Stray Bullets (14 page)

Greene grabbed the one-page affidavit and read it through in record time. He waved it in Armitage’s face. “You dropped a first-degree murder charge, and this is all you got?” He tossed the paper toward the
desk but it didn’t reach, just fluttered down to the floor, like a rudderless kite.

Armitage rushed over to pick it up. “Yes, and it was the right move.”

Greene could feel the waves of fatigue and anger coursing through his body. Stay calm, he told himself. “Why in the world would you do this without telling me?”

“Cutter called me. Insisted we meet alone. At some place over on College Street. The Flaminco … something.”

“You mean Flamingo.”

“Flamingo?”

“Yes, the Plaza Flamingo, west of Bathurst,” Greene said.

“Yeah. Look, there’s a key point you missed.” Armitage picked up a pad of blank paper from his desk and drew a large rectangle that took up most of the page. “This is the crime scene,” he said. In the top left-hand corner he drew a second rectangle about half the size and wrote “Tim Hortons” inside it. In the surrounding white space he wrote “parking lot.” At the front entrance he put two X’s and wrote under them a capital “W” and a small “w.” “This is where Wilkinson and his son were when the boy got shot,” he said.

Greene looked at the drawing, shaking his head.

On the parking-lot side of the doughnut shop he marked two X’s and wrote “L” and “D.” “There was a fresh chip on the sidewalk here. Let’s assume Larkin and Dewey were standing at this spot.”

“I know that,” Greene said.

Armitage pointed to the bottom right-hand part of the page. “James Eric Trapper, aka Jet, drove his old Cadillac in and stopped here.” He drew a small rectangle and wrote “Caddy” beside it. “Right?”

“There’s nothing new here.”

“We have five half-decent witnesses, and not one of them sees the shooting. Their evidence as to the number of shots fired ranges from four to ten.”

“Nine,” Greene said. “Evidence of Adela Dobos. She’d just walked outside when the shots started.”

“Still more than six,” Armitage said, “and that’s why it’s a problem. Could mean there was more than one gun. Plus the flattened shell case was found here.” He tapped the Cadillac in the drawing. “Jet’s got a bad criminal record, including possession of an unregistered handgun. If he was shooting, he could have picked up his own shells before he took off but missed one that he drove over.” He drew a curved line in front of the car that showed it driving out of the lot. “Possible, isn’t it?”

Greene stared at Armitage.

“I’m sure that’s what the defense is going to say. It’s possible. No proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Armitage said.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Greene said at last.

Armitage dropped the pad of paper and opened the only folder on his desk. He passed over a sheet of paper. “Take a look at this.”

Greene recognized it right away. A set of stick-man drawings of a body, one from the back and one from the front. “This is from the autopsy report,” he said, giving it back. “Shows the bullet hit Kyle in the side of the head. So what?”

“But did you notice which side of the head took the bullet?” Armitage asked, trying to get into cross-examination mode.

Greene didn’t need to take a second look. “The left,” he said without missing a beat.

Armitage retrieved his drawing of the crime scene. “But Larkin and Dewey were to the Wilkinsons’ right, not their left.” His voice was rising in excitement. “You didn’t notice that, did you?”

“Of course I did.”

“You did?” Armitage asked. “And it didn’t bother you?”

Big mistake, Ralph, Greene thought. Never ask a question in cross-examination if you don’t know the answer. “Not one bit.”

“Well, how could we prove Larkin was the shooter if the bullet comes from the wrong direction? How do you explain it?”

Mistake number two, Greene thought. Never give a witness an open question in cross-examination. Gives him the chance to take control of the story.

“Happens in every murder case,” Greene said. “A homicide’s not a jigsaw puzzle. Pieces never fit perfectly. They’re not supposed to. You remember the Wray case back in the early 1970s? When Wray knew where the gun was, and that was used to convict him of murder?”

“We studied it in first-year law school,” Armitage said.

“I know. I went to law school for a year,” Greene said. “My professor was an Aussie and used to talk about the difference between the ‘law’ and the ‘lore.’ He had such a thick accent that the two words sounded the same, so he spelled them out. The l-a-w said that because Wray knew where the gun was, it was good evidence that he fired it. The l-o-r-e was that Wray was covering for his brother.”

For the first time since Greene had come into the office, Armitage didn’t look quite so cocky.

“The point is, the same facts can lead to all sorts of different
conclusions. Some of them wrong. Kyle Wilkinson could have turned around for a million reasons,” Greene said. “Maybe he heard the car coming in the lot. Or noticed Suzanne Howett running behind him. Father said it was just starting to snow; he could have looked up at the sky. So what? Kids are always turning in circles.”

“But his father doesn’t say anything about it in his statement you took from him, does he, about his son turning around?”

“So what?” Greene said. “Man was in shock. The mind blanks out on small, unimportant details, especially at first. All the dad says is they were walking into the Tim Hortons, he heard a bang noise, and the next thing he knows Kyle is lying on the concrete.”

He didn’t feel like hitting Armitage anymore. He just wished he never had to deal with this fool again. “We have Suzanne Howett and her boyfriend Jet under around-the-clock surveillance. We’ve tapped their phones, their cells. Everything. Once we move in on them, they’ll probably shut right up. This is our best chance to find out what they know. See if Jet had a gun. You may have noticed, I’m keeping Dewey’s name out of the press. I want to put pressure on them. This deal you just made has to be kept confidential. One hundred percent.”

Armitage gave him a blank stare. Shrugged and pointed to the door.

Greene turned to the door then back at Armitage. Confused. Then it hit him. “Amankwah? You told the reporter about this?”

“I said the story was embargoed and he agreed. He won’t use it until I say so.”

Greene grabbed the phone on Armitage’s desk and shoved it in his face. “You call him right now, tell him if this gets out he’s never going to interview another Toronto cop for the rest of his career.”

“Okay, okay,” Armitage said. “But we both know it’s hard to keep these things quiet. Cutter’s a blabbermouth and—”

“Call Cutter too. Tell him to keep his trap shut or the deal’s off.” Armitage was right. Something like this wouldn’t stay secret for long. “Tell them both I need twenty-four hours.” He was already at the door. He couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“I made this deal because I thought it was the right thing to do,” Armitage said, the phone hanging limp in his hand. “I’m the one who has to stand up in court and try this case.”

“And I’m the one who has to has to tell the Wilkinsons that we’ve dropped the charges against one of the two guys who probably killed their son.” He slammed the door behind him as hard as he could and hoped he’d broken off the hinges.

The thing Nancy Parish hated most about her job was visiting clients in jail. And the worst place of all was Toronto East Detention Centre, an industrial-size prison in a barren part of Scarborough, the poorest and most remote suburb of Toronto. It was especially horrible coming here at night, when the rest of the world was doing normal things, such as spending the evening at home.

Pulling into the windswept parking lot, she turned off her car and braced herself. On the news she’d heard that another big snowstorm was coming in and already there were flakes falling onto her windshield. What lay ahead was a walk along the broken-down, freezing-cold concrete path; check-in procedure at the steel desk; passage through two security doors; an inspection by the guards; and a ride up the gray elevator to the third floor, where Larkin St. Clair had been housed since his arrest.

She hadn’t talked to him yet about what had happened at the shooting. This was by design. He always told her so many half truths and outright lies at the start of the case, she wanted to give him a chance to cool down.

She had actually planned to take the night off. Amazing as that sounded. But just half an hour ago her pal Awotwe Amankwah, the reporter at the
Star
, called on her cell while she was in her car.

“I just got out of an interview with your friendly Crown, Ralph Armitage,” he said.

“Bet he’s all pumped up about taking on the highest-profile case in years.”

“Where you going?”

“Believe it or not I’m headed home. Hard to imagine, isn’t it.”

“Think again,” he said. “You’re going to want to go see your client after you hear this.”

“I don’t like the tone of your voice,” she said.

“Pull over, because this will knock your socks off.”

She turned into an empty parking lot and couldn’t believe what Amankwah told her. The cops had arrested Dewey Booth and within
hours Armitage had made a deal with his lawyer, Phil Cutter. Booth claimed St. Clair was the shooter and was going to lead the police to the gun that fired the fatal bullet. In return the charges against him would be dropped. Even worse, the weapon was stashed at St. Clair’s aunt’s place, some secret spot the cops had missed when they’d initially searched it.

The prison elevator opened on the third floor, and Parish went to the sterile interview room, where she sat on a steel seat, seething with anger. St. Clair had told her a big fat lie about the gun, and she was so pissed she wanted to throttle him.

“Hey, Nancy, meet Rachel, my favorite prison guard,” St. Clair said minutes later as he was led into the small interview room by a squat, gum-chewing woman in uniform. “She’s tougher than my aunt Arlene.”

Rachel the prison guard rolled her eyes in Parish’s direction.

Larkin’s aunt was the only person in his dislocated life who’d stood by him through thick and thin. His mother’s younger sister, the two siblings were polar opposites. Whereas Larkin’s mom was beautiful and lazy, Arlene was fat and hardworking. She’d had a job as a mechanic at the subway rail yards for decades, doing the night shift. Now, on top of that, she was raising her son, Justin.

“Larkin makes friends wherever he goes,” Parish told Rachel. “Each and every prison.”

He was wearing the standard-issue orange jumpsuit and looked as comfortable in it as a movie star in a silk bathrobe. “You’ll see, Rachel baby. I’m the inmate of your dreams.”

“Sit down.” Rachel tried to sound stern, but Parish saw her smirk.

Bloody Larkin could make anyone smile, she thought.

He made a show of pointing to the bolted-down steel chair at the other side of the table and directing Parish to it. “Ladies first,” he said, doing a mock bow.

“I’m ready to kill you,” she said once the guard was gone and they were alone.

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning your so-called best buddy, Dewey.”

“They find him?”

She kept her eyes on him. “It gets worse.”

He pulled his remaining hair back from his face and held it with both hands.

“Forget about ‘we don’t rat, we don’t crack,’” she said. “Dewey completely fucked you over. Told the cops you were the shooter. Made a deal. He’s going to walk.”

His head jolted back. He gaped at her.

“And get this,” she said. “He’s taking the cops back to your aunt’s house. He says the gun’s hidden in some secret place that only you could stash it. I assume your aunt would kill Dewey on sight with her bare hands.”

He began to shake his head. Wordless for perhaps the first time in his life.

“Then he’s going to testify against you at trial.”

St. Clair’s eyes bulged. “Shit,” he whispered.

“That’s an understatement.” She could feel her anger at him rising. “Why the hell did you lie to me about the gun? If you’d told me, I could have found a way to return it. It would have been a perfect bargaining chip, but now this is a disaster.”

“How could Dewey do that?”

“Easy. Maybe he doesn’t tell his lawyer a bunch of lies.”

“I’m going to be sick.” He jumped up and rushed out the door.

Parish stayed seated in the bolted-down chair. She heard him retching in the hallway, the vomit making a splat sound as it hit the concrete floor. A vile smell wafted in through the open doorway.

Ari Greene drove into the self-serve Petro-Canada service station and got out of his car. The blizzard that had started last night had been building all day, gaining in ferocity this afternoon. The wind was whipping the snow in a near-horizontal line right in his eyes.

He opened the gas cap, removed the hose, and filled his car. The 1988 Oldsmobile had a big tank, and his hands were freezing by the time he’d finished. He looked around at the two other drivers also filling their cars and nodded.

Inside the station, the young woman behind the counter rotated on a stool behind the cash register. She hadn’t changed very much from the photo in her work file at Tim Hortons, he thought, except her hair had grown. It was long and wavy.

“You that old car at pump seven?” she said without making eye contact. There was an opened bubble pack of Nicorette on the counter, and she was chewing gum.

“That’s right.”

“Petro-Points card?”

“No.” He handed over his personal credit card, not his Metro Police one. He wanted to talk to her a little before he told her who he was. “Can you believe this weather?” he said.

She shrugged. “And it’s only November.”

“Probably will be a slow night for you.”

“My shift’s almost over.”

She processed the payment and tapped her pen on the credit card machine while waiting. “Sign here,” she said, tearing the slip of paper off with her right hand when it came through and handed it over to him with a pen using her left. He noticed her baby finger remained curled inside her palm.