by Scott Mackay
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Look at your lip,” he complained.
“I didn’t even want to come here,” said Regina. “Jennifer made me come. All I needed was a little ice and a Band-Aid.”
“My first responsibility is to my family,” said Gilbert.
“Then why don’t you spend more time with us for a change?” said Jennifer, now past the point where she could contain her sullenness. “No wonder we all turned into losers.”
“Was that really called for?” asked Regina.
“You might be a loser,” said Nina, “but I’m not.”
“Barry, I don’t want you to quit the case,” said Regina. “That would just be giving in to them. I don’t mind a couple of plainclothes officers around for a while, but I’ll be really mad if you quit the case for my sake. They didn’t really hurt me all that badly.”
“Mom, how can you say that?” asked Jennifer. “Look at your head.”
“What happened to your head?” asked Gilbert, peering through her thick blond hair.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, looking even more annoyed with Jennifer. “I slipped on the ice when they pushed me and I hit my head against the Windstar’s side-view mirror, that’s all.”
“She’s got nine stitches, Dad,” said Jennifer, now sounding as if she were gloating. “Nine,” she repeated. Her face turned red, blotchy, as if beneath her sullenness she were seething. He knew this wasn’t about Regina’s nine stitches; he knew this was still about Karl Randall. “And it’s all your fault, Dad,” she said. “Every last bit of it.”
He looked at his daughter, but he didn’t know who she was anymore. He heard her voice, but it didn’t sound like Jennifer’s voice at all. He looked into her eyes, but he couldn’t find her there.
And the afternoon seemed darker still…
The next morning, Gilbert and Lombardo were called to investigate a suicide at Forest Hill General Hospital. From one hospital to another, he thought. They had to wait several minutes to get an elevator up to the twelfth floor—the Otis Elevator guys had three of the five out of service for repairs. Gilbert shifted impatiently from foot to foot. He felt he should have taken the day off work, that he should have stayed home with Regina—but she insisted he go. So here he was, with Joe.
“It had to be either the Kung Lok or the 14K,” he said. “I get physically weak just thinking about it. Nowak’s going to send some guys up today to park outside the house. He’s not such a bad guy, you know.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Lombardo.
“What? About Nowak?”
“No. About your wife. It doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“That the Kung Lok or 14K should send someone to beat her up.”
“They want us off the case,” said Gilbert. “That’s obvious.”
“Yes, but they’re not stupid,” said Lombardo. “Take a look at Foster Sung. And at Peter Hope. They wouldn’t do something like that. I know you’re a little freaked out, Barry, but this may not be as bad as you think. I don’t think the Kung Lok and the 14K are after Regina.”
“You don’t?”
“Foster Sung’s too smart to send someone after your wife. And so’s Peter Hope. They’re both sharp. Neither of them would needlessly make extra trouble for themselves by sending some guys after your wife as a way of giving you a warning. They’ll try to sidestep Edgar’s murder as quietly as they can. These guys are pros.”
“But if not the 14K or the Kung Lok, then who?” asked Gilbert.
“Donald Kennedy,” said Lombardo, “that’s who.”
Their elevator came, and they squeezed on with fifteen doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff. This was what he admired about Lombardo. The elevator began its slow climb, stopping at floor after floor. The man could take a problem and look at it from all sides. Gilbert felt Lombardo was becoming the partner he had always wanted, a savvy, street-smart guy he could count on, a man who was willing to do the work, put in extra hours, and not just punch a clock until he retired.
The elevator doors opened on the twelfth floor and they got out.
“So why Donald Kennedy?” asked Gilbert.
“The guy smells,” said Lombardo. “First we have the discrepancy in his report about the Chinese man behind the restaurant at the time of the murder.” They began walking toward the nursing station. “Then we have the discrepancy between his run-sheet and the dispatch tapes. Eight minutes. Eight minutes. That’s unreal. Eight minutes in court can make or break a case. Then there’s that bit about the towel. Foster Sung says he used a yellow dish towel to stanch the flow of Edgar’s blood. Dr. Blackstein says Edgar might have lived had he had that towel. Kennedy says he saw no towel. Did someone take that towel away? We don’t know. Was it Kennedy? We don’t know. But Kennedy was there by himself, and he could have easily taken the towel away.” Lombardo shrugged. “For what purpose? To ensure that Edgar bled to death? That’s what I think. The guy knew Edgar had information, like Rosalyn Surrey was telling you. He saw his opportunity to keep Edgar quiet, and he took it. Kennedy hears the ten-seventy-one and he goes for it, even though he’s on the other side of town.”
On the overhead, Gilbert heard switchboard calling out a code blue—a heart attack—in the MRI suite.
“And after he does all that,” said Gilbert, “he sees I’m sniffing too close, so he beats the crap out of Regina as a warning.” He shook his head. “You know, Joe, I think you might be right. I think Kennedy might be stupid enough to try something like this.”
Gilbert saw Detective Gordon Telford come out of a patient room down the hall.
“I certainly don’t think it’s a triad thing, Barry,” said Lombardo.
Telford, the primary on the suicide, came up to them. “It’s open-and-shut, guys,” he said. “But if you want to have a look…”
Gilbert nodded. “Sure.”
They went inside and discovered that the patient had hanged himself from the shower rail in the bathroom with a sheet. The bathtub was splattered with urine and fecal matter and the man’s face was blue.
Gilbert shrugged. “If you’re determined, you’re determined,” he said. He turned to Telford. “Did you speak to the nurse on duty?”
Telford nodded. “I got her statement,” he said. “She’s still here if you want a few words with her.”
Gilbert contemplated the suicide. Poor guy. But his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking of Kennedy. “No,” he said. “Tell her she can go home. Get the body out of here. I imagine they’re going to need the bed.”
Still thinking of Kennedy. And of how he had beat the crap out of Regina.
Fifteen
Gilbert met Constable Jeremy Austin the next day. They parked on Victoria Street next to Massey Hall, and after getting a couple of cappuccinos from a nearby coffee place, Gilbert once again asked Austin to name names. Austin’s wide black face settled with reluctance as he looked away. Gilbert glanced up at Massey Hall and waited. Thirty years ago, with hair down to his shoulders and his ragged denim bell-bottoms sweeping the dusty gallery floor, he had seen Jefferson Airplane perform in this venerated concert hall. Now he was a homicide detective with two teenaged daughters, daughters who had never even heard of Jefferson Airplane. The years marched by so quickly; 1971 seemed like such a long time ago. He could hardly remember his life before Regina.
“I can’t name names yet,” said Austin, with a harried stubbornness that exasperated Gilbert. “I told you that.”
“Donald Kennedy,” said Gilbert. “There’s a name.”
Austin didn’t react. He neither denied nor confirmed. He just sat there looking uncomfortable.
“Paul Szoldra,” said Gilbert. “There’s another name.”
Now Austin looked even more uncomfortable. He looked ashamed of himself. “I’ve got to protect my family,” he said. “Until these guys are off the street, I stay neutral in all this.”
When Gilbert tried
to reschedule his appointment to see Pearl Wu, Peter Hope again gave him the runaround. Gilbert was tired of it. So was Lombardo. Interrogation by appointment only wasn’t going to work. If they didn’t necessarily have enough probable cause to arrest Pearl as a suspect in the murder of Edgar Lau, they certainly had enough for a limited search of her dwelling. Not that Gilbert particularly wanted to search her condominium at One Park Lane. He just wanted access. Access to Pearl. By herself. Without interference from the Red Pole.
He walked around her condominium, waiting for her, having obtained entrance from the building manager. Lombardo was following up on the blood found in Tony Mok’s car. Gilbert expected more opulence. He expected her condominium to face south, toward the lake. But it faced east, where, across the street, he saw the National Life Building, a generic office tower too drab for words. Her furniture looked like department-store stuff. He expected at least a Maytag dishwasher in the kitchen, but there was no dishwasher at all. Pearl’s Toronto residence was more like a cheap hotel suite, a place to crash when she flew in from Hong Kong, with all the furniture scuffed and used, the way furniture in a cheap hotel looked. She had a few Chinese prints on the wall, one of a temple, another of a junk on the water, and another of a Chinese fan dancer in a traditional costume, but these did little to personalize the place, were of such poor quality Gilbert guessed they had to be items from the boatloads of Chinatown tourist-trade garbage Bing Wu sent over from Hong Kong.
He walked to the bedroom. The bedroom looked the same: secondhand furniture, track lighting with one of the fixtures missing, beige walls, wall-to-wall carpeting with a few coffee stains here and there. Her clothes lay all over the floor. He stared at her clothes. She was a former fashion model and she just threw her clothes on the floor? Not only that, they looked junky: jeans, sweatshirts, sweatpants, not exactly high-fashion threads.
He went back to the living room and sat down in one of the chairs, feeling the unevenness of old foam underneath the beige corduroy upholstery. He had to slouch. He had no choice; it was that kind of chair. The chair smelled sickly sweet, as if something had died inside it. He waited. Fifteen minutes later he heard a key in the door. He struggled out of the chair—like getting out of a hammock—and reached the front part of the living room just as Pearl entered the condominium. She turned on the vestibule light.
When she saw him, she immediately drew her gun. He looked at the gun. A two-shot Derringer. With elaborate silver scrollwork all over the barrel. Despite all her junky clothes, she still felt she had to make a fashion statement, at least when it came to firearms. The gun looked so small in her hands. She had strong-looking hands, big hands, hands that looked purposely strengthened through exercise.
“Hello,” she said, not alarmed, just ready. “Please to identify yourself.”
She was indeed stunning, even with the scar across her face, an almond-shaped mark an inch across, the color of bamboo.
“I’m Detective-Sergeant Barry Gilbert of Metro Homicide,” he said. “I have a warrant to search your residence in regard to the murder of Edgar Cheng Lau. The warrant’s over there on the dining room table.”
Keeping an eye on Gilbert, she moved to the dining room table, lifted the document, and scanned it quickly. When she was finished, she put the warrant down and looked at Gilbert. He contemplated Pearl Wu. Her coat was what Nina might call retro-funk—artificial brown leather with poodle-like rims of artificial black fur trimming the collars and sleeves, so tacky, so 1970s Motown, he knew it had to be stylish, even in vogue. Her pants were made of white polyester, slightly flared, widening discreetly over her black platform shoes. She wore peach-colored eye shadow and had hoop earrings. And a diamond wedding ring with a rock the size of a peanut on her finger.
“You are armed?” she asked.
He pulled his jacket aside and showed her the grip of his Glock 9-mm semiautomatic handgun.
“Please to put the pistol on the table,” she said.
“No.”
She raised her Derringer higher, steadied it with both hands, and narrowed her eyes. How easily she handled that gun. Women rarely murdered, and when they did, they rarely used guns, were fonder of knives. But Pearl Wu, living in the crucible of the Chinese gang underworld, was undoubtedly an exception. Pearl Wu, he decided, would use a gun, had maybe even used one on Edgar Lau.
“Put the gun away,” he said, “or I’m going to arrest you. Not only that, when you pull a gun on a police officer, you take your own life into your hands.”
She stared at him, remained perfectly still. Then put the gun down. She smiled. “I didn’t kill him, you know,” she said, almost cheerfully. “I would never kill Edgar. I always nice to him. I rub his shoulders when they get sore. I buy him presents. I buy him candy. I always buy him candy. I would never kill him. Whenever I come from Hong Kong I give him presents. So much to buy in Hong Kong,” she said. “Everywhere you look. Lots of clothes. Lots of candy. He likes candy. So do I. He addicted to candy. I keep lots here for him.” She looked at him slyly. “You want some?”
As if suddenly the subject of Edgar’s murder were of secondary importance to candy.
“No thanks.”
“I buy gourmet candy,” she said. “You like it.”
Her obsession struck him as odd and inappropriate. “I’m not really fond of sweets,” he said.
“You like these,” she said. “Edgar eat them all the time.”
“Mrs. Wu, I’m here to ask you some questions,” he said.
“I got plenty,” she coaxed.
“No, it’s all right.”
Before he could stop her she hurried to the kitchen, overcome by this weird enthusiasm for candy. She came back with a big bowl of it, expensive stuff from a specialty shop: peanut brittle, saltwater toffee, French nougat, Turkish delight, designer jelly beans, marzipan balls, and Scotch kisses. All of it wrapped in small individual packets of decorated cellophane.
“Try these,” she said, pointing to the marzipan balls. “They’re really good.”
He looked at her, caught off guard by her insouciance, her seeming lack of grief over the passing of Edgar Lau. She was gorgeous, sweet, frivolous, unpredictable, impulsive, even wacky, reminded him of a silver ball in a pinball machine bouncing all over the place. She lifted one of the marzipan balls, unwrapped it, shoved it in her mouth, then looked at him with wide-eyed curiosity. He found he couldn’t stop looking at her hair. Her hair shone like black satin.
“So, Barry, you find what you looking for?” she said, her Cantonese accent sharp but piquant as she nodded toward the warrant.
She now didn’t seem at all concerned that he should be here in her condominium waiting for her. That she should so familiarly use his first name suggested some sly nose-thumbing, as if she had indeed lived and breathed in the triad underworld a long time. What unusual survival skills she must have. What a bizarre journey her life must be.
“You know as well as I that I’ll never find those things on the list there,” he said. “The gun and so forth. I’m here to talk to you. Peter Hope was making that difficult. So I used the warrant as an excuse.”
She raised her eyebrows. “He always like that,” she said. “He like a tennis player. Always bounce the ball back at you.”
Gilbert took another moment. This was a woman who had three offices in Toronto? A woman who handled millions of dollars in real estate transactions each day? He was going to have to discard his preconceptions about Pearl Wu. She was singular. No wonder Hope wanted Gilbert to stay away from her. She showed not the slightest trace of nervousness, maintained her zany cheerfulness despite the seriousness of the situation.
“As far as we’ve been able to determine,” he said, “you were the last one to see Edgar Lau alive before he was killed.”
For the purpose of this interview, he was going to go with Foster Sung’s version of events. Not Hope’s.
“This is correct,” she said.
He stared at her. Did this mean that Foster Sung h
ad been telling the truth, and that Hope had been lying? Did Pearl not realize how badly she incriminated herself by confirming Foster Sung’s version of events: that Sung came up to ask them to his table in the restaurant to meet Tak-Ng Lai, then left them alone, to finish their argument, while he went back downstairs?
“And you had an argument,” he said, wanting to get the details straight.
Her brow arched, an acknowledgment to Gilbert; she smiled with some noticeable admiration, as if she believed he might have more skill than she had at first assumed. “Who tell you that?” she asked.
He suddenly felt as if he were in a game of parry and thrust. How much to reveal? How much to hide? He liked to use his facts carefully, and only if they might shake loose yet other facts. In this case, he had a name, and he thought he might use that name as a wedge.
“Foster Sung,” he said. He waited, gauged her reaction, but her face was as still as a painting, poised in a half-smile, as if she were prepared to be gracious under any and all circumstances. “He said he went up to ask you and Edgar to join him and his guests at his table in the restaurant, and that he heard the two of you arguing before he knocked on the door.”
She nodded, the same half-smile still on her face, yet he now sensed a glimmer of concealed hysteria in her eyes, as if maybe Foster Sung’s name had acted as a wedge after all. “Why you care if we argue?” she asked. He heard an echo of strain in her voice, a nuance that suggested the grief he was looking for. “We argue. All the time, argue. That night not any different.”
“I’m trying to establish a clearer picture of what went on that night,” he said. “Would you mind going over it with me? Foster Sung came up to Edgar’s apartment and asked the two of you to come to his table in the restaurant, you both declined, then Foster Sung went back downstairs?”
She had to think about this. “That is correct,” she finally said.
He stared again. Foster Sung had just become a much weaker suspect. Too bad for Hukowich and Paulsen. And Peter Hope had lied. Lied to protect Pearl? To cast suspicion on Foster for the purposes of taking it away from Pearl? If so, why didn’t Pearl seem to care? She was alone with Edgar in the apartment, sketching in for Gilbert her window of opportunity. Why would she admit to it so freely? Particularly if she was guilty? Was she innocent after all? He began to think she might be, particularly because their harder evidence pointed toward Tony Mok. Tony Mok coming through the French doors. After Foster had gone. After Pearl had gone. There to steal again. There to take away Edgar’s China White. That was the most plausible scenario.