That Sleep of Death

by Richard King

  “Not here. I want to keep the witnesses separated for the moment. I’ll meet you at the usual place for a coffee as soon as I get things moving here. Figure an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”

  I didn’t want to leave but I calculated that the best way to remain involved in the investigation would be to follow Gaston Lemieux’s instructions to the letter. As I left the building I passed a group of cops carrying lab equipment and two men dressed in the light grey suits of the coroner’s office wheeling a gurney in the direction of the history department.

  I considered what my next move should be. Now that I had my foot in the investigative door, I wasn’t taking it out until I got right inside the house. I walked across campus to the McGill University Bookstore to buy myself a notebook and a pen in order to write up my notes. I could have written my report quickly and returned to work until it was time to meet Gaston, but I didn’t.

  I strolled very slowly along Sherbrooke Street, enjoying the special atmosphere of Montreal in the autumn, to the Café Paillon, “the usual place” where Gaston asked me to meet him. I chose a table near the back and got to work over a double allongé. When I finished writing I still had at least half an hour before I could reasonably expect Gaston to arrive. I let my mind wander.

  How could I make myself indispensable to this investigation? It occurred to me that I could suppress some information for a short while and then report it at an opportune moment. It didn’t take me more than a minute’s reflection to reject that idea. I didn’t have much in the way of evidence to suppress, and besides, I knew Gaston well enough to know that wasn’t the best way to curry favour with him. After reviewing my options I decided that the role of amanuensis was my best bet. My notes were a good start and I would be ready to perform whatever “literary” chores came my way.

  Gaston arrived at the café at about eleven o’clock. Another double allongé for me and a regular coffee for him.

  We traded information. I told him that the history department had appeared deserted when I arrived and stayed that way while Arlene and I waited for the cops to arrive. He told me that the faculty were either at their nine o’clock classes or just hadn’t got to work yet. Professors who didn’t have early classes tended not to arrive much before ten o’clock. And after security was called Julian Alexander’s men didn’t allow anyone into or out of the building.

  Arlene Ford was actually there but not at her desk; she had gone into the common room just off the reception area, intending to make coffee. She heard me go down the hall and knock at Hilliard’s office door. She came out to ask why I hadn’t waited at reception and she saw me react to seeing the corpse.

  I gave Gaston my notes and he gave them a cursory once-over before he folded them neatly and slipped them into his pocket.

  “I found something at the scene that I need your help with,” he told me. “The victim was clutching this in his right fist.” He reached into his outside jacket pocket and pulled out an evidence bag with a crumpled piece of paper in it. He smoothed the plastic bag out on the table in front of me and I saw that the piece of paper was a Dickens & Company special order form. “I was hoping you could tell me if this has any significance; other than the obvious, of course.”

  We use a standard numbered form for all special orders, noting information about the book and the customer’s address and phone number. In this case the order number was 5643, nothing significant in that as far as I could see. The book on order was Cambridge History of England, Volume 3, The Sixteenth Century and the name of the customer was Professor H. Hilliard. There was no address, just a phone number. I turned it over to see if there was anything written on the back, but it was just a regular customer copy of a special order form.

  Gaston leaned forward, both elbows on the table, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “This is serious, Sam. So listen carefully. What I have here is a man who discovers a corpse and just about the first thing we find, and find it clutched in the hand of the dead body, is a piece of evidence that points to that man — you. How do you explain that?”

  “I don’t. I can’t.” I stammered.

  “Was Hilliard expecting you?” I felt my tension gauge shoot up. Gaston was cross-examining me and it was making me nervous. “Well, not expecting me. But I came to see him about once a month to collect outstanding invoices.” I paused to catch my breath, which was becoming laboured. Gaining control of myself, and developing an unexpected sympathy for those who find themselves in the clutches of the police, I continued. “You can’t believe I had anything to do with his death other than finding the body. You know me. Why would I kill him?”

  “You’re right. I know you and I don’t believe that you’re a murderer and I certainly can’t see any motive for you to kill Hilliard. But, and this is an important but, I’m not the only one who sees the evidence and the other homicide detectives don’t know you and might be less willing to believe you. So please, look into the order and see if you can get some information about it that is not apparent at this moment. Because this evidence makes you a suspect.”

  I copied the information from the order form into my notebook and said nervously, “You bet I will. But, really, I can’t see anything special about this order. We order hundreds of books each week for our customers. This looks like one of many.”

  I tend to ramble a bit when I’m nervous. It helps me to think without letting on what I’m thinking about. In this case my thoughts were: now I have another motive beyond curiosity to stick as close to this investigation as possible. I have to make sure that I don’t end up in trouble for something I didn’t do. I wanted to investigate a murder, not be accused of it.

  We were about to leave when one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen walked past our table on her way out of the restaurant. As she approached us the woman suddenly broke out in a big smile. I smiled back, thinking that I must know her from somewhere. A customer, maybe? But would I forget a customer who looked like this amazing vision? Now her elegantly ringless hand was descending onto Gaston’s shoulder. “Guess who!” she said, laughing

  Gaston, startled, turned and jumped out of his chair. “Gisèlé.” They hugged and did the Montreal two-cheek, all the while telling each other, in French, of course, how pleased they were to see one another. I got up, hoping to be introduced without delay.

  “Sam,” he said. “This is my sister, Gisèle.”

  “Plaisir,” she said, shaking my hand. I wanted to say something sophisticated but all I could do was mumble something in French and stare at the tall, slim, black-haired beauty whose firm, cool hand I was shaking. “My friend Sam Wiseman,” Gaston told her.

  We all sat down again, she beside Gaston, and they launched into a rapid conversation in French, which I didn’t attempt to participate in. The gist of it was What a surprise to see you, what has been going on, I was just leaving, so were we, do you have time for coffee, no, I’m in the middle of a case, how is Papa? I tried not to eavesdrop on the siblings and to admire Gisèle without staring. I had an overpowering feeling that I wanted to run away with her to a desert island where we would spend the rest of our lives.

  I gathered from various references in their conversation that she was a lawyer, working for a law partnership whose offices were just up the street. It was obvious from the easy animated way they talked to each other, in beautiful informal French, that they had a very close relationship. It was nice to see a warmer side of Lemieux. They agreed that it was too bad that they met so rarely. Gaston asked his sister to pass his love on to their mother and said that he would call her in a few days.

  Then Gaston was back on his feet, saying that we really had to go. He looked at me inquiringly, “At least, I have to get back, but perhaps Sam would prefer to take another coffee?”

  Gisèle then turned her dazzling smile on me for a moment and all my senses cut out. It took a moment for me to realize that she was apologizing to me and saying no, she couldn’t stay either as she had a client coming to meet with her
in twenty minutes

  In truth, I feared that if I stayed another second with Gisèle not only I would make a fool of myself by falling in love with a woman who was obviously far too beautiful for me, I would also miss out on the rest of the investigation. “I’d better go along with Gaston,” I said. Then glanced at him, anxiously, hoping he was expecting me to accompany him. “To ensure that I didn’t leave anything out of my report.”

  Just then Gaston’s beeper went off. He lifted it off his belt and looked at the little display screen and said, “We’ve got to go. The lab team is almost ready to move the body. I want to take one last look at the scene before we lose control of it.” He reattached the beeper to his belt. We said our goodbyes, paid and left the café. Gisèle went off in the opposite direction, back to her law office.

  “Your sister is delightful,” I said, feeling that the comment was totally inadequate.

  “Yes, she is very charming,” he replied vaguely. He was lost in thought.

  Part of me was hoping that we would drive back to the McGill campus in an unmarked police car, sirens blaring and with one of those flashing red lights stuck on the roof — sort of like Kojak. But Lemieux was a pretty low-key guy. We walked.

  The day was still fine and as we went along I tried to get Lemieux to advise me on proper etiquette at the crime scene but he barely replied to my questions. He pretty much ignored me for the ten or fifteen minutes it took us to reach our destination.

  chapter three

  Back at the history department, things had cooled down in some ways and warmed up in others. Arlene Ford was sitting at her desk, from which vantage point she could see everything that was going on. To her right she had a view down the corridor to Professor Hilliard’s office. She faced the door to the department so she could see who came and went, and she seemed a lot cooler than when I saw her a couple of hours previously. Her anger had subsided, and she seemed to be actually flirting with Julian Alexander. Someone had brought them tea and muffins, and Alexander was sitting on her desk, keeping an eye on things. But mostly keeping an eye on Arlene.

  Ms. Ford saw us enter and cleared her throat and signalled to Alexander with a little thrust of her head to warn him that we were back. The head of security slid off the desk and turned to face us. “Everything is under control,” he reported. “Some faculty tried to gain admission to the premises but I turned them away until you give the OK. I’ve also kept the dean of arts and the vice-chancellor up to date.” I half expected him to complete his presentation with a snappy salute and a click of his heels. Where do they find these guys?

  Arlene Ford was tensing up again. I could tell by the way she was avoiding eye contact and aggessively straightening up the papers on her desk.

  “Thank you,” Lemieux told Alexander. “Please keep the area sealed for now. When the lab crew is finished I’ll start interviewing people. Right now my colleague and I are going to take another look at the murder scene. It will be helpful if I can speak to people who knew Professor Hilliard. That would include the two of you, of course,” he said, nodding to Arlene.

  “I can’t say that I knew him more than to say good morning to.” Alexander seemed almost obsequious towards Lemieux, a superior officer. “I’ll be more than happy to tell you anything I can. If possible, though, I’d like to speak to you privately.” The nasty look he shot me from under his bushy eyebrows and the way he had half turned his back, excluding me from his conversation with Gaston, made it clear exactly who he didn’t want present.

  “Don’t worry about Mr. Wiseman,” said Gaston mildly. “He’s assisting me in the investigation. I’ve confirmed that he was here on business.”

  “But—!” Arlene Ford jumped up, outraged. “This man claims to have come to the university to see Professor Hilliard. So he must have known him too. Isn’t it possible that he is hiding something? No one knows when he arrived in the building!”

  “Mr. Wiseman is not a suspect,” said Gaston in the same unruffled tone. “Mr. Alexander, did you note the names of the people that have been turned away?”

  Security Chief Julian looked surprised that he would be expected to do anything except play the heavy. It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that he could do something helpful at the same time.

  “I know who they were. I’ll have a list typed for you in a minute,” said Arlene. She was still giving me the evil eye, but she was anxious to impress Gaston.

  “That won’t be necessary. Here they all are now,” Alexander said.

  A mob of professors — perhaps a pride of professors is a better term — had appeared in the entranceway and were shoving their way in. One of the uniformed cops was vainly trying to hold them back. Giving up he called out to Lemieux, “Je m’excuse. J’étais à la porte mais ils ont poussé …”

  “Are you in charge here?” the leader of the gang snapped at Lemieux.

  “Just a moment, please.” Gaston, speaking to the cop, said, “Retournez à votre poste. Ces gens vont sortir dans quelques instants. Quand ils sortiront prends leur noms et coordonnées.”

  The cop left the office. Lemieux turned and appraised the man who had asked the question. He was an over-height, overweight academic type of about fifty with messy grey hair and a beard to match, wearing baggy brown corduroys and a shirt that may have once been red. “Yes, yes, I am in charge. I’m Detective Sergeant Lemieux. With whom do I have the pleasure?” Gaston let the question hang and extended his hand.

  “I’m Mac Edwards. I’m the chairman of this department and I need to get to my office. So do my colleagues.” The colleagues chimed in with a chorus of yeahs and me toos. “But your guard dog here,” Edwards pointed at Julian Alexander, “says we have to wait. Some of us have been waiting for more than two hours. What’s going on?”

  “This is a crime scene. Mr. Alexander had no choice but to keep people away from it. There has been a murder.”

  “Murder!” Edwards exclaimed. A ripple of disbelief ran throught the group. “He didn’t say anything about murder. He didn’t give us any information. That is, we knew there had been a death, but we thought it was a burglary or … Who was murdered? Not a member of the department, I hope. I mean,” he added hurriedly, realizing his statement might seem a little callous, “or a student, or a staff member?”

  “Professor Harold Hilliard was murdered in his office. We are examining the scene,” said Gaston.

  I watched the group of faculty very carefully to see how they reacted to this news. If any one of them was not shocked it might indicate that he or she had guilty knowledge of the crime. But they all looked like they had been socked in the solar plexus. The collective gasp of breath was audible. Some looked a little more stunned than others but as far as I could tell they were all sincerely upset at the news. They had that vulnerable look people get when they have a personal connection with the victim of a crime. They looked as if they felt unsafe.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” asked a woman from the back of the crowd in a soft voice.

  “Professor Hilliard’s body was found at around nine-thirty this morning. I can’t tell you any more except that he did not die of natural causes. We’re trying to establish what happened. I’m going to want to interview all of you.” I noticed that Lemieux wasn’t disclosing very much in the way of detail.

  An ancient professor who looked well past retirement age, cleared his throat and asked, “Do you have any suspects?”

  There was a long pause while Lemieux looked at each one of them in turn. I suppose he was gauging how best to answer the question. After all, one of them could be the murderer. “We are still in the evidence-gathering stage. I can say that some of the evidence has been instructive. For the rest it requires further analysis.”

  “When will we be allowed to go back to our offices?” asked an auburn-haired woman with a nasal American accent.

  “When we’re finished,” Lemieux said briefly.

  “And when will that be?” she enquired. “We have work to do, classes t
o prepare, papers to grade, and appointments to keep.” She was getting wound up to give us a lecture on the importance of the academic contribution to the modern world.

  One of her fellow historians, a lanky guy in a tweed blazer, blue cotton shirt and a striped necktie interrupted with, “She’s right. When are we going to have access to our offices? In an hour, a day, a week?” The rest of them were muttering angrily and I half expected some kind of uprising, since they were all historians; well versed in the history and value of rebellion.

  But then another of the group, a short bespectacled fellow with a loud emotional voice, suddenly shouted, “What on earth is wrong with you two, with all of us. One of our friends has just been brutally murdered and all we worry about is our offices? Are we that insensitive, that selfish?”

  There was an embarrassed silence. I think the embarrassment was as much at the unseemly outburst as it was at the rebuke.

  “Nicholas is right,” said Mac Edwards. He sounded like a man who was used to telling a group what to do. But at least he understood the value of becoming conciliatory when he saw that belligerence wasn’t going to work. His voice now sound ingratiating, if somewhat insincere. “We should get out of the way and let the police do their job and not worry about our offices and papers for the moment. They’ll be here when the police are finished. We should begin planning some sort of memorial service.” Turning to Lemieux he said, “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. Notification of the family, that kind of thing.”

  “Thank you for your co-operation,” Lemieux responded. Was I wrong to suspect the trace of irony in his voice? “Will you all please stay on the campus for the moment. Leave your names with the officer outside. I’ll need to speak to each of you. Is there somewhere that I can find you when my team is finished here?”

  “There’s the faculty club,” someone murmured.

  “Yes,” proclaimed Edwards. “We’ll wait for you at the faculty club.” The professors straggled out of the department office at a funereal pace.