Cold Comfort (17 page)

“Why would Cheryl want to kill her stepfather?” he asked.

Blair nodded, as if he had anticipated Gilbert’s question.

“That’s what nobody could understand. I couldn’t investigate right away, I got busy, we had a lot of problems that year, the standoff at the Manitouwadge Reserve, with the Indians not letting anybody through, and those two RCMP officers shot to death…I got involved in that, they thought I’d be good, I’m half Ojibwa, and the band leaders would listen to me. Had to be June before things settled down. I started with Cheryl’s grade-eight teacher at King George Public School, a nice old girl by the name of Violet Brewer. I think she’s dead now. Anyway, I spoke to her, and she told me Cheryl was always coming to school with black eyes and bruises. Told me Cheryl was really accident prone, had two broken arms, a dislocated shoulder, a fractured collarbone, even bashed her teeth out once. I’m beginning to think Paul Varley beat her. So I check our own records, and I see he has a record, beat his wife a few times, even spent a couple months in jail. I follow it up with Cheryl’s doctor—oh, now, what’s his name, Champion I think it was—he’s convinced Cheryl’s the victim of repeated physical abuse.” Blair looked up from his biscuit, his eyes narrowing. “I’d say that’s a fairly good motive, if you’re beaten within an inch of your life day in and day out by your stepdad.”

Gilbert nodded. Cheryl couldn’t take it anymore. Her stepdad flew over the windshield and twisted his leg and couldn’t get up. She saw the perfect opportunity. She grabbed the nearest rock and beat him senseless. Took a long time getting to Onaping, wanted him to freeze. Talked Donna into going along. And Larry snaps. Larry doesn’t know when, he doesn’t know how, but he knows he’s going to make Cheryl pay.

When he got back to the hotel, he called Lombardo and had him put an all-points-bulletin on Larry Varley’s rented Crown Victoria.

“That’s a good idea,” said Lombardo.

“Why’s that?” asked Gilbert.

“Because I did some checking on the
Gerald Hayden
, like you asked?”

“And?”

“The
Gerald Hayden’s
been in drydock for the last two years undergoing repairs,” said Lombardo. “Varley’s nowhere near that ship.”

Gilbert pulled into his driveway on Prestine Heights Boulevard a little after three that afternoon, having made good time on the southbound journey home. He was tired, hungry, thought he’d have a little rest before he went to work, and check up on Nina, who had the day off because of a professional development day at school.

As he entered the foyer, he found Nina sitting halfway up the stairs with a gleeful smile on her face, listening, it seemed, to some noise that was coming from upstairs. Her face was red, and she looked ready to explode with laughter. Gilbert put his briefcase down.

“What’s going on?” he said, a crease coming to his brow.

She lifted her finger to her lips. “Shhh,” she said. Then she pointed up the stairs, fighting hard to suppress her giggles. “It’s Joe and Valerie,” she said.

The crease on Gilbert’s brow deepened to a frown. “What?” he said.

He took two quick steps across the hall and listened.

He heard the sound of creaking springs coming from the spare bedroom, the telltale rhythm that could mean only one thing. All expression left his face and he grabbed Nina by the arm.

“Come on,” he said, his voice flat.

The smile dropped from her face; her father was ruining her fun. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going skating,” he said. “Grab your skates.”

“I don’t want to go skating,” she said, as her father yanked her into the hall. “I want to listen to this.”

“You shouldn’t be listening to this,” he said. He lifted their skates from the hook. “Here.”

“I don’t want to go skating.”

“We’re going skating. Where’s your coat?”

“It’s upstairs.”

“Forget the skating. We’ll just go for a drive.”

“Where to?”

“Wherever,” he said.

A few minutes later they were parked next to Topham Park beside the skating rink.

“Why are we stopping?” asked Nina. “Why don’t we go to Eglinton Square? I need a new scarf.”

He tapped the steering wheel a few times. “Nina…” He felt awkward. “You knew what they were doing?”

“Dad, I wasn’t born on Mars.”

He gave her a quick sideways glance. “Have you ever…” He looked out the window where a father was trying to teach his three-year-old son to skate. “You know, with Jeff, or…”

Nina’s face settled. “Is this going to be a lecture?”

“No,” he said. “No, not at all. Forget what I said. Forget I asked you. It’s your business. But if you have, I think fifteen’s a little too young, in fact, it’s actually against the law…and I don’t want you to think badly of Joe because—”

“I think Joe’s cute.”

His breath caught. He looked at her and sighed.

“Nina, what Joe and Valerie are doing up in that room right now—”

“Dad, you don’t have to tell me.”

“I know, I know,” he said, “it’s just that I get worried…can’t a dad get worried…it was a lot different when I was a kid…there wasn’t so much risk…they teach you about some of that at school, don’t they? Your gym teacher or whatever… you know about the risks, don’t you?”

“You mean AIDS and stuff like that?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Dad, they have a condom-dispensing machine at school.”

“They do?”

She shook her head, amazed by her father.

“In the girl’s washroom?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Oh,” he said, trying to act nonchalantly now. “Then I…” He felt his face turning red. “Then I…it’s just that…” He turned down the heat; he was feeling hot. “I would hate to see something bad happen to you, that’s all. I just want you to know about…you know. And I don’t want you to think badly of Joe.”

“Why would I think badly of Joe?”

“I don’t know, I just…” Out on the rink, the father was towing his small son along. “Joe’s got to be one of the nicest guys I know. This thing he has, you know, the women and all that, we joke about it at work a lot, but he really cares, he’s really sensitive, he’s not like, you know…he does his best to be really kind, and I know he’s always smart about it, I know he always goes into it, you know, he always wears—”

“You have a condom-dispensing machine in Homicide?” she asked.

He frowned. “Not right in Homicide. Carol and Sylvia might get a little…”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Dad. When the time comes—and the time hasn’t come yet—I’m going to be careful. But I think I’m going to wait a while. Jeff and I…he’s nice, but I…”

She glanced out at the skating rink. Two older boys were now passing a puck back and forth.

“It’s all right,” said Gilbert. He put his hand on the back of her neck and rubbed. “You know what? You’re a smart girl.”

She shrugged. “I’ve got smart parents,” she said.

Back at the house, Lombardo was waiting for him at the kitchen table with a guilty look on his face. Nina went upstairs. Gilbert soon heard music.

“I saw you drive away with Nina,” said Lombardo. “I guess you’ve figured things out.”

Gilbert looked at his partner for a few seconds, then walked to the stove and put the kettle on. “Coffee?” he said.

Lombardo picked up a deck of cards and started shuffling. “Sure,” he said.

Gilbert took the kettle to the sink and rinsed it. “You know, you’re really supposed to rinse this with vinegar every once in a while,” he said. “It gets scaly, have you noticed that?”

“Barry, I’m sorry.”

Gilbert filled the kettle with water. “Sorry about what?”

Lombardo stopped shuffling the cards. “You know… about…don’t think I planned it this way. I met her for lunch at the Goethe Institute and I drove her home. And before we knew it—”

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” he said. “I think I know the mechanics.”

Lombardo split the deck and looked at the nine of clubs. “Yeah…well…I’m sorry, I just—”

“Valerie’s leaving on Tuesday, you knew that, didn’t you?”

He put the kettle on the stove and turned on the gas burner. Lombardo looked suddenly doleful.

“She’s a wonderful girl, Barry.”

“I know.”

Gilbert came to the table and sat down.

“No, I really mean it, Barry, she’s wonderful. I know she’s a lot younger than I am, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference, we just seem to be…I don’t know, like we’re made for each other, or something. Have you ever met a woman like that, Barry? You can feel it flowing all over you. I honestly think I might…I mean if things didn’t seem so impossible, if she didn’t have to go back to Germany—”

“Don’t ask her to marry you,” said Gilbert.

Lombardo looked up from his deck of cards. “Why not?”

“Because you’d ruin her life.”

Lombardo smirked. “Very funny.” He went back to shuffling his cards. “I don’t know, she’s just so nice, she’s so…when she walks into a room, you can feel it, this energy. Everybody’s looking around, and no one can figure out why suddenly they’re having such a good time, and then they see Valerie, and they understand…I don’t know, Barry, it’s her, she does this to people.”

“I’ll be taking her out to the airport on Tuesday.” The kettle began to sing. “You want to come?”

Lombardo looked at Gilbert in surprise. “You’re really not mad about this…about me being upstairs? You’re really okay about it?”

Gilbert felt his face pulling back in an expression of ambivalence. “I just don’t like seeing people get hurt.”

Lombardo lifted the top card and gazed at it, the king of diamonds. Gilbert contemplated his partner. He hadn’t seen Lombardo down like this in a long time. He got up and spooned instant coffee into two cups. He took the kettle off the burner and poured hot water into the mugs. Lombardo was sliding into one of his Piedmontese funks. Nothing he could do. He would just have to weather it. Gilbert put the kettle back on the burner and brought the mugs to the table. Move on. Change the subject.

“Anything happen since I talked to you this morning?” he asked.

Lombardo nodded. “I saw Latham.”

Gilbert sat down. “So?”

“He says he was in her apartment the end of January helping her move some stuff. He says when they were cleaning up he cut himself on some broken glass in a garbage bag.”

“So he cut himself the end of January, not the eighteenth of February, is that what he’s saying?”

Lombardo spooned four sugars into his cup. “I called the Center, had them look at the blood again.”

“Yeah?”

“Latham’s telling the truth. The blood’s old. According to the Center it’s about two weeks older than the blood we found in the bathroom, Cheryl’s blood. The white cells were denatured. I’m thinking we might have reached a dead-end with Latham.”

Gilbert moved the spoon to one side. “Not necessarily,” he said.

“Have you talked to Matchett about his gun yet?” asked Lombardo.

Gilbert felt his shoulders stiffening. He turned away, looked out the kitchen window. He felt Lombardo’s dark eyes boring into him. How long was he going to put this off? He tapped the table a few times with the end of his spoon. Why did coincidence always have to conspire against Matchett? Finally, he turned back to Lombardo and took a deep breath. This was his dilemma: he wanted to protect his old partner but he didn’t want to lie to his current one.

“Look, Joe, there’s a problem with Matchett’s gun,” he said.

“Why?” said Lombardo. “He doesn’t want to give it to you?”

“It’s not that…it’s just that he can’t give it to me.”

“Why not?”

Gilbert felt his face reddening. “Because it’s gone. I went over there on Wednesday. I was there just before we had that meeting with Marsh. We go up to his apartment, we open his gun case, and his gun is gone. I didn’t want to tell you guys. Alvin’s had to put up with a lot of shit and I didn’t want to—”

“You mean gone, like stolen, or gone, he got rid of it.”

“Just gone. As in, it wasn’t there and he didn’t know where it was.”

“So like it was stolen?”

“I don’t know. There was no sign of any forced entry. I don’t think it’s such a big deal. I mean, come on, Joe, Alvin’s one of us.”

“Listen to yourself, Barry.”

“What? You really think he killed Cheryl Latham?”

“No, but listen to yourself.”

“What’s there to listen to?”

“You’ve got to be analytical,” said Lombardo. “You’re letting old ties get in the way.”

“He was my partner for seven years, Joe. I think I know what he’s like. He’s a good cop.”

“I know. But maybe you’re not working this lead as hard as you’re working some of the others.”

“The gun is gone, so what?”

“Yeah, but no forced entry,” said Lombardo.

“That could mean anything.”

“He’s the only one anywhere close to Cheryl who has the right kind of gun. And now the gun is gone. I’m sorry, Barry, but that’s a stroke against him. Then I read your Shirley Chan interview, says Matchett had an affair with her, and that’s another stroke against him.”

“You know, maybe I’m pissed off at you after all.”

“Don’t get excited,” said Lombardo.

“I’m not excited. I just think we have better leads than Alvin. The man drives a Tempo. That’s a far cry from a Crown Victoria.”

“Okay, okay, then I’m going to tell you another stroke against him, something I found out while you were up north. I’ve been going through my list, you know me, the librarian, and I got Halycz and Telford to help me, checking out all the Crown Victorias. And guess what? The legislative car pool? They have seven Crown Victorias, all of them midnight blue.”

Gilbert felt his lips stiffening and his shoulders sinking. It was like a cold wind was blowing through him. Like he was always trying to believe in something but reality always got in the way. Those seven years with Matchett on patrol, he sometimes longed for those years, when everything seemed straightforward and simple. You reach into your past, you lift it up, and it starts to glow after a while, like a pearl; and each year a new layer of lustre is added. He didn’t want to let that go.

“What about Larry Varley’s Crown Victoria?” he said. “It’s midnight blue, too.”