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Authors: Eric Wight

BOOK: The Last Hand
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“T
hat it?” Deputy Chief Mackenzie asked. A big man, sitting at attention.
“Those are all the new ones.”
They were in Mackenzie's office, the deputy chief and Staff Inspector Marinelli of Homicide. At the back of the room, Salter was sorting through some files while he listened to Marinelli's report.
The two new homicide cases sounded routine; they were outstanding only because the investigation had not proceeded far enough for the squad to have arrested anyone. One victim was a middle-aged welfare case, found bludgeoned in his room, almost certainly the victim of a robbery. The other was a teenage boy stabbed on a subway platform during a gang brawl. Marinelli did not anticipate any difficulty in finding either of the villains. It was simply a matter of talking to the witnesses, of shaking them hard enough. In both cases a lot of people knew who was responsible, and one of them would give up a name soon-within days, probably. There was no risk to the public.
“That lawyer who was stabbed?” Mackenzie wet a meaty finger and turned a page in his desk diary. “Getting anywhere?”
“The Vice Squad are working with us on that one …”
“I know, I know, I know. What's it been now? Two weeks? Three?”
“ … we haven't come up with anyone yet.”
“Family lawyer wants us to find a prowler, someone just looking for a hit. Wrap the case up quick.” Mackenzie phrased his remarks
economically, eliminating all the inessential words. Salter believed the mannerism had its roots in a desire to sound businesslike, even military, back when Mackenzie had been a sergeant.
“You in touch with this lawyer, sir?”
“I take his calls.” Mackenzie straightened an already straight back.
“What's his name, sir, in case he calls me?”
“Holt.”
Marinelli waited for him to continue.
“Holt,” Mackenzie repeated. “I thought he might know something about the victim that the family don't want to get out. Something they don't want the world or us to know about. Thought I might get a smell of it, save you some time.”
“And?”
“They think a casual prowler. They
hope
it was. Any sign of a prowler?”
“We've come up with a hooker, or what looks like one, a woman who was hanging around that night. Maybe that's what this lawyer thought we'd find.”
“What's a hooker look like?”
“Blond wig, big silver boots–you know.”
“Maybe peddling her ass door-to-door?” Mackenzie's expression changed from thoughtful and receptive to creased with amusement, then immediately returned to quizzical, changes that seemed not to be generated by emotion or thought, but switched on intentionally while the deputy considered something else. “Eh?” Mackenzie now said sharply, returning to wanting an answer to his question. “Any of the hookers work like that? ‘Avon calling'?”
“It would be news to us.” He grinned politely at Mackenzie's joke.
“And me. Still. What have you done?”
“The Vice Squad has trawled Jarvis and the other main areas for a whisper, but they haven't got one yet. They know a lot of the pros and they've showed the victim's picture around, just in case someone knew him. I mean if there's a hooker going to his apartment, then he probably would have had her sent, and she might not be the only one he's had sent up. But we haven't had a smell.”
“What about the guy. Found anything?”
“Not much. Famous for his integrity, everyone says. Sat on all the law society's ethical committees, things like that. Well-known in the trade, but not famous to the public, because his practice was civil, didn't go near the criminal courts if he could avoid it. No known enemies. Married and divorced some time ago, but no bad blood there, either. Granite Club, like his father before him. His mother recently died, and there was just him and a sister. Didn't work too hard; spent a lot of the summer at his cottage in Muskoka; traveled a lot, mostly with those wine-tasting groups, organized booze-ups, tasting the local porch-climber. You know.”
“Faggot?”
It was a routine question. The files contained plenty of pictures of bodies of naked middle-aged men with stab wounds.
Marinelli shook his head. “No sign of that. Anyway, the hooker kind of rules that out, doesn't she?”
“These days? Who knows?” Mackenzie snickered. “What do you plan to do now?”
“Keep looking for Pussy-in-Boots. We'll find her. Should be easy to spot.”
From across the room, Salter chimed in. “Maybe she's taken her boots off by now.”
Marinelli smiled courteously at Salter as if acknowledging his right to make an irrelevant comment during a serious discussion, then turned back to the deputy chief.
“You need any help?” Mackenzie asked.
Salter walked across the room to search his raincoat pocket for tissue.
“We're always shorthanded, sir. But no special problem. I'll get back to you.” Marinelli stood up and left the office, nodding to Salter on his way out.
 
 
Salter watched him go. Over the last six or seven years he and Marinelli had become comfortable with each other without becoming friends. Salter had worked on several homicide cases from his base in the Special Affairs Unit, the last case at the specific request of Marinelli.
When the door closed behind Marinelli, Salter said, “If he needs any help …”
“He'll manage. You heard him.”
Salter closed the file drawer and walked to Mackenzie's desk. He sat down in front of the deputy chief. “What's going on?” he asked after a long silence.
Now Mackenzie looked up from the document he was pretending to read. “What?” he asked. “What? What?”
“Question. What the fuck is going on?” Salter had worked for Mackenzie for several years, and with the door closed he could set aside the deputy's rank while they talked.
Mackenzie said, “Far as I know, nothing's going on. That you don't know about, that is. Why? What's up?”
Salter saw that the deputy was trying to think, and waited ten seconds before he continued. “Last week Marinelli was complaining about being undermanned. Now you ask him if he needs help and he says no. He knows I'm in the room. What I hear is that he doesn't need
me
.”
Mackenzie sniffed hard. “Sit down, Charlie.”
“I am sitting down.”
“Yeah, right. Okay. First, nothing's going on right now. Okay? But this gives me a chance to say something on the topic.” Now he gathered himself and hunched forward. “You're a bit of a lone wolf, you know that, Charlie?”
What Salter heard was Mackenzie calling him Charlie for the first time, while he fished around for something to say, and he didn't like it. He waited for the unpleasant thing that was coming.
Mackenzie continued. “You don't get to hear all the scuttlebutt around the canteen, do you? Kind of out of touch. You have any buddies on the force?”
“This is where I
work
,” Salter said. I
socialize
with
civilians.
” It was the response he had ready for whenever the topic cropped up. In truth, Salter had never been sociable. Golf was the only thing he had in common with most of his colleagues. Although he was on good, respectful terms with several middle-rank officers he had worked with, including Marinelli, none of them had been inside his house.
“So I understand.” Mackenzie touched his tie and rolled his shoulders
to settle himself inside his jacket, then cleared his throat. “Keep your life private. That's your privilege, but it cuts you off.”
“From what? The politics? I'm close to retirement. I work for you. Why do I need to be plugged into the grapevine? My ambitious days are over. I've been lucky to work for guys who knew how to look after themselves, and who looked after the people who worked for them.”
“Orliff?”
“He was the latest, yeah.”
“Did Orliff start the Special Affairs Unit?”
“Yeah.”
Mackenzie nodded. “When I took over, I liked the idea of keeping the unit, and you as head of it. Gave me a resource that no one else knew enough to question, put a little flexibility in my budget. Someone to talk to, as well. You've been good to have around.”
“So what's changed?”
“How do you mean?”
“I haven't had an assignment outside the office for six months.”
“I needed you here, Charlie. You've got a good head for administration.”
“I'm not administrating. I'm a clerk. Your office manager.”
“Want a transfer? They're looking for someone in the archives, down in the basement.”
“Sorry. But something is going on. Isn't it?”
Mackenzie resumed. “Face it, Charlie, look at yourself. Realize how people see you. You've handled some pretty high profile cases in the last few years. Your name crops up around the Police Commission table. You're a threat. People are jealous. They don't want you around, taking credit.”
“I make Marinelli feel threatened? I don't believe it. He's got more sense.”
Mackenzie looked less sure of himself. “Not Marinelli himself, per se. People who work with him,” he offered. “You're too big for their boots.”
Salter said, “If you don't mind my saying so, this is all bullshit. What's
really
going on?”
Mackenzie gave up. “Nothing. There's nothing going on, Charlie.
Nothing at all. I could give you a long list of the problems they have working with you, but they don't amount to a pinch of coonshit; no more than they have with each other. Like, for instance, you aren't up to this new computer system we've got, are you?” Mackenzie scratched his forehead as he searched his mind. “Haven't had a refresher course for five years, have you? Been looking at your file. Things change. Here's a f'r instance: You know how DNA works?”
“Everyone knows how DNA works.”
“Yeah, right. What about the latest bugging devices? Forensic accountancy? You know when to call in the experts? There's all kinds of stuff to stay on top of.”
Twenty seconds went by. Salter looked out the window while Mackenzie watched him. Then Salter said, “When I was working on the homicide case at Bathurst College, I didn't know we had a liaison officer for native people in trouble. And if I'd been more comfortable with the new toys–” he pointed at the computer screen “–I probably would have automatically looked up the people I suspected on the CPIC file and found out that the guy I wanted to arrest had the perfect alibi–he was in jail that night–and saved myself a couple of days foot-slogging. That kind of thing?”
“More or less.” Mackenzie grabbed at the example gratefully. “Yeah. Yeah. More or less. Basically, yes.”
“So I've not kept up-to-date enough for the hotshots in Homicide, that it?”
“Sort of.”
Salter stood up. Mackenzie said, “I still need you here, Charlie.”
“Good.”
He left the office and turned down the corridor to Marinelli's room. As he walked in, the phone rang.
“Yes, sir,” Marinelli said into it, looking steadily at Salter. “He just came in.” He put up a hand to signal Salter not to leave.
“Jesus Christ,” Salter said. He sat down in front of Marinelli's desk.
“I'll talk to you later,” Marinelli said into the phone. “Or he will.”
“Mackenzie?” Salter asked, when Marinelli put down the phone.
“Who else?”
“How long have you been discussing my case?”
“Don't be an asshole. What case? You were in the room when he asked me if I needed help. You overheard me saying no. We don't need any help.”
“Not from me, anyway.”
Marinelli said nothing.
“Why not? Anything specific?”
“Ah, come on. All that happened was that you caught a small signal that wasn't meant for you.”
“It was about me.”
“Don't make a mountain out of it.”
“Just tell me the size of the fucking molehill.”
“Okay. You ready for this, this big news I have for you? This secret everybody is whispering? It's nothing special. Not even very interesting. You're not about to be nailed finally for stealing the coffee money back in eighty-nine. None of the women clerks has complained that you've become a bum-pincher. It's just that my guys don't want you on their team; they don't want you backing them up. I know, I know, you've handled stuff on your own, but all those cases were special, and we haven't had any lately. You asked me, so I'm telling you. Look around the office out there. Who do you see over forty? To those guys you are an old guy with some good stories. Not an old fart, no. They know I respect you. They know I was glad to have you handle a couple of cases. But that was yesterday. Nowadays if they see me having lunch with you it makes them uneasy. They think I'm consulting you, for fuck's sake, and they get uptight.” Marinelli took a moment to look indignant on his own behalf.

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