That’s why the name sounded familiar. Ozera often took books out from the Ralph Armitage Memorial Library. Once he broke his arm and had gone to the Armitage wing of Toronto General Hospital. From time to time he picked up a shift as a cleaner at the opera house Armitage Hall. The job paid cash and he could listen to the singers from the locker room in the basement.
The guy had four doting older sisters, who all worked for the various family-run charities. And he had a beautiful wife who was a fitness trainer at one of the city’s top gyms and this year was planning the family’s huge, annual, May Two-Four fireworks display for poor city kids.
“We lead very busy lives,” Armitage told the reporter, Amankwah. “Thursday nights are sacrosanct. We call it our midweek date. Right now we’re taking cooking classes together.”
The article tracked his rapid rise in the Crown’s office, talked about how charming he was, how he insisted on being called Ralph, “or Ralphie,” he said, “which is what most people call me once they get to know me.”
“Ralphie” suggested to Amankwah that they have lunch at a nearby dim sum restaurant in a basement on Dundas Street. Apparently he knew half the people they passed on the street, the Chinese family who ran the place, and just about every judge and lawyer who came in to eat.
“Why do you bother with such a tough job,” Amankwah asked him in the interview, “when you could take the easy route and work in the Armitage financial empire?”
“My family imbued us all with a passion for public service,” Ralphie replied.
“Bullshit,” Ozera muttered under his breath.
The second part of the article described the man accused of the murder, Larkin St. Clair. How his father was a career criminal, his mother a drug addict. It talked about Larkin’s own criminal record and how he’d befriended a short guy in prison named Dewey Booth. A source had told the writer that a number of witnesses saw a short young man who fit Booth’s description sitting with St. Clair at the Tim Hortons minutes before the shooting. The source also claimed that Booth had led the police to the murder weapon, which was found in the backyard of St. Clair’s aunt’s house.
At the end of the article, clearly relishing the moment, Armitage told the writer he’d made a deal with Booth’s lawyer. Booth had showed them where to find the gun. Now he would testify against St. Clair, and in exchange he wasn’t going to be charged with murder.
By the time he finished reading the article, Ozera was shaking. He flushed the toilet and staggered out of the stall to the sink. An old EMPLOYEES MUST WASH THEIR HANDS sign hung beside the corroded mirror. He looked at himself. He had turned thirty years old a few weeks earlier, and all of a sudden he looked his age. Gone was any trace of boyishness. His skin was pale and sallow. His dark hair was starting to thin. His eyes were red. He’d been crying and hadn’t even realized it.
What was he going to do now?
He ran the cold water, filled the sink, and lowered his face into it. It hurt. Stung real hard. That was the idea.
27
The concierge in the lobby of the apartment eyed Ari Greene with suspicion. A metal label on the counter he sat behind said his name was Iqbal.
“Good morning,” Greene said. “I’m here to see Mr. and Ms. Wilkinson.”
Iqbal shook his head. “We do not reveal the names of our residents. No visitors are allowed unless I have a specific request.” He jutted out his jaw, like a bulldog.
Greene pulled out his badge and business card. “I’m glad you are protective of the family.”
Iqbal made a show of checking his various security screens before he looked at Greene’s identification. He shrugged. “Police or no police, without an invitation, I cannot let you in.”
Greene dialed his cell. “It’s Detective Greene,” he said when Cedric Wilkinson answered. “I’m in your lobby and am very impressed with your concierge. If it’s not a bad time, I’d like to drop up and pay a quick visit.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Wilkinson said. “I’ll call down to Iqbal. He’s been great at keeping the press away. My wife and the baby are having a nap. I’ll meet you at the elevator.”
Iqbal picked up his phone a few seconds later, and then, with little enthusiasm, unlocked the glass door that led to the marble-lined main lobby.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” Wilkinson said to Greene when he opened the door to their apartment. The place was on the thirty-third floor, a corner suite facing southwest. It was spacious and sparse. Wilkinson had told Greene that before the shooting they they’d been looking for a house to rent, but there was nothing decent on the market. They would normally have had a sweeping view over a big valley named Hoggs Hollow, but right now the snow was so heavy the windows were covered in white.
“That night was the first time in his life Kyle had ever seen snow,” he said once he’d hung up Greene’s coat. They were standing together, looking outside. “He was so excited. I’d bought him a Toronto Maple Leafs hat, and he told me the kids at day care told him it was called a toque.”
Greene watched the blizzard with Wilkinson. There was nothing to say.
“We’re not used to having doormen, elevators, underground parking,” Wilkinson said. “Back home we had a huge backyard.”
Greene saw a plastic Christmas tree with a few unenthusiastic decorations in the corner of the living room. A big double stroller was in the hallway. A blanket covered only the front seat. The throw rugs on the hardwood floors didn’t quite fit the space. “How’s Kieran doing?” He made a point of asking about the newborn by his name, not just referring to him as “the baby.”
“Colicky. Kyle spoiled us. He was such a sleeper. Poor Madeleine, she’s up all night with the breast-feeding and then I walk him. She’s resting now, and I don’t want to wake her.”
“Please don’t.”
“We wanted to go home for the holidays, but she’s had all these problems with the stitches and then the bleeding. Doctor doesn’t want her to fly yet. I’ve already told the company I want to transfer back to California once the trial’s over.”
“I understand.”
Wilkinson’s big face looked drawn. He seemed to have lost some weight. “I’m not being very polite. Do you want some coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“Tea, juice, water. Anything else?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, I need some coffee.”
They went into the kitchen, and Greene sat at the table in the breakfast nook. Wilkinson had a full pot in the coffeemaker. He poured himself a cup and sat down.
“I’ve tried to take your advice, detective, and haven’t read the newspapers. Haven’t followed the news online. And I’m not responding to any of the reporters’ requests.”
There was a buzzing noise. Wilkinson reached into his pocket and turned off his cell phone without even taking it out. “I promised Madeleine I’d try to stay off this stupid thing. They called me ‘Cedric Cell Phone’ at work, because I was on it all the time.”
Greene waited until Wilkinson looked at him. “The grooves on the bullet that killed Kyle were a perfect match with the ones on the gun we found at Larkin St. Clair’s aunt’s house,” he said.
“What will that mean?”
“Means the case against Larkin St. Clair just got stronger.”
“And that deal the prosecutor made with Dewey Booth’s lawyer?”
Greene had told the Wilkinsons about Armitage’s agreement with Cutter back in November and they had been upset.
“Charges are going to be dropped. He’s a Crown witness now. As long as he follows through and testifies that St. Clair was the shooter, he’ll never be charged.”
“Never?”
“Unless we can prove he committed perjury, that’s it.”
The big man’s body slumped. “Damn it,” he said.
Greene took a copy of the Toronto Star out of his briefcase and tossed it on the table. “I wanted to show this to you before you stumbled on it. Slow news time between C
hristmas and New Year’s, and the story hit the front page.”
Wilkinson looked down at the picture of Ralph Armitage, smiling back at him in full color. He scanned the headline and read the first few paragraphs. He shook his head. “Bastard. He just loves getting his name in the press, doesn’t he?”
Greene heard a loud crashing noise down the hallway.
Wilkinson jumped out of his chair with alarming speed for such a big man and rushed out of the room.
Greene went to the door of the kitchen and waited. From his angle he couldn’t see down the hall.
“Honey, it’s okay,” Greene heard a woman’s voice say. “I slipped in the bathroom.”
“Is Kieran—”
“He’s in the crib. He’s fine,” the woman said. “Everyone’s okay.”
Greene heard a door close. He sat back down at the kitchen table and turned the newspaper over so Ralph Armitage wasn’t grinning at him anymore.
About five minutes later, light footsteps came back along the hall. He’d only met Madeleine Wilkinson once, the day after the shooting when she was in the hospital. In stark contrast to her husband, she was beanpole thin, even after giving birth. She stopped at the doorway and leaned her lithe body against the frame.
“Cedric told me the other suspect won’t be charged,” she said. “He’s real upset.”
“I don’t blame him. We got some tests back on the gun that confirmed the story he’d told us. The press has gotten wind of it, and I wanted you both to hear it from me first.”
She nodded. “Good of you to come.”
“Least I could do.”
“Cedric doesn’t blame you for this. We know you’re doing your best. Really, we do.”
Greene got up. “I should be going,” he said.
She didn’t move. “It’s much worse for him. He was there. He had to tell me.”
He stood still. “I know.”
“Cedric was just buying Kyle a doughnut. We used to fight about it. Him feeding our son too many sweets. And now he feels like it’s all his fault.”
He took a few steps. As he passed her in the doorway, Madeleine Wilkinson put her hand on his shoulder. “Cedric says you’re the only one who’s honest with him,” she said. “The only one he can trust.”
28
Nancy Parish was sitting in the same chair she’d sat in most of her life, in front of the family dining room table, with her father to her left, her mother to her right. Everything as it had always been, except this year Rick and Roger, her younger twin brothers, weren’t in their seats across from her. The rascals had managed to be away for Christmas—Rick out west working as a chef and skiing in Banff, and Roger in graduate school down east in Halifax.
Which meant she’d been forced to face her parents all on her own for three endless days. Somehow they’d survived Christmas without a fight, and on Boxing Day she’d run out to the stores to shop. This afternoon was their last meal together, the kind of formal family feast her mother loved to prepare. The main course was always the same: roast lamb, honeyed yams, and broccoli with toasted almonds. Not the type of food Parish ate anymore, especially for lunch, but she had to admit it tasted good.
They’d made it all the way through to dessert, her mother’s signature apple pie with Kawartha Dairy vanilla ice cream, without anything erupting. But it was brewing, like the winter storm up from Texas that had arrived with a fury a few hours ago and was walloping Southern Ontario.
“Dear, I know you’ll be upset with me, but there’s something I just have to ask you,” her mother said as she started pouring the tea using the family silver teapot.
Here it comes, Parish thought, looking outside and watching the wind and snow lash the mullioned dining room windows.
“I do understand that it’s your job,” her mother said. “But of all the cases, I mean … Really, dear. Do you have to take this one?”
“Mom, this is what I do. Defend people. Whether they’re charged with shoplifting or murder.”
I’m trapped in this case, Parish thought, watching the snow pile up on the driveway. Just like Larkin St. Clair, stuck in his jail cell. At least the food’s better in this prison.
“But a child murderer?”
“Right now he’s only accused of murder.” She couldn’t resist sneaking a peek at her father.
Her mother tossed her fork on the table in frustration. “Well, someone has to say it. You both think I’m unsophisticated. But what will you say to this poor family who lost their little son?”
Take a deep breath, Parish told herself. Don’t get angry. “I’ll never speak to them personally. If one of them takes the stand to testify, I’ll have to cross-examine them. That’s how the system works. It’s horrible what happened—”
“That’s my point,” her mother said. “Why in the world would you want to be a part of it?” She pushed back her chair and ran into the kitchen.
Parish’s father looked at her, opened his hands, and shrugged. I’m going to throttle the twins, she thought, for making me face Mom’s annual Christmas cry all alone. She stacked a load of dirty dishes in her arms and followed her mother back to the kitchen.
She put them down on the counter with care. The dishes were the family’s good china and there were strict rules about how to handle them. They were not allowed anywhere near the dishwasher. Her mother was at the sink, wearing yellow plastic gloves, washing the silverware.
Parish put a hand on her shoulder. “I know it’s hard for you.”
Her mother stretched her neck. “I try not to interfere. But, Nancy Gale, we sent you to school in the States, and you were such a top student and …” She pulled her hands out of the soapy water and wiped her eyes with her sleeves.
“Mom. We both know if you’d been born thirty years later, you’d have been the one at law school.”
Her mother pulled off one of her gloves and stroked her daughter’s cheek. With her thumb she rubbed the little bump in the middle of Parish’s nose. “All because of that silly little bump,” she said.
When Parish was sixteen, her life obsession had been getting the bump on her nose removed. Her father didn’t care, but her mother would have none of it. For two years their bitter arguments nearly tore apart the house. Secretly, Parish found a job on Saturdays at the nearby suburban hockey rink when she wasn’t playing herself, selling stale popcorn and crappy coffee. On her eighteenth birthday she announced that she’d earned the fifteen hundred dollars for the operation. Her mother relented.
One outrageously cold February morning, mother and daughter drove into the city. They had to leave home at six, and neither of them said a word the whole trip. Her mother parked the car in the hospital lot and refused to come inside. Instead, she left the motor running and picked up a trashy paperback novel.
Parish got out and slammed the door. For an hour she circled the hospital, her hands and feet getting colder by the minute. She couldn’t make herself go inside. She walked south. She had been downtown a few times, but never when she was eighteen, alone, with money in her pocket and no parents around. Ending up at the big square in front of city hall, she wandered over to the open-air skating rink. She was amazed to see men and women in their business suits out on skates.
The most wonderful skater was a young man wearing long black robes. The garment flapped behind him in the wind, like a flock of geese in the fall. He soon stopped and rolled his robes into a luxurious blue velvet bag with his initials on it, pulled it closed with two twined ropes, slung it over one shoulder and the skates over the other. Picking up a large briefcase, he walked across the square, which was now filled with other men and women carrying similar velvet bags.
She followed the lawyers and minutes later was inside the first courtroom she’d ever seen. Behind the raised judge’s bench was a massive coat of arms topped by a jewel-encrusted crown held up on one side by a gold lion and on the other by a white unicorn. Ribbons curled around and underneath the crest with the old French inscription HONI PENSE, DIEU
ET MON DROIT written in gold letters. The lawyers all wore gowns—like the skater had worn—and gleaming white shirts with starched white tabs.
Parish had walked into a sexual assault trial. A well-dressed young female witness was giving evidence. While the Crown Attorney was asking her questions she seemed perfectly believable. Then a female defense lawyer rose to begin her cross-examination.
“You’re an excellent student, Celia, correct?”
“Yes I am.”
“Perfect attendance, never skip a class.”
“That’s right.”
“In your initial statement to the police, you said my client, Duane, forced you into the back room behind the gym, correct?”
“Yeah,” she said. “He did.”
“And your mother was with you when you talked to the police, wasn’t she?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Your mother isn’t in the courtroom today.”
“No. She’s not allowed.”
“You didn’t tell her that you skipped out of math because you wanted to meet Duane, did you?”
“I, I can’t remember.”
“This was the first time in two and a half years that you ever skipped a class. Wasn’t it?”
The young woman balled her hands together.
“And your mother doesn’t know you were bragging to your friends in the cafeteria a half hour before that you were going to be the first one to do it with my client, does she?”
The woman burst into tears.
“Your mom doesn’t know that you told your friend Tina”—the lawyer opened a file and read—“‘I win. I was the first to blow Duane.’”
The young woman bit her bottom lip but refused to answer.
“Once the rumor started, you had to deny it, didn’t you? Otherwise when your mother found out—”
“You don’t know what the kids are like at Caledonia!” Celia wailed. “I thought Tina wouldn’t tell anyone. My mother is crazy that I don’t become a teenage mom like her.”
“And that’s why you had to make up this story.” The defense lawyer’s voice was calm, comforting.
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