Cold Comfort

by Scott Mackay

  “I guess we’ll have to get in touch with them,” Gilbert said. He lifted the bullet paperweight and turned it on its side. “Does the name sound familiar to you?”

  “What name?”

  “Varley.”

  Lombardo cocked his head. “No,” he said. “Should it?”

  Gilbert shook his head to himself. “I don’t know.” He put the paperweight down. “Maybe…no, I guess not. But I can’t help…”

  Lombardo shrugged. “Do you want me to get some sandwiches or something?”

  But Gilbert hardly listened. Varley. He filed it away, then looked up at Lombardo.

  “Any make on the blood yet?”

  Lombardo nodded. “The stuff we found on the bathroom floor was Cheryl’s. The stuff under the kitchen sink…” Lombardo took his hands out of his pockets and put them on his hips. “Well…it’s somebody else’s.”

  “Mystery blood.”

  “You guessed it.”

  “What about the hair?”

  “It’s not Cheryl’s. That’s about as far as we’ve got.”

  “Anything new from Dominion Malting?”

  A sudden wind blew a snow squall against the pane.

  “Fifty-two Division’s gone over and over it. Either the ejected cartridge has been lost, or the perp took it with him when he left.”

  Five

  Early the next day, with the shift barely an hour old, and the sky still dark on yet another frigidly cold February morning, Staff Inspector Bill Marsh called Detective-Sergeant Barry Gilbert into his office. The Staff Inspector’s office overlooked the police courtyard, with a view of the old YMCA below. A large man to begin with, Marsh looked even larger in this small office. The desktop computer had been relegated to a shelf. A Smith-Corona electric typewriter, veteran of a thousand murder cases, as battered and war-scarred as Marsh, sat front and center.

  “Two things, Barry,” said Marsh.

  A stack of case file folders sat at Marsh’s elbow; Gilbert recognized most of the numbers as his own, open homicides from the last three months. Gilbert waited.

  “I got a call last night as I was going home,” said Marsh. “From Deputy Chief Ling. He was asking about the Cheryl Latham case. He wants to know if you’ve developed a suspect yet.”

  Gilbert glanced at Marsh’s shelf full of bowling trophies. “Bill, it’s been two days.”

  “That’s our usual envelope.”

  “We have some ideas. Whether they’ll pan out remains to be seen.”

  “Isn’t that kind of vague?”

  “We’re still gathering evidence.”

  Through the open door of Marsh’s office Gilbert saw Carol Reid; she glanced their way, smelling blood.

  “Not good enough, Barry. I want a name.”

  “I’m not prepared to give you a name. If I give you a name, you’re going to run with it. And I don’t think we’re at the running stage yet.”

  Marsh leaned forward, putting his beefy forearms on the table; his chrome accordion-style watchband glittered in the overhead fluorescent light.

  “This is high profile, Barry. You know it is.”

  “No one’s told the press.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Ling’s pushing me. He’s looking at the statistics.”

  “Let him look all he likes. Those statistics mean nothing.”

  “But this is Tom Webb’s stepdaughter.”

  “I know that.”

  “And Webb was seen at the Coroner’s Building yesterday.”

  “That’s procedure.”

  “No. I mean he was seen.”

  Gilbert’s eyes narrowed; Marsh’s anxiety was always contagious. “Seen by whom?” asked Gilbert.

  “By Ronald Roffey.”

  “Does he follow me wherever I go?” asked Gilbert.

  “The idiot’s going to print something,” said Marsh. “He wants to know why Tom Webb was at the Coroner’s Building yesterday.”

  Gilbert took a deep breath. He shrugged. “It was just a matter of time, Bill. I think we better start working on a statement.”

  “Okay, okay.” Marsh’s face reddened. “That’s my first point. Now for my second point.”

  “Which is?”

  Gilbert contemplated Marsh. As usual, Marsh seemed annoyed by the whole world; he believed he was surrounded by invisible enemies. And whenever Marsh felt surrounded by invisible enemies, he picked on people. It was Gilbert’s turn today.

  Marsh took a sip of his coffee. “Don’t get me wrong, Barry, I like you, I think your work is stellar, but sometimes I think you get a little too creative. You got to take a simpler approach. Second point, Wesley Rowe. Here you got enough evidence to nail the guy for first-degree murder, and he’s still out walking the streets.”

  “He’s in a co-op, Bill.” Gilbert began to get a sour feeling inside. “He’s not going to run. He’s mentally incompetent. He wouldn’t know how to run even if you showed him the road.”

  “You got blood all over the place, you got an axe in his mother’s head, and you got the guy sitting on the front steps waiting for the police to come. He actually takes them upstairs to the crime scene.”

  “Yeah, but consider the extenuating circumstances, Bill. He’s forty years old and he’s never done more than rake leaves or mow lawns for pocket change. He can’t even spell his own name. He’s lived with his mother all his life. He can hardly change a light bulb. And you expect him to deal with IVs, catheters, bedpans, and fourteen different kinds of medication?”

  “He killed his mother, Barry. The guy deserves to rot. You chop your mother with an axe in seven different places, you deserve to rot.”

  “This was a preventable homicide. Susan Allen should have known better. She should have asked for home care right from the start.”

  But Marsh seemed not to hear.

  “Point one, Barry. I want a suspect in the Latham case, and I want it fast. Point two, I want Wesley Rowe off the streets. We got to start making ourselves look good around here. I want him booked on first-degree, and I want you to forget about the social worker. I’ll give you a few days to square it with the Park, but I want Rowe in here no later than Monday. Let’s start acting like cops. We’re not here to save the world, Barry. We’re here to make arrests.”

  Gilbert smoldered for the next fifteen minutes. He stared at his blank computer screen, slouched in his chair, hands steepled before him, letting his anger flow through him. It filled all the crannies and backwaters of his subconscious, but after five minutes, the hot mist of its immediacy began to fade, and he was able to see through it. Wesley Rowe didn’t deserve first-degree. Wesley Rowe was a forty-year-old child. Wesley Rowe needed help, but he didn’t need, and certainly didn’t deserve, twenty-five years in the Kingston Penitentiary. Still, Gilbert had to bring him in. Marsh gave the orders around here. But that didn’t mean he was necessarily going to give Susan Allen a break.

  He was just making a cup of instant coffee when John Jackson from Missing Persons entered the Homicide Office. Jackson was an older man, wore a three-piece suit, looked more like a lawyer than a Missing Persons detective. He said a few words to Sylvia Gideon, one of the secretaries. Sylvia turned around and pointed to Gilbert’s desk. Jackson looked over the various work stations in the large central office and gave Gilbert a small wave. The Missing Persons detective weaved his way through the workstations to Gilbert’s desk.

  “You’ve got a hike to the cafeteria down here, don’t you?” said Jackson.

  Gilbert shrugged. “We don’t eat much. We live on coffee.”

  Jackson nodded, deadpan. “I thought so.” He held up a Xerox copy of something. “Thought you’d like to see this. You’re working the Latham case, aren’t you?”

  “Joe and I.”

  “Her husband called this in.”

  Gilbert took the report. Dated the eighteenth of February, 9:07 a.m., the morning Cheryl was discovered at Dominion Malting.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You have to be gone at
least forty-eight hours before you’re considered missing. The security tape has her in the Glenarden the previous evening, less than twelve hours before. Why would he file a missing persons report?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jackson. “That’s why I thought you should see this. Is he trying to make himself look good?”

  Gilbert glanced over the report again. “Maybe,” he said. “Either that or he’s just plain stupid.” He put the report on his desk.

  “Like pre-emptive cooperation,” said Jackson.

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  “Has he been notified?” asked Jackson.

  Gilbert nodded. “We phoned yesterday. I’m going to see him today.”

  “Then I’ll close it from our end, Barry,” he said. Jackson gave him a grin that wasn’t in the least bit envious. “You guys can have it.”

  Gilbert drove in an unmarked car to Latham’s expensive three-storey home in Rosedale. The oaks were a hundred years old, thick behemoths that towered above the huge houses like dour guardians of wealth and prestige, leafless at this time of year, the stark tracery of their bare branches somehow unnerving against the pale grey sky. Latham’s house had to be at least a century old as well, one of those late-Victorian brick-piles so prevalent in this part of Rosedale; yet its prim facade had been punctured with an assortment of thermal windows, one of them rising the full three storeys to the central gable. Skylights abounded. A glass sunroom had been added to the side.

  Latham’s Mercedes stood in the drive; Latham usually didn’t leave for his office until noon. Not only a Mercedes, but a Chief Cherokee as well. Gilbert parked at the curb, walked up the drive, and checked the tires on both cars. Uniroyals on the Mercedes and Goodyears on the Cherokee. That by no means ruled Latham out. A Filipino man with a snow-blower emerged from the garage and approached him.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m Detective Gilbert,” he said, pulling out his shield. “I’m here to see Mr. Latham.”

  The man pointed to the front door. “Go right up,” he said. “Sally will see you in.”

  Gilbert climbed the steps to an elaborate porch made of brick, added to the original Victorian facade, somewhat out of character with the rest of the place, at least to Gilbert’s mind. Latham was an architect. Let him play with his house. He was a partner in one of the largest architectural firms downtown. If he wanted to mix and match styles, that was his prerogative.

  He knocked on the door. Sally answered. She, too, was Filipino, around thirty-five years old, with a cheery face, long black hair braided in a ponytail, wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and an apron. Gilbert smelled coffee brewing within.

  “Hi,” she said. “Detective Gilbert, right? Come in. It’s so cold out there. I’ll let Mr. Latham know you’re here.”

  “Thanks.”

  He gave his feet a wipe and followed her into a large front hall. Everything had been renovated. Everything had clean lines and well-defined angles, done in muted pastel shades. His eyes strayed over a large Chinese vase, a few abstract expressionist sculptures in white marble on pedestals, a Persian rug laid over the thick white broadloom. He followed Sally through an extensive pantry and entered the kitchen. The kitchen was bigger than his own living room. In the center stood an island with enough counter space to prepare a banquet; around the sides, endless cupboard space, two ranges, a microwave; and at the back a huge breakfast nook set against a capacious bay window which looked out onto a large terraced garden leading down to the steamy glass walls of an indoor swimming pool. Three pencil sketches hung on the wall, one neatly next to the other, each signed by Picasso; here was a man who could afford to hang Picassos in his kitchen.

  “Have a chair,” said Sally. Without asking, she brought him a cup of coffee and a Chelsea bun; the Chelsea bun itself looked like it cost ten dollars. “He’s at his drafting table. I’ll have to drag him away.” She put her hands on her hips, making a face that was both scolding and indulgent. “This might take a minute.”

  He sat there trying not to feel overwhelmed. Every so often he would buy an Architectural Digest, a magazine that was really a home decorating manual for the excessively wealthy. And here he was, inside one of those homes. Was this what he had given up when he quit architectural school? The old regret came back. About the only architectural decision he had made in the last while was whether they were going to buy a pedestal sink or wall-mounted sink for the bathroom. Imagine if he had a space like this old house to work with. Nothing was so magical as light and space, and the uses humans put it to.

  Charles Latham appeared at the kitchen doorway. Gilbert wasn’t expecting someone so young. He was tall, not so much handsome as intelligent-looking, with unruly reddish hair receding from his prominent brow. He couldn’t have been more than forty. He was stoop-shouldered, exceedingly thin, and wore prescription glasses, the kind that turned light or dark according to brightness, and his blue eyes behind the thick lenses looked somewhat small. He was pale, and the beige corduroy blazer with brown elbow patches seemed to accentuate his paleness. He looked like a man who had most probably had all sorts of respiratory problems as a child, thin-chested, scrawny, but mantis-like in his tallness; not a lady’s man, no, definitely not, someone who was Joe Lombardo’s antithesis, a man with no fashion sense—his brown slacks were two inches too short and he wore them high on his waist—a man with no flair. But a successful man. A man with a big house in Rosedale, a man who had married the petite and pretty Cheryl. A man who might have murdered Cheryl.

  “Detective Gilbert,” he said. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

  He looked emotionally frayed, done in by worry and exhaustion. Gilbert rose. “This is quite a place you have,” he said.

  “Thank you,” he said. He poured a cup of coffee for himself. No sign of Sally anymore. “It’s coming along.” He slid into the chair opposite Gilbert; he seemed oblivious to the opulence of his surroundings.

  “I’m sorry about your wife,” said Gilbert.

  Latham nodded, curling his lips tightly, his eyes fixed on the sugar bowl. “Anything I can do, detective,” he said. “Anything at all.”

  Detective Gilbert took out his notebook and pen. “I understand the funeral’s tomorrow. Over in Mount Pleasant.”

  “Yes,” said Latham. “Tom’s arranged most of it. I’m still in a million pieces. I can hardly…”

  Gilbert studied Latham. If it was an act, it was a good one. He seemed genuinely ripped apart by the death of his wife; not that this in itself proved his innocence, especially if he had killed her out of passion. Yet the crime itself didn’t have the mark of passion; and in that sense, Latham’s apparent grief played in his favor. Gently, gently, he told himself.

  “I understand you and your wife separated last year,” he said. “By the way, this is excellent coffee.”

  Latham gestured absently at the kitchen doorway. “Sally gets it somewhere.”

  “Have you always had…hired help?”

  “I’m not much of a cook. Any extra time I scrape from the office I spend in my garden.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Some day, maybe. I was hoping that Cheryl and I might reconciliate…that we would eventually go on and…Sally and Danny are great. I come home and…I don’t know, I trust them, they like me, not because I employ them, just because…we understand each other. I don’t know why Cheryl couldn’t get along with them.”

  Gilbert raised his eyebrows. “Cheryl didn’t like them?”

  “It’s not that she didn’t like them, it’s just that she thought she could run the place by herself.” He rubbed his long-fingered hands together, put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Do you have any specific questions, detective? Or any ideas how I can help you in a substantive way?”

  “Mr. Latham, we’re still just feeling our way around this right now.”

  “Please, call me Charles.”

  “I’m just trying to get to know Cheryl.
I find that helps. You say she thought she could run this place by herself.”

  Latham glanced out the window, where a sparrow landed on top of the bird feeder.

  “She was nervous about strangers. She considered Sally and Danny strangers. She wouldn’t make an effort to get to know them. I won’t say we had a perfect marriage, detective. Of course I was willing to make some changes. I knew I would have to make some changes. Marriage is all about change. But I also expected compromise. Cheryl had to have things a particular way. If she couldn’t have things her way, she either got anxious or upset. Things always had to be exact with Cheryl.” Gilbert thought of the glasses lined up in even rows in the glass cupboard at the Glenarden. “I knew she was a fastidious woman when I first met her. That didn’t bother me. I thought it was a plus. I’m a fastidious man. When she first moved in three years ago, everything was fine. But then she slowly tried to take over.”

  “And where did you meet her?”

  “At a fund-raiser for her father.”

  “You filed a missing persons report yesterday morning.” Gilbert took a sip of his coffee and looked out the window; somewhere on the grounds he heard the high thin buzz of Danny using the snow-blower. “To tell you the truth, we find that odd, Mr. Latham. On the security tape, she enters the Glenarden at 9:16 Tuesday night. You call twelve hours later. By definition she has to be gone at least forty-eight hours before she can be considered missing. Obviously you knew something was up. Obviously you expected her to be there Wednesday morning, and when she wasn’t, you called.”

  Latham nodded. He got up from the table and walked over to the wall phone. Sitting on a small shelf beneath the phone was a sleek black answering machine.

  “I want you to listen to this, detective. I got home around eleven o’clock Tuesday night, and this is what I found on my answering machine.”

  He pressed the play button, the tape rewound, and Latham pressed the search button until he came to the appropriate message.

  “This is Cheryl,” said Latham.

  The tape hummed, and Cheryl spoke. “Hi, Charles.” She spoke in a low voice. The tension cut through. “I’m in a bit of a jam right now. Do you think you could come over? Right away? Or whenever you hear this message? There’s someone I don’t know, I think I’m going to need a lawyer, and I thought—”