The Guilty Plea (38 page)

“It’s a big political question here.”

“What, freezing your ass off?”

He put his arm around Kwon and walked her to his car, both of them hunching into the wind. She tumbled into the passenger seat.

“It’s worse down by the lake,” Greene said when he started the engine. The car was warm from the drive down.

“You still tooling around in this old thing?”

“Safest vehicle on the road.” The heater was working at full blast.

“What do I know? Men in Manhattan don’t own cars. I need coffee.”

“I know a place,” he said.

“What a surprise.” She gave him a poke in the ribs.

Greene drove east along the lake and cut up Parliament Street, so named because it housed the province’s first parliament buildings. Now it was a hodgepodge of upscale stores in old Victorian houses, cheap furniture shops, and ready-cash spots. He parked illegally and tossed his police guidebook on the dash.

The area, known as Cabbagetown, was populated by a mixture of the city’s trendy elite, multihued immigrant families and the lingering poor white folks from the days when the neighborhood was an Irish slum. Jet Fuel Café comfortably straddled all the lines. With its stripped-down design, pounding music, and the ever-changing art on its high walls, the place was a dedicated hangout for bike couriers, local hipsters, and laptop-typing patrons. Despite the cold, numerous expensive-looking bicycles leaned against the storefront.

“You Canadians,” Kwon said. “Riding bikes in this weather.”

“Hard-core types do it all year.”

“This café is so New York,” Kwon said when they made their way inside after passing through the gaggle of smokers circled outside the doorway. She ordered a latte in a tall, clear glass. Greene got a tea in a similar glass, with a slice of real ginger.

The latest art on the walls was a series of oversize photographs of a piano maker at work. Billy Joel was singing “Piano Man.”

The front of the café was packed, so they moved up a few stairs to the back room. It was more like an eccentric university study hall,
with people at every table hunched over their laptops. A steady stream of patrons slipped in and out the back door on the south wall, letting in gusts of cold air and whiffs of marijuana smoke.

“Smells like the party’s out back,” Kwon said.

“Been a long winter,” Greene said.

A customer with a bicycle hoisted on his shoulder slithered through the café and lowered it as he got to the back door. It was a tight turn and his rubberized kickstand caught on the bottom of the door frame, out of his line of vision.

Greene jumped out of his seat to free the bike.

“Thanks, man,” the patron said. “Hope I didn’t leave a mark.”

Greene looked at the bottom of the door. A small black smudge formed an upward swish on the white paint, a few inches from the ground. “It’ll wash off,” he said.

“You’re so damn polite,” Kwon said when he got back to the table.

“True Canadian,” Greene said, more as a reflex than a thought. Because he wasn’t really paying attention to what Kwon had said. Instead, he was staring at the mark on the bottom of the door frame. A few inches from the ground.

Opening day for the Toronto Blue Jays was a big event for Jennifer Raglan’s husband, and over the years, much to her surprise, she’d grown to enjoy the annual ritual. Even if it meant using up one of her precious vacation days.

Like everything with Gordon, there was a set routine. Go for a long breakfast at a French café on Queen Street East that had the best croissants in the city, take the streetcar across—because it felt like a real Toronto thing to do—and walk down to the ballpark. Now privately owned and known as the Rogers Centre, the stadium was formerly called the SkyDome. That was when the taxpayers had spent millions on the world’s first retractable-roof facility, and as much as baseball purists complained that the facility was sterile, on a cold and windy day like this it was a treat to be inside.

When they started dating, Gordon had taught Raglan how to score a game. That was another part of their routine. He always brought two scorecards, two clipboards, and a bunch of freshly sharpened pencils.

She knew how much this meant to him. One afternoon after Dana was born, before her maternity leave was over, Raglan went on a cleaning binge in the house. On the top of a cupboard she stumbled on a hidden shoe box. What have you got in here, Gordon? she wondered as, feeling guilty, she opened it.

Inside were scorecards and game tickets reaching back to their first date. She sat and cried for almost an hour before returning the box to its secret spot.

“I’m buying the food today,” she announced after the third inning. It was a scoreless tie and the Jays’ ace hadn’t surrendered a hit yet. She knew Gordon wouldn’t want to leave his seat.

“Thanks,” he said.

In an effort to bring some life to the concrete stadium, the new owners had tried to improve the concessions, with a modicum of success. Raglan ordered ridiculously overpriced noodles for Gordon and equally expensive sushi for herself. They always shared a bag of peanuts, so she got one of those too.

Halfway through the fifth inning the Jays were leading three to nothing, but the no-hitter had been blown. With two outs, the center fielder was at bat. Gordon put his pencil down and took her hand.

“You okay, Jen?” he asked.

“This is great,” she said.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Gordon, let’s stop talking about our relationship. All this counseling and everything. It gets exhausting. Can’t we just be together?”

He cracked a peanut and gave it to her. “I wasn’t talking about us. I’m talked out on the topic too.”

“What do you mean then?”

“I was asking about you and the Wyler trial.”

Raglan had never told anyone how she really felt about the case. How much it bothered her that she’d won because of her skill and not because it was the proper result. Well, she’d hinted to Greene. She could tell he felt uneasy about it too. But never to Gordon, that was for sure. It was best to play dumb.

“I know it’s been bugging you since the verdict,” Gordon said.

“Why? We offered her a deal and she didn’t take it. And I won.”

“That’s my point.” Gordon put his pencil in his shirt pocket and dropped his scorecard on the concrete floor. “You care about more than winning.”

Raglan felt a rush of tenderness toward him. Her eyes teared up. Somewhere she heard the crack of a bat. She reached out to throw her arms around her husband.

But like everyone else in the stands, he’d jumped to his feet. And all she got was air.

“Ari, did you hear me?”

“Sorry, what?” Ari Greene said to Margaret Kwon. He was still staring at the bottom of the door frame.

“It’s too loud in here.” She showed him her phone. “My father called.”

“Let’s go to the front,” Greene said. “What’s up?”

Kwon gave an exaggerated frown. “Minor heart surgery. They have to correct a valve. The guy was tortured in a North Korean prison for years without a word of complaint, but get him near a doctor and he’s such a baby. I’m totally unsympathetic, and it drives him crazy.”

“Sounds like my dad.” They walked through the café and he spotted two stools by the big front window.

“How is your father?” Kwon said.

“Crabbing about getting his driveway refinished.”

“He still drive?”

“Not on the highway,” Greene said.

“That’s good.”

“Tell him that.”

Kwon’s cell phone rang again. “Daddy, wait a second.” She hitched up her shoulder bag and slipped outside. Greene watched her through the window. She turned south to shelter herself from the wind.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the kickstand on the bicycle hitting the door frame in the back of the café. It reminded him of the back door in Terrance Wyler’s home. That extra bloodstain that had never been explained. It kept nagging at him, the notion that there’d been a second person in the house.

Greene heard the fizzy sound of the espresso machine behind the
counter. An idea bubbled up in his brain. On the street, Kwon was doing a mock pout as she spoke into the phone. It was easy to read her lips. “Poor baby,” she was saying, rolling her eyes.

“Baby.” He’d seen something like this before. It came to him so fast that without even thinking, he started waving frantically at Kwon.

Daniel Kennicott was cruising north on Bayview Avenue, a wide, boring street in a rich, boring part of town. Why they called it Bayview was beyond him. There was no bay and no view of any bay to be seen. Just miles and miles of suburban homes.

Sometimes boring was good when you were a cop. It had been more than six weeks since the Wyler trial ended, and after the excitement of being on a homicide case for so many months, he was still adjusting to life back on the beat. Jo Summers had called him one night about a week after the trial. They talked for a long time, but that old reticence of hers was back.

Before they hung up, she said, “Daniel, this has all been so horrible and exhausting. I don’t want to be unfair to you, but I need my old life back. I can’t handle anything else right now.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’ve been through it.”

He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved. Finally, he’d have some time to work on his brother’s case.

Thanks to the cold wind, no one was around. Kennicott drove past Hillside Drive, the street where Terrance Wyler had lived, and a thought occurred to him. He pulled a U-turn, and six blocks later he was in front of Wyler’s former house. Detective Greene had taught him that it was a good idea to return to a crime scene a while after a case was closed. His theory was that you always missed something. Go look around again with fresh eyes.

Kennicott got out of his cruiser and took in the house in the bright April sun. A new family had moved in and the front was freshly landscaped. He tried to imagine that he’d never seen the place before as he
walked up the driveway. He stared at the basketball net on a long stand, a big Raptors insignia on the backboard. His cell phone rang and he was shocked to see the name on the call display.

“Jo?”

“Daniel, it’s an emergency,” Jo Summers said. “Where are you?”

“I’m on shift. What’s wrong?”

“You need to get to the cemetery. Right away.”

“Cemetery?”

“Mount Pleasant. Terry’s grave. Where’s Detective Greene?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call him.”

“How long will it take you to get here?”

He started walking back to his car. “Ten minutes maybe. I’ll throw on the siren.”

“Hurry. We’re trapped here. He’s on the bridge. And screaming that he’ll only talk to Greene.”

“Who’s on the bridge?”

She told him and Kennicott bolted down the driveway, hitting the auto-dial for Greene and praying he’d pick up.

“Your camera. I need to see your camera,” Greene said the moment Kwon was back in the café.

“My camera? Why?”

“How long do you store your videos?” Greene asked.

“At least a year.” She reached into her bag.

“Show me the one of April Goodling at the Gladstone Hotel the morning she heard Wyler had been murdered.”

“You want the cover shot?”

“No. I want to see the video again.”

“Not so squeamish now, are you?” She rotated the camera around and within seconds played the short clip: Goodling in her room. Hands going to her stomach. Eyes bulging. Then her lips moving. Screaming.

“Play that again,” Greene said.

“The whole thing?”

“No. No. The part where she’s yelling. You sure you don’t remember what she said?”

“I was too busy falling on my face. Here, look.”

Greene watched. He concentrated on Goodling’s mouth, reading her lips. “She’s saying ‘baby,’” Greene said. “‘My baby.’”

“Baby?”

They watched the video together for a third time, heads touching as they focused on the little screen. He remembered meeting Goodling in Phil Cutter’s office. How she’d held her copy of the affidavit in front of her body. Covering her stomach.

“She was pregnant,” Kwon said. “My God, the car seat. Where do you think she’s gone?”

Greene looked out the window at the cars and people going by. His cell phone rang and he looked at the name on the call display. “You won’t believe this.” He showed it to Kwon.

Her mouth dropped open.

“Happy birthday, Ms. Goodling,” Greene said into the phone. “I understand you’re in Toronto. What can I do for you?”

Kennicott put his car in gear. Greene hadn’t picked up the first time he called. He’d left an urgent voice mail and was about to push redial when the phone rang. It was Greene.

“Detective?”

“Kennicott where are you?”

“Heading to Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Jo Summers just called and I was calling you.”

“April Goodling called me. She’s there too. They’re trapped. I’ll be there in three or four minutes. What’s your location?”

“Leaving Terrance Wyler’s old house on Hillside Drive. I was taking a second look.”

“Boot it. I have to check something with records, so I’ll put you on hold. Good move, going back to Wyler’s place,” Greene said before he went off the line.

With his flashers blaring, Kennicott flew down Bayview and turned onto Eglinton Avenue, a wide commercial thoroughfare that should have been his fastest way. But the traffic was jammed by trailers from some film company on a shoot. He swung down the residential side streets and slowed. Be careful, he told himself, alert for kids running out of driveways. Rule number one: cause no more harm.

Greene came back on the line. “Records confirms it. August seventeen, he got on the 407 at the Bayview entrance at 4:03 a.m. Exited at Highway 427 at four thirty-eight. I always thought someone else was in that house. How far are you?”

“About five, six minutes.” Kennicott spotted kids up ahead playing ball hockey on the street.

“You’ll have to ditch your vehicle when you’re two blocks away. Squad cars have already blocked off the street on both sides. He’s demanding that I go there alone. Threatening to jump if anyone else comes near. Apparently he drove right up to the bridge, so his car might give you some cover from the north side. I’m coming from the south and I’ll try to distract him.”