Dead and Buried

THIRTEEN

I phoned Pete Staziak of the Niagara Regional Police from the pay-phone in the lobby of the Prince of Wales Hotel at the corner of King and Picton or King and Queen, depending on which street signs you read. I was feeling a little light-headed, like I’d just finished off a bottle of rye, which I hadn’t. In fact, I’ve had the heel of a bottle in a cupboard for the last six months. Pete told me to have a drink and to stay away from the scene of the crime. As I came away from the lobby, the idea of a drink began to look good. What better way could I put in the time until Pete finished up at the fort. He said to stay put and that he’d want to talk to me. The Prince of Wales’s bar was as comfortable a place as I knew in those parts.

When I caught my reflection in the mirror, I detoured to the men’s room to repair my face and clothes. I was a mess, but it made me feel better. At least finding a body hadn’t become routine. Sure, I became light-headed and even wanted a drink, but it took the sight of my face in the mirror to tell me that I hadn’t become a total professional when it comes to dealing with death. I valued my amateur status. While the tap-water was running into the sink, I thought again of the cold foot in its Rockport shoe. Now I could remember the scramble up the ladder and back over the earthwork and down the bank to the rowboat. The tugging of muscles in my back told me about the difficult trip back to the silhouette of the moviemaker’s gazebo outlined against the night sky. I’d been helped by the river in my outward journey; the way home was all against the current.

I got rid of some of the mud on my pants with a wet wad of paper towels. I discarded some Dame’s Rocket that had attached itself to me with a length of bindweed. There wasn’t a lot I could do for my clothes after I’d got rid of the mud. My shoes were as soaking after a first aid job as before. The lights in the bar are lower than in the John, so I put my comb away hoping that I would pass the dress code when I get upstairs again. I found a seat in a dark corner and persuaded the waiter to get me a sandwich as well as a rye and ginger ale.

As far as I knew, no prince of Wales ever slept in the Prince of Wales Hotel. In a brochure I’d seen that the Duke and Duchess of York had visited Niagara-on-the-Lake. A guidebook documented a visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall. Both of these visits took place well before my time, in 1901. For some reason I found it very relaxing trying to imagine two ducal couples running around in Niagara trying not to run into one another.

The bar at the Prince of Wales was, of course, everything that a bar should be. There was dark wood; engraved, frosted glass; lots of brass and crystal as well as beer pumps of porcelain. I’d been there only a few times before this, and each time I regretted my usually temperate habits.

“Sorry to be so long,” said the waiter as he set down knife, fork and spoon wrapped in a paper napkin. The waiter sorted out my order from the other two he was carrying. I found myself grinning at him, foolishly. This was so ordinary: sitting in a bar and eating, surrounded by lively, talking people who didn’t have anything to do-as far as I knew-with the body back at Fort Mississauga. I was almost chuckling to myself as I cut into the chopped egg on home-made white bread with my knife and fork. In a place like this, I didn’t think you lifted anything to the mouth with fingers, not even the pickles.

“Aren’t you Sam Cooperman?” the waiter asked. In spite of the error, I jumped. Family is close enough.

“No. That’s my brother. I’m Sam’s younger brother, Benny.” I almost withheld my name. No sense throwing security out the window.

“Well, you sure look like him. I seen you come in and I was sure it was him. I could of sworn it was him.”

“Yeah, well, Sam’s in Toronto. I’m still in Grantham. He’s head of surgery at Toronto General.”

“That a fact. I used to sell brushes with him one summer.” I shot a glance towards the entrance, but the big figure coming into the room wasn’t Pete Staziak. I had more than an hour to kill before I could reasonably expect to see him, but I hadn’t taken the pledge to be reasonable, especially not after digging up a body. The big fellow joined a party of three ladies in hats in the centre of the room. I didn’t think ladies wore hats this late in the day. But what do I know?

“He won awards selling brushes in the summer,” I told the waiter when I remembered that he was still standing there. “What’s your name?” I asked. “I’ll tell Sam when I see him.”

“Oh, ah, Des Dwyer.”

“Des, can you tell me what’s going on out at Fort Mississauga? They’ve got it fenced off and I see trucks coming and going.”

“Ah!” Des said with a new light in his eyes, “They’re putting in a lot of money there.” He rubbed the point of his lapel with his thumb and forefinger and slipped me a wink.

“Sangallo’s doing a major job on it. Going to make it into a show-place. Like the other fort.” Des pretended not to see a customer waving from a table in the corner. “They’re putting the earthworks in where they used to be according to some plan that was discovered somewhere. They’re fixing up the old ammunition bays and rebuilding the sally-port, which was just about ready to cave in.”

“What’s a sally-port?”

“That’s where they send the girls home when the colonel comes looking, I think. I dunno, really.”

“How long has this been going on?” I asked.

“Soldiers have been wenching since Napoleon was a pup, Mr. Cooperman.”

“I meant the construction.”

“Summer of last year as close as I can remember.”

“That’s a long time for putting in a few berms.”

“Well, you know it’s all being supervised by some professor from Toronto. They’ve already found bones and musket-balls and bits of broken dishes.” I remembered the string grid I’d seen and the trench next to it. But this was archaeology on a small scale. Did Toronto know about the rest of it? Or was that all Sangallo?”

There were now two customers trying to get Des’s attention. I watched the skill he displayed in not catching their waving hands in either of his eyes. “How big an outfit is Sangallo?” I asked.

“Hell, they’re about the biggest bunch in the restoration business around here. They’ll sandblast your old brick house, or reglaze your windows with wobbly glass made the way they used to make it in the olden days. They can imitate old plaster fancy-work on ceilings, replace the missing spindles in your prize staircase and even make a four-car garage look like it was an old driving shed. Oh, you see that yellow sign of theirs all over town, especially in the old parts where the houses go back a few years.”

At last Des responded to his customers’ requests. He was greeted by them as a long-lost friend. I went back to my sandwich. Soon I could look down into my plate and say, “I’ve really accomplished something today.” I tried to think of the fort, the excavation and the tunnelling under the earthworks, but it was no good. I sipped my drink and waited for Staziak.

The time went quicker than I would have guessed. A collection of familiar faces began to gather in the lobby. I could see them clearly from my seat in the bar. They stood quite close together for the convenience of five or six photographers who were busily snapping their pictures. One of their number, a red-whiskered man in a kilt, escaped into the bar briefly, then rejoined the ever enlarging crowd in front of the main desk. I began to recognize them as celebrities seen on television. There was a famous anchorman, a forthright interviewer, a tall bald-headed historian, towering over the others who stood as close to him as they could. I recognized a recent attorney general, a few newspaper columnists, a clutch of talk-show panellists and a few faces I might have recognized if I’d spent more time in front of the television set. My mother would have been able to name them all. I wondered what brought them to the Prince of Wales. Maybe it was the inauguration of a new fudge franchise on Queen Street. I grabbed Des the next time he passed my table and asked him.

“They’re celebrating some book that’s getting published,” he said. “Don’t they look like they’re having a grand time?” I watched and couldn’t help agreeing with the waiter.

It wasn’t long after the lobby cleared that Pete Staziak paused at the entrance to the bar, spotted me and came over.

“Benny, you amaze me.” He pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. When Des came over, he asked for coffee. He was still a working man. “Now, how the devil did you stumble across that? This better be good.”

“I was just exploring the fort, Pete.”

“Yeah, like I’m having a wonderful time in your company.”

“I was just nosing around,” I said, but Pete wasn’t going to let me off with that. I decided not to try the shipwreck approach either. He glared at me and waited.

Pete and I went all the way back to grade nine together. I’d been in a play with his sister and we traded notes once or twice in five years. He’d been on the football team. I’d been about as athletic as Charles Atlas before he sent away for help. Since then, we had run into one another professionally from time to time. Pete was a good cop and I respected him, even though he was often more of a wall than a door in some of my investigations. I think that deep down he knew I wasn’t out to steal hubcaps or the fillings out of his mother’s teeth, but that didn’t stop him being careful where I was concerned. I tried to return the glare he was giving me, but I never win contests like that. That’s why I stay clear of people who show off with their bone-crushing handshakes.

“Okay, Benny, let’s have it. Nice and simple.”

“I’m working, Pete. I was following a truck into the fort, ran into a fence, so I went under it when it got dark.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “You haven’t confused me yet.”

“I went down into the hole to see what was going on, how it could involve my friend in the truck.”

“Who shall remain nameless?”

“At this stage, Pete, I’d just as soon.” Pete neither nodded agreement or made any comment. He was reserving as many options as he could. I didn’t blame him. In his place, I’d play tough too.

“Go on.”

“I’d just dug a couple of those metal drums out of the dirt. He was behind the fifth one. That’s all. I stopped digging when I saw the foot. That’s when I called you. The only thing I know about him is that he isn’t one of the garrison of the fort from back in 1837. Honest, Pete, I didn’t touch anything and I don’t know anything.”

“What’s your guy in the truck mixed up in?”

“Hauling toxic wastes. There, I’ve said it.”

“Into that, eh? How far?”

“As deep as that hole, anyway, I guess.”

“Benny, you wanna watch yourself. You could end up dead too, you know.” Pete was looking at the drink I’d ordered over an hour ago. To me it looked old and warm, but I wasn’t a couple of hours away from going off duty.

“Do you know who it was?” I asked.

“We’ve got a pretty good idea, but no positive ID yet.” I nodded at that and then Pete nodded and we both sat and thought about naming the dead man. Once you name a dead man, there’s no way to take it back. When you hear the bad news, you may not believe it, but the words have deadly magic in them and you already begin to see the world without the named person.

“Are you telling, or do I have to wait until I read about it in tomorrow’s Beacon?”

“The body was wearing clothes that had this in the pockets.” Pete took a plastic-wrapped wallet out of his coat pocket and put it in the middle of the table. Through the plastic, I could see worn leather, plastic credit-card holders and underneath a ring of keys.

“May I?” I asked looking at Pete, who inclined his head ever so slightly. I opened the plastic bag and took out the wallet. I didn’t want to open it, but I had to know. Chances are that the dead man was someone I’d never met. Hell, I’d only been working the case for a few days. I hadn’t even met the principals yet. The name in the wallet read Alexander Pastor. I’d had a conversation about that name with Alex Pásztory, the guy from …

Then it hit me, just the way I’ve just described. I said it over again to myself: The dead man is Alex Pásztory, the man from Environment Front. The second-last smoker in Grantham, the man who spotted Dr. Carswell at the Turkey Roost, the man who interrupted himself after saying, “I’m off to meet the AV,” was dead. The second date on his tombstone was now available to the carver. I remembered the leather patches on his sleeves and the tobacco burns in his old sweater. I could suddenly see Pásztory’s lopsided grin, like he was making some ironic comment on his own murder.

“You pretty sure it’s Pásztory?” Pete dug into a pocket and handed me a photograph. It looked like a failed likeness of the man I’d talked to at the Turkey Roost, discarded by an apprentice sculptor in wax.

“It’s a Polaroid I had taken. Is this the guy you know?”

“Wish I could say it wasn’t. It’s him, all right. How did he get it?”

“I’m no expert on that, and the lab hasn’t even taken delivery of the remains yet, but, to me, it looked like he had taken a single shot in the pump. I’d say it was from close up too.”

“Poor bugger! He was a nice fellow. You ever run across him?”

“Only in his letters to the editor. And those articles. He was always beating the drum, wasn’t he?”

“Who’s going to beat it now?”

“Aw, come on, Benny. You’ll never survive in this racket if you’re going to be a bleeding heart. You gotta see it as just another file, just another number.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the way they tie tags on the big toes of some of my best clients when they put them in a drawer at the morgue. Different numbers, different filing system.”

“You mind if I sample this drink you’re wasting?”

“Help yourself.” Pete glanced around the room to see whether there were any spies from the NRP or any local peace officers in sight. The coast must have been clear, because he had the glass in his hand and returned to the table before I could take in the fact that he was breaking the rules. Of course, I only found the body. I didn’t have to stand by while it was being dug out of the tunnel. I didn’t have to scrub off Pásztory’s face so that the mud and clay wouldn’t get in the way of the Polaroid flash.

“Thanks,” Pete said. “That picture won’t be good enough to get a positive ID, but it will do until we can get to Environment Front’s office in the morning.” He was looking at my glass again, but keeping his hands clear. “Benny, if you were sniffing up the same tree as Pastor, I’d take a holiday. I’m not joking around. This was no case of manslaughter followed by a cover-up. This was murder in a neat, professional package.” He underlined what he was saying by holding onto my eyes with his while he was talking. “Is there anything more I should know about this?”

“Look, Pete, I don’t have anything but suspicions. By now, you’re going to have the same suspicions. I’ve been working on this file since Tuesday. So far I’ve only been doing research. I haven’t even met all the characters yet. I’ve been going sideways three steps and backwards two steps for every half-step I move forward. I haven’t been able to get very close. The only thing I know is that there is a lot of money involved. Maybe finding Pásztory will blow the lid off. Maybe it will all have to come out into the open now.”

“Yeah, maybe getting himself killed like this is going to accomplish more than all those pieces for the paper and those damned letters to the editor. Funny, eh?”

“Yeah, funny.”

Pete and I talked for another ten minutes. I tried to quiz him about how Pásztory’s death, and more particularly where it had taken place, was going to be received downtown. Pete pulled his big head closer to his collar and shook his head. “Nobody’s going to thank me for tonight’s work, Benny. It opens the lid on a can of dead bait and I can already smell it all over town.”

“I thought you might say something like that. What are you going to do?”

“Hell, I’ll just write it up and treat it like any other homicide. In cases like this, you have to go through the book without skipping. If I skip a line, they’ll nail me and say it was all my fault. No, Benny, when I write this up, it’s going to be a model in procedure.”

We got up after I settled the check with Des. Staziak and I started for the door together, when Des called attention to a tangle of weeds adhering to Pete’s left trouser leg, above his muddy boots.

“You got some weeds wrapped around your cuff, sir!” Pete looked down, holding his leg at an awkward angle to see it better. I saw that a scrap of bindweed was making itself at home on his pant leg. With it, an old friend, I helped Pete remove the bindweed and the familiar long pods of Dame’s Rocket. It was a nice note on which to end the evening. I went home to bed.