by David Hood
“Ellen…Miss Reardon…ELLEN!” Baxter’s face grew redder as his voice rose. The little room jumped. Ellen remained dead to the world. The two policemen were standing outside a jail cell in the basement of the police station. Many older buildings still used gaslights. In a modern place like this, electric bulbs did the job. They gave off a low beehive buzz along with their sharper white light.
“She’s really out of it, Detective.” Squire was simply thinking out loud, he wasn’t trying to wind Baxter up by being intentionally inane. But when Baxter turned his head to look at Squire, he was more electric than the bulbs hanging from the ceiling. If Squire had tossed a saucy remark or smirked, Baxter looked like he might have gone for his throat, or worse, simply sent him home and let him have nothing more to do with the case. The young policeman wisely said nothing as he held up the key Sergeant Mackay had given him. Standing at the end of the narrow cot Squire yelled Ellen’s name one more time. Nothing. When the end of the cot fell back down its springs bucked and Ellen nearly landed on the floor.
“Jesus Christ…what’s the matter with you…” Ellen pushed herself back up on the cot, then got herself into a sitting position, her feet on the floor, her hands either side, clutching the thin mattress in case the cot took her for another ride.
“Miss Reardon, if you would like to finish the night here instead of a horse stall or under a tree, you will tell me what you know and in the process you will keep a civil tongue in your head…Are you listening to me, Ellen?” As he spoke, Baxter stepped back from the cell door until his back found the plaster wall on the opposite side of the hallway. Squire watched the retreat with a quizzical look. The detective stood in place stone-faced and silent. Ellen ignored them both. After a moment Ellen leaned hard to one side, drew a deep breath she seemed to hold on to for balance, let go a long, slow, rolling, thunderous fart, then groaned in sweet relief. There was a basin of water on a small table beside the cot. She leaned back the other way and pulled it closer. The spindly table legs stuttered across the cement floor, the water vibrated. It didn’t spill. Ellen dunked her hands then held them up like an open prayer book. She laid her face into them and began massaging the sleep out of her eyes. After a moment or two she looked at Squire over the grubby ends of her fingers and said in a ripsaw voice, “Hey, Bright Eyes, they tell you where the WC is yet? I gotta take a piss.”
Squire was busy fanning the air, his features twisted up in disgust. Behind him there was a hint of a smirk on Baxter’s stone face. “Straight down at the end of the hall,” Squire said, backing out of the cell, now breathing through his mouth.
Ellen used her hands as a comb then tied her hair back with a length of string she may have found somewhere in the thick mane. She stood up straight as a pin. The bodice of her dress was soiled, its hemline muddy and torn. But she brushed at herself carefully, pulled at the ends of her long sleeves and then walked smartly out of the cell and on toward the end of the hall. She paused at the door to the WC. “What time is it, Detective?” she asked through a yawn.
“Just tend to your business please, Miss Reardon, so we can tend to ours.”
“You can be really hateful, do you know that? I pity your wife. How is she, by the way?” Ellen waited for a moment as if she really wanted to know or expected Baxter to answer. Then she yawned again and slipped through the door, closing it gently.
Baxter swallowed a ball of anger. He was not angry with Ellen as much as he was angry with himself. The mention of his wife reminded him he was not at home where he should be. He reached for his watch. It was almost two in the morning. He sighed again. Down the hall a few chairs were lined up. He nodded toward them and said, “Mr. Squire, fetch us a couple of those while we wait for our delicate flower to bloom. We might as well have seats for the show.” Squire set two chairs in the cell facing the cot. Baxter motioned him to sit. Meanwhile, the detective remained standing in the hall. He managed to hold on for a half a minute more before saying, in a voice certain to be heard on the other side of the narrow door, “You are testing my patience, Miss Reardon.” There was a bang, perhaps from the toe of a shoe, followed by a muffled flurry of words that didn’t sound kind. Another half minute of silence passed, then there was the sound of falling water and the door opened. Ellen walked back up the hall, not slowly. Not too quickly either. She stared at Baxter the whole way, inviting him to say something that would give her an excuse to make him wait a little longer. The detective looked straight ahead through the bars at the empty cot. He waited silently until Ellen was seated in his view, then he stepped into the cell. Rather than sit in the empty chair he stood behind it laying his hands on its top rail. “Miss Reardon, let’s start with you running into Officer Squire. Where was that?”
“I don’t know…on Barrington Street maybe… near the corner of Prince Street.” Squire, who was watching Ellen from the second chair, with his back straight and his hands folded, looked briefly at the detective and nodded his head. “I didn’t hear him ask you anything,” Ellen snapped. Squire opened his mouth about to say something, like he was only agreeing with her or trying to help get the story straight. Baxter went on before Squire could speak and Ellen could go off on a tangent.
“Do you remember what time that was?”
“Nighttime,” she said, the look on her face playful now. Ellen hadn’t been dillydallying in the loo. She had scrubbed her face and hands and done the best she could with her long dark hair. The emerald green eyes could still flash. She shrugged her shoulders then looked at Squire, who had no intentions of saying a word this time. “Ok, sonny,” Ellen said, kicking Squire’s boot lightly, “go ahead, tell him.”
Squire looked at Baxter, but waited. The detective nodded, slightly impatient. Squire cleared his throat and said, “It was eight thirty.” He looked and sounded like he was in a witness box.
“Eight thirty.” Baxter shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but remained standing. “Now tell me, what were you doing in the hours before then?”
Ellen hadn’t finished playing. “Oh, well, let me see. It was early evening, drinks at the Carleton Hotel. Just me and a few of my closest friends, the archbishop, the mayor…oh and your boss, the police chief. By the way, Detective, he’s a bit worried about you, thinks you’re putting on too much weight, not as sharp as you used to be.” Turning to Squire she gave him another pat on the boot and half a wink. “I’m afraid the chief has no idea who you are.” Ellen leaned back a little, letting her arms take her weight. Looking up at Baxter, really enjoying herself now, she went on. “So from the Carleton it was dinner at the Halifax Club. Women are only allowed in the Club after five, did you know that, Detective?…After dinner the archbishop and the mayor were off. Not the chief, he and I…well…”
Baxter interrupted by picking up his chair and tapping the back legs on the hard floor. “Yes, Ellen, we have established you were drinking. And I assume the archbishop, mayor, and chief of police were some of the most common toss pots. Let me guess. Annie Higgenbottom, Hannah McDonald, and Thomas Berrigan. What gathering of disreputables would be complete without Thomas? So which one had the bottle?”
The play was over. Her face was hard leather. Ellen sat forward again. Baxter met her loathing with his own. Don’t look at me like I have insulted your honour, he thought. You have no honour. Look at you, a drunk and worse, with no one to blame except yourself. He was surprised she didn’t spit. They bristled at one another until finally Ellen looked away. The soles of her ladies’ brogans, courtesy of some Catholic charity, were nearly worn through. In a voice almost low enough that Baxter couldn’t hear, she said, “You’re a heartless prick.”
Baxter leaned forward over the back of the chair. “I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked in a voice that sounded so genuine Squire thought he truly hadn’t heard what Ellen had said.
“I said…I was drinking alone.”
“Were you really…or are you just trying to keep some o
f your friends from being involved in this?” Baxter kept leaning forward over the chair. But Ellen refused to look at him now.
“No one was with me. Well, no one alive anyway.”
“So no one was with you, you’re sure?”
“You heard me, I said I was alone.” Ellen looked straight at Squire as she spoke, as if he were asking the questions now. The young policeman shifted in his chair, glancing at Ellen. Paying greater attention to the floor.
“All right, you were alone. So tell me now, where did the bottle come from?” Baxter moved over behind Squire into Ellen’s line of sight.
“I bought it,” Ellen said quickly, now looking out between the bars at the blank wall across the narrow hallway. Ellen was the only guest so far. The other cells were empty, no snoring or yelling to be set free. As Ellen withered under Baxter’s glare and Squire continued to work on his invisibility, an out-of-season moth tortured itself against the bare bulb overhead.
Baxter raised his arms in mock celebration, his hands nearly touching the low ceiling, further worrying the moth. “Oh, I didn’t hear. You’re back to work. Well, congratulations. You’ve finally patched things up with Taylor’s, have you? Or maybe your friend the mayor has found you a desk somewhere.”
Ellen looked frantically about, her hands fixed like talons, desperate for something to hurl at her tormentor. She let out a shriek in frustration, then looked Baxter in the eye and hissed, “It’s none of your business if I’m working or not, or where I get money or a bottle or anything else, you rotten bastard.”
Undaunted by her outburst, ever certain of his authority, Baxter replied, “The truth is my business, Miss Reardon, and you will watch your tongue. You got that bottle from someone, and I want to know who and what they may have seen or have to do with Victor Mosher winding up dead under Mitchell’s Wharf.”
“Is that who it was, I didn’t recognize him. He was a decent sort. He had a heart, unlike some people I know.” Ellen’s feelings about Mosher seemed honest, despite the contempt she was still showing for Baxter.
“The bottle.”
“I got it from a sailor.”
Baxter was starting to pace the line behind the chairs, arms folded across his chest. “This town is full of sailors. I need a name, Ellen.”
“I didn’t get it.” Ellen followed Baxter with her eyes.
“What did he look like?”
“Like he was looking for something.”
“And you gave it to him.”
“Yes I did, Detective. I gave it to him fast and hard with my arse out and my hands against a wall. Nothin’ nervous or shy about it, no holy union, just business. What do you think about that, Detective?” Squire had bowed his head, unable to get out of sight, and had taken up further study of the floor under the cot. Ellen reached over and put a hand on his knee and kept it there. When Squire looked up, blushing and squirming, Ellen cooed at him in a throaty voice. “Ohhh look, Detective, this young man can’t stop thinking about it…can you?” Squire leaped out of the chair as if it were on fire, bumping into the little table with the spindly legs. The water in the basin sluiced back and forth, much of it landing on the floor.
“Leave him alone, Ellen,” Baxter chided, looking Squire over as the young officer flattened himself against the back wall of the cell. He was a green country lad, no doubt. At the same time he wasn’t getting in the way, and he was at least some help in getting her to talk. Baxter turned his attention back to Ellen, who was still eyeing Squire, her face turned to hide the gap in her smile. “So the sailor gave you a bottle for your trouble and left?”
Ellen dropped the smile and looked back out into the hall. “That’s right.”
“And then?” Baxter had stopped pacing and was back behind his chair, hands in his pants pockets.
“And then I sat on the end of the wharf and had a few drinks. And that’s when I saw Victor. Course I didn’t know it was him at the time.”
“And you have no idea how he got there?”
Ellen turned to look Baxter in the eye. “None,” she said in a tone that suggested she really wanted to help.
“This sailor, was he on the wharf before he and you…met, shall we say?”
“I don’t know. I was walking south on Lower Water Street, he was headed north. He showed me the bottle he had under his coat. We found a quiet spot.” She crossed her arms in front of her body and drew into herself as she rubbed her shoulders.
“And you saw no one else?
“No.”
“You heard nothing suspicious?” Ellen just shook her head, shivering and rubbing. “So why not just walk away, why run to the nearest policeman?”
Ellen looked up at Squire, who was still part of the wall. She shrugged again and gave him a brief closed-lip smile. “I was cold,” she said, and then bowed her head.
Baxter looked down at Ellen, who had taken the blanket from the cot and wrapped it around her shoulders. He wanted her to be able to tell him something useful. It might have been good for her. He wasn’t feeling sorry for her, he just hated seeing people go to waste. He looked at Squire, who took a minute to realize the detective was waiting for his opinion. “I don’t think she can help, Detective. Maybe the officers you sent out along the waterfront have turned up something.”
Baxter walked out of the cell, carrying both chairs. Before starting down the hall he looked at Ellen and said, “I’ll send someone down with another blanket.” From halfway down the hall he called back, “Mr. Squire, lock the door. I’ll see you in my office in ten minutes.”
Baxter went out a side door onto Argyle Street. The wind had died completely. The sky was high and clear and twinkling with stars. In the stillness, with a dusting of light frost and a hint of wood smoke in the air, it seemed impossible that anything bad could ever happen here. Baxter knew better. The temperature had come up a degree or two, but his breath still hung in the air. He stood with his back close to the building, breathing deeply. An insomniac looking out the window might have taken him for a night watchman stopping for a smoke. He had tried smoking cigars when he was younger. A pipe too. He had never understood the attraction.
The back side of City Hall followed the steep slope down Duke Street. It wasn’t until he noticed the awkwardness of striding downhill that Baxter realized he had gone for a walk. He wasn’t thinking about Ellen or the examination of the body or what to do next. He was thinking about his daughter, Grace. She was an only child and a bit spoiled, he had to admit. Her mother was too easy with her. She was eighteen, bright and determined, spurred on by older “modern” women and their talk of equality and rights. As if the city didn’t have problems enough.
He had turned right at the opposite corner of the building onto Barrington Street. He followed the wall along the east side of the Grand Parade until he came to its main entrance. He passed through and stopped just inside. Saint Paul’s stood to his left in sober silence, waiting on eternity. Its heavy wood frame and walls sealed with a century of whitewash. Fifty years ago these Anglicans would have spurned him for being a papist. Times had changed, at least outwardly. There were Catholics in the provincial government and every other mayor was a Catholic by gentleman’s agreement. The current mayor was a Catholic. Baxter made the sign of the cross, something he seldom did even in church. He took a furtive glance around the square. The walk had done as much good as it was going to to wake him up. He went back inside.
The place was normally quiet in the wee hours of the morning. Not the wee hours of this particular morning. As Baxter came through the doors off a main hallway into the police station, he thought for a second he was in the wrong place. Mackay was in his shirt sleeves leaning across the counter toward a line of officers sitting along the wall. All of them were smiling and guffawing and nudging one another. The man on the far end had found something so funny he was bent over stomping the floor, gasping for air, with his face beet red.
A low-hanging cloud of cigar smoke, a few drinks and bar towels, and the scene had all the makings of an upper street tavern. Baxter stood quietly looking from man to man as he unbuttoned his coat. Throats were cleared, uniforms were straightened, and apologies muttered. When Baxter had finished with the last button he turned to Mackay and said, “Have the men ready, I’ll be back in a moment.” He shook his head and then marched off to his office, his coat over one arm.
He found Squire in his office, laid out in a chair, dead to the world. Baxter hung up his coat. He reached out to give Squire a shake, then held up. It was three in the morning after an eventful night, which wasn’t over yet. Staying awake for a month at a time took practice. Maybe a few winks would make him more useful. The detective watched the young officer a moment longer, a little envious. His body gently rose and fell, his face peaceful as a child’s. The racket in the outer office had not prevented him in the least. As a young policeman, Baxter had to fight to get to sleep and he was wide awake again at the drop of a pin. Only when he was lying next to his wife was he a sound sleeper. Which reminded him: he had to pick up something for Jane’s mother.
The men were all buttoned up, their uniform helmets in a straight line like tuned bells in a frame. No one spoke. Mackay had come round the counter and taken up a spot in front of them. A low railing from the end of the front counter to the far wall divided the visitors’ area from the common office space. As Baxter reached out to push the swinging door, he said, “Ok, Mackay, I’ll take it from here.” At the same time he noticed a blanket on a shelf below the countertop. He wondered where Ellen had gotten the one she had. “And since you’re not so busy now, perhaps you can deliver that blanket like I asked.” Baxter raised his eyebrows as he spoke, and gave Mackay a sidelong glance that none of the other officers failed to notice. The scolding ruffled Mackay’s feathers. He stood defiantly still, his chest puffed up. However, when the chief inspector turned to face him Mackay avoided looking him in the eye. “And Mr. Mackay, Miss Reardon doesn’t need any grief with her blanket.” Mackay held on just a second longer, then collected the blanket and stomped off muttering incoherently something about the dreams of Sleeping Beauty.