Stranglehold

by Rotenberg, Robert

  He hadn’t heard anything about her personal life. He was making it up on the fly.

  “Ha!” she snarled. “Who said they’re all unmarried?”

  Sweat beaded on his forehead. His breathing was sharp. It had been years since he’d been this furious.

  “If Greene’s such a great detective,” she said, “why hasn’t he solved your brother’s murder yet? Ever think about that?”

  A wash of calm broke over him. His fury died. Every part of him felt cold.

  He reached around her for the door handle, careful not to make contact. “I think about it every day. Maybe you should think about upholding Jennifer’s legacy as a fair-minded Crown.”

  “Fuck you, Daniel.” She smacked him hard on the shoulder with her racquet.

  He stared down at the spot where she’d hit him and then back at her. “Really looking forward to working with you on this case.” He turned his back and walked through the door.

  He thought about slamming it behind him, but decided not to give her the satisfaction.

  62

  “ARI, ONLY FOR YOU WOULD I BE DRIVING A BREAD TRUCK AGAIN,” BRIAN SILVER SAID OVER his shoulder as he pulled his delivery truck out of Greene’s father’s driveway.

  Greene was squatting in the back between racks of fresh bread. “When I get out of this mess, Hap Charlton will give me tickets to see the Raptors,” he said. “You can take your son.”

  Silver had a fifteen-year-old boy with severe learning disabilities, who was obsessed with Toronto’s basketball team.

  “Deal,” Silver said.

  “Don’t speed, whatever you do. The last thing we want is to get stopped.”

  “I’m driving like a Boy Scout.”

  The ride was bumpy, and Greene rolled with the sway of the truck. He couldn’t see out the front window, but it was late and he could tell there was no traffic. He closed his eyes and let the time pass. Even hiding in the back of a truck with bad shocks felt better than being cooped up in his father’s house.

  “Heading down Jarvis,” Silver said after a while. “Queen is the next block.”

  Greene moved up and crouched behind the passenger seat. “Make a left at the light and keep going till just past Sherbourne. He should be across the street on the north side.”

  Silver turned and Greene had to hold on to the seat back to keep his balance. Silver steered the truck into the curb lane and stopped. Greene sneaked a look out the driver’s window. There was no one there. He checked his watch. It was exactly midnight.

  “Where is this guy?” Silver asked.

  “I don’t know,” Greene said.

  Silver put on his flashers. “Get down, Ari,” he hissed.

  Out the front window Greene saw a patrol car approach from the east and glide past.

  “I better look busy,” Silver said. He got out, opened the back door, put three loaves of bread in a paper bag, and closed the door.

  Greene rose up enough to look out the front window and watch Silver drop the bread in Popeye’s doorway.

  He heard a sound and ducked.

  The passenger door opened and Fraser Dent climbed in. He was wearing his usual patchwork jacket, and his stringy hair was longer than ever.

  “Evening, Monsieur Detective,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Thanks for doing this,” Greene said.

  Silver came back and opened the driver’s door. “Hi, Brian Silver,” he said to Dent, reaching out to shake his hand as if they were old friends.

  “Call me Fraser,” Dent said, grasping his hand.

  “This truck’s heading back to the lot,” Silver said. “Fraser, you better get back there with your pal. Help yourself to a loaf.”

  “My pleasure,” Dent said, slipping into the back. “This is like being in a paddy wagon, but with free food and no handcuffs.”

  Silver did a U-turn and drove through the downtown at a steady pace. Soon they were parked in the bakery’s lot, surrounded by other delivery trucks.

  “Ari, I’ll be back in an hour,” Silver said as he got out.

  Greene moved into the driver’s seat. Dent sat beside him in the passenger seat and tore open the wrapper on a loaf of white bread. He pulled out two slices and offered one to Greene.

  “No thanks,” Greene said.

  Dent took a bite then opened a pack of cigarettes and held it out to Greene.

  “No thanks again,” Greene said.

  “Don’t tell me you quit already.” Dent shook his head. “Take one, Detective. You might need it.”

  Greene took a cigarette and Dent lit it for him. It tasted foul. “What did you find out?”

  “Why Raglan quit being a cop.” Dent wolfed down a second slice of bread and lit up his own cigarette, tossed the match out the window, and took a few puffs.

  Dent often took his time when he had something special to say and Greene had learned it was best not to rush him. The windows were open and the cool night air felt refreshing.

  “I read in the paper that her husband called her Jennie,” Dent said at last.

  “That’s right. Everyone in her hometown did. She hated the name.”

  “It jogged something in my memory,” Dent said. “When I was an up-and-coming trader, I spent a year working in Tokyo back in 1985. I remember there was a story on the local news about Toronto, which when you are living over there is very weird. There was this Japanese judge at Old City Hall. Guy was a Second World War hero, fought in Germany. He used to give the cops a hard time on the witness stand. Started tossing out their cases.”

  “When was this?”

  “September first, 1985. I went to the reference library and figured out the whole story. I’m still a good researcher when it counts. Before you joined the force, Raglan was a young recruit on the morality squad. I’ve asked some of the old guys. They say she was a star performer. Sounds like she was a real looker. Shit like that.”

  Greene pulled hard on the cigarette. It felt like everything in his life was off-kilter.

  “Jennie was picked for the job,” Dent said. “Went into the old fart’s chambers all dolled up like a hooker up on charges. Offered to do him a little personal favour if he could help her out. Sucker fell for it. Yanked down his pants right under his robes. She called in backup and he was busted. It was all over the papers right across the country. The States too. Like I said, it made the news in Japan. Two days later, the war-hero judge jumps off a bridge. Had a wife and two kids, like I used to have.”

  How much more am I going to find out about Jennifer that I never knew? Greene wondered. He could imagine how horrified she must have been when she heard the judge had killed himself. “That’s when she quit the force?” he asked.

  “Very next day, I heard, back in the mid-1980s,” Dent said. “Want to guess who her partner was on the assignment?”

  “No idea.”

  “Newbridge.”

  “Clyde Newbridge?” Greene’s head started to throb. “He was one of the cops who arrested me with Kennicott.”

  “The very same asshole. Hap Charlton’s fat attack dog. You didn’t know about any of this stuff?”

  “No,” Greene said. He tossed the cigarette butt out the window.

  “Everyone’s got secrets, Detective. You of all people should know that.” Dent reached behind him and grabbed another loaf. “Got to go.”

  “Thanks,” Greene said.

  “Anytime. Take these, you’re the guy on the bubble this time.” Dent tossed the rest of his pack of cigarettes in Greene’s lap, opened the door, and disappeared.

  Greene looked at his watch. It was only 12:30. Silver wouldn’t be back for half an hour. Greene hadn’t brought his cell phone. He didn’t want to leave a cyber-trail of his movements when he was flagrantly breaching his bail. And he couldn’t risk walking on the street.

  He stepped outside and leaned against the truck. He looked south at the lights on the CN Tower, flicking high above the city in the night sky. He lit another cigarette, inhaled, and blew out the
smoke in an awkward white puff.

  He smelled something familiar. Smoke. Not from his own cigarette, but a heavier scent. It took him a moment to place it, and as his memory clicked in he heard a voice he knew very well.

  “Being on bail’s driven you to smoking,” Hap Charlton said, walking out of the darkness and waving a tipped cigarillo.

  Greene wasn’t surprised to see him. Charlton loved making an entrance when he was least expected. It was his way of letting you know he had his fingers on the pulse of everything. He’d probably had him followed all the way downtown. They hadn’t spoken since Greene’s arrest, and he knew Charlton had to be itching to pick his brain.

  Greene put his hands together and stretched out his arms. “You got handcuffs?” he asked.

  Charlton laughed. “Ari, you’re a lousy smoker.” He stood beside Greene with his back to the truck, took a puff of his little cigar, and exhaled a perfect line of smoke.

  “I quit in junior high,” Greene said. “Cold turkey.”

  Charlton smiled. “How’s your dad?”

  “Having me around is cramping his style. How’s the campaign?”

  “To tell you the truth, the poll numbers are so good we’re trying to play them down.”

  “Jennifer getting killed didn’t hurt, did it?” Charlton was blatantly using Raglan’s murder to ratchet up his tough-on-crime campaign, and clearly it had worked.

  Charlton shrugged. “Politics is politics. If you’re not in it to win, there’s no point in running. The murder happened. Bad timing for my opponent, so we take advantage of it. Like Obama with that storm. Hey, shit happens, but I’ve never thrown you under the bus.”

  The news media had tried to make a big deal out of the fact that one of Charlton’s top homicide detectives had been charged with murder. He had stated unequivocally that Greene was innocent until proven otherwise and had publicly pledged to have no involvement at all in the investigation or the trial.

  Greene banged the side of the bread truck. “I thought I’d done a pretty good job of covering my tracks while I breached my bail,” he said.

  “Not bad. But you forgot, I’ve known Lindsmore for twenty-five years.”

  Greene nodded. Of course, Charlton would figure out the Lindsmore connection, and Lindsmore, although he was a good guy, would have no choice but to spill the beans.

  “So Lindsmore’s been telling you what I’ve been telling him,” Greene said.

  “Which is basically fuck-all,” Charlton said. “Except that you didn’t kill Jennifer. This Fraser Dent guy you were just talking to. I looked him up. He’s been one of your sources for a while.”

  Greene waved his cigarette pack at the high-rise towers that filled the city core. “He used to work in one of those offices. Made more money in a month than you and me make combined in a year.”

  “And now he’s stealing loaves from a bread truck,” Hap said.

  They smoked in silence.

  “The condemned man has his last cigarette,” Greene said.

  “Fool for love is more like it,” Charlton said.

  “You talked to Kennicott?”

  “Hey, I made a campaign pledge to stay out of it.”

  “That’s why I’m asking.”

  Charlton laughed. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour. The answer is no, I haven’t.”

  “Let me guess. He’s too wet behind the ears. Easier to talk to me like this.”

  “Something like that.”

  A thought occurred to Greene. “Did you have Lindsmore wired?”

  “Like I said, you didn’t say shit to him anyways,” Charlton said with a shrug, tacitly, but not explicitly, confirming that Lindsmore had been wired and he’d heard the tapes.

  This didn’t surprise Greene either. It was Charlton’s style. But he wouldn’t have been able to wire the bread van or Fraser Dent and he was probably dying to know what Greene was up to.

  “So you know I asked Lindsmore to find Dent, and that I asked Dent to find out more about the time when Jennifer was a cop. Detective Work 101: Get to know your victim,” Greene said.

  “What did Dent tell you?” Charlton asked,

  “Not much. She worked morality for a few years. Some of the old guys remember her being very pretty. Quit and went to law school.”

  “Did he say why she quit?” Charlton asked. Anxious for an answer.

  Who was Jennifer Raglan? Greene wondered. He didn’t know anymore. He didn’t really know anything. That sense of caution, which had been gnawing at him since the morning of the murder, was back.

  “No, Dent had no idea.” Greene tossed his cigarette on the concrete and ground it out. “Looks like it’s a mystery that died with her.”

  PART

  SIX

  63

  NOTHING LIKE A COURTROOM AT TEN O’CLOCK ON A MONDAY MORNING WHEN A BIG trial was about to begin, Angela Kreitinger thought as she watched the twelve members of the jury file in. Every seat in the courtroom was filled, the front rows by the press, except for the one directly behind her chair, which was set aside for Howard Darnell and his three children. He sat there, alone.

  When the jurors were seated and settled in their chairs, Mr. Singh rose. He adjusted his robes and looked up at Judge Norville. “Your Honour,” he said, “all twelve members of the jury are present.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Registrar,” Norville said. “Before we start these proceedings, as I suspect everyone in this courtroom is aware, today our new mayor, Hap Charlton, is being sworn into office. Court will rise at four, instead of our usual four-thirty time. That way I and many of my colleagues can attend the ceremony.”

  While the rest of us go back to the office and work all night, Kreitinger thought.

  Norville smiled at her. “Madam Crown, please proceed.”

  “Thank you, Your Honour.” Kreitinger walked to the lectern between her table and the jury box and placed the court binder that Jo Summers had prepared on it. The only thing the jurors knew about Ari Greene was his name, what he looked like, and that he was charged with first-degree murder. Most wouldn’t even know who the victim was. Since the Crown always addressed the jury first, this was her chance to draw the picture of him that she wanted them to see.

  Opening addresses were tricky. Some overeager Crowns started their case by throwing out a laundry list of every fact they thought they could prove. Often all this did was confuse and overwhelm the jury. Even worse, if during the trial they fell short of their mark, when the defence made its closing argument, they’d pounce on every unproven detail, no matter how minute.

  Other Crowns, fearful of overreaching, were too cautious. They watered down their remarks to the point where their advocacy had no passion, leaving the jury unmoved, not engaged.

  Kreitinger believed the key was to tell a story. Find the theme that ran through the case and drive it home.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she said, looking up from her binder. “This trial is about a man who murdered his lover, because she was about to end their affair.”

  She paused to let it sink in.

  “The accused man is right there with his two lawyers.” She glanced over at Greene, who was sitting between Ted DiPaulo and his partner, Nancy Parish.

  “His name is Ari Greene. He is a police officer. A twenty-five-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service and a homicide detective for the last five years. All very impressive for sure. But whether he is a homicide detective, a bank president, a gold-medal athlete, or a sanitary worker who collects garbage every day doesn’t matter to the Crown. And I know it won’t matter to you. In this courtroom he is one person: the accused. And what he’s accused of is the most heinous crime in the criminal code: first-degree murder. “

  A few of the jurors nodded. Good. Time to get to the bad part of the story right away. Lay it out there.

  “The victim was a woman named Jennifer Raglan. Her full title was Crown Attorney Jennifer Raglan. That’s right. She used to do the same job I’m
doing. For years she stood right here, at this very lectern, speaking to jurors like yourselves. But it doesn’t matter what her job was. What matters is this: She was a woman who was viciously murdered by her lover, the accused.” No more using Greene’s name. Until the trial was over, as many times as she could fit it in, Kreitinger was going to call him the accused. And work in the most compelling verb of all, “murdered,” as often as possible.

  One of the jurors who had nodded, a well-dressed, middle-aged woman who had listed her job as arts administrator, flicked her gaze toward the defence table, then quickly back to Kreitinger.

  “ ‘Lover’ might sound like an old-fashioned word to you, and perhaps it is,” she said. “But the facts are not in dispute. As you will soon hear, Jennifer was married to Howard, her high-school sweetheart from Welland, the small town where they both grew up. Mr. Darnell is in court today.”

  She turned slowly and looked at Darnell, seated alone behind her, flanked by empty seats in the packed room, then back at the jury. She focused on the arts administrator. The woman looked like the kind of take-charge juror she wanted to get on her side right away.

  “Howard and Jennifer have three children, Aaron, Barry, and Corinne, and you’ll be glad to know they are not here. I do not intend to call them as witnesses.”

  She wanted the jurors to feel good about a prosecutor who would spare the children. The arts administrator looked back at Kreitinger and practically mouthed the words thank you.

  Time to deliver the dirt. Kreitinger left the lectern and her binder and walked to the far end of the jury box. Twelve sets of eyes followed her.

  “It probably won’t shock you to hear that like many couples, especially, it seems, when they marry young and are busy raising their families, Howard and Jennifer’s marriage was not perfect. They had problems.”

  She bridged her hands in front of her. A few of the women jurors sneaked looks at her fingers. She knew they’d want to check whether she wore a wedding ring. She was sending them a message: No, I’m not married, but yes, I get it.