by Scott Mackay
“You’ve got to phone Blackstein more than once if you’re going to make him budge. Ling will call him again, especially if Ronald Roffey starts kicking up a fuss. By the way, you’ve done something to your hair again.”
“I’ve combed it back,” he said. “You see? Like this.”
Joe demonstrated by swiping his palm straight back from his forehead.
“I don’t know, Joe,” said Gilbert.
“No, it’s good,” said Joe. “Virginia says it makes me look mysterious. And it covers that bald spot back there.”
“Joe, you can hardly see that bald spot to begin with. You know what I think about you combing your hair back like that?”
“What?”
“It makes you look like the Godfather. Comb it normal, and forget about it, Don Corleone.”
By Thursday, the first day of summer, a day so hot it broke records going back fifty years, the Centre of Forensic Science positively matched the skin scrapings under the fingernails of Boyd’s left hand to DNA found in blood taken from Francesco Deranga’s corpse.
“From the broken arm?” asked Lombardo.
“From the broken arm,” confirmed Gilbert.
Furthermore, a thread taken from Deranga’s distinctive rhinestone jacket matched one found among the vacuumed materials taken into evidence.
“This is all we need,” said Gilbert.
Lombardo looked doubtful. “So we’re going to write a warrant on a dead man?” he asked.
“At least we don’t have to waste time looking for him.”
“I think we should run it by Tim first,” said Lombardo. “You got his e-mail?”
Gilbert frowned. “I got his e-mail.” He shook his head. “Damn that Roffey. The Toronto Star should fire that guy.”
“He was here again this morning,” said Lombardo.
“I know. I saw him in the lobby.”
“He was in Tim’s office for twenty minutes. Tim actually spoke to me afterward.”
“And what did Tim say?” asked Gilbert.
“That, yes, he wanted Boyd done fast, but that he wanted him done right as well. There can’t be any mistakes on this one. That’s why I think we should hold off on pegging Deranga as the killer until we talk to Tim. I think he’s there right now. Why don’t we go check?”
Gilbert paused. He was usually the patient one. Lombardo was the one who always rushed things. Maybe Bob Bannatyne was right. Maybe he needed someone to cover his back for him on this one after all, a good partner who would make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said.
They went to the staff inspector’s office. They found Nowak at his desk going over some work.
“We just received the report on the Boyd skin scrapings from the Centre of Forensic Science,” Gilbert said. “The sample from his left hand is a DNA match to blood taken from Deranga’s corpse in Mississauga. We also found a fiber from Deranga’s coat in Boyd’s apartment. I think we’ve got enough to move on this, Tim. Deranga’s our guy. We should get Justice Lembeck to make a posthumous ruling on Deranga’s culpability. Then all we have to do is have Patrol pick up Barcos as an accomplice, and we’ll be finished and done with this thing.”
The computer-savvy Nowak called up the case file with a few clicks of his mouse, glanced it over, then looked out the window, where the air was heavy with a haze as thick as cheese.
“I don’t know, Barry,” he said. “It seems a bit easy to me.”
Gilbert had to give that a moment. Was he truly rushing this then, simply because he was uncomfortable with Boyd and Regina after all these years? He had to think, and think objectively. Think outside himself, and beyond the squalid memories. See the thing from a professional perspective, become a homicide cop and only a homicide cop. Yet even as he cleared his mind and looked at the thing from an objective standpoint, he still believed the evidence pointed to the two Colombians. He pushed ahead, despite the staff inspector’s uncertainty.
“Tim, it’s perfect,” he said.
“Not really,” replied Tim.
“Why?” said Gilbert.
“Because the skin from the right hand hasn’t been identified yet.”
“It belongs to Barcos,” said Gilbert. “You watch. Bob will bring back a hair from the guy’s house, and that’ll be it, case closed.”
“Yes, but you yourself said we still don’t have Barcos. And until we have Barcos, and have determined that the other skin sample belongs to him, I’m not willing to go to Lembeck to get a posthumous ruling on Deranga, not when Roffey’s just waiting for us to make a mistake. The other thing I’m worried about is the timing of the thing. I’m not convinced by it.”
“What’s wrong with the timing?” asked Gilbert. “We have the tape from Jay’s Smoke and Gift.”
“And that’s good,” said Nowak. “That’s strong circumstantial evidence. But it’s not definitive. Nine-seventeen is not nine-thirty. And we can’t be absolutely certain Barcos and Deranga went to GBIA after they left the smoke shop. Our strong speculation is that they did, but the proof’s not a hundred percent conclusive. I would like the evidence to be conclusive in this particular case. I expect it to be conclusive in every case, but I reiterate, in this particular case more so because of the media attention involved.”
Gilbert sighed, frustrated by his boss. “Ted Aver said the Colombians threatened Boyd. ‘Pay up or die.’ That’s an exact quote. Phil Thompson told me Boyd was mixed up with these Colombians as well. We find Deranga’s skin under Boyd’s fingernails. We find a thread from that crazy jacket. We have a videotape that puts Barcos and Deranga five minutes away from the crime scene in and around the time of the murder. I don’t see what’s not to like about it. This is the kind of case a Crown prosecutor loves to get. I say we ship the whole works to Justice Lembeck and have him sign off on it. At least on Deranga. Then we’ll concentrate on nabbing Barcos.”
Nowak remained calm. “I won’t deny the case looks particularly strong against the Colombians. And yes, we should do everything we can to apprehend Barcos quickly.” He clicked through a few more screens of the case file. Lombardo shifted uncomfortably. Gilbert felt he was missing something here. Nowak finally lifted his finger in the air. “But if we send it to Lembeck right now, he’s going to take a look at the autopsy report.”
“So?”
“He’s going to wonder why a big guy like Deranga hardly left a mark on Boyd’s throat.”
“And then we tell him Barcos was the guy who killed Boyd, while Deranga stood by. Barcos is a shrimp. Him strangling Boyd explains the lack of trauma to Boyd’s throat. You saw the videotape. He probably has trouble opening a jar of peanut butter. Either way, they both go down.”
“What about Phil Thompson’s restraining order?” asked Nowak.
“I’m sure once we bring Barcos in and get him talking, we can eliminate Phil as a suspect. Phil’s a musician, not a killer.”
“And what about Judy Pelaez?” asked Tim.
“She was at Scaramouche waiting for Boyd to show up the night Boyd was killed. She’s already told us that.”
Lombardo piped in. “Actually…Barry…I forgot to tell you. I checked the Scaramouche thing out. None of the waiters remember seeing Judy at the restaurant on the night of the murder. So you never know.”
Gilbert turned to Lombardo. “Really?” he said. “Are you sure?”
“I talked to the maitre d’. I talked to the manager. They said Boyd had a reservation, but no one showed up. The maitre d’ said he finally had to give the table to another party.”
Gilbert’s airtight case against the Colombians now glimmered with doubt.
“Why would she lie to us?”
Lombardo shrugged. “Who knows?” he said. “I personally don’t think she did it, but I could be wrong.”
“We’ll have to talk to her again,” said Gilbert. He shook his head in deepening frustration. “Still, I have this gut feeling it’s Barcos and Deranga.”
“
And you’re probably right,” said Nowak. “But there’s no hurry in taking the thing over to Dave Lembeck just yet. Bob Bannatyne’s already got an existing warrant on Barcos for the double homicide at Club Lua. Why write another warrant when we’re going to arrest Barcos anyway? There’s no point. That doesn’t mean we won’t make Barcos our number-one priority. Like you say, Barry, with Barcos in custody, we might eliminate the other suspects.”
“We can offer him a deal on the double homicide if he comes clean on Boyd,” said Gilbert.
Nowak raised his brow. “That’s good,” he said. “I like that. Bob’s not going to like it, and Peel will probably hate it, but I’ll try and smooth it out one way or the other.”
“Good,” said Gilbert, feeling both uncomfortable and relieved that he had forced a square peg into a round hole. “We go for Barcos. We use Bob’s warrant. We hold off on sending the case to Lembeck until Barcos is in custody. The minute we have him, I’d like that stuff to go right over to College Park.” He changed tack, tried to soften his urgent tone. “Now…what’s been done about finding him? Bob was in and out so fast this morning, I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.”
“Patrol has been announcing the posting every morning at roll call, and every evening when the night shift comes in,” said Nowak. “Peel Region is doing the same. We haven’t found Barcos at home or at any of his businesses, so we’re fairly certain he’s running or hiding. I’m working on a Canada-wide posting. That should be ready by tomorrow. By the start of next week, we’ll have postings not only in the U.S. and Mexico, but in Colombia as well, in case he decides to go back home. Al Valdez says that’s the likeliest scenario.” Nowak clicked off the case file on his computer. “And Bob Bannatyne’s spoken to the sister.”
“Magda?” said Gilbert.
“It didn’t go so well,” said Nowak. “Bob’s heavy-handedness sometimes backfires on him. He says she was completely ignorant of her brother’s criminal enterprises, and extremely upset by the discovery.”
Gilbert winced. “I should have told Bob about that,” he said. “When we went to get our DNA swab from Barcos, I got the sense Magda didn’t know what her brother really did for a living.”
“Bob said she was inconsolable. Either that, or she was putting on a big act.”
“That was Bob’s interpretation?”
A grin came to Nowak’s face. “You know Bob,” he said. “If Magda has any idea where her brother is, she’s not letting on.”
“Maybe I should go talk to her,” said Lombardo.
This was so transparent, Gilbert nearly laughed.
“Leave it to me,” he said. “I got more of a response out of her when we went to take the swab. I’m sure I might make some headway if I just go easy on her.”
Ten
On Monday morning, as Gilbert ate breakfast at the kitchen table before going to work, the telephone rang. He got up from the table and answered it. It was Mike Topalovich. Mike had news about his three pre-Nina sex partners.
“Two of them came back clean,” he told Gilbert. “They’re not HIV-positive. They were my first two partners out of the three.”
“What about the third?” asked Gilbert.
In the background, Gilbert heard Snowflake barking.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Mike. “She’s disappeared, just like Vashti. She’s gone on holiday or something. Her telephone just rings and rings. Me and my dad drove by her house the other night and her house was dark.”
“What’s her name?” asked Gilbert.
Mike hesitated. “Carolyn,” he said.
“And she was the last of the three, the one immediately before Nina?”
“Yes. I think it was Valentine’s Day. We were getting all romantic.”
At least this narrowed it down to either Carolyn or Vashti.
“Have you spoken to any of Carolyn’s friends?” asked Gilbert.
“We spoke to her neighbor, a guy named Eldon. He says he doesn’t know where they’ve gone. The house hasn’t gone up for sale. The furniture’s still there. You can see it if you look through the window. But Eldon says he hopes they’re gone for good. He doesn’t get along with them. He says they’re really noisy. I know Carolyn likes to play her music loud. My dad and me gave Eldon our phone number, and he said he would call us if they came back. We told him it was really important.”
Gilbert thought for a moment.
“Thanks, Mike,” he said. “How are you doing…are you doing okay?”
Mike paused. “I’m okay, sir,” he said.
“You’re a good guy, Mike. Thanks for helping me out like this.”
“If I could go back and do things differently, sir, none of this would have happened.”
“I know, Mike,” said Gilbert. “I know.”
Lombardo was waiting for him when he got to the office later on. His partner’s expression was somber, his brow set, his mouth slack, his dark eyes evasive.
“Let’s go to the police museum,” said Lombardo. Joe glanced around the squad room at the other detectives. “I need to talk to you.”
“The museum?” said Gilbert.
“There’s never anyone there this early.”
They left the Homicide Office. Lombardo grabbed a legal-sized envelope from his desk as they went.
They walked around the third-floor gallery overlooking the atrium, and headed to the elevators on the opposite side.
“What’s going on?” asked Gilbert.
Lombardo looked around nervously. “Let’s just wait till we get to the museum, okay?” he said.
The police museum, a public-relations showcase on the first floor of College Street headquarters, featured old photographs, an ancient police car, different guns, and overviews on mounted display boards of the more notorious cases the force had solved in its long colorful history. Original furniture and equipment from a 1920s dispatch office—mahogany stuff that looked pinched from a gangster movie set—stood against the wall. Air-conditioning wafted icy air from ceiling vents.
As Joe had predicted, no one was there. The two detectives leaned against the old dispatch office railing.
“So?” said Gilbert.
Lombardo lifted the legal-sized envelope. “We finally broke into Boyd’s computer,” he told Gilbert. “I’ve printed some of his e-mails. I thought you better have a look.”
“I don’t know why you had to drag me all the way down here to look at his e-mails,” said Gilbert.
“Boyd had some unexpected e-mail correspondents.” Lombardo stared at him steadily, allowing the envelope to sink to his side. “Your wife was one of them.”
The air-conditioning now seemed frostier. His first thought was: Why? Regina had absolutely no reason to correspond with Boyd. But then he realized he was in the police museum, far from prying eyes, and that Joe had brought him here for a reason.
Gilbert reached for the envelope.
“Let’s see,” he said.
“Barry, it’s not good.”
His voice hardened. “Could I see the envelope, please?”
Lombardo surrendered the envelope.
Gilbert withdrew the e-mail printouts. He read them in growing disbelief.
One was dated the eighth of February, sent to Regina’s e-mail address at school.
Regina: Meet me this Wednesday for lunch at the Queen Mother. We have a lot of catching up to do. I’ll always remember Aix. Glen.
Lombardo sighed, put his hands on his hips, walked away, and stood next to the organized-crime display. Here was another e-mail from March, this one sent from Regina to Boyd.
Glen: I would greatly appreciate your discretion in all this. Should word ever get back to Barry, I wouldn’t be able to see you again. Reggie.
Gilbert’s heart sank. His blood felt constricted around his ankles, wrists, and throat. Here was another one, Boyd to Regina, from March Break, when Regina had enjoyed the week off.
Reggie: I’ve had such a marvelous time these past few days. Having you all to myself
has greatly restored my spirits. When can I see you again? GB.
Regina’s response came the next day.
Glen: I’ve already told you. All you’ve got to do is call. Like the old James Taylor song. RG.
He glanced at Joe.
“That’s it?”
Lombardo sighed. “It’s not just the e-mails, Barry,” he said. “It’s the scarf, too. The murder weapon.”
Gilbert saw two bicycle police roll up in the courtyard on mountain bikes.
“What about it?” he asked.
“It’s a Villa Bolgheri, handmade in Tuscany, not that common. I spoke to the Canadian distributor, Forzieri’s. They told me only three stores in Toronto sell it. One of them is Neck and Neck, in Hazelton Lanes. I brought the scarf to Neck and Neck. That’s where our scarf came from. The manager could tell from its number. I had him go through his credit-card slips. Regina was the one who bought that scarf, Barry. I’ve got the charge-card slip right here.”
Lombardo took a wrinkled Visa slip out of his shirt pocket and showed it to Gilbert. Gilbert looked at Regina’s signature.
“She certainly likes to shop at Hazelton Lanes,” he said. “But just because she bought the scarf doesn’t mean she had anything to do with Boyd’s murder, if that’s what you’re getting at. I mean, come on, Joe, this is Regina we’re talking about.”
Lombardo raised his hands. “I wasn’t even thinking that,” he said. “All these e-mails tell us is that she’s had contact with Boyd. No doubt for completely innocent reasons. She forgot her scarf down there, Barcos and Deranga found it, and they used it to strangle Boyd.” Joe scratched the back of his neck. “Even so…we can’t…there’s no way we can just bury this, Barry. It’s got to go into the case file.”
“I have no objection to that.”
“And speaking of the case file…I don’t see the perfume anywhere.”
Gilbert felt his face redden. “I haven’t put it in yet.”
“Well…just as a matter of procedure…”
“I know…I know…I’ll put it in.”
