Howard Engel - The Suicide Murders

“Don’t get up yet, Mr. Cooperman.” (I’d given her one of my cards.) “I’ve just had the strangest notion. Liz Til-ford was one of the best nurses I’ve ever worked with. She knew her job, but that was only part of it. You know, this place can get you down after a few years, especially when we were still in the old building. But like very few other nurses, Liz Tilford really cared about her patients. Most of us feel that when you’ve rubbed one back, you’ve rubbed them all, that patients, especially here, are somehow inhuman unconnected bothers. To Liz Tilford, every patient was an individual. She didn’t just remember a few things about her patients and so josh them along and set up a friendly bantering relationship. She really got to know most of the people who were under her care for any length of time. It was a gift. She was missed when she left, I can tell you.”

“What happened to her?”

“For a while she lived here in Toronto, in a small apartment not far from the hospital. Then, I heard she went to live with a married sister in Sault Ste. Marie. I don’t know the name. But, you didn’t let me finish. What I was going to tell you was that during her last few years here, she became very fond of a patient who answers the description you gave of the woman you are looking for. Liz was good to everyone, but there was a special bond between Liz and this young patient. Do you think that might be helpful?”

“It very well might. How can I tell, Miss Kline? I feel like putting my name down to be committed. What happened to this young woman? The patient you mentioned?”

“It seems to me that she left us over a year ago. Yes, now that I think about it, it was just after Liz retired. The last few times I saw Liz was as a visitor to see some of her special patients. Yes, and here’s the link. I was going to mention, when the girl left us she went from here to live with Liz Tilford. I think I remember hearing that Liz had helped a few of the former inmates find their footing in the outside world again. You see, she was an extraordinary person.”

“Yes, I can see that. Thank you for all your help, Miss Kline.”

“Mrs.,” she said, with a turn of her head and a smile. “What will you do now, Mr. Cooperman?”

“I’m not sure. I might go over to that apartment building and talk with the super. I’d like to find out the name of the girl Liz Tilford was living with.”

“Oh, you needn’t go to all that trouble to find that out, I think I can save you steps there. I remember the girl’s name very clearly, because it’s the same last name as my favourite English poet. Her name is Hilda Blake.”

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.