Barrington Street Blues by Anne Emery Read Free Book Online Page B

end of Barrington Street, parked, and stepped out in the fog. We gazed over at the east side of the street. The Fore-And-Aft was a low yellow brick building with fortified plate-glass windows. Its main item of decor was a ship’s wooden figurehead, a bikini-clad woman with cascades of golden curls, enormous lips and breasts, her face turned in a come-hither posture towards incoming patrons. Heraft end was bulky and rounded. She had a white sailor cap perched rakishly on her head, and somebody had painted extremely dilated pupils in her turquoise eyes.
    â€œI didn’t even know this place was here. Are we going in?” Burke asked. Even the Fore-And-Aft would be a cozy shelter from the fog that chilled our bones, but I didn’t want to waste my time in there.
    â€œNo point. The place was closed when the shooting occurred.”
    The bodies were found in the parking lot at the side of the building. We walked around and saw that there was an extension, kind of like a back porch, at the end near the parking lot. Wanda could well have been servicing somebody on the other side of the porch, unseen by passersby. The only neighbouring buildings were the Wallace Rennie Baird Addiction Treatment Centre, the old Foundry Building, and some small businesses that were open only during the day. At this time of night the area where Leaman had been found was in shadows cast by large bright lights up the street. Scott’s body had been farther out in the parking lot, beyond the shadowed area. I could see how someone bent on a murder-suicide would have felt confident that he could accomplish his aim in the dark hours of the morning without being interrupted. The only people who could have seen the event were night-owl patients or staff looking out the windows of the Baird Centre across the street. That may in fact have accounted for the choice of location, a point we would stress if our lawsuit survived the new information relayed to me by Yvette.
    â€œLet’s go across the street and take a look from there,” I said to Burke.
    The Baird Centre was a nondescript brick building constructed in the sixties for offices. I suspected the Baird people had been able to buy it on the cheap and renovate it to their own specifications. It was set back from the street with an optimistic little garden in front and a driveway running along the side. As soon as we set foot on the property a floodlight came on. I continued to the entrance, went up the front steps, and looked at the Fore-And-Aft. I could see nothing but blackness in the parking lot, which was well out of the floodlight’s range. People on the upper floors may have been able to see a bit better, but I didn’t think so.
    â€œWe’re not going to learn anything here. Let’s call it a night.”
    â€ 

    I could not keep Yvette’s story to myself. If the shootings were murder, and if there was a witness, I had to inform the police. I would give it one more night, then I would call the investigating officer and give him the tip. But, as it turned out, I met up with the police sooner than planned. On Tuesday night, at the Hotel Nova Scotian, there was a fundraiser for the homeless. It was hosted by one of the city’s most prominent do-gooders, Kenneth Fanshaw. Fanshaw had made some serious money in real estate development. And although — or perhaps because — he did not fancy street people lounging around outside his downtown condo developments, he had proposed the building of a new, fully-staffed shelter near the railway station and the hotel. This would complement shelters already in place in other parts of central Halifax.
    Fanshaw was greeting people at the door. A short, compact man with smoothly coiffed dark brown hair, he was dressed down for the occasion. He was usually spotted in pricey European-cut suits; tonight he had on khaki pants, a comfy sweater, and loafers. His wife, Bunnie, was at his side, her perfect teeth bared in a