filled me in on the autopsy results, and on the schola students who had not gone to Peggy’s Cove on the afternoon of the murder.
The notes told me that the police had established who had rented a car upon their arrival, who had been picked up by Burke or O’Flaherty, and who had taken a cab or bus from the airport to wherever they were staying in Halifax. Of the people without an alibi, only Kurt Bleier had arranged for a car, a black Japanese compact he picked up at the airport when he flew in on November 16. He returned it two weeks later. William Logan and Luigi Petrucci both drove up from the U.S. in their own vehicles. All our other suspects had relied on taxis, public transportation, or lifts from the locals.
I saw an excerpt from a police interview with the taxi driver who carried Reinhold Schellenberg to the scene of his death:
Yes, this is the fellow I picked up at St. Bernadette’s rectory on Friday. I thought he was either Dutch or German.
What time was this?
Two-thirty-five in the afternoon.
What did he say to you?
Just asked me to take him to Stella Maris Church. I said: “Are you sure you got the right church, Father? That place is closed down.” And he said it was right, that sometimes solitude is what a person needs. So I said: “You’re going pretty far out of your way to be alone!” He kind of laughed and told me it wasn’t him that needed peace and quiet. It was somebody else. And no, before you ask me, he didn’t say who.
The police interviewed everyone working near Stella Maris, at the container terminal and the handful of businesses close by. Nobody saw anyone at the church. Cars went in and out of the parking areas but this was normal, and no one reported anything exceptional. There was one woman who at first looked promising. Clara MacIntyre. She had parked in a lot near the church so she could take her dog for a walk along the top of the peninsula. She thought perhaps she had heard something in the church but, on questioning, she could not provide the police with any information they could use. I picked upthe phone, rang Mrs. MacIntyre, and asked if I could pay her a call. I didn’t have much hope of a breakthrough; it’s just that we didn’t have anything else.
Clara MacIntyre was in her early sixties and lived in the Hydro-stone area of the north end. If you look down on the neighbourhood from the Needham Park hill, the row houses with their chimney pots and narrow back lanes will make you think of England, especially on a soft rainy evening like this, the first Monday in December. Mrs. MacIntyre had one of the big stand-alone houses at the end of the street across from the park, a location ideal for a dog owner. She walked her little cocker spaniel, Dewey, several times a day in the park or around the neighbourhood. But every once in a while she treated Dewey to a jaunt through Point Pleasant Park at the southern tip of the Halifax peninsula, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, or Seaview Park at the northern tip, overlooking the Bedford Basin. The salt air perked him up, she said. The dog sat at her feet, and she rubbed his silky ears as we spoke.
I explained that I was the lawyer for the Schola Cantorum Sancta Bernadetta, and that I was doing a bit of investigating on the schola’s behalf.
“But they got the person! Are you looking for someone else?”
I didn’t answer her directly, but said: “We’d like as complete a picture as we can get of the circumstances surrounding the murder.”
“Okay.”
“So, on Friday, November 22, you and Dewey went to Seaview Park.”
“Yes, we did.”
“How did you end up near Stella Maris Church?”
“Well, there was what I call an irresponsible pet owner on the loose at Seaview Park that day. He had two Rottweilers, lovely dogs if they’d been properly brought up — I don’t fault the dogs — but they came bounding after Dewey. I thought they were going to have him for lunch. This was the second day in a row they were there. We
The notes told me that the police had established who had rented a car upon their arrival, who had been picked up by Burke or O’Flaherty, and who had taken a cab or bus from the airport to wherever they were staying in Halifax. Of the people without an alibi, only Kurt Bleier had arranged for a car, a black Japanese compact he picked up at the airport when he flew in on November 16. He returned it two weeks later. William Logan and Luigi Petrucci both drove up from the U.S. in their own vehicles. All our other suspects had relied on taxis, public transportation, or lifts from the locals.
I saw an excerpt from a police interview with the taxi driver who carried Reinhold Schellenberg to the scene of his death:
Yes, this is the fellow I picked up at St. Bernadette’s rectory on Friday. I thought he was either Dutch or German.
What time was this?
Two-thirty-five in the afternoon.
What did he say to you?
Just asked me to take him to Stella Maris Church. I said: “Are you sure you got the right church, Father? That place is closed down.” And he said it was right, that sometimes solitude is what a person needs. So I said: “You’re going pretty far out of your way to be alone!” He kind of laughed and told me it wasn’t him that needed peace and quiet. It was somebody else. And no, before you ask me, he didn’t say who.
The police interviewed everyone working near Stella Maris, at the container terminal and the handful of businesses close by. Nobody saw anyone at the church. Cars went in and out of the parking areas but this was normal, and no one reported anything exceptional. There was one woman who at first looked promising. Clara MacIntyre. She had parked in a lot near the church so she could take her dog for a walk along the top of the peninsula. She thought perhaps she had heard something in the church but, on questioning, she could not provide the police with any information they could use. I picked upthe phone, rang Mrs. MacIntyre, and asked if I could pay her a call. I didn’t have much hope of a breakthrough; it’s just that we didn’t have anything else.
Clara MacIntyre was in her early sixties and lived in the Hydro-stone area of the north end. If you look down on the neighbourhood from the Needham Park hill, the row houses with their chimney pots and narrow back lanes will make you think of England, especially on a soft rainy evening like this, the first Monday in December. Mrs. MacIntyre had one of the big stand-alone houses at the end of the street across from the park, a location ideal for a dog owner. She walked her little cocker spaniel, Dewey, several times a day in the park or around the neighbourhood. But every once in a while she treated Dewey to a jaunt through Point Pleasant Park at the southern tip of the Halifax peninsula, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, or Seaview Park at the northern tip, overlooking the Bedford Basin. The salt air perked him up, she said. The dog sat at her feet, and she rubbed his silky ears as we spoke.
I explained that I was the lawyer for the Schola Cantorum Sancta Bernadetta, and that I was doing a bit of investigating on the schola’s behalf.
“But they got the person! Are you looking for someone else?”
I didn’t answer her directly, but said: “We’d like as complete a picture as we can get of the circumstances surrounding the murder.”
“Okay.”
“So, on Friday, November 22, you and Dewey went to Seaview Park.”
“Yes, we did.”
“How did you end up near Stella Maris Church?”
“Well, there was what I call an irresponsible pet owner on the loose at Seaview Park that day. He had two Rottweilers, lovely dogs if they’d been properly brought up — I don’t fault the dogs — but they came bounding after Dewey. I thought they were going to have him for lunch. This was the second day in a row they were there. We
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