Blood on a Saint (44 page)

“And then what? Make a citizen’s arrest? Call in the TV cameras?”

“Get the story. What are you looking at? That’s what I do. I don’t need any lessons in ethics from an ambulance chaser.”

“I would have called the ambulance, not chased it.”

“There was no life to save. So. I wanted to find Maggie, see where she would go. Maybe trail her to her house, find out who she was. I took off out of the yard and down Byrne Street.”

“That’s when Betty Isenor saw you.”

“No, that was later. I was on Byrne Street twice. Anyway, I came out and looked and caught the tail end of Maggie turning the corner of Morris Street, heading down Hollis. I followed, staying in the shadows of the buildings. Gum-soled shoes, perfect footwear. I saw her cross to the west side of the street. There’s this old white wooden house and she went behind it. By the time I got there, she was standing by the fire escape hollering at somebody. Turns out it was
Saint
Ignatius Boyle, living like a troll under the stairs. She knew where to find him. He had a plastic sheet rigged up over his sleeping bag and his pile of junk. So she’s there, and he’s like, ‘Wha?’ and she’s bawling and crying and saying, ‘I killed her!’ Doesn’t even say who. Doesn’t have to. ‘You’ve got to help me! If you have anything, get rid of it!’

“I was in the shadows watching all this and thinking, ‘Who is this guy, a street bum, and why is she telling him what she did?’ Then they started talking in low voices, and I couldn’t hear them. Whatever he was saying, she must have got pissed off, because she left and started running. He burrowed around in his stuff, then came out and high-tailed it after her. He caught up to her on Morris Street. He was saying something like she had to go back to the churchyard, to the body, whatever, and he’d go with her. And she wasn’t having any of it. She was flipping out. Looking all around her. I wanted to follow them, but I figured they’d spot me. And I wanted to check the body. So I pussyfooted out of there. I figure she gave Boyle a shove, and that’s how he got knocked out. She had some of Jordyn’s blood on her, so that must be how the blood got on the good saint’s face. Anyway, I took a long, long way around and entered the churchyard through the back. Went to the body. I leaned down over her. Her eyes were wide open. No movement. Dead as a . . . Well, no life left in her.”

“You don’t know that. She may have been alive.”

“You heard the evidence at the prelim. Incapacitated right away.”

“You had not heard the evidence while you were still standing over her the night of the murder. As far as you knew, she might have been alive when you left right after the stabbing.”

“The girl’s reaction. Maggie’s. She knew she had killed her.”

“Yet you didn’t call the police or ambulance.”

A hesitation, then, “I hung around, describing everything into my recorder. I was hoping Maggie and the old guy would come and try to do something. Or somebody would find the body and call the cops and I’d get to see the investigation from the ground up. But I finally got spooked and wanted to get away, not be seen there. When I left that second time, that’s when the nosy old bird in the apartment building would have seen me. She must have been still awake from hearing Maggie and Boyle hollering out in the street. I went back to my hotel room, all wound up. Kept pacing the room, turning the TV on and off. Thinking about the story.”

“Of the murder you had just witnessed.”

“Yeah. I finally fell asleep across the bed with my clothes and shoes still on. Then I was wakened up by a pounding on the door. The cops. The woman had seen me, and the hotel clerk had clocked me coming back in. The cops took the clothes I had on, and my shoes, and looked around a bit. But they missed the tape recorder, which I had stuck in the pocket of another jacket in the wardrobe. I got changed into the track suit I lounge around in, and off we went to the police station.

“So I looked good for the killing. But appearances are deceiving, right? ’Cause it wasn’t me that did it.”

Monty had never seen an innocent man so covered with guilt.

“When you got me out on bail, I knew I could solve the case. I knew this Ignatius guy was still in the hospital. I went behind the old house where he sleeps and rummaged through his stuff. Found a Polaroid of him and Maggie, naked together. Which we now know was a setup by some assholes who were harassing Maggie.”

A bunch of assholes that included Jordyn Snider. Monty had read the letters she received from Clayton Byner while he was in Dorchester prison. She had been destined for a violent life, and a violent death. How many others, like Maggie Nelson, might have been victimized before Jordyn herself died the way she had lived?

Monty tuned back in to Pike Podgis as the curtains rang down on his latest performance. “When I saw the picture of Boyle and the young girl, I thought,
Whoa!
And there were some phone numbers and addresses with initials beside them. I went off on a few wild goose chases, wrong addresses, but I finally found out ‘Yukon’ meant Maggie lived in a place on Yukon Street. And I was ready to make my move when . . .”

When Burke beat him to it. How that must burn his client’s arse, Monty thought.

“Oh, and tell your pal Burke not to lose too much sleep over the little clue I gave him about the Jeanie Ballantine murder.”

“Jeanie Ballantine?” Like everyone else across the country, Monty knew about the girl who had been brutally murdered in Toronto. What did Podgis have to do with it? And where did Burke fit in?

“You look a little puzzled, Collins. I guess Burke really does keep his trap shut about what goes on in the confession box.”

“Confession box! You went into his church? And, what? Had a sudden conversion to Catholicism, and then — ”

“Yeah, I had a bit of fun with the good Father in there. He didn’t take it in good grace, though, I have to say. He has a killer streak in him, did you know that? Must run in the family.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He nearly killed me!”

“When? Where? What are you saying?”

“Ask him some time. Oh, and when you’re talking to him, be sure to tell him the Jeanie Ballantine thing was a joke, on him. I didn’t commit that murder either. I wasn’t even in the country when it happened. But I covered the story when I got back to Toronto. And I pretended to Burke that I was the killer, just to get him wound up. Nah, I’m not a killer. But the notoriety sure was fun while it lasted. Gonna get a lot of program ideas out of this little episode in my life.”

The repulsive man tried to put a brave face on it, tried to be flippant, but Monty could see the humiliation burning beneath the surface. Podgis had found himself in a position he could not possibly have imagined: a fantasy come true. Maggie’s attempt to set him up had gone off the rails, as these things inevitably do. But it offered him a chance to be in the spotlight, a man wrongfully accused of murder, a highly public martyr who would then investigate the murder, “find” the real killer, and be the hero of the tale. Monty knew Podgis would never have admitted he was there for the murder, that he had it on tape. He would have claimed he had come upon the body after the fact, would maybe have stuck to his alibi story to explain walking through the churchyard. He would have loudly proclaimed his innocence to the arresting officers but not told them who had really done it. No, the evidence pointing to the real killer would have been acquired by his own brilliant detective work.

But he had reckoned without his nemesis, Brennan Burke, doing a parallel investigation and finding out the truth about Podgis’s shameful role in the case.

Chapter 23

When it was all over, CBC Radio reported:

“There has been a surprising development in the Pike Podgis murder story in Halifax. Hugh Donaldson has the details for us. Hugh?”

“Surprising would be an understatement, Bill. There has been a stunning turnaround in the case. It is in fact no longer the Pike Podgis murder story. The charges against the talk show host were dropped today, and another person, a young woman, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing death of Jordyn Snider in the churchyard of St. Bernadette’s on September twenty-fourth of last year. The person who committed the crime is Maggie Nelson, nineteen, of Halifax. Prominent defence lawyer Saul Green told CBC News that there are mitigating factors in the case. The two young women had a history, and Maggie was the victim of horrific abuse by Jordyn in the past. He did not give any details of the abuse or the confrontation between the two in the churchyard. He said Maggie Nelson came forward of her own accord and surrendered herself to police.

“A reliable source told me that Crown and defence lawyers will likely present the court with a joint recommendation of ten years for a sentence. As is well known, Bill, with good behaviour, a person can be released on parole after serving only one third of his or her sentence.

“The story has captivated the attention of people across the country because of the notoriety of television personality Pike Podgis. From the moment of his arrest the morning after the killing, Podgis took every opportunity to make the claim that he was an innocent man, wrongfully accused of the murder, a victim of a miscarriage of justice. He vowed to fight the charges all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, if need be. And it turns out he is indeed innocent of the charge. But here’s the thing: it also turns out that Podgis knew from the very beginning what really happened that night. He somehow arrived on the scene while the murder was being committed, or soon afterwards. It is clear now that Podgis had enough information to learn fairly quickly who the real killer was. So his case was never going to the Supreme Court of Canada, not even to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, and he knew it! Why he didn’t present his information to the authorities immediately, and provide some clarity for Jordyn’s family, is anybody’s guess. The Crown prosecutor’s office would not comment on whether any charges might arise out of Podgis’s presence on the scene or his failure to assist the victim, if those facts are borne out. So Pike Podgis, martyr to the criminal justice system, is now Pike Podgis with a lot of explaining to do!

“But that’s not the end of it, Bill. You may recall the religious debate on the Podgis show the night of the murder. Podgis came to town to do a show on the claimed sightings of the Virgin Mary at St. Bernadette’s church. The debate was between an atheist, Professor Robert Thornhill, and a believer in God — though not a believer in the claimed sightings — Father Brennan Burke of St. Bernadette’s. But it was a circus, and minutes into the broadcast Father Burke walked off the set in disgust. And the word is out that it was Father Burke who investigated the killing on his own and found out the truth of what happened. He came to court to support Maggie Nelson, and our sources tell us he has plans to travel to Kingston, Ontario, where Maggie will likely be serving her sentence. He will be making arrangements for Maggie’s mother and sisters to rent a place close to the women’s prison. So the priest, who is no admirer of Pike Podgis, has been instrumental in freeing him from the murder charges. Father Burke has refused comment, and has turned down all requests by reporters for interviews.

“So that’s where it stands now, Bill. We’ll be following the story in all its twists and turns.”

Bruce MacKinnon’s cartoon in the February 22, 1993,
Chronicle Herald
showed Podgis in a theatrical pose at the top tier of a grandstand, empty except for him and a television camera aimed up at him from below. Podgis was shown in profile, chest puffed out, arms extended, mouth grotesquely wide open. The words “wrongfully accused!” and “miscarriage of justice!” came blaring out of his mouth. Sticking out of his back pocket was a reporter’s notebook with “Real Killer!” printed on it. A speech balloon coming out of the notebook said, “Wrongfully accused, schmongfully accused! He’s had me in his pocket the whole time!” On the grounds beyond the grandstand, a smaller picture showed two people on a bench in the shadow of the statue of St. Bernadette: a young girl with her head down and a priest bent towards her in a gesture of comfort, holding her hand in his.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for their kind assistance: Pauline Cameron, Joe A. Cameron, Joan Butcher, Rhea McGarva, Tommy Parsons, Judge Pat Curran, Fr. Paul Glynn, and Frances Larkin Reynolds. Also thanks once again to my editors.

This is a work of fiction. Any liberties taken in the interests of the story, or any errors committed, are mine alone. St. Bernadette’s is a fictional church and Byrne Street a fictional location. I have placed it perpendicular to Morris Street on the north side, between Hollis and Lower Water.

Praise for Anne Emery

Praise for
Death at Christy Burke’
s

“Emery’s sixth mystery (after 2010’s
Children in the Morning
) makes excellent use of its early 1990s Dublin setting and the period’s endemic violence between Protestants and Catholics.”

— Publishers Weekly,
starred review

“Halifax lawyer Anne Emery’s terrific series featuring lawyer Monty Collins and priest Brennan Burke gets better with every book.”

— Globe and Mail

Praise for
Children in the Morning

“This [fifth] Monty Collins book by Halifax lawyer Emery is the best of the series. It has a solid plot, good characters, and a very strange child who has visions.” —
Globe and Mail

“Not since Robert K. Tanenbaum’s Lucy Karp, a young woman who talks with saints, have we seen a more poignant rendering of a female child with unusual powers.” —
Library Journal

Praise for
Cecilian Vespers

“Anne Emery has already won one Arthur Ellis Award for her first Monty Collins mystery, and this one should get her on the short list for another. Cecilian Vespers is slick, smart, and populated with lively characters.” —
Globe and Mail