Barrington Street Blues Read online

  “Let me get this straight. What exactly did she hear?”

  “Guys hollerin’ and a gunshot.”

  “A shot or shots?”

  “A shot, I think she said.”

  There was one bullet in Leaman, two in Scott. Did this mean Leaman was shot first and Scott appeared some time later? Or did Wanda hear the first round fired at Scott? If so, what accounted for the gap between the shots?

  “And you said guys were shouting?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What were they saying?”

  “I don’t fucking know. I wasn’t there.”

  “What did Wanda say?”

  “Just that they were hollerin’ and then blam! End of conversation.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Late. Three, four in the morning.” She fixed me with a slightly wall-eyed gaze. “So I figure the killer don’t know there was a witness. Witness Wanda. And she sure as hell ain’t talkin’. And there’s the john, too. Whoever he was.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “She was bombed one night and started blubbering to me about it. Scared the killer knew she was there and would come and get her. Guess she got lucky. ‘Cause she’s still walkin’ around. Let’s hope for her sake her luck don’t run out.”

  Chapter 2

  This is the day I’m gonna roll the dice.

  — Mel “Snake Eyes” Rooney

  The conversation haunted me all the way home. I decided not to add to the obvious stresses in Ross Trevelyan’s life until I had to. He was counting on this case as an account receivable, and as a beacon sending out the signal that Ross was a lawyer who specialized in the potentially lucrative business of plaintiff-side personal injury litigation. I would leave him in peace for now and do a bit of investigating on my own.

  First thing Monday morning, I retrieved the file from Ross’s office and read through it again, trying to find a starting point for a quiet probe into the shooting. The police had canvassed people who worked at the bar, but nobody had seen or heard anything. The shooting happened after hours. None of the staff had seen Leaman or Scott in the place that night. Nobody in the file could, or would, identify any connection between the two men. If either of them had been selling drugs to the other, there was no reference to that in the material we had before us. There was a police report indicating that Leaman and Scott had never been incarcerated in the same institution at the same time. Leaman had spent considerable time in the addiction treatment centre; Scott had never been treated there. I scribbled a note about Wanda Pollard being a possible witness. But something else struck me while I was reading through the file: the one piece of hard evidence that might be traceable was the gun. The Luger was an antique. It had almost certainly been stolen. The police had tried various gun collectors but had not found the owner. I wondered whether it was a souvenir brought over from Germany after World War Two.

  I picked up the phone and dialled. “Up for a game of darts tonight, Burke?”

  “Darts? You’re at loose ends for something to occupy yourself, I’m thinking.”

  “A beer then. I want to head out to the Legion for a bit of detective work. Thought I’d start with the one on Cunard Street.”

  “And what do you hope to find out at the Legion?”

  “I’d like to trace a piece of German weaponry. Namely the Luger that was used in the Fore-And-Aft shooting. I’m hoping to reassure myself this was really a suicide.”

  “I thought it was one of your partners who was doing the work on this.”

  “I’m doing a little sleuthing to convince myself we have a case. Ross is a true believer, if you’ll pardon the expression. He sees gold within his grasp. I, however, tend to think fortuna vitrea est; tum cum splendet frangitur.”

  “Is that you, Collins? I thought I heard someone speaking to me in the language most dear to my heart.”

  “Why should that surprise you? Have you heretofore regarded me as an unlettered buffoon?”

  “Not at all, at all. So. Fortune is like glass; it glitters just at the moment of breaking. That’s how you see your case?”

  “That’s how I see all my cases, Brennan. But, yes, I’m particularly suspicious of this one. I intend to investigate a little further.”

  “Ah. Come by and pick me up around nine-thirty. I’m giving a seminar at the theology school before then. High Christology in the Gospel of John. I didn’t see your name on the registration list.”

  “So give me the crib notes.”

  “That would be a start. See you tonight. How were the Rankins?”

  “The Rankins were great. You should have hung on to that ticket.”

  “Nah. You know how it is when MacNeil wants something.”

  “No, I don’t actually. All I know is when she doesn’t want something.”

  “Don’t be telling me that. You banjaxed it again?”

  “Later.”

  I had just put the phone down when Ross Trevelyan called, to remind me that we had a witness coming in. I picked up the file and headed for Ross’s office. We chatted about other matters while we waited for the psychologist who had treated Corey Leaman at the Baird Centre. Ross’s secretary brought him in, and we stood to greet him.

  “Doctor Swail-Peddle? Nice to meet you. I’m Ross Trevelyan. This is my partner, Montague Collins.”

  “Hi. Call me Gareth.”

  I shook his hand. Gareth Swail-Peddle was short and slight with a small face nearly hidden by his salt and pepper beard. Tiny dark brown eyes were magnified by huge glasses. He sat in the chair beside mine, and relieved himself of a large canvas shoulder bag.

  Ross sat behind his desk. “So. Gareth. Thanks for coming in. I’d normally say ‘how can I help you?’ but I guess in this case it’s ‘how can you help us?’”

  “Well, let me be upfront with you, Ross. And Montague. I’m what you would call a disgruntled former employee! That’s not always a positive indicator of credibility. True, I was unjustly dismissed from the Baird Centre, and my relationship with that organization is conflictual. But I’m here to tell the truth and do whatever I can to help the survivors of Corey’s suicide.”

  “Monty and I are most appreciative, Gareth. What can you tell us about Corey?”

  “Well, as you probably know, Corey was admitted to the facility on more than one occasion. He struggled with an addiction to cocaine and of course he had family issues as well. So many people do. During his most recent, and final, admission I was of the view that his recovery had not progressed to the point where he should have been discharged. Our director did not share my view.”

  “The director is Doctor Edelman?” I asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “And your position was what?”

  “I am a clinical psychologist. I was on staff as a therapist.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, Corey’s recovery was —”

  “No,” I interrupted again. “I mean, what happened with you? How did you end up leaving the centre?”

  There was a quick tightening of the lips but, if Swail-Peddle was annoyed at the change of subject, he did not let on. “Doctor Edelman and I had what might be called a personality conflict. He is a fine psychiatrist. But he is very controlling. He could not accept that my treatment methods were as valid as his, and he made my situation there untenable. It’s all for the better. I have opened my own practice, and the self-actualization I am able to achieve now is something I could never have achieved as a staff psychologist. So, as bitter as the parting was, I really should thank Edelman for his unintentional role in my self-fulfilment as a therapist! Back to Corey, though, it was Edelman who had the final say in discharging Corey prematurely from treatment. His methods were very orthodox; he failed to see that they were ineffective. Corey should have been admitted to our Phase Two program, which involves a much longer stay and a more intensive course of therapy. But no. Corey was out, and you know the result.”

  “I take it you’ll have no tr
ouble facing off against Doctor Edelman if and when this goes to court?” I asked, thinking that he probably lived for the day he could castigate the psychiatrist in a public forum.

  Swail-Peddle smiled and held out his hands in a nothing-to-hide gesture. “No trouble. I won’t conceal from you the fact that I was frustrated in my efforts to get a hearing before Doctor Edelman. Now perhaps I will. Though I imagine he will become quite unpleasant, through his own lawyer, if I challenge him in public.”

  “Yes, I would say the Baird Centre will mount a vigorous defence,” Ross put in, “but we intend to counter it.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any notes or a chart relating to Corey?” I asked. “The records would have stayed at the centre, I presume.”

  “His chart, his medication records, and so forth would still be on file at the Baird.”

  “We can subpoena those.”

  “But I believe I may have some notes of my own. I kept a diary and some of the entries may relate to Corey.”

  “If you could provide those, we’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll call and let you know what I’ve found. And if there’s anything else I can do for Corey’s family, don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

  “So, what do you think?” Ross asked me when the psychologist had departed.

  I leaned across his desk and said, sotto voce: “Maybe he pulled the trigger himself.”

  Ross reared back: “What are you saying?”

  “You know what the police always say about overly helpful witnesses, people who insinuate themselves into the investigation.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “You should have kept up with criminal law, Ross. Cops always suspect people like that.”

  “But we’re not in the business of suspecting people, are we, Monty? And neither are the police on this one; they’re not looking for a killer. As for us, we are in the business of establishing that Leaman’s suicide, and his regrettable decision to take Graham Scott down with him, was in fact the fault of the Wallace Rennie Baird Addiction Treatment Centre. And now we have Doctor Swail-Peddle.”

  “At least we can be fairly sure he’s not using an alias. Name like that, he didn’t make it up.”

  “Be serious, will you, Monty? We have the good doctor providing inside information that supports our case. He was utterly candid about his dispute with the centre. He has nothing to gain by helping us. I think we should be grateful.”

  “Nothing to gain but revenge against his former employer.”

  “Which he — again, candidly — admits will sour for him once he is forced to undergo cross-examination by the centre’s counsel at trial.”

  “You’re right. If he’s on the level, his evidence will be very helpful indeed.”

  †

  I drove downtown to St. Bernadette’s that evening to pick up Brennan Burke for our excursion to the Legion. He was just getting out of his car when I pulled up. “Give me two minutes to get rid of this collar if we’re going to be lifting a few.” I told him to go ahead. “How was the seminar?” I asked when he joined me in my car.

  “Sure, it was brilliant. How could it be otherwise with myself at the head table? So, what exactly are you trying to find out?”

  “If there are any genuine war veterans on hand, I’ll be asking whether they know of someone who brought a Luger back with him.” He looked skeptical. “It’s worth a try. It’s the only place I can think of to start.”

  The Cunard Street Legion, Branch 25, was noisy and full of smoke. I was surprised at the size of the crowd until I noticed a bunch of tables grouped together. A party of some sort. All the participants were a couple of decades short of WWII vintage. Burke and I went to the bar. A beer for me, a Jameson for him. The bartender was young, but I asked anyway: “Is there anybody here tonight who served in World War Two?”

  “The only one I can see is Mrs. Dryden over there. She was with CWAC, Women’s Army Corps.”

  I approached her table. She had the wrinkled face of a lifelong smoker; her cigarette burned forgotten in her hand as she perused the baseball scores in the Chronicle Herald. “Excuse me, Mrs. Dryden. I’m hoping to speak to someone who’s a veteran of World War Two; the bartender pointed you out.”

  “I’m a veteran, yes. How can I help you?”

  “I’m trying to find the owner of a German pistol, a Luger that was used in a shooting here in the city. The owner’s not in any trouble; I suspect the gun was stolen. I thought it might have been brought back after the war, and it would sound familiar to somebody.”

  “Ha! Good luck, kiddo. I bet that would sound familiar to a lot of people. More than a few must have come over in forty-five. I wouldn’t know; my war was in England.”

  “All right. Thanks anyway.”

  “You might try old Bill Groves, though. He’s a collector.”

  “Where would I find him? Does he come in here?”

  “He’d love to come in here. But he’s in an oxygen tent in Camp Hill Hospital.”

  “Oh.”

  “Go and see him. Bill loves visitors. His family never goes near him.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “And don’t go empty-handed. Bring him a pack of Craven A.”

  “For a man in an oxygen tent?”

  “You young people are too serious about this stuff. Bill smokes in there all the time. What’s he got to lose?”

  An entire wing of the hospital if he blows it up, I thought, but kept it to myself. I thanked her again and joined Brennan at our table.

  “She spent the war in England. But she gave me the name of somebody else.”

  “Good.”

  I would drop in to see Bill Groves. I also had to find Wanda Pollard and see whether Yvette’s story checked out. I hoped it wouldn’t, but I could not just sit on it. Prior to the Blue Typhoon affair, I had seen Wanda in court numerous times on drug and fraud charges, usually represented by Legal Aid and at least once by Ed Johnson. Perhaps he knew where she might be found. I took Burke on a detour on our way from the Legion.

  Ed and his wife, Donna, lived in a condo on Coburg Road, a block away from the law school. I punched in his number and he came down to meet us in the lobby.

  “You guys out on a tear? Or taking part in a second-hand smoke study?”

  “We were at the Legion. The ones who didn’t die in combat are being felled by nicotine poisoning.”

  “Legion, eh? Going anywhere now?”

  “No, heading home. I have a question for you. You represented a hooker named Wanda at one time, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, and I’m representing her again next month. Wanda the Wand Whacker.” Brennan rolled his eyes.

  “Any idea where I might find her?”

  “You’re not that desperate, are you, Collins? Good-looking guy like you? Speaking for myself, I’d rather —”

  I cut him off: “Spare us the details of what you’d rather do.”

  “Livin’ the blues,” Johnson said, “that must be it. You weren’t born on Tobacco Road or blinded by a brutal stepfather, so cruisin’ hookers would be the —”

  “I find him utterly convincing when I hear him play the blues,” Burke put in, “so he’s either lived the life at some point or he’s able to identify wholly with those who have.”

  “Funny you should say that, Brennan. Of course maybe Collins got plastered one night and confessed to you about his road trip.”

  “His road trip.”

  “Right. Our Monty spent a year on the road with a band. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  Ed leaned towards Brennan and said in a mock-conspiratorial whisper: “Let’s just say there are certain jurisdictions in the United States of America where Collins, or whatever he was calling himself during that episode in his life, is persona non grata.”

  “Can it, Johnson. I was asking you about Wanda Pollard. I want to talk to the woman, that’s all.”

  “What in the world do you want to talk to old Wanda about?”
/>
  “A case I’m working on.”

  “What case?”

  “Just tell me where the woman lives, will you?”

  “She works Hollis Street near Cornwallis Park. Lives close by, in a dive on Mitchell Street. Unless she’s in a drug-induced coma somewhere, you’ll eventually be able to pick her up.”

  Wanda was nowhere in sight when Burke and I cruised down Hollis Street. I decided to come back the next day and call at her building. Since we were in the neighbourhood, though, one thing we could do was check out the scene of the shootings. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been inside the Fore-And-Aft. That may have been because it was long ago, or it may have been that I literally could not remember my time in there. It was that kind of joint. You didn’t go there to sip Frascati and discuss the latest art film. You went there to get pie-eyed and watch the jaded strippers grinding away on the makeshift stage. Burke and I drove down to the tag end of Barrington Street, parked, and stepped out in the fog. We gazed over at the east side of the street. The Fore-And-Aft was a low yellow brick building with fortified plate-glass windows. Its main item of decor was a ship’s wooden figurehead, a bikini-clad woman with cascades of golden curls, enormous lips and breasts, her face turned in a come-hither posture towards incoming patrons. Her aft end was bulky and rounded. She had a white sailor cap perched rakishly on her head, and somebody had painted extremely dilated pupils in her turquoise eyes.

  “I didn’t even know this place was here. Are we going in?” Burke asked. Even the Fore-And-Aft would be a cozy shelter from the fog that chilled our bones, but I didn’t want to waste my time in there.

  “No point. The place was closed when the shooting occurred.”

  The bodies were found in the parking lot at the side of the building. We walked around and saw that there was an extension, kind of like a back porch, at the end near the parking lot. Wanda could well have been servicing somebody on the other side of the porch, unseen by passersby. The only neighbouring buildings were the Wallace Rennie Baird Addiction Treatment Centre, the old Foundry Building, and some small businesses that were open only during the day. At this time of night the area where Leaman had been found was in shadows cast by large bright lights up the street. Scott’s body had been farther out in the parking lot, beyond the shadowed area. I could see how someone bent on a murder-suicide would have felt confident that he could accomplish his aim in the dark hours of the morning without being interrupted. The only people who could have seen the event were night-owl patients or staff looking out the windows of the Baird Centre across the street. That may in fact have accounted for the choice of location, a point we would stress if our lawsuit survived the new information relayed to me by Yvette.