by Scott Mackay
Lombardo dropped by Gilbert’s house unexpectedly on Wednesday night while Gilbert, Regina, and the girls were having a barbecue out back.
“What are you doing here?” asked Gilbert. He glanced past Joe’s shoulder. “And who’s in your car?”
“Virginia,” said Lombardo. “I’m taking her to the Molson Amphitheatre to see Matchbox Twenty.”
“Matchbox Twenty?”
“They’re a band, Barry,” Lombardo said. “Virginia lives only five minutes from here. I thought I’d stop by to give you some good news. Also to get you to sign this.”
Lombardo handed him a document.
“A consent-to-search?” said Gilbert.
Lombardo chuckled. “I don’t actually plan on searching your house, Barry. Tim just wants it in the case file as a kind of…backup. In case anybody ever looks at our paperwork. It’s got to add up. We’ve got to show that we’ve at least looked at Regina.”
“Don’t you think that’s going overboard?”
“Tim’s the boss,” said Lombardo. “We’ve got to humor him.”
“Okay, but I think…it’s really a bit much.”
“What can we do? You’ve got to sign it. Tim says so.”
“Tim’s going to yank me from this case, isn’t he?”
Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. But the further we go, the less promising it looks.”
Gilbert shook his head. Every so often, with Tim running things, he didn’t feel like a member of a special club anymore. He signed the consent-to-search and gave it back to Lombardo.
“Why didn’t you just wait till tomorrow at work?” he asked.
“Because I was in the neighborhood, I had it in my briefcase, and because I’ve also got something else to show you.” Lombardo pulled out a parking receipt from the Toronto Parking Authority, vouchered in a Ziploc bag, and waved it in front of Gilbert’s face with a smile. “You know where I found this?” he asked.
“Where?”
“Inside Judy Pelaez’s rented Buick Skylark.”
“And how did you get inside Judy’s Skylark?”
“With a slim-jim,” he said. “How else?”
“No, I mean…legally.”
“Her lying to us about Scaramouche was enough probable cause. Justice Lembeck signed a warrant on the car for me.”
Gilbert examined the receipt. He read the big words: LEAVE ON DASH—THIS SIDE UP. The expiration date was the first of June at 10:30 p.m. The time of issue was at 7:46 p.m. The street was McCaul Street, just around the corner from Glen Boyd International Artists. All over the city, automated ticket dispensers, which printed dashboard receipts like this one, were replacing the old coin-operated parking meters. And now this dashboard receipt was evidence. Judy Pelaez had parked two blocks away from the crime scene in and around the time of Boyd’s murder.
“Joe, this is great.”
“Do you mind if I use your can?” asked Lombardo. “I really got to go.”
“Go ahead. But can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you cut your hair so short? I’ve never seen it so short. People who get their hair cut that short usually do it for one reason. They have lice.”
Lombardo frowned. “I don’t have lice,” he said. “I got it cut because now you can’t even notice the bald spot at the back. I look like a regular guy.”
“You look like a skinhead, Joe.”
“No, seriously, Virginia likes it. She can’t stop rubbing her hands all over my head.”
“You should have left it alone.”
“Barry, I had to do something. I’m going bald.”
“You are bald, Joe, now that you have that haircut.”
While Lombardo was upstairs in the bathroom, Gilbert walked into the living room and flipped through Jennifer’s CDs. He found the CD he was looking for, Mad Season, by Matchbox Twenty. He studied the CD artwork. A chubby little man dressed in blue ballet slippers, a Roman toga, and an orange cap with rabbit ears walked a toy peacock on a leash. The artwork was surreal, in a way much of the old psychedelic album art had been surreal back in the late nineteen-sixties. Things hadn’t changed that much. Kids today thought they were so hip. But the universal backbeat, loud guitars, and screaming vocals had been around for a long time.
He heard Joe come downstairs. Gilbert went into the hall. He held up the CD.
“See?” he said. “I’m not as square as you think.”
Lombardo gave him a doubtful look. “That’s not your CD,” he said.
“Sure it is.”
“It’s Jennifer’s,” said Lombardo.
“How do you know?”
“Because I bought it for her last Christmas.”
“Well…I listen to it,” Gilbert said.
“When do you ever listen to it?” asked Lombardo.
Gilbert let the CD sink to his side. “Whenever she puts it on and I’m forced to.”
Lombardo grinned. “See you tomorrow, old-timer,” he said.
Gilbert knocked on Judy Pelaez’s hotel room door. The peephole darkened. The chain-lock rattled, the bolt slid back, and the door opened.
“Did you find out?” asked Judy.
His eyes narrowed. She wore men’s clothing several sizes too big for her: off-white pleated pants, a mauve blazer of 1980s vintage, and a yellow T-shirt that was faded from too many washings. She wasn’t wearing her glasses and her eyes were puffy. He wondered how many crying jags she’d suffered through since coming to Toronto.
“Did I find out what?” he asked.
“Who the other woman was?” She seemed annoyed that he wouldn’t instantly know what she was talking about. “The one Glen was having his fling with.”
He felt sorry for her. She’d been driving herself nuts with jealousy all this time. “No,” he said. “Not yet.”
She peered at him more closely. “What are you looking at?” she asked.
“Your clothes,” he said.
She looked at her clothes, obviously pleased with them. An odd grin came to her face, like Gloria Swanson’s grin in Sunset Boulevard.
“These are Glen’s clothes,” she said. “I wear them sometimes. Especially when I’m feeling blue. They make me feel close to him.”
“Oh,” he said, not offering comment, but recognizing this quirk as another sad symptom of her unhealthy obsession with Boyd. “Can I come in?”
“Are you through with his body?” she asked. “Can I bury him yet?”
She said this as if she had an unquestionable right to his body, as if it were not only the body of her former husband but also her personal property.
“No,” he said. “We’re not through. Like I said, the coroner’s run into a snag, and it’s going to take longer than usual.”
Her face grew grave, but she finally nodded. At least she seemed to understand that the process had to be careful. She stepped out of the way and he came inside. She looked tired.
“I just want to go home,” she said. “I want to see my children. How much longer will I have to wait?” She closed the door. “I’ve already contacted a funeral director. We’re making arrangements. It’s going to be big. Glen knew a lot of people. The media have called me about it. They’re eager to cover it.”
Gilbert sighed. “I was originally hoping we might get it wrapped up by the end of next week,” he said. “But I suspect it might take longer now. And I’m afraid you haven’t been entirely honest with us either, Ms. Pelaez.”
Judy grew still. The corners of her lips sank. Those famous lips hadn’t aged, he thought again. They were still full and enticing, the lips of a woman who had once been a superstar but who was now just sad and lonely, and torn apart by a man who had ruined her life.
“Since you obviously think you know something, Mr. Detective,” she said, “why don’t you explain it to me?”
“We spoke to the manager and the maitre d’ at Scaramouche,” he said. “They told us you never showed up.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t th
ink so,” she said. Her irritation was palpable; he could see she wasn’t particularly fond of restaurant people. “I was there, and every one of the hired help saw me.” No, she didn’t like restaurant people at all—the derision in her voice proved it. “It’s not my fault that dumb-ass maitre d’ can’t remember me.”
He remained unswayed. “You have a famous face,” he said. “I’m sure if he saw you, he would remember you. You’re Judy Pelaez. People know you.”
“I was wearing sunglasses and a hat. And people don’t know me that well anymore. Especially young people. That maitre d’ had to be all of twenty. He knows Christina Aguilera better than he knows me.”
“Even with sunglasses and a hat—”
She raised her hands, stopping him. “I’m sorry, I was there. Whether you believe me or not is beside the point. I was sitting at the third table down. Go back and tell the maitre d’ that. See if he remembers me then.”
He pulled out the vouchered parking receipt and showed it to her.
“We found this in your car,” he said. “It’s a parking receipt from the night of June first. Care to explain it?”
It took a moment, but she finally deduced the implication of the parking receipt.
She rested her hand on the dresser beside the door. The sleeve of Boyd’s mauve blazer lifted. He saw a tensor bandage around her left wrist. The detail stuck, and he filed it away. A petite woman like Judy Pelaez would have had to use a lot of force to cause even the minimal trauma around Boyd’s neck, and she might have injured her wrist in the attempt.
“I was still at Scaramouche,” she insisted, as if she now wished to continue their previous altercation as a way to avoid a new one.
He sighed. He wished she’d stop being so flighty and defensive.
“Judy…why don’t you just tell me the truth? We want to eliminate you, that’s all. We don’t want to waste unnecessary effort on you. We want to catch your husband’s killer quickly. You’ll go home sooner. Back to Morningstar and Delta.”
She moved around, walking as if in a dream, and sat on the sofa. She gazed sightlessly at some blank music paper on the table. She looked so small in Boyd’s clothes.
“I’m not lying,” she said, her voice now softer, her tone hurt, as if she couldn’t understand why he was being so cruelly persistent with her. “I was at Scaramouche. But I didn’t come back to the hotel, like I told you before. That part was a…a fib. I didn’t think it mattered. I didn’t think you’d go snooping in my car. I forgot about that parking receipt. I…I didn’t want to confuse the issue…because I…I couldn’t see the point.” She gave him a withering glance. “I didn’t want you to waste unnecessary effort on me,” she said, mimicking him perfectly.
He came over and sat in the chair opposite the sofa. “You have to tell us the truth, Judy…no matter how confusing or…or pointless it might seem to you.” He took out his notebook. “So you left Scaramouche and you drove to GBIA at what time?”
The color rose to her face and she looked as if she were about to snarl.
“What does it matter?” she said. “This was to be our reconciliation dinner. This was going to be our big let-bygones-be-bygones dinner. This dinner was where we were both going to happily agree that the only thing left for us to do with the twenty or so years we had left was to grow old together. We talked about that over the phone. He said that’s what would happen. I thought this time he was really telling the truth. And then he stood me up. Not only that, he’s having a fling with another woman. I should have known not to trust him. I should have stayed in San Francisco with Morningstar and Delta. Now he’s gone and gotten himself killed. What a bastard.”
Gilbert tried again. “What time did you leave Scaramouche?” he asked.
“How should I know?” she said. “I don’t look at my watch every second. I sometimes don’t even wear a watch. I hate watches.”
“Was it around eight o’clock?” he ventured.
“Around that,” she said.
“So you left Scaramouche, parked on McCaul Street, and then you walked over to GBIA?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What time did you arrive there?” he asked.
“You tell me. You’ve got my parking receipt. Isn’t there a time on that?”
“What did you do once you got to GBIA?” he asked.
She smiled suddenly. Her quick changes of mood, seemingly orchestrated for effect, disquieted him.
“I wished I would have strangled him,” she said, her voice strangely perky. “If anybody had a right to strangle him, I did. Never mind the big things. It was all the little things he did to me. Over the years. Grinding me down.” The perkiness left her voice and she now sounded serious. “I should have strangled him. I should have stabbed him, or shot him, or taken an ax to him. But I didn’t. I just yelled at him. How lame can you get? Yelled at him like I always do. He hardly listened to me this time. He was distracted about something. He kept on going into the office and looking out the window. I asked him if he was expecting someone, like that other woman, and he said no, and then told me he wished I would just go away, that he had things to do that night that didn’t involve me.” Her face reddened. “Can you imagine? After he had invited me all the way from San Francisco for our reconciliation dinner. It was more than I could stand. I picked up the phone and threw it at him. After that, I stormed out of there. Old lame Judy thinking she was making a point.”
Twelve
Gilbert sat with Nina the following Tuesday evening in the waiting room of Dominion Medical Laboratories. They were here to get her second test done. The waiting room was crowded, and Gilbert realized it would be a while before Nina’s name was called. He had his arm around her. Nina pressed her cheek against his shoulder, something she hadn’t done in a long time. The waiting room television played the MuchMusic station. Five black dudes rapped suavely, gesticulating with fork-fingered hands, wearing big baggy pants, medallions on gold chains, and backward baseball hats—the whole South Central L.A. uniform.
“You all right?” he asked Nina.
He could tell things were getting to her, just sitting here, hoping her name would be called next.
“I’m nervous,” she said.
“You’re going to beat it,” he said.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
“Because I’m your father, and I know you’re going to beat it.”
“I don’t get your logic.”
Everything had to make sense to Nina, or she unabashedly challenged it.
“There’s no logic,” he said. “It’s just a gut feeling.”
She sighed. “You’ve been a cop too long, Dad. I’m getting sick of your gut feelings. Is Dr. MacPherson going to call us at the cottage when he gets the results?”
“Yes,” he said. “He has our number up there.”
“What if it turns out to be positive?” she said.
“It’s not going to be positive. It’s going to be negative. You wait and see.”
“I’m not so sure,” she said.
The five black dudes on the TV finished. Who should come on next but Phil Thompson—a new video from Phil Thompson Unplugged called Old Dance Partner.
“Check it out,” said the veejay. “Phil Thompson in a mellow mood on his new CD, grasping for gold. That’s right, Unplugged reached certified gold status last week, a first for Phil since Another Party Girl back in 1979.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Gilbert. “It’s Phil Thompson.”
Nina peered at the TV. “Who?” she said.
He listened to the song. Phil Thompson had returned to his roots—that fundamental building block of all good rock and roll, the acoustic guitar. The insistent way he played the guitar gave the song a catchy rhythm. Nina nodded her head to the beat. Phil’s great height gave him a presence on video many recording artists might envy. The video’s visual mood of nostalgia, enhanced by the use of a yellow camera filter, fit the song perfectly. Phil, dressed in a suit, his hair
long and flowing, danced in classic ballroom style, maneuvering a beautiful young woman in a gypsy dress around a honky-tonk dance floor with the ease and grace of a latter-day Fred Astaire. Gilbert was glad to see a man in his fifties looking so spry. It gave him hope.
“He’s kind of dreamy,” said Nina.
With that, Gilbert knew Phil had as good as sold a hundred thousand records. Nina was never wrong when it came to pop singers. If she thought Phil Thompson was dreamy, then a million other seventeen-year-old girls would think he was dreamy, too. That meant they would be down at record stores buying his new solo effort sooner rather than later. And that meant Phil Thompson was definitely on the comeback trail.
On Friday, the day before Gilbert went on holiday, he sat at his desk going through some of his other cases, making sure he wasn’t leaving any loose ends before traveling north. He was alone. All the other detectives were either at lunch or out working cases. Two o’clock in the afternoon, and the city slow-cooked in the humid heat. The weatherman said the mercury would rise even higher. Gilbert couldn’t wait to head north so he could leave all this heat behind. He wanted to go home early, but Nowak wanted to meet with him at three. He was anxious about the meeting. After signing a consent-to-search for his own home, he felt he was on shaky ground.
George Monaco, from the mailroom, a middle-aged Filipino man with prematurely silver hair, came in with a trolley full of mail.
“Busy?” asked George.
“All the time,” said Gilbert.
George lifted a parcel off his trolley. “I got one for you, man.” He handed the package to Gilbert. “I don’t know,” he said. “Smells like coffee.” George’s smile got bigger. “Like, wake up and smell the coffee, man.”
“Thanks, George,” said Gilbert.
“No problem, man.”
George wheeled his trolley away.
Gilbert smelled the package. It indeed smelled like coffee. It was marked ATTN: HOMICIDE, C/O DETECTIVE BARRY GILBERT, in block capitals, with a return address of Mavis Bank, Jamaica, W.I. Gilbert figured it out a moment later. Blue Mountain coffee. From Daniel Lynn’s uncle in Jamaica. He was really starting to like Lynn. He opened the package. The package was red, with gold lettering. The Jamaican flag and the Union Jack crisscrossed at the top. Gilbert took a long lingering whiff of the package. He was going to try and enjoy the smell of that coffee as much as he could. Especially because it was probably going to be the high point of his day.
