by R. D. Cain
Kalmakov used his left hand to open his overcoat slightly and with his right he reached into his breast pocket. Kevin was happy to see a piece of paper rather than a nine-millimetre Glock appear. Kalmakov passed him the paper; it was a cheque. It was for him and it was for a lot of money.
Kalmakov filled the silence. “I added a little bonus on there.”
“I see that. What for?” Kevin asked.
“To put you on retainer; you’re still my lawyer and I am still in your confidence. Got it?”
“Of course, Viktor, but you didn’t have to —”
“And hey, if you ever need anything you give me a call. I owe you one. Actually, I owe you a few. Anything.”
“Greatly appreciated, sir. I hope I don’t need to call. I mean I can’t imagine . . .”
“Well, I can show myself out. You know, it feels good to help you out after what you did for me. I won’t forget it. Good day, sir.” They shook hands again.
“Good day, sir.” Kalmakov left the office. Kevin stood still, with his eyes on the cheque for a moment, then placed it on his desk. He opened the briefcase he had placed on the floor, pulled a file out and spread it on his desk.
NASTOS GLANCED UP AT THE man who walked into the waiting room from Carscadden’s office. Kalmakov was a little surprised to see someone with Hopkins. He began to excuse himself as he walked past, but stopped, his eyes squinting at Nastos. “Excuse me, sir — hey, aren’t you the guy who killed that molester?”
Nastos set aside his Reader’s Digest, as gripping as the story was, and recognized the man: Viktor “The Saw” Kalmakov.
“That’s what I’m charged with.” He still couldn’t believe it, but he was getting better at saying it.
The man stuck out his hand. “Victor Kalmakov. Pleased to meet you.”
Nastos shook the hand of The Saw.
An intercom buzzed and Carscadden’s voice interrupted. “Ms. Hopkins, can you come in here, please?” She got up immediately and walked to the door. She certainly seemed to enjoy the attention that she got from the two men as she squeezed between them to get by. When she went into the office and closed the door behind her, Kalmakov turned back to Nastos, broadening his stance as if settling in to talk a while.
“I’ll tell you what; they should have given you a medal and put your statue on the courthouse steps.”
“Thanks, I guess.” Nastos had no idea where this was going.
“You know, I don’t have a problem with you cops. You have a tough job, dealing with the black kids shooting up the neighbourhoods, drug addicts robbing banks, gooks kidnapping each other — you catch one and what happens to them? Nothing. And don’t let the fact that he’s broke bother you about Carscadden; he’s a good lawyer.”
“He’s really that good, Kalmakov?”
He nodded confidently. “He is. You know, Detective, after going through the process of being wrongly accused of murder myself, it’s reminded me of how lucky I am in this life. I have a nephew with autism and I see how hurtful and how much work it is for my sister. It would mean the world to her if just once, she could have a conversation with her little boy, to hear him say that he loves her for how she has sacrificed her life to take care of him. I find myself thinking of that all the time now. Then I was charged with those heinous murders where everyone thought I did it, but Carscadden saved me.”
“That’s a shame about your sister’s boy. I can’t imagine how hard that is.” Nastos crossed his arms in front. Kalmakov unconsciously did the same.
“I’m just a small businessman. I own a waste management company picking up and dealing with people’s trash all day and have a little restaurant as a hobby. I think we have a lot in common. So, trust me to mean it when I say that if there is anything you think I can do to help you, have your lawyer give me a call, okay?”
“That’s a generous offer, Mr. Kalmakov.”
“And tell you what; my restaurant is Frankie’s on College and Manning downtown. Drop by anytime, on me. Carscadden knows the courtesy table.”
“I’ve been there once with my wife; it’s a nice place. We love Little Italy.”
“When you’re on the other side of this, all I ask is that you pay it forward. Be kind enough to let me pass it on to you, so you can pass it on when it’s your turn.”
“I’ve got a bail curfew at six p.m., but nothing beats an Italian lunch.”
“Good. Well, I have to go. Don’t give up.” Kalmakov swept out of the office, leaving Nastos alone. He recovered the discarded Reader’s Digest, but he couldn’t seem to focus on the story. He presumed that Carscadden was looking for a way off the case and he wasn’t so sure that it was a bad idea.
CARSCADDEN SAT WITH HIS ELBOWS propped on his desk, his hands on his forehead. He looked up only briefly when Hopkins entered, then turned his attention back to the files in front of him. She pulled a chair up alongside Carscadden and slid close to him. She had a way about her, how she moved: confident, open. Carscadden was oblivious.
“Is this all the disclosure we have received so far for Mr. Nastos out there?”
“Yes, the last fax was a few hours ago.”
“I just need to clarify something in my mind.” His eyes closed and squinted as he searched his memory.
“What’s that?”
“So we never actually got a patient list from the dentist’s office?” Carscadden asked.
“Sure we did, that’s the blue file on your left. Some of the names have been vetted out by the prosecutor.” Hopkins slid the list out, showing her boss.
“Yes, thanks. But, I just don’t get their strategy here. They should be making the list of children’s names longer, to demonize the victim and further the motive for Mr. Nastos. It’s just basic tactics.”
“I thought sex assault victims, especially children, have the right to privacy. Disclosure is illegal, right?”
“True, but I’d get access to properly defend my client. Maybe I’m just suspicious by nature, but I wonder why she would do that. For us at this stage its all about Charter motions and disclosure requests. We bury them in delays to have time to develop a better overall strategy. Of course, at some point Nastos is going to have to tell me his side of things. I don’t want this trial to get past the next hurdle. We’re also missing a copy of the police force’s Policy Directives on Internal Investigations, the Arrest Procedures and the booking video for Nastos.”
Hopkins asked, “How are they relevant?”
“Just by their absence so far, really. Why would they not turn them over?”
“I have no idea; they’re likely just overworked like everybody else in the country. We should be glad that they’re sloppy.”
“Check this out.” Carscadden held out a sheet for her. “A drug inventory of the dentist’s office — like I care how much banana-flavoured analgesic they had handy.” Carscadden tossed the sheet aside, but Hopkins took a glance at it.
“Well, Kevin, it does seem like there’s a lot of OxyContin missing.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
A sympathetic smile spread across Hopkins face. He felt that she thought he was naive about something. She’d be in her mid forties — not that he was going to ask — making him ten years younger than her. She seemed to have intuitive knowledge about how things operated on the other side of the street. He probably couldn’t tell the difference between a street hooker and a go-go dancer, but at least he’d be honest about it.
Hopkins explained, “It’s called hillbilly heroin. It’s a narcotic analgesic that a lot of people get prescribed for whatever reason — back injuries, dental surgery — but a lot of people get addicted. They resort to buying it or some replacement drug on the street because there aren’t any treatment programs.”
“Umm,” he said, thinking. “Okay, well, we’ll look into that at some point, but first is the list and the usual discl
osure stuff.”
“Anything else missing?” She put her hand gently on his shoulder.
Carscadden didn’t notice. “What about the dental assistants? Why weren’t they interviewed? They should have statements here, even if they didn’t have much to say.”
“Sure, Mr. Carscadden. I’ll send a fax in the morning requesting everything. Maybe they have the interviews with the assistants, but for whatever reason, they just never sent it.”
“The last thing is a synopsis on the investigators themselves. I want their workplace history. Start with the lead investigator, Clancy Brown. Find out what type of guy he is.”
“Where do you expect me to get that from?” Hopkins smiled.
“The same place you got all of your stuff for the Kalmakov case, which I’d probably be better off not knowing,” he said, without smiling.
Hopkins rubbed her chin, her lips pursing as if trying to work it all out. “I think I can do that one.”
Kevin sloppily flopped the pages back together and wrapped an elastic around the folder to hold it all together. “This case is a mess. Good luck to the poor bastard who takes it.”
“You’re not going to?” She looked at him like he was crazy.
“This is a loser case, plain and simple. Which is fine, can’t win them all, but I don’t see this helping me attract high-paying clients.”
“Listen, it’s a paycheque, how can you afford to turn it down?”
“The Kalmakov payment will help out for a while, won’t it? Take a gander at that fat, juicy bastard.” He slid the cheque in front of her so she could read it. He gave her a smug smile.
“You need to read over the books, boss, we’re dirt poor. You can barely even pay me this month, so you must have developed a taste for cat food.”
“I thought this had us above water?” He deflated back into the chair.
“Kevin, when we first started here, you were the one that gave me the big speech. ‘What do we call something with a nickel in its back pocket, a sob story and a heartbeat? A client,’ you said. Take the case. We need the money.”
“You blowing all our cash getting your hair done?”
“I know this case now — this is the cop who killed the molester. This is the guy who goes to work every day hearing the most disgusting stories, seeing the most disgusting things. Finally, it gets to him and he kills one of these pieces of shit. Don’t you think he deserves someone in his corner?”
“A good man, who did a bad thing?”
“And needs some help.”
“And needs some help. And we need the money?”
“Yeah, we need the money.”
“Umm.”
“Think it over.” Hopkins got up, sliding her chair back against the wall. She watched Carscadden as he turned his back to her to put the file in his briefcase. He was the man who’d given her a job she wasn’t qualified for, gave her the office basement apartment for free and asked for nothing in return. Of course, that didn’t mean she didn’t want to give him something. If only he’d make a move.
7
“IT’S NOT MUCH, BUT IT’S all mine. And, for the time being, all yours.” Carscadden invited Nastos into his apartment with a wave of his hand. It had mercifully been decorated well enough by previous occupants, but Carscadden seemed not to notice. He had been using his couch as a place to fold laundry — probably during the hockey game — a recycle box was on the floor in the kitchen and there were dirty dishes and glasses all over the living room. Carscadden was a helpless bachelor.
Nastos took his coat off and handed it to Carscadden, who had just put his own coat away in the closet. “Carscadden, I haven’t properly thanked you for what you are doing for me. I can’t tell you how much I owe you for this.” Nastos was tired. The events of the last twenty-four hours were catching up to him.
“To be honest, Nastos, I’ve never heard about much charity coming from lawyers either. They’ll argue charter rights to help some businessman off an impaired driving conviction, but they wouldn’t cross the street to piss on you if you were on fire.” He produced a twisted, sarcastic smile, shaking his head. “Hungry?” Carscadden went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He pointed vaguely down the hall. “Hey, have a look around; you can take the room down on the left.”
Nastos kicked his shoes off and checked out the room that was offered. Carscadden shouted from down the hall, “So, is it Steve, or Nastos, or Detective?”
The room was smallish, ten by ten with a spare single bed that seemed never to have been used. “Better call me Nastos. Everyone does. The only one who calls me Steve is my wife. You start calling me Steve, I . . . I just don’t think it’s a good idea, especially since we’re sharing your condo. How about you? Do people call you Kevin or Carscadden?”
“Friends call me Kevin.”
“Okay, then I’ll call you Carscadden. Nothing personal — just to remind us that we’ve got a business relationship.”
A quick check of the closet revealed a set of spare sheets and a few extra pillows. Nastos tossed them onto the bed for later, then returned to the kitchen to find Carscadden rummaging through the cupboards as if he had never gone through them before.
“What’s for dinner, Mother Hubbard?” Nastos asked.
“Looks like ketchup sandwiches and rock soup, Nastos.” Carscadden closed the cupboards and went for the phone. “I’ll order some pizza. I’ve been meaning to get groceries, but I can’t cook, so I haven’t really got around to it.”
“Is there a store around?” Nastos wanted a good meal after the day he’d had.
“Yeah, there’s a decent grocery place down the street. It’s a good one with a sushi bar and everything. Hey, let’s get some of that, a few California rolls.”
“I’ll tell you what. I love cooking; it’s what I did to get through university. I’ll zip out to the store and pick up something decent. You like fish, steaks, pasta?”
Carscadden did a bad job of suppressing his enthusiasm.
“Hey, it’s not a big deal, we can order in — I wouldn’t want to put you out.” Carscadden raised the phone again, but Nastos was already taking his coat out of the closet and putting his shoes on.
“I get two hours of ror a day, and it’s 4:30 — I have enough time to pick up something good.”
Carscadden put the phone back in its cradle and walked over to the front door.
“Want me to come with you? In case the press or —”
“No, I’m good, but thanks. I need to clear my head.”
THE SIDEWALKS WERE BUSY WITH people coming home from work to Toronto’s gentrified Queen and Spadina area, known as Queen West, full of upscale boutiques, chain stores, restaurants. It’s also the entertainment district and walking distance to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It was the perfect place for a single guy like Carscadden — too bad there was no way he could afford it.
Most people at this time had either got off the city buses, or walked up the dank stairwells from the fluorescent world of the subway system. Narrow side streets were busy with commuters trying to avoid the larger clogged arteries running through the heart of the city, resulting in smaller backlogs that were just as time-consuming. But to Nastos, it was paradise. He wasn’t in the back of a paddy wagon going off to the Don Jail, just across town; he was, for the time being, free.
All he wanted was his daughter on one side and his wife on the other. Being between the two of them was like being between the poles of two magnets. They had their own family language with inside jokes born from inside jokes.
Visual segues flipped through his mind. Where he was born, what his parents were like, his grandfather telling stories about shipwrecks, lost treasures, lost lives and lost souls — none of those things defined him anymore. His years pursuing child molesters — everything was overshadowed by the new story of his life. His daughter had been molested and would never
be the same again. That’s what defined him as a person now, the factoid that people would whisper about him after he left a room or was introduced to someone new. He was the guy who let a monster get his daughter.
He sucked in the cool downtown air through his teeth, tasting the diesel exhaust of city buses, driving people on the brink of poverty to their dead end jobs. It was still better than the inside of the unventilated interrogation room where he’d spent most of the night. It helped clear his mind to recall step by step how he had come to identify Irons.
He found the photograph when he arrested Harper, of two guys with a kid. Harper had eventually had an a-ha moment — courtesy of jolts from a 50,000 volt taser blast into his nuts — and identified one man as his in-law. The other one, Weird Guy, remained elusive.
The picture got tagged, put into evidence and forgotten. That was in February. The first time he ever took Josie to Dr. Irons’ dental office in July, he got the creeps from Irons and didn’t know why. It had been months since Harper’s arrest, and he had seen hundreds of pictures and faces since then. After Harper pled guilty, Nastos checked the picture to see if it had any investigative merit before ordering its destruction. This time he recognized Weird Guy. It was Dr. Irons, the dentist Josie had been going to since they had moved to Port Union three years ago.
Remembering back, she seemed unaffected on the first few visits. Then there were slow changes. He tried to tell himself that warning signs weren’t there because she had been knocked out when it happened, but he knew that wasn’t the entire truth. She had been sore; she had had a tender abdomen, and she began to have nightmares. He was supposed to be an expert, and he had missed it.
He realized that he had clenched his fists, his finger nails digging into the base of his thumbs. He made himself relax.