My Darling Detective

by Howard Norman

  “Make yourself at home, Sorensen,” Martha said, and went back to bed. But Sorensen looked stymied at where to sit, what to do, and finally said, “I think I’m just going back to my car for the rest of my shift.” He went out the door.

  Detective Hodgdon and Detective Tides showed up at about noon. When they entered the house, Tides said, “Sorensen’s relief, that’s Officer George Batch, he’s out front now in the unmarked. He’s got scones and coffee and wouldn’t share, plus a few sandwiches.”

  Hodgdon looked at my work desk and said, “I guess Detective Crauchet’s never going to have to fret about overdue book fines, eh? It’s like I always say, everybody’s putting in the fix on everything all the time. Just the way of the world. Just the way of the world.”

  “So, according to your logic,” Detective Tides said, “Jakie, here, is going through this skyscraper of paperwork, racking his brains all these semesters at Dalhousie, inhaling book lice in the stacks, and leaving duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates-times-a-thousand of his fingerprints on those typewriter keys, typing up his essays for months on end, just so Detective Crauchet can cheat the library system out of overdue fines?”

  “Some people will do anything to save a few dollars,” Hodgdon said.

  “Where is Detective Crauchet, anyway?” Tides said to me. “By the way, I dropped a hint a moment or two ago about it being lunch hour. Or did you miss that, Jakie?”

  “Martha says I’m good with omelets,” I said.

  “Eggs are breakfast food, but since we missed breakfast trying to chase down Robert Emil on the dank and dirty streets of our fair city, I’d be willing to call lunch breakfast, if you are, Detective Hodgdon.”

  “Let’s try Jakie’s omelets first, then see what we call it,” Hodgdon said.

  I set out making omelets with garlic, goat cheese, and mushrooms. I said, “These are going to be three-egg omelets.”

  “Why, Detective Tides,” Hodgdon said, “I do believe that our host wants us to faint from hunger by midafternoon.”

  “I’ve only got six eggs,” I said.

  “Any potatoes?” Tides said.

  “I’ll fry some up,” I said. “I didn’t think of that.”

  Soon Martha came out of the bedroom, still dressed in her pajamas and robe. Taking in her appearance, Tides said, “Martha, the Miss Nova Scotia contest starts in twenty minutes. You don’t even have your face on. What’s going on here?”

  “You two bazookas,” Martha said, obviously delighted to see them. “Know how each contestant in Miss Nova Scotia has to have a special talent? Know what mine is?”

  “Buttering toast for a candidate in library science,” Tides said.

  “Wrong,” Martha said as I set the plates full of fried potatoes and omelets on the dining room table. Tides and Hodgdon sat down and started right in eating. I poured Martha a cup of coffee and handed it to her. “My special talent is recognizing how history repeats itself.”

  “Therefore my Miss Nova Scotia money’s on the gal who wears a swimsuit that’s more or less her birthday suit,” Tides said, “sashays across the stage singing ‘O Canada,’ and the male judges have to cover their privates, because the stanza gets them so excited. With glowing hearts we see thee rise / The True North strong and free!”

  “Your sense of humor goes unappreciated, Tides, as my daughter is listening,” Martha said. “No, my special talent is recognizing how history repeats itself, at least in Halifax. Robert Emil has come back after thirty-some years, right? In 1945 he goes after Nora Rigolet at the Halifax Free Library. You both studied the files. Now he’s making threats to upstanding citizens again. I’m a serious student of this, and I’m taking it very seriously, Detectives. And I don’t mind telling you I’m frightened out of my wits. That’s no bullshit, either.”

  Martha set her coffee cup on the table looking quite shaken. Tides got serious himself now. “Martha—Detective Crauchet. Look, all three of his intended victims are sitting here right now,” he said. “You know us. You know why we’re here. We’re here because we know—or at least think we know—what this lowlife shitbag Robert Emil is capable of. You’re all worked up not just because of having a child on the way, but because you’ve seen psychopaths at their trade, which is acting psychopathically, not to use too technical a term.”

  “I know,” Martha said, and she looked like she was holding back tears. “I’m sorry. I am a little worked up, I suppose. But you guys are the best. Thanks for dropping by.”

  Detective Hodgdon pushed back from the table, stood up, and said, “Omelet first-rate, but needed salt. Potatoes first-rate. Coffee second-rate, but at least hot. Thank you.”

  “Ditto for me, except I rate the coffee lower,” Tides said.

  “Back to going after the bad guy,” Hodgdon said. “Next stop is someone called in a possible sighting. So we’re heading to the repairing slips, Chebucto Marine docks, over to Dartmouth.”

  “Really, we just wanted to check in on you, Martha,” Tides said.

  The detectives left the house. But in just a moment’s time, Hodgdon opened the door again and said, “Martha, in case I don’t see you again. That isn’t going to happen, but just in case. I wanted you to know that in high school I had a girlfriend, Marcia Wherity. The only way she’d let me kiss her was if we lay down on a flat gravestone in Camp Hill Cemetery. It only lasted one summer between us. One time, I came home and my mother screamed, ‘What happened to you?’ I’d just stripped off my T-shirt and apparently had a whole epitaph—name and years and biblical quote—pressed into my back. You’d think, all the years we worked together, I would’ve told you this personal story. I’m sorry. I guess I was saving it.”

  Then he shut the door behind him.

  Intuitive Prophecy

  Robert Emil remained elusive. Over the next several weeks, neither Martha nor I grew accustomed to our lives at home under surveillance, or to Martha’s police escort on her way to and from work every day.

  Martha had decided to take the week before Christmas off, which would officially count as a week of her maternity leave in advance, and this caused no problem with her superiors. She’d brought home a radio that had the police frequency, so while making coffee, or after returning from my last exam, the grocery, or the pharmacy, or while rubbing Martha’s feet or massaging her lower back as she read Thomas Hardy, Margaret Atwood, or Robertson Davies, I would hear through the static, “Detective Hodgdon and Detective Tides . . . proceed to West India Wharf. OTL [on the lam] Robert Emil attempting to cash check. Proceed with caution. Suspect considered armed and dangerous,” or variations on that, as Emil was seen, or supposedly seen, in and around Halifax. We knew that Officers Sorensen and Batch, on their alternating shifts, were listening to the same frequency in an unmarked car out front of our house.

  Then, at about eight o’clock on the evening of December 23, Martha and I were sitting with Mrs. Brevittmore and Mrs. Hamelin at our dining room table. They had come by earlier and cooked a pot roast, potatoes, and carrots, and brought a stack of records from the 1940s to play. They had brought such records before, and we all had a good time listening to them, talking, and watching as Mrs. Brevittmore and Mrs. Hamelin doted on Martha.

  “Fuss all you want,” Martha said. “It’s nice for me. Besides, you’ve been the best friends I could ever have imagined. Jacob dropped your trust by doing something a bit on the shady side, and you had to fire him. Yet all along I thought that Jacob had other—”

  “Potentials,” Mrs. Hamelin cut in. “I could not agree more.”

  “Life has a way of working out,” Mrs. Brevittmore said.

  “Wowee, what wild breeze blew up your skirts just now?” Mrs. Hamelin said with a note of incredulousness. “Why, Evelyn Brevittmore, I do believe you just allowed yourself to say the nicest possible thing.”

  While I cleared the dishes, Mrs. Brevittmore, Mrs. Hamelin, and Martha repaired to the living room sofa and chairs. Sitting down with a groan, Martha said, “I appear to be large
with child,” which made everyone laugh. Mrs. Hamelin had put on an album by the Andrews Sisters.

  “Jake, would you get me a glass of ice water?” Martha said. In the kitchen, the radio was tuned to the police frequency. I heard a burst of static, followed by “—​ambulance dispatched to Marine Fisheries Department, Upper Water Street wharf—Detective Philip Hodgdon down—called in dispatch from, repeat, Marine Fisheries Department, Upper Water Street—all officers respond—ambulance immediately to Marine Fisheries Department—” Then static. I went in and lifted the needle off the record. Everyone looked up. “Martha,” I said.

  I brought in the radio and set it on the living room table between the sofa and chairs. Static, then: “All officers be on the alert for OTL Robert Emil—vicinity of Marine Fisheries Department—repeat, Marine Fisheries Department, Upper Water Street—Robert Emil attempted break-in of payroll, Marine Fisheries—ambulance dispatched—Detective Philip Hodgdon down—repeat, Detective Philip Hodgdon took three bullets—” More static.

  “Jacob, please get Officer Sorensen to take me to the hospital now.”

  “I should go with you,” I said.

  “No,” Martha said, and I understood right away that she needed to separate professional from family. “No.”

  At that moment, without knocking, in walked Officer Sorensen, who said, “Detective Hodgdon is en route to Victoria General. Detective Crauchet, if you’re going, as I expect you’ll want to, you have to drive with me. That’s orders, ma’am.”

  Martha put on her coat and scarf and followed Sorensen to his car, and off they went. Mrs. Brevittmore and Mrs. Hamelin stayed in the house with me. We listened to the police frequency. I brought out some whiskey. We each had a small shot. Mainly we just sat there. “I’ve never liked the phrase ‘things could be worse,’” Mrs. Brevittmore said. “It’s never been particularly solacing to me. Martha looked so distraught.”

  Martha called from Victoria General to say that Detective Hodgdon was pronounced dead at approximately 9:15. Martha returned home with Officer Sorensen at about 10:30. Her face was streaked with tears, but she seemed quite calm, considering. “We’re staying the night,” Mrs. Hamelin said.

  “That would be fine,” Martha said.

  Hodgdon had accompanied another officer, Michael Heller, to Marine Fisheries in response to a report of an alarm going off there and a night watchman’s description of the burglar, which Hodgdon thought might be Robert Emil. As they approached the Marine Fisheries office, Emil opened fire, striking Officer Heller once in the shoulder and Detective Hodgdon twice in the stomach and once in the neck. Officer Heller returned fire, but Emil ran from the scene. Several thousand dollars had been taken from a locked drawer. In the hospital, Officer Heller, about to go into surgery, had told Martha and Detective Tides, “Hodgdon was bleeding out, and he told me some things to say to his wife. He said—you know, kind of delirious, I guess, ‘Don’t forget to pick up English muffins,’ then he was out.”

  The four of us sat in the living room. Martha was sobbing hard, and there was little I could do except hold her. Through her tears she said, “Intuitive prophecy.”

  Mrs. Brevittmore caught on right away and said, “Far from the Madding Crowd, is that it, Martha?”

  “Yes,” Martha said. “That’s what Hodgdon had. You remember, Jake, when he popped back into the house and said, ‘In case I don’t see you again’? That was intuitive prophecy, all right. He had it. That’s the exact moment Philip had it. He knew. Somehow he knew.”

  Silent Night

  We had a very quiet Christmas Eve. It was just me and Martha at dinner with Mrs. Hamelin and Mrs. Brevittmore. They had a big Christmas tree with lots of gifts under it; they were going to have friends over on Christmas Day. After dinner, we gave Mrs. Hamelin a rare book of photographs by the French painter René Magritte, which I had found at John W. Doull. We gave Mrs. Brevittmore a signed copy of Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie, ordered from London by Morty Shaloom. They both seemed pleased. Of course, considering Detective Hodgdon’s death, it was difficult to feel festive. But Mrs. Brevittmore’s eggnog helped a little (Martha had a sip), as did all of us going to the special midnight preview showing of All That Jazz, at City Center, which was directed by Bob Fosse. Officer Sorensen sat directly behind us. After the credits rolled, Mrs. Brevittmore pronounced about the movie, “Wonderful choreography, and a great character study of obsession and passion.”

  “Drugs and booze too,” said Mrs. Hamelin. “Melodramatic sacrifices of art and all of that.”

  Anyway, each in our own way and for our own reasons, we all liked the movie very much. On the sidewalk, bundled up in coats, scarves, and gloves, we said our goodbyes. Ever honest and to the point, Mrs. Brevittmore said, “Sacrilege or not, this evening I’ve thought a lot more about the death of your friend and colleague Detective Hodgdon than of Christ the Savior.”

  “In church, next time we go,” Mrs. Hamelin said, “we can say a prayer for both.”

  Martha, Nora, and I spent New Year’s Eve at home. Sorensen and another policeman, Charlie Hinton, took turns in the unmarked car. My mother was allowed to be with us just for that one night, and that meant we could show her how we’d fixed up a bedroom for her, and how everything was neat, clean, and in its own place. “It’s all perfect,” Nora said. “Not to worry about a thing. I have all of this to look forward to. The house looks wonderful. And I get to sleep in my own bed at last! Thank you for putting it in the smaller bedroom. That was the most thoughtful thing.”

  Jinx Faltenbourg and her husband, Toby, came by at about nine o’clock. Jinx and my mother spent time in the kitchen together over a cup of coffee, but Jinx and Toby had to be somewhere else by ten-thirty, so they left before ten. “I’m big as a house,” Martha said, sitting on the overstuffed chair in the living room. “I bet the always svelte Leah Diamond, this far along, was only as big as a hotel room, not a house, and probably was out dancing her sweet ass off on New Year’s Eve. I can’t keep up with her, can I?”

  “Who’s Leah Diamond?” my mother asked.

  “Wife of an old-time radio detective, Mom,” I said. “She’s part of a program Martha and I are devoted to called Detective Levy Detects.”

  “I’ve heard of it, I think,” my mother said.

  “I don’t think you’d like it much,” I said.

  “Wait, wait, wait, Jacob,” Martha said. “Don’t keep your own mother out like that.” She looked at the clock on the kitchen wall and said, “Five minutes, the New Year’s broadcast is on. Go get the radio and we can all listen. How about that, Nora?”

  “It takes place just after the war ended, Mom,” I said. “That atmosphere going to be okay with you?”

  “Jacob, dear, I was as happy as anyone when the war ended. You were a baby, and I went to all sorts of celebrations. We had one at the library, I recall. You had a little flag in your push carriage: ‘Happy Days Are Here Again,’ it said. That carriage and that little flag are still in the basement. No, no, I love a radio program where you get to go back in time. You’re sweet to worry. But I highly doubt any episode takes place in Leipzig.”

  “No, all in Toronto,” Martha said.

  “Thinking about it,” Nora said, “after the war the radio meant a lot more than it does now. It brought people together. It struck people’s imaginations in a different way. I remember asking my great-aunt Joyce what it was like to see television for the first time, and she said, ‘Well, I thought Jack Benny was far more handsome on the radio.’”

  The New Year’s episode, “Silent Night,” sounded more like a Christmas title to me, but soon I found out what it meant. During the first few minutes, all the gangsters and dames are whooping it up in Leah and Detective Levy’s hotel room. But their little daughter is crying in the bedroom. A doctor arrives to examine her, and declares that the baby has an ear infection, and the loud noise is going to keep her awake. “Well, that’s that,” Leah says. “Everybody skedaddle!” So everyone but Leah Dia
mond and Detective Levy—and of course the baby—rumbles out of the hotel room, trying to keep their voices down. “Happy New Year! Happy New Year!” they say all down the hallway. “Let’s go to Billie Blackburn’s room!” And then all is quiet. Leah starts to narrate her every move, whispering, “Tiptoe, tiptoe, over to the fridge.” In the background we can hear Detective Levy softly laughing. “Sshhhh,” Leah says. “Open up the fridge, take out the champagne, will the cork wake our little darling or won’t it?” Pop! “Oh, we’re in luck, Freddy. Our little angel is snoozing away in dreamland. Remind me to send the good doctor a new stethoscope or something, will you?” We hear champagne being poured into two glasses. Then Leah Diamond and Detective Levy say, in a duet, “Happy New Year,” and we hear glasses clink, then sipping.

  At this point, it sounds as if Leah and Detective Levy have settled onto a sofa, and they begin, in whispers, to go over the highlights of the past year. “Just think of all the near misses we had,” Levy says. “There was that close call with the jewel thief Bix Maddock, close call with Phyllis Wodwoe, remember? At the wharf. Boy, was she ever gun-crazy, that one.” “Oh, let’s stop there, please,” Leah says. “If we talk about near misses, they might come back and seem nearer than ever.” “That’s fine, Leah,” Levy says. “Besides,” Leah says, “here we are, aren’t we, a fire in the fireplace, our hearts beating, not like so many of our men and woman over in Europe.” “No, not like them,” Levy says, “but all those ships brought so many of them home, right, my darling?” “So many of them, yes,” Leah says. “Happy New Year to them, then,” Leah and Levy say, and the episode ends there.

  Martha and I kept looking at Nora to see the effect on her, but she had seemed as rapt as we were with the episode and now looked just fine. “Turned out nicely, it seems to me,” Nora said. “The baby’s on the mend, no doubt. The happy couple gets part of a hotel room—of course not the bedroom—all to themselves. Why, that’s practically a second honeymoon right there! Their rowdy friends get to dance the night away. The war’s over for everybody, living or not living. I think I’d enjoy listening to more episodes.”