by Scott Mackay
“All hairs belong to Stacy,” he said. Gilbert gave him the background on the Stacy angle. “I’m sorry I went behind your back like that, Joe, but I had to do something. I would have told you…only Tim called me into his office, and he read me the riot act, and I didn’t want to get you in trouble. Now…” He leaned forward and looked at the documents on his desk. “I’ve got Stacy’s medical chart, and that proves she went down to Mount Joseph Hospital on the night of the murder. And I’ve got this doctor who tells me Phil picked Stacy up after she was discharged. Phil picked her up in and around the time of the murder.”
“So now you’re trying to place the pair at GBIA after they left the hospital,” said Lombardo, catching on quickly.
“Yes.”
Lombardo frowned. “Jesus,” he said. “You really should have come to me sooner. I could have helped you with all this.”
“I didn’t want to put you on the spot. I didn’t want to get you in trouble with Tim.”
Lombardo’s eyes narrowed. “Tim never should have yanked you from this case in the first place,” he said.
“Tim’s concerns were legitimate,” said Gilbert. “I don’t blame him at all.”
Lombardo nodded. “So what are you going to do now?”
Gilbert sat back in his chair. “I think Phil and Stacy must have taken a taxi down to GBIA after they left the hospital,” he said. “So I’ve been down there all day canvassing cabbies.”
“Wouldn’t Phil drive his own car?” asked Lombardo.
“He can’t drive right now,” said Gilbert. “His license has been suspended for driving under the influence.”
“That’s right, too,” said Lombardo.
“I haven’t had any luck canvassing cabbies,” said Gilbert.
Lombardo considered the problem. “Did you call the cab companies?” he asked. “They keep records, you know.”
“Yes,” said Gilbert. “They have no fares originating from Phil’s address on that night. Stacy must have called him on his cell. He must have hailed a cab from somewhere else when he came to the hospital.”
“And you spoke to all the evening-shift cabbies at Mount Joseph?”
Gilbert felt his face sinking. He felt like an idiot. “Jesus,” he said. “I spoke to only the day-shift.”
Lombardo grinned. “That’s why you should have come to me sooner,” he said. “I’m younger. I have more brain cells than you do.”
After a pizza slice and a Dr Pepper at Domino’s, the detectives got in Gilbert’s Lumina and drove down to Mount Joseph Hospital to canvass the evening-shift cabbies.
Gilbert sat on the edge of the big concrete planter with the grubby little maple. Joe did the canvassing. Joe insisted.
Gilbert was tired, enervated by working all day in the heat. Also, he was sixteen years older than Joe—and the sixteen years between thirty-four and fifty took their toll, something Joe would find out soon enough as his birthdays rolled by one by one.
Lombardo walked from cabby to cabby, working the line with a persistence and high-octane attitude that Gilbert had to admire. He was glad he was working with Lombardo again, even though the young man’s vigor seemed to underscore his own waning vitality. Anything seemed possible when he was working with Joe, and any case solvable, even one as personally difficult as this one.
Around ten-thirty, Joe waved him over to a cabby at the end of the line.
“Barry,” he called. “Come over here. I found a guy.”
Gilbert got up and walked over. His knees gave him a pinch.
Lombardo stood beside a cabby. The cabby was a tall man, around fifty years old. He had long hair flowing thinly from a bald pate, a beard, and a big, pitted, alcoholic’s nose. He wore a blue Stevie Ray Vaughan T-shirt, a denim vest, and, oddly, pink-tinted sunglasses. His arms were thick, muscular, and the right one had the name BARBARA tattooed in big green capital letters on it. The cabby held a clipboard of sheets. Joe put his hand on the man’s shoulder.
“This guy says he took Phil Thompson and a woman named Stacy to a Queen Street address on the evening of June first,” he said.
The driver held up all his sheets.
“I got it right here,” he said, “on one of these fare sheets. If only I could find the damn thing.” The man had a thick Newfoundland accent. “I should be pruning these someday, but housekeeping’s never been my strong point.” He flipped through the sheets with a hopeless look in his eyes. “Nope. I can’t find it. But I remember Phil Thompson. One of my old girlfriends loved Mother Courage way back when. I know he lives in Toronto, and I’ve seen him in and around Queen Street a time or two before. I can’t say I was a big fan, but I listened to them, just to keep my girlfriend happy.”
Gilbert glanced at Lombardo, then turned back to the driver. “Do you remember the actual address you took them to?”
The cabby scratched his head, his eyes narrowing as he searched his memory.
“I could point it out to you if we drove downtown,” he said.
“Then why don’t we do that?” said Gilbert.
The cabby grinned, as if he thought Gilbert were trying to fleece him.
“As long as you don’t mind payin’ the fare,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” said Gilbert. “We’ll pay the fare. You’re sure you can take us to the right place?”
“I know the exact place,” said the cabby.
They got in the taxi and headed south to Queen Street. At this time of night, the young fashion freaks and bar-goers strolled the trendy strip. Gilbert saw a couple police cars cruise by. The lights were bright, the shops were as diverse as condom shacks and head joints, and in front of the City TV building, boogie freaks danced on the sidewalk as music from an open-air broadcast of the station’s weekly dance show boomed across the pavement. The driver, whose name Gilbert saw from the identification panel on the backseat was Brian Kelsey, got conversational.
“So you use those German shepherds for your K-9 unit?” asked Kelsey.
“Yes,” said Gilbert.
Kelsey nodded. He reached for the dash, lifted a photo, and handed it to Gilbert.
“That’s my baby,” he said. The photo showed an aging Doberman. “Dobermans get a bad rap,” continued Kelsey. “Everybody thinks they’re vicious because of all that Hollywood crap they see about them. But really, all my Ginger wants to do is sniff your hand and be friends. It’s them German shepherds you have to worry about.”
“I always liked German shepherds,” said Gilbert, remembering Queenie.
Kelsey nodded, prepared to be polite about it.
“If you get a good one,” stipulated Kelsey, “they’re fine. And if you give it some proper sense in the first two years of its life, you should have no trouble. But you got to remember, the Nazis used German shepherds as guard dogs, and at heart, they’re really vicious. Not so with Dobermans. You know what the Nazis used Dobermans for?” Kelsey glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled at them with nicotine-stained teeth. “They used them to deliver messages. What’s that tell you? It tells you the Doberman is a hell of a lot smarter than the German shepherd.” He nodded. “A Doberman knows a hundred-and-thirty English words, and a German shepherd knows only three. I bet my Ginger knows at least two hundred English words by now.”
Kelsey repeated this theme one way or the other, elevating his own Ginger into a kind of super-dog, until he pointed out a building on the south side of the street: none other than the offices of Glen Boyd International Artists.
“That’s the place,” said Kelsey. “Phil went upstairs by himself. I took his chick to another address further west of here, over by Ossington.”
Gilbert stared at the edifice, an old shopfront building from the early 1900s, painted over with a bright op-art design that fit right in with the rest of the trendy commercial neighborhood. At least Stacy hadn’t gone up with Phil. That would get her off the hook as an accomplice.
“Do you have a rough idea what time you dropped Phil off?” asked Gilbert.
Kelsey scr
atched his head, thinking. “Had to be between nine and ten,” he said. “The bars were just filling up.”
“And you’d be willing to sign a statement to that effect?” asked Lombardo.
Kelsey glanced over the backseat and grinned again. “It depends on how big a tip you give me,” he said. “I’m always willin’ to do extras if the tip’s big enough.”
Twenty-One
Gilbert and Lombardo pulled up to Stacy Todd’s grimy brownstone at seven o’clock the next morning. A street sweeper rumbled past, soaking the street with its sprayer, the water immediately turning to steam on the warm asphalt. An inmate from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health wandered through the dewy grounds across the street; a Filipino hospital attendant watched the patient closely. A breeze blew from the south, carrying the funky smell of the summertime lake. A streetcar clanged across the intersection at Ossington and Queen.
Gilbert parked half up on the sidewalk.
He and Lombardo got out and crossed the street to Stacy’s place.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Gilbert. “How’s Virginia?”
Lombardo frowned. “I’m not sure she likes my hair the way it is. She says she does, but I’m getting a different vibe.”
“Really?” he said, acting innocent.
“What do you think of it?” Lombardo asked him. “I want your honest opinion.”
Gilbert gave Joe’s chopped hair a forbearing glance.
“I think you should have left it alone.”
Lombardo’s eyes glimmered with regret. “I wanted to hide the bald spot,” he said.
“You don’t have a bald spot, Joe,” said Gilbert “And if you do, it’s so small you can’t notice it Mike Strutton always has to say something. That’s what you got to realize about Mike. He’s a jerk that way.”
“So you don’t think I have a bald spot?”
“No.”
“I knew it,” said Lombardo. “Strutton’s an asshole.”
“If he’s an asshole, why did you listen to him?” asked Gilbert.
“You know what I think?” said Lombardo. “I think my hair’s going to grow back thicker, now that I got it shaved. That’s what my barber says.”
“Joe, it’ll probably grow back the same.”
“I don’t think so,” said Lombardo. “My scalp’s had a chance to breathe.”
“You should stop having so many theories about your hair,” said Gilbert. “It’s unhealthy. Your hair’s your hair. Leave it alone.”
“My mother says my hair’s my best feature,” said Joe.
“Then why did you cut it off?”
“I panicked,” said Joe.
“The next time you panic, I’ll make sure there aren’t any scissors around. In the meantime, just grow it back.”
“I’m going to,” said Lombardo.
Gilbert knocked on Stacy’s door.
It took nearly five minutes, but Stacy finally answered.
She stood at the bottom of the stairs in a blue terry-cloth dressing gown. Her glasses were on, but they were askew. A lock of blond hair hung over her forehead in a fetching way. She looked caught off guard, alarmed to find them standing at her door so early.
“Next time, could you call before you come?” she said.
“We wanted to catch you before you went out,” explained Gilbert.
“You still should have called,” she said. Her friendly attitude from previous visits was gone. “What do you want?”
Out on the street, morning rush-hour traffic was building quickly.
“Do you mind if we come in?” asked Lombardo.
She flicked her eyes coldly at Lombardo.
“Could we make it some other time?” she said. “I have someone here right now.”
It occurred to Gilbert that Phil Thompson might be upstairs.
“Okay, so we’ll get right to the point,” said Gilbert, not at all pleased by the reception they were getting. “We have reason to believe you have knowledge of Glen Boyd’s murder.”
She didn’t miss a beat.
“How?” she asked.
He outlined his evidence: the matching hairs, her trip to the hospital, her taxi ride to GBIA with Phil. “We know that Phil went upstairs alone,” he said, “and that the taxi driver took you home by yourself. But we also know that you and Phil are a couple. We believe he must have told you.”
In this way, he hoped to shake something loose, dump it on her all at once the way Bob Bannatyne might. Her face remained impassive. He realized what Ted Aver had said about the woman was true: despite the seed cakes, mint tea, and gift baskets, she knew how to handle herself.
“Isn’t that nice?” she said. “So what are you going to do now?”
Gilbert stared at her. It wasn’t working. Taking it to the next step by getting her to implicate Phil, was, at least for the time being, an unattainable objective. Still, he made one last try.
“We might have to book you as an accomplice if you don’t cooperate,” he said, though he had no intention of doing any such thing, knowing how much she had suffered already.
“Then go ahead and book me,” she said.
He really wanted to cut the investigation short by getting her to cooperate, but it was obvious she wasn’t going for it.
“So you admit to some involvement then?” said Lombardo, going out on a limb.
Stacy stepped adroitly around this snare. “If you’re going to arrest me, do it now, and let’s get it over with. I’d like to post bond. I’ve got things to do today.”
“Let’s go, Joe,” said Gilbert.
Joe made his own last try.
“Were you, or were you not involved in the murder of Glen Boyd?” asked Lombardo.
Stacy gave him a saccharine smile.
“When and if you arrest me,” she said, “you can speak to my lawyer about it. Right now I’ve got someone here with me. I’m sorry you’ve come all this way. Can I go back inside now? Or should I really get my pants on?”
Despite her legal gamesmanship, Stacy looked worried, as if she sensed the end was near.
“Go back inside,” said Gilbert. “But stay in Toronto. Things would really go from bad to worse if you tried to leave.”
“I have no reason to leave,” she said, and shut the door.
As Gilbert and Lombardo headed back to the car, he felt sorry for Stacy. She didn’t deserve this. Boyd had forced her into this situation. And yet Gilbert had no choice but to press forward with the investigation, and to bring the case to a satisfactory close. That made him mad. Especially at Boyd. Boyd, he thought, was a one-man Armageddon, bringing destruction wherever he went.
Gilbert drove to the Metro West Detention Center later that day to visit Judy Pelaez. Judy sat across from him in an orange prisoner’s uniform. The uniform, a coverall, looked too big for her.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said. “I didn’t want it to happen this way. I’m not on the case anymore. But I’m trying to rectify things for you as quickly as I can.”
She grinned placidly, distantly. “He’s a never-ending story, isn’t he?” she said, her voice tender, in its soprano range.
“Who is?” he asked.
“Glen.”
He didn’t know what to say to this. He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “I think you’ll be okay. I’ll make every effort to finish up quickly.”
She looked at his hand. “You sometimes don’t act like a cop.”
“Think of me as your friend,” he said. “I’m not sure you’ve had too many of those in the last little while.”
She lifted her gaze. Her grin melted like a snowflake on a child’s tongue. She looked so blue—the bluest bird in the world.
“It’s not that I don’t want friends,” she said. “But somehow Judy always gets in the way. No one likes me.”
He smiled.
“I like you just fine,” he said. He sat back. “By this time next week, you’ll bury your husband. Then you can go back home. This p
lace is bad for you. Morningstar and Delta want you back. And that’s where you should be.”
Faced with Stacy Todd’s intransigence, Gilbert had no choice but to get Tim Nowak on his side before he could proceed any further. Only through Nowak could he get the full backing he needed to go ahead with his next step.
Gilbert and Lombardo, partners again, approached the staff inspector shortly after ten the next morning.
Gilbert outlined to Nowak his chain of evidence.
While Nowak agreed it was a fairly solid piece of work, his lips puckered when Gilbert told him it meant the squad would have to release Judy Pelaez. A puckering of the lips on the usually unflappable staff inspector meant Nowak was truly rankled. Against those puckered lips, Gilbert felt he had to push his case to the limit. So he set out his documents.
“This is Judy Pelaez’s medical chart from San Francisco,” he said. “Both Dr. Lukow and Dr. Blackstein agree she wouldn’t have had the strength in her wrist to strangle Boyd. And this here,” he said, lifting a few stapled sheets, “is the report on the hairs. You can see for yourself. The hairs combed from Boyd match the one I vouchered from Stacy’s bathtub drain. And right here we have Stacy Todd’s medical chart from Mount Joseph, along with a statement signed from Dr. Charbonneau about Phil coming to pick her up. And this final sheet is a statement signed by Brian Kelsey, the taxi driver who drove Stacy and Phil down to GBIA on the night of the murder. As for background, Ted Aver’s agreed to come forward. He’ll sign whatever we need him to sign. And if it’s not enough, Victor Tran’s agreed to send Boyd’s arrest record from San Francisco. Likewise, Magda Barcos is willing to testify.”
The staff inspector tapped his fingers slowly, meditatively, against his desk. Then he stopped. This sudden cessation of finger movement unnerved Gilbert. Nowak’s head turned smoothly, as if on greased ball bearings. His face was as calm as the Dalai Lama’s. He raised two fingers.
“Two things, Barry,” he said. “Number one: insubordination.”
He gave the word a chance to settle. He turned to the window and tapped his fingers a few more times. He actually looked hurt, as if he couldn’t believe one of his own would go behind his back this way.