Good Year For Murder

by Eddenden, A. E.

  “Can you hold the cards all right, Mac?” Addie asked. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not bad, Addie.” Mac plucked gingerly at his white gloves (an old pair he used to wear at official Scout functions) and noticed the burn ointment oozing through the thin material in several places. “I hope this guck doesn’t get on the cards.”

  “They’re old cards anyway,” Addie said.

  “There’s some on mine.” Tretheway had just been euchred for a two-point loss in a lone hand attempt. “Whose turn is it?”

  Tonight there was only one table. Tretheway and Jake, traditional partners, were attacking Controller MacCulla and a Theology student boarder named Orlando Pitts.

  “I think it’s my deal,” O. Pitts said.

  O. Pitts, as he was always called, was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill apprentice minister. He didn’t smoke, drink or make merry and frowned openly on people who did. But he was careful about Tretheway. Before taking lodgings, all Theology students were warned to resist their impulses to save the Inspector. Under no circumstances, Addie would tell them, were they to criticize his way of life, habits, language or character. She would place her large, soft hands firmly on the students’ shoulders and, usually looking down at them, sum up by saying, “Inspector Tretheway is not to be considered your very own special challenge.”

  O. Pitts turned over a spade.

  “Pick it up,” Tretheway said. “I’ll go it alone.”

  “Interesting.” O. Pitts smiled.

  Mac smiled too.

  Jake put his cards face down on the table and coughed nervously. “Good luck, Boss.”

  Tretheway played his cards without hesitation, got a lucky trump split and took all the tricks—the last one, exuberantly, with the nine of hearts. O. Pitts’ smile faded along with MacCulla’s.

  “Way to shoot, Boss,” Jake said.

  From the card table Tretheway brushed the cigar ashes that had fallen when he had played his last card. “Mark up four, Jake.”

  He pulled all the cards together with his huge ruddy hands and, with surprising dexterity, shuffled them as expertly as any Monte Carlo dealer.

  “We’re six. They’re four. One more lone hand’ll do it, Jake.”

  He fired the cards accurately into four neat piles, one in front of each player.

  “Lucky split,” Mac grumbled.

  “Nonsense,” Tretheway said.

  “I agree with Controller MacCulla,” O. Pitts began. “The law of averages …”

  “It doesn’t much matter, does it, Sonny?” Tretheway bent toward O. Pitts. The table cut into his midsection. “We’re still two points ahead.”

  “I know, but…”

  “How are your drinks, gentlemen?” Addie rescued O. Pitts.

  “I’m fine, Addie,” Mac replied. Jake shook his head and put his hand up in polite protest, his mouth full of Shandy.

  Tretheway, without speaking, held up an empty, 22-ounce bottle of Molson Blue. Addie, also without speaking, took it from him. “Tell us about yesterday, Mac,” she said, on her way to the kitchen.

  “That’s right,” Jake said. “The account in The Expo was pretty sketchy.”

  “There isn’t much to tell, really,” Mac began.

  “Tell about what?” O. Pitts asked.

  “MacCulla’s accident yesterday,” Jake said.

  “Didn’t you wonder how he hurt his hands?” Tretheway stared at O. Pitts.

  “I’ve been studying,” O. Pitts said.

  “Go on, Mac.” Addie was back at the table. She put Trethe-way’s full bottle of beer in front of him with, as usual, no glass. Tretheway’s definition of an important dress-up affair was one in which beer was drunk from a glass.

  “I’ll tell you just what happened,” Mac said. “But there isn’t much.”

  He pushed his chair back from the table, crossed his thin legs and placed his hands awkwardly and gingerly in his lap. Addie rested her arm comfortably along the back of Jake’s chair. Jake smiled up at her. Tretheway, pretending not to notice, rocked back on his special sturdy card-playing chair and folded his arms as far as they would go. Because of his chest expanse neither hand quite reached the other arm but came to rest, modestly, one on each breast.

  “Remember last night was cool,” MacCulla went on. “And rainy. I was really tired after the parade.” He adjusted his glasses. “And cold. All I thought about on the way home was a nice warm fire. And maybe a warm toddy. I let myself in the apartment, folded my jacket, kicked off my wet shoes.” He thought for a moment. “I pushed a window open a bit. Helps the fire draw. Struck a match. And threw it in the fireplace. That’s about it. There was this big explosion. Then confusion, I guess. It scared me. And the pain. It’s hard to remember. But I must’ve panicked. Jumped out the window and ran.”

  “How long between the time you threw the match and the explosion?” Tretheway asked.

  “Maybe ten seconds.”

  “And what caused the explosion?”

  “Firecrackers.”

  “Firecrackers,” Tretheway repeated. “I should’ve known. On Firecracker Day. Still, seems like a lot of damage.”

  “They were giant cannon crackers. About ten of them all tied together. And the police said the fireplace directed the force of the explosion straight out. Right at me.”

  “Didn’t you see them?”

  “No. I usually make up the fire early. This one the night before. Paper, wood, kindling. All ready to go. Sometimes it’s there for weeks. Nothing worse than an empty fireplace. The cannon crackers were hidden under the papers, I guess.”

  Tretheway unfolded his arms and leaned forward. “Then you’re saying someone must’ve planted the crackers between the time you made up the fire late Thursday, and Friday night when it exploded?”

  “Sounds reasonable. And I was out all day Friday.”

  “And your place was locked up?”

  “Yes. But it wouldn’t be too hard to break in.”

  “Any sign of forced entry?”

  “Only when we came home from the hospital.”

  “We?”

  “Some of my Scouts. They came to see me in the hospital.”

  “How did they know you were there?”

  “They came to the apartment for a meeting. The firemen must’ve told them what happened.”

  “A meeting after a parade?”

  “We always do. Go over anything that went wrong in the march. See if we can improve our procedure.”

  “Admirable. But you say there were signs of a break-in then?”

  “I’ll say. The firemen had broken the door down.”

  “Oh.” Tretheway looked at Jake. “Axe-happy.”

  “Standard procedure,” Jake said.

  “Then, really, we still don’t know who did it.” Addie looked hopefully from face to face. “I mean, it could’ve been children. Just a prank.”

  “I don’t think so, Addie,” Tretheway said.

  “Oh dear.”

  “Now, Addie,” Jake said. “I know it’s no joke having first degree burns,” he looked sympathetically at Mac, “but it’s hardly a case yet for the Crown Attorney. It could’ve been meant just to scare Mac. A prank like the others. But whoever did it simply miscalculated the force of the crackers.”

  “Oh dear,” Addie said again. “And to think that Albert knew all along.”

  “What?” MacCulla straightened up and winced when his bandaged hands hit the table. Everyone turned to Tretheway.

  “I didn’t know,” Tretheway protested.

  “You predicted the day and the victim,” Addie said, not backing down.

  “You did?” Mac looked at Tretheway. “You picked Firecracker Day?”

  “Lucky guess,” Tretheway admitted.

  “And me?”

  “No, no. I said a politician.”

  “Still, I’m impressed.” Mac leaned back in his chair.

  “How about the next one, Boss?” Jake asked, half kidding.

  Jake waited quietly for an
answer. Mac’s glass stopped halfway to his lips. O. Pitts stopped fidgeting. A girl student and two other boarders across the room stopped talking.

  “I don’t know,” Tretheway said, finally. “I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead.”

  Conversation resumed. Mac took a gulp of his drink. But Jake frowned.

  “Aren’t we going to play cards anymore?” O. Pitts whined. He had an unbeatable heart hand.

  “Yes. For heaven’s sake, let’s change the subject,” Addie said.

  Tretheway turned the top card of the slush pile. It was the jack of spades. He picked it up.

  “I’ll go it alone, Jake.”

  Later in the evening, Jake had a chance to talk to Tretheway alone. It was the custom, mid-way through the card game, for Addie to interrupt with a large plate of giant-sized, old-cheese sandwiches and tea, if anybody wanted it. She felt it gave everybody a needed break from the cards and drinking.

  Tretheway took advantage of the break to shovel some more coal into the furnace on this unseasonably cool May evening. Jake followed him down to the cellar ostensibly to see if he could help.

  “Can I do anything?” he asked.

  “Put some water in the humidifier.”

  “Right.” Jake filled an old milk bottle from the stationary tubs and walked around the back of the metal octopus that kept the house warm. The water gurgled satisfyingly out of the bottle as he tipped it into the opening. “Why didn’t you … you know … earlier?”

  “Make another prediction?”

  “Yes.”

  “Two reasons.” Tretheway slammed the hot metal door shut with the end of his shovel. “One. Everybody was listening. I had the feeling that everyone was waiting for the pearls of wisdom to fall. Or the great oracle to speak. They’re putting too much importance on what I might say.”

  Jake nodded. “What about the second reason?”

  “That’s easy. There’s only one holiday next month.”

  “Eh?”

  “Check your calendar. Father’s Day. The sixteenth.”

  “No others?”

  “Not really. There’s St. John the Baptist Day. But nobody celebrates that here. Nope. Father’s Day. Has to be it.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  Tretheway leaned his shovel up against a concrete lock pillar. “I don’t know. This firecracker thing doesn’t fit the pattern.”

  “I thought it did.”

  Tretheway shook his head.

  “Among other things, how did anyone know for sure Mac would light his fire on the twenty-fourth of May?”

  Jake thought for a moment. “Took a chance?”

  “Maybe.” Tretheway shrugged.

  “You have other reasons?”

  Tretheway slowly blew a cloud of cigar smoke over Jake’s head. “Hell!” He slapped Jake on the back. “Let’s go have some beer and euchre.”

  JUNE

  Father Cosentino had begun his ecclesiastical career as a Roman Catholic priest. Shortly before the Great War (WWI), he gathered together his savings, his belongings, the courage of his re-thought convictions and quit the legitimate church to join a less demanding religious sect. He still wore a black suit and shoes, still played golf on weekday mornings and retained the title of Father. But under the new regime, Father Cosentino was free to pursue other, more adventurous, avenues of life such as business, girls, horses, and politics. At the time of his defection, he ran for Fort York Board of Control and, to the surprise of the RC population, won handily.

  In his ensuing successful political career (he never lost an election), he blessed everything from tug boat launchings to scissors at ribbon-cutting ceremonies. He said grace at most official dinners and led the city hall staff in Christmas carols and Easter hymns. It was not surprising that he became the official Chaplain for the City of Fort York.

  As an Italo-Canadian, he openly criticized Mussolini in his early association with “those heinous, heartless animals called Nazis”. And when The War began, his round, happy face was a common sight at rallies exhorting people to buy bonds or collect scrap paper. In gossipy circles it was said that he perhaps drank a little too much ceremonial wine, but this was a small fault beside his willingness to work for worthwhile causes.

  Father Cosentino fought for underprivileged children, struck out fearlessly against all kinds of bigotry and attacked the maltreatment of birds and animals. He was a man with few, if any, enemies. All this made his murder hard to understand.

  At first light on Sunday, June 16, Father Cosentino was discovered sitting stiffly upright in the open rumble seat of his recently acquired ’35 Willys. On his lap was an open, empty gift box lined with tissue paper. An attached tag carried the hand-written greeting—“Happy Father’s Day”. Around the Father’s neck was a new, four-in-hand tie, tied much too tightly, that hung, surely by accident, in the same sympathetic curve and coloured the same hideous purple as the priest’s lolling tongue. And his eyes bulged.

  A Patrol Sergeant on an old bicycle, checking the rounds of his beat Constables, turned in the alarm from a nearby call box when he first saw Father Cosentino sitting conspicuously in his car—the only car in the church parking lot. There was no one present in the warm, still morning, not even (according to the Sergeant’s report) a cat or dog.

  The first to answer the summons was Detective Sergeant Wan Ho. Born and raised in Fort York’s small Chinatown and given the English Christian name of Charles long before Charlie Chan was created, Charlie Wan Ho had risen in quick succession from top police cadet to First Class Constable to Detective to Detective Sergeant. For the last ten years, he had been passed over for promotion because of his Chinese ancestry. Whenever a situation called for a high-ranking plainclothesman, as it did now, Police Chief Horace Zulp considered himself more suitable.

  The Chief arrived late and took charge. He ordered the uniformed men to cordon off the area, which Wan Ho had already done.

  “Sharp eyes, watch out. Suspicious characters. On your toes.” He shouted instructions and encouragement. The detectives pounded on doors, waking sleeping residents and dogs, but received for their trouble mostly yawning heavy-lidded answers that didn’t help at all. And Mayor Trutt’s arrival was preceded by the sound of his personal ear-splitting siren waking the householders whom the door-thumping detectives had missed.

  In cases as serious as this (homicides, air raid drills, strikes, large fires) all senior officers were called in regardless of department. By the time Tretheway and Jake got there in Jake’s ’33 straight eight black Pontiac convertible (they had taken the time to put on uniforms but not to pick up a cruiser) the crowd had grown. Newsmen, photographers, some early-shift steel workers and several locals added to the busy scene.

  When Sunday was over, the policemen, firemen, news fraternity, neighbourhood and onlookers knew of the Father Cosentino murder. Monday evening, those citizens who had missed the news broadcasts on the Fort York radio stations were informed of the dastardly crime by The Fort York Expositor.

  The facts of the murder were eventually run to earth. Several ties of identical design were found on the counters of Wool-worths’. No employees were found who remembered a sale. It was concluded that the box (a common type very popular this Father’s Day), the tie and the wrappings had probably been shoplifted. The handwriting was not identified. There were no footprints on the hard-surfaced parking lot. The car was clean of fingerprints—wiped clean. Nobody had heard or seen anything unusual.

  Father Cosentino had been last seen by a neighbour on Saturday evening. The neighbour, also a parishioner, had a clear view of the church and the Father’s adjoining apartment from her rear window. She had seen the good priest come out onto his back porch, presumably for a breather, while writing his sermon for the morning. “It was what he always did,” she told the police. She usually waved at him, which she had done that night, and he had waved back in a friendly enough way before going inside.

  The neighbour had then returned to her own liv
ing room to catch The Old Ranger on the radio telling another Tale of Death Valley Days. It started at nine-thirty. At eleven, when she had gone to bed, the pattern of lights at the church and at the Father’s apartment had been normal.

  Apparently, between midnight and five a.m., somebody had inveigled, forced, or tricked Father Cosentino out into the parking lot and into the rumble seat of his own car. As to what happened next, everyone had his own uncomfortable, imaginative vision. Particularly after what Dr Nooner said at the scene.

  “There are bruises on both arms.” Francis Nooner, M.D., was an outspoken, overweight physician who had successfully sought the post of Police Doctor because he hated late nights, house calls, office hours and regular patients. He played euchre at Tretheways’ occasionally.

  “Both forearms and wrists have a pattern of bruises that suggests the arms were held firmly …” The Doctor stopped when he saw the puzzled look on Tretheway’s face. “You have a question, Inspector?”

  “How could one man do that and …?”

  “Hell. There was more than one.”

  Tretheway felt the hackles rising on his neck. “You mean we’re after two…?”

  “One on each arm, I figure. Another to strangle. Maybe one gagged him. There was lint in his mouth.” Jake paled.

  “Altogether, I make it three. Maybe four,” the Doctor concluded.

  THE COUNCIL MEETING (Still June)

  The governing body of the City of Fort York did what all sensible elected officials do in a crisis. They called a meeting.

  On Tuesday morning, politicians, various minor civil servants, the City Clerk, many, many policemen and a sprinkling of spectators filled the Council chamber. Because the old meeting room had been designed for fewer people, the gathering had a misleadingly cosy aura. Talk hummed gaily. The morning air was still fresh and clean. Everyone smelled of perfumed soap or shaving cream. The pleasantly raucous sounds of the outdoor Farmer’s Market next to the City Hall filtered up through the open windows.

  As you entered the chamber, you faced the open end of an ingenious, horseshoe-shaped, three-tiered platform designed by the Fort York City Engineering Department. On the lowest tier, slightly above floor level, were eight desks for the eight Aldermen. At the rear of the horseshoe, a full six feet up and at dead centre, was the Mayor’s chair. There was a round stained-glass window at about the Mayor’s head level.