Cold Comfort (21 page)

“You’ve had two weeks.”

“I just don’t think Jane did it.”

“I want you to arrest her, Barry.”

“But you haven’t thought it through, Bill,” said Gilbert, “not the way Joe and I have.” He looked at Lombardo. “Isn’t that right, Joe?”

Lombardo looked at Gilbert blankly, like Gilbert was asking him to cut his own throat. “Sure…sure,” he said, nodding, trying to look dumb.

“What’s there to think through?” said Marsh. He stabbed the reports repeatedly with his index finger. “It’s all right here. There’s enough for an indictment. And ten to one the Crown can convict with it.”

“And then we send an innocent woman to prison,” said Gilbert, “just like we’re doing with Wesley Rowe.”

Marsh stared at Gilbert in numb anger. “You always make me do this, Barry. I got no choice. I try to reason with you. I tell you, look in the mirror, I say that’s you, you say it’s not you, what the hell am I supposed to do? You say black, I say white. To hell with it. You’re going to arrest Jane Ireland. You’re going to fill out your warrant and take it across to the Park and have Lembeck or any of those other guys sign it. Then you’re going to the legislature and you’re going to cuff Jane Ireland and bring her in.”

“None of the above,” said Gilbert, resolutely. “You’ll thank me when you learn I saved your ass.”

“I’m not asking you, Barry,” said Marsh. “I’m ordering you.”

“I’m sorry, Bill, I can’t,” said Gilbert. “File an insubordination if you want, but I think you’re making a big mistake.”

Marsh was now livid. His shoulders tensed, making them look even bulkier. He held his arms slightly out from his body, and his chunky fingers were extended, as if they were just itching to strangle Gilbert. He swung like a loaded howitzer toward Lombardo.

“Joe?” he said.

Lombardo stared the Staff Inspector right in the eyes. “Sorry, Bill.”

“It’s an order, Lombardo.”

“Sorry, Bill,” he repeated.

The hoods of Marsh’s eyes lowered. When he next spoke, his voice was much softer, but twice as deadly.

“Get out,” he said. He was calm now. “Get out, the both of you.” He shook his head, condemning them as losers. “You’re both going to regret this.”

Gilbert finally drifted off to sleep a little past one that morning, having tossed and turned for close to an hour, kept awake by his day of brinkmanship with Marsh. He was just slipping into an uncomfortable dream—another homicide dream, this one with Jane Ireland as victim—when the telephone rang. He let it ring a few times, hoping it would stop, but then Regina shook him and he opened his eyes.

“It’s Joe,” she said.

He reached for his bedside lamp and turned it on. He shoved himself into a sitting position. “Sorry, Reggie,” he said.

She gave him the phone, shrugged, then turned on her side and nestled back into her pillow. Gilbert put the receiver to his ear. He checked his digital alarm clock: 1:47.

“I don’t think I asked for a wake-up call,” he said to Lombardo.

“They got him. They found him,” said Lombardo.

“Who?”

“Larry Varley. The Kingston detachment of the OPP just called. They found him on the Orinoco Reserve, the one that straddles Vermont. He had a trunk full of stolen watches and smuggled cigarettes.”

“Shit.” Gilbert felt disappointed.

“The Crowfoot Band controls the border there. Indian lands. It’s an open gate if the percentages are high enough.”

“And stolen watches?”

“I guess he knows someone who rips them off from the factory direct. They’re still in their shrink-wrap.”

“So where do they have him?”

“Kingston.”

“You mean I’m going to have drive out to Kingston now?” said Gilbert.

“I’m going this time,” said Lombardo. The rain was still coming down, soaking his bedroom window, one of those early March drenching rains. “I need some time to cool off, anyway.”

“Kingston is a nice town. A lot of nice buildings.”

“I guess the only one I’ll be interested in is the Detention Center. Are you going to work that other angle?”

“Which one?” said Gilbert.

“The Kedamine angle.”

“I’ve already talked to Jack Brett in Burglary. He’s going to bring me everything he has.”

They were silent. Both knew what the other was thinking. He heard Joe sigh from the other end of the line. “Look, Barry, I’m sorry…I know you think…but we have to consider…”

“Joe, it’s a good idea. I agree with you.”

Again more silence. Out in the hall, Jennifer went to the bathroom and got a drink of water. “You gave Brett the maps?” said Lombardo.

“I faxed them before I left.” Gilbert didn’t want to think about it. It was as much his idea as it was Lombardo’s. “Smuggling tobacco, can you believe it?”

“He’s a petty criminal. What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was hoping for a smoking gun.”

“This is going to be a masterpiece of paperwork. Ling will be able to frame it in his office after it’s all over.”

“I’m a little worried about Marsh,” said Gilbert.

Out in the hall, Jennifer went back to her bedroom. Regina’s breathing deepened. And the rain came down steadily.

“Fuck Marsh,” said Lombardo.

“Who’s our contact in Kingston?”

“A Sergeant Springfield.” Lombardo gave him the telephone number.

“And you’ll go for background,” said Gilbert.

“If there’s anything there, I’ll find it,” said Lombardo.

“Can we be sure he wasn’t in Toronto on the night of the eighteenth?” said Gilbert.

“They got him with three stolen credit cards,” said Lombardo. “Springfield’s already tracking down his purchases. I’m sure we’ll find a trail leading south through the States.”

By mid-morning, Gilbert had nine burglary files on his desk, all of them animal clinics or veterinarian offices within the target area he had mapped out for Brett the previous day. He immediately eliminated five; stolen property consisted entirely of office equipment: computers, fax machines, and photocopiers. Two others were closed cases; the property stolen had already been recovered. Of the remaining two, one was on the extreme periphery of the target area, at Greenwood and Danforth; drugs were taken, including 600 doses of Kedamine. But also taken were frozen pedigree collie sperm, three Scotch terrier puppies, and a breeding pair of Siamese cats. As that didn’t fit the profile, he was left with the final possibility, the Cabbagetown Animal Clinic, just up the street from the old Winchester Hotel, two-and-a-half blocks from Alvin Matchett’s apartment. With bullets, bank accounts, and blood samples, Gilbert found it nearly impossible to believe that the dead parrot would turn out to be the most important clue.

He scanned the Cabbagetown Animal Clinic report a final time. Two thousand doses of Kedamine. In tablet and powder form. What drug traffickers on the West Coast called Special K, the rapist’s drug: slip it into her drink and watch her fade into nonresistance. Like Rohypnol, the new one from Europe finding its way to the streets of Miami. Of course, there was no sexual assault in the Cheryl Latham case. But with two thousand doses, Matchett was obviously trafficking the stuff. With two thousand doses, they were bound to find traces somewhere in Matchett’s apartment.

He took out the security video from the Glenarden and watched it for the eighteenth time.

Lombardo returned from Kingston that same evening, just after seven. Gilbert was working late as usual, writing up what he hoped would be the last search warrant for the Latham case. Lombardo sat down in the chair opposite Gilbert’s desk and stared at Gilbert with bright eyes.

“Elvis is alive,” he said, “and being held in Kingston. You should see the sideburns, on this guy. And the hair. I swear, Barry, he’s in a time warp. Things stopped in 1963 and never moved forward. I didn’t know people still used Brylcreem. The guy was covered in tattoos.”

“Was he willing to talk?”

“Once we cut him some slack, he was willing to talk about anything.”

Lombardo told him first about the credit cards. “He made purchases in Syracuse, New York on the night of the eighteenth. He was nowhere near Cheryl when she was murdered.”

“What about background?” asked Gilbert.

Lombardo’s eyes widened. “Where do I start?” He leaned forward and rubbed his hand through his hair. “I couldn’t stop him. He liked all the attention he was getting. A real boaster. Mainly a petty thief specializing in hotel rooms. He claims he can pick any lock ever made. Even described his tool-kit, said he once worked as a locksmith. That’s where he got the credit cards, from hotel rooms.” Lombardo glanced anxiously toward the front of the office. “Where’s Marsh? I don’t see him.”

Gilbert shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “He hasn’t been in all day.”

Lombardo nodded. “You were right, Barry. I think Matchett’s our man.”

“Varley knew Matchett?”

“Cheryl killed her stepfather,” said Lombardo. “At least that’s what Varley claims. And he and Donna have been using it as leverage against Cheryl ever since. He says they’ve been blackmailing her off and on since 1978. He was proud of that. He thought it was a great scam. The fact that Cheryl always paid proves she’s guilty. Whenever she ran into the least bit of money, they always came around. When she married Latham a few years ago, they descended like vultures.”

Gilbert thought back to the six thousand dollars Latham had told him about. And he thought of Cheryl, everything always in order, trying to make her life neat, trying to make up for the murder of her stepfather. Lombardo continued.

“Varley says Cheryl finally tried to make a deal with them. She would pay them each twenty-five thousand dollars if they agreed to leave her alone for good.”

“But didn’t Cheryl realize the chances of the murder of her stepfather ever going to trial after all these years was virtually nil.”

“Varley says she wasn’t so worried about the legal aspects. She was more worried about her job. She was afraid she might lose her job.”

“Did she really believe Donna and Varley would stop after the twenty-five thousand each?”

Lombardo nodded absently. “I guess she did,” he said, “at least for a while. But this is where it gets good. She was hired by Tom Webb just before the election as a fundraiser, like we have in the file. What you’re not going to believe is that she was skimming. This was how she was going to make all that extra money. In fact, Webb, Matchett, and Cheryl were all in on it, according to Varley. The three of them were embezzling from the campaign fund, reporting only about two thirds and keeping the rest.”

Gilbert felt the enervating tug of gravity pulling him into his chair. You could never entirely control a murder investigation. If it led you into a cesspool of political corruption, you had to jump right in.

“Did he know anything about Scuba-Tex?” asked Gilbert.

“No.”

“Can we believe Varley?”

“Matchett threatened him,” said Lombardo. “He threatened Donna as well.”

“Threatened them with what?” asked Gilbert.

“He gave them an ultimatum. He offered them three thousand dollars each. If they bothered Cheryl after that, he would kill them. They asked for five thousand each, but Matchett stayed firm at three thousand, and pulled his gun to prove the point. Larry had no interest in bothering Cheryl after that. He took his three thousand dollars and invested it in his cigarette smuggling scheme. He would have made a killing, too, if we hadn’t put an APB out on his vehicle.” Lombardo took a deep breath and shrugged. “Then there’s Donna. I guess she got greedy, or maybe she needed the money for her cocaine habit, but after the three thousand, she asked again, even though Larry told her not to. A week later she was murdered. No definite proof Matchett was her killer, but Varley’s convinced of it.”

In the silence that ensued, both men stared at Gilbert’s desk.

“What do we do about the embezzlement?” Lombardo finally asked.

Gilbert threw up his hands in a feckless gesture of exhaustion. “We make Webb pay,” he said. “We call the OPP, the financial crimes section.”

“Isn’t that Matchett’s old section?”

Gilbert frowned; he had forgotten this. “Ah, shit. It’s going to happen to Alvin all over again. His own people are going to crucify him.”

The rain beat against the window. “I’m sorry, Barry.”

Gilbert contemplated Lombardo. “He was a good cop,” he said.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“But the Dennison shooting ruined him.”

They again lapsed into silence. Then Lombardo spoke up.

“Did Brett get back to you today?” he asked.

Gilbert nodded, looked under some papers on his desk, and pulled out the Cabbagetown Animal Clinic case file. “Here it is,” he said. “Two thousand doses. The place is right around the corner from Matchett’s.”

The two detectives were just getting ready to leave for the night when Carol Reid came down the aisle, her face stony, her eyes cold, and dropped the evening edition of the
Toronto Star
on Gilbert’s desk.

Front-page news, story by Ronald Roffey, with a half-inch headline: WEBB’S SECRETARY ARRESTED IN LATHAM SLAYING.

And below, a large color photo of Bill Marsh escorting a handcuffed Jane Ireland down the steps of the Parliament Buildings to a waiting unmarked car.

Gilbert stared at Jane Ireland through the one-way glass; and he knew just by looking at her, sitting there in the interrogation room, that she was innocent, that all the evidence against her had been orchestrated by someone, a cop, who knew everything there was to know about evidence. But Marsh wouldn’t listen. Marsh stood next to him with his hands on his hips. Lombardo leaned against the wall, watching everything cautiously.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a closed case,” said Marsh. “We have enough to convict. I’m marking it black on the board. The two of you are back in rotation starting tomorrow.”

“You’re making a mistake, Bill.”

“Anyone could have burgled that animal clinic,” said Marsh, turning on him. “How do you know it was Matchett?”

Gilbert gestured toward Jane. “Has she confessed?”

Marsh’s lips tightened and he looked at Jane in exasperation. “Not yet,” he said, “but she will.”