she changed it to Alicia as a young woman. She moved to Calgary when she was twenty, married my dad, and they divorced after ten years. We talked about my grandmother several times before my mother died. She never knew the woman who was her birth mother and never heard a word from her or about her after that night.” She pointed in the direction of what was once The Depression. “My mother was raised by an aunt — one of my grandmother’s sisters. Who, by the way, also knew nothing about what happened to her sister.”
When I didn’t have any more questions, Cobb looked back at Monica. “What was your grandmother’s stage name?”
“She didn’t have one. She went by her real name.”
“And that was?”
I answered the question. “Ellie Foster.”
Monica Brill turned to me. “Wow, good memory!”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t around during The Depression days, but like I said, I’ve read about the place and what happened in that alley that night.”
“If your grandmother had made any commercial recordings, Mr. Cullen would probably have them in his collection,” Cobb said, with a nod in my direction. “He has an accumulation of Canadian music that is likely unmatched.”
“Accumulation?” I said.
“It means you have a lot.” Cobb smiled.
“Thanks for clearing that up for me.”
Monica continued to look at me. “Sounds like you could be the perfect guy to have on the case.”
I shook my head. “Uh-uh.” I pointed at Cobb. “He’s the investigator. I help out once in a while with research. Maybe I can contribute in that area.”
She looked at Cobb.
“One week,” he said after a long pause. “Then we meet again to determine if there’s any point in continuing.”
“And that week will cost me …?” Cobb quoted the figure, and she nodded her agreement. “Do you require a deposit?”
While they sorted out payment, I picked up the file folder from Cobb’s desk and glanced through it. It was thick and heavy — further testament to the work Monica Brill had done on her own.
I picked up one piece of paper, the eyewitness account of someone named Guy Kramer, who had stepped into the alley just as the car had come racing down it. He had dived behind some garbage cans as the first shots were fired, so he didn’t see much, although he indicated in his statement that he had peeked over the bins at one point and had seen two men dragging Ellie Foster to the car and pushing her inside. He’d identified the car as a 1962 or ’63 Ford, dark in colour. Kramer didn’t 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
