by Howard Engel
The note recorded the damage done to the car, mostly to the front end from going through the bridge railing and coming up against the stiffer resistance of one of the girders that supported the central structure. Grill and lights had been smashed, the fender on the driver’s side had been crunched, and the frame bent. Inside, the steering wheel had snapped, which gave me some idea of the speed she’d been travelling at.
“Thing about this is,” Stavro said, as though he was elaborating on something he’d already said, “is that the brake cable broke.”
“‘Broke’? Broke how?” I asked.
“Usual way, I guess. I don’t know. Cables can only take so much and then they should be replaced. People never look after their cars. Don’t know why there aren’t more people killed than there are.”
“So, you don’t know for sure how it broke?”
“I don’t remember looking all that close, to be honest. We had a three-car pile-up come in right after the Toyota. But, if you got half an hour, I could take a look.”
“You’ve got the car here?”
“Sure. At the back. I use the parts when I need them.”
I went to a cold, drafty café near the canal that looked as though it had seen its last dollar the day the Skyway opened, and ordered coffee, which turned out to be the best I’d tasted away from home in a long time. The woman who ran it was scanning the Hamilton paper, and making comments to herself about the operation of the Hamilton Harbour Commission. She said a few things to me that suggested we were both fully aware of some scandal that I’d never heard of. Harbours are always a problem. They breed trouble wherever they are.
When I got back to Stavro’s Cross-Town Motors, he was holding two pieces of cable in his hands and grinning. “You gotta see this!” he said. I followed him into the office, away from the whine of the pneumatic wrench pulling off the nuts from the wheels of the Volvo on the hoist. On his desk he laid down the two pieces of twisted wire.
“You see these ends?” I nodded. “That’s where I just clipped them free from the rest of the cable, just to show you.” I nodded again.
“Now the other ends are the parts that separated.” He held them up for me to get a better look. I saw the ends of two thick wires, nothing extraordinary. I shrugged. Stavro reached to the shelf above the desk and found a murky magnifying glass, which he passed over the two ends held close together.
“You see the jagged bits, where the separate wire threads are pulled and stretched? That’s where the cable broke. But look on the other side. Here the threads are smooth and don’t show no signs of stress. See, they don’t even fit together snug. Yeah! This cable was filed more than halfway through before the lady put her foot on the brake.” I thought of Dora, whose face I had never seen, with her foot on the brake on that downhill run off the bridge.
“Let me see!” I took the glass from him and turned the two cable ends around in my hands. I had to agree with him; less than half of each end showed the stress of being pulled snapping; the rest looked filed.
I got Stravo to put a note on the two pieces and to identify where they’d been taken from. To this he added what he thought they showed. He signed the note and put the whole works into a large brown envelope he rescued from his waste-paper basket.
My trip back to Grantham was slower than my drive out. I took a side trip to the Stoney Creek Dairy for an ice cream, where Pa used to take Sam and me when we were kids, but in the end I didn’t get out of the car. The fact that Dora Ramsden had been murdered was too fresh for me to enjoy a sundae or milkshake. I drove home along the twisty Old Number Eight Highway, which I hadn’t driven in years. The road was narrow and slow, but dry, even under the overhang of the escarpment. I stopped at an antique store in Grimsby, where I bought a few presents for people on my Christmas and Chanukkah list and accepted an offer of tea with the owner, who was well chaptered and versed in local history. It was a slow ride home because of the lower speed limit. I wasn’t sorry. It helped give me time to take in the news Burlington had given me. I didn’t like a lot of it, but it was making some things clearer.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I was on my way back to the office, carrying a hot coffee in a brown paper bag, when I heard a shout from the street. It was Chris Savas. He called my name. There’s a special sensation in hearing your name pronounced by an officer of the law. And to hear it shouted … I looked over at him, leaning his big head out of the car window. He was even smiling.
“Get in!” he ordered, “I’ve got to talk to you.” I stood on the curb for a moment, probably looking as though I didn’t understand the words, and certainly hoping that there would be a witness to the fact that I was getting into the car. They didn’t lock people up and throw the key away any more. And Chris was a sort of friend when he wasn’t being professional. Tonight, he looked professional.
The slam of the door of the car brought me back to St. Andrew Street and the realization that the time had at last come to ante up. Chris had given me a day beyond his forty-eight-hour deadline. Finally I was going to have to make up my mind about what I was going to tell him.
“I’ve been trying to call you,” I said, remembering my one half-hearted effort.
“Sure you have,” he said with disbelief written all over his face. It was an exchange in which neither side won the advantage. Chris was wearing a heavy trenchcoat, the kind with a zipped-in lining. He looked warm. The hands on the wheel were in good leather gloves.
“Do you have a destination in mind, or are we going on a tour of the city?”
“We’re just taking a ride. That’s all.”
“Like Clarence Temperley. I hope I don’t end up the way he did.”
“Don’t give me any ideas, Benny.” I breathed out and tried to feel my back touching the car seat in several places. It was a relaxation test on which I wasn’t making a passing grade.
Savas addressed himself to the road in front of us for a minute or so. It was snowing again and the wind was already playing games, blowing snow across the street and making vision beyond the headlights impossible. He switched on the wipers and the high beams. “There’s a place I know where we can talk without being bothered,” he said, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel. I sipped my coffee through a hole I punched in the lid with a ballpoint pen.
“Sure. Why not?” I said, pretending that it had been a question.
Savas drove down Ontario Street, after running back along King. Then we headed north, past my parents’ turnoff, towards the lake. On the strip beyond the fastfood outlets and service stations, the wind got worse. Here there were accumulated drifts at the side of the road. The steady blast of wind threw a continuous white blind spot across the driver’s path, so that he had to guess about what was coming from the opposite direction until he was hit by the full impact of oncoming head-lights. He threaded his way through the twists and turns that led to Port Richmond, a former terminus of the Old Canal and now a summertime marina with seafood restaurants and beerhalls along the street facing the harbour. I had a lot of associations with Port Richmond and few of them were good.
Chris pulled up and parked in a lot across from Marie’s Seafood Restaurant, which overlooked an abandoned lock of the Old Canal. I followed him into the place and looked around at the tank of lobsters whose time, like mine, had come. Chris was welcomed by the proprietor, who showed us to a table well away from the windows. Each window was decorated with a full-rigged ship model. Through the sails and rigging we could see little but the lights of the street. I remember Marie’s from years ago. The ceiling had been strewn with fishnets and festooned with seashells and Christmas tree lights. Now all of this was gone, replaced by turning fans. Remaining were a few lobster traps and oil paintings of sailing ships in heavy gales and fishermen in oilskins battling the waves in a dory. The reassembled shell of a man-eating lobster was hung, plaque-like, on one wall.
“Will you join me in something to eat?” he asked.
“I take it that you’re working?
” Chris nodded. I sat down. I wasn’t feeling talkative, but I wasn’t sure what a good dinner might do to my tongue. Food could intimidate me where money couldn’t. It was turning into my Achilles’ heel.
Chris ordered “the usual,” which the waitress seemed to know about. I took a chance and ordered the same. I hoped that whatever it was, it came cooked. I wasn’t raised to eat raw things that didn’t have stems. Savas ordered a bottle of white wine. When it came we watched the waitress open it. Chris sniffed the cork expertly and took the first sip. It’s funny the way ritual leads people through the motions. As he put down his glass, he grinned and smiled at the waitress, who said, “Thank you kindly.” I took a long sip from my glass and ended up coughing. As soon as that was under control, I was ready for the questioning to begin. But Chris said nothing.
In a few minutes bibs were affixed to our necks and all semblance of sophistication vanished. Then came the lobsters, red from their broth and huge. I’d seen them eaten before, but I’d never dared. At least they were cooked, I thought. They were the biggest insects I’d ever seen, except for the killer mounted on the wall.
“The time has come, Benny, for you to sing for your supper,” Savas said, tearing a claw from his lobster. I winced.
“I’m no snitch, Chris. I’ve got clients and all that that implies.”
“Christ, Benny. I’m not here to play silly games with your confidential sources, I want to hear what you know from your end. I can browbeat you for the names afterwards if I have to.” He dug a little fork into the claw and brought out a piece of meat the size of a thumb, which he bathed in melted butter, then applied to his red tongue.
“This is going to take time,” I said.
“I got all night. You’re not eating!” I ate. I did that for a few minutes, idly scanning the room for a place to start. At last I thought I’d found one.
“We have to go back to Harlan Ravenswood’s extramarital activities about thirty years ago.”
“Ah, that letter Ramsden was holding under glass!”
“Yeah. He’d had an illegitimate child and made arrangements with his bank manager and good friend, Egerton Garsington, so that he would never have to think about his slip again. He was deathly afraid that Gladys would find out about it. When Edge Garsington died suddenly in 1967, his successor, Clarence Temperley, found the instructions and arrangements that Garsington had worked out along with the letter of authorization in a file. He made the mistake of showing it to Thurleigh Ramsden, who eventually took the letter from the file. He approached Harlan, who was by now getting close to the end of his life, and began blackmailing him. After his death, Ramsden went on with the blackmail. Harlan’s son-in-law was willing to pay so that the old lady wouldn’t find out. Maybe it had become more important after Ravenswood died. Orv saw himself as the keeper of the flame. He wanted to protect his former boss’s memory at all costs. Gladys, as far as we know, never suspected a thing.
“When a client of mine asked me to follow the TV newsreader, Catherine Bracken, I went to see Orv Wishart, the son-in-law, about her, pretending to be making a credit report. He gave me Cath’s date of birth and the place. When I checked it out with a man in Thunder Bay, I couldn’t find a match in the records. However, I did find that a daughter had been born to a Renée Chestnut on the same date. Same town. Same hospital. The father was Harlan Ravenswood.”
“You’re telling me that Catherine Bracken, the TV news anchor, is Harlan’s daughter?”
“That’s right. But she doesn’t know it. Only Orv knows and in his awkward way, he has been trying to get her into the business that she should rightly inherit a piece of one day.”
“She’s sitting on millions and she doesn’t know it! But, hey, Benny, you’re forgetting that whatever she gets will have to come out of the share of what’s-her-name, the daughter.”
“Antonia. That’s right. But, for some reason, and I think that loyalty to the old man plays a part here, Orv is willing to make the sacrifice. In some way, I think he’s getting a kick out of bringing her into the business, without anyone knowing that she might have a legitimate claim.”
“But Orv isn’t Antonia. We don’t know how she’ll take it.”
“That’s right, we don’t.”
“I’m beginning to like Wishart. Never did up to now.”
“The trouble is, Cath hates him! She thinks that all his care and attention comes from seething carnal desires. When you’re as good-looking as she is, it might be an easy mistake to make, Chris.”
“Maybe his motives are mixed, Benny: a little boy scout mixed with desire. I’ve known it to happen.”
“You’d be right, Chris, except that I discovered that Orv’s natural inclinations might tend to you or me rather than to Cath or her kind.”
“He’s gay?”
“As a cricket. But he keeps clear of the mob. Even Robin O’Neil at CXAN doesn’t suspect. Robin thought he’d been putting the moves on Cath. That’s how observant he is.”
“Benny, I don’t mean to be unkind, but none of what you’ve just shared with me and Niagara Regional is going to tell me who did in Ramsden and Temperley. Nor does it do a thing for Kogan. Remember Kogan? Unless this has been a roundabout way of saying you don’t know.”
“Hold your questions, Chris, I’ve just got started. What’s past is prologue as my father used to say.”
“You must get your original cast of mind from him. Roosevelt said that!”
“He did? Well, what do you know. I wish I had your education.”
“Damn it, Benny, get on with it! I’m getting to wonder whether you’ll ever come to the point.”
“So, we have seen that Ramsden was a blackmailer. Ravenswood and Orv were consecutive clients. So were some of the other people whose documents we found at Ramsden’s last Sunday. It seems logical that he was murdered by one of his victims.”
“You want me to dig through the dozen names that came out of those letters?”
“Well, not all blackmail is based on documents. I might know something about you, independent of any piece of proof, that you might find embarrassing for the world to know about.”
“Cut out the compliments and get on with the story!”
“Okay! Okay! Let me catch my breath! According to the will left by Liz Oldridge, the Guild of the Venerable Bede was to inherit the bulk of her estate, including the property on Brogan Street. You may not have noticed this Chris, but Steve Morella has been buying up all of the property on the north side of that street for a project he calls ‘Backstreet Revival.’”
“Remind me, where the hell is Brogan Street?”
“Runs between James and Queen. It’s more an alley than a street. Has Foley Bros. at one end and the Nag’s Head at the other. Morella bought Foley’s very quietly and also is acquiring the pub. The only piece missing is the Oldridge place, which, according to her wishes, goes to the Bede Bunch. Well, I’ve discovered that the Bede Bunch is in reality none other than Ramsden in fancy dress. It has no legal existence. The name’s not registered. It’s just a bank account that was set up by Clare Temperley for Ramsden. Ramsden can take out what he wants. He can buy and sell either in his own name or in the name of the BB. Morella wants that property bad, Chris.”
“Are you saying that Steve Morella killed Ramsden for it?”
“He’s smarter than that. I don’t know whether he liked Ramsden or not, but he’d be a fool to run him through before he had control of the needed property.”
“Okay, okay, I get you.”
“Morella’s legal work has always been done by Julian Newby the senior partner in that old Ontario Street firm. Newby helped build Morella into the man he is today. Up from the curb-side fries at the top of Queen Street.”
“I remember. Get on with it!”
“Morella wouldn’t dare move without Newby. Newby’s part and parcel of every dollar Morella ever made. On the private plain, they’ve seen little of one another until recently: Newby’s son is taking out Morella’s dau
ghter. Both are lawyers and pretty bright. What else do we know? We know that Sue Ellen Morella, Claudia’s mother, divorced Steve a few years ago and got a surprisingly large settlement. Was this because of the skill of her attorney, Rupe McLay?”
“McLay? That … that …?”
“Okay, let’s say that he is alcoholically challenged. Okay, you smell a rat? So do I. Where does a bar-room lawyer get the inside information to make book on Morella? How does he even get to know about all of his holdings under different names and numbers?”
“There must have been an examination for discovery?”
“Sure, but Morella could still manage to slide over a few items, forget to mention things where his name doesn’t appear but where he gets a share. No. The only person who knew exactly how much Morella was worth was Newby. Newby did all the deals, handled the taxes, the deferrals, the dodges, all the little havens that rich men are heir to. This was the best continuing lucrative client he had, Chris. Newby was more Morella than Morella was.
“So, how did Sue Ellen find out about all of these shelters and havens? Sue Ellen a great reader of the Report on Business? Sue Ellen a frequenter of the brokerage houses? Not that I know of. Sue Ellen shops. That’s what she loves best, shopping and travelling. She can tell you more about Montego Bay than she can tell you about Morella’s assets. Rupe told me that it was sister Dora who had the brains.
“So, where does she get her information? What else do we know about her? Sue Ellen’s sister, Dora, was married to our old friend Ramsden. Could Ramsden have talked Newby into leaking a full list of Morella’s involvements? Possibly. Could Dora? Could Dora Ramsden have been known to Newby? Do we know anything about them? Yes, we do. They were lovers for a time just prior to her death. I don’t know for how long, probably not more than a few months. They’d known one another before she married Ramsden.
“Dora Ramsden’s death was treated as an accident, Chris. It happened out of town, on the Burlington Skyway. What happened? Her car went out of control on the downward slope of the bridge and she crashed into the parapet at sixty miles an hour. Don’t ask me what that is in kilometres. Was there a check done on her brakes? Has anybody ever asked what killed Dora Ramsden? Or who?”