Balsam Sirens Read online

  After providing us minimal information through his essentially monosyllabic responses, Dickson stopped responding. He just looked at us disdainfully, his flat expressionless eyes and his clear, almost cherubic face being enough to cause a chill to run through even anyone who had already seen it. What he had done, and why he had done it, would remain a mystery to us until we found out later, by other routes, just what been driving this whole murderous exercise.

  I tried one more time asking Dickson what this whole affair had been all about.

  He just looked back at me in that same flat, expressionless, self-assured way. He showed a complete lack of affect. There was not a trace of empathy. Not a sign that he was human in any meaningful way. None of us was ever more than just a tool for him to use or an obstacle to be overcome. Other lives didn’t matter. Only his life mattered, but even that must have been a question of “mattering” in the most icy, chilling, and empty psychological surreality. Just as well that Andrea wasn’t here. She had seen the “businesslike” side of Dickson, and that had been more than enough. But to witness Dickson’s full-blown psychopathic calmness, against all this violence and carnage, would have horrified her to the core, probably triggering both sleeping and waking nightmares.

  “How did Harold Barbour fit into all this?” I asked Dickson.

  Dickson just shrugged.

  Mike moved suddenly to strike Dickson, but I got to him before he could and held him until his urge to beat Dickson to a pulp had passed.

  “Easy, Mike. The courts will deal with this bastard.”

  “Yeah, right!” Mike spat. “Twenty-five years and no chance of parole. Colour television and a library. What the fuck kind of punishment is that?”

  “Police! Everybody stay right where you are!”

  It was a statement rather than a challenge. Within five minutes, eight armed policemen had secured the scene, determined who everybody was, and led Dickson away.

  Thirty-three

  At a word from the police, the EMS team replaced my ad hoc binding on Mike’s wound by something more professional, then checked Blondie and confirmed that he was indeed dead. In accounting to the police for everyone present and why they were here, George’s name came up. I explained about George, and once it was clear that he was inside the house, I was told to go and bring him out, one of the police accompanying me. The three of us, Mike and I and George, were questioned for thirty minutes by the ranking detective. George had gone beyond stuttering. He was now mute. At length, it was decided that we would be taken to Lindsay to complete the questioning and to have Mike’s wound tended properly.

  Mike’s Glock and Dickson’s cannon were taken away. Mike and I were told, in tones of pronounced disapproval, that there would be many questions to answer because of the gunfight, the death, and what the police considered our failure to bring them into the matter much earlier. PIs are looked down upon by police at the best of times, but when they become O.K. Corral gunslingers, the presumption of innocence falls under serious strain.

  Then we were taken to the OPP detachment at Lindsay, where the sergeant in charge said that Mike should go to the hospital right away and have his shoulder tended to. Mike waved that off, saying that we needed to get this over with, so we were questioned further and had our statements taken. After that we went with Mike to the hospital where his wound was X-rayed to confirm the absence of broken bones and shell or bone fragments. After he got stitches, an injection, wound dressing, and a sling, an OPP cruiser brought us back to Largs.

  The rest of that day passed but not in the way we expected.

  We were besieged by reporters, although the police did a good job keeping them mostly at bay. After a couple of hours, the news hounds realized they had got all they were going to get, and that they would have to fill in any remaining blanks themselves to meet their deadlines. An earlier discussion I had had with Inspector Galbraith of the OPP had been invaluable, and in response to the few questions that reporters did manage to pose to me I just referred them to the police since the investigation was continuing. By midafternoon, we were left in peace.

  Of course it was huge news locally. A rampaging psychopath, a Chicago-style gun battle, a man killed, another wounded, and all in the sleepy village of Largs. The residents of Largs were stunned. Elsewhere the locals were also agog. In Coboconk, people stood in knots on street corners, Matthew Dyson’s barber shop was full to overflowing, the Tea Room was filled continuously to capacity, and the Pattie House sold more beer in a couple of days than it normally did in a month.

  One of the storylines to come out of it all related to the heroine of the piece.

  Kate.

  A dramatic account of Kate’s “bombing run” appeared in all the local papers. Kate was interviewed on television. Somebody had managed to take a picture of the disabled boat as it was towed away by a police launch. Kate made almost no comment except to say that it was all something that should never have happened.

  I had called Andrea from our house in Largs, after the shootout and just before the police arrived, to say that everything was okay, and to let her know what was happening next. I had called her again from the hospital in Lindsay while Mike’s wound was being treated; we had an emotional half-hour exchange and arranged to meet up later at Largs. Mike, George, and I arrived there first, and Kate and Andrea turned up ten minutes later. When the two women arrived, Andrea and I went into a long, silent, tearful, and thankful clutch. Our house and the garden where the showdown had occurred were cordoned off by police tape, so we asked an OPP officer to retrieve the keys to two of our cottages, and we settled into one of them and sat around in something of a daze. Mike and I explained in detail what had happened. George remained stricken and speechless, and I was able to take Kate aside and ask if she, Mike, and George could share one of the cottages for the night. Kate, who was the least traumatized of us all, but still evidently shaken, nodded her somewhat absent-minded agreement. We sat around looking at each other as the sun outside completed its swing across the sky and we drifted into late afternoon. There was general disbelief in what had just happened. We were all in shock, and it was obvious that for the next while we would have to take things a day at a time.

  I made some noises about eating.

  Nobody was hungry.

  I went back to the house and asked the same officer to retrieve a bottle of brandy from our liquor cabinet. A couple of large shots of Courvoisier relaxed Andrea considerably. Mike declined because of the pain killers he had been given at the hospital. I spent ten quiet minutes with George, and we slowly downed our brandy together. He was on his own in some unhappy space.

  We found the sheets, blankets, and pillows we needed in the cottages’ linen closets, but nobody slept much that night. I spent almost the entire night lying next to Andrea, ready to help her through any panic attacks that might rear up. By four thirty, when the robins had begun their ever-renewed message of hope, Andrea was in a deep sleep. I knew, however, that I would insist on both of us spending time with a shrink, just as serving police officers do when they have killed or injured someone on the job. Andrea had had shocks beyond anything within her experience. PTSD is real, and it’s a horrible and dangerous thing.

  I rose quietly just after six thirty and went to our house. The crime scene people had finished sometime in the night and had taken down the police tape. They had also cleaned up some of the mess in the garden, but I got out the hose and spent twenty minutes removing the blood from the chair and cushions where Blondie had been hit and flushing away the last of his blood from the cottage wall and the grass.

  In the midst of this zombie activity, I stopped.

  What do you think you’re doing, Whelan? There’s no way you can just walk back in here as though nothing has happened. The route forward was clear.

  I selected changes of clothes for Andrea and me, picked up our two toiletry bags, emptied everything I thought might be needed from the fridge into a large cloth shopping bag, and lugged it all bac
k to the cottage where we had spent the night. Andrea was still in a deep, if not necessarily sound, sleep. At the cottage, two doors down, Mike and George were out cold as well, but Kate was up.

  I walked outside with her.

  “I don’t know how to thank you, Kate. You’ve been a lifesaver for Andrea. For all of us.”

  “I think there will be a lot more talking needed”, Kate said. “Andrea’s in rough shape.”

  “Yes. I know. Will you be able to come to our place from time to time for dinner?”

  Kate was nodding and smiling. “Yes, of course.”

  Kate and I walked on a little.

  “That was a good move on your part, getting Andrea to take on house repairs”, she said.

  “Oh! She mentioned it?”

  “After we’d had a couple of drinks and another good weep, I think being able to talk about it helped distract her from all the horrors. She hardly talked about anything else.”

  “Well, she made it plain to me that things needed shaking up. For a while”, I said, “I was becoming really concerned that we were beginning to drift apart.”

  Kate smiled at me.

  “Not a chance”, she said. “I know Andrea. She wouldn’t let that happen.”

  There was a short pause here and an attempt by Kate at what seemed unaccustomed subtlety. “She knows there’s competition out there.”

  I looked at Kate in surprise.

  “Relax, Mark”, she said through a laugh. “There’s no way Andrea’s ever going to let go of you.”

  We walked on a bit further.

  “Look”, Kate said. “I have to go. I’ve got a big job today, and I don’t want to be late starting it.”

  “Yes. Of course. Thanks, Kate. Thanks”, and I kissed her forehead and pulled her into a long embrace of friendship. I then walked back with her to her car and waved to her as she drove off.

  By nine o’clock, Mike and Andrea were up, and Andrea and I had changed into fresh clothes. The cottage Andrea and I had spent the night in was a nice one, had a fully equipped modern kitchen and a large outdoor patio table and umbrella. I suggested that we all have some breakfast. They showed no enthusiasm, so I insisted and eventually browbeat them into it. Andrea was reasonably rested but in a flat mood. George was meek, listless, and silent. Mike had seen trauma before and knew what to expect, but he was groggy from the throbbing pain in his shoulder, the result of him weaning himself off the pills he had accepted reluctantly at the hospital and then forgotten about despite his promise to continue taking them for three days more.

  I whipped up a monster omelette, cooked a complete package of bacon, and prepared ample toast, then herded Andrea, Mike, and George out to the garden. It was a brilliant morning. Flocks of birds in the canopy above us told us in no uncertain terms to get rid of the long faces and that if we weren’t going to eat all that grub, they would. We picked at the food initially, but then fell on it as our hunger rekindled. George looked at nobody and ate mechanically. To all intents and purposes, he wasn’t there.

  Andrea laid down her fork on a plate that still had half its original helping of breakfast, and she began to weep silently. Mike and I both moved toward her, sandwiching her in reassurance, and I put my arm around her and drew her gently to me. She responded by laying her head on my shoulder and weeping in choking gasps. There was no point in saying “it’s all right” or something similar, because it wasn’t all right at all. At length, Andrea’s tears tapered off, and I coaxed her into finishing her breakfast. George went inside and stretched out on a couch.

  We left the breakfast things where they were and Andrea and I set out on a longish walk around Largs. The gun battle had been impossible to miss, but word had evidently got around to the Largs residents, helping to fill in the rest of the story. People came out of their cottages offering condolences and support. Such gestures had seemed before today to be well-meaning but pointless, useless. However, after almost twenty people had stopped us during our walk, it was clear that we were not alone. Wally Harris placed an arm awkwardly over Andrea’s shoulders. James and Gladys Nelson each made a point of giving Andrea hugs and smiles of encouragement. I noticed the strong response of thanks and gratitude that these gestures elicited from Andrea.

  We weren’t alone.

  Thirty-four

  In the week that followed, life slowly returned to something close to normal. Kate came by two days after the shootout to collect Andrea, and they went off to spend time together. During that day Jimmy and I disposed of the chair and cushions that had been soaked in Blondie’s blood. We also cleared away the debris that once had been Andrea’s picnic table. Jimmy trimmed off the shattered pieces and bundled it up to give to James Nelson, who was sure to find a good use for waste mahogany. Jimmy and I went out, bought a replacement table, and assembled it. The police had done the necessary forensic work on Dickson’s car while it was in place, half in and half out of the pool, and then they had towed it away.

  The following day Mike awoke early, and it was evident that his shoulder was on the mend. He spoke to me about having to get back to Toronto, and I told him to work to his own schedule. But Mike was evidently not ready just yet to assume that we would be all right left to our own devices.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  Guessing that Mike wanted to know whether I was coming through this mess okay, I explained what I planned to do over the next few days. Mike nodded, sufficiently satisfied, and said that he would be heading back to town the following day. The rest of that day, Jimmy and I started the work needed to repair the damage to the tiles around the pool, replaced the screen in the cold storage room, and filled in the ruts in the grass that Dickson had created as his car had skidded around the carport and slewed toward the pool. Andrea had gone off to have lunch with Kate and returned midafternoon. She and Mike spent a few hours in desultory chat, taking short walks around Largs, and nodding in easy chairs. That evening, I made us spicy ribs, rice lightly flavoured in sesame oil and hoisin sauce, and steamed mixed vegetables.

  On Thursday, the next day, Mike loaded up his things, said a long and touchingly awkward farewell to Andrea, gave me a huge bear hug, and then set off for Toronto. About an hour later, Andrea and I drove George back to Toronto, but this time George was in the front seat and Andrea was in the back, keeping up a fairly constant flow of talk with George. Within an hour, George had relaxed noticeably, and we tried as best we could to satisfy ourselves that he was going to be okay on his own and to make him understand that he should call us immediately, even if all he wanted to do was talk. George was quieter than normal, but we didn’t read too much into this. He was hardly forthcoming even at the best of times.

  When we reached George’s apartment building, we convinced him to have lunch with us since we didn’t want just to drop him at his door and drive off. Over lunch, George thanked us in his own way, which was almost incomprehensibly halting, but at the same time evidently heartfelt and quite affecting. He said he would take the rest of the day off, and go to work again in the morning. He then said that he would call me at Largs later that evening. This was unexpected, but I took it as a good sign.

  Before leaving Largs to take George back to Toronto, we both pondered not returning to Largs that evening, staying instead in our condo in town. But once in Toronto, we decided, practically in unison, that there was unfinished emotional work at Largs and that we couldn’t just hide from it. But while we were in town, I did two other things.

  First, I took an hour to arrange for a new cellphone. The one Blondie had taken from me was nowhere to be found, and was now likely at the bottom of the lake.

  Second, I drove to the hardware chain warehouse where George worked, explained who I was and why I was there, and eventually was introduced to George’s manager, an interesting and bubbly middle-aged man named William Owen. At that time of day, George would normally be working at his backroom post, and Owen showed us where this was, where George worked. It was just one of a t
housand other nondescript work places. I had explained my connection to George, described recent events to Owen, asked him to keep an eye on George, and gave him my contact information.

  During our return drive to Largs, neither of us spoke much. I was hoping for a quiet evening with Andrea to figure out what we were going to do next.

  Back at Largs we parked outside the cottage that was our temporary accommodation, and we walked to Wally Harris’ shop and picked up the ingredients for a generic but tasty chicken stir-fry. Having offered his good neighbour support earlier, Wally sensibly fell back into his merchant’s role, talking about the weather, his son’s success in the local baseball team, and several other items able to soothe nerves set ajangle by recent events. Andrea and I returned to our cottage, not yet being ready to face the house. I prepared the evening meal, and Andrea took a long telephone call from Kate. Just as Andrea and I were finishing dinner, Mike phoned, and the force of his ebullient personality was just what I needed. He and I talked about everything and nothing for forty minutes. Ten minutes after Mike had hung up, I was surprised to receive a call from George and even more surprised that he was calmer than I had expected. I promised to call him again soon and arrange a meet up in Toronto, and I floated the notion that he might like to consider another visit to Largs later in the summer.

  After that Andrea and I sat out on the patio, in the very mild summer evening air, and killed the half-bottle of sambuca that I had picked up while we were in town.

  Friday dawned overcast and cool. Andrea and I had breakfast outside and considered our day. I said I wanted to work more with Jimmy to repair the pool. Andrea surprised me somewhat when she said she wanted to clean up the two cottages we had used over the past several days, do the linen, and move back into our house that afternoon. I wasn’t too sure about this, but the sharp electric edges of memory were beginning to wear smooth, and as we had to move back to the house sooner or later, I agreed with Andrea’s judgment that it might as well be sooner.