“So, do you think the same person killed both Dowden and Pásztory?” Anna asked, leaning into the table and hunching her shoulders.
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay, Benny, pargeting aside, who killed Dowden and Pásztory?”
“Yeah,” echoed Pete, “enough with the suspense already.”
“Don’t be condescending, Sergeant,” said Anna. “But I’m sure we are all dying to know.”
“When I had my one and only talk with Alex Pásztory, he told me, just before he spotted Dr. Carswell sitting near us, that he was off to meet with the AV. I was certain he meant the AV at Kinross.”
“The AV? What’s that? I’ve never heard of an AV.”
“Well, when he said it I was sure it must be one of those business terms like CEO and GNP and CIO. You know, an acronym well known by people in the business. So, I didn’t say anything at the time, but I looked it up in my dictionary later. I couldn’t figure out what connection any of this had with the Authorized Version. I had to admit that AV was a dead end. Then, earlier tonight, I heard some friends reciting an old rhyme. I don’t know where it came from, but listening to it I heard the word ‘navy’ as ‘AV.’ That put me on track again. Maybe Pásztory didn’t say that he was going to meet with the AV. Maybe he said he was going to meet with the navy.”
“The navy?” said Anna. “He must have meant the Commander. He was a hero in the RCN during the Second World War! But, I don’t get it.”
“Neither did I at first. Why would Pásztory be getting in touch with the Commander? Murdo Forbes certainly knew who Alex was after those articles he wrote in the paper last spring. Murdo was still chairman of the board at Phidias. Maybe Pásztory wanted to confront the man at the top. We now know that Ross had been doing his best to cover up for the Commander’s part in the illegal dirty work going on at Sangallo and Kinross. Maybe Pásztory believed that Ross was the chief villain, the Forbes with the toxins on his conscience. Pásztory could have tried to show Murdo what was going on behind his back while he and Biddy were away in Fort Lauderdale.”
“Wasn’t the Commander out of town when Pásztory died?”
“He’d just got back but was keeping a low profile, until the arrival of guests for the wedding made it impossible to stay in hiding. He and Biddy had been living at the club since their return from the south.”
“Benny, you’re not saying that Murdo Forbes killed Jack Dowden and Alex Pásztory, are you? That would be too ironic!” Anna was looking at me earnestly. Her cheeks were quite flushed with the excitement of what she was participating in. I had to break the connection and focus on some neutral object, Pete Staziak, who repeated the jist of Anna’s question.
“Well, all I can tell you is: Dr. Roppa, the archaeologist told me that he met the Commander at the fort on the morning that Jack died. We know that Caine was covering up for somebody. What better candidate than the man who had been lobbying the board to take him on? Caine was the fair-haired boy in the Commander’s eyes, and the Commander was Caine’s best hope for a foot on the ladder to success. Is it taking a big leap to say that Caine would look out for the Commander? In the case of Dowden, Caine only had to move the body to a new and potentially less threatening location and to arrange for witnesses. It was the second death that involved the hiding of a body.”
“Can you place the Commander anywhere near the fort on the day Pásztory was killed?” Chris asked.
“The people running a Bed and Breakfast in Niagaraon-the-Lake say a Bentley that matches the description of the Commander’s car was parked in front of their place on the afternoon Pásztory was murdered.”
“Where exactly is that?”
“Four short blocks away from the fort. I’ll give you the names.”
“Wouldn’t there have been a lot of drivers and working men on the site at the time of both killings, Benny,” asked Staziak.
“Dowden was killed very early in the morning. If it was witnessed only by Caine, I’d call that luck, dumb luck. The second killing took place at a time arranged by the Commander, who knew where and when they wouldn’t be disturbed. He was getting more calculating, becoming better at it.”
“Savas took a deep breath and finished the cognac in his glass. “It’s not a suit of nettles, Benny. You haven’t really wrapped up the Commander in his guilt. What else do you have?”
“Pásztory was shot with the Commander’s own gun. We knew that but weren’t taking it into account since the Commander’s dead too. And that brings me, Anna, to the other reason for Biddy shooting her husband. He was getting out of hand. He had always been a businessman of the old school, more a robber baron than an enlightened bureaucrat. Dowden got in the way, so he knocked him to his knees and rammed his own truck into him. Pásztory threatened to blow the lid off everything, so he was given a short, sharp shot right in the heart. Not just a lucky shot, Pete,” I said facing Staziak. “Remember the Commander had military training. So had Biddy, now that I think of it.”
For a few moments we just sat looking from one face to another. There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. The cognac was gone from Savas’s glass, so I gave him some of mine. I put down the cigarette I’d been waving around unlit for the last hour. The ashtray nearest me was almost empty.
“This isn’t very satisfying, Benny. Who gets the handcuffs? Biddy Forbes? I don’t think that’s likely.”
“Chris, I’ll let you dance around that question. It goes beyond the scope of my jurisdiction.”
“Hell, Benny,” Pete reminded me, “you don’t have any jurisdiction!”
“I feel sorry for Biddy Forbes,” Anna said.
“She was in a tight corner.”
“Still. They’d been married for nearly fifty years.”
Savas turned to Anna, grinning. “That’s a better argument for it than Benny gave!” he said, jerking his thumb in my direction.
“There’s just one more thing: how did you know that Dowden was killed at the fort and not in the Kinross yard?”
“It’s a question of pods and seeds, Pete. Are you familiar with a plant called Dame’s Rocket, also known as Hesperis matronalis?” And that’s when they started clobbering me. All three of them.
THIRTY-TWO
It was nearly noon when I climbed out of bed. The first thing I noticed was the stale smell of dead cigarettes. I was growing sensitive to the state of my health. My infatuation with smoke was fading. I was going to have to face it, but I put it off until I could look at myself with clean teeth and a shaved face.
After a leisurely breakfast at the Di, I drove over Western Hill and parked outside Irma Dowden’s little house. Behind one of the houses of a neighbour, somebody was burning leaves, which was against the law but smelled nice in the wind.
Ralph, the dog, met me at the front door. He hadn’t grown any friendlier since our first meeting just two weeks ago. Irma’s small face appeared a few feet above the dog’s.
“Oh, it’s you, is it. I was wondering when I’d hear from you. Get down, Ralph! Let him be! You better come in, Mr. Cooperman, I mean-what was it-Benny?”
“That’ll do nicely,” I said, making my way once again into the simple living-room with the picture of Jack and his Freightliner on the mantlepiece. We both sat down, before Irma jumped up and headed to the kitchen. Again she offered either tea or coffee. She was still bluffing about the coffee, I think, but I’ll never know, since I opted for tea. After talking with our voices shouting from kitchen to living-room through the empty dining-room, I decided to join Irma at the back of the house. Soon we were sitting at the antique green table drinking tea. I told her what I’d found out and what had happened since I’d seen her last. When I finally finished giving her the short version, she looked into her cup sadly.