There was an Old Woman (28 page)

After about twenty minutes, Pete Staziak went into the office without seeing any of us waiting in the hall. A few minutes later, a stenographer joined them with her dictating book. Nobody seemed interested in coffee. The smokers weren't even patting their pockets or bags.

It was nearly an hour later that Chris stuck his nose out his door long enough to say that he was booking Julian Newby in the murder of Thurleigh Ramsden. He wasn't singling any of us out when he said this. He particularly kept his eyes clear of Claudia's tormented face. He had already closed the door again before a choked “Oh, no!” escaped her pale lips. I looked at Cath and she looked at me. Together we took an arm each and led her from Niagara Regional. We ended up in The Snug at the back
of the Beaumont Hotel, where so many of the joys and tragedies of Grantham are enacted. We were with her, listening to her reiterations of disbelief, until Cath had to leave for the TV station. I offered to drive Claudia home and she let me. When I got home myself, I called Gerard and told him what happened. All in all, he took the news better than Claudia had.

THIRTY

There's really not a lot more to say. The town did its best not to make a circus of the five-month-long trial, and failed. One of Toronto's top criminal lawyers spent his leisure hours in a room at the Eastbank Hotel. When the trial ended, the hotel management held a small ceremony in which they retired his room number and made him a present of the door. Of course Newby went to prison. Even a defence that put most of the blame on the villain Ramsden couldn't get Newby off the hook.

Old Mrs. Ravenswood at last allowed herself to get the help she needed with her drinking problem. At these church basement meetings she sometimes encountered Rupert McLay, whose attendance, she boasted, left a good deal to be desired. But, she allowed that he was a well-spoken “young man with a gift for wry humour.”

One day while the trial was still going on, the old woman sent her car for me. As usual my answering service got the name wrong, so that it wasn't until I was ushered into her presence in a big, sunny room that I realized who it was.

“Sit down, Mr. Cooperman,” she said. “You'll find that the tea on the coffee-table is still quite hot.” I settled
myself and went through the motions of playing with the cup and saucer. The biscuits were oatcakes and not brought out of the Highlands by any rapid means.

“I brought you here to listen to an old woman ramble. I intend to pay you for your time, but I don't mean to hire you. So, you may put that out of your head.” I nodded and she went on. “You know this trial of Julian Newby is most distressful for me. I knew his people, you see. Thank God they're long dead! What interests me— concerns me, really—is that the name of one of my employees has been repeatedly brought into the proceedings. You know to whom I'm referring, I think?”

“Catherine Bracken,” I said.

“Yes, Catherine Bracken. Is there any way that you can see to eliminate her name? It comes up day after day.”

“Short of Julian Newby changing his plea, no.”

“I see. I believe you, Mr. Cooperman. My son-in-law holds you in high regard. And I seem to remember you myself from somewhere.”

“May I ask why you wish to spare Cath Bracken? The Crown's case depends upon her recognition of Newby's briefcase at the scene of the crime.”

“Yes, yes, yes! I know all that. I hate publicity, especially when it comes close. I loathe it.”

“A news reader is news, Mrs. Ravenswood.”

“I don't care about that. I'm thinking of the girl, you silly man! I've become fond of the girl and I hate thinking of what this is doing to her.”

“I think you underestimate Cath, Mrs. Ravenswood. She's made of tough material. She won't break.”

“Yes, I'm rather counting on that. One has to count on something and it's a comfort to know she's tough.”

“I didn't say unbreakable.”

“No, I know what you mean. She comes of tough stock, you see. I have every confidence that she'll get through it.”

“I didn't know you knew her family.”

“Did you not? Yes, I knew her father rather well. But that was a long time ago. Will you be going back to the court-house?”

“Not today. But I'm due to testify before the end of the week.”

“I see. Well, I won't keep you any longer, Mr. Cooperman.”

The interview was over and there were still oatcakes to be returned to their box for another five or ten years. My last sight of Gladys Ravenswood was a mauve smile as she gave me her hand before I gave myself up to her driver to be returned to my office.

The old woman lived to celebrate her eighty-ninth birthday. After her death, Orv and Antonia split their marriage without splitting up their working arrangements. Antonia went to the
Beacon
, where she introduced some overdue changes. She enjoyed being a “hands-on” publisher. She continued, changes notwithstanding, to employ some alcoholic friends of mine. Orv Wishart, left with a free hand to run the broadcasting centre, brought
Cath Bracken into the management team, which gave her an important voice in how the broadcasting wing of the Ravenswood media empire was run. Her official title was Head of Radio, but she was elevated to the board of directors, while continuing to read the evening news on TV, to my father's secret delight and mine.

Cath and McStu got married quietly in the new year, shortly after McStu's new book came out the day before Christmas Eve. The book did well. I bought an armful myself at the launching party in Susan Torres's book store on Queen Street. I was behind in my Christmas shopping and the book made a great choice for friends and family. The antiques I bought in Grimsby also found favour with some very special people.

I remember at the book launching, with Anna and Cath getting to know one another and Anna listening to Cath go on and on about the pleasures of a skiing holiday at Fonthill and Susan Torres trying to maintain some order around the cheese and crackers, that McStu took me over to one side of the store, leaned me against the wall of books and asked: “Why did Newby get you to follow Cath, Benny?”

“To get me to stop snooping around Ramsden.”

“Who was he fronting for? Who was his client?”

“McStu, there wasn't a client. Newby was doing this for himself. It was a way to control me, he thought.”

“And what about Cath? Why her?”

“He wanted me to hinder her getting the Oldridge documentary on the air. That's why he tipped her off that
she was being tailed. He wanted to add confusion, just to slow her down. He needed quiet to complete his deal with Ramsden. And Ramsden wasn't making it easy. Newby knew that once the papers got hold of the Bede Bunch flimflam, the Public Trustee would swoop down on the whole enterprise, delaying things indefinitely. Of course, that became irrelevant as soon as Ramsden threatened Newby. Quite simply, Ramsden had to be killed. Newby was like that about people. He dealt with them unsentimentally. Just as he did with poor Dora. As soon as their little affair threatened the course of Newby's planned future, Dora had to be eliminated.”

“Brilliant! Just brilliant!” said McStu.

“He hasn't explained away Temperley yet,” said a voice I knew. It was Chris Savas chewing on some orange cheese.

“Yes,” said McStu, “what about Temperley?”

“Cath's interview with Temperley frankly scared him. Maybe it was his conscience or maybe it was the smell of prison, Chris. He told Ramsden he wasn't going to cover for him any more. So, Ramsden took him for an old-fashioned ride in the cemetery just before closing time on Monday night. He popped him with that Japanese piece you haven't been able to trace and dumped him into a freshly dug grave. He kicked some loose dirt on top of him, but by then it must have been getting too dark to see. Six feet down, Temperley must have looked gone forever.”

“That's just talk, Benny,” Chris said.

“Try the little museum Ramsden set up for the Royal Grantham Rifles. The gun is in their collection. Ramsden took it, used it and had it back in the collection before it was even missed.”

“What if it is? That still doesn't make it Ramsden.”

“You can tell quickly enough if the piece was used recently or not. And, hell, Chris, since Ramsden's dead, I didn't think you'd need an airtight case. But, for what it's worth, have a look at the muddy shoes Ramsden was wearing the night I had my tussle with him. They can compare the mud on his shoes with the mud in the grave, can't they?”

“You bloody well know they can!” Chris said, biting down hard and sending chips of biscuit into McStu's hair.

Trying to change the subject, I turned on McStu, who was now being pulled by Cath back to his autographing table. “Tell me,” I said, “why do you change the names of some of the Hamilton streets and not change others? You change the names of some of the places near Hamilton too and not others. Why is that?”

“Ah,” said McStu, pouring red wine into a plastic glass, “that's a secret known only to me, my editor and God almighty.”

“What's going on here?” said Frank Bushmill, pushing a book under McStu's nose for signing. He had made his way through a growing crowd of admirers. He looked completely recovered from the bang on his head. “Benny, did you ever figure out who it was who was trying to get into your office that night?”

“What's this?” Chris demanded.

“Oh, it's just one of those loose ends. You get them at the end of every big case,” I said. “It may have been Mendlesham trying to see what I had on Ramsden. It might have been Newby himself, but I doubt it. We can't lay everything at the feet of our villain, can we?” I looked up at McStu for support, but he broke up and started laughing. Savas joined him and so did Cath Bracken. But Frank shouted his way through the laughter.

“Benny,” he said. “When are we holding a tenants' meeting?”

“Meeting? What meeting?” I asked.

“We have to find a replacement for our old friend Mr. Kogan.”

“Kogan? This all started with Kogan. Has he finally eaten a bad can of cat food?”

“Not a bit of it,” Frank said. “I was talking to Rupe McLay over at the Nag's Head. He tells me that Kogan has just come into a lot of money. Turns out he was Liz Oldridge's heir in the hole. He's inherited everything! Rupe says he plans to buy our building on St. Andrew Street from Mrs. Onischuk. Damned if he isn't threatening to turn our offices into a hostel for vagrants. We're going to have to move, Benny! As Kogan says, ‘How do you like them apples?'”

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