Standing in the open doorway, Walter Freeman’s face was as blank as an empty plate.
I left the room, guided by the lawyer’s hand at the small of my back. Three doors down the hall, past some knots of uniformed cops watching me and whispering among themselves, we entered a room about the size of a walk-in closet, with two chairs and a lamp table. Robinson closed the door behind us and set the briefcase on the table.
“Who the hell are you?” I said.
“I’m your lawyer.”
“I didn’t ask for one. I don’t need one and I can’t afford one.”
He took a deep breath and let it out noisily while staring at the ceiling. Okay, he was exasperated. I got the message. “You didn’t ask for one, correct,” he said. “You tell me to leave and I will. But before you do, understand that you need a lawyer desperately. It doesn’t matter if you can afford one or not. You either get me or you get somebody listed with legal aid who is probably sitting in a bar on James Street right now.”
“It matters to me. Whether I can afford a lawyer or not.”
“But not to Mr. Pilato.”
“He sent you here?”
“He says he owes you.”
“Then he can fix my car, the one his guys smashed with a sledgehammer. I don’t need a lawyer.”
He withdrew a sheet of paper from his briefcase and began reading from it. “It appears you are facing a charge of obstruction of police, theft of police property, possession of a firearm, resisting arrest and …” He moved the paper aside to look at me. “… attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, which carries a penalty of up to twenty years in prison.”
“That’s garbage.”
He dropped the paper on the desk. “Of course it is. It’s also legitimate. Do you want to spend twenty years in prison?”
“What do you think?”
He smiled and leaned back in the chair. “I think,” he said, “that you have set a new record for embarrassing a major metropolitan police force in this country, and they are so upset with you that they are ignoring, for the moment, the reality that they have a rogue cop in custody facing a triple murder charge.”
HALF AN HOUR LATER we gathered in Walter Freeman’s office. Walter sat behind a desk as big as my dining-room table. Two uniformed officers stood behind him, their feet apart, their hands behind their backs, as approachable as bookends. Hayashida, Robinson, the blonde policewoman, and two guys from internal affairs, wearing cheap suits and faces that desperately needed shaving, flanked me in chairs arranged in a semicircle. An overweight guy Walter introduced as a Crown attorney stood to one side, like a referee.
Walter wouldn’t look at me. His head down, he read aloud in a flat voice from a sheet of paper on the desk in front of him. “We will withdraw the charge of obstructing police on the basis of Mrs. Marshall’s telephone call earlier today to Sergeant Hayashida, who confirms that she offered information she legitimately believed would assist us in our investigation.”
“It sure as hell did, Walter,” I said. Robinson nudged me to be quiet.
“We will suspend the charges of theft of police property and illegal possession of a firearm subject to evaluation of the projectile fired by your client, the aforesaid Mrs. Marshall, this evening—”
“The one you recovered from the sandbank, right?”
Walter’s eyes flicked from the paper to me for a heartbeat, then back to the paper again. “Subject to evaluation of the projectile fired by your client this evening by the provincial forensics laboratory. We are also suspending the charge of attempted murder of a police officer pending the same forensics report and, as requested, will issue a document to the administrator of Trafalgar Towers confirming that our suspicions of possible fraud committed by Mrs. Marshall have no basis in fact.”
“I am requesting that all criminal charges be dropped as of now,” Robinson said, “on the basis that the alleged acts were conducted by Mrs. Marshall as a means of obtaining an exhibit that the forensics laboratory could use to confirm that the weapon was used in three unsolved homicides—”
Walter couldn’t take it anymore. “Citizens are not permitted, are never permitted, to seize possession of a law officer’s weapon and fire it in the direction of a member of the police force,” he partially shouted, partially spat—I could see the spittle flying like water from a lawn sprinkler—”no matter what her motives might have been!”
Things turned into a verbal food fight after that. I screamed that no cop was likely to compare rifling marks on a bullet from Mel’s gun with the ones that had killed Gabe and Dougal Dalgetty unless I gave him good reason to, and I had. Robinson quoted some statute supporting a citizen’s arrest, Walter told me to keep my damn mouth shut and ordered Robinson to stick to the facts, Hayashida asked somebody to close the door and turn off the digital recorder, and Robinson said he would consider requesting a judicial inquiry into the operations of the police force. The two bookend cops looked at each other with confusion, especially when Walter Freeman lost it and stood up, crumpled the sheet of paper he had been reading from into a ball, and threw it at J. Michael Robinson, striking him squarely in the tortoiseshells.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It was midnight, I was running on distilled adrenaline, Mel Holiday was being interrogated in a room down the hall, and the chief of detectives had just hurled an oversized spitball at my lawyer, who had been hired by the most notorious gangster in the city. What wasn’t there to laugh at?
The Crown attorney walked behind Walter’s desk, placed a hand on Walter’s shoulder, turned him and his swivel chair around, and began speaking to him in a low voice while Robinson made notes in a binder pulled from his briefcase. Hayashida buried his face in his hands. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or laughing.
Robinson leaned over and whispered to me while making his notes. “The Crown is telling Walter to free you on your own recognizance, with charges pending,” he said. “When they confirm the forensics that prove Sergeant Holiday’s gun killed your husband and Honeysett, all charges will be dropped.”
I asked him how he knew that.
He closed the binder and slipped his Montblanc into his jacket pocket. “It’s been previously discussed,” he said, “between me and the Crown. Freeman is just learning about it now.”
Let’s have a cheer for our legal system, I thought.
“HOW CLOSE DID YOU COME to shooting Holiday in the head when you fired the gun?” Robinson asked. He was driving me back to the beach strip. His car was expensive, quiet, dark, warm, and smelled of Italian leather. I could marry a car like that.
“I don’t know. I aimed for the open window. Missed him by maybe three or four inches.”
“Clever of you to fire the bullet into the sand, to preserve the rifling marks.”
“I’d rather have buried it in his head.”
“Why not let the police do the test, once you explained it to them?”
“Who would believe me? Who would even listen to me? Who would ask for Mel’s gun to do forensics on it on the basis that I, Gabe’s crazy widow, was claiming that Mel Holiday had murdered three men, including my husband? I was sure I’d worked things out. How Mel had switched guns after shooting Gabe, substituting his own for Gabe’s, and when they were getting the bullet for the forensics lab, how he told Hayashida the serial number of Gabe’s gun, then in Mel’s holster, rather than reading him the serial number of the gun in evidence. And how Hayashida trusted Mel enough to record it without inspecting it himself. Then Mel switched guns again, putting his own gun back in his holster and filing Gabe’s in an evidence locker. Someday, somebody might have tested both guns, compared the results with Gabe’s and Dalgetty’s autopsy reports, and realized what Mel had pulled off, but it wasn’t likely. And nobody was ever going to get anything from what was left of Honeysett’s head.”
“Walter Freeman said he suspected all along that the metal they found in Honeysett’s remains had been a bullet.”
“Walter Freeman would
say he suspected the sun would come up in the morning if it made him look good. How could he stand it?”
“Freeman? Stand what?”
“Not him. Mel Holiday. How could he stand holding Honeysett’s body like that, waiting for the bridge to come down on his head?”
“You’d be surprised what some people can do in desperate straits.” We were approaching my house. “Besides, he was a homicide detective for how many years?”
“Ten. Maybe more.”
“Would you care to guess how many mangled bodies he encountered in ten years? How many autopsies he attended? Holding a body until the skull is crushed wouldn’t be a picnic for anybody, but if it were necessary, a guy like him could do it. You can get used to anything, Mrs. Marshall.”
I could get used to being in the company of a man like Robinson very late at night, every night, but when he stopped outside my door, I simply thanked him, stumbled inside, and climbed the stairs to my bed. The peeper in the garden shed was long gone. Mel Holiday was locked up, probably for life. I had a high-powered lawyer retained by an influential gangster to defend me. When Tina heard the news, she might actually admit that I have more intelligence than a string of barbed wire.
I hadn’t slept so well in weeks.
MOTHER, OF COURSE, WAS SURPRISED to see me the next morning. She had finished her breakfast and was sitting at her window, watching the strollers on the boardwalk and along the canal. I startled her when I entered, and I hugged her longer and more firmly than normal, which made her reach for her chalk and blackboard and write, Why are you here so early? Is something wrong?
I assured her that nothing was wrong, and told her that the police had solved Gabe’s murder. It was another police officer, I said. In fact, it had been Gabe’s partner.
Mother’s hand, gripping the chalk, flew across the blackboard like a drunken insect, writing, Mel Holiday?
“Yes,” I said. “How did you know? Has it been on the news?” Walter Freeman had told Robinson that nothing would be revealed until the forensic examination of the bullets from Mel’s and Gabe’s guns was completed and charges laid.
She wrote, He was here. Then she added, You slept with him, didn’t you?
I sat on the edge of the bed. I think it is a wonderful thing for a daughter to be surprised and impressed by her mother, no matter what their ages. At the moment, I just wished it were some other daughter. “When was he here?” I asked.
She wrote, The day before yesterday. The day you left for Tina’s. In the afternoon.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She wrote, I didn’t want to upset you.
“What did he want?”
She erased everything she had written earlier and wrote, He wanted to talk to me. He wanted me to talk to him. She looked up and smiled at that.
I had mentioned Mother to Mel, I suppose. Only that I visited her now and then, and I had named the retirement home. I’d told him she had suffered a stroke, but I had not explained that she was unable to speak. “What did he want to talk about?”
Mother wrote, What I knew about Gabe’s death. What you had told me about it.
“Did you tell him anything? By writing it down?”
She shook her head, erased the blackboard again, and wrote, I told him to leave and asked for a nurse to take him out.
“Did he tell you …” I had to start again. “Did he say that he and I … that we …” Damn. Then, in a torrent, “Did he say that he and I had slept together?”
Mother smiled and shook her head.
“You could tell, couldn’t you? You figured it out all by yourself.”
She nodded.
Harold Hayashida arrived at my house after lunch. I made tea, and we sat in the living room, not fully comfortable in each other’s presence, like two patients waiting to see the same doctor.
He pulled a small sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket and read from the notes. “Couple of things,” he said. “First, forensics says there’s no doubt that the projectile from the Glock G22 with serial number HPD7083, which is Mel’s gun, matches the one that killed Dalgetty and Gabe and probably Wayne Weaver Honeysett.” He looked up at me, his face downcast. “I trusted Mel, Josie. He read the serial number to me, I wrote it down, and we both signed the investigation document. I didn’t think I needed to examine the weapon myself. I was supposed to, but I didn’t. That was a mistake.”
“I made a much bigger mistake a couple of months ago,” I said, and Hayashida nodded. I had no secrets now.
“Gabe’s gun was serial number HPD7836, in case you were interested.”
“Has Mel confessed?”
“He’s told us some things, things he can’t refute. He’s being charged with three homicides.”
“Do you think Mel showed up at our house intending to kill Gabe? Or was it a spur-of-the-moment thing, maybe when Gabe tried to get at him?”
“This much he told us. He said Gabe came at him. He didn’t plan on killing him. Mel says the gun went off and he dropped it there. Claims he didn’t wipe his hand on Gabe’s. Just got the hell out of the bushes.”
“And Honeysett watched him go.”
“Apparently. Mel knew where Gabe’s gun was in the kitchen, took it, and went out the front door.” Hayashida smiled and shrugged. “Of course …”
“Of course what?”
“Saying it happened that way makes it second-degree murder, not first-degree. Reacting instead of planning. Might get paroled, someday.”
“He’s facing two other murder charges, right?”
“If his statements hold up, he’ll be sentenced for second-degree on those, as well. In both cases he said he hadn’t planned anything in advance. Blamed it on his hot temper. Makes it hard to get a first-degree conviction. Not that it will make much difference for twenty-five years or so. And there’s more. We got a tip that he received around a hundred thousand dollars in payoffs from street criminals over the past year.”
“Who told you that?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“I’ll bet his name ends in a vowel.”
Hayashida smiled and looked down at his notes again. “Mickey Court sends his regrets. He says he’s sorry he frightened you.”
“What’s a Mickey Court? Sounds like the Irish justice system.”
“Constable Michael Court. Undercover officer from Toronto, posing as a drug buyer.”
“The guy who showed up looking for Grizz.”
“We had nothing on that person except Mel’s claim that he’d heard Dougal Dalgetty had been shot by a heavyweight dealer, the Griswold character known as Grizz. Nobody on the street admitted to knowing anybody named Grizz, which isn’t unusual. We had to flush him out, which was Court’s job. It was trolling, is what it was. Enough people hear somebody’s looking to buy, the dealer responds. Usually. When nothing came up, we started getting suspicious of Mel.”
“Not suspicious enough. And not soon enough.” Then a thought. “Did Gabe know? About Mel and this guy supposedly known as Grizz?”
Hayashida nodded. “The day he was killed, Gabe scheduled a meeting with Walter Freeman. They were going to get together the next day. Mel heard about it and knew he had to talk to Gabe that night. Which happened to be the night Gabe wanted you to meet him in the bushes. Nothing came together until after Honeysett’s funeral. Walter had already heard that somebody in the department was shaking down a couple of street dealers—”
“And thought it might be Gabe.” You stupid son of a bitch, Walter. “That’s why he asked if Gabe had given me any expensive gifts.”
Hayashida smiled and reached inside his jacket again, withdrawing a small piece of paper towel wrapped around something the size of a raspberry. “Nice timing,” he said, handing me the ring Wayne Weaver Honeysett had made for his wife and given to Gabe for me. “Honeysett’s daughters say you might as well have it. They’ve got lots more of their father’s jewellery, and they’re trying to respect their father’s wishes. They’ve also found thre
e other women who received jewellery from their father. He was basically a harmless, lonely guy. Just wanted women to like him, but was too afraid to approach them directly. They’re sorry about accusing you.” He folded his notes. “If it’s any consolation, the ring he gave Gabe for you is the most expensive piece.”
He stood up and shook my hand.
“By the way,” he said, heading for the door, “no charges will be laid against you. Robinson’s getting the official word this week. And you shouldn’t have to testify at Mel’s trial. Oh, and Walter is still pissed at you.”
THAT WAS MORE THAN THREE MONTHS AGO. Now it’s late November and everything is grey. The water, the sand, the sky. The lake, which is warm only in August, is getting colder, and in a few weeks I’ll wake up and find thin ice on the shore where the water meets the sand. Nobody rollerblades on the boardwalk between my house and the beach anymore, and few people pedal their bicycles along it. They walk briskly, wrapped in woollen sweaters and leather coats. I’m starting to think like a bear: I just want to put on weight and curl up in a warm place for a few months.
Some days are golden for a while. Not July golden, of course, just golden with the sunlight. Nobody is fooled. Winter’s somewhere north of Toronto, heading our way. Sweaters smelling like mothballs have been hauled out of closets, people are looking at brochures with pictures of Caribbean resorts they can’t afford to visit, laggard birds are flying south, and tans have faded. Yesterday I made a pot roast for me and the Blairs. Gabe always liked pot roast.
Maude Blair still natters at her husband, Glynnis Dalgetty no longer walks the boardwalk glaring in anger at our house, and Hans and Trudy, who built their home in the style of a castle, sold it to a company that plans to convert the place into a schnitzel restaurant. Tuffy’s still serves cold beer and hot chili to the biker crowd, and the sun still rises over the lake each morning, although farther to the east and much later.
Mother hasn’t changed, nor will she, except she knows I love her more than ever. Tina thinks Mother’s next stroke may arrive with the next cup of tea or the next sneezing fit. Mother is determined it won’t. We may underestimate the power of love. We should never underestimate the power of a determined woman.
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