Stranglehold (16 page)

The island airport lay across the harbour and he watched a small commuter plane land. “Let me guess; you didn’t believe her,” he said.

“Not really at first. I’m a defence lawyer, we hear this kind of stuff all the time,” she said. “Then yesterday morning, I’m in the lawyers’ lounge at Old City Hall and I start talking to two other defence counsel about their hooker clients. Turns out they are complaining about the exact same thing. We compared notes. These women don’t know each other. But they’re telling the same story.”

“Did their charges get dropped too?” he asked.

“Every time.” She pointed to the printout in his hand. “Just like your Deirdre, the After Date.”

This could really be something, Amankwah thought. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“Canton Carmichael has been onto this for a while. He’s been collecting information from defence lawyers about cop–hooker cases that are getting pulled.”

Amankwah thought of Carmichael’s behaviour at the trial. How self-assured he’d been. How it seemed he’d known that the Crown was going to withdraw the charge. And how frantic Kormos had been to get Fernandez to close the case down.

“Who are the cops involved?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet, Awotwe,” she said.

It was part of their understanding that at times there were limits on what they could disclose to each other, and it was important to respect them. Always.

He turned his back to the lake and scanned the park. The young couple and the old lady were gone. “What do you think’s going on?”

She walked with him over to a sculpture of a desperate woman, prostrate on the ground. People had placed pennies along the base of the sculpture in an impromptu tribute.

“We’re thinking maybe Internal Affairs is investigating,” she said. “That they don’t want to blow their own cover.” She pulled two quarters out of her purse and placed them over the woman’s eyes.

“Blind justice,” he said.

“Let’s hope not,” she replied. “Canton’s a really smart guy, why don’t you go talk to him. I’ve already told him he can trust you.”

“Thanks. But you didn’t need to bother.”

“Why not?”

“We went to the same high school and have been competing against each other our whole lives,” he said. “Friendly competition, of course.”

KENNICOTT KEPT HIS EYES ON THE ROAD AHEAD. THE SUN HAD SLIPPED OVER THE HORIZON
and the cars on the crowded highway were driving through a milky dusk. There was so much to say, and nothing to say, to Jo Summers, who was in the passenger seat beside him. She’d been crying for the half hour since they’d left the funeral home.

It had been two days since that horrible phone call, when he’d answered Raglan’s cell and told Summers that her boss and friend had been murdered. It felt like a month ago. When he’d walked into the visitation room and seen her for the first time, he’d hugged her. Hard. She’d buried her face into his shoulder. “Oh, Daniel,” she whispered. “It’s so horrible.”

“I know,” he said.

“I’m so glad this is your case. I know you’re smart. I know you’ll do everything you can.”

“Of course.”

“Howard is a wreck. And her poor kids.”

They’d let go of each other, but stayed close while talking to the other Crowns clustered in the far corner of the room. The old attraction between them, as complicated and unfulfilled as it had been, was an unspoken comfort they both needed.

“I’ll take you home,” he’d said when it was time to leave. And she hadn’t objected.

Their night together a decade earlier at law school had been raw for both of them. Two years ago, when their paths intersected again, they kept missing each other. Mostly it was Kennicott’s fault, because his ex-girlfriend, Andrea, a fashion model who’d become an international star, kept popping back into his life.

But that wasn’t everything. There was a reserve about Jo that he couldn’t get past. And he knew she’d probably say the same thing about him.

“What’s the ferry schedule this evening?” he asked when they got close to
Toronto. Summers lived in a cottage on the Toronto Islands, and her life was ruled in no small part by the timetable of the boats that took her to and from the city. And also, Kennicott thought, gave her a good excuse to escape back into her own world.

She always carried a beeper with her that reminded her when it was time for her to leave to catch the last ferry back home. He saw she had it in her hand. He heard a click.

Her other hand reached out to his. “I turned my beeper off,” she said. “I can’t be alone tonight.”

“I’m living by myself again,” he said simply. A few months earlier she’d showed up at his place unannounced just when Andrea had returned for a few days.

“It’s none of my business,” she said.

He squeezed her hand. “I’ve got two bedrooms.”

“Only two?”

“Very funny.” He chuckled.

It was dark by the time they parked in the alley behind his place. They tiptoed together through his Italian landlord’s vegetable garden. As soon as they were in the door of his second-floor flat, they fell into each other’s arms. They kissed for a long time. Her hand reached around him, under his jacket. She pulled his shirt out and caressed the small of his back. He reached behind her neck and felt the softness of her skin.

She took his hand and led him to his bedroom, kicked off her shoes, pulled the sheets back, and lay down with her head on the pillow. He took his shoes off and lay beside her.

The blinds were not all the way down, and light drifted in from the streetlamp outside.

She turned to him and ran the back of her hand across his cheek. “Who was Jennifer having the affair with, do you have any idea?” she asked.

“No idea at all.” He closed his eyes.

She pulled her hand back and nuzzled her head into his neck. He put his arm around her shoulder. “Whoever it is, the guy has to be your prime suspect.”

“Of course. But she was incredibly careful in the way she covered her tracks.” It seemed a bit extreme, he thought, for a woman who was having an affair.

“What’s that make you think?”

He stroked her hair. “That it was someone who didn’t want their identity known either.”

“I miss her.” She yawned again. Louder this time. “I haven’t slept in two days.” She curled her legs over his thighs. Her voice sounded sleepy.

He pulled the sheets over them.

“I’ve got to leave in a few hours,” he said. “We’re doing some surveillance. You can let yourself out. You don’t need a key, both doors lock behind you.”

“Who are you doing the surveillance on?”

He thought about it. She might be upset to know they were still suspicious of Raglan’s husband. “I’ll tell you if something comes of it,” he said.

“Just hold me,” she said. “That’s what I need.”

In seconds he felt her whole body go slack as she slid into sleep.

He lay still so as not to wake her, his eyes wide open. He stared at the ceiling as his mind raced. Wondering about Jo, about Howard Darnell, and about Jennifer Raglan. Who had she really been? And who had been her lover?

“HAP! HAP! HAP!”

The late-night crowd that filled the banquet room at the Hilton Airport Hotel was chanting and clapping and whooping it up. On the balloon-filled stage a huge monitor was playing highlights from the career of the chief-of-police-turned-mayoralty-candidate in an endless loop. A big electronic timer, counting down the days to the election, hung under a long banner that read in big purple letters:
HAP: TAKE BACK OUR CITY!

The room was so packed Greene could hardly move. He eased himself over to the a spot on wall near where a ramp led to the stage. Charlton had e-mailed him a few hours earlier and asked him to stand there.

“Mayor Hap! Mayor Hap! Mayor Hap! Mayor Hap!” people screamed in glee.

From the wings of the stage, a man with a shaved head, wearing a T-shirt that read
HAP AIN’T PRETTY BUT HE’LL TAKE BACK OUR CITY
, ran up to the microphone. The crowd burst out in laughter and applause.

“Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Roger Taylor. Most of you know me as the host of my TV show
O, O, Toronto
.” He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “You’ve heard of me. Right?”

“Yes!” the crowd shouted.

Greene smiled. He knew more about Taylor than his fawning fans did. The TV personality had been arrested three times as a “found in” at bawdy houses, a polite Canadian legal term for whorehouse. Each time he’d managed to wiggle out of the charges and keep the news out of the press. Very convenient, given that on the set of his highly rated show he sat at a desk on which photos of his blond wife and athletic kids were prominently displayed.

“Are you all as excited as I am?” he asked the crowd. “This is Hap’s first big campaign rally!”

More wild cheering.

This was classic Charlton, Greene thought. Stage his first big event late at
night to get maximum exposure on the morning newscasts. And instead of doing this in a downtown hotel the way every other candidate always did, do it out here in the burbs to underscore how unconventional his campaign was going to be, and how much support he had in the outlying areas.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what a great honour it is for me to introduce the great man who will soon transform our city. The man who will get the perverts and thugs off our streets. The man who will banish the bureaucratic waste at City Hall, clear the panhandlers and the litter from our streets, get rid of the graffiti that’s spreading like weeds on steroids. The man who is going to take back our city!”

“Hap! Hap! Hap!” the audience began to chant.

“Okay, everyone, let’s count down together,” Taylor screamed. “Ten, nine, eight.”

The crowd caught up to him and yelled in unison, “Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.”

“Here he is,” Taylor shouted. “The next mayor of Toronto. Jumping Jack Hap. The chief. Hap Charlton!”

He pointed to a door a few steps past Greene. The Rolling Stones song “Jumping Jack Flash” blasted over the loudspeakers as the door swung open and a spotlight shone right on Charlton.

Greene smiled. Zachary Stone, the veteran
Toronto Sun
reporter, had given the ever-energetic Charlton the nickname decades ago and it had stuck. Now it seemed to be the perfect theme song for his campaign.

Charlton burst into the packed hall, bouncing up and down, clutching his big hands above his head like a prizefighter who has won the championship of the world.

The crowd began to jump up and down too. A group in front surged forward, but a phalanx of off-duty policemen held them back. The roar was louder than ever.

Greene kept his position and his back to the wall. With all the cheering and stomping, he could feel the floor vibrate through his shoes.

Charlton lowered his arms and began shaking hands with everyone on both sides of him. TV crews pushed supporters aside, holding their cameras aloft to capture their footage.

Charlton spotted Greene and reached for his hand. Greene shook it, but much to his surprise, Charlton pulled him closer to whisper in his ear.

“Ari, there’s a little shithole bathroom in back of that room.” He jerked his head toward the door he’d just exited. “Once I’ve done this fucking stupid speech and all the press crap, meet me there. We’ve got to talk.”

“Sure,” Greene said.

“About this Jennifer Raglan thing.”

Despite the rising heat in the room, Greene felt a chill on the back of his neck. Before he could say a word, Charlton was swept back up in the crowd.

This was how Charlton always worked. The swearing and the bluster, the little secrets. Always wanted to let his inner circle know that despite the trappings of power, he was still one of them.

Greene watched him mount the stage. Despite his considerable bulk, the now-official candidate for mayor was still quick on his feet.

“Thank you, everyone, thank you.” Charlton waved to the crowd as they cheered for about a minute, until he raised his hands like a preacher before his congregation, and they fell silent.

He flashed his toothiest smile. “You know, folks, for thirty-five years as a proud member of the Toronto Police Service, it’s been my life’s work to serve and protect the citizens of our great city.”

Spontaneous applause erupted, but he silenced it with a quick wave of his hand.

Charlton wasn’t really speaking to the crowd, but to the TV cameras. He was the master of a good clip to make the top of the newscast. “But I just couldn’t sit by and watch the Toronto I love decline. That’s why I’m running for mayor. To take back our city!”

The audience started chanting “Take it back, Hap!”

Charlton was loving the attention. Always had. Always would.

Greene had met him the first week he joined the force, twenty-five years earlier. Back then, it was unusual for a Jewish kid to want to be a police officer, and Greene was older than most of the other recruits. Charlton was his first staff sergeant and he saw something in the greenhorn. Became his mentor, his rabbi.

“Take back our litter-filled streets from the criminals who are terrorizing our neighbourhoods,” Charlton said, pausing to let the roar of approval roll over him.

Charlton got Greene into the Major Crime Unit early in his career, then the undercover drug squad, then had him made a division detective. When Charlton
became chief, he picked Greene for a secret assignment that took a year out Greene’s life. When that was over, he sent Greene to Europe for another year to recover. When Greene came back to Toronto, he had his own office in the homicide squad.

“Take back our City Hall from the wasteful bureaucrats,” Charlton said, sweeping the crowd along with him.

For years Greene had watched Charlton manipulate politicians and the press with a Svengali-like ease. Now, stepping into his first election campaign, he looked like a natural.

“Take back our parks. Our community centres. Our pride.”

The Jennifer Raglan thing, Greene thought.
Thing.
In the long days since the murder, the ache of losing her, missing her, wanting her, had drilled a silent hole inside him.