Ball Park

by John Farrow

  Cinq-Mars went back inside to use the phone. While there, Dr Shapiro came out of his office and spoke to Giroux. He seemed exercised. Cinq-Mars couldn’t make out his complaint but noticed the light in his new partner’s eye. Off the phone, Cinq-Mars went over.

  ‘Dr Shapiro owned a special baseball,’ Giroux explained.

  ‘Signed by Jackie Robinson,’ the physician made known.

  ‘Signed by Jackie Robinson and appraised for how much again?’

  ‘It was an heirloom of my father’s.’

  ‘You know who Jackie Robinson is, Detective?’ Giroux asked Cinq-Mars.

  Robinson’s career in the majors, breaking the color barrier, was legendary. Montrealers had a special place in their hearts for him due to his time on their Triple-A club, the Royals. Baseball fan or not, everyone in the city knew about Jackie Robinson.

  ‘How much again?’ Giroux, unable to conceal a smug attitude, inquired.

  ‘We had it appraised at twelve grand. Time’s gone by. It’s probably worth seventeen, eighteen grand now. Hard to say.’

  ‘But not twenty. Not a round number like that.’

  The doctor seemed taken aback. ‘I’m calculating ten percent a year over four or five years. So, seventeen, eighteen grand.’

  ‘Good deduction. The value’s important. Sir, the crime now merits being called a felony, rather than a misdemeanor. That’s important. This way, we might be allocated more time to investigate.’ Giroux raised an eyebrow in his partner’s direction, convinced that they were now included in a scam. He didn’t believe anything about the ball. If it ever existed, the doctor probably had it tucked away in a drawer. An insurance claim would now be submitted for the loss of the ball and the nuisance of being burglarized.

  ‘Finally, we’re getting somewhere,’ Savina Vaccaro said.

  Before heading out, the detectives advised the couple to wait for the crime-scene unit to take fingerprints before cleaning up. The instruction pleased them. Satisfied, the doctor headed back to bed while his wife showed the policemen to the door. Her ardor for the handsome, tall Cinq-Mars had apparently chilled.

  Giroux expressed an opinion on that. ‘Your nose. For a while there, she was intrigued. Then she decided she doesn’t like it. She thinks it’ll get in the way. For kissing, and like that.’

  ‘Folks can be shallow,’ Cinq-Mars concurred. He could not show vulnerability when moving to a different department on the force.

  ‘Let’s check out the fuss down the block,’ Giroux suggested.

  An initiative Cinq-Mars welcomed.

  His Last Tiny Marble

  (The stench of him)

  ‘Both wrong,’ Giroux grumbled, probing a cavity with his tongue. A police cordon diverted traffic away from Selwood Road, which bordered the hedge and fence. Six cruisers and unmarked cars were present. ‘Not a speeder. Not a drug bust.’

  ‘That a fact?’ Sometimes cops came out in force over nothing.

  With his chin, the senior cop indicated two detectives standing next to a black Pontiac. ‘The short one, who looks like he’s wearing diapers? Paul Frigault. The tall one who thinks he’s Einstein with the frizzy hair is Marcel Caron. You know what they say about stupid people.’

  Cinq-Mars waited to hear.

  ‘They think they’re smart because they’re too dumb to know better. Smart people know they’re not. You, Cinq-Mars, think you’re a smart guy?’

  Either way, the answer would defeat him. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Homicide. Our station.’

  Cinq-Mars and Giroux ducked under the yellow barricade ribbon, flashed their badges at a patrol officer.

  ‘Speaking of people who look like shit,’ Giroux stated, and rummaged around an inside pocket of his sports coat. He pulled out a pair of sunglasses. ‘Hide the redeye. And keep yourself downwind.’

  ‘I’m not that bad,’ Cinq-Mars argued, but he accepted the glasses.

  ‘The man who thinks he smells like a daisy is usually the one who stinks to high heaven. He’s the only one immune to the stench.’

  Beyond the man’s gruff guard-dog demeanor and hangdog look, Cinq-Mars was appreciating that Giroux could deliver a salient remark. They moved toward the detectives, who greeted them with attitude.

  ‘Why you here, Giroux?’ Detective Frigault wanted to know. The man’s trousers were frumpy, which gave merit to the crack about diapers. ‘No pizza parlor in sight. No strip joint, neither.’

  Caron added his two cents. ‘Children live in this neighborhood.’ The remark hung in the air without explanation.

  ‘Visiting lonely housewives. They have urges. A few of us benefit. Others don’t, as you well know. What’s going on?’

  ‘Help yourself. Just don’t upchuck on my shoes.’

  What Giroux could not see through the windshield of the Pontiac, due to the glare of sunlight, became apparent through the open side window. He had a long look. Rather than step away, he pulled his jacket tight to his belly, then stuck his head deeper into the car. When he resurfaced, he indicated to Cinq-Mars to check it out for himself.

  Under the circumstances, Cinq-Mars was not shocked to find a dead man behind the wheel. He removed the sunglasses. He’d seen the dead who’d been victims of violence before although he was not accustomed to the view. The victim’s youth and the bloodiness were disconcerting. He repeated Giroux’s movement, not coming into contact with the car but poking his head further inside. On the seat he counted three watches, four rings, and a gold pen.

  The guy with the Einstein cut – his hair only half as extravagant as the physicist’s – suddenly stood next to him. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said.

  Wearing nitrile gloves, he opened the passenger-side door. Along the sill below the window, blood had been smeared in a way that stood out from the pooling and splatter elsewhere. ‘The killer left prints in blood. He had nothing to wipe them clean, so he smeared them. Equally effective.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Cinq-Mars murmured, neither in agreement nor in dispute. He went around to the driver’s side. He crouched to gaze inside. Detective Marcel Caron followed him around. ‘Mind if I look in?’

  Caron checked with his boss, who shrugged, then opened the driver’s door.

  ‘Don’t touch,’ Caron warned.

  ‘Not my first,’ Cinq-Mars revealed.

  He seemed to be concentrating on the fatal wound.

  ‘Puncture wounds,’ Caron declared, in case the new guy hadn’t figured that out. ‘Choose your weapon. Knife. Ice pick. Screwdriver.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Cinq-Mars said again. He put the sunglasses back on.

  The repetition of his murmur seemed to irritate the homicide detective.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? You think it’s an axe wound? It’s not a bullet.’

  ‘Small. Sharp,’ Cinq-Mars agreed. ‘I’m not convinced by what you said before. The killer didn’t smear his prints.’

  ‘You think the dead guy did it.’ He enjoyed a chuckle.

  Cinq-Mars waited for the laughter to simmer down. ‘The clothing was pushed into the wound by the knife, then came back out in this direction when withdrawn. He was killed through this window. Driver’s side. Not from the passenger seat. Which means the smearing was done by somebody else. Maybe somebody who was in the car. Not by the killer. If by the killer, why didn’t he smear his other prints, which are obvious on the dash, and on the inside and outside of the passenger door?’

  The other three detectives stood still. Giroux broke the stalemate. ‘Bad enough we got Einstein, now we got Sherlock Holmes. We’ll bust this case wide open by noon.’

  ‘What do you mean, we?’ Frigault interjected, chuckling away. ‘You’re not on the case, Giroux. Time to run along and play.’

  Giroux stewed, and waited for his new partner to come around to his side of the car before he announced, ‘This is my case now.’

  Frigault’s head drooped with exaggerated incredulity. Detective Caron finished lighting a smoke, shook out the match and tossed it. He spoke in
a voice so dry that Cinq-Mars thought he sandpapered his larynx at night. ‘The man has lost his last tiny marble, boys. Had to happen. You’re brain-dead, Giroux. That it took so long, the only surprise.’

  ‘My case,’ Giroux insisted. ‘You boys can head home now. Wait for some lover to shoot a rival. That’s as close as you’ll get to sex.’

  Caron inhaled down to his toes before he enumerated the obvious. ‘We’ve been assigned. Not you. You’re B&E. Petty crime. We’re homicide. You’re tiddlywinks.’

  ‘Who’s the new playmate?’ Frigault inquired.

  Cinq-Mars identified himself when his new partner showed no interest in doing so. Perhaps he’d forgotten his name.

  ‘From the Night Patrol,’ Giroux added. Cinq-Mars wished he hadn’t done that.

  The raw-throated warbler, Caron, responded. ‘Heard of you. Touton’s boy. You must’ve had a miserable falling out to land with this joker.’

  ‘I committed a cardinal sin,’ Cinq-Mars deadpanned. ‘Requested a transfer.’

  ‘Whew. Live and learn,’ Detective Frigault advised him.

  ‘You have my sympathies,’ Caron remarked.

  ‘He wears sunglasses,’ Giroux chimed in, betraying him. ‘Thinks he’s so cool.’ Giroux had extended a plank, helped him to step up on it, and now forced him to walk it. Cinq-Mars was on his own amid these pirates.

  ‘A windbreaker on the job,’ Frigault pointed out. ‘No dress code for you, huh? Cinq-Mars, do you get a free pass because you were on the goddamn Night Patrol?’

  ‘Easy, Paul. He’ll pull out his Night Patrol wand. Zap you into a frog.’

  ‘I’m already a Frog.’

  ‘I don’t mean he’ll make you French. He’ll send you back to the swamp to croak in the sun.’

  ‘Beats the life I have now.’

  ‘All right,’ Cinq-Mars said. He could not show irritation. Easy to remind himself of that, more difficult to pull it off.

  ‘He thinks he’s had enough,’ Caron said. ‘Detective! I don’t believe that part about asking for a transfer. You got shoved down here for a reason. We’ll find out why. Might as well tell us. How bad did you screw up?’

  Cinq-Mars ignored the question. ‘You have a dead boy in a car. Isn’t that more important here?’

  ‘Not your concern. Not your partner’s either.’

  Finally, Giroux pitched in. ‘Stolen property on the car seat.’

  ‘The watches?’ Frigault inquired. ‘The rings? Could be stolen. Who’s to know?’

  ‘The stolen goods come from a house around the corner, right over there.’ He pointed to it, an edge of the house visible. ‘My B&E. It’s my case now.’

  ‘Seriously? You pulled a B&E connected to our homicide? I guess that makes your break-in mine.’

  ‘Frigault, get over that idea in a hurry. Too much time in. I’ll take the homicide.’

  ‘Murder is out of your league, Giroux,’ Frigault said.

  ‘Thanks for the input,’ the gravelly Caron added. ‘Maybe you solved our case, maybe we solved yours. If you don’t mind too much, we’ll take credit for both.’

  Initially surprised by his partner’s argument, Cinq-Mars cottoned on. They were not usurping a homicide investigation. That idea was ludicrous from the get-go. Giroux was putting up a fight not to take on that case, but to keep from losing the one he had. That a murder was part of it made it exponentially more interesting. If he fought well, he might win the right to continue investigating his minor B&E. The best he could hope for.

  The men goaded one another on. Another sour internecine skirmish between departments. They did not acquit themselves well. Had they been members of the Night Patrol, Cinq-Mars mulled, Captain Touton would have taken a sledgehammer to their kneecaps. Not governed by that example, the men sounded as though they’d soon insult one another’s lineage.

  Miffed, somewhat embarrassed, Cinq-Mars walked away. He took the opportunity to sidle up to a uniformed officer guarding the perimeter. A man about his own age. As it turned out, he’d been the first officer on the scene.

  ‘Rough start to your day,’ Cinq-Mars commiserated.

  ‘A lousy way to end it, actually. I’m coming off an overnight.’ Average height and solid build, in uniform he looked fit.

  ‘We’re keeping you up.’

  ‘That’s the job.’

  Émile Cinq-Mars put his finger on what was different. The constable was English. Within the Police Service, French was the language of discourse. He conversed in English when it was the first or preferred language of a witness or suspect, or of anyone from the public, but typically he spoke French to colleagues, including those who were English. Other than with the couple that morning, he hadn’t spoken English in weeks, so seized the opportunity to switch from French for the practice.

  ‘You were driving by. What made you stop?’

  The man hesitated, as it was not the usual form, then also continued in English. ‘Two girls. We took down their names and addresses, let them carry on to high school. Before class they had ballet, why they were up so early. They thought the guy was asleep. They yelled at him. They wanted to startle him, run away laughing. Schoolgirl stuff. Instead, they got the shock of their lives.’

  ‘Then you came along.’

  ‘They rang a doorbell. That one,’ the officer said, and indicated the nearest house. ‘Nobody was willing to answer. They were running back to one of the girls’ homes when they spotted my cruiser.’

  Cinq-Mars changed his angle to the officer, obeying Giroux’s edict to stay downwind of folks. He noticed scarring on the man’s right cheek. He suspected that the cop had endeavored to make it as a pro hockey player; when that didn’t work out, unprepared for the real world, he became a cop.

  Recruiting off the rinks provided the force with both good cops and bitter ones.

  ‘I know who you are,’ the uniform said. ‘Seen you around. You’re Night Patrol.’

  ‘I guess because you work nights, you’ve seen me.’

  ‘That’s why I do.’

  ‘Sorry?’ He felt he missed something.

  ‘Hoping to be noticed for the Patrol. Up to now, that hasn’t worked.’

  ‘I have a feeling you’d do well.’

  ‘Put in a word?’

  ‘Sorry to say, they’re disbanding.’

  The cop was instantly demoralized, as though his hope for the future was dashed.

  ‘Good cops have an option,’ Cinq-Mars mentioned.

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘Form our own.’

  The uniform looked to be both skeptical and interested.

  ‘Not our own Night Patrol, obviously. Our own alliances. Good cops will be dispersed. That makes them less effective, less of an influence. Doesn’t have to be that way. If good cops stay in contact, they can help each other out. Especially when the bureaucrats stub their toes getting in our way. Nothing illegal, nothing vigilante. A willingness to collaborate.’

  He caught the man nodding with genuine interest.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Wyatt, sir. Brandon.’

  ‘When it’s just us, go easy on the “sir” bit.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Now help me out. Maybe my English is coming along, but English names kill me. Which is your first name, which your last?’

  The officer released a laugh, perhaps finally feeling at ease. ‘It’s Brandon, sir. Sorry – not sir. Brandon comes first. Brandon Wyatt.’

  ‘I’m Émile. Most of the time. I’d shake but the old guys would ask what’s going on. Listen, did you find a baseball in the car?’

  He believed the man’s shrug to be an honest expression of incomprehension.

  ‘Cash?’

  ‘Nope.’ The mention of cash got his back up.

  ‘What about the girls? Any chance they snooped around?’

  ‘Hard to believe. They’re kids, Émile. Maybe they’re not seriously traumatized, but they went through the shock of their lives. They wouldn’t root aro
und for something to steal.’

  ‘I hear you. I want to check your car. I believe you, Brandon, but the brass might not unless I do a check. Any objection?’

  ‘Knock yourself out.’

  ‘By the way, the dead guy’s car? Motor running or off?’

  ‘Off.’

  ‘And the young guy? Has he been identified, do you know?’

  ‘His name is Dietmar Ferstel. His car. He lives on the other side of the fence.’

  ‘In Park Ex.’

  ‘On Champagneur.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Checking the patrol car for stolen property, Cinq-Mars was happy to come up empty.

  Giroux was wondering what his new sidekick was doing.

  ‘What the hell was that about?’ he pressed him.

  ‘Let’s wake up the doctor. Have a chat,’ Cinq-Mars suggested.

  ‘Do we have a purpose, or do we genuinely dislike the guy?’

  ‘Where’s the baseball?’

  ‘Proves my point, right? He’s a scammer. You want to nail him. Are you learning the ropes, Cinq-Mars? We’ll get him to understand we’re fine with him ripping off the insurance company … if we get our cut. Is that your angle?’

  ‘You’re full of shit, Giroux.’

  ‘Is that significant? Helps you with absolutely nothing in your life.’

  ‘I’m thinking, if there is a baseball, we have a clue to hunt down our B&E guy. Find the baseball, find the killer. Or, let’s say our doctor coming home interrupted the robbery and wanted his baseball back. The other stuff, not so much. I mean, maybe he doesn’t want to tell his wife he killed a man, right?’

  ‘Whoa, whoa. Way ahead of yourself, Cinq-Mars.’

  ‘Miles and miles. Still, we need to talk to the doctor before homicide does. Let’s see if he can prove the baseball exists. If it’s real, not an insurance scam, then either homicide stole it – unlikely in my books, though you’ll call me naive – or the doctor still has it, for scam purposes. Or the killer does. In that case, we have a clue to hunt the killer down. If the doctor cannot prove it exists in the first place, then sign up for his scam. Keep me out of it. At least we won’t waste time looking for something that doesn’t exist.’