Stray Bullets (21 page)

“I did.” Armitage had a lump in his throat. “What are you saying?”

“The tall one with the hair.”

“You mean Larkin St. Clair?”

Jose shook his head. “You picked the wrong guy.”

A wave of heat spread across Armitage’s body. Thank God it’s dark in here, he thought. He unclenched his fists and wiped them on the top of his pants.

Jose stood and moved to the chair beside Armitage. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, which he unfolded
and ironed out with his hand on the desk. “I drew everything out here for you,” he said, and for the next five minutes traced out his story with his fingers as he spoke. It felt like five hours.

Armitage watched in horror. He thought of how he’d sat at this very same table when he’d signed off on the deal with Phil Cutter to let Dewey Booth walk free. How that asshole lawyer gloated afterward. Now he was thinking about the Wilkinsons and their dead child. About facing them. His staff. Everyone questioning what he’d done. And Larkin St. Clair and his smug, smiling face. Would he walk free again? This could give him a defense. And there was no guarantee this Jose character sitting across from him was telling the truth. He could just imagine Cutter slicing him to bits on the witness stand. Then Dewey would get off too. And forever more, Armitage would be known as the head Crown who blew the most important case in decades.

Anger surged through him. “Your name isn’t Jose, is it?” he said.

The man exhaled. “Of course not.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Why do you need to know?

“Because you’ve got a big problem. You ran away from the scene of a murder with material evidence. My guess is you did it because either there’s a warrant out for your arrest for some other crime, or else you’re in the country illegally.”

He stared at Armitage for a long time. “Both,” he whispered at last.

Good, Armitage thought. “You made a smart move contacting me first. Immigration finds out about this, they’ll deport you the minute the trial’s over. And the press would eat you alive.”

Jose ducked his head down. “I don’t want to be in the press. Dewey and Larkin both saw me.” He pointed to his hand-drawn map. “That shot just above my head. I thought I was going to be killed.”

Armitage thought of the bullet hole in the wall of the Tim Hortons. “You afraid?”

Jose nodded. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“That’s the real reason you ran?”

Jose shrugged. “I wish I’d stayed.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Armitage said. “If you come forward with this now, so late, it will taint your testimony. The defense will discredit you in a minute. Say you made this up to play for sympathy, so you can stay in Canada.”

Jose was back to being silent.

“I’m prosecuting the murder of a young boy. I don’t need you to muddy the waters.”

Jose was looking at his hands again. As if he’d retreated into himself.

This was like when he was in court and got going in a witness cross-examination, Armitage thought. “I might be able to help you with this.”

Jose looked back up. In the low light, it was hard to read his eyes. Was he nervous or just curious?

“Tell me who you are, then I can look up your file. I’m the head Crown. How serious was it?”

Jose snorted. “Shoplifting. But then I never went to court.”

Perfect. There were all sorts of ways he could bury a file like this. “I can take care of your charges,” he said. “But you better keep quiet about it. Don’t talk to anyone else but me. Understood?”

Jose nodded.

I’ve got him, Armitage thought. Thank goodness. He put his arm out and offered his hand. “Deal?”

Jose looked at the hand but didn’t move. “I need to think about it.” He stood up.

Armitage grabbed him by the wrist and jumped to his feet. He towered over the little guy. “I can take care of this for you,” he said again. His voice was loud, and some patrons at the other tables looked over.

Jose stared up at him. Christ, he was a cool cookie.

“I don’t think you want me to raise my voice, do you?” Jose whispered.

“I need an answer,” Armitage hissed, his grip still firm.

“I’ll call you.”

“No,” Armitage said. He knew he sounded desperate. “Don’t call the office again. Give me your number. Or an address.”

“I have a better idea. Meet me here in two weeks. Thursday night, same time, same table. We’ll talk then.”

Shit. Another Thursday night. Penny was going to kill him. “Okay,” he said. He didn’t have any other choice.

“Now let go of my hand,” Jose said.

He released him. “But we have a deal?”

Jose reached back into his pants pocket and pulled out a folded-over piece of paper. “This is who I am. First, let’s see what you can do for me.”

Before Armitage could protest, the guy scampered away.

And with him, the fate of his whole career. Probably his marriage too. Worst day ever, he thought. Worst fucking day ever.

It was a key moment in the history of Toronto. Back in the 1970s, local politicians were about to drive an expressway right through the heart of the city, when a determined group of downtown residents brought construction to a screeching halt. The ill-fated project was about a third complete and huge tracts of land had been expropriated. The protesters returned to their protected neighborhoods, leaving behind a stump of a road and an open pit that carried on for miles, like tire marks left on a highway by a runaway truck suddenly forced to brake.

In the city’s best tradition of political compromises leading to disastrous planning decisions, rails were laid across the open ground even though there was scant population on either side of the tracks. Decades later, the Subway to Nowhere, as it was soon nicknamed, was still a two-legged scar on the land. To make use of some of the vacant land, the Toronto Transit Commission built a huge rail yard where, every night, maintenance workers toiled on the fleet.

Ari Greene had grown up a few miles south of here, and as a teenager, on summer nights he and a few friends would ride their bikes to the yards and find ways to sneak in through the loose chain-link fence. He loved the size of the trains, the smell of the grease and the oil, and the adventure of it all.

Tonight he’d driven by the yard for the first time in years and of course now the place was surrounded by a formidable, fortified fence. No sign of kids poking around. He parked on a side street by the employee entrance and waited. It was four in the morning and the shift change was coming up in fifteen minutes. Greene preferred to take a good look at someone he was going to interview before he confronted them.

He had no trouble picking out Arlene Redmond as she strode out of the gate with her fellow employees. She was the only woman surrounded by a group of men. It reminded Greene of his days living in Paris, when groups of
clochards
—the romantic French name for what in North America would be called homeless people—would drift into the metro stations late at night. They were always in a group of six or seven, men and, without fail, only one woman.

Greene watched the TTC workers pile into their cars. With the streets empty, he followed Redmond’s old Subaru at a good distance. She and three other cars pulled into a beat-up-looking little strip mall and sauntered into a Coffee Time doughnut shop. Back in university, Greene had a professor who once told the class that Canadians ate more doughnuts per capita than anyone in the world. This case seems to prove that, Greene thought as he walked in.

Redmond was a big-boned woman who wore a TTC Workers Local 113 leather jacket that looked at least ten years old. She had a hearty laugh that ricocheted around the room like a silver ball in a pinball machine. The Somali fellow behind the counter obviously knew this crew and brought them out their “regular” coffees and food.

Greene had brought a newspaper and read through the sports page and when Redmond got up to leave he followed her into the parking lot.

“Arlene, my name is Detective Ari Greene, Toronto homicide squad,” he said to her just as she was out the door. “I’d like to chat with you about your nephew, Larkin St. Clair.”

She turned around. He’d expected her to be surprised. Instead she let out a belly laugh. “Damn,” she said, “I thought you were following me because you wanted to ask me out on a date.”

He chuckled. “You seem to have enough men already.”

She flicked her eyes back inside for a moment, looking serious all of a sudden. “I appreciate you being discreet. There’s another Coffee Time at Bathurst and Wilson, meet me there in ten.”

He followed her car through four or five yellow lights. She found a table near the window and he bought two bottles of water and gave her one.

She took a big swig. “I guess after I wouldn’t talk to your pretty-boy sidekick you’re the heavyweight.”

Since Larkin St. Clair’s arrest, he’d sent Daniel Kennicott to try to interview Redmond twice. Each time she’d politely but firmly refused. “Don’t you think I’m pretty for a guy in his fifties?” Greene asked her.

She gave him an exaggerated once-over. “Bit rugged, little street-worn, natty dresser. Okay, you’re a contender.”

“A contender who’s curious about your nephew.”

Her eyes were back on him. Angry. “Really? That why you charged him with first-degree murder and let that little psychopath Dewey Booth walk free?”

“My question about Larkin,” he said, locking eyes with her, “is how he would have turned out if the court had let you raise him.”

She took another long drink of water. “You ever think you’d see the day Canadians would pay for water. The whole damn country’s full of lakes.”

“Seems pretty obvious to me,” he said. “The judge who let your nephew go back to his mother made a huge mistake.”

She capped the bottle. “You’re a smart one. Bet you read the whole damn file.”

He smiled at her.

“Larkin was on probation for eighteen months living at my house. He didn’t breach once. First time ever he’s stayed out of trouble for so long. Then Dewey gets out and four days later look what happens.”

“I know.” He opened his bottle and took a slow sip. “My dad ran a shoe-repair shop for about forty years. Didn’t care if the people were good or bad, just fixed their shoes. The way you work on the trains all night. Make them run for everyone.”

They stared at each other.

“I’m the one who convinced Larkin to surrender himself,” she said.

“That’s what I thought.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a micro-recorder. He put it near him on the hard table top and flicked it on. Without losing eye contact he spoke into it: “This is Homicide Detective Ari Greene of the Toronto Police Service. It is Thursday, December twenty-nine, at”—he paused to pull his arm from his sleeve and check his watch—“four forty-four
A.M
. I am sitting at the Coffee Time doughnut shop at Bathurst and Wilson with Ms. Arlene Redmond, the aunt of Larkin St. Clair, a young man currently charged with first-degree murder.”

She hadn’t taken her eyes off him either.

He pushed the little recorder across the table toward her, like a passport control officer passing back documents to a traveler.

She looked down at it for a long minute, took another sip, and cleared her throat.

“I’m just going to say this once,” she said at last, her eyes back on Greene. “I know my nephew better than anyone. Anyone. And Larkin is not a murderer.” She reached down, flicked the machine off, then sat back and crossed her arms against her chest. Her eyes were defiant.

Greene put the recorder back in his pocket. “Thanks,” he said.

“Right, thanks for nothing,” she said. “Now I bet you’ll toss that in the garbage.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll keep it in a safe place.”

“I think he’s a cop.”

“Who?”

“My cell mate.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Hah,” Nancy Parish said. She was so angry at Larkin St. Clair, she could almost feel the steam blowing out of her ears. She glared at him across the steel jailhouse table.

“It’s cool,” he said. It had been two months since his arrest, and now his hair was touching his shoulders. He stroked it lovingly, like an old lady would her favorite cat.

“There’s nothing cool about it. What have you told him?”

“Believe it or not, nothing.” He started to laugh, his big hearty chuckle.

“You think this is all just a big joke, don’t you,” she said.

He stopped laughing as abruptly as he’d started. She’d seen this before, his uncanny ability to switch moods at lightning speed. “You want to see how I’m going to cry in front of the jury?”

“Larkin, please.”

“No. Watch.” He placed his hands on the table and looked over her shoulder. His face turned passive. “Okay, this is me sitting in court beside you. The father of the little boy is testifying. What’s his first name?”

“Cedric.”

“Right. Mr. Cedric Wilkinson. Okay, take his statement out of your binder and read it.”

She exhaled. “What’s the point?”

“The point is, I already told you I’m not going to testify. But we both know the jury will be watching me like a hawk. Let’s rehearse.”

She sighed, but she grabbed the binder out of her briefcase. It was heavy. St. Clair was right about what would happen in court. The jury would be eyeing him, the silent accused, sneaking looks throughout the proceedings, searching for clues as to who he really was. Good luck, she thought, chuckling to herself. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Larkin’s face had turned solemn. His eyes were fixed on the fictional witness with remarkable intensity.

“‘My name is Cedric Wilkinson, father of Kyle,’” she read. “‘I was born in California and lived my whole life there until my company moved our family to Canada this fall—’”

“No, no. Don’t bother with all the background crap.”

“If you insist.” She scanned through a page and a half, and then started reading again. “‘On November fourteenth, just before five o’clock, I was taking my son Kyle to see his mother, my wife, Madeleine, who was in the hospital. There were complications with her pregnancy, and she was there for observation. We parked the car, and, as we were walking over, Kyle saw the Tim Hortons. He wanted to go for a doughnut. Madeleine doesn’t like me giving him sweets, but it was cold and I knew we’d be at the hospital for a while, so I foolishly—’”