The Suicide Murders (15 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

I headed directly from the highway to my parent’s condominium. It was pushing seven when I walked into the tangerine grotto that was the family living-room. There was no sign of anyone on this floor. In the kitchen, the light was burning, but I couldn’t see any sign of activity in the oven. It was Friday night, but I didn’t recognize any of the signs. I followed the noise of the television down into the family room.

“Oh, you did come?” asked my mother.

“Did I say I wasn’t coming?” I looked at my father for judgment, but he was too clever to get involved. He kept watching the last dregs of local news.

“Well, in that case,” said my mother, as though my arrival had made alternate plans necessary. “I’d better put some meat in the oven and peel some potatoes. I haven’t even lit the candles yet. Benny, you didn’t even phone.”

I rolled my eyes heavenward in my usual helpless way, and followed Ma upstairs. She preceded me into the kitchen. By the time I arrived on the scene she was pulling out slabs of paper-wrapped frozen meat and dropping them on the floor like bricks. It was like a bowling alley, the racket. She found the brick she wanted and flung it un-wrapped into a pot with a resounding clang, added a can of tomato juice, paprika, an onion, and put the lid on. “There,” she said as she slammed the oven door, “that will be done in two hours. I’ll put the potatoes around it in an hour.”

She’d placed two brass candlesticks in the middle of the tablecloth in the dining room, inserting stubby white candles and lit them with her lighter. Then she covered her face with her hands and mumbled some words under her breath.

“Ma,” I asked, “what is it you say?”

“You’ve been asking me that question since you could talk. How many times do I have to answer you?”

“Tell me again.”

“It’s a blessing.” She was back in the kitchen, collecting knives and forks and spoons from the dishwasher.

“I know it’s a blessing. Tell me the words.”

“Why do you want to know? You want the job?”

“I’m just asking.” I took the plates she handed me and walked around the table putting one at each place. I got out some glasses.

“Not those,” Ma said. “Use the ones from the china cabinet. I thought we’d have some wine.”

“Don’t change the subject. What are the words you say with your eyes covered?”

“I say, Benny, what my mother taught me to say before you were born. That’s what I say.”

“And the words she taught you were? Tell me.”

“Why do you want to know? You got a customer for the information? Benny, stop nagging me. Here, put the salt and pepper on the table. And when you’ve done that, open this jar of pickles. Put it under the hot water if you have to.”

I gave up. Before I could retreat, she thrust a bottle of wine and corkscrew into my hands.

“Before you go, open this. Your father will kill me if it hasn’t breathed.”

I went downstairs to see my father again. I leaned over and kissed the top of his head. He’d been in the sauna. I don’t know what it is about a sauna. I sometimes think it’s a redwood time machine. You enter at two in the afternoon, you leave half an hour later and it’s five-thirty. I don’t blame Pa for spending his time there. It keeps him away from the card table. He looked up at me, put his head to one side and said, “So, you went to see Melvyn, like you promised?” He’d seen Melvyn who’d told him that I had not been in to see him about getting work searching titles. This was Pa’s way of saying, “So you didn’t go to see Melvyn.” He had a way of saying everything so that it didn’t matter whether the sentence was positive or negative, it still meant the same thing.

“No, Pa. I’ve been busy. You don’t believe me, but I’ve been having a very good week. Here.” I took an aluminum cylinder from my pocket. “Here’s a cigar I bought for you in Toronto.”

“What were you doing in Toronto?” He was actually looking at me. The TV was blaring away unnoticed for a second.

“Just business. But I thought you might like the cigar.”

“If I’d known you were going, I would have had you pick up a box of them for me. I’ve got an account at Shopsy’s.”

Then there was dinner. It was always like seeing a scene from an old favourite movie. Conversation drifted back to Melvyn, reports about the Bar Mitzvah the week before, and certain hints were dropped to let me be reminded that they were known as the Coopermans whose son lived in a hotel, while other Coopermans that they might name had just sold their two-hundred-thousanddollar house in order to buy one worth four hundred thousand.

My last sight of my mother on this occasion was a glimpse of her through the kitchen window placing ice cubes on her potted plants. I’d questioned her about this practice before, but, as with most questions I asked her, received no satisfactory answer.

After running the gauntlet of the fast-food chains on Ontario Street, I decided to drop by my office for a half-hour. I climbed the stairs remembering how Frank had looked lying in the doorway last Wednesday night. It was ten years ago.

Frank was sitting in his own waiting room, with a half-finished bottle of rye on the magazine table in front of him.

“How are you, scout?” he asked, brighter than I’d seen him on these occasions. “Pull up a seat and have a jar with me.” I sat down, but placed my hand over the glass he held out.

“How’s the head?”

“Oh, the head’s fine. They put me back together with vinegar and brown paper. I’ve been on the look-out for you all day. Where the deuce have you been? I’ve heard the hard flat feet of the constabulary on the stairs and other heavy treads. You’ve missed a record day.”

“I drove to Toronto this morning, and spent most of my time at the Queen Street Mental Health Centre.”

“Don’t they dress it up nowadays? Have they struck the word asylum from the dictionary?”

“Do your remember anything more about who zapped you the other night?”

“No. I remember not seeing or speaking any evil, but I may have for a moment heard some. Like a whisper. I told you. What brings you back at this hour, man, you should have been tucked in long ago?”

“Just wanted to check the mail, the answering service, that sort of thing. Sooner I get at it,” I said struggling to my feet and making noises of departure, “the sooner I’ll get home. Take care, Frank. Good night.”

“Good night and God bless, old son.”

The mail was disappointing. I’d expected to have to ask Frank to help me push the door open against the pressure of a huge stack, but I was wrong. A circular about a downtown business association, trying to get the few businessmen left in the area to stamp out the dry rot along St. Andrew Street. There were the expected bills from the oil companies, the telephone company, and one I wasn’t expecting—insurance. After Thursday night, I didn’t think anyone would take my money for insurance.

The telephone answering service was more interesting. There was a call from Myrna Yates; one from Bill Ward; and one from Savas. I decided to try them in reverse order, so that I could pass on any new tidbit to Myrna.

It took about three minutes for Savas to grab his phone, and I was just thinking of calling it all off, but there he was with that voice that spoke of too much coffee and too many cigarettes.

“Savas.”

“Cooperman. You phoned?”

“Yeah. What kinda office hours you keep? Why didn’t you tell me you were independently wealthy and could close up shop whenever you felt like it?”

“Sorry. I was in Toronto on business. What have you got?”

“We checked on that piece you tried to deliver to Ward’s place Wednesday night. For the size of it, it has a rare history. The Forensic Centre tells me that it was used in a shooting at the university back in early 1964. Guard got hit in the hip when he interrupted a couple of thieves in a drug warehouse in the basement of the chemistry building. They shot him and then zapped him to keep him quiet.” Then I got a lecture on how lucky we were to get anything on the gun, because usually they only save slugs when there’s been a fatality. A ballistics hotshot narrowed the field down to happenings in and around Grantham. “They were wearing stockings over their faces, and they got clean away.”

“That was in the days when stockings came one at a time. Nowadays, burglars have to work in twos.”

“You should know, Cooperman. How come you haven’t been picked up in the last thirty-six hours? You getting cagey?”

“Nope, I’ve seen the light, Savas. I turned over a new leaf.”

“Any leaf you turn over wouldn’t be worth diddly. Keep honest.”

It was easier getting to Ward. My name suddenly cut through two voices like unsweetened chocolate and there he was. Again I had to explain that I was out of town all day.

“I’ve had a call, Mr. Cooperman, from Miss Tilford. I’ve arranged to meet her tomorrow night.”

“Don’t be crazy, Ward. That’s walking into a trap.”

“I can handle her.”

“Listen to me when I’m talking. You can’t meet her. I spent the day in Toronto, and after a lot of sleuthing, I know who she really is. She’s poison to you, Ward, I’m telling you.”

“Yes, but you see, I now know who she is too. And I’m ready for her. My boys won’t let anything happen to me.”

“I’ll never talk to you again. She’s out for your blood. Even Zekerman was trying to warn you about that.”

“Yes, that’s ironic, when you think about it, isn’t it. Goodbye, Cooperman.”

Myrna Yates answered the phone herself. She wanted to see me. She sounded irritated, so I promised to drive right over. I’d been hoping for an early night, my eyes were tired from the long drive and my stomach was already beginning to protest again the assault of my mother’s dinner. I took a couple of stomach tablets. I parked the car on the street outside the house. Funny, the smell of the papermills up in Papertown was just as strong here on Mortgage Hill. My steps echoed against the house as I came up the walk.

She answered the door herself. The butler was always out in that place, or maybe it just looked like they should have a butler to look after things. She took my coat and led me into the living room. She was wearing a navy blue linen skirt with a green shirt. Her sandals had raised heels and left a track in the broadloom as I followed her. We sat in a corner of the big room, with a table at knee-level between us. I searched her face for some answer to the irritation in her voice, but couldn’t find any.

“May I get you something to drink, Mr. Cooperman?” She was up again and on her way to a honey-coloured pine cabinet which hid every kind of drink in the catalogue.

“A gin and tonic, light on the gin, please. In fact, you can leave it out. I’m having stomach problems.”

“You probably could use a home-cooked meal.”

“Thanks,” I said. She handed me a tall glass and carried another back to her seat on the edge of a chintz-covered sofa.

“Mr. Cooperman, have you been to see Bill Ward?” She looked at me over her drink, but she wasn’t playing games.

“I saw him last night at his golf club. Why?”

“I got the strangest call from him an hour ago. He was asking me whether I’d ever heard of that Dr. Zekerman who was killed. He wondered whether he’d tried to get in touch with me. Of course I told him that I’d only just learned that Chester had been seeing him. He was, what do you say, pumping me for information. I didn’t like it. May I ask you what happened last night?”

“As long as you’re paying my bills.” I told her about Ward’s subtle way of arranging the meeting. “Zekerman was blackmailing Ward and your husband about some events that reached back to their university days. Zekerman was a nasty piece of work, Mrs. Yates. He also knew about you and Mr. Ward. He had a picture in a Swiss newspaper. I’ve got it now.”

“I see.” She could have looked startled, she could have said thanks, but she didn’t. “Do you know why he is acting this way? It isn’t like him.”

“I wonder if he isn’t getting desperate. Would you say that he’s been acting strangely, before today? Has he been more attentive, perhaps more ardent?”

“We’re very close, as you know. And since the funeral, I … Well I don’t know what I would have done without him. He handled everything.”

“Yes, I remember. He said I was harassing you.”

“Yes, well …”

“Speaking of harassment: tell me about why Liz Til-ford left your husband’s office. You had something to do with that, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean. What has that to do with anything?”

“Did you ask Chester, I mean your husband, to get rid of her?”

“Mr. Cooperman, if you mean to …”

“Please, Mrs. Yates, this is more important than you know. I suspect that you didn’t enjoy seeing your successor every time you visited the office. I’d probably have done the same thing.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I did speak to Chester about her.”

“And?”

“And Chester said he’d speak to her. He told me that they’d had a good talk and that he’d made her understand he wanted her to start looking for a new job. He said that she took it very well, and said she would begin hunting. But she didn’t come back after that day. She didn’t show her face in the office ever again.”

“Did Chester, I’m sorry, did Mr. Yates guess why you were concerned?”

“No. I just told him that I didn’t think she dressed suitably and that she seemed to waste a good deal of time on three-hour lunches.”

“Did you often take such a personal interest?” She shook her head, as she tamped down a cigarette on the lid of the silver cigarette box on the table. It was a nice gesture, very feminine and irritable at the same time. “Then Chester knew you didn’t approve of Ward parading his after-hours business under your nose.” I lit the cigarette and she looked at me closely through the smoke as she answered.

“Chester knew that I disliked Bill’s behaviour with women. He lacked discretion.”

“But he was discreet about you; no one knew about the Bellevue Terrace place.”

“He had his moments, Mr. Cooperman.” She wasn’t surprised that I knew about Bellevue Terrace. After Switzerland, their affair had continued here in Grantham. He probably ended it when the good doctor began to show an interest.

I heard a muffled slam coming from the front of the house. It was followed by footsteps on the carpet, very quiet footsteps. When I looked up at the double doorway leading into the front room, I saw Bill Ward standing there removing his trenchcoat.