“I need answers to a few simple questions.” Greene pointed to his unfinished doughnut. “You want that? I’m done.”
Lindsmore took a napkin and wrapped it up.
“Thanks,” he said. “What simple questions?”
“Fox. Was he on the police radar? Did he have a criminal record? Had he ever been investigated?”
“Okay. He didn’t have a record. There were rumours he was a cokehead. But that was a few years ago. Nothing ever added up to an arrest. Tax guys from Ottawa audited him a few years ago and apparently he was clean as a whistle, down to the last penny.”
“What about Cassandra Amberlight?”
“Shit. Ari.” He took a second swig of his coffee, not quite as big as the last.
This was going to be the hard part. Greene had to push him.
“Kennicott told me you lifted her prints from the work shed where they found the body.”
“She’s your client?”
“I assume she’s one of the prime suspects.”
“As in the prime suspect,” Lindsmore said.
“I’m taking her to headquarters tomorrow afternoon to be interviewed by Kennicott. I think she might be innocent. Someone could have set her up.”
“The way Hap Charlton set you up?”
Greene looked Lindsmore in the eye and nodded. Slowly.
“Let’s not dwell in the past,” he said. “Amberlight’s problem is that she’s got a lot of baggage. Kennicott told me she has some old convictions that she’d got expunged. I need to see everything she did.”
“I get it. You want to make sure she’s not leaving anything out when Kennicott has her on tape and under oath, so the interview doesn’t blow up in her face at the trial.” Lindsmore, for all his down-on-his-luck trappings, was street smart in the way a cop could be only after years on the force.
“We’ve both seen it,” Greene said. “Someone misleads the cops about some small thing, and the prosecutors hang them out to dry in front of the jury on a stupid, irrelevant lie.”
Lindsmore finished his coffee and plopped his empty cup down. “She’s telling you she’s innocent as the fallen snow and you’re not sure, are you?”
Greene didn’t answer. His old colleague was right. He wasn’t sure.
Lindsmore broke the silence. “Last Wednesday night, I took Carl to the St. Louis Grill for wings, and he asked if he could come live with me. You told me a long time ago to hang in and he’d come back to me—best advice I ever got. I need an hour. Where do you want me to leave this brown envelope?”
“My car is an old reconditioned black Mercedes with a wood steering wheel. I’ll park it two blocks north of your station and leave the back passenger-side window open a crack. Here’s my licence number.”
Greene wrote it down on a napkin.
Lindsmore picked up the napkin, looked at it, tore it in half, then in half again. He stuffed it into his empty paper cup, crushed it, and passed it to Greene.
“Don’t get up,” he said, lumbering to his feet. “Just get rid of that cup.”
25
Kennicott had learned from Greene how important it was to go back to the crime scene the day after a murder and walk around it again. Think about it. Try to visualize what happened.
Augusta Avenue was coming to life as Kennicott walked along, sipping one of the lattes he’d just bought from Jimmy’s Café. In such a modern, well-ordered city Kensington Market was a throwback to an earlier time. Its streets were packed with specialty stores, whose wares spilled out onto crowded sidewalks. They sold everything from fish, meat, and chicken to bread, nuts, cheese, and spices. He strolled past used-clothing boutiques, bicycle repair shops, cheap open-air restaurants, and graffiti-filled back alleys. The pervasive smell of marijuana hung lightly in the air.
But was the market worth being preserved the way the protesters were demanding? He wasn’t sure. Some of the buildings looked so dilapidated that, with the price of real estate in the city exploding, he couldn’t imagine they’d be standing in ten, even five years.
The construction site was still sealed off with police tape, and officers were posted outside the front gate as he’d ordered. He showed his badge and walked through to the shed. Detective Ho, wearing plastic booties and gloves and a hairnet, was waiting for him outside, chatting with Darvesh.
“Lattes. Double shots,” Kennicott said, passing a cup to each of them.
“Just what the doctor ordered.” Ho peeled back the lid and took a drink. “Been a long night.”
“Thank you,” Darvesh said.
“How did it go?” Kennicott asked Ho.
“We combed through the whole building site. Except for the shed where the body was, we didn’t find a drop of blood anywhere.” He looked at Darvesh. “You two suit up. Then I can take you inside.”
Darvesh produced two sets of protective gear, and he and Kennicott quickly slipped them on. Inside the shed, the body was gone and it was even hotter than yesterday. LED lights had been set up in the corners, flooding the room with a harsh white luminance. Two technicians were on their hands and knees on the floor. A third was examining a side wall, inch by inch. On the floor, thin yellow arrows pointed at tiny dots of blood nearby. Every item in the room had been tagged and labeled.
“No sign of struggle anywhere, is there?” Kennicott said.
“Not a thing,” Ho said. “Only in Toronto would a developer get murdered with construction materials and not even put up a fight.”
Kennicott laughed, then caught the look on Darvesh’s face. They both knew Ho would be happy to keep talking, and they had things to do.
“We’re going to look around the alley.”
Outside the shed, they took off their protective gear and left through the back gate, where two other police officers were standing guard. Kennicott had ordered that the gate not be touched and was happy to see it was still open the way he’d found it yesterday.
“You interviewed the site superintendent,” he said to Darvesh. “He confirmed there were no surveillance cameras back here, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Claudio Bassante. He said Fox didn’t want any.”
They walked to where the alley turned south and Kennicott peered up at the buildings lining the east side. “And there are no cameras in the alleyway.”
“None. The places that face Spadina would have a camera out front, if they have one at all. On the west side, it’s mostly rundown rooming houses.”
“Hiding in plain sight,” Kennicott said. “It’s a perfect spot for Fox to meet someone in secret.”
“Right. Someone such as Cassandra Amberlight. Her fingerprints were on one of the glasses inside Fox’s shed. Rebar is heavy, but she’s a big woman. She and Fox hated each other, and she’d just organized the rally against him.”
“True,” Kennicott said.
“To which she showed up at late. And Fox went to great lengths yesterday to make sure no one knew where he was. Maybe he’d arranged a secret meeting with Amberlight and things went wrong. They struggled. Maybe he fell and knocked himself out when he hit the ground. And then maybe . . .”
“Maybe.”
“She had motive and opportunity,” Darvesh said.
“I know,” Kennicott said.
Damned if he was going to rush to a conclusion and arrest the wrong person again. He looked down the alley.
“How did Amberlight get here unseen?” he asked. “Everyone in Kensington knows her. She’d tower over half the crowd. She must have come this way, but it looks like a dead end.”
He started walking down the south leg of the alley. Darvesh followed him. Kennicott mentally counted his strides. It took one hundred and twenty to get to the fence at the bottom. It had a hole in it, large enough for even a big person to step through. There, a small path to his right took them to Oxford, the east-west street between Spadina and Augusta. Directly across Oxford, there was another alley leading south to Nassau Street, where Amberlight lived above a cheese shop.
Th
is must have been her route, Kennicott thought. She had walked through her home turf unseen. But why would Cassandra Amberlight, of all people, have met with Livingston Fox?
And how could she have got into the construction site if Fox hadn’t opened the back gate for her?
26
“Good morning, Cassandra,” Greene said as he walked into Ted DiPaulo’s spacious kitchen, which overlooked his backyard and the lush valley below. DiPaulo, who was an excellent cook, was making a large omelette filled with asparagus, spinach, and goat cheese. It smelled wonderful.
Amberlight sat in a corner by the sliding glass doors, slumped in a soft chair. She looked worn down, exposed, and vulnerable, like a performer who’d taken off her wig and makeup after a show.
“Hello.” Her voice was flat.
Last night, after the three of them had met on Greene’s front porch, they’d come here and talked for hours, until Amberlight was exhausted. Greene told her to get some rest, and she’d slept over in DiPaulo’s guest bedroom.
Amberlight stared at the floor. She was a defence lawyer’s nightmare: arrogant, defensive, suspicious, evasive, self-absorbed, confrontational. But was she a killer?
“I just spoke to Detective Kennicott, the officer in charge of the case,” he told her.
“What?” She slammed her hand on the armrest and sat up straight. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“They’re looking for you.”
“I thought you were working for us.”
“I thought they should know that whoever killed Fox hadn’t killed you too.”
“Oh,” Amberlight said. “As if the cops care.”
“Now Kennicott knows you’re getting legal advice and that you’re not on the run.”
“I’m hardly on the run, more like a prisoner,” she snapped.
“Kennicott wants to talk to you. He wants to hear your alibi and why you disappeared after the demonstration. I said I hoped to bring you into the Homicide office soon.”
“Soon, what does soon mean?”
“I said tomorrow afternoon. I assumed Ted needed more time to prepare you.”
“I’d like to have a week,” DiPaulo said, jumping into the conversation. “If she’s going to give a sworn statement, this is not a simple matter.”
“I know. But the longer you wait, the weaker her alibi becomes.”
“What did you promise him?” DiPaulo asked.
“I told him I think Cassandra is innocent and that she should make a statement. It planted a seed of doubt. But I warned him that her lawyer would try to shut her up.”
DiPaulo chuckled. “On very rare occasions I tell my clients it would be best if they talked to the police. Very, very rare.”
“I don’t get it,” Cassandra said, her face red with anger. “Why should I tell the police anything if they want to arrest me?”
“Because,” Greene said, keeping his tone measured, “your prints are in the shed.”
“Of course my prints are in the shed,” Amberlight shouted, jumping to her feet. “I had nothing to hide. I didn’t kill him. I told both of you that already.”
She started to pace around the kitchen. “I bet the police aren’t even going to investigate anyone else. I’m an easy target because I put myself out there. I challenge the establishment, and this is what happens every time.”
Greene tried to catch DiPaulo’s eye, but he was busy cooking.
“Don’t you see, this is a classic case of tunnel vision? Cops.” She said the word with total disdain. “What if I make a statement and this detective friend of yours doesn’t believe me?”
They were almost the same height. Greene looked her in the eye. “If he doesn’t believe you, he’ll arrest you. But if you don’t make a statement, he’ll arrest you anyhow, and then the jury will wonder why you didn’t go to the police to help out by telling them you met with Fox just before he was killed. Add to that the fact that you don’t have a witness to your alibi, and you’ll probably lose at trial.”
He turned to DiPaulo, who had dished the omelette out onto three plates.
“Sorry, Cassandra. Ari is right.”
“This is unbelievable,” she shouted. She stomped back to her chair and flopped down. Deflated.
DiPaulo put the plates down on the table. “Cassandra, come on, eat.”
She shot him an angry glare but pulled herself up. They all sat at the table. No one spoke.
Greene’s legs were tired from working all week and from too little sleep. He was suddenly starving. He took a bite of the omelette. It tasted delicious.
Amberlight didn’t touch her food. “What if I went to visit my sister in Vermont this afternoon?” she asked.
“That would be a disaster,” DiPaulo said. “You’re a lawyer. You know about post-offence conduct, consciousness of guilt. Every little thing you’ve done since you met with Fox, and every little thing that you do until you give them a statement, will be put under a microscope.”
“I feel like a rat in a cage.” She rested her head in her hand. “You’re a former homicide detective. What would it take for you to arrest me?”
Greene coughed and straightened his shirt collar.
She laughed. “And you were the one last night who told me not to hesitate when I was asked a tough question.”
He laughed with her. There was something vulnerable and likeable about Amberlight, once you got past her natural aggression.
“I wouldn’t arrest you yet,” Greene said.
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
“I’d check out every other possible suspect first. And if none of them panned out—”
“You’d slap the cuffs on me, wouldn’t you?”
“First I’d check you out head to toe.”
“Wonderful. I’ll look like the bitch queen of the year to a jury. They’ll despise me from day one of the trial.”
“I have the feeling that if you testify, they’d believe you, but only if you do one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell the whole truth.”
“I’ve told you everything that happened yesterday afternoon,” Amberlight said. “Everything.” She took up her knife and fork and cut into the omelette.
“Everything? You didn’t tell us that twenty years ago you were convicted for stabbing your husband, then two years later for assaulting your wife. Nor did you mention that as soon as you could you had your criminal record expunged.”
She dropped her fork. “I thought that when it was expunged it was gone forever.”
“No such luck.” Greene shook his head. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out the package that Lindsmore had slipped through the window of his car. He tossed it on the table in front of DiPaulo.
“This is a complete list of all your client’s police contacts, arrests, charges that have been withdrawn, and convictions. I suggest you go over every one of them before she says a word to the police.”
Greene stood to leave. “The easiest way to talk yourself into a conviction is to lie or leave something out.”
DiPaulo looked tense.
Amberlight looked ashen. “But I didn’t mean to—”
Greene put his hand up to stop her. “No. You didn’t think we’d find out. You have twenty-four hours with Ted to get your story straight.”
He was dying to finish his omelette, but instead he walked out.
27
Every article Kennicott had read about Fox last night and this morning had mentioned his five-storey office building on Front Street East. Fox had saved one of the city’s historic buildings from destruction, preserved its gorgeous facade, and had designed and supervised the renovation himself down to the last detail. His spectacular personal office, which took up most of the top floor, had been used many times as a TV and movie set and was regularly rented out for high-fashion photo shoots.
A sleek elevator whisked Kennicott up to a minimally furnished reception area on the fifth floor, where sunlight flooded in from every direction
through floor-to-ceiling windows. A young woman with half of her hair shaved off and the other half in braids was perched on a spindly chair in front of a sleek rectangular table. Her eyes were puffy. She’d been crying.
“Detective Kennicott,” he said. “I’m here to see Maxine.”
“She’s expecting you. Maxine’s amazing. She was here before anyone else this morning.”
“This must be terrible for her.”
“I can’t even imagine. If you go to your right, that column you see is Mr. Fox’s private elevator. There’s a glass door on the other side. In ten seconds I’ll buzz you in. Maxine’s office is on the left across from Mr. Fox’s.”
He walked around the elevator shaft and opened the frosted glass door when he heard a soft buzz. He entered a hallway. To his right was an enormous glassed-in office, sparsely furnished with long flat tables and cabinets, architect’s drawing boards and easels, and two chairs facing each other by the window. Everything was square and clean. There were no blinds, and the view of the harbour and the lake beyond was stunning.
On the other side of the hallway was a traditional wooden door that seemed laughably out of place. A cheap-looking brass label on it read “Maxine Daley, Executive Assistant to Mr. Fox,” and underneath the handle a sticker with a smiley face read “I’m a Newfoundlander. My door is always open.”
Sure enough, the door was half open. Kennicott knocked. He heard a chair squeak, then footsteps. Maxine opened the door the rest of the way. She was wearing a brown long-sleeved dress and a green scarf around her neck. Her graying hair was pulled back and her eyes were red. He hadn’t noticed yesterday how short she was.
“Come in, Detective Kennicott. Thank you for getting here early,” she said in her lilting accent.
One wall of her small office was covered with a mishmash of photos, all of them seemingly taken on the same wharf in a harbour packed with multicoloured fishing boats. He looked closely at one of the photographs of several couples and families bunched together. Maxine was standing to one side, a smile on her face but no one beside her. A painting of a large house up on a cliff, with a sign reading Daley Youth Shelter, dominated the space behind her sturdy wooden desk. The south wall featured a garish map of Newfoundland in a plastic frame beside a window with a view of the lake.
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