Old City Hall (2 page)

“Enter with your gun out,” she said. “But be careful with it.”

Kennicott nodded. “Okay.”

“Radio me just before you get to the top floor.”

“Got it,” Kennicott said as he plunged into the stairwell. The job of the first officer on scene at a homicide was containment. It was like trying to protect a sand castle in a windstorm, because every second, bits of evidence were blowing away. He was tempted to take the stairs three at a time, but between his bulletproof vest, his gun, and the portable hand radio, he was carrying about eight pounds of equipment. Just be steady, he told himself.

By the time he got to the third floor, taking two steps at a time, he was in a smooth rhythm. Kennicott and Bering had been on shift four nights in a row and were just an hour away from going home for four days’ rest when this “hotshot” emergency call came in. They’d been across the street, strolling through the St. Lawrence Market, the city’s big indoor food emporium, which was setting up for the day.

When he hit the sixth floor, a small drop of perspiration formed at the base of Kennicott’s neck and began to work its way down his backbone. Up until this call, it had been a pretty quiet night. A Tamil guy over in Regent Park had bitten off part of his wife’s ear—when they
got there, the wife claimed she’d fallen on a piece of glass. The coach house of a gay couple in Cabbagetown had been broken into and the intruder had left a turd on their Persian rug. On Jarvis Street an under-age prostitute claimed she’d been punched in the face by the old wino who gave her a room in exchange for a nightly blow job—then she propositioned Kennicott. Run-of-the-mill stuff.

By the tenth floor he was breathing hard. It had been three and a half years since he’d joined the force, turning his back on a promising career as a young lawyer at one of the city’s top firms. The reason? His older brother, Michael, had been murdered twelve months before. When the investigation seemed to be going nowhere, he’d traded in his legal robes for a badge.

This was exactly what he wanted, the chance to work on a homicide, he thought as he started to take the stairs three at a time and clicked on his radio. “Kennicott here,” he said to Bering. “I’m approaching the eleventh floor.”

“Ten-four. Forensics, Homicide, and lots of cars are on the way. I’ve disabled the elevators. No one’s come down the stairs. Turn off the radio. That way you can make a silent entry.”

“Ten-four. Over and out.”

Kennicott burst through the door on the twelfth floor and stopped. A long hallway ran straight ahead before it turned, presumably to the elevator and the other half of the floor. Pale white wall sconces cast a gauzelike light onto muted yellow walls. There was only one apartment in this section of the hall.

Kennicott moved cautiously down to 12A. The door was halfway open. Taking a deep breath, he pushed it all the way to the wall as he unholstered his gun. Stepping forward, he found himself in a long, wide hallway that had a light-stained hardwood floor. Everything was quiet. It felt strange to barge into this calm, well-appointed suite, his gun out as if he were a little boy playing cops and robbers in his backyard.

“Toronto Police,” he said in a loud voice.

“We are presently seated in the breakfast room located at the rear
of the flat,” an East Indian–sounding male voice called out. “The deceased lady is in the hall bathroom.”

He checked behind the front door and then walked slowly down the hallway, his boots thumping on the wood floor. Midway down, a door to his right was slightly ajar. The light was on, and he could see a sliver of white tiles. He didn’t have gloves on, so he elbowed the door open.

It was a small bathroom, and the door opened to the wall. He took two steps in. A raven-haired woman lay in the tub. Her eyes were wide-open. Her face was drained of all blood, making it almost as white as the tub. There was no movement.

He backed out of the room, careful not to touch anything. The sweat on his body felt sticky.

“You will find us here,” the East Indian voice said again.

A few more steps down the hall and Kennicott came to a big eat-in kitchen. To his right was Kevin Brace, the famous radio host, sitting quietly in a wrought-iron chair. He was holding out a ceramic mug. He wore tattered slippers, and his frayed bathrobe was pulled up tight around his neck. His scruffy beard and his trademark old-fashioned large wire-rimmed glasses made him instantly recognizable. Brace didn’t even look up.

Across the table from Brace, an elderly brown-skinned man in a suit and tie was leaning over and pouring tea into Brace’s mug. Between the two men, a gaudy Tiffany lamp hovered over the table, like a large bubble in a cartoon in which dialogue was waiting to be written. Under the lamp’s glow was a mostly eaten plate of sliced oranges. Kennicott could see that they were red. Blood oranges, he thought.

On the far wall, floor-to-ceiling south-facing windows looked over Lake Ontario, which stretched out like an enormous black pool. Barely illuminated by the hint of early-morning light was the chain of small islands that formed a half-moon arc across the bay.

Kennicott stopped momentarily, disoriented by the expansive view and the calm tableau in front of him. With his gun still out, he stepped onto the slick tile kitchen floor. Suddenly his right foot slid out from
under him. He jammed his arm down to break his fall, and the gun skittered out of his hand and slid halfway across the floor.

What a rookie move, Kennicott thought as he pulled himself up. Great. The detective who gets this case will love this.

Over at the table, Brace was pouring honey into his mug and stirring his tea, as if nothing had happened.

Kennicott edged toward his gun, careful not to slip again. “Kevin Brace?” he asked.

Brace avoided Kennicott’s eyes. His glasses were smudged. He didn’t say anything, just concentrated on stirring his tea, like a Swiss watchmaker at his workbench.

Kennicott picked up his gun. “Mr. Brace, I am Officer Daniel Kennicott of the Toronto Police. Is the woman in the bathtub your wife?”

“She certainly is,” the East Indian man said. “And she is most assuredly dead. I saw much death in my years as a chief engineer for Indian Railways, which is the largest transportation company in the world.”

Kennicott looked over at the man. “I see, Mr.—”

The elderly man jumped to his feet so quickly that Kennicott took a step back. “Gurdial Singh,” he said. “I am Mr. Brace’s morning newspaper delivery person. I contacted the police service.”

“Morning newspaper delivery person,” “police service,” Kennicott thought. The phrases sounded so odd, he had to stop himself from smiling. He reached for his hand radio.

“I arrived a minute earlier than my usual time, at five twenty-nine, and called at five thirty-one, once I had confirmed the fatality,” Mr. Singh said. “Mr. Kevin and I have been having our tea, awaiting your arrival. This is our second pot. It is a special Darjeeling I bring the first of each month. Most effective for constipation.”

Kennicott looked at Brace. He was studying his spoon as if it were a priceless antique. Sliding the gun into its holster, Kennicott took a step back toward the table.

He touched Brace lightly on the shoulder. “Mr. Brace, you are
under arrest for murder,” he said. He advised Brace of his right to counsel.

Brace didn’t change his gaze. He just flicked his free hand toward Kennicott, like a magician pulling something out of his sleeve. There was a business card between his bloodied fingers:
NANCY PARISH, BARRISTER AND SOLICITOR, PRACTICE RESTRICTED TO CRIMINAL LAW
.

Kennicott clicked on his radio. “Kennicott here.”

“What’s your location?” Bering asked.

“I’m in the condo.” Kennicott kept his voice low. “The suspect’s here with the witness, Mr. Gurdial Singh, the newspaper . . . delivery person. The scene is calm. The victim is in the hall bathtub. Appears DOA. I’ve made an arrest.” Reporting that a victim appeared to be deceased, dead on arrival, was the top priority.

“What’s he doing?”

Kennicott looked at Brace. The gray-haired broadcaster was pouring milk into his tea. “Drinking tea,” he said.

“Okay. Just watch him. Backup is on the way.”

“Ten-four.”

“And Kennicott. Record every word he says.”

“Got it. Over and out.” Kennicott put the radio into its hip holder, and he could feel the adrenaline in his system begin to slow down.

What would happen next? He studied Brace. Now his spoon was on the table and he was sipping his Darjeeling tea. Looking placidly out the window. Kennicott knew that a case like this could go in all sorts of unexpected directions, but as he looked at the little tea party in the kitchen, there was no doubt in his mind that Kevin Brace wasn’t going to say a word.

D
amn it, stop yawning,” Detective Ari Greene muttered to himself as he parked his 1988 Oldsmobile in the narrow driveway of his father’s split-level bungalow and grabbed a paper bag from the passenger seat. Good, he thought as he felt around inside it, the bagels from Gryfe’s are still warm. He reached inside a second bag and extracted a carton of milk. He fished under his seat until he found a stash of plastic shopping bags and yanked out one from the Sobeys grocery store.

This will work, Greene thought as he plopped the milk into the bag. If his father discovered that the milk came from the bagel store, there’d be hell to pay: “You bought the milk at Gryfe’s? How much? Two ninety-nine? This week, at Sobeys, milk is two forty-nine, and two fifty-one at Loblaws. I have a coupon for an extra ten cents.” The words would tumble out in his dad’s unique mixture of English and Yiddish.

Greene was coming off his tenth straight night shift. He’d been too tired to make a second trip to the grocery store. His father had been through enough in his life. The last thing he needed was to find out that his only surviving son was a lousy shopper.

A thin layer of snow had fallen overnight. Greene took the shovel from the metal railing and carefully cleared the concrete steps. He picked up the copy of the
Toronto Star
from in front of the door and stuck his key to his father’s house into the lock.

Inside, he heard the hum of the television set coming from the living room. He sighed. Since his mother died, his father hated to sleep in their bedroom. Instead he’d watch TV in the den until he fell asleep on the plastic-covered couch.

Greene kicked off his shoes. He stacked the bagels on the counter, put the milk in the fridge—making sure to leave out the Sobeys bag—and walked noiselessly into the living room. His father was curled up under a tattered brown-and-white afghan Greene’s mother had knitted for his seventieth birthday. His head had slipped off a small pillow and was hard against the thick plastic.

Moving aside the teak coffee table in front of the sofa, Greene knelt beside his sleeping father. As a homicide detective for the past five years and a cop for twenty, he’d seen some pretty tough characters. None of them could hold a candle to this little Polish Jew who, try as they might, the Nazis couldn’t kill.

“It’s me, Dad. Ari. I’m home.”

Greene touched his father’s shoulder softly, then quickly moved back. He braced himself. Nothing happened. Still keeping his distance, he squeezed harder on his father’s shoulder. He continued. “Dad, I’ve picked up some warm bagels and milk. I’ll get some denture cream for you tomorrow.”

His father’s eyes flew open. This was the moment Greene had dreaded every morning since he was a boy. What nightmare was Dad waking from? His father’s gray-green eyes looked disoriented.

“Dad, the bagels are warm. And the milk . . .”

His father looked at his hands. Greene moved closer again and slid the fallen pillow under his father’s head. With his right hand he caressed his face. His father mumbled, “
Mayn tochter.”
It meant “My daughter.” Then he said her name: “Hannah.” The daughter he’d lost at Treblinka.

Greene lifted him into an upright position on the couch. His father seemed to gather strength, like a blow-up doll slowly being inflated.

“Where did you buy the milk?” his dad asked.

“Sobeys.”

“They have any coupons?”

“They’re out. You know what it’s like at Christmastime.”

His father rubbed his face with his hands. “Yes, I know. Christmastime you do extra shifts to help out your friends. You look tired. You work last night?”

“For a few hours,” Greene lied. He was pretty sure his father knew it wasn’t true.

“Today you off?”

Greene touched the beeper on his hip. “Number one in the batting order.” The batting order was the “on call” list in the homicide bureau. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll be a peaceful day.”

His father patted him on the shoulder and felt the fabric of Greene’s lapel. “That fancy tailor of yours, his stitching is improving.”

In his heart, Greene’s father was still a tailor—the job he’d had as a young married man in his little Polish village until the morning in September 1942 when the Nazis surrounded it. In the line at Treblinka, a friend told the Ukrainian guard he was a cobbler. So that’s what he became. When he came to Canada, he opened his own shoe shop in a downtown neighborhood that was a smorgasbord of European ethnic groups. It turned out that the Nazis had given him the perfect training ground. Two years of mending shoes of Jews from all over Europe meant that he recognized almost every shoe that came in.

“The stitching should be good,” Greene said, unbuttoning the jacket and showing his father the inside. “It took him two months to make it.”

“Two months,” his father snorted. “Sit down, I’ll make myself some coffee. You want some tea?”

Greene smiled. “No, I’m fine, Dad.”

The only place to sit was the plastic-covered couch. He’d hated the thing ever since he was old enough to have friends over to the house—rich kids whose parents didn’t have accents, whose parents knew how to ski and play tennis, whose parents didn’t have numbers on their arms.

All these years later, he’d still love to burn the darn sofa. But there
was no point arguing with his father. Never was. And Greene was dog-tired. He lay down and pulled the coffee table back into position so he could put his feet up on it.