Getting Away With Murder

by Howard Engel

  “I’m just doing my job, Mickey. And if I were you I wouldn’t stray away from your wife right now. It could be—” Just then we heard a sudden cry. Victoria had jumped over the arm of the couch and come down on Julie’s foot. Before Julie had recovered, Victoria was in the kitchen. Pete was the first off the mark. He moved after her with astonishing speed. By the time I got past the preparation table in the middle of the kitchen, they were both gone.

  “The tunnel!” Syl Ryan shouted, and started in after her. To the hounds a quarry is a quarry, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a fox or a hare.

  The tunnel didn’t do justice to its name. There was nothing mysterious about it: just another back way out that happened to run down a set of stairs and come out near the garage. From a distance away, we could hear raised voices, sounds of a struggle. “Let me through!” shouted Mickey, shoving both Pete and a uniformed man aside. But before he could get to the stairs, Syl Ryan came up, followed by two men in uniform carrying a struggling Victoria Armstrong between them.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The next few days are a bit hazy. I don’t remember much. I cleaned my office, got rid of a lot of old files, emptied the drawers of ancient apricot stones and Kogan’s empty bottles. I didn’t sleep much, and I wasn’t much fun for Anna to be with. But I hadn’t been much fun to be with when I was working either.

  I got a call from her father. He was prompting me to name a date and time for me to make an honest woman of his daughter. I told him that I didn’t know a more honest woman than Anna and that if she had lost the family honour by staying with me on occasion, then there was something rickety about the family honour. I’m not usually so outspoken with Jonah, who could buy and sell me a million times over, but there was something about the limbo state I was suspended in that gave me courage.

  I didn’t see Pete Staziak or Chris Savas for a week. I got a letter from Dave Rogers with a cheque in it. I hadn’t even billed him yet. When I opened the letter, it was just a blank page so that the cheque couldn’t be seen when held up to the light. I wouldn’t have minded hearing a word or two from Dave. I thought we always got along well.

  It was one of the biggest funerals in years. In death, Abe Wise had it all over Ed Neustadt. There were limousines with licence plates from all over eastern North America. The floral tributes were a little more tasteful than those in Capone’s day, but there were easily enough to satisfy the world of crime that they had given one of its own a proper send-off.

  Hart and Julie were standing side by side near their mothers, a sight Abe himself may not have seen in the last twenty years. Mickey was there by himself, although he had been in for questioning almost every day during the week. Phil Green and Sidney were there, but Syl Ryan had been detained downtown. Although he had left no fingerprints on the knife he used to kill Gord Shaw, a big handprint on the roof of the Alfa Romeo was plainly his. A little something extra to go with that Indian-head buckle I found in the snow.

  I didn’t know the rabbi who led the service, he was from out of town. He didn’t appear to be enjoying himself the way Major Patrick had at Neustadt’s funeral. But then Abe hadn’t been committed to the earth as fast as Jewish traditions require. The casket was massive, of course, made of bronze judging by the shine on it. There was an engraving on the top: it was a copy of the ugly terracotta mask in his office. He must have left very explicit instructions.

  By the time I left the grave-side, the others had gone on ahead. I knew there was going to be a traffic tie-up, so I killed some time with my former client. I hadn’t kept him alive, but I never said I could. I never believed in security. It always makes headaches for the innocent and presents no problem to the dedicated villain. All of the cars but mine were gone from the verge of the road through the cemetery. The weather felt warmer. It wasn’t spring or anything dramatic, but the hold of winter was broken. Slabs of ice were breaking off and running down the creek as I drove over the high-level bridge. I stopped to have some won-ton soup and fried rice at the Chinese place where I had first met Dave Rogers after the service. The place was empty.

  * * *

  One night, just after I locked up the office, Pete came by. He honked his horn and I slid into the front seat of his car. “You eaten yet?” he asked. I shook my head. “Me neither, and the wife has some women friends in to play cards tonight.” Usually I would chide him for using such terms as “the wife,” but that night I didn’t have the energy. I was washed out.

  “We’ve got the Shaw case in good order, Benny. Next to the Wise case, it’s simplicity itself. Thanks for putting us onto Ryan.”

  “Yeah, I saw that Indian-head buckle in the snow. You found it?”

  “Sure, but what could we make of it? You had a head start on us with that bunch.”

  “Don’t remind me. Syl Ryan used to be a biker and bikers are all crazy about the famous old Indian bikes. Syl was the only biker connected to Wise and his gang.”

  “Of course, we had the handprint on the car.”

  “Sure.”

  “Your friend Mickey’s going to be away for a long time, Benny. We got him on weapons, hijacking and smuggling. He and his pals were using boats to run booze and cartons of drugs across the Niagara River. That’s small stuff, but enough to put him down for a few years. By the time we get an understanding of the whole operation, we’ll both be getting our pension.”

  “Did he put up a big fight?”

  “Bigger than I expected. I thought we had him at a weak moment, what with his wife … you know. But, it took three good men to hold him and make the collar.”

  “He have a good lawyer?”

  “Yeah, that fellow who used to be such a drunk around town.”

  “Rupe McLay. Good for Rupe!”

  “Hell, Benny, you sound like you want Mickey to walk.”

  “Half and half. I feel like hell about Victoria, Pete.”

  “What you made sound like a crime without greed or personal advantage comes out looking premeditated and cold-blooded, Benny.”

  “What’s been happening this week? I’ve been out of circulation.”

  “Hart’s moving into one of his father’s houses. Julie and Didier have broken up all over again. You know anything about that, Benny?”

  “A little. Santerre was only interested in refinancing his magazine. Julie was his road to Wise. Wise was willing to pay off Santerre if he would leave Julie alone. Santerre tried to have it both ways. But Hart’s cheque bounced.”

  “That’s where we were called in. The bank gets weary of rubber cheques with Hart Wise’s name on them.”

  “Those two kids have a long way to go. Look at the Tatarskis. You never know where it will work itself out.”

  “What put your nose into the wind on this case, Benny?”

  “I was robbed of a night’s sleep.”

  “Yeah, but after that.”

  “First time I talked to Dave Rogers he said that some old woman had got herself killed by a burglar over on Russell Avenue. Nobody else knew that. It had to have come from Abe Wise himself. Next question?”

  “Where do you want to eat?”

  “I don’t know. Where do you want to eat?”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Queen Elizabeth Way was built to commemorate the visit in 1939 of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. It was at that time the finest divided highway in North America. It was still the fastest way to get from Grantham to Toronto, Hamilton or, as in this case, Grimsby. I pushed the Olds along at a good clip, keeping the lake to my right and the beetling escarpment to my left. Also on my left ran miles and miles of vineyards and orchards. There was pink blush about the naked twigs. Buds? I couldn’t tell. Once I turned off the familiar highway, I was in strange country. I didn’t know these quiet roads or streets. I tried to keep to the directions Mr. McCarthy had given me on the phone a day or so ago when I first talked to him. Pete had got the number for me and it took me the better part of a week to get the nerve to call it.

  The house w
as small, with a muddy driveway leading up to a tin garage with a door hanging halfway open or closed, whichever way you wanted to look at it. I parked the Olds in the driveway behind a beat-up blue Pontiac. looked about the same age as the other cars parked in driveways and along the treeless street. There was mud on my shoes when I mounted the porch of the sunblasted, artificial-brick-sided bungalow. The mat looked too new for the shoe-cleaning I had in mind, so I did what I could on the edge of the top step, leaving the mat for a final polish. I rang the bell, and heard the ring resounding through what appeared from the outside to be an empty house. On the second try, I could hear footsteps coming up from the basement. A dark form came between me and the light coming through a long hall from a back window and dusty lace curtains.

  “Yes?” said the man who opened the door about as wide as it would go. The man I was looking at was eighty. I’d figured out his present age from an article on his retirement in a Toronto paper. In the flesh, he looked older. He was a tall, rangy man, with lines on his face that were closer to furrows than wrinkles. There was a worried bloodhound expression on his features as he took in what he saw standing in front of him. Was he sizing up my height and estimating my weight, I wondered.

  “I’m Cooperman. Remember? I phoned.”

  “Cooperman? I don’t …” He rubbed a grizzled grey beard with the back of his hand while he tried to recall the conversation.

  “You are Mr. McCarthy, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right, but my memory is starting to go. They told me it would and now I guess I’ll have to believe them. Will you come in, Mr. Cooperman?” He moved away from the door and I followed him into the front room of the tiny house, which was decorated with brownish prints of sailing ships and sea captains in nor’westers. Next to the front window was a table with a fringed cloth on it. A bowl of nuts was its only decoration. A velvet wall-hanging of a stag at bay dominated the space above an upright piano with its lid closed.

  “Make yourself at home, Mr. Cooperman, and try to give me an idea of why you are calling on a gaffer like me on a nice day like this. You’re not a reporter, are you? I don’t talk to reporters, you know.” I tried to remind him of our conversation and he nodded from time to time as though what I was saying was striking chords in his head.

  “Mary Tatarski!” he said with some surprise. “Yes, I remember her very well. It’s the recent things I have trouble with. Mary Tatarski was back in December of 1952. That was a crowded week. I’d just come back from Toronto, where I’d hanged two bank robbers who shot a policeman. No! I did them after I did Mary Tatarski. It was a Thursday and then the next Tuesday, if I remember right. What do you want to know about her? I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act, you know. I’m no gossip.”

  “Did she make any confession at the end? Did she say anything that gave any indication as to guilt or innocence?” McCarthy looked up at the ceiling with its smooth cool plaster sheen, as though the memory could be found there.

  “You understand, there’s not much talk,” he said in a low confidential voice. I wondered about how much he could expect me to understand about his work. What was the given here? How much did he think was common knowledge? Maybe I should have asked him.

  “Yes, I know. I just thought that—”

  “A lot of them tell you they didn’t do it. They think I won’t hang ’em if they protest their innocence. I remember one time, in Calgary, I think it was—. But I’m sworn to uphold the law and I have my duty to perform. Guilty or innocent: it’s all the same to me. Let them tell the lawyers and the judges about that. It’s too late when they send for me. Although I’ve had a few false alarms in my day. They pay me half, when I don’t have to go through with it. It makes no nevermind to me. And I’m just as glad they made me put away my little bag of tricks. I’m like most people in this country I don’t believe in it any more. The times have changed. You can’t go against that.”

  “What about Mary Tatarski?”

  “She went to the drop as bravely as I’ve ever seen a man go. Not swaggering. I don’t mean that. But steady, if you know what I mean. I remember now!” he said, leaning towards me as though he had just been given an electric shock. “She made me do something I try to avoid. It’s been one my rules. Makes it easier afterwards. I try not to let them catch my eyes. You don’t want to have bad dreams, you know; bad enough as it is, but you don’t want the eye contact. It’ll give you the blue devils, I’ll tell you. Well, I broke my rule. She looked me in the eye, while Wilkes was strapping her legs together and I was about to cover her face, and she said, calm as ever you please, and with a sort of quiet smile, ‘I had no hand in the death of my mother.’ She didn’t say it swearing to God, like some of them do, but just flat out and looking me in the eye, ‘I had no hand in the death of my mother.’ I gave her a nod so as to show I understood and would remember what she said. Then she shook her head a little and opened her eyes wide and whispered, ‘It was different with Papa. He kept me from seeing Thaddeus.’ That’s all. She smiled to show she was finished talking. And then I did the necessary and that was the end of it.” The necessary! All trades have their jargon. The necessary! Is that how he remembers it from that December night forty-two years ago? Are the mental pictures from that night among the lost or discarded memories of this old man? I hoped they were, but I wouldn’t have bet on it. It was more likely he’d already forgotten my name than the events of that night.

  “And was it the truth? With all your experience, what did you think at the time?” He looked me straight in the eye. I couldn’t help thinking of Mary Tatarski looking into the eyes of her executioner.

  “I was sure I was hanging an innocent woman that night. I still think so. And I’ve faced more murderers on the point of death than any man living. But that last bit always bothered me. Never could figure that out.” We both sat in silence for a few moments. If he was going to add anything, he didn’t need me to cue him.

  “Did you know the former deputy chief of police, Ed Neustadt?’

  ”I knew him,” he said without emphasis. That in itself was a give-away.

  “Was he there?”

  “Neustadt was always there. In Ontario, anyway. He once turned up in Montreal. He had no business … But I guess he had connections.”

  “What did you make of him?”

  “None of my affair to make anything of him. And now he’s dead …” He let the idea trail off. I could tell that Mr. McCarthy didn’t like Neustadt. He and everybody else I’d met.

  “Did he get in the way?”

  “He had no business there at all. I spoke to the jail people, but they couldn’t stop him. These things are best then kept simple. There shouldn’t be anyone there who’s not part of it. It’s not a show. But you can’t keep some of them away. Neustadt was the biggest pest of all. He wanted to speak to the prisoner, but I wouldn’t let him. I told him to stand aside. I was sharp with him. I didn’t care if he was the prime minister. He had no business there that night.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McCarthy. You’ve told me what I couldn’t find out from any other source.”

  “Glad to help. Always glad. Most people want to know whether the people I’ve hanged suffered. Hell, I know my craft! I wouldn’t keep them waiting any longer than I needed to. There are tricks to the whole thing, you see. Nothing you can learn in five minutes. It took me years to get it just right. And hanging a woman’s no picnic, I’ll tell you. Givers of life and all that. The fellow before me was a real bungler, but you had to sympathize. He didn’t have much to go on. There’s only been ten women hanged since Confederation. That makes a hell of a poor pool of experience, I’ll tell you. No records, no facts to pass on for those who came after. No way to get a handle on it. No wonder he was a bungler. I tried to do better. I studied it, like. Talked to that fellow who kept a pub at Hoole, in England. The Rose and Crown. Used to keep one called Help the Poor Struggler, but he sold that. Small wonder. He retired before they abolished hanging. Had enough of it.” I could see th
at Mr. McCarthy was a mine of information, Official Secrets or not.

  “Old Pierrepoint, that was his name. He told me of one time when a client he was just about to top looked him in the eye and said: ‘The sentence is just, but the evidence was wrong.’ How do you like that for a summing up, Mr. Cooperman?”

  I nodded; it did sum things up. In general and for me. While the hangman spoke, my memory had been reaching back through these past chilly March days. It came to rest at the name Duncan Harvey thought I wouldn’t remember: Thaddeus Nemerov, the boy next door.

  I began making movements to show that I was finished. I thanked him again for his help.

  “Would you like a glass of beer with me?” He asked so tentatively that I couldn’t say no. Not everybody’s idea of good company, the last official hangman. He went into the back of the house and came out with two bottles and glasses on a tray. He told me that he was keeping house for himself since the death of his wife some years ago. He opened the first of the bottles and shared out the beer into the glasses. We nodded at one another and drank. I needed the drink more than I would have guessed. The inquiry I was concluding had made this visit and my questions necessary, just as McCarthy’s job made the hanging of Mary Tatarski necessary. “The necessary,” in fact. I had been looking for a murderer and he had punished one. Or had he? Had she been able at that terrible moment to look into the eyes of the hangman and lie? That was the question I pondered while the hangman poured out the second bottle of beer.

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM PENGUIN CANADA

  THE SUICIDE MURDERS

  Howard Engel

  A BENNY COOPERMAN MYSTERY

  She was cool, attractive—a real society lady—and she was in trouble. Benny Cooperman, a private eye with a hard head and a tender heart, was ready to help her in any way he could. But when her husband commits suicide the day Benny begins his investigation, he realizes he’s no longer dealing with a simple “family affair.”