That Sleep of Death

by Richard King

  “Hi,” I said catching her eye as she finished serving a customer. “You look happy.”

  “I am. I’ve been having a really great morning and business is booming. How about you?”

  “You know what it’s like solving crimes. Busy, busy, busy.”

  “No kidding, you solved it?”

  “Not exactly. But it feels like we’re getting close. Gaston is setting a trap for one of the suspects and he’s going to spring it tomorrow. Someone may find themselves in a lot of trouble.”

  “Try not to enjoy it so much! Don’t forget, murder is a tragedy for the victim and the murderer. Oh, my God,” Jennifer shrieked, covering her mouth with her hand, embarrassed by the volume of her voice. “That reminds me. Susan is waiting for you. Because you said someone would be in trouble,” she explained.

  “Where is she?” I said, looking around. I had totally forgotten that she expected me to meet her for lunch today, I’d become so involved with Gaston and the murder. I hadn’t checked my machine or left a message. I felt really guilty — even if the days of our relationship were numbered, I didn’t want to be dumped for being inconsiderate.

  “She went over to the café. She hung around for a while but decided to wait for you there.”

  “Did she seem angry?” I asked tentatively.

  “Actually, no. She seemed in a great mood. Maybe we’re all having good bio-rhythms today. Go, I’ve got things under control here and I have extra staff coming in tomorrow so you can go see your murderer get arrested.”

  “You’re the best,” I said giving Jennifer a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  I walked around the corner to the Café Paillon. The place was packed with the lunchtime crowd. The Paillons, as usual, were arguing about something. This time they were speaking English; it seemed that Jake had either not done something he was supposed to do or done something he shouldn’t have. Whatever the case, it was really Jackie’s fault because she had forgotten to remind him to do something or she prevented him from doing something for some reason. If I didn’t know how devoted they were to each other I might have been worried that the café might be closing soon.

  Susan was at a table in the back having a cappuccino and she gave me a big smile as I hurried over to the table, then jumped up and hugged me hello, which was, I admit, unusual for her. And she certainly didn’t appear to be mad at me.

  She started in telling me all about what she’d been doing, and from the sounds of it, she’d been so overloaded with work she hadn’t had time to notice that I’d been wrapped up in a mystery and hadn’t called. However, I did the manly thing and blamed myself for not calling. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I haven’t been able to tear myself away from the investigation. Every time I think Lemieux is going to blow me off for being a pest I find some way to stay involved.”

  “I’m sure you’re not in the way,” she said cheerfully. “Anyway, the victim wouldn’t be any less dead if you weren’t around. And Gaston usually enjoys your company when you two talk about books and stuff so why not enjoy the chance to experience his world? If he minded I’m sure he’d tell you.”

  Why was she being so sunny and approving? It wasn’t like her. What was she up to? “What do you want to do tonight?” I asked.

  “A movie. I want to lose myself in someone else’s life.”

  “What movie?”

  “The Piano.”

  “Let’s go to an early show and eat afterwards, OK?” I suggested.

  “I’ll meet you at the store at six so we can make the six-thirty show.”

  After lunch Susan went back to her lab. I spent the rest of the day at the bookstore helping customers and gossiping with Jennifer.

  Susan and I met as planned and got to the movie theatre just as the lights were dimming. We settled into the dark

  and I lost myself completely to the story of a mute woman who expressed herself through her music. Of a man who seemed rough on the surface but was sensitive to music and also to the culture of the Maori, among whom he lived. Of another man who seemed civilized but was in fact a philistine, and of a child who was as complex, mature, and insightful as any of the adults. I loved the movie and to my surprise, so did Susan. Since we hardly ever agree on anything I assumed she must be hating the movie.

  Afterwards we went out for Chinese food. My restaurant of choice is, and always has been, the Yen King. It’s one of the few restaurants that remain from the good old days of Chinatown in the fifties and sixties, when there were lots of underdecorated restaurants that served unadulterated Chinese food. My motto has always been, the more Formica in the decor the better the menu, but most of the restaurants I used to love have been forced out of business by a series of mayors and city councils that practised a form of urban ethnic cleansing. Instead of rifles they used bulldozers. The Yen King catered to a mixed crowd of students, artists, and writers from the area around the Main, and also a more bourgeois crowd, former students and artists and writers, who trekked in from the western suburbs. When it was available I always preferred a table in an alcove cut off from the rest of the dining room by a folding screen painted with bright fire-breathing dragons. I’d taken Susan there at the beginning of our acquaintance, which was now verging on three months.

  “Wasn’t that the best movie you’ve ever seen?” she enthused over a dish of spicy shrimp and black bean sauce. “It is so great to see a story told intelligently from a woman’s point of view. For a while it seemed like there was nothing out there except Die Hard and similar crap.

  The Dieharderator,” she said in a low pitched, sing-songy sarcastic voice. “I swear I thought I’d have to give up movies altogether. But this film was wonderful. There wasn’t a false note in it. The characters were all well developed with complete personalities and finally sex that’s actually erotic instead of a wrestling match between a bimbo and a bozo. Did you like it as much as I did?”

  “Yes, but my favourite part wasn’t the sex — it was the scene where the colonists put on that awful play which the Maori take literally and try to defend the poor actors who they thought were going to be harmed. It was such a lovely statement about people without even a scintilla of sensitivity who try to impose a European bourgeois culture on an aboriginal one. The colonists were too far from Europe to be able to sensibly express its culture and the Maori were too wise in their own ways to even have a clue what the white folk were trying to say in their silly little play. Didn’t you just love the total lack of civility of those who thought of themselves as the bearers of civilization? It was so funny.”

  We had moved on to the General Tao chicken and vegetables with spicy noodles and the conversation moved on to other things as well. We seemed to be communicating rather well for a change. It was very pleasant. I brought Susan up to date on where we stood in our efforts to solve the murder of Harold Hilliard, and she told me about her progress in school. But there seemed to be something else on her mind. In fact her happy mood seemed to be darkening, and there were frequent pauses in the conversation. I had no idea what the problem could be, so I just went on eating and hoping for the best.

  During one of these lulls I heard a lovely contralto voice from the table on the other side of the screen say, “Did you see the police all over the campus yesterday and the day before?”

  “Yeah. What was that all about?” asked her female companion. The companion’s voice had a nasal twang that made me think of the American mid-west.

  “A professor died. Murdered,” Contralto said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she was used to keeping her friends up to date on the various deaths in and around McGill University.

  “Murdered? Some one was murdered right on campus? That’s awful!” Twangy-voice exclaimed. “Who was it?”

  Susan was telling me something about her feelings of insecurity and I realized that she would consider it an unforgivable lapse if I didn’t listen attentively, but I couldn’t help myself: I gazed soulfully at Susan, but my attention was fixed on the gossiping of my unse
en neighbours. I tried to divide my mind into two tracks, but it wasn’t really working.

  “…a history professor,” Contralto was saying. “I never had him but a friend of mine is in his course and she told me all about it.”

  “Do they know who did it? This is so frightening. I swear I’ll never feel safe on campus again,” said Twangy-voice.

  “Why not?” asked Contraltro. “The murder has nothing to do with you.”

  Susan’s voice suddenly got: louder. “… run over by a herd of stampeding elephants,” she was yelling at me.

  “What?” I asked, startled, switching my attention from the gossip behind the screen to Susan.

  “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.” She looked sulky. “And if you lean back any farther you’ll fall off your chair.”

  I leaned forward and whispered to Susan what the women at the next table had said.

  She wasn’t impressed. “Listen, Fenton Hardy, gossip, even in a Chinese restaurant, is only gossip. Unless one of those women is the murderer, it doesn’t mean much.”

  “Well, it means that people are talking about it,” I said defensively.

  “Of course people are talking about it. You talk about it incessantly. Can’t we put it out of our minds for one evening?”

  I put on a contrite expression, but took advantage of a her momentary silence to pick up the words Twangy-voice was saying now: “… well, I’m sure the professor thought that he was pretty safe too and now he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Contralto said. “But my friend told me that her TA was having an affair with him and then her boyfriend killed him.”

  I was leaning back in my chair again. Susan rolled her eyes and began tapping her long pink fingernails on the tabletop.

  “My God, this place is becoming worse than home,” said Twangy. “People are being sexually harassed and murdered right in the middle of the university. I could have stayed in Dubuque for this.”

  “But I heard something else, and this is even stranger,” said Contralto.

  At that same moment, Susan said in a warning voice, “Sam, are you with me or are you with —”

  “Shush!” I said to her loudly, and instantly realized that I had done a very, very wrong thing. “Susan, I’m sorry,” I apologized desperately.

  Stony-faced, Susan was gathering up her bag and her jacket.

  Contralto’s voice droned on. “Then I heard that some people are saying that a bookseller killed him because of a bad review, but that it was a book written by the bookseller’s wife, and …”

  Abandoning any attempt to listen I trailed after Susan, pausing only to pay our bill. When I got out into the street she was gone.

  I went home and phoned her. There was no answer. I left a long, penitent message on her voicemail. It occurred to me that I might never hear back from her.

  Maybe, I thought, that would be for the best.

  chapter fifteen

  Next morning, fearing that Susan might call and forgive me, I left my apartment at seven-thirty and went directly to the store. I didn’t want Susan and Jennifer mad at me, and I knew I was going to be out of the store for hours later in the day, so I did my penance in advance. I got right down to some paperwork that I normally put off as long as possible — opening the mail which had arrived late the day before, filing, and writing up the daily cheque deposit. We do a large volume of institutional business and a big part of our cash flow comes in the mail in the form of cheques. Most retailers dread the mail as it brings more bills than money. In our case it was different. On a typical day we received about as much in the way of cheques as we did of bills. It helped keep income and outgo in balance.

  Jennifer was coming in just as I was leaving.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  “I have detecting chores to attend to, I’m afraid.”

  “Not again,” she said, but she was smiling. Good old Jennifer.

  “I’ve done the paperwork and I’ll be back at about noon — I hope,” I threw back over my shoulder as I left the store.

  “Go get those bad guys!” Jennifer called after me.

  I was tired of having to scrounge for paper to take notes on. This time I took the precaution of bringing a pad and pen along in one of those dull red legal-size file folders, the kind that close with an attached covered elastic band. I hoped it made me look more official.

  When I got to Hilliard’s building, Gaston was already there. There was a patrol car parked in front of the building, and my friend was in the lobby, deep in conversation with the concierge, Grant, and the uniformed cops. They were just finished talking when I walked in. Grant went back into his office, and Gaston told the cops that he would call them when he needed them to come back. They went back out to their car and drove off.

  “I’m not late, am I?” I asked.

  “Not at all. I came a bit early to enlist the aid of the concierge. He’s going to play doorman and keep track of the comings and goings of our, what shall I call them? Invitées? Guests? Let’s go up to the apartment and I’ll fill you in,”

  “Great,” I said following him into the elevator.

  Even though I knew what to expect I was still taken aback by the blackness of the foyer, now decorated with yellow barrage-de-police banners. Gaston removed them and used the key that M. Grant had given him to enter the apartment.

  As we waited for our interviewees I told Gaston what I had heard the previous night at the Yen King.

  “Vraiment,” he said consigning my news to the garbage heap of unreason. “Two people talking nonsense on a subject about which they know nothing.” I wished I had not said anything about the conversation I had overheard. Not that his dismissive attitude changed my mind; Allan and Arlene were my top two candidates for murder. Who better than a jealous boyfriend or a rejected mistress?

  “My plan is this,” Gaston explained. “I’m going to ask Mrs. Smith if anything seems out of place and if she has or had any knowledge of any visitors Professor Hilliard may have had while she worked here. I want to know if she saw any of the women he is rumoured to have invited up here. I’m hoping that she will be able to help us in that regard. I also intend for Ms. Ford to arrive without either of them knowing that the other is coming to see their reactions. If one of them gives any suggestion that she recognizes the other we’ll know that Ms. Ford is lying and I’ll be able to pressure her into telling us the truth.”

  I complimented Gaston on his plan. It seemed to me like pretty straightforward detective work — keep the element of surprise on your side and don’t tip your hand. Where I learned all this I don’t know. Books, maybe. And even though it was obvious it seemed like a solid idea that might well force a confession out of Arlene Ford.

  “I also want to see if Mrs. Smith can give us any clue as to the whereabouts of Professor Hilliard’s computer,” Gaston added as an afterthought.

  Just before nine-thirty the buzzer sounded and we heard the elevator start up. Apparently Gaston had arranged with Grant to give us a signal when Betty Smith arrived. Gaston went to the door to let her in and I stood far back in the room so as not to give the impression that we were going to attack her. She stopped at the threshold, not sure what to do. Part of her wanted to march right into the apartment as she was probably used to doing but another part of her wanted to respect police protocol but she wasn’t exactly sure what that was.

  Gaston, ever the gallant, immediately put her at her ease. “Mrs. Smith?” he inquired politely. “How do you do? I’m Gaston Lemieux of the Montreal police and this is my colleague, Mr. Wiseman. Please come in.” He gently took her elbow and escorted her into the apartment. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Betty Smith was a short woman of an age somewhere between fifty and sixty-five. She had short hair which was once brown but was now mostly grey. She was one of those women who look chubby even though they are actually quite slim, but are top-heavy with a very large bosom and a short waist. She had an energetic down-to-earth look about her and
she was scrubbed clean and wore almost no make-up. She sat in one of the chairs and looked suspiciously at the torn bag and empty cardboard coffee cups on the coffee table.

  “I only have a few questions at the moment but I may have more later. First, would you mind walking through the apartment with us to see if anything is missing or not in its usual place?”

  “Not at all,” she said standing up and heading for the study. We followed her from the study to the dining room and kitchen to the bathroom and the bedroom. She moved quickly and spent only the amount of time she needed to give each room a complete once-over. In the kitchen and bathroom she opened and closed cupboards and the medicine chests to satisfy herself that everything was as it should be. Back in the living room and seated she stated, “Everything’s been moved.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Gaston.

  “Nothing is exactly where I left it and there are bits of white powder everywhere.”

  “That must be because I had a team up here dusting for fingerprints. But are you saying that things are generally as you left them when you were last here?”

  “Yes. Things are close to where they should be. But really, can’t you people be a little more careful about how you handle things?”

  It is very unlikely that a police investigation will ever satisfy the demands of a professional cleaning woman. Gaston ignored the rebuke and moved on to his next question.

  “Did you notice where he left his laptop computer?”

  “He always took it with him, to his office. The only times I ever saw it was during the summer when he didn’t go to the university every day.”

  “Did you know the professor for a long time?”

  “Yes, I guess I did. I started working for him just over ten years ago. Before he moved here. He had another place. And when he bought this one I followed along.”

  “Did you see him much?”

  “No. Well, at first I did. But we developed a routine and I was able to do my job without too much interference from him.”

  “What exactly were your duties?”