Stranglehold (37 page)

“They hated me today,” he said. With a great effort he hauled himself to his feet. Blood rushed from his head and he felt dizzy. He steadied himself on a chair in front of him.

“Ari, are you all right?” DiPaulo asked.

“Yeah, Ted. Never better.”

He went to the coffeemaker, got two coffees, came back, and sat on the couch. “I started drinking coffee,” he said.

“That’s progress,” DiPaulo said.

“And I sold my big old car.”

DiPaulo laughed. “I guess you don’t have to be a married guy to have a midlife crisis.”

Greene took a sip. The coffee tasted bitter. “What are you going to ask Alpine in cross-examination tomorrow?”

“No idea,” DiPaulo said.

Greene looked at him. He couldn’t tell if DiPaulo was joking.

“I’ve spent the last threee months working flat out on this case and going over every detail,” DiPaulo said. “When I’m in court, I have to let it happen.”

“I don’t entirely believe you,” Greene said.

“You shouldn’t. I’m going to ask Alpine about some things we’ve never discussed. Watch carefully and please make sure you don’t react at all.”

“You going to give me a hint?” Greene asked.

“No. You’ll have to trust me. And don’t be so hard on yourself. You did well today in very trying circumstances.”

Greene got back up and walked over to the big windows. People down below were scurrying across the square, clutching their coats closed around their necks. The remaining light of the day was flat and bleak. Low-hanging black clouds had moved in, like prison guards at the gate, incarcerating the city in the oncoming darkness.

DESPITE THEIR BEST EFFORTS OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF MONTHS TO AVOID BEING ALONE
together, tonight Kennicott and Summers had ended up by themselves in the Crown’s office. Kreitinger had only stayed for an hour after court, before saying she was going with a friend to watch the Toronto Raptors play the Chicago Bulls. She said watching the basketball game would help her relax before another big day in court. Alpine had joined them for take-out sushi and had helped them interview a few of the witnesses set to go tomorrow before being called back to division to investigate a home invasion.

They worked in silence. Kennicott was standing by one of the long tables, packing up the evidence boxes to take to court. Summers stood with her back to him, going through a box of folders, pulling files for a legal memo she had to write tonight.

“How do you feel about the case?” he asked at last.

“More convinced than ever that Greene is guilty,” she said, without turning around. “But you still don’t think he is, do you?”

“All I care about is making sure everything is ready,” he said. He tried to imagine how Summers would react if she ever found out that he’d sent Lindsmore to help Greene. She’d probably never talk to him again.

She jammed a folder back into a full box and looked at him. “I have to admit, you’ve done a good job, Daniel.”

“Thanks. But I always wonder what I’ve overlooked.”

“I can’t think of anything,” she said.

“You’ve done very good work too.” He put the last file into the box he was working on. “I can see Kreitinger is impressed.”

“She’s a hard-ass, but she cares.”

A chime sounded. She reached into her purse, found her cell phone, and turned it off.

“Time for Cinderella to go home?” he said.

She shook her head. “No, I’m staying late. I’ve got too much to do.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. Was this a chance to thaw the cold war between them or was he misreading her?

“I’m done,” he said. “I have to be in early to line up the witnesses.”

She turned back to the table, sat down, and started reading through a photocopy of a case.

He closed the box and put it on neatly on top of the stack in the corner.

“Jo,” he said.

“What?” she answered, without looking up.

He took in a big breath. “It’s going to sound stupid, I know. But if you’re stuck in the city, I do have a second bedroom.”

“It sounds extremely stupid.” Her back was still to him. “I’ve got a lot to do. This memo has to be on Angela’s desk at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” he said.

He picked up his jacket, walked to the door, and looked back. Her head was down, reading, and she was twirling an errant strand of hair.

“Jo,” he said.

“Daniel, please leave,” she said, without lifting her head.

He turned to the door, opened it, and closed it softly behind him.

GREENE HAD DRUNK A CUP OF COFFEE THIS MORNING BEFORE COURT WHILE HE READ THE
newspaper reports about Hap Charlton’s inaguration as mayor yesterday, his broad face beaming as the gold chain of office was draped around his neck. Charlton had promptly declared this coming Saturday a “War on Graffiti” day and promised to go the Scarborough Civic Centre to power-wash some walls himself.

Now Greene was back in court and the coffee was churning in his stomach. The jury door opened and he tried to make eye contact with each of the jurors as they took their assigned seats. DiPaulo had instructed him to do this at the beginning and end of the day so they wouldn’t feel he was afraid to look at them. But to be careful not to stare. He felt awkward, looking quickly at those who glanced at him and not looking too hard at those who did not.

“Mr. DiPaulo,” Judge Norville said after everyone was in place, “your witness.”

DiPaulo strode out from behind the long counsel table, leaned against it, and folded his arms.

“How are you this morning?” he asked Alpine, who was back on the witness stand.

“I’m fine, Ted, I mean Mr. DiPaulo,” Alpine said.

DiPaulo opened his hands magnanimously. “Detective, we’ve known each other for many years, haven’t we?”

“Yes, sir. We have.”

“I used to be a Crown attorney, like my friend Ms. Kreitinger. And you were the officer in charge of many of cases I did, just as Detective Kennicott is the officer in charge today.”

“We did lots of trials together,” Alpine said.

“You’ve known my client even longer than you’ve known me.”

“Ari and I have been on the force for a long time. We worked the same division years ago.”

“You always respected his work.”

“I did.” Alpine said.

“And you knew Ms. Raglan.”

“Very well. We did many trials together too.”

It was as if DiPaulo was having a normal conversation with an old friend. He strolled across the floor and stopped in front of Alpine, blocking his view of Kreitinger. He smiled at the jury. He had no notes. He nestled his elbow into the palm of his hand and cupped his chin. “This whole thing is tough for you, isn’t it?” he asked.

Alpine seemed taken aback. “Tough? What do you mean?”

“I mean everything.” DiPaulo put his arms out in front of him and walked up to the witness box. For a second Greene thought he was about to give Alpine a bear hug. “Your friend Jennifer Raglan is horribly murdered in a seedy motel. Then a trusted colleague of yours is arrested for first-degree murder. Tough, this is real tough, isn’t it?”

Alpine looked relieved. “It is difficult,” he admitted. “But I’m treating it the same as I would any other case.”

“As you should,” DiPaulo said, turning to the jury and letting his voice out like an engine revving up to full speed. “Detective Greene never asked for special treatment, did he?”

“No.”

“And he hasn’t been given any, has he?”

“Not at all.”

Greene realized that DiPaulo was talking about the elephant in the room. Everyone knew this was no ordinary case, and hearing it said out loud was like releasing the pressure from an overblown tire.

“The Maple Leaf Motel had no video camera, did it?” DiPaulo said, his voice taking on a more let’s-get-back-to-business tone.

Alpine shook his head. “No.”

“This boot mark we heard so much about yesterday, you have no idea exactly when it was made, do you?”

“Exactly when? No, I can’t give you a precise time.”

“It looked pretty recent, didn’t it?” DiPaulo said. “But you agree, even if it
was done that morning, the impression could have been made before or after the murder. Correct?”

Alpine took his time answering. He knew from the bail hearing just how important this point was for Greene’s defence.

“There’s no way to know,” he said.

DiPaulo grinned. He went over to the registrar’s desk. “Mr. Registrar,” he said, “I can never remember exhibit numbers, but can you please pass me that map the good detective put all those yellow arrows on yesterday.”

Mr. Singh smiled, warmed by the limelight of DiPaulo’s attention. He passed it over.

“Detective, I noticed yesterday when you traced out the route you took a few weeks ago, on that Monday morning . . . You started here, at Detective Greene’s house, in midtown Toronto, drove south and east through the city until you hooked up with Kingston Road. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Fortunately, I’m the father of a seventeen-year-old young lady.” DiPaulo gave Alpine a big grin. “So last night she showed me how to use Google Maps. You ever use that?”

“Many times. My teenage son showed me how.”

This got a laugh from the jury, a smile from Judge Norville, and titters from the audience.

“Well, Google Maps showed that the fastest way to get out there was to go north on the Don Valley Parkway, east on Highway 401 to Morningside, and then down to Kingston Road. Takes about twenty-one minutes.” As he spoke DiPaulo traced out the route with his finger.

Alpine stared at the map. He nodded. “Technically it’s the fastest route, but not early in the morning.”

“Why not?”

“Rush hour. The parkway is usually jammed, both directions. You know how bad traffic is.”

DiPaulo went back to the defence table and Nancy Parish handed him a white file folder. On the outside in bold black letters Greene saw the words
Tuesday Morning Drive – DVP – 51 minutes.
DiPaulo held the file to his chest and returned to his spot in front of the witness box.

With his back to the Crown, he opened the file halfway so that the jurors could read the words Greene had just seen, but Norville and Kreitinger could
not. “My partner, Ms. Parish, and I have looked carefully through your notes for the rest of the week,” he said to Alpine. “On Tuesday you tried going up the Don Valley Parkway, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Alpine conceded. “It took a lot longer.”

“Fifty-one minutes sound about right?”

“It does.”

Greene saw a few jurors read the back of the file and then nod along with Alpine.

“So the route you told us about yesterday, along Kingston Road, was the only one that could fit the time frame you had for Detective Greene, wasn’t it?”

“I chose the route that I thought someone would take at that time of day.”

DiPaulo snapped the file shut and brought it back to his chest. He shot Alpine a fierce look, all his goodhearted folksiness gone in an instant. “I want an answer to my question, Detective. Any other route, and he would have got there too late to commit this terrible murder. You chose the only route that Detective Ari Greene could possibly have taken to fit the time frame. Didn’t you?”

Alpine looked chastened. “I did.”

DiPaulo stabbed the map. “You work out of 43 Division, which is east of the Maple Leaf Motel. Isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“On September tenth, when you went to the Maple Leaf Motel, you drove down Kingston Road from the east, not up it from the west, the way you did on your test drive.”

“That’s right.”

“So you don’t know what the traffic was like heading east out of the city on the morning of September tenth, do you?”

“Not that day, no. But in the morning, traffic is usually much heavier going into the city than coming out.”

“It usually is, isn’t it?” DiPaulo grinned. He was back to his warmhearted self. He tapped the map again. “Farther down here on Kingston Road, west of the Maple Leaf Motel, there’s the Scarborough Golf Club on the north side.”

“That’s right,” Alpine said, looking more relaxed.

“Ever play there?” DiPaulo asked.

Alpine grinned. “A few rounds.”

“Lovely course, isn’t it?”

“It’s very nice.”

“At this point Kingston Road is six lanes wide, with a concrete divide down the middle. Practically a highway.”

“That’s right.”

“So, if, say, Detective Greene was driving east on Kingston Road, and there was a traffic jam before the left turn onto Scarborough Golf Club Road . . . well, then he would have been stuck, wouldn’t he?”

For the first time since he’d been cross-examined, Alpine glanced at the Crown’s table. “It’s a theoretical question,” he said.

Angela Kreitinger rose to her feet. “Your Honour, the witness is right. He’s been asked to speculate.”

Judge Norville frowned and looked at DiPaulo. “Counsel?” she asked.

DiPaulo smiled. He went back to the counsel desk and put the file in his hands down on the desk. Nancy Parish handed him a red file folder with
Alpine Police Record
written on the cover. He turned back to the judge. “Your Honour, I’m not asking this good officer to speculate about ridiculous things such as, is the moon made of cheese, or will Jennifer Aniston ever get married,” he said. A few jurors laughed.

He opened the file as he continued to speak. “I have here Detective Alpine’s complete work history as a police officer. In his career, he has worked in the Scarborough traffic unit for seven years. He’s investigated, by my count, more than thirty fatal or near-fatal car accidents, six of them on this same stretch of Kingston Road.”

He handed the file back to Parish and she handed him another one. It was titled
Kingston Road Traffic Reports for Last Two Years
. “As well, I have summary of the last two years of traffic reports for Kingston Road at morning rush hour. There are forty-three instances of what are termed ‘significant delays’ on this stretch of road during that time.

Greene could see that DiPaulo had suckered Kreitinger again. Because of her objection, he’d had the opportunity to make his well-rehearsed speech in front of the jury.