A Little More Free

by John McFetridge

  “Should I talk to the son?”

  Carpentier said, “You’ll need more than the word of a stooler, to talk to such a rich guy, so connected, so many lawyers.”

  Dougherty said okay. But he did want to do something. He was feeling how a homicide investigation could get under his skin, how the idea that someone who beat a man to death could be walking around the city like nothing happened and he wanted to do everything he could to find the guy.

  He was starting to understand how little it had to do with being his job.

  * * *

  Dougherty called the Gazette reporter, Keith Logan, and asked him what he knew about Richard Burnside and the rock ’n’ roll business.

  Logan said, “Are you working narcotics now?”

  “Maybe, depends what you can tell me.”

  “Nothing, really, just rumours.”

  “Good place to start.”

  “I’m pretty busy,” Logan said. “Why don’t you buy me lunch.”

  “Sure, we’ll grab a couple hot dogs.”

  “When you’re a real detective, you’ll have an expense account.” There was a pause and then Logan said, “You know the Star of India?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never eaten there.”

  “Neither have I, but I need some quotes, I’ll be there in an hour.”

  * * *

  Dougherty sat across from Logan and said, “You a restaurant critic now?”

  “Local spin on the big story.”

  A waiter came to the table and Logan said, “Have the butter chicken — he says it’s just like St. Hubert.”

  “All right.”

  The waiter did a quick bow and was gone.

  Dougherty said, “What’s the big story?”

  “Idi Amin is kicking all the Asians out of Uganda.”

  “The Chinese?”

  “No,” Logan said, “Asian.” He waved his hand motioning around the restaurant and said, “Indians.”

  “India Indians, not native Indians.”

  “Right. Sixty thousand people. They have a month to get out.”

  “Or what?”

  Logan shrugged. “What do you think? I might call the story ‘None Is Too Many.’”

  The waiter was back at the table then, and he put down a plate with a large, thick piece of bread on it. Logan said, “Naan.” He thanked the waiter and the guy backed away.

  “What’s that mean, none is too many?”

  “In the war, in the lead-up to it, when the Jews were trying to get out of Europe, trying to get anywhere else and someone asked Canada how many refugees we’d take, that was the answer, none is too many.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Logan tore a piece off the naan and motioned for Dougherty to do the same. “I doubt the editors will let me say that — doesn’t fit with our current image of ourselves.”

  “Why are they getting kicked out?”

  “Amin says he had a dream.” Logan shrugged. “But there’s been tension for a while, the Asians are pretty good businessmen, they came in with the British, built the railways and all that.”

  “And now they’ve got to go?”

  “Expelled. Like the Acadians.”

  “Le Grand Dérangement,” Dougherty said. “My mother’s family.”

  “So, I’m trying to get some quotes but no one wants to say anything.”

  “Not even off the record?”

  “No one knows what’s going to happen. Amin used the word ‘camps,’ people are scared. I talked to the owner here, the waiters, everyone’s worried they might say the wrong thing.”

  The waiter was back at the table then, smiling as he put down a little silver dish filled with pieces of chicken in a kind of yellow sauce and a bowl of rice.

  Logan said, “My friend here is a policeman, he’s here to protect you.”

  The waiter said, “Yes, of course,” still smiling as he walked away.

  “I did answer a call here once,” Dougherty said. “Some drunk wouldn’t leave. He was telling war stories, the time he spent in India.”

  “I bet he said it was hot.”

  Dougherty laughed a little and said, “I don’t re­member.”

  “So,” Logan said, “what’s this about rock ’n’ roll.”

  “This is off the record,” Dougherty said.

  “It always is. Until it isn’t.”

  “Fair enough.” Dougherty took a bite of the chicken and said, “This is good.”

  “They have a dish here with eggplant. I didn’t think it was possible to make eggplant taste good.”

  “So, what do you know about Richard Burnside?”

  “He’s a dilettante.”

  “His rock ’n’ roll business looks real.”

  “With his father bankrolling it. But yeah, he’s booked some big concerts, he might be doing okay.”

  “But there are rumours about him?”

  Logan scraped the last of the butter chicken onto the rice on his plate. “It’s not so much that there are rumours, it’s just that’s all there are — rumours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No one really seems to know much about the guy.”

  “He’s kind of famous.”

  “That’s just it,” Logan said. “He’s famous but he’s not. Outside of publicity stuff, getting his picture taken with Marc Bolan, no one ever sees him.”

  “No one you know.”

  “I know everyone.”

  Dougherty said, “Sorry, I forgot.” He used some of the naan to wipe up the last of the butter chicken sauce. “He must hang around with someone.”

  “He spends money. He invests.”

  “In what?”

  “Clubs.”

  “Which ones?”

  “I heard some guys who worked at Winston Churchill’s opened their own place and they got the money from friends, artists mostly but artists don’t have any money.”

  “So it was Burnside? Why wouldn’t they say that?”

  “Who knows, but he doesn’t want his name tossed around.”

  Dougherty said, “Okay,” and he was thinking that it would be impossible to get a meeting with the guy but he might be able to just run into him. Then he said, “So, are we going to take in any of these Asian refugees?”

  “I think so,” Logan said. “If we can be quiet about it.”

  * * *

  The Rainbow Bar and Grill was only a block from the Playboy Club but a world away inside.

  The new world, Dougherty figured, now that the Playboy Club was closed and the Rainbow was going strong, Tuesday night, just after eight, and the place was crowded. The music was canned, no sign of a band, but it was rock ’n’ roll and the customers were all in their twenties. A thick cloud of smoke filled the room and Dougherty noticed more packs of Gauloises on the tables than Export As.

  He sat at the end of the bar, and a waitress passing by said, “You want to eat, or just a beer?” without slowing down. Dougherty watched while she loaded her tray and came back around the bar and he said, “What’s good?”

  “Lamb curry.”

  Dougherty was thinking everyone was getting in on the Indian food. After he’d left Logan he’d asked around and found out that the guys from Winston Churchill’s had opened the Rainbow. He said, “Just a beer, a Fifty.”

  A minute later, the waitress put a beer bottle on the bar in front of Dougherty without stopping as she headed off towards the tables in the back. The lights were low, of course, and Dougherty couldn’t make out many faces. They all looked the same, anyway, the men with beards and long hair, the women with even longer hair hanging straight down. From what he could see there was more wine being drunk than beer.

  And then he saw someone he knew. She was sitting at a table with a few other people but she was looki
ng at Dougherty.

  He nodded a little and she looked away.

  Still wearing the workboots.

  Dougherty saw a back door open then and a couple of people come out into the bar, a man and woman who both looked to be in their early thirties, and he figured they were the owners he’d heard about. He watched them circulate a little, stopping at a couple of tables and moving on until the guy sat down at a table and the woman disappeared into the back room.

  Judy MacIntyre was getting up then and putting on her coat. Dougherty left a dollar bill tucked under his beer bottle on the bar, and he followed her outside.

  She was walking up the hill towards Sherbrooke and didn’t seem surprised when Dougherty caught up to her.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said, “you’ve got work to do.”

  She didn’t slow down. “So what if I do?”

  “It just seems,” Dougherty said, “that in all your groups, you’re the only one doing any work.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to find out who killed David Murray.”

  “Well then,” she said, “it seems that in your group you’re the only one doing any work.”

  “Oh, there’s lots of work being done,” Dougherty said and he hoped it sounded more convincing to Judy MacIntyre than it did to himself. “I’m just the only one you see.”

  “You don’t make much of an undercover cop.”

  “I was looking for Richard Burnside, he owns that place. Do you know him?”

  She didn’t slow down. “A lot of people invested.”

  “I heard. I wonder how many put up as much money as Burnside? Do you think if we looked we could find a connection between his family and the building the bar is in?”

  “Why don’t you go do that.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that David Murray was hanging out with Richard Burnside?”

  They were at Sherbrooke then and she stopped. “They weren’t hanging out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You don’t know anything, do you?”

  The light changed and she started across Sherbrooke.

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “It’s true, Burnside’s family owns a lot of buildings,” she said, walking quickly through the Roddick Gates onto the McGill campus. “So Richard is helping us fight this development.”

  “What development?”

  She stopped walking then and looked at Dougherty and said, “Every time I think you can’t possibly know any less you surprise me.”

  “With so many people keeping secrets,” Dougherty said, “how can I know anything?”

  “It’s no secret what’s going on in Milton Park: they’re throwing people out of their homes to build a monstrosity that will —”

  “Okay,” Dougherty cut her off. “There’s a lot going on, it’s tough to keep up. And you’re right, I guess I’m not very good at it yet. But doesn’t it seem odd to you that no one knows where David Murray was for a week before he was killed, and then someone caved in his skull with a rock? Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  She was still looking at Dougherty but her anger was fading. She said, “I guess I didn’t think about how he was killed. It sounds awful.”

  “I don’t think there’s a good way for it to happen but, yeah, it was awful.” Dougherty shrugged a little and said, “And the detectives think it was probably someone he knew.”

  “Why do they say that?”

  Dougherty hesitated and then said, “The blows hit him from the front, he would’ve been looking at his attacker. There was no struggle, no sign that he tried to run. It looks like he was face to face with someone and they beat him. To death.”

  “My God, I didn’t …” Judy started walking through the dark, quiet campus. “I feel bad I don’t have any idea what he was doing lately.”

  “But he did know Richard Burnside?”

  “I don’t know. They were at some of the same meetings.”

  “But you don’t really know where David was spending his time.”

  “But Richard, he’s just —” she paused then and Dougherty waited and she said, “Well, you know.”

  “I thought we already figured out,” Dougherty said, “that I don’t know anything.”

  For a moment he thought he saw her smile.

  “Richard Burnside is a rich kid who likes to hang out with the people, you know? Maybe he feels guilty his father is bulldozing all these houses, maybe he wants to be in the bar business or the rock ’n’ roll business, maybe he just wants to meet girls, I don’t know.”

  Dougherty had a feeling not many people involved in her causes lived up to Judy MacIntyre’s expectations. He said, “But he did know David Murray.”

  “He knows lots of people.”

  They were walking off campus and onto Milton Street, past the McConnell Engineering building and Dougherty was thinking the last time he was here was probably a couple of years ago when a bomb had gone off in the basement. Seemed like a long time ago now.

  “Well, look, if you think of anything, call me, okay?”

  “I’ve told you everything.”

  “Have you?”

  She glanced over her shoulder but didn’t slow down, and Dougherty thought about stopping and watching her walk but he had the feeling that there was something going on here, something she wanted to say, so he kept pace with her, and they both turned onto Hutchison.

  It was a cool September evening and with the school semester only recently started up, there were a few students on the street and they seemed to be in a good mood.

  Judy MacIntyre slowed down as she got closer to her house, and Dougherty said, “Would you like to get a drink somewhere?”

  She laughed and said, “With you?”

  “Yeah, with me.”

  “Aren’t you working?”

  They were stopped in front of the house then and a couple of students pushed past them on the sidewalk.

  Dougherty said, “Aren’t you?”

  Judy was watching the students as they joined a group of friends and continued up the street, and Dougherty was about to say something about how young they were or maybe how old he felt, and then he realized Judy was looking at him.

  She said, “You probably know places where there aren’t any students.”

  “And even some where there aren’t any cops.”

  He took her to a little bar on St. Laurent just below St. Catherine that was almost all men, gay men, and Judy thought that was funny. They had a good time.

  Such a good time they ended up back at Dougherty’s apartment.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  Dougherty was the first cop on the scene, and a middle-­aged man in a suit and tie met him at the door saying, “This way.”

  “Is everyone out of the building?”

  “Yes.”

  The building was on McGregor, a couple blocks above Sherbrooke, in with a few other consulates in big old stone buildings that were once houses in the Golden Mile. Dougherty followed the man into the re­ception area and saw the letter in the middle of the desk. The envelope was about three by six inches and maybe an inch thick, white, and addressed to a man personally.

  Dougherty said, “Are you Pinchas Shaanan?”

  “Yes, I’m the consul-general here.”

  “What kind of stamps are they?”

  “They are Dutch,” Shaanan said. “It was mailed from Amsterdam. Like the one in London.”

  “Which one in London?”

  “Yesterday, a letter bomb exploded at our embassy in London, a man was killed.”

  “The ambassador?”

  “No,” Shaanan said, “but the letter was addressed to him personally. The man killed was named Sachori, the agricultural attaché. The bomb was like this one — it was
among the letters of condolence. For Munich.”

  Dougherty said, “All right, you better get out, too.”

  The rest of the consulate staff were standing around on the sidewalk on McGregor as the black station wagon pulled up and Sergeant Vachon got out and said, “Good to see you, Constable.”

  Dougherty said, “Just like old times.”

  “But we have different procedures now,” Vachon said, following Dougherty into the building.

  “There, it’s a letter bomb.”

  Vachon put his hand on Dougherty’s shoulder and said, “Just like in Ireland.”

  “The guy said the other one was in London.”

  “Oh no,” Vachon said, “I just meant there have been many from Ireland to England. This is something new, from Amsterdam.” He leaned over and looked closely at the envelope and then looked around the office and said, “Bien, we should take it away from here. Which is the nearest park?”

  “Jeanne-Mance, I guess.”

  “All right, we’ll take it there.”

  Vachon had a canvas bag over his shoulder and he put it on the desk next to the envelope. Then he looked at Dougherty and said, “Perhaps you should wait outside, Constable, just in case.”

  Dougherty didn’t want to leave the room, but he understood and walked down the hall to the front door. Standing on the front steps he saw an old car pull up and the newspaper reporter, Logan, get out.

  A minute later Vachon came up behind Dougherty saying, “Let’s go,” and Dougherty said, “Follow me.”

  He got into his squad car and drove along Pine Avenue, no siren or light, and then up Park Avenue. Vachon was following in his station wagon and behind him was a black truck with no markings on it at all.

  Dougherty drove a couple hundred feet up Park Avenue and then pulled up onto the sidewalk and drove into the middle of the grass. Jeanne-Mance Park was a flat, open space between the wide Park Avenue and the base of Mount Royal and although there were very few people around when the convoy of police vehicles pulled in, there was a small crowd by the time Vachon and a couple of technicians had removed their portable x-ray machine from the truck.

  “This is your new procedure?” Dougherty said.