by Scott Mackay
Then Nina sprang to her feet and threw her arms around Gilbert, knocking him off balance. Regina grabbed him and steadied him.
“Thank you, Daddy,” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
He was immensely relieved. It put things in perspective. His urge to protect Nina, to rescue her from that bad place, had been extreme. That same urge compelled him to protect Regina. And that’s what he would do. He would protect Regina. First as a husband, then as a cop. And he would do it without bias this time.
In bed later on, Gilbert told Regina about the new Stacy angle.
“He was friendly with her whenever I was down there back in the spring,” said Regina. “Too friendly, in my opinion. Too free with his hands.”
“That’s what Ted Aver told me,” said Gilbert.
“I could tell she didn’t like it,” said Regina. “But I can’t believe he would…then come to think of it…”
She trailed off.
“He doesn’t treat women nicely, does he?” he said.
“No,” she said. “He doesn’t. In France, it finally felt all wrong. It was a power trip to him, nothing more.”
“You see?” he said. “That’s what I’m talking about. I think I have a real shot at this. I’m finally starting to feel like a cop again. I’ll go down to the hospital and start asking questions. I’m sure I’ll find something.”
“You know what?” She looked out the window, where a summer gust billowed the sheer curtains. “Marie Barton’s case against me, and Tim’s arrest warrant? They both seem so…so ridiculous…so far away from me right now. As far as I’m concerned, your biggest case of the year is Mike Topalovich. And you’ve solved that one, Barry. I don’t care about Marie Barton’s case. Or Tim’s arrest warrant. I’m just glad we got our little girl back. Don’t let anybody ever tell you you’re a rotten cop. Because you’re the best cop in the world. And you’re also the best husband and father.”
Twenty
At work the next morning, as a blistering sun rose over the east end of the city, Gilbert came into the squad room and saw Lombardo and Nowak talking in Nowak’s office. He gave them a quick glance, then beelined for his desk, feeling guilty about all his covert work on the Boyd case.
He was just getting settled when Nowak called him in.
“Barry?” he said. “Can I see you?”
Had he gone too far, he wondered? He got up, and, like an errant student who’s been called to the principal’s office, trudged to the front. Had Nowak been talking to Blackstein? Or to the Centre of Forensic Science about the hair samples?
Gilbert was sure he was going to be disciplined, that he might even lose his job, but when he got to Nowak’s office, both Nowak and Joe smiled at him.
“Good news, Barry,” said Nowak. “You don’t have to worry about your wife as a suspect in the Glen Boyd case anymore. We’ve received firm evidence that’s changed the Crown’s mind. Joe and Gord arrested Judy Pelaez early this morning in her hotel room.”
Gilbert was caught so off guard by this, he at first didn’t know what to say. He glanced at Joe. His partner had a great smile on his face, his eyes bright with good news.
“Nearly seven weeks on this damn thing,” said Lombardo, “and me and Gord finally get a break.” Lombardo gave Gilbert a pat on the back. “We got the final DNA testing back on the other skin sample. It’s a match to Judy Pelaez. It was enough to convince Marie Barton to go ahead with Judy instead of your wife. You and Regina can rest easy. You don’t have to worry about sabotaging Jennifer’s education money to pay for legal fees.”
Gilbert, put on the spot, just stared at them. He wondered if Judy had said anything to Joe or Gord about her tendonitis during the arrest this morning. Scarier still, had she said anything about his own meeting with her four days ago?
“So you took her into custody,” said Gilbert. “And did she say anything?”
“No,” said Joe. “She kept her mouth shut.” He frowned. “She had this smug smile on her face. We asked her a few questions but she told us she wasn’t saying anything, and that we would have to talk to her lawyer.”
Gilbert was relieved. “And who’s her lawyer?” he asked.
“She’s going with what’s-his-name,” said Joe. “Boyd’s lawyer. Daniel Lynn.”
Gilbert thought of the pound of Blue Mountain coffee. “Lynn’s a nice guy,” he said. “I like him.”
Lombardo tapped his chin a few times. “There’s something different about you,” he said. “Wait a minute. I know what it is. You just called a lawyer a nice guy. I thought the terms were mutually exclusive.”
Nowak and Lombardo had a good laugh about that. But Gilbert thought: God, what a jam. He had to work fast. He was happy Regina was off the hook, but now that Judy was facing prosecution, and the department a major embarrassment, the pressure was still on.
“When’s her arraignment?” asked Gilbert.
“In a few days,” said Nowak. Nowak’s smiled faded, as if he sensed an ulterior motive in Gilbert’s question. “I know you usually go to arraignments, Barry, but I’d appreciate it if you stay away from this one. Ling called me again. He was checking up on you.”
Shit. He looked helplessly at Joe. Now he felt he couldn’t even go to Joe.
Gilbert went back to his desk and tried to work while Joe went out to buy celebratory cappuccinos for all. He couldn’t concentrate. He kept wondering how he was going to get a court order to obtain Stacy’s records from Mount Joseph Hospital.
As he brooded over the problem, he tried to fit the events of June first into a loose chronology. Judy Pelaez arrives at the apartment a little after eight. Whether she went to Scaramouche was now beside the point. She goes upstairs to GBIA and she and Boyd have a fight. Their fight, as usual, gets physical, and in all the pushing and shoving, trace amounts of Judy’s skin get stock under Boyd’s fingernails. Then she leaves. A little before nine, Oscar Barcos and Francesco Deranga arrive. Boyd grabs Deranga, and trace amounts of Deranga’s skin, et cetera, et cetera. The two sell Boyd coke and break his arm. They get to Jay’s Smoke and Gift by 9:17 and board the northbound train at Osgoode Station by 9:34. Boyd takes drugs to kill the pain. He’s so whacked out on painkillers he hasn’t the sense to go to the hospital. But what happened before Judy? Had Boyd indeed raped Stacy? And what happened after Barcos and Deranga? Did Phil and Stacy indeed go to GBIA to avenge that rape? If he could answer those two questions, he might have his killer.
But first he had to prove Stacy’s visit to Mount Joseph Hospital. Who could he get to help him?
Then it dawned on him. Daniel Lynn. He might have an ally in the lawyer.
He called Daniel Lynn after lunch. He asked for the lawyer’s opinion on the Pelaez arrest.
“It’s utterly preposterous,” said Lynn. “I’ve known Judy for the last thirty years, and I’m convinced she would never kill anyone, least of all a man whom she so desperately loved. Tell your staff inspector he’s made a big mistake. I’ve got medical notes from her doctor. Judy suffers from chronic tendonitis in her left wrist. It dates back to 1985. From all the guitar playing. I spoke to her doctor over the telephone. A Dr. Lukow. I filled him in on the situation and he tells me it would be impossible—absolutely impossible—for Judy to exert the necessary force to strangle the man, given the state of her wrist.”
“I have the same information,” said Gilbert.
“You do?” said Lynn. “Then why in God’s name did you arrest her?”
“It wasn’t me,” he said.
Gilbert explained his own situation, how and why he had been yanked from the case.
“But I’m still going to break the case come hell or high water,” he said. “Which means I’m looking at Phil again.”
He told Lynn about Phil and Stacy’s relationship, about the hair comparison report and how it indicated Boyd might have raped Stacy, and finally about Stacy’s admission to Mount Joseph Hospital.
“But if I’m going to prove her admission, I have to
get her hospital record,” he said. “I need a court order to get her record. I can’t get one through the usual channels. Like I told you, I’m not even supposed to be working this case.”
“You needn’t worry about that,” said the lawyer. “Let me phone Justice Wayne Oulds. He’s an old friend of mine. He has his office in Osgoode Hall. He can be trusted. I’ll give him a ring. You should have your court order in no time. Pop down in a hour. I’ll make sure his secretary has it for you by then.”
Once Gilbert had his court order from Justice Oulds, it took him a while to find the Health Records Department at Mount Joseph Hospital—the department had recently moved from the basement to the third floor.
“The department looks a lot smaller,” he commented to the receptionist, glancing around.
She grimaced. “We can hardly move in here,” she said. “I don’t know why they put us here.”
He presented his court order from Justice Oulds. “We believe this woman may have come to your Emergency Department on the evening of June first. If so, we’ll need a copy of her records.”
The receptionist glanced the order over. “I’ll take this back to the release-of-information desk,” she said. “If you wouldn’t mind taking a seat.”
He took a seat. He felt an inkling of satisfaction. He was on the hunt, and he was getting close. This was a quest. A quest to save Judy from prosecution, one to spare the department a huge embarrassment, and also one where he would at last confront Boyd and ultimately bury the old stoner for good.
The receptionist came back five minutes later with a copy of Stacy Todd’s chart.
Gilbert glanced through the latest reports. All of them were dated June first. He was getting a good feeling about this. The registration form indicated that the triage nurse had admitted Stacy Todd for urgent care on Friday the first of June at 6:33 in the evening. Preliminary diagnosis had been marked as possible over-medication. The registration clerk had typed Stacy’s address, telephone number, and health card number on the registration sheet. The nurse had printed her vital signs—pulse, blood pressure, and temperature—in the appropriate spots. He flipped through some previous notes from other admissions—an ear infection two years ago, a bad cough three years ago, and a fractured collarbone five years ago—but saw absolutely nothing about diabetes.
“She’s not a diabetic?” he asked.
The receptionist nodded toward the chart. “That’s all we have,” she said.
He flipped back to the June first admission. He looked at the doctor’s note. The doctor’s note was illegible. While he was encouraged that Stacy Todd had in fact been here on the night of June first, this doctor’s note, because of its illegibility, was virtually useless as a piece of legal evidence.
He showed it to the receptionist.
“Can you read any of this?” he asked.
She looked at the sheet. “No,” she said. “But I know it’s Dr. Charbonneau. He’s one of the worst.”
Gilbert took a deep breath and considered his next move.
“Is he in the hospital today?” he asked.
She lifted her phone and dialed. “Julie, is Dr. Charbonneau here today?”
Dr. Martin Charbonneau was in fact on duty in the Emergency Room.
Gilbert made his way to the south end of the building and took the elevator to the first floor.
He asked the triage nurse in Emergency where he might find Dr. Charbonneau.
“Check the fast-track nursing station,” she suggested.
He went through the big double doors, passed a man with a bleeding arm, a leukemic boy with no hair, and an old woman with the yellowed skin of a jaundice sufferer.
After asking again at the fast-track station, he was directed to a diminutive middle-aged doctor who stood at the X-ray viewing panel examining the X-ray films of someone’s broken hand.
“I remember her well,” said Dr. Charbonneau, once Gilbert showed him the note. Dr. Charbonneau had a calm, clean, professional look, and smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol. “She came in here, and she said someone had given her drugs. She wasn’t sure what kind. They were slipped into her drink.” Dr. Charbonneau raised his eyebrows, as if to convey both surprise and cynical resignation. “She exhibited some mild symptoms of overdose.” He pointed to a deeply etched squiggle in his note, and Gilbert, looking at it a second time, deciphered the word “overdose” in and among the doctor’s Picassoesque scrawl. “We observed her,” said Dr. Charbonneau. “I asked her if she thought it might be a police matter.” His voice grew firmer. “She said no. One of her friends picked her up. And that’s why I remember the case so well. It was none other than Phil Thompson, of Mother Courage.” He shook his head. “You never know who’s going to walk in here. Do you know Mother Courage at all? From way back when?”
“Yes,” said Gilbert. “Do you remember what time Phil Thompson came in?”
Dr. Charbonneau scratched his beard. “It must have been around nine o’clock,” he said. Dr. Charbonneau shook his head as a nostalgic grin came to his face. “Mother Courage was big in Trois-Rivières, where I come from. All of Quebec loved them. It’s too bad they broke up. I always thought they were one of the best bands going.”
Gilbert approached a Middle Eastern taxi driver. The driver was in his mid-twenties. He sat in an aging Crown Victoria taxicab smoking a cigarette while he waited to move up the taxi-stand queue outside Mount Joseph Hospital.
“How are you today?” asked Gilbert.
The driver looked at him suspiciously. “Not bad,” he said.
Gilbert showed him his badge and identification. “I’m wondering if you can help me,” he said. Gilbert gave him a bit of background on what he was trying to do. “So what I want to know is, were you working here on the first of June?”
The driver nodded. “I work here every day,” he said.
Gilbert withdrew a color scan of Phil Thompson’s face, one taken from the new Phil Thompson Unplugged CD, and handed it to the taxi driver. Having made a side trip to buy the CD after his visit to Dr. Charbonneau, he now had copies of Phil’s picture.
“Do you remember picking up this fare at all?” he asked the taxi driver.
The driver looked at the scan. It showed a rakish portrait of Phil, hair masking half his face, finger cymbals held to his eye.
Gilbert knew asking this particular driver, a man of Arabic extraction, was a long shot—Phil Thompson’s star status, even in the western world, had been waning for years. But he was running out of drivers to ask.
The driver looked at the scan and handed it back to Gilbert.
“No, I have not seen this man,” he said.
Gilbert curbed his disappointment. He looked up and down the taxi stand. All the drivers had his card. They would all ask around. And they would call him if anything turned up. Gilbert believed this was his only approach. With Phil’s driver’s license suspended, Gilbert was convinced the aging rock star took cabs everywhere, and had in fact taken one down to GBIA after Stacy’s discharge.
“Thanks,” he said. “Keep the picture. Maybe you’ll remember differently tomorrow. Here’s my card. Call me if you do.”
He gave the driver his card and strolled back to the shade of a grubby little maple in a concrete planter. Was it useless, then? He could spend the next two months asking cab drivers about Phil Thompson, and not get anywhere with it. Memories grew dim. Seven weeks was a long time. Calling cab companies hadn’t worked either. They had nothing suspicious on their run sheets.
By four-thirty, he still hadn’t had any luck. Thirty-nine cabbies now had Phil’s picture, and thirty-nine had Gilbert’s card. He was tired. He took a sip of his third Gatorade. The constant heavy traffic on University Avenue was getting to him. He longed for the quiet of Regina’s garden.
He decided to go back to headquarters. He would have to hope that one of the cabbies called him.
On the way back, he swung by the Coffee Nook, a hole-in-the-wall joint with no tables or chairs, just a take-out counter.
While he waited for the counter-help to bring him his coffee and bagel, the radio played Phil Thompson’s new hit, “Old Dance Partner.”
“Steadily climbing the charts, Phil Thompson’s comeback song from Phil Thompson Unplugged” said the deejay. “Everybody grab your old dance partner, and put on your dancing shoes. We’re gonna dance the night away.”
As the counter-help came with his coffee and bagel, Gilbert nodded toward the radio. “Are they playing that a lot?” he asked.
“Every couple of hours,” she said. “A lot of people like that song.”
To prove her point, she moved her head to the music while she took his money.
When he got back to headquarters, he found Joe Lombardo there. Gilbert decided it was time to tell Lombardo the truth. As much as he didn’t want to get Joe in trouble, Gilbert finally felt he needed help. Besides, he longed to be working with Joe again. Things hadn’t been the same without Lombardo.
“Joe,” he said, “I haven’t been entirely honest with you. I’ve been working some angles on the Boyd case all this time.”
He started first with Judy’s medical chart from Dr. Lukow’s office in San Francisco. He took the FedEx envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to Joe. He watched Lombardo’s face sink as Joe read Judy’s medical notes and the special letter dictated by Dr. Lukow.
“But we’ve already arrested her,” complained Joe. “We’ve booked her.”
Gilbert shook his head. “She’s got tendonitis in her left wrist,” said Gilbert. “She’s had it since 1985. I showed these notes to Dr. Blackstein. He thinks she wouldn’t have had the strength or tolerance in her wrist to strangle Boyd.”
Joe read the medical notes again, his brow darkening as his lips tightened.
“No wonder she had such a smug smile on her face when we arrested her. When Marie Barton sees this, she’s going to freak. She’s going to bite Tim’s head off. She’s going to bite my head off.”
Next, Gilbert handed Joe the pubic hair comparison report.
