Stranglehold (32 page)

“Aaron 8,” Greene said.

“What?”

“I heard that was his tag. His signature.”

Lindsmore gave him a sideways look. “That’s right. What else do you know about this kid?”

“He was into drugs, pretty big-time.”

“Turn over the page, you’ll see all the drug stuff. Probably where he got the money to pay for the fines. I talked to some of the cops in 43 Division. They said he looks about fourteen. Rides around everywhere on a bike he built himself. Real smart. Parents kept putting him in gifted classes, then private schools, and he kept getting booted out.”

“And now?”

“They say he’s disappeared. No one knows where he is,” Lindsmore said. “You going to eat the other half of that doughnut?”

“It’s all yours.”

Lindsmore didn’t hesitate to grab it.

“Cops said Aaron was always very polite. Never let on that his mother was a Crown. But he was a big-time dealer. Trouble was, he wasn’t keeping up with his payments to his main supplier. Some bad actor from Scarborough.”

“Not good.”

“Gets worse. The week before Jennifer was murdered, someone took a shot at him. Missed. Must’ve been just a warning. People saw the shooter run, a witness put Aaron as the target, but he clammed right up, of course. Serious shit. Cops told me that any day now they’re expecting to find his body in a Dumpster.”

Greene could see it. Aaron, the brilliant, out-of-control older son. He understood why Jennifer and Howard were desperate to get him out of the country and into rehab.

I had to save my son.

“Why do I have this feeling, Ari, that you know where this kid is?”

Greene smiled. “He’s down in the American Southwest, in one of those remote rehab places in the middle of nowhere.”

“At least he’s alive,” Lindsmore said. “I found your street guy in the clown suit.”

This had been the second thing Greene had asked Lindsmore to do. “Fraser Dent?”

Lindsmore nodded.

“What did he say?”

“That’s he’s got something for you.”

“What?” Greene asked, a little too quickly.

“He wouldn’t tell me what. He wants to see you in person.” Lindsmore looked Greene straight in the eye. “Ari, he can’t come here.”

“Of course not. When does he want to meet me?”

“He said midnight tonight.” Lindsmore stood up. “Look, I can’t know anything about this.”

“Understood.” Greene stood up with him.

“You screw up your bail, you’re totally fucked.”

“I know,” Greene said.

Lindsmore reached out and shook Greene’s hand. “He said meet him at midnight in the usual spot across from Popeye’s. But, Ari, be fucking careful.”

DANIEL KENNICOTT WALKED DOWN THE ALLEY SOUTH FROM KING STREET WEST, LOOKING
for the place where Jo Summers had told him to meet her to talk about the case. The sides of the buildings on both sides were covered with graffiti art, much of it very beautiful. He was almost at Wellington Street when he saw the sandwich-board sign for Spin Toronto. Descending into the basement, he walked up to the steel reception desk.

“Hi there,” said a young woman wearing a Spin Toronto T-shirt that featured a pair of crossed Ping-Pong racquets. “You here to play?”

“Yes.” He looked beyond her and saw a huge room filled with Ping-Pong tables and players volleying back and forth. “I’m here to see a friend, Jo Summers.”

“Oh, Jo,” the woman said. “She mentioned someone was coming. She reserved a private table in the Beijing Room. Turn left and keep going past the bar, you can’t miss it.

Although it was in a basement, the place was high ceilinged and well lit. Music boomed from every corner, punctuated by the
pop, pop, pop
of Ping-Pong balls being hit back and forth across the tables.

A young man with big circle earrings in his earlobes, also wearing a Spin Toronto T-shirt, was skirting around with a large net, scooping up balls from the floor and depositing them into baskets by the players’ sides.

Ping-Pong heaven, Kennicott thought. He’d grown up playing with his brother, Michael, in the basement of their summer cottage, where they spent at least half the time retrieving errant balls.

At the doorway of the Beijing Room he stopped. Summers’s back was to him. Her long hair was tied up in her usual wooden clip. She held the racquet with the handle between her thumb and forefinger, the way they did in China and was volleying with a rail-thin young Asian woman who was focused on the ball. They grunted as they played, trading slam for slam.

At last Summers put away a soft spin shot. Her opponent smiled. They both bowed and said some words in Chinese.

Kennicott remembered that Summers had told him she spoke fluent Chinese. Her father, a successful lawyer before he became judge, had insisted she and her brother grow up downtown, and she’d been the only non-Chinese girl in her kindergarten class.

Her opponent spotted Kennicott at the door and nodded toward him. Summers turned.

“Oh, hi, Daniel. You’re a bit early. Lin and I are finishing up.”

“Don’t let me interfere.”

“It’s okay,” Lin said. She spoke without a trace of an accent. She gave him her racquet on the way out the door. “Jo’s dished out enough punishment for me today. I haven’t beaten her since grade five. Good luck.”

“Looks like you’re a regular here,” Kennicott said. He went to the other side of the table, took a ball, and hit it over the net.

“I come to blow off stream. You play?” She hit him a low ball back.

“Not since my brother and I were kids.” He returned it, but he knew it was way too high. He took a step back, expecting a slam.

“It will come back to you.” She undercut the ball softly and it barely made it over the net, the spin turning it hard to his left.

“We’ll see.” He lunged and just got his racquet under the ball, sending it even higher.

Instead of slamming it, she tapped it sideways. It hit and bounced off the far edge of the table.

He looked up from his compromised position. “Your point,” he said.

She laughed, then hit him another ball. “Let’s rally to warm you up,” she said.

“Fine by me,” he said, hitting the ball back into the middle of her side. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“You,” she said.

“Me?” They were up to six rallies.

“You and Greene.”

They were up to ten rallies, the ball flying faster and faster.

“What about me and Greene?”

“He’s playing you,” she said. “Don’t you see it?”

“Give me a break.” He hit the ball as hard as he could.

“No, you give me a break.” She returned it with a backhand slam. “You looked like you were part of the defence team when you testified at the bail hearing.”

He got to the ball at the last possible moment and hit it high up in the air again.

This time she showed no mercy and hit a vicious forehand slam that he had no chance of returning.

He threw his racquet on the table.

“You made your point, so to speak,” he said. “You happy?”

“No.” She aimed her racquet at him. “I think you should get off the case.”

“What?”

“How can you be part of the prosecution if you have doubts that Greene is guilty?”

Kennicott heard a
pop
as he came around the table. He looked down. “Fuck,” he said. He’d stepped on a ball. He kicked it under the table. “Who the hell do you think you are? You just got on this case. I’m the one who figured this out and made the arrest.”

“Well, whoopee. You take the stand and a jury is going to see in a second that you are all tangled up about this. I know he was your mentor, Daniel, but he strangled Jennifer to death. He broke up her family. He lied to you too. Don’t you see it?”

“What I see is that we have a strong case. In my world, I let the jury decide on guilt or innocence.”

“Strong? Well then, why are you deliberately trying to weaken it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The hooker you interviewed. Of course she’s going to say that some cop was her trick when this happened. How convenient for her. Next thing you know, her lawyer will be signing up with Carmichael and all those other defence lawyers whining about police brutality.” She raised her voice. “You watch. Any day now she’ll be on the front page of the
Star
with her half-a-million-dollar lawsuit.”

“I’m a cop, in case you hadn’t noticed,” he growled. “I investigate. Collect evidence. That’s my job.”

“No.” Her white skin was turning red with anger. “You still think you’re a lawyer. And all you’re doing is muddying the waters.”

He felt his face flush. Suddenly the room was too hot. He started to walk past her to the door.

“Where you going?” She moved in front of him and shut the door.

“Back to the office to get some work done. Move out of the way,” he said.

“We need to talk things out.”

“There’s nothing else to say.”

“Greene’s a cold-blooded killer,” she said. “He strangled Jennifer with his hands.”

“Oh, really. How can you be so convinced?”

“I can see it in his eyes.”

He grabbed her by the shoulder and made her look at him. “Jo, I can’t believe you just said that. What’s happened to you? Two days working with Angela Kreitinger and you’ve become Attila the Prosecutor.”

She jutted out her jaw. “Get your hands off me,” she hissed.

He released her. They glared at each other. “What’s really going on here?” he asked. “Is this somehow about us?”

“Us?” she exclaimed. “Us? There’s no fucking ‘us,’ unless you include your international model girlfriend.”

A torrent of anger rolled through him. He felt blood surge through to his fingertips. “How about all the unmarried lawyers in your old Bay Street law firm you’re dating.”

He hadn’t heard anything about her personal life. He was making it up on the fly.

“Ha!” she snarled. “Who said they’re all unmarried?”

Sweat beaded on his forehead. His breathing was sharp. It had been years since he’d been this furious.

“If Greene’s such a great detective,” she said, “why hasn’t he solved your brother’s murder yet? Ever think about that?”

A wash of calm broke over him. His fury died. Every part of him felt cold.

He reached around her for the door handle, careful not to make contact. “I think about it every day. Maybe you should think about upholding Jennifer’s legacy as a fair-minded Crown.”

“Fuck you, Daniel.” She smacked him hard on the shoulder with her racquet.

He stared down at the spot where she’d hit him and then back at her. “Really looking forward to working with you on this case.” He turned his back and walked through the door.

He thought about slamming it behind him, but decided not to give her the satisfaction.

“ARI, ONLY FOR YOU WOULD I BE DRIVING A BREAD TRUCK AGAIN,” BRIAN SILVER SAID OVER
his shoulder as he pulled his delivery truck out of Greene’s father’s driveway.

Greene was squatting in the back between racks of fresh bread. “When I get out of this mess, Hap Charlton will give me tickets to see the Raptors,” he said. “You can take your son.”

Silver had a fifteen-year-old boy with severe learning disabilities, who was obsessed with Toronto’s basketball team.

“Deal,” Silver said.

“Don’t speed, whatever you do. The last thing we want is to get stopped.”

“I’m driving like a Boy Scout.”

The ride was bumpy, and Greene rolled with the sway of the truck. He couldn’t see out the front window, but it was late and he could tell there was no traffic. He closed his eyes and let the time pass. Even hiding in the back of a truck with bad shocks felt better than being cooped up in his father’s house.

“Heading down Jarvis,” Silver said after a while. “Queen is the next block.”

Greene moved up and crouched behind the passenger seat. “Make a left at the light and keep going till just past Sherbourne. He should be across the street on the north side.”

Silver turned and Greene had to hold on to the seat back to keep his balance. Silver steered the truck into the curb lane and stopped. Greene sneaked a look out the driver’s window. There was no one there. He checked his watch. It was exactly midnight.

“Where is this guy?” Silver asked.

“I don’t know,” Greene said.

Silver put on his flashers. “Get down, Ari,” he hissed.

Out the front window Greene saw a patrol car approach from the east and glide past.

“I better look busy,” Silver said. He got out, opened the back door, put three loaves of bread in a paper bag, and closed the door.

Greene rose up enough to look out the front window and watch Silver drop the bread in Popeye’s doorway.

He heard a sound and ducked.

The passenger door opened and Fraser Dent climbed in. He was wearing his usual patchwork jacket, and his stringy hair was longer than ever.

“Evening, Monsieur Detective,” he said with a chuckle.

“Thanks for doing this,” Greene said.

Silver came back and opened the driver’s door. “Hi, Brian Silver,” he said to Dent, reaching out to shake his hand as if they were old friends.

“Call me Fraser,” Dent said, grasping his hand.

“This truck’s heading back to the lot,” Silver said. “Fraser, you better get back there with your pal. Help yourself to a loaf.”

“My pleasure,” Dent said, slipping into the back. “This is like being in a paddy wagon, but with free food and no handcuffs.”

Silver did a U-turn and drove through the downtown at a steady pace. Soon they were parked in the bakery’s lot, surrounded by other delivery trucks.

“Ari, I’ll be back in an hour,” Silver said as he got out.

Greene moved into the driver’s seat. Dent sat beside him in the passenger seat and tore open the wrapper on a loaf of white bread. He pulled out two slices and offered one to Greene.

“No thanks,” Greene said.

Dent took a bite then opened a pack of cigarettes and held it out to Greene.

“No thanks again,” Greene said.

“Don’t tell me you quit already.” Dent shook his head. “Take one, Detective. You might need it.”

Greene took a cigarette and Dent lit it for him. It tasted foul. “What did you find out?”