Murder Sees the Light
PENGUIN CANADA
MURDER SEES THE LIGHT
HOWARD ENGEL is the creator of the enduring and beloved detective Benny Cooperman, who, through his appearance in twelve best-selling novels, has become an internationally recognized fictional sleuth. Two of Engel’s novels have been adapted for TV movies, and his books have been translated into several languages. He is the winner of numerous awards, including the 2005 Writers’ Trust of Canada Matt Cohen Award, the 1990 Harbourfront Festival Prize for Canadian Literature and an Arthur Ellis Award for crime fiction. Howard Engel lives in Toronto.
Also in the Benny Cooperman series
The Suicide Murders
Murder on Location
The Ransom Game
A City Called July
A Victim Must Be Found
Dead and Buried
There Was An Old Woman
Getting Away with Murder
The Cooperman Variations
Memory Book
East of Suez
Also by Howard Engel
Murder in Montparnasse
Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell
HOWARD ENGEL
A BENNY COOPERMAN MYSTERY
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Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada),
a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1984, 1985
Published in this edition, 2008
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)
Copyright © Howard Engel, 1984
Lyrics from “Mah Lindy Lou,” by Lily Strickland copyright © 1920 G. Schirmer, Inc., used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
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Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Manufactured in Canada.
ISBN-13: 978-0-14-316756-3
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For my brother, David,
who knows about canoes and loons
Murder
Sees
the Light
ONE
Patten looked at me, then again at the board. He hadn’t expected me to move my Queen’s Pawn. He’d decided I’d save my endangered Knight. Not a bad play for somebody who claimed to be in the ladies’ ready-to-wear business in a small town. Maybe I should have taken a more conservative line, but what the hell, I had to make the guy like me. He had enough flunkies lying around. He didn’t need another gofer. My appeal was to his intellectual side, such as it was.
He was wearing those reflecting sunglasses that should be outlawed by the rules of international chess. I couldn’t see his mind working behind them, and I had the distraction of the lake, the first island, and the far shore to deal with. David Kipp was out in his custom-made canoe again. Gloomy George was running around the lake in his big outboard like he was King of Algonquin Park. George’s motor was too big for him. Patten lit a black cheroot with a Spanish rope lighter, then let his hand hover over the white pieces. By now he could see that I’d opened up my Queen’s Bishop. He moved his Bishop as I expected, and we sparred for a few turns. He snapped up a Pawn, and we each took a Knight. I could see sweat rolling down his tanned cheek into the wool of his beard. That was all the reassurance I needed. I put my Queen to work on my tenth move, forced a crisis, and declared mate on my twentieth move. Patten flicked the cheroot to the patio and leaned back from the rattan table.
“What do you call a game like that, fella? That’s booklearned chess, that’s not rough and tumble. I bet that’s got a fancy name, Benny. What do you call it: the Shmata Defence? The Hebrew Gambit? What’s its name, fella?” He took a tall glass with condensation blurring the effect of the orange against the white of his shirt or the blue of the lake and sipped aggressively. I didn’t tell him it was the Scotch Gambit. It would only open up the territory to wider national slurs. I shrugged as though I’d just made up the game as I went along. Funny, he never got racial when he was winning at something. In the boat, for instance. He was the better fisherman, netting more fish and bigger ones than I hauled in. He could swim farther than I could, and I’ll bet he could pump iron with the professionals. He didn’t try me on tennis, golf, or tenting on the old campground, but I’d be willing to guess he'd walk over me. Luckily up here at Big Crummock Lake we were at least seventy miles from the nearest golf course, and tennis wasn’t one of the approved sports inside the provincial park. In fact, he couldn’t show off at sailing, because there were no sailboats. This was a wilderness area, or as close to at as the Ontario government and the lumber companies allowed it to be. Here the shore wasn’t cluttered with cottages or trailer parks. That wasn’t the style on Big Crummock. Nor did the far shore boast of colourful boathouses like the ones in Muskoka. Wilderness meant no large motorboats, and except for the big Rimmer cruiser and George’s speedboat, the typical water vessel was the canoe. They came in various sizes and colours. I don’t think pastels are allowed yet, but there are signs of softening on that point.
My big moment with Patten came when I pulled him off the burning front end of his motorboat. He was still holding the starting rope in his hands, and the stern end had completely disappeared. I dumped him into the lake to put out his burning shorts, then hauled him, sputtering, out of the shallow water to the dock. Since then he liked to have me around, even if I did beat him at chess. Hanging around the Woodward place suited me fine. Patten didn’t need to know that I was being paid to keep an eye on him. I didn’t just happen to be fishing two hundred yards off the end of his dock for the fun of it.
From where I was sitting facing Patten and the lake, the scene of our first meeting lay ju
st over his shoulder. In fact the charred pieces of the boat could be seen bobbing in the reeds to the left of the dock. The blisters on Patten’s face now looked like sunburn. Under the reflecting sunglasses you couldn’t see his partially charred eyebrow.
Two weeks ago I’d got a call from Ray Thornton of Reeder, Ansell and Thornton, an old Grantham legal firm on Queen Street across from the post office. Ray had been at Edith Cavell School with me from kindergarten through to grade six. I lost sight of him for a few years, and then he turned up asking me to tail the wife of a client of his. That was just after I set up as a private investigator with a shingle waving over St. Andrew Street. That first report led to other assignments. Somehow, in those early days it always ended up in the divorce courts. Now they’ve changed the laws, so I take what I can get.
Ray met me for lunch at the United Cigar Store, just up the block and across the road from my office. There was nothing fancy about the United. It was fast and clean and didn’t hide its mistakes under a sprig of parsley. I was already into my second bite of a toasted chopped egg sandwich when Ray dropped a clipping from The Globe and Mail on the green marble countertop. It was a wireservice story about how the former friends and colleagues of Norbert E. Patten were trying to find him. I’d heard of Patten, and from what I’d heard, I couldn’t get excited about the fact that he’d got lost.
“How do you come into it?” I asked Ray
“I have a client who has sunk a lot of money into Patten’s Ultimate Church, and he’s very concerned about Patten’s to-ings and fro-ings. Especially now that the U.S. Supreme Court is about to render a decision on the tax status of the church. We should hear the judgement before the end of the week after next. So my client doesn’t want his boy to slip away from the steely grip of the law, if that’s what it comes to.”
“That’s all Patten’s good for. He’s got more cute tricks in him than a magicians’ convention.”
Patten, besides getting blown out of motorboats and losing his temper after chess, was the bright boy who linked up evangelism with the franchising techniques of modern business. He’d set up a world-wide corporate structure, collected millions, part of it in tax breaks, and become a well-heeled saver of souls with an amalgam of Zen, Spiritualism, and that old-time religion of the American Bible Belt. The Ultimate Church was more than just a cult, it was a super-cult. I shook my head thinking about the mixture of Bible-thumping and the American Way. “Didn’t Patten slip out of California a year or so ago?”
“That’s right. He left Burbank and surfaced in Chicago, as busy as ever.”
“That’s my boy.”
“But he’s not running the tight ship of yesteryear. There have been defections. Early this year his yacht was seized in Spain, and the crew members were arrested by the guardia civil. Patten didn’t raise a hand to help out.”
“And the defectors?”
“Princes of the church every blessed one of them. They couldn’t sign affidavits fast enough. The picture I get from them is that Norbert E. Patten is much given to excesses and tantrums and has developed a sincere need to rule the world.”
“Everybody should have a hobby, Ray. And the world could use some of his money. Why do you want me to spoil it?”
“I haven’t asked you yet. But since you’re here, I’ll tell you. The defectors have launched a four hundred million dollar class-action suit against the church. My client is in the way of picking up part of that if Patten turns up to face those charges. If the Supreme Court rules against Patten on the tax-evasion business, Patten’s going to walk away from the States without going back for his hiking boots.” I chewed on my sandwich, listening to the crunch of toast and finely chopped celery, while in my head I was trying to count a chorus line of zeros that were highstepping to the right of a four.
“When you say that Patten’s disappeared, what do you mean? He’s not been gathered to his fathers, has he?”
“A week ago he crossed into Canada at Port Huron. He was travelling with five others. A little bird close to the people who make a living knowing these things tells me he’s holed up in Algonquin Park.”
“What a way to go. How old was he?”
“He is forty three. And he’s a long way from becoming the dear departed. What we need first of all as a positive identification. Can you get that for us? Then we’ll need to have a resident baby-sitter until he makes a move. Will you be our limpet, Benny? It will mean staking out the place for a week or so. There’s a lodge on the same lake where you can stay.”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“Come on, Benny, don’t look so glum. You can get a lot of fishing done while you’re waiting for him to show his face. It’s a great place from what I hear. Christ, Benny, I’m offering you a fat fee for sitting by the water getting a suntan. When’s the last time you were paid to be a tourist?”
So, I spent the weekend cleaning up my desk and explaining things to my parents. I threw some clothes into a club bag and headed north to Petawawa Lodge on Big Crummock Lake.
“Another game, fella? Give a man a sporting chance to get even,” Patten said. I grunted, and we began setting up the pieces again. This time I’d let him win. A wasp was busy doing himself in in the dregs of my orange juice. They’d tried blowing Patten up, maybe they’d try poison next. Before I got to knit my brows and worry about it, Patten’s girlfriend, Lorca, arrived with a fresh glass. She had a smile on her face that led me to believe she knew where the real stuff was hidden. I watched two distorted versions of her long-legged self in Patten’s glasses as she walked back up the rustic stone steps to the cabin.
“Lust not after her beauty, Benny, she’s mine.” Patten knew more about reflecting sunglasses than I gave him credit for.
I was to play black again. I tried to throw him the advantage by castling too early. I popped off a few offensive Pawns, thinking that would get me in enough trouble to keep me concentrated on the game. It didn’t work. I thought of the long dusty drive north. I thought of Petawawa Lodge, a ten-minute paddle from where I was sitting, out of sight, but nestling on its own cove on Big Crummock Lake. I thought of Joan Harbiston showing me my cabin and teaching me the mysteries of coal-oil lamps and propane stoves. In spite of her instructions I managed on my first night to wolf down a dinner of half-burned, half-unthawed french fries. I remembered the thrill of walking into my first suspended yard of flypaper. It was a real treat.
Algonquin Park wasn’t new to me. As a kid of twelve I’d been sent on a canoe trip lasting five days beginning at Canoe Lake. Camp Northern Pane taught me to paddle, to swim a mile, and to make hospital corners. Nowadays I preferred urban landscapes where the symbol of untamed nature is the dandelion growing between the cracks in the sidewalk.
For two days I had sat in an aluminum rowboat with my fishing line in the water and my eyes fixed on the activities at the Woodward place, Patten’s nest in the woods. Usually there was nothing stirring except for a curl of smoke hanging above the large fieldstone chimney. Whoever it was in there, I thought, hated the damp as much as I did. I’d noted comings and goings from the cabin to the white Mercedes parked in the clearing at the end of a rustic lane which connected with the one-lane lumber trail, the closest thing to a freeway in this part of the world. I’d given names to Lorca and the others as I watched them carrying groceries into the house after foraging missions to Hatchway. Until the boat had exploded, I hadn’t had much to put into the report of what I’d been doing with my time. “Subject has not been sighted. Body Beautiful and Mr. Clean drove to town. Shorty went for a boat ride in an aluminum boat like mine. Pair of suspicious loons came within one hundred feet of surveillance craft and submerged. Detected no limpet mines. Baited hook with worm number twenty-three. Lowered same into lake to depth of forty feet. Remained in position for sixteen minutes. Removed fishing line from water. Examined where worm had been nibbled away at both ends. Retired remaining mid-section and fitted worm number twenty-four in place….”
Patten was moving his
Queen around like he hadn’t another able-bodied piece left on the board. He’d allowed a cunning grin to bend the line of mouth visible above his beard. I’d have to try to get him in a poker game later on. That grin of his promised a good evening. I threw him the last of my Knights and prepared to hustle my King from square to square as he tried to pick me off with an alliance between his Queen and the edge of the board. I could imagine his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. He had the true killer instinct. I was glad I’d studied up on him before I packed my flannelette pajamas and drove the Olds up here.
Patten. I kept calling him that in my head, and it was going to get me into trouble if I called him that out loud. I had saved, and was now playing chess with, Norrie Edgar. That’s what he was calling himself. With the beard and sunglasses he could get away with it. On television it was clean-cut smooth grooming that made his face memorable.
“Mate!” said Patten with a smirk. I looked at the board. He was right, and he swelled with triumph. I made a clicking sound of appreciation in the corner of my mouth. He had the scent of blood now, and began setting up the pieces again. “I’m going to clean my shoes with you, fella.” Luckily, Lorca, the girl I’d been calling Body Beautiful until Patten introduced us, called down to him.
“Norrie! Ozzie’s just driving up.” Patten looked with regret at the chessboard, as though it assured him of an endless run of victories, and got up. I followed him from the dock to the house. A black Buick had just driven into the clearing. Slowly the doors opened and two men got out, arching their backs to unlock their spines from the miles. Lorca went over, and they looked happy to see her. The driver, a tall, blond kid in a blue T-shirt, carried a briefcase. The other guy, getting a hug from Lorca, wore new blue jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, and a bald head to rival that of Mr. Clean, Norrie’s man of all work. The driver, who I was already starting to call Surf’s Up in my head, gave the briefcase to Ozzie, his boss. They both looked like they had tried to dress down for the occasion. Patten in his ratty tan army shorts went over to the car and shook Ozzie with one hand and gave him half a bear-hug with the other. I hung back, feeling outnumbered. They started for the house. Patten turned back to me, lighting up another dark cheroot with his Spanish lighter, and tilted his head back like he was smoking a threedollar cigar. I felt like I was the gardener or somebody hired to rake leaves.