Looking For Henry Turner (Mo Gold And Birdie Mysteries Book 1) - W.L. Liberman

A Canadian Hard-Boiled Detective Novel

Looking For Henry Turner (Mo Gold And Birdie Mysteries Book 1) by W.L. Liberman

Book excerpt

Aida Turner kept a two-bedroom flat on Symington Avenue not far from the Junction, a run-down crossroads of industrial wasteland mixed with dilapidated residences, a stone’s throw from the barren emptiness of the railway lands. Earlier waves of immigration brought Ukrainians, Macedonians, Croatians, Serbs and Poles looking for a better life.

This section of the city had never seen good times. The bosses of the foundries, the mills and the wire factories liked to keep their workers close by. They felt they could get more out of them that way and they did, working them to death on land polluted with lead and iron. The stench from the tanning factories and meat packing plants lay like a thick, sour slab. Home to the largest stockyards in the country and I swore I could hear the cattle lowing in fear just as they were being slaughtered.

Fifty years ago, the district had such a serious drinking problem with the workingmen flooding the bars and taverns after their shifts that it voted to go dry after Prohibition. It remained dry ever since. The bars closed and Methodist churches took their place scraping some respectability out of the industrial waste that had been left behind.

Aida Turner’s flat occupied the main floor of a row house at 263 Symington, above Bloor Street but below Dupont Avenue, light years away from Mrs. Lawson’s residence, I guessed. At seven-thirty that evening, we paid her a visit. The flat looked small but cozy. She kept it spick and span. A chain-link fence and a well-oiled gate led to a recently swept walk up to the front door. The flat had a decent-sized living room and a faux fireplace, a working kitchen with fitted appliances, a threadbare but clean and well-maintained carpet in the living room, two small bedrooms at the back, the larger of the two was clearly Henry’s. It overlooked a small garden. Compact, but neat, the grass raked, flower beds clean where roses and hydrangeas bloomed, a large sunflower perched on either side of the bed with some hosta filling in the blanks. A tiny oasis surrounded by rotting vegetation. I nodded my approval.

“Nice garden.” I stood in her kitchen gazing out the back window. “I like a bit of gardening myself, find it relaxing, eases the strain of the day.”

“Do you get many stressful days, Mr. Gold?”

I looked at her and smiled, like she was telling me that the stress of losing her son could not be equaled. “I’ve had my share---we both have--depends what’s on the burner, if you know what I mean, Mrs. Turner.”

“Or who,” Birdie said and he gave me a look that told me what he was thinking. I knew because I thought the same thing--my father, a notorious gunsel and thief, currently incarcerated in the Don Jail. The old man had been a blight on my life ever since I could think. Ever since I had a conscious memory and that would make me maybe four or five years old. This time he’d been done for manslaughter and it looked like a life stretch. If he ever got out, he’d be old and decrepit.

“May we see Henry’s room, please?”

She rose stiffly from the hard backed chair in which she’d been sitting. “It’s through here.”

Henry’s room mirrored the rest of the place, neat and orderly. His clothes hung tidily in the closet, dresser drawers filled to the brim, two pairs of shoes, one brown, one black, perfectly polished and placed heel-to-toe on a rack. A high school yearbook lay on the side table. I took in photos of Henry in his football and track uniforms.

“He fit in there, Mrs. Turner?” I held up the yearbook.

She looked wistful for a moment. “Oh yes. Henry was always popular in school, he had a lot of friends and not all of them was colored neither. It just didn’t seem to matter when it came to Henry, he was friendly with everybody.”

“What were his prospects?”

“Like I told you, he always worked after school and after he finished, he didn’t have any trouble finding jobs.”

“Then he started working as a chauffeur for the Foster family…” Mrs. Turner nodded. I set the yearbook back on the dresser careful not to disturb any of the photographs or trophies. Two for track and field I noticed, so Henry had been a talented runner. “Do you work for a Mrs. Lawson presently?”

“I do,” she replied. “And her parents too.”

“Have you noticed anything going missing in the household? Nothing too valuable, knick knacks and such.”

“No, I haven’t noticed anything missing, Mr. Gold. Why do you ask me?”

I described the scene after she left the office. Aida Turner opened her eyes wide and then swallowed hard.

“I should have told you this but Mrs. Lawson is Alison Foster, the girl that Henry was supposed to be driving when he disappeared.”

That got my attention. “You shouldn’t have held back on that, Mrs. Turner.” “I was going to say--it was, just--hard for me to get the words out.”

“Why you still working for those people?” Birdie demanded.

Aida turned to him, imploring. “I might learn something, something that will tell me about Henry and where he is.” Aida Turner shook her head and tears squeezed out of her eyes. “I’m willing to do anything to get my Henry back, Mr. Gold, even if it means working in that house until the rest of my days.”

“Okay, Mrs. Turner. We’ll need that list of names if you’ve got it.”

While Aida Turner went into the living room to write out the list, Birdie and I poked around in Henry’s room. I heard a distant knock on the front door, it opened and there came the murmur of voices, female voices. Company.

Birdie pulled out a dresser drawer. “Didn’t take much stuff with him. These drawers are full.”

I stopped. “You thinking that, maybe, he thought he wasn’t going too far or for too long?”

“Well, if I was fixing to take off, I’d want my stuff with me, my good clothes. I wouldn’t leave all this behind unless I be coming back.”

I grinned. “Good point, Sherlock. Maybe something took young Henry by surprise, something he wasn’t expecting.”

We continued to search methodically but found nothing of consequence, no diary, no letters, no notes, no indication of his innermost thoughts. A few record albums--Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Satchmo--seemed like our boy Henry was a jazz fan. Birdie stared at the records. And I found a copy of Ralph Ellison’s, The Invisible Man. I had read it but wondered what attracted Henry to it. The copy was dog-eared. I slipped the book into my pocket. Jazz and Ellison. Interesting.

“How many jazz clubs in town?” I asked. Big band was more my thing. I liked classical, opera and rockabilly too but I could never really dig jazz.

Birdie shrugged his massive shoulders.

“Only five or six good ones,” he said with regret.

Downstairs, Aida Turner worked on the list and read it over. She perched on the sofa. A young black woman sat beside her. She gave me a hostile glare and fired another one, even hotter, at Birdie. We each took a chair.

“I write slow,” she apologized. “This is my niece, Adele Rosewell.”

“Miss Rosewell.” Miss Rosewell didn’t answer at first. She wallowed in anger or resentment.

She spoke in a well-modulated tone. “I told my auntie this is a crazy idea, hiring the likes of you.”

“Adele.” Aida Turner looked alarmed.

“I take it you don’t approve?” I asked.

“That is the understatement of the decade, Mr--whatever your name is.”

“Gold. Mo Gold. And my associate, Arthur Birdwell but call him, Birdie.”

I said, “Do you have any idea where your cousin might be, Miss Rosewell?”

“Of course I don’t,” she said.

“Then what do you suggest? Don’t you want to know what happened to Henry?”

She pressed her lips together.

“Naturally, I do. I just don’t have the confidence that you or your associate, Mr. Bird Brain, can put my auntie’s mind to rest.”

I stood up and Birdie stood up with me. “Well, Miss Rosewell. That’s fine. We’ll happily return the dough Mrs. Turner gave us and be on our way.”

Her expression changed, clouded. She hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

Aida Turner had put down her pen. “Now Adele, I know you mean well but this is my business. I need to know what happened to Henry. And I think these gentlemen can find out for me. Goodness knows, the police haven’t done anything these past eight years, now have they?”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” Adele replied.

“I’ve already been hurt,” Aida Turner said. “There’s nothing much more can hurt me now. I need the truth. That’s the only thing that can help and if these men can deliver it, then it’s worth double the price. Triple even.” The pen resumed its scratching. “I’m sure these gentlemen would like a cup of tea, wouldn’t you?”

“That would be swell, thank you.” I liked a cup early in the evening. Reminded me of when I was a kid, before the rough times.

Adele rose from her perch stiffly, threw out another minesweeper of a glare. “Very well.”

Then moved purposefully into the tiny kitchen. I took a look. Nice figure. Conservative skirt and jacket, well-cut. Sensible shoes with a bit of a heel. Muscular but nicely shaped calves. The rattling of crockery took on a shrill tone.

“Don’t mind her,” Aida Turner said. “She’s just looking out for me. She and Henry were close. Adele has a good job. Works in a bank downtown. Graduated from university too.”

“Maybe I should apply for a loan,” I said.

“Now you,” Aida Turner admonished.

“Mrs. Turner, did Henry keep a diary or ever write letters to anyone, have a notebook maybe?”

She looked at me sadly.

“No, not that I know of. Henry wasn’t much for writing, he knew how to write, don’t get me wrong but he just didn’t express himself much, if you know what I mean.”

“Quiet sort?”

“Sometimes,” she replied. “But when he was happy, the words flew out of his mouth.”

“And was he happy those last few days,” I asked her.

Aida bit her lip, then shook her head.

“It’s too far back,” she said, “and so close.”

“We need your help, Mrs. Turner. Was something bothering Henry those last few days?”

“I asked him what was wrong but he wouldn’t say anything. Just smiled and put his arm around my shoulder and said not to worry, that everything would be fine.” She buried her face in her hands. “I should have made him tell me but you can’t make a grown man do anything he doesn’t want to do. It was hard enough when he was six or seven but then, in the end I couldn’t do anything to get him to tell me what was wrong.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Mrs. Turner,” I said. “We’ll find out for you.”

Adele Rosewell brought in a tray stacked with tea things. I went over to help her but she ignored me. The tray thumped down and the crockery jumped. Some tea slurped out of the pot. Aida Turner suppressed a sad smile.

“How do you take it, Mr. Gold?” Adele asked.

“Just as it is--no sugar.”

“And you?” she asked Birdie.

“White,” he said. “Extra white.” That got him a glare.

We all sat there awkwardly and sipped for a moment.

I held up the dog-eared copy of The Invisible Man. “Ever see this book before?”

“I know it was in Henry’s room,” Mrs. Turner replied

“Ever read it?”

“I’m not much for reading, Mr. Gold, except for the bible, of course.”

“I read it,” Adele said.

“And?”

“It’s a masterpiece. I think he’s a genius.”

“So do I.” Adele’s eyes widened. She softened for a moment then caught herself and lowered her face into the teacup.

“Mind if I keep it?” I asked Aida Turner.

“No, I don’t mind.”

I knew what I wanted to say and I hated the thought of saying it.

“Mrs. Turner--I’d be derelict if I didn’t mention this and I’m sorry to have to say it. But we,” and I glanced at Birdie who frowned, “believe the likelihood is that something happened to your son and he’s dead. I can’t think of another way to put it.”

She surprised me.

“Oh, Henry isn’t dead, Mr. Gold. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

She stood up. “I’ll show you.”

She moved like a woman with aches and pains but too proud to let them show. We heard her rummaging around in a closet. She returned holding a large, beat-up box. She set the box down on the coffee table.

“He leaves me things,” she said with a smile.

“What sort of things?” Birdie asked her.

Aida reached into the box and pulled out some objects--a small doll without a head, a white rose made out of cloth, looked like it had been snipped from a dress or an ornamental pillow, fragments of letters, a pair of dice, a piece of copper wire.

“Where did you find these objects?”

“Why, outside my front door.”

“How do you know they were from Henry?”

“I just know,” she replied. “These things have some kind of meaning but I haven’t been able to figure out what yet. I found two of them on my birthday.” Adele Rosewell looked embarrassed but held her tongue. I could see she thought her aunt had lost touch with reality.

I examined each object carefully, then set it back in the box. With due respect for their preciousness.

“Thank you Mrs. Turner.” I stood up. Birdie rose. “We’ll keep you informed of our progress. Thank you for the tea. It was nice meeting you, Miss Rosewell.”

Adele Rosewell nodded curtly but didn’t say, likewise. Her mouth pinched tight as if she bit her tongue. I expected to see blood any second.

Aida Turner shook each of our hands firmly but imbued with an indescribable sadness. I loved and hated my work. The hope I saw in Aida’s Turner face caused me pain and it would make me sick at heart to disappoint her. In my experience, however, disappointment was an all too common occurrence. But I thought, maybe this time it would be different. People didn’t come to us because they were happy or even hopeful. Usually, they were scared or angry and needed to be doing something because doing nothing just wouldn’t work for them. I knew it wouldn’t work for me. Aida Turner’s love for her son now became my burden, mine and Birdie’s. I couldn’t wait to get it off my back.

As we left the flat, the presence of Adele Rosewell stayed with me, even though I didn’t want it to. Maybe the fear, even revulsion I saw in her eyes, the disapproval on her face, the hard lines of a sensual mouth, moved me. Birdie had already forgotten her but I couldn’t shake her from my mind.

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: W.L. Liberman

BOOK TITLE: Looking For Henry Turner (Mo Gold And Birdie Mysteries Book 1)

GENRE: Crime & Mystery

PAGE COUNT: 364

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