Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

Bob Foley had had a comfortable life, judging from the downstairs rooms. One wall in the living-room had been stripped down to the brick, which set off a couple of good-looking watercolours of barns, farmhouses and other farm buildings. There was a woman’s touch in the furniture and curtains, but the general messiness of all the flat surfaces suggested that she was no longer in residence. A half-eaten box of pretzels stood near the TV set. Two old sweaters were draped around the backs of chairs. A smelly sleeping bag covered half of the couch, doubling as a blanket. The basement was a fully outfitted recording studio. Fancy recording and editing equipment, giant speakers, controlboards with dozens of sliding keys all looked ready to go to work. Racks of used and unused magnetic tapes stood handy, as did a dusty computer under a plastic cover. Much of this stuff was new to me.

On the second floor Chuck led the way to the bedroom. The bed had been stripped. Six empty bottles of Molson’s Export beer were sitting in a cardboard carton. An equal number of empties were lined up on a bedside table. A bottle that had once held Cutty Sark stood behind them. Pepper turned to me.

“There was an empty vial of sleeping pills on the table with the bottles, Benny. That’s gone to the lab. Dr. Melton, who took a look, gave me to understand they were the sort that are not recommended to be taken with booze. I’m not talking about him not driving or moving heavy equipment, I’m saying that mixing alcohol and that stuff was dangerous for him even if he was only lying there watching Seinfeld reruns. He even had a last cigarette. There was a long ash and a stain in the bottom of an ashtray, also taken from the bedside table.”

“May I speak?” I asked.

“Yes,” Chuck said the word so that it carried its own warning.

“I saw a package of Nicorettes downstairs. Had he given up smoking?”

“He had. It was too much hassle at work, I was told, so he gave it up with a prolonged struggle two years ago, about the time Jean left him.”

“That Mrs . Foley?”

Chuck nodded.

“So, he revived the habit as a last defiant gesture? Is that how you see it?”

“Unless the three of you can see some element that isn’t consistent with suicide.”

“Don’t use that word. ‘Consistent’ makes me want to have a smoke myself. Where’s the pack the cigarette came from?”

“It had fallen under the bed. A throwaway lighter was there too. They’re both downtown.”

“Supposing Foley had had a visitor. The visitor could have got Foley drinking and then slipped the pills into his drink when he was nearly drunk.”

“Yes, I thought that as well,” Chuck said. “But we found only one dirty glass on the bedside table. It had Foley’s prints on it.”

“Did you check out the glasses on the drainboard in the kitchen? There may be prints on them. Or inside the yellow rubber gloves by the sink.”

Chuck turned his mouth down, to indicate the remote possibility that I was right. He looked like Robert de Niro playing an older man. “I’ll try it. I’ll try anything that looks the least bit phoney.”

Then I thought of something. “Your gang has kept this place secure since it was labelled a suspicious death, right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well, look at the floor over by the bed, and over by that chair. It seems to me there’s a lot of cigarette ash around. How many smokes were gone from the pack you sent to Forensics?”

“Just the one.”

“And you say the ash from that was nearly intact?”

“Right.”

“Well, either we have a dead cigarette package in the garbage, or somebody took the rest of the deck away with him when he left Foley unconscious in his bed. The prints on the glasses or rubber gloves, if they exist, will help tell us who did the dirty deed.”

“There’s half a grapefruit peel, coffee grounds and eggshells in the garbage. No paper, no cigarette package.”

“I think we just got lucky,” Boyd said.

“Not until Forensics tells us we have. But, we have got some hope, and that might be worth something.”

“If our suspicions here are supported by Forensics,” I said, trying not to sound fatuous, “might I suggest that you let Foley’s death remain on a low level of suspicion. As far as the media are concerned, I mean. I don’t think it will help with the Renata Sartori case if we insist that there is a thread linking the two cases.”

“It’s less than a thread at this point,” Sergeant Pepper said, expressing what the four of us were probably thinking. “But you’re right. It would be bad policy to see a link between the cases before we know there is one.”

“Right now, the only link is the fact that both Foley and Sartori worked at NTC. How many people are on the payroll over there? You see what I mean?”

“Let’s go to the Kowloon,” said Sykes. “I need a shiu mai fix.” At first, nobody moved, and then we all did. Chuck carefully restored the yellow plastic tape and turned out the light as we went out. While this was going on, I took a look out the back window. There was a small yard with a shed against the back fence, near the gate leading to a lane running behind the houses.

“Anything in the shed?” I asked Pepper.

“There’s a fine glory hole if you like antique wheels.”

“That’s too small for sportscars.”

“There are three old bikes in there. Motorcycles. An Indian Roadmaster, a Crocker-real old one-and a Brough. Must be worth from seventy-five to one hundred thousand, I reckon. Easy.”

“Where’s his car?”

“Kept it on the street. Parking permit. It’s the one with the parking ticket under the wiper. He should have changed sides of the street this morning. It’s the first of June.”

“How’s a dead man to do that?” Boyd asked.

“Send it to his widow,” Sykes said, trying to sound cynical and succeeding. “They were still legally married.”

“Is his car a Jaguar?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“I heard that it once belonged to Dermot Keogh, the cellist.”

“It’s still registered in Keogh’s name. Ontario licence number BWV 988. I reckon it still belongs to the estate,” Chuck said.

“Can I see the shed for a minute? I won’t be long.”

“I’m starved,” said Boyd. “Let’s move.”

“I’ll buy,” I suggested. That did it. Pepper handed me a ring of keys, and I let myself out the door at the rear of the kitchen.

The shed was a well-built structure with a stout door to it. The gate leading to the lane was equally substantial and showed signs of being improved within the last few months: fresh two-by-fours had been added along with a new and unrusted lock. I found the right key, and the shed disclosed to me the bikes that I’d been told to expect. I’m no expert on motorcycles, new or old, but the three here could awake the hidden collector in most riders. They were protected by plastic and revealed, once I pulled it back, a good dollar’s worth of motorcycles, oiled and polished to perfection. The shed also contained paint cans, a lawn mower, rakes, a workbench, metal and wood-working tools. The workbench had a grinding wheel mounted at one end. A cascade of metal filings had collected on the floor below it. Did Foley sharpen skates in his spare time? Next to the wheel rested a rubber ferrule, like the kind you see on the ends of crutches or canes. This one was smaller, as though it had been made to fit over the end of a chopstick. For the motorcycles, I wondered, or for what?

A two-drawer metal filing cabinet was parked on the workbench. It didn’t belong there, so I looked around for its previous home and found it at the back of the shed, where four pieces of wood were fixed in the gravel floor, to raise the cabinet off the ground. Nobody likes rusty filing cabinets. One of the drawers was slightly ajar, the one below it was shut. Foley, or someone, had fixed hasps to the side of this cabinet so that it could be secured with a padlock of some kind. There was no such restraint visible so I opened it first.