Murder on the Thirteenth

by A. E. Eddenden

  “Okay, Boss?” Jake asked.

  “Get me up.”

  With much grunting and cursing, but mainly with Jake’s help, Tretheway regained his feet.

  “Can you see anything now?” Tretheway winced.

  “I don’t think so,” Jake said. “Hard to tell. Shadows. Wind blowing the snow around. Did you hear anything?”

  Tretheway seemed surprised. “When?”

  “Before,” Jake said. “When you were making your move.” Jake sensed Tretheway’s disapproving look.

  “What’d you hear?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake said. “Maybe a voice.”

  “Probably the wind.”

  “Probably.”

  The rest of the way was snow-covered and easier footing. At the island’s edge they slowed cautiously to a stop.

  Hickory Island was sixty feet long and about half as wide. Only a few spindly trees misshapen by decades of winds blowing across the open water and bunches of scraggly bushes existed on the hard-packed mound of earth. At no point was its elevation higher than ten feet. Some irregularly shaped rocks made an unnatural pile in the clearing at the island’s centre.

  “Keep your eyes open.” Tretheway took out his flashlight and started up the easy slope towards the rocks. Jake followed. Tretheway stopped suddenly and held Jake back with his outstretched arm.

  “Look.” Tretheway pointed his light on the ground.

  “Someone’s made marks in the snow,” Jake said.

  “And then tried to cover it up.” Tretheway followed the half-obliterated line with his flashlight as best he could. It traced a large uneven shape around the pile of rocks.

  “A circle?” Jake asked.

  Tretheway nodded. “There’s more.” The light picked out several snow-scuffed areas. “Can you make anything out?”

  “Numbers. One, six. Is that a nine?”

  Tretheway brought the light closer. “I think so. And a two.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Don’t know.” Could be anything from a secret code to a date.”

  “Like 1692?”

  Tretheway nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Not really, “Jake answered. “Just a minute. That could be a triangle.”

  “More like a star. Looks like they were in a hurry.”

  “Probably heard us coming.” Jake thought about whoever had been on the island first hearing a shout, then looking up to see a 280-pound bat-like creature sailing towards them. “Or saw us.” Jake smiled.

  Tretheway didn’t reply. He moved toward the centre of the clearing where there was enough moonlight to show that the pile of rocks had been laid to protect a wood fire.

  “There’s your light,” Tretheway said. “Or what’s left of it.” Jake bent over the still softly glowing embers. “What’s that smell?”

  Tretheway sniffed. “Sulphur.”

  “Could be from STELFY.” Jake was referring to the Steel Company of Fort York in the adjacent Fort York Harbor which occasionally spewed sulphur fumes into the atmosphere.

  “Maybe.” Tretheway shined the flashlight on the smooth rocks at the edge of the dying fire. While Jake watched, he adroitly slipped his free hand under his armpit, squeezed off his glove, and gingerly picked up one of the rocks. “Not too hot.” He examined it closely, then scraped it with his fingernail. “Wax.”

  “What?” Jake asked.

  “Wax,” Tretheway repeated. “There’s your big flare-up. The wax caught fire. Must’ve spilled out of this.” He put his glove back on and picked up a blackened metal bowl from the centre of the fire. Tretheway poked the solid contents with his mitt. “More wax.”

  All of a sudden, Jake felt uneasy. He looked over his shoulder, then did a complete sweep the other way. The moon disappeared again and the indecisive wind scattered the few remaining embers of the fire. A dog howled. Jake shivered again but this time not from the cold.

  “You’re saying someone was out here, middle of nowhere. Midnight. Freezing cold. And during a blackout. Cooking wax over an open fire.” Jake paused. “Why?”

  Tretheway shook his head.

  “And where are they now?” Jake said.

  “He, she or they, whoever it was, has to be over there.” Tretheway pointed to the north shore, a scant furlong away.

  Jake didn’t say anything.

  “What’s over there?” Tretheway asked.

  “A fair-sized hill. There’s a path through the woods. Leads to a small parking lot. Then the highway. Follow it to Wellington Square. Or come back around Wellington Square Bay and the marsh to Fort York. To where we are, if you like.”

  “We should go over.” Tretheway stared at the yards and yards of smooth ice separating them from the far shore. He could see no one. A conservative estimate of twenty miles an hour entered his head. That would be about the speed he’d reach before he slammed into the hill if the rising wind caught his greatcoat again. “Maybe in the morning.”

  “Right,” Jake sighed.

  Tretheway turned to go As he ducked under a branch, a shape not made by nature caught his eye. Swinging from a low limb of a stunted black willow was what looked like an untidy piece of string. He snapped on his flashlight.

  “What now?” Jake asked.

  Tretheway carefully disentangled it from the tree. They examined it under the light: an approximately five-foot length of thick cord with several dirty grey feathers loosely knotted into it at uneven intervals.

  “What is it?” Jake asked.

  “God knows.” Tretheway stuffed it into his pocket. “We’ll look at it later. You’d better bring the bowl.”

  “Right.” Jake picked it up. A low growling moan broke the silence, slowly at first, then climbed quickly to a loud, high-pitched steady scream.

  Jake dropped the bowl. “What the hell’s that?”

  “Easy,” Tretheway said. “It’s the all clear. Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Three

  Although the war was far from over, there was a hint of optimism in the air. The Russians were demanding the surrender of the encircled 6th German Army at Stalingrad; Rommel’s forces were retreating into Libya; RAF Bomber command had carried out devastating raids on German-held cities and, in the Pacific, US Marines were well into their retaking of Guadalcanal. All this, coupled with the thousands of miles Fort York was from the actual fighting, lent less urgency to the ARP meeting on the following Saturday.

  Tretheway and his staff had spent two days going over and evaluating Fort York’s first full-scale blackout. In general, it was considered a success. There had been no serious injuries or major foul-ups. The population of Fort York, influenced by the sobering thought that one day this might not be a practice, entered the exercise in the proper spirit.

  On the Friday, Tretheway received a call from Police Chief Zulp.

  “Tretheway.”

  “Sir.” Tretheway recognized the low, gravelly voice of his superior.

  “Good job. Well done.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Hear it went well.”

  “Pretty good.”

  “No problems. No lights. Except that one.”

  “Sir?”

  “The marsh. The light on the ice.”

  “Oh.”

  “You looked into it?”

  “Yes, we…”

  “Gas.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Gas,” Zulp repeated. “Marsh gas. St. Elmo’s Fire. Wouldn’t make too much of it.”

  “Right.” Tretheway paused. “We’re having a meeting Saturday night of the west-end Wardens. Just to sort things out.”

  “Where?”

  “At our place. Addie thought we could combine business with a little pleasure.”

  “Good thinking. Take people’s minds off the war. Nazis. Rationing. Marsh gas. Sorry I can’t make it. Me and the Missus have tickets to something.”

  Tretheway smiled.

  “Give my best to Addie.”

  “Yes sir.” Trethewa
y hung up.

  Adelaide Tretheway was only slightly smaller but much prettier than her brother. She’d quit England in the early twenties to follow him across the ocean to Canada. They had settled in Fort York, a mid-sized industrial city at the western end of Lake Ontario. With a small inheritance she shared with Tretheway, Addie bought a large, rambling three-storey house in the west end close to Fort York University and turned it into a respectable boarding house. Most of her tenants were Arts or Theology students. Her star boarder, of course, was Jake. Tretheway had his own private large room and oversize bathroom facilities on the second floor.

  The Tretheways’ Saturday night euchre parties had grown in popularity over the years, with good reason. This Saturday the aroma of Addie’s freshly baked bread was the first thing that attacked the senses. An applewood fire crackled in the fireplace. On its hearth, Fat Rollo, Addie’s longhair black cat, lay noisily purring beside Fred, the neighbor’s misnamed twelve-year-old female labrador. The disciplined conversation of students hummed against the background of music from “Your Hit Parade.”

  As usual, Addie had made platesfiil of sandwiches to go with the pop and beer cooling in the two ice boxes. Tretheway’s special Molson’s Blue quarts were cooling on the back verandah. Jake, Addie and Beezul, with the help of Bartholomew Gum, set up the card tables and chairs around the irregularly shaped common room next to the kitchen. A large four-by-eight-foot blackboard rested on an easel beside the head table. On it, Gum had drawn, crudely but clearly, a map of the west end of Fort York and Coote’s Paradise showing all the blocks the Wardens patrolled on Wednesday evening.

  Bartholomew Gum was an old friend of the Tretheways; he had grown up with Jake and shared in some of their adventures. Since the age of eight he’d stared with colourless eyes through rimless glasses and fought baldness. He lived with and supported his mother in a house not far from the Tretheways. His mother and his bad eyes were enough to keep him out of the armed forces. Gum had been a City Alderman for the last ten years and and Air Raid Warden since the beginning of hostilities. Wherever he went, he was early.

  Zoë Plunkitt was even earlier, ostensibly to set up her table for taking minutes by shorthand, but Beezul thought it was out of guilt. “Probably to make up for being stuck in the snow and missing Fort York’s first blackout,” he said.

  Miss Plunkitt was, as usual, plainly but tastefully dressed. Her thin, wiry frame, well suited for fashionable clothes, belied her physical strength and conditioning. She walked a lot, played some golf, sailed enthusiastically and once a week taught self-defense for ladies at the downtown YMCA. Her teeth were straight and even, her head erect. An intense look, combined with heavy eye makeup and frequent blinking, gave anyone talking to her the mistaken impression that she was listening with interest.

  Garth Dingle also arrived early. A year ago, he’d become a resident of Fort York, and, shortly after that, one of the more popular Air Raid Wardens in the west end. Garth was head professional at the Wellington Square Golf and Country Club.

  Jake had played golf off and on, but not seriously, for years. In 1941, he’d treated himself to a full membership at the venerable WSGCC located just outside of Fort York. In fact, from a number of the raised tees, you could look across Wellington Square Bay and see the smoke stacks of Fort York’s industrial complex pumping black and grey clouds into the air in aid of the war effort. Jake was a mediocre but knowledgeable golfer, held no one up and adhered faithfully to the spirit of the game. On the few occasions when he attended the club’s social functions, Addie and Tretheway usually accompanied him; and sometimes, just Addie. It was here he’d met Garth Dingle.

  The head pro was a big man (by Jake’s standards, not Tretheway’s) with a bigger laugh. His weathered face showed permanent smile wrinkles and his eyes squinted continuously through smoked prescription glasses as though appraising his next shot. When he wasn’t using his gnarled but sensitive hands to drive golf balls a straight and true country mile, he re-built things, like golf vehicles. Garth had reduced a 1920’s vintage electric car to chassis, steering wheel, dashboard and batteries; he’d added a leather bench seat, oversize airplane tires and a bag rack. In this contraption, nicknamed ‘Garth’s Cart’ by the members, he would hum over the course inspecting greens and bunkers, chase young aspiring, but trespassing, Byron Nelsons off the links, tactfully prod slower players along and, when he could, play a round of golf by himself in under two hours. He also rebuilt golf clubs.

  This Saturday he’d delivered Jake’s refinished woods, a gift from Addie, that Jake had scruffed up over two seasons. The two were hefting and admiring the gleaming persimmon heads. Tretheway watched them. He wondered how two grown men could spend that much time discussing golf sticks, let alone the additional time it took to play the game itself when there were more sensible, manly sports to participate in such as the hammer throw. His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the other ARWs.

  Squire Middleton and Cynthia Moon arrived at the same time, but not together. They shared a quiet knock and waited. No one came to the door.

  The Squire, as he was erroneously known, (his mother had christened him Squire) looked quizzically at Cynthia. His eyes were too small and too close together, but his thick, horn-rimmed glasses made them look owlish. An Irish walking hat covered his bald pate while a heavy tweed overcoat protected his smallish frame. Slung over his shoulder, a worn, leather school bag held his ARW literature and the tools of his trade as a street car conductor.

  Cynthia Moon smiled pleasantly back at him and shrugged her wide shoulders. A bulky, black-fringed shawl that could have covered a large banquet table, was wrapped several times around her matronly upper body. Beneath it was an ample batik skirt she’d made and dyed herself. Her substantial legs disappeared into comfortable ankle-high running shoes.

  “Hi.” Mary Dearlove stepped up to the low verandah and politely pushed between them. “Have you knocked?”

  They both nodded.

  Mary knocked loudly and opened the door. “After you.” She stepped back.

  Her voice always surprised people—small, almost babylike. It didn’t go with the impeccable makeup, perfect hairdo, matching full-length mink coat, hat, overshoes, and especially the clear blue eyes, pleasant enough at first, but with a promise of flint.

  “You’ve both been here before,” she clucked. “You just knock and go in. It’s that kind of place.”

  The Squire and Cynthia Moon scampered in guiltily. Addie met the trio in the front hall. She greeted them and directed the hanging up of coats.

  “Everybody here, Addie?” Mary Dearlove patted her hair into place and smoothed the front of her unwrinkled blouse.

  “Almost,” Addie said. “Patricia Sprong called. She’ll be late. Band practice. There’s still, let’s see…Warbucks.” She smiled. “Tremaine Warbucks.”

  Everybody smiled when they thought of Tremaine Warbucks. To some, who remembered his smiling eyes, his thin lips always turned up optimistically and the pithy bits of helpful information he freely offered, it was a genuine affection. To others, who took note of his gangly, stooped posture, his ill-fitting, unmatched clothes and the annoying pieces of useless information he constantly gave, the smile was less kind.

  Someone knocked at the door. Before Addie got there, Tremaine Warbucks pushed in. He affected a grey, spiky, Amish-style beard with no moustache.

  “Speak of the devil,” Addie said.

  “Good evening, Addie.” Warbucks handed Addie his hat, coat and cane on his way through the hall. Tretheway tapped his large ceremonial night stick against the hard edge of the card table. Everybody quietened down and found a seat. Zoë Plunkitt sat at a table beside Tretheway and Beezul, her pencil poised, her eyes blinking. Jake found a comfortable spot on the arm of Addle’s easy chair. The rest arranged themselves in the uneven arc of card chairs with their backs to the fire.

  “I think we can call the meeting to order,” Tretheway announced. He had spent Thursday and Friday with
Jake, Beezul and, most of that time, Zoë Plunkitt, listening to the reports of other ARW groups that covered the rest of the city. The group captains, twelve in all, had reported nothing out of the ordinary for a wartime blackout. Some lights shone where they shouldn’t have, but were quickly extinguished when the owners were told. There was a friendly spirit of unity. Everyone knew who the enemy was.

  The FYPD and Militia reported similar activities in the residential pockets spotted throughout the northern industrial section. Fort York Centre, East, Delta, Mountain, West and Southwest districts were much the same. There were a few ill-prepared citizens who had gone out for the evening and left lights on in homes and stores, but Tretheway promised they would all be spoken to.

  Although Bartholomew Gum was the group captain for the West, Tretheway took a personal interest in his own residential area.

  “Captain.” Tretheway looked at Gum. “Do you want to start?”

  Gum stood up and cleared his throat self-consciously. He opened his notebook. In his position he had to cover the whole of Westdale instead of the few specific blocks individual ARW’s were responsible for. Gum had pedalled his heavy black bicycle up and down every street trying to meet with each warden. Nothing of great importance took place. The high point of his tour occurred while he was taking a short cut through a dark back alley: he noticed a lady in a well-lit upstairs bedroom window, oblivious to the blackout regulations, disrobing for the night. Gum ran into a fencepost and fell, scattering garbage cans and cats. By the time he had regained his flashlight, helmet and composure, the offending light had been turned off. This event was not in his note book.

  The ARWs followed with their oral reports, one after the other. There was a monotonous similarity in each. They were a reflection of the individual character of each warden rather than an accurate chronicle of a wartime activity.

  Mary Dearlove had taken down the names of more offenders than anyone. The most minute crack of illegal light was duly noted. She complained about a group of FYU students riding their bikes with uncovered lights. When she blew her whistle, they bolted. “I mean, there was profanity. “ She missed the license numbers in the darkness. Mrs. Dearlove also let Tretheway know that her helmet didn’t fit and was so heavy it crushed her coiffure. And as the widow of a former member of parliament, she was not accustomed to tramping the streets at night.