Downfall

by Robert Rotenberg

  Dent slid them in his pant pocket. “She’s a survivor, I’ll tell you that,” he said.

  “You got her to talk to you?”

  “No problem.”

  Dent might have lived on the street for about ten years now, but it hadn’t destroyed his self-confidence or his bravado.

  “She in danger?” Greene asked, as they sat down together.

  “Come on, Detective. Everyone who lives on the street is in danger. Especially the women.”

  Dent picked up a long, thick branch from the ground. In one swift motion, he broke it in half over his thigh and passed the thinner piece to Greene. He smacked his stick into Greene’s, making a loud bang.

  “There, now we’re armed with a weapon that’s not outlawed in the criminal code,” Dent said.

  Greene pointed to the far end of the plateau. “She living down there?”

  “Made herself a plush mansion of plastic sheeting and old newspapers. You’d never find her. The valley goes on for miles. There are so many paths and hiding places that if you know your way around down there, you could get yourself lost for months, no problem.”

  “Can I tell her dad that she’s left the Humber Valley completely?”

  “Everyone’s left the Humber. Even the stubborn old goats. It’s one thing being homeless, it’s another getting killed.”

  “She knows you’re working for me?”

  “Took her about ten minutes to figure it out.”

  “She didn’t run away?”

  “She said, ‘Tell Ari I need a tent.’ A tent can be the difference between life and death down here. It’s only November, and it’s snowed already.”

  As if on cue, a gust of chilling wind whistled through the valley. People who lived in southern climates imagined that January and February were the worst months in Canada. But for Greene it was November. The days getting shorter, the light disappearing behind deep clouds, and that first taste of the cold when your blood has not thickened and your mind is still filled with summer memories.

  “I’ll get a tent, and you can give it to her tomorrow.”

  “She’s got the gift of the gab, likes to crack jokes. She’s got a theory of what’s behind the killings. I’m sure you’ve already heard a bunch.”

  “We put up a tip line, and we’re getting flooded with calls.”

  Dent was right. Everyone had a theory: the killer was a deranged mental health patient who had been out on a day pass from the facility where he was housed and had never come back; the killers were a Chinese gang who wanted to harvest organs from the homeless; the killer was the abandoned child of a homeless woman who had died mysteriously and now was exacting revenge; no one had really been killed and this was all a conspiracy by the newspapers to boost their circulation.

  That was the problem with tip lines. The public and the politicians yelled and screamed for the police to set them up, without realizing the enormous amount of manpower needed to chase down each and every lead. If buried in this morass there happened to be one useful tip that was not fully investigated, the police would be accused of negligence. The net effect of it all was valuable time and energy was wasted.

  “At least sixty calls a day. Not one of them from a homeless person.”

  “She says you should look at the type of people who are being knocked off.”

  “What does she mean, ‘type of people’?”

  “I told you. The Hospital Ward. A doctor. A nurse. Maybe they had information that someone wanted to keep secret.”

  Dent stood. Pointed his wooden club at the downtown towers where he used to work. “I was born in this town, Detective. Toronto used to be an easy, soft place to live, but not anymore. It’s become a tough, hard city. You make it, or it breaks you.”

  He slung his club over his shoulder, Robin Hood style. “Meet you here tomorrow. Don’t forget the tent, and make it a two-person tent,” he said with a smirk.

  Before Greene could even say thanks, Dent had disappeared over the edge.

  53

  “Nance, this is great. It’s still so delicious.”

  They had both ordered the diner’s classic all-day Irish breakfast. Two eggs, Irish sourdough bread, sausage, fried tomatoes, and baked beans.

  “Every once in a while you need some comfort food,” Parish said, feeling more and more uncomfortable by the minute.

  Lydia soaked up the remaining sauce from her beans with a corner of her piece of bread, then looked around. Parish could see she was checking to confirm that no one could hear them.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” she said, leaning over the table, half whispering.

  “Sure,” Parish said, thinking, Oh no, what’s she going to say?

  Lydia chuckled. “I’ll buy you lunch, then this will be solicitor-client privilege.”

  “Don’t be silly, we’ll go Dutch.”

  “Little Dutch Girls, but no, I’m buying. I already gave Ash my credit card. You get it next time.”

  This was turning into a disaster, Parish thought. Lydia was going to ask her to be her lawyer. She could practically hear Ted DiPaulo screaming in her ear, “Nance, conflict of interest!” She couldn’t represent Lydia and Melissa. But there was no way now to stop Lydia from talking.

  “You won’t believe it,” Lydia said. “Mel thought I killed those two poor homeless people in the valley.”

  “She did?” Parish said, trying to act surprised. “Ridiculous.” Parish felt utterly disingenuous. “How do you know this?”

  “How?” Lydia dug into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “She was texting me like crazy for days.”

  “She was?”

  “If I’d wanted to breach her bail for contacting me, I could have done it a thousand times.”

  Lydia kept talking while she showed Parish her phone.

  “When the first homeless person, a man, was killed, she scanned a little article in the Sun and sent it to me. Look what she wrote.”

  Parish read it out loud. “ ‘Good work, you murderer.’ Oh my. What did you do?” She was terrified to think what Lydia would say next.

  But Lydia laughed. “What do you mean, what did I do? I wrote her back right away. Nance, you don’t know. She’s been accusing me of everything under the sun for years. Here, look.”

  Parish kept reading. “ ‘Mel. I’m in Miami at a conference. This is tragic. Take care.’ Were you?” she asked.

  “Was I what?”

  “In Miami.”

  Lydia looked at Parish, taken aback. “Yes, I was in Miami. What do you think? I’m a murderer?”

  She took back the phone and scrolled down to another text.

  “Mel became so crazy,” Lydia said. “Listen to what she wrote me when the nurse was killed. ‘I know you were home and murdered Nurse Deb. All to save your failing company. Who’s next?’ Unreal, isn’t it? Here, look.”

  She turned her phone for Parish to read again. Parish did her best to act shocked.

  “The funny thing is that I was supposed to come home Sunday,” Lydia said. “But there was that freak snowstorm that closed the airport. We got rerouted to Buffalo. I had to get up early Monday morning and rent a car to get back home to get things ready for the party. I didn’t get back until after lunch, and you wouldn’t believe how much I still had to do with the party planner. I think that Mel somehow got into my calendar. She can do anything with a computer.”

  Let’s hope this tape recorder is working, Parish said to herself as she handed back the phone to Lydia. “I’m sorry you had to go through all this.”

  “I haven’t told Karl about any of this. He’s got enough on his plate. There’s one more thing he doesn’t know. Promise me, you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

  “Solicitor-client,” Parish said. What had she gotten herself into?

  “The night of the party, when they played Karl’s over-the-top video about Britt?”

  “I had too much to drink to remember most of the night,” Parish said, trying to make a joke, “but that was memor
able.”

  “Well,”—Lydia looked around the restaurant again to make sure they were not being overheard—“I got the party planner to get me a food package from the kitchen, and I snuck outside. There’s a door in back of the stage.”

  “Lyd, what are you saying? Mel was killed out there.”

  “I know, Nance, I know. That’s why I’m only telling you. If anyone found out, it would look bad.”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “I had to bring food out to Rachel. She was in a total panic.”

  “Rachel?”

  “Don’t you remember Rachel? She was my dad’s executive assistant, who used to bring us those care packages of pills when we did those killer overnight closings at the law firm.”

  “Oh, I remember her.”

  “Didn’t you see it last night on TV? It was all over the news. Her daughter was talking about her homeless mother, and how she’d left the family to live on the street. That was her.”

  “Rachel? She was such a kind person. What happened?”

  “No one really knows. One day she was at work, the next day she disappeared. My poor dad, she did everything for him. She’s been living on the street off and on for two years now. Heartbreaking for her daughter, Gina, who just had a baby.”

  Parish felt sick to her stomach.

  “You wouldn’t recognize her,” Lydia said. “She’s skinny as a rail. She’s too embarrassed to talk to my dad, so she keeps in touch with me, like a shadow, slipping in and out of my life. I don’t give her money anymore, but I give her food. She saw the interview on TV and was hysterical.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “She’s begged me not to tell people. She’s too proud. It’s like when she worked for dad: she keeps a notebook and records everything I give her. She keeps promising me that she’ll get help so she can pay me back one day.”

  “It’s so sad,” Parish said, barely getting the words out. “I have to hit the loo.”

  She scrambled out of her seat and practically fell on her face navigating the long, narrow staircase leading downstairs. The diner only had one washroom and thankfully it was empty and no one was around. She rushed in, locked the flimsy door behind her. Her hands were shaking as she tried to unbutton her shirt. She got enough undone so she could reach inside and rip the tape off her chest. It hurt like hell, but she didn’t care.

  She thought she was going to vomit. She ran the cold water and splashed her face, then took out her cell phone and called Kennicott.

  “Ms. Parish,” he said, picking up on the first ring. “I couldn’t quite hear everything that—”

  “Call off your damn dogs,” she said, hearing her voice rising. She clutched the recorder in her hand. She wanted to smash it to pieces on the porcelain sink. Or flush the thing down the toilet. “Lydia is innocent!”

  Parish was screaming.

  “Completely and utterly innocent. Melissa was insane. Lydia has a total alibi. I have it all on tape.”

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  54

  “Detective Greene, I’m glad to see that you are up early.”

  “I guess that makes two of us,” he said to Dr. Ramos, who’d just called him at the office. “What can I do for you?”

  “Your forensic officer, Detective Ho,” she said. “The gentleman is quite a character, but he is also very thorough.”

  Her accent sounded even more charming on the phone, Greene thought.

  “I’ve been told you are thorough as well,” he replied.

  “There is something important for you to look at. Can you come over?”

  “Urgent?”

  “I believe you will want to see this as soon as possible. I will give you my cell number,” she said. “Please give me yours and text me when you are around the corner so I can come down in the lobby to meet you. This will save you having to go through our friendly security desk.”

  Perhaps it was her accent, but her sarcasm made him laugh.

  “Are your referring to that friendly young man at reception?”

  “Friendly with his phone, you mean,” she said, laughing back.

  They exchanged numbers. “I’ll leave in five,” he said.

  “It will be good to see you again,” she said.

  Did she mean this professionally? Or personally? Was asking for him to call just a way to get his phone number? Or was she being efficient? Most likely he was imagining things. Wasn’t he?

  Instead of leaving right away, he slipped into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He loosened his tie and slipped it over his head. He took off his jacket. Did that look better, or too informal? He put the tie back on and pulled it halfway down. Too casual? He looked ridiculous. He felt foolish. Enough of this. He settled on wearing the jacket, his shirt with the top button unbuttoned, and no tie.

  Ramos met him in the lobby. She was wearing high leather boots, a black-and-red patterned fitted skirt, and a stylish silk blouse. Her black hair was tied back in a simple red hair band. It was a good thing that he’d ditched the tie and undone his shirt, Greene thought.

  She gave him a warm handshake and brushed his shoulder with her other hand. “Let’s go to the lab,” she said. “I’ve already signed you in.”

  The surly kid behind the glass got off his phone long enough to press whatever buzzer he needed to push to let them in the main door.

  In the lab she directed him to a long desk. There was a large microscope in the middle of it, and beside it were three piles of shattered glass, on separate white sheets. Above each there was a typewritten label: VICTIM 1, VICTIM 2, and VICTIM 3. On the other side of the microscope there was the handheld vacuum cleaner that Greene recognized as one of Detective Ho’s favourite pieces of equipment.

  She put her hand on it. “I’d never seen one of these before. Detective Ho swept up every bit of the glass at each crime scene. I examined them all under the microscope.” She pointed to the VICTIM 1 pile. “All of the glass was consistent with the vodka bottle. Same for victim two.”

  “Yes,” Greene said, looking at the VICTIM 3 pile. Copeland’s pile. What had Ramos found?

  She directed him to the microscope. “Take a look. Use this knob to focus.”

  He kept adjusting it until the image of the glass became clear. It was a small piece with a nearly invisible line running through it.

  “What am I looking at?” he asked.

  “Glass found on the ground near victim three’s body. Do you see the line?”

  “Barely. What is it?”

  “It is not glass from a vodka bottle. Quite subtle, but the glass is from corrective lenses.”

  Greene pulled his head back.

  “Eyeglasses?”

  “Yes.” She pointed to a small pile of broken pieces of glass beside the larger one. He hadn’t noticed it before. “There are seven other fragments that I separated from the vodka bottle pieces. Not enough to make up a whole lens.”

  “The killer could have been wearing glasses and they broke in the fight with victim three,” he said. “The killer picked up some of the pieces but Ho was able to sweep up what was still there.”

  “You have to do the detecting, Detective,” she said, smiling at her own little joke. “I am only the scientist.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Another thing,” she said, breaking the silence.

  “Victim one had a dangerously low platelets level.”

  “I read your report. He was close to death.”

  “Victim two, she was filled with cancer.”

  “Close to death as well?”

  “Extremely.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “That’s for you to decide. But here’s the point. Victim three was very healthy.”

  This was something new.

  “One more thing,” she said, walking across the room. “I’ve been trying to come up with some ideas of what the weapon could have been to cause this blunt force trauma. Come to my desk.”

  She’d laid out
three photographs side by side. Each one had been labelled with the victim’s name.

  “These are close-ups of the back of the heads of all three victims.”

  Greene took his time studying them. They were hard to read.

  Before he could say a word, she leaned over the desk and with a thin red marker drew a line on the outside edge of the wound of the first victim.

  “See this shape,” she said.

  Greene nodded. He looked up at her but she was concentrating on drawing on the second photo.

  “And this one,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And the third,” she said, as she drew on the last photo.

  Greene picked up the photos one at a time to get a closer look, an idea forming in his mind. “They’re all the exact same shape.”

  55

  “I have something to tell you,” Alison said, as she lay back on the pillow in her bed.

  Burns propped himself up on one arm and looked at her.

  “I’m all ears,” he said. Grinning.

  “I should have told you this before, but, well, you need to know who my father is.”

  “Your father?” he said, showing no emotion.

  “He’s Detective Ari Greene. The head of the homicide squad.”

  Burns didn’t flinch.

  “You’ve been leading protests outside his office, claiming the police aren’t trying to solve these cases.”

  “I know,” he said, so calm she found it annoying. Didn’t he get it?

  “You know what?”

  “I know he’s your father.”

  “How the hell?” Now she was angry.

  “It wasn’t hard to figure out. For one, you both spell your last name with an e on the end. I’ve seen him on TV. You have his eyes.” He reached out to tap her on the nose. She swatted his hand away, grabbed the top sheet, and pulled it up to cover herself.

  “You knew all along, didn’t you?”

  “I had no idea who you were when you showed up at the first protest on College Street.”

  “But then you put two and two together. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because I didn’t care.”