by Richard King
“I think I’d like to walk,” said Dr. Young. Steve and I said we would too and the three of us walked down the hill to Sherbrooke and east to McGill. That walk was more like a funeral procession than a stroll down one of Montreal’s nicest streets. None of us looked at the art in the gallery windows or the expensive clothing in the shop windows. None of said a word till we reached the Roddick Gate. There we paused and before we parted we promised to keep in touch, the way mourners do after a funeral. I walked east and then north; it took about an hour to walk home, but the exercise helped to calm me.
I really wanted to be alone and get some sleep so I turned off the phone and my brain and crawled into bed.
chapter twenty-three
The next morning, after a long dreamless sleep, I actually managed to beat Jennifer into the store by about three minutes.
“Well, stranger,” she greeted me. “Are you back for long?”
“Back forever,” I told her. “The mystery has been solved.”
“No kidding. Then the first thing you and I are going to do after we get the store open is go out for a coffee. You are going to tell me everything.”
I took comfort at being back at my old routine, and in the normal opening procedures for a book store. We got the money out of the safe counted and into the cash register. We assigned tasks to the staff and checked our agendas to see what had to be dealt with immediately and who we would keep waiting. It didn’t take long.
A few minutes later Jennifer and I were installed at a corner table at the Café Paillon with two large lattes, away from the noise of the ongoing battle between the Paillons. I brought her up to date, leaving out no detail, from the very beginning to the point where Steve and Barbara and I walked away from the More house on Irving Street.
I stopped talking only to sip at my coffee or to listen to one of the few questions Jennifer had.
“Wow,” Jennifer said. “I hope they lock that guy up and lose the key.”
Just then I noticed Arlene Ford at the counter buying a coffee to go. I jumped up and went over to speak to her.
“Hi,” I said. “Did you hear what happened?”
“Yes, I did,” she said. “It’s all over the university.” For the first time since the day I discovered Professor Hilliard’s body she seemed cordial. Now that the crime was solved she was probably feeling less stressed.
“You must be pleased that it’s over,” I continued.
“Of course I’m pleased about that,” she said and she even touched my arm in a friendly way. Then some of the fire returned to her voice. “But if you think I’m pleased that you and that cop virtually accused me of committing murder you’ve got another think coming.”
“You didn’t do much to co-operate, you know.”
“I don’t have to co-operate, now, do I? I lost someone very dear to me and before I could come to terms with that you guys turned me into a criminal. Let me tell you something: The next time you get ready to accuse someone of murder you’d better be pretty sure you know what you’re talking about.”
I would have apologized if I had had the chance but she turned and strode out of the café. I returned to Jennifer who asked, “What was that about?”
I explained, and her response surprised me a bit. “Well good for her. She probably feels a lot better for having told you off,” she said.
We chit-chatted a while longer and returned to work.
epilogue
The case against Fred More was not resolved quickly. He opted to fight. Barbara and Steve and I and the other witnesses spent many hours with Gaston and the prosecutors before the case even got to court, as Fred hired a top-notch criminal lawyer in an effort to stay out of jail.
Barbara and Steve and I all wanted to be present in the court room for the trial, but were not allowed to, because we were going to be called as witnesses. We found this frustrating but accepted it as being in the interest of justice. While we waited we forged a close three-way friendship because of what we had been through together and because we were determined to see justice done.
In fact there wasn’t much of a trial and none of us ever got to testify. The day after the jury was selected Fred copped a plea. He got twenty-five years with the possibility of parole after serving a third of his sentence for pleading guilty to two counts of murder. J asked Gaston why he thought Fred copped a plea at the last minute. Gaston believed that More took one look at the jury and realized that he’d never convince the weight women and four men that he was innocent. He realized that twenty-five years with the possibility of parole was better than life without the chance of parole. I wished I had seen the jury.
My life in the bookstore seemed boring for a while after the excitement of helping to solve a murder. Gaston continued to drop by the bookstore for his literary fix and we continued to go out for coffee once every week or two. The murders had the effect of adding another dimension to our friendship — they gave us something more in common than just books. Barbara and Steve also started to drop by the store from time to time and I always made sure I had time for coffee and conversation with each of them.
And then Gisèle came back from France. But that’s another story.
There was one final irony to the case. About two weeks after Fred More’s arrest we got a report on the book Jane had ordered for Hilliard; it was out of print.