Don't Forget You Love Me

by Rosemary Aubert

  “I just want to get a feel for the man, to see what kind of a person he is, and to judge whether he’s capable of violence.”

  “If he’s not capable of violence, he’s not going to be much of a cop then, is he?”

  “No, Aliana,” I said, trying to sound completely neutral, “he’s not.”

  “You can sit in on the whole interview. I’ve informed Downs’ supervisor that I’ll be accompanied by my lawyer for security reasons.”

  I wasn’t sure why a person would need to worry about security in a police station, but then the irony stuck me. I was here to find out whether a cop had killed Queenie’s client. Maybe being concerned about security wasn’t so ridiculous after all. As far as the lawyer bit went, that was certainly legit, though I’d never thought I’d be Aliana’s lawyer.

  Of more concern to me was the possibility that Downs would recognize me as someone he’d encouraged to move on during the demonstration at which I’d seen him.

  But when Aliana introduced me as her “assistant” and the three of us sat together in a cramped little office without a window, Downs showed no sign of recognizing me—or if he did recognize me, showed no signs of caring.

  The talk was mainly about the world conference.

  “I understand you have more than a thousand officers assigned to the event,” Aliana began.

  Downs thought about her question for a moment and in the silence, I took a good look at him. He was a sturdy-looking character, a man in his fifties, maybe late fifties. He was wearing his uniform and he certainly filled it out. His arms were muscular with the look of limbs that would run to fat if he didn’t keep up his workouts and maybe his weight-lifting. He had, of course, removed his cap, which sat on his knee, and I saw that his hair was close-cropped but not absent the way it was in his younger colleagues. Close up like this, he looked handsome with a strong profile and a well-defined mouth.

  But the mouth looked mean.

  I glanced at his hands. They were curled into fists. I couldn’t tell whether that was because he was nervous at being interviewed by a reporter whose work he had surely read at one time or another.

  As though he realized I was staring at him, he flexed his fingers. They were short and as powerful-looking as the rest of him.

  “We’ve got a combined force,” Downs began, in a deep, even voice. “Several local forces are helping out, along with the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP.”

  “I assume the Mounties will be handling foreign dignitaries….” Aliana said.

  “Yes. But we already have details set in place everywhere in the downtown core. We anticipate the sort of street violence that other cities have experienced when the conference was in their jurisdiction.”

  “Store windows being smashed, cars being burned?” Aliana inquired.

  “Yes. Of course, crowd control will be a major initiative for the duration, but we have special facilities set up for detaining troublemakers.”

  I didn’t really listen as he went into detail about the holding pens that had been set up in buildings commandeered near the sight of the conference, which was taking place at the Royal York, a hotel conveniently across Front Street from Union Station, where a number of the attendees would be brought in by train from Pearson airport.

  I was more interested in observing his manner, which was so purely cop, that I could hardly get a sense of the man. He sat straight in the hard chair that had been provided. His heavy belt rested on his hip. There were so many gadgets on it—every one of them black—that the belt itself could have been a lethal weapon had he chosen to take it off and swing it at somebody.

  As if she were reading my mind, Aliana asked, “Will you have special tools and techniques—perhaps special training—to deal with the crowd? I understand that protestors are expected from many different groups and…”

  “The Service is always at the ready with regard to crowd control,” he answered defensively, and I felt as though I were back at Queen’s Park standing in front him and hearing him tell me to get lost. I imagined he had a thousand phrases at the ready and he was using one now. It was a way of giving Aliana information without giving her information.

  Of course she wasn’t going to stand for that.

  “I’ve been told by reliable sources,” she began, “that a whole arsenal of special weapons is being made ready for possible deployment: heavily reinforced shields that cover the whole body, bullet-proof boots and gloves…”

  “These items are standard issue for crowd control,” he answered. “As I’ve indicated, we don’t wait for special occasions to be completely prepared to handle out-of-control members of the public.”

  “I understand,” Aliana said, bowing her head in admiration—completely fake of course--of their sterling preparedness. She consulted her notes. From where I sat next to her and opposite the cop, I could see that the page she was studying was blank.

  “What about Tasers?” she finally said.

  “Tasers?” Downs repeated with a surprised look on his face as though he had never heard of the things before.

  “Stun guns,” Aliana said with mock patience. “Non-lethal control methods.”

  Much as he tried to hide it, I could see Downs’ posture change minutely, stiffen.

  “I am not aware that the combined forces have been issued with any such thing,” Downs said, “but I can state unequivocally that no Toronto police officer will be armed with a Taser during the world conference. Only supervisors on our force are authorized to use Tasers and they will not be using them at this event.

  “Have you ever used a Taser?” I dared to ask.

  Downs glared at me, as though the paperweight on his desk had deigned to address him. “When I have been assigned as acting supervisor on two occasions,” he said, his voice as emotionless as a talking textbook, “I have carried a non-lethal weapon. I have never discharged one, nor do I expect to discharge one at this event nor at any event in the future.”

  The old line from Shakespeare found its way into my consciousness. The lady doth protest too much methinks. I didn’t know whether he was being defensive or merely professional. I figured he had answered my question—whether truthfully or not—and I didn’t feel brave enough to venture another.

  Into the silence left by the end of this little exchange, Aliana dropped a personal question. We had not agreed to it ahead of time, but there couldn’t have been a better way of trying to find out the sort of things I needed to know.

  “Tell me, officer, how does your family feel about your working on what could potentially be a very dangerous assignment? I mean police cars being burned, glass shattering all over the street, not to mention trained assassins who might be following world leaders. How will your children feel to know that you are protecting their city against violent men and women who may have come from far away to wreak havoc here in our streets?”

  Despite her professional phrasing and the cool that she maintained as an objective seeker of truth for the public through the media, Aliana had clearly stepped over the mark with this question. What business was it of hers or of her readers what this man’s family felt about his work? I was almost embarrassed at the question, even though I knew that an answer to it would give me more information about Ted Downs than anything I’d managed so far.

  But I expected him to freeze at this question, if he didn’t get furious that is.

  To my amazement, he did neither. He sighed and said, “I have no family, and if I did, they would not factor into this equation.” He sounded sad, almost defeated.

  This disclosure was news to me. Both Aliana and I were under the impression that he had a wife and a teen-aged son. We’d gotten this information from a file that Aliana had assured me was up-to-date. Whatever had changed about Ted Downs’ life had changed very recently.

  ***

  After the interview, Aliana and I walked over to Yonge Street to grab a quick lunch at a Mexican place. When I had been a judge the first time, I had hated the little
restaurants that lined Yonge Street for miles—every cuisine imaginable. I had, in those days, preferred lunch at the Royal York, or at private clubs that I entered as a member or as a guest of some distinguished member or other. When I had lived in the valley, I had eaten a windfall apple or a discarded loaf of stale bread for lunch. Queenie and I had had healthy lunches made with her own hands.

  I wished I could stop thinking about such things all the time. I picked up my burrito and prepared to take a bite when a thick blob of sour cream slipped out of it and landed in my lap.

  Aliana stared at me, and I felt a moment’s intense embarrassment.

  Then she burst out laughing and handed me a fistful of napkins to clean up the mess.

  “I wonder what happened to Ted Downs’ family,” I said.

  Aliana delicately placed her burrito on her plate, wiped her long fingers and said, “I do, too. He definitely had a wife and son up until recently. I hope they haven’t met with some sort of tragedy.”

  “Or deserted him for some reason.”

  “I’m sure information about this angle would have a bearing on your investigation, Ellis. It’s a clue as to the state of Downs’ mind at the time of the incident. I’ll see if I can find out anything else….”

  Talk turned to Kezia.

  “We’ve made no headway there,” I had to admit. “No news from Child Services?”

  “No. But…”

  “But what?”

  “Ellis, I’ve gotten some scary phone calls recently. It’s not at all unusual for this to happen when I’m working on something controversial or something the public considers a threat to their safety.”

  “What? What kind of calls?”

  “Calls warning me to lay off gang business.” She paused. “I keep thinking about Kezia. I keep wondering whether her inaccessibility, her failure to get in touch with us after so strong a beginning, has to do with her brothers and the gangs they belong to.”

  “But you’re working on the affairs summit now…”

  She shook her head. “That’s a temporary thing. In two weeks it’ll all be over and anything I’ve written on it will be forgotten by most of the readers of the World. But the gang series of articles is different. I’ve been working on that for months, and when the series runs, there’s going to be a lot of response to it, I’m sure.”

  “What concerns you? What are you worried about?”

  “I’m afraid that our offer to help this girl has focused the attention of one or the other—or both—of the gangs on us. I know that Matt West is sure the shooting we witnessed had nothing to do with us, and he’s probably right about that one, but I don’t want to think that my work is putting you and me in danger.”

  At this point, I could have told her about the threatening note I’d received, but I was totally convinced that it wasn’t connected to my interest in Kezia. Besides, it wouldn’t have been very reassuring to Aliana to learn about it.

  “I can’t allow myself to be intimidated,” Aliana declared. “I’m going to visit Kezia’s home again. “I want to talk to her about those brothers. If they are going to shoot at me, let them shoot…”

  I admired her bravery but had to be quite frank. “Aliana I don’t think we should play with fire, here. These are dangerous people—Kezia as well as her relatives.”

  “Look, Ellis, we have a deal. I’ve helped you get to the cops and you’ve promised to help me with Kezia. Don’t you see that you’re my cover? With you along, it doesn’t look like I’m nothing but a ruthless media type sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “Aliana, I admit I’m curious about this girl and sympathetic to her plight. But I still can’t see what we can do for her. When I saw her down in the valley with that old man, I realized that she’s a totally loose cannon. She’s going to do whatever she wants. I don’t see how we can even influence her.”

  “Just come with me on one more home visit,” Aliana insisted, as if my objections counted for nothing. “Hopefully, she’s back there by now. But even if she isn’t, maybe we can do something to help her mother and her other brother.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

  It wasn’t until I was on my way home that I thought again about those gunshots Aliana and I had witnessed.

  Maybe those shots were not random.

  Maybe they were meant for me.

  But why? Why would they be?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  As had happened the first time, our visit with Kezia began with negotiating the busy lobby of her building. People were coming and going in all directions, and among them were more decent-looking ordinary citizens than suspicious characters. But, given our current frame of mind, we were bound to feel suspicious of the large number of big, young, black men that I couldn’t help thinking looked like the archetypical gang members that the city saw on the news night after night.

  We waited so long for our attempt at entry to be answered that we actually gave up and had turned to leave when the door buzzed open and I heard Kezia saying what she had said the last time, “What you doin’ here?”

  Cowardly though it was, I had to admit relief that the only other occupants in the elevator were two darling little girls and their well-dressed mother.

  My paranoia didn’t end when the elevator doors closed behind us on Kezia’s floor. I followed Aliana’s sure steps with a hesitation I tried hard to hide. When we got to Kezia’s door, I suppressed the urge to mention that I was glad that there were no new bullet holes since our last visit.

  Kezia opened the door before we knocked, which, since she was smiling widely, we took to be a good sign.

  “Hey, Kezia,” Aliana said, “thanks for letting us up. I’m really happy to see you because I heard you haven’t been in school and I was afraid you might be sick.”

  The girl looked good. Her thick, black hair had obviously been carefully curled and the jeans and sweatshirt she wore were clean and fashionable. I figured that despite the girl’s unwillingness to cooperate with those who might help her, her mother was taking good care of her—and had trained her to take good care of herself.

  Kezia just shrugged, a gesture that segued into a different gesture—one ushering us into the apartment.

  As it had been before, the place was clean and as tidy as one could expect for a home where teens lived.

  “Are you alone today?” Aliana asked, glancing around.

  “Yeah. Like most every day. My mom comes home after work at 11. When she gets here, I give her something to eat and then I go to bed. Sometimes JoJo comes over….”

  “JoJo?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He’s my good brother. But he ain’t been around in the last while because he got locked out.”

  “What does that mean?” Aliana asked.

  Kezia sat down and we did too. Without missing a beat, she went on. “He’s no longer allowed on the premises because a couple of weeks ago, some friends of his busted the lobby up. They tore down a picture and banged up a lot of the mailboxes.”

  I really couldn’t imagine how any level of violence could “bust up” that lobby. There was nothing in there the first time we saw it and nothing in there the last time we’d seen it.

  I noticed the small desk in the corner was still covered with books and papers. That seemed like a positive sign. “So, have you gone back to school? Looks like you’re doing your homework.”

  “Yeah, I guess you could say I went back. But I ain’t doing homework. There’s no such thing. I heard they used to have it in the old days, but it’s not allowed anymore.”

  “What do you mean it’s not allowed?”

  She looked at me in a way that made me feel I had just emerged from the Middle Ages, not that I thought she’d been taught what they were.

  “I go to a non-judgmental school.” The phrase tripped off her tongue as if she had a knack for buzzwords. “We got no homework, no essays, no tests and no marks. Everybody gets to pass. Even if they can’t make it there every day. That way nob
ody can feel bad about theirselves because of failing.”

  “What do you think about that, Kezia?” Aliana asked. “Does it make you feel successful?”

  The girl yawned. “Nah. It makes me feel bored. Everything about school is boring. Plus it takes too much time. I got other things to do.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Like what?” Before she could answer, it occurred to me that I hoped the answer wasn’t “doing housework for my mom.”

  “Well,” she said, drawing in her breath as though she needed it for a long explanation. “I got my own studies and I need to have time to go to the libary and that-- because I have to work on writing my book.”

  “Your book?”

  She gave me that look again. “Yeah. You know, I need time to work on the book I’m writing. It’s a really neat book that people will want to buy and even to read. It’s called Fifty Recipes For Snow. My whole life, my mother had to work at night. My grandmother used to cook for us, but she went away. So I learned how to do it and I been doin’ it for a real long time. I had to do more before than I do now, though. In the old days my five brothers lived with me and my mom here in this apartment, but two of them are in jail and the two who come back don’t come here to eat. Only JoJo. He’s the only one who eats here, but now he’s locked out.

  “Anyway, for most of my life, I been making all the suppers. And I’m a really good cook. I watch cooks on television and the internet, and I know they write books so people can try the recipes theirselves and not forget them like they would if they just saw them for a few minutes on TV.”

  I was astonished. How could I not be? But she wasn’t finished.

  “There’s a lot of money to be made writing books,” she said as if she’d memorized the line. “So I’m writing one myself.”

  She sprang up and headed for the cluttered little desk. “Look,” she said, shoving a handful of papers toward me. “This is what I’m working on now.”