Stray Bullets (13 page)

First came a text Howett had sent to a friend named Cindy, who they’d learned was a fellow gas station employee.

November 14, 5:42 p.m
.

END OF TRANSMISSION

A wiretap on Howett’s phone came next.

November 14, 8: 05 p.m
.

END OF CONVERSATION

They had records of all of Howett’s Internet searches on both her old laptop computer and her iPhone. She’d spent the night checking news sites and searching for updates on the story. The only exception was at 11:20
P.M
. when she’d logged onto Hollywood.com and read two articles about Leonardo DiCaprio.

At midnight the surveillance team reported a young black woman arrived at the building in a taxi and went up to Howett’s place. She was seen hugging Howett in the doorway by an undercover cop posing as a pizza delivery guy for an apartment down the hall. The officer didn’t catch what they said but he could hear Howett crying. The woman was later identified as Cynthia Burlington, age twenty-two, fellow employee at the Petro-Canada station. No criminal record. No police contacts. She stayed until eight the next morning.

At five to nine in the morning the police issued a press release, which stated that, after a brave fight for his life, four-year-old Kyle Wilkinson had died from the gunshot wound he’d received the night before. It expressed their condolences to the Wilkinson family. Within seconds this news was everywhere.

Howett made another call a few minutes later:

November 15, 9:08 a.m
.

END OF CONVERSATION

There was only one more call.

November 15, 10:15 A.M
.

[Note—Howett starts to cry. Continues for twelve seconds.]

[Note—a pause. Five seconds.]

[Note—a pause. Ten seconds.]

END OF CONVERSATION
.

Kennicott cut and pasted all the transcripts, put them all into one file, and e-mailed it over to Greene. He was tired.

He fished through the collection of CDs of the conversations between Suzanne and Jet, found the last one, and brought it with him into the bedroom. He put it on his CD player and listened to it as he went to the window and watched the storm coming in. The snow was heavy now. Hearing the words was much more chilling than reading them.

He played the final part of the conversation again:

“Jet.”

“What?”

“Dewey’s crazy.”

“What else is new?”

“I’m scared.”

“I know.”

The cold air blew over the top of the hot radiators.

I’m scared. I know. I’m scared. I know
.

It echoed something inside him.

His last conversation with his brother. Making plans to meet for dinner.
Daniel, for once, don’t be late
, Michael had said and laughed. But his voice had an edge. A hint of fear.

He had arrived late. Too late to protect his brother.

There was a truth here that maybe he’d been hiding from himself for a long time. He hadn’t just become a cop to try to solve the mystery of Michael’s murder. He’d become a cop to protect people. So they wouldn’t lose what he’d lost.

He kept watching the snow. As exhausted as he was, there was no point in trying to go to sleep.

It had been more than forty-eight hours since Ari Greene had gotten the emergency call about the shooting, and he’d barely had time to go to the bathroom. Sleep was a distant memory. He’d tried lying down for a few hours last night in the downstairs sleep room at police headquarters, but had just lain in the dark with his eyes half-open, his mind whirling in overdrive, like a car engine when the gas pedal got stuck. Finally, he’d gotten up, grabbed a quick shower in the gym, changed his clothes, and headed back to work.

But now it looked as if he had enough things in place and he could go home for the night. The weather outside had turned nasty, and it would be nice to get back before the snow piled up. He wanted to shovel his father’s walk.

There were holes in the case. Always were. They hadn’t found the gun yet, despite searching all the garbage cans, Dumpsters, and sewer grates near the Tim Hortons and going through Larkin St. Clair’s aunt’s house, where he was living on probation. They’d probably never recover it. His main concern was to track down Jose Sanchez, the baker who’d disappeared. And their surveillance of Jet and Suzanne was in place. Key decision was going to be when to pull the plug and bring them in.

He cleaned up the papers on his desk and stifled a yawn. He hadn’t had a moment to call Jennifer Raglan to ask about her mother and now she’d probably be home with her family. He’d get in touch with her tomorrow.

His phone rang.

All he wanted to do was go home. He hesitated before answering. “Detective Greene,” he said.

“It’s Ralph Armitage again. I need to talk to you about something.”

“Go ahead.” He’d been updating Armitage for the last three days on the progress of the investigation.

“Has to be in person,” Armitage said.

Greene closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ll be over in ten minutes.”

“Actually, could you make it at seven o’clock?” Armitage said. “I’ve got a six o’clock scheduled.”

Armitage was such a bureaucrat. And he’d probably slept in his nice warm bed the last two nights.

Greene used up an hour at his desk doing more paperwork and arrived outside the head Crown’s office at a quarter to seven. The waiting room was empty. A few minutes before seven Awotwe Amankwah, a reporter who worked at the
Toronto Star
, emerged. The criminal courts were his beat.

“Tough case, detective,” he said.

“You have young children.” Greene knew Amankwah had been involved in a bad custody fight with his ex-wife for the last few years.

“I can’t imagine what that family is going through.”

“I know the press is going to be after this story, but I’m keeping everyone away from them.”

“Understood,” Amankwah said before he left.

Greene knew that with this kind of case he had to control the media. Even use them sometimes.

At exactly seven o’clock, Armitage came out and ushered Greene inside his neat and organized office. When Jennifer Raglan was in charge, this had been a messy, bustling place. Now it felt sterile, except for the photographic shrine of Armitage and his equally tall, equally athletic-looking wife stacked on the credenza behind his desk.

“This is important,” Armitage said after he shut the door behind them. They were both standing. “If we don’t find the gun that fired the fatal bullet, we’re in trouble in this case. Agreed?”

Something about the question made Greene feel uneasy. He was tired. And pissed off that Armitage was such a press hound that he made him wait an hour so that he could do yet another media interview.

“Not really,” he said. “In most shooting cases the gun is the first thing to disappear.”

“Okay then,” Armitage said. “But if we could find the gun and match it to the bullet that killed young Carl, that would be great, wouldn’t it?”

“Kyle.”

“What do you mean ‘Kyle’?”

“The boy’s name was Kyle, not Carl.”

Armitage shrugged. “Okay. But you agree, matching the gun to the bullet is crucial. Right?”

Greene felt as if he was being cross-examined. It made him careful with his words. “Crucial, no. Helpful, yes.”

“Very helpful, right?”

He had an arrogant, shit-eating grin on his big face and Greene wanted so badly to reach over and wipe it off.

“Probably,” Greene said.

“What if,” Armitage said, puffing himself up, “I was to tell you that someone has been found who is prepared to identify the shooter, under oath? And that this same person will tell us where the shooter stashed the gun? What would you say to that?”

Greene wasn’t happy about being treated as if he was a witness on his own case. “I’d say, ‘How do you know about this?’ and ‘Why the hell wasn’t I informed?’”

“I’m informing you now.” Armitage gave his patented Cheshire-cat grin. Real proud of himself.

Greene had hit only one person in his life. That was back in high school, when a bully insulted his father in the school cafeteria. Right now he was thinking a good hard slap would do it. He was sick of Armitage’s game. “What’s this all about?”

“I know where the gun is,” Armitage said.

Greene’s first thought was: You fool. You found the location of the gun in a first-degree homicide case and made me wait almost an hour and a half before telling me?

“Where?”

“St. Clair’s aunt’s house. You guys missed it in your original search. It’s stashed in a tree trunk.”

Forget the slap. Greene wanted to land a punch on Armitage’s square jaw. “Who told you this?” he demanded.

“Booth’s lawyer.”

“Phil Cutter?” There were few lawyers in the whole province Greene respected less.

“I made a deal with him.”

“You made a deal with Cutter?”

“Had to. This was a one-time offer.”

“On my homicide investigation? You made a deal without asking me?”

“I’ve got a sworn statement from Dewey Booth saying that Larkin St. Clair was the shooter.” Armitage reached onto his desk for a piece of paper that had been lying facedown. “Describes where you can find the gun.”