by Anne Emery
“Do you think Brennan’s losing it these days?” he asked Maura when they were back in the house on Dresden Row.
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“This crackpot idea he has about Berlin.” Monty wondered if his wife could hear the effort he had to make to push his words out and pronounce them right. He slowed down, tried to sound sober and rational. “I can understand him being desperate to fashen — fasten — onto something other than suicide, but come on! He thinks there was some kind of plot hatched over in Germany to do away with her? What does he think she was — a Nazi? A commie? A rocket scientist being wooed by both sides in the Cold War?”
“You don’t have to be so snarky about it. Maybe there was something over there, something that led to her death. She received a postcard referencing the secret police; four days later, she jetted off to Europe.”
“Oh, come on, Maura. The woman left Germany more than twenty years ago, and she died . . . she died right here in Halifax. I suppose it’s understandable that Burke is desperate for somebody else to blame since he stood the poor woman up on the night she needed to speak to him, the very night she threw herself into the sh . . . the sea.” Monty could hear the slur in his voice; he sounded every bit as sloshed as he felt.
Maura gave him the kind of look a slurring drunk deserved, but she stayed on topic. Sort of. “Brennan couldn’t have realized how serious her trouble was, whatever it might have been, or he would have remembered. Who knows? Maybe he has women wanting to meet him alone at night several times a week! The Roman nose, the Irish mouth, the wavy black hair, those black, black eyes. Anyone as tall, dark, and devastatingly attractive as he is must have to fight them off!”
“Devashtatingly attractive?”
“You’re pissed, Monty. You can hardly pronounce your words.”
“Do you find him devastatingly attractive, Maura?”
“I don’t think about him like that. I’m married to you. And he’s a priest. But I see the way other women look at him and —”
“Maybe they wouldn’t feel that way if . . .” He managed to stifle a belch. “He is one of the most brilliant and talented men I have ever met. He has a doctoral degree from Rome, he speaks several languages, he sings like Pavarotti, he can coax the music of the heavenzh from his choirs, he was selected to direct one of the greatest choirs in the city of Rome, and how does he end up? Shtaggering home at two in the morning, hungover some mornings in the classroom, with a coup being planned against him by the board of directors at his own school. So maybe all his female admirers would look at him differently if they could see that. Though I suppose if the ladies are looking for a spectacular Irish flameout, then he’s their man.”
“What did you say?! What did you just call Brennan? Spectacular Irish . . .”
Monty tried to slough it off. “Oh, never mind. It’s just a phrase I heard or read somewhere. I didn’t mean . . .”
“This is not like you, Monty. Not like you to be nasty. Sober the fuck up, and limit yourself to two brew from now on. You obviously can’t handle it. I never, ever want to see you like this again.”
With that, she turned and headed for the stairs. Monty thought he heard the scrambling of little feet on the floor above. But maybe he had just reached the point where he was having alcoholic delusions. He wanted to kick himself. Maura should have booted him in the arse. She was right; this wasn’t like him. He hated displays of jealousy. Not that he was always immune to it himself, but he rarely stooped so low as to let it show. And even more rarely did he lower himself to the point where he made cutting remarks about a friend. He knew there was something else working on him: the guilt he felt for his own failures in Belfast. What happened to Brennan over there was partly the fault of Monty himself. But now all he wanted to do was put his head down and fall unconscious. And then wake up and realize that this was nothing but a nightmare, not a real-life tawdry scene between a piss-drunk man and his disgusted wife.
Chapter XIV
Piet
Shit! Piet Van den Brink was not normally a man to use foul language, but, on this occasion, it was justified. And it was directed at nobody but Piet himself. It turned out that Meika Keller had received a postcard from Berlin, not at her home or her office at Saint Mary’s, but at the music department at Dalhousie University. It had come care of the opera singer Fried Habler. Piet had never thought of going around to other universities asking whether mail might have come for the victim at those places instead of her own workplace. Why would he have thought of it? But Father Burke had thought of it. He must have reasoned that once the Keller woman’s reunion with Habler had made the news in Germany, someone might have contacted her by way of the singer. Obvious now perhaps, but only in hindsight. Hindsight for Piet, anyway. Not so for Burke. The call had come in that morning from a Mrs. Wilson, a woman who worked at the music department at Dal and who distributed the mail. She admitted that she had waited a few days — a week, to be precise — after the priest’s visit, unsure of what she should do. Never mind that she had not thought to call the tip in when the news first broke about Meika Keller’s death. But, she explained to Piet, she had thought no more about the card until Father Burke showed up, asking whether anything had arrived in the post from Europe following the news about the Habler-Keller reunion. And then, Mrs. Wilson said, she figured Fried Habler would have revealed it to the police if it had been at all significant. But, whatever her reasoning, she had phoned the information in today.
Piet had reassured and thanked her, and he was immediately determined to know what the victim’s husband had to say about this postcard. But Piet would have more control over the interview if he didn’t go in blind, without knowing what the postcard said. It was time for another visit with Fried Habler. A call to the Dalhousie Arts Centre netted him the information that Mr. Habler was teaching a class but would be back in his office just after eleven thirty.
Piet and Ailsa were waiting outside the singer’s office when he returned from his class. His surprise was a couple of notches down from operatic, but there was no question that he was startled. But he gave them a cordial welcome. “Come in, officers, come in! I am sorry I have only two chairs, but I will stand if you both would like to sit.”
“No, no, you sit and make yourself comfortable. We can stand.”
“Ha, ha. I don’t know how comfortable I can be with two police officers facing me! But then, after all, this is not Germany in the bad old days!”
Or the Netherlands in the bad old days of the Nazi occupation, Piet said to himself.
“So, how may I assist you today?”
“Mr. Habler,” said Ailsa, “we wanted to ask you about the postcard Meika Keller received last month.”
That brought on a big smile. Of pleasure? Relief? Was he expecting to be asked about something else? Having no idea what that might be, the detectives had nothing on which they could base their questions. So, Ailsa got on to the subject at hand. “Can you tell us when the postcard arrived?”
“Yes. It arrived here a couple of days before I returned from Toronto on the twenty-second of January. The woman handed it over to me on that day, the twenty-second, and I immediately took it to Saint Mary’s University to Professor Keller.”
Four days before she went off for an unscheduled trip to Europe.
“What was written on the card?”
“You assume that, since it was a postcard, I read it, and you are correct. It was in German, and said —”
“Sorry, Mr. Habler. I’ll write it down.”
“I’ll write it,” Piet offered and took out his notebook and pen. “Go ahead.”
“It said, ‘Congratulations, Frau Keller! I always wished I had your talents for sport and for science. Alas, I am talented only at reading and researching. But good for you! I must go; the scoundrel is here. Yours, L.’ That is, the letter L.”
Piet wrote out the words. “D
o you know who the sender was?”
“I have no idea who he was. Or she was. I could not tell from the handwriting, or printing I should say, whether it was a man or a woman.”
“The reference to ‘the scoundrel’? Any idea about that?”
“No.”
“Did Ms. Keller read it in your presence?”
“No, it was snowing and raining, and I had placed it in an envelope. She took it from me, thanked me, and that was all.”
“Where was it sent from?”
“Berlin.”
“I see. What picture or scene was on the card? Something in Berlin, I imagine?”
“Ah, that it is where it becomes most interesting. It was a picture of the former headquarters of the Stasi. I am sure that you, as police officers, know what I mean by the Stasi.”
“Goede hemel!”
Ailsa looked at him, uncomprehending, but Habler caught his meaning and said, “Your words say ‘Good heavens!’ but your face says ‘Godverdomme!’”
Piet had to laugh. “Yes, God dammit! You have some Dutch, I see, Herr Habler.” Of course, the Germanic languages were often mutually understandable. “So. The Stasi. Do you know why someone would send such a card to Meika Keller?”
“I cannot imagine. I honestly do not know.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us? Anything at all that comes to mind since we spoke to you before?”
He shook his head. “No. I do not know anything that would help you identify the killer.”
“Well, if anything comes to mind, however insignificant it may seem, give us a call.”
“I will. Certainly.”
* * *
When Piet and Ailsa returned to their car, Piet called the station to phone Hubert Rendell at his office to tell him they were going to drop by for a minute. You couldn’t just walk in to the office of the Commander Canadian Fleet, so Piet figured a phone call would speed things up at the security gate. He then drove through the city towards the dockyard.
“What do you make of that postcard?” Ailsa asked him. “Well, I guess we got your reaction in your native tongue!”
“Yeah, that was quite the surprise: a card showing the headquarters of the East German secret police! A frightening image, and a friendly message on the other side of the card. What’s with that?”
“We could run it through our heads all day, coming up with hypotheses, and be none the wiser at the end. Let’s see what the husband has to say.”
They arrived at the waterfront and cruised along beside the naval facilities lining the western shore of Halifax Harbour. There was a mix of red-brick and newer buildings, and several light-grey Navy ships were tied up at the jetties. There was a brisk wind, and whitecaps had formed in the water. The detectives parked their car and walked to the gate, where they were met by a member of the commodore’s staff, who led them through the dockyard to the commodore’s quarters. They went inside, and Rendell rose to greet them. He thanked their escort and invited Piet and Ailsa to sit.
“Can’t beat the location,” Piet said lightly, “prime waterfront property.”
“You wouldn’t have said that if you were here in ’17,” Rendell replied in the same vein.
Piet knew, as did every resident of Halifax, that a large part of the city’s north end was obliterated back in 1917 and thousands of people killed and injured, when two ships collided in the harbour. One of the vessels, the Mont Blanc, was an ammunition ship loaded with explosives destined for war-torn France. The Mont Blanc caught fire and drifted to Pier 6 on the Halifax shoreline where it erupted in a massive explosion.
“It doesn’t get much worse than that,” Piet said, “ramming a ship loaded with TNT.”
“The ramming was unintentional, but you’re right: it doesn’t get much worse than that. And in fact it didn’t, until 1945. This was the biggest manmade explosion in history until the atomic bomb.”
“I think I read somewhere that the American scientists studied the explosion here when they were developing the bomb.”
“Yes, they did. Oppenheimer and the other American scientists studied the Halifax Explosion when making their calculations. Our misfortune was in fact a reference point: Time Magazine, in writing of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, stated that its explosive power was seven times that of the Halifax Explosion.”
“The people of Halifax must have thought they were under attack by the enemy.”
“Indeed, they must have. And then there were the fireworks on the other side in ’45. Other side of Bedford Basin.” He pointed roughly north. “After the second war. Bedford Magazine blew up, ammunition depot. Much of the city was evacuated. But luckily it didn’t spread beyond the site, except for a lot of shattered windows and cracked plaster. Anyway, quite the show, exploding ammunition lighting up the sky.”
“So, again,” said Ailsa, “the people must have thought they were being attacked. Thought the war had started up all over again.”
“Maybe so. Well, we like to think we have enough safeguards in place to avoid a repetition. So, you’re probably safe here today. Now, what brings you to my door on this occasion?”
“We received word,” Ailsa said, “that Ms. Keller received a postcard from Berlin only a few days before she took her trip to Europe.”
The commodore visibly tensed in his seat but said nothing.
“What can you tell us about the postcard, Commodore Rendell?”
“I didn’t see any postcard.”
“This wasn’t something she showed you? ‘Look, I heard from an old friend in Germany.’ That kind of thing?”
“It couldn’t have been all that important to her; she didn’t mention it.”
“Did your wife stay in touch with people she knew over there, in Berlin?”
“No. That part of her life was over.”
Piet didn’t know what to make of that. Surely, there would be nothing odd about hearing from a friend or family member, even after two decades out of the country. “I know her escape from Berlin was a traumatic one,” Piet remarked, “but did she lose all contact with the people there?”
“She may have been in contact with people in her first years here in Canada, but I don’t know. By the time we met, she had established herself here as a Canadian. A new beginning.”
“Are you curious about what the card said?”
He didn’t look like a man who wanted to hear whatever was written to his wife by someone in her past. But he was going to hear it. Piet opened his notebook and read, “‘Congratulations, Frau Keller! I always wished I had your talents for sport and for science. Alas, I am talented only at reading and researching. But good for you! I must go; the scoundrel is here. Yours, L.’ Just the initial L, name not spelled out.”
Rendell gave a shrug. “Sounds harmless enough.”
“Did your wife ever mention a ‘scoundrel,’ someone annoying or perhaps amusing in her time over there?”
“Nothing comes to mind. It just sounds to me, Detective, as if somebody heard about her meeting up again with Habler, heard about her success here, and sent her a congratulatory note.”
“Yet she didn’t mention it.”
“I told you she did not.”
“The photo on the card did not quite match the tone of the message.”
“Is that right?”
“The building shown on the card was, until the wall came down, the headquarters of the secret police. The Stasi.”
Rendell made a dismissive gesture with his left hand, as if that was the sort of thing he heard every day. But, surely, it was not. He merely said, “Somebody has a strange sense of humour, I guess.”
“Don’t you find it significant that she took an unplanned trip to Europe just days after getting this card?”
“She took an unplanned trip to Europe after meeting Fried Habler; he got her keyed up about seeing
some opera over there.” He looked at his watch and said, “I’m sorry, detectives, I can’t be of any help to you on this. Now, if there is nothing else, I have a fleet to run.”
“Well,” Piet said to his partner as they walked along the waterfront, “we don’t know any more than we did before we left dry land.”
“Don’t we? Didn’t you get the impression that the news of the card was not really news at all?”
“Possibly. And he doesn’t want us to know even that, for some reason. Or he honestly thinks it was of no importance. And honestly believes she went to Europe for the sole reason of catching an opera or two. And maybe he’s right.”
“Maybe. After all, the man we have charged with the murder was not in Germany, did not set foot outside Halifax, during the weeks leading up to her death.”
The detectives followed up by asking Rendell’s son and daughter whether they knew anything about the card; Lauren and Curtis said they had never seen or heard about it. News of the postcard was just one more distressing revelation in the saga of the family’s loss.
Monty
What, if anything, could Monty make of the fact that Meika Keller had received a postcard just before she took her trip to Europe, a card depicting the headquarters of the secret police in East Berlin? Monty pushed away the memory of his over-consumption of alcohol at the tavern and his contemptible behaviour afterwards in the presence of his wife. He focused his mind on the postcard. At the very least, he could present evidence of the card at trial and suggest that it represented a threat to her. And that, given the timing so soon before her death, this raised serious doubts about the guilt of Alban MacNair. The lieutenant-colonel’s military service records showed that although he had been stationed in Germany in 1974 — in West Germany obviously, not the East — the last time he had been posted there was 1978. And his attendance records confirmed that he had been here in Halifax every working day of this year, which sometimes included weekends. So, if there was some twist to this that had its origins in Germany, MacNair had nothing to do with it. The Crown of course would argue that if the postcard had constituted a threat, surely she would not have run directly into danger by going to see the sender of the card on her trip to Europe, and that the card, regardless of the image, had no relevance in the case. The case was against MacNair, who had made persistent calls to her, had been in a shouting match with her a few hours before her death, and had her blood on his glove.