Last Song Sung. David A. Poulsen
get a licence number. Other than noting that there were two men and that one was tall, he wasn’t able to offer a description of either man. He thought, though he couldn’t say for sure, that both men were carrying guns. Someone had written at the bottom of the page, “This witness passed away in September 2003.”
I set the page back in the folder and looked up as Ms. Brill stood up and reached across the table to shake Cobb’s hand. I also stood and returned the smile she offered as she shook my hand.
“I’ll see you in a week,” she said.
I nodded, afraid to say something that would offer encouragement in what looked to me like the biggest long shot since the 1962 Mets.
When she’d gone, I offered the folder to Cobb. He shook his head. “Why don’t you take the first run at it? Lindsay and I are doing dinner tonight at her brother’s, and it’s a command performance. Get it back to me tomorrow; I’ll read through it then and we can compare notes.”
“Does that mean this is another Cullen and Cobb extravaganza?”
“Maybe. Like the lady said, who better to have on this case than an expert on Canadian music? There is one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I’d rather refer to them as ‘Cobb and Cullen’ extravaganzas.”
“I’m a writer. I know what sounds better. ‘Cullen and Cobb’ rolls off the tongue. And the pen,” I said.
“This may require further discussion.” He smiled, then nodded toward the folder. “Impressive.”
“Yes, quite an accumulation,” I said, grinning.
“Happy reading.”
Two
The reading was a long way from happy.
Cobb had wanted to get home to have time to get ready for the evening’s social function, so I gathered Monica Brill’s file and pulled on my peacoat — a bit of overkill, as fall had been easy on southern Albertans so far. My destination was the Purple Perk seven or eight blocks away; one of my favourite coffee haunts in that part of the city.
Monica Brill’s file wasn’t comprehensive, but there was enough there to answer some of the questions I had and to prompt some I hadn’t thought of. It contained at least part of the homicide file. Having already read the statement of the lone eyewitness about what had happened in the alley behind The Depression fifty-one years before, I decided to go to the police report next.
It looked to my untrained eye like the work of the two police investigators, Norris Wardlow and Lex Carrington, had been both thorough and well documented. They had interviewed club management and staff, as well as several, though not all, of the patrons who had been there that night. The officers acknowledged and were frustrated by the fact that some of the audience had fled as word of what was going on in the back alley had spread inside the club. The two cops even talked to a couple of cleaners who had been working in a nearby building. The cleaners had heard the commotion but seen nothing. Because the area was commercial, there had not been the usual canvas of nearby residents.
During the first days of the investigation, Wardlow and Carrington had focused on two things: learning all they could about Ellie Foster and the two shooting victims, and trying to find the car that had been used by the two gunmen. They had checked out several cars that answered the minimal description given by Guy Kramer. They were unable to find the one used in the commission of the crime. As for Monica’s grandmother, while the two officers were able to put together a fairly detailed account of Ellie Foster’s early years, they’d been less successful at discovering much about her life as a professional performer or anything that might have provided a motive for her kidnapping.
Ballistics identified the murder weapon as a Colt Python and determined that both victims had been killed with the same gun. Six rounds in all were fired — three struck one of the victims, two hit the other, and one round missed both men and ended up embedded in the back wall of the building that housed The Depression.
The investigators surmised (admitting it was only a theory) that one man had driven the car and that the second man, the passenger, was likely the shooter. Though the witness, Guy Kramer, had been very sure both men had gotten out of the car, he wasn’t able to say for certain which one was the shooter. And though he thought both had been carrying guns, he hadn’t been willing to state that fact with certainty. The investigators had guessed that the reason for his uncertainty was that he had ducked for cover behind the garbage cans as the shooting had started and may have had only a couple of glimpses of what actually happened — afraid to take a longer look for fear of being seen and ending up as the next victim. Understandable.
Carrington and Wardlow had also interviewed Ellie’s family members: a sister, June, who was three years older and lived in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (it was she and her husband who had raised Monica Brill’s mother); Ellie’s mother, who lived in London, Ontario (Ellie’s father was deceased); and a cousin, who lived in Walkerton, Ontario, a couple of hours from London. I read the transcripts of the interviews, and beyond shock and sorrow, none of the family members were able to shed any light on what had happened in the back alley, or why.
Only one comment of even mild interest came of those interviews. In response to the question, “Had your daughter seemed worried or anxious in the days or weeks before she was kidnapped?” Ellie’s mother had replied, “No, not worried or anything like that, but she seemed different. Sort of cold and unhappy, and that wasn’t my daughter.” Though Carrington and Wardlow had asked follow-up questions, Mrs. Foster had no explanation for her daughter’s altered personality other than, “Maybe she wasn’t handling becoming successful very well.”
The detectives also spoke to the caregiver who had looked after Ellie’s baby girl, Monica’s mother, in London, Ontario, where Ellie had lived for the previous two years when she wasn’t on the road performing. Again, nothing. The investigators were not successful in finding the baby’s father. It was one of the questions they’d asked in every one of their interviews, but apparently Ellie Foster had not divulged that information to anyone — at least not to any of the people the cops questioned. Either that, or the people who did know the father’s identity had been sworn to secrecy and weren’t willing to betray a confidence, not even after the death of the person who had asked for that confidence.
I read a while longer. What I found in those pages confirmed my belief that the two officers had worked hard. Wardlow had flown to Ottawa and talked to several people at Le Hibou, the club Ellie had performed at before her Depression gig. The two detectives also contacted a club called The Bunkhouse in Vancouver, where she was scheduled to appear the following week. The trail quickly became cold, and as I read and re-read the police report I could sense the growing exasperation of the two men. There were virtually no leads, nothing that would even remotely explain what had happened that night. They dug into the backgrounds of the two band members who were shot, thinking that maybe Ellie Foster wasn’t the main target of the attack. Again, nothing.
Eventually I sat back in my chair, drank espresso, and thought about what I’d read. I concluded that, a half century after the fact, the chance of our solving this case — one that two apparently competent and dedicated cops with the advantage of working it right after the crime had taken place had struck out on — was next to nil.
After pondering that sad reality for several minutes, I pulled the CD copy out of its paper-bag wrapper and, with earbuds in place, spent the next half hour listening to the lone song over and over, trying to find some hidden clue or message buried in the lyrics. I struck out. With authority.
I figured Cobb would repeat my effort the next day, after which he’d decide there was no investigation to be conducted, admit defeat, and move on to something — anything — more promising.
My cellphone rang. This week the ringtone was Robbie Robertson and the boys: The Band. A few bars into “The Weight,” I clicked answer and was listening to my favourite voice in the stratosphere, that of Jill Sawley, the woman I had been seeing for almost a year