Downfall

by Robert Rotenberg

  “Hi, Daphne,” he said.

  She whirled around. Stared up at him and then whipped her head back at her father.

  “You set me up with the cops.”

  Keswick shook his head. “No, no, no. Ari just wants to—”

  “I can’t believe it. You frickin’ set up your own daughter!” she yelled.

  “Keep your voice down,” Greene said. “I’m not arresting you.”

  She looked around the coffee shop. He followed her eyes. The pair of prostitutes had gone, but the man with the tattoos and the younger woman hadn’t moved. The old man with the crossword book was still at it.

  Daphne shook her head, looked away, and started dumping ice cubes into her coffee, one at a time, making a plopping sound. She stared back at Greene.

  “Hello, Detective Greene.”

  “Hi, Daphne. It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah.” She took a sip of her coffee then dropped in another ice cube. “I meant to say thank you for helping me with that charge. Really I did.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “About the murders in the Humber?”

  He nodded. Best to use his silence, get her to fill the void and start to talk.

  “I don’t know anything about them,” she said.

  He kept staring down at her.

  “People are like totally freaked out,” she said.

  He moved his feet wider. Signalling to her that he wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was she.

  “Almost no one’s left over there. Everyone’s moving east to the Don.”

  Greene reached back for a chair, brought it forward, and pulled it up close beside her. He sat and looked at her straight on.

  “Daphne. People talk to you.”

  She dropped two more ice cubes in her coffee. Plop Plop.

  “The two victims, did you know them?”

  “Anybody who’s been on the street for any kind of time knew them. Nurse Deb had a stack of prescription pads, and Doc would write out scripts for legit painkillers and medical crap. Never oxys or any of that shit. We called them the Hospital Ward. They were always trying to get people off drugs.”

  Greene remembered that Rene LeBlanc had been a doctor. Deborah Lemon had been a nurse.

  “The rooming house needs a twenty-buck deposit. Then twenty a night.”

  Greene took out his wallet. Peeled off two twenty-dollar bills and held them tight in his fist. “Keep your eyes and ears open for me,” he said.

  She stared at the money.

  “And do what?”

  “Tell me what you hear. See. That’s all.”

  “I’m not a rat.”

  He could see her hands twitching. He knew she wanted to grab the twenty-dollar bills and make a run for it.

  “It’s not ratting when there’s a killer on the loose.”

  She turned back to her father.

  “Dad, you got some coffee cards? I need to eat.”

  Keswick held out two five-dollar cards.

  “That’s it?” she demanded.

  “I’ll give the other thirty dollars’ worth to Detective Greene,” he said.

  Greene braced himself for another outbreak from her. Instead, her shoulders slumped and her whole demeanour softened. “Where’s your phone?” she asked her father, her voice now gentle as a child’s.

  Keswick pulled out his cell phone. Greene could see he’d already cued up the photos. She took the phone in both hands and stared at the picture of an adorable little girl playing with a paint set. She scrolled through to the next one. The third.

  “She’s starting to draw,” she said.

  “Just like you did,” Keswick said.

  “Look,” she said, pointing. “My doll! You kept it?”

  “Your mother sewed it back together. Go to the next one and watch the video.”

  Daphne pressed the screen, and a video started to play. Greene heard the innocent sound of a child’s voice, which seemed so out of place amidst the dull greyness of the coffee shop.

  “I want colour fishy,” the little girl said, picking up a red crayon and filling in the outline of a fish’s body with large erratic strokes.

  “And what colour is the water?” an older woman’s voice asked from off screen.

  “Is blue,” the child said. She reached for a green crayon.

  “No!” Daphne shouted at the screen.

  “No, dear,” the gentle older woman’s voice said. “That’s green. Here,” she said, picking up a blue crayon. “This is blue.”

  “Blue, blue,” the child said.

  The video ended abruptly, before she could get the crayon in her tiny hands.

  Just as quickly as Daphne’s mood had softened, it hardened again. She slammed the phone face-down on the table and grabbed the two coffee cards out of her father’s hands.

  She swung back to Greene. He’d loosened his grip on the bills. She tugged them out of his hand, stuffed them down the front of her shirt, and stood up fast. Before he could get to his feet, she made a beeline for the door. Greene felt a puff of cold air as it flew open and shut behind her.

  “That’s my girl,” Keswick said. “Thanks for trying, Ari. But I’m still worried sick. I doubt she’ll show up tomorrow. She’ll probably disappear again, and we’ll never know where she is.

  “You don’t have to worry,” Greene said. “We’ve got that covered.”

  Keswick gave Greene a curious look.

  “How?”

  “Remember those two people who were eating sandwiches at the table near the counter?” he said, pointing to the now-empty table.

  “Wearing baseball caps? The old guy with the tattoos with the younger woman?”

  “They’re following her.”

  “Following her?” He looked alarmed.

  Greene grinned. “The older guy is a street contact I’ve worked with for years, and the young one’s an undercover cop. They’ll keep an eye on her.”

  30

  Even though it was a cold, rainy night, Roshan was thankful for the work. When the members of the golf club heard about his accident, they’d put together a collection to get him an Uber account for one month for him to get to and from the golf club. Despite Babita’s protest, he’d insisted on coming to take the night shift. Since his leg was still sore, he got to drive the security golf cart. Two other guards would have to walk the perimeter. All were equipped with walkie-talkies and high-powered flashlights.

  He’d brought a blanket from home and wrapped it around his legs to try to keep warm. He wore a bright headlamp that let him see from side to side by simply turning his head. He had a set route that took an hour to complete. The sky was cloudy, brightened by a three-quarters moon that had crested the trees. First he went through the parking lot to make sure the cars were not damaged before he drove through the front nine holes, returned through the parking lot, then drove along the path in back of the club and around the back nine holes.

  When he’d started, the parking lot was full of cars and the party was still going. He said hello to the young people who did the valet parking. Most of them were the members’ kids and would make much more money in tips for a few hours of easy work than Roshan and his fellow guards would earn for being out here all night.

  By the time he finished his second trip the party was over, everyone had cleared out, and the parking lot was empty. The rain had stopped and the temperature had plummeted, turning the pools of water on the golf cart pathways to ice.

  Babita had prepared a thermos of hot coffee for him. He parked in front of the clubhouse and took a fifteen-minute break so he could have a drink and warm up. The air was still and clouds had covered the moon. His knee was beginning to ache but he wasn’t going to tell Babita about it.

  He started on his third round. Because the lights inside the club ballroom were turned off, now the path in front of it was dark. Roshan didn’t mind. He knew the route well and he enjoyed the quiet.

  He was far down the path when he spotted something l
arge lying across it, in his way. He yanked the steering wheel to pull his cart onto the lawn just in time and slammed on the brakes.

  He swung himself out of the driver’s seat and hobbled over to the path. Oh no, he thought, as the moon peeked out from behind a cloud, casting light down on the deserted lawn, and he saw what was there. A body. Lying face-down. He could tell it was a woman because of her long hair. The light from his headlight illuminated blood that had poured out of the top of her head, staining the path.

  He knew how to do CPR. Perhaps she was still alive. He knelt down and tried to roll the woman over. She was heavy, and he couldn’t do it.

  Should he go back to the golf cart and radio for help? But that would waste time. He had to try again. He pulled her up, using all his might, and rolled her over onto her back. Her head flopped over to the side. Lifeless. A golf ball fell out of her mouth and bounced down the hill, disappearing in the darkness.

  Her eyeballs had rolled up into her head. She wasn’t breathing. He felt for her pulse but there was none. He took a close look at her face in the moonlight.

  “Oh no, oh no,” he moaned. It was her. The strange woman who’d come to his rescue when he fell down into the valley.

  “Help!” he cried as he scrambled to his feet and limped back to his cart. He grabbed his walkie-talkie. “Help!” he shouted. “I found a dead woman on the ground!”

  TUESDAY MORNING

  31

  Kennicott jumped out of his car as soon as he came to a stop in the golf-club parking lot. Three police cruisers were parked in front of him, and he strode past them toward the back lawn. Greene had taught him that unless the situation was urgent, a homicide detective never runs.

  A crowd of officers was down the hill surrounding Detective Ho, who was setting up a tent over the roped-off crime scene. A golf cart was parked at an awkward angle off to the side of the path. Kennicott spotted Officer Sheppard standing near a security guard who was seated by the back wall of the main building wrapped in a heat blanket, his head down.

  Sheppard saw Kennicott and rushed over. “Call came in at two forty-six,” she said, flipping open her notebook. “No identification on the dead woman.”

  Kennicott pointed to the guard by the wall. “He find the body?”

  “It’s Mr. Roshan. He came back to work last night and saw her when he was driving down the path.”

  “Oh my. Poor man. Come with me.”

  Roshan looked up as they approached. He’d been crying.

  “Hello, Mr. Roshan,” Kennicott said.

  “Detective Kennicott,” he said.

  “Are you okay?” Kennicott said, kneeling to be at his eye level.

  “I found another poor dead woman. Why is Allah doing this to me?”

  “I don’t know,” Kennicott said. “Please, can you tell us what happened?”

  “It was terrible. I was driving my cart and I saw her at the last moment. I pulled over to avoid hitting her. I didn’t know if she was still alive.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I rushed to her and turned her over. It took two attempts as she was heavy.”

  Roshan was shaken. Kennicott knew he had to gently tease the story out of him. “And then?”

  “When I turned her over, a golf ball fell out of her mouth.”

  “A golf ball? Where is it?”

  He pointed down into the darkness toward the river. “It rolled down there and disappeared. It was more important to try to help the woman.”

  Kennicott nodded. He didn’t want to interrupt him.

  “I tried to resuscitate her, but unfortunately she was deceased. I recognized her, Detective. Please, she is the woman who helped me in the valley when I’d tumbled down off my bicycle yesterday morning. The woman who gave my wife Babita her coat.”

  Roshan began to shiver. He looked at Kennicott, his dark eyes filling with tears again.

  “Are you sure it is her?”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  Kennicott put his hand on Roshan’s thigh and turned to Sheppard.

  “Get Mr. Roshan into a warm cruiser and take him to Police Headquarters to give a videotaped statement.”

  “Right away,” Sheppard said.

  “And Officer Sheppard,” he said, “I want you to take the statement.”

  Sheppard nodded. He could see she wanted to say “Thank you” but realized it was the wrong thing to do in front of a witness.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Kennicott walked over to the tent and knelt beside the body. “Preliminary impressions?” he asked Ho.

  “It looks as if she was attacked from behind, like the other two homeless victims. Same smashed Smirnoff vodka bottle.”

  Ho lifted one of her hands. Her long fingernails were perfectly painted a bright red colour.

  “Nice manicure job,” Ho said. “I should get the name of the shop she used for my wife.”

  “She was once a Bay Street lawyer,” Kennicott said.

  Ho turned her fingers over. “Look. There’s material under the nails. Blood on her fingers too.”

  “Defensive wounds?”

  “See what comes up under the microscope at the autopsy.”

  Kennicott took one last look at Copeland. The next time he saw her, the dead woman’s body would be unceremoniously cut open, laid bare on a stainless-steel surgical table.

  He’d read about Copeland after he’d had coffee with her lawyer, Nancy Parish. Sad. She’d been a brilliant lawyer, but her demons had gotten the best of her. Kennicott thought about the cryptic text she’d sent Parish. “Nance I warnd you, but no one wd listn. The kilingz contnue. No one is imune. There is no justice.”

  He stood and walked away a few steps so he could call Greene. This was tough news to deliver.

  “What have we got?” Greene asked without even saying hello.

  “Bad. It’s Melissa Copeland.”

  “Oh no.” Greene sighed. It was unusual to hear him express emotion this way. “You certain?”

  “One hundred per cent.”

  Silence again. He could imagine Greene, his head spinning. Losing a contact such as Copeland whom he had known, worked with, and supported for years was a heavy blow. And now they had a third murder on their hands.

  “Same MO?” Greene asked at last.

  “Looks like it. Vodka bottle. Bash to the head.”

  “Golf ball?”

  “Fell out of her mouth and rolled down the hill.”

  “I have to make some calls,” Greene said. “I’ll be there soon.”

  “Ari,” Kennicott said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. And Daniel?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have to stop this.”

  32

  Although phone calls in the middle of the night were the bane of a criminal lawyer’s existence, everyone who plied the trade knew they were part of the deal. Clients didn’t usually get arrested during business hours. The phone calls came in at two, three, four in the morning. The first voice on the other end of the line was always a tired-sounding police officer, who started the conversations the same way: “Ms. Parish, it’s Detective X. Your client Y is here at the station and would like to speak to you.”

  While she scrambled out of bed to find a pen and paper, Parish would hear the shuffling sound on the other end of the line as the phone changed hands. Then a door being closed as the officer left the prisoner alone in the soundproof phone room. Then came the moment of suspense as she waited to hear the frightened voice on the tinny police-station phone.

  Was this an old client or someone she’d never talked to before? Were they being charged with assault? Theft? Fraud? Drugs? DUI? Robbery? Murder? It could be anything.

  But this time, as soon as the first ring of the phone startled her out of her sleep, Parish knew she was in no condition to deal with a late-night call from a cop. Not after what she’d done last night after she left the party.

  Why had she done it? Maybe it was because she needed to release the
built-up tension after her crazy day in court with Melissa. It could have been because she’d been stuck at that ridiculous party and felt like a total outsider. Or she could blame it on all the booze she’d drunk.

  As the party was winding down, she’d stumbled out of the ballroom to the front steps, where the car jockeys were hanging out. She looked around for Young Jack.

  “Remember me? Lucky number seventy-seven,” she said, when she spotted him. She was unsteady on her high-heel shoes and had to put her hand on his arm to keep from falling.

  “The Toyota. Who could forget?” he asked, grinning away.

  He really had a cute smile. She fished around in her little purse searching for her parking ticket.

  “Don’t worry about the ticket,” he said. “I’ll get your car.”

  “No.” She tightened her grip on his arm. Maybe a little too firmly. “I’m not going to drive. No way. Hey, I’m a criminal lawyer.” Was she slurring her words a little? Maybe a lot? “I want you to call me a cab.”

  “Then you’ll have to drive all the way back out here tomorrow to get your car.” He had a cute dimple when he smiled. Such nice white teeth. She was still squeezing his arm, feeling his firm muscles.

  “Or the day after that,” she said, giggling. “Given how much champagne and red wine I drank.”

  “Look. It’s not busy. I can drive you home.”

  Huh, she laughed to herself. Maybe Zelda was right about her great hair. What the hell. It’s November. It’s cold. It’s dark. Everyone else at this ridiculous party had someone to go home with.

  The temperature was dropping, and the rain was turning to snow. He opened an umbrella, and they both held on to it as they walked through the parking lot. Her Toyota was all by itself at the dark, far corner. Most of the rich people’s fancy cars were gone. No one was around. She wasn’t very steady on her feet, and the pavement was wet. She let go of the umbrella and held on to his arm. They started kissing as soon as they got in the car. They kissed at every stoplight on the way back to her place. Upstairs in her bedroom she peeled off her cocktail dress and tossed it on the floor. She was naked before Jack could even get fully undressed, and she did the rest for him.