by Gerald Lynch
He stood there in darkness and light rain, waiting for the car to pull away, reflecting how he really knew nothing about nature, whether it cared or not. Then remembered those miracles of human nature: Cyn’s love, his love for Cyn, their children born and growing, his love for them making a believer of him for a time. And just like that something else poured onto his open face, some divine solution of humility, human pride, and humouring grace. How could that be, there in the second-worst moment of his life? Yet something loved him, he was certain.
Ertelle returned and spoke with her eyes locked on his upturned face: “Frank’s on his way. I had to tell him, Kevin, he is still my chief, whatever else he’s done. And…are you all right, Kevin?”
“No.” He lowered his gaze and searched her eyes. “Randome?”
“He’s not turned up yet.”
“Yet. We’ve lost him. What about the machete?”
“I asked Frank that too. He said, what machete? Because the murder weapon, McNicol’s machete, is in evidence lockup, of course. He said to make sure I tell you that.”
“Frank.”
Ertelle’s jaw did a little sideways jig. “Frank knows I crossed him. He said he’ll have my badge.”
“You’re a great cop, Brigid, a good woman. Leave Frank to me. He’s venting unfairly, and somewhere he knows it. Or he’ll learn it.”
She smirked. “You wouldn’t think I’m such a good cop if you’d seen me conspire with Frank earlier.”
“I said great. Will you break the law yet one more time?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Why stop now?”
“What do you know about Kelly’s involvement in this?”
She blinked once, head steady, and turned away from him to reconnoitre some complex thoughts. She returned.
“Ewan Randome was the Widower. He manipulated Don McNicol and Anna Kynder with hypnosis and drugs into murdering Eugene DeLint. We suspect that for years Randome had been laundering Omphalos money to Haiti, and that DeLint had put a stop to it. That’s why Randome became the Widower: he needed funds for Haiti. Randome, McNicol and Kynder had motive, means and opportunity: greed, revenge, voodoo. Randome and McNicol, who knew your son from Kelly’s stint at Omphalos, used desperate Bill to concoct a poison for them. The DNA evidence on the murder weapon we found at McNicol’s supports all this, as does the poison container found in Anna Kynder’s office. That, Detective Inspector Beldon, will be the gist of my official report on this investigation.”
“You’ll drive Kelly to my apartment, will you, Brigid? And stay with her? There’s a bottle of heavy-duty sleeping pills in the bathroom.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Pick up Mike on your way, if you like. I’ll be along.”
She didn’t move, and the rain continued to wash her face. “Heavy-duty sleeping pills, eh? You won’t be, uh, retiring again, will you, Detective Beldon? Because if you were to do anything like retire, I’d have to reopen this investigation.”
“You have my word, partner.”
She turned away, turned back, cupped his face, leaned in and kissed his cheek, whispered, “We’ll get through this.” And resolutely went to the driver’s door.
A rainy cheek on a cool evening, fresh female skin, odours of wet green and softening earth, warm woman air in an unworthy ear, giving hope. Even the trees wanted to talk to the moon about such promise! Maybe it was still better to be alive than dead. Maybe. Would he break his word to Brigid? What was his word worth these days, to anyone? How was he to live on in this new lawless world? What were love and hope without faith?
He watched the car hiss away, his daughter’s dark head tilted into the rear right corner. She might be meditating on the back of that other head so like her own, perhaps musing even on the mystery of how we come to be as we are. The mad can also be quite philosophical. What was it she’d said?… Sophie’s choice? Sophie has chosen.
Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms?
Or for that matter, nail thee?
Frank, old partner.
Chapter 25
The house was the same, of course: tidy front hall leading to the kitchen, a sitting room off to the right, dark wainscoted stairway to the second floor, the living room to the left still failing to look homey, and his old study back of the living room, also exactly as when he’d lived there. It would have been lack of interest in decorating had made Kelly leave things just so. Here there’d be no secret shrines to Mother or Father… Unless the whole unchanged house was the memorial?
He’d checked the drawer where his old service revolver had been and was touching the worn places on his mahogany desk, sure that The Near Future could never find a home there — when the front screen slapped. Unsurprised, he took his time looking back the way he’d come, to find a dripping Frank standing in the study doorway to the kitchen, wearing a traffic cop’s black poncho and working a wet-stained Tilley hat in his two hands. Frank’s face showed nothing, though his compact person radiated anxiety.
“Jesus, Beldon, you look even more beat up! Where’d you get the goose egg? Not from Dr. Randome, I hope!”
“Not from Randome.” He didn’t touch his bruises, his eyes didn’t leave Frank’s. “Where’s the machete?”
Frank didn’t flinch. “In evidence lock-up, where it’s been since we removed it from McNicol’s place. I’m wet as I am because I stopped to throw a stone into the middle of Dow’s Lake, just for the hell of it.”
“That lake’s gonna dry right up some day, Frank.”
Frank puffed a pooh-poohing dismissal. “They now say we’re in for weeks of rain. Better build an ark, my old friend.” He stressed the affectionate address.
“What about Monty Parizeau?” It was more uncomfortable than he’d imagined, talking to Frank like this; not just because they’d never done so before, or for the mutual suspiciousness, but for skirting the subject of conspiring to cover up a crime.
Frank continued in control: “Funny you should ask. Big Ot’s nephew is due for promotion. That boy follows orders like a real trooper — no chip off the old Parizeau!”
“Tch-tch. Speaking of chips, Monty’s got the implant, hasn’t he? I wouldn’t trust that boy if I were you, Frank. Not that it’s going to matter in retirement.”
“Glad to hear you say that, old friend! I’ve just been thinking you should. That’ll make…things even easier. But where’s Kelly? And that Ertelle?”
Kevin pinched his lips, dropped his chin, and puffed from his nose. Unsmiling, he looked at Frank and shook his head. “Kelly’s not well, so Sergeant Ertelle has taken her back to my apartment.”
It was an evening for stare-downs, and this one lasted a bad half-minute. Frank blinked first.
“Kevin, no one knows like I know what it’s costing you to do this. But you were always a generous man.”
“Do you really think so, Frank? I don’t.”
“I know so.”
“No. In a life of selfishness this will be the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. Maybe Bill acted unselfishly in this, I don’t know. I could never figure Bill. But if he did act unselfishly, he’d be the only one. Maybe that’s what was wrong with Bill, being a selfless fool for others, especially his sister. I’d thought Cynthia the only unselfish person I’d ever known. So Bill probably inherited the charity gene from his mother. Certainly not from me. Remember after Cynthia’s funeral, Bill shouted at me, You’re so selfish you never think of me. I’ve thought about that perfect paradox a lot over the past year. Maybe the boy was a poet rather than a scientist.”
Frank snorted. “I’ve still got a pretty good memory, and I don’t remember Bill saying that. But you’re sounding a little strange, old friend, and no wonder, given recent events. With all due respect.”
“I suppose so, old friend.”
There was no mistaking the sarcasm.
“Kevin, your medical le
ave becomes official retirement.”
“You’re mistaken, Frank. You’re the one retiring.”
Yet another stare-down.
“Kevin, I did what I did for Cynthia. She came begging me, for Bill’s sake, so you wouldn’t know. For your sake, she pleaded, because you were half-crazy on the Widower. Kevin, I loved Cyn, you know that.”
“What did you know, Frank, and when?”
“Not what you’re thinking. I’ve skimmed McNicol’s mad manuscript, too, now, and it’s far from gospel, so don’t be going by it. During the sexual-harassment case against Omphalos seven years ago, DeLint and his monster of a mother hinted they could offset the racism that was stalling my career again, if I saw to it that some text evidence disappeared. There were similar little things through the years, no big deal, the boy toys were gold-diggers anyway. How the fuck else do you think somebody from my gene pool could have risen to the very top?”
“Frank, you were the best cop on the force. You should have kept faith. It wasn’t just racism working against you. It was political: it was a francophone’s turn; it was a quadriplegic Buddhist female’s turn, or some other special pleading. You should have let it go. You’re retiring.”
“At first I’d thought I was protecting DeLint only on some hanky-panky charges with young men who were probably giving it away in the Omphalos cans. I never knew Randome was the Widower! You know me that well at least. I’d thought DeLint was helping Bill and Kelly. I’d thought Randome was helping Cyn and Bill and Kelly! I knew what DeLint could do for his favourites, had done for Kelly. Nobody suspected Randome!”
“I believe you, Frank. But you were breaking the law, you knew it, and look what happened.”
“I acted selfishly, okay. But Kevin, if I take early retirement the pension won’t be enough —”
“No man gets an island, old friend.” At least it had been gentle sarcasm.
Frank pinched his lips in a regretful smile, shook his head once, and his eyes came back in vehemence.
“I’ll take Kelly down with me! She’s a lawyer, an officer of the court too! She knew Randome was manipulating McNicol and Bill, probably DeLint and Kynder as well! That’s accessory, old friend — big-time accessory! I may not know what was going on with that second machete in the secret Omphalos room, but swords can be fished out of lakes, and water damage won’t mean squat to MYCROFT’s analysis.”
Kevin looked closely, and made the determination: Frank did not know the extent of Kelly’s involvement. So he bluffed: “As you will. If Kelly enabled in any way, then she must pay. That’s the law.”
Smugly self-contained for half a minute, Frank eventually exhaled. He straightened from a forward tilt, unclenched his fists, dropped the hat, and flexed his fingers. It had been momentary madness; he was Frank again, Kevin’s oldest friend.
“Frank, I won’t punish you for doing what you thought you had to do to get what you deserved. I don’t blame you for Cyn and Bill. But because of you — you as a cop with his mind on the wrong things — Randome, the Widower, has gotten away.”
Frank looked hangdog. “We’ll pick him up.”
“He’s halfway to Port-au-Prince by now, in a Humjet supplied by Grand-Enfant Doc Duvalier himself.”
“We’ll get him.”
“No, you won’t. I asked you to watch him, but you were planning your retirement. And it’s for that, Frank, for the Widower’s escape, that I’ll never forgive you.”
“For that?”
“But we just might lure him back, after you tell the Macro that Dr. Randome was DeLint’s true murderer. That he used drugs and hypnosis to make Don McNicol, Anna Kynder, and Bill Beldon his murder weapons, and then to make all three take their own lives.”
“But what else would I report? I mean, except for Kelly’s involvement with DeLint and Omphalos, old friend.”
Kevin had to keep from showing anything: Frank really didn’t know the true story. “That’s right. The case was solved by Chief Frank Thu himself, retiring now after this, the crowning achievement of a stellar career. Kelly is to be mentioned only as the sister of Bill Beldon, the son of Detective Inspector Kevin Beldon. Ms. Beldon had worked briefly at Omphalos; she consulted on the DeLint murder and helped prove that Dr. Ewan Randome was the notorious Widower, thereby closing the one unsolved case of Detective Beldon’s career.”
“Got it.”
“Say the clinching evidence was secret Omphalos surveillance tapes that Ms. Beldon discovered — that should really jerk Randome’s chain; he was radically cryptovidaphobic, so it’ll drive him crazy. A psychotic egomaniac like Randome, he just might take the bait and come back to set the record straight. To make Kelly pay, and me. I know how that mind works.”
“Jesus Christ, Kevin: take the bait? That really is the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard you say. You’re willing to put Kelly’s life at risk to catch that bastard?”
“Two more things, Frank. Before you retire, you arrange a month’s holiday on your Aleutian island for Brigid Ertelle and her husband, on the department’s tab. And where it really counts with the big boys and girls upstairs, you give Sergeant Ertelle half the credit on this case.”
“And two? Or three actually?”
“You promote Ertelle to detective inspector and Constable Abiki Ali to sergeant.”
“Oh, is that all? A three and four! You know, I’ve had to be careful about appearing to favour minorities, what with the likes of Big Ot — okay, okay, I know that face!”
“That’s all you can do for me, old friend.” Said genuinely with a soft smile.
Frank looked down and his mouth drooped in the manner Kevin had seldom seen: passed over for promotion yet again, Claire’s breast cancer, Cynthia’s death.
“Kev, I’m still so torn up about Cynthia, and Bill now, I don’t know what to say. You don’t know how Cyn’s death broke my heart, Claire’s too. But it was Cyn herself begged me to cooperate with DeLint. She said she couldn’t go on living if Dr. Randome told you the things she and Bill had gotten into at Omphalos, and about Kelly’s continuing association with DeLint even after she’d joined the Crown prosecutor’s office. I never knew what all was going on there. I still don’t, I know.” He cocked an eyebrow at Kevin. “It was a mess, I didn’t want to know. I should have come to you.”
“Yes, you should have. You looked the other way when you suspected more, the easy thing to do, especially when there’s also a reward for keeping quiet — and always with disastrous consequences. I know you, Frank, your work. You could have busted this wide open long ago, and saved who knows how many lives. You have to live with that.”
“Mea culpa already!” Frank squinted like old times when decoding an irony. “But do I still have to live with it in early retirement?”
“I’m moving back in here, with Kelly. To punish myself I’m not retiring. We’ll serve out our life sentences together, me under a sort of house arrest, you on some warmer island. That’s the law now.”
“The law?” Frank spat, seeing his last plea denied. He picked up his hat. “It’s your law now, is it, Judge Beldon? Who does it serve, this arbitrary Beldon law? I’m a good cop, Kevin.”
“Frank, let’s cut the shit: you were a good cop. But enough of this, I have to lock up and get back to my apartment. But wait a second.”
When Kevin returned from upstairs, Frank smile-frowned and pointed at the fluffy lime-green slippers he carried.
“What, these old things? I find they complement my new nightwear ensemble.”
Turning to the front door, Frank smiled and barked, “I always knew it!”
On the porch Kevin found the spare key inside the same artificial rock, which was a miniature replica of an ancient Irish standing stone. Witty Kelly had dubbed it “the Beldon Omphalos,” though never said it again after the Widower.
The well-worn steps were clacking wooden beads in the c
lear acoustics of after-rain. Kevin and Frank stood together under the chestnuts, until Frank snorted and shook his head.
“I’m up the street. Is that the Maroon Queen over there, or can there be two such wasteful people in Ottawa?”
“I pay for my sins, just like everyone else.”
Frank walked away.
Kevin called, “Frank, where did the order come from insisting I be assigned to the DeLint case?”
Half-turned, continuing to walk sideways, Frank said, “That, I do not know. I suspect it was the Chinese delegate to the G-Fifty summit going on here. They’ve still got Haiti’s back, the shits. Randome wanted you involved in a bad way. Ottawa wants more Chinese trade as badly. The Chinese want everything! Just like everybody else!”
Kevin was still thinking about that when Frank shouted from farther along: “Randome!”
Kevin shushed him in the magnifying atmosphere: “Sh-sh! What? I don’t follow.”
“You know, ran dome, his assumed name, I just got it!”
“Assumed name?” Kevin shouted in a whisper before Frank was out of hearing: “Or random! But what’s his real name then?”
Under an unworking streetlight, Frank consulted his tablet and spoke syllabically. “Wa-zi-ri Ba-shi-ru!” And crossed the road to his black-and-white Mini Cooper flapping his arms and calling like some exotic bird: “Waziri Bashiru! Waziri Bashiru! Waziri Bashiru!…”
No more Frank. My sentence begins.
Chapter 26
He turned away from the bedroom, from processing the image of Kelly lying in heavily sedated sleep; away from the tight question mark of her body, his body, his and his father’s, with her hair spread on the pillow, his and Cyn’s hair. His only living family. He turned the knob and softly pulled the door shut, listened to the latch bolt slip quietly into place. In the morning he would contact the funeral home and cancel all events but Bill’s actual cremation.
He went to the maple dining table, which he’d be leaving for the next tenants. He sat and opened The Near Future. The move back to the old home would be tolerable, the change might even do him some good. With Kelly, of course; he’d be taking Kelly home to Lundy’s Lane, soon as she was feeling better. Tomorrow, though, he’d also make arrangements with the private clinic in Philadelphia that had seen Judge Johnson Mender through his breakdown (this runt of a capital could keep no secrets…except for those Randome had kept so long).