City of Crime

by Warren Court

  The forensics team was pulling down the tent, trying their best to avoid contaminating the scene any further. The trunk of the car was still up. Bernard was talking to Wozniak. They saw Dalupan returning from a visit to the car wreckers next door. He shook his head, meaning there was nothing there like a camera pointed at the back of the Sobeys lot that was going to help them.

  “Got a few good prints off the dash. Probably going to be the father’s,” Bernard said. “Everything else was wiped. I’m not surprised, this car gets a good detailing regularly. I can smell the upholstery shampoo. I’m going to catch a ride back with the truck.” There was more print work to be done, but it could be handled back at forensics.

  “The security guard is a little too good at his job,” Temple said. “Roughed up a couple of kids last year. Karate expert. Mendoza and I are going to go see him tomorrow, after I talk to his auxiliary sergeant first, though. Want to find out who in the hell gets kicked out of the auxiliary.”

  “Really?” Wozniak asked. Mendoza and Dalupan stood back, let their two detectives talk.

  “I keep thinking about those two volunteer firefighters down in California who wanted to get on full time. They started a fire and then came to the rescue. Big heroes. Fire burned down half a town and they wound up in jail,” Temple said.

  “So this security guard whacks two random people, drops the car here, and then four months later calls it in?”

  “It’s a stretch, but gotta start somewhere.”

  Wozniak inclined his head at Mendoza, who was ten feet away and had his back to him. He and Dalupan were watching the eastbound green and white GO train that was hurtling by.

  “You speak to the kid?” Wozniak said.

  “About Rush? Yeah, I straightened him out.”

  “You want to switch him out for Dalupan on this one?”

  “Nope, I can handle him.”

  “Good. I got enough human resources issues at the moment.”

  5

  Temple spent another three hours at the crime scene watching as the forensics crew wrapped the majority of the car in white plastic to preserve any prints or DNA. The car was then hauled onto a flatbed truck, the departmental tow, and taken back to the Forensics Identification Services building on Jane Street. By the time the tow left the scene, rush hour had dissipated and the Danforth was about to be re-opened. The sun was down now and the winter chill returned. Temple retrieved his overcoat from his Buick. He and Mendoza sipped coffee and watched as the forensics team now went to work scouring the area for any evidence left behind, tagging and bagging it all. A pack of matches. A scrap of paper. Everything went into blue plastic evidence bags. They might have to come back several times as the snow continued to melt.

  The bodies had been taken down to the coroner’s office. Sara had retrieved Prajoth Nair’s wallet from his coat and showed Wozniak and Temple his driver’s licence. Still, because of the state of decomposition, absolute identification by dental records was going to be required. Hopefully something about the weapon used would also be uncovered. Temple was confident they could clear the security guard off the list tomorrow and move on to other suspects.

  “We getting an early start tomorrow?” Mendoza asked. Dalupan had been cut loose to go work on something else and Wozniak had left after the Town Car was taken away.

  “You calling it a night?” Temple asked.

  “Yeah, thought we would,” Mendoza asked. “Aren’t you?”

  “Nope. I was heading back to 40 College. Got a lot of reading to do.”

  “Oh. Um. . .”

  “Take off, Mendoza. Going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  Temple got back to police headquarters at ten o’clock and took the elevator up to the homicide office on the fifth floor. It was a quiet Tuesday night at 40 College. The bad guys were just coming out of hibernation; things would be heating up in there in a couple of months as Toronto’s yearly murder rate started to increase.

  Temple sighed when he found the Nair file in PowerCase, his department’s main computer application. The initiation date on the file was four months old, an eternity for a homicide detective. This was practically a cold case.

  The file had twenty-six pages of notes attached. Most of them were from the DCs’ and detectives’ notebooks; they’d been transcribed by a group of civilians working for the TPS and fed into PowerCase. Similarly, the notes that Temple and his team had made today would be fed into the system, transcribed by Claudette, their hard-working, underappreciated PowerCase Chic. That’s what the cops on the 5th floor called their civilian assistants but it was said with respect and admiration.

  Temple settled in and started reading, writing down his own observations on a yellow pad as he went. What he noticed right off was the time delay between when father and daughter were last seen and when the mother had reported it to the police. Six days. The detectives were no fools, and they had questioned her on this. It wouldn’t have been that unusual if it had just been Prajoth, the patriarch of the clan; fathers abandoned their families all the time. But the 13-year-old daughter had gone missing as well. Temple read the lead detective’s notes. The mother, Farzana Nair, had been questioned specifically on this, and the conversation had been recorded and transcribed. The lead Detective was Rudy Tasnady. Temple knew the name but not the person.

  Detective Tasnady: Why did you wait so long to call the police, Mrs. Nair?

  Farzana Nair: I don’t know. I thought they would come back.

  DT: But your little girl—surely you were worried about her.

  SN: I knew she was with her father.

  “Ask the question again,” Temple said, his voice sounding loud in the empty homicide office. During the day, the place was buzzing with activity. Now all he could hear was the hum of the neon lights and the whir of his computer’s CPU fan.

  DT: Your husband and thirteen-year-old daughter go missing and you don’t call it in for six days. I just find that unusual.

  SN: I was afraid.

  DT: Afraid of what? Of who? We can’t help you, Mrs. Nair, if you don’t help us.

  SN: I’m afraid of the police.

  DT: In this country, you should have nothing to be afraid of from us. Unless you’ve done something wrong.

  SN: I haven’t. I don’t know where they are. Please find them.

  “She’s hiding something,” Temple said, his voice not as loud this time. She should have been brought down for questioning. She wasn’t. The investigation had focused on the husband. The working theory in a report typed up by Tasnady was that the father had fled and taken the daughter with him. From there, the borders and airports had been checked. The Indian consulate was contacted and confirmation received back that no person with a passport made out to either Prajoth or Aruna Nair had entered India after the date when the pair had last been seen. In fact, both parties’ passports had been found in their respective bedrooms. They could have been travelling under false ones. If that were the case, tracking them in India would have been hard.

  The questions went on for four pages. Tasnady had asked for a description of what the missing duo were wearing, then whether her husband might have had any enemies. Mrs. Nair had said no. Tasnady asked whether her husband might have gone back to India unannounced and taken the daughter. Answer was no. Questions were asked about marital problems, money problems. There were none. Temple took a quick look at the financial background 55 Division had done. The Nairs had a small amount of debt; nothing outrageous. He ran a restaurant and it had been doing okay up until the disappearance. Things were probably different now.

  Temple rubbed his eyes, it was getting on one a.m. He should grab a couple of hours sleep before he and Mendoza hit the road. They would have gone and spoken with Tasnady anyway but now Temple had a burning desire to see him. He wanted to know why he backed off on the mother about the delay in phoning the police. He shut his computer down fully intending to go home and grab some shut eye.

  Temple walked into the Wentworth Tavern and
saw Detective Rush in his usual spot talking to Tracy behind the bar. Tracy was giving Rush that coy smile of hers. It dropped when she saw Temple.

  “Hey Trace, I’ll have a rum and Coke, and get one for this drunk here,” Temple said.

  “Fuck you, pal,” Detective Rush said. He downed his Eldorado 12-year-old to get ready for the next one.

  The TV over the bar had its sound down but Temple and Rush could make out the fat, obnoxious pork salesman mouthing the words ‘That’s good eatin’.

  “What a douchebag,” Rush said. “You vote for that idiot?”

  “Yeah,” Temple said. “He’s not that bad of a mayor.”

  “He’s a carnival act, putting himself like that on TV.”

  “It made him a millionaire,” Temple said. “Could you or I do that?”

  “Bullshit. He inherited the company from his father and then he thinks he’s such a big shot he runs for mayor and we’re stupid enough to elect him.”

  Tracy came back with the drinks. She put Rush’s down nicely and dropped Temple’s in front of him splashing a bit out onto the bar. Then she went to the far end of the bar and started wiping glasses.

  “Jesus, what did you do to her?” Rush asked.

  “Beats me,” Temple said.

  “So you heard?” Rush said.

  “Yeah. Got told at a scene that you were joining us.”

  “Is Wozniak pissed?”

  “Maybe, but we’re understaffed so we’ll take any hack they send us.”

  “You’re being punished.”

  “Sounds like it. We’re down two DCs cause of this Tsingtao thing.”

  “Looks bad on the department, that shooting.”

  “It was a good shoot. Those kids don’t deserve what’s coming their way.”

  “The video killed us.”

  “Tactical commands; standard procedure.” Tactical commands -what police called the shouting of orders in the middle of a confrontation. It was meant to cut through the anger or fear that a suspect was dealing with, to get them to comply with what the police; drop a weapon, hit the ground and so on.

  “The public doesn’t know that. They see two cops on a streetcar with guns drawn shouting at a guy. Then they fill him full of holes.”

  “You forget about the knife? It was a good shoot. There could have been someone dying on that streetcar. The guy had just killed someone.”

  “Your guys didn’t know that.”

  “You weren’t there.”

  “Neither were you.”

  “I was two blocks away.”

  “Why weren’t you in charge of your guys?”

  “You preparing me for the stand?”

  Rush took a drink.

  “You think I’ll get called?” Temple said.

  “Of course. Senior officer on scene. Doesn’t matter you were two blocks away.”

  “We were canvassing a neighbourhood. We’re supposed to all go around in a big group holding hands?”

  “Don’t get defensive when you get on the stand.”

  “I hate court.”

  “Get drunk the night before. A good hangover will keep you calm.”

  “Your little trick?”

  “John, I’ve so much to teach you. Who else is on the team?”

  “Fuck, don’t they tell you anything?”

  “Just making conversation.”

  “Dalupan…”

  “That pole smoker?”

  “The world has changed, Detective Rush. You’ll need to embrace Dalupan and his lifestyle. Fully embrace it.”

  “Gross. Anything else?”

  “Mendoza. Wants to be called Melanie now.”

  Rush did a Danny Thomas spit-take. “That’s good. He say anything about me?”

  “He went off when he heard you’d be joining us. I set him straight. You know him?”

  “Years back when he was in traffic. He fucked up. Not much, but enough.”

  “You bring the hammer down?”

  “A little. So tell me about the case?”

  “It’s those Indians that went missing last fall. Father and daughter in the trunk of his car. Man, it was shit.”

  “Yeah, I can smell it on you.”

  Temple sniffed his sport coat and realized Rush was right.

  “Don’t worry about it. No one else can tell. They’ll just think you have incredibly bad BO,” Rush said.

  Wentworth’s was busy. It had all of six people in it, including the two homicide detectives from the TPS. That was busy for them. A young guy reeking of pot and unwashed denim came up to the bar. He had long stringy hair and was wearing a ripped and faded jean jacket. Temple caught a glimpse of a circular patch on the back of it. Biker.

  “Yo, another Bud,” the man said.

  “Try ‘please,’” Temple said.

  Tracy was down at the other end of the bar serving two regulars who were plunking away at the in-house trivia game.

  “Yo, another Bud. Fucking bitch hears me,” the pothead said.

  “Watch your mouth,” Temple said.

  “Why should I?”

  Temple turned to him in a practised motion so that his jacket opened just enough to show the butt of his Glock sticking out. The pothead straightened up and left the bar.

  “Fuck. Why don’t you do your drinking in a cop bar?” Temple said, turning back to Rush.

  “What, with other cops?” Rush said.

  “I could introduce you around. They’re a swell bunch of guys.”

  “Get back to the case.”

  “The car’s been there for a while. Since before winter. Security guard called it in after the snow melted and he checked the plates.”

  “So tomorrow—your playlist?”

  “The wife-slash-mother. Relatives. Employees. The father owns a restaurant on Dundas.”

  “I know. Saw it in the paper. I’ve been in there.”

  “You eat Indian?”

  “I’m a man of the world. What about the security guard?”

  “He’s a wannabe. Went through TPS auxiliary. They kicked him out.”

  “Really? That’s weird.”

  “I know. I want to find out why. He’s aggressive, likes to kick and punch. Likes the checkout girls too much.”

  “Does he like to kick and punch the checkout girls?”

  “Don’t know. Dalupan and Mendoza talked to him. I’m going to go see him after the mother.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “Sure. I’ll know where you’ll be if I need you.”

  “You’ll always need me, son,” Rush said. “Trace?” He held up his empty glass.

  Temple got up to leave. In the mirror, he saw the bar manager coming up behind him.

  “You got some balls coming in here,” the manager said.

  Temple turned and gave him his hard look, like a wolf just before it eats its prey, and the squirmy little shit lost all his bluster.

  “How’s it any of your business?” Temple said.

  “She works for me. I’m her friend. The clinic cost six hundred and fifty bucks,” he said. “I paid it.”

  Temple turned to Rush. “Can I borrow some money?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Temple pulled a bundle of bills out of his pants pocket, peeled off some twenties and a couple of fifties, and put them on the bar.

  “There’s half plus a tip.” Temple chuckled.

  “It’s six fifty.”

  “Takes two to tango,” he said.

  The manager scooped up the bills and left. Tracy looked over once at him but didn’t come back towards the pair.

  “Jesus, John, why do you always piss in your own bath?” Rush said.

  Temple looked around. “Buddy, this is your bath.” He downed his drink and left.

  6

  Temple dropped his keys on his bureau and stood there unbuttoning his shirt. He looked down at a framed photograph of himself and his older sister, Dawn. It was taken when they were teenagers up at Port Elgin, a summer vacation spot on Lake
Huron his parents had taken them to each year since they were babies. That was the last photo taken of them before Dawn had run away from home at age 16, never to be seen again. Temple shed his clothes and crawled into his unmade bed. He didn’t set an alarm; he never had trouble rising early.

  The single rum he’d had with Bill Rush had not slowed his racing mind, and he lay there thinking of the day’s events. The sight of those bodies. That familiar pang he’d felt before he first saw the young Nair girl. A flash of what his sister might look like if it had been her in the trunk, any trunk. It was an impossibility, she was two years older than him. She’d be forty years old if she was still alive. But he always thought of her as eternally young, As if Dawn had somehow stopped aging when she left home.

  His sister had run away during the winter of ’93. Temple, who was fourteen at the time, had had only an inkling of the trouble she was getting into before she disappeared. She would crawl in her window late at night or sneak in through the back door. Her clothes would smell funny and he learned that it was from smoking pot. His parents would not approve.

  He knew the friends she hung out with—a bunch of losers, his dad called them. His mom cried any time Dawn came up in conversation around the dinner table when she wasn’t there.

  When she disappeared their parents had contacted the police and provided a picture of her, told them who she was hanging out with. After the cops got through talking to the parents one of them pulled Temple aside and Temple filled in some blanks. The drug use, late-night parties. Things her parents were clueless about, too, like the stolen car he saw her in one night at a strip mall. It was a silver Acura and she was tucked in the back of it with three other friends, two boys and another girl. The other girl had called him over and he’d heard his sister from the back seat admonish her. Dawn told him they had just “borrowed it.” No big deal. He could still remember the acidic pot smell coming from the interior of the car. He’d told the cops all about it, given them the names of the other kids in the car. If it got them in trouble, so what? He wanted his sister brought home. The cops had listed her as a runaway and done what they could, but after weeks, then months, went by with no sign of Dawn, they had moved on to other things.