by Scott Mackay
“It’s possible,” said Gilbert.
“Of course it’s possible,” said Bannatyne. “The man’s a notorious womanizer. He put drugs in Magda’s drink.”
Gilbert felt his anger flare. “The sick fuck,” he said.
“This sex angle theory is something you definitely should be checking out. Or, like I said before, it could be the gypping.”
“I’ll check out his previous lawsuits,” said Gilbert.
“And don’t forget Phil,” said Bannatyne. “Just because he’s not physically linked to the crime scene doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved. It could be the Hell’s Angels after all.”
Bannatyne was right. These three angles—the gypping, sex, and Phil angles—had to be looked at more carefully. The gypping theory wouldn’t take too much work. The sex angle theory would take more, but he would have to do it for Regina’s sake. And he would have to review everything he had done on Phil, and maybe dig around for more background information. He grinned at Bannatyne. He was still learning lessons from the man after all these years.
“Thanks, Bob,” he said. “Thanks for giving me some perspective.” He took a sip of his beer. “I really need it on this one.”
Regina was waiting up for him at the kitchen table when he got home shortly after one that morning. She immediately rose from her chair and looked at the gash on his cheek.
“What happened?” she asked.
He fudged a bit. He didn’t want to distress her. He didn’t want to tell her that Barcos had hit him in the face with his gun. “I tripped against a fence,” he said.
“Did you get him?” she asked.
Her voice sounded hopeful, and he hated to disappoint her. “Yeah, we got him…”
She gave him a inquiring look. “But…”
He frowned. “But he’s not the guy,” he said. “He proved his alibi.” Gilbert explained to her about the subway transfer. “So Bob and I went out for a drink and thrashed through some other possibilities. Other angles we might look at.”
“But I thought you were off the case,” she said. He looked away. He couldn’t hide anything from Regina. “Barry…if Tim wants you to stay away from it…especially because I’m a suspect…it’s not going to wash well with him if he finds out you’re poking your nose into it.”
“I’m going to work quietly,” he stipulated. “Bob came up with some great ideas and I’m going to look at them, that’s all. If I find anything, I’ll show it to Joe. I’m not going to let them near you, Regina. I’m not. You don’t need this right now. Not with Nina the way she is. Neither do I. I’m going to pursue it.”
She took a deep breath, walked back to the table, and sat down. She finally nodded.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t need it. I’m trying to look after my child. I don’t want anything to interfere with that. That’s priority-one as far as I’m concerned.”
“You see?” he said. “You agree with me. I have to do something.”
She shrugged. “Why do we have to be locked in this stupid box?” she asked.
“Who knows?” he said. “But I plan on clawing my way out of it as fast as I can.”
She shook her head. “Nina had a bad crying fit tonight.”
His face sank. “Shit,” he said. Then Regina’s eyes filled with tears. “Regina…no…don’t.” He walked up to her, put a chair next to hers, and sat beside her. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“I can’t help it,” she said, and wept.
His own eyes misted over. “Don’t worry,” he said. “These new angles. They’re good. I can work with them. And I don’t care what Tim says. He’s just going to have to understand. We need our energy for Nina, not all this other bullshit.”
Seventeen
At work the next day he was restless and desperate to break the Glen Boyd case any way he could. But he had to be careful. He knew Bannatyne was right. Nowak would come down hard.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Nowak talking to Carol by his office. For some reason this made him feel like an outsider. He was torn. In a paramilitary organization like the police force, chain of command was important. An officer was expected to obey his superior, no matter what. Yet he couldn’t just sit here and do nothing while the net closed around his wife. So he started working on Bannatyne’s angles.
He logged onto the Internet and accessed the Ontario Courts web page. From there, he clicked onto the CACTIS link. Using his password, the Computer Assisted Case Tracking and Information System took him to the search screen, and gave him the option to search cases by docket number, defendant, plaintiff, Crown Prosecutor, and defending attorney.
He found five lawsuits against Boyd, over and above the seven Phil Thompson had filed. Some of the names looked familiar—disgruntled old rockers and punkers from the past. In all cases, Daniel Lynn was the defending attorney. He phoned Daniel Lynn, Boyd’s lawyer, to ask him about these cases.
“We’re digging around for other possible suspects in the Glen Boyd case,” he told Lynn. “I’ve just gone into the CACITS search screen, and see that you’re defending him in five different lawsuits besides Phil’s. I know you said Phil might be a possibility, and we’re still investigating that angle, but what about these other plaintiffs? Any possibility they might have had something to do with Boyd’s murder?”
“I don’t think so,” said Lynn. “The five plaintiffs don’t live in Toronto, and I don’t believe they really have the temperament. I wouldn’t want you to waste a lot of time looking too carefully at them because I don’t think your effort will yield any useful results.”
Gilbert glanced at the CACTIS screen one more time. “Okay,” he said. “By the way, thank your uncle for that pound of Blue Mountain coffee he sent me. My wife and I are really enjoying it a lot.”
“I’m sure the pleasure was all his,” said Lynn. “Like I said, he’s always looking for Blue Mountain converts.”
As Gilbert hung up, he felt as if he had at least eliminated one angle, the lawsuit angle.
He spent the next half hour checking websites that had information about Phil. He read about the Houston and Denver arrests, the one for playing naked on stage and the one for throwing his lighted guitar into the audience. There was a lot about the new CD as well. Over and above that, nothing established Phil as a likely suspect. Nor did Gilbert come up with anything useful when he reviewed the existing evidence on Phil.
So he turned his attention to the sex angle. The thing to do was to draw up a list of all the women Boyd had dated in, say, the past three years. Find his black book, or consult with Stacy, Todd, whatever he had to do, then draw up a supplementary list of male relatives, friends, or boyfriends of these women. The task seemed huge. Yet from past experience he knew many other investigations started out just this way. It would take time. Marie Barton would probably indict Regina before he could finish. So be it. If he couldn’t preempt an indictment against Regina, he could at least work hard toward her ultimate acquittal. He lifted a pencil and tapped his paperweight a few times. To determine if this angle in fact had some validity, he would first find out if Boyd had a history of sexual assault. Bannatyne’s theory would hold a lot more weight if multiple offenses had occurred in the past.
Carol Reid walked down the aisle of desks. Nowak had disappeared into his office.
When she got to Gilbert’s desk, she spoke in a low voice.
“I just thought I’d better warn you,” she said. “Tim’s drafting an arrest warrant for your wife.” Gilbert’s face sank at the news. “I don’t know when he’s going to serve it, or if he’s going to serve it at all, but he’s having me get it ready. That’s what we were talking about just now.”
Gilbert glanced over Carol’s shoulder at Nowak’s office.
“Does Joe know?” he asked.
“Tim says yes,” she said. “I’m sure Joe and Gord are doing everything they can to work on other suspects. They’re in your corner, Barry. So am I. But Tim’s sticking to procedure. He’s le
tting the Crown Prosecutor run the show.”
“Thanks, Carol.”
Once the squad secretary had gone back to her office, Gilbert felt even more desperate. Nowak never sat on warrants. If he was drafting one, he would use it. Gilbert figured he had until Friday. Then the uniforms would come to his house. He went back to Bannatyne’s sex angle theory with renewed diligence.
He checked Glen Boyd’s prior criminal history a second time, hoping to find something that might demonstrate a history of sexual assault. He checked municipal records, widened his search to include the entire Province of Ontario, then all of Canada.
He failed to find anything besides the few minor drug busts he’d uncovered already, the bad-check charge, and the public drunkenness arrest. Tellingly, the public drunkenness arrest had happened at the Zanzibar, a strip club, after Boyd had harassed some of the girls.
Gilbert turned his pencil end on end. Nothing in Canada. But Boyd had lived in the United States, most recently his ten years with Judy Pelaez in San Francisco. Boyd might have a criminal record in San Francisco. But a request to San Francisco would necessitate Nowak’s involvement, and of course Gilbert’s hands were tied in that regard. So he thought of his brother, Howard Gilbert, a homicide detective with the Miami-Dade Police Department in Florida. He knew Howard would be only all too happy to help him.
He phoned his brother.
After a few minutes of fraternal small talk, Gilbert told Howard about the Boyd case, and how he was working this new sex-assault angle.
“If Marie Barton indicts Regina, that’ll be it for Jennifer’s tuition,” he told Howard. “The lawyer’s fees will kill us. I’m wondering if you could check whether Boyd has any sex-related priors anywhere in the States. He lived in San Francisco with Judy Pelaez for ten years. You could probably get the info faster than I could. I’m trying to shake something loose here.”
“I’ll try to get back to you by the end of the day,” Howard told him. “Did Boyd go under any aliases?”
“Not that I know of,” said Gilbert.
“Give me a chance to dig around,” said Howard.
Gilbert hung up.
While he waited, he took the elevator to the seventh-floor evidence repository. Maybe if he had another look at all the physical evidence, he might think of something else.
As the clerk let him through, he felt guilty, wondered if the clerk knew he was off the Boyd case or not. He thought the clerk might say something, but the clerk gathered all the vouchered items and brought them to his table without comment.
Gilbert started first with the blond hair, now in a plastic bag. He held it up to the light. He recognized it as matching Regina’s hair, knew that as evidence against his wife it couldn’t be refuted. What the hell was one of her hairs doing in the victim’s bed? Marie Barton would use this blond hair to win her case.
He put the hair away and lifted the scarf. The scarf was in a bigger plastic bag. This, too, would be used by Marie Barton. The suspect bought the scarf at Hazelton Lanes, she would argue. And then she would show the jury the charge-card slip Joe had turned up at Neck and Neck. Was this not a reasonable linkage, she would ask the jury?
And what about Regina’s perfume? He opened the bag and took a whiff. Regina’s perfume all right. Marie Barton would no doubt use that, too.
He looked next at the broken plate, the one with men on donkeys crossing mountains. He could see where Nigel Gower had dusted for fingerprints. Looking at the broken plate, its two ends attached by the hanging wire, got him thinking of Judy again. Had Judy been the one to throw the plate? She was always throwing things at Boyd. The broken plate convinced Gilbert more than ever that Judy had to be Boyd’s killer.
He tried to step back from it, take an objective look at it, become that perfect cipher of criminal evidence, the homicide detective.
Was he missing something here? No. The more he looked at it, the more he really became convinced of Judy’s culpability. She was high-strung. She was the kind of woman who got caught up in her own emotions, and who couldn’t control her anger. He lifted the bag and had a close look at the rim of the plate. Certainly that rounded edge would explain the crescent-shaped welt on Boyd’s forehead. And if Judy threw the plate, or otherwise used it as a weapon, the latents would be good, deeply etched. If only Nigel could find a damn hit on them. But it was unlikely he would find any hits in Canada. He knew Judy had prints on file in the U.S. When she’d smashed Boyd over the head with her guitar, she’d gone to jail. That meant prints. Those prints would be on the FBI’s AFIS database. But to put in a request to the FBI’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System would require Nowak’s signature. And how was he going to get Nowak’s signature when he was off the case? The whole thing left him rattled.
He went back downstairs. He phoned Nigel Gower in the fingerprint section, forgetting for the time being about the sexual-assault angle.
“Nigel, I’m just wondering how the fingerprint identifications are coming along on the Glen Boyd case?” he asked, trying to sound innocent. “Have you found any matches on the miscellaneous latents yet?”
A pause ensued. “I thought you were off the Boyd case, Barry,” said Nigel.
Shit. Nigel knew.
“I’m still helping out,” he said.
“No,” said Nigel. “That’s not what we’ve been told.” Gilbert heard some rustling of paper on the other end of the line. “I’ve got the memo right here, Barry. The memo’s specific about you. I’ll get in trouble if I help you.”
“Just tell me if you’ve found anything yet.”
He heard Nigel sigh. “I’m sorry, Barry, but I…you know…this came right from the staff inspector’s office. I wish I could help you but I can’t.”
“You’re not going to find anything on any of the Canadian systems,” he told Nigel. “You’re going to have to put in a request to AFIS.”
“That would need the staff inspector’s signature.”
Gilbert felt his frustration mounting. “Can’t you just do this for me, Nigel?” he asked. He thought of Regina. “It’s really important.”
“Barry, I can’t talk to you about this. My boss is motioning to me right now. Something about a public relations risk. He’s shaking his head. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”
The two men ended their conversation.
Gilbert rested the receiver gently in the cradle, took a few deep breaths, and tried to control his anger. One thing was certain: Nowak was serious about keeping him off the case. Memos? Good God!
“Barry?”
He turned around. It was Carol again. “Hi,” he said.
“Your brother called,” she said. “He wants you to call him.”
“So soon?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
So he dialed Howard.
“It didn’t take as long as I thought it would,” said Howard. “You’re right. Boyd’s got a bit of a history. Three counts of sexual assault, but none of them resulting in convictions. The first was in Lake Tahoe in 1991. He was organizing and promoting a bikini contest there and had sex with one of the contestants. She says she was forced against her will, but witnesses say she was flirting, and that was enough to get an acquittal. The second was in Albuquerque in 1995. Boyd was at a Christmas party and forced himself on a young lady. She didn’t come forward until a month later. The fact she delayed things sank her case right from the start. So…you know…a couple of cases like that, and statistically speaking, it means Boyd might be a serialist, which would bolster Bob’s theory.”
“What about the third case?” asked Gilbert.
His brother sighed. “The third case.” Howard seemed reluctant to go on. “It’s ugly. But it’s all too typical. It happened in San Francisco. It’s dated just eight months ago. When he was down there visiting his family. I spoke to the detective in the Sexual Assault Squad responsible for the case, a guy named Victor Tran. He remembers the case clearly because the assault was perpetrated against Boyd’s own
daughter.”
Gilbert’s reaction was one of utter revulsion. “He assaulted Morningstar?”
“She was sixteen at the time,” said Howard. “Not a nice thing for your father to do. A common victim profile, though. A girl under the age of eighteen raped by someone in her own household. Just like the Mariana Relós case I worked on.”
“Boyd makes me sick,” said Gilbert.
“All these guys make me sick,” said Howard.
“So why isn’t Boyd in jail?” asked Gilbert. “Why is he up here in Canada? He should be rotting in a U.S. prison somewhere.”
“Judy got him off the hook,” said Howard. “She phoned Tran after the arrest and told him Morningstar had been making the whole thing up. She protected Boyd. When Tran questioned Morningstar, she backed her mother’s story, said she’d made the whole story up because her father wouldn’t give her the car to use for a night out. Tran didn’t buy it for a minute. But he still had to let Boyd go because Morningstar refused to testify.”
Once Gilbert had finished talking to his brother, he sat at his desk thinking for several minutes. While Howard’s information lent credibility to Bannatyne’s sex theory, it more obviously reinforced his own idea that Judy might be the guilty party after all. Was he having tunnel vision again? He didn’t think so. He ran it through his mind one more time. Judy comes up here for the ultimate reconciliation dinner. Boyd doesn’t even show up. On top of that, he tells her he’s seeing another woman. But even before all this, he rapes Morningstar, and that in itself is motive enough to strangle the guy. Judy loses her temper and in a fit of rage kills Boyd. Boyd can’t defend himself because his arm is broken, maybe by the Colombians. He pinches her arm with his left hand and gets her skin caught under his fingernails. She’s not a strong woman, and there’s minimal trauma to Boyd’s hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage, but she manages to kill him just the same, even though she sprains her wrist in the attempt and now has to wear a tensor bandage.