Cherry Beach Express

by R. D. Cain

  “If you’re trying to get a deal on the commission, it’s not working.” Madeleine offered a weak smile and slid her hand into her purse.

  She uses humour when she’s uncomfortable. How cute. “I wouldn’t expect a deal; I hear you’re going through hard times.”

  “Excuse me?” She stopped in place.

  North saw that he was coming on too strong and tried to back off a little. “Sorry, I don’t mean anything personal — just, you know how invasive the media is. Must be awful with everything going on, your husband going to jail.”

  Her voice was harsh. “It’s nothing — we — can’t handle. You want to see the back deck?” He had wanted to keep her off balance longer. He figured that he had pushed her too hard and too fast. He tried to pull her back in.

  “Your husband is a hero for killing that fucker as far as I’m concerned. Did he tell you he was going to do it or was it just a nice surprise?”

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and examined the screen. “Listen, I have a client texting me to see if I’m going to be long. I have another appointment soon — are we done here?”

  “That all depends. Don’t you want to show me the master bedroom?” He walked toward her, reaching out to run his hand down the side of her body. He could feel the firm lean muscle and perfect hourglass shape.

  Madeleine stepped back, breathlessly recoiling from his touch. She stared at his neck, her perfect full lips mouthing the word tattooed there: Troublesome.

  “Admit it, you need a good fuck, you’re due.” North eyed her carefully, expecting her just to admit that she wanted it. He was pretty surprised when she drove her knee into his balls, dropping him immediately to his knees. She pushed past him, barging down the stairs. She fumbled for her cell phone. It slipped and danced between her fingers before she grabbed it and stuffed it in her purse.

  North got to his feet angrily and focused his eyes on her fleeing form. He ran down the stairs after her, only touching the steps twice. He smashed the partially closed front door open, his eyes searching for her wildly. He saw her running up to the driver’s door of her car and he locked on her like the old vampire chasing the terrified woman in a 1940s horror movie. He could smell her fear and see paralysis nearly holding her rigid.

  Madeleine forced herself to turn her back on him as he charged her. She hit the wireless lock release and nearly dove into the car. She got in and locked the door, then jammed the key into the ignition. She already had the pedal to the floor when she put the car in gear, screeching away from the house as North kicked and missed at the driver’s side panel.

  She took the corner with her phone up to her ear. If you’re calling the office, Madeleine, it’s a waste of time. I gave them a bullshit name.

  DAVE KOCHE TRUDGED FORWARD, HANDS stuffed deep within his pockets and shoulders slumped forward as he passed the darkened storefront windows on King Street West. It was a quiet and anonymous night, with only passing traffic from the occasional streetcar filled with glum, nameless faces and the red flashes of brake lights from the slowed cars.

  His breath smoked behind him as if it were steam from his overheated and overactive mind. It was all about the trial. Everything rested on a conviction — it was his career and reputation on the line, diametrically opposed to that of Nastos. Koche had been the first to see that the evidence pointed to one of their own, and when he saw that it was Nastos, he couldn’t resist. He essentially branded himself on the front page of the paper as the face of anti-corruption. He owned the story. This trial represented laying one of the last foundational stones for his move to lead the organization. When Prosecutor Jeff Scott and the Police Service Board chose the next chief, they would appear tough on corruption and become heroes to the left-wing fanatics who ran the city.

  He loved the fact that he was getting so much mileage from the misfortunes of none other than Nastos. He thought back to when the first allegation that Nastos was smacking around his prisoners came across his desk at the Professional Standards Bureau. It had confirmed his suspicions — not that Nastos was doing anything wrong by hurting people, just that he was too sloppy. He didn’t mind cops doing what they had to do, but embarrassing the service while doing it ruined it for everyone.

  He had seized the opportunity to make a name for himself by burying Nastos. But when Nastos wasn’t convicted, Koche’s reputation took a hit. When his tenure ran up and he had to leave the Bureau, he got transferred to the Sexual Assault unit to finish what he had begun earlier. Convinced that Nastos was dirty, Koche felt that he was getting a chance for redemption.

  Being Nastos’ boss for the next two years only intensified his hatred. The cocky dick talked back to him, questioned every administrative decision Koche made. He had no respect for authority, was obstinate and just impossible to manage. Koche knew that Nastos’ insubordination could become like a cancer in the unit and that he needed to deal with it. Well, now the asshole is going to jail — so that’ll show him and the rest of the idiots what that attitude gets you.

  There was only one problem, and her name was Dewar. She had gone from being the biggest shark in the prosecution office to having as much killer instinct as goldfish, and at this point it all rested on her. He never thought a prosecutor her number of years in, with her conviction rate, could be such a lightweight when it mattered most. Broads. She was cracking under the pressure. Koche thought back to how bloodthirsty Scott had been back in his day. If only he could take over the case, Nastos would be in jail by the end of the first day. But Scott had been promoted and now he was just a glorified pencil-pusher. It was up to that bitch, and Koche hated it.

  A swinging metal sign above his head caught his attention and he pulled open the door to the Irish pub, the Templar. Inside, immersed in the sudden warmth and life of the vibrant place, he smelled the house stew and lukewarm dark ale, stale fumes of which seemed to radiate from the plank floorboards. Stained glass, Celtic symbols, an old mahogany bar — if the building had been a few hundred years older it would have been the real thing. Koche smiled slightly.

  Koche found Scott in the corner of a private room. There were almost a dozen older men sitting around a table in their dishevelled business suits, nursing beers and talking political strategy. Scott was speaking quietly to the man to his right. Koche took a seat on the other side of Scott, reaching awkwardly around him to grab a fistful of peanuts from the communal bowl.

  “I’m not going public until I get all the soft money together. I want to hit the airwaves the day I announce,” Scott was saying. He turned, obviously a little perturbed by Koche’s intrusive reach. “Detective Koche, nice to see you here.” He forced a smile.

  “I need a quick word, Jeff; we have a situation — something we need to get squared away.” One of the men at the table, a white man in his fifties, turned and smiled at the expression. Koche noted the man’s Masonic ring, then put together that all of the men here would be Freemasons like him and Scott. He had resented that he had had to join up for his career aspirations. But he hadn’t found joining as painful as having to donate some of his drug money to the group just to make a good impression to the police chief and two of the deputies, who were also Masons. The promotion that came shortly after took some of the sting out of the financial loss.

  No one runs for office in this town without their support if they want to win. Koche smiled at the man while tapping his ring on the table. All the expressions related to medieval tools. Compass, anvil, square — you met a stranger and knew he was a Mason in five seconds. Koche didn’t like the chumminess per se, but it came in handy when you wanted to get somewhere. When the waitress came into the private room, he caught her attention and ordered a dark ale.

  Koche wasn’t too keen on the idea of going back out into the cool night to talk to Scott, so they ended up at the back of the bar by a nearly obsolete pay phone. The phone was only there as a courtesy so the married customers could call th
eir girlfriends without fear of generating problematic billing statements on their cells. A gentle din of conversation was just loud enough for them to talk without concern of being overheard.

  “Koche, I’m not really in a position to get in the courtroom and see what’s going on — I’d draw too much attention. What’s your concern?”

  “Your pep talk with Dewar didn’t work — she just doesn’t have it in her. She’s not emotionally involved. How can the jury be outraged and hungry for blood if she treats this like a shoplifting case?” Without waiting for Scott to answer, he continued. “They need to read her body language and see revulsion. She’s not you, she’s a woman. They make good nags but awful lawyers.”

  Scott exhaled. “Mat leave, pms, human rights complaints, yeah, I know. I’ve been the chief prosecutor for years now. And for all the crap I put up with, they’re just barely effective at their jobs. But Dewar actually is a good lawyer. The trial coordinator gave her the case. I could have overridden it but I didn’t.”

  Koche lamented. “I know — in Appeals she owned the courtroom.”

  “Well, I actually thought she could do this one too. And if she looks good then it reflects positively on me for mentoring her.” Scott took a slug of his beer.

  Koche was silent for a moment, thinking over Scott’s reasoning.

  Scott started again, “I’ll just have to lay out the whole thing for her. I’ll have to spoon-feed her the whole trial.” He nodded like he was making a mental note to himself.

  Koche had a lot of respect for Scott. The prosecutor was one of the few people he considered to be as smart as himself. Scott wasn’t just going to use the victory for personal advantage, but also his choice of the prosecutor, an up-and-coming female visible minority. The man could operate on several levels at once. Then Scott hit him with the type of comment that showed he was ready to get his hands dirty to win.

  “It sure would be nice to see what Carscadden has in store for us,” Scott said.

  “It would, eh?”

  “Well, it sure wouldn’t hurt.”

  Koche tapped a finger to his lip, trying to think how he could make that happen. A name came to mind: North.

  “Are you banging Dewar, Scott?” Koche asked.

  Scott tightened at the bluntness of the question. “No, I’m not, sorry to say. Since she pumped out or bought that little half-breed of hers, I think she prefers to stick to her own kind.”

  Koche shuddered. “She only screws other Pakis?”

  “She’s Indian, but no, she likes the ladies, or at least that’s what the rumour is, Dave.”

  Koche was caught off guard by that one. His eyes glazed over as if he was thinking about something that was pretty engrossing. A wicked smile crept across his lips. He shook his head. Maybe he would finish that thought off a little later. “You know Scott, about the files, I’ve got a guy who does —”

  “I don’t want to know about that,” Scott said, cutting him off.

  “No problem. I just have to make a phone call.”

  “And Dave?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell your guy to find something specific, a client list for the dentist. It was supposed to be in the case brief in the prosecution office, but it wasn’t there — I’ve gone through it twice.”

  “Sure thing,” Koche made a mental note. “But what’s so important about it?”

  “Well, everyone on the list has a motive for murdering the guy. I saw a vetted list, but we need to know everyone on the list. I don’t want this Carscadden character to be in a position to distract the jury with reasonable doubt surprises right before deliberations. It’s a little Perry Mason, but showy stuff like that works, and I don’t want any part of it.”

  Koche smiled; Scott hadn’t lost his touch. “I’ll tell him to copy absolutely everything in the files, then to have a look around just in case.”

  Scott didn’t want to bring up one last point but he decided that later, he would just say it had been the booze talking. “There is one more thing, Koche.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There is evidence that Nastos was in the area of the murder when it happened, but it isn’t one hundred percent. I’d like one hundred percent for Ms. Dewar, something she can’t stickhandle away.”

  Koche tried to think of something, but couldn’t. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “I suggest that there should be an eyewitness.” Scott watched him for a reaction, for any kind of a nervous flinch. Of course, there wasn’t.

  “That’s a good idea, Scott, a great idea.” Possibilities ran through his mind. North? No, he’s too hot, maybe one of his morons. “I think I can come up with something, someone. It’ll work for a few bucks.”

  “Obtain a statement from the witness and get it to me. I’ll see that Dewar gets the information, the statement, and that she gets the man on the stand before he gets any funny ideas, like backing out.”

  “Just like old times.”

  15

  NASTOS AND CARSCADDEN SAT ON THE couch finishing dinner and watching the hockey game. They had the volume up but Nastos didn’t have much interest in the action on-screen. “You know, Carscadden, as a guy from Kitsilano, I thought you’d be too high-brow to be a Leafs fan. I took you for a guy who’d be into culture, opera, crap like that.”

  “I’ve always been a Leafs fan — so many of the players are from a short drive from here.”

  “They suck, though. They’re so bad it actually hurts to watch.”

  “True fans like the Leafs because they suck,” Carscadden began. “They’ll never win, they’ll always be losers, and that’s the point. They keep on fighting the good fight. It’s the management team, the teacher’s union that owns them and insists on a ten-percent return on money, that puts profits over the fans. They take the Leaf Nation for granted, but you can’t blame the players.”

  Nastos went to the kitchen. “Well, while you’re getting taken for granted, I’m taking the last of the chicken.”

  “Be my guest — you made it anyways. I haven’t eaten this well in years. Hell, after this trial, you should kill my ex-wife and we can have this much fun again.”

  Without diverting his eyes from the screen, Carscadden answered the phone on the first ring, a flinch reaction the Leafs’ goalie could have used.

  “Hello? Hey, how are you? . . . Sure, he’s right here.” He covered the mouthpiece and turned toward Nastos. “It’s your wife.”

  Nastos put his loaded plate down and came to get the phone. “Hey, thanks. Turn the game back up, I’ll go out on the balcony.”

  Nastos opened the patio door and stepped outside. The air was humid and warm. This wasn’t the best area of town, but at night with the city lights and clear sky, the view was beautiful. The thick oily smell of sun-heated asphalt was nearly absent. Instead, there was a mild scent of curry and coriander from a distant neighbour mixed with the smells of heated concrete and masonry from the city’s walls.

  Nastos took a seat in one of the folding patio chairs and put his feet up on the railing. “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “Fine, how’s the bachelor pad?” she asked.

  Great, he thought. By the tone of her voice, she’s already preoccupied.

  “I don’t remember it being this lonely, to be honest. I guess back then I had you coming over as often as I could persuade you.” He smiled but didn’t get the response he wanted. She didn’t answer.

  “It’d be nice to see you in court sometime.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “I know you have.”

  She elaborated, “I’m trying to work more, Josie’s a handful, the media are all over the trial.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. I understand.”

  Her voice was hushed. Maybe she didn’t want Josie to hear. “Nastos, what the hell have you done to us?”

 
He took a moment to figure out how best to play this one. She was a tough girl, but things were obviously getting to her more than he thought they would. He was a little disappointed, but not surprised. “They’re trying to screw me over, plain and simple.”

  “Trying to screw you over? No, they have screwed you over. You’re going to jail, Steve, take a good look around.” He could imagine her sitting up in bed, under the covers. There’d be a box of Kleenex not far away. She only called him by his first name when she was pissed.

  “Listen, Madeleine, it’s —”

  “Josie is really confused about all of this,” she cut him off. “She thinks you’re convicted already and that she’ll never see her father again.” He heard her blow her nose.

  “I didn’t ask for this, but it could have been worse. If I was denied bail I would have lost my job automatically. It’s a condition of my employment not to go to jail. This bail, being away from you and Josie, it’s just going to justify a larger financial settlement when I get exonerated. I’m not going to go to jail for this. Milgaard, Truscott, Driskell. Those are just the wrongly convicted we know about. How many more were wrongly prosecuted but were exonerated at trial? I’m going to be cleared, then the lawsuit will be our early retirement. Freedom Forty-Five.”

  She wasn’t convinced. “That’s comforting, thanks for that. I tried to show a house yesterday and the buyer turned out to be a pervert who works for the local news — this is getting ridiculous.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle, don’t worry about it.”

  And with that he knew why she had really called. Someone had gotten to her and he was powerless to help her. “I’m sorry you have to go through this. I wish there was something I could do.”