Summer of the Gun

by Warren Court

  He sat down at his desk and opened up PowerCase. While it was loading, he plugged his phone into a charger and checked that it still worked. When the computer application had fully loaded and he’d logged in, he punched up the master folder for his team. It catalogued every case they’d worked for the last five years, both the closed ones and the ones they’d cleared. Any case older than five years could be retrieved, but it would take longer to load. And he didn’t need anything past five years ago. He just needed last year’s cases, the ones they’d been working right around the time Sylvia Wozniak died.

  Temple scrolled back through the cases. Some were marked red for open; others were green for cleared. The green outweighed the red by far; Team Two had a very high clearance rate.

  He remembered the day she’d died. Remembered that phone call from Tim. He had found her at home in the early evening. He’d called in an ambulance, but there had been nothing they could do for her. The funeral and cremation had happened two days later. Temple admonished himself again for not stepping in before she was turned to ash. A more thorough autopsy might have shown her death for what Temple thought it was: murder. Of course, calling out a senior detective in homicide for murdering his wife would have meant the end of Temple’s time in the squad, even if Tim was found guilty. And if murder could not have been proven, Temple would now be a civilian.

  Temple looked at the cases Team Two had been working back then. He himself had been working the Prajoth Nair case, the missing father and daughter who’d wound up dead in the trunk of the family car. Tim Wozniak had had two cases on his books that were very active. Temple opened them up.

  He scrolled through Tim’s notes, noting locations and dates and times. They had all been transcribed and fed into PowerCase by the civilians who worked for TPS Homicide. The notebooks, when filled, were stored in holding in case they had to be used in a trial.

  Temple homed in on what he wanted: the day Sylvia had died. Wozniak had visited three businesses not far from where a murder had occurred, one of his cases: a pizza place, a dry cleaner’s and a video games store. Temple knew the questions Wozniak would have asked those business owners and employees, even if he hadn’t fully documented them. He’d have been determining whether anyone had seen anything unusual or noteworthy and whether they’d known the murder victim, an eighteen-year-old girl. Had she come into their shops? Had she at least passed by? Was she with anyone? Tim’s notes on that day ended at noon, just about the time his wife was supposedly starting to dump a full bottle of sleeping pills down her throat.

  “That’s what I call dedication,” Wozniak said as he approached Temple’s cubicle.

  Suppressing a yelp, Temple calmly clicked the master folder closed.

  “Sorry, did I startle you?” Tim plunked down in his chair and spun it around until he hit the side of his desk, then pushed off and spun the other way. He did that several times, back and forth. Temple’s monitor was positioned so Tim could not see what he was looking at, but he closed out of PowerCase anyway. Of course, there were logs showing what he had just looked at. There would be an electronic record of his going in and opening certain files. And all of them were Tim Wozniak’s cases, which would look weird, but Temple could come up with an explanation if pressed.

  “What you working on?” Temple said.

  “Nothing, really. I just forgot something in my desk.” Wozniak opened a desk drawer and pulled out a notebook, the same one Temple had taken Carmen D’Souza’s phone number from.

  “You still carry one of those around?”

  “I’ll never get used to those electronic things. You lose one, it’s all gone. Phone numbers of family, colleagues. Broads you want to screw.”

  “What, you can’t lose a book?”

  Tim shrugged. “I guess I never thought of that. But it’s got my name and numbers in it at the front. Someone finds it, they’ll get a nice reward, a big fat twenty for their trouble.”

  “Speaking of broads you want to screw, the kid and I are going to hit the restaurant owner’s apartment, but I should be free later on. I was thinking of hitting a bar out in Whitby tonight.” Screw him, Temple thought. If he suspects I’m on to him, let’s poke him. See what comes out.

  “Which one?” Tim said.

  “The Kilt and Beaver.”

  “That dive?”

  “Know it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Skank city. Everything from eighteen- to fifty-year-olds. Take your pick.”

  Temple stood up and shut his computer down. “Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun.”

  “Maybe we should bring Mendoza. He can attract a flock of them, and we can pick off the stragglers.”

  “Nah, just you and me, pal,” Temple said.

  46

  In the afternoon, Temple and Mendoza executed the warrant on Kiet Du’s apartment. They banged on the door but there was no answer. The superintendent let them in after making a big show of reading the warrant.

  Temple let Mendoza run the show—calling out police, banging on the door, and being the first to go through it. Maybe, he thought, it would somehow wash away the transgression of his previous illegal entry.

  “She’s not here,” Temple said once they were inside.

  The hangers were still on the closet floor. The empty picture frame stood out; at least to Temple it did. He still had the photo from it back at his desk; he figured he should probably destroy it. That and the one he’d taken from the apartment above the restaurant. That had been obtained sans warrant too, though they could justify that entry—probable cause.

  Temple went into Sue’s room and noticed the difference right away. Her closet and drawers were near empty. She had been just a little bit neater about her exit, had probably not been in as much of a rush as her father.

  Mendoza came into the small bedroom. “She’s taken off too?”

  “Looks like it. Starting hitting the relatives, known associates. The aunt who wants the body released.”

  “You’re talking like she’s guilty. Person of interest?”

  “Oh, I am definitely interested in this person and her father. They want to claim the body, the one they say is the owner of the Beautiful City. I say we let them claim it. That should flush her out. Come on, let’s pack it up. We’re not going to find anything here.”

  47

  It was early evening; the uniforms had been cut loose. The last act was to tape the warrant to the kitchen counter, let the daughter know that they had been there.

  Temple called Kindness after he and Mendoza had parted ways.

  “Holy Christ, would you lose my number?” Kindness said when she answered.

  “Need to see you.”

  “I’m at home. Seriously, you want to come over?”

  “I’m not looking for a roll, Karen. Want to talk to you.”

  She was in a pair of shorts, longer in the leg than the Russian waitress’s who had been cutting Kumarin’s lawn, but they stirred him down below nonetheless. She had on a white TPS T-shirt. Very little makeup.

  She didn’t look up and down the street when she let him in.

  “No longer paranoid?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Well, for starters, a beer.”

  “What makes you think you earned it?” she said as she moved to the kitchen.

  “I’m one of your hardest-working detectives, that’s why. I’m a stone-cold clearer of cases.”

  She took a can out of the fridge and made to open it, and Temple stopped her with his hand.

  She laughed. “Look who’s paranoid.”

  “You’ve got a past history.”

  “I was out on the deck, watching the sunset.” He followed her out. It was a beautiful green backyard with a kidney-shaped pool. Strings of Edison bulbs ringed the fence. On a table next to a lounger was a fruity drink with a lime stuck onto the rim of the glass. At the far end of the pool was a tiki bar with a grass-covered roof and a back bar. Temple went over to it and sat down on a wicker bar stool. Karen huffed, grabbe
d her glass and followed him.

  He noticed, even in the fading light, how brown she was. Maybe it was the white T-shirt. “Aren’t you sick of the heat?”

  “I love it.”

  “You keep sitting in the sun like that you’re going to wrinkle up like a brown paper bag.”

  “Fuck you, John.”

  “Like I said, I’m not interested in any hanky-panky.”

  “’Hanky-panky’? Who are you—Humphrey Bogart?”

  Temple cracked his can of beer and took a long swig.

  “I want to talk about Tim Wozniak.”

  “Not this again.”

  “He was having an affair when his wife died. He’s still seeing the woman. She was Sylvia’s best friend.”

  “And you were banging his wife. And you were Tim’s best friend.”

  “That’s a stretch. The day he died, he clocked off work. His notes stop at noon. Nothing until after the funeral.”

  “So?”

  “I’ve got phone call records, dozens of them. He called his mistress around the time he was supposed to be finding Sylvia dead.”

  “Impossible to prove anything there. The coroner can’t pinpoint the exact minute she died. Besides, sounds like he has an alibi.”

  “Or was setting one up. Listen, I went to see her the day before she did it. I ended it with her. She said she’d told him. That could have been enough for him to flip out. Shove a bottle of pills down her throat.”

  “Murder like that takes planning. Were there any mistakes in the report?”

  “I haven’t seen the report. Team Two wasn’t on at the time. Even if we were, we wouldn’t have worked it. Conflict of interest. If I ask for the report, Tim will know about it.”

  “Are you asking me to get it?” Kindness said. Her voice was sincere, and she looked at him and batted her eyelashes.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Temple said, and took a sip of beer.

  “There’s no way I’m going to start digging into this for you. I say let it go. She had issues, right? Before she started fooling around with you? She killed herself. Tim is just unlucky.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “A girlfriend of his… She…” Kindness stopped.

  “She what?”

  “She killed herself too,” Kindness said, and her voice dropped off. Temple could see her mind whirling. He was starting to get that hard-on after all.

  “How?” Temple said. His blood was pumping through him now, pushing any trace of exhaustion away.

  “I can’t remember the details. She was on the job. Name was Laura something. We were both working in Fifty-Three. That’s how I first met Tim. She brought him to an after-shift party. I remember it now.”

  “Laura’s last name?”

  Karen thought a moment. “Spiers.” She spelled it for him. “Yeah, that was it. She was only on the job a couple of years.”

  “How’d she kill herself?”

  “Pills, I think.”

  Temple smirked. “Laura Spiers. I can look into that. Thanks,” Temple said, and downed the beer.

  “Sure you don’t want any hanky-panky?”

  “No. My ass still hurts from last time.”

  “Jerk.”

  48

  Temple got out of the shower. His pistol was lying within easy reach on bathroom sink. He was getting paranoid. Maybe it was the exhaustion. He had come home and flopped on the couch for a twenty-minute power nap. An alarm he’d set on his phone woke him. A quick burger on the barbeque and a salad and beer and then a hot shower and he was wide awake.

  He was going out on the town tonight, a social occasion, off duty. Normally he wouldn’t carry his gun. It wasn’t like he was working undercover. But tonight was different. He was working a case, trying to get at the heart of something in his own unit. And he was going out with Tim Wozniak, now a suspected two-time murderer. What Kindness had said about Laura Spiers had rocked Temple to the core.

  Temple had slept with the Vietnam documentary playing on Netflix. He had paused it when he got in the shower. Frozen on the screen was that famous photo of a Viet Cong guy at the exact second his brains were being blown out by the Saigon chief of police. Great cop, Temple thought. What balls. He’d like to buy that guy a beer. There were at least a dozen criminals in the city Temple would like to give that treatment to. And no doubt they would like to return the favour.

  It was close to ten when he called Wozniak. He put the call on speaker.

  “Yello,” Tim said, all cheery.

  “Hey, bud. Where are you?”

  “I’m at home.”

  “Okay, I’m coming to pick you up.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Cheers.”

  Temple put his gun down on a white rag on the coffee table and started disassembling it. He put the Netflix documentary back on while he worked. The Viet Cong guy’s brains blew out the side of his head and he crumpled to the ground and a stream of pinkish blood splattered onto the pavement.

  With his gun serviced, Temple stuck it into the back of his jeans and put on a loose-fitting black sport shirt. It would hide the gun nicely. He put an extra clip in his pocket. A small flick-out knife went in the other, along with three credit cards and his badge wallet. His pants felt tight; they were fresh out of the dryer, and it was hot as stink out despite the late hour.

  Temple drove like a madman over to Wozniak’s. His partner still lived in the same house, the one where Temple had had so many dalliances with his wife.

  Wozniak was wearing a tight-fitting Abercrombie T-shirt, and despite his middle age, he looked good. The ladies would be all over him tonight. His slightly thinning hair was slicked back with gel, and he was freshly shaven and doused in cologne. The grieving period was officially over. Temple knew it was all a charade anyway, what with Carmen D’Souza waiting up for him up in Brooklyn.

  “Whoa, how much you put on?” Temple said, and he pretended Tim’s cologne was watering his eyes.

  “Blow me. I’m a bit out of practice.”

  Tim handed him a beer, already opened. Temple took a long pull, not thinking twice about it.

  They sat on Muskoka chairs and looked out at the small back yard and the backs of other houses. Temple remembered slipping through those back yards into this one and coming up on the back porch. Though reluctant at first, near the end Temple had started to get into Sylvia’s rape fantasies. They’d set off the same sort of excitement he felt as a cop when he was taking down doors in search of a suspect or racing through the streets, the grill lit up and the siren going.

  “Where we going again?” Tim asked.

  “That place in Whitby, The Kilt and Beaver.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “You eat?”

  “Had a steak.”

  “That’s it, just a steak?”

  “I’m on my own, man. I’m not making lavish meals.”

  “Me too, but at least I had a salad.”

  “Bully for you. Come on. Let’s go.”

  They downed their beers and headed out.

  49

  “You really are old fashioned,” Tim said as they drove at a hundred and forty klicks along the 401, Peter Frampton blasting from the Sirius radio. Temple had left the Ford at his house and taken his Rav4 out.

  “Hey, it’s good music.”

  “It was good music.”

  “What are you into—Kanye West? Beyoncé?”

  “Put something modern on.”

  Temple pushed a button on the steering wheel and the cabin of the car filled with Trinidad James. Gangster rap.

  The two cops shared a laugh and Temple buried the needle to 160. Tim sat back and relaxed. Temple tried to determine if Wozniak had a piece on him. Couldn’t be sure. He wore his T-shirt tucked in and no jacket. If he was strapped, it would have to be an ankle holster. Temple had never known his partner to wear one.

  The bar was packed. There was a lineup of kids stretching out the door. This was the same bar where he had met
Claire only a few days before, and the memory of talking with her that one last time, flirting with her, saddened him. Why the hell had he picked this bar?

  Tim subtly badged him and Temple in, and they went to the back patio, where Temple had sat with Claire. They grabbed two cold beers at small bar out there and took seats in the corner so they could watch the action.

  They clinked beers. The aluminum cans sounded funny knocking together.

  “You come here a lot?” Tim said.

  “There’s lots of action here. Thought maybe you might be ready to move on, find someone new.”

  Tim took a swallow. “Maybe,” he said. “It has been quite a while.”

  A group of women came through the doorway to the back patio, drinks in their hands. Older women, in their forties. All glammed up and trying to escape the amateurish fumblings of the younger set inside. Temple knew that most of them, after a few drinks, would head back in there.

  Carmen D’Souza was with them. She scanned the patio and saw Wozniak. Her mouth flashed into a wild smile at first, then her expression turned to one of consternation. She laughed and talked for a minute more with her friends, then came over.

  Tim stood up and Temple followed suit.

  “Hey,” Tim said. “Hi, Carmen.”

  “Hey, Tim. I didn’t think… Sorry. Didn’t know you would be here.”

  “Last-minute thing. You remember John.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, seeing him now for the first time. She had been focusing on Tim alone.

  “Nice to see you again so soon,” Temple said.

  “What do you mean?” Tim said.

  “We ran into each other just today,” Carmen said, wresting for control of the tale.

  “I was out here for work and saw her coming out of a bank. I offered to buy her some lunch but she brushed me off,” Temple said and winked. Carmen chuckled uneasily.

  “Well, I’m with my girlfriends,” she said, and glanced back at her group.

  “Bring them over,” Temple said.

  “No, we’re just staying for one drink. It’s too crazy in here.”

  “A lot of hot men…” Temple said.