Murder on Location (28 page)

By now I was nearing the top round of the ice bridge vault. Below me, Sayre had been shortening the distance between himself and Furlong. I tried calling again.

“Sayre, don't be a fool! He's not worth it!” Fifty yards ahead of me Jim Sayre looked back over his shoulder.

“I'm going to get that son of a bitch!”

“If you're doing this for Peggy, you're crazy.”

“You just don't know what it's all about. Stay back!” Sayre was looking ahead, trying to find the dark shadow in front of him. The falls were getting to sound like the biggest broken air-conditioner on earth. I couldn't make myself look up at them.

“I talked to Claudia in La Jolla,” I shouted. “I figured it out from there.” He was leaning on a piece of timber, part of a broken log-boom that annually attempts to control the ice from Lake Erie. It looked like it had been through a shredder; one end was rounded like the top of a bullrush. He levelled the gun at Furlong, then changed his mind, starting on again down the sloping roof of ice toward the American side. I climbed, slipped and crouched my way after them. We were all walking on the down-river
edge of the old ice. Suddenly I heard what sounded like a shot over my shoulder. More like a cannon than a revolver.

“What the hell was that?” Sayre called. I looked ahead to see whether it had been Furlong. Sayre saw me and shook his head. “It's not him. This is his gun.” Both of us were puzzled and paused. Then I saw it.

“It's the ice, Sayre. It's breaking up!” To my right a long fault ran parallel to the edge of the ice. If the whole ice bridge wasn't falling apart, at least it was shedding the piece the three of us were crawling over. The gap was widening. Between the two parts, I could see a strip of black water many feet below. The huge piece of ice we were on was very slowly moving away from the main mass. I yelled again: “You crazy old galoot, you'll never stop him. He can't get across. The ice is breaking up. The river will get the two of you.”

I felt like I was standing on a huge slice of meatloaf that was being slowly tilted over out of the pan and onto a plate. I could see the crack getting bigger. I turned and ran back to the break. By now it was too wide to jump. Back in the direction of the ferry landing, the crack was less pronounced. the ice was still locked together. I took a run and leaped across the gap. Below me it felt like the ice was actually pulling apart beneath me, like the seam was being ripped out and I was trying to jump at the point where the material was just letting go. One leg landed safe and dry. The other pulled me down toward the water
reaching up for my galoshes. I had to roll up to the other side.

I lay there, not even feeling the cold, my face resting roughly on the scratchy surface of the ice below my cheek. When I'd caught my breath, I stood up. Sayre had almost caught Furlong, who had come to the end of the disengaging ice cake. They both stood about ten feet above the level of the flotilla of brighter ice floes that told where the water level was. Furlong had got about three-quarters the way to the American shore. Between him and shore ran a curve of looser ice running close to the main mass. He was standing at the edge when Sayre got to him. The older man reached out and pulled Furlong around to face him. Neil punched out awkwardly at Sayre who doubled up. Going down, he grabbed Furlong's knees. Now they were rolling over one another. I couldn't make out who was on top. I couldn't hear anything above the roar of the falls. It was like watching television with the sound turned down; even wrestling looks like ballet. A dependable feeling in the back of my knees told me to get back to the Canadian shore. The ice bridge was deceptive. It looked like it would last a thousand years. It already looked at least a hundred. But it was slipping away whenever you were distracted for a minute.

Furlong was standing over Sayre. I could see that the yellow Anorak was spread out on the ice. That had to be my last look, because I thought I could hear the ice growling a warning. I turned around and ran, skipping and skidding, back to the
Maid of the Mist
dock. The ice
was now further from the shoreline. It meant a jump of about two yards. It wouldn't stand thinking about so I did it at a fast clip. I felt myself falling, then landing flat against the shore-side of the broken-away bridge. I seemed to be sticking on the slanted surface by invisible suction cups. For a moment I was suspended there, holding fast with my face and fingernails. When the slide began, it was like all my contact points were being rejected at once. Down I went into the water of the river. Luckily, there was more ice just under the surface, and the second after I felt that, a hand reached down over the shore and caught my flailing arm.

“Easy does it,” a voice said, and up I came suddenly eye to eye with a rough, weather-worn face with a mariner's cap over grey hair. I squeegeed water from my shoes and trouser cuffs and looked back across the river. It was good to feel solid, if frozen, ground underfoot again. I couldn't make out anything on the ice bridge. Both Furlong and Sayre were on the side sloping away from us. I could see more ice coming over the falls. The rest of the ice was holding fast. Above Goat Island a new noise joined the parade: a helicopter was throbbing and blinking its riding lights out in the dark. For a moment we listened to the noise, then I let myself be led up the steps and into the
Maid of the Mist
office by the man who had grabbed me. It was warm inside, and I saw the makings of coffee before I began to shiver.

TWENTY-FOUR

I remember sitting with Peggy in a waiting-room at Niagara Regional that Sunday trying to get some idea of when they would be finished with Sayre. Dawson Williams turned up for an hour or so, went to get us coffee and replenish our store of cigarettes, but then moved off after wishing us and Jim Sayre the best of luck. He walked awkwardly to the glass doors, embarrassment showing even in the familiar smile. Peggy sat close to me and kept asking questions which led closer and closer to quick-sands I preferred to avoid. I could see she found me maddening, but what could I do? It wasn't my secret.

“I keep coming back to what you said, Benny: Neil killed Miranda and the writer, Hayes, in order to be free of both of them. And it all has something to do with me. But that's where I lose you. I sometimes think I've got mothballs for brains. Tell me again, and I promise it'll be the last time.” She gave a big smile to a policeman who was standing opposite us staring at her. He looked like he was trying to remember whether it was permitted to ask for autographs while in uniform. Peggy killed her smile when she thought I might imagine the mothballs weren't concentrating again.

I explained what had happened just as I had to Chris and Pete back in the Falls on Saturday. She followed me with nods and short exclamations at all the right places until she had the main lines of the plot.

“But why didn't he just divorce Miranda? Surely that would have been simpler?”

“Miranda knew too much about his
borrowing
. He couldn't be sure that during the cut and thrust of a divorce, Miranda wouldn't use her knowledge against him. Besides, she was part of the perfect crime. He needed her ‘suicide' to halt the investigation of Hayes' murder. That's how he saw it, anyway.”

“But why did he choose such a bizarre way to get rid of her? I mean, well, wouldn't pills have done as well?”

“I guess Furlong knew, as most writers do, that a faked suicide by hanging is very rare. The cops wouldn't expect it.”

At that moment I saw Savas cross the corridor from his office. He didn't look our way. A moment later Jim Sayre walked into the room.

“Well, that didn't take as long as I thought,” he said. “I once spent six days in a Mexican jail for drinkin' with some students.” Sayre sounded like his old self, but you had to look at him twice to make sure it was Sayre and not a reasonable facsimile. His face looked caved in under his tan when he got coughing and couldn't stop. He glanced at Peggy, then shot me a worried look. I shook my head, and tried out a grin, like I was smiling with a learner's permit. We'd got up and were now standing
around. I felt a little like I did the time I picked up my grandfather at the hospital and took him home. He had that look of sickness about him, like he wouldn't be able to stand up much longer. Peggy saw that and said she'd go to get the car. When she'd gone, Jim followed her with his eyes, which were beginning to shine in the semi-dark of the waiting room.

“You know, Ben, I've done a peck of stupid things in my time. But she's one of the good ones. Where's Adela? At the hotel?”

“She started packing, then she decided to talk to Raxlin.”

“Raxlin? Why Raxlin?”

“Well, I guess she assumed that he'd want a new director, then she decided to talk him out of it.”

“Talk him out of it. You're pullin' my wooden leg.”

“You were pursuing a fugitive. You haven't done anything criminal. You should get a medal.”

“Isn't she the damnedest? That woman's always wetnursin' me. And I treat her sometimes like …”

Peggy beeped the horn from the curb in front of Niagara Regional and Sayre and I walked out to the car. Sayre shook my hand and said, “Damn Furlong and damn mendacity.” Peggy had rolled down the window on the passenger side and looked up at me smiling. Sayre thrust his head next to hers so they looked like a royal couple on an old coin. “Listen, Ben,” he said, “I'm goin' to finish this picture and when I do I want to see you at the première. You hear? I'll save tickets. Won't take no for an answer.
Marilyn here'd never forgive me if I let you just disappear.”

Peggy leaned her head out of the window. I pushed my cheek at her and she planted a good one.

“So long, Pistachio,” she said. She put the car in gear and drove off down Church Street heading for the highway and the Falls.

Gradually the cast was thinning out. I'd checked out of my room at the Clifford Arms, leaving Ned and the boys happily talking about extra jobs they'd been promised. I saw Raxlin talking to the man in the wool mariner's cap. By then I knew that my rescuer was Captain McCool, the supervising skipper of the four white ladies of the mist. Raxlin reported that the ice bridge was going to hold and that the production had a lot of time to make up. His last word was a lament that everybody but him was on golden time.

By Monday I had clean clothes and a tidier office But I still didn't have a line on Billie Mason. So I was right back where I started. I promised that I would take up Lowell Mason's problem first thing Tuesday.

But that wasn't to be. Chris Savas and Pete Staziak followed me out to my parents' condominium off Ontario Street. I was soaking in the tub, trying to get rid of the chills that had moved in to stay when I got off the ice bridge. My mother answered the door. I could hear their voices downstairs as I pulled the plug.

“Is Benny here?” Chris asked in a polite tone I'd not heard before. I could picture them standing in the hall,
slipping out of their rubbers. I got dried and into my clothes without catching a draught. When I got downstairs, they were all sitting in the tangerine front room. Ma was still wearing that fuchsia wrap because it was still early, not even noon yet. The boys wore their civilian clothes like they were in uniform. Maybe, once you've been in uniform, it's hard to get out. After a chat about the break in the severity of the winter, I led the way down to the rec room. The TV was cooling off from early morning duty and we all made ourselves comfortable in the imitation leather chairs. Pete admired my father's bar with the light-up displays that he'd collected from bartenders of his acquaintance.

“Nice place Ben.”

“Yeah. They're comfortable. Pa's gone to get some smoked salmon and a loaf of rye.”

“We've just come from the Falls,” Chris explained.

“Just cleaning things up,” added Pete. I nodded my approval.

“Next time you go chasing wanted men, let us know where you're going.”

“Hey! What are you talking about? I didn't know that Furlong was going to try to beat it across the border the hard way. I don't even think he planned it that way. Sayre was talking tough with him and took his gun away. He didn't have much choice. He didn't know how much Sayre knew or how badly Sayre could hurt him.”

“So he got Noonan to open the gate to the
Maid of the Mist
landing.”

“Sure. Noonan had been letting the cast and crew up and down all week.”

“It was a damned near run thing for Sayre. He caught the ladder from the helicopter seconds before that chip off the ice bridge turned over. Lucky Furlong hit him and went on across the slob ice. You couldn't see that, could you?” I shook my head. “From up top, he was seen fighting toward the American side. Only that slob ice was as steady as ice in a rye and water.”

“Yeah, the end wasn't pretty. They still haven't got the body. They're still dragging at the whirlpool, but they've got their own ice problems down there. No, we won't see Furlong till spring, if then.”

“Benny. I want to hear how Sayre fits in. He had a part to play, but he wouldn't say why he played it. He just told us about how they'd fought and so forth.”

“You got the point where Peggy O'Toole came into the story.”

“Does she have to come in?”

“At least as far as the three of us. Whether it goes any farther depends of what it changes.” Chris said looking me in the eye.

“You said Furlong knew more about her past than she knew herself.” Pete prompted. “Sounds like blackmail to me.”

“Right. And that sounds like Furlong.”

“Okay, let me get my facts straight,” I said, attempting to focus on things I'd already tried to forget. “Right. Peggy O'Toole is Peggy's stage name. Her real name is
Marilyn Horlick. Her mother, Claudia, worked in Hollywood in the old Writers' Building at Paramount. She was a secretary with some seniority in the early winter of 1953–54. According to the official story, Peggy was born in December 1954, the twentieth to be exact. That makes her a Sagitarian in the Zodiac. Only when I talked with her mother last week, she told me that she was a Libra. She said that being a Libra made her easy to get along with. To be a Libra she would have had to be born between 24 September and 23 October. I looked all of this stuff up at the Library. Everybody seems to agree that Libras are easy to get along with. Now why would Claudia Horlick get the sign of her only daughter wrong? My guess is that she didn't. I bet Peggy's birthday is October 20, not December 20.