He shook his head. “For what? Breaking into an empty house? Posting the photo? You won’t have a problem, as long as you tell the police everything.”
“Of course I’m going to tell them everything,” she said. To her surprise, Alison felt a surge of anger at her father. “Okay, I didn’t tell you the truth about dropping out of school, but do you really think I’d lie to the police?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She wasn’t shivering anymore. She was furious. And she didn’t really know why. “You sure as hell implied it. It’s not like you’ve been honest with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? You know exactly what I mean. We’ve been dancing around this since that day I met you in the solicitor’s office.”
“Dancing around what?”
She wiped the perspiration off her forehead. She’d been holding back all this time, but to hell with it. “Ari, I don’t believe you never knew I even existed for twenty years.”
He looked taken aback.
“There I said it.”
“But I didn’t,” he said.
“Twenty years! Come on. You told me yourself you kept all of Mum’s Christmas cards.”
“I did. But I didn’t—”
“You knew. You didn’t care. Big deal that you had a daughter somewhere. You didn’t give a damn. But then you lose the woman you were in love with and suddenly you remember me? Come on, Sherlock, I thought you were the great Canadian detective. Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
He looked blank. She’d never seen that expression on his face.
“Alison, I didn’t know.”
“You’re lying! And now you say you care so much. Where the hell were you when I was growing up?”
He blinked. “Maybe I was hiding the truth, even from myself.”
“See, you’re not perfect.”
“Clearly, I’m not.”
“What am I doing living here in Toronto anyhow? I don’t know this place. I stand out like a sore thumb. Sometimes I hate it here. Sometimes I want to go home.”
He was nodding. “I don’t blame you.”
Her whole world felt upside down. Home. Where was home?
“Why did you make me come here anyway?” she demanded.
“As I recall it, this was your idea.”
She remembered how he’d grinned at her that night in the restaurant when she’d told him she wanted to move to Canada. “Yeah, well, maybe I did it just to make you happy.”
“If you want to move back to England, I’ll move there with you. But only if you want me to.”
“What about Grandpa Y?”
He shrugged. “Tell me what you want.”
“What I want . . .” She hesitated, not sure what to say. She had to stop sweating. She had to get out of the sun. “I want to talk to the police. I want to apologize to Livingston’s family. I want to help find the killer. And I don’t want your help with any of it.”
She tore away from him and marched off. She could bloody well get to police headquarters on her own.
What she’d really wanted to do was to hug her father for the first time in her life, but she couldn’t do that until she’d untangled the mess she’d made of things. Besides, she didn’t want him to see her cry.
47
The intercom on Kennicott’s office phone buzzed.
“Detective Kennicott,” Francine Hughes said, “there’s a young lady out here who is most anxious to speak to you.”
Greene had called Kennicott a few minutes ago to say that his daughter was on her way.
“She looks just like her father,” Hughes whispered.
“I’ll be right out,” Kennicott said.
When he saw Alison in the reception area, he could tell right away she was Greene’s daughter. She had her father’s eyes, a beguiling grey-green with flecks of yellow. There was the confident way she held her broad shoulders back, the direct way she reached out to shake his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Kennicott said.
“Nice to meet you as well, Detective Kennicott,” she said. “My father has told me many things about you. I hope I am not imposing, but it is very important that I speak to you as quickly as possible. I should have done this right away.”
He was taken aback by her voice. Greene had told Kennicott that Alison was British, but it still seemed incongruous for this Ari Greene look-alike to have an English accent.
Hughes popped out of her chair. “Lovely to meet you,” she said. “Ari is fortunate to have you.”
“I’m the one who is lucky to have him,” Alison said.
Kennicott guided her to the video room, where Darvesh was waiting. He turned on the camera, the commissioner came in and swore her in, and then, without any prompting, Alison told her story: how she’d come to Canada, enrolled in journalism school, dropped out without telling her father, discovered Kensington Market, started the blog, contacted Livingston Fox and met with him once at his office and then for the next three Friday afternoons in the backroom of the Huibing Gardens restaurant.
Through it all Kennicott kept thinking how remarkably poised she was for a young woman her age.
“You were the one who broke the story about Mr. Fox getting engaged.”
She grinned. It was a warm and winning smile, like Ari’s. “Mr. Fox made sure I got the story before anyone else. It was my first scoop, and it gave my blog a huge boost.”
“Did you ever meet his fiancée?”
“No. I never met anyone in Mr. Fox’s life after the time I went to the office and talked to his assistant, Maxine.”
She told him about her planned meeting with Fox on Friday. “I waited and waited but he never arrived. He had made me promise not to call Maxine or anyone else if he didn’t come.”
“What did you do?”
“After a long time a waitress brought in a pot of tea. It was awkward. I didn’t say anything to her because I didn’t want her to hear my accent. I waited a while longer before I left. I had to get to the demonstration.”
“Do you know when you left?”
“Yes, because I kept checking the time. It was exactly ten to four. The demo was starting at four.”
She kept talking. Kennicott listened without taking notes. When she finished, he said, “Take me back to when you were at the window of the house you broke into. What exactly did you see?”
“Fox’s body.”
“Anything else? In the alleyway? The building site?”
“I was stunned. I almost threw up.”
“Think hard.”
“I only saw two other people.”
“Who?” Kennicott asked. This could be the lead he was searching for.
She looked at him with her Ari Greene eyes. “I saw you, Detective, and a policeman who was with you come out of the gate. I didn’t want you to see me so I closed the curtain. I was afraid.”
Kennicott remembered the moment. He’d looked up at that window. Had he seen the curtain move a little? Maybe. He couldn’t be sure. He tried to picture the alley again: the hockey sticks, the locked bike, the puddle of dog pee that Lindsmore had almost stepped in. There had to be a clue.
“Did you see anyone with a dog?”
She shook her head. “No. I feel awful that Fox’s family found out about their son’s murder because of me. I wish I’d never posted that photo.”
“It was very foolish. Think again, was there anything you saw that can help our investigation?”
She pulled out her phone. “I took two more pictures from the window. I don’t think there’s anything there, but you can have them.”
Kennicott nodded at Darvesh.
She tapped on her phone and showed them both photos. They were almost the same as the one on the blog. One was aimed lower and showed more of the hoarding and the pavement below it, the other, higher, showed more of the building site past the shed.
“Okay, Detective Darvesh will copy them when we finish the interview. But now, is t
here anything else at all that you can tell us that might assist our investigation?”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head on her cupped hand. “I keep seeing Livingston’s body. He was kind to me. I’d never even seen a dead person before my mother died, and now this.”
Kennicott watched her shake her head.
“All I want to do is help,” she said. “I wish I could. I wish I’d seen something.”
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
48
“Detective Kennicott,” Francine Hughes said through the intercom. “Ms. Cassandra Amberlight has arrived with her lawyer, Mr. DiPaulo, and Detective Ari Greene.”
“Thanks, we’ll be there in a few minutes,” Kennicott said. He clicked off the intercom and turned to Crown Attorney Albert Fernandez, who had joined him and Darvesh half an hour earlier to prepare for the interview. It was hard to believe it had been less than forty-eight hours since Kennicott and Fernandez had been in court together about to get the guilty verdict in their murder trial. It felt more like forty-eight days ago.
It was highly unusual for a prime suspect to come to the police to make a statement, and they had no idea what Amberlight would say.
“Do you think she’s going to confess?” Darvesh asked. “We’ve got her DNA in the shed.”
“My bet is that DiPaulo wants to work out a deal. A quick plea to manslaughter,” Fernandez said. “He’ll say that his client and the victim argued about the new condo plan. Amberlight lost her temper, pushed him, he fell.”
“What about the rebar through Fox’s heart?” Darvesh asked.
Fernandez shrugged. “Done in a fit of anger.”
“And the concrete blocks?”
“A feeble attempt to make it look like this was some kind of satanic ritual to throw us off track.”
Kennicott shook his head. “Not in a million years will she confess. Watch. She’s going to be in total denial. My bet is that she never even told DiPaulo or Ari about her run to the border last night. Let’s go.”
They walked down the short hallway to the reception area. Amberlight was slumped in a chair. She looked exhausted. No surprise, Kennicott thought. She’d spent most of the night driving to the border and back. Ted DiPaulo looked apprehensive. Only Greene looked relaxed, his usual unflappable self.
Kennicott went straight up to Amberlight. “My name is Detective Daniel Kennicott.”
“Nice to meet you.” There was a note of sarcasm in her voice.
“With me are Detective Kamil Darvesh and Crown Attorney Albert Fernandez.”
“ ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions,’ ” she said, as she got slowly to her feet.
He’d read that she was a big woman but hadn’t realized how tall she was. “We won’t bite, I promise,” he said.
“Well then, neither will I.”
There was a twinkle in her eyes. He sensed that she liked all the attention.
“Everything is set up in the video room. We’re ready to go.”
Amberlight stepped forward, but DiPaulo put his hand out to hold her back, like a crossing guard stopping a pedestrian from stepping off a curb. “First, we need to set the ground rules,” he said. “Let’s be one hundred percent clear. My client is not under arrest.”
DiPaulo was a good lawyer. He didn’t waste any time getting right to the point.
“Correct. She’s not under arrest at this time.”
“Let’s hope she’s not at any time. I want it clearly understood that Ms. Amberlight has no legal obligation to speak to you.”
“None at all.”
“Since this is a voluntary statement, not a police interrogation, she has the right to have her lawyer present. If that is not agreeable, there will be no interview.”
Kennicott had expected this. Although he’d prefer to interview her alone, it might be good for DiPaulo to hear some of his questions.
“You can be present during the interview, but I insist that you not speak,” he said.
“Fair enough. And again, to make absolutely certain there are no misunderstandings, Ms. Amberlight can terminate this interview at any time.”
Something caught Kennicott’s eye. Amberlight was waving her long arms in the air. “Hello. Knock, knock. Remember me?” she said, a mocking look on her face. “Are you two finished talking about me in the third person while I’m standing here in the first person?”
There was something about Amberlight’s bravado that was oddly appealing, Kennicott thought. “The door in the video room will not be locked. You are free to leave at any time, unless we place you under arrest.”
“Well then, I suggest you not arrest me.”
Everyone chuckled.
She was arrogant but gutsy, Kennicott thought. A jury would either love or hate her. Hard to tell. He turned back to Greene. “Ari, I can’t allow you to sit in. There’s a chair for you in the video-link room. That’s where Albert will be watching from as well.”
“Fine,” Greene said.
There was a pause. Nobody seemed ready to make the first move.
“Well then, let’s get this over with,” Amberlight said. “It’s not as if we’re negotiating the Versailles Peace Treaty.”
She marched down the hallway to the video room with her head held high. Kennicott and Darvesh sat across from her and DiPaulo. While the commissioner was swearing her in, Kennicott took out his notebook, turned to a new page, clicked his pen, and wrote out the date, time, location and listed everyone who was present.
“Before you start with your questions,” Amberlight said, staring at Kennicott until he looked back at her, “I want to tell you, Detective, that I appeared in front of your father in court many times. Justice Kennicott was an excellent judge, and his death was a great loss to the bar. My sincere condolences.”
“Thank you,” Kennicott said. It took him aback. His parents had been killed in a car accident years earlier. Over time, he had come to suspect that the crash was related in some way to his brother’s murder. But he didn’t know how. Was Amberlight being sincere or trying to manipulate him? Or both?
“And one more thing before you begin your questions,” Amberlight said. “I want you to know that I did not kill Livingston Fox.”
There goes Fernandez’s bet that Amberlight was going to confess, Kennicott thought. DiPaulo gave him a half shrug, as if to say, What can I do? She’s my client.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” Kennicott said. He wasn’t going to let her take control of his interview. “Did you know Livingston Fox?”
“Yes. It’s no secret that I hated everything he stood for. He was tearing the heart out of the city, and I was the only one standing up to him.”
She doesn’t like to give straight answers, Kennicott thought. She prefers to defer to political statements.
“A month ago he sent me a letter, handwritten, asking me to contact his assistant to set up a time to talk to him. He ended with a quotation. ‘If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.’ ”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing, for about a day. Then I thought what the hell. I went to his fancy office down on Front Street and met him for the first time. After that, we got together for the next three Fridays. Our meetings were secret, or at least that’s what I thought, until this happened.”
“Where did you meet?”
“At a Chinese restaurant on Spadina. He had it all arranged.”
“In the backroom of Huibing Gardens?” Kennicott asked. Normally he wouldn’t ask a leading question such as this. But he wanted to signal to Amberlight right from the get-go that he already knew a lot about her and Fox. Let her wonder how much.
“You’ve done your homework, Detective.”
“What about the last time you saw him?”
“Friday. The day he was murdered. Livingston wanted to meet me at the work shed at the back of his building site. I’d never been there before.”
Interesting that she
’d called Fox by his first name and she was squarely putting herself at the murder scene. DiPaulo was smart enough to make sure she didn’t deny the undeniable.
“Did anyone else know about your meetings?”
“No. He insisted they be secret, and I agreed. I sure didn’t want anyone to know I was breaking bread with the devil.”
“What were you meeting about?” Kennicott was pretty sure he knew the answer.
“He’d decided to turn his next building, K2, into an innovative kind of community housing project.”
So far, Kennicott thought, Amberlight has been telling the truth. “Why was he talking to you about it?”
She stuck a thumbnail between her teeth and gnawed on it. Kennicott noticed her fingernails were bitten down to the quick.
“He was hoping I’d publicly endorse his plan,” she said at last. “No one on this planet was more surprised than I was.”
“What did you think of his plans?”
“I was shocked. I have to admit, they were fantastic.”
“Then why did you organize the protest march against it?”
She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “The whole thing was his idea.”
She described the plan Fox had to shock the public by doing a 180-degree turn. It was exactly what Breaker had told Kennicott. And if a jury believed her, they’d think she had no motive for murder and they’d find her not guilty.
“Why would I want him dead?” Amberlight asked, seemingly reading his mind.
Or was it too neat and tidy? Kennicott wondered. What if Fox had told her at their final meeting that he’d changed his mind and wasn’t going ahead with their deal?
49
Greene had always been at the centre of murder investigations, but here he was, watching Kennicott run the show. Following the interview on a video link was frustrating but fascinating.
“You have my DNA and my fingerprints,” Amberlight said to Kennicott. “They were all over the shed. Obviously, I didn’t try to hide anything. Did I?”
As Greene had expected, Amberlight was trying to run her own interview. But Kennicott had managed to keep control. They were like two boxers who had finished a few warm-up rounds. Now the main event was about to begin.
Heart of the City Page 18