Old City Hall (23 page)

“Let’s hope Brace starts talking before then.” Greene reached into his pocket and passed over a packet of mints.

“Let’s hope the Leafs somehow get into the play-offs,” Dent said. He dug out a handful of mints and popped them into his mouth. The others disappeared up his sleeve. He stood up and kicked the door in a well-worn spot. “That guard better hitch me up quick,” he said. “Guys’ll start to wonder if I’m out too long.”

Greene stood up. A guard opened the door, and Dent, as if on cue, turned and put his arms behind him. Greene heard the metal clicking sound of the cuffs being unlocked, then the slow crunch of the cuffs being tightened, metal teeth on metal teeth.

It was an awful noise, much worse than fingers on a blackboard. It always made Greene wince.

E
ver since Brace’s arrest, Daniel Kennicott had tuned in to the new morning show to hear how Donald Dundas handled what must have been a very touchy situation. The first few days after the arrest, the show just carried on using Dundas as the substitute host. Over the Christmas holidays it disappeared, replaced by insipid local programming from regional stations. In January the show was back with a new name—
Morning Has Broken
—with Dundas installed as the permanent host. There wasn’t a word said about Kevin Brace sitting in the Don Jail, charged with first-degree murder.

It reminded Kennicott of the pigs in the book
Animal Farm
, sneaking out at night to the signs, constantly erasing the rules. Kevin Brace, like Snowball in George Orwell’s novel, had been wiped clean from the history books.

Dundas was a competent host. He could speak knowledgeably with people on a number of topics, but his interviews didn’t have the depth Brace had brought to the airwaves. His humor was too nice, and he lacked Brace’s sharp tongue. And his voice, warm and sweet, lacked the weight, the gravitas, of Brace’s smoke-seasoned baritone.

After spending almost two months tracing Brace’s life, Kennicott had a good idea how Dundas would spend his day. The show ended at 10:00 a.m. Toronto time. It was broadcast live to Atlantic Canada at nine and was tape-delayed one hour as it went west across the country.
The host spent the next hour taping promo pieces for upcoming shows and attending the daily story meeting for the next day’s show. He couldn’t go far during that one-hour delay in case some news broke and they had to redo something live for the central region—Ontario and Quebec. By eleven, though, he was essentially done.

That’s why, just before eleven in the morning, Kennicott was walking slowly around the broadcast building. There were three different exit doors, which made guessing which one Dundas would come out of a problem. The north exit gave onto Wellington Street, a busy thoroughfare. Not likely that the aesthetically minded Dundas would want to come out that door. The west door faced a less-crowded side street with a big Starbucks on the other side. Kennicott noticed a lot of the company employees trooping out this door and heading zombielike for their doses of caffeine. “Time for some four-bucks,” he overheard one of them say.

He couldn’t see Dundas going to Starbucks. The man was always doing nostalgic pieces about things like small-town general stores. He liked championing the “little people.” On the south side of the building, there was a friendly-looking coffee shop with a collection of antique teapots in the window. That’s it, Kennicott thought. He went inside and found a seat near the back. He took a
Globe and Mail
from a pile beside the condiments table and opened it, keeping an eye on the south door.

A few minutes after eleven Dundas strolled in, wearing a long, dull overcoat, big brown mittens, and what looked like a hand-sewn toque. He carried a beat-up old leather briefcase in his left hand. His round eyeglasses fogged up as soon as he came through the door, and he took them off and waved them in the air. He was alone. Kennicott watched him turn and head toward the take-out counter, still shaking his specs.

Perfect. Kennicott followed him in line, tucking
The Globe and Mail
under his arm.

“Good morning, Mrs. Nguyen,” Dundas said to the short Asian woman behind the counter when he got to the front, pronouncing her Vietnamese name the proper way—with the
g
silent.

“Mr. Dundas. Happy Valentine Day.” She pronounced the
V
in “Valentine” like a
B
. “Green tea today?”

“A pot, please,” he said, lifting his briefcase. “I stay. Student essays to mark.”

Kennicott stepped out of the line and backed up. He watched Dundas take a seat at a corner table, put his teapot down, open his briefcase, and pull out some papers. He waited until Dundas was hunched over reading before he walked across and sat down on the other side of the table.

“Excuse me,” Dundas said without looking up. “If you don’t mind, I need some privacy . . .” His voice trailed off as he lifted his head and recognized Kennicott.

“Good morning, Mr. Dundas.”

“Hello, Officer Kennicott.” Dundas kept his voice low. “After that first interview, my lawyer was in touch with Detective Greene. We’ve informed him that I don’t wish to make any further statements.”

“I know that,” Kennicott said.

“So?”

“There’s nothing to prevent us from continuing our investigation.”

Dundas nodded, as if showing Kennicott that he didn’t have to say anything.

“Nothing to prevent us from talking to you, even if you don’t want to talk back,” Kennicott said.

“I guess not,” Dundas said with an exaggerated frown. He reached across his papers and picked up the small porcelain teapot and teacup and brought them near him, like a boy lining up his toy soldiers.

“I spoke to Howard Peel yesterday,” Kennicott said.

Dundas eyed Kennicott. “You can talk to me about anything you want. I don’t intend to respond.”

“Peel didn’t want to talk to me at first either. But after I told him some things I’d found out, he changed his mind.”

Kennicott watched Dundas carefully. Dundas lifted the lid of the teapot to look in. A puff of steam came up and fogged his glasses again. Kennicott smelled a hint of jasmine. Dundas hadn’t said anything,
but that didn’t matter. He’d stopped objecting to being questioned, and that was the first step.

“You knew about the contract Peel offered Brace, didn’t you?” Kennicott asked.

Dundas took his glasses off and cleaned them with his sweater.

“A million dollars, thirty-six weeks’ work a year, limousine service,” Kennicott said. “No shows on Mondays.”

“I don’t want to be rude, but I have all these papers to mark.” He motioned to the pile in front of him.

Kennicott didn’t let up. “Peel told me that Brace wanted to sign, but Katherine was the problem. Sounds like Katherine had a lot of problems.”

Dundas furrowed his brow. When he did that, he didn’t look so young.

“Peel said that Katherine wanted to be a radio producer. Right?”

Dundas was done fiddling with his teapot. Now his hands were at his sides, his shoulders slumped.

Time to go in for the kill, Kennicott thought. “Peel said she was training with a ‘friend’ at his home studio. That’s why, back in December, when Detective Greene asked you if Katherine had ever been at your house, you terminated the interview.” Kennicott toughened up his voice. “Isn’t it, Dundas?”

Dundas pursed his lips.

“I checked back into the archives of
The Dawn Treader
,” Kennicott said. “Last April, Brace interviewed you for twenty minutes about the radio production studio you had in your house, didn’t he?”

Dundas fiddled again with his teacup. “Yes,” he said at last.

Good, Kennicott thought. I’ve got him talking.

Dundas lifted the little teapot and a teaspoon and poured the tea onto the spoon so it wouldn’t spill down the spout.

“And that’s how it started. First you gave Torn radio production lessons,” Kennicott said.

Dundas’s hand slipped, and tea spilled over the rim of the cup onto the saucer. He gave an exaggerated exhalation.

“It’s no secret,” Dundas said, “that I have a home studio. I take my journalism class there once a term.”

Better, Kennicott thought. Dundas has progressed to whole sentences. But he’d dodged the question.

“Listen, Mr. Dundas. I’ve looked at the videotapes from the condominium lobby. Katherine was very patterned. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she left just after ten and was at the stables for her riding lesson by eleven. But Thursday mornings she went somewhere at eight.”

“And so you’re wondering where she went,” Dundas said, unprompted.

“We both know, don’t we? I checked with the radio station—Thursday was the one day you were
not
available to do backup for Brace.”

Dundas dropped the metal spoon, and it clanged off the corner of the saucer.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

It’s not what you think.
Kennicott recalled that Peel had used the exact same phrase. “And what do I think?”

“I wasn’t having an affair with Katherine.” Dundas met Kennicott’s eyes and held them for the first time since he had sat down. Kennicott could see the subtle wrinkle lines around the man’s eyes, which were usually masked by his fair complexion. He’d once read that crow’s-feet around the eyes were the trick carnival hucksters used when guessing people’s ages. He could see why. Up close Dundas looked older, tired, and scared.

“You know, after you walked out of our interview, Detective Greene told me that in all his years on the homicide squad, only four other people had stopped an interview during an investigation. And guess what?”

“Why don’t you just tell me.”

“All four were eventually charged and convicted.”

“Are you saying I’m a suspect?”

“Getting pretty darn close. You were sleeping with your boss’s wife and—”

“Stop it,” Dundas said, straightening his backbone. “I told you I wasn’t having an affair. It’s the truth. Hook me up to one of those machines if you want.”

“What were you two doing, drinking tea?”

“No,” Dundas said. He was angry now. He closed his eyes, clearly weighing whether he should keep talking or not. Kennicott could almost hear him explaining to his lawyer hours from now: “But you don’t understand, I had no choice.”

Dundas reached for his teacup. He took a long sip. Kennicott waited. “Okay,” he said finally, “I saw her on Thursday mornings.”

“Why?”

“Katherine had problems. The biggest one was self-confidence. She needed a job.”

Dundas tried to lift the teacup again, but his hands were shaking. He turned to Kennicott like a man resigned to his fate.

“I knew about the contract,” Dundas said, speaking rapidly, as if by saying the words fast, he could get over his discomfort quicker. “Kevin asked me to train Katherine in radio production as a personal favor. It was his idea.”

This was exactly what Peel had said. That Brace knew all about Peel’s seeing his wife too. Kennicott decided to switch tactics. Be nice. Understanding. “So that’s why he went along with your not being his substitute host on Thursdays.”

Dundas just nodded.

Then it hit Kennicott. Dundas was telling the truth. He wasn’t afraid of Brace. He was afraid for his job.

“I assume this is something management didn’t know anything about,” Kennicott said.

“I don’t think they’d be too pleased that I was helping their star host get a job with a competitor. Kevin wanted to sign the contract. The plan was I’d train Katherine, then she’d have the confidence to take a weekend production job.” He looked around the small café again to make sure they were alone. “If they found out, I’d be fired. That would be it for my career. All because I was trying to help a friend.”

“Help a friend, and then get his job,” Kennicott said.

Dundas whipped off his glasses and glared at Kennicott. He looked as if he wanted to hit him. Good, Kennicott thought. When people get mad, they really talk.

“I didn’t know any of this was going to happen,” he said through clenched teeth.

“But when it did, you were more interested in your job than in assisting a first-degree murder investigation. Katherine dead. Brace in prison facing twenty-five years. And you won’t even give us a statement. All so you can protect your new job. Or should I say Brace’s old job?”

Dundas wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Kennicott poked his finger at the papers Dundas was marking. “Stab the guy who gave you your first job in radio right in the back. Do you teach that in Journalism Ethics 101?”

Kennicott pulled back his chair and stood.

Dundas looked up at him like a lost child.

“Kevin was desperate to get her to stop the booze. She would be clean for a while, but then . . .”

Kennicott moved to the chair beside Dundas and sat down. He was done being the man’s worst nightmare. Time to be his best friend.

Dundas leaned his head, as if sheltered by Kennicott’s presence. “The thing with Katherine, when she got angry, she was out of control.” Dundas reached down and rolled up the left sleeve of his sweater.

Kennicott saw a wide, ugly scar on his forearm. It looked fairly fresh, and deep enough to last a long time.

“She did this to me last time we were together,” Dundas said. He was whispering now. He closed his eyes. “I’ll make the statement,” he said. “But that’s all I can tell you.”

That will be more than enough, Kennicott thought as he stared at Dundas’s arm. The words he’d just used, “She did this to me,” were similar to the ones Howard Peel used yesterday, standing in the cold outside the ski chalet.

D
etective Greene watched Albert Fernandez put a yellow pad on the table while Dr. Torn sipped his double espresso. It was just past eleven in the morning, and they were at a high-gloss Italian restaurant on Bay Street. Torn had come down to meet with them before the judicial pretrial with Judge Summers, which Fernandez was attending that afternoon. Torn had made apologies for his wife, who was down in the States at some riding competition.

Torn had wanted to get away from the cloying atmosphere of the Victim Services office, so Greene had brought them here. The restaurant was his own little oasis in the downtown sea of noisy food courts and cheap fast-food places. Fernandez was also drinking espresso, and Greene was sipping white tea.