“And your expectation,” I said when Isabel finished, “what you’re asking of me, is I keep Elizabeth from getting into hot water or worse over an enterprise that neither you nor I can pinpoint with a hope of accuracy?”
“Not yet we can’t,” Isabel said. “But you’re a clever man, so I hear, and I expect you to sort out the nature of what you call the enterprise by six o’clock on Sunday evening. Preferably earlier.”
“You don’t beat around the bush, Isabel.”
“I’m prepared to pay whatever your fee amounts to.”
“This’s not a paying job,” I said. “I’m as curious as you are about the scam, pardon my choice of noun.”
“Mr. Crang,” Isabel said, “I’m way past curiosity. I’ve reached full-blown panic.”
“For Elizabeth?”
“For the girl I’ve known all my life.”
I stood up. “Leave it with me,” I said.
Isabel smiled a wry smile. “That’s bloody well what I’m doing.”
She stood up, and I asked her, “One last thing, Isabel. What make of car do you drive?”
“Make?” she said. “A two-door Toyota. Silver. Four years old. Why do you ask?”
“Just something I need to verify.”
Isabel gave me a steady look while she retied her scarf.
“I always think it’s a good sign,” she said, “when a person pays attention to detail, as you seem to be doing.”
30
As soon as Isabel left the office, I phoned I Spy Griffith and asked him about the silver Toyota.
“Oh my,” I Spy said, sounding as if he was fumbling for an explanation. “You’ve caught me out.”
“This means you remember a silver Toyota picking up Grace some nights?”
“Very, very few times. I can say that in my own defence. The silver Toyota hardly ever appeared.”
“The second car just slipped your mind?” I said. “I Spy, it’s no problem if all we’re talking about is a little memory lapse.”
“Hold on, please, Crang. I’ll get my notebooks.”
“You actually wrote down all of the stuff that went on at 32?”
“I like to be thorough,” I Spy said, sounding wounded at my tone.
“I’m not accusing you of anything, I Spy,” I said. “Just confirming what someone else told me.”
“Another person kept track of things over there? That comes as a personal blow, Mr. Crang.”
I’d lost control of the conversation. “I Spy, there’s no one else doing your observational work. It was the driver of the Toyota who identified herself to me as the Toyota driver.”
“I wish you’d keep me up to date on developments in our case,” I Spy said. “And just for your future reference, I much prefer to classify what I do as analytical. Observational is far too passive in terminology.”
“Sorry, I Spy.”
What the hell was I apologizing for?
As soon as I got off the phone, fed up with telling I Spy I was sorry for more offences he’d completely misperceived, I left the office and went for a walk. I needed to think through the dilemmas in the damned case I was still trying to claw my way through.
I walked up to Bloor, went west a block, then north up a handsome curving street named Walmer Road. Annie and I had taken many strolls through our new neighbourhood since we moved in, but we tended to point south and east. We spent Sunday afternoons exploring the university grounds, which lay in both directions. South and east. To the north, the Annex and whatever its treasures might be were still mystery territory for both of us.
One block up Walmer brought me to a tiny parkette surrounded on all sides by cross streets, like a green island in a sea of concrete. It had three benches, minimal landscaping and the bust of a woman named Gwendolyn McEwan. It turned out the parkette was named after her. I read the McEwan mini-biography on a plaque next to the bust, and learned that the late Gwendolyn had been a poet who lived in the neighbourhood. How quaint, the city recognizing a writer of verse.
I followed the jogs in the streets north and west on Walmer and another street called Kendal until I came to a much larger park, ambitiously landscaped, flowers, trees, lot of children’s play space. According to the signage, this one was named Sibelius Park. Even more quaint than Gwendolyn’s parkette, here was a whole park in the middle of Toronto celebrating a composer who spent his entire life in Finland. Lucky Annex residents, culture in their face twenty-four hours a day.
I sat on the bench closest to the Sibelius bust and admired it for a minute or two before I turned my mind to my problems. First up came the seventy-five Gs. These were turning into the least of my worries. Grace said in our last encounter she’d set aside the cash for me. Her widower, Steve the morose Hungarian, allowed as how he had access to what sounded like many more tens of thousands of Grace’s dollars than my piddling seventy-five. Both Grace and Steve could have been dealing me a line of false goods. But on balance, I thought not.
That left the rest of the mess. It broke down essentially into two categories. Grace’s murder and the fooling around with the ceramic figures. The murder could wait for further thought later that afternoon after Wally Torgol, my brainy pal from the morgue, brought whatever light he could shine on Grace’s murder. A bright and illuminating light, I was wagering.
As for early speculation on who might have done the dirty deed, Rocky, my semi-regular sparring partner, seemed the most likely candidate. But Isabel had said Rocky was with Lou Janetta the night Grace was killed. I couldn’t see Lou allowing a hit job to get anywhere close to him, not even if his role was merely as Rocky’s alibi witness. Reluctantly, I ruled out Rocky unless further data came to hand.
The lovely Elizabeth Janetta didn’t strike me even glancingly as a person capable of an act so final and gross as murder. That left only the third person involved in the goings-on at number 32, the mystery guy who showed up only on the occasional Monday night, the guy referred to by Rocky as Elizabeth’s “partner.” Maybe I should put more brainpower into pinpointing this guy’s identity. If I knew who he was, I might make a case for him as the killer. For the moment, I came up short on ideas vis-à-vis fingering this elusive character.
The puzzle of the ceramic figures lent itself to more accessible sleuthing. I was already pretty sure about many aspects of the scenario. Elizabeth Janetta was for sure the mover and shaker behind the ceramics plot, the person who hired Grace to make what I figured must be a copy of Company of Fools. The original Company, the real thing in the Levin Museum, was maybe the most valued of all the ceramics world’s collections of figures. And the way my deducing shaped up, Elizabeth intended to make a gift of the Grace copy to a Chinese business guy. The recipient had to be the Chinese guy Isabel talked about. Why else was Elizabeth making so much fuss about the Sunday reception at her house?
All of this wasn’t bad as theories went—with the drawback, not inconsiderable, that it didn’t make sense. Elizabeth wouldn’t pay Grace a million bucks to make a copy that would end up as a frigging gift. Not to forget the two hundred grand she was shelling out to Rocky for his services as driver and thug. The third guy, the Monday-nights-only guy, was also no doubt in for some of Elizabeth’s bucks. Why would she invest such large sums in a present that she could probably pick up for chump change in a ceramics reproduction shop?
It could be that Elizabeth had in mind conning the Chinese guy. She would sell Grace’s copy to the guy, passing it off somehow as the original Company of Fools created by L.L. Schwartzmann in 1774 and now residing in the Levin in all its glory. But that didn’t shake down as any more believable than the notion of a gift. The purchaser would presumably be paying top dollar, in the eight figures Charles had suggested. That being the case, the Chinese guy putting up the huge bucks would bring along an expert to assure him he was getting the genuine article. I couldn’t imagine Grace’s copy passing that kind of test.
Nothing I could think of was adding up. There must be some tidy explanation, even a
messy explanation, for the events that had so far taken place in relation to Company of Fools. To be accurate, the events applied only to the Grace Nguyen copy of Fools. It was incontestable that the original languished in its handsome Levin case. Charles had been telling me a few days earlier how he had been up to the Levin’s fourth floor basking in the Fools’ beauty. He didn’t question its authenticity. So, no reason to concern myself with it. Not for the time being.
I ought to aim all efforts at Grace’s copy, assuming she’d finished it before her untimely demise. If I knew where it was, I might get my hands on it. Then I’d have control of the situation. Elizabeth would be at my mercy, after a fashion. I could get her to explain what was going on. With a few answers, whatever was afoot could be put to rest. No more troubles and worries, no more punchouts from Rocky, even if he was temporarily functioning on one wing.
So where was the copy? Did I have a clue or a hint? Was there a likely location? Anything?
Hot damn, there was a place to scout for the copy. Maury had mentioned it days ago, and I’d let it slide since then. But now that I revisited Maury’s remark about the safe at 32 Highbury, I realized it made an obvious and logical hiding place for Grace’s copycat version of Company.
I looked around Sibelius Park and assured myself that I had the grounds in my immediate vicinity all to myself. It wasn’t security that motivated the check for possible eavesdroppers. It was good manners. I loathed cellphone users who assumed the entire world was their personal telephone booth. They talked loudly of inanities without a thought about the rights to peace and quiet of everyone within earshot.
Satisfied I wouldn’t be giving offence, I punched in Maury’s number on my cell.
When Maury answered, he didn’t say hello. He said, “Freddie Biscuit.”
“What?”
“Not a what, Crang. A who.”
“Who?”
“Freddie Biscuit, the guy I told you about’ll open the safe in that house out in the west end we broke into.”
“That’s rich, Maury. How’d you know I was phoning about the safe?”
“Retired guys like me, we like it when a conundrum comes along. I been thinking about your little piece of trouble. I planned solutions. Chose personnel.”
“Conundrum? Wow, hundred-dollar word, Maury.”
“I used it right?”
“Like you were a scholar,” I said. “So, in the case of my personal conundrum, Freddie Biscuit is the guy?”
“Best safecracker I ever met or heard of.”
“That’s a hell of a recommendation. Coming from a guy who’s cracked a few things in his career. Safes excepted.”
“I already took him out to the Highbury house so he could look at the general layout,” Maury said. “He liked the type of safe it was.”
“Jesus, when was this you went out there?”
“The murder don’t change nothing.”
“Maury, when? Tell me when you went out.”
“After the murder, but before the cops left. Which I happen to know they have now.”
“Don’t put me hanging out here on a limb, Maury.”
“You wanna know how we went into the house with the yellow tape in the driveway and the cop car sitting out front all night, two guys in it?”
“Roughly, yeah.”
“Very simple.” Maury didn’t sound the least smug. “Went in the back way. Walked up from the valley. Used the door to the house next to the shed you stepped in shit in.”
“As easy as that?”
“My experience, cops never think about the back way in any situation, never mind what cops do on TV shows.”
“And after all that, Freddie Biscuit’s still on?”
“Said so, didn’t I? How ’bout Friday night?”
“Perfect,” I said. “Just one thing. What’s it about the man’s name?”
“Real name’s Biscotti. People who know him kinda close call him Freddie Biscuit. But all one word’s the way you pronounce it. That’s for people kinda close. People really close call him Biscuit.”
“What’ll I call him?”
“Biscuit. Really close friend of mine’s a really close friend of his.”
“You two go back a way?”
“We were kids together in that reformatory used to be up in Guelph.”
“One more thing,” I said, “what’s Biscuit charge for the night’s work?”
“Bottle of Johnnie Walker Black.”
“That’s all?”
“Biscuit’s like me. Retired. He does jobs for the fun.”
“Tell him thanks.”
“Tell him yourself,” Maury said. “Biscuit and me’ll pick you up in my car ten-thirty Friday night.”
31
After Maury and I finished on the phone, I still had an hour until my sit-down with Wally Torgol from the coroner’s office. What were my choices for whiling away the spare sixty minutes? I voted to get on with more of my cultural Annex tour, not knowing what culture there was still to be had. Or where.
Following blind instinct, I walked east from Sibelius Park along Bernard Avenue to Spadina, carried on another block to Madison Avenue, turned south down Madison. Presto, in practically an instant, I entered architectural nirvana.
More than a few of the street’s houses were magnificent, sporting their three storeys and their stone of a deep reddish colour. For people of my generation, the word “magnificent” carried the same message as “awesome” did for today’s kids. Except we weren’t as free and careless with our word. Were we?
“Magnificent” was le mot juste for the Madison Avenue homes. I knew they’d been designed by a guy named E.J. Lennox or, in some cases, by Lennox copycats. Annie and I had gone to an exhibition about Lennox’s work at the Toronto Archives over on Spadina a month earlier. Lennox designed Old City Hall, speaking of magnificent, in the 1880s. But he warmed up for the big job by designing four or five Annex houses, most of them on Madison Avenue. Somebody named his style Richardsonian-Romanesque. Judging from all evidence—Old City Hall, the houses I was now looking at with great respect—the style balanced power and grace. Made a heck of a beautiful bunch of buildings. Awesome even.
I was enjoying myself on Madison until I checked my watch. How time flew when I was having fun. The dallying had put me overdue for Wally Torgol. I trotted down Madison at good speed to Bloor, turned west and proceeded at the same clip till I came to By the Way. Wally was sitting on the patio.
“You’re in luck, Crang,” he said after we shook hands.
“Something I’m in the market for. Especially these days.”
“The murder throwing you for a loop, the dead woman on Highbury?”
“Do I get the feeling it might not be so bothersome after you and I finish talking?”
There was nothing high style about By the Way’s patio. It was crammed into a space more suited for Lilliputians than normal-sized people like Wally and me. The tables and chairs were made of metal, and tended to tilt threateningly. It was a place where I sensed nobody could be trusted to make a decent martini. But on the plus side, the waitresses were sparkly; awnings shielded customers from the sun; and the view was of the action along Bloor among the Annex’s colourful residents.
I checked with Wally about his preferences in refreshments, then ordered glasses of red wine and a plate of pita and hummus to nibble on. By the Way made a specialty of what it called Mediterranean dishes. I was willing to take their word for it.
“What I mean about luck, I did the autopsy on the woman myself,” Wally said. “Luck of the draw and lucky for you, I happened to be next up when the body came in.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said. Wally and I tapped our wineglasses.
“You’re defending the accused person in this one, that’s your concern?” Wally said.
“Nobody’s been charged yet as far as I know,” I said. “Anyway, my client was the dead woman.”
“Too bad.”
“Too bad what? The woman died?”
Wally shook his head. “Too bad the accused isn’t your client. If he was, you’d look like a hero in the courtroom.”
“You think the Crown can’t make a case?”
“Not on first-degree murder,” Wally said. “Not on second either. The evidence looks to me like the whole thing was an accident. A guy threw a punch in anger, and it went wrong.”
“No premeditation, no intent?”
“That’d be impossible. Not to mention unprovable. This is for real, Crang, not just me sitting here speculating.”
Wally helped himself to a small piece of pita, which he dunked delicately in the hummus. I liked Wally. He was an alert, organized, unassuming guy. For all the brains he had, more than almost everybody I knew in the law business, he never took himself seriously. He looked at everything with a smile on his face.
“What was the murder weapon?” I asked. “I heard she caught a terrific blow in the face.”
“A human hand,” Wally said. “That was your weapon.”
“A punch is what killed Grace? But a lot of punches, right? A blizzard of roundhouse rights? Killer goes berserk and keeps throwing the lefts and rights?”
Wally held up his index finger. “One fist, one punch,” he said. “One fortunate punch, if I could put it that way, though I don’t imagine the victim would care for the phrasing. She’d call it unfortunate. So would the puncher if my theory’s correct. And I’m pretty confident it is.”
“Your theory being the guy lost his temper, smacked Grace in the face, and the punch landed just so? Happened to kill Grace?”
“That’s about it. Simplistic, but accurate in the essentials. What happened, behind the nose, the olfactory mucosa—”
I interrupted Wally. “Spare me anything technical. I’ll never be arguing the case in court. So it’s not necessary I should get the deep stuff down pat. All I want to know is enough to figure out what people shape up as possible guilty parties. You know, suspects.”
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