Howard Engel - The Suicide Murders

“They’ll never get that out,” Glassock muttered, shaking his head. “They’ll just have to junk it. That’s where I found him, right there in that chair. Sitting up he was, with his head bent over the top, like he expected the dentist to look at his teeth. The gun was on the floor where he’d dropped it.”

“Was everything in the room the way it is now, except for the body?”

“Yes, I think so.” I saw Glassock’s eye go to the book cases. “Yes, it was just like this.”

“Why did you look over there? Is something different?”

“Well, yes, there is,” he smirked. “It’s the bar.”

“Bar? All I see is a bookcase.” Glassock’s smirk opened up to reveal a mouthful of teeth that were aggressively false. He went over to the bookshelves and transformed them.

“He had it specially made. It’s got a sink and fridge, and like you see, it’s well-stocked.”

“And you say it was open last night?”

“Yeah. I could smell it too. There was the odour of drink in the air. That’s one of those off-the-record things we agreed about.”

“You mean you didn’t mention this yesterday?”

“Bad enough him killing himself like that. No sense adding insult to injury I always say.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more. Tell me, was there a glass on the desk, or on the credenza? A glass with a half-finished drink in it?”

“Let me see …” He walked over to the bar, stroked his chin and pulled at his earlobe. “He always kept his empty glasses on this tray. Kept them lined up in two rows the way they are now.” I counted six highball glasses. They were dry and clean. I backed up and pulled at my earlobe too. Glassock watched me as I looked from the desk to the bar, from the bar to the door, and from the door to Glassock.

“Did you ever talk to Mr. Yates?”

“Sure.” He stretched the syllable out making Chester sound like a regular democrat.

“And you’d seen the bookshelf open before last night?”

“Mr. Yates used to tell me things. He’d invite me in here and we’d chew the fat, you might say.” He looked over to me like I should hand out little gold stars. “Many’s the night we’d have a noggin and he’d stand looking out the window at the lake, sort of far away in his thoughts, and jangling his keys in his pocket with his free hand.” Glassock showed me exactly what a far-away look was and tried to imitate Chester rattling his keys. On a cliff-top, it would have made quite a picture. Under the fluorescent lights, it lost something.

“Where does that door lead?” I asked him, shattering his reverie.

“Just a cupboard.”

“May I …?”

“Help yourself.” Inside the door was sports wear for all occasions: a track suit, three different kinds of brand-name running shoes, a squash racket, and something that looked like headphones for a stereo set. I picked them up. There were no wires attached. “Them’s ear-plugs for the firing-range. He was a crack shot, they say. Used to practise with the police shooting team sometimes.” Near the ear-plugs hung a black leather holster. It was empty.

“He was quite a sportsman,” I said.

“He could afford to be.” Glassock was beginning to shift from haunch to haunch.

“Tell me one more thing: did Mr. Yates like a good time?”

“Same as most, I guess. Never told me anything personal. He mostly went on about the opportunities in this country for people like me from the old country. He’d get a few drinks under his belt. He liked to drink, he did. But he wasn’t the sort to … play around, you know. But then, you never know.” He let his words hang in the air for a second or two, then I broke his beautiful moment again by crossing the room with my hand outstretched. I thanked him for his help. He asked me not to print anything that might get him in trouble and to be sure to let him know when the article was coming out. I backed my way into the elevator while he discussed the best time to get pictures of himself with Violet, his wife, and Alfred and Edward, the twins. When I hold him that he had been very helpful, I wasn’t telling a word of a lie, as Dr. Bushmill would have said.

It was nearly six o’clock when I got back to my room at the hotel. I stripped off my clothes like a snake sloughing last year’s skin, and slipped into the shower. I let the water run at full pressure first as hot as I could take it and then slowly I turned the tap around to cold. I stepped onto the white bathmat feeling somehow like I’d deserved the good feeling building up in me. Then I remembered that I was going to my mother’s for dinner.

I drove up Ontario Street past the drive-ins on both sides of the road, and finally parked a quarter of a mile beyond in one of the guest parking spots at the condominium.

“It’s you!” my mother said, as though she was Stanley looking for Livingstone. I didn’t try to figure it out. I was so surprised to see her up, dressed and in the kitchen. “I wasn’t really expecting you,” she said.

“I told you yesterday I was coming.”

“What?” She made the vowel so you could slide it under the door.

“Ma, you knew I was coming. I told you last week, and I told you last night.” She frowned and looked hopelessly in the direction of the refrigerator.

“You’re going to kill your mother one day with these surprises. You hear? Well, I guess I could put a couple of frozen steaks on. Your father’s downstairs. You’ll eat a steak, Benny?”

“Sure, Ma, but try not to broil the hell out of it, please.”

“So look who’s telling me how to cook. Go talk to your father and leave me to be the Mystery Chef if you please.” I found the unopened Beacon on the tangerine loveseat and took it with me downstairs into the rec room. Pa was sitting in front of the television. My parents spell one another off like that. Between the two of them they don’t miss much.

“She said you weren’t coming.” He was looking older tonight; his gray-black hair, his brow, like onion skin, and the purple ant-tracks on his cheekbones made me go over and give him a hug and kiss on the cheek. He smelled of talcum. He’d been in the sauna at his club. “Are you working hard?”

“A little.”

“Melvyn. I saw Melvyn your cousin today. He said that you haven’t been to see him like you promised. He could throw some work your way, Benny. He’s got contacts. You shouldn’t end up like your father a poor man at the end of your life.”

“Pa, what are you talking about? You’re comfortable, aren’t you. So what if you’re not a millionaire.”

“Leave my brother Harry out of this. Believe me, Benny, if I had wanted to make money, I would have made it. There’s nothing easier. Like the poet says, ‘Does a rich man sleep as soundly as a poor man? Is he happier?’ Still, don’t put me off what I was saying. You’ll promise me to go in and talk to Melvyn on Monday. Okay? Tomorrow, he and Doreen are going to the Seligman bar mitzvah in Toronto at Temple Sholom.”

“Good for them. I’ve got the paper. You want to see it?” He dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

“I get all the bad news I want on TV. I don’t need it in the paper too.” I took that as permission to open it myself. In the first section, there was a short editorial about Chester running twenty lines after a long piece on the abuse of higher education by taxi drivers who are actually Ph.D.s in sociology. Writing about Chester the editorial writer mused on the pressure of modern life, the loneliness of the men at the top, and the loss of our ablest citizens because they are always willing to walk the extra mile. For a minute it looked as though he was going to throw in a blast at food additives, but at the last moment he swerved off in another direction. Food additives came in for a column on their own further down the page. On the inside of the back page under Deaths, Marriages, Funerals and In Memoriam I discovered that the Yates funeral was slated for Monday. The coroner hadn’t seen fit to hold Chester’s body while the investigation continued. I was still way out in front in a field of one.