Mesdames of Mayhem

Mme Lisa De Nikolits is reading at the the Halloween “Spooktacular” event by Minstrels and Bards this Tuesday, October 22nd, 6:30 to pm. Costumes encouraged! The event takes place at the Southern Cross, Tranzac, 292 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto.

And Mme Ros Place’s story, “Too Close to the Edge”, is now available in the ghostly anthology, Dastardly Damsels (Crystal Lake Publishing).

SOUL BEHIND THE FACE

By

Madona Skaff

The Great Leonard sat motionless on the wooden chair. Shoulders back, his arms rested comfortably on the Plexiglas table before him. He controlled his breathing and the relentless need to scratch at the electrodes attached to his chest and scalp. He resisted the urge to fiddle with the oxygen monitor on his left index finger. The four researchers, wearing intense expressions, watched him from outside the glass-enclosed booth.

He closed his eyes and tried hard not to laugh.

After 10 years of pretending to be a psychic, life was good. Profitable. Comfortable. And boring.

So when he heard about a northern university’s research study to verify psychic abilities scientifically, he volunteered to be a test subject.

Leonard pictured the headline: Psychic Is Real Deal, Scientific Tests Show. He’d be famous—and filthy rich.

He’d fooled the eggheads for three days, graduating to today’s final, most rigorous stage.

Late at night, when he’d first arrived, he’d sat in his car in the parking lot to hack into their computers to download the tests. This one consisted of a series of numbers he’d have to “see.” With so many sets of numbers and no way to tell which he’d be assigned, he’d memorized them all, thanks to his only legitimate talent—a great memory.

It took four to five numbers before he knew which set the researchers were using. He threw in random wrong answers to make his “vision” seem legit. He smiled inwardly. Took a dramatic deep breath for the last answer.

“Fifty-nine!”

He opened his eyes, expecting to see expressions of surprise and awe.

You didn’t need to be a psychic to realize that something was horribly wrong. The techs stood there, staring at him. Finally, the head technician, Stanley, came into Leonard’s booth, holding something behind his back.

“The Great Leonard,” Stanley mocked. “Proud of how well you did?”

Leonard’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes.”

“You really sailed through every test. Even passed this last one. My personal favorite.”

Then with a magician’s stage-show flourish, Stanley revealed a laptop hidden behind his back. He tossed it on the table. It bounced once.

Leonard’s mouth went dry. He recognized the computer as his.

“Look at the great confused psychic,” Stanley gloated. “Halfway through this test, I switched to a new set of numbers. But you happily continued on the first.” He leaned forward on the table and tapped the computer with his index finger. “You really should lock your car.”

With a laugh bordering on maniacal, Stanley left. Another technician came in to remove the electrodes. Leonard winced as a couple of chest hairs were yanked off in the process.

Leonard stood, buttoned up his shirt and squared his shoulders. His face calm, he slipped his laptop under his arm and, with head held high, left the lab. He ignored the cackles behind him.

Stiff-legged, Leonard returned to the parking lot, opened the door of his navy Mercedes and pitched the laptop onto the backseat. Then he collapsed into the driver’s seat, panting with suppressed anger.

What a way to end a lucrative career. Debunked by a bunch of geeks. Maybe it was time for The Great Leonard to return to plain Lennie. Life had been simpler then.

All he wanted right now was the quickest route out of this place, but of course the GPS was useless out here. He tossed his cell onto the passenger seat and pulled out a map.

With the car’s tires squealing, he roared out of the university parking lot. Within minutes, he was on a washboard gravel road with occasional potholes. The unnaturally straight road and the flanking trees created a claustrophobic tunnel effect. That, along with the groans of his Mercedes shuddering over the rough surface, soon irritated him. He turned on the radio hoping for some distraction. Static. Damn stupid northern town. Did anything work here? He punched Autoscan.

Then something up ahead that wasn’t a tree caught his attention. A roadside memorial. He’d always zipped past those shrines on his way somewhere. He didn’t have to be anywhere now, so he pulled over.

The memorial was a wooden cross, about three feet high, with pots of brilliant flowers at the base. There was a simple inscription on the cross: OCT. 4. No name. No year.

Today was Oct. 2.

He shut off the engine and got out for a closer look. As he came around the car, he doubled over with intense nausea. He gagged and leaned against the car, managing to stay on his feet. He swallowed the acrid taste in his mouth.

Lennie had felt like this once before—when he was nine at his grandfather’s funeral. As he walked deeper into the cemetery, he’d felt a bit dizzy and queasy. Without warning, the air thickened and forced itself down his throat into his lungs. He sputtered as if he were drowning. Fists of pain had pounded on his chest. Knocked him to the ground. He’d come to and saw his mother’s tear-streaked face looking at him. His parents had described it as a seizure. The doctors had agreed.

He’d never set foot in a cemetery again.

The stress of being unmasked today and being strung out on too much coffee had triggered the memory. Nothing more, he told himself as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Enough sightseeing. He just wanted to get home and set up his next scam. He returned to the driver’s side of the car and pulled on the door handle.

Locked. With the keys in the ignition. Damn! He punched the roof of the car with both fists. He rested his head on his fists and closed his eyes to hold back burning tears of frustration.

He heard a loud rustling in the woods, jerked his head and scanned the forest in wide-eyed panic. With his luck, it would be a bear. He’d bought the gun a few years earlier, after receiving threats from the furious husband of the woman who’d been cheating on him. Lennie had that gun with him now—safely guarding the glove compartment.

When nothing arrived to eat him, he relaxed and reached for his cell to call for roadside assistance. Then he laughed bitterly; his cell sat on the passenger seat. He’d have to walk back to the main road and civilization, such as it was. This was the last place where he’d want to be walking in the dark. He looked up to see the sun hugging the treetops. Best to get moving.

After walking for a while, he got tired of his brisk pace and glanced at his watch. Only 3:30? He squinted searching for the turnoff in the distance. How fast had he been driving to get so far? He glanced over his shoulder and saw…

His car! A few yards away. Impossible. He’d been walking for…how long, only to be back to where he had started?

He turned to face the vehicle as thick, humid air rushed into his lungs. Pressure pounded on his chest. A heart attack! Here? All alone? With all his strength, he sucked in long, deep breaths. The pain eased.

Time to get the hell out of here. Now! He rushed to his car and yanked on the door handle.

“Damn!” He punched the roof of his car. “Calm down, Lennie. Relax. Think!”

Locked car? No problem, with the universal key. What he needed was a rock. The only ones big enough were holding up the cross.

“Sorry.” He picked one up. “I’ll bring it right back.”

A shadow hovered over him, and he spun around. He lost his footing and fell back, knocking the cross over and breaking several flower pots. He cried out in pain as a sharp piece of ceramic pierced his hip. He held up his arms to shield his face, expecting to be attacked by some animal. He was alone.

He checked the wound and removed the fragment. He’d live. He started to get up, but was pushed back down by some unseen force.

Brain racing, he lay still. It felt like a hand on his chest. He gasped as a shadow moved overhead. Nothing there. He tried to sit up and was forced down again. Less gently. Another attempt. This time, a powerful punch to the chest knocked him flat. He lay on the destroyed shrine as images and sounds enveloped him. He shut his eyes, but couldn’t block out the vision.

Lennie holds a beautiful, dark-haired woman in a loving embrace before driving away. Turns onto a dark road. This road. An oncoming car. It pulls over. Lennie makes a U-turn and stops behind the other car.

The scene faded as Lennie sat up.

Rubbing his chest with the heel of his hand, he stumbled back to his car. He tugged on the door handle and didn’t question why it was unlocked. He got in and revved up the engine to get the hell out of there.

That’s when he saw a wallet lying among the crushed flowers. He checked his pants’ side pocket. “Damn it!”

He got out and braced against the urge to puke as he picked up his wallet.

A blow to the middle of his back dropped him face-first into the flower pots. Through the blinding pain he heard…

A gunshot.

Lennie falls sideways onto the front seat, and his arm hits the car stereo. Rock music blares from the speakers. How can she listen to that crap?

Ears still ringing from the blast, he looks up to make eye contact with a man staring at him through the open car window. There is a blurred movement. He closes his eyes and through the loud music he hears the echo of a second…

Gunshot.

Lennie rubbed his temple to relieve the lingering pain as the vision faded. He was sitting in his car with the engine running. His clothes were clean. The shrine undamaged.

He checked the time. Three-thirty. Peering through the windshield, he was relieved to see the sun still hovering over the treetops.

God, he’d never fallen asleep at the wheel before. He rested his head on the steering wheel, grateful that he’d pulled over in time. Loud music startled him fully awake. Autoscan had found a station playing a song by the Scorpions.

“How can she listen to that crap?” He clicked off the radio.

Surprised by his comment, he laughed at how vivid the dream had been. He actually liked “Soul Behind the Face” and reached to turn the radio back on when the air gradually thickened around him. He remained calm as the images drifted back and finished the story.

After the vision faded, Lennie looked at the cross. He understood now. Armed with the date and the face of the man who had looked in through the driver’s side window, Lennie drove back to the university library.

***

Lennie used the library’s WiFi to search the Internet for local news stories. Within moments, he found a newspaper article dated Oct. 4 of last year. The headline read:

Prominent Businessman Franklin Boyd Commits Suicide.

The article had the usual obituary-type details. Boyd had enjoyed a successful career in accounting. Coworkers and friends were heartbroken and couldn’t imagine why he’d taken his life. “Because it wasn’t suicide,” Lennie whispered to the computer screen.

He had to tell someone. But who? Stanley, the technician? He could still hear the guy laughing. The police? They’d lock him up for sure when he mentioned the visions.

He thought about his grandfather’s funeral and in the calm of the library he remembered forgotten details. As he’d walked through the cemetery, images from each grave had conjured up a different, horrifying scene. Violent deaths, lonely deaths, lingering deaths. He remembered the pain had become unbearable the more he’d tried to block out the images.

So many years lying about being a psychic—he could only laugh at the irony.

He looked at the article. He couldn’t let Franklin Boyd’s killer get away with murder.

“Lennie…” a voice whispered behind him.

He spun around, but no one was there. Damn his overactive imagination. He turned back to the computer in time to see his fingers on the trackpad clicking through several Web pages on their own. He yanked his hand away.

Great. Not only was he stressed and depressed about his crumbling life, now he had to deal with hallucinations.

Loud rock music cracked through the silence, then faded away. Looking behind him, Lennie shook his head at the person he presumed was playing the music. How ignorant and inconsiderate to be doing that in a library. But the staff and students didn’t pay any attention.

Funny that it was the same Scorpions’ song that had been playing on his car radio. It must be a local favorite, he decided as he turned back resume his search.

His eyes widened, lips parted as though to speak. He’d found the killer in a photo in an article. It showed people handing out balloons to children at a charity fundraiser. He checked the names in the cutline and smiled.

Dan Kabala worked at the same accounting office as Boyd had.

***

Lennie checked into a hotel on the outskirts of town. The key to any good scam was preparation. He spent Saturday searching for information on both men and the accounting firm they worked at. From what he understood of human nature, the best time to confront the murderer would be on the anniversary of the crime—tomorrow, Oct. 4.

On Sunday, Lennie showed up unannounced at Dan Kabala’s apartment just before 3:30, when the murder had been committed. His lame excuse of being Franklin’s college buddy got him inside the plush three-bedroom condominium.

Dan was a gracious host. Anything for Franklin’s old college buddy. Over coffee, he chatted freely about how nice Franklin had been, how his friends and coworkers missed him.

“Terrible how Franklin died,” Lennie interjected.

“Yes.” Dan’s voice was sombre.

“It was early morning, right?”

“No, 3:30 in the afternoon.” Dan swallowed hard and stood abruptly. “How about some more coffee?”

“Thanks.”

Dan picked up both mugs and started for the kitchen.

Lennie hadn’t seen any reference to music at the murder scene in any of the news reports. That was a detail only the killer would know, he concluded. He decided to egg Dan on.

“It must have been terrible for him to lie dying listening to music he hated,” Lennie observed.

Dan turned around, still carrying the mugs. “W-what are you talking about? What m-music?”

Lennie sensed Dan’s hesitancy and pressed ahead. “Wasn’t there a CD playing hard rock?”

Dan stared at him, shook his head and started to turn away. “Look, Lennie, I’m sorry, but I have some work to do.”

“Working on the weekend? What a shame,” Lennie said mockingly. “I guess that’s ironic, too.”

“What?”

“Well, if Franklin had gone to work on a weekday rather than a Saturday, there would have been people around. They might have noticed he was…well, you know…suicidal.”

Dan’s hands trembled so much that he barely got the mugs back to the table. He collapsed into the armchair and ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end.

The image of a folder flashed before Lennie’s eyes. “I guess he went in to pick up the Trelaine file.”

Dan’s face blanched. His eyes moistened.

Lennie continued, “He probably stopped on the side of the road to either talk to or help someone and they shot him. Close range, so it’s no wonder the police thought it was suicide.”

“Stop it!” Dan screamed as he jumped to his feet

Startled, Lennie reached inside his windbreaker for the gun he’d brought with him. Dan stopped his advance as he leaned his hands on his knees for support. Lennie released his grip on the weapon.

“It was an accident. I swear!” Dan’s voice was shrill, and tears streamed down his cheeks.

Lennie helped Dan sit down. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was on my way home from work when I saw Franklin coming the other way. He signaled me to pull over. Asked why I was at work on a Saturday. When I told him I was picking up some files with irregularities, like the Trelaine file, he freaked out. Yelled something about refusing to be blackmailed anymore. Then he pulled a gun on me!

“I grabbed his wrist, but the gun went off. He fell over. I ran. I could hear rock music. I didn’t know where it came from. But I got back in my car. Left. Left him there.” He sobbed once. “When the morning news called it suicide, I kept quiet.”

“Yeah, right,” Lennie cut him off. A faint image of a gun in a gloved hand came to him.

“It was an accident, Lennie, I swear. My God, he tried to kill me. I couldn’t take the chance the police wouldn’t believe me. You can understand how I felt, can’t you?”

Lennie was angry. “You let his family think he committed suicide?”

“He’s never been close to any of them.” Dan frantically fingered his hair. “I needed to do something, so I placed a cross at the spot. Every day I stop to make sure the flowers are doing fine, watering them, replacing them.”

“Very touching.”

“No one knows that I do it. With those potholes, hardly anyone uses that road. I make sure the shrine’s never without a flower tribute, so I can’t even take holidays. My wife wants me to pay attention to the living. I think she’s going to leave me soon. But I have to do this.”

Lennie had brought his gun with him because he’d expected to meet a greedy, cold-blooded killer—not a sniveling, pathetic shard of a man slumped in an armchair.

Lennie heard the condo door open. He started at the sudden blare of that same Scorpions’ song. The music stopped abruptly when the door closed.

“Dan, I’m back!” a woman called from the entrance, then walked into the living room. “Wait until you see the dresses I—” she broke off as she saw Lennie. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company.”

She tilted her head, giving him an approving look and a seductive smile. Instead of being flattered, he felt like a caged animal.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Dan wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, then went to greet her with a peck on the cheek. “Angela, this is Lennie, Franklin’s friend from college.”

Lennie didn’t miss that Angela never noticed her husband’s red eyes, strained smile or trembling voice.

When Lennie reached out to shake her hand, the air in his lungs thickened. He stayed calm. He felt Franklin’s presence in the room. This time, the information flowed freely.

This was the dark-haired woman in the loving embrace.

“You were there,” Lennie whispered. “You were having an affair with him. You were there.”

“You hired a private eye?” she screeched at Dan. “Our marriage is in trouble because of your problems. Don’t start inventing affairs!”

“Honey, no…I didn’t…this…he isn’t…”

“You were blackmailing him,” Lennie said to Angela. “You were partners at first. You gave Franklin your husband’s computer codes to access the clients’ investments and liberate a tiny amount of their profits—too small to be noticed. But when he started having second thoughts, you blackmailed him to keep going.”

“Are you going to let him talk to me like that?” she screamed at Dan.

“That last day,” Lennie continued, “after you’d made love, you guessed that Franklin was going to work to cover his tracks. Maybe you were worried he’d make sure you got all the blame. Or that he’d implicate your husband, which meant you’d lose this cushy lifestyle. Whatever the reason, you followed Franklin. Took advantage of the scene on the side of the road.”

Lennie turned to Dan. “You didn’t kill him. The bullet missed and went out the open passenger window. He was just stunned by the sound of the gunshot. When he fell over, his hand hit the car stereo. She kept her CDs in his car.”

He turned back to Angela. “He hated rock but put up with it for you. As he lay dazed and helpless on the seat, you came by and picked up the gun. You wore gloves, so no prints.”

Lennie watched her expression change from denial to amazement to fear and finally to anger. Then a disturbing coldness swept over her eyes.

“Quite a nice story you’ve cooked up.” She turned, dropped her shopping bags on the sofa and reached into her purse. “Too bad no one else will hear it!”

She turned holding a gun leveled at Lennie’s chest, only to come face to face with the gun in Lennie’s hand.

Her eyes opened wide and her lips parted as Lennie’s finger pulled the trigger.

Lennie’s heart pounded, threatening to rip open his chest. He watched as, in movie-style slow motion, she fell backward, her startled eyes staring at him. Blood and brain matter formed a halo around her head. Somewhere beyond the sound of blood rushing in his ears, he could hear Dan screaming her name.

She lay on the floor, her blood pooling on white marble. Lennie’s mouth opened in a silent cry. He hadn’t meant to fire. The adrenaline rush of seeing a gun in her hand had made his finger squeeze the trigger. He wanted to drop the gun before it went off again. He willed his fingers to open. They refused.

Lennie finally managed to shift his focus from the body to Dan. The man was huddled on the floor in the corner, rocking himself as he sobbed Angela’s name over and over again.

He wanted to go to Dan and make him understand—before the police arrived—that it had been an accident. He tried to move, but his feet felt leaden.

A tremor rippled through Lennie’s body as a thick rush of air moved through him. He suddenly realized that Franklin wasn’t after justice; he was intent on revenge. A voice echoed in Lennie’s head.

I had to endure Dan’s sniveling each and every day. Knowing that he took my clients. Made money that should have been mine. No one else stopped on that road. Until you, Lennie.

Lennie felt his hand start to rise. No, he screamed silently. He wouldn’t kill. Not again.

Why let that useless bastard live and enjoy a life that is rightfully mine?

Lennie grabbed at the gun with his free hand, but only managed to flail at it pathetically. The gun was aimed at Dan, who paled and pressed himself into the corner, trying to escape.

Lennie’s heart pounded as he braced for the inevitable deafening blast. Sweat trickled down his back as he helplessly watched his finger begin to squeeze the trigger.

He refused to take another life. “Stop!” he cried, but his hand ignored him. He gulped in mouthfuls of air and stopped the thickening in his lungs by a will born of panic. He heard the Scorpions’ song grow louder, but he forced himself to ignore it.

“No!” Lennie shouted at his hand. It lowered the gun.

No, he had lowered the gun. With a sharp sense of relief, he realized hew was finally strong enough to keep Franklin under control.

Dan stared at him with wide eyes and stood up.

Lennie said, “It’s okay. Don’t be afraid.” What must the poor man be thinking as he watched the ravings of a lunatic? Lennie gave him a comforting smile and added gently, “It’s all right, Dan. I’m in control now.”

Dan shook his head. Then, with halting, almost robotic steps, he approached Lennie with his hand extended. He spoke calmly. Too calmly, Lennie thought.

“Just give me the gun,” Dan said. “I know you didn’t want to shoot her. Give me the gun. It’ll be okay.”

Lennie nodded and handed over the weapon. He realized that Dan’s calm voice was just an act to get the gun safely away from him. Which was just fine with him.

Taking the gun, Dan studied it carefully. Then he draped an arm around Lennie’s shoulders. Pulled him close and stared into his eyes. When he smiled, Lennie felt a shiver run down his back.

“Lennie, it’ll be okay,” Dan said gently, wrapping his arm tighter around Lennie in a brotherly embrace. “I’ll tell the police it was self-defense.”

The faint music echoed in Lennie’s head from a distance, as though he were listening to it coming from another room. He looked closer into Dan’s eyes.

“Franklin?”

Word on the Street happens at Queen’s Park this weekend, September 28th from 11 am to 6 pm and September 29th from 10 am to 5 pm. The Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem are sharing a booth with friends from Toronto SinC and Romance Writers: Alice Fitzpatrick, Kris Purdy and Maaja Wentz.

Big thank you to Mme Sylvia Warsh for organizing! Come meet Sylvia and M. H. Callway, Blair Keetch, Rosemary McCracken, Lynne Murphy and Lorna Poplak.

Mme Melodie Campbell will signing her fabulous 1920s mystery, The Merry Widow Murders and meeting fans at the Cormorant Press booth on Sunday, September 29th at 1:45pm.

And Mme Melissa Yi will be on Zoom for the 2024 Discovery for Authors Summit to speak about “Fun Marketing for Busy Authors”. Register here. https://academy.storytellersruletheworld.com/2024-discovery-for-authors-summit-virtual?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

On February 21, 1890, Detective John Wilson Murray of the Ontario Department of Criminal Investigation received word that two woodsmen had made a grisly discovery in Blenheim (now Benwell) Swamp, near Princeton: amid a tangle of briars, fallen logs, and dense brush, the body of a man with two bullet holes in the back of his head. 

As he tells us in his 1904 Memoirs of a Great Detective, Murray, also known by the moniker “Old Never-let-go,” immediately launched an investigation. The body was that of “a young man, smooth shaven, of refined appearance, and clearly a gentleman.” From the style and cut of his garments, even though all labels had been carefully removed, he was also, clearly, an Englishman. Photographs sent out Canada-wide failed to reveal his identity. 

A breakthrough came five days later, when a man and his wife arrived in Princeton asking to see the body, claiming that the victim had possibly been a shipboard acquaintance. Through Murray’s brilliant investigative efforts, the case was soon unravelled. 

The “suave, handsome” visitor was identified as a conman named John Reginald Birchall of London, England; his victim was Frederick Cornwallis Benwell of Cheltenham, who had shown interest in investing in Birchall’s purported horse farm in Ontario. 

Benwell and another potential investor, Douglas Raymond Pelly, had sailed across the Atlantic with Birchall to view the farm. Instead, Benwell was lured to the desolate swamp and killed. More by luck than skill, Pelly managed to avoid suffering a similar fate.

Birchall was arrested in Niagara Falls on March 2 and tried in Woodstock for murder.

There was no “smoking gun” in the case — in fact, no gun ever seems to have been unearthed — but a cascade of circumstantial evidence coalesced to doom the accused. 

After an eight-day trial, Birchall was found guilty and sentenced to hang, which was the mandatory penalty for murder at the time. He went to the gallows in Woodstock on November 14, 1890. 

What became known as the Blenheim Swamp Murder was an international sensation at the time. The reason, as noted by J.V. McAree in a 1940 Globe and Mail article entitled “Birchall’s shot was heard round the world,” resided not in the details of the case — a sordid story of theft and premeditated murder with an easily identifiable perpetrator. No, the trial was of importance because “the characters involved … were what is known in England as gentlemen … who do not murder each other except in fiction.” And, at a time when Canada was actively courting immigrants with means, “were there many like Birchall to swindle and eventually murder them?” Fortunately, there were not.

The case remained without question Murray’s most famous investigation.

Decades later, on the release of his memoirs, Murray was quizzed about his fateful first meeting with Birchall and Florence, his hapless wife. At the launch, Murray’s “collaborator” (possibly ghostwriter?) was revealed as Victor Speer, “a well-known newspaper and magazine writer.” 

The memoirs offer fascinating glimpses into Ontario society in the last quarter of the 19th century, when poverty was rife in rural areas, marauding gangs terrorized farming communities, and murders could be committed for very little gain: 80 cents, in one case. The book stretches to a whopping 450 pages; each of its 82 chapters is devoted to different episodes gleaned from Murray’s colourful past.

In the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Jim Phillips and Joel Fortune cast a skeptical eye on some of Murray’s anecdotes about his early life; as his memoirs “contain many misrepresentations about later events,” they write, “little reliance should be placed on them other than for details of birth and family.” What does seem to be without doubt is that he was born in June 1840 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and that his family emigrated to the United States when he was a young boy. After an education both in the States and in Scotland, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1857. 

Even with possible fabrications regarding his early life — such as his claims that he thwarted a Confederate attack against the ship on which he served during the Civil War and investigated counterfeiting for the Treasury Department after his discharge from the navy — and possible exaggerations regarding his professional life after moving to Canada and joining the Canada Southern Railway as a detective in 1873, Murray’s achievements may still be regarded as nothing less than extraordinary.

Murray received a formal tender of appointment from Attorney General Sir Oliver Mowat in 1875 to become the first (and, for nine years, the only) provincial detective of Ontario, with an annual salary of $1,500. 

At that time, the justice system was in transition. Underpinning the older model were largely untrained local constables and justices of the peace who were remunerated on a fee-for-service basis. County Crown attorneys relied for their prosecutions on information provided by the police. Detectives did not play a significant role, but, increasingly, a perception emerged that the poorly paid rural constables could be relied upon for the investigation of minor crimes only. 

Mowat stressed to his executive council that, given the growing sophistication and organization of criminals, a skilled man was required, one with “qualifications superior” to those of the ad-hoc detectives usually employed by the provincial government. 

Murray, who described himself as having “brought to his work a rich experience and rare training” and who had “schooled himself in the details of information of every class of crime,” was clearly the man for the job: to investigate, either in person or in a supervisory role, crimes throughout the province of Ontario — “its total area was 101,733 square miles, and its division was into eighty-four counties” — and also “to follow criminals to any place and run them down.” Wrongdoers, warned Old Never-let-go, “were to hear the tread of footsteps in pursuit, that never ceased until the pursued was dead or behind prison bars.” They would “realise that the old order of things had passed away.”

The value of this new order was demonstrated in Murray’s very first case as government detective: the murder of Ralph Findlay, a farmer in Lambton County. Summoned to the case by the county attorney, Murray discovered that the “countryside” believed that Findlay had been murdered by horse thieves after he had surprised them in his barn. Murray looked for a motive and, based on eyewitness information, found it in the amorous relationship between Mrs. Findlay and William Smith, a hired farmhand. Murray bullied the woman into confessing that she had egged on her lover to murder her husband. 

Murray had very definite views about crime and criminals. “Crime is a disease. It is hereditary, just as consumption is hereditary. It may skip a generation or even two or three generations. But it is an inherent, inherited weakness.” And forget about reforming criminals: “Once dishonest, always dishonest. That is the general rule. Reformation is the exception.” In 1880, by dint of dogged investigations that took him to multiple cities in the U.S. and Canada, he ran to ground the Johnson gang, a notorious multigenerational family of counterfeiters (father, sons, and daughters), who were said to have put over a million dollars in fake notes into circulation. Murray kept the plates, worth around $40,000, as souvenirs. 

He was also a strong believer in the value of circumstantial evidence. “I have found it surer than direct evidence in many cases … There are those who say that circumstances may combine in a false conclusion. This is far less apt to occur than the falsity of direct evidence given by a witness who lies point blank.” 

Although most of Murray’s efforts in bringing villains to justice consisted of interrogations, intercepted letters, pursuits over land and water, and the like, he was open to the adoption of newer techniques, such as the examination of footprints (in one case, he notes that he “marked the tracks carefully and arranged to have plaster casts made of them”), photography, autopsies, and forensic investigations. As early as 1876, analyses conducted at the School of Practical Science in Toronto had revealed that traces of blood and small bones were from a human being, not an animal, which helped to convict a wife murderer.

Murray’s easy manner endeared him to police and newshounds alike. He was even generally liked by the desperadoes who crossed paths — or swords — with him. 

And his sense of humour was legendary. He once told a Globe reporter of a time in court when a “little lad” had been charged with stealing several sticks of dynamite. On being asked by the judge what he had done with them, the boy, crying, took a couple of stick-like objects from his pocket and started to toss them onto the clerk’s desk. “I was near the judge’s bench when he threw the first one,” recalled Murray, “but I think I was half way down the street when the other one fell on the desk.” Fortunately for all, the dynamite failed to explode.

In 1906, after having served the people of Ontario for 31 years, now Chief Inspector Murray died of “a stroke of paralysis” in bed at his Toronto home. In an obituary in the Toronto Daily Star, he was praised for the “skill, logic, trained memory, and delicate intuition” that he had brought to the business of detection. 

But perhaps we should leave the last word to the man himself. The concluding sentence of his memoirs reads: “Well, Murray, you’ve done pretty well, after all.” 

Sources:

Globe editions of March 14, 1890, March 22, 1890, September 23, 1890, September 25, 1890, April 21, 1894, October 29, 1904, June 13, 1906, June 23, 1906

Globe and Mail editions of March 8, 1940, November 19, 1977

Murray, John Wilson. Memoirs of a Great Detective: Incidents in the Life of John Wilson Murray. Toronto: William Heinemann, 1904.

Phillips, Jim and Joel Fortune. “Murray, John Wilson.” In Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, 1994.

Quebec Saturday Budget edition of November 15, 1890

Toronto Daily Star edition of June 13, 1906

Toronto World edition of November 15, 1890

BAD VIBRATIONS

by

ROSALIND PLACE

“I don’t know, Chris. Can’t the board do something? I’m thinking of packing it in.”

Amy ran her fingers through her hair as she sat down, flattening half of her carefully managed curls. It gave her the appearance of a crested bird, an image reinforced by her black sweater, black jeans and high-heeled black boots, now tapping anxiously against the auditorium stage floor. She felt nauseous and angry, as she often did after one of Neil’s so-called motivational meetings.

Chris didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. “Do you ever get the feeling, when you come back from a break or something, that things aren’t quite as you left them?” Hands on his hips, he stood staring at his bass, which was resting on its side propped against his chair. In his sweatpants, T-shirt and running shoes, he looked like he belonged on the track, not in the string section of a community orchestra. Tonight, his normally serene expression had been replaced by a frown. He crouched and leaned forward, pushing his instrument ever so slightly backward.

“No, I don’t,” Amy answered, growing impatient. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m going to pack it in.”

“You’re always threatening to quit, Ames.” Chris straightened, his frown replaced with a smile. “We’re a community orchestra, and we’ve got no say. If he wants to put us in the band shell again, he can. If he wants us to play the 1812 Overture again, he can. True, he can’t keep time, despite his friggin’ ivory baton with the silver handle crafted by I forget who. The board doesn’t care. They just want someone on the podium.” He looked around. “Christ, why is it still so cold in here?” He pulled a tatty gray sweater from the back of his chair and threw it on.

The other orchestra members began to file in. Their clothes reflected their reasons for being there. Although it was only a rehearsal, some, like Amy, were serious musicians who had dressed carefully. Many were still students who hoped to move on to professional careers. Others, like Chris, were just as serious about the music, but had to juggle the rehearsal schedule with day jobs, family or other demands.

As all the players found their seats, they looked more alike than different—all silent, all downcast, focused on their instruments and on warming up. No one made eye contact.

Neil, a tall, angular man who did nothing slowly, strode across the stage carrying his baton. As always, he was dressed in a tailored black suit, white shirt and startlingly bright red tie. His thick, black hair was perfectly styled, shiny and immovable.

“I hope our little meeting inspired everyone to do their best from now on.” He raised his baton. “From the top.” The musicians lifted their instruments. Taking longer than necessary, he waited, and then, with a flourish, began.

---

“That was the most humiliating experience of my life!” First Flute complained. “When did the 1812 Festival Overture become the 1812 Funeral Overture? How did he ever get hired and why don’t they do something about it?”

The instruments were alone again, the players having been summoned to another room for another inspirational talk.

“Well?” First Flute demanded. She was so upset that the music stand she lay on started to quiver. Wasn’t she a world-class instrument? Wasn’t her owner, Amy, a talented if rather tense player, on her way up?

“They’re not going to, are they?” Oboe responded. Unlike Flute, her owner was on his way out. “They either play or walk away, and none of them have anywhere to walk to. There’s no ‘I’m going to the Philharmonic’ talk here anymore, is there?”

“So you just want to stay in this wretched auditorium forever, playing the same old repertoire over and over again, with whatever moron they decide to throw onto the podium?” Flute asked. “Don’t you want more? Don’t we all want more? You’ve heard the new music; don’t you want to play that? Where’s your ambition?”

Flute went on, “Wasn’t it you, Oboe, who, all last year, went on ad nauseam about the Littlewood Symphony, the orchestra that started on a shoestring with a few good players and ended up in Carnegie Hall?”

Flute knew this was a very sensitive subject. Oboe’s previous owner had been a talented, ambitious young musician. She had recently graduated to a semiprofessional orchestra and promptly purchased a better instrument. Oboe had been sold to Jamie, the new but definitely unambitious oboist.

“That was last year,” Oboe said. “That was when Maria was here and we were all delusional. We’re just a small-town orchestra, Flute. We’re lucky to have a conductor at all. Amy’s been making you listen to those stupid podcasts again.”

“Well, maybe Jamie should spend a little time listening, too,” Flute responded. “If today’s rehearsal is anything to go by.”

“There’s no need to resort to personal insults.”

“Will everyone please stop arguing!” It was First Violin, who had been happily contemplating his imminent return to the string quartet he loved so much. The audition last week had gone well, despite the fact that Evan, who suffered from performance anxiety, had been high at the time. Yes, he could see the light at the end of this particular tunnel quite clearly if everyone else would just shut up.

“Let’s just get through the rehearsal,” First Violin continued. “We’re at the band shell next week. The 1812 is a good choice for the band shell. And we don’t really mind playing there again, do we?”

Trombone jumped in. “Don’t mind?! Are you kidding?!” The entire brass section was humming angrily.

“Let’s just all calm down.” First Violin realized, too late, that he had been careless. “I know we all remember what happened the last time we played the band shell. However, Neil is now our conductor. We work with what we have. Flute, laughter is not helpful at this point. Bass, you’re unusually quiet.”

“Yeah, Bass. Nothing to say, eh?” Flute’s music stand was still quivering. “The biggest of all of us, in one piece and heavy enough to actually accomplish something. Look at me. I’m lucky if I’m not in three pieces, trapped in a case and even if I’m all put together I’m either in the air, on a music stand or on a chair. If I roll off and break a key, where would that get us?”

“Out of the 1812, at least.”

First Violin attempted to gain control again as the percussion section began to vibrate. “Whoever made that comment, I am disappointed in you. It was not helpful.”

Bass was barely paying attention. Chris had just started a new weekend gig with a jazz ensemble, and it had been a revelation. That was where he belonged, not here, in this orchestra full of unhappy instruments and unhappy players. Since Maria left, well, he didn’t even like classical music anymore.

“Well, Bass?” Flute ignored everyone else. “You know what I’m talking about. And you won’t even consider it? The so-called accident last year wasn’t your fault. Everyone knows it but you.”

“I think that is a topic best left…” It took a moment for First Violin to regain enough composure to intervene. Just the mention of the accident was enough to send the entire orchestra off the deep end. Bass was already vibrating loudly behind him, clearly very upset and who could blame him? He had been so fond of Maria.

It had been Maria, on that fateful last performance in the band shell, who had tried to save Bass when his stand gave way. As a result, Maria lost her footing, and fell from the stage. She was carried off on a stretcher and never returned.

“Yes, I know, First Violin,” Flute cut in. “God forbid anyone mentions the accident. It goes to show, though, doesn’t it, Mister First Bass, who won’t do anything to help the rest of us? Easy for you, who looks down on everyone. But then, you don’t have to worry so much, do you? Basses don’t play in marching bands, do they?”

The woodwinds were vibrating now; in fact, the entire orchestra was starting to quiver in distress.

“You didn’t know?” Flute addressed them all. “He’s going to do it. Next spring. A marching band!”

“Flute! Quiet, everyone! Please!” First Violin ordered. “They’re coming back. Trombone, is that how she left you? Cello, were you not facing to the left?”

---

The rehearsal ended earlier than usual despite the extra break. Neil slumped dramatically over his music stand, hand over eyes. then straightened up, tucked his baton under his arm and, with a flick of his wrist, told the orchestra to go home.

Chris and Amy were the last to leave.

“You know how it is when you walk into a room and everyone’s been talking and they suddenly stop?” Chris said. “That’s just how it feels.”

He waited as Amy carefully put her flute away and slipped sheet music into her briefcase, then straightened her chair and the one next to it. She had been known to straighten all the chairs in the orchestra before leaving—a pointless exercise, since the school janitor would pile them all up the next morning to clear the stage for the school assembly.

“We don’t have another rehearsal before Saturday,” Amy said. She turned to Chris. “It’s going to be a disaster. What kind of a conductor thinks tuning an orchestra is an unnecessary evil and when he does deign to do it, tunes to an oboe who regularly plays half a tone flat?” She glanced back at the chair she had just straightened.

“It happens every time we come back from a break, Ames. As if there were people here, whispering to each other and…moving things.”

“Moving things?” Amy asked.

“It’s just a feeling,” he said. “I didn’t say it made sense.”

Chris watched Amy move toward the next set of chairs. “It’s okay, Ames. Let’s just get out of here.” He touched her lightly on the arm, and she turned back to him with a small smile. “I was just saying that something feels wrong, that’s all,” he said.

“Something’s wrong all right. We have a conductor who cannot conduct, an oboist who cannot play and a bass player who’s losing it.”

---

A school bus had been booked to take the players and their instruments to the fairgrounds. The musicians had been told to arrive half an hour early, leave their instruments in the bus and meet inside the school.

Everyone in the orchestra was required to wear a black jacket. The order created hard feelings among the players as they searched for the proper apparel at local secondhand stores. No one had money to burn.

When everyone had been gathered and seated in the auditorium, Neil, baton in hand, appeared on stage. He was followed by a very young woman, dressed in a long sweater and leggings, who looked tense and uncomfortable.

The conductor said, “I felt it my duty, given the importance of today’s concert, to do my upmost to prepare everyone. Leanna is here today…”

He paused, raised his baton and pointed it at her. The woman took a few steps back and bumped into a row of music stands not yet put away by the janitor. The stands clattered onto the stage floor.

Neil waited, baton still raised, as one of the players jumped up to help the woman. “As I said, I felt it was my duty to ensure you are prepared, and to this end I have asked Leanna here today to teach everyone some simple techniques of meditation.” He promptly left the stage.

Leanna, red-faced and still recovering from her brush with the music stands, hesitantly stepped forward.

---

Bass was regretting, and not for the first time, the way Chris always chose to sit with Amy. He was now trapped at the back of the bus right next to Flute, who was getting everyone upset.

Flute’s constant carping about Neil was getting on Bass’s nerves more and more, and making all the instruments anxious and irritable. Bass would be perfectly content working weekend gigs at the bar if Chris would just give up this lost cause.

Flute, whose speechifying had been going on for some time now, was getting louder and impossible to ignore.

“Just what are you suggesting, Flute?” asked First Violin, who sounded distinctly nervous.

“There is a rumor—it’s surprising what one can learn when forgotten in a conservatory hallway—that Maria has recovered and may wish to return. Neil is about to make us all a laughing stock. If we don’t want that to happen, well, something has to be done. Isn’t that right, Bass?”

Several instruments chimed in at the same time. “What?” “What something?” There was a definite vibration running through parts of the orchestra, and Bass could feel the tension rising up around him. He wasn’t happy that Flute had addressed him directly.

“All right. I’ll say it, then.” Flute waited, ratcheting the tension up another notch. “Neil has to go and he has to go soon. He’ll never resign, not unless he gets a better offer. But who would have him? No, he has to go and the only way I can see it happening is if he were… well…unable to continue.”

“Yes!” cried Trombone, who almost slid off the seat across which she had been carefully laid.

The vibration was now a hum, moving down the rows, instrument to instrument. Oboe, uncertain and unwilling to give in to Flute on anything, would have refused to join in, but for the impossible-to-ignore thought that this could be a way to get back to where she had once been.

Only one instrument did not react. Bass remained silent and perfectly still.

---

The bus was almost halfway to the fairgrounds when the rain started. The driver had warned Neil back at the high school that the forecast had changed. Neil ignored her, so she repeated it, more loudly, as the players trailed onto the bus. The meditation lesson had left them more irritated than calmed, but all knew better than to raise a protest. They stoically watched as the sky darkened, the wind picked up and the first drops of rain splashed against the bus windows.

By the time they arrived at the fairgrounds, a full-blown thunderstorm was sending fairgoers running for cover. The chairs lined up on the band shell stage were sliding away in the wind. The temporary steps at the front of the stage that Neil had demanded—as the conductor, he couldn’t possibly enter the stage from the wings like everyone else—had been pushed sideways.

The musicians waited, listening to the pelting rain and the crashing thunder, feeling the wind pushing against the bus with alarming strength. When the sandwich board announcing the orchestra’s performance fell facedown into the mud, even Neil had to admit there would be no performance.

As the bus turned around, Neil stood at the front, shouting to make himself heard above the storm, and reviewed the schedule of performances for the next three months. Unfortunately, the fall season finale would be in the same band shell during the Festival of Lights.

“Really? Outside at the end of November?” complained Jamie, the oboist. “We’ll freeze our asses off.” Tall and extremely thin, he pulled his ill-fitting black jacket around him and shivered as if he could already feel those chill winter winds.

The bus had arrived back at the high school just as the sun came out, and the players were returning to their cars.

“And what was it he said about a marching band?” Jamie continued.

“A marching band?” asked Jeanie, the petite trombone player. “Who said anything about a marching band?” She hefted her instrument case onto the backseat of her truck. Nightmarish memories of high school football games ran through her mind, making her a little dizzy. “You can’t have heard him right.”

“Oh, I heard him all right,” Jamie said. “You should’ve seen the look on Amy’s face! He’ll be firing us left, right and center if he gets his way. Speaking of which, did you hear the latest?”

The small group of players who had gathered around him all shook their heads.

“Well, Maria wants to come back and got turned down,” Jamie said. “The word is that there’s going to be an investigation of her accident. Word is, it wasn’t one.”

Chris came up beside the group. “What’s up?”

Jamie had a nasty habit of gossiping about other players that Chris wanted to quash. Amy had already stalked off to her car.

“Nothing,” Jamie replied. He didn’t make eye contact. Chris was impossible when it came to any kind of gossip. “We were just talking about the marching band, that’s all. Nothing you have to worry about.”

“Hmm.” Chris nodded and turned away. He asked himself when everything had started to feel so wrong. A vision of the auditorium stage, chairs empty but for the instruments, appeared before him, and he felt a chill creep from the top of his head to the base of his spine.

“Get a grip,” he muttered as he got into his car. “All that BS about phantoms moving instruments around. Amy’s right. You are losing it.”

---

It took about six weeks of playing outdoors in their black jackets in the summer heat, six weeks of alternating sycophantic praise and bullying from Neil, and six weeks of band shells and distant town halls before some of the orchestra members decided they’d had enough.

By the time October—with its promise of extra rehearsals for the endless Christmas concerts Neil had signed them up for—rolled around, there were mutterings about going to the board. This was something of a pipe dream, as none of the players knew who the board members were, where they met or if they would be the least bit interested in what any of them had to say.

Leanna, the meditation teacher, had been replaced by Bjorn, the life coach, who had just been replaced by Ariana. No one was sure exactly what Ariana’s specialty was.

So the players and their instruments found themselves in the gloomy auditorium again, on a busy weekday evening, rehearsing the 1812 Festival Overture again. The Festival of Lights was fast approaching, the temperature was dropping daily and it appeared to everyone that Neil was intent on making the final concert of the outdoor season one to remember.

“Open minds, everyone. Open minds!” Neil stepped down from the podium and walked slowly around the stage. This was extremely disconcerting to any female player he paused behind, as he stood just a little too close and placed his hands on the back of her chair, making it impossible to move forward.

Neil’s hands had a tendency to wander, as did his thoughts, evidenced by sudden and abrupt speechifying that left many a woman trying to ignore the moist warmth of his breath against her skin.

Tonight, however, he walked off into the wings and beckoned the players to follow. Ariana was waiting, and, as long as their minds were open, she would lead them all on a spiritual journey that would bring their playing to new heights.

---

“We’ve been over this. How many times have we been over this?”

Flute had started to address the instruments as soon as the last player had followed Neil off the stage. Then she turned her attention to Bass. “It’s perfectly simple. Those steps were dangerous last year, and they haven’t done anything to fix them. That’s a sign. We are meant to do this.”

“There is no ‘meant to’ only ‘must do,’ remember?” Trombone, quoting Bjorn, interjected. “And is that the royal ‘we’ you’re using, there, Flute? I don’t see that you actually have to do anything at all. It’s Bass who has to ‘move,’ a euphemism if ever there was one.”

Flute was annoyed by the interruption and offended by the sarcasm. “Well, I’m obviously not in a position…” But she stopped herself from saying something she’d regret later. Stay on point.

She turned to the full orchestra again. “All he has to do is fall over. That is all he has to do. He’s in the perfect position to do it, now that Neil has moved everyone around. Bass falls over, Neil loses his balance, and, with any luck, given the condition of those steps…well… there’s a good chance he’ll be laid up for a while. It gives us some breathing room, some time to…to…”

“Find a way to get rid of him?”

“Yes, thank you, Oboe,” First Violin cut in. “We can always rely on you to be on the mark.” He waited for the hum of nervous instruments to subside.

It had been a difficult summer for First Violin. His longed-for move to the concert world had not come to pass, despite all signals to the contrary. He had received the news on the very day that Flute had come to him. She had presented her plan in such cool, well-thought-out terms that he found himself unable to say no.

“As you all know, as Concertmaster, I cannot condone this kind of action. However—”

Flute cut him off. “I was going to say, some time to consider our options.” She paused, seeming to come to some certainty, then continued. “But Oboe is right. That is what we all want in the end.”

When had things started to go so wrong, Bass wondered, as the arguments continued around him. They had been replaying them all summer and fall, and Flute had been haranguing him every chance she got. He had been able to stand up to her, but she was winning over the string section.

And when had Flute become so powerful anyway, powerful enough to make them all think that he would do something like this on purpose? Last year had been an accident, and they had all lost Maria as a result.

Bass could still remember the sickening feeling he had as the instrument stand snapped and he started to slide, then Maria stepping forward to try to catch him and then stepping backward into space. How could they expect this of him?

Bass had been sold after that accident, his player telling everyone he couldn’t face playing him anymore. It was sheer luck that Chris, the best player he had ever had, had been the one to buy him.

“I think we can all agree that what happened last year was not Bass’s fault,” Flute said. “I think we are all familiar with the rumors. When Neil was in the orchestra, the last chair in the violin section if I remember correctly, it was clear that he had ambitions. Well, he fulfilled those ambitions, didn’t he? Not through talent—we all know he has none of that—but by a nasty little bit of sabotage.”

“What?” Bass could feel the vibrations building to an angry hum around him. “What do you mean, a nasty little bit of sabotage?”

“Just what I said.” Flute turned to Bass, but she was addressing the entire orchestra. “Neil wanted to conduct; he made sure he got the chance. If wanting to get rid of the worst conductor we have ever had isn’t enough reason for you, then think of it this way—it’s time for a little payback. Come now, Bass, wouldn’t you agree?”

Receiving no response, Flute continued, “It appears all concerns have been dealt with. Is that not so, First Violin?”

“Yes, Flute, yes…ah…yes, certainly…ah, I believe some of the players are returning.”

---

Chris stood in front of the band shell, arms crossed, surveying the stage. Chairs were askew, and some instruments lay across them. Others, like his bass, stood neatly in their stands. The scene was no different from that of any other performance. Yet there was that feeling again. It wasn’t exactly whispering … he just couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

Preconcert jitters, Amy had told him. Something he wasn’t usually prone to, but then again, it was their final concert at the band shell and the forecast was for snow flurries. Neil seemed to be blissfully unaware of what the cold would do to the instruments and their players.

With all the resentment that had been building since spring, Chris didn’t want to be here.

“What did you say?” Amy came up behind him. “You’re talking to yourself again.”

“No, I wasn’t. I just…did you hear anything?”

“I know. You don’t have to tell me. It’s your ghosts again. Maybe the band shell is haunted, too. Probably by all the players who came before us and cannot believe what they are now hearing. That I would believe.”

“You know, I’m a regular kind of guy,” Chris said. “I go to work, I go home, I practice, I come here. This, though, is creeping me out. Look at your flute, Amy. Your flute wasn’t like that when we left.”

The other players began filing back onto the stage, and Chris turned away to go back to his own place. He looked back at Amy, who hadn’t moved and was looking back at him.
“It’s just bad vibrations, Chris. That’s all it is.”

---

It was during the break between the first and second performances that it happened.

The players had all rushed into the hall behind the band shell to warm up. The first performance had not gone well, which was no surprise given that the temperature was hovering close to zero.

Neil had said nothing to any of them, striding off alone toward the bleachers. He arrived back well before the second performance, though, and stood at the entrance to the hall. He stared at each of them in turn, a look of disgust on his face. With a flick of his baton, he beckoned them to follow him back to the bandstand.

But no one paid much attention. The musicians were past fearing the flick of Neil’s silver-handled, ivory baton. No one wanted to leave the warmth of the hall, and they still had 10 minutes of their break left.

Which was why Neil was alone when he walked, fast, toward the stage. He took the first two steps in a leap, jumped again onto the third and landed heavily on the final, crucial step. No one was there to hear it give way, nor to witness him, one foot on the stage and one on the collapsing step, turn and, still holding his baton and arms flailing, fall face-first onto the ground below. There was a scream, and then nothing.

The players ran to the band shell, as did some of the audience members. They were all too late. They milled around in confusion and horror as Neil’s body was lifted onto a stretcher and carried away.

No one noticed the bass. It lay where it had fallen, across the cracked steps, pointing at the bloodied, snow-covered grass where Neil had landed.

---

It was a long time before the orchestra was able to assemble again.

Two terrible incidents, one fatal, occurring within the space of a year had resulted in investigations by the police, the Department of Health and Safety, and the previously invisible orchestra board of directors. All had come to the same conclusion—that these were two very nasty, undoubtedly coincidental, accidents.

So it was months later, on an unseasonably warm March day, that the players came together again. Depositing their instruments in the still chilly auditorium, they went back outside to await Maria’s arrival.

Chris, standing with Amy, couldn’t help but feel that things were on the upswing at last. Those strange forebodings of last year, those bad vibrations, were gone. The cloud of guilt that had surrounded him ever since the accident had lifted with the end of the last investigation.

And Amy had finally auditioned for the jazz ensemble; she was a shoo-in.

“It feels good to be back!” Amy said, slipping her arm into his. “It’s going to be a good year; I can feel it!”

---

In the auditorium, no one was thinking about Maria or looking forward to the new season. The instruments were on edge, watching a familiar, unnerving scene play out in front of them, with no one to keep things under control.

First Violin had left the week before. on to better things, or so he said, though all suspected he had simply lost his nerve.

“It was murder, pure and simple,” Bass declared, comfortable enough in his new stand to let himself vibrate and be heard. He was determined to get Flute to admit the truth. Then he would let it go. He had done what he had done and would have to live with it, but he was damned if Flute was going to get away with pretending it hadn’t happened at all.

“It certainly was not!” Flute shot back, vibrating loudly. “How long are we going to have to discuss this?” She was sick and tired of Bass going on and on, trying to make her feel guilty. She felt no guilt and never would. The plan had been more successful than she could have imagined.

“They investigated not once, not twice, but three times,” Flute said. “All three were ridiculous, and I still can’t imagine how they got away with any of them.”

“I can imagine,” Oboe cut in. She had had quite enough of Flute, and was stressed out by problems of her own, namely Jamie. “It was because it was the second time. They probably thought Bass was some conductor-killing serial murderer.”

“Oboe, don’t be absurd,” Flute replied. “It was an unreliable instrument stand. Which was perfect. Bass, you fell perfectly. If Neil hadn’t held onto that ridiculous baton, he wouldn’t have fallen on it, and it wouldn’t have—well, you all know what happened.”

A shudder went through the instruments as they remembered the grisly scene.

“It was murder,” Bass said. “It was what you wanted. And you got me to do it”

“Excuse me! It was what everyone wanted.”

Flute had had enough. She had been angry and upset all week. She still couldn’t believe that Amy had auditioned for the jazz ensemble. Flute was as open-minded as any other instrument about music but jazz! No, Neil had only got what he deserved. Flute had saved them all. And she would do it again.

“As I have said many times, Bass, it’s not like someone took his baton and stabbed him to death. In fact—” Flute turned to the orchestra again “—if you really think about it, it was the stairs giving way that did it. It really had nothing to do with any of us, at all.”

Bass could feel the mood changing around him now. She was winning them over, and there was nothing he could do about it. He thought of Chris, the ensemble, Maria. He would just go forward and never listen to Flute again.

“We all need to think about this differently,” Flute said. “Maria is back and we need to think about what we can accomplish under her.” Flute felt excited, sure of herself, sure of her power. “We want to get out of this wretched high school auditorium, don’t we? We want something better, don’t we? Isn’t that what this has all really been about?”

She had them now. “In light of what we have learned from this…” She paused. Bass had said nothing more, was silent; in fact, the entire orchestra was silent. Yes, they were waiting for her, waiting for her to show them the way forward.

It was time. It was her time. She would not be turned back, not by Bass, or anyone.

“In light of what we have learned from this,” she repeated, certain and calm now, “I, for one, see nothing wrong with a little more weeding out. Oboe, has Jamie been practicing?”

THE END