Summer of the Gun

by Warren Court

  “No. It was confidential. He doesn’t know mine; I don’t know his.”

  “Go on.”

  “The tipster said that the guy wanted in the recent shooting of a Durham police officer was at a certain location.”

  “Why did you not inform Durham Police?”

  “There was no time. I believe the informant told Detective Wozniak that the person was getting ready to bolt—excuse me, leave the jurisdiction and go further underground. We didn’t want to lose him.”

  “So you went to this location. Uh…” He referenced his notes. “Jamestown Cement Inc.”

  “Yes.”

  “You secured the scene. Why not call in Durham at that time?”

  “I don’t know. I was following Detective Wozniak’s lead.”

  “Weren’t you in command of your faculties?” Concordia said incredulously. “You knew you were going against procedure?”

  “Yes, I was. I chose to go ahead with my partner.”

  “So you illegally entered this premise?”

  “Probable cause,” Temple said.

  “From an unknown source.”

  “Not unknown, you—” Temple stopped himself. “It was a confidential source.”

  “And you proceeded to break and enter into the facility’s main office and shoot to death a civilian.”

  “A suspect.”

  “Did you know him to be a suspect?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Detective Wozniak told me.”

  Concordia rolled his eyes.

  “Tell me how the shooting went down. From the moment you arrived at the plant.”

  “We parked on the road. Found an easy way in through the fence on the east side of the property. Entered the grounds, weapons drawn. We scouted it out, made our way to the office, which was near the front gate. We surmised our suspect was in there. Detective Wozniak took the rear door; I took the front.

  “We entered, shouted tactical commands, and when I turned on the lights the suspect popped up and fired at us. We, fearing—”

  “Just talk about yourself. Don’t propose what Detective Wozniak was feeling.”

  “I, fearing for my life, returned fire in order to protect myself and my partner.”

  “He was hit eleven times,” Concordia said.

  “I guess I was a better shot that night than usual. Wozniak fired as well.”

  “You spent nine rounds. He spent five.”

  Temple could hear the derision in Concordia’s voice as he said the word spent. “Correct. I was in fear for my life. It was dark in the back of the trailer.”

  “But you turned the lights on.”

  “It was two trailers, end to end, and the second one was in darkness. I only saw a shape. A shape that fired a gun at us. I put down the rounds necessary to protect our lives.”

  Concordia stopped the tape and turned to his assistant. “Leave us.” When she was gone, Concordia took off his glasses and glared at Temple. Temple couldn’t help but smirk.

  “You and your partner were drunk. You were out of your jurisdiction, not working a case like you’ve testified, and you went to that plant and murdered an innocent man.”

  “Suspect,” Temple said loudly.

  “Was he proven guilty? Did you even have time to check his ID before you filled him full of holes?”

  “He shouldn’t have shot at us. Dumb idiot. He killed a cop.”

  “That is irrelevant to procedure, or lack thereof, that you followed.”

  “I don’t need this.” Temple got to his feet. “Are we through?”

  “For now. I’ll need you and Detective Wozniak out at the scene to walk me through it.”

  “Fine. Call 40 College and book my time.” Temple turned the door handle.

  “I’m not letting this slide, Temple,” Concordia said.

  Temple stopped and turned and walked back to Concordia, who did his best not to shrink away from the detective towering over him.

  “It’s Detective Temple, Homicide.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Concordia said.

  52

  Despite the heat, Temple walked back to 40 College. He was tempted to step into a bar on the way for a cold one, but he had limited time.

  He was drenched in sweat by the time he was back at his desk, but the eight-block walk had helped to clear his mind and focus him on his next steps. He went over to the vents on the fifth floor. They were pouring out cold air.

  “Hot out there, huh?” Mendoza said.

  Temple said nothing. He took his jacket off and stood in front of the waist-high vent, letting the cold air blast his groin and his upper body into chilled heaven.

  “I should take a pic of this,” Mendoza said.

  “Go ahead,” Temple said. Having said that, he realized that the thought of a picture of him apparently screwing the air vent was not something he wanted circulating around 40 College, so he turned quickly and grabbed his jacket.

  “Anything come back on Taylor?”

  “He’s got a Canadian birth certificate. Never served in the Canadian army. He did attend McMaster for engineering. Good school for that. My brother went there—”

  “What about after college?”

  “Started work in construction. To get access to his bank accounts and tax returns, we’d have to file another production order and—”

  “I know the procedure. We’re not there yet on him. Hold on.”

  Temple sat down, checked his phone for the number and dialled.

  General Markinson answered. He sounded haggard and out of breath.

  “General, it’s Detective Temple from Toronto.”

  “You again. You catch Kiet’s killer?”

  “Not yet. Still working on the theory of an ex-Vietnam vet. We really need a list of Marines who were in-country during 1975.”

  “In-country—listen to you.”

  “I watched the Ken Burns documentary.”

  “That hippie didn’t do too bad a job, except he put the Viet Cong in front of the camera. My trigger finger kept making a pulling motion.” Markinson laughed.

  “I understand.”

  “I told you I can’t give you what you want. No way the Defence Department or the Marines would give that info out. There are ways to find out, though. They have a whole community. Last Man Out, I believe it’s called.”

  “Let me ask you, do you ever remember your friend saying that a Marine named Taylor was the one who killed his wife?”

  “No, I don’t, but it was a long time ago. It was chaotic those last few months, you understand. I was trying to get my people out, Kiet Du included. The commies kept getting closer and closer, and the whole south just folded. If Kiet told me the name I don’t remember. Sorry.”

  “Okay. Thank you, General.” Temple felt Mendoza tapping him on the shoulder and he brushed him off. “I might need to contact you further if we narrow down a suspect.”

  Mendoza tapped again. Temple brushed him off and swung around to give him a look.

  “Sure, sure, Detective. Good luck,” Markinson said, and Temple hung up.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  “The funeral, the memorial service for the owner of the Beautiful City—it started ten minutes ago. I just checked the funeral home website.”

  “Let’s go.”

  53

  They made it down to Temple’s car in two minutes and roared out of the underground parking garage, almost hitting a sergeant on his way in. The sergeant gave them the finger.

  “Sorry about that, Sarge,” Temple said imitating some of the soldiers slang he’d seen on the Burns documentary. Mendoza pulled up the address on his phone.

  “It’s 4521 Bloor West. You should go up University to Wellesley and kick over.”

  “Really? You’re going to tell me how to drive my own city?”

  Mendoza put his phone away.

  They made it up just as people started coming out of the funeral home. It was a fairly large gatheri
ng of the Asian community, with a smattering of non-Asians mixed in. Temple had a hard time reconciling that this guy had been such a beacon in his community, a small-time business owner who had probably been just getting by. Maybe it was the violent way he’d died that had brought this many people out. Temple pulled into a bus pickup spot to watch.

  “Dude, we can’t park here,” Mendoza said.

  “Just keep watching. She will be here, even if that’s not her father in the box.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. At last, a group of women came through the door, together with a few men and young boys in suits. They were all dressed in black, and they all seemed to surround one person in particular. Temple couldn’t get a good look at her. Then the women dispersed and Temple saw Sue Du and an older woman getting into a car that had the best spot in the funeral home’s parking lot.

  “Right,” he thought. “No hearse, no cemetery.” The body was a smouldering pile of ash now and would soon be transferred to a box that the daughter could pick up later. Temple had no doubt she was going to carry the ruse right through to the end.

  There was a blast of a bus horn behind them. Mendoza jumped a foot in his seat. Temple looked in his side-view mirror at the irate driver, who was red-faced and shouting at Temple to move.

  “Relax, pal,” Temple said, and put his car in gear to follow the daughter.

  54

  Temple and Mendoza followed the car for twenty minutes. Mendoza called in the plates and it came back registered to a Vicky Nguyen.

  Aunt Vicky, Temple dubbed her.

  They went north to a nice suburban neighbourhood in Markham, crossing jurisdictional lines into York Regional Police territory. Aunt Vicky pulled into the open garage of a two-story home and shut the garage door behind her. There were other cars out in front of the home already, and people started getting out of them. All of them were Asian; they must have been waiting for Aunt Vicky and Sue Du to return. More cars arrived, and in total fifteen people filed into the house; the memorial was continuing inside the home. Then all was quiet. Kids played in the street. One guy was washing his car. Temple and Mendoza sat down the street for twenty minutes, just watching.

  “You think he’s in there?” Mendoza asked.

  “I don’t know. He can’t make an appearance at his own memorial. Maybe if it was just Vicky and the daughter in there, but not with fifteen people around. If they’re going to pull this off, he has to completely disappear. No, I’d say he’s tucked away in a hotel somewhere. But somewhere close by.”

  “What can we do?” Mendoza asked.

  “If we can get her to communicate with him, we could grab a location. I don’t think we’re going to get her to confess, not unless we drag her into a room and go to work on her. And what proof do we have now that the body is fried?”

  “We should have busted her for making a false police report.”

  “For incorrectly identifying her dead father? All she has to say is she was too distressed to make an accurate ID. You saw the guy’s face; it was blown away. So she made a mistake. That’s all a lawyer has to say, and she walks, and her father pulls off his disappearing job. And we never find who shot up his restaurant. Chance to start again. It’ll be hard; his daughter will have to go with him. He’ll need new IDs, a new job. But she’ll get the life insurance. That’ll help. Life will go on and Kiet Du will never see his wife’s killer again.”

  “Maybe he’s planning his own revenge,” Mendoza said.

  “Could be. If we can find him, I’ll bet we can get a name out of him quick. Or follow him if he’s planning a hit on his own.”

  “So we just sit here?”

  “Let’s back off for now. We know where’s she’s staying. Let’s get a production order on that house, her cell phones if she has any. Then we spook her and she’ll lead us right to her father.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s go get fitted for a suit,” Temple said as he did a three-point turn.

  “Come again?” Mendoza said.

  “Go see a tailor. Taylor?”

  “Oh, right.”

  55

  Taylor’s house was what Temple would have expected from a construction tycoon. It was in a gated community, one of the few in Toronto, and Temple flashed his tin for the security guard at the gate even though there was no barrier.

  The security guard made like he wanted to ask him a question, but Temple didn’t bother slowing down. The houses were on huge lots with two- and three-car garages. There were a lot of shiny, expensive foreign automobiles in the driveways.

  They found Taylor’s house. There was an Asian woman unloading pink plastic bags from the back of a BMW 7 Series.

  “We don’t even know if he’s home.”

  “Nope,” Temple said.

  “Oh, look. More Asians,” Mendoza said, and chuckled.

  “Cut that shit out. Temple mused. “If she’s Vietnamese, that might explain a lot. How old is this guy?”

  “Sixty-three, I think. Wait a sec.” Mendoza had gotten info on him from a Ministry of Transportation search of Taylor’s driver’s licence and birth certificate. The guy had never been charged with anything, had never shown up in any of their systems.

  “That would have made him how old in seventy-five?” Temple said.

  “Ummm...” Mendoza was trying to do the math.

  “Nineteen, you idiot,” Temple said.

  “I would have got it.”

  They parked in front of the house and caught the woman coming out for the final two bags. She stopped halfway down the driveway.

  Temple introduced himself and his partner. “Ma’am, we’d like to speak to Mr. Taylor.”

  She pulled the bags out of the trunk and Temple closed the lid for her.

  “He isn’t home,” the woman said.

  “Are you his wife?” Temple asked.

  “Yes,” she said. There was a slight trace of an accent; Temple couldn’t place it. He thought about the part of the Burns documentary that spoke of the American GIs and the girls they met over in Vietnam. Some managed to get them out. Most were left behind.

  “Do you know where he’s gone?” Temple asked.

  “He’s at work.”

  “We called his office. There was no answer.”

  “He’ll be on a job site. I don’t know which one. He doesn’t go into that office more than five times a month. What is this all about?”

  “It’s police business, ma’am. Do you have a cell number we can reach him at?” Mendoza had been unable to come up with that.

  “No, sorry. I don’t.”

  “Really?” Temple said, and laughed. “Big businessman like that doesn’t have a cell?”

  She reddened and stared at the ground, looking like she was going to burst from embarrassment.

  “It’s okay, ma’am. We’ll track him down. If he comes home or calls, please have him call me. It’s important.” He handed one of his cards to her.

  Temple was laughing as he got back in the car. “She doesn’t have his cell number. What a crock.”

  “You should have pressed her for it.”

  “It would have been fake. You ever meet a woman who couldn’t give out a fake number in a heartbeat?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Let’s swing by his office. We’ll get the right number there.”

  Taylor’s office was in an industrial park along with a number of other contractors’ businesses—a major machinery sales office, a home construction wholesaler. One shop was selling prefab swimming pools and Temple eyed one lovingly, but the rear of his house, on the Scarborough Bluffs, was constantly eroding. His neighbour had once had an in-ground swimming pool; it had been drained, and three feet of the deep end hung out into open space. The guy had put a deck overtop of the concrete pool, but even that was too hazardous to walk on now. Temple just hoped he was there the day the entire thing tipped over and fell down the Bluffs. That would be something to see.

  The woman behind the counter in Ta
ylor’s office was named Sheila. She was sorting things out on her desk like she’d just got in. She was attractive, in her late thirties, and had tanned, wrinkly cleavage, enormous fake boobs, a dazzling smile and electric blue eyes. She nearly swooned at the sight of Temple’s badge.

  “He’s on a job site,” she said.

  “The one in Chinatown?” Temple asked.

  “No, out near the airport.” She wrote down the address.

  “They’re putting condos up near the airport? Thought everyone bitched about that,” Mendoza said.

  “They usually start bitching five years after the building is complete,” Sheila said. “Try to get their condo fees reduced. Like they didn’t see the planes flying right overhead when they came out to look at the presentation centre.”

  Temple smiled. “We’ll go out to see him. Just in case we don’t run into him, here’s my card. It has my cell on it.”

  She nodded and took it. Mendoza raised his eyebrows.

  “Kind of old, ain’t she?” he said when they were back in the car.

  “Man, look at her. There’s a lot of love left in her. If Taylor isn‘t banging her, I’m going to.”

  The address Sheila had given them was right in the shadow of the landing zone for Pearson International Airport. An Air Canada jet flew right over them as they drove up, so close it looked like the landing gear was going to touch the roof of the car.

  “What the fuck?” Mendoza screamed, and he hunched down. Temple flinched too, and laughed. “Not funny, man. I thought that thing was going to land on the roof.”

  “I imagine if you live out here you could get used to it.”

  “Never. I don’t care how cheap the condo fees are.”

  They entered a forest of sixty-story condo buildings; beyond that was a clearing with the construction site in the middle. A tower was going up. At only forty stories, it was shorter than the completed buildings, but cranes were working like crazy trying to put height on it.

  They pulled into the parking lot, ignoring the sign saying ‘For workers only. Hard hats a must.’ A fat guy in a tight, collared shirt ringed with huge sweat stains approached the car as they got out.

  “You two make a wrong turn?” he said.