Stray Bullets (26 page)

Everything reminded Rothbart of some musical or other, Armitage
thought. But he laughed. Always humor the judge. Parish chuckled too. She was no fool.

“The kid clammed up as soon as he was arrested,” Armitage said. “We’ll call him at the preliminary inquiry and see what he has to say.”

Rothbart took a long look at Parish.

She smiled back.

Neither said anything.

What was that all about? Armitage wondered.

“Okay,” Rothbart said. He reached into his desk and pulled out a pile of forms. “Ralph, I know your answer, but I have to ask you anyway: Is there any way the Crown would take a plea to second-degree murder?”

“Not in a million years,” Armitage said.

Rothbart laughed. “I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard that line.” He closed the file in front of him and sat back. Relaxed now. “Ralph, did I ever tell you that when we took the show to New York, one night Elizabeth Taylor said to me, ‘Can’t Richard and I just kidnap you? If we let you go back to Canada your mother’s going to make you become a doctor or a lawyer.’”

Only about fifteen times, Armitage thought. But he smiled. “Really?”

For the next ten minutes they worked their way through a series of technical questions about the trial. “Last but not least,” Rothbart said, coming to the final page in the form. “When can we start this trial? First there’s going to be the prelim in the lower court, and—”

“Won’t be necessary, sir,” Parish said. “My client is electing to go straight to trial, the sooner the better.”

Armitage stared at her in stunned silence. Although accused people had the right to forgo their preliminary inquiry, which was essentially a vetting of the evidence, it was also a great opportunity for the defense to have charges reduced, or sometimes even thrown out. Waiving the prelim in a first-degree murder trial was unheard-of.

Rothbart grinned. He still had great teeth and a charming smile. “I see,” he said.

Armitage saw it too. That’s what she was smiling about a few minutes ago with him. At a prelim the Crown could force Jet to testify and find out what his evidence would be. Dewey too. They could test him out and fill in some of the holes left in his affidavit. By going straight to trial Parish was forcing the Crown to fly blind in front of the jury.

“The whole city is traumatized by this case,” Rothbart said. “The
sooner we can start this trial the better. But how long’s it going to take? There’s one thing on my calendar I never change. I’ll be away the first week of May.”

Yes, yes, I know, Armitage thought. The first week in May. The Tony Awards nominations came out, and Rothbart went down every year to hobnob with his old Broadway pals.

“Trial will only take a few weeks,” Parish said. “If we start in early April we’ll be fine.”

Rothbart beamed. “Excellent. When I read through the briefs, it occurred to me the defense might waive the prelim. I’ve already got us the earliest possible trial date. April eleventh. Looks as if you two are going to have a very busy few months.”

He hopped to his feet and pranced in front of them on the way to his door. Unlike many judges, who would summarily dismiss lawyers while seated behind their desks, Rothbart did this every time. Was it good manners, Armitage wondered, or did he just like to show how nimble he still was? He started strumming his fingers on his palm again.

What a disaster, Armitage thought. His witnesses were a bunch of civilians who couldn’t speak English and some criminals who would probably lie their asses off on the stand. And April 11. A little more than a month before the party. Penny would be going crazy. It felt as if his life was getting squeezed from all sides.

Walking down the carpeted halls beside Parish, Armitage could just make out the sound of Rothbart humming a show tune. It was from
Camelot
, of course. That mythical land, where a young boy with a sword could save the kingdom. Just as Armitage had done for all those summers when he was a kid, playing make-believe in the dense woods behind his parents’ estate.

“I found out who he is,” Daniel Kennicott said the moment Ari Greene answered his cell phone.

“Hang on a minute,” Greene said. He was walking up the staircase from the basement in Old City Hall, where the thick stone walls made reception difficult. He sprinted to the main floor, reaching into his coat pocket for pen and pad. “Okay, what have you got?”

“Name is Dragomir Ozera. Nabbed for theft under. Stole some pâté and brie from Pusateri’s. Only had a library card for ID. Gave his address as a room at Jilly’s, the strip joint over on Broadview. No phone.”

“When did this happen?”

“Five years ago. An officer named Lindsmore arrested him.”

“He’s a good cop.”

“Has a complete file. Even a drawing showing his birthmark. And a cigarette butt he left behind. Ozera never showed up for prints or court.”

Five years ago, Greene thought after he hung up. The file would still be over in the Crown’s office. He could easily go there and get it. Instead he dialed another number.

“Raglan,” Jennifer Raglan said in that distracted voice that Crowns always had between nine and ten in the morning when they were getting ready for court.

“It’s me,” Greene said.

He heard an intake of breath on the line. Then the sound of papers being shuffled on her desk. The phone being put down. Footsteps walking away, and a door being closed. Footsteps coming closer again. “Hi,” she said.

“Sorry to call like this.”

“No. I’m real glad you did,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“This is about business. But first. Your mother?”

“That was one of the reasons I wanted to talk. It’s a roller coaster. Last week I got an emergency call and had to boot out there in the middle of the day. She rallied but …” Her voice faltered.

He waited for her to speak again. His mind drifted to the other reasons she’d wanted to call.

“I’m having a real hard time with it,” she said. “Makes me miss you.”

“I need to see you today. But it’s about work. A favor.”

“Probably a good place to start.”

“This is urgent,” he said. “What’s your day like?”

She exhaled. “Lucky you. I was supposed to start a three-day prelim on a carjacking The defense lawyer and I just made a deal. I’m going over an Agreed Statement of Facts he drew up. This will be done by ten thirty. What do you need?”

“I want you to pull a file for me. It should be in the Fail to Appear boxes. Five years old, and I know the boxes there go back almost a decade.”

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“Can’t say, but it’s important or I wouldn’t ask. I’ll wait for you at our usual place.”

He gave her the details of Ozera’s charges, then made his way over to the cafeteria at the new city hall and found a booth on the far wall. The morning rush had subsided, and the place was emptying out.

Greene tried not to keep looking at his watch as the time ticked by. His phone didn’t ring. At a quarter to twelve, the cafeteria began to stir back to life. He ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and was biting into it when Raglan showed up. She smiled when she found him. He hadn’t seen her since the last time he was here and the call came in about the shooting. She had nothing in her hands. Greene had expected her to be carrying her briefcase with the file inside.

Their eyes met. After all the years they’d known each other, working together on cases, then as lovers, now as whatever they were, they could communicate without words.

She sat and looked around. Made sure they were alone. “The file’s not in the Fail to Appear box,” she said.

“Where is it?”

“Both charges were pulled by the Crown. Cases dismissed.”

“What? When?”

“A few weeks ago. December twenty-ninth. I tracked the records down. That’s what took so long.”

“You’re kidding,” Greene said.

“No. It was done in 112 court two Fridays ago. Probably took about a minute, and no one would have thought twice about it.”

He’d eaten only about a quarter of his sandwich. He pushed the plate away.

She reached out and covered his hand. “I’ve been resisting calling you.”

“It’s okay.”

“I couldn’t have lasted another week without seeing you.”

He felt her fingers intertwine with his.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“How bad are things?”

“Mom’s a quiet fighter. She’s hanging on, but just barely.”

“Anything I can do?”

She squeezed his hand harder but didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to.

“It might be easier if we talk business,” he said. “Which Crown pulled the charges?”

“Armitage, of course,” she said. “He’s been combing through old files with minor charges and getting rid of them.”

“This wasn’t the only case?”

“No.” She laughed. “There were more than a hundred. What’s the big deal?”

“Not sure,” he said. “Do you know when he started doing this?”

“Over the Christmas holidays. He sent a memo out when everyone got back saying he hoped we all felt sorry for him being stuck in the office, bored to death. That if anyone had ancient cases to get rid of, to pass them to him because he was doing a big purge.”

His attention was drawn to someone approaching their table. He looked over and Johnathan Summers, a judge Greene knew very well, walked up. Raglan let go of his hand.

“Cops and Crowns, always going at it,” Summers said with a big jolly laugh.

Greene and Raglan exchanged glances.

“Detective, I hear you’re on the Timmy’s shooting,” Summers said.

Greene had been amazed how quickly the murder of young Kyle Wilkinson had been labeled “the Timmy’s shooting.” Like the way CNN came up with a banner headline for even the worst events, moments after they happened. And Kyle’s name seemed to have been forgotten. “I am,” he said.

Summers shook his head. Solemn. “Tough case,” he said.

Gossip was a valuable currency for everyone in the criminal justice system—lawyers, judges, cops, court clerks, and most of all journalists. Insider tidbits of information about high-profile cases were liquid
gold. People involved in trials weren’t supposed to talk about them, but that didn’t stop anyone. The unwritten code was if you were an outsider, you never asked directly. But right now, Judge Summers was fishing.

“They’re all tough cases,” Greene said. It was a platitude. And code for “Sorry, no dice. No gossip here.”

Summers turned his ruddy red face to Raglan. “I heard your mom’s sick. I’m very sorry.”

“Thanks, Your Honor.”

Summers rumbled away.

Raglan waited until he was out of earshot. “Ari, why do you care so much about us yanking this guy Ozera’s case? It’s just a stupid theft under a fail-to-appear charge from five years ago.”

“We just figured out Ozera’s the baker at Tim Hortons we’ve been looking for. Our missing witness.”

“Really?”

He smiled.

She smiled back. “How did you do that?”

“Legwork.”

“Great. But what does it have to do with Ralph withdrawing these charges?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m a detective. I don’t like coincidence.”

“Well, this is a total coincidence. Ralph cleaned up hundreds of back files. I was a real popular head Crown with the troops but a disaster when it came to paperwork. When I left, the ministry wanted someone who could run the place efficiently. Ralph’s a good civil servant.”

“Whose idea was this cleanup?”

“Both of ours. Strictly between you and me, Ralph still calls me almost every day. It’s a real pain. He was stuck here over the holidays. He told me he was going to do some housecleaning and I said, ‘Great.’ With all the cutbacks, we have a backlog of about eighteen months just getting all the information into the system.”

Armitage initiated this, he thought.

Raglan had a way of running both hands through her hair at the same time that he loved to watch. “Did Ralph call you before he decided to take this case?”

She grinned at Greene. “I warned him, a trial like this can make or break his career,” she said.

“He’s in over his head. The deal he made with Cutter was a real rookie mistake.”

“I know.” She took her hands off her head and reached for his hand. “I told him he was very lucky it was your case.”

He massaged her fingers.

“I’ve got to go,” she said.

“I know.”

He waited until she was gone before he reached for his cell phone. He touched an autodial number.

“Hi, detective,” Kennicott answered almost immediately.

“Do you still have the actual warrant for the fail-to-appear and the theft-under charge?” he asked.

“It’s right in my hand.”

“Good. Find a brown paper bag, stick it inside, and staple the bag shut with an evidence time-date tag attached. And nobody, I mean nobody, hears about this but me. Understood?”

“Completely.”

Ralph Armitage would have been happy if he never saw another soccer game on TV. Happier still if he never came back to the Plaza Flamingo, the restaurant where he’d had the two worst meetings of his life. Now it seemed a third one was about to take place.

To make matters worse, it was Thursday again. He had a hunch that this guy Ozera had read about his weekly date with his wife in that
Toronto Star
article and was testing him.

He took his seat at his usual table. Soccer games filled all the screens. It seemed strange to him that in Europe they played soccer in the winter, not the summer. Then again, they didn’t get winters like the one Toronto was having right now.

A waiter, a short guy with a black cap, came by and asked for his order. He had such a thick Spanish accent he was hard to understand. Armitage ordered a Molson Canadian and waited.

Waiting sucked. But this time he had good news for this Dragomir Ozera, aka Jose Sanchez, aka the runaway witness who could fuck up Armitage’s whole life.

The waiter came back with the beer. “That is four dollars please, sir,” he said.

Armitage grabbed the bottle and took a swig. He needed a drink. “Here, keep the five.” He handed over the bill.