Stray Bullets

by Rotenberg, Robert

  Greene had sent him home with a treasure trove of intercepted communication between Suzanne Howett and her boyfriend Jet. He’d gone through it all at the station, and now he had to put it in chronological order and highlight the key points.

  Out of the shower, he got dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and unpacked his briefcase on the kitchen table, where he preferred to work. In the four years since he’d joined the force, new technology had radically changed policing. Now it was impossible to imagine a major criminal investigation without gleaning evidence from texts, tweets, Facebook entries, and cell phone calls. Especially when it came to young people, who had an almost pathological addiction to all things virtual.

  Suzanne Howett fit the profile of a prolific user. And she’d created a torrent of text messages, which started about an hour after the shooting. Kennicott had everything transcribed. He made himself a latte in the little Italian espresso machine he’d bought down on College Street and sat down to sift through it all. It took him a few hours to pick out the handful of intercepts that mattered the most. All those years as a lawyer had taught him how to get down to the nub of things.

  First came a text Howett had sent to a friend named Cindy, who they’d learned was a fellow gas station employee.

  November 14, 5:42 p.m.

  Howett:

  OMG. OMG. U wont believe w jst hppnd. Jet picked me up @ Timmys and Dewey wuz thr nd a little boy was shot. OMG. OMG.

  Cindy:

  What? What hppnd? OMG jst on the news. U wer ther???

  Howett:

  Ya. Dewey and hs frnd Larkin. The jerk who tried 2 pick u up.

  Cindy:

  Who ws shooting???

  Howett:

  2 crzy. Jet jst droppd me off.

  Cindy:

  Can I com ovr?

  Howett:

  Pleeeeessse. gtg. Jet calling I need my bff.

  END OF TRANSMISSION

  A wiretap on Howett’s phone came next.

  November 14, 8: 05 p.m.

  Howett:

  Can you talk?

  Trapper:

  Yeah. The baby’s in bed. I’m outside. The cops come by yet?

  Howett:

  No. The news says the boy is still in the hospital.

  Trapper:

  I know.

  Howett:

  What did you tell your wife?

  Trapper:

  Nothing.

  Howett:

  The cops are going to find out I worked there and, like, they’re going to talk to me. What should I say?

  Trapper:

  Tell them you didn’t see anything. Nothing else.

  Howett:

  But I didn’t see anything.

  Trapper:

  Try to stay calm. I’ve got to go.

  END OF CONVERSATION

  They had records of all of Howett’s Internet searches on both her old laptop computer and her iPhone. She’d spent the night checking news sites and searching for updates on the story. The only exception was at 11:20 P.M. when she’d logged onto Hollywood.com and read two articles about Leonardo DiCaprio.

  At midnight the surveillance team reported a young black woman arrived at the building in a taxi and went up to Howett’s place. She was seen hugging Howett in the doorway by an undercover cop posing as a pizza delivery guy for an apartment down the hall. The officer didn’t catch what they said but he could hear Howett crying. The woman was later identified as Cynthia Burlington, age twenty-two, fellow employee at the Petro-Canada station. No criminal record. No police contacts. She stayed until eight the next morning.

  At five to nine in the morning the police issued a press release, which stated that, after a brave fight for his life, four-year-old Kyle Wilkinson had died from the gunshot wound he’d received the night before. It expressed their condolences to the Wilkinson family. Within seconds this news was everywhere.

  Howett made another call a few minutes later:

  November 15, 9:08 a.m.

  Howett:

  crying) Did you hear?

  Trapper:

  I just heard.

  Howett:

  I can’t stop crying. That poor little boy. Cindy was here last night but she’s left.

  Trapper:

  I told you not to talk to anyone.

  Howett:

  I didn’t say anything.

  Trapper:

  (laughs) Right. Why did you tell her to come over?

  Howett:

  Well she knew about the shooting at Timmy’s. Like the whole world knows. But I didn’t tell her anything else. I swear.

  Trapper:

  There’s one thing I don’t get.

  Howett:

  What?

  Trapper:

  How come Larkin’s face is all over the TV and there’s nothing on Dewey?

  Howett:

  I know. I can’t figure it out either.

  Trapper:

  I’ve got to go. Make some deliveries. The cops come, don’t say anything. Got it?

  Howett:

  Yeah. Bye.

  END OF CONVERSATION

  There was only one more call.

  November 15, 10:15 A.M.

  Trapper:

  Did you hear?

  Howett:

  What?

  Trapper:

  Larkin’s been arrested. It was on the car radio. He walked into the police by himself.

  Howett:

  What about Dewey?

  Trapper:

  Nothing about him at all.

  Howett:

  Aren’t they going to arrest him?

  Trapper:

  I don’t know.

  Howett:

  How come?

  Trapper:

  I told you. I don’t know. Right. Now listen, we have to stop talking on phones and everything. The cops could be getting wiretaps and that kind of shit.

  Howett:

  But what about Dewey and you and me and—

  Trapper:

  No. Don’t tell them anything.

  [Note—Howett starts to cry. Continues for twelve seconds.]

  Trapper:

  Suzie.

  Howett:

  What should I do? Like, I’m supposed to be at the Petro-Can for the afternoon shift for the next two days.

  Trapper:

  Right. Go to work. Act normal. I’ll pick you up like always in twenty minutes.

  [Note—a pause. Five seconds.]

  Trapper:

  You okay?

  [Note—a pause. Ten seconds.]

  Trapper:

  Suzie?

  Howett:

  Jet.

  Trapper:

  What?

  Howett:

  Dewey’s crazy.

  Trapper:

  What else is new?

  Howett:

  I’m scared.

  Trapper:

  I know.

  END OF CONVERSATION.

  Kennicott cut and pasted all the transcripts, put them all into one file, and e-mailed it over to Greene. He was tired.

  He fished through the collection of CDs of the conversations between Suzanne and Jet, found the last one, and brought it with him into the bedroom. He put it on his CD player and listened to it as he went to the window and watched the storm coming in. The snow was heavy now. Hearing the words was much more chilling than reading them.

  He played the final part of the conversation again:

  “Jet.”

  “What?”

  “Dewey’s crazy.”

  “What else is new?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know.”

  The cold air blew over the top of the hot radiators.

  I’m scared. I know. I’m scared. I know.

  It echoed something inside him.

  His last conversation with his brother. Making plans to meet for dinner. Daniel, for once, don’t be late, Michael had said and laughed. But his voice had an edge. A hint of fear.

  He had arriv
ed late. Too late to protect his brother.

  There was a truth here that maybe he’d been hiding from himself for a long time. He hadn’t just become a cop to try to solve the mystery of Michael’s murder. He’d become a cop to protect people. So they wouldn’t lose what he’d lost.

  He kept watching the snow. As exhausted as he was, there was no point in trying to go to sleep.

  21

  It had been more than forty-eight hours since Ari Greene had gotten the emergency call about the shooting, and he’d barely had time to go to the bathroom. Sleep was a distant memory. He’d tried lying down for a few hours last night in the downstairs sleep room at police headquarters, but had just lain in the dark with his eyes half-open, his mind whirling in overdrive, like a car engine when the gas pedal got stuck. Finally, he’d gotten up, grabbed a quick shower in the gym, changed his clothes, and headed back to work.

  But now it looked as if he had enough things in place and he could go home for the night. The weather outside had turned nasty, and it would be nice to get back before the snow piled up. He wanted to shovel his father’s walk.

  There were holes in the case. Always were. They hadn’t found the gun yet, despite searching all the garbage cans, Dumpsters, and sewer grates near the Tim Hortons and going through Larkin St. Clair’s aunt’s house, where he was living on probation. They’d probably never recover it. His main concern was to track down Jose Sanchez, the baker who’d disappeared. And their surveillance of Jet and Suzanne was in place. Key decision was going to be when to pull the plug and bring them in.

  He cleaned up the papers on his desk and stifled a yawn. He hadn’t had a moment to call Jennifer Raglan to ask about her mother and now she’d probably be home with her family. He’d get in touch with her tomorrow.

  His phone rang.

  All he wanted to do was go home. He hesitated before answering. “Detective Greene,” he said.

  “It’s Ralph Armitage again. I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Go ahead.” He’d been updating Armitage for the last three days on the progress of the investigation.

  “Has to be in person,” Armitage said.

  Greene closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ll be over in ten minutes.”

  “Actually, could you make it at seven o’clock?” Armitage said. “I’ve got a six o’clock scheduled.”

  Armitage was such a bureaucrat. And he’d probably slept in his nice warm bed the last two nights.

  Greene used up an hour at his desk doing more paperwork and arrived outside the head Crown’s office at a quarter to seven. The waiting room was empty. A few minutes before seven Awotwe Amankwah, a reporter who worked at the Toronto Star, emerged. The criminal courts were his beat.

  “Tough case, detective,” he said.

  “You have young children.” Greene knew Amankwah had been involved in a bad custody fight with his ex-wife for the last few years.

  “I can’t imagine what that family is going through.”

  “I know the press is going to be after this story, but I’m keeping everyone away from them.”

  “Understood,” Amankwah said before he left.

  Greene knew that with this kind of case he had to control the media. Even use them sometimes.

  At exactly seven o’clock, Armitage came out and ushered Greene inside his neat and organized office. When Jennifer Raglan was in charge, this had been a messy, bustling place. Now it felt sterile, except for the photographic shrine of Armitage and his equally tall, equally athletic-looking wife stacked on the credenza behind his desk.

  “This is important,” Armitage said after he shut the door behind them. They were both standing. “If we don’t find the gun that fired the fatal bullet, we’re in trouble in this case. Agreed?”

  Something about the question made Greene feel uneasy. He was tired. And pissed off that Armitage was such a press hound that he made him wait an hour so that he could do yet another media interview.

  “Not really,” he said. “In most shooting cases the gun is the first thing to disappear.”

  “Okay then,” Armitage said. “But if we could find the gun and match it to the bullet that killed young Carl, that would be great, wouldn’t it?”

  “Kyle.”

  “What do you mean ‘Kyle’?”

  “The boy’s name was Kyle, not Carl.”

  Armitage shrugged. “Okay. But you agree, matching the gun to the bullet is crucial. Right?”

  Greene felt as if he was being cross-examined. It made him careful with his words. “Crucial, no. Helpful, yes.”

  “Very helpful, right?”

  He had an arrogant, shit-eating grin on his big face and Greene wanted so badly to reach over and wipe it off.

  “Probably,” Greene said.

  “What if,” Armitage said, puffing himself up, “I was to tell you that someone has been found who is prepared to identify the shooter, under oath? And that this same person will tell us where the shooter stashed the gun? What would you say to that?”

  Greene wasn’t happy about being treated as if he was a witness on his own case. “I’d say, ‘How do you know about this?’ and ‘Why the hell wasn’t I informed?’”

  “I’m informing you now.” Armitage gave his patented Cheshire-cat grin. Real proud of himself.

  Greene had hit only one person in his life. That was back in high school, when a bully insulted his father in the school cafeteria. Right now he was thinking a good hard slap would do it. He was sick of Armitage’s game. “What’s this all about?”

  “I know where the gun is,” Armitage said.

  Greene’s first thought was: You fool. You found the location of the gun in a first-degree homicide case and made me wait almost an hour and a half before telling me?

  “Where?”

  “St. Clair’s aunt’s house. You guys missed it in your original search. It’s stashed in a tree trunk.”

  Forget the slap. Greene wanted to land a punch on Armitage’s square jaw. “Who told you this?” he demanded.

  “Booth’s lawyer.”

  “Phil Cutter?” There were few lawyers in the whole province Greene respected less.

  “I made a deal with him.”

  “You made a deal with Cutter?”

  “Had to. This was a one-time offer.”

  “On my homicide investigation? You made a deal without asking me?”

  “I’ve got a sworn statement from Dewey Booth saying that Larkin St. Clair was the shooter.” Armitage reached onto his desk for a piece of paper that had been lying facedown. “Describes where you can find the gun.”

  Greene grabbed the one-page affidavit and read it through in record time. He waved it in Armitage’s face. “You dropped a first-degree murder charge, and this is all you got?” He tossed the paper toward the desk but it didn’t reach, just fluttered down to the floor, like a rudderless kite.

  Armitage rushed over to pick it up. “Yes, and it was the right move.”

  Greene could feel the waves of fatigue and anger coursing through his body. Stay calm, he told himself. “Why in the world would you do this without telling me?”

  “Cutter called me. Insisted we meet alone. At some place over on College Street. The Flaminco … something.”

  “You mean Flamingo.”

  “Flamingo?”

  “Yes, the Plaza Flamingo, west of Bathurst,” Greene said.

  “Yeah. Look, there’s a key point you missed.” Armitage picked up a pad of blank paper from his desk and drew a large rectangle that took up most of the page. “This is the crime scene,” he said. In the top left-hand corner he drew a second rectangle about half the size and wrote “Tim Hortons” inside it. In the surrounding white space he wrote “parking lot.” At the front entrance he put two X’s and wrote under them a capital “W” and a small “w.” “This is where Wilkinson and his son were when the boy got shot,” he said.

  Greene looked at the drawing, shaking his head.

  On the parking-lot side of the
doughnut shop he marked two X’s and wrote “L” and “D.” “There was a fresh chip on the sidewalk here. Let’s assume Larkin and Dewey were standing at this spot.”

  “I know that,” Greene said.

  Armitage pointed to the bottom right-hand part of the page. “James Eric Trapper, aka Jet, drove his old Cadillac in and stopped here.” He drew a small rectangle and wrote “Caddy” beside it. “Right?”

  “There’s nothing new here.”

  “We have five half-decent witnesses, and not one of them sees the shooting. Their evidence as to the number of shots fired ranges from four to ten.”

  “Nine,” Greene said. “Evidence of Adela Dobos. She’d just walked outside when the shots started.”

  “Still more than six,” Armitage said, “and that’s why it’s a problem. Could mean there was more than one gun. Plus the flattened shell case was found here.” He tapped the Cadillac in the drawing. “Jet’s got a bad criminal record, including possession of an unregistered handgun. If he was shooting, he could have picked up his own shells before he took off but missed one that he drove over.” He drew a curved line in front of the car that showed it driving out of the lot. “Possible, isn’t it?”

  Greene stared at Armitage.

  “I’m sure that’s what the defense is going to say. It’s possible. No proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Armitage said.