by Scott Mackay
“My car is in the shop,” he said. “And leave Magda out of this. I don’t want you guys talkin’ to her. She’s my sister, and she don’t need no fuckin’ cops harassing her.”
“We’ve got you down at Boyd’s at nine-thirty,” insisted Gilbert.
“I was on the subway going home,” countered Barcos. “And I never killed no Glen Boyd.” Barcos looked frantic as he fumbled for a legitimate-sounding story. “Fucker… fucker tried to rape my sister.” His eyes widened, as if he were pleased with this story. “I rough him up a bit, teach him a lesson for that, but I didn’t no fuckin’ kill him.”
Gilbert stared at the little Colombian man. Boyd tried to rape Magda? He glanced at Bannatyne, not believing it for a minute.
“He tried to rape your sister?”
“Yeah.”
“So you broke his arm?” said Gilbert.
“I don’t know about no broken arm,” said Barcos. “I rough him up a bit, teach him a lesson, that’s all. I get on the subway and I go home. I didn’t no fuckin’ kill him.”
“And he tried to rape Magda?”
“He don’t fuck with my sister. No one fuck with my sister.”
It sounded lame. But then Bannatyne took something from Barcos’s wallet.
“Barry,” he said. Bannatyne held up a subway transfer. “You better check this out.”
Meanwhile, Barcos was going all macho on them.
“He lucky I didn’t break his leg,” he said. “Magda don’t want no ugly dago shitbag grabbin’ her ass. Teach him a lesson.”
Gilbert took the transfer. He glanced over it. The transfer, printed at Osgoode Hall station on the evening of June first at 9:34 p.m., shifted the timing in the Colombian’s favor. A drop of blood fell from Gilbert’s cheek onto the transfer. Shit. His case against Barcos, because of this transfer, was slipping away from him.
Bannatyne gazed at Gilbert’s cheek with some concern. “That’s bleeding,” he said.
Gilbert dug into his pocket, pulled out a napkin, and pressed it to his cheek.
Any defense attorney would use this transfer to demonstrate an airtight alibi for Barcos. If Barcos and Deranga had been in Jay’s Smoke and Gift at 9:17, then in the subway at 9:34, they wouldn’t have had the time to kill Boyd at 9:30.
The Colombian looked at the transfer. He caught on in an instant.
“You see?” he said. “That’s my transfer. I was on the subway, like I told you. Got the time right there.”
Gilbert felt frustrated. What was he going to do now? How was he going to stop Marie Barton from indicting his wife? He shouldn’t have been so damn confident about Barcos. He recalled Tim Nowak’s concern about the timing, remembered the staff inspector’s exact words. 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. Gilbert grasped desperately for other logical explanations because he didn’t want this arrest to slip away from him. Barcos could have found the transfer in the subway station. People were always throwing transfers away on the subway station platform. Maybe Barcos saw one, recognized it as a chance to build an alibi, and pocketed it for future use. Gilbert had to pick holes in the Colombian’s story any way he could.
“Tell us where you got this transfer from, Barcos,” he said. “Did you find it in the subway station? If you cooperate with us on the Boyd murder, we’ll go easy when it comes to Deranga and Munoz.”
Barcos’s eyes blazed. “I want my lawyer.”
Gilbert tried a different tack. “So Boyd tried to rape your sister,” he said, as if he thought it were the most far-fetched thing he had ever heard. “C’mon, Barcos. The only reason you went down to Boyd’s on the night of the murder was to kill him. You thought he was rolling up your network here, cooperating with police to bust your guys, so you strangled him. Don’t give me no rape-story bullshit.”
“No way,” said Barcos. “The only reason I went down there was to teach the fucker a lesson. I want my lawyer.”
The rape story still felt thin to Gilbert, a typically ill-conceived cop-out a gang member might use. Yet because Barcos didn’t deny his own actual presence at GBIA on the night of the murder, offering this rape story instead, Gilbert couldn’t discount it entirely. He looked at the subway transfer again, now with its spot of blood. He wanted to go home tonight and tell Regina that it was all over, that the asswipe was in jail, and that they didn’t have to worry about Boyd anymore. But how could he do that when he had this transfer in his hand, and when Barcos’s rape story sounded like it might have at least a smidgeon of substance?
He handed the transfer to Bannatyne. “Bag it,” he said. “I’m going to check his story with Magda.”
Magda leaned against Virginia Virelli’s radio car at the corner of Davenport and Turner. She was crying. Officer Virelli tried to calm her but it didn’t do any good. Magda looked at Gilbert as he approached. Her eyes grew apprehensive. Her tears stopped.
“Is he all right?” she asked.
“He’s fine,” said Gilbert. “He’s in custody.” He softened his tone, realized that if he was going to get anywhere with his verification, he would have to play good-cop with Magda. “He’s not going to hurt himself or anybody else. And that’s just what we want. You did the right thing, Magda.”
“I didn’t think he would run away,” she said. “I was sure he would see sense.” A knit came to her brow. “I thought you were coming alone,” she said. She gestured at the police officers. “Where did all these people come from?”
Gilbert looked away. “He fired at me three times,” he said, justifying the police presence.
She grew subdued. Her disillusion was profound.
“I’m glad you had help,” she admitted, her voice tremulous. She glanced around. “What’s going to happen to him now? Where are you taking him? I guess I should call his lawyer.”
Gilbert hesitated. He wanted verification on the rape story, but didn’t feel it appropriate to talk about it in front of Virginia. An issue like this had to be handled sensitively.
“Constable Virelli, could you assist the other officers, please?” he said. “We’re trying to recover the cartridge shells from the shots fired.”
“Yes, sir,” said Virginia.
Virginia climbed the hill to help the others. Gilbert faced Magda. They stood under the boughs of a maple tree. The light from the streetlamp, shining through the leaves, freckled the area with dappled shadow.
“He’s in big trouble, isn’t he?” said Magda.
Gilbert wished he could tell Magda something reassuring. But he couldn’t. He pulled the napkin away from his cheek, saw that the bleeding had nearly stopped, turned the napkin over, and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“I think Detective Bannatyne outlined what Oscar faces when he spoke to you at your home a couple of weeks ago.” He paused, looked at her steadily, and decided to get it over with. “My own case is different.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You have a case against him, too?”
“Oscar says you know Glen Boyd.”
The color climbed to her face. “Yes,” she said.
“He was murdered recently,” he said.
Her face changed again, as if deep inside a quiet calamity unfolded, one she struggled bravely to hide.
“I am aware of this,” she said, her voice now fearful.
“And we thought your brother might be involved, but now we have some evidence to the contrary.”
Her eyes brightened. “Really?” she said.
Her optimism irked Gilbert.
“This evidence we have,” he said, plowing grimly on, “is evidence you might help us verify.” He forced a grin to his face. “And by helping us, you might help your brother.” As if all he wanted was to set Oscar free, just like she did. “He says the only reason he went to Glen Boyd’s on the night of the murder was to…you know…to teach Boyd a lesson… because he said that Boyd…well…he made a move on you.”
She looked at him curiou
sly, nodded, then wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I will do anything to help my brother,” she said.
Gilbert felt something fading inside. His own certainty about himself, and about how he was handling this case was going fast. “So what your brother says is true, then?” he asked.
Her eyes widened in distress. “Yes,” she said. Gilbert felt like raising his fist to the heavens and shaking it at the Gods of Homicide. “I went to Mr. Boyd’s office to collect a certified check for Oscar.”
So. Pay up or die. Boyd had come up with the cash after all.
“And this was when?” asked Gilbert. “The end of May,” she said.
This then explained the fresh packet of cocaine. Boyd had restored his credit with the boys from Barranquilla.
“So what happened?” he asked, his tone now gone sour.
Magda looked at the emerald ring on her finger.
“Mr. Boyd was nice…at first. He asked me in. He offered me a drink, rum swizzle, genuine stuff from Bermuda, what we sometimes drank in Barranquilla. While he was fixing our drinks in the kitchen, I noticed all the photographs. He has so many photographs. And he knows so many famous people. He had ones of Carlos Santana. I love Carlos Santana. I asked him how he knew Santana. He told me he’s known Carlos Santana for thirty years. He told me stories about Santana. They were good stories, and I laughed a lot. The time went by. I thought nothing of it until I started feeling strange.
“I thought I was getting drunk. I thought the rum swizzle must be strong. But then I grew scared. The way I was feeling…it was so…strange…and I told him I felt sick, and he smiled at me and said I should lie down on his bed for a while. But then I remembered something my brother had once told me. He says sometimes a man will put drugs into a woman’s drink…and I felt so strange…so strange…I knew that this is what he must have done. I sniffed at my drink. It didn’t smell right. I took another small sip but spit it out. It didn’t taste right. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it when I first drank it. I looked at his kitchen windowsill and I saw all sorts of pill bottles there.” Gilbert remembered the pill bottles they’d found on Boyd’s kitchen windowsill, three different kinds of tranquillizers among them. “Then I looked into his eyes and I knew what he was going to do. My brother has always warned me about this. He says there are drugs. He says men will try this from time to time.”
A cat leapt onto the fence post at the bottom of the hill, looked at them, then jumped into the tall weeds. This revelation—about Magda’s drugged drink—disturbed Gilbert. And yet, knowing what he knew of Boyd, it didn’t surprise him. Boyd always got what he wanted, no matter what he had to do to get it. Moths circled around the streetlight on the corner. He felt sorry for Magda, that she should have to become another of Boyd’s victims. In that way, they were part of the same club. But drugs! The old date-rape scenario. What a heinous and revolting crime. Gilbert’s takedown adrenaline eased.
“So did he…did he actually rape you?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “He got me to the bed somehow, I don’t remember how, and I passed out for a minute or two.” Her eyes misted over. “Then I woke up. I tried to get up, but I was really wobbly.”
“I can’t believe he put drugs into your drink,” he said. “What a creep.”
“He was lying next to me,” she said. “He tried to kiss me but I pushed him off. I felt stronger. Maybe it was because I was so scared. I got to my feet, hurried down to the street, and got a taxi home.”
“You didn’t call the police?” he said.
“No,” she said. “We are new to this country. I was afraid to. And when I got home, Oscar told me he didn’t want me to call the police, that he would handle it himself.” She glanced at Bannatyne’s unmarked car. “Oscar was furious when I told him about it. That drug Mr. Boyd put in my drink made me feel sick for two days afterward. Sick to my stomach, and clammy. Pale and clammy. I’d never seen Oscar so mad.”
Gilbert glanced at Bannatyne’s car, too. He could see Bannatyne smoking a cigarette now. Oscar defending Magda’s honor. No one was all bad, even if they were bad enough to shoot two best buds at close range. Gilbert felt horribly sorry for Magda. What an ordeal. But he was also disappointed by how his strongest suspect was now off his list. Barcos’s subway transfer alibi was airtight, and his sister had verified the rape story. Gilbert had rushed his own sense of logic. He was beginning to think there was no possible way he could remain objective on this case, not when he had a personal stake in its outcome. Yet it was because he had such a personal stake in its outcome that he had to work on it so hard. With Barcos, his bias had gotten the better of him. But he vowed to control his bias from here on in. Though nothing would have made him happier than to book Barcos on the Boyd murder, he knew he had to be careful, and that he couldn’t be fettered by his own tunnel vision again.
Gilbert and Bannatyne went to a bar after the Barcos takedown. Gilbert usually limited himself to one beer, but tonight he ordered a boilermaker: beer, with a shot of Canadian Club straight up on the side.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” said Bannatyne. “You’re allowed to be wrong once in a while.”
“I’m going after Judy,” he said. “If it isn’t Barcos, it’s got to be Judy. She has a history a violence. She throws food at waiters. She smashed Boyd over the head with a guitar. She lied to us about Scaramouche. Now we have a parking receipt that places her at the scene of the crime in and around the time of the murder. She’s got a tensor bandage around her wrist. I’m convinced she injured herself when she strangled Boyd. I’m certain the skin scrapings under the fingernails of Boyd’s left hand will end up belonging to her. Tomorrow, I’m going to phone the DNA guys to see how the comparison test on her is going. Joe found a hair in her rented car.”
Bannatyne looked at him skeptically. “Tim’s watching you, Barry. I’d be careful. He doesn’t want you touching it. You could really fuck things up for yourself if you stepped out of bounds.”
“Then I’ll get Joe to phone them.”
Bannatyne sighed. “I’d leave Joe alone,” he said. He took a sip of beer and placed his glass on the coaster. “You got to work behind the scenes, Barry. If you stumble on anything useful, and can firm it up so that it really adds something, that’s when you show it to Joe. But if Tim so much as gets a whiff of you poking your nose into it, he’s going to come down hard. He told me so. So just tiptoe around a bit and find some new angles.”
“What new angles?” said Gilbert, exasperated by the whole thing. “There aren’t any new angles. Judy’s the only angle I have, now that Barcos is out.”
Bannatyne frowned. “Play it smart, Barry. Let Joe worry about Judy.” Bannatyne sat back on his bar stool and took another sip of his beer. “Now…Nigel Gower was working on some fingerprints for you. That’s a possible angle you might look at.”
“The plate and the coin jar,” said Gilbert.
“Right,” said Bannatyne. “The plate and the coin jar. Has he made any headway on that?”
“He’s found Boyd’s prints on both. Plus a half-dozen miscellaneous ones on the plate.”
“And has he had any luck identifying the miscellaneous ones on the plate yet?”
Gilbert knocked back his shot of Canadian Club. “He’s going through the system,” he said. “He hasn’t had any hits yet. But I’m sure some of them must belong to Judy. She’s always tossing things around. She tossed the phone at Boyd. I’m sure she threw the plate at him as well.”
“What about Phil?” suggested Bannatyne. “Phil what’s-his-name.”
Gilbert shook his head as he felt the first anesthetizing effects of the Canadian Club numb his body.
“So far we have no physical proof that links him to the scene of the crime,” he said. “He had to be in New York the next day for the release party of his new record, and he says he was at home packing. We can’t verify that, but the guy’s so fixated on his career, I’m sure he wasn’t even thinking about
Boyd.”
“Yes, but what about this Palo Alto business?” asked Bannatyne. “And what about when he tried to launch his solo career and Boyd lost all his money?”
“All that was a long time ago. I’m sure he’s had time to cool down.”
“Yes, but what about the threats?”
“Look, Bob, I’m not going to close the book on Phil as a suspect, but from what I’ve seen of him so far, he prefers to get his revenge in court. There’s nothing physically linking him to the scene of the crime the way there is with Barcos and Judy.”
“Okay, okay,” said Bannatyne. “But didn’t this Phil guy tell you that Boyd had a lot of enemies?”
Gilbert looked at his old partner. “Yes,” he said.
“Well…maybe you have to widen things. Boyd gypped a lot of people. A lot of people, from what you were telling me. Any of who might have done the goods on him the night he was murdered. Maybe you guys aren’t even in the right ballpark yet.”
“Our strongest evidence points to Judy and Barcos. And now that Barcos is out of the picture, that leaves Judy.”
“Yes, but maybe you should look at Boyd’s books more carefully. Maybe you have to make a list of all the lawsuits he’s been involved in over the years. Maybe it’s not only Phil who’s made threats. It could be any of the bands or other groups Boyd’s gypped over the years. And maybe it’s not even a question of the people he gypped.”
Gilbert lifted a brow. “What do you mean?”
“Look what happened tonight,” said Bannatyne. Bannatyne tapped his wide, gristled chin a few times. “We found out Barcos broke the guy’s arm because he tried to rape Magda. And I know you don’t like to remember all that shit from way back when, him taking Regina to France and all, but you remember what you said to me the morning after she took off? You said you wanted to kill the guy. Maybe there’s some other guy out there right now who feels the same way. Maybe you and Barcos aren’t the only ones.”
“Please, Bob,” he said. “I don’t like being compared to Barcos.”
“I’m serious, Barry,” said Bannatyne, brainstorming now. “Maybe there’s another victim out there like Magda who has an angry boyfriend or brother. Or several other victims, with several other boyfriends or brothers. Maybe it’s just a case of menfolk getting even for wrongs perpetrated against their womenfolk.”
