Balsam Sirens

by Keith Weaver

“Is there anything you might have done differently in hindsight?” Cromarty asked at length.

  “No”, I replied without hesitation. “Before the shootout we had no idea just who Dickson was. We knew that whoever was driving the action was ruthless and was becoming desperate. That was clear enough when Andrea and I were abducted. But at the time, there was no big picture. It was all fog. Later, when Dickson’s men failed to retrieve whatever they were after, we had no real idea what Dickson might do next. At one extreme, he might have just given up and left us to live happily ever after, or he could do what he actually did do, which was to try to blast his way through. Mike and I prepared for the worst outcome, and that turned out to be the prudent thing to do.”

  Cromarty digested this, although there was nothing here he didn’t already know.

  “Once again, in hindsight, was there anything that you think might have been done to avert any of these events? For example, why didn’t you alert the OPP when your wife was abducted?”

  “You’re not married, Bent, so in answer to the second of your questions, I don’t expect that the reaction I had would also naturally come to you. Between the time I knew that Andrea had been abducted and the time I was taken hostage was a matter of seconds. If Dickson had got what he wanted out there on the lake, both Andrea and I would have been dead meat. My best chance of keeping Andrea alive, until I could find some way of getting her back, was to stay alive myself and prevent Dickson getting whatever it was in the lake that he wanted. At that point, I had no cellphone, so there was no way I could have contacted the OPP. But I wouldn’t have done that anyway, since it probably would have cost me Andrea. That’s my answer to your second question. Your first question is a pretty broad one, Bent. I’m not sure just what you’re getting at.”

  Cromarty pondered what I had just told him. Then he resumed.

  “Well, Harold Barbour’s death appears to have been tied into all this somehow. The tossing of his apartment was hardly coincidental.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage there, Bent. I still know nothing more than I learned from my fifteen-second glance at the place. If the police found nothing more, I suspect that there was nothing more to be found.”

  There was another silence here.

  “It’s a strange case”, Bent mused. “We have solid evidence to put Dickson and his stooges away, but at the same time there are massive holes in the overall story.”

  “Loose ends is nothing new. I sympathize. I know how much this sort of thing bothered me when I was in your chair. But is there nothing you’ve been able to get from Dickson’s stooges?”

  Cromarty shook his head.

  “No. Nothing important, anyway. It looks as though Dickson operated on a strict need-to-know basis, and his stooges evidently needed to know next to nothing.”

  “But you have names for them now, I presume?”

  “Yes. And I can return a small favour to you”, he said and handed me a slip of paper that I pocketed. It wasn’t much of a favour, since the names would have come out anyway, and I could easily have waited.

  Cromarty and I talked of other things for a few minutes. He was in an expansive mood, and it wasn’t lost on me that he was using quite a lot of valuable time here.

  “Well, thank you for the information, Bent”, I said as I rose. We shook hands. “Let’s keep in touch”, I added, handing him my card. Cromarty smiled what I thought was a genuine and grateful smile, and it looked as though he and I were onto a better long-term footing.

  Once outside, I texted Mike, sending him the names of the two living stooges and the dead stooge. At the same time, I arranged to meet him at a supermarket close to an entrance to the Don Valley Parkway.

  Thirty-six

  I took a taxi to the supermarket and met Mike as arranged. We went around the aisles together, and it took little time to select some good-looking portions of frozen fish and the ingredients needed to produce a nice pasta accompaniment.

  We went through the checkout and carried our supplies to Mike’s car. “Did your research work out the way you expected?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Roughly”, Mike said. “How was the meet with Cromarty?”

  “About what I expected”, I said, “but I think he and I now have an understanding.”

  “Those names were from Cromarty?”

  “Yes.”

  Mike drove out of the supermarket car park, deftly wove through traffic, and within a couple of minutes we were sailing north on the Parkway. It was just shy of three thirty and, although the traffic was heavy and building, it was moving well. In half an hour we were clear of the bulk of suburbia, and after another forty minutes, as we exited at the Highway 35/115 junction, Mike relaxed.

  “I managed to get the names of Diver Dan and his crew”, he said. “They were like Blondie’s crowd, just a bunch of minor villains for hire.”

  “Any hint of how they came into this business?”

  “No”, Mike said neutrally. “It looks as though they just appeared out of nowhere. Blondie and his bunch were hired by Dickson, but I haven’t been able to find any direct link that brought Dickson into the whole affair. Was Cromarty forthcoming on anything the police have learned?”

  “Yes”, I said. “He was quite willing to tell me things, but there’s not much to tell. Dickson has just clammed up, and the two living stooges know essentially nothing.”

  “Not surprising”, Mike said, looking straight ahead.

  “No. Not surprising”, I repeated.

  Mike drove on and we changed the subject. I asked Mike about his work, and he was happy to expand on some of the more interesting things he was pursuing. I spoke a bit about the usual stable of slightly depressing and salacious problems I had lined up and would soon be working on for clients. Mike suggested, not by any means for the first time, that we should amalgamate our investigative practices, but I deflected that one, feeling that it was better to keep some distance between us, combining forces only by exception.

  The discussion drifted off to isolated short exchanges, interspersed by long companionable silences during which I just enjoyed the scenery that was drifting by. We passed the turning into Lindsay, meaning that we would be at Largs in about another half-hour.

  “Where do you think all this is coming from? I mean, how have people become so convinced that there’s something valuable in Balsam Lake?”

  “Specifically, Mike, I don’t know. If you do some Google searches, you’ll find all sorts of stories about treasure. Some of them are just fantasy, like the one about Cortez burying a pile of gold near Sarnia. Why would Cortez come thousands of miles from Mexico to bury some gold at an unremarkable spot? But there are others that have a least some nominal link to actual history, like the one about French gold being buried somewhere in or around Kingston.”

  We drove on for a minute.

  “I expect”, I continued, “that somebody has come up with one of these buried-gold yarns plus several other independent pieces of information to make it more credible in their minds.”

  “But”, I added, “I still find the whole situation hard to swallow. That doesn’t matter though. People have died in an attempt to find something. That can’t simply be waved off. Dickson and the others are now out of the picture, so they pose no further risk. But if there’s somebody else who’s been the author of all this grief, well, I can’t just walk away from that, not given how it has impacted Andrea and me.”

  Mike nodded.

  “You’re concerned that he might just try again at some point.”

  “Yes, that’s what worries me.”

  The turn into Largs was just a few miles ahead.

  “Okay, Mark, my boy. Enough of this for now. We have a meal and an evening ahead of us to enjoy, so let’s pick up this thread some other time.”

  It was just before six and we had begun preparations for dinner and poured glasses of wine when my cellphone buzzed. The conversation was short, and during it I said almost nothing. Looking at Andrea and Mike I said
, “We need to go back to Toronto.”

  “What? Right now?” Andrea asked.

  “Yes. George is dead. Cromarty has found something. Sounds like it’s important.”

  I began putting all the food back in the fridge while Mike sent a few text messages.

  “I’m coming too!” Andrea said, and to demonstrate that she was not expecting and would not entertain any objections, she immediately set about collecting some things we would need to stay the night at our condo in town.

  Having dealt with the food, I went to the hall closet.

  “You’ll probably need a jacket. The green one?” I asked Andrea as I grabbed mine.

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  We left the house and I locked up while Mike and Andrea strode purposefully toward Mike’s car, Andrea carrying a small soft-sided bag. Somehow I had assumed that Mike would come back to Largs after the business in Toronto, whatever it turned out to be, was completed, and Mike’s actions confirmed my assumption.

  The trip back to Toronto was three parts nervous anticipation, two parts trepidation, and, for me, one part relief. I had the sense that we were in an odd space between one can of worms being closed (the relief) and another being opened (all the rest). The recent violent events at Largs, and the brief period since then, had felt like a climax and a denouement. We had seen the end of something. The exercise of picking up pieces and moving on had begun. Now, however, there was the feeling of fresh tension building, a further climax approaching, the threat of new storm clouds gathering.

  During the first ten minutes of the trip, Mike and Andrea both grilled me on my short telephone discussion with Cromarty. I couldn’t do more than repeat what I had said already: George was dead and Cromarty had found something. And Cromarty wanted me to be there for the next phase.

  “Next phase?” Andrea said in a knitted-brow voice.

  “That’s all he said. ‘Next phase’.”

  Silence fell among us. I didn’t know just what Cromarty had found, but suspected that it would be unveiled in due course. My own thoughts had turned quickly to George, and I found myself wondering, in some distress, just how it was that he had died. And why. I was quite convinced, glancing across at Andrea, that very similar thoughts were occupying her, and I could almost feel the waves of empathy and sadness radiating out from her.

  This initial silence lengthened to cover most of the trip, while individually we mulled over our thoughts. When we were twenty minutes out from Toronto, I called Cromarty to let him know that we were arriving imminently. Cromarty directed us to come to his office and to park in the reserved spaces behind the building if we needed to, and he would look after a permit for us. Andrea asked Mike to take her to our condo first, since there were things she had to do there. Mike said he would drop me next and go off to deal with things that had piled up, saying that he would be available instantly by cellphone.

  I found Cromarty, but in contrast to my previous visit he now seemed under some considerable stress. Despite this, his lips bore a quirky little smile of incipient victory. He led me to the same interview room, and we took seats across from each other.

  “What’s happening, Bent? What’s the story with George?”

  A shadow passed quickly over Cromarty’s face as though my question asked him to deal with a minor detail he would have preferred to leave until later.

  “He overdosed on sleeping pills. Apparently his manager became concerned when George didn’t show up this morning, and at midafternoon he convinced George’s super to check on him. The super called EMS and then called us. The paramedics determined that George had probably been dead for at least twelve hours.”

  “Was there a note? Any indication that this was linked to the events at Balsam Lake?” I asked.

  “No, no note”, Bent replied. “And we don’t see any link.”

  One might be able to reach that conclusion, I thought brutally, if one ignores the effect on him of the death of his brother, his one family link to the past. But a discussion of that with Bent would be pointless.

  “It sounds like you’ve also had a break in the case, Bent”, I began.

  “Indeed we have. And we’re about to make an arrest.” Bent paused here, rather smugly I thought, and it reminded me that people like him were one reason I had decided to leave the police. Instead of prodding him, which was what he seemed to want me to do, I just sat and waited.

  “In due course, we’ll be arresting Arthur Donaldson, the senior partner at Clarence and Donaldson”, Bent said finally, clearly a bit disappointed that I hadn’t been bouncing on my chair wanting to know all the details immediately.

  “Donaldson?” I said in disbelief.

  Cromarty nodded, gratified at my surprise and looking forward to explaining things to a lesser detective.

  “Donaldson has been fiddling the books of his own company, siphoning off clients’ money. The information we have looks solid. We’ll be gathering evidence very soon and I’m convinced that it will point directly at him.”

  “Well, congratulations on solving an unrelated crime. What about the events at Balsam Lake.”

  “We’re convinced”, Cromarty began, “that they were orchestrated by Donaldson.”

  “Orchestrated? For what purpose?”

  “We’ll get there. Money has been seen going into one of his accounts, then being withdrawn and vanishing.”

  “What do you mean, Bent, ‘money has been seen’?”

  “That’s all I can tell you for now.”

  I thought I saw what was going on here, and I struggled not to let my irritation show. Sure, Cromarty probably had let me know about George because he had been my client. But it seemed that he thought he had pulled off a coup by fingering Donaldson, and he was still trying to pump me for anything that would make his great feat of detection appear even greater. I decided to extract myself from this charade as quickly as possible but with fewest ruffled feathers.

  “And what do you conclude from that?” I asked, trying to suppress my skepticism and annoyance.

  “As I said. We’re working on it.” He paused here, fiddled with a pencil, then raised his eyes to meet mine. “Do you have any thoughts?”

  “No. They would be just speculation, not worth anything.”

  “Any speculation, then?” he prompted.

  “No, Bent. I’ll just wait for you to work the case.”

  But I had no intention of just waiting.

  Thirty-seven

  On the street outside Bent’s office, I had called Mike, and now we were sitting at a quiet corner table at Il Vagabondo. It’s not a cheap place, but that keeps out the army of financial district thirty-somethings whose off-hours seem to be filled by vats of beer and ninety decibel conversations about day trading.

  I related to Mike my discussion with Cromarty. He frowned a couple of times but said and asked nothing while I was speaking.

  “So what now?” he asked at length.

  “Well, first of all, laying this situation at Arthur Donaldson’s feet is just not credible. Without even breaking a sweat, I can think of several other possibilities.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well”, I began, “there’s always the old standbys – blackmail, difficulties due to bad judgment, a frame-up.”

  We discussed possibilities and approaches. After five minutes, I had laid my pocket notebook on the table and was scribbling in it.

  “Have we missed anything?” I asked eventually.

  “No. We’re good.”

  Looking at my watch, I said that I thought we had time for another quick glass of wine. At the same time, I had my cellphone out and was doing some searching, finding what I wanted after a few minutes.

  Our glasses of wine arrived, and I went over my notes as I sipped.

  “Okay”, Mike said, setting down his empty glass with an authoritative thud. “Let’s go and visit Donaldson.”

  It was just short of nine in the evening when Mike parked his car and we got out at the address provide
d by Google. Donaldson lived in a house that was by far not the largest on Vesta Drive, but it was one of the most elegant.

  When the front door opened, Donaldson’s expression transformed slowly from mild curiosity to complete puzzlement.

  “Mr. Whelan!” he said, after a short delay. “What … er … I wasn’t expecting to see you this evening.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry for this late and unannounced arrival, sir. May we come in for just a moment?”

  Donaldson’s advance into his evening had got as far as removing his jacket and loosening his tie, and he stood in the doorway for a moment holding a small glass of something and looking befuddled.

  “Yes, of course. Please come in, although I warn you that I will need to show you out again in just a few moments.”

  “That’s all right, sir”, I said. “We’ll take very little of your time.”

  We moved into an exquisitely furnished living room, I introduced Mike, and we were asked to take seats but not offered anything to drink.

  Before Donaldson could start questioning us on why we were there, I began putting to him questions of my own. There were eight questions I wanted to ask him. At the fourth question, he stumbled. We didn’t get past the sixth question. By then his manner had become very frosty and he simply told us we could leave.

  Back in the car, Mike looked pensive. “It was just about what we expected”, he said eventually. “It does look like it centres around the nephew.”

  “It does”, I agreed. “But why do you think he’s still hanging around?”

  “I don’t know for sure”, Mike said slowly, “but I think we need to be pessimistic. We have to assume that he’s going to try again.”

  Right now we needed information quickly. I could think of only one way to get it in just a few minutes.

  “Jocko?” Mike exclaimed in mock horror, but then calmed himself. “But you’re right. He’s likely our best source.”

  “Though I can guess what his reaction will be when we contact him this time of night and ask for while-you-wait service.”

  “If we offer him double or triple his normal rate”, Mike offered phlegmatically, “that should tranquilize his pain nicely.”