Keeper of the Flame Read online

  “Aren’t you just the busybody.”

  “You sound fresh yourself for a guy who took a shot to his bullet-resistant vest.”

  “Tomorrow my shoulder’s gonna be one big bruise.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  “Luckier for your pal Lex. He could have been looking at life.”

  “You notice something, Wally?” I said. “I haven’t identified the killer for you yet.”

  “It was my next question,” Wally said. “Who is he?”

  “The adorable Squeaky Fallis.”

  “You’re talking about one of the guys from the Heaven’s Philosophers bunch of low-lifes? He killed the Reverend?”

  “So he says.”

  “And you’ve got him at whatever address you and Lex are at?”

  “Squeaky’s all tied up.”

  Wally paused again, maybe wondering if I was making a wisecrack. Wally gave a pass on whatever rejoinder he had in mind.

  “Tell me the street and number of your location, Crang,” Wally said. He had turned all business.

  I told him the address on Playter. I waited while he wrote it down. Then he said he and his people would be over in no more than ten minutes. Just to make sure I understood what was ahead, Wally told me he’d be asking a lot of questions. Most of the questions would be for me.

  “Something to keep in mind, Crang,” Wally said on the phone.

  “What?”

  “You shouldn’t plan on getting to bed any time before sun-up tomorrow morning.”

  Wally laughed, and clicked off the phone.

  I sat down on the sofa to wait for the police. Squeaky snored on, not knowing the surprise that was in store for him.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  It was raining softly when I woke up. The clock on the bedside table read 12:14. That was p.m. It was the beginning of the afternoon. I’d spent all the previous night over on Playter getting debriefed by Wally. When I wasn’t in the debriefing, I was waiting. Cops were big on making people wait. Maybe it was necessary, and maybe it wasn’t. Cops seemed to think waiting was a natural part of the process.

  The way it went in the Playter sessions was typical police stuff. Wally would take me part way into my story. Then he’d say, “Hang on, Crang.” He’d go into another room and confer with the Forensics guys or with his boss at Homicide or with a cop he’d sent on an errand. Then he’d come back to me. “Okay, Crang,” Wally would say, “from the top once more. The guy you call Lex slipped out of the house after he shot me. At that point, where did you go and what did you do?” It was tedious, and then, finally, it was done, and just as Wally predicted, I arrived home at about the time the sun was coming up.

  I rolled out of bed, pulled on jeans and a light blue shirt, and went downstairs. I drank a glass of orange juice and ate a toasted raisin bun followed by a bowl of Bran Buds with a banana sliced into it. All my breakfast usuals. But I was still hungry. I poached two eggs and ate them on toast. The eggs and toast got me closer to feeling well fed. I made enough coffee for three cups.

  I felt good, even rested. I’d survived. I’d delivered the goods for my client in particular and justice in general. All was upbeat in my life — except for something tiny that insisted on niggling at the back of my mind. It wasn’t major, just annoying. The irritation grew out of my connection to the Reverend’s death. He died when Squeaky Fallis flew into a temper tantrum and whacked the Reverend with the briefcase. There was no doubt about those events. It was settled fact that Squeaky killed the Reverend.

  But the source of Squeaky’s fury was what was at the base of my problem, minute as it was. The circumstances that turned Squeaky into a raging fool began with the missing nine pages of Flame’s song lyrics. The pages were supposed to be in the Reverend’s desk drawer, but when the Reverend told Squeaky they were no longer where they were supposed to be, Squeaky went nuts and briefcased the Reverend. And where exactly were the pages at that moment when the Reverend revealed the bad news to Squeaky? They were in a file in my office. I’d lifted them from the Reverend’s desk drawer a few days earlier.

  My question to myself seemed to be this: did the presence of the sheets in my office drawer bring any responsibility for the Reverend’s death home to me?

  Rationally, I told myself, the answer to the question was all in the negative. I had been carrying out an assignment from my client, the Flame Group, when I retrieved the stolen documents from the Reverend. It didn’t matter that the person who had done the stealing in the first place was Roger Carnale, who happened to be the executive director of my client. The documents still retained their stolen status until I completed the rescue operation.

  I poured my second cup of coffee, and sat in the dining room watching the rain fall soundlessly on our back garden. It was a fine moment in my small world, apart from the one small irritation. Maybe, to make it go away, what I needed was some psychological reinforcing for my view that the damn niggle had no basis for its existence.

  The doorbell rang. Who’d drop by at this time of day? Had to be Jehovah’s Witnesses. I opened the front door. It wasn’t Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was Wally Crawford.

  “When a cop comes calling on a guy,” I said, “it usually means the guy’s in trouble.”

  “All I know is you’ve been letting my calls go to message all morning.”

  “And you’ve got a major need to talk to me?”

  “Preferably not out here in the rain.”

  I led Wally back to the dining room, and asked if he’d like some coffee.

  “You got cream to go with it?” Wally said.

  “I got milk,” I said. “But why do you want to ruin the taste of a good cup of coffee?”

  Wally insisted on the milk in his coffee, and when he got settled, he made a little speech.

  “I’m on my way home to bed, Crang,” he said. “But before I do that, I want to thank you for how you handled the Squeaky Fallis thing. That was nice work. A little crazy, but still the right result.”

  “You came here to tell me that?” I said.

  “Sometimes cops like to reach out to helpful members of the public.”

  “That’s cool, Wally.”

  “You’re welcome, Crang,” Wally said. “Coffee’s not bad either.”

  “What about the Crown’s office? They made up their minds what they’re charging Squeaky with?”

  “They don’t figure they can prove intent. With all the evidence they got, there’s nothing that shows Squeaky intended to kill the Reverend.”

  “It’s going to be murder two?”

  “Second degree, yeah.”

  “Squeaky got a lawyer yet, have you heard?”

  “Not that I know of, but your sidekick from last night, Lex, he’s got Pete Guelph acting for him.”

  “Pete? Man, he’s good. What’s the Crown charged Lex with?”

  “Careless use of a firearm, which is as light as we could go for Lex.”

  “On the unofficial condition that he testifies against Squeaky?”

  “Naturally,” Wally said, wearing a small smile.

  I smiled back.

  Wally said, “I got one more thing you’ll be interested in, Crang.”

  “It’s all interesting, Wally.”

  “I’ve just been to Archie Brewster’s lab.”

  “There’s a breakthrough,” I said. “As long as I can remember, Archie’s only served your sworn enemy, the defence bar.”

  “It made no sense to ignore him on this case, not when he’d already done all the work on the briefcase.”

  “So you took him what? A set of Squeaky’s fingerprints?”

  Wally pointed at me to indicate I was right with my guess.

  “Archie did a computer run with all the prints,” Wally said. “His conclusion — there was definitely a set of Squeaky’s prints on the briefca
se’s handle.”

  “Another nail in the case against our man Squeaky Fallis.”

  Wally gave me a thumbs up.

  It was easy to see that the energy was draining out of Wally. He must have been up for thirty-six hours straight. He had deep purple lines under both eyes, and his skin was going a little waxy. After a few more minutes at my place, Wally ended the small talk and left for his home.

  As soon as Wally was out the door, I put on my black San Antonio Spurs windbreaker with Manu Ginóbli’s name on the back. I walked up the street to my Mercedes, and drove over to Yonge Street. I went north on Yonge until I got to Crescent Road, turned east and followed Crescent’s snakey curves into deepest Rosedale, past the handsome houses and the beautiful gardens on my way to Annie’s favourite grocery store, Summerhill Market. I bought a Summerhill frozen shepherd’s pie, a couple of heirloom tomatoes, a plastic container of triple-washed arugula, a bunch of green onions, and for dessert a pint of Saugeen County yoghurt and a package of frozen wild Canadian blueberries. Everything qualified as what Annie called comfort food.

  At home, I went out to the kitchen and did the prep for dinner. By the time I finished, the table was set, a bottle of Annie’s favourite Côtes du Rhône had been opened, and two of her antique dessert glasses had been filled with yoghurt, sprinkled with blueberries and a shot of lemon juice, and were chilling in the fridge.

  After that, I made a martini, and went out on the front porch to sit on the steps and watch for Annie’s airport limo. I wondered about the niggle over the Reverend’s death? Was it still lurking in the back of my mind? It was. Would I tell Annie about the niggle? Of course I would. But I needed to pick my spot. There was no sense in springing the niggle on her before she recovered from the promotion tour. I’d wait for her to settle into life back here at home. Then I’d get down to the irritating piece of business.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  I was still sitting on the porch steps with my martini mulling over the Reverend’s death when I looked up, and there was Annie stepping from the limo. She had on neither of the two outfits she bought for the book tour. Instead, she looked like the familiar Annie in casual clothes: jeans, a dark blue blouse, and a straw-coloured jacket. Plus a smile as wide as all outdoors.

  We hugged, and kept on hugging until the limo driver cleared his throat. He’d carried Annie’s two bags up to the porch. I reached into my pants pockets for seventy bucks.

  “No way, sweetie,” Annie said, opening her handbag. “Columbia’s paying expenses all the way.”

  “They’ve changed their former skinflint ways?”

  “Damn straight,” Annie said, tipping the limo guy generously. “They’ve already got orders for more Edward Everett books from book stores, the chains, Amazon. My book’s actually selling, Crang.”

  “The New York Times best-seller people know about this?”

  “It’s all because of the Charlie Rose–type attention. Going on his show, on Ellen Degeneres, the sales are a response to all that. They won’t last.”

  “You scored a hit with Ellen?”

  “We took turns breaking one another up. This was live on television doing the skit, me being Edward Everett and her doing the hotel manager. She’d crack up at me when she was supposed to be in character, and I’d do the same with her.”

  “Like Harvey Korman and Carol Burnett on her show in the old days?”

  “Exactly like that. Ellen’s producer told me it was great TV. I’ll play the discs for you later.”

  In the dining room, Annie made wow sounds when she saw the garden in all its green beauty. I handed her a glass of Côtes du Rhône, and built another martini for myself.

  “My god, Crang,” Annie said, looking at the garden and then back inside to the meal I was getting ready, “I should leave home more often. Comfort food and great wine when I come back.”

  “There’s something wrong with that equation,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Annie said. “The thing about leaving home. If we could just think of a way to omit that part.”

  Annie sat down, and talked about Flame and Jerome.

  “Jerome’s now associate executive producer on the movie. Gives him a chance to put his ideas in action. The Hollywood people are apparently pretty impressed with the arrangement. Jerome’s happy as a clam.”

  “He still out in L.A.?”

  Annie nodded. “Flame’s not going to tour again until after they shoot the movie this winter. Which clears Jerome strictly for movie stuff.”

  I put the shepherd’s pie in the oven, and turned it up to 350 degrees.

  Annie talked happily and at length about the movie, its filming schedule, its casting, its chances for box office impact.

  When she slowed down, I poured her another glass of wine, and asked about Flame and his current whereabouts.

  “He’s staying out west too. But he’s going to fly up here on the weekend. He told me to tell you he wants to have a little chat with your good self. He says he owes you one. There’s something in there about you getting his mother a new job with the Flame Group. What’s that all about?”

  “It’s about the end of the case,” I said. “It’s about nailing the guy who killed the Reverend.”

  “Okay, sweetie,” Annie said, “let’s have the rest of what happened.”

  I picked up the story where Annie’s knowledge of events ended. She knew all about pretty much everything leading up to the details of the previous night’s vigorous action. That was where I started, with the gathering at Carnale’s house and continuing all the way to the tussle around the pool table at Squeaky’s place. I left out nothing, only pausing in the narrative to serve the shepherd’s pie, the tomatoes, and the salad.

  “Bless you, Summerhill,” Annie said. “Hmmm.”

  I talked while we ate, covering the part where Lex and I subdued Squeaky just after Squeaky confessed to killing the Reverend into my concealed tape recorder. I kept going right up to Wally’s arrival with the other cops at the house on Playter. Then I stopped talking.

  The finale brought silence to the dining room.

  I helped myself to a half glass of Annie’s Côtes du Rhône, and raised it to a small toast. I wasn’t sure which person or event I was celebrating.

  “What is it I’m missing?” Annie said. She was sitting very still in her chair, staring intently at me.

  “Squeaky’s in the clink,” I said. “There’s not much more to miss.”

  “You had a little hesitation in your voice, just before you said the policeman came over to the place where the bad guy was tied up with his own neckties.”

  “I did?”

  “What are you not telling me?”

  I got up, slid another bottle of Côtes du Rhône out of the wine cabinet, uncorked it, and poured some wine into Annie’s glass and some into mine. Then I told Annie about the niggle on my mind, what it was and how it got there. Again, Annie hardly moved when I did my explaining. She didn’t touch her wine glass. She just listened until I finished. It didn’t take long.

  Annie picked up her wine glass, and had a drink that was much longer than a sip.

  “Taking all the pieces of chicanery into consideration,” she said, “the thefts and the retrieval, the blowup in the Reverend’s office, all of that, you’re feeling a tad guilty and don’t think you should be?”

  “That would nicely sum up the conundrum.”

  “Then what applies here is the Law of Unintended Con-sequences.”

  “That’s one of those laws — have I got this right? — it’s really nobody’s law, not a real law, more bogus along the lines of Murphy’s Law?”

  “Which says roughly, Murphy’s Law does, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy’s Law has been attributed to a bunch of different people, a couple of them actually named Murphy. But more generally Murphy’s Law expresses a belief that many
people accept, and they feel better about it when it’s wrapped up in something called a law.”

  “But it’s not really a law?”

  “Right.”

  “The Law of Unintended Consequences is of a similar brand of home truth?”

  “Economists have used this one forever as somewhat of a real deal,” Annie said. “But to everybody else, it’s a convenience — the same way as Murphy’s Law.”

  “Not that I remember what it says. Maybe I never knew.”

  “The Law of Unintended Consequences, it’s a kind of adage, an idiomatic warning. It tells people they shouldn’t imagine they can control the world around them.”

  I thought about that for a moment.

  “What you mean in the case at hand.” I said, “is that I shouldn’t suppose that any action I took, as I did for instance in liberating the lyric sheets from the Reverend’s drawer, would prevent the world from unfolding in ways it was supposed to?”

  “Your own version of the world’s unfolding, if you could control it, wouldn’t include a homicidal villain murdering a man you didn’t think was particularly bad-hearted.”

  “Right. I didn’t suppose Squeaky Fallis would create such havoc in a way that was so immediate to my own actions.”

  “And yet now, you with your talk of niggles, you’re reacting as if you should have greater power over the unintended consequences.”

  “So, what then? I must be guilty of something?”

  “Hubris, sweetie, nothing less than hubris. Or nothing more either.”

  “Excessive pride, well, isn’t that the damnedest thing,” I said. I was beginning to feel a little giddy, which was a big improvement over the niggles of unnecessary guilt.

  I got up, walked around the table to Annie’s side, leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

  “That’s what I’ve been missing,” Annie said after a few moments.

  I went up to the kitchen, and brought down the glasses with the yoghurt, frozen blueberries, and squirts of lemon.