Murder on the Thirteenth (2 page)

“At least the phones aren't ringing,” Jake said.

The phone rang.

For the next hour, the three of them fielded calls from the concerned citizens of Fort York. Most who reported uncovered lights on verandas or from inside houses where the blinds were not properly drawn were referred to their local block warden. One warden called to see if the raid was real. Tretheway made a note of his name. Someone called from a beer parlour. The regulars were arguing about whether that noisy gas alarm you twirled around your head signalled the start or finish of the attack.

“The start,” Beezul explained patiently. “When the gas has dispersed, we ring a hand bell. Sounds much nicer.”

A family requested the plans for a shelter like the one Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon had in
Mrs. Miniver.
And there were others who just wanted to be Air Raid Wardens
and share the glamour of steel helmets and stirrup pumps.

The number of phone calls dwindled. Blackout or no blackout, it was a week night and the people of Fort York were going to their beds. Only one phone call bothered Tretheway. And then just a little.

“That was an odd one.” Jake hung up the receiver.

Tretheway looked a question.

“Someone reports a light on the marsh.”

Tretheway blinked.

“A flickering light, she said,” Jake went on. “like a flume.”

“Marsh gas?” Beezul suggested.

Tretheway shook his head. “Too cold.”

Beezul took a call.

“Could be a crank,” Jake said.

“Or moonlight on the ice,” Tretheway said.

“I've got another one.” Beezul covered the mouthpiece. “Same place.”

“Tell them we'll look into it,” Tretheway said.

Jake raised his eyebrows.

“What's the time?” Tretheway asked.

“Quarter to twelve,” Jake said.

Tretheway pulled on his large nose. “Let's go, Jake.” He looked at Beezul. “It's slowing down anyway.”

Beezul nodded in agreement. “Have fun on the marsh.” He smiled at Jake.

Jake frowned.

T
he drive from their downtown office to the west end took about fifteen minutes. Clouds of blowing snow didn't help, but the main roads were ploughed and, at this hour, there was little traffic.

Jake stopped the car at the top of the big hill that led to the eastern end of the marsh.

“Can't see anything from here,” Jake said. “Too many trees.”

“We'll have to go down,” Tretheway said.

“It's pretty steep,” Jake said.

Tretheway didn't answer.

“And icy.”

Tretheway pointed down the hill.

Jake put the car into first and inched ahead. They started their descent, straining against the lower gears.

“What are we doing?” Tretheway asked.

“Gearing down,” Jake answered.

“Why?”

“It brakes the car. With the engine.”

“Don't you have real brakes?”

“This way is more efficient.”

“And noisy,” Tretheway concluded.

Jake bit his tongue. Tretheway, as the former Head of the Traffic Division, knew all the rules and regulations concerning vehicular legislation. He was considered a theoretical expert on traffic. But he'd never learned to drive. Jake, on
the other hand, loved to drive and it showed in his natural aptitude behind the wheel of any vehicle. At the bottom of the hill, Jake pulled the car off the road into a snow drift until they were almost stuck.

“Have to walk from here, Boss,” he said.

Tretheway grunted and got out of the car.

The two trudged through the pristine snow towards Princess Point. It took them five minutes. They stopped at the top of a slight embankment and stared across the frozen marsh.

In the late 1780's, Captain Thomas Coote, a British officer from Niagara, took to hunting in this area of the New World exclusively. In his account of the marsh, he said, “I have never seen such a variety of wildfowl as comes to this place.” Coote had found his paradise.

The area survived early European explorers, United Empire Loyalist settlers, seventy-foot Durham sail freighters, the Desjardin Canal construction, picnickers, canoeists and bird watchers until it fell forever under the care and protection of the Fort York Royal Botanical Gardens.

Tretheway appreciated this, especially on his Sunday walks, but Jake harboured an attachment born of familiarity, for this large tract of land, marsh and open water, know as Coote's Paradise. He had run the trails as a child, kayaked and played hockey on the marsh and, except for the Ammerman thing three years ago, had pleasant memories of the sanctuary.

“Now,” Tretheway said. “Where do you suppose that light is coming from?”

“If at all,” Jake answered skeptically.

Their eyes swept the horizon, first to the left, past nearby Cockpit Island and Sassafras Point to University Landing and Willow Woods in the distance. Then, with the visual aid of the old pilings, black spots against the ice, they followed the Desjardin Canal to Rat Island, Bull's Point
and Hickory Island.

“What's that?” Jake said.

“Where?”

“Hickory Island.”

“Which one's that?”

Jake pointed straight across the marsh. Tretheway strained his eyes in the direction of Jake's finger.

“I can't see anything.”

They both stared at the island. From where they stood, it appeared to be no more than a grey smudge, slightly darker and closer to them than the opposite shore. Jake shivered in the raw cold. The sky was clear for the moment, the moon full and the wind fitful.

“I saw something,” Jake said.

“What was it?”

“There it is again!”

“I see it.”

It disappeared. For a second, maybe two, they'd seen a light, an illumination of some sort, a flume of fire from Hickory Island, then a return to darkness.

“What was it?” Jake asked after a moment.

Tretheway shook his head. The wind picked up noticeably and blew clouds across the bright face of the moon. Behind them, the city still lay in enforced darkness.

And then the light appeared again, this time a brighter, dancing flame that lasted a full minute. Then a wild flaring, a dimming, then gone again.

“Let's go,” Tretheway said.

“Right.” Jake started back for the car.

“Where're you going?” Tretheway asked.

“You said…”

“This way.” Tretheway started unsteadily down the embankment.

“Shouldn't we phone, or something?”

“No time.”

Jake followed his boss to the marsh's edge.

Tretheway tested the ice with his boot. “Should be all right,” he said.

“Been close to zero all week,” Jake said.

Tretheway took three or four, then five tentative, sliding steps away from shore.

“How is it?” Jake asked.

“C'mon.” Tretheway started carefully toward the island that was a good quarter mile away. Jake slithered after. The moon reappeared and lit the shimmering silver of the smooth ice that was not blanketed by snow. Walking through the snowy parts was relatively easy. It was the clear portions that gave them trouble. About halfway there on a section of glare ice, Tretheway took off. A gust of wind caught his bulk and he sped, without moving his feet, in the direction of the island. When he stretched out his arms instinctively for balance, his jumbo-sized greatcoat became a sail and his speed increased.

“Wait for me!” Jake shouted.

Tretheway sailed before the wind, across the marsh as gracefully and efficiently as the Durham boats had done one hundred years before him. He had to fall. When Jake caught up to him, Tretheway was sitting heavily in the slight depression he had made in the ice.

“Okay, Boss?” Jake asked.

“Get me up.”

With much grunting and cursing, but mainly with Jake's help, Tretheway regained his feet.

“Can you see anything now?” Tretheway winced.

“I don't think so,” Jake said. “Hard to tell. Shadows. Wind blowing the snow around. Did you hear anything?”

Tretheway seemed surprised. “When?”

“Before,” Jake said. “When you were making your move.” Jake sensed Tretheway's disapproving look.

“What'd you hear?”

“I don't know,” Jake said. “Maybe a voice.”

“Probably the wind.”

“Probably.”

The rest of the way was snow-covered and easier footing. At the island's edge they slowed cautiously to a stop.

Hickory Island was sixty feet long and about half as wide. Only a few spindly trees misshapen by decades of winds blowing across the open water and bunches of scraggly bushes existed on the hard-packed mound of earth. At no point was its elevation higher than ten feet. Some irregularly shaped rocks made an unnatural pile in the clearing at the island's centre.

“Keep your eyes open.” Tretheway took out his flashlight and started up the easy slope towards the rocks. Jake followed. Tretheway stopped suddenly and held Jake back with his outstretched arm.

“Look.” Tretheway pointed his light on the ground.

“Someone's made marks in the snow,” Jake said.

“And then tried to cover it up.” Tretheway followed the half-obliterated line with his flashlight as best he could. It traced a large uneven shape around the pile of rocks.

“A circle?” Jake asked.

Tretheway nodded. “There's more.” The light picked out several snow-scuffed areas. “Can you make anything out?”

“Numbers. One, six. Is that a nine?”

Tretheway brought the light closer. “I think so. And a two.”

“What's that mean?”

“Don't know.” Could be anything from a secret code to a date.”

“Like 1692?”

Tretheway nodded. “Anything else?”

“Not really, “Jake answered. “Just a minute. That could be a triangle.”

“More like a star. Looks like they were in a hurry.”

“Probably heard us coming.” Jake thought about whoever had been on the island first hearing a shout, then looking up to see a 280-pound bat-like creature sailing towards them. “Or saw us.” Jake smiled.

Tretheway didn't reply. He moved toward the centre of the clearing where there was enough moonlight to show that the pile of rocks had been laid to protect a wood fire.

“There's your light,” Tretheway said. “Or what's left of it.” Jake bent over the still softly glowing embers. “What's that smell?”

Tretheway sniffed. “Sulphur.”

“Could be from STELFY.” Jake was referring to the Steel Company of Fort York in the adjacent Fort York Harbor which occasionally spewed sulphur fumes into the atmosphere.

“Maybe.” Tretheway shined the flashlight on the smooth rocks at the edge of the dying fire. While Jake watched, he adroitly slipped his free hand under his armpit, squeezed off his glove, and gingerly picked up one of the rocks. “Not too hot.” He examined it closely, then scraped it with his fingernail. “Wax.”

“What?” Jake asked.

“Wax,” Tretheway repeated. “There's your big flare-up. The wax caught fire. Must've spilled out of this.” He put his glove back on and picked up a blackened metal bowl from the centre of the fire. Tretheway poked the solid contents with his mitt. “More wax.”

All of a sudden, Jake felt uneasy. He looked over his shoulder, then did a complete sweep the other way. The moon disappeared again and the indecisive wind scattered the few remaining embers of the fire. A dog howled. Jake shivered again but this time not from the cold.

“You're saying someone was out here, middle of nowhere. Midnight. Freezing cold. And during a blackout. Cooking wax over an open fire.” Jake paused. “Why?”

Tretheway shook his head.

“And where are they now?” Jake said.

“He, she or they, whoever it was, has to be over there.” Tretheway pointed to the north shore, a scant furlong away.

Jake didn't say anything.

“What's over there?” Tretheway asked.

“A fair-sized hill. There's a path through the woods. Leads to a small parking lot. Then the highway. Follow it to Wellington Square. Or come back around Wellington Square Bay and the marsh to Fort York. To where we are, if you like.”

“We should go over.” Tretheway stared at the yards and yards of smooth ice separating them from the far shore. He could see no one. A conservative estimate of twenty miles an hour entered his head. That would be about the speed he'd reach before he slammed into the hill if the rising wind caught his greatcoat again. “Maybe in the morning.”

“Right,” Jake sighed.

Tretheway turned to go As he ducked under a branch, a shape not made by nature caught his eye. Swinging from a low limb of a stunted black willow was what looked like an untidy piece of string. He snapped on his flashlight.

“What now?” Jake asked.

Tretheway carefully disentangled it from the tree. They examined it under the light: an approximately five-foot length of thick cord with several dirty grey feathers loosely knotted into it at uneven intervals.

“What is it?” Jake asked.

“God knows.” Tretheway stuffed it into his pocket. “We'll look at it later. You'd better bring the bowl.”

“Right.” Jake picked it up. A low growling moan broke the silence, slowly at first, then climbed quickly to a loud, high-pitched steady scream.

Jake dropped the bowl. “What the hell's that?”

“Easy,” Tretheway said. “It's the all clear. Let's go home.”

A
lthough the war was far from over, there was a hint of optimism in the air. The Russians were demanding the surrender of the encircled 6th German Army at Stalingrad; Rommel's forces were retreating into Libya; RAF Bomber command had carried out devastating raids on German-held cities and, in the Pacific, US Marines were well into their retaking of Guadalcanal. All this, coupled with the thousands of miles Fort York was from the actual fighting, lent less urgency to the ARP meeting on the following Saturday.