City of Crime

by Warren Court

  “Sure. I don’t mind,” Rush said. “I’m getting tired of warning you to be careful. I guess you know what you’re doing.”

  “I don’t really,” Temple said, and he looked at his friend. “But I’m going to keep doing it.”

  “See you around, John. I hope.”

  Temple took a long shower, alternating between hot and cold to clear his head. Standing in his bedroom with just a towel around him, he checked his phone and wished he’d checked it before getting in the shower. Lost time. There was a message from Sub-Inspector Krishnan from Bangalore.

  The message was hard to make out. “Detective Temple, I have some new information. Please call me when you can.” There were cars honking in the background.

  Temple could only imagine the difficulties of policing such a large populace. That was it, just that quick message. Damn it, why didn’t he go into detail? This phone tag was slowing things down. The message had come in at 4 a.m., probably around 4 p.m. Bangalore time. Temple would have been passed out on his bed by then. Snippets of memory of the night’s drinking session with Bill Rush came back to him. They had hit it hard. Rush had shown up drunk.

  The next message was from an Investigator Concordia of the SIU.

  “Detective Temple, I’m investigator Concordia from the Special Investigations Unit. We’d like to talk to you urgently. You can reach me on my cell. We would appreciate a quick response from you on this matter.”

  “What matter? Which one?” Temple said out loud to the phone, and then saved the message. He was going to get dressed, maybe grab a bite to eat, and then phone Concordia. Fuck him and his big stick.

  When he was ready, Temple called the SIU.

  “Concordia, this is Detective Temple.”

  “It’s Investigator Concordia.”

  “Yeah. How can I help you?” Temple said, feigning ignorance.

  “You’ll come to 120 Bloor Street East,” Concordia said, making it a command, not a request. Temple knew that SIU had several offices throughout the city. They liked to meet with cops out of their own territory so they were off kilter.

  “How long am I going to be there?” Temple said.

  “What?” Concordia was clearly thrown off by the question. “As long as is necessary.”

  “All right. I can be there in half an hour. Maybe a bit more.”

  “When you get to the lobby, show some ID to the security guard and he’ll direct you to the room. Come alone.”

  It took him forty minutes to make it downtown. Noon was always a good time to move around the city. He parked in a public lot across the street from the nondescript six-story stone building at the corner of Church and Bloor. He had to weave his way through a throng of a couple of hundred people protesting out in front of the Russian consulate which was nearby. They were holding posters depicting Vladimir Putin wearing a Hitler moustache and a Nazi armband.

  The security guard showed no reaction when Temple showed him his driver’s licence. Temple was given a pass and directed to the fourth floor. That was it. The building’s directory listed IBM on the second floor. There were a couple of accounting firms and a doctor’s office. Nothing was listed for the fourth floor.

  There was a man in a brown suit waiting for him in the lobby on the fourth. Temple could tell he wasn’t on the job just by the way he carried himself. Probably a civilian component to the SIU team. That unit recruited people from all walks of life who presented themselves as well rounded, unbiased, and fairly intelligent. Temple knew that was seldom the case, though, when you dug deep enough. The man was holding a file folder and he didn’t offer his hand.

  “Detective Temple, I’m Investigator Concordia. Follow me, please.” Concordia turned and led Temple through a double set of glazed doors. They went down a hallway past vacant meeting rooms until they came to the last one. Temple went in first, waved in by Concordia. He almost expected to be hit on the head as he entered. He locked eyes on Daniel Marinelli.

  “Dan,” Temple said. There were several other people in the room. Temple didn’t know any of them. Concordia closed the door.

  “Sit down, Detective,” Concordia directed him. Temple took the chair at the head of the table and saw Marinelli grin. Concordia had been going to sit there, but rather than ask Temple to move he now took the only other available chair. Temple grinned back at Marinelli. They loved it when they got something over on the SIU.

  “Detective, we have some serious questions to ask you but first we’re going to play a video. The screen is behind you,” Concordia said. Temple whirled his chair around without saying a word. Someone dimmed the lights and from an overhead projector the grainy black and white shot of a hotel lobby appeared on the screen. There was a time stamp and date in the corner, marked two days ago. Temple figured it was the hotel where he and Mendoza had worked the prostitutes. The scroll started and Temple saw himself walk in front of the camera. The angle wasn’t perfect but it was clearly him. The only other person in the shot was someone up at the desk and the girl behind it helping him. A head of light hair tied in a ponytail came bouncing along the bottom of the screen, heading in the opposite direction. Temple was looking at his cell phone as he walked, ignoring everyone around him.

  “So?” Temple said after the video ended. He whirled back around. “This what you got me down here for?”

  “The time stamp was just before the shooting of Detective Constable Mendoza. From what you told Detective Marinelli here, you two were setting up calls with prostitutes.”

  “Call girls,” Temple said, making the distinction.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “It’s why we had the hotel room. The girls we wanted don’t walk the streets.” It was all a gambit: Temple was trying to control the tempo of the meeting and fluster Concordia. He saw some measure of success: the man’s neck muscles bulged as he referred back to his notes and resumed.

  “You were calling up call girls, having them come to a room you rented?”

  “Yes. We were working a murder—”

  “We know what you were working on. The point is, we’re investigating the shooting of officer Mendoza and your conduct before and after that.”

  “There’s also a dead woman involved,” Temple said, and he looked pointedly at Marinelli.

  “The video we just played shows you down in the lobby. You left your partner alone to meet the call girl?”

  “Only for a moment. We had time. The first one we called took almost an hour to show up and we knew from experience that these girls take their time. They’re not exactly punctual.” Temple heard a snicker come from one of the other people in the room but he didn’t try and determine who it was.

  “So you just left him. What were you doing down in the lobby? From the video, you went into the hotel bar. The video shows you coming back roughly ten minutes later.”

  “I had to go to the john.”

  “Why not use the one in the room you rented?”

  “Didn’t want to get caught in there when the next girl showed up.”

  There was another snicker from one of the SIU team and Concordia shot the young man a hard look that shut him up.

  “Is that what you want the investigation to conclude, that you were urinating while your partner was approaching a potential life-and-death situation?”

  “I was meeting a confidential informant,” Temple said. “The person I met was close by and it was relevant to the case. We had just placed the call to the second prostitute, and we weighed the risk and it was acceptable.”

  “Who were you meeting?”

  “You need a definition of confidential?” Temple said. “I thought you snitches in SIU would be well aware of the meaning of that word.”

  “That’ll be enough of that,” Concordia hissed.

  “I don’t report to you. I can say whatever the fuck I like.”

  “Really,” Concordia said. He flopped his thick pen onto his notebook. “I can see now why you’re suspended.”

  “I’m s
uspended because I was doing my job. Why are you here, Dan?” Temple looked at the detective Marinelli. “Why are you mixed up in SIU bullshit?”

  “Just trying to find out who shot Mendoza and the girl,” he said. He was serious, and his face showed it.

  “Do you think I set my partner up?”

  “We don’t know what to think, John. You’d better calm down and answer this gentleman’s questions.”

  “I’m not giving the name of the CI to him, you, or anyone. I don’t have to.”

  “We can make you,” Concordia chimed in.

  “What if I walk? You already have my badge and gun. What if I throw in my papers too?”

  “That’s your choice. But as it stands right now you’re part of an investigation into an attempted murder on a police officer. That won’t go away if you throw in your badge.” Concordia said.

  “Am I the subject?”

  “We don’t know what you are. But we’re going to find out,” Concordia said.

  Temple turned to Marinelli. It was his murder investigation. “Dan, anything to say?”

  “We’re a little concerned about your involvement, John. You being down in the lobby while your partner gets shot… it doesn’t look good.”

  “If I was down in the lobby, how did I put rounds down on the shooter? You checked my gun; you can dig the slugs out of the wall. If I’d hit him, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “But you didn’t hit him, John. He got away.” Temple looked at his colleague. His friend. Temple could almost smell the aura of corruption around him. Had they gotten to Daniel Marinelli too, or was he just trying to swim in the same ocean as SIU and Her Holiness Care and Kindness?

  “Fine. Let me know when you have something real.” Temple got to his feet and stormed out of the boardroom.

  A block down from the building at Bloor and Church was the Spotted Dick pub, a subterranean bar that Temple knew well. He stood in its entranceway and watched Marinelli leave the SIU meeting and head in his direction. The subway was one block past the pub. The building at Church and Bloor where the SIU had set up shop was just two stops north of 40 College, and Temple figured correctly that Marinelli wouldn’t have bothered driving up. Cops could ride the TTC for free while on duty. Just had to flash the badge. Marinelli had his head down as he walked. Temple stepped out of the alcove and Marinelli almost walked into him.

  “Jesus, John,” Marinelli said.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” Temple said.

  Marinelli looked in the direction of the subway entrance and then back at Temple and contemplated it. “Probably not a good idea.”

  Temple knew the seasoned detective was no stranger to a midday libation. The scattering of thin red veins on the detective’s bulbous nose confirmed it. “Come on, man. One drink.” Temple took two steps down towards the entrance to the bar. Marinelli looked around and followed him down.

  The Dick had just opened and it was quiet and dark. They went to the farthest table at the back. A kid came over with some menus but Temple waved him off and ordered two pints of Labatt Blue. A full pint would draw this meeting out and Temple wanted time with Marinelli.

  “Dan, what the fuck is going on?” Temple said.

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  They clammed up as the waiter brought the beers back. They looked good, golden and sweating in the pale light of the pub. Temple’s head was still pounding and his tongue was as dry as dirt, but he knew this pint would help speed his recovery.

  “I pulled at something, Dan. Some thread that has weaved its way into Command. The more I pulled, the more things came down on me.”

  “Then why didn’t you stop?”

  “Say Berkowitz or Li had gotten shot. Would you back off?” Temple meant the other members of Marinelli’s homicide team.

  “No, I don’t suppose I would.”

  Both men sipped their beers.

  “What’s happening with my team?” Temple said at length.

  “Wozniak’s out for at least a week ’cause of his wife. Mendoza’s out indefinitely. Dalupan is probably going to be reassigned out of homicide.”

  Temple shook his head.

  “They’re going to pull a bunch of guys from drugs or vice,” Marinelli went on, “stick them in until they figure out what to do. This has never happened before—an entire team out of commission.”

  “That’s bad shit, about Sylvia,” Temple said. He watched Marinelli’s face for a reaction but it was blank, typical of any good homicide detective who’s talking about a corpse.

  “It is. The viewing is tonight. The funeral’s tomorrow afternoon. I assume you’re going to the viewing, at least.”

  “I should. How about you?”

  “Yeah. I’ll make an appearance tonight. Fucking hate viewings but they’re better than funerals.”

  “What about my case? The Nairs?”

  Marinelli laughed. “It’s as cold as those bodies. Nothing happening.”

  “What about the others—Wade, Zurawska?”

  “Not connected.”

  “Come on, Dan. You don’t believe that.”

  “I believe what I see and read. And I don’t see the connection. Two biker associates get whacked after two civilians show up in the trunk, one of them a thirteen-year-old girl. Not related.”

  “The phone call—the father was on the phone to one of the Villains two weeks before he disappears, to the cheque-cashing place where Zurawska worked.”

  “He called the cheque-cashing place. So what? Zurawska was savagely beaten. Whoever went to town on her was in a frenzy. That guy, Wade—throat cut nice and clean. Your two in the trunk? Shot and dumped. MOs don’t match up. Motives and connections don’t add up. Wade and Zurawska might be connected but we’re not making it all the way to the Nairs.”

  “The four grand in his pocket,” Temple said. “He was on his way to buy back his daughter.”

  “Four grand? Yeah, that doesn’t help your case. It hurts it. You’re telling me some biker assassin doesn’t reach into the guy’s pocket and take out four easy grand, but goes through the trouble of putting them in a trunk?”

  “Whoever did the Nairs is going to get away with it,” Temple said.

  “If you’re thinking of leaking your theory to the press, Kindness will crucify you.”

  “I think I’m going up on the cross anyway what with you looking at me for my own partner’s shooting.”

  “I just said I was on the fence about that. Don’t give me any reason to look at you differently.” Marinelli pushed back his chair and stood up. He’d taken only two sips of his pint during their talk. He picked up the glass and chugged the rest of it.

  “Thanks for the beer. I won’t meet with you again like this.”

  “Just in an interrogation room, right?”

  “Your choice,” Marinelli said, and he left the bar.

  38

  The parking lot of the Memorial Gardens funeral home on Shuter Street was too small. The street parking was jammed with cars. It was two in the afternoon, the first session of viewings for Sylvia Wozniak. The next one was from seven to nine that night, scheduled to let people get home and get some supper and then come down to see her one last time. Temple had read the obituary online and knew the funeral was tomorrow, but he wouldn’t be going to that. He wasn’t even sure he was going to go in for the viewing.

  He was parked two blocks down in a paid lot and watched Marinelli come and go, along with a crowd of other homicide and vice detectives who knew Tim personally. It wasn’t a cop funeral; there were no other TPS staff other than those detectives. They went in with serious looks on their faces but came out laughing. Their duty done, they would probably be hitting a bar close by. Temple saw Dalupan walk in alone.

  “To hell with it,” Temple said, and got out of his car.

  A young girl in a cream-coloured blouse and black skirt directed Temple to the upper floor. As he mounted the spiral staircase he saw Dalupan standing out in the hallw
ay looking at an easel that held several pictures of Sylvia on it. He came up behind him.

  “She was a good-looking woman,” Temple said, and Dalupan turned around.

  “John. I knew you would show.”

  Temple said nothing, just stood there looking at the array of photos. Sylvia as a toddler, a teenager. Her and Tim’s wedding day. That photo from their bedroom, her wearing that summer dress, Tim holding his plaque for some advanced course he’d passed. There were quiet murmurings coming from the room where the family was gathered. Temple leaned a bit and looked in. Tim was talking quietly with two women he didn’t recognize. One of them touched his arm. Beyond them, Temple could see the waxy face of Sylvia above the rim of the casket.

  “Are you going to the funeral?” Temple asked.

  “No,” Dalupan said. “I think it’s family only.”

  “Sounds about right, all things considering,” Temple said, relieved. Cops were used to suicide. Temple knew five cops who had chosen to hang themselves or eat their guns. It was a sad part of the job. Temple looked at one picture of Sylvia, taken at a formal occasion. She seemed to be staring out at him. She was with Tim, who was beaming at the camera. Sylvia’s look was more a mischievous grin. She knew something Tim didn’t know.

  “John.” Temple turned. It was Wozniak.

  “Hey, man,” Temple said, and he shook his friend’s hand. They never hugged; that was for civilians. The younger cops hugged. Tim shook hands with Dalupan. The younger cop put his hand momentarily on Wozniak’s shoulder. Temple could see that Dalupan was resisting the urge to embrace his boss.

  “Thanks for coming, guys. I appreciate it.”

  “Sylvia was a special girl,” Temple said. “We’re sorry for your loss.” That standard line sounded so stupid coming out of his mouth.

  “I don’t know why she did it. We were so happy. Where she got all those pills… I knew she was on a weight-loss pill.”

  Temple questioned this in his mind.

  “I found her yesterday. In the bed. She had taken two bottles.”

  “It’s sad, Tim,” Temple said. “Was she depressed?”