by Scott Mackay
Having failed to locate Barcos or the other Colombians at the laminating plant, Gilbert got his next lead on them from Detective-Sergeant Bob Bannatyne, his old partner from Fraud. Bannatyne called him at one-thirty in the morning at home.
“This could be good news or bad news,” said Bannatyne. “It depends on what you’re doing with the Boyd case.”
Gilbert sat up in bed, coming alive at the mention of Boyd’s name. Far in the distance he heard the rumble of thunder. Regina stirred beside him.
“Where are you?” he asked Bannatyne.
“In Mississauga,” said Bannatyne. Mississauga was a suburb in the extreme west end of Toronto. “In front of a place called Club Lua. A Latino dance club. Deranga and Munoz are lying out front with bullet holes in their heads.”
Gilbert’s shoulders tensed. “Really?”
“I thought you might want to know. I’ll wait for you, if you want to come out. Deranga’s wearing the rhinestone jacket you were telling me about. Who the fuck did he think he was? Roy Rogers?”
“Don’t touch that coat.”
“I’m a double-breasted man myself, Barry.”
“And come to think of it, that’s not our jurisdiction,” said Gilbert. “That’s Peel Region. What are you doing out there?”
“They want our help. They know Joyce and Valdez were working on these guys. They think we might be able to assist.”
“I’m coming right out.”
“Hurry up. It looks like it’s going to piss buckets any second.”
“I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
He got dressed, climbed into the family’s Ford Windstar, and drove up the Don Valley Parkway to Highway 401.
Driving west toward Mississauga, he saw heat lightning flicker in the distance. All the hot weather was finally going to break. A storm was definitely on the way.
He passed the cloverleaf at Allen Road, the basket-weave at Keele, and had just reached Highway 400 when rain hit the minivan like a hundred snare drums beating all at once. He eased his foot on the brake as visibility dropped drastically. He turned on the windshield wipers.
Lester B. Pearson International Airport came into view. A 767, its tailfin lit with the crown of Royal Dutch Airlines, sailed over the freeway a few hundred meters up, coming in for a landing, its headlight piercing through the rain with laser-like intensity, its jet engines adding to the roar of the storm.
Gilbert skirted the south side of the airport along the 401 and exited onto Dixie Road. He passed the Gateway Postal Facility, as well as the 12 Division Peel Regional Police Station, and soon came to the Rockwood Mall.
At the south end of the mall stood Club Lua. Seven radio cars were parked haphazardly outside the club, five of them with their lights flashing, one of them up on the sidewalk.
He drove across the nearly empty parking lot and eased to a stop outside the crime-scene perimeter. He got out of his Windstar, and was instantly wet in the pelting summer deluge. He took his badge and ID out and showed them to one of the uniforms standing guard. The uniform, wearing a big yellow rain slicker, lifted the police tape and let him through.
Deranga and Munoz lay outside the entrance to the club, each now covered in an orange tarp. Bannatyne, along with a detective from Peel Region, talked to a group of young club-goers, taking statements under the club’s huge stainless-steel portico. The back of Bannatyne’s brown raincoat was lit by the pink neon starfish and the green neon palm trees in the club’s plate-glass window. Bannatyne glanced over his shoulder and saw him coming. The sixty-year-old detective said a few words to the other detective, and greeted him halfway.
“That was fast,” he said.
“There was hardly any traffic,” said Gilbert.
“I hate rain,” said Bannatyne. He motioned at the water rushing down the gutter at the curbside. “There goes our goddamn crime scene. Not that it’s going to take a rocket scientist to figure it out. We have seven witnesses. Barcos shot his own best buds.”
“Barcos did?” said Gilbert. “Shit.” He glanced at the victims. “Al said he was a maniac.”
Bannatyne raised his stubby index finger. “A homicidal maniac,” he corrected.
Gilbert sighed. “Christ,” he said.
“You want to have a look at them?”
Gilbert glanced at the bodies. A kind of no-man’s-land aura emanated from them, as if some invisible death force separated them from the living. Rain puddled in the folds of the orange tarps. A couple of young guys. Gone, just like that. Their mothers would be sad.
“Might as well,” he said. He nodded toward the other detective. “He’s the primary from Peel?”
“Yeah. Steve Ludmore. A real nice guy. I’ll introduce you once he’s finished talking to his witnesses. I filled him in on the Boyd case. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all.”
They walked over to the bodies of Francesco Deranga and Waldo Munoz.
Bannatyne pulled the orange tarps back.
Deranga had a single gunshot wound to the left temple. His bronze-colored face was spattered with blood, the blotchy congealed patterns reminding Gilbert of a Rorschach inkblot test. His short hair was gummed up with blood.
Munoz, a much slighter man, had taken one in the face through the cheek just below his right eye, the skin all puffy and discolored around the wound, powder burns evident all over his face—a close-range shot. The man’s glasses rested askew on his nose. His lips were parted, revealing long yellowish teeth, the front two overlapping.
Here was Oscar Barcos’s handiwork. With Al Valdez unraveling the Toronto network, had Barcos at last seen enemies everywhere? Did Barcos finally come to doubt even Deranga and Munoz?
“Seen enough?” asked Bannatyne.
“They all look the same when they’re shot in the head. I just feel sorry for them. They’re so young.”
Bannatyne gazed at the corpses, as if recognizing their youthfulness for the first time.
“Yeah…well…crime’s a young man’s game. What do you expect? Let’s sit in my car until. Steve finishes up. I hate all this rain. I can feel it right through my shoes, even though I sprayed some of that rain-proofing shit on them.”
They walked through the rain to Bannatyne’s car, one of the newer unmarked Impalas, and got inside. Bannatyne pulled out a big white hankie and wiped his face and hands. He then pulled out a pack of Players, withdrew a cigarette, and lit up. He took a big drag. Gilbert opened his window a crack. He hadn’t smoked in years.
“Does it bother you?” asked Bannatyne.
“No”, he said. “Go ahead.”
“You gave it up, didn’t you?” said Bannatyne.
“A long time ago,” he said. “Regina insisted.” Gilbert stared out the rain-specked windshield at the nearest patrol car. “I’m just wondering if you and Steve could do me a favor, Bob.”
“Sure.”
“We have skin samples from underneath Boyd’s fingernails. We think one of the samples might be from Deranga.” He motioned toward the dead Colombians in front of the club. “So if you could, bag some blood or hair from him so we can make our comparisons. That’s why I really drove all this way. To get a DNA baseline.”
“Not a problem,” said Bannatyne.
“Will you be searching the Barcos residence?” asked Gilbert.
“Definitely.”
“Because we think the other sample might be from him.”
“I’ll bag whatever I can find once I get the warrant,” said Bannatyne. “A hair or whatever.”
“Thanks,” said Gilbert. “We haven’t been able to find him.”
“And I imagine it’s going to be a lot harder now that he’s shot his own best buds. He’s going to be running.”
Rain drummed off the roof of the car and made tiny silver splashes on the hood. Bannatyne took another drag on his cigarette and let the smoke drift from his mouth in a thick white stream, sniffing a bit of it up through his nostrils. A troubled look came to his face.
“Have you told Joe about Boyd and Regina yet?” he asked.
Gilbert looked away. He gazed at the tarp-covered bodies, saw the blood seep from under the orange canvas onto the sidewalk. “No,” he said.
“Are you going to?” asked Bannatyne.
Gilbert didn’t answer.
Bannatyne sighed. “Barry…come on…you’ve got to tell him. He’s your partner. When you and me were partners back in Fraud, we told each other everything. And Boyd and Regina…Christ, Barry, it tore you apart. You know it did.” Bannatyne tapped the ash on the end of his cigarette into the ashtray. “I know you’re a good detective. I know you’re objective. But Boyd was the worst thing that ever happened to you. And you should let Joe know. He’s a bright young guy. He’ll cover for you if you start making dumb mistakes. Do yourself a favor. Let Joe know. Before you start fucking up on this thing royally.”
Nine
On Monday, Gilbert took Lombardo to lunch at Erl’s Bistro, curiously spelled, Erl, without the “a,” just south of the Provincial Parliament Buildings on University Avenue. They found a table next to the fountain on the outdoor patio. Though Friday night’s deluge had cooled the city for the weekend, temperatures were rising again, and even here, on the shaded patio, it was warm.
They ordered salads, sandwiches, and beer, and over the next half hour Gilbert told Lombardo exactly what had happened between Regina and Boyd all those years ago.
“They finally flew to France and lived together for nine months,” said Gilbert.
This stunned Lombardo. He stared at Gilbert, didn’t even get distracted by the pretty waitress walking by, sat back in his chair, and let his fingers slide from his beer.
“And she slept with the guy and everything?” said Lombardo.
“Yeah.”
“And you were married at the time?”
“Yeah. Six years. Nineteen-seventy-eight. We married so damn young. She wasn’t settled down.”
Lombardo lifted his fork and tapped it a few times against the table. “Somehow I can’t picture Regina…I mean, she’s so responsible. It seems so out of character. She’s always struck me as the steady, moral type.”
“She was young.”
“And you didn’t have any kids at the time?” asked Lombardo.
“Jennifer was still three years away. We were married for ten whole years before we had Jennifer. Jennifer doesn’t know it, but she saved our marriage. She made us survive, Joe.”
Out on the sidewalk, a child, clinging to his mother’s hand, dropped an ice-cream cone and started to cry.
“I know some guys,” said Gilbert, “if their wives did the same thing to them, they might have said game-over.” His throat tightened. “And several times I came close to it, Joe. But I love her. The whole thing hurt like hell, it nearly killed me, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but I just couldn’t bring myself to give her up. So I suffered through it, hoping she would come back to me. I knew Boyd’s style. Women were as interchangeable as spark plugs to him. I knew sooner or later he would get another one. And don’t go blaming Regina too much. Times were different back then. There’s never been anything like those times, before or since. The nineteen-seventies. You were a kid at the time. But for people in my generation, it was like…like…”
Gilbert struggled to define the period.
Lombardo grinned. “Like the dawning of the Age of Aquarius?” he said.
Gilbert gave him a sour look.
“Don’t joke about it, Joe,” he said. “It might seem quaint now, but at the time…I had hair down to my shoulders. Regina wore hip-hugger bell bottoms, paisley shirts, and a peace-sign amulet. We were big music fans. We went to lots of concerts together. We saw Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Bob Dylan, the Stones twice, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. We saw Led Zeppelin, the Doobie Brothers, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, and Santana. In our first apartment we had beaded doorways, black-light posters, and burned incense to cover the smell of pot. And if we didn’t have any pot we smoked banana peels. Dinner was typically twelve scented candles flickering on the shelf, the fondue pot simmering on the table, and the latest Frank Zappa album on the stereo. It was crazy. We had parties all the time. Or we went out dancing. I couldn’t imagine me dancing now. Not with my knees the way they are.”
“You smoked pot?”
“Joe, back in the seventies, everybody smoked pot. Even cops. Everybody was experimenting. Everybody was trying new things. And Regina was extremely impressionable. All the old morality went out of style overnight. We had one credo. If it felt good, do it. The world was full of wackos, and she met a lot of them when she went to teacher’s college. That place seemed to have more than its fair share of wackos. Then there was Michelle Morrison, and we were always getting free tickets to see Mother Courage whenever they played in town. Boyd was always hanging around somewhere, trying to get into Michelle’s pants. But even back then, Michelle was with Pat Kelly, so Boyd didn’t stand a chance. Michelle introduced Regina to Boyd. I should show you a picture of Regina when she was twenty-eight. She was a knockout.”
An image of Regina came to mind, her face flushed as she walked naked down the pathway at the cottage, her blond hair long and parted in the middle, a bracelet of Hindu brass bells tied around her ankle. How could she have ever denied him? Even now, he felt a great hollowness inside whenever he thought about it.
“So after Michelle introduced them, Regina and Boyd started seeing each other?” asked Lombardo.
“Yeah,” said Gilbert. “This was just about the time I made detective in Fraud. Bannatyne was my partner. You know how Bob is. Everything is the job. We worked like hell. A lot of extra hours every bloody week. Regina was a supply teacher at the time, so she had tons of free time.”
“And no kids yet,” said Lombardo.
“No kids yet,” echoed Gilbert.
“And times were different back then,” said his partner, now sounding like he was making a sincere effort to understand Regina’s behavior.
“You could sleep with anybody you liked, and no one was supposed to get heavy about it. It was all part of the new thing. Free love, and all that. I came home early one day. I had the flu. I was running a fever. Bannatyne sent me home. And there they were, Regina and Boyd, in bed together, smoking Panama Red out of a hookah pipe. It just about killed me.”
“Then she was off to France?” said Lombardo.
“Three days later. I don’t know what kind of poison Boyd filled her head with, but let’s face it, I was a cop, and a cop to a counterculture poster-boy like Boyd…I imagine he thought the amoeba was the higher form of life.”
Lombardo had nothing to say, just sat there, his shock now milder. The fountain, really more a waterfall sliding over a piece of sheet-glass into a collecting pool, bubbled with the promise of many languid summer days to come. The waitress passed by, lifted their dirty dishes onto her tray, and retreated toward the bar.
“But it’s over now,” said Gilbert, in a quieter voice. “It happened a long time ago. And times are different now. I like these times better. Regina’s the best wife any guy could have. It’s not easy being a cop’s wife. But she’s the sweetest, most loving, caring person in the world, and she’s a great mother. I hate what Boyd did to her—to us—but I’m glad I stuck with her. It was the best decision I ever made.”
“So how did it…you know…how did it all end?” asked Lombardo.
“She phoned me from Aix-en-Provence. Boyd had a place there at the time. She said she didn’t want to live with him anymore, and that she’d made a mistake. So she came back. I’d never seen her so miserable. She was so skinny. And pale. Her teaching career came to a dead stop. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She was really depressed, and the doctor put her on something, an antidepressant, but that just made her sicker. She cried a lot. Half the time I’d come home from work and I’d find her crying in the kitchen. I made a lot of macaroni salad in those days because that’s practically all I knew how to make. Regina
wasn’t up to cooking. We ate a lot of takeout. At least I did. Regina hardly ate anything at all. She took a whole bottle of aspirin one night. I don’t know what she was thinking. The aspirin wasn’t going to kill her. But she took them anyway, and they made her sick, and she had to spend a week in the hospital. I’ll never forgive Boyd for what he did to her. We came so close to losing it, Joe. So damn close. It makes me shudder to think of it.”
Lombardo glanced out at University Avenue where Philips Demolition tore down the old Bell Wing of the Toronto General Hospital. Some sparrows fought over bread crumbs on the sidewalk. A homeless man sold copies of the homeless weekly, Outreach. A woman with a perfect hourglass figure walked by but Joe didn’t even notice.
“I got to ask you,” said Lombardo, “as one detective to another, do you think you can work this one? Do you think you should work this one? All this…this business with Boyd and Regina…it was a big thing in your life, I can tell, and I just want to make sure you can work the investigation.”
Gilbert took a sip of beer, a German one that tasted sweet as it went flat in the warm air.
“Joe…if I didn’t think I could work it, I would have told you a long time ago. But I’m okay with it. Bannatyne advised me to tell you about Regina and Boyd, so that’s what I did.”
“Bannatyne knows?”
“He was my partner at the time.” Gilbert glanced at Lombardo’s hair, thinking he had done something else different with it. “We’re short-staffed right now, what with summer holidays around the corner, and I don’t want to have to stretch any of the other guys further than they’re already stretched. I don’t want to have to stretch you. This one’s going to be a dunker. You know it, I know it, and Tim knows it. Ten to one the Colombians did it. I bet we get a match on Deranga’s DNA by the end of the week. And once Bannatyne finds a hair in Barcos’s house, we’ll get a match on him as well. Done. Finished. A dunker.”
“Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, Barry. You got to remember Blackstein and the toxicology report. Deputy Chief Ling called him, but so far it hasn’t done much good.”
