Barrington Street Blues (41 page)

†

Shortly after I arrived at the office on Thursday, my secretary rang to tell me Doctor Swail-Peddle was on the line. He offered to meet me in his office that afternoon but I thought he might be a little too comfortable there, so I suggested a drink after work. He sounded doubtful, but he came around in the end. I called Brennan and lined him up for the outing as well, then went into Ross's office to pick up the diary and notes the psychologost had given us. Ross looked at me over a stack of case reports teetering on his desk. He seemed more
harried and stressed out than ever.

“Monty! Do I dare even ask if we're any closer to filing our claim for Leaman and Scott?”

“That's why I'm here. I want to go over Swail-Peddle's notes again.”

“Glad to hear it. I think you'll find them helpful. It looks to me as if Leaman was a prime candidate for the longer rehab program, but Swail-Peddle couldn't persuade his colleagues at the Baird to go along. So Leaman was out, and we know how that ended.” He got up and found the papers. “Here. Photocopies of the diary and notes on our deceased client. Happy reading.”

“Thanks.”

I returned to my desk and sat down with the photocopied pages. The psychologist had done a lot of editing. There were entire pages in his diary on which there were only two or three lines of handwriting. I could not help but wonder how many of these blanked-out entries had been about Mavis Campbell. The diary certainly went back to 1985, the year she was in the program; there were brief references to “
CL
” at that time. There was nothing to indicate whether Mavis and Corey had spent any time together.

Corey's most recent admission was more regularly documented. There were a couple of sessions in which Gareth reviewed Corey's progress and advised him of the Phase Two program, which offered an extended stay and more intensive therapy. Gareth also noted his efforts to meet with Doctor Edelman, the director, to present his case for a longer course of treatment. According to Gareth's notes, Edelman barely gave him the time of day. This looked straightforward to me, but one could never be sure. After all, I had discovered something Gareth did not want me to know: the painfully embarrassing scene with Mavis, and Gareth's further humiliation in front of her husband. Dice Campbell and Corey Leaman, two supposed suicides, connected in several ways. One of the links was Gareth Swail-Peddle.

I pictured the walls of his office, festooned with certificates attesting to his qualifications. Many professionals were touchy about their credentials; Swail-Peddle was obviously one of those. I had already formed an impression of him as a man who craved recognition for his expertise. His pleasure in being right was obvious; his embarrassment
at being wrong could be equally strong. How far would he go to prevent Dice Campbell from revealing the Mavis incident to his superiors at the centre? Had Corey Leaman, six years later, threatened to tell what he had seen?

†

Brennan and I were seated at a table in Ryan Duffy's when Swail-Peddle arrived. His mouth went into a little twitch when he spotted Burke, but he nodded and sat down. The large wing chair nearly swallowed him up when he sat back, and he quickly moved to perch himself on the edge of the seat. Burke ordered three pints of Guinness. Swail-Peddle looked at his as if it might be poison. Or truth serum.

“How are you?” he asked Burke.

“Flying. And yourself?”

“Forgive me. I can't recall your name.”

“Brennan Burke.”

“Oh, yes. And you have a brother. He seemed like an amiable chap. Will he be joining us?”

“No, he's back in New York.”

“New York. Really. A harsh environment. What does he do there?”

“Paddy's a psychiatrist.”

“Oh! I see.” Swail-Peddle seemed distracted during the next round of small talk, perhaps trying to recall whether he had said or done anything revealing in Patrick's presence. I could have answered that for him. But I wanted to bring him around to the subject at hand, which was, ostensibly, Leaman. He did not have much to add to what I'd read in his diaries.

We ordered a second round and listened to the therapist discuss his patients without giving away their identities and without letting up on the touchy-feely jargon. When he finished his second pint he smirked at Brennan.

“So. Brendan. How was your anniversary? Your twenty-fifth? Do I have that right?”

“You do.”

Swail-Peddle was childishly pleased to have his recollection confirmed. I wondered whether his inability to recall Burke's name was a bit of play-acting. His face was pink, and I concluded that he did not have a large capacity for alcohol.

“I also seem to recall that your friend — Ed, was it? — offered you rather an unorthodox gift to help you celebrate.” The psychologist leaned forward with an arch smile playing about his lips. “We're all adults here. Did he come through with a couple of sex-trade workers for the occasion?”

“Yes, he did. Well, not a couple.”

“Not a couple. I see. Just as well, perhaps!”

“A dozen, by my count.”

Swail-Peddle's tiny eyes seemed to bulge behind his spectacles. “Come now, Brendan, surely this constitutes a bit of male braggadocio!”

“No, no, not at all,” Burke said.

“Well, where was your partner while this anniversary was being celebrated so uninhibitedly?”

“Partner?”

“Brendan, forgive me if I'm overstepping. But do you think it's possible that you are engaging in patriarchal behaviours and denying your wife the empowerment that a woman —”

“I don't have a wife.”

“Excuse me?”

“I'm not married.”

“This anniversary, then . . .”

“Johnson hired the women for my twenty-fifth anniversary as a priest. Sure, after all that time, couldn't I do with a rub of the relic?”

Swail-Peddle goggled at him across the table. Burke sent me an almost imperceptible wink as he lifted his pint to his mouth.

“Gareth, did you ever meet Mavis Campbell's husband, Dice?” I said then.

“Eh?” His eyes were those of a startled rabbit.

“Dice Campbell. Did you ever meet him?”

“I'm not following you here, I'm afraid,” he said, stalling for time.

“The question sounded simple enough to me,” Burke put in.

I leaned towards the little bearded man. “Dice Campbell died, an apparent suicide. Corey Leaman died, an apparent suicide, only this
time the ‘suicide' was committed with Dice Campbell's gun. You knew Corey, you knew Mavis. Did you also know Dice?”

“What are you saying?” His voice was overly loud, and had gone up in pitch. He stole a glance at Burke, who regarded him impassively with his black eyes half shut.

“I'm just wondering if you can help me here, Gareth,” I prompted.

“You are being very aggressive, Monty. I wonder why.”

“You are being very evasive, Gareth. I wonder why.”

“Now you are being sarcastic and accusatory. I suspect your occupation as a lawyer tempts you at times to take on an intimidating posture. Well, this may disappoint you, but you won't find me very enabling.”

“Are you going to answer my question?”

“Your question was what again?”

“Did you ever meet Dice Campbell?”

“Oh. Right. Yes, Mr. Campbell and I met once or twice while his wife was in recovery. I cannot imagine why my work with Mrs. Campbell or her husband has anything to do with my efforts to assist you in the claim for Corey Leaman.”

He was going to bluff it out. As much as he feared I might know about the gonad-shrivelling incidents with Mavis and Dice Campbell, he could not bring himself to acknowledge them. And who could blame him for that? I really had no desire to rub his nose in it. From his point of view, too, there was always a chance that I was bluffing and knew nothing about what had happened. I decided to keep him in the dark, and off balance, about what I knew. The psychologist was someone I wanted to investigate further, but I had nothing to gain by antagonizing him.

“I'm sorry, Gareth,” I lied. “It's just that all these people were connected somehow, and I can't find anyone who can help me piece it together.” Had I ever told Gareth I had met Mavis? Had Johnson said something about her knowing me, that night at the Midtown? I was pretty sure I had never alluded to my conversations with her. I made a face I hoped would pass as a thoughtful expression: “Perhaps Mavis Campbell herself . . . I should see if I can track her down. Shouldn't be hard to do.”

“I wouldn't bother, if I were you,” he said quickly.

“Why not?”

“I'll be frank. Mavis Campbell is delusional. You'd be surprised at some of the things she used to say to me, in the full expectation that I would believe her.” He gave a condescending little laugh. “You and I, Monty, are trained professionals. We know a lie when we hear one. Or several! And her husband wasn't any better, from the little I saw of him. It was my impression that they lived in a state of dysfunctionality and co-enablement, and they were both in denial about their issues. Sad, I know. Terribly sad. But you won't get a word of truth out of poor Mavis Campbell.”

You know, you know how it is with me, baby, You know I just can't stand myself And it takes a whole lot of medicine For me to pretend that I'm somebody else.

— Randy Newman, “Guilty”

I stayed on at Ryan Duffy's for a couple more drinks after Swail-Peddle and Burke left the bar. But I didn't want to leave my car downtown, particularly since it was parked at the family home down the street, so I got up to leave when I was still relatively unimpaired. On my way down the stairs to Dresden Row, I heard footsteps behind me. A soft but grating voice sang: “I'm going back to New Orleans to wear that ball and chain.”

I turned to look when I got to the bottom of the stairs but, before I realized what was happening, I was grabbed, pushed outside and shoved up against the building.

“Montague Collins. Imagine meeting you outside a bar in downtown Halifax.”

“Kenneth Fanshaw. Imagine you casting aspersions on anyone else's behaviour.”

Fanshaw was practically standing on my toes; his face was about six inches from mine.

“Do you know anything about the defamation laws in this province, Collins?”

“I do. That's why I am always meticulous about not contravening those laws in any way.”

“You'd better be fucking meticulous. And stop poking around where you have no right to poke around.”

“Speaking of poking around, you wouldn't be making reference to private files in my law office, would you? Files that are covered by solicitor-client confidentiality?”

“I don't give a fuck about your law office.”

“That doesn't cause me any great anguish, but I know someone who would be most dismayed if she heard you say that.”

“Never mind anyone else. Let's talk about you. About a U.S. road trip and a flight from the American authorities.”

“This sounds like pillow talk from Felicia Morgan.”

“Felicia Morgan isn't the only one in this town who's heard about your escapades, Collins. Though maybe the Bar Society hasn't been advised of them yet. Sounds pretty bad. A whole rock band, a bag of mind-altering drugs, and one underage girl.”

“My blues band had nothing to do with the girl, although some regular patrons of a particularly seedy nightclub did.”

“If it was all a big misunderstanding, why the jailbreak?”

I was not about to give Fanshaw the details of the incident, the all-too-bluesy incident that occurred when I was on a road trip with an American band called Busted Flat. I had indeed been involved in a jailbreak. If Tyrone Jackson and I had not knocked that guard unconscious and broken out of the jailhouse in Trou de Boue, Louisiana, I'd still be sitting in there, serving as a punching bag for Sheriff Salaud. And Tyrone would have fared even worse. We had no involvement with the young girl — nobody in the band did — and we weren't going to stick around and face Louisiana justice. I didn't have any identifying information on me and I hitched rides, jumped on boxcars, and got up to the border and crossed over at night. I'd always believed the other guys on our bus got rid of my papers and said they had no idea who I was. Nobody had served any extradition papers on me. From what I heard, the party-gone-wrong was the girl's idea, but she was too young to give legal consent. The fact that she was the daughter of one of the state troopers down there did not redound to the advantage of those of us who were wrongly accused.

All I said to Fanshaw was: “There was no wrongdoing on my part or that of the band.”

“Yeah, sure. You didn't lay a hand on her.”

“I have not touched an underage girl since I was an underage boy. Can you say the same?”

“You know, I find your story hard to believe —”

“You would.”

“— and I suspect others would find it hard to believe, too.”

“Speaking of blackmail, Ken, did you ever have any experience along that line? On the receiving end, I mean. Letters, threats of exposure, that sort of thing? My own response to blackmail would be: ‘Publish and be damned.' Of course it's easier for me, being innocent. Others, not so lily-white, might be tempted to silence the blackmailer at all costs, and perhaps in the process —”

Fanshaw leaned even closer to me. “Fuck you, Collins. And get the fuck out of my life. People who cross me sometimes find themselves in unenviable circumstances. That's not a threat; that's just a description of economic reality in this town. Don't make me come looking for you again.”

I gave him a shove, and he stumbled. He regained his balance and came towards me, but a group of people came out of the bar at that moment, and he quickly walked away. I escaped to my car. Who had told Fanshaw about the road trip? Felicia was the obvious suspect, but how did she know about it? The woman was a sponge when it came to picking up dirt about other people. The fact that I was innocent was small consolation at the moment. My most immediate worry was what Fanshaw might do with the information. My only hope was that he knew the secret would become useless as a threat if he revealed it.