by John Moss
So that was what half a million felt like, what words felt like when their meaning wasn’t known.
Morgan sat down again, feeling queasy. What was he doing here? he thought in Miranda’s voice. He hated when the words in his head seemed to come from her. Morgan got up and puttered around the room. He needed to know this man if he was to understand his death. He needed to distance himself.
Feelings of ambivalence toward Griffin bothered Morgan. He was better with ambiguity. Ambivalence demanded choice, and he preferred hovering between.
That was how Miranda understood him, how she explained his mind. He suspected this was a projection of how she saw herself. It didn’t cross his mind that he saw himself reflected in her.
They had been together for more than a decade. They fitted together like long-time lovers who were afraid if they ever got married the vital uncertainty between them would dissipate and they would lose their separate identities.
Both of them had a poor view of marriage, Morgan from limited experience and Miranda by extrapolation from all the constrictions she thought she could see in the lives of friends and in the smug, dreary life of her sister in Vancouver. Morgan feared what he knew and Miranda what she knew nothing about.
Their first case working together had been a grisly execution. When he saw her walk through the door at the crime scene, an unconventionally pretty young woman with a steely look in her eyes, he had been surprised. He was never quite sure why.
“Where did you come from?” he had said. “I just finished doing federal time.” Since that got no reaction, she added, “RCMP, Ottawa.”
“I don’t need a personal history. Do you ride?”
“Horses? Had to learn.”
“Did you like it?” he asked.
“Being mounted?”
They exchanged glances, and that was the last time in her life Miranda tried to be one of the boys.
“Do you like horses?” he asked, not because he was interested but to get them over the hump.
“I didn’t try out for the Musical Ride if that’s what you’re thinking.” She surveyed the ghastly scene surrounding them.
“How long?”
“In the Mounties? Three years.”
“Posing for pictures with the governor general?”
“And once with the queen. I’m photogenic. The scarlet doesn’t bleed out my natural colouring.”
“You might have been good in the Musical Ride.”
“Not very.”
“You would have ended up working traffic detail.”
“Or crowd control,” she said. “I decided murder would be preferable.”
“You’re in the right place.”
“They sent me up from the shop.”
He had never heard police headquarters described as the shop.
“Superintendent Rufalo said I’ll be working with you.”
“Morgan.”
“Yeah, I know. Miranda Quin. With one n.”
“Didn’t know you could spell it with two.”
“Quin?”
“Miranda.”
“You can’t. Oh …” She smiled, feeling relaxed.
Beside them on the floor were four bodies, hands bound with duct tape, three with tape over their mouths, their throats slit, rigid in grotesque postures of death, having squirmed in their own pooling blood until each had expired. The fourth had been decapitated and was lying separately as if the others had been forced to witness his death before submitting to their own. An object lesson of short duration.
“It’s a Chinese name,” Morgan said.
“It’s Ontario Irish.”
“China’s first emperor was Qin. With one n.”
“I doubt he spelled it phonetically.”
“Second century BC.”
“How do you know that?”
“Six thousand terra-cotta warriors guard his tomb.”
“Oh, him,” she said. “Where’s the guy’s head?”
“Over there in the garbage bucket under the sink, with coffee grounds and eggshells dumped over it. Whoever did this stayed for breakfast. I told forensics not to touch it until you got here. Welcome to the city of love and adventure.”
“Good to be here,” she had told him. “It’s like I’ve never been away.”
Morgan walked around Griffin’s den and sat again in what was beginning to take on the familiarity of a habitual posture, in what felt like his own chair, and pondered. That was his way: the resolution of the most recalcitrant mystery could usually be found in the life of the victim, especially in cases of first-degree murder. Let the observations accumulate, bits of information gleaned from the way the deceased got by in the world, and eventually, unforced, they would fall into place and the killer would be revealed in their pattern. That was how he liked to think of the process, and it worked often enough to reinforce his assumption.
Why, he wondered, was this guy writing notes to himself about language? They were obviously part of a larger discourse. He looked around for a likely repository and reached for a coffee table book called Koi Kichi on the floor beside the chair. The title translated as Crazy for Koi, the koi keeper’s compleat companion. He knew the book well. Anyone interested in koi knew Peter Waddington’s book. He opened it seemingly at random, but as he anticipated the pages parted where another piece of yellow notepaper lay awaiting revelation:
Dogs can be trained to obey simple commands such as “sit” and “stay.” Yet if the command giver is lying in front of the television and gives the command to sit, the dog ignores it. Why? Because the dog has been taught by a person who normally stands while giving the command. It responds not to words but to a complex gestalt of sound, gesture, posture, circumstance, after considerable training. If any one factor is significantly altered, the dog is baffled.
Exceptional dogs may in their desire to please or avoid the commander’s displeasure adapt an appropriate response to what is perceived as a new gestalt after a certain amount of trial and error. Then, as likely as not, they will sit directly in front of the television. This is probably not an expression of innate perversity.
What does this tell us? Perhaps not much about dogs, beyond the fact that they are neither as smart nor as perverse as we think.
To apply the word learning to the behavioural modification of dogs is no more appropriate than to suggest a computer thinks or an equation resolves. The language of mathematics, of digital machines, and of dogs, is not language at all, but we have no other word to describe their function in response to human volition.
Morgan was dismayed by the revelation of an engaged personality, by the casual wit. He was intrigued with how he had known there would be a note in Koi Kichi. He picked up another koi book from the table beside him and flipped it open, but there was nothing inside.
Restless, he wandered back into the subterranean labyrinth. Complex patterns of shadows playing against walls weathered rough by age re-created in his mind something of the sinister melodrama in Madame Tussauds Chamber of Horrors, where he had last seen Susan in London before he returned to Canada. Morgan had spent the preceding year and a half tramping through Europe. He lived on Formentera for a couple of months, just across from Ibiza, ensconced in the ruins of a Martello tower, writing. For a brief time he thought he would be a writer. He worked in an Ibizan taverna for the entire summer, seldom letting the travelling students who were doing soft drugs in the courtyard know he spoke English. He liked the power of linguistic invisibility. He ran with the bulls in Pamplona and felt foolish for doing so; he didn’t even like Hemingway very much. He travelled to Turkey where he spent a month hanging out in the bazaar and learned about carpets, especially about Anatolian kilims from across the Bosphorus.
“I have a baby,” Susan told him in Madame Tussauds.
He felt a stab of betrayal. “Congratulations.”
“Congratulations,” she echoed.
There was a long silence. They both looked at the grotesque effigy of a Jack the Ripper victim, he
r blood glinting in the directed light. Susan was smiling.
“Congratulations,” he said again tentatively.
“He’s a lovely boy, David.” She smiled up at him, her auburn hair falling away from her face. “I call him Nigel.”
“Oh,” said Morgan with unseemly relief. “I’m sorry.”
“What, that he isn’t yours, or that I call him Nigel?”
He wanted to marry her, he wanted to take her to Australia, he wanted her to meet Darlene and Fred.
“You just needed to know,” she said.
“Can I see him?”
“He’s with my parents in Kent. I have a picture, fairly recent.”
She showed him the picture without releasing her grip, bending with him into a light beam shining on the macabre tableau so that he could make out the ambiguous features of a baby.
They hugged a long goodbye outside Madame Tussauds. After walking down Baker Street a bit, he turned and called to her, “What’s his name again?”
She walked back to him. “Nigel.”
“What’s his real name?”
“It doesn’t matter, David. Names are just names.” Susan glanced to the side. “I love you, David. Do take good care.” Then she had touched her finger to his lips, turned, and walked away.
Tears now unaccountably clouded his vision as he approached the great oak door at the end of the passage leading to the farthest corner of the foundation. Morgan had tried it before, and it had been locked. He was at an impasse. The door led to Mrs. de Cuchilleros’s place if it led anywhere. The projected walkway between the houses hadn’t been abandoned, just moved underground. It would have to come out in her carriage house or connect to her basement or go up into her garden. Was that how Griffin had crossed over in those early mornings when Mrs. de Cuchilleros said she had found him beside her pond, standing vigil — a memorable description? And then she had said he would simply disappear.
The elaborate array of iron bolts and flanges on the door was held in place by a single padlock. He hadn’t noticed that before. One good knock would open it. He ran his fingers over the padlock, then turned and trudged back through the stone and shadow passageways. He wanted to surface into the light, to walk in the garden.
5
Doitsu Showa
Miranda returned to find Morgan contemplative under the trellised portico, perched on a feed barrel. As they ambled through the garden, she handed him a sandwich, assuming he had forgotten to eat lunch.
“Thanks,” he said. “I forgot to eat lunch.”
“I’m off the case,” she said, looking at him with odd satisfaction. “And guess what, Eleanor Drummond doesn’t exist.”
“She’s a very convincing illusion.”
“Do you think so?”
“She was Griffin’s witness. Does that mean you’re not his executrix?”
“Executor. I had my signature notarized downtown. I’m it. You can call yourself anything you want as long as there’s no attempt to defraud. It isn’t illegal to be Eleanor Drummond. Just strange. She’s alive for a few hours a week, then what becomes of her?”
“Vampire?”
“She has no past.”
“Or too much. What about a driver’s licence?”
“Dead end.” Miranda wondered for a moment if irony was innate, then continued. “She listed this as her address. Her credit cards are paid up and use this address. Griffin is her guarantor. But she’s never lived here, Morgan. It’s like she’s Griffin’s creation. There were no birth records, no health insurance card. She must have one in another name …”
“Or never gets sick.”
“Maybe she’s Jekyll and Hyde — one self doesn’t know the other.”
“Dr. Jekyll knew about Mr. Hyde,” Morgan said. “Is this the good side or the bad, the woman we know? Which face of Eve?”
They weren’t going to resolve the mystery of Eleanor Drummond’s elusive identity, whether it offered her refuge or power, by talking about it. He was anxious to show Miranda the cellar but taunted her, suggesting her status on the scene was open to question.
“Look, Morgan, I’ve got more access than the police. You need me just to get into the place.”
“You have the only set of keys?”
“Griffin wasn’t carrying keys, you realize. Maybe it was his version of leaping from a bridge — lock yourself out of your house, wearing no shoes. It’s the fish pond or nothing.”
“Except he was murdered,” said Morgan.
“There were keys up in his study. They’re at the lab.”
“What about the cellar? Some of the doors in the dungeon are locked.”
“We’ll have to bring in the locksmith.”
“Or batter them down.”
“Not in front of me. I’m the executor. I’m on compassionate leave.”
“Compassionate! You didn’t even know the guy.”
“It makes grieving easier. Do you realize I’m in charge of the dearly departed’s remains? I’m thinking cremation. Burial’s too claustrophobic.”
“For whom, not the dead?”
“You don’t know that for sure. Ashes are easier — mixed with crushed shrimp for the delectation of his familiars. Consumed by his passion, so to speak.”
“He’d like it that way,” he said. “Is the coroner’s report in?”
“Yeah, they confirmed he didn’t drown. I’ve been trying to check him out, but he’s almost as elusive as Eleanor Drummond. He really is rich, like you said, and you can always find money. He’s old money and new money and moneyed enough to blur the distinction. Legitimate credentials, but close to anonymous in legal and financial circles — a solitary wanderer in academe. Has money in a gallery in Yorkville, probably a hobby or a tax writeoff for collectibles. Listed with the Law Society. That’s about it. His investment manager never met him in person. He kept an office downtown with a skeleton staff — two clerks and a legal secretary who said he was hardly there. He never had mail forwarded, they didn’t know where he lived, except it was Rosedale. I mean, where else? This guy wasn’t a commuter.”
“He’s got a nice car.”
“Yeah, Jag XK 150, 1959. I saw it last night. Do you know his secretary was blown away that I was technically her boss? It made her nervous.”
“Because you’re a woman?”
“Because I’m a cop.”
“You think she’s the killer?”
“She knew when I walked in who I was.”
“We’re famous.”
“Contain yourself, Morgan. Someone called from headquarters, looking for next of kin. The secretary had no idea how to reach Eleanor Drummond.”
While they talked, they wandered around to the front and went in by the main entrance. Miranda needed to go through papers in Griffin’s desk, and Morgan wanted to explore. The stairs and hallway were filled with the hush of an empty old house after someone’s death. The hush spread ahead of them as they walked to the study and pushed open the door.
There was an audible explosion of surprise as they looked down into Eleanor Drummond’s glazed-over eyes, staring past them at nothing.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Morgan.
Miranda sighed.
Eleanor Drummond lay on the floor in a pool of congealing blood, face up but with her legs bent awkwardly to the side. Her grey pants were soiled from waist to knee, and her loose-fitting white blouse was drenched in blood so that it was hard to tell where the material bunching around her abdomen ended and her brutalized flesh began. The woman’s suit jacket lay crumpled and stained just beyond reach of her outstretched hand. Her head was cocked to the side and her lips were open, as if her final voice had fallen into silence as the door was closed, her eyes fixed in the direction of her assailant’s departure.
Miranda strode over to the telephone, stepping carefully past the blood and what seemed like a spreading sheet of water on the hardwood floor. She called in, then turned to Morgan, who was crouched beside the body, trying to avoid the seepage while he
groped at her neck for a pulse.
“Not likely,” said Miranda. He twisted around. Catching the direction of his quizzical stare in her direction, she challenged, “What are you looking at?”
“There’s something moving under the desk.”
In spite of herself, Miranda flinched, then bent low and peered into the shadows at a mass of gristle and red throbbing against the wet floor. For a moment she could taste her own heart.
On her knees, careful to avoid blood and shards of broken glass, she crept forward, scooped her hand around a fish about the size of a large salmon fillet, and slid it forward into the light. It had leathery skin and the eyes were dull, but its mouth grasped at the air and its gills opened and closed in a deliberate rhythm. Whatever energy it might have had to thrash about was spent, but it was far from dead.
“It’s a Showa, Doitsu. No scales.”
“Good, Morgan. Here, put it in the bathroom sink or the toilet or somewhere.”
He took the red-and-white fish from her as if he were someone not used to holding a baby, resting its weight against his palm and forearm, while his other hand hovered, prepared to grasp firmly if his charge slid off to the side. “I’ll put it in the pond,” he said.
She rose to her feet. “No, not yet. It might be important here. Isn’t this a tidy mess? Literally. Blood all over, but neatly contained — carnage arranged with precision.”
“Miranda, I was downstairs when this happened! I should save the fish.” He glanced at the koi, which lay very still, resigned to its fate.
“No one thinks you did it, Morgan.”
“I was down in the cellar, I was in the den —”
“I’ll be a character witness if you need one.”
“I didn’t hear anything. Look at her. The woman was alive an hour ago.” He gazed at the fish lying listlessly in his hands. “It was eerie, how empty and quiet it was —”
“It’s not your fault, Morgan. “You’re not the guardian of the world. Do something with the damn fish before it dies on you, too.”