Stranglehold (29 page)

“That’s the wrong way to look at it,” DiPaulo said. “The better question is, How can the Crown prove the case if you don’t testify? That’s why Nancy and I did this.”

Parish had used six different-coloured pushpins to put up the chart. Each pin was also a different shape. When I was a kid, Greene thought, pins were all the same shape and all grey. Everything changes.

The chart was easy to read. There were four columns:
FACT: to be proved; PROOF: how to prove it; PROBLEMS: with the proof; SOLUTIONS.

“When I was a Crown, I did this for every big trial,” DiPaulo said. “It helps you see the whole case. I still do it as a defence lawyer. I pretend I’m the prosecutor and look at everything from their point of view. Know your enemy.”

Greene moved to a closer chair and studied the chart, starting with entry number one.

“First one is straightforward,” Greene said.

“Look at number two,” DiPaulo said. “You start to see how complicated this can get for the Crown.”

“Do you see what Ted has done?” Parish said. “By calling your dad at the bail hearing and letting the Crown hear his evidence, he’s presented them with a huge dilemma.”

Greene grinned. “I get it. If my dad’s a Crown witness, you can cross-examine him about everything I told him about finding Jennifer dead and why I ran out. He says it for me and I don’t have to testify.”

“Exactly.” DiPaulo stood up, excited.

“And,” Parish said, “Ted says your father is one of the best witnesses he’s ever seen.”

“The jury will love him,” DiPaulo added.

This was Ted at his best, Greene thought. Energized.

“Look down the whole chart. How do they prove you were in the motel room? It’s still a problem for them.”

He turned to Parish. “Pull out the footprint file,” he said.

She fished a file folder out of one of the boxes and handed it to him. He opened it for Greene to see.

“They have the tread from the place where you kicked in the bathroom door. Their expert took it off its hinges and brought it to the lab. She used standard black fingerprint powder to come up with an impression. Here take a look, it’s pretty good.”

Greene looked at the image. The black-and-white image of the treads looked like a gigantic fingerprint, bracketed by a ruler on two sides.

“According to her report, she could tell it’s a standard Vibram sole and that it was made by a right boot,” DiPaulo said. “She then compared it to the right boot they found in the front hall of your house after you were arrested.”

“How good is the comparison?” Greene asked.

“We got lucky,” DiPaulo said. “The best she can say is that it’s a
possible
match. Doesn’t help the Crown that much. What else? How do they prove you ran away? Bigger problem. How do they prove you loved her, and perhaps had motive to kill her? Remember, except for the inconclusive boot mark, there’s no DNA, no prints, nothing. Whoever the killer was, he sure knew what he was doing.”

Greene sat back in his chair. “And I was wearing the gloves, the helmet.”

“Exactly,” Parish said, excited too. “If they don’t call your dad, they can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt you were ever in the motel room. Case over.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” DiPaulo said. “Evidence you read on the page always feels different than when you hear and see it in court.”

“What would you do if you were the Crown?” Greene asked. He looked at DiPaulo. Parish did too.

DiPaulo went up to the chart and studied it. He was not a man who liked long silences. But he was unusually still. Deep in thought. “I’d do everything I could to make you take the stand,” he said after what seemed a very long time.

“Meaning you wouldn’t call my father?”

“Meaning I’d pile up enough evidence against you that you simply have to testify.”

HILDA REYNOLDS HAD HIGH CHEEKBONES, A SLENDER NOSE, AND FULL LIPS. IT WAS EASY TO
see that if she took care of herself, if she lost fifteen pounds, if she cut and styled her too-long frizzy hair, she’d be attractive. Instead, Kennicott thought, she looked like central casting for a burned-out prostitute near the end of her run.

He introduced himself and reached out to shake her hand.

She looked at his hand as if it were a foreign object. Then gave it a weak shake.

“Where do you want to eat?” Her voice was a deep rasp, almost masculine. “I got to be back before ten-thirty.”

“That’s no problem.” If he wanted her to cooperate, Kennicott thought, it would do no good to make her miss her next appointment. “Wherever you want,” he said.

“Not the fucking Peking.” She glanced to her right. The Peking Restaurant was steps away in the strip mall.

Kennicott pointed across Kingston Road. “What about that buffet restaurant.”

She frowned. “The Sisters? That’s no surprise. You cops like it there.”

“I’ve never heard of the place.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. Not convinced.

“I’m not from Scarborough.”

“Welcome to heaven on earth.”

They walked to the traffic lights in silence and waited a long time for a green. The sign on the faded blue awning outside the Sisters boasted that they’d been in business since 1957, and it looked as if they hadn’t updated the decor in at least thirty years. Well-worn red carpeting, fake brick interior, cracked ceiling, the only thing that looked new were the brown square bars on the windows, in a wide enough pattern that they looked like mullions, not protection. The $9.99 buffet was set out on a series of long tables with steam trays of scrambled eggs,
bacon, sausages, pancakes and French toast, and dishes of bread, muffins, cold pasta salads, and the like.

Reynolds stacked up every inch of her plate. Kennicott got a coffee.

They slid into one of the booths farthest from the window.

“You only get one plate for the ten bucks,” she said. “It’s bottomless coffee but they make a big deal if you try to share the food.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not hungry,” he said. “I’m running.”

She slurped her coffee, then stabbed a sausage with her fork and chewed on it. Next came two pieces of bacon. Then she piled a mound of dry-looking scrambled eggs on top of a pancake, poured syrup over it, cut off a corner, and stuck it in her mouth.

Kennicott looked around. The restaurant was almost empty. No one was monitoring whether they shared the food. He let her eat for a few more minutes before he said, “I want to talk to you about September tenth, the Monday morning of the murder in room 8.”

She had cut up the French toast into squares and was about to attack it. Instead she sat back and downed the rest of her coffee. “Look, I made my statement. There’s nothing else to say. Some bitch from the Crown’s office called me on the weekend to try to set up a meeting and I told her to subpoena me if she wants to drag me to court. I’m too busy.”

She held up her empty cup and peered out of the booth. “Where’s the fucking waitress.”

“I’m sure they’ll make you come to court,” he said.

“You want to buy me breakfast, fine. I talked to David, my lawyer, when this crap happened. He says I don’t have to say shit unless I’m on the witness stand.”

“That’s true.”

“So what? You going to bust me for soliciting to make me talk? What are they going to give me? A week in the West? CAS already has my girls, what else can they do to me?”

“I told you I’m not going to arrest you. I’m going to buy you breakfast.”

“So?”

“So, what are you afraid of?”

Reynolds leaned farther out of the booth and waved her arm. “There’s the bitch with the coffee,” she said.

A stout older woman in a light pink uniform came over. She frowned at
Reynolds, and shot Kennicott a suspicious look as she poured a fresh cup of coffee.

“You got more cream?” Reynolds asked.

“Lots.” The waitress reached into her half apron and tossed a handful of creamers on the table. She turned to Kennicott. He put his hand over his cup. “No thanks.” he said. She shrugged and was gone.

“Cunt hates me,” Reynolds said.

“She wasn’t very friendly to me either,” he said.

“Why should she be?” Reynolds said. “She figures you’re another trick. And you’re easy to spot as a cop. She’s seen enough cops in here to know.”

“Know what?”

“Cops. Tricks. You fill in the blanks.”

“Some cops? That who you’re afraid of?”

She took a sip of coffee and slammed the cup down. “Holy shit. This is burning hot. She did that on purpose. I hate this fucking place.”

That was twice she’d avoided answering his question, Kennicott thought. Whatever was scaring her, he wasn’t going to get it out of her. Maybe she’d find talking about her statement easier.

“Hilda, you told the police officer who interviewed you on the morning of September tenth that when the murder happened you were with a fat, older guy you’d never seen before.”

“Or since.” She stabbed a square of French toast, swirled it around in the syrup, and ate it.

“Can you describe him?”

“I have to admit, they have real good French toast,” she said.

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I guess we should go, then,” he said.

She looked at her half-eaten French toast.

“What was he wearing?” Kennicott knew the best thing to do was to keep asking questions.

“Clothes, before he took his pants off.” She chuckled at that and plunged her fork into another square, and again coated it with syrup.

“You sit in that window and watch the street all morning. Tell me, how did this fat guy get to the motel?”

She ate a few more pieces, then sat back and poured a long line of sugar into her coffee. She opened four of the creamers and tipped them in too. “That should cool down this black mud,” she said.

“Did he jog up, like me? Or ride a bike?” he asked.

She laughed. “Very funny. He was a big piece of blubber. Just like Newman.”

“Newman?”

“Don’t you watch
Seinfeld
?”

“Come on, Hilda. What was he driving?”

She took a deep breath and sipped her coffee carefully. She looked scared.

He kept his eyes on her.

“Okay, fuck it,” she said. “He wasn’t driving. I saw him get out of a van.”

“A van?”

“Yeah, a white van.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It was white. Like he was.”

“Any name or writing on the side?”

She shook her head. “It was white as my ass, that was all I saw. He got dropped off at the entrance. He knew I’d be in the window.”

“Really, how’d he know that?”

“You’re a pretty young copper. Don’t you know the strip?”

“No, I don’t.”

She looked directly at him for the first time. Squinted. Pulled herself forward, hovered over her plate, and whispered, “He was a fucking cop.”

Don’t react, stay calm, Kennicott told himself. “Did he tell you that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Give me a break. Sure he gave me his rank and badge number too. Man, you’re naive.”

“How do you know he was a cop?” he asked.

“How do you know he was a cop?”
she mocked him. “I can smell it. That’s how. I can just tell.”

So much for your credibility in court, Hilda, Kennicott thought. “You were wrong about me a few minutes ago,” he said, pointing across the street at the motel.

“Everyone messes up sometime. Besides, you’re prettier than most.”

“Where did the van park out front?”

“Park? You crazy. He got dropped off like they all do. What do you think,
they’re going to come in their squad cars?” She pushed her plate away. “That bitch isn’t looking, why don’t you have this last piece? I’m full.”

“No thanks.”

“What time is it?”

Kennicott checked his watch. “Ten-twenty.”

“Let’s get out of this dump. I can’t be late.”

“One more question. Where did it go after he was dropped off?”

“What?”

“The van.”

She smiled for the first time. Her teeth were badly stained. “You know, you’re smart. That’s the one weird thing.”

“Weird in what way?”

“Instead of driving back onto Kingston Road, like everyone else, this one drove right under my place and into the courtyard.”

“Did you see it drive out again?”

“No. Like I said in my statement, I was down on my knees.”

“Did you see where your customer went after?”

She frowned. “Okay, I told the cop who came to the door that he took off in a blue car. That was bullshit. Truth is I didn’t look out the window after I’d turned the trick.”