by David Waters
“And my mother?” Gina asked.
“Ah, yes. Your mother.” He looked at me first unsure of what to tell us. I had the feeling he would have told me something he did not want to reveal to Gina. “Well, she pretty well kept to herself. She was always there but she never seemed to really belong. If one caught her off guard, there always seemed to a hint of unhappiness in her face. When you spoke to her she was always polite. Friendly. What I would have called a true lady.” But in his tone he had hit a false note. I noticed it. I don’t think he did. Gina did. She winced. He went on, “Of course she was very beautiful and there were times when she appeared quite happy, but it seemed to me to be a transient emotion, as if she expected it to disappear at any moment.”
“It did,” Gina said.
I pressed on. “At the time, did you think Gina’s father was guilty?”
As he dragged his glass towards him and lifted it to drink, beads of moisture clung to the table like a trail of unsympathetic tears. He gave Gina an apologetic glance.
“I guess at the time it was convenient for all of us to think so. But I don’t think many of us really bought it. Convenient because otherwise we had to conclude that a murderer was still at large. And what might the motive have been? Something, maybe, that might prove a danger to our own lives? On the other hand none of us had ever thought of your father as someone capable of that kind of violence. It didn’t really make sense.” He turned to Gina. “I’m no psychologist, but usually a man who is prone to violence shows it in many small ways. Sudden anger at parties. Whatever. That was not your father.”
“But you didn’t rally to his support,” I said.
“No.”
“Not even when he was released.”
He did not reply. I could see that he was beginning to resent my line of questioning.
“Did anyone go out of their way to foster the idea that he was guilty even after his release?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Did you?”
“No. Definitely not!” But again he had struck a false note. There was, I felt, too much umbrage in his voice, and I caught a glint of distinct uneasiness in his eyes as he motioned to the bartender. As we waited for his refill, I asked, “assuming that Frank Montini was not guilty, looking back, who would emerge as your favorite suspect?”
I did not really expect an answer. I was simply going on a fishing expedition to see what his response might be. He seemed suddenly more comfortable with my line of questioning. In fact, I suspected, he had prepared for it.
He smiled. “I think I should have insisted before I began that all of this should be off the record. I’m sure I’ve already been too garrulous. It’s a weakness that comes with age, and of course a whiskey or two too many.”
“I haven’t been taking notes. So let’s consider this first conversation as off the record.” I could sense that he was tired of this conversation, but I also sensed that there was probably something he wanted to tell me. “Even in talking to anyone else,” I added, “I won’t refer to you as the source of anything you tell me now.”
He nodded gratefully.
“You asked me if I had a favorite suspect. I certainly won’t be that specific. But about five years ago my mind toyed briefly with a theory. It’s a line of investigation you might want to pursue. And on this I definitely do not want to be quoted.”
I waited.
“Have you ever heard of the Canadian scientist Dr. Gerald Bull?”
I had a feeling I had read something not too long ago in Time or Maclean’s magazine. The bartender had brought his refill. “Was he the one who was assassinated by the Israeli secret service in Brussels?”
“Yes. About five years ago. Experts think it was an Israeli hit. But who knows? A book about his unusual life came out not too long after he was killed. Most of the major magazines ran excerpts from it. In brief, he had early on developed an artillery piece capable of sending instruments into space. It was called the HARP program and was funded at first by both the American and Canadian governments. When funding for the project ceased, he became embittered and turned to developing a super cannon. Near the end its completion was being financed by Iraq. But he had sold earlier stages of his advanced artillery weaponry to South Africa, Israel and China. In other words, he was a player on a very dangerous, not to say, secretive, field. What a lot of people don’t know is that Professor Monaghan did some work for him and had visited Bull’s firing range at Highwater on the Quebec-Vermont border. Some of us were aware of it at the time but we assumed that Professor Monaghan was only a minor participant, and of course none of us knew, then, what Bull was really up to.”
“So why do you think any of this is pertinent?”
“I have my reasons. I don’t intend to say anymore.”
“Okay.” I said. “It’s an angle I’ll check out.” But I knew it would be like looking for finger-prints in a garbage dump. I certainly did not have the resources to get behind the scenes of international intrigues, particularly if they involved the secret services of one or more countries. It might, of course, explain, I thought, the high-level government interference in Professor Montini’s trial. But something about it didn’t seem quite right to me.
When we were outside the faculty club I asked Gina to wait for me at the top of the stairwell. “A minor detail I forgot to ask him.” I turned, hoping she would not follow me. I was counting on the fact that she probably had a distaste for watching anyone get progressively drunker.
He looked up in surprise when I returned. He had difficulty hiding his annoyance.
““Did the police question you,” I asked. I did not sit down.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I believe because my office was next to his and I worked in the same department.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing of significance. I probably confirmed what they already knew, or would find out on their own anyway. But no more than that. I was not, I believe, a co-operative witness.”
“Did you see or hear anything of significance that you did not tell them?”
He shook his head, but I noticed that a slight hesitation preceded it.
“Did you have an alibi.”
“Not that I recall.”
“Most innocent people don’t.” I said in as friendly a tone as I could muster.
“Most of my days,” he explained, “are a kind of ritual. I drink in the afternoon. I leave, eat in a nearby restaurant, go home, read and fall asleep early. I get up early and try to get most of my work done before noon. I try to give value for the money I earn. I have a few drinks at lunch and do an hour or two more of work. I didn’t drink quite as much back then. But It’s not the kind of routine that provides for a life of alibis.”
“No one to confirm your presence at home that evening?”
“I live alone.”
“You know something about Mrs. Montini that you hinted at but did not mention. I think, maybe, because Gina was present.”
He looked past me to see if Gina had re-entered the club. Doing so was in itself an admission. The fact did not escape him, “It was nothing really.”
“Then why not share it with me. I won’t inform Gina unless it’s truly pertinent.”
He shrugged. “One night as I was leaving a party I came across her and Dean Gooden going at it pretty heavily in the back of a car. I don’t think they saw me.” He stared down at his drink. “It did not strike me as like her. Afterward I concluded that she was probably angry at her husband and wanted to retaliate in kind. Who knows, maybe she was also desperately in need of some affection. Who gave it to her probably didn’t matter. Peter Gooden was simply there. Certainly nothing developed between them. And no gossip followed. So I presume it was an isolated incident.” There was sweat on his forehead. He wiped at it with a linen handkerchief. His gnome-like head looked up at me. “I meant it,” he said, “when I said I believed she was truly a lady. Naomi wasn’t.”
“And Stella?”
He frowned. “Strange, she was one I could never quite figure out.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“Where to now.” Gina asked as we descended the old stairwell which led to the main door.
“I’m going to drop you off at the motel.”
“And then what are you going to do?”
“Go home, make some notes, and decide where to go from there.”
“Maybe I could help you.”
“I work better alone. Thanks anyway.”
We headed towards the car.
She sighed. “Once a bachelor, always a bachelor.”
“What does that mean?”
“I read somewhere that bachelors can’t bear the idea of others intruding on their mental turf.”
“It must have been in one of those women’s magazines.”
“Do you think the lead he gave us is worth anything?” She asked, changing the subject.
“I don’t know. It may be a wild goose chase.”
“But will you look into it?”
“Yes. I suppose so. No choice really.”
“When you pressed him about Monaghan and this guy Bull he became evasive. Or did you notice that?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And scared. Or at least uneasy. His left eyelid kept fluttering.”
“That may be just something physiological. A result of too much alcohol.”
“Or emotional. If he’s the guilty one, he’d have reason to be uneasy, even scared. It would also explain why he would try to send us off on a wild goose chase.”
“When I went back, He told me that he used to have the office next to Monaghan’s. They obviously didn’t get along. He was questioned at the time. And he admitted he didn’t have an alibi for the night that Monaghan was murdered.”
“When you went back to speak to him, did he mention my mother’s tryst with Peter Gooden?”
My mouth opened with surprise. But I clamped it shut without saying anything.
“He did, didn’t he!”
I nodded. “But only because I pushed him. I had the feeling he knew something about your parents that he did not want to talk about in front of you.”
“You weren’t going to tell me about it, were you?”
“No. How did you come to know about it?”
“I heard my parents arguing one night. It came up. My mother maintained it was a one night stand and foolish. I’m sure my parents put it behind them. It had nothing to do with my father leaving us stranded in Portland.” She paused while I negotiated a busy traffic intersection. “And he didn’t mention my father’s letter?”
I had noted that too. And neither had Gooden. Innocent omissions? Too soon, certainly, to draw any serious inferences.
As we neared the motel she asked, “do you have any family?”
“A brother in Toronto and a sister in Vancouver.”
“Were you ever married?”
“No.”
“Gay?”
“No. Just never met the woman I wanted to share my life with.”
“Or a woman whose life you wanted to share.”
I gave her a grin. “That may sound more politically correct. But it doesn’t correspond to the facts. My concern was more selfish. Maybe I only went out with women who felt the same way. They probably didn’t want to share their life with me either.”
We stopped in front of the motel.
“So no woman tried to rope you into marriage?”
“Nope. And you,” I asked, “Single? Married? Divorced?”
My question brought out a frown. “The men I’ve met so far have been either immature, or lost, or over-achieving yuppies,” she sounded disappointed.
She stared at the motel before getting out.
“It’s a motel,” she said, “that caters to the local sex trade.”
I nodded. “I thought of mentioning it when you first told me where you were staying.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You came on as pretty strong and arrogant. You chose it. I didn’t want to interfere. Maybe we should move you somewhere else.”
“No. I’m okay for now. I met someone this morning in the coffee shop. She works at a strip joint down the street. She’s a nice person. She claims it’s still the nicest and least expensive of the motels around here.” She got out of the car. She gave me a proud, determined look. “I’ll probably pester you tonight for a progress report.”
Back in my den, I made some notes of everything I could remember of what Professor Hendricks had said. Before trying to sort them out I went to my bookshelves where I keep back copies of a dozen major magazines. I retrieved one that had a feature on Bull’s assassination, and another that had run lengthy extracts from a book about Bull’s bizarre life. I made a note of the title and the author of the book.
Professor Hendricks had got most of his facts right. But the only thing that really interested me was whether he had been right in his claim that Monaghan had worked for Bull. That assumption now puzzled me. Monaghan had been described as virulently against his country’s strategic and military policy. Bull, on the other hand, had designed a battleship cannon for use by the US during the Vietnam War. Because of his ongoing work with the American military establishment, he had been granted American citizenship through a special Bill sponsored by Senator Barry Goldwater. True, later he had had contracts with the Chinese, but that had occurred during the period of rapprochement between the United States and China. He first ran into trouble with the Canadian and American governments when he violated embargoes about shipping arms to South Africa. He had been indicted and jailed briefly in Vermont. But his treatment by the Americans had been more of a slap on the wrist than a serious effort to halt his work. Besides, his rogue behavior, as it was increasingly called by colleagues and enemies alike, had occurred after Monaghan had been killed. My instincts told me that I was wasting my time pursuing the lead Hendricks had supplied. Still, if Monaghan’s death had been in any way connected to his involvement with Bull’s projects, the best place to begin looking for clues was the American Intelligence Services. Trying to get any information from Canadian Intelligence was hopeless. But Washington leaked information more easily. I put a call through to my managing editor and explained what I had found out so far. I had this image of him raising one eyebrow first and then the other: one expressing curiosity, the other a cautious skepticism.
“Our stringer in Washington,” I said, “do you think he would know anyone with contacts in American intelligence?”
He laughed. “Funny you should ask that.”
“Why?”
“Just last week we were wondering whether we could afford to keep him on retainer. Most of his stuff wasn’t much different from what we get on the wire services that we pay for already. I went through his file. One of the reasons we hired him in the first place was that he claimed he had access to sources in both the CIA and the FBI. For some reason that impressed some of us. Ironically we’ve yet to ask him to use them.”
“I’d like to do so with this case.”
“He may want extra money. May have to pay his contacts.” He sighed. “We’re on a ridiculous tight budget these days.”
“Mel, I’ll pay for it myself if I have to.”
There was a brief silence. “Sounds like you’ve become personally involved in this,” he chuckled, “sounds to me, like that young lady’s got you wrapped around her little finger.”
“No, it’s my sense of honor that’s at stake.” I felt slightly silly and just a little pompous saying it.
“Haven’t heard you use a word like that in a long time.” It didn’t seem to surprise him. He gave me Jim Haylocke’s office and home telephone numbers. “Tell him to call me to confirm the assignment. We’ll pay costs so long as they’re within reason. If they aren’t I’ll get back to you. Sounds like there may be a good story in this after all.”
“I hope
so.” I didn’t mention the deal I had made with Joe Gibbs. Mel had a high blood pressure condition which I certainly didn’t want to aggravate. I phoned the two numbers and left messages on both answering machines. Then I phoned Phil Ryan. I left a message on his machine as well. He was the first to return my call.
“I got the tickets for the ball game Friday night. Three of them. You’re still planning to bring the young woman?”
“Yep.”
“Does she know anything about baseball?”
“I don’t know.”
There was a silence. “We’re going to be watching a pennant winner. I hope she’s not one of those catty females who will be constantly asking depressing questions about young millionaires running around in funny uniforms.”
I grinned. “I’ll speak to her.”
“Good.”
“Phil, I phoned to ask you another favor.”
“What?
“Is there any way you could get the old police file out on the Montini case?”
There was a long pause. “Maybe. She really has you convinced that we arrested the wrong guy, hasn’t she?”
I explained that I had begun to interview many of the same people who had been questioned back then. I wanted to be able to compare what they had said then, with what they were telling me now. “I’m not planning to discuss the file with Montini’s daughter, I just want to compare notes with you, not memories, but specific details. It may not help, but then it may make all the difference in the world.”
He grunted. I pressed on, “there may still be a murderer out there. I don’t mind doing the leg work. But you may spot things that I would miss, particularly if our minds were refreshed by going over the old file.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll get back to you one way or the other. Then we can decide where to meet before the game. By the way if I get the file out, you’ll owe me another favor.”