Lori walked slowly back to the top of the staircase and looked down at her footprints leading down into the blackness. She started to descend, slowly at first, and then faster. At the bottom, she turned and looked back up. She gathered herself. She would go up again.
With a cup of hot tea on her desk – she had looked longingly at the blueberry muffins but declined – Lori was feeling warm and content and even cozy. She liked the bustle of the department, the phones ringing, the constant stream of people coming and going. Never did she feel so much like she was part of a large and efficient organization as she did in the mornings. She liked to take a minute at her desk and watch the activity, and marvel that she, the daughter of Indian immigrants, had ended up as a homicide detective in a large and growing city.
The moment usually didn’t last long, nor did it this morning. Her cell phone buzzed.
“Detective Singh? This is Cindy.”
Lori drew a blank. She had been thinking about her parents, so very far away; it was time she called them. “Uh…”
The caller guessed Lori’s incomprehension. “Cindy Rasmussen. The intern in Media Relations. Gorgeous, intelligent, highly available? Remember me?”
Lori laughed and sat back in her chair. “Cindy, forgive me. For a moment there I was in India and forgot where I was. And for goodness sakes, call me Lori.”
“India, hmmm? I’ve always wanted to go there. Take me with you next time.”
Lori laughed again. “I’ll do that.” She waited.
Cindy’s voice changed. “I’ve got something for you. Do you want it over the phone?”
Lori thought for a few seconds. “No. It would probably be alright but just to be safe, let’s meet in the women’s washroom on your floor. Five minutes?”
“Okey dokey. I’ll be the one in black.”
When Lori arrived, the washroom only had one occupant, and true to her words, Cindy Rasmussen was dressed in black slacks and a black and silver striped sweater. She was combing her blonde hair in front of the mirror.
“Thank God,” she said. “I was almost at a hundred strokes.” She examined Lori and whistled. “Wow, you look fabulous. What’s your secret?”
Lori smiled but she was surprised. “Me?” She looked down at herself: she was wearing grey, tailored pants and one of the warm, bulky sweaters she favoured in the winter. This one was striped shades of lilac and came down well past her waist. She looked up at Cindy. “Thanks, but there’s no secret. I’m trying to lose a little weight, though.”
Cindy looked at her carefully. “It’s the eyes,” she pronounced. “The almond shape. Where can I get a pair like that? And I think you can stop with the weight loss already – you’re there. Definitely there.”
Lori was embarrassed. “Thank you. Um…what have you learned, if anything?”
Cindy leaned back against the counter and resumed brushing her hair. “It was your guy alright. Drennan. He called Susan Benitez and sicced her onto your boss.”
Lori was leaning against a toilet stall, facing Cindy. “You’re sure?”
“I am.”
“How do you know?”
Cindy smiled. “A reporter never reveals her sources.” She could see that Lori was about to speak so she went on, “Just kidding. I’m friends with one of the secretaries in Drennan’s office. She is friends with Drennan’s personal secretary. And she – Drennan’s secretary, that is – told my girlfriend that she had placed a call to this Benitez woman on Drennan’s behalf.”
“I see.” Lori thought. “Did your friend say when this call was made?”
“Saturday, she said. She remembered because it was the same day that Drennan spoke to the media and gave out your guy’s name.”
Lori sighed. “That’s pretty conclusive, I would say. I was hoping maybe it wasn’t true.”
“So Drennan called this Susan Benitez and gave her the address of your Detective Drumm.”
“Looks like it.” Lori snapped her fingers and said, “Well, it’s good to know for sure. Thank you so much, Cindy.”
“Aw shucks, tweren’t nothing, ma’am.” Cindy smiled. “It was fun.” She looked enquiringly at Lori. “Have I earned a dinner, then?”
Lori was heading out the door. “You have indeed. Let me know where and when. And thanks again.”
Lori knocked on the door and entered. Detective Sergeant Drumm was reading something on his desk.
“Have a seat, Lori.” He waved her to a chair. “I’m just re-reading the witness descriptions for the RR. I’m trying to think if we saw anybody like that last night.”
“You know we didn’t, Nick.”
“No.” He smiled at her. “But, you know…”
Lori did know. When you were stuck, you went over things and over things until you could see the photos and the reports in your sleep. And they were stuck, no doubt about it. “I wanted you to know, Drennan gave your home address to that Susan Benitez woman. That was why she showed up at your place. Drennan fed you to her.” She paused. “I did a little investigating.” She explained about the intern.
Drumm looked weary. “It’s good to know for sure, I guess. Although…” He sat back and rubbed his eyes.
“He won’t find out, Nick, that we were looking into him. But he’s your enemy. We know that now for certain.”
“Yes. Thanks. I think I knew that anyway. But thank you – it’s good to know for sure.”
Lori looked at Drumm’s tired face. “How are you doing? How’s the blood sugar?”
Drumm yawned and covered his mouth with his hand. “I am good. No need to worry about me.” His cell phone buzzed and he glanced at it. “I need to take this, Lori.”
She stood up and said, “Later.”
Drumm waited until she was gone before answering the phone. “Hello, Henry. That was quick work.”
“The RCMP always gets its man, Nick.”
“That’s a myth, Henry.” He smiled.
Inspector Callahan said, “Shhh, don’t tell anybody. If word ever got out, our credibility would be shot.” He paused. “I’ve got something for you, just a phone number, and a time.”
“Fire away.” Drumm wrote the information down.
“My man was able to touch base with your man. Unofficially. Nothing will come back to the YPS. And if I am ever asked about it, I know nothing.”
“Henry, thank you.” Drumm thought for a second. “You still like Glenlivet?”
“You make me all warm inside, Nick.”
“It’s on the way. Thanks again, Henry.” Drumm ended the call. He looked at his notepad with its odd-looking phone number and the time: two o’clock. What was he doing, sticking his nose in this Cuban thing? He grinned. Henry was right – he was suspicious. Or maybe he was just looking for a way to escape his frustrations.
“And today, for fun and frivolity, I have been going through the list of known sexual offenders in York.” McDonald scratched his head and looked at the other two. “You’ve already done that, haven’t you?”
Drumm and Lori both nodded. Drumm spoke. “We looked at them, yes, Dick. Several times. But maybe we missed something.”
Lori said, “It doesn’t hurt to go through them again.” She smiled. “And maybe check the ones in Barrie. And Newmarket.” She added, “And Toronto.”
“What have I ever done to you, love?” McDonald sighed. “There will be dozens. At least. Maybe hundreds.”
“Don’t call me love,” said Lori, automatically. “Good luck with that.” She turned to Drumm. “Any progress with the communications problem we had last night? Did you figure anything out?”
Drumm frowned. “The thinking is, it was a battery problem. So we’ve changed them all. That should fix it.” He stood up and went to the map on the wall. “We’ll try again tonight, of course.” He turned to Lori. “What did you think? Which area seemed most likely to you, the park or the dodgy area at the beginning?”
Now was the time to tell them about the feeling of being watched, Lori realized. If she was go
ing to. She said, “Either one, really. There were opportunities in both locations.” She crossed her arms and looked calmly at Drumm.
Drumm looked carefully back at her and said quietly, “Remember, the code word: Sheltie. If anything goes wrong. If you don’t feel comfortable. Just say it and we’ll be there.”
“I know.”
McDonald said with a smile, “I can’t run fast, but I can run. You start mentioning dogs and I’m your man, love.”
“God help me,” said Lori.
“Si, I was expecting your call, Detective Sergeant.” Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Perez’ English was good, accented of course, but fluent and easy enough to understand. “It is…unusual.”
Drumm tried to picture the man, his clothes, his face, the office in which he was sitting. He gave up; it was impossible to tell these things from the cold, flat voice he was hearing. “I will be brief, Lieutenant Colonel. I want to talk to you about this Canadian tourist who died last week at the Playa de Trinidad resort.” The Cuban detective said nothing. “I am looking into a case here in Ontario and there may be a connection.” That was a lie but he had to have a reason to talk to the man. “But it is off the record so that is why I wanted to call you this way. Um…do you know the term, ‘off the record’?”
“I know the term.” The Cuban’s voice gave nothing away.
Drumm ploughed on. “Is it alright to ask you about that case? Off the record?”
There was a pause. Drumm imagined the Cuban rolling his eyes. “It will only take a minute.”
“I doubt that,” said Perez. Then he said, “What do you want to know?”
“You told my detective, Richard McDonald, that Kennedy likely fell off the balcony because he was drunk. Have you changed your view at all?”
Perez took his time. “I am not sure.”
That was interesting. “Detective McDonald said that this Kennedy had been drinking all day. That’s been confirmed?”
“We have statements from bartenders, other staff, hotel guests. He was drunk, very drunk. Kennedy was drinking all day. Like many of you Canadians do.” Perez sniffed.
Ouch, thought Drumm. That was probably true.
“His blood alcohol concentration was 0.22,” Perez went on.
Drumm said, “That’s almost three times the legal limit for driving here in Ontario.”
“He was very drunk,” agreed the Cuban detective.
“Alright, thank you. The balcony railing – how high was it?”
“It measured…” There was a pause and Drumm pictured the Cuban looking through his notes. “…one metre, seventeen centimetres.”
Drumm thought. “That is quite high, isn’t it? How tall was Kennedy?”
Again there was a pause. “One hundred eighty centimetres.”
Drumm wrote it down. “McDonald said you mentioned Kennedy had a fight with three Cuban men in the disco the night he died. There was a possibility they were involved, he said.” Drumm waited, hopefully, but Perez said nothing, so he went on. “Were they involved?”
“Senor Kennedy was trying to pick up a couple of local girls. Is that right – pick up? The three men didn’t like it. One of them punched Kennedy in the stomach and they removed him from the disco.” Perez, it appeared, would help by answering direct questions.
“Do you think they visited him later, and threw him over?”
“They have not been arrested.” Perez’ voice remained flat; he was giving nothing away.
Drumm persisted, “But what do you think? As a detective, I mean? Does it make sense to you that they would go back up there and kill him deliberately? Or maybe get in another argument with him and push him over on the spur of the moment?”
There was a long pause. “I do not think so. No.”
“Ah.” Drumm paused. “Thank you. What do they say?”
“They say they threw him out. He was very drunk. He threw up on the floor. This we have made sure of.” There was a pause. “They say they left him face down in a garden.”
“And you believe this story?”
There was another pause. “I believe it, yes. As far as we can check it, it is true. But…it is still possible they are lying about what they did later. They said they were at the disco for some time and then left. But no one saw them go, so we don’t know when.”
Drumm said, “McDonald said he thought you were an experienced investigator. You would know if they were lying. So, you think he fell over accidentally. Do you suspect suicide?”
“No. There is no reason to think he killed himself.”
Drumm thought, there’s something…What to ask the man? “There’s something not right here, isn’t there, Lieutenant Colonel? Some reason to think that this wasn’t just an accident?”
“Some reason? What do you mean?”
“Is it the timeline? When do you think Mr. Kennedy died?”
There was a pause. Perez was likely looking at his notes again. “We think he fell around two o’clock in the morning. He would have died instantly. It could be an hour or so earlier, maybe the same amount of time later. But that is what our Medical Officer thinks. And there is another thing. The resort has security officers who patrol the property at night. They don’t always walk along the pathway where Senor Kennedy was found but often they do. This night they did, but only once, and that was at one o’clock in the morning, more or less. There was no body then. It was not discovered until later in the morning.”
“I see,” said Drumm. It wasn’t the timeline then. There was nothing in what Perez had just told him that was unusual but still, there was something...”Lieutenant Colonel Perez, up here if we found a body like you did and we weren’t sure of what happened, we might go so far as to re-create the fall. We would use a weighted dummy, and try dropping it from the balcony in different situations. Like tumbling over the railing, being pushed violently over, standing on the railing and diving off, like a suicide might do, that sort of thing. You know, to see where the body ended up in each case. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” said Perez. “We do the same kind of thing in Cuba. Not always but sometimes.”
“And this time…?”
There was a long pause. “Yes, we did this with a weighted dummy. We do not think Senor Kennedy just lost his balance and fell over the railing. The body was found too far out for this to happen. We think. It is not conclusive at all. Not definite.”
“But…?”
“But it is possible that Senor Kennedy was pushed, yes. Or thrown.” Perez waited a few seconds. “Is that what you wanted to know?”
Drumm sighed. “Yes, Lieutenant Colonel, I think it is. Gracias, you have been most helpful.”
“And you have been fifteen minutes, not one as you said, and I must go.”
“One last thing, Lieutenant Colonel. Are these three Cuban men still suspects?”
“They are – how do you say it? – persons of interest. We are watching them.”
Drumm asked, “And are there any other persons of interest, sir?”
“Si, there are.” Perez sighed heavily. “I hope I get to question them again. But now I really must go. Goodbye.” Perez hung up.
“Hasta la vista,” said Drumm, but he was talking to himself.
twenty
The street was dark and windswept, wisps of snow swirling around in little whirlwinds and the streetlights trying unsuccessfully to dispel the gloom. There were no other pedestrians on the sidewalks and very few vehicles, and Lori watched for a few seconds as the bus from which she had just descended moved steadily away, its sound gradually fading to nothing. She knew that Drumm was somewhere behind her in his unmarked cruiser and the YPS surveillance van was nearby, but she didn’t look around for them. She hunched her head further down into her scarf and started walking. The sidewalk had been swept clean by the wind and her boots made little sound as she moved along. She kept to a fast pace, the gait of a tired working woman anxious to be home.
“Coming up on the first zone,” she whispe
red into her microphone. She was approaching the area of neglected and abandoned buildings that they had identified as a likely target area. Their communications system had been thoroughly checked and tested and it had worked fine indoors, as it just had on the bus as well, but Drumm did not reply to her now and that meant something was wrong. “Nick?” But there was no reply, just a bit of static.
Lori felt a strange sensation behind her head and she knew that the hairs on the back of her neck were trying to stand up. She had felt this tingling the night before when she’d had a strong feeling that she was being watched.
There was a white cube van parked in front of the stores. Illegally parked, she thought, and she inspected it warily as she passed it, but there was no one inside. It was nondescript, beat-up and dirty and she made sure there was nobody about to jump out of the back. Bulldog Enterprises was lettered on the side in a large flowing script.
She spoke into her scarf, “Nick? I just passed a van parked on the road. Do you see it? It’s empty.”
“…you,” came Drumm’s voice but it was faint and almost buried in static. Lori frowned and kept going, quickening her pace a little.
She had just passed a narrow alleyway when she sensed movement to her left. Before she could react, a hand was clapped over her mouth and she felt a hard body pushed up against her back. Her attacker was bending her over backwards and she felt a sharp jab into the left side of her neck.
“No noise!” The man’s voice was low and husky, and Lori knew this was the Riverwood Rapist. If the wiry hair on his fingers wasn’t enough, this voice that sounded like he had a bad cold would have confirmed it. He turned her around violently and shoved her into the alley from which he had just emerged.
“Sheltie!” The word came out as a gasping shout and it elicited a kick to the back of her leg. She felt a searing pain and her leg lost all its feeling. She fell to her knees. The man was on her instantly, the knife point against her left cheek. “Go ahead!” he hissed. “Say something again! And I’ll take your eye out.” He grabbed her under the right arm and dragged her to her feet. She was shoved along the alleyway and then pulled roughly to the right.
A Cuban Death Page 11