by David Hood
A moment later Clarke called after him with an addendum. “You keep watching out for them pro-jections, Mr. Squire.”
Baxter let Squire out ahead of him, then followed, slamming the front door for all he was worth. A few heads turned. They would have quickly turned away except for the sight of a big policeman stomping back and forth, talking to himself in one voice and then another, held their attention until he glared at them. After a handful had taken in the show, Squire finally spoke. “That’s a shame about his father.”
Baxter stopped in mid-rant and stared incredulously. “The shame, Mr. Squire, is what happened to Victor, what happens in places like this every day.” Baxter pointed back at the door they had just come out of, while continuing to hold Squire by both eyes. Then he slowly let go, to look up and down the street, then back at his subordinate who was now moving off toward the corner.
Squire spoke over his shoulder without looking back. “So who do you think did it? Was it Wallace or Clarke or somebody else?”
Baxter turned skyward. The grey was low and full, but still, the air too heavy to move. Baxter set after Squire in long slow strides. “Right now it’s not what we know that matters. It’s what happens next. Patience will be our virtue.”
“And what exactly are we waiting for?”
“I wasn’t bluffing in there. Someone will crack or make a mistake.” He was telling the truth, the truth of years of experience. Few crimes would ever be solved if people didn’t give themselves away. Speaking the truth should have been more reassuring.
“And if nobody cracks?
They were moving downhill and Baxter let that be the reason for quickening his steps. “We need to find Mackay and the chief.” They walked on through the wet, murky air to the sound of their heels crushing into the ground, to the voices of passersby, and the screech of trolley wheels and foghorns in the distance. Down in the Grand Parade, an army sergeant barked at a mix of soldiers too old for this fight, members of the garrison and the Salvation Army bands and a smattering of others. The order had been given. Company H would leave that afternoon. The city was in a patriotic mood. Of course a rousing send-off would not happen by itself. Baxter hoped Clarke did not get distracted by the fuss. Baxter knew what comfort that could be. He was glad not to be alone with his own thoughts on this particular day.
As they approached the steps of City Hall, Baxter was relieved to look up and see Mackay at the front doors. He waited at the bottom, trying to read the language of the burly frame. He’d known Mackay for twenty years. He’d never grown to like him, but he had come to admire the man’s immunity. He was as hard and permanent as the granite of the coastline. He needed that strength now, not the deep lines, creaky knees, and stooping posture lumbering toward him. He had never noticed the weight Mackay carried and suddenly his own seemed heavier. He glanced at Squire, thin, still growing. His stride slowed a step by the pace of the past few days. His was a tiredness from which he would quickly recover, not one caused by the drag of years and the frustration of giving oneself to a cause only half led. Baxter tried to remember what it felt like to be young. He had to force himself to look away. “Have you had any luck, Sergeant?”
Mackay let out an indignant puff. “I was born here.”
Baxter corrected himself. “Any luck finding Sarah Riley.”
“You’d have heard if I had.”
“We were out.”
Mackay gave Squire a quick nod, then put his hands in his pockets and studied his shoes. “Let me guess, Wallace didn’t scare easy.”
Baxter mirrored Mackay’s stance and tightened his lips at the metallic grey muck smearing the soles and welts of his new Madisons. “He knows to be careful.”
“So you went to Clarke’s before he could.”
“Yes.”
Now Mackay looked up and waited for Baxter to follow. “And?”
“And we still need to find Sarah Riley.” He desperately wanted not to sound so desperate, to not be dependent on Mackay and his familiarity with the notorious. He just could not see any other way.
“I tried to get Martha to go home, hoping Sarah might come back. She’s terrified to leave that cell and I didn’t have the heart to force her. I checked in with Annie.” Mackay shook his head, and then in consolation added, “Every man on the force knows to bring Sarah in if they see her.”
Without realizing he was about to do it, Baxter reached out and placed a hand on Mackay’s shoulder. The spot of new pink flesh in the centre of his palm scraped against the rough wool of the tunic. His tone was not commanding. It was a mix of urgency and gratitude, un-begrudged, that sounded almost apologetic. “The minute anything happens.”
Mackay’s eyebrows went up for a split second, then he cleared his throat and renewed his interest in his shoes. His voice was filled with solemn promise and fingers crossed for luck. “You’ll be the first to know.”
Baxter took back his hand. Mackay moved off toward the stairs leading up from the Grand Parade to Argyle Street. The army sergeant and his mob were already halfway to the top. Baxter shook his head, imagining Mackay taking the musicians and soldiers to Georgina’s to guard Annie and play some music to cheer her up. He turned to Squire before the thought could go any further. “Best you wait in my office. If Wallace is with the chief, no point in both of us suffering more of his abuse.” Squire squinted, then opened his mouth seemingly about to question or protest, then thought better of it and went through the front doors ahead of Baxter.
The telephone was hung up just as Baxter arrived. The chief was massaging his ear and cursing under his breath. Baxter could see that Wallace was not there in the flesh. That the man had just been there in spirit was every bit as obvious. Baxter wished he had taken a minute to visit the WC or clean his shoes, anything to have allowed some of the steam to vent. Now he would have to take the brunt of the rage. “That was council for Mr. Wallace. He is recommending his client pursue charges against you for harassment and defamation of character.” The chief was shouting now. “I’ve also been told to expect a reprimand from the mayor for not keeping you properly leashed.” The chief stood and pointed at Baxter as if his screaming wasn’t emphasis enough. “And of course you are to be removed from the case immediately. I thought I told you to go easy on this.”
A part of him wanted to give what he was getting. The rest of him knew his place and that that would be a mistake. Better to let this ill wind blow itself out than to lean hard against it. He held his voice low but steady. “I didn’t accuse Wallace of anything. I asked him a few questions. It was all very gentlemanly.”
Tolliver stabbed a finger at the telephone. “His lawyer says you accused Wallace of being mixed up with Frank McNeally and that business with the Saco Bank.”
Baxter wouldn’t lie. What he would do in this case was permit a little dancing round the straight truth. “McNeally came up in conversation. No one said anything about the Saco Bank.”
Even that much of a concession eased some of the gust. Tolliver had come round his desk. The two were now just a few feet apart in the centre of the room. “Uh-huh. And I’ll tell you so you can stop wondering. Not being there wasn’t my decision.”
Coward, Baxter said to himself. You were happy to let the mayor or Wallace decide for you. Then to the chief he said, “Wallace is making threats because he is worried, and he is worried because he is guilty.”
Tolliver’s voice was back to conversational level. It was no less biting. He had turned away from Baxter to pace across the bow of his desk. “Ooooh…Well then, by all means, let’s lock him up.” He threw his hands into the air in mock surrender.
“I was just…”
The release of sarcasm brought Tolliver down a little further. “For God’s sake, Cully, do you really think Maynard Wallace stabbed Victor Mosher to death in an upper street brothel?”
Here Baxter could walk a straight line. “Maybe. Or he saw
what happened. At the very least we know he was there.”
Tolliver’s temperature spiked again. “Because she says so?” He poked his chin toward the window and the upper streets beyond it. “Wallace’s lawyer will paint a picture of a tart. Mackay will leap over the rail in chivalrous defence and the trial will be over. You’ll need more than the likes of Annie Higgenbottom.”
Tolliver was right about Mackay. And he would need more. The chief was a collector. He acquired debts through favours. A good many people were beholden to him. Baxter disliked going to this well in the same way he was bothered by relying on Mackay’s associations with the upper streets. But come tomorrow, he would not find himself looking at Victor’s family thinking there was more he might have done. “Can you give me anything?” he asked.
The chief stopped his pacing. He seemed to be taking inventory or weighing what to say or whether to say anything at all. Finally he spoke. “A little more time, that’s it. I’ll duck the Mayor for the rest of the day. I can’t avoid standing with him at the funeral tomorrow. You stay clear.”
Ensuring the thorough investigation of a crime, the murder of a popular politician, was his job, nothing more. Of course, Tolliver would see it differently, believe he now owned a small piece of his chief detective. Let him think as he chooses, Baxter told himself. He would compromise nothing. And then a new thought came to him. A question that might have been more dangerous than the first, depending on where the man before him really stood in all of this. “I’ll maintain a respectful distance…Oh, by the way, sir, have you been face to face with Wallace at some point these past few days?”
This time the chief looked away from Baxter, back toward the window as he spoke. There was no hesitation, no answer either. “Why?”
“He was wearing gloves when he met with me.”
“So?”
“So I’m wondering if you have seen his hands.” Baxter knew no jury would convict Wallace on a cut, even though it was physical evidence, better than the word of a harlot.
“That’s as close as I’ve been.” Tolliver nodded toward the telephone. Baxter waited. The chief remained a statue at the window, as still and mournful-looking as the dull grey sky and the bare corn broom trees he was looking at.
A full breath of the room’s dead air gave him no hope at all. He would try once more regardless. “This can’t be swept under the rug.”
The chief turned from the window, no longer distant and opaque, now close and as see-through as the glass. “And no one’s going to jail for not living up to your standards.”
“I enforce the law,” Baxter shot back.
“Yes, you do, to the very letter…I’ll let the mayor know you’re sorry for offending one of our finest citizens.” The chief looked toward the door, and then turned back to his window.
Baxter told himself there was never any point in arguing with someone who couldn’t tell black from white. He didn’t slam the chief’s door. He left it against the wall where he found it. He marched across the hall past the front desk, ignoring the man on duty behind it. He closed his office door slowly against the low hubbub of conversation and the slow peck of typewriter keys on the other side. He stood leaning on the handle as if he expected someone to try and force their way in.
“Was Wallace with the chief?” Squire was in one of the chairs in front of the desk. He’d been there often enough now Baxter knew the room would seem empty when this ended and Squire went back to his regular patrol.
Baxter let go of the door. Instead of moving behind his desk, he sat next to Squire. “No, Wallace just sicced his dog on him.”
Taking Baxter’s reference, and showing no signs of regret, Squire replied, “I thought about reading law.”
In the future, if anyone were to ever ask him about it, Baxter would admit it wasn’t planned. They weren’t really new anymore, but he still didn’t automatically think to use one. He had certainly never spent any time pondering the unique qualities of a telephone conversation, until now. Leaning in with the gentle curiosity of a child doctor, Baxter asked, “Did you ever think about being a newspaper reporter?”
“No…?”
He patted Squire’s knee then stood and began digging in a drawer. “Time to start. You sit here. I’ll find the number.”
They sat shoulder to shoulder, each of them huddled around a paper cup of steaming tea. They blew and sipped and watched through the gloom of a late fall afternoon. A bit of wind was picking up. Now and then a tram would shunt, and spark, and ding its way by. Baxter studied them for clues. All he saw were the tired sullen faces of stevedores and factory workers dragging north to their crowded tenements, early suppers and short sleeps. The war supply effort had them all on double shifts. For the first time in days there were no soldiers on the streets. About the same time that Baxter was leaving the chief’s office, the 125 volunteer troops, including Peter Lenehan, had emptied out of Brunswick Street barracks and the armouries building. They formed a confident procession through the streets to the waiting cars at the North Street Station. The sidewalks had caught the tears of family and friends. The buildings had reverberated with patriotic shouts. The whistle blew. The great pistons, assisted by the collective will of city, nation, and empire, had overcome the force of inertia and the engine wheels made that first skidding turn. The train moved, first by inches then a few car lengths, then miles per hour. When the caboose had trailed round the arc of the basin out of sight, heading north then west, the throngs finally turned to saunter arm in arm away from thoughts of battles far away, and back to matters close at hand. It would be recalled suddenly, as if it had happened long ago, that Victor Mosher had been murdered. No, they would remind one another, his body had been found only days before. Baxter lifted one hand off his tea then put it back. Looking at his watch would only make him more anxious. Squire followed Baxter’s movement then rolled his eyes round their little cabin, at the low canopy roof overhead, stuck out like the brim of a hat. The walls were mostly window. The half-doors across the front, closed up tight against their knees. He took another sip of tea then asked, “Why does the police department have a hansom cab?”
Baxter knew the story. If Squire hadn’t asked, he would have offered it up to pass the time. “Years ago a commander of the garrison sent a letter off to England, to the officer about to replace him. He reported on the troops, daily routines, and the absence of any military threat. He went on to say he had grown weary of the lax discipline that went with a port city, all the worse, he complained, because his bed was hard and he could never get a cab. The new man arrived from London with a feather mattress and this. When it came his turn to leave, somehow the cab ended up in our stables.”
“And the mattress?”
“One story says he gave it to a mistress he kept on Brunswick Street.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Albemarle? Maybe that mattress was a witness to the murder we are in this cab trying to solve.”
Baxter couldn’t tell if Squire was trying to be flip or ironic, or if it mattered in any way at all if what he said turned out to be true. “Now you’re sounding like a story, Mr. Squire.”
The young man wasn’t finished. “You don’t think God has a sense of humour?”
Baxter stomped his feet to wake them up and move some blood against the weather. “Better you ponder almighty wrath and try not to incur it.”
“What do we do if we get a fare?”
Baxter answered the question with a sidelong glance. But he didn’t want to kill the conversation altogether, it guarded against the chill and other discomforts. “Tell me, Mr. Squire, what happened to your father?”
Squire was looking through his window, following a stray cat. It gingerly climbed a set of stairs to sniff at the smells from beneath someone’s front door. “I thought we were here on police work.”
“We are.” Baxter waited.
“Seems Wallace is doing some pol
ice work of his own, bastard…pardon the language.” Squire tapped his window. The cat ignored him.
“You’re new to him, he’s looking for things he might use against you if he needs to.”
“What are you asking me?”
He had lost all interest in the cat. Squire was now turned toward the chief inspector. The look that came over his cup was hotter than the tea. The reaction caught Baxter by surprise. He held up a hand to ward it off. “No need to get your dander up. You’re new to me too. I saw he struck a nerve is all. Mind you, it backfired when you came back at him with McNeally.”
“Reflex.” Squire shrugged, and then looked again for the cat. It had moved on. He took another sip of tea. “You think it was a mistake.”
“On the contrary.” He was about to offer stronger praise, point out that it wasn’t just any man who could put Maynard Sinclair Wallace on his heels. He missed the chance when Squire went on too quickly.
“My father got sick.”
Baxter accepted the invitation. “The doctors couldn’t help?”
“Not that kind of sick.”
“I see.” Baxter blinked against images of his bedroom door closed in the middle of the day, his young wife unable to get out of bed. He saw himself telling Grace not to worry, things would soon be back to normal. He saw them both hoping it was true.
“I was ten when it started. By the time I was twelve, he was living in the barn like an animal. When they came, my mother sent me into the house. He fought. They tried not to hurt him putting on the jacket. My mother stood in the yard and cried. I stayed inside with my little sisters. We waved through the screen door without thinking. He couldn’t move his arms.” Squire put his cup to his lips, then made a face and tossed it into the street.