CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Seven AM, Tuesday June 27th
Offices of the Toronto Daily Star
Mounting the stone steps quickly, Julia threaded her way through the doorway a gentleman opened for her. She bade him thank you, then shot forward to examine the building directory. She had forgotten to ask which floor and office number she was to meet her sister on. Finding the correct location, Features, she presented herself to the elevator cages, waited impatiently for one to stop at the lobby, then rode it up four floors to find Ruby tapping her foot on the terrazzo floor in a large hallway. The corridor ran left and right, with glass-fronted offices lining either side.
Ruby grabbed her arm, pulling her aside with a jerk. "You're late!"
"I couldn't find a parking spot," Julia said sharply, annoyed by such a greeting. "And good morning to you too."
Ruby smirked, then relented. "I pulled in a favour for you. Do you have the negatives?"
Julia removed her camera and handed it over. "I do appreciate this, Ruby. I truly do. Just, please promise me you will not end up publishing these." She had already started doubting this impulsive move she made involving her sister. At the time it promised to be faster and less problematic than a commercial photographer or, she shuddered, asking Detective Murdoch what to do.
"I doubt you are up to the Star's standards for photographic journalism," Ruby teased.
Julia refused to take the bait, but she did wonder how much publicity this case was likely to generate.
"Now, if you can give us a story..." Ruby dropped her voice conspiratorially, "Something the public can get excited about…" She just waited with a half-smile on her lips.
Julia sighed. She was glad the photographs contained nothing salacious. "Just develop them, will you? I'll come for them later today. The rest you will have to wait and see."
With that, Julia turned on her heel and exited the Star offices, hoping she did not get a ticket downstairs, for double-parking her automobile.
Eight AM, Tuesday June 27th -
City Morgue
Julia tapped her fingers on her desk, impatient with the telephone operator. "Yes, thank you. Please hurry." This was the third time she'd tried the number and she was about to get in her car and drive to Keele Street for faster results.
Several raspy noises later she heard: "Detective Pearce, Station House nine…"
"This is Dr. Ogden. I have information on your victim, the one who fell from the roof. I have determined it was the Sullivan Building she fell from. I also believe her name is Olive Routledge."
"Did you find identification on her body, doctor?"
"No. I met a man on the roof from where she fell and he told me her name."
"Who was he? And what were you doing there? And why would a random man know her name if it was not the man who killed her?"
She expected that. "Not so fast. He did not tell me his name and I was there investigating the scene to give you the answers you want! I have not determined if she committed suicide or was murdered, only that it was not an accident." When he stopped protesting she gave him the last fact she knew. "He also told me that Olive Routledge has two young children."
"Doesn't that make suicide less likely? What normal woman willfully orphans her children?"
"Unless she was not in her right mind… I suggest you check with the Ontario Hospital - the old Insane Asylum - for that. It is all speculation. Let me do my job, Detective. With a name perhaps you can find out what she was doing on the Sullivan Building roof and where she lived. Find someone who knew her, identify her remains...at least check on her children."
"Can you describe the man for me?"
She was prepared for that as well. It cost her to weigh the pros and cons of telling Pearce her assumptions about the man's ethnicity considering prevailing prejudice, eventually deciding it was for the best. "About five eight or nine, dark hair and eyes, slight to medium build. Olive skin. European - Spanish, Italian or Sicilian, but that is only a guess. In his thirties. He looked like a tradesman to me. Smokes Sweet Caps. He...he thought she was murdered because of who she knew, or because she got mixed up in something she shouldn't have." Detective Pearce was silent on the other end of the line. She wondered if their connection was dropped, except there was no tell-tale tone on over the receiver. Then she heard him say something muffled and returned to their conversation.
"This is irregular...but I will follow up on the name Olive Routledge, and I will try and find your man from the roof since he provides a lead for my investigation. When will you determine murder versus suicide?"
"I will let you know!" She rang off before he asked any more questions she could not answer.
Behind her Jack came clattering in with a hand truck laden with three wooden crates. She saw the distinctive label of a chemical supply house on the top crate. "You are my hero. We can get to work, finally!"
Detective Pearce was now the last thing on her mind. She still had five full autopsies to go, but now with proper materials she immediately began bloodwork on the remaining presumptive 'bootleg-booze' corpses in her cooler and the associated containers the poisoned alcohol came in.
By 1 p.m. she had some surprising results - and no one to tell them to because Detective Murdoch and Inspector Brackenreid were not at their desks, or so she discovered when she called over to the station house. She was just asking for notification when either returned, when her sister burst into the morgue, waving a large envelope. For a second she hoped it was mail for her before realizing it had to be the crime scene photographs.
"I brought these to you so you can't just grab them and run away on me. I am not giving them up unless you tell me what they are all about. They are so strange; I smell a story."
Julia wordlessly put her hand out, giving her sister her fiercest glare. It had no effect on Ruby in the slightest. "Ruby! I need those photographs. And my camera back, don't forget! I am not at liberty to disclose investigation findings to you."
"So...these are about an investigation!" Ruby's grip on the envelope tightened. "Look, let us help each other. I give you these and you help me with a story I am pursuing about the bootleg booze deaths. I promise I will not pester you for privileged information."
Ruby's promises are not worth that much, but she may have a point about mutual aid. "You first."
Flouncing to a side chair, Ruby pulled off her gloves then pushed the envelope towards Julia. "I am trying to write more than women's pieces for the Star. I can find only so many human-interest stories about long-lost jewelry, long-lost loves and long-lost pets reunited with their owners. There has not been a Maharaja looking for a princess or an heiress advertising for her long-lost child in forever! My last piece was about riding elephants, for God's Sake. I wish to write real features which cover an important topic in depth. The subject I have chosen is bootlegging of alcohol within Ontario. I want to compare and contrast people's lives before and after prohibition, including the life of a bootlegger. And I will not take no for an answer, not from my editor, not from my sister either."
Julia actually thought Ruby's idea for a story was remarkable and said so. "Where are you going to start?"
"I have a tip that a rendezvous between bootleggers and suppliers will occur tonight. I'd like you to come with me and observe this clandestine meeting."
"Why me?" While impressed with Ruby's information, Julia was naturally suspicious.
"I need your scientific expertise. I have no way of knowing what I am looking at with all those copper pipes and vats and barrels of chemicals and additives and such. After all, you are the one who took all those chemistry classes at University, not me." Ruby put on a charming smile, which put Julia even more on guard.
"And…?" Julia waited for the kicker. She assumed her sister was about to renege on her promise, made a mere minute ago, not to fish for investigative information about the unfortunate poisonings.
"We won't be in any danger, I promise. We will just observe comings and goings, and look to see what we can see…" Ruby fiddled with her gloves before dropping the last piece of her plan. "Oh, all right! I want you to drive me there in that motorcar of yours and provide a fast getaway if needed!"
Julia tried her best to frown and look aghast at such a request. She even called it a harebrained scheme, but her objections did not hold up long, because she had her own reasons for poking around an unattended warehouse.
"Ruby, you are on. Tell me when you want to leave and I will be ready. In the meantime, go away unless you want to do a feature piece on an autopsy, because I have several more hours of hard labour here, chemical analyses, and I must figure out what to do about these photographs…. which I am certain you have already looked at. I need to use them to understand if a victim was murdered or suicided and if chemistry is not your forte, math is not mine…"
1530 hours Tuesday June 27th, 1922
Station House No. 4
"Murdoch! What the Hell is going on?"
He was barely over the station house door threshold before his boss' voice hit. It was not unusual for Brackenreid to lay in wait for him, so he took the expected confrontation in stride, because as was often with Brackenreid, it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. He moved quickly into the office, closed the door behind him and presented himself at attention while the man continued to berate him with ever-broadening Yorkshire vowels. This is going to take a while.
"Where is everyone? I go for an hour and when I return, you have emptied my station house leaving me and Sergeant Weston to be your bloody secretaries! All afternoon!" His boss was an alarming shade of red with a crescendo of yelling.
Ever since coming back from France, the inspector's voice had gotten louder, especially when he was angry, as if he was still trying to make himself heard to a company of men assembled in the country-side. Murdoch thought he sounded plenty angry now.
"It's a good thing the Greeks aren't rioting again or we have to send the men out on a booze-bust. Just the two of us and my shotgun." On Brackenreid's desk was a pile of notes, papers and telegrams. He pointed to them. "These are for you."
"Thank you, sir, I…" He reached for the stack of papers only to have Brackenreid's meaty palm slam down on them. He pulled his fingers back just in time to avoid injury.
His boss rounded on him. "Don't thank me. I'm supposed to know what is going on around here."
He just remained quietly at attention until Brackenreid exhaled and pushed back in his chair. "At ease. Just tell me what you have been up to."
"Sir, you asked us to take all the tainted alcohol deaths seriously, so I deployed the day shift, with copies of the deceased's photographs, to retrace each person's steps prior to their deaths. One constable per victim. I asked each man to report back as soon as he found a reliable piece of information…" Murdoch pointed to the notes and papers resting on Brackenreid's desk. "That takes manpower."
Brackenreid nodded. "Mmm."
"I put the word out to our network of informants here in Toronto and have also sent a wire to the Hamilton Constabulary seeking information, since that is the center of Mr. Perri's operation. I expected to hear back from them…" He extended his hand gingerly towards the pages. This time his boss pushed them forward. He picked them up, resisting the urge to immediately go through them.
"What about Conrad Landswell? The papers are no gentler today than they were yesterday or the day before."
He wished he had better news. "It is inescapable: Mr. Landswell was not all he appeared. He made himself out to be wealthier and more prominent or influential than he in truth was. He had nothing in his bank account. His finances were a web of loans, although nothing defaulted; his business was built on obtaining lucrative contracts, taking a hefty profit off the top, and subcontracting the work for a pittance. Nothing illegal in any of it."
"Nothing his friends in city hall will be happy to know either - and it better not get in the papers."
"No, sir. Mr. Blackburn has been silent. Dr. Ogden, so far, has muzzled her sister." He was not exactly confident it was true since each morning he himself looked anxiously for Ruby Ogden's byline in the Star. "For now…"
Brackenreid grunted. "Is there a motive for murder in his money problems or someone he's crossed poisoned him?"
"None that we can find. We know landswell sent the cognac to the Crown Club last Wednesday. We do not know where it came from. Just today we uncovered a description of a man who called on Mr. Landswell's office last Wednesday morning, but nothing in Mr. Landswell's date book corresponds to that visit nor points to who that man was. Without an identity and motive, we have no reason to believe he was the person who brought the cognac to Landswell. Assuming it is a murder, our best guess is the mystery red-haired woman either brought the bottle of cognac to Landswell or had it sent to him." Murdoch knew tracing that bottle was going to be the key; so far it was a dead end.
"So, a lot of nothing. And this poison, strychnine?"
"Constable Worseley is finishing his interviews with the suppliers and distilleries and should have something by the end of the day." He saw his boss getting agitated again. "I removed Miss Edwina Virgil from the suspect list. She has a solid set of alibis for her whereabouts since she ended her relationship with Mr. Landswell, no access to alcohol nor the poison. No connection to Landswell's death from any angle."
"Bollocks! What do you have, Murdoch. What about the jilted lover? The Highlands girl?"
"Red-haired, is all we know, sir. We are searching Landswell's office mail. Hodge and a couple men are canvassing around his office as we speak, the trolley drivers, coffee and tea shops and the like, since according to Miss Virgil, this woman spoke with Mr. Landswell more than once. We are hoping someone will remember her." He heard the telephone in his office jangling, getting a scowl from his boss.
"Been like that all day...get to it Murdoch. And find me something which connects to that guinea Perri. Use your initiative for that instead of gutting my budget for salaries. That's an order!"
He almost saluted. "Yes, sir. If you will excuse me." He made his legs move fast to get to the telephone before his caller gave up. He needed a break, and prayed this was it.
