Thin Ice (12 page)

“I think she's scared shitless, but I get the feeling that what he says goes.”

“All right, let's get her in.”

Smith and Marshall sat in the interview room as the girlfriend was led in and they put her under oath, repeating dire warnings of the consequences of perjuring herself or obstructing a homicide investigation. She sniffed at the warnings.

“And just so you know, this interview is being taped,” Marshall said, looking up at the little black globe that recorded audio and video from the corner of the room.

“Whatever.”

“Can you please state your name, age, and address before we get started?”

“Penny Scott. 31A Deslaurier Drive, Peterborough. I'm nineteen years old.”

“Do you work, Ms. Sco — Can I call you Penny?”

“Sure.”

“Do you work, or go to school, Penny?”

“I work at Value Plus, as a checker.”

“That's a grocery store, here in Peterborough?”

“Yeah.”

“And how long have you been dating John Ridgeway?”

“Coupla months.”

“How'd you meet?”

“I was checkin' his groceries and we got to talkin'.”

Marshall smiled. “All right then. Did you work last weekend?”

“No, well, I worked Friday afternoon, then I was off until Tuesday. I traded a shift so I wouldn't have to work Saturday.”

“Why'd you do that ?”

“I knew we were going to be partying Friday night. I didn't want to go into work hung over. Nothin' worse.”

“Who do you mean by ‘we'?”

“John already told you, I was with him all weekend.”

“Well, we're interested in your statement right now, not John's.”

“Okay then.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I was with John. We went to the Anvil after I got off work on Friday and stayed ‘til closing.”

“Where did you go then?”

“Back to John's place.”

“Was there anyone else, or was it just the two of you?”

“Just us.”

“And would you normally go back to his place after a night on the town, or …”

Scott raised an eyebrow and smiled. “You wanna know what we did, is that it?”

“Look, Penny. We're not interested in your personal life, other than to establish John's whereabouts.”

“I get it.” She waved a hand. “I was pulling your chain. Truth is, we didn't get up to much. John was pretty drunk. He's more of a morning-after guy anyway.”

Smith was watching Scott as she spoke. She had a pretty face, and he couldn't imagine what she saw in John Ridgeway, or why she would want to go back to that filthy hovel that he called home. Then again, who knew what her home life was like, and she had met Ridgeway around the time he had come into his fifty grand. Maybe some free drinks and the shiny truck were enough to impress her. He hoped for her sake that it wouldn't for long.

“So, what time did you get back to John's apartment?” Marshall continued.

“The bar closes at two. It was probably two thirty before they kicked us out. We were back there by quarter to three, I guess.”

“So you went to sleep as soon as you got back?”

“John passed out on the couch. He was out five minutes after we got home. I went to bed.”

“And what time did you wake up the next morning — Saturday morning?”

“I don't know, maybe one, one thirty.”

“And where was John?”

“He was in bed next to me. He must have come in from the couch while I was sleeping.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Wearing ?” She laughed. “I told you, he's a morning guy. He wasn't wearing anything.”

Marshall seemed embarrassed, so Smith stepped in.

“Any chance John could have left the apartment while you were asleep, Penny?”

“And do what? Drive to Ottawa, kill Curtis Ritchie, and drive back? I told you, he was shitfaced. There's no way he would have made it down the front steps. I practically had to carry him in from the cab.”

Smith had to admit, the more he heard, the less likely it sounded.

“We're gonna step out for a minute, Penny, if that's all right. You wait here.”

She sighed as they left the room and crossed the hall to another interview room, where Howard had John Ridgeway all ready to go, having been through the same warnings about perjury and obstruction. As they entered, Ridgeway seemed annoyed.

“I don't know why we're going through this all over again. I told you everything two days ago.”

“Is that so?” Marshall said, as he took his seat. “Did you tell us about the fifty thousand dollars Ashcroft paid you?”

Ridgeway looked stunned. “What's that got to do —”

“I'll remind you that this is a murder investigation, Mr. Ridgeway, and we expect full disclosure. Anything less just makes us more curious — and we're going to find out everything, sooner or later, so you might as well tell us what you know.”

Ridgeway sighed and looked down at his hands. “Look, they told me I wasn't allowed to mention that, or I'd have to pay it back. Besides, I still don't know what it has to do with Ritchie's death.”

Marshall asked him about his whereabouts on Friday and Saturday, the responses to which corresponded pretty well with what Penny Scott had already told them. Smith flipped through his notes from their interview with Ridgeway two days before.

“You told us you hadn't gassed up your truck in over a week the last time we talked. Is that still your version of events?” he said, pulling a printout from the file and putting it on the table, for effect.

Ridgeway looked puzzled. “Yeah, why?”

“We noticed your key chain has an Easypass key. Is that how you buy gas usually?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, maybe you can explain why there's a seventy-five-dollar purchase from a local gas station on the Friday afternoon. That's less than two days before we asked you the question, not a week. It's also the day before Curtis Ritchie was murdered.”

They watched his reaction for signs of guilt, but were surprised to see genuine surprise, bordering on outrage.

“I didn't buy any friggin' gas. I bought some smokes, and mix, and a few other things. Does it say that on your little sheet?” he said, pointing to the paper. Smith felt a wave of unease as he saw only the total amount at the top of the page, but no description whatsoever of what had been purchased. Neither he, nor the constable in commercial crimes, had bothered to check, but it was Smith's responsibility. Still, seventy-five bucks was a lot for cigarettes and mix. Then he remembered Ridgeway's apartment, with its overflowing ashtrays, and noticed his orange-stained fingers and the stale smell of smoke in the little interview room.

“How many packs of cigarettes did you buy, do you remember?”

“Four,” Ridgeway replied, without hesitation. “I usually buy 'em by the carton, but I was in a rush. You get a better deal at the gas station if you buy in twos, so I bought four packs, enough for the weekend.”

“That would have been about forty bucks then ?”

“Roughly, yeah.”

“And the other thirty-five dollars?”

“A bunch of two-litres, for mix — I knew we were having some people over Saturday night. Some chips ‘n stuff, too.”

Smith nodded, but it still didn't add up. He looked at Ridgeway and tried to imagine what in the average gas station would have snared his last twenty bucks and thought he knew before asking the question. “Anything else?”

“Coupla those magazines,” he said, lowering his eyes momentarily. “You know.”

“Right,” Smith said, as John Ridgeway slid a few spots down on the list of suspects before his eyes. “The ones on the top shelf.”

Smith sat at the bar, sipping his beer as he waited for Steve Hunter to arrive. The drive back from Peterborough had been uneventful, and after a couple of hours going over the growing pile of evidence the case had generated so far, he and Marshall had agreed that he would take the meeting with the reporter while Marshall worked on the questions for the interview tomorrow morning with Tom Saunders. They had decided to bring him in again and confront him about the encounter with Ritchie in the Toronto hotel, to see how he reacted. John Ridgeway's slide down the list of persons of interest necessarily buoyed Saunders right to the top.

He turned in response to a tap on the shoulder.

“Jack, right?”

Instead of the reporter Smith expected, he found himself looking at a pretty brunette. She looked familiar, but despite a concentrated effort on his part, he couldn't recall from where. The good news was that she was smiling.

“I'm a friend of Lisa's.” She held out a delicate hand. “Valerie.”

“Right,” he said, remembering her from the bar the other night.

“How are you doing?”

He sipped his beer and smiled. “Good.”

“Alone tonight?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Smith said, with a grin. “Are you a lawyer, too?”

“I guess I'm busted.”

“Actually, I'm here to meet someone.”

Her smile withered a bit. “I'll get out of your way,” she said.

“I didn't mean you had to leave,” he added quickly, noticing Steve Hunter's arrival at the other end of the bar.

“I can take a hint, believe me,” she said. “Have a nice evening.”

Hunter looked at the departing woman, then at Smith.

“Hope I didn't interrupt anything,” he said, taking a seat.

“Not at all. Can I get you a beer?”

“I'll have the same as him,” Hunter said to the bartender. “Sorry I'm late. What a day.”

“I guess you've got plenty to write about these days.”

Hunter grimaced as his beer arrived. “Yeah, the start of the season is busy enough, but this is just crazy. Then again, I guess I shouldn't be whining on a day when we went to an eighteen-year-old's funeral.”

“To Curtis Ritchie.” Smith raised his bottle and Hunter did the same.

“Listen, I'm sorry if I was less than a hundred percent co-operative in Peterborough,” Hunter said, after a long pull on the beer.

“It's okay. I know you've got a job to do.”

“It's just that I've worked hard over the years to establish a certain rapport with the players, you know?”

Smith nodded, wondering what it was that Hunter wanted off his chest so obviously.

“And I don't want them doubting what off the record means.”

“I understand.” Smith took a sip of beer. “How well did you know Ritchie? He was relatively new in town, but I noticed you've devoted a number of articles to him in the past few weeks. Sounds like you did a fair bit of research.”

Hunter nodded. “Yeah, I did. I can't say I got to know him that well, and you never really know whether you're getting the full story out of these guys when you're talking to them with a reporter's hat on. Probably a lot like talking to the cops — people tend to have their guard up.”

“I hear that.”

“He was a helluva player, from what I got to see at practice, and even in talking to some of the veterans. He really did have that scoring touch. Could have been one of the greats.”

“That's what everyone talks about — the money he was going to make, the records he was going to shatter. I'm more interested in the real Curtis Ritchie, though.”

Hunter sipped his beer and kept his eyes looking ahead. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, you're around these guys on a regular basis. It's not a normal life they lead. I know everyone likes the myth of the clean-cut kid from Peterborough, but we both know he wasn't helping too many old ladies to cross the street.”

“Someone's been telling you he had a bit of a dark side?”

“I've learned a lot about the dark side of pro sports in general in the past few days — a real education. As for Ritchie, I would say it's pretty clear he had some issues. All I'm trying to find out is whether any of his extracurricular activities might have led him down the wrong path.”

Hunter nodded. “This is gonna sound crazy — not to mention ass-backwards — but I've got to ask. If I did tell you something, would you have to reveal your source?”

“If you're the only witness and you had to testify first hand, then there's not much I could do. But if you can direct me to other witnesses, I can try to keep you out of it. I'll be honest with you, though. I'm trying to catch a killer — the guy who put that eighteen-year-old kid in the ground today. That's got to be my first priority.”

Hunter nodded and took a sip of beer before continuing. “There were rumours about Ritchie's extracurricular activities, as you put it, over the summer and in camp.”

“What kind of rumours?”

“That Ritchie couldn't keep his dick in his pants.”

“What, he was screwing one of the other player's wives?” Smith asked, knowing it was the sort of cliché that happened all the time. In fact, if you looked behind some of the trades over the years that led the public at large to scratch their heads, locker room discord was often at the root — more specifically, the kind involving wayward wives and girlfriends.