Barrington Street Blues (32 page)

We did a couple of other Handel numbers; then it was time for Ed Johnson and “Who May Abide.” Johnson got up and was every bit as shaky as Richard, though not for the same reason. I remembered his boozy, croaking vocals of the night before. Would he get through this? He cleared his throat and sang: “But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand, and who shall stand, when He appeareth?” The piece is more than a little threatening, the avenging God burning his way through his kingdom like a purifying flame; Handel wrote in some runs that hammered the point home, and Ed executed them flawlessly, in a magnificent bass voice. He sang like an Old Testament prophet, consumed with righteous fervour. “For He is like a refiner's fire!” When Ed finished, the audience
erupted with applause and even a couple of shouts of “all
right
!” and “amen, brother!” The choirmaster was visibly stunned at Ed's performance; finally, he gave him a nod that was more like a bow.

Our concluding number could not have been more of a contrast. We returned to the Middle Ages with the
Salve Regina
, which has been chanted in Catholic churches for nine hundred years. We pleaded with Mary, our sweetness and our hope, to turn her merciful eyes towards us, the poor banished children of Eve.

We were corralled into the inevitable reception in the church basement, where Father Burke graciously accepted tributes for a marvellous concert. I knew there were things he would rather do than nibble on tiny crustless sandwiches, but he was genial as he chatted with his parishioners and others who had come to see the performance.

“I didn't banjax it for you after all, eh, Father?”

“Sure, you were brilliant, Collins. You all were. It exceeded my expectations. In fact, I'm thinking, we may do it again.”

“Reverend Burke! Excuse me.”

The woman looked familiar. A parent? Yes, I remembered, the mother of Richard Robertson.

“Richard sang beautifully, Mrs. Robertson,” Burke said. “I hope he'll —”

“Yes, yes, he did, but that's not why I'm interrupting you and this gentleman. My question is: what kind of security do you have in place here?”

“Security?”

“Yes, security. That's what I want to know.”

“Ah. Well, I'm not sure of the need for security at a choral concert, Mrs. Robertson. Some day if we branch out and draw sixty thousand head-bangers to a rock concert, perhaps we'll hire an enforcer.”

“I'm sorry you find my concerns amusing, Reverend. I sat there tonight with Mother, who is not well, and we had this person beside us in the pew — jammed in beside us — who made the whole evening unpleasant and distressing for myself and for Mother. She was in fact frightened of the man. You should have seen her arthritic old hands clutching her handbag for fear it might be snatched away from her at any minute. And the smell. It pervaded our nostrils over and above the odour of the incense, which, at the best of times, irritates
my sinuses. Anyway, back to this vagrant. There's no other way to say this. The man smelled of liquor. And of urine. That is not what I expect to endure when I attend a concert in a church, even a downtown Cath — or any other event where my son is performing. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“A homeless person, would he have been?”

“I would certainly say so! And mentally ill, to boot. The way he carried on when he heard one of the songs. It scared us. My husband couldn't be with us. He's out of town on business!”

“What was frightening about the fellow?”

“He was fine, aside from the smell, for most of the concert, but when he heard that man singing his solo, he jolted as if he'd been electrified. He grabbed Mother's sleeve — I thought she was going to have a stroke, right then and there. Then the man muttered and argued and I don't know what all. Voices in his head, no doubt. Just between you and me, Reverend, I would have thought the ten-dollar admission charge would have been a deterrent to people of that sort coming in for the evening. Perhaps you should raise the fee next time if these people are wandering the streets with ten-dollar bills to throw around at will.”

“Well, the fact is, Mrs. Robertson, we don't charge people who we know can't possibly afford —”

“Aha! There you have it, then. Discontinue that practice in future. I say that as a fee-paying parent at this school! Good evening, Reverend Burke. Richard! Time to go!”

“But Mum! Not now, I'm in line for the brownies!”

“Now, I said. Nanny is tired, and I'm getting one of my headaches.” A dejected Richard was marched from the room.

“Dolores!” Burke called to a capable-looking woman hovering over the teapot.

“Yes, Father?”

“Wrap up a couple of those brownies and put them aside for us, would you?”

“I didn't know you had a sweet tooth, Father.”

“I'm thinking of a young child with a sugar deficiency.”

“Really, Father? What a shame.”

“Yes. The brownies should do the trick.”

†

Burke was buying at the Midtown that night. “Ed, when did you get religion?”

“Padre, I don't believe in nuthin'. No God, no soul —”

“And I don't believe there's a bluesman anywhere on the planet who's got no soul,” Burke stated placidly, striking a match to light a cigarette. He smiled at Ed through the sulphurous flame. “Not even one by the name of Johnson.”

“That was another Johnson. I never had a soul to sell, at the crossroads or anywhere else.”

Burke smiled. “If you say so.”

“I have no trouble seeing him as an agent of righteous wrath,” I chimed in, “avenging and burning his way through the damned and leaving no one standing. He certainly put the fear of God into me.”

“Good,” Ed replied. “It may come in handy in court someday, if we end up with a couple of losers pointing the finger at each other.”

“We're not the only ones who were affected by Ed's performance, Monty. You heard the formidable Mrs. Robertson.”

“Robertson?” Ed asked. “Richard's old lady?”

“Yes. A man sitting next to her — one of the less fortunate among God's children — took quite a fright when you did your piece. It was our old friend Vernon,” Burke said to me. “I saw him scurrying out of the pew. Vernon's a homeless fellow,” he told Ed. “I don't know what happened to him, but he walks with a limp.”

“Never heard of him!” Ed stated.

“Well, you're not likely to have
heard
of him, Ed,” I answered. “It's not as if he's one of the minor modern poets. He's a street guy, usually hangs out in Cornwallis Park. Maybe you've seen him there.”

“Any reason the poor benighted creature should be in fear of you, Johnson?” Burke asked. “You don't put the boots to these down-and-outers when you pass them by, do you? Snatch the coins from their hands and tell them to get a job?”

“Are you serious?”

“No.”

“I don't think Johnson's quite
that
miserable, Brennan. And, after
all, old Vern didn't cower in fear at the sight of Ed's cruel, mocking face; it was only when he heard the aria that he got a fright. I'd say it was the message, not the messenger.”

Ed shrugged. “Right. So. Full house. Pretty good take, I would think. Should pay your salary for another few months, Brennan.”

“It should do,” Burke agreed. “All slagging aside, Ed, you were magnificent on ‘Who May Abide.' I hope you realize you're mine now. Leaving the choir is not an option.”

“Thy will be done.”

“Good man.”

†

It was the beginning of summer vacation for the choir school boys, and the Canada Day long weekend for the rest of us. I put all my cases out of my mind and concentrated on the time I had with the kids over the holiday.

But the shootings claimed my attention again on Tuesday morning. I had established links, of a sort, between Dice Campbell and Corey Leaman; between Kenneth Fanshaw and Roman orgies in Dice's building; and also between Fanshaw and Graham Scott. Graham had been on Ken's yacht at least once, and there was also that scene in which Graham's mother confronted Fanshaw at the charity dance. Had there been more between Graham and Ken than admiring the cut of each other's jib? Felicia had as much as said Ken enjoyed male company now and again. She had also dangled before me the tale of Ken facing a possible drugs conviction and paying someone to take the rap. Was that someone Corey Leaman?

That afternoon I was sitting in the Look Ho Ho Restaurant on Bayer's Road, kitty-corner from the
RCMP
headquarters, with Keith Nowlan. Keith was big and blonde and had the look of a football player. He had been a narcotics officer for as long as I had been practising law. The Mountie and I often faced off against each other in court, but we were on friendly terms outside the courthouse.

“Does Tim know you're scoring coffee here?” I asked him.

“What do you think?”

“Right. We'll keep it to ourselves.”

“Appreciate it.”

If word got around that law enforcement was stepping out and having coffee elsewhere, a corporate crisis could ensue at Tim Hortons
HQ
. Company shares would plummet, causing a panic on Bay Street.

“I'm wondering whether you can help me out with a bit of information from the past, Keith. I'm working on the Leaman and Scott murder-suicide, the lawsuit against the Baird Treatment Centre.”

“Right. Not everybody's convinced that was a suicide.”

“That's why I'm checking into the background of my victims. I don't have to tell you there was some drug dealing going on in the past.”

“Oh, yeah. Your guy was quite the operator. It took us a while before we could catch him at it. But we finally nailed him, not for trafficking but possession for the purpose. He did time, not as much as he should have, but that's always the way. From our point of view.”

“So what was the story?”

“The story was weird. We could never get a sighting of the buyer, but we heard it was an otherwise respectable citizen. Rumour had it your guy would score the drugs — cocaine, crack, occasionally heroin — from the usual suspects and then sell it to this most unusual suspect, but we couldn't catch them at it, and it remained a rumour. We also heard that your client, the recently deceased, would charge Mr. Good Citizen premium rates, way above the going street prices. Presumably because the buyer didn't want to take the risk of shopping around. There may have been a whiff of extortion in it too; the buyer was thought to be redistributing it in places where it wouldn't do to be caught with drugs.”

He was using it to bribe street people into performing degrading acts at the Colosseum
. If Leaman knew that, he could indeed have brought an element of blackmail into the negotiations.

“Do you know the name of the respectable citizen who was making the buys?”

“Sources remain tight-lipped on that one.”

“But you know the name.”

“We could never prove it; if we had, he'd have been sharing a cell with your client. But that's old news. As far as we know now, the man
has been doing nothing but good deeds in the past few years. If he ever slips up, though, we'll have him in cuffs.”

I had little doubt that the buyer was Kenneth Fanshaw.

“So how much time did my fellow do?” I asked Keith.

“Three months, first offence. Typical slap on the wrist for a young offender.”

“When was this, do you recall?”

“Five, six years ago maybe.”

“But Corey was an adult by then.”

“Corey?” Nowlan asked.

“Yeah. Corey Leaman.”

“Why are we talking about Leaman?” Nowlan asked again.

“Well, all this drug history. With the Chamber of Commerce man.”

“That was Scott.”

“Scott?” No. No, he couldn't be telling me that Canon Alastair Scott — whom I now pictured in full regalia as a High Anglican priest — was out there on a street corner buying heroin and crack.

“Collins, did I lose you someplace in the conversation here? You asked, and I told you. One of your clients who is now pushing up daisies, Graham Scott, was selling drugs to somebody important, who shall remain nameless until his guilt can be proven, and —”

“Graham Scott!”

“I'm going to call dispatch, Collins. Get you some help.”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The whole time I was thinking of Corey Leaman. He had a drug history too. I had no idea that Graham Scott was the one you were talking about.”

“I'm talking Graham Scott. Smarmy little bastard with his Topsiders and his top-grade blow.”

“All right. So I have two convicted drug dealers lying dead in the parking lot of the Fore-And-Aft.” I drained my coffee cup and put it down. I took out my wallet and pulled out a fiver, signalling to Keith that the coffee was on me. “What put you on to Graham Scott? Was he known to you guys?”

“Not to us. We have the city police to thank for the tip. Fellow over there gave us the name.”

“I wonder if there would be any point in talking to him.”

“Doubt it. He turned in his badge.”

“How come?”

“He's taken up another calling.”

Warren Tulk. “A kinder, gentler calling?”

Nowlan laughed. “Not necessarily.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hey. The guy helped us out. I'm not going to badmouth him now that he belongs to Jesus.”

“Keith, I appreciate it.”

“Sure, Monty. See you around.”

†

It was time to look for someone who could talk to me about Graham Scott, I decided as I drove to my office. Obviously I couldn't ask his parents for a lead. I remembered that he had a sister and two brothers, but any approach to them would be reported to the canon and his wife. Probing into their son behind their backs would not induce in them the tender feelings our firm tried to inspire in its clients. I considered questioning his girlfriend but then thought the better of it; there was no point alerting her at this stage to the possibility that I was looking at someone besides Corey Leaman for the killing. I thought the news reports about Graham's death might provide me with a name or two. After I got back to my desk and made calls on another of my cases, I retrieved the Leaman/Scott file and discovered a few clippings I had glossed over earlier. I came up with two names, a guy and a girl who had spoken about Graham at his funeral. I started making calls until I reached the girl. She agreed to meet me at her place after work. Would I like to speak to her boyfriend at the same time? It turned out he was the other eulogist. Perfect, I told her.