CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
2000 hours, Thursday June 29th, 1922
Station House No. 4
"Murdoch, get in here!"
Good Lord! Murdoch jumped at the command coming from the inspector's darkened doorway.
His train had pulled into Union Station at seven-thirty, depositing him and Dr. Ogden on the platform to go their separate ways. He expected to spend the evening in his office reorganizing his investigations. That his boss was waiting for him, in the dark, did not bode well. Removing his hat, he hid his displeasure and presented himself to Brackenreid's desk. "Sir."
"Shut the door." Brackenreid ordered as he turned his desk lamp on.
Murdoch accommodated and returned to the desk. He knew better than to sit.
Brackenreid wasted no time. "I had an interesting conversation with one of the city managers tonight, Murdoch, who gave me a head's up about tomorrow's newspaper headlines. Let's just say they are not kind to the constabulary. Please tell me you have something from your little side trip to Hamilton."
"How did they find out, sir?" He guessed the problem.
Brackenreid's colour immediately reached his hairline. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Never you mind. It seems you and I have kept our noses a little too clean."
His guts sank. "Meaning?" he asked, afraid he knew the answer.
"Meaning we are not beholden enough to some of the interests in our fair city!" Brackenreid slammed a fist on his desk. "As for how they found out about your sojourn to down the pike, I'd stake my life it was no one from this Station House."
He considered the reach of corruption into the constabulary. As ambitious and vulnerable to flattery as Brackenreid was, his boss was often unable to hide his contempt for 'the gentry' as he called Toronto's movers and shakers. That incorruptibility made him politically unpalatable in some quarters, dragging down his aspirations to higher office. Murdoch admired him for that. It also confirmed his suspicion they were being set up.
I wonder who might be lying in wait to take Brackenreid's job?
He listed in his head the men who might fit the bill. Then he recalled the not-so-subtle hints Detective Travers dropped all day about relocating to Toronto for a position. "Sir, I think the information came from a source in Hamilton."
"Bah," Brackenreid snorted. "It's all bollocks. I need results. What else did you learn, and don't leave anything out."
He took a full minute to organize his thoughts while Brackenreid glared at him. Murdoch began by clearing his throat. "Sir. Regarding Rocco Perri's operation in Hamilton, Travers, the lead detective there, believes Perri's bootlegging operation includes an industrial-scale distillation operation stolen from the moth-balled Royal Distillery and removed to a secret location. If we believe Perri is not only stealing large quantities of alcohol but is sourcing it by legally purchasing denatured alcohol with the intention to redistill it to remove the adulterants, then there is a certain logic to that theory. It could explain the origins of the poisoned alcohol from a botched redistilling effort."
"But, I can tell you haven't bought the idea."
"No sir, not completely. How does one steal a warehouse full of equipment and not be seen doing it, then reconstitute it and get it up and running again, also all in secret? The Royal Distillery complex is not especially close to the docks or to the trains and is not in an isolated location. So how do you move those enormous copper vats? To run an operation like that takes many men, infrastructure for all that - water, drains, heat, light…"
Brackenreid grunted. "How do you get all those people to keep their traps shut?"
"Exactly, sir. The Hamilton Constabulary have no idea where this new huge redistilling operation is housed - and they've looked everywhere. Without finding it, we can't possibly trace the poisoned liquor back to Rocco Perri."
"Which is motive for that priest Doulton's murder. Someone, what, confessed to him? Or he figured it out and so someone had to silence him. Do Detective Travers and you have any leads?"
This was the part he dreaded. On the train home he and Julia poured over the facts of the case as they understood them. "Sir. There are no reliable witnesses. No physical evidence tying any specific person to the murder. Detective Travers says there are none of the usual indications from their network of informants that someone is boasting of the crime, etcetera. We...well, Dr. Ogden-"
Brackenreid erupted. "What about your trip today has anything to do with Dr. Ogden?"
"She, um, just showed up on the train to Hamilton this morning, sir..." He cringed inside, talking faster to cut his boss off from any more agitation. "...Using initiative, she confirmed a number of poisoning victims who got sick on methyl-alcohol but did not die. This confirms my hypothesis it was not a small, mom-and-pop operation. And probably not intentionally targeting people, either, unless you speculate it was done to specifically kill as many random people as possible." He let that sink in.
"Even if a colossal accident, it still makes Rocco Perri a murdering son of a bitch," his boss said acidly.
"That it does, sir. Dr. Ogden also discovered Father Doulton was killed by what we believe is a German trench knife, probably brought back as a souvenir."
Brackenreid nodded at him to continue.
"From Dr. Ogden's review of the autopsy records, and Detective Travers' information, we learned Adam Doulton served in the war, although not where or when. I telegraphed the veteran's office for more information."
Brackenreid pondered the new angle. "You think it is important?"
"Possibly sir. I won't know until I hear back, hopefully tomorrow morning." Instantly, all the speculation he and Julia churned up on the trip back to Toronto was too thin and insubstantial to lay out, other than his uncomfortable twist in his gut about the case. "Sir, some things are just not adding up."
"Now what?" His boss leaned forward over his desk, grabbing an apple and munching down.
He chose his words carefully. "Sir. It's the crime scene. It...it is too...neat." He opened his hands and exhaled. "No signs of struggle. No fingerprints. No physical evidence."
"So - whoever the killer was, surprised the priest. Overpowered him. In, out." Brackenreid mimicked a jabbing motion with his apple.
"Sir...Father Doulton was a man in his prime, six foot tall, who served in the military. Hardly easy to overpower."
Brackenreid's face sharpened. "So...you are saying he knew his assailant?"
"Or was not afraid of him. What if it was a police officer, or someone connected to the city or constabulary who killed Father Doulton?"
"Shit…" Brackenreid shook his head. "Careful, Murdoch, you are on thin ice."
"Sir...We, you and I at least, have been concerned with corruption surrounding our investigation." Brackenreid stopped chewing. "Think about it. How could an entire industrial-sized bootlegging business operate - invisibly - unless it was protected by the establishment, like Hodge suggested? A police officer would know to clean up so thoroughly after the crime."
Brackenreid laughed sourly. "You're saying there is a conspiracy at the highest levels in Hamilton and Toronto to hide and profit off of Perri's bootlegging operation?"
"It has a certain logic to it."
"Logic! Don't look so pained about it." Brackenreid scoffed. "When are you going to learn life is a messy business and murder more so? But you are right about one thing: Rocco Perri only cares about his profits, no matter how he gets them, or who he has to pay off."
Murdoch saw through the skeptical tone - despite the protest, the idea shook his boss, deeply.
Brackenreid tried to smooth his hair, then leaned back in his chair, letting the springs creak. "Follow your theory if you have to, Murdoch, but don't breathe a word of it. To anyone. And no impolite questions! An accusation of a scandal like that will get us both shifted off to counting pencils somewhere unpleasant, understood?"
"Understood." Even as he said it, he was rehearsing questions: pointed, difficult and often offensive ones.
"Well, while you were out lollygagging, some real police work got done around here." His boss came forward in his chair again. "Crabtree and Higgins found you the name of a woman, Lydia O'Mara, who started writing Landswell letters about a month before he was killed."
He perked up. "Was this Miss O'Mara a discarded lover perhaps?"
"No, it didn't sound like that to me. The letters ask for a meeting. Some nonsense about a painting she claimed was stolen, of all things. Seen it in a fancy house, she says in the letter, and asks his help. We don't know where the woman is now, but we know where she saw the painting two months ago." Brackenreid's expression was cross as he slid a slip of paper over the desk.
When he saw the address, he could not help himself. "Oh...damn...!"
