Barrington Street Blues (40 page)

“You know, Mavis, I think I'll settle in for the night. I like it here. The fact that you haven't changed watering holes suggests to me that this is as good for you as it is for me.”

“What kind of fantasy world do you live in, Collins?”

“I live in a nightmarish world where nothing is what it seems, and respectable widows have secrets that they keep from the most benign questioner.”

“What now?”

“Why don't you tell me about Doctor Swail-Peddle showing up at your place. Which you neglected to mention last time we ‘shared.'”

“Why don't you tell me something instead. Like how you earned the God-given right to come aboard me whenever you feel like it, and demand to know everything about my life.”

“I just find it odd that you told me all about how you humiliated this poor devil but neglected to tell me the sequel. Why would that be?”

“Because it's none of your business? Could that be it, do you suppose? You know I'm getting pretty goddamned tired of you, Collins. I have a good mind to call the police and tell them you're harassing me.”

“You don't really want to attract the interest of the police, do you, Mavis? I know I wouldn't if I were you.”

“If you really think I killed my husband, Monty, aren't you afraid I'll come after you some night? They say if you kill once, it's a lot easier the second time.”

“Would it only be the second time for you, though, Mavis? I'm wondering whether there was something going on between you and Corey Leaman.”

“I didn't even know Leaman. I told you that.”

“Keeping track of your stories, are you? I see a lot of that on the
stand. ‘I left at eleven-thirty. Like I told you before.'”

“Oh, cut the crap.”

“What happened when Swail-Peddle turned up at your house?”

“Dicey came home.”

“All right, back up. When exactly did this happen?”

“Well, I got out of the detox in July ‘85. So it was within a week of that.”

“Okay. Tell me about Gareth's arrival.”

“
Gareth
showed up on my doorstep very late one night. He probably figured I was alone because there was only one car in the driveway. Or maybe he was watching the house. Anyway, I went to the door and there he was. There was nothing ‘sharing and caring' about him this time. He was in a snit. Anyone else, I'd call it a rage. He pushed his way past me and told me to sit down and keep my mouth shut. Yeah, like Mavis Campbell is gonna keep her mouth shut! I started to needle him. ‘Got any cheap hooch tonight, Doc?' That kind of thing. He told me to shut the fuck up or I'd be sorry. I just laughed and offered him a drink. He started to tell me that I was a deeply disturbed woman, that my behaviour that night was very revealing — I let out a squawk at that, and he turned beet red. He went on and on. I guess I was supposed to draw the conclusion that if I told anyone what happened I would just be letting them know how sick and fucked up I was. I started in on him, that I had been a patient there, that his boss might not look too favourably on his bringing booze to an alcoholic who was supposed to be recovering in his treatment centre, and trying to seduce her in the most ham-handed way. His face, or what you could see of it behind the fur, was nearly purple. He moved towards me as if he was going to hit me. I think I could have pounded the crap out of him if it came to that. But it didn't. Because that's when Dice walked in.

“‘Who the fuck are you?' Dicey bellowed at him. Gareth just stood there, his eyes popping out of his head.

“‘This is my boyfriend, darling. Gareth, meet my husband, Dice.'

“‘Like hell he's your boyfriend. What do you want?'

“‘Maybe we should all sit and calm down,' Doctor Swill says then. He sits, but nobody else does.

“‘Mavis, get me a drink,' Dicey says.

“‘We're all out.'

“‘If we were all out, I'd have had to swerve to miss you outside because you'd be crawling away from the house with your tongue hanging out. But never mind. I can do without. Unlike some. Now, what are you doing in my house at this time of night, Gareth or whatever your name is?'

“Swail looked over at me and then back at Dice. He didn't know whether to shit or go blind. Finally he comes up with: ‘There was an incident at the treatment centre. I'm a clinical psychologist there. Your wife needs help, Mr. Campbell, er, Dice.'

“‘Go to the top of the class, Gary! My wife needs to be transported, blindfolded, to a detox in central Saudi Arabia. But so what?'

“‘Well, as I was saying . . .' Poor Gare was shitting bricks. ‘There was an incident. The details are confidential and I am not permitted to disclose them to you.' His beady little eyes darted over to me. ‘But there is something we call alcoholic psychosis, in which the patient loses touch with reality, and hallucinates —'

“‘The day I start hallucinating about scrawny little men stripping off in front of me in a detox centre is the day I'll swear off the stuff for good and start pouring Kool-Aid at the Baptist church picnic!'

“‘What's this about him stripping off?' Dicey asks.

“Gareth jumps in: ‘I was not of course unclothed. This is part of the hallucinatory process that I was describing to you.'

“‘Bullshit. What happened, Mave?'

“So I told him. Every detail, finishing up with me flashing my big butt at Gareth with the words ‘share this' emblazoned on it. Gareth was rocking back and forth in his chair by this time, hyperventilating. Then Dice just lets go with a roar of laughter. I think that was the happiest I had ever made Dice since the first night I ever . . . Anyway, he got up, gave me a slap on the rump, then wrapped his arms around me and said: ‘That's my babe!' He gave me a great big kiss. Affection from Dice wasn't a common occurrence those days. Men! You never know what's going to set them off. Then he remembered that little shit, Swail-Peddle, sitting there. So he made a big show of rubbing his hands all over every part of me and saying he couldn't wait to tear my clothes off. Et cetera, et cetera. ‘Oh, sorry,' he says to Gareth. ‘I forgot you were here. I'll be in touch later this week.'

“‘About what?' Gareth croaks.

“‘About my refund from the detox. Your treatment didn't work, especially seeing how you got her drinking while she was in there. Oh, and there may be a lawsuit. You could counterclaim against Mavis. I don't know what the cause of action would be: sexual humiliation? You'll need independent legal advice on that. Who do we serve the papers on over there? What's the executive director's name at the centre? Never mind, I'll get it. Don't let me keep you. I gotta lay a bad lovin' on my wife here. Run along now.'

“I never saw anything so pathetic in my life as that little man scuttling out the door. Is there such a thing in law as sexual humiliation? Because if so, he had it. And he brought it on himself. I didn't start it!”

I wasn't sure sexual humiliation qualified as grounds for a lawsuit. But I wondered whether it could provoke someone to murder. Especially if Dice Campbell had been about to go public by filing a complaint with Swail-Peddle's employer.

“You know how sick this life is, Monty?” She clutched the drink Dickie had placed in front of her, then picked it up and downed it. “I'll tell you. That ridiculous incident led to one of the happiest nights of my marriage to Dice.”

“This was how long before his death exactly?”

But she had tuned me out. “And it didn't mean a fucking thing to him. What the hell is the matter with men?” I was surprised to see tears falling from Mavis's eyes.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Mavis?”

“You can go away and leave me alone.”

I did. I went away wondering yet again about Mavis's role in her husband's death. Was it, in the end, a crime of passion? This territory was all too familiar to me, after the flame-out of my own marital reconciliation. I could understand perfectly how Dice Campbell's wife might have been in such a state of heartbreak and rage that she could push him off the balcony of his tenth-floor office and stand there watching as he crashed to earth on Barrington Street. And did Leaman fit in somehow? Two apparent suicides: Leaman killed by Dice's gun. Dice had a clipping about one of Leaman's criminal convictions — even though Corey's name was not mentioned, the blender assault had been his doing. And Dice had done some work
for Leaman's elderly neighbour, Matilda Lonergan, who had gone to the trouble of testifying on Leaman's behalf.

And then there was Gareth. On my way to the office, I recalled joking with Ross Trevelyan about the psychologist coming forward to offer assistance, like a criminal insinuating himself into the investigation. Swail-Peddle certainly merited another look now that I knew about his humiliation at the hands of Mavis and Dice Campbell. I had given his diary and notes a cursory glance before leaving them in Ross's office. I decided to go through them more carefully, then use them as an excuse for another chat with the psychologist. When I went over the evening with Gareth and his wife at the Midtown, I remembered he had felt uneasy with Brennan Burke: reason enough to bring Brennan along for the interview. I picked up the phone and asked to speak to Doctor Swail-Peddle. He had gone for the day, so I left my number.

Back to Matilda Lonergan. What exactly had I found out about her? Hadn't Justice Trevelyan threatened me with a defamation suit for mentioning his former client? Of course, his attitude towards me had rapidly soured as the result of the Court of Appeal's ruling against him. But I knew he had handed off Mrs. Lonergan's little assignment to a younger, still-keen Dice Campbell.

Who was the woman I had spoken to about Matilda? I looked through my file to find her name. Mrs. Pottie. Yes, she had lived in the Sackville neighbourhood too, and had spoken to me from her nursing home. My notes didn't tell me much: Mrs. Pottie had known of Leaman as a local ne'er-do-well and obviously thought Mrs. Lonergan's affection for him was misplaced. The two women used to chat at the bus stop, though I saw I had written “
TL
could have afforded cab.” Yet she took the bus to her doctor and to some other place. The food bank. Why a food bank if she could afford to take taxis? I must have had it wrong. I didn't have much hope of finding out anything useful about Mrs. Lonergan, and even less hope of explaining to myself why it mattered, but I decided to call Mrs. Pottie again.

“Oh, yes, I remember you. You were asking me about Matilda. Why was it you were asking again?”

“I'm working for the family of Corey Leaman, you know, the
young man who was found dead of gunshot wounds.”

“Leaman, yes, yes, I remember. It's a wonder you don't find more of these people lying around with bullets in them, the way they carry on.”

“I realize Mr. Leaman wasn't a favourite of yours, but Mrs. Lonergan seemed fond of him.”

“Tilly Lonergan was moved by the Holy Spirit! And she thought the Holy Spirit was moving in every human creature on the planet! Hmph! Sometimes I wondered if Tilly ever picked up a newspaper. There's nothing holy about the world today, in my opinion! But she felt differently, God love her, going in there three or four days a week to work with those layabouts and punks. You wouldn't catch me in there! Turn your back on one of them for an instant, and they'd have you by the throat.”

“Who?”

“The young bums and drug addicts at that hostel where she spent her days. I know the Good Book says feed the poor and visit the sick and the prisoners, but I don't think it means you have to take your life in your hands. Or risk having your purse snatched.”

“So Mrs. Lonergan did volunteer work, is that it? With young people?”

“Young people old before their time! Thieves and reprobates!”

“What was the name of this place, do you know?”

“Oh, something that wouldn't give you any inkling of what was really going on. Primrose House. That was it; sounded like a gardening shop. They let them hang around there all day and night. Fed them, clothed them, tried to teach them how to spell and do their sums. How to live among decent people. I wonder how many successful graduates they had.”

“I don't think I've ever heard of it. Is it in Halifax?”

“I think it's in Dartmouth, because I used to take the number eighty-four bus right into town, but Tilly used to get off and transfer before we got to the bridge. Why she didn't take taxis or even buy herself a little car, I don't know. Though I suppose she didn't want to drive in that kind of neighbourhood.”

“So Mrs. Lonergan would have had the financial resources for more convenient transportation.”

“Her husband died long ago, and they had no children. So Tilly
had money. Yet she wouldn't think of spending it on herself! I would if it were me, I'll tell you that. But, no, Tilly wasn't one for pampering herself when there were others in need. Well, you'll see if you're keen on visiting that youth place, Primrose House. It must look like the Taj Mahal these days!”

“What do you mean? Had she helped fix the place up?”

“Fix it up? I imagine they have a whole new building by now, considering how much money she left them! She had no family, so —”

“So she provided for the hostel in her will?”

“I'll say!”

“Would Mr. Leaman have attended the program at the hostel, do you know?”

“Who knows? Though if there was anything in it for him, you can be sure he was there with his hand out.”

“Mrs. Pottie, thanks again for your information.”

“Any time. Nothing else to do in this place, except watch a bunch of nincompoops braying for money on the game shows, and another bunch of nincompoops egging them on from the recreation room in here.”

I had never heard of Primrose House. I was familiar with a great many government programs, shelters, group homes, halfway houses, church-run charities, and other outfits, but this was a new one to me. I got out the phone directory and looked it up. I found a listing, with an address on Primrose Street in Dartmouth. I had never been on the street in my life, so I consulted my city map. I would head over there tomorrow. A new Taj Mahal should be easy to spot.