Old City Hall (17 page)

“Where?”

“He’s right outside,” she said, pointing to the street.

“I mean the dinner,” Greene said.

“The dinner?” Brace said. “Oh.” She seemed to have almost forgotten he was still there. “Our usual place. Look, I do have to ask you to leave. Sorry.” She pulled herself up sideways from the chair. “If I miss this guy, we’re sunk.”

Greene stood up. “Thanks for your time. I know you’re busy.”

“Busy? I don’t have a clue how we’re going to fit a baby into our lifestyle.”

In the hallway, just as he pulled the door open, Brace touched his arm. “Look, you can hate someone with all your might but still put up with them. That’s how I handled Katherine. It was the best I could do. No one’s happy she’s dead. I hear her family’s doing a private cremation. Nobody in the world knows my father as well as I do. There’s no way he did this. No way.”

“Thanks for letting me in,” Greene said. “Many people wouldn’t have.”

“Blame my mother,” she said. “Good manners.”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see a man in overalls lumbering up the driveway carrying a large plastic toolbox.

“Good luck with your plumbing,” he said.

She suddenly threw her head back and started to laugh. It was a loud, enchanting laugh.

“I need it. I’m peeing once an hour.”

In the narrow vestibule door he turned sideways to let the electrician in.

“All the best with the baby,” Greene said.

“I can handle it,” Brace said.

Greene had no doubt that Amanda Brace could handle just about anything.

There was an old saying: When a husband is having an affair, the wife’s always the last to know, Greene thought as he walked toward his car. But what about a father and his daughter. When Daddy’s a bad guy, isn’t she the last one to know? Or did Amanda Brace really know her father better than anyone else?

T
he woman at the steel reception desk had the look of a fashion model. Daniel Kennicott knew the look. Models had a studied distance about them. They never quite made eye contact. Always seeming slightly distracted, as if their conversation with you was only a small part of what was going on in their mind. This woman had long black hair, beautiful Eurasian features, and even though she was sitting down, he could tell she had fabulous long legs. The desk she sat behind was massive. Highly buffed steel. The only thing on it was a laptop computer, with the logo
PARALLEL BROADCASTING
on the back of the screen. A tiny headset was attached to her left ear.

“Can I help you?” she said, glancing at Kennicott with her gray eyes.

“Daniel Kennicott. I’m here to see Mr. Peel for a five o’clock appointment,” he said. “I’m a few minutes early.”

She touched something on her computer, her eyes now fixed at a point just over his shoulder. “Shirani, please come to reception.” Even though the woman barely whispered into her mouthpiece, her voice echoed loudly over an unseen sound system. “Officer Kennicott for Mr. Peel’s five o’clock.”

Kennicott smiled. He was out of uniform, and he hadn’t told her he was a cop.

A glass door opened, and a tall woman holding a clear plastic clipboard walked in. Her skin was deep black. She had an elegant,
thin nose, high cheekbones, thin lips, and a diamond stud in her left nostril.

“Good afternoon, Officer Kennicott,” she said, extending her hand. Her fingernails were painted in an intricate pattern. “Shirani Theoraja, Mr. Peel’s executive assistant. Please come this way.”

The offices of Parallel Broadcasting occupied the top floor of an old converted warehouse that had been stripped down to its foundation, like a carcass with every scrap of meat torn from its bones. The ceilings were high, with exposed ductwork running overhead, the walls sandblasted brick, and the floor hard concrete painted black. Kennicott followed Theoraja down the central hallway. Offices on either side had large windows and glass doors, letting in a flood of light. The desks were made of the same steel construction as the one at reception, and each had the same laptop with the Parallel logo. There didn’t seem to be a piece of wood anywhere.

Theoraja walked fast, her high heels clicking on the concrete floor. The sound reverberated, but the people in the glass-door offices didn’t even look up.

At the end of the long hall, there was a dark mahogany door, heavy and ornate. The name
HOWARD PEEL
was written in cheap-looking brass letters. Theoraja gave a confident rap.

“Yep,” a gravelly voice called from inside.

“Mr. Peel, Officer Kennicott is here. He’s ten minutes early for his five o’clock.”

There was no sound for a few moments, and then the door swung open. A short man stood inside. His frizzy hair was a strange, almost orange color, and there were plugs in the front of his scalp, evidence of a recent transplant. He wore a button-down white shirt with the top three buttons undone—exposing a plague of graying chest hair—and a pair of cowboy boots, which seemed to make him look even smaller. His little eyes were the only attractive point on his face, an unexpected deep blue.

“Well, Officer Kennicott, how ya doing?” he said, extending a pudgy hand. “Howie Peel. I’m supposed to run this joint. Come on in.”

He escorted Kennicott in as the door closed. Peel’s big corner office was unlike the others on the floor. He had a large wood desk and beat-up-looking furniture. There was an old Underwood typewriter on a battered credenza. The windows were covered by dusty brown drapes.

“Can you believe that Shirani?” Peel said as he sat in one of the two chairs facing his desk and motioned Kennicott to the one beside it. “There weren’t women like that in the town I grew up in on the Prairies. We had one Chinese restaurant and some native kids in rags out on the reserve. Everyone else was whiter than a farmer’s field in February.”

Kennicott nodded. He’d done some reading about Howard Peel, president and CEO of Parallel Broadcasting. Every article painted the same picture of the man: a master salesman, loose-lipped, said the most outrageous things, but everyone seemed to like him.

“Shirani’s gorgeous but touchy,” Peel said. “Ouch. She’s Tamil. What did I know? I hired her, her friends. One day I hire another Sri Lankan woman named Indira. I figured she’d fit right in. The next morning Shirani and her gang are in my office. They’re all going to quit. ‘What’s the problem?’ I ask. Turns out Indira’s Sinhalese; Shirani and her troupe are all Tamil. I get my history lesson. The former Tamil prime minister killed by Sinhalese rebels. The Tamils’ houses and tea farms burned. Shirani—those black eyes would melt chocolate. ‘All right, all right,’ I say. ‘No more Indira.’”

Kennicott nodded. He’d also read that Peel could talk your ear off. He decided to wait until the short man ran out of gas.

Peel seemed to finally notice Kennicott’s silence and slapped him on the knee. “Enough about me and the beautiful young women who work for Parallel. What can I do for you?”

“I’m involved in the murder investigation of Ms. Katherine Torn,” Kennicott said.

“You see the contract I offered that guy? A million bucks, thirty-six weeks, no Mondays. Everything he wanted. I even threw in a limo. Good thing he didn’t sign, or I’d be paying him to broadcast from the Don Jail.” Peel chuckled. It was a thin, reedy laugh. “Come to think of
it, it might have been a good angle. Great way to take on all those damn shock jocks.”

“Why didn’t Brace sign the contract?” Kennicott asked.

“Why? How should I know why?”

“What about Katherine Torn? You ever meet her?”

“Yep. She was in my office with Brace just last week.”

Kennicott nodded. He thought of Peel’s crushed business card in Torn’s wallet. “Last Wednesday afternoon?”

“Sounds right. I’ll ask Shirani.”

“She want him to sign it?”

“Who knows?” Peel rubbed his hands together. “What’d you think of the contract? You used to be a lawyer. Worked for Lloyd Granwell.”

Suddenly the little man’s friendly banter had an edge to it. He hadn’t really answered the question. Clearly he wanted Kennicott to know that he’d done his homework.

Ever since he’d become a cop, Kennicott had heard quips like this. When he took the job, Chief Charlton had held a press conference. Made a big deal about Kennicott’s being the first lawyer to join the force. He had tried to duck the publicity, but it followed him. The next day, his face was on the cover of all four major papers.

“I didn’t want any of this,” Kennicott had said to Detective Greene.

“Charlton is a master with the press,” Greene had said. “You’ve just been encoded into the collective DNA of the city.”

Of course Peel, like anyone of any influence in Toronto, knew Granwell, Kennicott’s old mentor. “The contract seemed pretty straightforward,” Kennicott said, meeting Peel’s eyes. “Why was Torn at the meeting?”

“My idea. I’m an old sales guy. The best way to close a deal is to bring in the spouse. I figured a million bucks would convince her it was a great deal.”

“But it didn’t?”

He shrugged. “He didn’t sign. And look at Brace now. Waived his bail. I hear he doesn’t say a word in prison.”

“Who told you that?” Kennicott asked.

“Don’t be fooled by this fancy fucking office,” Peel said. “I started as a beat reporter for a small-town radio station. I have my sources.”

Kennicott kept his face blank. What Peel was doing was very smart. Like a good journalist. Tossing out some information from a source and hoping Kennicott would confirm it. Kennicott didn’t move.

“Doesn’t jail sound wonderful?” Peel said, once it became clear that Kennicott wasn’t going to say another word. The short man got up from his chair and began to pace. “Meals made for you. Sit around and play bridge all day. Read the sports section to your heart’s content. Now Brace doesn’t have to interview some housewife from St. John who’s collected a thousand bottle caps to donate to the local hospital charity. Or listen to a high school band from New Liskeard play ‘O Canada’ with Popsicle sticks. He must be happy as a clam.”

“Ever been to the Don Jail?” Kennicott asked.

Peel whipped his head around and stared with his disarming blue eyes. This was the look, Kennicott realized, that he used to seal a tough deal.

“Too many times.” He let the comment hang in the air as he walked behind his oversize desk. “Bailed out all sorts of people. It’s nobody’s business but my own.”

The jovial salesman act was over. This is the real Howard Peel, Kennicott thought. The one who turned one small-town Saskatchewan radio station into the country’s second-largest media conglomerate. Peel reached over to the credenza behind him and grabbed a framed photo.

“Kennicott, you young guys don’t know shit. Look. This is me, last Thursday night after the music awards.” He stabbed the photo with his stubby forefinger. It was a picture of Peel, wearing a tuxedo, being hugged by a tall, beautiful brunette who towered over him.

“That’s Sandra Lance. You know her, everyone knows her—number one hit single, body to die for, half the guys in North America jacking off to her album cover. Five minutes after this photo’s taken, I’m in the backseat of a limo, huge bottle of champagne. Yep, Sandra Lance alone with me, a sixty-one-year-old guy with a hair fucking transplant.
She’s drinking like a stripper with a free tab, and then she just pulls her goddamn top right off. What a rack. A minute later she’s licking me like a lollipop. Then taking it from behind, all stretched out. Moaning like a coyote. There I am, fucking the juiciest piece of tail on the whole continent, and what am I thinking about, Officer Daniel Kennicott, Mr. Lawyer Turned Cop?”

Kennicott hadn’t moved.

Peel lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “What was I thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Kennicott finally said. “What were you thinking, Mr. Peel?”

“You don’t know? Well then, how are you going to figure out Kevin Brace? Maybe he’s just like me. An old guy with a young guy’s cock. You’ve got to crawl into his head.”

Kennicott had heard enough. “Thanks for your time,” he said, getting out of the chair.

“I was thinking: It’s Thursday night. If I hadn’t been such a shmuck and bought every radio station in Saskatchewan, then Manitoba, then Alberta, and moved here, I’d still be back home.”

Kennicott was halfway to the door. He turned to look at Peel. “You just told me you thought Brace wanted to be in jail.”

“Thursday’s cribbage night in Rosetown. At the very moment I was poking that singer, Ray and Bob and George and Reggie and even our Chinese pal Tom are all playing. My first wife Elaine’s at bingo. And where am I? Stuck in a limo fucking a tart who’s younger than my daughter. All I could think about was watered-down prairie coffee and cribbage and how nice it would be to have a regular life.”

Kennicott had his hand on the door. Peel looked small, diminished behind his big desk.

“I don’t know the guy, other than I couldn’t buy him,” Peel said. “But I know what happens when ambition drives a man to a place he doesn’t want to be anymore.”

“What?”

“I think Kevin Brace isn’t worrying about what to say about a new
recipe for pea soup or getting dragged to an opening-night production by some disabled theater company.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I think the whole damn country sucked the guy dry. Everyone wanted a piece of him. Why the hell would he want bail?”

Kennicott opened the heavy door and let it slam behind him. He walked through the trendy offices as fast as he could without running. He didn’t care about the clack of his shoes on the floor, and he didn’t even look at the beautiful receptionist as he barreled through the door.

The fatigue from the endless days of work was setting in, hitting him like a hammer. He needed to get out, to breathe fresh air.

Back on King Street, the late-afternoon light had faded. The sky was a menacing black. A westbound streetcar was approaching. Kennicott let it pass. He wanted to walk for a while. He pulled up his collar and started toward the light of downtown. A damp cold had descended on the city, and a fierce, angry wind was howling in from the east. Despite his efforts to block it out, the cold air chilled him down to the bone.