Murder on the Thirteenth (7 page)

“To the centre again!”

Some circles were more belligerent than others. They physically bumped their birdie. For the third year in a row, Mrs. Zulp was actually knocked off her feet. This did not happen to Tretheway.

“Once again!”

One group had zealously grabbed poor Luke as their birdie. With a wild smile he danced out of time to the music as they bumped and pushed him vigorously around the circle.

“For the last time!”

The last rush to the centre was the most spirited. Everyone yelped or squealed their loudest. The band's last crushing chord of trumpets, trombone, drum roll, cymbal crash and squeezed accordion signalled the climax. All arms rose in a final farewell to the birdie, the cage, and the Paul Jones for another year. Tretheway was lucky to hear Mary Dearlove say something over the racket.

He saw her lips move.

“What?” He bent over. She spoke in his ear.

“Midnight. Thirteenth floor.”

Before Tretheway could answer, all came down with a final cheer. They all applauded themselves and the orchestra. The circles began to break up. Before Tretheway could get to Mary Dearlove, she disappeared once more into the milling crowd.

The next fifteen minutes were spent in recuperation. King Chauncey and his Knights took a well-earned rest. The lights spinning and sparkling over the crowd, became brighter. Most of the dancers returned to their own tables to re-fuel. Some visited other tables while others retired to the rest rooms for repairs,

“See Mrs. Zulp fell again.” Garth Dingle sat beside Tretheway.

Tretheway smiled. He sipped Scotch from an oversize tumbler filled with ice.

“Third year in a row,” Jake said.

“Do you suppose she's all right?” Addie seemed concerned.

“I think so,” Beezulsaid. “Zoë and Cynthia went to the ladies' room with her.

“She's okay, Addie,” Tretheway reassured his sister.

“Anyway,” Garth nodded at Zulp, “the Chiefs not worrying about it.”

They all looked across the table. Chief Zulp sat quietly, his eyes glazed, both his gloved hands clutching a half empty glass of gin.

“Doesn't seem too concerned,” Beezul observed.

“Even peaceful,” Tretheway said.

“Too friendly with John Barleycorn,” Garth giggled.

“Also the third year in a row,” Jake said.

Even Addie had to smile. She looked around suddenly.

“Where's Mary Dearlove?”

“What's the time?” Tretheway said abruptly.

“Pardon?”

“The time. Addie.” He pointed to her gold pendant watch.

“It's about twenty minutes before midnight. I think.” She squinted at the antique numerals. “Maybe fifteen. I love this old watch but it's not reliable.”

“Looks nice, Addie,” Jake said.

“Let's go, Jake,” Tretheway said.

“Eh?”

“Where are you going?” Addie asked.

“We have a little business,” Tretheway stood up.

“We do?” Jake said.

Tretheway glared at Jake. Jake stood up. He smoothed the front of his uniform and adjusted his party hat.

Beezul assumed it was ARP business. “Can I help?” he asked.

Tretheway shook his head. “We won't be long. He started across the floor.

“Now don't miss the balloons.” Addie looked at Jake. “That's at midnight.”

Jake shrugged and hurried after his boss.

“I'll save you a red one,” Garth shouted after them.

Jake caught up to Tretheway. “Where are we going?”

“Elevator.”

As they jostled their way through the crowd, Tretheway told him what Mary Dearlove had told him, including her planned midnight rendezvous.

“Doesn't sound too ominous,” Jake said.

“Maybe not,” Tretheway said. “I just have a funny feeling about it.”

Jake didn't comment further. He remembered that most of Tretheway's funny feelings were usually more than feelings and never humorous.

The elevator already held several hotel guests on their way to their rooms. The last one got off at the eighth floor.

“Floors, please,” the elevator operator droned indifferently. She pushed the lever over to start the elevator upwards.

“Thirteen,” Tretheway said.

“No thirteen.”

“But I'm sure…”

The operator pointed to the numbers above the door
without speaking. Tretheway and Jake craned their necks and watched the indicator light pass through the circled numbers. When the elevator stopped, it was at twelve. The next number was fourteen.

“Maybe we should go to fourteen,” Tretheway suggested.

“It's closed.” She opened the door.

“Closed?”

“Roof Garden.” A signal buzzed in the elevator. “I gotta go.”

“Just a moment.” Tretheway drew himself up to his full height and stared down at the operator. “Perhaps you should take a few minutes of your time to assist the Boys in Blue,” he said loudly.

“Yes, sir.” The bored look disappeared from her face.

“Now,” Tretheway asked, “why no thirteen?”

“Tradition,” she said. “No hotel has a thirteenth floor. Bad luck.”

“Ah.” Tretheway seemed satisfied. “But if there were a thirteenth floor, it would be…?” he pointed skyward.

She nodded.

“The Roof Garden?”

She nodded again.

“And it's closed?”

“Yes, sir. Only open in the summer. You know, dancing under the stars.”

“I've been there with Addie,” Jake said.

“Do you know Mrs. Dearlove?” Tretheway persisted.

“The newspaper lady?”

Tretheway nodded.

“Yes, I do. Brought her up here about five minutes ago.”

“Just her? Nobody else?”

She nodded. “That's right.”

Tretheway stepped out of the elevator. Jake followed. Tretheway stopped. “Where are the stairs?”

The operator leaned out the elevator. “Can't miss ‘em.”
She pointed down the hall. “But, like I say, they're all locked up.”

Tretheway grunted. The buzzer sounded again. She looked at Tretheway.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Thanks for your trouble.”

“Anytime.” She smiled. “Anything for the Boys in Blue.”

Tretheway and Jake watched the lighted elevator disappear downwards. They turned and walked briskly past the second set of dark elevator doors. Tretheway yanked open the heavy fire door and vaulted up the stairs, two at a time. Jake stayed close behind. Tretheway tried the upper door.

“Damn! Locked!”

“Just like she said.”

“I know Mary Dearlove's out there,” Tretheway said.

“How'd she get there?”

“Good question.” Tretheway brushed past Jake and started down the stairs, again two at a time. He stopped abruptly. “How about the key?”

“Probably at the front desk,” Jake said. “Downstairs.”

“Logical. But we don't have time.”

Tretheway strode back past the elevators toward a main corridor. He looked left and right. “There,” he said. He pointed a finger towards the back of the building. Jake made out a red illuminated “Fire Exit” sign above a window. By the time Jake caught up to his boss, Tretheway had wrenched the paint-stuck window upwards. Cold air flowed into the hall.

“Go see what it's like,” Tretheway said.

“Me?” Groaning, Jake stepped over the snowy sill. His shoes clanged on the strips of metal that formed the fire escape platform just below the window.

“What's it like?”

“Cold.”

“You know what I mean.”

Jake looked up. The outside stairway zigged upwards to
the right for half a storey, then zagged back to roof level.

“It looks okay.”

“Good,” Tretheway said. “Up you go.”

“Aren't you coming?”

“Right behind you.” Tretheway grunted as he scrambled over the sill.

Jake started up the metal stairs. The traffic on the ground looked like dinky toys.

“Don't look down,” Tretheway said.

Just as Jake reached the landing, with Tretheway one step behind him, the first sonorous gong marking the midnight hour reverberated around them. Both men froze in their tracks. From the bell tower of the Fort York city hall a few blocks away, the notes sped through the wintry air of the March evening. Somewhere between the fifth and the sixth stroke they heard a scream, a wail, a banshee howl whipped and distorted by the wind, a screech that seemed to go on forever but that ceased suddenly at the last stroke of the hour. Tretheway and Jake still didn't move. Despite the weather, both were sweating.

“What the hell was that?” Jake said quietly.

“Don't know,” Tretheway answered, just as quietly.

“The wind?”

“Maybe.”

“Sounded like a scream.”

“Probably a siren.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I'll bet that's it.”

“Let's get on with it.” Noticing the cold, they suddenly hurried up the stairs.

At the top, they encountered a small problem. The fire escape had been designed for people going down, not up. They wasted minutes climbing over the ice-and-snow-covered parapet to the roof. Tretheway pushed Jake over a slippery shoal.

“Where the hell are we?” Tretheway brushed dirt and
snow from his uniform. He noticed he had lost two buttons.

“At the back of the building.” Jake pointed. “There's the Roof Garden.”

Tretheway made out the silhouette of a four-sided pavilion with a peaked roof. The shadows cast by the evenly spaced arches cut into the walls, complicated and confused the image.

Tretheway started towards it.

“What's that?” Jake pointed left.

In the midst of the garbage bins, ventilator fans and other functional devices on the roof, was a larger structure about the size of a small hut.

“Must be the stairs.”

“The door that was locked?” Jake said.

Tretheway yanked at the handle. “Still is.” He rubbed dirt from his hands. “Not too elegant as entrance.”

“Must be for the staff.”

“How do the guests come up?”

“Elevators,” Jake answered.

Tretheway looked at the ground. “I wonder who made those footprints.”

Jake looked down. The footprints led away from the door. It was impossible to tell the old from the new because of the snow and the darkness.

“Better check them out,” Tretheway said.

They followed the trail to the pavilion, up the few steps and through one of the arches to the inside. Even though they were out of the wind, it seemed colder. The footprints stopped when the snow did, at the edge of the summertime dance floor.

“There are the elevators.” Jake pointed.

“And the bandstand,” Tretheway said.

Their voices echoed in the hollow interior.

“Looks bigger than I thought.”

“And different than I remember,” Jake looked around.

What he remembered was one balmy summer evening with Addie—music, dancing, a genial crowd, the clink of glasses and pleasant conversation. But now, the interior exuded that disturbed, even forboding, air of mystery that all people places have when they are empty; as though waiting for the next festive event and resenting any intrusion on its privacy. Jake shivered.

“Let's see if we can pick up these footprints,” Tretheway said. “You go that way.”

They split up and began to search the snowy perimeter just outside the walls. It didn't take long.

“Jake!” Tretheway shouted.

Jake's steps echoed as he ran across the dance floor toward his boss's voice. Tretheway stood under one of the arches.

“There.” He pointed down.

There were enough footprints to confuse their direction and number, but they looked fresh. And they led about ten paces to a chest-high wall at the front edge of the hotel roof. On the flat top of the wall, just above the footprints, the fresh snow had been disturbed.

“Gawd!”

“You don't suppose…”

Their comments overlapped. They both ran to the wall and peered over.

“Careful,” Tretheway warned.

A panorama of Fort York mid-winter night life displayed itself before them thirteen stories below. The few swirling snowflakes did not obscure the view. To their left, the foreshortened statue of Canada's first Prime Minister stood on the edge of Gore Park. Tiny car headlights probed the darkness. A street car rumbled by, bell clanging. No pedestrians were in sight.

“Looks quite normal,” Jake said finally.

“Certainly does.”

“You surprised?”

“Would've bet my pension someone, maybe Mary Dear-love …”

Tretheway let the name hang in the cold air. They stepped back form the wall.

“Maybe she wasn't here at all.”

“Then what about the footprints?” Tretheway became agitated. “And the marks on the wall.”

“Workmen?” Jake knew it sounded lame as soon as he said it.

“Damn it, Jake, at midnight?”

“Well, anyway,” Jake tried to direct the conversation into calmer waters, “what do we do now?”

Tretheway glared at Jake. “We could start by taking off that bloody hat.”

Except for a few dicey moments when Tretheway slithered back over the ice parapet to the fire escape, the trip downstairs was uneventful. Neither spoke. Tretheway wished to be alone with his dark thoughts while Jake sulked after putting his carefully folded party hat in his tunic pocket. The elevator operator honoured their silence. Back at the table however, they had to speak.

“Where've you been?” Addie began. “You've missed the balloons. Look at your uniform. It's torn.” She looked at Jake. “You don't look so good either. Where's your hat?”

Jake's mouth opened but Tretheway spoke first. “Now Addie, settle down. It was unavoidable.”

Jake nodded.

“Well, everyone was here gathering balloons,” Addie said.