by Scott Mackay
“It must have been hard,” said Gilbert.
“I thought I would go mad with boredom.” She nodded to herself. “So I decided I had to do something with all my extra time.” She sniffled again, looked out the window. “I thought, to hell with Garth. I started seeing some of my old friends. Patricia Wong was one of them. She’s Arnold Wong’s daughter. This was around election time eight years ago. I went to her parents’ house for dinner one night, and I saw all these political pamphlets, and I started talking to Arnold, and I found him interesting, and believed in what he was trying to do for the city. I volunteered to work as a member of his campaign staff. I threw myself into it, and it really helped me, really made me forget about how bad my marriage was. I was thankful to Patricia. I was thankful to Arnold. Arnold got me interested in politics. That’s made a big difference in my life.”
“Life’s a lot better when you believe in something,” he said.
She nodded. “Working for Arnold made me feel useful. It made me feel as if I were doing something worthwhile. It gave me a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that I really mattered, like I was in the sun again.” She looked away, stared out at the rain. “Then when Arnold had his heart attack and had to step down, and it looked like Sam Petronis was going to become councillor, I made the decision to step in, especially because I knew Petronis would wreck half of Arnold’s work if I didn’t do something to stop him. I got the mayor to support me, fought one of the dirtiest campaigns this town has ever seen, and won. I was twenty-eight, the second-youngest councillor ever.”
He waited. “And how did Garth feel about that?”
She nodded, facing the question bravely, yet now with unmistakable woe in her eyes. “I wanted his support,” she said. “Not his political support, just his…his support. I longed for his support. His emotional support. I asked for his support.” She shook her head. “But he didn’t seem to care. He couldn’t take it seriously. He couldn’t see how municipal politics could matter to anyone but the politicians involved in them.” She turned to Gilbert, her eyes focusing with silent entreaty. “So I switched off. We somehow got through the next few years, but it was like I was dead to him. I still love him, but I…when you don’t feel there’s anything connecting you…he always thought I’d be there for him, no matter what he did, and I guess he was surprised when I…I’m afraid he feels he has a lot to be bitter about these days, Barry. But he brought it on himself. He keeps griping about an emotional shortfall on my part.” Her expression softened. “And that’s what we’re here to talk about, isn’t it?” she said. “This emotional shortfall? How he and I don’t connect anymore?”
“I’m sorry?” he said.
She looked at him with deepening grief. “Edgar,” she said, simply, her voice clear, riding over the sound of the rain. “Can you blame me? Edgar gave me all the things Garth wasn’t able to give me anymore.”
So, thought Gilbert. Here it was. After a brief history of her sunless life with Garth, Rosalyn Surrey had finally brought herself to the brink. “No,” he said. “I can’t blame you.”
She smiled at the concession. “Thank you,” she said.
“I’m sorry about Edgar,” he said.
She looked away. She shivered and he turned up the heat. “Edgar was like…like a promise to me, a promise that life could turn out to be something more than it was turning out to be,” she said. She chuckled despondently at her tangle of words. Then she grew still. Her grief took hold again. “Those photographs,” she said. “Edgar insisted we take those. He said I had to be recorded for posterity.” She smiled at the memory, but the smile was weak, fleeting. “He knew how to flatter me. But most of all…most of all, he knew how to make me feel lucky. He made me understand what it was to live again. I didn’t even care when Garth found out. I felt so lucky to be with Edgar that I didn’t care about anything.”
“And when Garth found out, was he jealous?” he asked. “Because that’s what we’re here to talk about too.”
“Oh, yes, Garth was jealous,” she confirmed. “But Garth had his chance. And he blew it. I wasn’t going to wait forever.”
Gilbert’s shoulders tightened. Time to jump in. “Do you think Garth killed Edgar?” he asked. “Out of jealousy?”
Rosalyn shook her head. “No,” she said. “He exaggerates a lot of the time. I can see how he might tell Steve he killed Edgar. But I don’t think he would ever actually do it. One thing about Garth, he talks a lot. Speaks first and thinks later.”
Gilbert sighed. He had to sketch a broader picture for her. “The details he gave Zidner are details only the killer could know,” he said.
She turned to him. “Really?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
She turned, stared at the glove compartment, her lips pursed in worry. “I still don’t think he would do it. He hasn’t got the nerve. He used to have a lot of nerve. But he drank his nerve away. He’s just a sad drunk now. The details…I wouldn’t know about that. A lucky guess? I think it would be awfully sad if Garth turned out to be the one who killed Edgar. I’d never forgive myself.”
“And you have no idea where he was on the night of the fifteenth?”
She turned to him. Her face looked pale now. “No,” she said. “He never tells me where he goes. He never did. He insists we’re not that kind of couple.”
A short while later, Lombardo paged Gilbert. Gilbert answered the page just as he got back to College Street. Lombardo was in Oakville, a well-to-do community thirty-five kilometers west of Toronto. Communicating by cell phone, Lombardo told him Halton Regional Police had discovered Tony Mok’s Volkswagen Golf parked on a side street near the lake.
“I’ve called a tow truck from work but I thought we better make a thorough check before anyone touches it,” he said. “How soon can you get here?”
Gilbert glanced outside at the freezing rain. “Have you seen the crap that’s falling from the sky?” he asked.
“So an hour?” said Lombardo.
“At least.”
On the way to Oakville, Gilbert thought about Garth Surrey, went through the items of evidence against him one by one. He knew the details of the crime scene. Then there was Dock Wen’s description. And what about the beige Isotoner? Might Garth have been wearing those gloves? He passed low modern factories, sleek, bright, many made out of reflective glass. The case against Garth Surrey seemed to be getting stronger. Despite all the evidence they had against Tony Mok. Gilbert took the turnoff to Trafalgar Road and headed for the lakeshore.
He found Joe Lombardo on Windermere Street, a street lined with gracious stucco homes. The street ran straight to the lake. The wind was up, blowing from the south, feeding the province yet more rain-saturated air from the Gulf of Mexico. The waves, eight-foot breakers, stormed onto the beach in a gray flood of curl and foam, and the air had a faint underwater smell, of old algae and dead fish. Mok’s white Golf with gold hubcaps stood at the curb, three limp parking tickets under its windshield wiper. The car looked abandoned. Lombardo sat in one of the older unmarked Luminas. A police tow truck had nudged up to the sidewalk across the street and Gilbert saw the tow-truck operator looking at them, his face blurred by the rain against the glass.
Gilbert got out of his car. Joe did the same.
“Christ, this rain,” said Lombardo. He had to raise his voice to make himself heard over the sound of the waves at the end of the street.
“You look cold,” said Gilbert.
Lombardo nodded at the old Lumina. “There’s something wrong with the heater,” he said. “I had barely enough heat to keep the steam off my windshield.”
“You should have climbed in with the tow-truck driver.”
“He just got here,” said Lombardo.
The tow-truck driver rolled down his window. “You want me to hook it up?” he called.
The rain came down in squalls around them. “No,” called Gilbert. “We’ll tell you when. But do you have a slim-jim? We need to get inside.”
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sp; “Sure,” called the tow-truck operator. He yanked the hood of his anorak over his head, got out of the truck, went to the back tool compartment, and pulled out a slim-jim. Walking over to the Golf, he slid the slim-jim between the window and door, hooked the lock, and had the car door open in seconds. He looked at the two detectives. “Call me if you need me.” He hurried back to his truck.
Gilbert pondered Mok’s white Golf. “Let’s take a look,” he said.
The first thing Gilbert noticed when he opened the door was the brown stain on the shoulder harness.
“What’s that?” asked Lombardo.
“Looks like blood,” said Gilbert. “Here’s some more on the headrest.”
“Want me to get the leuco?” asked Lombardo.
Gilbert stared at the stains. “I think you better,” he said.
While Lombardo got the leuco malachite applicator out of his car, Gilbert edged his way into the Golf looking for more blood. Other than these few smears on the shoulder harness and the headrest, the car looked clean. The interior reeked of stale cigarettes—the ashtray overflowed with half-smoked butts, as if Mok didn’t have the patience to smoke cigarettes more than halfway down. Lombardo came back with the applicator.
“Here,” he said.
“Thanks,” said Gilbert.
Gilbert daubed the cotton-tipped applicator to the smear on the shoulder harness. The applicator turned blue.
“Bingo,” said Gilbert, forgetting the cold and the rain.
“Really?” said Lombardo.
“Really,” said Gilbert.
But whose blood, wondered Gilbert. He would have to press the lab on this.
They continued to search the car. While they searched, Gilbert asked Lombardo about his date with Jennifer.
“Have you canceled yet?”
“No,” said Lombardo. “But I’m going to. I think if I cancel on the day, like you said, it will look more legit.”
“As long as you cancel,” said Gilbert.
“Don’t worry,” said Lombardo. “I will.”
Fifteen minutes later Lombardo said, “Hey, look at this.” Lombardo stood at the rear of the car, at the hatchback, holding up a bullet. “I found it in the tire well.”
Gilbert halted his inspection of the glove compartment and came round to have a look. “Is that what I think it is?” asked Gilbert.
Lombardo nodded. “A thirty-eight-caliber soft-nose wadcutter.” He shook his head. “Why do they have to be so dumb, Barry?” he asked. “It takes all the fun out of it.”
Gilbert shook his head in mock commiseration. “I don’t know, Joe,” he said. “I don’t know.”
Yet he still couldn’t help thinking of Garth Surrey. And of Pearl Wu. And of Foster Sung. All were still red-flagged as suspects as far as he was concerned, despite this blood in the car and the bullet in the tire well.
They finished their search, bagged their evidence, and sat in Gilbert’s Lumina. He had the heat on. “Get yourself good and warmed up,” he said. “You have a long drive back.”
“Thanks,” said Lombardo.
They sat there talking for another few minutes, and were just speculating how long it would take the lab to test the blood, when Gilbert’s pager went. He checked the number and looked up at Lombardo. “It’s Carol,” he said.
Gilbert lifted his cell phone, dialed the Homicide office, and got Carol Reid on the phone.
The squad secretary had news for him. Unexpected news. Bad news.
“Your wife is in the Emergency Department of Toronto East General Hospital,” Carol said. “I don’t have any details. They wouldn’t give me any details because of their confidentiality policy, only that Regina had sustained some nonthreatening injuries, and that she was asking for you, wanted you to come to the hospital to get her.”
The darkness of the afternoon took on a whole new cast, as if the contrast on a television set had been changed.
“Thanks, Carol,” he said, and rang off.
Gilbert deadened his panic, accepting how the whole mood of a day could alter with a single unexpected phone call. The afternoon really seemed quite dark, as if he were looking at the world through a smoky lens. He realized he should have asked Carol for the hospital number. Maybe it didn’t matter. If he put the light on top of the Lumina’s roof he would get there quickly anyway. He ignored his adrenaline, and, in what he thought was a slow and deliberate way, turned to Lombardo. Joe looked flat and distant.
“You all right?” asked Joe.
Like shifting gears without a clutch, as if somewhere inside him metal scraped against metal. “Regina’s in the Emergency Department at Toronto East General,” he said. The noise of the rain seemed to fade around them.
“What happened?” asked Lombardo. Lombardo’s words sounded far away. Blood drummed past Gilbert’s ears.
“Look, Joe, I’ve got to go,” he said. Even his own voice sounded muted. “I wish I could let you warm up longer.” He smiled but his face felt stiff, awkward. “I’m going to talk to the garage about that damn heater.”
“Sure,” said Lombardo.
“Make sure no one fucks with Mok’s car.”
“Keep an eye on your speed,” said Joe, opening the door. “Keep looking at the little red needle.”
Gilbert nodded, a tense grin on his face. He already felt a world away from Lombardo. “I’ll see you at headquarters,” he said.
Once he got to the highway Gilbert grabbed his police light from under his dashboard, stuck it on the roof, and turned on his siren. He sped down the inside lane at 140 kilometers per hour. After he hit one-forty, he didn’t bother keeping his eye on the little red needle. Few cars traveled the expressway inbound to Toronto at this time of the day, but just over the rail, coming the other way, the traffic inched bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go all the way, with people coming home from work. The few cars on his side of the highway eased away from him, giving him plenty of room. His mind churned with speculation. A car accident? A fall? Or something more ominous?
In twenty-five minutes, Toronto’s skyline came into view, the CN Tower rising like a futuristic needle high above all the financial towers, the Skydome nestling like a giant dinosaur egg at its base, with the Convention Center just beyond. In this weather, with the sky dark, and the clouds low, and the rain turning to ice, the city was anything but a welcoming vision, more like a gray and hellish Babylon glittering with the hurtful glare of its million lights under the pall of an overcast sky. Off to the right, invisible from view, but with the palpable presence of a bad nightmare, surged Lake Ontario, black, cold, and polluted. He raced onto the elevated Gardner Expressway, his car like a fury, red light flashing wildly, his siren screaming as he passed the canyon-like streets.
He arrived at the hospital twenty minutes later. The triage nurse smiled at him reassuringly and told him to follow the blue line along the wall. He followed it left, then right, knew the way by heart, had been here many times, had seen many assault casualties turn into homicides here. He passed an old woman lying on a gurney with tubes up her nose; a drunk in a wheelchair, the front of his pants covered with blood from a gash on his forehead; and two young doctors viewing X-rays of a fractured hand on panel lights. He passed cubicle after cubicle until he finally saw Jennifer, then Nina peeking out from behind a curtain at the end. Nina hurried toward him with that innate self-control that was the hallmark of her personality.
“She was mugged, Dad,” she said. “Can you believe it? She was mugged in the school parking lot right after her meeting. You should see her. She’s got bruises all over her face. And she’s got a gash on her head.”
Gilbert sped ahead of his youngest daughter and went into his wife’s cubicle.
Regina sat cross-legged on the bed, the sheets nested around her hips and thighs. On the right side of her head, blood matted her hair, and she was busy cleaning it out with an alcohol swab. Her left eye was swollen, her lip was split, and she had an angry bruise on her cheek.
“Shit,” said Gilbe
rt. He sensed Jennifer staring at him sullenly. “You were mugged.”
“No.”
“Nina said you were mugged.”
“They didn’t take anything. They could have taken my purse.”
“Did you call the police?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” she said, grinning through her split lip.
“I’m going to get the badge number from the triage nurse.”
“Barry, calm down.”
“I want to get a copy of his report.”
“Her report.”
“Her report.”
“Look, just sit down, okay?” said Regina. “You look like you’re in worse shape than I am.”
“What happened?”
“I was attacked.”
“I know, but…did you get a good look at him?”
“They were wearing ski masks.”
“They?” he said, growing even more alarmed.
“There were two of them,” said Regina.
“Tell him what the guy told you, Mom,” said Jennifer.
“Jennifer, please,” said Regina.
Barry looked first at Jennifer, then at Regina. “What are you talking about?” he asked, annoyed with Jennifer. “What did the guy tell you?”
Regina looked away, a picture of calm. “He gave me a warning,” she said.
“A warning?”
“Or at least something to pass along to you.”
“To me?” he said. “What did he say?”
She looked at him, her face growing serious. “You’re to stay away from Chinatown.”
He lifted his hand to his temple and rubbed. “Shit,” he said, breathlessly, the expletive issuing from his mouth like a hatchet chop. “And the guy was for real?”
“Barry, calm down.”
“I’m going to get a twenty-four-hour security detail for you and the girls,” he said. “And I’m off the case as of right now.”