Stranglehold (41 page)

“That’s eight minutes and eighteen seconds,” DiPaulo said at long last.

There was a collective intake of breath.

“Ms. Parish,” DiPaulo said. “What did you do next?”

“I stood up and paused the iPod, then blew out all the candles, except the one by the bed.”

DiPaulo continued with his questions. Everything lined up. Parish had used her tape measure and the four candles had burned down to almost the same level as the ones taken from the scene. The one by the bedside she had let burn until 11:05, the time that Kennicott and Zeilinski had entered the room and blown it out. It was a match as well. Same for the picture of the ice in the sink. She photographed the amount of ice in the water after the eight minutes and eighteen seconds had passed, and then again at the time Kennicott and Zeilinski arrived. The temperature was within one degree of what Zeilinski had recorded. And the two pictures of the half bottle of champagne resting in the icy water were similar.

“Thank you, Ms. Parish, those are my questions,” DiPaulo said as the clock in the courtroom neared 4:30.

Judge Norville looked expectantly over at Kreitinger. “Does the Crown have any questions?”

“No questions,” Kreitinger said.

There was nothing for her say. DiPaulo had all but proved that Raglan had
been murdered soon after she’d arrived in the room, and well before Greene could have got there.

“Well then,” Norville said, clearly relieved that she wasn’t going to have to lose one minute of her precious weekend. “Court is adjourned until Monday morning. Ten
A.M.
sharp.” She practically flew off the bench.

ARI GREENE KNEW HE HAD TO STOP DOING THIS, BUT HE COULDN’T HELP HIMSELF. NIGHT
after night he woke up in the dark, his body bathed in sweat, and stumbled down to the basement to play the DVD again. And again. And again.

Jennifer.

He had this cruel need to see her alive, moving. Even if it was only the grainy Coffee Time video. Anything to erase from his memory the last image he had of her, horribly strangled to death in that disgusting motel room.

This morning it had been light outside when he awoke. He looked at the old clock radio on the side table. It was 8:35. Amazing. He’d actually managed to sleep through the night. Baby steps, he thought as he ripped off his soaking T-shirt, and like an addict who needed another fix, went downstairs and clicked on the DVD yet again.

Today he had an idea of how he might wean himself off this habit. He fast-forwarded through Jennifer coming into the doughnut shop, going to the washroom, coming out in her disguise, and going to the wall phone to make her last phone call to him. The last time he’d heard her voice.
I’ll see you soon, my love. Don’t be late.

What would have happened if I’d gotten there earlier? he asked himself for the thousandth time. Could he have saved her?

He slowed the video to play as he came to the part where she walked outdoors. Her back came into view. At least he couldn’t see her face. That was progress.

He looked at her walking. Swinging her backpack. How many times had he watched her stroll out of view along the bleak, deserted sidewalk? Then turning off the DVD when she was out of the frame.

But this morning, he paused it at the last image of her in view. This is enough, he told himself. One more second and she’s gone. Ari, she’s gone.

He put the remote down and lay back on the couch. This way madness lies,
he thought. He rubbed his face hard and closed his eyes. Tried not to see her. He forced himself to think of the trial. How well everything had gone in court yesterday. How close this other nightmare in his life was to being over. Still, he had yet to testify. Be cross-examined. It all made him feel tired.

He heard the disc start up on its own. He made himself count slowly to ten before he opened his eyes. How bleak it must be to live out there in Scarborough, he thought, looking at the cracked, unused sidewalk, the treeless street, and the cars and trucks whizzing past.

He reached for the remote. Where had it gone? He patted around the cushions on the couch and finally found it. He took one last look and was about to turn off the DVD when he saw it come on the screen.

He bolted upright and watched transfixed as it came completely into view.

He hit the pause button and stared.

“I don’t believe it,” he said out loud, even though he was alone.

He reversed to the last image of Jennifer, hit play, and watched until the moment it first came into view. He wrote down the time: 10:01:15.

Then he tore back upstairs to his bedroom. He needed to find his phone. He needed to call Kennicott.

“DADDY, CAN WE WATCH TV?”

“What?” Awotwe Amankwah said. He was so tired.

“At Mommy’s house we watch TV every morning,” It was his four-year-old son, Abdul.

Amankwah’s head was pounding. He’d been up until three o’clock, filing his story on the Ari Greene trial and working on his big retrospective piece about Jennifer Raglan. Barclay Church wanted it ready for the day the jury reached its verdict, which, thanks to how quickly things had gone this week in court, could be a heck of a lot sooner than anyone had expected.

Fatima, his six-year-old daughter, climbed on the bed and tried to pry his eyes open. “Why can’t we watch TV at breakfast in your house?” she asked. “We don’t have day care or school today.”

Coffee, Amankwah thought. He needed coffee, and Tylenol. “Kids, please,” he said. “Let Daddy get up.”

“I found the clicker,” Abdul said.

“Put it on,” Fatima said.

Amankwah flung his arm out to grab his son’s hand, but Abdul was too fast. There was a thump across the room, and his old TV clicked on.

“You rascal, you.” Amankwah grabbed Abdul’s other hand and started to tickle him under the arm.

“Stop, stop, Daddy.” He giggled. “Fatima, take it.” He held the remote aloft in his free hand.

Fatima grabbed it and jumped away from them on the bed. The screen had come on now and there was a close-up of a reporter, who looked like he was standing in front of the skating rink at City Hall.

At the bottom of the screen the words
Breaking News
crept across in a red banner.

“Yuck, news,” Abdul said.

“Police say that this message must have been spray-painted in the middle of the night,” the reporter said.

Amankwah let go of Abdul’s arm and sat up.

The camera swung to the side to show the message painted across the ice surface in graffiti-style letters:
HAP IS A MURDERER.

“A spokesman for newly elected Mayor Charlton says this outrageous . . . ”

Amankwah heard a click. A garishly coloured spaceship flew across the screen.

“Fatima, give me that clicker,” Amankwah said. Fully awake.

“No, we want cartoons,” she said.

“Cartoons, cartoons,” Abdul chanted.

They started running around the room singing together: “Cartoons, cartoons, cartoons.”

“Okay, okay,” Amankwah said. “You can watch cartoons in a minute, but this is Daddy’s business. Give me the clicker right now.”

“Can we eat our cereal in front of the TV too? Mommy lets us,” Fatima said.

“Just today, but I need that clicker right now.”

She surrendered it.

“Go get your cereal.” Amankwah frantically switched back to the news channel.

Clyde Newbridge was speaking at the other end of the square at what looked like a hastily prepared news conference. His face was red with anger.

“Could there be a better example of why Hap Charlton was elected mayor?” Newbridge said. “This is exactly the type of criminal behaviour he is determined to wipe out.”

“We have heard reports that similar messages have been spray-painted in landmarks all around Toronto,” one of the reporters said.

“Art? This isn’t art, it’s vandalism. Plain and simple,” Newbridge retorted.

“Does the mayor have any comment?” another reporter asked.

“Yes. This is garbage. To say nothing of outrageous slander and falsehood.”

“Do the police have any idea of who is doing this?” a third reporter asked.

“No comment,” Newbridge growled.

The reporters’ questions continued as a voice-over, while a series of still photos came up on the screen. Picture after picture of the same graffiti message on Toronto landmarks: the CN Tower, the Eaton Centre, the Rogers Centre, the
Air Canada Centre, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Scarborough Civic Centre, the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Every message had a tag at the bottom:
AARON 8.

Jennifer Raglan’s son had come back with a vengeance, Amankwah thought, staring at the screen in disbelief.

“Daddy, you only have regular Cheerios, not Honey Nut,” Fatima said, rushing back in.

He hugged his daughter. “At Daddy’s house, you get to put on your own honey.”

“Oh,” she said, “that’s a good idea.”

He kissed her on the top of her head before she scurried away.

He reached for his home phone and looked around for his cell.

KENNICOTT’S CELL PHONE RANG WITH A SPECIAL RING TONE HE HADN’T HEARD FOR
months because he’d programmed it exclusively for calls from Ari Greene. He stared at it in disbelief. What the hell was Greene doing phoning him in the middle of the trial? On a Saturday morning no less, when he was half awake.

He let it ring three times. He could think of a million reasons to ignore it. Let it go to voice mail.

On the fifth ring he answered it. “Ari. Why in the world are you calling me?”

“Daniel, if you never speak to me again in your life after today, I’ll understand completely. But right now you have to do something.”

“Have to?” Kennicott felt the same anger toward Greene he’d felt when he’d testified at the bail hearing. Except now there was no reason to hold back. “You have the nerve after the way you deceived me, you used me, you made a fool of me, to tell me what I have to do?”

“I can’t argue with you. Do you have the DVD?”

“Fuck you.”

“From the Coffee Time.”

“You think I didn’t know what DVD you’re talking about?”

“Daniel, I’ll give you back your brother’s file. I’ll resign from Homicide. I’ll do anything you want. Just look at the end of the DVD. Go to thirty-two seconds after Jennifer disappears from sight.”

“You called me this early on a Saturday morning in the middle of your trial to tell me to watch the video of an empty sidewalk?”

“If it stayed empty, I wouldn’t be calling you,” Greene said. “Until they fire me, I’m still a cop.”

Kennicott looked across his bedroom at the TV screen. The DVD was already loaded. He’d been watching it last night.

“You are too dedicated not to have brought a copy home with you,” Greene said.

“Okay,” Kennicott said. “I’ve got it on. What are you telling me to do again?”

“Look at Camera Four, the outdoor one. Fast-forward to 10:01:12. Then pause it.”

Kennicott didn’t say a word as he hit the button and watched the images fly past. But he could feel the anger in him ebb.

“I’m there, the street’s empty,” he said. “What’s the point?”

“Go slow for the next three seconds.”

Kennicott hit the button.

Bit by bit, he saw a front bicycle tire come into view, then the whole bike, and the rider, who was walking beside it. He was wearing a familiar-looking T-shirt. Thanks to the bright spray-painted colours, it was easy to read what was written there:
AARON 8
.

AMANKWAH HAD BOTH PHONES GOING, HIS HOME AND HIS CELL, TEXTING AND E-MAILING.
He had to get hold of his sister to take the kids. He had to contact Howard Darnell to tell him what Aaron was up to. He had to get hold of Barclay Church, who’d made it clear many times that if a big story hit, he wanted to be in the loop. And he had to find Nancy Parish. For sure she and Ted DiPaulo and Ari Greene would want to know about this.

His sister was a software engineer and thankfully lived with her BlackBerry attached at the hip. She got his text right away. She was pissed off, but on her way over.

Barclay Church answered his cell phone on the first ring. Either the man never slept, or he had no life, or both.

“Mr. Double A. What a spectacular morning. We so seldom get blue skies like this in England. Looks like our new mayor has angered a local artist,” he said. “Tut tut.”

“You saw the news.”

“The news never stops. That’s why we’re all addicted to it.”

Amankwah quickly told Church how he’d made contact with Darnell during the trial and gained his trust. How his older son, Aaron, had been shipped down to New Mexico for drug rehab but had escaped and got back to Toronto a few days ago. That his son’s name was Aaron and his tag was Aaron 8.

“The plot thickens,” Church said. “Excellent work.”

“This is for your ears only. I promised Darnell I wouldn’t print a word without his permission.”

“That promise has to be rock solid. You and me and no one else.” All of Church’s usual flowery sarcasm had disappeared. He’s a pro, Amankwah thought.

“In fact I don’t think you should have told me,” Church said.

“Normally I wouldn’t,” Amankwah said. “But my gut tells me this whole
thing is going to blow up. The case against Greene fell apart in court yesterday. The mayor’s got his first big event planned for this morning at the Scarborough Civic Centre. He’s going to be power-washing away graffiti.”

“Yes, at eleven so he can make the noon news,” Church said. “I want you to be there.”

“Okay, but send another writer and a photographer.”

“Done. We pay you for your instincts.”

Next Amankwah called Nancy Parish. There was no answer at her home. He called her cell. She sounded very tired when she answered.

“Awotwe?” she asked. “Why are you calling so early?”

“Only would do it in an emergency. I think you should turn on your TV.”

“Well, wait a second.”

He heard the sound of sheets ruffling, then footsteps, then a door shut. “Awotwe,” she whispered. “What’s this all about?”