with his sexually amorphous past and his taste for extremes. While Dan didn’t believe the reclusive star was
out murdering pedophiles and cutting off their ears,
he knew instinctively the picture he had was incomplete. For one thing, Jags could have sent himself the ear photograph. But why would he? Except for showing it to Dan and the police, he’d kept quiet about it. Even the obvious explanation that he wanted publicity for his book rang false.
There were other things that worried him. Jags had been written up in Gaetan Bélanger’s blog. But what was the connection? And what about the mysterious intruder at the Blue Mountain retreat? When Dan got up to investigate, he thought Jags had been in his bedroom, when in fact he could have been outside the cottage rather than asleep in his room. But, again, what purpose would that serve? The only one Dan could think of was that Jags was trying to convince him that someone was after him. And now here was a crossbow attack, once again conveniently without witnesses.
Dan thought of Constable Pfeiffer’s admonition that he’d personally pulled a dead boy out of the water off Toronto Island. He hadn’t said which of the dozen islands it had been. But then he hadn’t had to. They were all connected, each within a short walk of any other. At night, the island was darker than anywhere in the city. You could easily kill somebody and not be seen. The number of island residents had to be in the low hundreds, at best. If you kept your own secrets, who was there to spread them?
There was one person who might be able to shed light on Dan’s enigmatic employer. He’d thought about her over the past few days, ever since meeting her,
but suddenly found himself decided. He would pay a visit to Marilyn Pfeiffer and see if she had anything relevant to say.
It was drizzling when he rolled up in front of her Cabbagetown address. He sat and watched the house. Neglect was its salient feature. It stood there — withdrawn, lonely. Those were the words that came to mind as he stared at the façade, rundown and overgrown with vines. Like Jags Rohmer, she too was a recluse, he realized. He thought briefly of Darryl Hillary, yet another recluse who had hidden behind a less wealthy façade. He thought of the jumbled contents inside Marilyn’s home, the disparate objects marshalled together like the favourite belongings of a dead pharaoh and placed inside a sarcophagus to accompany her into eternity.
He got out of his car and walked with a heavy tread up to the door. She answered his knock almost immediately. She didn’t look surprised to see him.
“You’re my son’s friend,” she said.
Dan didn’t bother to correct her. “Dan Sharp.”
“Yes, I remember. The one who works for Jags Rohmer.”
“That’s right,” Dan replied. “I was wondering if I might have a word with you. It’s actually about Jags.”
She hesitated. She seemed to be pondering the question or perhaps was uncertain whether to grant him an audience without consulting her appointment book.
“You what…?”
“I’d like to ask you about Jags Rohmer,” he repeated, louder this time.
“Jags? Yes, of course.”
She waved him in impatiently. He followed and caught the disapproving look she gave her reflection in the mirror. What did she see: the downturned mouth and greying hair? Time and drugs had taken their toll, but she was still handsome despite the stark cheekbones, despite whatever inner turmoil she’d endured, and the eyes that had seen more than she’d intended. This pill makes you stronger, this pill makes you
sad … She was beautiful, yet it gave her no consolation. Too many memories, Dan thought. The drugs hadn’t dulled her past enough for her to appreciate what she still had, as opposed to what had been left behind.
She retreated to a kitchen that hadn’t been remodelled in years. A shelf of tin boxes, with cups and saucers running the length of one wall. Small ceramic figurines danced above them. Dan suspected they hadn’t been dusted for some time. Some would have called it cozy, charming. He called it cluttered, claustrophobic.
“Would you like coffee? Tea?”
She laughed when she saw his expression.
“Despite whatever impression you may have formed of me, I don’t drink in the daytime.” So demure. “I could offer you something stronger, if you prefer.
I didn’t think police officers drank while on duty.”
“I’m not …” he began then stopped. “Tea’s fine.”
“I’ll put the kettle on,” she said, turning.
“No rush,” he said.
She turned back to him. “I’m sorry?”
He smiled. “I said there’s no rush.”
“Good. We’ll have a nice chat then.”
She went into a pantry. He heard her clanking around. When she returned, she set a teapot on the table. She plucked the kettle from the stove and brought it over, pouring carefully, as though she didn’t trust her hands to be steady. She passed him a cup and looked up expectantly.
“You said you were having difficulty with Jags?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I just wondered if you might shed any light on what sort of a man he is.”
She smiled. “Jags Rohmer is a man who is extremely hard to get to know. A very private man. Does that answer your question?”
Dan picked up his cup and sipped. “Would you say he’s a trustworthy man?”
She looked slightly taken aback. “Goodness! If you’re asking me such questions, I would say you need to get better acquainted with your boss.”
“Yes, perhaps.”
She scrutinized him. “What exactly are you wanting to know?”
Dan hesitated.
“Please, be frank,” she said. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“You were his lover, weren’t you?”
“Yes. It’s no secret.” She shrugged. “There were so many …”
Dan wondered if she meant rock stars for whom she had spread her legs or lovers in general.
“I’m trying to find out if certain things about him are true. Certain allegations about his sexual nature.”
She gave him an appraising stare then looked away. Something seemed to hold her attention outside the window for a moment. Then she turned back to him. “Are you asking me if Jags Rohmer is gay? Because I can assure you that wasn’t the case when I knew him.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, well,” she said, waving a hand in the air. Brushing aside decades, not just years. “We go back a ways. A few years, at least. How far back is hard to say.” She gave him a flinty look. “I’m not as young as I look.”
“Then that makes you just a little bit past thirty,” he said.
“Flatterer.” She laughed. “Not that I mind, of course. I’m not one of those women too modest to accept a compliment.”
Or too honest to lie, Dan thought.
She took a silver case from her pocket and flashed a cigarette at him. He was surprised by how large her hands were, the fingers arthritic and swollen. Almost like a man’s hands. He shook his head.
“No, thanks.”
She glanced down at the coffee table. “Do you mind?”
Dan took his cue. He picked up the lighter, a monstrous pink granite piece that might have passed for a souvenir in an era of oversized cars with gigantic fins. He flicked it, leaning forward to let her catch the flame much the way he’d seen her do with her son. She inhaled and sat back, comfortable in her kingdom of memories and bric-a-brac that strangled the room like weeds.
“Now where were we?” she said, like some femme fatale waiting to pounce.
“Jags Rohmer.”
“Yes.” Her eyes flashed with pleasure. “My, that was a while ago. I remember the first time I saw Jags. He wasn’t famous yet. He was performing at the Nuts and Bolts Club on Victoria Street. I was just a teenager, a mere child really. And Jags was just starting to become known. I remember he had a hit song back then. It was on the radio. Every time you turned it on you would hear that song. Something about blue skies and sunny days tha
t lasted forever.”
“‘Summer in Mind.’”
“Yes, that was it. Good for you!” she exclaimed, as though they were teammates playing Trivial Pursuit. “He used to sing it for me. He could be quite charming company when he tried, you know.”
“I got the impression your son liked him too.”
She stared blankly at him, the eyes of a raccoon caught up a tree with no way back down. “Did my son tell you that?”
“More or less.”
“Then perhaps you should ask him about Jags Rohmer,” she said, gazing at him over a cloud of smoke. “I should hardly think he would remember Jags. He was very young at the time.”
“He told me Jags was a religious man. He said you went to church together.”
Her face showed disquiet, though she didn’t contradict him. She took another drag, pulling her face into a grotesque mockery, a death’s mask, as her skin tautened and her cheekbones showed the hollows beneath the flesh, spewing smoke like some charnel house beauty queen.
“That’s a strange sort of memory. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Would you say Jags was religious?”
“I really don’t know what to say to that.” She looked discomfited again. “I suppose everyone has something odd about them. I can’t really see Jags as a religious person. He was very iconoclastic back then. He couldn’t abide traditional values. But then again
I didn’t know everything about him.”
Dan considered his next question carefully. “Were you aware of any extremes in his sexual nature?”
“Such as?”
“Do you know what the term ‘gasper’ refers to?”
Marilyn looked away for a moment. Dan thought she wasn’t going to answer. Finally, she turned back to him. Her mouth had hardened into a thin line.
“You’re referring to one of his later albums. Yes,
I’m aware of the term and what it means. I never saw anything of that side of him. He was always very respectful to me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Despite the times,
we managed to be discreet about some things.”
“Of course.”
“Is there anything else?” she asked sharply.
Dan tried for an offhand smile before the next assault. “Would you say that Jags had a negative impact on your life? Is there anything you blame him for?”
Now she focused her gaze directly on him. “In what way ‘negative’?” She blew a cloud of smoke at him. “Drugs, for instance? Is that what you came here to ask? Whether I’m a drug addict? And if so did Jags Rohmer get me started? Is that what you want to know?”
“I’m sorry if I …”
She frowned and stubbed out her cigarette. “I don’t think those are appropriate questions to be asking me about your employer.”
Dan nodded. “I’m talking about a time long ago, in the past, when he might have been a different person than he is today.”
“We were all different people in the past,” she said emphatically. “You’re still young. You have no idea what I’m talking about.” She looked up at him. “For the record, I don’t blame Jags Rohmer for anything. If you don’t have any relevant questions for me, I think you should leave.”
Dan stood. She followed him to the door. He held out his hand, expecting her to shake it and close the door behind him. Instead, she paused.
“Do you know, Mr. Sharp, what my son thinks of me?”
She watched him closely, a gambler waiting for the turn of a card that will make or break her. A flash of red or a streak of black. Breath held back, barely daring to hope. The longing was almost tangible.
“He seems to think very highly of you.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m sure it is.”
She shook her head. Not the right card after all. “I don’t think it’s true, for what it’s worth.”
“Why would he not think highly of you?”
She smiled ruefully, perhaps the first genuine expression he’d seen on her face since he arrived.
“I was a bad mother, Mr. Sharp. A very bad mother. I’m sure he blames me for a lot of things.”
It was her refrain, Dan realized. She’d said as much already. Even her self-professed failures made her special, a cut above other mothers, famous or not: No one has failed as spectacularly as I. No one could be so sad and miserable as I.
Dan smiled. “It’s what children do.”
She contemplated this. “Perhaps.”
“If it’s any consolation, he’s never said anything negative about you to me.”
“Thank you,” she said simply. “I appreciate that.”
“Thank you for your time,” Dan said.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of help.”
She looked relieved as he made his way out the door.
Twenty-Five
Ladybug, Ladybug
Ordinarily, the fire on Symes Road would have been classified as a three-alarm blaze. The call that came in to emergency at 1:13 am on Friday, September 12, should have resulted in a simple designation that would ensure a basic response unit of some twelve vehicles. Instead, it was classified as a “one-alarm probable.” Meaning there might or might not be a fire.
The exact classification of a blaze is never a precise thing. Fire fighters will tell you it depends partly on location, with the number of alarms indicating the required level of response. Larger alarms mean a greater response. Once a fire is confirmed, additional units such as ladder trucks, ambulances, and even civilian cars for various officials may be dispatched. Each alarm “upgrade” could mean as many as four or more additional vehicles being sent.
Precise or not, contemporary classifications are a far cry from early fire fighting efforts, which relied on church bells and watchtowers to ring out the alarm. Once alerted, fire fighters would scan the horizon for smoke in an effort to locate the blaze. As the system progressed, it gained in sophistication. Bell ringing grew to utilize a system of codes indicating direction or even the precise district where a fire was occurring. In 1852, Boston became the first city to employ a telegraph alarm system, greatly speeding response time and increasing efficiency.
The accuracy of an alert is also tied to eyewitness description, though not always wisely. The first call to fire hall number 423 on Keele Street came from a handful of drunken teenagers stumbling from one party to another. Initially unable to agree on what they were seeing, they took cellphone photographs of the flames tickling the second floor windows and spurting through the roofline for nearly a quarter of an hour before deciding that it might in fact be an actual fire and not “some fucking awesome rave” replete with lights and strobes. Finally, after another minute spent arguing over whose cellphone to use, the call was made.
“Uh, yeah, we think there might be a fire?”
There was no wind that evening and it had rained earlier, so the event was at first sight less dramatic than it might have been had the wind spread it faster and more conspicuously. What was also not clear was that the entire inside of the building was already being consumed. Which was why the fire began jumping from roof to roof less than thirty minutes after it began.
The first engine arrived on the scene at 1:19 a.m., along with a quickly swelling crowd of young people, thanks to a series of cellular and text messages sent by the teenagers to their friends in anticipation of a little excitement prior to making the emergency call. The fire department arrived to discover a blaze spreading much faster than normal. It was the first indication an arsonist was at work.
There was no question of gaining entry into the building. The north wall began to collapse within minutes of the fire department’s arrival. Additional fire fighting units were quickly dispatched and neighbouring stations roused to help in the battle. The delay in designating the fire as being serious was one of the complications that contributed to the extent of the damage. It was nearly 6:00 a.m. before the blaze was sufficiently under control and a suggestion to evacuate the vicinity no longer considere
d necessary. By then the warehouse and three neighbouring buildings had been destroyed.
By afternoon the following day, forensics investigators were able to conclude that at least one life had been lost. The body was so thoroughly incinerated that they were unable to make even a cursory guess as to the age or sex of the victim. A number of beer bottles and cans were subsequently found in the area where the fire was believed to have started, so the initial suspicion of a rave that got out of hand was still being considered. According to the property owners, the building had been unoccupied pending renovation. In the rush to get the premises ready, a low-cost decorating company was hired to strip and paint all the interior walls. Large quantities of paint strippers, thinners, and turpentine had been imported for the job, which was to have begun Monday, leaving the place filled with a considerable amount of incendiary material.
The question of insurance fraud was considered unlikely since the owners had been doing well with long-term rentals. The investigators leaned toward a decision of accidental combustion, partly as a result of numerous reports of teenage intruders partying on the grounds. Unknown to the public, and unreported in the press till many weeks later, a disagreement erupted between the members of the investigating committee on whether to classify the blaze as arson or accident. The death made it tricky, as this put the onus on the building’s owners to prove that every precaution had been taken to prevent trespassers from entering the premises.
The possibility of an arsonist-at-large quickly spread fear in the surrounding neighbourhood, where several of the city’s notorious garage fires had occurred earlier in the summer. The worry was that the arsonist had been using the garages for practice till he got his technique down, and was now en route to bigger and brighter things.
None of this would particularly have interested Dan, except for a midnight phone call from Germ suggesting the fire might be of importance to the Bélanger case. Once again Dan high-tailed it over to Germ’s bunker.
“It was an alternate site,” Germ explained. “We almost didn’t set this one up. It was a last-minute thing. Velvet Blue decided it was worthwhile, so there you are. No one showed up on camera before, but two days ago Little Boy Blue entered the premises.”
Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle Page 60