City of Crime

by Warren Court

In the Brantford GO station I check out a large map of the city. The arena is about a mile away. Okay, that’s not so bad. I’m not going to take a cab, though. I can walk that far. The fewer people I see and speak to, the better.

  After about ten minutes I see the stadium in the distance; there are no cop cars visible. It’s empty this time of day. There are only a half-dozen cars in the parking lot. My Sunfire is still in the corner. I get closer and closer. There’s no sign of a ticket or any kind of notice on the windshield. If the cops are hiding, they must be pretty far away as it’s so barren out here.

  I have my key out and in seconds I’m in the car, have it started and am roaring out of the parking lot. I start to breathe again only when I’m a couple of blocks from the arena. A cop car passes me going the other way, but I’m ignored.

  By the time I make it back to my place, I’m exhausted. I collapse on the couch but only for ten minutes or so. I’m still in my escapade clothes, so I rouse myself and strip them off and put them in a garbage bag. In go the pants and white shirt I was wearing when I had my tussle with Waltz. In too go the clothes I had on when I was having my last dalliance with Gillian Lent. My wardrobe is severely depleted now. I walk the bag down to the hospital, where there is a charity clothing donation bin.

  My body is stiffening up now from dragging Waltz out of his car and then all that bike riding. I think about him, out there in that grove of trees. Small animals already checking him out. Maybe some bigger ones too, like a coyote. They’re around. You can hear them yipping in the woods sometimes.

  NINTEEN

  Thursday morning and a drill comes pounding through my head into my brain to wake me up. It’s my phone. If this is a telemarketer calling at this hour, I am going to let him or her have it.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is that anyway to answer the phone, Mr. Rogers?”

  I know the voice, and it sends a shiver down my spine. All the tough guy rage I was just feeling evaporates, replaced by fear and dread. I sit up and put my bare feet on the cold hardwood floor.

  “Detective Marco. How did you get this number?”

  “Um, it’s in the book, son. Did I wake you up?”

  “I’ve been up for a while.”

  “Really? You don’t sound it.”

  “It’s a sleepy morning. Ran out of coffee.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “I was out.” I look at my answering machine. It’s blinking red and reading four messages.

  “I called your work yesterday and your employer tells me you called in sick. But you went out?”

  “Sorry. I was busy. I was out. Too bad you didn’t have my cellphone number.”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “What’s this about, Detective?”

  “I would like to see you today.”

  “Here?”

  “No, Halton Police Headquarters. Just want to talk to you some more about Mrs. Lent. What you might have seen. We have some witnesses and I want to see if your story can add anything to what they are saying.”

  “I see.” He’s giving me a command, not a request. I can tell by his voice. If I refuse, I wonder if he’s going to send a squad car out for me. With a warrant.

  “Okay, can you give me a couple of hours?”

  “Why don’t we make it ninety minutes, okay? We have coffee and muffins here.”

  “Right, ninety. See you.”

  Marco doesn’t say goodbye, just hangs up. I run to the toilet and throw up and collapse on the bathroom floor, where I rest my cheek on the cold tiles. I lie there for a long while, trying to remember a happier time.

  I call Ida. Yes, I’m coming in, I tell her, but later on in the morning. I have a personal appointment. I have to get into a walk-in clinic to see what I have.

  “No worries,” she says. “There are no cards on your desk.”

  “Really?” I say, but I don’t go into it.

  I shower and change into work clothes and head over to Burlington. I know where the police station is.

  After I show my ID to the desk sergeant, he buzzes Detective Marco, who comes out to collect me. He’s dressed in a sport coat and shirt and tie but dark blue jeans. Must be casual day.

  He stands off from me, does not offer to shake my hand, but thanks me for coming down. I follow him into the bowels of the police station. Officers engaged in conversation stop and watch me pass. Girls on the phone look up as I cruise by a small farm of cubicles.

  Marco and I go into a small room; an interrogation room, I guess. I expected the walls to be covered with graffiti and the place to smell, but it is carpeted and the walls are a disarming shade of pastel yellow. I’ve read somewhere that this is supposed to reduce tension. It doesn’t. It scares the hell out of me. There’s a table coming out from the wall and chairs on either side. I see a camera up high on the wall, pointed down at us. A little red light indicates it’s on.

  Marco has a file all ready on the table and he takes the chair in the corner. I sit down and he pulls his chair in close, almost uncomfortably so. This is a tactic, I realize. He’s trying to get in my space and make me uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have showered. Let him be uncomfortable, see how he likes it.

  “Thanks again for coming in, Stan.”

  First-name basis, are we? I smile inwardly. “No problem. Happy to help.”

  He flips open the file and skims down it, then looks back up at me and pauses. Waiting for me to say something. I raise my eyebrows and give him a “get on with it” look. I feel like a tennis player waiting for my opponent to hit me with his hardest drive.

  “Late night last night?” he says and smiles, and I can see his eye is on the brink of winking.

  “Yeah, kind of. I was feeling lousy but got better in the afternoon. I went down to the pub for a few.”

  “Which one?”

  “Cat ’n’ Fiddle.”

  “In Hamilton on Augusta. Yeah, I know that place. Great meat pies there.”

  “Yes, there are.”

  “I just want to go over what you saw the day you visited Gillian Lent.”

  “Right.” I do an impression of some deep thinking. “She let me in. We chatted in the front room, and then I spent some time going over her house. You know, taking down the details for her move.”

  “What time was that again?”

  “Mid-day. I think before lunch. I believe it was my first call of the day. I had two that day. I get the cards left on my desk—”

  “Did you go back?”

  “No. She wanted to use us, so I said I’d book the move that day. There’s a book in the dispatcher’s office you have to—"

  “Yes, I know.”

  The interrupting is starting to annoy me; maybe that’s the point. Just cool it, Stan. Play the game. Don’t let him get to you and you’ll walk out of here a free man.

  “You’re positive you did not make a return visit to Gillian Lent’s house that day?”

  “No, I had no reason to. I would have gone back the day of the move, maybe even just before, to see how she was getting on, but once it’s booked…”

  “What about the next day or the day after? The day she was murdered?”

  “No, I did not go back. No need.”

  “Were you in that neighbourhood at all?”

  “I may have been. I’d have to go back and check my day planner.”

  “That planner is at your home or office?”

  “It’s in my briefcase, at my desk. Why? Did someone say they saw me there?”

  “Anything unusual happen while you were there, at her house?”

  “Unusual in what way?”

  “Did she make a pass at you? Did you make a pass at her? Please be honest.”

  “Of course I’m going to be honest. No, she did not make a pass, nor did I.” Nor did I. Man, that sounds funny coming out of my mouth.

  “See anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Yes – come to think of it, there was one thing. I remember when we were upstairs, in he
r bedroom. . . The closet. There were all these women’s clothes, as you would expect. But then there was this one solitary man’s shirt. I remember noticing it. I was almost on the verge of asking about it.”

  “The shirt.”

  “Yes, this shirt in her closet. Blue shirt. It had a monogram right here.” I show on my own shirt where it was. “I never mentioned it, but it did strike me as odd.”

  “What did?”

  “That she would have a gentleman caller, a boyfriend. She didn’t seem that sort. I got no impression she was married.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “No. Again, none of my business, and you see enough people’s personal belongings you can tell almost instantly what their status is. Divorced, widow, single, lesbian, all that. You can tell.”

  “Bit of a detective, aren’t you?”

  “It’s part of the job, being able to read people. Being able to nurture a relationship, as my boss says. Say, whatever happened to that matter you were at the office about? The computer on my desk?”

  “It’s ongoing.”

  “I’m surprised that you’re assigned to the Lent murder; I thought homicide cops were specialized. Only did murders.”

  “We don’t get a lot of murders. No need for a homicide squad. I float around. I’m that good.”

  I laugh.

  “Your day planner – can you bring it to me? It’ll go a long way to establishing an alibi.”

  “Why would I need an alibi. Am I a suspect?”

  “Until we catch the person or persons responsible, everyone is a suspect.”

  “Have you spoken with Mr. Waltz at Midi? He worked with her.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Like I said, I am a good judge of people. I mentioned Gillian Lent’s name to him when I met with him, and there was something there. I’m just saying…”

  “Thanks for coming in today. And please bring that day planner in.”

  “Right, I will. How’s tomorrow?”

  “That’s fine. If I’m not here, they’ll photocopy it.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Marco walks me out, holds the door for me. Again, I feel him watching me as I go to my car. I turn to get in and he’s not standing there behind the front window of the police station staring at me at all. I was just imagining it.

  TWENTY

  I should get over to Henderson and check in for the day, but instead I drive around Burlington for a while. I pick up copies of the Toronto Star and the Hamilton Spectator and go down to the lake, my favourite spot. Normally I go straight to the sports pages or the entertainment or living sections, but instead I flip through the local news and pore over each story. There’s nothing to do with either the Lent murder or the Waltz disappearance. Neither the Star nor the Spec have any updates on Lent, and there’s no mention at all of Waltz’s disappearance. I can take some comfort in the fact that neither his body nor his car have been found.

  I make note of the Spec’s crime reporter’s name, then I drive around some more and head in the direction of Mississauga and then back again, watching all the time for police surveillance. I have to expect this now; Marco is on to me. The purpose of that meeting today was to rattle me. To set me up in a lie of my own making and trap me. I try to think back to what I wrote in my day planner. I know I must have put the Lent meeting in it at some point. Maybe while I was going through that car wash.

  I make my way back to Burlington, confident I’m not being tailed, and stop at a gas station. There’s a phone booth there; the glass has been graffitied with a bar of soap and some spray paint. Where the phone book used to be is just the hard black plastic covers hanging from the chain, the contents having being ripped out long ago.

  I plug in a loonie and ask the operator for the Spectator’s main phone number. It’s just a local call from Burlington to Hamilton.

  She connects me, and a recording comes on the line with options. I listen through all of them; city desk is what I want. I dial in the extension; my fingers are trembling.

  City beat exchange rings two times and then a gruff voice says “Leave your name and number and what you’re calling about at the beep.”

  I put the edge of my jacket over the transceiver and whisper into it. “Christopher Waltz was having an affair with Gillian Lent. They work for the same company in Brantford. Now he has gone missing. The two are connected.”

  Ten seconds, that’s all that takes. I hang the phone up quickly and step back out of the booth like it’s offended me somehow.

  The office is quiet when I enter. I try and slide silently past all the girls, but I hear Laura call my name. She motions me to go out to the smoking area. Thankfully, it’s free of people.

  “Who is this Detective Marco?” Laura says, and my heart sinks.

  “He’s investigating that murder that happened. The one I did an estimate for. He was in the office just a couple of days ago. Why?”

  “He called me. Wants me to come in tomorrow to talk to him.”

  “About what?”

  “About you, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Does he know about us?”

  “I don’t know what he knows. I have to go at lunch to speak with him.”

  “Good thing he won’t be dropping by again.”

  “He was going to, but I asked if I could go to him on my lunch hour. You know how the girls are here. This gets back to Rick or Darryl or Jack. . .”

  “It won’t look bad on you. Just on me. He’s trying to verify my alibi.”

  “Your alibi?”

  “That murder on Fintona. Everyone is a suspect. Not you, of course. I went to see her two days before she was murdered. It can’t be me they’re after, but they have to cross me off the list.”

  “I don’t like this, Stan.”

  “Can I come over later? I’ll explain it to you.”

  “We’ve got that thing tonight for Susan, remember?”

  “I do. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I should hope not.”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then. Just tell him what he wants to know. Everything will be fine, promise.”

  Goddamn it. That motherfucker has now screwed my relationship with Laura. What if he asks her about that stupid child pornography thing, which I had nothing to do with? That’ll kill it for sure. Murder suspect and kiddie porn freak. Yeah, real marriage material.

  I have a good mind to call him now. His cell is on the card he gave me. I pull it out of my wallet. Yeah, let him have it. But maybe that’s what he wants – I threaten him and he has cause to pull me in. I get put back in that interrogation room until I crack or until he comes back with proof like fingerprints or DNA.

  I shove the card back in my wallet and go to my desk.

  TWENTY ONE

  I truly feel thankful that it is a Friday. I have two sits in the afternoon. I’m in no mood to do either of them; might call them and push them out. Henderson wants to get rid of me? Fine. Do it and let me move on with my life.

  I flip through my day planner. Lent’s appointment is there but there are no follow-up notes. Nothing to indicate whether to book the move or go back and log it. I almost always make follow-up notes; I make them in the car. I denote sales as well as follow-up calls I should make to try and get the sale. For Lent there is nothing. Because I was so freaked out by her coming on to me, I forgot to do that. Then I went back later and dropped off the estimate – something I told Marco I didn’t do. Marco is going to see this, notice the difference. I open my briefcase, take out a pen and write on a scrap page. Damn. The ink is black, not blue. It won’t match the entry I made in my day planner.

  I pick up a copy of the Spec and flip through it in my car. There’s no mention of Lent’s murder but there is an article on Waltz. My heart starts to quicken as I read it. It’s very scant: Search continuing for a missing Brantford man. Last seen leaving the Brantford Civic Arena. That’s it? No link to the Lent case?

  I look at the time; it’s almost noon. I
drift over to the police station, just real casual-like. I park across the street in a Bed Bath & Beyond parking lot and, like clockwork, I see Laura pull in. She’s in there for over an hour. When she finally comes out, she’s clutching her coat around her like she just got molested. She gets in her car and heads back to the office. I follow.

  At a light I pull up next to her and honk. She looks at me, dazed, then recognition clicks in and she smiles weakly and lowers her window.

  “I’m heading back to work,” she says.

  “How did it go with Marco?”

  “I’m not supposed to say. At least I don’t think I am.”

  “Pull over.”

  “I’m late already.”

  “Just pull over, up there.”

  We pull into a gas station. I knock on her passenger window to let me in. She does so reluctantly. This is bad; I can tell.

  “So how did it go?” I say again.

  “It was long.”

  “What did Marco ask you?”

  “A lot of questions about you and your association with Gillian Lent, the woman who got murdered.” She emphasizes the word Gillian.

  I feel my cheeks go hot.

  “Your mother’s name is not Gillian, is it?”

  “No. Did you tell them about that?”

  “About waking up with your hands around my throat and you screaming “Gillian”? No, I did not. If I had, I suspect you would be in handcuffs.”

  I nod, grateful for her candour. “It was just a dream. I guess I was upset about Lent and didn’t know it. She was a nice lady. Want to meet for drinks tonight?”

  “No chance, boyo. My man has come to visit.”

  “Your man, huh?”

  “My uncle from out of town. You know?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “My fucking period, you dolt. I just got it. I feel like crap.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t have too many of them left; I’ll be going through my change soon. I want to savour every one of them, as sick as that is.”

  “You’re not that old.”

  “Thank you very much.”