Dead and Buried

TWENTY-SIX

First thing next morning, I looked up the residence of Dr. Gary Carswell in the phonebook. It seemed reasonable that I might find him at home on a Sunday, so I drove around to 153 Hillcrest Avenue and found a large white stucco house with shutters and a lot of green grass to trim. I parked the car a few doors beyond the house and walked back. There I found the doctor delivering a green garbage bag full of leave to the curbside. He was wearing a grey tracksuit with dark sweat stains under the arms. There was something ape-like in the hang of his big shoulders. The headband around his forehead looked wet. He appeared to have been working on his property for the last two hours at least.

“Dr. Carswell? Good-morning!”

Good-mor-” He stopped and set his garbage bag down hard. “Now, look here, Cooperman, I’ve nothing more to say to you!”

“Not even good-morning? I remember you telling me to come back when I’d got myself organized. It was good advice. I was a little wet behind the ears when we last talked.” I was doing my best to put him at ease, but he looked as relaxed as a cat at the vet’s. He needed the props of his office to give him dignity. The beard, which worked in his office, now looked like it was pasted on with spirit gum.

“Whatever I said to you then has nothing to do with now. Things have got too serious for tittle-tattle, Cooperman. Both the Commander and Ross are friends of mine. I don’t think it’s appropriate that I say anything at all to you.”

“Well, you’ll talk to the cops, then. That’ll be just as good. I can’t get rough with you. I can’t work you over until your statement looks the way they want it to.”

“And neither can they. This isn’t 1939, Mr. Cooperman. The third-degree is only found in cheap fiction. I know my rights and the authorities are aware of that.”

“Good luck to you, Doctor. It’s rare that you find people who still believe the system works. I hope they don’t ask you why you visited the Kinross yard twice on the morning that Jack Dowden had his fatal accident. Lovely fall morning, isn’t it?” I started walking back to my car.

“Dowden? What about Dowden? What has that got to do with Ross shooting the Commander? Now, you hold on a minute, Cooperman.” He came after me, grabbed me by the arm. I looked at his hand and he took it away. “Come around to the backyard where you can sit down.” I let him see indecision playing over my face for a moment or two, as though I wasn’t overjoyed at the invitation. Together we walked along the high hedge that separated his place from the neighbour, who, I was told, ran the General Motors distributorship in Grantham.

It was a large green backyard, with an old-fashioned wire fence along the back property line, interrupted by a rusty gate that probably dated from the days when through it you could walk out into fields of open country. Now it was wired shut and you could see into at least a dozen large backyards. In the middle of the lawn, a white table with a faded umbrella formed the focus of attention. Near it were a set of matching chairs and a gas barbecue with its top covered in plastic wrap. We sat down. It was a comfortable setting, but neither of us was relaxed. I looked over the back of the white house and nodded my approval.

“Very nice here,” I said. “You must be very comfortable, you and your family.”

“And nothing’s going to change that, Mr. Cooperman. Nothing! I hope you know what you’re messing in?”

“Dr. Carswell, I have a client. I’m only assisting this client. If my investigation can also help the police in their work, which parallels mine, I’m obliged to cooperate. We have worked like this in the past. And you’re right, I am trying my best to discover what I’m messing in. I was vague when I talked to you last time. I’m better informed this morning. For instance, the dispatcher’s list of comings and goings at the Kinross yard shows that you came and went twice on the morning Jack died. I know you weren’t asked about that at the inquest, but how would you answer that question if it came up again?”

“That’s not likely, is it? What has it to do with Ross and the Commander?”

“We both know the answer to that one, Doctor.”

“You think you know a great deal, but I wonder if you really do.”

“Look, Dr. Carswell, I’m not interested in playing guessing games or power games or button-button-who’s-got-the-button? All I’m interested in finding out is what happened to Jack Dowden. Now, I think that what’s happened to the Commander and to Alex Pásztory is all tied up with Jack’s accident. I think that the Commander’s death has changed things. And you know what things have been changed.”

“You’re not very frightening, you know, Mr. Cooperman. I don’t think you’re going to strong-arm me into saying something I’ll later regret.”

“You’re right, I’m no threat at all. And I’m no blackmailer, just in case you’ve heard otherwise. Maybe I can find out what I want to know from available sources. If you think about it, there are a few of them, aren’t there? You know that being an accessory to a crime, Doctor, is a very serious business, not one that the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons takes lightly. I’m pretty sure you did a lot of thinking since last Friday night, Doctor. I think your only chance is to cooperate completely with the authorities.” He thought for a minute about that, pulling at his lower lip and then working away at some birdlime on the table with a pocket knife.

“You may of course be right, Mr. Cooperman. But I think you’ll agree that you are not by any stretch of the imagination ‘the authorities.’”

“Hey, I’m with you! Whatever you do cuts no advantage for me either way. If I get a little gold star in heaven, I’ll be surprised. What I’m saying is that if you have ever thought of telling what you know, this is the moment to take it to Sergeant Savas. What with the murders and so on, I don’t think that a little cover-up going back eighteen months is going to shock him into a major crack-down. He’s got bigger fish to fry. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t forget that the police investigation of Jack Dowden’s accident saw what you told them to see. Whether by collusion or pressure or what you might call a blindness to all but the expected, the cops bungled it. I don’t think they’ll want that to get spread around. No, actually, I think your position’s not so bad, if you tell them what you know today. Later on, who knows. This case changes from day to day. If one of the others comes forward, O’Mara or Teddy Puisans or Luigi-you know-they may not need your help. That moves you over to the side of the room where Caine and the others are standing. That’s not where you want to be, I’m guessing.”

Some of the dried bird-shit came in my direction. I took that as a good sign. Let him take it out on me and then call Savas. I can take a little bird-shit.

“You see, Mr. Cooperman, I’ve got a lot to lose. And there’s the question of friendship. Norm Caine’s been a good friend to me. I owe him a lot.”

“Yeah, that’s the dilemma of ethics, right? Who do I dump on: my friend or my fellow citizens? It’s a big question, I admit. What can you do about it, look for the greater good? If you tell all to Savas, maybe Caine gets sent up for faking an accident, or worse. If you keep quiet and you get caught, you lose your licence, this place- which, by the way is a very nice little property-and you could do some time, maybe not in jail, but getting involved in worthy community projects of which the judge approves. I won’t kid you, Dr. Carswell, I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision.”

“Shut up for a minute, I’m trying to think.”

“Sorry. I always talk too much. I’m sure your wife and family will back you up and stick with you. They won’t let you down.”

“Confound it, man, you’ve got me in a cleft stick!”

“Me? Doc, I haven’t got you at all. I walk out of this nice yard, that’s the last you see of me. You’re the guy you have to worry about. Do you have the guts to stand by your friend and dump on the rest of the community? That’s the question.”

“Can I talk to you about this?”

“Well …”

“It’ll be a relief to see what you think.”

“I can’t promise you any kind of protection. I’m not making a deal with you, Doctor. You understand that?” He bobbed his head up and down. I watched a line of sweat move down his cheekbone and drop to the hood of his sweatsuit. “At the same time, I can tell you I’m not going to make a bee-line to Sergeant Savas’s office. In these matters, I generally keep my own counsel except where it involves my client.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“You were supposed to have breakfast with Norman Caine. You arrived at around seven-thirty.”

“That’s right. We met like that one a week to talk over what was going on in the yard. I told you I was a troubleshooter for them on questions of pollution?” I nodded and kept my mouth shut. “When I got there, I could tell I was early, because Norm’s car wasn’t there yet, so I went into his office. I carry my own key. That’s where I got my first surprise.”

“He was there, right?”

“Yes! He was very upset. He told me I had to bring my car to the door and get him off the lot without being seen. I didn’t ask him what was going on. It was just one of those times when you know that questions will destroy. I did what I was told and drove him through the gate as fast as I could. Norm was on the floor of the back seat.

“When I got down the road, I stopped to let him climb in front, and he started to talk. I couldn’t make anything out a first. Then I understood. There’d been an accident at another location …”

“At the fort?” His eyes opened slightly at the word, then he continued scraping the table.

“You know about that?” I nodded. “Then you’ll understand why Norm had to move the accident to the yard. We never kept illegal substances in the yard overnight. It seemed a harmless enough deception, Cooperman. I just helped to get Norm out of the yard. He’d already planted the body under the truck.”

“I get it. Caine drove Jack’s truck back from the fort at seven-forty according to the dispatcher’s log. Why did you go back to the yard?”

“I had to make sure that Norm’s absence was noted and to be the first medical man on the scene. I’d hardly got out of the car when the fuss started. Then there were the police and the inquest.”

“Webster, the dispatcher, what did he know?”

“Only what I told him: that there’d been an accident and that it would be better for all of us if there were witnesses.”

“So you stayed around to assist the cops until around eleven.”

“I telephoned around and finally located Norm at the City Yard. He came right over. I don’t know how we got away with it for so long. I honestly don’t.”

“Caine never gave you the details, later on, I mean?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it and he never tried to explain.”

“I see. I see.” I couldn’t think of any more questions for the doctor, not then anyway. He was looking pretty ragged. I didn’t want to put him through any further cross-examination just then, not with his wife looking on from the screened-in porch. I thought I’d better leave him the ability to continue raking up the leaves after I left. Carswell walked with me to the street without adding anything to what he had already told me. What he was interested in was how it was all going to come out. Would he be charged? I told him that frankness was his only card at the moment and wished him luck. He shook my hand in a serious and unnecessary way. I felt like a Cub Scout. I got to the curb and caught him just as he was turning:

“What do you hear about the old lady? How is she?”

“I was over there first thing this morning. It’s hard to tell. They’ve tried to make her comfortable, but she’s very upset. The shock of it all, I guess. The fact that she’s lasted through the night’s a good sign, but it’s still touch and go. I’m surprised you’re interested, Mr. Cooperman.”

“She seemed like a woman of spirit on Friday night. I’m sorry it’s ended like this.”

“Yes, the arrest of Ross was more than she could bear. Well …” He made a helpless gesture and I found a sad smile.

I walked to where I’d left the Olds and got in. By the time I drove by the house, Carswell’s wife had arrived on the lawn and was talking earnestly to her husband.