Detective Mellon removed his earbuds as he eyed the body.
— Let me guess, I’m keen to guess, said Detective Cartier. Slayer? Megadeth? I know, Five Finger Death Punch.
By way of reply Detective Mellon started humming a tune, immediately prompting Detective Cartier to hold up his hands palms outward in protest.
— No, no, if you start with that “Freude schöner Götterfunken” crap again, I swear there is going to be a second murder here today.
— Music is god’s gift to humanity.
— The value of the gift depends on the value of the music.
— I suppose.
Staring down at the body – bearded male, white, between 40 and 50 years of age, dressed casually – Detective Mellon had an urge to nudge it with the toe of his shoe, he wasn’t sure why: perhaps to doubly confirm that the dead man was dead; perhaps some atavistic impulse to touch death before death touched him. Resisting the urge he squatted to examine more closely the body sprawled on the cracked pavement of the laneway.
— An ice-pick impaled in the crown of a head. Now, you don’t see that every day, do you, J.C.? said Detective Mellon.
— Not hardly. Like something out of Castle.
— I loved that show.
— Me too, said Detective Cartier. Especially Stana Katic.
— I couldn’t agree more: she was incandescent. Our poor fellow here, not so much; whatever glow he had is gone. By the look of it, he was probably dead by the time the ice-pick entered the head.
— Or well on his way. Judging by the bright colour of the blood, it was his carotid artery that did him in – severed or nearly so. The blood patterns show he exsanguinated in nice large spurts. He would have had only a few seconds left.
— The head stabbing was a superfluous coup de grâce.
— You would need a goodly amount of force to pierce the skull like that. Serious anger at play here.
— What did you find out, Constable? asked Detective Mellon.
— Too much. It seems like no one is heartsick that Mr. Bader, first name Henry, short for Heinrich, is dead. Quite the opposite, in fact.
— No weeping widow? No tear-stained kids, noses pressed against the windowpanes, peering anxiously out for the return of dear daddy?
— I almost had to remind the daughter who the deceased was. They hadn’t spoken in over ten years. Some ill will there.
— Did you find out the source of the ill will?
— “Ill will” is in fact putting it too mildly by half. Her antipathy was so palpable it led me to think that Mr. Bader might have done something unthinkable to her way back when. The minute I started to pursue the subject she ended the interview.
— Which is a confirmation of sorts.
— Certainly not clear-cut but, yeah, of sorts.
— How is she as a suspect?
— I will have to check out her alibi but I can’t see her waiting a decade for payback.
— The other kids?
— Grown up and about as grief-stricken as the widow. All have alibis that need checking.
— What about the widow?
— On hearing the news she just nodded, and kept on nodding, with a certain satisfied smirk. If I had to guess, I would guess that buried within that tired, middle-aged woman was a long-suppressed spirit who wanted to flip somersaults out of sheer relief, if not joy. Her alibi is solid.
— Is that her over there?
— Yes, that’s her.
— She wears that downtrodden, beleaguered look we have seen too often amongst the battered and bruised.
— That was my impression as well, Detective, supported by the purple welt alongside her left eye. The consensus seems to be that someone did the world a favour.
— Well done, Jones. Continue the interviews, said Detective Mellon.
— Yessir.
— If no one cares that Bader is dead then no one wanted him alive, said Detective Cartier. I guess we don’t have to bust our hump trying to solve a murder that no one gives two hoots about.
— No one except Mr. Bader, answered Detective Mellon.
— He’s beyond caring, don’t you think?
— Jake, sometimes I despair of you, I truly do. A crime has been committed – a serious crime, the most serious there is – and we have a job to do, no matter what people thought of the deceased. You may recall that pesky oath we took to discharge our duties faithfully? Our duty at this moment is to solve a murder.
— And by jiminy we will! Even if we have to work night and day, day and night, winter and summer. When we put on this badge we took on a mission.
— To speak for the dead?
— Sure, why not? But before we start speaking for anyone, what’s say we get a beer, Kyle, you know, to charge our batteries to the utmost. Hunting vile killers requires a full load.
— I was thinking more along the lines of interviewing potential witnesses, searching for clues, you know, job-related type things.
— Of course, of course. You’re right. You realize I was only kidding. Trying to lighten the leaden mood of a murder scene.
— Oh, yes, I am well familiar with your sense of humour. I spend half my day trying to suppress my laughter.
— Glad to hear it.
— Well, then, can we begin?
— I am chafing at the bit. What’s the plan, Mr. Law and Order?
— That’s Detective Law and Order, if you please. We are going to interview a Mr. Pebbles.
***
— Thanks for speaking with us, Mr. Pebbles, said Detective Cartier, who towered over the diminutive Mr. Pebbles. The tall detective had been an all-city shooting guard in high school and enjoyed the simple act of being taller than other people. He moved a bit closer to Mr. Pebbles in order to accentuate the height difference.
— As if I had a choice. And it’s not “Pebbles”; it’s Prebbles – I mean Prebble; there’s only one of me.
— Are you sure about the name? asked Detective Cartier. I have “Pebbles” written down here. If you can’t trust the written word, what can you trust?
— I know my own name.
— Unless you are not who you say you are.
— Of course I am. I’ve known me all my life.
— And you expect us just to take your word for it?
— Here is my government-issued ID. My driver’s licence, my OHIP card, my Law Society card.
— Law Society card? Why would you have a Law Society card?
— I’m a lawyer.
— Wonderful. This day keeps getting better and better. What can you tell us, Mr. Prebble, about the deceased?
— Henry and I were neighbours.
— We know, said Detective Mellon, taking point. That’s why we are talking to you. Can you tell us something more helpful?
— Well, he was definitely a piece of work, he was.
— What do you mean “a piece of work”?
— He took no guff. He stood up for what he believed.
— You’re a bear for detail, aren’t you. Could you manage to be a bit more specific?
— I want you first to be aware, Officer —
— It’s “Detective”. As in Detective Mellon.
— I want you to know, Detective, that I have no obligation as a citizen or as a lawyer to report possible criminal activity.
— That’s not true, said Detective Cartier. If you suspect child abuse, for example, you have a duty to report it.
— I am not aware of Henry committing child abuse.
— That was just an example.
— The example ends there. Do you have any other questions?
— You still haven’t answered my first, resumed Detective Mellon. What do you mean by saying he stood up for what he believed?
— If he saw a wrong he righted it, by fair means or foul.
— Such as?
— Such as – I’ll give you an example – about a year ago our neighbourhood underwent a change, from quiet and family-oriented to a busy midnight stroll for hookers.
— I know. I heard. What does that have to do with our Mr. Bader?
— He was indignant about it, up in arms. The needles. The used condoms. The girls flaunting themselves. The unending procession of cars at 2:00 in the morning, our little streets congested like a major arterial road at rush hour. Children live in this neighbourhood, you know. Henry grew up around here and took its changes personally.
— I get it: he was upset. I am guessing it wasn’t that he had a moral objection to the night-time activities.
— The Bible was the only book he read. But, no, it wasn’t solely the immorality, the girls, the drugs, and the rest in and of themselves. It was also about property values. If those sorts of goings-on were allowed to continue, he – we all of us, in fact – feared that this formerly quiet residential neighbourhood would become another Moss Park. Nice people move out. Undesirables move in. Values plummet. Equity vanishes: poof, gone. Sure, he was worried; his life savings were invested in his house.
— What did he do about it?
— What didn’t he do? He contacted the police, repeatedly. Nada. He circulated a petition that went to his councillor and to the mayor. Zilch. He organized community protests. Oh, there was initial interest but that soon faded; few people wanted to be out picketing prostitutes in the middle of the night, night after night. He went so far as to stick “go-home”-type flyers under the windshield wipers of the slowly cruising cars. That produced some highly spirited exchanges, I can tell you. In the end, nothing improved, not a thing. He also wrote to his MPP and his MP.
— Did they help?
— He did receive nice, encouraging letters in response; lots of concern but no action. None. Zip. He even consulted me about legal proceedings. I was forced to tell him the hard truth: they would be expensive, time-consuming, and futile. He might be able to get an injunction against Jane Doe but tomorrow Mary Roe takes Jane’s place. You are no further ahead but poorer in pocket.
— He righted wrongs. How did he right this wrong?
— I don’t know. I honestly don’t, but I do know one thing: the problem ended, and abruptly. I have no doubt he was instrumental in ending it. One day about a year ago I was performing my usual Saturday-morning ritual of sweeping up dirty condoms from the rear laneway when he walked by. I asked him if he was undertaking any further steps to clean up the neighbourhood. He said he was adopting a new game-plan and that a few weeks should see the problem fixed. He didn’t say anything more and I didn’t ask any more questions.
— Why not?
— Obviously I wanted the hookers gone as well. They weren’t helping my property values any more than his, that’s for sure. I got the impression talking to him that he planned on taking steps that were more extreme than I wanted to know about. Just an impression, nothing more, that I got from the weird look on his face.
— And you have no obligation to report possible criminal activity.
— As I said before.
— By the way, said Detective Cartier, what was it that made this area so attractive to the women?
— As best I can figure, we are close to a major road where the tarts could strut their stuff, and then there are a lot of laneways behind the houses where they could conclude their filthy business with some privacy.
— Wouldn’t floodlights in the laneways have solved that problem?
— We tried that, over and over again, but the lights kept getting smashed. We also tried video surveillance but the cameras didn’t fare any better than the lights. All very expensive.
— Too bad. Is there anything else you can tell us about Mr. Bader? asked Detective Mellon
— There is one thing. And frankly it’s been weighing on my mind. Pretty heavily. I hadn’t told anyone before, though I’ve been tempted to. Since he’s dead it can’t hurt telling you now.
— What is it?
— He hated cyclists.
— Bicycle riders? Why?
— The real question is why not? Self-entitled Lycra-clad scofflaws. They get in our way, slowing traffic. Ignore stop signs. Ride on sidewalks. A menace to cars and pedestrians alike. And cycle lanes, horrible invention, taking space away from the car. Rob Ford, may he rest in peace, had the right idea: just rip the damn things out, like he did on Jarvis Street.
— Yes, yes, cyclists, the scourge of the earth; should be licensed and insured before being granted the privilege and honour of using the public roadways that their taxes help pay for. I feel your pain. This is all relevant how?
— Be patient; I’m getting there. Henry used to do punishment passes for the fun of it. You know what they are, don’t you?
— Yes.
— He once said to me, “I’m going to hurt one of them one of these days. I just know I am. I can’t help it.” And he did. Six months ago a young girl was riding with her father down Woodbine Avenue towards the lake when he deliberately swerved his SUV into her lane and knocked her off her bike. She was hurt. Pretty badly, I heard. I am guessing his aim was the father. Either way, I can’t say I condone his action. In fact it bothers the hell out of me. Hurting people is a step too far, a big step. And a mere child no less! But, still. Frigging cyclists. A lesson needs to be learned. Anyway, that’s the kind of person he was.
— Was he charged with an offence?
— Nope. No one knew it was him. Got away scot-free.
— I see, I see. Constable Jones, can you take the rest of Pebbles’ statement for me? His courtroom baritone grates on my nerves.
Mr. Prebble was about to protest the insult and the re-misuse of his name but the look in Detective Mellon’s eyes told him that silence was the wisest option.
— Two dead prostitutes a year ago. Both plied their trade around here. Tell me, J.C., what do you think the chances are that Pebbles didn’t know about them and who was responsible?
— Zilch. Zip.
***
The house was a modest, red-brick rowhouse in the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood. Taking it a notch above the run-of-the-mill was a popular children’s playground and a park with a basketball court a stone’s throw away. Detective Mellon introduced himself and Detective Cartier to the balding, bespectacled man who answered the doorbell. After putting away his badge, Detective Mellon spoke.
— I am terribly sorry about your daughter, Mr. Leung. How is she doing?
— As well as can be expected, Officer. Thanks for asking, although I assume that inquiring about Celeste’s health is not the purpose of your visit.
— It is not.
— Then why are you here?
— Don’t you know?
— Suppose I do. But you have to say it.
— Mr. Leung, we have reason to believe that you were involved in the death of a Mr. Heinrich Bader.
— Involved? What does that mean?
— It means that we believe you killed him.
— An interesting belief. Of all the doors in all the houses in all the world, what brought you to mine?
— Do you use a GoPro or something similar when you go cycling, Mr. Leung?
— That’s an odd question. As a matter of fact I do. Why do you ask?
— It was a guess. I figured that under the circumstances few people would have had the presence of mind to note the plate number.
— It was recorded on video. The whole scene. The attempted homicide of a glorious thirteen-year-old girl who only brought joy and love into the world.
— And then you performed an MTO plate search, which gave you Heinrich Bader’s name. After that, finding out where he lived was not difficult. The MTO search brought us to your door: searches leave a record.
— As do hospital stays, added Detective Cartier. There were a limited number of bike-riding young girls who were the victims of a hit-and-run six months ago. But what puzzles us is why you didn’t bring your evidence to the police. We could have charged him.
— To what end? To be charged with what? He would say that it was momentary inattention, or that a dog the camera didn’t catch ran in front of the vehicle. He would be charged maybe with careless driving – at most dangerous driving causing bodily harm – and leaving the scene of an accident, pleaded down to one or the other, be fined a few dollars, and receive a few months’ probation, if that. Meanwhile Celeste gets a life sentence. I wanted justice for Celeste.
— Does it help Celeste if you end up in prison? asked Detective Mellon.
— Obviously I didn’t expect to be found out.
— Famous last words.
— So it seems.
— You do realize that you have just made a confession, don’t you, Mr. Leung? To murder? Before you say another word Detective Cartier is going to give you a Charter warning.
— It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? Besides I don’t need to hear it.
— Detective Cartier is going to say the words anyway. Detective, please proceed.
— Mr. Leung, you need not say anything unless you wish to. You have nothing to hope from any promise or favour and nothing to fear from any threat, whether or not you say anything. Anything you do say may be used as evidence against you. Do you understand?
— Perfectly.
— You have the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay, Detective Cartier continued. You also have the right to free and immediate advice from a legal aid lawyer or duty counsel if you cannot afford a lawyer. Do you wish to contact a lawyer?
— I can afford a lawyer but I don’t want one now. Maybe later. Are you aware of what he did to Celeste?
— I’ve seen the hospital report? said Detective Mellon.
— That tells only part of the story, the medical part not the personal. Thirteen years old. She played hockey, the skating kind. She had a crush on a boy in her grade 8 class. She played the viola. Played it beautifully. Her rendering of Hindemith’s Sonatas would bring tears to your eyes. Look, you can see for yourself.
— No, I don’t think so.
— Why not? Do you have some place more important to be? Here, look at this, Mr. Leung said, holding out the screen of his cell phone to the detectives, his face beaming with pride, his eyes brimming with tears. He continued.
— That’s Celeste playing Hindemith’s opus 11, number 5. The mastery, the passion.
— Wow, that is really beautiful, said Detective Cartier; and I have to admit that that’s not my usual kind of music.
— She is indeed talented, said Detective Mellon. More than talented: she had a special gift.
— She was a gift. No thirteen-year-old should be able to play those pieces. But the miracle of Celeste could. She had hopes. She had dreams. Now, she has a wheelchair. You know, she was born when I was approaching my best-by date. I’m 58. She is going to need care the rest of her life and I won’t be around to give it to her. Or maybe I will, who knows? Her life expectancy has dropped considerably.
— Her mother?
— Dead.
— I’m sorry. Has Celeste improved since leaving the hospital?
— See for yourself.
— We really shouldn’t intrude.
— Come on. Don’t be shy. She’s in her bed, the room to your right.
After knocking and being granted permission, Mr. Leung led the two detectives into Celeste’s room.
— Hello, Celeste. I’m Detective Mellon. This is Detective-Constable Jacob Cartier. We call him “J.C.” for short but, initials aside, I doubt anyone will ever confuse him with the Saviour…
Detective Mellon’s eyes swept the crowded bedroom as discreetly as possible. Whereas he would normally expect to find posters of Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber adorning the walls of a thirteen-year-old girl’s room, instead the wall to his left was covered with images of Bartók, Vaughan Williams, and, he was pleasantly surprised to see, Kathryn Patricia Cobbler, a composer from Ottawa, his hometown. Pinned to the opposite wall was a large reproduction of Lange’s portrait of Mozart. All these composers, Detective Mellon recalled, had written for the viola. Over the headboard, occupying pride of place, were two rows of framed certificates from the Royal Conservatory of Music awarded to Celeste Xiaoou Leung. Near the door were a Hoyer lift and a wheelchair. On a beside table lay an open book, spine upwards, whose title, Life in the Sickroom, he found even more unsettling than the lift and the chair. A life, a whole life… in a room. Worse: a life locked inside the prison of one’s own body. The detective spoke again.
— We wanted to tell you, Celeste, that we found out who did this to you. He won’t be able to inflict harm on anyone else ever again.
— Do you mean to say he is dead?
— Yes, dead.
— Thank you for that information officer. What happened to him?
— He was a homicide victim. Someone killed him.
Detective Mellon noticed that Celeste’s eyes glanced quickly over to her father before returning to him.
— I don’t know how I feel about that, his death. I can’t forgive him for what he did to me but I don’t seem to be able to hate him either. If I knew him maybe I could. But I didn’t know him so I don’t know what made him do it. Maybe he couldn’t control himself. Maybe there was something inside him that made him do it. I’ve read enough books to know that good people can do evil things for reasons they can’t begin to understand.
— You can hate what he did, though, can’t you?
— I like you. You’re funny. When you try to be, you fail. When you don’t try, you succeed. Yes, I can hate what he did. With a passion. At least the half of me I have left can hate what he did. Was he otherwise a good person, Officer – I mean, other than hurting me?
— We are still investigating, but by all accounts so far, he was not.
— And now I don’t know what I will do with that information. Thank you, Officers. I appreciate your visit. If you don’t mind, I’m feeling pretty tired…
Detective Mellon regretted leaving Celeste. He admired the intelligence and the face that was so animated when speaking – perhaps in compensation, the rest of her being so inanimate, so unnaturally still. He also admired her talent and was beyond angry that it had been taken away from her. Mostly away from her but, he thought, away from all of us as well.
***
The two detectives sat on a park bench across from the house they had just visited. Two boys were now playing one-on-one on the court. Detective Cartier watched them with a touch of nostalgia for his past glory days.
— Now about that beer? said Detective Mellon.
— A beer! Kyle, are you crazy? I admit that Mr. Leung had good reason for what he did, but what he did was murder, and there is no justification for that, regardless of the reason.
— Well, there is such a thing as non-culpable homicide.
— I should think that an ice-pick in the skull rules that defence out.
— Now, now, Jake. There is non-culpable homicide and then there is non-culpable homicide. There is the Criminal Code and there is the human code, and the two don’t always mesh.
— We cannot sink into moral relativism, especially not you, Mr. Law and Order. You yourself reminded me, not so very long ago, that we have a job to do, an oath to honour. It is up to Pebbles and his ilk to argue whether Mr. Leung is guilty under the Code, and a judge or a jury to decide, not us. We’re just lowly cops, no more than that, and we shouldn’t try to be.
— I am not about to wax philosophical or channel Spinoza or David Hume. All I know are two things, Jake: that there is a little girl upstairs in that house who may never again move of her own accord and that her father took an evil out of this world. Maybe Celeste was right, maybe Bader was not an evil man but merely an ordinary man who did evil things for reasons unknown to him, who couldn’t help himself. Frankly, that is a distinction I cannot make, between the being and the doing; I don’t have Celeste’s generosity of spirit for that. To my mind justice has been served.
— And if anyone finds out that you had a murderer in your hands but chose to let him go free, what then? You want to violate the Police Services Act. One of your duties under that Act is “apprehending criminals”.
— I don’t want to violate the Act. That’s merely an unfortunate by-product. And by the way, it’s now called the Community Safety and Policing Act.
— So it is; forgetful me. And then there is the Criminal Code – assuming it is still called the Criminal Code. You could be considered an accessory after the fact. Is it worth it, Kyle? For what? To protect a murderer?
— No, not for him; for Celeste. She’s worth it. You heard her music; it flowed from her, a gift from heaven. Celeste is one of god’s truly blessed creatures, or was. Arresting her sole caregiver, leaving her alone and helpless in the world, would be piling-on. It would be cruel and unjust, and I prefer not to bring more cruelty into the world. Lord knows, we see enough of it every day.
— It helps that she said you were funny.
— Doesn’t hurt. Besides, who’s to know?
— What if the father’s conscience gets the better of him and he turns himself in? He would blab about our visit?
— The old agenbite of inwit. Did he strike you as a man tormented by his deed?
— “Agenbite of inwit”? Spinoza? I swear, you say these things just to lord it over those of us who only went to community college.
— So, J.C., what do you say?
— The beer’s on you.
END
With a special thanks to Provincial Constable Matthew Carvalho, OPP, Kenora Detachment, and David J. Elliott, Barrister, both of whom generously took the time to ensure that the policing/legal matters in the story adhered as closely to reality as the story would permit.
[Image Credit : Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash]
The author is a semi-retired litigation lawyer practising in Toronto, Ontario. He has previously published fiction in Event, the Mystery Tribune (online), and the Mocking Owl Roost (online), as well as reviews and articles in the Armchair Detective, the Mystery Review, amongst others.
