Obit , livre ebook

Obit
A MYSTERY ANNE EMERY
Copyright Anne Emery, 2007
Published by ECW PRESS 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW PRESS .
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Emery, Anne Obit / Anne Emery.
ISBN-13: 978-1-55022-754-3 ISBN-10: 1-55022-754-8
I . Title.
PS 8609. M 47O25 2007 C 813'.6 C 2006-906827-5
Cover and Text Design: Tania Craan Cover Image: Chris Amaral/Nonstock/Firstlight Typesetting: Mary Bowness Printing: Friesens
This book is set in AGaramond
The publication of Obit has been generously supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

DISTRIBUTION CANADA : Jaguar Book Group, 100 Armstrong Ave., Georgetown, ON L7G 5S4 UNITED STATES : Independent Publishers Goup, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, Il., USA 60610
PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA
For Joan
We ll always have O Malley s.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for their kind assistance: Asst. Police Chief Kevin McGowan, Dr. Laurette Geldenhuys, Rhea McGarva, Helen MacDonnell, Joan Butcher and Edna Barker. And, as always, Joe A. and PJEC . All characters and plots in the story are fictional, as are some of the locations. Other places are real. Any liberties taken in the interests of fiction, or any errors committed, are mine alone.
I am grateful for permission to reprint extracts from the following:
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY Words and Music by BUD GREEN, LES BROWN and BEN HOMER 1944 (Renewed) MORLEY MUSIC CO. and HOLLIDAY PUBLISHING All Rights Reserved
KNOCKIN ON HEAVEN S DOOR by BOB DYLAN Copyright 1973 by Ram s Horn Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.
THE PATRIOT GAME Words and Music by DOMINIC BEHAN Copyright 1964 (Renewed) 1965 (Renewed) Onward Music Ltd., London, England TRO - Essex Music, Inc., New York, controls all publication rights for the U.S.A. and Canada. Used by permission.
LULLABY OF BROADWAY (FROM GOLDDIGGERS OF 1935 ) Words by AL DUBIN Music by HARRY WARREN 1935 (Renewed) WARNER BROS. INC. All Rights Reserved Used by Permission of ALFRED PUBLISHING CO., INC.
Every effort has been made to locate the copyright owners of material quoted in this book. Any omissions are sincerely regretted, and will be corrected in subsequent editions, if any, if brought to the publisher s attention.

March 31, 1991
The old woman knew it all. He was convinced of that. And there she sat, smug and hostile in her flat, in possession of the diaries and other secret records that could explain - and expose - the whole sinister affair. He found entertainment for himself that night in the drinking dens of lower Manhattan. But his mind had homed in on a single point: the collection of papers in the old lady s flat in a rundown house in Brooklyn. He didn t know how he was going to do it, but he was going to walk out of there with the papers in his hands. No more secrets, no more fear of exposure.
He was in a foul mood by the time he arrived at the house the next morning. What were the chances she would give up, or peddle for an extortionate price, the incriminating papers? The day was hot and bright, but she was not to be seen in her regular spot on the stoop, basking lizard-like in the sun. He rapped on her door. No reply. He rapped again, louder. He did not want to make two trips - he never wanted to see her again - so it had to be now. He tried the door knob and pushed. The door swung open. He called her name as he stepped into the hallway. Silence.
When he looked into her living room, he reeled backwards in shock. The room was a shambles of blood and chaos; the smell of death overpowered the stale odour of smoke that hung in the room. He fought down the urge to be sick. His first thought - and it shamed him - was: What did I touch? His second thought was to look down at his feet to make sure he had not stepped in anything that would show up in a shoe print. The woman was face down on the floor, blood pooled around her head. There was spatter on the walls and the couch. Resting against the top of her head was a heavy marble ashtray. He didn t have to be a forensic investigator to know it had been used to club her to death. Ashes and cigarette butts littered the floor around her. He remembered some figurines she had displayed in a cabinet; they were nowhere in sight. Books had been yanked from her bookcase in the corner. The scene suggested she had been dead for a while. But not that long: he had been there himself less than twenty-four hours ago. Was that why she had been killed, because he had been there?
Every instinct told him to bolt. But he steeled himself to go through with his plan, to retrieve the papers. To learn the truth himself, and to keep it from the shadowy figures who seemed to be circling around him. He was treading on dangerous ground, interfering with a crime scene and plotting a theft of what would be key evidence for the police investigating her death. But he took a deep breath and told himself to get moving. Then he noticed a pair of worn bedroom slippers sticking out of the hall closet. He removed his shoes and socks, and shoved his bare feet into the slippers. Let those be the footprints they find, if any. As he made his way to the back of the flat, he was relieved to see that the blood and gore were confined to the area immediately around the victim. He peered into the first bedroom. Like the living room, it had been tossed. An old-fashioned jewellery box had been upended on the bed; the mattress was askew as if someone had groped beneath it. On the floor beside the bed was a plastic shopping bag with photographs spilling out of it; he dumped the pictures and wrapped the bag around his right hand before touching any items in the room. No papers. He proceeded to the other bedroom. Here again all the items had been rifled. Two battered leather briefcases had been wrenched open and left empty. He searched every drawer and shelf but found no documents, no diary. He had just entered the kitchen when he heard a sudden creaking sound, and his heart banged in his chest. He stood perfectly still, covered in a sheen of sweat. Nothing happened. After a few tense moments he resumed his quest but again found nothing. How long till someone came to the flat? He grabbed a paper towel from the holder and left the kitchen. He looked ahead through the hallway to the front door and saw a car slowing down in front of the house. He held his breath. It moved on. Probably just on the hunt for a parking space. He searched the front closet, only to confirm what he already knew: the papers were gone.
Had the woman herself destroyed them before falling victim to a murderer s hand? Was this a simple break-in, someone preying on a crippled old lady, taking a few keepsakes to be sold at a flea market? Unlikely. The burglar had one purpose and one purpose alone: the retrieval of the records that had been a threat to somebody s security for forty years. The theft of the woman s trinkets was a cover-up. Was the murder a by-product of the need to get the papers? Or was it a planned execution?
Prologue
Pater noster qui es in coelis sanctificetur nomen tuum Adveniat regnum tuum Fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo et in terra.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
March 3, 1991
The white-robed priest, murder charges now behind him, lifted his arms, and the building was filled with the music of the spheres. Candlelight illumined the small Gothic church of Saint Bernadette s and flickered against the magnificent stained glass of its windows. My little daughter sat at my side, enthralled with the beauty and the sound. On my other side was my son and his beloved, herself a budding choir director; they too were enraptured. At the end of the row sat the mother of my children, the wife who no longer shared my home. Lost in the music. Lost to me.
We were transported back in time from the Renaissance to the medieval as we heard the famous Gregorian Pater Noster, the Our Father. It is said that Mozart, when asked which piece of music he would like to have composed, named this setting of the Pater Noster. At times like this, when the music seemed to shimmer between light and sound, between the earthly and the ineffable, I could almost understand how a priest could turn away from the pleasures of the flesh and marry his spirit with the divine. This particular priest had stumbled the odd time, as I well knew. As everyone knew, after the trial. But he had picked himself up, brushed the dust from his robes and carried on. The glory of this night, the first student concert he had put on since coming to the Saint Bernadette s Choir School as music director a year and half ago, would buoy him through the next two days until it was time to leave for New York, for a rendezvous with his former lover, and a probe into the enigmatic past of his redoubtable father. If we had been able to foretell the events of the coming weeks, perhaps we would have remained in the sanctuary, contemplating the infinite and ordering in.
Chapter 1
He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.
- William Butler Yeats, Easter 1916
March 4, 1991
My old fellow aged ten years when he read this, Monty. See what you make of it.
The choirmaster was in my Halifax law office when I arrived the Monday morning after the concert. In civilian clothes Brennan Burke had the appearance of a military man, one regularly chosen for clandestine, lethal operations. With his hooded black eyes, s