Stray Bullets

by Rotenberg, Robert

  In the small town of Chatham, he got off to change buses. They were farther south and the weather was turning milder. Even the rain had stopped.

  Before the American Civil War, this town had been the northern terminus of the underground railroad and was the “home of Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historical Site,” according to the brochure he read in the one-room station. A plump woman whose face was set in a permanent scowl sat behind the counter. He showed her his police identification and then Booth’s photo.

  “You seen him in the last twenty-four hours?” he asked.

  “Don’t recognize him.” She barely glanced at the picture.

  “Were you working yesterday?”

  “Work every day.” She shrugged. “Most of ’em don’t even come inside. It’s only a ten-minute wait.”

  He went back outside just as his bus pulled into the parking lot. He was the only one to get on board.

  “Where you headed?” the driver asked. He was a chipper man with a big smile.

  “Kingsville, then the ferry over to Pelee Island.”

  “Cold time of year to go island-hopping,” the man said. “You should come back in the spring.”

  He showed the driver his police identification and the photo of Booth. “Recognize him?”

  “Yesterday. Morning run. There were four Mexicans going to work at the winery, and him. Surly little kid. Sat in the back with his hood up.”

  “He say anything to you?”

  “Nope. I even drove them all the way to the ferry launch. Not supposed to. The little runt didn’t even say thanks.”

  Sounds like our boy Dewey, Kennicott thought. He took a seat by the window, pulled out his cell phone, and called Detective Greene.

  16

  Ari Greene timed it so he got back to the Tim Hortons a few minutes before five in the afternoon. He wanted to be there exactly twenty-four hours after yesterday’s shooting. Get a sense of the place at the same time of day. And the light. Which was diminishing fast, like a film of a sunrise that was being fast-forwarded.

  The parking lot was still cordoned off by police tape. The impromptu memorial shrine had grown exponentially since early that morning. More flowers, more cards. Candles were burning. Some people had written notes in colored chalk on the sidewalk.

  Only two television news trucks were left. A steady rain had melted all the snow, but the dampness made the air even colder. The reporters looked miserable. The story was completely dominating the news and Greene knew they were just waiting for a shot of the police taking the tape down for the evening news.

  Officer Ho and his forensic team had packed up and gone a few hours before. One cop remained on duty, a squat, Polynesian-looking young man.

  Until about fifteen years ago, the Toronto Police Service had a height restriction. New recruits had to be more than five foot eight and weigh one hundred and sixty pounds. It made no sense. Especially since the city attracted an unprecedented number of people from everywhere in the world, including many nationalities that were just plain shorter. Thankfully the rule was dropped, and the formerly all-white face of the police was starting to change.

  “I’ll be here about half an hour,” Greene said after he’d introduced himself to the officer, who was named PC Bambridge. “Then you can take the tape down. I’m sure you’re tired.”

  “Comes with the job,” Bambridge answered.

  He pointed to the shrine. “Get a squad car here and have them package up all the flowers and cards and candles. I want these carefully preserved for the family.”

  “Right away.”

  “I always take one last look around. Important to do before you close a major crime scene.”

  “I’ll remember that, sir.”

  He went inside the empty doughnut shop and took a seat at the table by the window where the video showed Larkin and St. Clair had sat. He pulled out the twenty-two witness statements, which he’d had transcribed during the day, and read over the most helpful ones carefully. Next he looked at Kennicott’s interviews with the Tim Hortons employees on shift at the time. The thing that had bothered him all day was this missing employee, Jose Sanchez. The other staff said he must have left by the back door.

  During the day he and Kennicott had run Sanchez’s name through the police computer and twenty hits came up. They went through every one and clearly none of them was the guy working in the kitchen here. Immigration was no help; neither was motor vehicle licensing, nor OHIP medical records. Nothing matched. There were thirty-four Jose Sanchezes listed in the phone book and they called them all. Dead end.

  I have to find this guy, Greene thought.

  He looked at his watch. Exactly five o’clock. He walked outside. Dusk had fallen, softening all the distances. In many ways, this was the hardest time of day to see, even worse than at night, when streetlights took over and created contrast between dark and light.

  He walked down to the corner of the lot where Jet had parked his Cadillac and looked back at the spot by the side of the building where there was a chip in the walkway. Booth and St. Clair had stood there in the dark and from Jet’s vantage point, it would have been impossible to see them.

  Greene clicked on his flashlight and, following the route that Officer Ho had shown with his ruler on his diagram of the scene, walked in a straight line to the chip in the walkway. When he got there he shone it up on the wall behind, following the same line. The bullet mark in the wall was right in the middle of his circle of light. And perfectly in line with the place where Jet’s car had been.

  Greene tried to picture the scene twenty-four hours ago. The Cadillac pulls into the front corner of the lot and Jet gets out of his car. At the same time, Cedric Wilkinson and his son Kyle walk up from the street through the middle of the lot. When they are steps from the front door Suzanne Howett runs out from the other side of the building, crosses behind the Wilkinsons, and greets Jet. Gunshots pierce the quiet of the night. Young Kyle is hit in the head and goes down. His father starts to scream. Howett jumps in the car and Jet takes off. Larkin St. Clair stumbles out of the dark; stuffs something, almost certainly the gun, down his pants; and takes off across the front of the parking lot toward the street. No one sees Dewey, but the back of the lot leads to an alleyway. Obviously that’s where he goes.

  Jose, Jose, or whoever you are. Where were you? What did you see? What made you run?

  Picture it, he told himself. Try to see it.

  If Jose went out the back door before the shooting, maybe he heard Dewey and St. Clair talking. It’s dark here. The employees say he and Suzanne used to smoke out back. Officer Ho had found some cigarette butts there.

  He lowered his flashlight so the beam was level with the row of bushes that lined the side of the building and walked with care toward the back, like a suspicious night guard in a cheap noir film. Halfway along, something cast a spiderweb-like shadow on the wall. He pulled a pen out of his pocket, reached over, and plucked out a black hairnet.

  17

  “You’re lucky to have such a nice day this late in November,” the uniformed woman on the ferry said to Daniel Kennicott. He’d just strolled off the boat, down the ramp to the wharf on Pelee Island. “And it’s never as cold over here. You should come back here in the spring.”

  She was right. The air was noticeably warmer than on the mainland and the clouds had cleared. He’d read that the island was famous for its temperate climate due to the moderating effect of the surrounding lake. One of the reasons it was such a good place to grow wine.

  “I first heard about Pelee Island when I was in grade five,” he said. “Always wanted to come here.”

  “Can’t get any farther south in the whole country,” the woman said.

  The big boat held space for a number of vehicles in its hold. When they cleared the parking area, he made his way down the gangplank. He heard squawking sounds when he got on shore. Overhead a flock of Canada geese gained a graceful curve in the blue sky. Outside the perimeter fence, an unmarked police car
was waiting for him.

  “You know the Hawk Haven Inn Bed-and-Breakfast?” he asked the dark-haired police officer who was driving once they’d introduced themselves. Her name was Françoise Gelante. She had wavy auburn hair and a smile that exposed a row of perfect white teeth.

  “It’s in the southwest corner. Down the road from the lighthouse.” She drove slowly on the narrow road. There was only room for one car, and when a vehicle came at them from the other direction, both of them had to straddle the shoulders to pass.

  On the boat ride across, he had bought a little replica of the Pelee Island lighthouse in the gift shop and attached it to his key chain. “Take me close, but I want you to stay back out of sight.”

  The island was big, more than sixteen square miles, and remarkably flat. Farmers’ fields were interspersed with stands of brush and trees, most of which were bare.

  “Is this the only police cruiser on the island?” he asked.

  “This is it. I like to say on the island there are two cops, one cruiser, and no secrets. I can hardly sneeze here without someone offering me a Kleenex.”

  “It’s pretty.”

  “You should come back here in the spring.”

  “So I’ve been told,” he said.

  After a few minutes they slowed to a gentle stop.

  “Around this bend, it’s the fourth place on your right.” Gelante raised her cell phone. “I’ll wait for your call.” They’d traded numbers on the short drive over.

  “Thanks.” He got out and walked along the narrow paved road. There were traces of smoke in the air. He passed a few houses on his right before he saw the Hawk Haven Inn Bed-and-Breakfast. A beat-up FOR SALE sign was staked on the lawn. At the top of the driveway, a man with his back to the road was tending a fire of leaves and branches with a metal pitchfork.

  “Good morning, sir,” Kennicott said, walking uninvited up the stone path. The man turned his head around in alarm. There was a small gold earring in his left ear.

  “I’m afraid the inn is closed,” the man said.

  Kennicott stopped at the edge of the fire. Along with the foliage, a shirt, a pair of pants, a coat, and a long blue-and-white striped piece of cloth were smoldering.

  The man tried to scoop some leaves over the clothes. “I said we’re closed.”

  “I’m aware of that, Mr. Booth,” Kennicott said.

  The man twisted the pitchfork and it fell from his hand. Up close, although Richard Booth was well-groomed, his age showed. Kennicott estimated he was in his late sixties or early seventies.

  “My name is Officer Daniel Kennicott. I’m from the Metropolitan Toronto homicide squad.” He pointed down at the fire. “I’m looking for your son.”

  He had thought long and hard about how to phrase this. Saying “I’m looking for Dewey Booth” sounded too official, but just saying “I’m looking for Dewey” was too informal. “Son” seemed to carry with it the weight of responsibility he wanted to convey.

  Booth’s shoulders slumped. He made no effort to retrieve the pitchfork. “I’ve been looking for Dewey for so many years.” He had the fatigued look that builds up over a lifetime.

  “We know he’s on the island,” Kennicott said, deliberately switching to the plural “we” to emphasize that he wasn’t alone. “If I have to call out the emergency task force, it’ll be very messy.”

  Booth refused to meet Kennicott’s eyes.

  “Dewey was last seen leaving the scene of a shooting, wearing a long blue-and-white English soccer league scarf.” Kennicott kicked at the fire and exposed the striped cloth. “Gunshot residue doesn’t usually last more than twenty-four hours because of the lead in it. It’s so heavy it falls off. But there can be traces. The only way to be sure to eliminate it is to burn your clothes.”

  Booth bent down for the pitchfork.

  “Don’t touch that.” Kennicott moved in his way. “I have to warn you, Mr. Booth, the charge of accessory after the fact for a first-degree murder charge could get you five years in jail. Easy.”

  “Aubrey and I tried so hard with the boy. We were getting somewhere, we really were. Then he got swept away in the undertow.” Booth covered his face. Kennicott could hear him crying. “The last seven years have been a nightmare.”

  “I need to find Dewey,” Kennicott said.

  Booth flicked his head to his left.

  Kennicott wasn’t sure what he was doing.

  “He loves to climb,” Booth said. “Can get up on anything.”

  Kennicott was confused, then it hit him. “The lighthouse. That’s the only place to climb here, isn’t it?”

  “Dewey’s favorite spot on earth. Where he could be alone with the sand and the waves and the big lake.”

  “How far is it?”

  “Hundred yards down the road, then you hit the path.”

  Kennicott took off. He sped past a historic plaque at the end of the road on his way down a wooden walkway, the sky almost invisible now under the overgrown hanging vines and trees. A plague of small airborne bugs hit him in the face. One went down his throat, and he gagged on it as he ran. It was sunset. Bug hour. Just like when he and his brother were kids at the family cottage.

  The path turned and in few seconds he was on the beach. An old sign that warned swimmers of the danger of the undertow was attached to a lifesaving station with a long pole and a buoy. The sand was littered with broken shells. To his left the tower came into view, surrounded by rocks and boulders. Dewey Booth, his red hair tossed by the wind, was leaning over the metal railing that ringed the top of the lighthouse. A thick climbing rope hung down, threaded through three round spikes on the way up.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he yelled when he spotted Kennicott.

  “Toronto police, Homicide,” Kennicott said, not wanting to get too close in case Booth had the gun.

  “Who ratted me out?” he said. “My fucking father?”

  “Actually it was your pal Larkin. He told us you’d be down here.”

  “Bullshit. We don’t rat, man.”

  “How do you think I knew how to get down here this fast?”

  Booth shook his head in the wind and looked south across the lake.

  “Just now I caught your dad trying to burn your scarf,” Kennicott said. “I’m going to arrest him for accessory after the fact to first-degree murder.”

  “Leave the old goat alone.”

  “It’s worth five years in jail,” Kennicott said.

  “Fuck you, cop.”

  “You don’t want me to arrest him? Throw the gun over the edge and climb down nice and slow.”

  “I don’t have the gun.”

  “That’s what Larkin said too.” In fact, St. Clair hadn’t told them a thing about the gun.

  “Ha!”

  Even from this distance, he could see that Booth was glaring at him. He reached for his phone. “You’ve got ten seconds, then I call in backup.”

  “If I come down, will you leave the old fag alone?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “And I get my call to my lawyer as soon as I hit the ground.”

  “No problem.”

  “Okay, here take this.” He reached both hands to his belt.

  Kennicott ducked. A moment later something came flying off the top of the lighthouse. It was his shirt. Next came Booth’s shoes, socks, and pants. When all he had left was a pair of underwear, he hopped out over the edge, grabbing the rope monkeylike, and effortlessly walked himself down.

  Kennicott ran over with his gun out and arrived just as Booth got down.

  “See, copper, totally unarmed.” He had his bare arms stretched out in front of him. “Here, cuff me in front, give me that cell, and back off. I need to call Phil Cutter, my friggin’ lawyer.”

  18

  Not one snowflake was left on the ground this morning, but a damp cold rain was falling hard, and dark clouds hung low over the city. Ari Greene put his hands into his overcoat pockets, lowered his head, and walked toward the Tim Ho
rtons.

  It was a quarter to nine. Despite the chill in the air, a line of customers spilled out the front door and snaked around the corner. There was a new pile of cards and flowers three times the size of the one he’d had PC Bambridge pack up for the Wilkinsons yesterday. The bright colors of hope were muted by the clouds and rain, but none of the caffeine-craving customers seemed to even notice. Greene was always amazed how quickly life went back to normal at a crime scene once the police had packed up their gear, taken down their yellow tape, and departed. Even after a horrible murder such as this one, which had made the whole city stop and mourn, the relentless flow of commerce shoved everything aside with uncanny speed.

  The TV cameras were back in full force. The reporters were interviewing the customers for comments, asking a series of inane questions: “How do you feel about the shooting?” “Are you afraid to come back here?” “What words do you have for the family?”

  Greene pulled his scarf tight around his neck. He took his place in line and ten minutes later was inside. Behind the counter, the harried staff worked at breakneck speed. Are they this busy every morning? Greene wondered, until he saw a handwritten sign that hung crookedly from one of the cash registers. It read:

  WE THANK YOU MOST LOYAL CUSTOMER

  THEREFORE TODAY MAKE SPECIAL OFFER

  FREE DONUT WITH COFFEE PURCHASE

  PROPRIETORS MR. AND MRS. YUEN

  A middle-aged Asian man was behind one of the tills, and a middle-aged Asian woman was behind the other one. All the other employees’ uniforms were dark brown, but theirs were light beige.

  Greene’s turn came and he approached the woman. “What you like, sir?” she asked with her head down.

  “Mrs. Yuen,” he said.

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were ringed with fatigue. “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective Greene, the officer in charge of this case. I’m glad to see you’re back in business.”

  “You do not wear uniform?” Yuen was an unusually large Chinese woman.