Old City Hall (22 page)

• Jurisdiction—85A Front Street—City of Toronto

• Identity—Kevin Brace—Age 63

• Condo 12A—one front door—no other exits, no forced entry

• December 17, 5:29 a.m. Brace meets Mr. Singh at the door

• Blood on his hands

• Torn’s body in bathtub—one stab wound

• No defensive wounds to victim

• Bloody knife hidden in kitchen

• No alibi

• No other suspects

• Confession

• Slam dunk

Fernandez smiled when he read the last phrase—slam dunk. It was uncharacteristically flippant, his own private joke. He closed the binder, got up, and started to pace again. One step, two steps, turn, one step, two steps, turn.

Ever since he’d gotten the Brace case, he’d stayed late at the office. It had been hard on Marissa. Last week, when the January phone bill arrived and Fernandez saw that she’d spent almost four hundred dollars calling her family back in Chile, they’d had their first big fight. She’d ended up in tears, saying she couldn’t stand how cold it was in Canada, that she had no friends or family here, and she threatened to go home.

“Come on, Marissa,” he’d said once he thought things had calmed down. “Let’s go to bed and make it better.”

“Bed, bed. With you it’s always bed,” she’d said, and slammed the bedroom door in his face.

For the next five nights he slept on the couch. The sixth day he brought home a very long, very ugly down-filled coat and a pair of equally ugly boots. “You’ll like the winter much better if you stop worrying about how you look and just keep warm,” he told her.

She took the coat grudgingly.

“Look in the pocket,” he said.

She reached in and pulled out an airplane ticket.

“I’m sending you home for a month in March,” he told her. “When you come back, the winter will be over.”

Marissa grabbed the ticket from his hand and ran back into the
bedroom. Fernandez heard her talking excitedly on the phone for the next half hour. At last she emerged from their bedroom wearing only a towel and a big smile.

Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day, and he’d promised to be home by eight. He’d planned the whole evening. Dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Wellington Street; then he’d take her to a new gelato place down the block. It featured homemade South American flavors. Guanabana and lulo were her favorites. They’d be home by ten.

Yes. Fernandez smiled. Get to bed early with Marissa, that sounded like a very good idea.

As he sat back down at his desk, he was startled by a quiet knock on his door. The night watchman had been by ten minutes ago and Fernandez hadn’t heard anyone else come in. “Who is it?”

“Hola,”
a familiar voice whispered. The door opened slowly, and Marissa was standing in the dimly lit hall wearing the down coat and the ugly boots.

“What are you doing—”

“Shhh,” she said, coming inside and closing the door behind her, lowering the light in the small room.

“How did you—”

“Don’t get up. I just spoke to the guard,” she said as she walked around his desk.

“What did you tell him?”

“I said, ‘Excuse me, sir. I am here bringing my husband some nourishment because he work so late.’” She turned his chair toward her.

“He
works
late,” Fernandez said. “And the word isn’t ‘nourishment,’ it’s ‘food’ . . .”

“No. Nourishment,” she said as she opened her coat. Even in the near darkness, Fernandez could see that she was naked underneath. “I’ve been studying my nouns,” she said as she straddled him and brought his head to her breast. “This is nourishment, no?”

Happy Valentine’s Day one day early, Fernandez thought as he felt Marissa reach down and undo his belt, then lower his zipper. As he slid inside her, his government-issue chair began to squeak as it rolled backward.

Just then he heard an outer door open. The sound came from the side entrance the Crowns used at night.

“Here’s the latest and greatest,” a deep male voice said. It was Phil Cutter. What was he doing at the office so late?

Fernandez put his mouth to Marissa’s ear. “Shhh . . .,” he whispered. She nodded her head, but he couldn’t tell if she was saying yes or if it was just part of her rhythmic rocking on top of him.

“Let me see that.” This second voice was softer, female. It was Barb Gild, Cutter’s constant companion.

Marissa’s rhythm was increasing as Fernandez heard Cutter and Gild’s footsteps draw nearer. She lowered his head to her breast again and buried it there.

“Brace—he thinks he’s so damn smart,” Cutter said. His laugh pierced the empty office space. They were almost right outside the door.

Fernandez held his breath. He spread his feet wide and held tight to the floor, trying to stop the old chair from squeaking and to slow Marissa down. But she was lost in her movements.

“What’s he written this time?” Gild said. The two had stopped to look at something right on his doorstep. Marissa squeezed the back of his head. He grasped her as tight as he could. Cutter and Gild must be able to hear them.

But Cutter started to laugh. “This is fantastic,” he said.

Fernandez heard their footsteps start up again, moving down the hall. “Take a look, Barb . . .,” Cutter said. Their voices were quickly receding. Fernandez strained to hear, but now Marissa had her hands over his ears as she moved his mouth to her other breast.

“If Parish ever found out we had this . . .” Cutter’s voice was disappearing.

Fernandez tried to pull back from Marissa to hear better, but their voices had faded, covered by the rumble of the photocopy machine across from Gild’s office.

“What is wrong?” Marissa whispered, bending down to his ear.

That’s what I’m wondering, he thought. What are Cutter and Gild up to?

“Poor Albert,” she said, stroking his hair. “Too much working.”

Marissa’s touch on his face brought him back to her. Soon after they were married, it became apparent to Fernandez that although he was a virgin when they exchanged their vows, she was sexually experienced. It had been unspoken between them, but very quickly she became the teacher and he the willing pupil.

And now he’d been distracted. He’d disappointed her.

But she didn’t look upset. She looked determined.

“Too much work,” he said.

“No, no,” she said, reaching back down to take him in her hand. “Not enough nourishment.”

T
he foul odor was the first thing Ari Greene noticed as he walked past the bull pen—the big holding cell for male prisoners in the bowels of Old City Hall court. A hundred and fifty men, at least half of them who hadn’t had a shower for days, most wearing orange jumpsuits, shuffling around on the cement floor. The few men in street clothes would have been picked up the night before and would have slept at whatever police division they’d been taken to before being brought to the Hall for their bail hearings. The rest would have come from the Don or one of the suburban jails.

Greene made a point of not stopping or looking in. As far as any of the prisoners inside the bull pen were concerned, he’d be just another cop walking on the free side of the bars.

There was a small, windowless room in back with a steel table and two chairs, all bolted to the floor. This was the “P.C.” interview room. Protective custody was for prisoners who needed to be kept apart from the general population for their own safety—usually guys charged with sex crimes against children and, as the cops liked to joke, police constables, P.C.’s. Unlike the glassed-in gallery, where groups of prisoners met with their lawyers and had to lean down and yell through little screens to be heard, this room was private.

Greene took the seat farthest from the door and waited patiently. It took about ten minutes for Fraser Dent to be led in.

Greene had seen Dent three times in this room since the night
they’d met at the Salvation Army. Dent nodded quietly at Greene. He wore his orange jumpsuit like a pair of comfortable old pajamas. On his feet he had a pair of prison-issue blue running shoes, the back stomped down for more comfort. Just like all the real cons.

The guard pulled out his keys. Hearing the jangling metal, Dent turned his back and waited patiently while his handcuffs were taken off.

After the guard left, Dent turned to Greene and shrugged his shoulders. He looked like a man who’d been in the jail for a few weeks. His stringy, clownlike hair was greasy, his face roughly shaven, and his fingernails bitten down. His light blue eyes were empty.

“Good morning, Detective,” he said in a grumpy voice.

“How ya doing, Mr. Dent?” Greene said. He’d risen from his seat to greet Dent when he came in. Now he sat down and pulled out a pair of cigarettes from inside his jacket.

“Could be worse,” Dent said. He sat on the facing metal seat and looked down. “I got Brace and me moved up to the fifth floor, hospital wing. Gets us away from all the punks and the noise. It’s no big deal to clean out a few bedpans. They got a TV and the sports channel. The bloody Leafs, eh?”

Greene smiled. In early January, the Leafs had gone on an improbable run, beating clubs well above them in the standings and climbing back into the play-off race. The city had been energized by the team, the radio talk-show programs filled with optimistic chatter from phone-in fans who claimed they “bled blue and white.” Greene’s father had even made noises about actually going to a game.

Fat chance.

It didn’t matter. Predictably, in mid-January the team had returned to its losing ways, causing Greene’s father no end of heartburn, and all talk of going to see a live game faded. His dad’s newest theory for the team’s travails was that the goalie was no good, too young, and they needed to bring in a veteran.

“A team from Tampa and a team from Carolina can win the Stanley Cup,” he’d said in frustration a few nights earlier after the Leafs lost for the fourth time in a row. “They don’t even have skating rinks down there.”

“Dad, give it up,” Greene said. “The Leafs haven’t won since 1967.”

“I know, I know,” his father had said. “I’m waiting. I know how to wait for things.”

“My dad’s a big-time Leafs fan,” Greene said as he passed over some matches to Dent. “They’re driving him nuts.”

“That coach has got to go,” Dent said. “You see that last night? Two minutes left in the game and he’s got his third-line center out taking the face-off.”

Greene passed over his Styrofoam cup for Dent to use as an ashtray. He’d intentionally left a thin layer of water on the bottom. Dent lit up and took a few deep drags. Greene waited patiently.

“Brace still hasn’t said a damn thing,” Dent said, blowing the smoke to the side. He looked over at the wall to his left. “Not one fucking word. At first it was spooky, but now I’m used to it. I’m not sure what I’d do if he started to talk.”

“He still write notes?” Greene asked.

“Yeah. In his book. He’s got us all trained. He’ll write us little notes. And when we play bridge, he’ll just make his hand signs.”

“He ask you anything about yourself?”

“Doesn’t really have to. I took your advice, Detective. I just talk about myself whenever I feel like it. It’s like having my own therapist, 24/7. I’m even lying down in my bunk half the time. Like with the real live shrinks the bank used to send me to.” Dent gave a deep, guttural laugh that ended when he started to cough. “Before everything went to rat shit.”

“And you defrauded them of half a million bucks.”

“Whatever,” Dent said. He took a drag on the cigarette.

“What’s he read? Newspapers?”

“Devours them. Every word on every page. Does the crosswords in bloody pen.”

“Any books?”

“Whatever comes around on the cart. Mysteries, thrillers, biographies. Doesn’t seem to matter to him.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it, man. Easiest cell mate I’ve ever had.”

Greene sat back in his chair and looked Dent straight in the eye. Dent kept his eyes turned to the left. Finally drawn in by the silence, he looked over at Greene but then quickly looked down. He tossed his half-smoked cigarette on the concrete floor and twisted it under the heel of his shoe. It made a squeaking noise on the cement floor.

“Dent, you’re a smart guy. Why do you think he’s clammed up?”

Dent picked up the cigarette butt and rubbed it flat on the bottom of his shoe. “Hard to say,” he said at last.

Greene could sense Dent being protective of his cell mate. “Why don’t you try?”

“I remember when he was on the radio—boy, could he talk. Maybe he got tired of talking.”

“That’s an original theory,” Greene said.

Dent shrugged. He rolled up his left pant leg and slid the butt into his gray sock along with the other, fresh cigarette. “He seems happy enough.”

“He didn’t mention anything about his case?”

“He wrote that his judicial pretrial’s this afternoon. That why we’re talking now?”

“He tell you Summers is the judge?”

Dent’s body tensed. “Fucking Summers,” he said. “Mr. Naval Academy. I hate that judge. He gave me six months once for stealing some aspirin from a Shoppers Drug Mart.”

Greene nodded. “That the time a young clerk followed you and you pushed him through a glass door?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dent said. “Summers is a prick.”

“We know Brace’s lawyer visits him. Anyone else?”

Dent shook his head.

“He communicate with anyone else?”

“Just the other two guys we play bridge with and Mr. Buzz, the best guard in the Don. He got our bridge partners moved up to the fifth for us. Now he’s up there too. Says he’s our bodyguard.”

“Tell me about the bridge partners.”

Dent shrugged. “No big deal. One’s an old Jamaican guy waiting
for his murder trial. The other’s an old native guy. Says he was a schoolteacher—wife and kids, the whole bit, till he started drinking again.”

“What do they say about Brace?”

Dent shrugged. “He’s a damn good bridge player.”

“The prelim will be in May,” Greene said, referring to the preliminary inquiry, the judicial hearing that precedes the trial.

Dent rubbed his hands over his face. “Look, Detective, now I’m in the hospital ward, I’ll stick with this gig through the play-offs. That should be about the end of May. But that’s it. Once hockey is over, I’m out of the Don.”