Cherry Beach Express

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Cherry Beach Express Page 7

by R. D. Cain


  He walked into the grocery store, relieved to see it was new and clean. There was a good fresh selection of just about everything and when the waft of fresh naan bread came from the bakery, Nastos knew it was going to be Indian food for the night. He got everything he needed for Tandoori chicken, naan, curried vegetables. He grabbed some breaded shrimp for an appetizer and something to drink. He took a few moments to pick up some bread and eggs, not trusting Carscadden to be much of a breakfast guy.

  By chance, he passed a phone kiosk. He grabbed a blank Pay-As-You-Go phone and a few phone cards, knowing that an untraceable cell could always come in handy. He glanced at his watch. It was 5:40. Time to go, I have to be back at six — it’s going to be close. He paid for his things at the cashier and began walking back quickly to Carscadden’s place.

  Nastos passed store fronts, some with angled glass. A reflection caught his eye — a man holding a Sony camera. At first, he was concerned when he realized he was being followed. Someone, likely Koche, had someone following him right now to catch him out late so his bail would get revoked and Nastos would go to jail for the rest of the trial. But automotive surveillance was very easy to spot once you knew how, and even easier to defeat. Nastos didn’t have time to backtrack, cross the street or go into stores to aggravate whoever might be following him, though. He had a deadline and had to make it. If anyone really wanted to catch him, they could also just randomly go to Carscadden’s door at all hours and knock. If Nastos was not there, he could kiss his freedom goodbye.

  Near the apartment, he saw a commotion on the sidewalk involving a small crowd of half a dozen people and a homeless man. As Nastos got closer, he saw that the homeless man was spinning in circles, shouting to the universe and swinging an empty liquor bottle at anyone trying to sneak past him. The road was too busy with traffic to get around that way and the only other way involved plowing through a cedar hedge and climbing over a four-foot fence. The man was wearing a greyish overcoat and looked surprisingly clean. His drug-addict-like gauntness stuck out to Nastos, since many homeless people were far from emaciated.

  Nastos read his watch. 5:58 p.m. Screw this. He put all of the grocery bags into his left hand and charged forward at a fast walk. Nastos thought he caught the slightest smirk from the man’s lips and for the briefest of moments he thought that he had seen the man before. But all homeless people acted and smelled the same, didn’t they? The man’s teeth clenched and he swung the bottle directly at Nastos. A woman from the crowd of blocked pedestrians shrieked while Nastos flinched, taking the strike across his shoulder and face. The glass bottle careened to the ground and smashed to pieces. Nastos charged the man, shoulder-ramming him to the ground. The homeless man reached up to grab Nastos’ collar and pulled him to the ground on top of him. Their eyes met. Nastos realized that he wasn’t homeless and that he seemed familiar.

  The man gasped and caught his breath, smiling at Nastos.

  “Looks like you’re going to be late for your curfew, Nastos.” The man checked his watch.

  Nastos pushed himself up to his feet and grabbed the bag of groceries. The man on the ground held up his hand and took a picture of Nastos with his watch in the foreground. Nastos gave him the finger. “Whoever the fuck you are,” Nastos began, “stay the hell away from me, if you know what’s good for you.”

  “I’m just getting started with you, Detective.”

  Nastos backed warily away from him and turned to walk down the street. He never noticed the Buick parked at the curb where a man was recording everything with a video camera.

  As Nastos approached the apartment, he did see a squad car parked out front. There were two cops sitting in the car and an ominous vacancy in the back seat. Nastos went right to the front door of the building.

  A voice shouted from the cruiser, “Hey Nastos.”

  He turned to see an officer he didn’t recognize. He didn’t need to check his watch to know it was after six. “Yeah?”

  “We got a call that you were out on your own and were going to breach; looks like someone finds you interesting.”

  The officer was in his late thirties. Word was likely out that whoever caught him breaching was probably making a good career move. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Anytime.” That was one cop not interested in making a name for himself; the last solid cop in the entire country. Nastos considered that he was probably supposed to have gotten into a longer confrontation with the man disguised as a vagrant; if he could just put a name to the face. Whoever it was, it was a set-up.

  He trudged up the stairs, glancing back briefly when the squad car pulled away. If different cops had been called and he was found out past curfew, in a fight just hours after being released, he’d already be on his way to jail for the rest of the trial. Going to have to be more careful, Nastos.

  CARSCADDEN HAD THE APARTMENT MOSTLY cleaned and was sitting on the couch in front of the TV by the time Nastos walked back in with the groceries. Clothes had been packed away, the dishes washed and stacked. Carscadden didn’t seem to notice any marks on Nastos’ face, but his cheek still hurt like hell.

  He smiled at the full bags of food being dropped on the kitchen counter. “The hockey game’s on in an hour.”

  Nastos began emptying the bags. “Good; you like Indian food?”

  “Oh yeah, I love that stuff. You can make it?”

  “Yeah, I dated a girl once — she was a pro. She taught me a thing or two.”

  Carscadden reached forward to the coffee table, cracked open his briefcase and started going through Nastos’ court brief. “There’s beer in the fridge.”

  Nastos was getting dinner started when Carscadden walked over to the bar stool, bringing the court brief with him.

  “So, Detective, what do you know about the prosecutor here, Ms. Dewar?”

  Nastos opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. “She’s from Appeals, probably pretty smart.”

  “Do you know anything about her personally?” Carscadden flipped through a few pages.

  “No, nothing personally. I mean, I think I heard she’s dating a woman, so if your defense strategy included sleeping with her you might want to save yourself some trouble and go right to plan B.” Nastos washed his hands and started separating the chicken meat from the bone on the cutting board.

  “You kidding me? She dresses like she’s on the hunt for a man.”

  “She used to date guys way back, so I guess she’s bi. Maybe she just likes to dress for success. I guess you haven’t taken her on before?”

  Carscadden shook his head. “I wish. It would be nice to know her better. I’m wondering if she smells a promotion in this mess?”

  “Forget about Dewar — the problem is the other two. Jeff Scott and Dave Koche, they’re political. They smell blood in the water and want to get the biggest bites out of the bloodbath.” Nastos rinsed his hands again then put the chicken in a wok. He put the cutting board in the sink, then started on the potatoes. “Carscadden, how did you get Kalmakov off his charges?”

  Carscadden shook his head, putting his drink down. “I got lucky. There were no witnesses and forensics was sloppy. Plus he had a rock-solid alibi; the prosecution eventually had to seek a stay in the proceedings and after a year the charges were withdrawn. There was also no compelling motive for Kalmakov; he barely knew the guys that were killed. Kalmakov thought I was a miracle worker though.

  “Your mess, on the other hand, is a dream motive as far as the prosecution goes. It’s nearly justifiable homicide, for Christ’s sake. They must be thinking that if our case is weak we’ll pull that card and beg for the jury’s mercy. It might even work, you know. But I think it would be premature to go that way. Let’s see what the prosecution is able to prove first.”

  “Did you ever have kids, Carscadden?” Nastos spiced and oiled the chicken, flipping the wok, and put the cubed potatoes in a pot, starting the burner.


  “No, thank god. Not that I don’t like kids, I love kids, but not with that bitch. You must miss your little girl.”

  “My father told me that when I first held a child of my own, the first thing I would think would be the first thing that all fathers think.”

  “And what is that?” Carscadden finished his Coke, then went back to the fridge to get another.

  “That I would do anything to protect her, that I would do anything for her. He was right. I didn’t even need to complete the sentence for myself. I just held her and this feeling came over me. I felt this connection when I saw her little face. Her eyes opened and she looked up at me so calmly — she was so content, she didn’t cry or fuss. I guess she was exhausted from being born. I would do anything for her. I had doubted my ability to have that instinct but I guess it’s in all of us just waiting to come out.” Nastos wanted to have her with him now, to smell her skin. Even if I couldn’t do much to make her feel better, at least she wouldn’t have to be going through this without me. “She’s not doing very well,” he added. “I should be there.”

  “I can’t even imagine. All I can say is I’m sorry.”

  Nastos blinked and avoided eye contact. “If I had only come across this guy a few months earlier —” Nastos did not want to finish the thought, not even for his lawyer.

  “Isn’t that the foundational regret of mankind: if I only knew then what I know now?”

  Nastos agreed. “I guess it is.”

  Carscadden spoke as if he’d finally made the emotional connection to the case. “I’ll do everything I can, Nastos, whatever it takes.”

  During dinner, they talked about everything except court. How the Teacher’s Pension Fund ruined professional sports in Ontario. They talked about politics and both answered what they would do with ten million dollars. Kevin Carscadden never asked his client if he had murdered the man, and Detective Nastos never made any declarations of innocence.

  While Carscadden watched the last period of hockey, Nastos went to his bedroom. He called home to speak to his wife but there was no answer. She was either out showing a house or she was at a counselling session with Josie — or she was just avoiding him. He didn’t leave a voice message, deciding to send a text instead. Call me when you can, he typed.

  He lay back in the stiff, narrow spare bed, but after an hour or so he knew he couldn’t sleep. Despite being up all night being interrogated and sitting in a sweaty courtroom all day, it was impossible to lay back and do nothing. Anxiety about going to jail was eating him alive. It was time to do something.

  He returned to the tv room and found Carscadden asleep on the couch. At the front door, he put on a jacket, took a house key from the man’s key ring and locked the door behind him.

  MR. WHITMORE WAS AS GOOD a place to start as any. the reporters didn’t have to scratch too far beneath the man’s surface to find free-floating hostility. Every time he was on tv, he was losing his mind. While he waited for the elevator to take him to street level, Nastos thought about the ridiculous interrogation Detective Clancy Brown had tried. Defective Brown’s secret to success, Nastos knew, had been joining the local Masonic Lodge. Lacking imagination was a career limiter in the police service — unless you made the right friends. Nastos couldn’t think of a relevant question he had asked during his entire interrogation. Brown just repeated the same thing a hundred times too many, “Just confess, Nastos, you’ll feel better.”

  He left Carscadden’s condo through a back door, jumped the fence and walked through the back alley. He saw a city bus coming and took it to the subway station. He’d rather have walked or taken a cab, but the ttc was better for anonymity. Unlike a taxi company, no one could call the ttc later and ask if they picked a guy up in a certain area at a certain time. He took the northbound train to St. George, then headed east to Kennedy where he caught the 86a Scarborough bus east along Lawrence. After about an hour he found himself in front of Whitmore’s. It was a detached house on Lawrence Avenue near Meadowvale, just a mile from the closest police station, Forty-Three Division.

  He took out his pay-as-you-go phone and dialled the number. No answer. He dialled again. No answer again, until the third ring.

  “Hello?” It was a woman, Whitmore’s wife.

  Nastos said, “I need to talk to your husband.”

  “Who’s calling?” she asked.

  I should have had something ready to say. “It’s work. We have a situation.” He hoped that Whitmore wasn’t retired, or laid off.

  She didn’t speak to him again; instead he heard the phone being jostled around and some muffled talking.

  “Yeah?” asked a groggy voice.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  There was the sound of movement, some creaking, then the click of a light coming on. “Who the hell is this?”

  Nastos took a breath. “I’m out front right now, take a look.”

  There was more noise, then a curtain was pulled back and a face peered out. Nastos was standing under a streetlight. He waved.

  “I thought you were under house arrest?”

  “That’s why you’re not going to tell anyone who you’re speaking to. Not even your wife.”

  The phone went dead. The face disappeared from the window, and the light turned off. A moment later, the porch light came on and the door opened. Whitmore was wearing a bathrobe and construction boots. He walked up to Nastos, who met him on the porch.

  Whitmore pointed around the back of the house. “By the garage, out of the wind.”

  Nastos walked there, then turned around just in time to catch a heavy punch to the jaw. He collapsed to the ground, banging the back of his head on the garage’s brick wall.

  Whitmore was on him immediately. He ripped Nastos’ jacket open and frisked him down. “You wearing a wire, cop? This some kind of fuck-over?”

  Nastos let him finish his search. When Whitmore began to back away, Nastos pushed the man’s hands off and pulled his jacket closed. What does he have to hide that he asks if I have a wire? Who calls it a wire anymore?

  “Get up,” Whitmore said. “Now what the hell can I help you with?”

  Nastos got to his feet, deciding whether to reply to the man in kind. He adjusted his coat. “I’ll make this quick. Where were you on the night of August fourteenth?”

  “You asking me if I killed that asshole? If I feel like taking your place at the defense table?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve, my friend.” Whitmore stuck his chest out and raised a defiant chin, daring Nastos to come at him.

  On my own terms, jackass. Nastos began, “I couldn’t care less if you killed him, it’s just that I didn’t and I don’t feel like spending the rest of my life in jail.”

  “And?”

  “And if you can point me in a direction, on my daughter’s life, I’ll make sure you’re never implicated.”

  Whitmore softened a little, his shoulders dropped and his lower lip pursed; he was considering. “I must have read you all wrong, Nastos. I just figured that you did it.”

  “Part of me wishes I did,” he said.

  “Me too,” Whitmore agreed. “Me too. I mean I wish I did it, but I didn’t.”

  There was a silence during which neither knew what to say. Whitmore held a hand out. “Sorry about the greeting; I had no idea what a cop was doing at my door.”

  He’s guilty of something, just not this. Nastos shook Whitmore’s hand. “You deck all the cops that come by?”

  “No, just the ones under house arrest who can’t say shit about it.” He spat on the ground and glared at Nastos. “Don’t think that what happened to my boy makes us pals. I just don’t think you need to go to jail.”

  A car came to a stop at the end of the driveway. A squad car. Nastos felt his blood run cold. Whitmore shrugged. “I told my wife to call if I wasn’t
back within two minutes. Guess she jumped the gun.”

  Nastos rubbed his jaw. “Runs in the family.”

  Whitmore pointed into blackness. “Go through the backyard. Watch the wife’s garden.”

  The cruiser’s spotlight flashed past them, then came back to their position. Nastos took off into the dark. He was still seeing stars from the intensity of the spotlight when he stumbled through the small garden, knocked down a panel of cheap metal fencing and crashed into a wooden shed.

  He heard Whitmore shouting as a cop shoved past him, treating him like he had dealt with him before. Whitmore had a certain disdain for the officer and it seemed mutual.

  Nastos half-climbed, half-broke through the fence and plowed into the next yard. From here there was more light. He twisted his upper body and barely squeezed between two houses. Grit from wet bricks scraped the front and back of his coat. He looked back into the dazzle of a flashlight. The cop on foot was thinner and faster than Nastos. He was closing the distance.

  It was tough, but he made himself slow down, feigning more fatigue than he felt. Out on the street, he ran to the light so he’d be backlit, his face obscured. When he heard the officer’s footsteps closing in, he zagged suddenly to the left so that the officer would be on his right side. It was all about the timing. He hit the brakes and drove his elbow back at face level. Contact. The cop’s feet flew up in the air as his body careened past. He hit the ground hard.

  The anti-authoritarian streak in Nastos took a little pleasure in hitting a cop, but really it was just about getting away. Trying to hide was not an option. If the cops wanted him badly enough, they’d get the dog out and he wouldn’t stand a chance. All he could do was run. He crossed Lawrence Avenue — four lanes of well-lit roadway — and jumped the fence leading down to Colonel Danforth Park. It was a nearly sheer drop-off, one hundred feet down, over earth covered in pine needles and low foliage to a river below. Reluctantly, he crossed through two-degree, thigh-deep water after finding no other option, then took a trail south to the shore of Lake Ontario. By this time, he was good and cold. He wouldn’t be warm until he could get himself dry, which meant getting new clothes — and that wasn’t going to happen until he got back to Carscadden’s. He pushed himself another two miles east to the Port Union Plaza, the whole way expecting a helicopter, police dog or a pissed-off cop to find him.

 

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