Cold Comfort (28 page)
He took a sip of coffee. He wasn’t an architect but he still felt as if he had made something worthwhile of his life. Life was precious. You had to step back and watch it every so often, just so you could appreciate every minute. He felt wistful as he again thought of Matchett. Matchett would be in his sixties by the time he got out of prison. There wouldn’t be much of life left for Matchett when he got out.
His pager beeped, and he looked down at the digital display. He turned the beeper off; he didn’t readily recognize the phone number. He got up, went to the public telephone in the foyer, and dialed the number.
John Levinson, the Crown prosecutor in the Wesley Rowe case, answered the phone.
“I knew you were anxious about this,” said the lawyer, “so I had my secretary page you. We’re going to drop the charges in the Wesley Rowe case. The match on the typewriter helped us but we were already leaning that way anyway. He’s not mentally competent to stand trial. Nor was he competent to look after his mother. We can’t reasonably hold him accountable for his actions. The papers are on their way to the Don Jail. He should be released tomorrow. I’ve already let Judith Wendeborn know.”
“Thanks, John.”
“Don’t thank me, Barry. If I had more staff around here he never would have been arraigned in the first place.” There was a pause as Gilbert heard the shuffling of papers on the other end of the line. “Oh, and I talked to Claude Rice. About the Susan Allen case? Ironic, but she’s going to plead incompetence too. She has no recollection of the night she tried to run you down. The same thing happened when she was seventeen. She lit a friend’s house on fire, had no recollection of it. The lawyer in that case presented a stack of psychiatric reports, so there’s a history, here, Barry, and the judge will probably just order evaluation and treatment. Is that okay with you?”
Gilbert thought of Susan Allen’s Crown Victoria, how without it they never would have nailed Alvin; how, without it, they never would have gotten their embezzlement and conspiracy to commit murder charges against the Honorable Thomas Webb.
“Whatever the judge wants is fine by me,” he said.
He went back to his table and finished his coffee. Two boosts in one day. Lombardo gets the Detective Award, and the charges in the Wesley Rowe case are dismissed. The past was sometimes golden, but the present wasn’t so bad either, he decided. He took one last bite of toast and slid a couple of toonies on the table. That should cover it, and give the waiter a decent tip besides. He left the grill and walked out into the pleasant April afternoon. He crossed the street—he wanted to walk on the sunny side. Sunshine all around, but with snow clouds on the horizon, moving in from Mississauga, getting closer. The weatherman was calling for fifteen centimeters. April in Toronto, and winter was reluctant to ease its tenacious grip.
As he reached the far sidewalk he turned around and took one last look at the Carlton Grill. A patrol car drove up, parked in front, and two young officers—neither could be more than thirty—got out, laughing, talking, heading into the grill, conspicuous in their uniforms, feeling special because of their uniforms, in the best days of their lives. They strutted. They exuded energy. They were vibrant. That was him, twenty years ago. That was him and Matchett going into the Carlton Grill.
He turned away and walked north on Sherbourne, up past the Wellesley Hospital and the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. He turned left on Isabella past the old Isabella Hotel, where even this early in the day the prostitutes were hanging around street corners, in impossibly short dresses and three-inch heels. He headed toward Jarvis Street. Toward the old building. All the old ghosts were pushing him along. He turned right at Jarvis Street and headed north. And he decided he really did miss all the bright young students drifting up and down the street from Jarvis Collegiate Institute. He missed the panhandlers and the drunks. And despite his many running battles in patrol with the Isabella Street hookers, he even missed them, now felt a fond regard for them. It always baffled him, why they chose Isabella, two blocks away from his old headquarters.
He crossed the street and stood in front of the old police building. Built in 1953, six storeys tall, red brick, like a giant wedding cake, with neat rows of small windows. A building full of memories. A building full of ghosts. The Catholic Children’s Aid Society was in there now. So was the Congress of Black Women. The white paint around the windows was now peeling badly; in fact, the entire building looked as if it had been let go. Yet in Gilbert’s memory it glowed. He thought of the new building. And then he thought of this old building. And he knew he had to move forward. He had to move forward, even if he had to pull the weight of the past behind him, the way the little boy pulled the immense obelisk in his toy wagon. He knew he could accept it now, that his memories of Matchett were still golden, that they would always stay golden, and that recent events didn’t in any way cheapen them. Matchett was just a man. And his life was a river. You went along with the flow and sometimes the scenery was pleasant. Sometimes it wasn’t. You had to make the most of where the river took you.
He turned from the old building and walked toward Yonge Street. For now, he would enjoy the sunshine. The warmth on his face was refreshing after the long Toronto winter. He glanced up at the snow clouds. He would enjoy the sunshine until the snow finally came again.
Detective Barry Gilbert is called into Toronto's Chinatown to investigate the death of Edgar Lau, a man whose history and connections take the detective on a ride across continents and cultures, and deep into an immigrant family's struggle to survive against harrowing odds.
Gilbert must piece together Edgar's labyrinthine history— from his days as a Vietnamese refugee who made a deadly trek to China by boat, to his affair with a prominent member of Toronto's city government, to his dealings with a Chinese drug baron. Throughout the investigation, damaging and sensitive questions are raised—questions somebody in Toronto’s police department doesn't want answered.
It soon becomes clear to Gilbert that in addition to hunting down Edgar's killer, he must fight police corruption as well —a fight that could threaten the department’s stability and future. This tale of murder and misdoing, family and betrayal, is a riveting police procedural by a masterful mystery author.
When a music mogul is found strangled in his apartment, Detective Barry Gilbert immediately finds out he is no ordinary victim: music-producer Glen Boyd has a prodigious list of enemies,men and women who have any number of reasons to kill him. Even Gilbert once wanted to murder the man for nearly stealing his wife.
From Boyd's own world-famous ex-wife, to a rock guitarist, to a notorious drug kingpin, Boyd's shady business dealings have affected the wrong people in the wrong way. But there is one suspect Gilbert is too close to, and refuses to include even though evidence keeps piling up,Regina, the woman he has been married to for the last twenty years. With outside pressure mounting, time becomes critical, and Gilbert must embark upon a distressing and personal journey to find the true culprit behind this sad but vengeful crime before his family is torn apart.
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