first time I’d heard it, as doctors hadn’t allowed much in the way of conversation up until then.

  When he’d been unable to reach me on my cell, he got worried, so with Frenchie and McNasty assisting, he phoned every Fas Gas on the south side of the city. It was Cobb who connected with Vihaan, who at first thought it odd that there was so much concern over a school reunion contact, but finally told Cobb what he’d told me — that Terry Maughan had purchased the house he’d lived in as a boy.

  When Cobb got to the house and saw the Accord parked down the street, cellphone still sitting on the front seat and no one at the house, he guessed the worst. After a fast search of the house, garage, and yard, Cobb figured that maybe Maughan wanted to complete the cycle with one final killing in the alley.

  It was that correct assertion that saved my life. My leg had required a lengthy surgery to repair, but I was assured it would be “reasonably close to as good as new” in ten or twelve weeks.

  When Cobb and I had finished giving our statements, Landry put away her notebook and looked first at me. “I’m glad you’re going to be okay. I wouldn’t have wanted this to end with you dying in that alley. You did good work and I realize there’s no point in my saying you might have wanted to bring us into this sooner. The outcome might have been different on several fronts.”

  She then turned to Cobb. “The police service is grateful that you and your partner have brought about the completion of two long-standing crime investigations. But this doesn’t change what I said before, doesn’t change it at all.”

  With that, Landry turned and left the hospital room, Chisholm following.

  Cobb patted me on the arm. “I’ll let you get some rest. I’m around, so anytime you need something, just let me know.”

  “You don’t have to hang around here, Mike. I’m doing fine and I know you’ve got better things to do.”

  “You’re wrong. Number One son’s running things at home, and so far Lindsay tells me it’s not going all that badly. The house is still standing, no one’s left home, and the neighbours haven’t noticed I’m gone. In fact, rumour has it there’s a movement afoot to keep me away for another month or two.”

  It hurt to laugh so I kept it to a smile. We shook hands and he headed out, but I knew he wouldn’t be far away. Jill and Kyla were next in, Kyla sending Mike her brightest smile as they passed in the doorway. I knew Mike had been talking with her about the police service and I also knew Kyla was loving their chats.

  She and her mom had also been there virtually the whole time I’d been in hospital. Jill bent over, kissed me lightly. “Time to get some sleep, mister. We’ll be right over there.”

  She pointed at the two chairs she and Kyla had been sitting in for most of the forty-eight hours since I got out of surgery. I tried to argue but didn’t have a whole lot of fight in me right then. I was asleep before they had sat down.

  It was four days later that I received a couple of surprise visitors. I was sitting up and had just finished the final installment of Lorne Cooney’s three-part piece on the Faith Unruh murder. It had been titled “Faith Unruh — The Last Chapter in One of Calgary’s Saddest Stories Is Finally Written.” Lorne had done a good job, as I had expected he would. He’d avoided the maudlin and the sentimental and had told it all with straightforward honesty, some of it hard to read, even now.

  “Hey, Danny, come on in.” He stepped in and reached behind him to pull a slender, pretty girl along with him.

  “Hey, Mr. Cullen. This is Glenna.”

  “Hi, Glenna, great to meet you. Danny’s told me all about you.”

  Blushes from both of them. Glenna, freckled, reddish- brown hair, athletic-looking, soccer maybe or volleyball, the shy smile still in place.

  “Why don’t you guys pull up those chairs?”

  “No, that’s okay,” Danny said. “We can stand. We just wanted to say hello. We heard you were hurt pretty bad, and we wanted to come and see you. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay. In fact, it’s better than okay. Thank you.”

  “We brought you these.” He handed me a box of chocolates.

  “Hey, that’s great. Chocolate is a food group around my house.”

  That brought a laugh.

  “You two doing okay? I mean, after everything that happened?”

  Danny nodded. “I guess so.”

  “How about you, Glenna?”

  “Pretty good, I guess.” Her voice didn’t sound convincing.

  “Things will get better with time,” I told her, not sure how true that really was.

  She nodded but didn’t answer right away, her eyes downcast. When she raised them to look at me, there were tears there.

  “I know my dad did some bad things, Mr. Cullen, but seeing him lying there like that — I … that’s hard to get, like … to take, you know?”

  “I understand, Glenna.”

  “It’s kind of weird. Seeing him upstairs and he’s just my dad and then a few minutes later he’s not anymore … it’s …” She stopped and there were more tears. Danny put an arm around her shoulders.

  There was something that sounded off in what she was saying. I let her recover and wipe her eyes and nose with a tissue.

  “You saw your dad upstairs? When was that, Glenna?”

  “He’d just come in from being out. I guess that’s when he had gone to talk to Danny and showed him the gun. Of course, I didn’t know that then. But he had gone up to the bedroom and I was just coming out of mine and I saw him in there putting something in the drawer by the bed. I was going to take Tater outside and I didn’t even stop and talk to him right then. I wish I had said something. I could have told him …”

  “I’m betting your dad knew you cared about him a lot.” I waited again as she dabbed at her eyes. “Glenna, can I ask you a question?”

  She sniffed and nodded, trying to be strong.

  “What happened after you took Tater for a walk?”

  “I don’t know. I came back in the house and Tater ran off to the back door where his food dish is. I saw lights on in Dad’s office, so I thought I’d just tell him good night. I went in and that’s when I saw …” She stopped again, took a breath. “He was lying there and Mom was there, too. I didn’t see the guy who shot him. He must have run
away before I got back to the house.”

  It was either an Academy Award–winning performance or I had just heard something I never wanted to hear. If Wendell Claiborne had actually gone upstairs after he’d returned from his meeting with Danny, had he put the gun back in the drawer?

  And had Glenna actually entered the office after her father was shot?

  If the answer to both of those questions was yes, then Cobb and I had it wrong. Cobb’s premise was based on the gun being in Claiborne’s office. But if he had returned it to the upstairs bedroom, then someone had to get it from there to the office. If that person was neither Danny nor Glenna, then there was only one person who could have taken it there. A person with a motive. And the charade with Ike Groves and his bogus confession was everything Landry had said it was.

  No matter how valid the reasons were for Rachel Claiborne to shoot her husband, if she did, she had committed murder. Maybe a jury would have been lenient, but we would never know that. There would be no trial and no jury.

  We had made it possible for a killer to go free.

  I looked at Danny and Glenna for a long time. Searching for a trace of guilt or guile that might indicate that Glenna was lying. I saw none.

  “Glenna, I’m sorry you’re having to go through this. I could throw out a lot of useless clichés and sayings, but none of them will be much help. You’re a terrific kid and I really believe it will get better with time. And if there’s anything Cobb and I can do for you — either of you — just ask, okay?”

  “You already did, Mr. Cullen. You gave me my mother back. And I know one thing; I couldn’t do this without her. If she’d gone to prison to protect Danny … I want you to know that … well, I just thank you so, so much.”

  “You’re welcome, Glenna. Thanks for coming to see me. And thanks for the chocolates.”

  They smiled, bobbed heads, and slipped out into the hallway. I didn’t know if what Glenna had said at the end of the visit made it any better. But it did remind me of what Cobb had said a while back. Think about the good things we’ve done.

  I decided to give it a try.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Corny, hokey, sentimental — it would be all of those things. But since those three words describe me rather well, it was also somewhat apt.

  After a couple of months of mostly frigid temperatures and grey skies, the last few days, the first days of April, had brought a welcome respite from winter’s ferocity. Temperatures were in the mid- to upper teens on the plus side of Anders Celsius’s temperature scale, and blue skies felt, as the song’s lyrics proclaimed, as if they were smilin’ at me.

  I was hoping that the sky wouldn’t be the only smile I would see on this day. I’d had my full leg cast replaced by a smaller version, and I was at least a little more mobile than I had been for the past five weeks.

  It was time.

  Time for an outing. The day had started with Kyla and me delivering coffee, biscuits, and strawberry jam to Jill in bed. Timing is everything and ours had been near perfect, as our arrival coincided with the first flutter of eyelids.

  Our carefully rehearsed plan had Kyla announce that we would be heading off for the first picnic of the year — to Reader Rock Garden, a one-hundred-plus-year-old park located just south of the Stampede grounds. One of Calgary’s best-kept secrets, it had long been a place I had gone to, most often alone, to relax, to read, and to think pleasant thoughts.

  And while the flowers would not yet have appeared and the plants and shrubs were mostly dormant, the promise of beauty and joy not far off was, I thought, symbolic and in keeping with the day’s plan.

  The drive to the park was quieter than usual, what with Kyla more nervous than I was, and Jill enjoying the sun on her face as she drove — that being a task I was not yet up to handling. Once parked, we didn’t have to hike far to find the right spot — a park bench near the rock walls William Reader himself, then Calgary’s Parks Superintendent, had erected a century before to keep the hillsides around his cottage from eroding.

  We ate and talked and laughed. It was a perfect day.

  “I have a request,” I told them both. “The new cast requires new signatures. I was hoping you would both sign my plaster. Kyla, would you do the honours first, please?”

  She agreed and I pulled a Sharpie from my pocket and handed it to her. I turned and raised my leg as best I could to accommodate her. She fussed and wrote for what seemed rather a long time, finally prompting her mother to comment, “He said an autograph, not a novella.”

  Kyla handed Jill the Sharpie. “Oh, rats, I forgot my phone in the car. I want to get some pictures of this place. Can I have the car keys, Mom?”

  Keys in hand, she bolted down the hill to the parking area.

  I swung around to face Jill. “Okay, your turn. But do me a favour — can you sign right on the knee? I want your name in a prominent place.”

  She started to bend down to get in position to sign the cast.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Stay right there.” I stood and, awkwardly I’ll admit, was able to get my leg up on the park bench next to her. And as she leaned forward she saw the ring that Kyla had so carefully two-sided-taped to my cast — right on the knee.

  She dropped the Sharpie and the tears came.

  “Jill,” I said, “I’m sorry I can’t do this on bended knee like I said I would, but I did want the knee to play a role nevertheless.” I bent and removed the ring from my cast and pulled the tape off.

  “I want you to know that you make me unbelievably happy every single day and I’d like to try to do the same for you … today and every day after this one. Will you marry me?”

  I lowered my leg back to the ground and Jill stood up and pressed in against me.

  “I love you so much, Adam Cullen.” She kissed me, long and warm and soft. And then whispered, “But can I give you my answer after your accomplice gets back?”

  “Deal,” I said.

  And within a minute, Kyla was racing back up the hill, cellphone in hand, and out of breath. Neither Jill nor I spoke.

  Kyla looked from one of us to the other and back, concern starting to show her face.

  “Did I miss anything?” she asked.

  “No, you didn’t,” Jill said. “I wanted you to be here for this.” And she turned to me and said, “Yes, I will marry you, Adam Cullen. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”

  A group hug followed. Tears, laughter, and a hug that I hoped and believed would be the first of many … many.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I was sitting on the back deck having coffee with Jill. The Calgary Herald was resting on the table in front of us but I hadn’t looked at it. Time for that later. Lorne Cooney had called to say there was a positive review of the soon-to-be-released third Spoofaloof book on page 27, but that, too, could wait. These moments on the deck with Jill were precious to both of us and I had no desire to cut this one short.

  It had rained during the night. Jill and I were watching a couple of robins industriously enjoying a hearty breakfast of fresh worms, which convinced me I should put off making our own breakfast, at least for a while.

  Kyla was at a weekend baseball camp with two of her girlfriends and would be home later that day.

  I’d started running again — slowly; Jill was positively radiant as she basked in the fulfillment of her work at the Inn. We’d been in the house two months. Our search had ended when we had walked through this place in the Roxboro neighbourhood a second time. When we got back outside we looked at each other, both of us with the expression that said please tell me you love this place as much as I do. We closed the deal that afternoon. Character home, it’s called. A two-storey old-timer with original hardwood floors, a beautiful backyard, and a fair number of items that needed attention, which is probably why we could afford it.

  There had been several long discussions among the three of us about whether to buy in the country, but we finally agreed that there was much about this city that we loved and wanted to be a pa
rt of every day. And we were getting our country fix two or three times a week when we headed to the stable where our three horses were boarded. Jill had been saving for a couple of years and my latest Spoofaloof advance topped up the horse fund. Talented quarter horse geldings for Jill and Kyla, a quiet old mare for me.

  There had been no honeymoon, nor had there been a trip to Vegas. The tour company had been great and agreed to let us reschedule for the fall, when my leg would be completely healed.

  Jill’s job at Let the Sunshine Inn was demanding, but she was loving it. She’d taken the morning off after spending much of the weekend alternating between the food bank and the homeless shelter. Kyla had had a couple of minor bouts with the Crohn’s lately, but for the most part was managing it well and treated it with the same disdain with which most people regard the common cold.

  The phone rang. I looked at the number. It was Cobb.

  Mike and I had met for a couple of lunches and the occasional beer since that February night in the alley, but the talk was always casual. No business, no talk of cases or crimes, no planned pursuits of evildoers. And I’d been fine with that. More than fine.

  And, of course, he’d been at the wedding. Church wedding. May 9th at Scarboro United Church, Reverend Lee Spice presiding. I glanced at Jill and she nodded. Take the call. I hoped Cobb was calling to tell me he had tickets to the Stampeders game or the Stampede rodeo and could we join Lindsay and him.

  I picked up the phone.

  “Hey, Mike, how are things?”

  “Things are good, amigo. How about you?”

  “Right at this moment, awfully close to perfect.”

  “Liking the new place?”

  “No, loving the new place.”

  “Getting tired of the life of leisure yet?”

  “Not yet. Maybe ask me in about ten years.”

  “Have you seen the Herald this morning?”

  “It’s right here, but I haven’t cracked it yet.”

  “When you do, take a look at a little story at the bottom of page two. There’s a note about a disturbance in the Stampede infield last night. No details, because Stampede security closed off the area to everybody, but there were cops and an ambulance.”