“An architect has all the time in the world these days, Mr. Cooperman. The economic climate can’t be helping you either. Do you want to meet me here at the office, or would you like to meet outside?”
“Your place will be fine,” I said. We set a time, just an hour away, and I hung up. I was a little surprised and a little flattered that I didn’t have to explain my line of business. If Duncan Harvey was anything to go by, it was common knowledge.
I took a yellow block of foolscap and wrote a few names on the top page:
Margaret Tatarski (sister)
Freddy Tatarski (brother)
Mrs. Neustadt
Neustadt’s daughter
Dave Rogers
Major Patrick
I put in a call to Dave Rogers and another to the Sally Ann officer who had been such a great pal of Neustadt’s. The policeman’s family could wait. They had their hands full just managing their grief. I might never have to bother them. Pete Staziak would help me with the whereabouts of the leftover Tatarskis I hoped, if I couldn’t get the information from Harvey or McStu. They weren’t listed in the local phone directory or in the Buffalo or Hamilton books. I tried Toronto and struck out again after a few wrong numbers.
While I was killing time waiting for people to phone back, I compared the photographs in Haste to the Gallows with the list of names. There was Joe, the sergeant in uniform with a big grin and his arms akimbo. It was battle-dress he was wearing, with a short tunic and a wedge cap on the side of his head. From the look of him, the army had been a home away from home for Joe. He looked comfortable, like a foreman getting a bottle from his work gang. Ready for a scramble-net or a three-day pass, he had found his full achievement in a khaki uniform. Since he was murdered in 1946, he only had a few months to adapt to Civvy Street.
Across the page was a blurred picture of Anastasia, his wife. She was a big-boned woman, strong, by the look of her arms and back, and determined, if the line of her jaw was any guide. Her dark hair was mostly covered in a babushka. She had been a handsome woman, but in this photograph, taken according to the cutline just after Joe’s murder, she appeared middle-aged, even older. Was this the girl Joe came home to?
On the next page were pictures of the children of this unlikely couple: Margaret, in rimless glasses, wearing a wartime nurse’s aide or Red Cross uniform; Freddy, the youngest, a weedy lad in a Boy Scout outfit, holding a large roll of what might have been aluminum foil; and the biggest picture: Mary Tatarski, the second-last woman to be hanged in Canada, looking very much alive and ready to go out dancing. She had her mother’s strong features, but with a lightness and vivacity. Her lips, coloured red in real life, but here in the picture looking nearly black, were parted in a smile that showed even teeth and a memorable smile. Was this the face of a killer, I asked myself. Not at first glance, no.
Duncan Harvey’s face was a familiar one when I saw it in his bright studio-like office. I’d seen it on King Street and around town over the years. It was a rugged, handsome face, the sort that comes with ski clothes and Alpine peaks. Behind his desk he was dressed more conventionally, but there was a trace of the great outdoors about him and the sun-filled room was as close to that element as could be found away from the Beacon’s Travel Section. When I came in, he and Pat Voisard were talking shop. I heard “Abu Dhabi” and “Shiraz,” which sounded like nice places to visit, but they broke this up when they saw me, and, after an exchange of greetings with Pat, I was left facing Duncan Harvey, who sat back in a chrome and black-leather chair that inspired confidence. I told him again that I had just finished reading McStu’s book about the Tatarski case, which he applauded with a smile.
“McStu’s book is an excellent beginning, Mr. Cooperman. All the facts are there. He did a first-rate job. The next trick is to get enough publicity so they’ll reopen the case.”
“But the woman’s dead, Mr. Harvey. I don’t get it. Why are you carrying the banner?”
“Some of my friends would say it’s because I’m a damned fool. Others think it’s because I’m one of nature’s born crusaders. One in every hundred thousand of the population. I don’t know, I think it’s because you can’t let them get away with it. Maybe. I guess I want to show that we have to be careful with human life. Look at the Marshall case. Who gave a damn about what happened to him? Harry Wheaton, the Mountie who dug up the evidence that cleared him, that’s who. Some of us have to wave the banner so that there’s some direction to the march. I don’t know. And, you’re right. Mary Tatarski will be just as dead at the end of a retrial as she is right now.”
“I’m interested in the part that Ed Neustadt played in the story,” I said. “I’m also curious about what happened to the people who survived.”
“Yes. Nobody survives a trauma like that intact. Mary’s sister …”
“Margaret,” I added to be helpful.
“Yes, well, she moved away, as did the others. She killed herself in Sarnia about four years after Mary was executed. You can’t tell me that those deaths aren’t related.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“You see, Mr. Cooperman …”
“Benny, please.”
“Well, Benny, a case like this is like a great plane crash. Not only are there out-and-out casualties, but there’s all kinds of indirect fallout. Casualties on the ground, lives bent out of shape, careers ended, relationships forever altered. You can see that operating here. Margaret is just the most dramatic case. The young brother, Fred, had to get out of town too. Grew up in foster homes. Only he came back here with a changed name and made a big success of his life. He was a credit to the Children’s Aid, if you disregard his alcoholism and occasional violence.” Harvey’s voice was deep and touched with the echo of an English accent, although I would bet he was native-born. Maybe he’d worked abroad or married into the Old Country.
“I guess that just adds more reasons for staying away from the death penalty.”
“We see that now, it’s just too bad we didn’t see it earlier.”
“When did Fred Tatarski die?”
“It was a little over two years ago. Bone cancer.”
“How did he make his big success?”
“Ever hear of the Nuts amp; Bolts garage chain? That’s Fred Tatarski. Only he changed his name to Tait.”
“Any family?”
“A boy, Charles Edward, who died young. Meningitis or something. And a girl, Drina. She’s Mary’s daughter. He brought her up as his own as soon as he was settled and working. Joe Tatarski had a brother who used to work at Patterson and Corbin in the shop. Retired now, I guess. He’s changed his name too. He’s Bill Tarson, lives over on Eastchester. Glengarry Apartments. We did that building back in the seventies. Needs updating, but we can’t-”
“Wait a minute! Back up a bit. Who was the father of Mary’s kid and what happened to him?”
“Now that’s a mystery that leads nowhere. He was a kid who had dropped out of school. Grew up next door. He went out with Mary when she could escape from that house-old Anastasia used to guard the doors like a prison warden-and he had vanished from the scene before she knew she was pregnant. He went to work in a winery in Jordan and then went out to Delhi to the tobacco farms. I found him in Kitchener, working in a hostel for unemployed men. There wasn’t a lot he could tell me. It wasn’t a case of somebody erasing a bad memory from his mind so it wouldn’t torment him; he just couldn’t remember Mary very clearly and had never heard about his daughter until I told him.”
“Does he have a name?”
“For what it’s worth: Thaddeus Nemerov.”