The Star’s new editor, Barclay Church, a British transplant who lived for stories filled with sex and scandal, would have no interest in the handful of run-of-the mill crimes on this court docket: a stabbing; two shootings; a dead body found in a ravine; a real dumb drug-importing case (a bunch of boxers from the islands who shipped the stuff up in their gym bags); and the inevitable sexual assault cases. One pitted a stepfather against his stepdaughter, another featured a drunk, minor-league hockey player versus a failed actress-turned-waitress.
All the usual suspects. Strictly six-paragraph, page-eight filler.
None of this was going to help Amankwah reboot his career. He needed the ink to earn a promotion so he could start doing feature stories. That would give him more exposure and more money to maintain his support payments so he could keep seeing his two children. For the last few years he’d been doing extra overnight shifts in the radio room to make his nut. And now, with the hotly contested election for city mayor about to start, only the biggest and sexiest crime stories had a chance of not getting buried, if not cut out altogether.
His best bet this morning was Courtroom 406, where Seaton Wainwright, the high-flying filmmaker who was charged with scamming investors out of millions, was scheduled to make an appearance. Last Wednesday things had heated up when Phil Cutter, Wainwright’s aggressive, bald-headed lawyer, had tried to change the bail conditions to allow his client to go to New York for five days to “work on some deals he planned to sign during the Toronto Film Festival” before his upcoming trial.
Jennifer Raglan, the lead Crown on the case, had produced copies of Wainwright’s Visa card that showed the last time he’d been in the Big Apple, he’d hired a series of high-class Manhattan hookers and charged them to his company as “promotion.”
The judge, Irene Norville, no shrinking violet herself, was not impressed. She gave Wainwright forty-eight hours in New York, ordered him to be back in court this morning at ten, and rushed off the bench.
Wainwright, who was about six feet ten and weighed close to three hundred pounds, ploughed out of the courtroom. When Raglan walked into the hallway with the other lawyers and reporters, he accosted her.
“Why the fuck are you trying to ruin my life,” he shouted. “Do you know how many jobs I’ve created in this town?”
Raglan was maybe five six and thin, but she stood her ground like a halfback confronting a charging linebacker. “Maybe you should start thinking above the shoulders,” she said, “not below the waist.”
Two court security guards ran over.
She waved them off and turned on Cutter. Her eyes flashed with rage. “Your clown of a client comes near me again, and I’ll have him in cuffs so fast it will make his fat ass pucker up like the scared chicken he really is.”
She stormed off, leaving everyone standing in stunned silence. Raglan was a well-respected prosecutor and known for keeping her cool in tough situations.
“Where’d that come from?” Amankwah asked the other reporters.
Zach Stone, the Toronto Sun writer who was the veteran of the crew, didn’t seem surprised. “That’s the old Jennie,” he said.
“Meaning?” Amankwah asked.
“Not many people know this, but she started out as a cop.”
“Raglan. A cop?”
“Long time ago,” Stone had said in his usual cryptic tone. He had begun his career at the old Toronto Telegram. When that paper closed he spent a few years at the Star, then moved to the Sun a long time ago. He had a million sources and even more secrets. It was clear he wasn’t going to say anything more.
Amankwah knew there would be no fireworks this morning between Raglan and Wainwright. Last week she’d told Norville she was taking Mondays off until the trial began, next week, and she wouldn’t be here today.
Five minutes before ten o’clock, Amankwah watched the junior lawyer on the case, a beautiful young woman named Jo Summers, come into court and set herself up at the Crown counsel table. There was no sign of Wainwright, who always made a grand entrance at the last moment, angering Norville more each time, but was never technically late.
Cutter scurried in just before ten. His bald pate gleamed with sweat. He strode over to Summers and whispered in her ear. She looked around the empty courtroom, frowned, and shook her head, like a vice principal frustrated yet again with a difficult pupil.
Watching Cutter wipe the perspiration from his brow, Amankwah could tell that this time there’d be no dramatic, last-second entrance by his mini-movie-mogul client.
There was a loud rap, and the oak door at the front of the courtroom swung open. Norville swooped in, followed by her robed registrar, an older gentleman named Mr. Singh. A former railway engineer in India, Singh had been a key witness in a murder trial a few years earlier and had become enamoured with the court process. Now he worked here. Courteous, efficient, and always with a smile on his face, he loved to chat with people and everyone loved to talk to him.
She ran up to her elevated dais, plunked herself down in her high-backed chair, put on a pair of plain but stylish black glasses, and scanned the empty seats in front of her. Her eyes fixed on Cutter.
“Counsel, where’s your client?”
Cutter, usually a fearless advocate, bowed his head. “I haven’t heard from him all morning.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Mr. Wainwright always e-mails and texts me about ten times a day. But he’s not responding.”
“Tell me that at least he came back from his Manhattan adventure.”
Cutter nodded. “Yes, Your Honour. I saw him at my office last night. But this morning, I have no explanation. This is not his usual MO.”
“Hah,” Norville said.
She looked like she wanted to spit at him, Amankwah thought. Now, that would be a front-page story.
“If by his usual MO you mean arrogantly striding into my court at exactly ten o’clock, not a second earlier, I have to agree with you.” She turned to Summers. “The Crown’s position?”
“Bench warrant,” Summers said. “Time to send the accused a message that this isn’t just another appointment on his busy schedule. The trial starts next Monday, let him have a week in jail to think about what it means to get to court on time.”
“Your Honour, I’ll admit my client regularly tests the patience of the court,” Cutter said, jumping in. “Last night he assured me he’d get here early.” He held up his phone. “His personal assistant hasn’t heard from him either. An hour ago, I had my partner, Barb Gild, rush over to his condo. She called five minutes ago. The concierge said that Mr. Wainwright left at seven P.M. last night and didn’t come back. I met with him at seven-thirty. He gave me his passport, as you requested he do when he got back from New York. He left my office at eight-thirty and that’s the last anyone has heard or seen of him.”
Norville yanked off her glasses and let them clatter on her desk. “Mr. Cutter, what do you want me to do?”
“Give me one day. We’ll do everything we can to find him. I’m confident there will be some explanation for this.”
Norville squinted at the big clock on the sidewall above the jury box. She sighed. “For the record. It is now 10:09 A.M. on September tenth. This court is adjourned until one o’clock. Mr. Cutter, if your client isn’t standing right beside you this afternoon, I’m going to issue a bench warrant. And he’ll sit in jail until this trial is over. Got it?”
“Yes, Your Honour.”
Amankwah had never seen Cutter look so humble in court.
“And, Mr. Cutter,” she said.
“Yes, Your Honour.”
“If I were you, I’d pray very hard that he hasn’t left the country.”
Out in the hallway, Cutter marched away, tearing off the white tabs around his neck and unbuttoning the top button of his too-tight white court shirt. The slap of his black wingtip shoes echoed off the marble walls with a loud clang sound. Amankwah caught up and walked with him step for step.
“Where do you think Wainwright’s gone?” he
asked.
Cutter shrugged. “How the fuck should I know? This job would be a hell of a lot easier if we didn’t have clients.”
“What are you going to do to find him?”
“Call in Dudley Do-Right and the Mounties,” Cutter said. He got to the frosted-glass door of the barristers’ lounge. A prominent sign above the wood handle read: LOUNGE STRICTLY RESERVED FOR MEMBERS OF THE LAW SOCIETY OF UPPER CANADA. CLIENTS AND MEDIA ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
He yanked the door open and disappeared.
Amankwah stood alone in the empty hallway. He looked down at the pathetic few lines he’d scribbled down in his reporter’s notebook. Shit. A dud story on a dud Monday morning.
3
GREENE STEPPED INSIDE THE MOTEL BATHROOM. IT WAS EMPTY. IN THE SINK, A HALF BOTTLE of champagne lay in pool of icy water.
He wanted to vomit. Under his helmet, tears were streaming down his eyes. He could hardly see. He could hardly think.
How could Jennifer be dead? Murdered?
Ari, think, he yelled at himself. This is a crime scene. Everything here is evidence.
He looked back at the bed, tiptoed out, and crouched down beside Jennifer. He wanted this one last, private chance to see her, before it all began.
She was curled up under the covers. The candle burning by her side. His heart was thumping harder than he’d ever felt it.
He froze.
He didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want the moment to end. Time had lost all meaning. At last he got up. Careful not to disturb anything, he took a step back and reached again for his cell phone.
He heard a sound. Something scratching against the outside of the front door, which he hadn’t closed behind him.
Someone was out there.
He jammed the phone back in his pocket. It was two steps to the foot of the bed and three more across to the door. He flung it open. Scanned the little courtyard. Something caught his eye at the passageway. A person fleeing. All he saw was the heel of a shoe before it disappeared around the corner.
He ran to the street, puffing hard under the helmet, the visor crashing down with his motion. There was no one in front of the motel. Out on Kingston Road, three lanes of traffic whizzed by in both directions. To his left was an empty lot. To his right was the strip mall where he’d parked his scooter. No one was there either.
He sprinted over to the mall. A few cars were parked, but nothing seemed out of place. He looked up a short alley that started between two stores and saw a garbage can that seemed to have just been overturned. He ran through the alley. At its end, just steps away, two residential streets intersected, going off in four directions. He forced himself to stand still to see if anything moved. Look, he told himself. Look. Listen.
Nothing.
Whoever it was could have gone down any of these roads.
He needed to catch his breath. Back at his scooter he looked at the motel entrance. No one was in front. Across Kingston Road was a big shopping mall. No windows faced outward. Cars kept zipping by as if nothing unusual had happened. He reached for his cell phone again.
As he was about to dial in, he heard a siren come screaming toward him. He looked down Kingston Road and saw a police cruiser flying up the street, full flashers on. Right behind it was an ambulance, lights and sirens roaring too.
He watched in amazement as they tore through the traffic, zipped past him, and cut into the motel courtyard.
He looked at the cell phone in his hand. There was no point in calling 911 now. If he did, it would just add to the confusion.
But wait.
Something about this didn’t make sense.
His phone told him it was 10:44.
Response time on an emergency call like this would take about seven or eight minutes, max. He knew for sure he’d walked into the room at 10:41. Someone had called in the murder before he got there. But what if he’d been on time? What if he hadn’t given chase to this suspect?
He thought of Raglan, strangled. The most intimate and angry way to kill someone. Then of her body, neatly tucked into bed. The one candle still lit. As if the killer had felt remorseful.
Jennifer’s phone call. Her husband, Howard, had texted her and wanted to have coffee with her this morning. She’d said no. Said she was going running.
His shoulders slumped. Somehow, Howard must have found out about their affair. He could see it. The poor man, enraged to the point that he killed his wife. Then he called 911 and waited until Greene showed up. He wanted to set him up for his crime. Made sense. Obviously he was the person at the door who’d run away.
Greene had seen this too many times in his career, a murdering spouse turned suicidal. If he was on foot, Howard was probably on one of those streets behind the strip mall. Intent on ending it all.
Greene pocketed his phone and jumped on his scooter.
4
WALK SLOWLY, HOMICIDE DETECTIVE DANIEL KENNICOTT TOLD HIMSELF AS GOT OUT OF THE unmarked police car. He’d parked at the far corner of the cracked concrete driveway in front of the Maple Leaf Motel so he could get a view of the whole scene.
Walking or doing anything slowly didn’t come naturally to Kennicott. But after five impatient years on the police force, at the end of June he’d finally made it to the homicide squad. It felt like forever, even though he’d done it in record time, thanks mostly to his mentor, Ari Greene, who was the master of the slow, deliberate homicide walk.
Greene wasn’t here. Which was how it should be. Kennicott was on his own now, about to take on his first murder case.
At the entrance to the motel’s courtyard, a well-dressed man in street clothes was talking on his cell phone. He nodded as Kennicott approached. Although they’d never met, Kennicott knew this would be Detective Raymond Alpine from 43 Division.
While Kennicott was rushing over here, he’d been on the phone with Alpine, who updated him on what they had so far: At 10:39, police received a 911 call about an apparent homicide in room 8 at the Maple Leaf Motel. The first squad car and the ambulance arrived at 10:44. At 10:48, PC Arthurs, the first officer on scene, reported that she had gone into the room, accompanied by an ambulance attendant, and found a white female, estimated age thirty-five to forty-five, NVA – no vital signs apparent, the victim of an apparent strangulation. Alpine arrived at 10:51, went inside the room briefly with the same attendant, and confirmed the initial findings. By 10:58, he had deployed two pairs of officers to knock on every door in the motel. It had twenty-six rooms. The identification officer who would be in charge of all forensic work was en route and would be there shortly.
Kennicott introduced himself, giving the detective a firm handshake.
“Raymond Alpine.” The officer’s voice was laconic, verging on bored.
Kennicott pointed into the courtyard at the squad car and ambulance parked there. “You guys got here fast,” he said.
Alpine shrugged. “Slow Monday. We were hoping Gwyneth Paltrow would stop in at the station. We even got a whole box of fresh doughnuts for her. But she never showed.”
Kennicott realized that for Alpine this was just another hooker-motel murder. He couldn’t blame the guy for being jaded. These homicides were almost always the same: a prostitute, too old for the game, with a drug or alcohol problem, or both, was found stabbed to death, or with her head bashed in, or, as in this case, strangled. The murders were nearly always a crime of passion. The perpetrator could be counted on to be some loner, often with no criminal record, who was bad at covering his tracks. He’d claim he’d lost his head, usually after the woman had made some unflattering comment about his performance. Ninety-nine percent of these cases were settled with a quick plea to manslaughter.
Kennicott turned back to Kingston Road. Along this stretch, it was six lanes wide, with a concrete barrier in the middle. The blocks were long and the cars sped past. On the other side of the street, probably half a mile away, was an inward-facing shopping mall.
“Not much street life here for us to find witnesses,�
� he said.
Alpine snorted. “Welcome to outer Scarberia. I don’t know why they even bother building sidewalks.”
Scarberia was the nickname for Scarborough, Toronto’s sprawling eastern suburb. Home to bad planning, dysfunctional public transportation, horrendous high-rise housing, a mishmash immigrant population, and the city’s highest murder rate. Big surprise.
Kennicott pointed to the motel office. There didn’t appear to be anyone inside. “Anyone at the check-in desk see anything?”
“No such luck,” Alpine said. “Handwritten sign on the door says the owner is not in mornings from nine to eleven. There’s a cell number and we’ve called him. He’ll be here in about ten minutes.”
Kennicott frowned. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll take a look around the courtyard while I’m waiting for the ident officer.”
He ducked under the yellow tape strung across the passageway and went through. He could see there was no other way in or out of the courtyard. It was a few steps to room 8, where a squad car and an ambulance were parked. A female officer stood in front of the door, her arms crossed. She was a tall woman, close to six feet, just a few inches shorter than Kennicott.
He showed her his badge.
“Morning, Detective.” She unfolded her arms and shook his hand. “PC Arthurs.”
“You were the first officer on scene,” he said.
“Yes.” She was holding a police notebook in her other hand so tightly her knuckles were white. Her voice was surprisingly high-pitched for such a big woman and Kennicott wondered if it was always this way or if it was stress.
“Your first homicide?” he asked.
“How’d you guess?”
“You went in with the ambulance attendant.”
Arthurs nodded.
“He try CPR?”
“No. Said there was no pulse, no breath.”
“So the scene’s undisturbed.”
Stranglehold Page 2