High Chicago

by Howard Shrier

  “I know the Noose.”

  “She’s on mat leave now. So it’s me and the guys. If I treat the men under me well, they think I’m soft and try to get away with everything they can. If I’m hard on them, I’m a bitch. Half the meetings I go to, I could be chairing, everyone’s saying, ‘Guys … get out there, guys …’ You know how hard it is to make Homicide sergeant before the age of forty? Not easy for a man and ten times harder for a woman. I can’t afford to get blind-sided, Jonah. Not by anyone. So tell me how on earth a man like you—or the man I thought you were—becomes friends with a contract killer?”

  I was liking her better by the minute, even as she slipped farther away. “Our paths just crossed a while back,” I said lamely. “By accident. He needed help with a personal matter, and I helped him.”

  “Aren’t you neighbourly.”

  “Kate, I know it looks bad—”

  “Looks bad? It fucking stinks, Jonah. He kills people for money. Where are your boundaries?”

  “He has nothing to do with the way I live.”

  “Judgment, then.”

  “Who am I to judge anyone?”

  “Well, I have to judge you,” she said. “I have to be dead careful about who I let into my personal life, because the second I do let someone in, he shows up on my work screen. And you’re already up there.” She reached into her purse and withdrew a twenty from a zippered pocket. “That should cover the drinks.”

  “So that’s it? Guilt by association?”

  “Not just any association. Don’t you get it? Dante Ryan is the kind of man I live to put away. Day in, day out, I work this job of mine. I see kids being shot by other kids because they gave them the wrong look. Husbands who kill their wives because the pork chops burned. And men found in the trunks of their cars because they got involved in organized crime. Dante Ryan kills people—not in passion or anger or on the spur of the moment—but for money, plain and simple, and if I had anything to say about it, he’d be doing life in Millhaven, not running a restaurant that I almost took you to.”

  “If you knew the truth …” And then I had to cut myself off, because there was no way I could tell her the truth about Ryan and me without including the nasty ending in the Don River Valley.

  I’m not sure what would have happened next—would she have walked out on me?—because her cellphone rang. She un-clipped it from her belt, drawing a dirty look from people at the table next to us, and answered with a terse “Yes?” Pause. “Hey, Gregg.”

  McDonough, her throwback partner. I was glad he couldn’t see us. He would have had a hoot if he knew who was sharing her table.

  “Where?” she said. “How far away are you? No, I’m closer. I can be there in fifteen minutes. All right. See you there.”

  She snapped the phone closed. “I have to go.”

  “You were leaving anyway.”

  “I’m sorry, Jonah. Can you at least understand why I have to be careful?”

  “We all have to be careful when we meet someone we like,” I said. “You were the first door I opened in a long time. I didn’t expect everything to be easy between us. But I was willing to try.”

  “I still have to go.”

  “Where?”

  “Church and Wellesley,” she said. “A man was beaten to death.”

  The heart of the gay village. “A bashing?” It wouldn’t be the city’s first but doing it in the heart of the village was beyond audacious.

  “I’ll see what the scene has to say when I get there.”

  “Let me drive you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Please. It’s ten more minutes out of your life. What if there was something I could tell you that would help us get over this hump?”

  “I can’t imagine what that would be.”

  I took Adelaide across the lower part of the city, through the deserted financial district, tension filling the car like secondhand smoke.

  “There’s a lot I can’t tell you about Ryan,” I finally said, “for your sake as well as his, but I can say this: we came together because he was trying to make good on something and he needed my help to do it. He was trying, believe it or not, to save a life. Not to take one, Kate. To save one. He was trying to prevent something truly horrible from happening. Whatever you might think about him, he was trying to do something good, and he did. And I helped him. I paid a price for that. A high one. And I’ve been paying for it ever since. But I’m not sorry he came to me, and I’m not sorry about what we had to do. The only thing I am goddamn sorry about is that it came between us tonight.”

  We were heading north on Jarvis, which had more lanes and less traffic than Church. When we got to the corner of Maitland, Hollinger said, “Drop me here, please.”

  “You sure?”

  “I have a crime scene to work and I need to arrive there on my own. I don’t want to be teased or distracted by anyone or anything.”

  I pulled over and shifted into park. She snapped her seat belt open and put her hand on the door handle. Then she paused. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, but her voice seemed to warm a bit when she spoke. “I’m sorry if I seem paranoid about this. I was so ready for a nice evening with you, Jonah. I really was. I thought because the Di Pietra cases were all closed, the time was right, but hearing about Ryan—knowing his association with that crew—it threw me.”

  “No kidding.”

  She turned to me and surprised me with a smile. Nothing that lit up the night, but a smile. “Give me some time to process this. Maybe after I’ve slept on it, it won’t seem so bad. If it doesn’t, then maybe I’ll give you a call.”

  Two maybes. Hardly ironclad.

  She got out of the car and walked toward the alley that ran south off Maitland, where a man’s life had ended. I drove one block farther south and parked. I didn’t want to crowd Hollinger, but I was curious to see her work a crime scene. I put on a ball cap from my trunk, slipped an old raincoat over my blazer and walked back to the alley.

  It was brightly lit—unnaturally so—by halogen lights mounted on stands. Crime scene investigators on TV might walk around with dinky penlights, but in real life they tend to flood scenes with light so as not to miss anything. A crowd had gathered outside the tape that crossed the mouth of the alley. I stood at the back where Hollinger couldn’t see me. She was squatting beside the body of a blond male in a grey overcoat, talking to a uniformed officer, probably the first on the scene. After noting how the body had been found, she snapped on a pair of latex gloves and reached carefully into the dead man’s pockets. From the breast pocket of his jacket she withdrew a wallet, examined the contents, made a few notes in a spiral notebook, and put the wallet back. A medical examiner came over and lifted the man’s head and showed her something at the back. She frowned and touched the area gingerly. The tip of her gloved finger was bloody when she removed it.

  She sighed and got to her feet and nodded to two men waiting with a body bag and a gurney. They laid the bag on the ground and unzipped it. One knelt by the victim’s head, the other by his feet. When they lifted him over the bag, his head flopped forward and I got a clear look at his face. I gasped loud enough to make people around me turn.

  Good thing I was standing near the back.

  The dead man was Martin Glenn.

  CHAPTER 10

  World Repairs pays handsomely to subscribe to a variety of databases, one of which is called BizServe. I logged on remotely to the office server from home and read everything it had on EcoSys then moved on to the company’s own website. Between the two of them, I got a pretty good picture of the work that Glenn had done.

  He was an engineer by training and had worked for more than a decade for the Ministry of the Environment, helping it define and develop its site assessment policies. At the height of his career, he did what many civil servants do: resigned so he could offer the same services back to the private sector at a consultant’s rate, instead of as a modestly paid government drone. Glenn and his associat
es helped clients assess the level of groundwater or soil contamination of their property and whether it was worth the cost of reclamation. If so, they would create a remediation plan. Restore soil to levels that matched samples taken from non-polluted sites. Build underground barriers to prevent toxins from seeping into or out of the site. Treat ground-water so polluted you wouldn’t use it to put out a fire. Guide clients through the maze of government ministries that might be involved in a large project: the Ministry of the Environment, of course, but also Natural Resources, if a project posed an ecological risk to wetlands and other sensitive areas; and Finance if there were potential tax breaks to be had.

  EcoSys would take clients through every step they needed to get a clean Record of Site Condition that met all criteria under ministry guidelines and the federal Environmental Protection Act.

  Most of the time, according to the website, the ministry would review the RSC and audit the process to ensure all requirements had been met. “But when a trusted partner like EcoSys has done the work,” the site boasted, “with all the necessary skills and judgment, clients can rest easy that the RSC process will be approved in a timely manner.”

  Martin Glenn had been qualified. As a former employee of the ministry, he would certainly have been trusted. An RSC submitted by him would in all likelihood have been rubber-stamped.

  He had left the Harbourview job site in a fury earlier this afternoon and was now on the way to the morgue. I wondered what the hell he had gotten himself into. I also wondered who Eric was. Rob Cantor had told Glenn to think about Eric, and Glenn had been so angry he’d barely been able to respond.

  It was ten o’clock when I was done. I was tired and I was also ravenous. I looked in the fridge and found little of interest. So I got into my car and drove back to the entertainment district.

  The interior of Giulio’s was warm and inviting: the walls a deep vermilion, the tables and chairs glossy black. A fire burned in a stone fireplace along one wall; along the opposite wall was a long bar, where sparkling glasses hung upside down from wooden slats. Dante Ryan was standing at a podium with a reservations book open. When he saw me, his eyebrows raised and he broke into a smile. He set down the red leather-bound menus he’d been holding, came up to me and offered me his hand. We shook, then he pulled me into an embrace, clapping my back twice. “Took you long enough to show your face,” he said.

  “The place looks fantastic,” I said. “Mazel tov.”

  “You hungry? You here to eat?”

  “Yes and yes.”

  “Have a seat at the bar. I’ll have a table for you in five minutes. Gino,” he said to the barman. “Whatever this man wants, it’s on the house.” Then he walked to the back of the room to speak to one of the waitresses.

  Gino was a slight, balding man with thin strands of dark hair pasted across his dome. I ordered Black Bush on the rocks. He poured a standard shot then topped it up with another ounce or so.

  A loud roar went up at a table behind us where four men in business dress were hoisting drinks and toasting one another. By the look of it, they’d been dining on steak and pasta, with plenty of wine to wash it down. One of them—big, beefy and red-faced—was crowing over a deal that had apparently been consummated that day. “We took no fucking prisoners,” he bellowed. “We took fucking scalps.”

  The patrons at the table next to them glared for a while then went back to their meals. I nursed my drink, wondering what Hollinger was doing now. Still at the crime scene, probably, combing the alley for evidence. Maybe directing a canvass of the neighbourhood. Almost certainly not thinking of me or what the evening could have been.

  “Hey!” came a shout from the noisy table. The big man had an empty wine bottle in his hand. “You, behind the bar. Angelo, or whatever your name is. Bring us another bottle of red.”

  The bartender looked like he wanted to send the bottle airmail. Then Ryan appeared from the back of the restaurant, walking briskly toward the table.

  “Sir,” he said to the big man. “If you want a bottle of wine, we’re happy to serve it to you. But show a little respect for our staff and the other diners. All right?”

  The man broke out laughing, egging on his compatriots until they laughed with him. “Oh, sure!” he gasped. “We’ll respect the little fucker, won’t we?”

  Ryan shook his head. I eased off my stool. There were four of them, all drunk enough to mess with Ryan, something no sober man would do. If things got ugly, I’d have his back.

  Ryan leaned down, his hand on the table next to the man’s dinner plate, and spoke very quietly into his ear. He had once boasted to me about his powers of persuasion, and whatever he said now prompted the man to settle right down, reach into his wallet and pull out a credit card.

  Ryan waved down a waitress. “Monica, these gentlemen have to leave,” he said. “Bring their bill right away, please. And add a nice tip—twenty per cent okay with you?” he asked the big man, still leaning over him like they were pals. The man nodded quickly.

  Only then did I notice the man’s steak knife was no longer next to his plate.

  The food was outstanding. Ryan wouldn’t let me see a menu, just kept sending out dishes for me to sample. First what he called poor man’s caviar—herring roe in oil flavoured with hot peppers. Then chilled eggplant seasoned with garlic and oregano. Tuna marinated in a lemon and black olive sauce. And finally lamb chops, Calabrian style, carefully arranged on a plate with grilled red peppers, artichokes and mushrooms.

  “I spared you the octopus salad,” he grinned. “It’s an acquired taste for most people—and for a Jewish guy? I figured it might be over the top.”

  Each course came with a glass of well-matched wine. The best was the Montepulciano he brought to go with the lamb. “Life’s too short to drink cheap wine,” he said.

  This from a guy who used to shorten lives professionally. Hollinger probably would have broken the bottle over his head.

  When dessert came—a tart that was both sweet and fiery—he brought two espressos and sat with me at the table.

  “That’s made with orange marmalade and a chili jam,” he said. “We call it Devil’s Tart.”

  “After the owner’s heart,” I grinned.

  “How was everything?” he asked, his dark eyes fixing on mine. “Honestly.”

  I said, “Mmph,” as I had just stuffed a forkful of tart into my mouth. When I could speak, I said, “You’ve outdone yourself.”

  “Thanks. So how come you showed up out of the blue like this? No phone call, nothing.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “You and your long stories. I’ve sat through a few before.”

  I inhaled the last bite of Devil’s Tart and pushed the plate to the side. “Remember the Homicide sergeant who dropped in on me that night?” He’d remember which night: the two of us eating pizza, drinking wine and planning to murder his boss.

  “Sure,” he said. “Kate? Katie?”

  “That’s right. Katherine Hollinger.”

  “Wait a sec. Hollinger. We had a no-show tonight. Seven o’clock for two.”

  “And you’re looking at one of them.”

  “What happened?”

  “She didn’t tell me which restaurant she picked. And I didn’t ask. Once we got here, it was too late. I had to tell her about us.”

  “About us what?”

  “Being friends.”

  “And she had a prob—oh, yeah. I guess she would, being Homicide.”

  “Yup.”

  “Sorry, guy.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I can still be sorry. So listen,” he said, leaning in. “There’s no grief coming my way, is there? About what happened last summer?”

  “She told me they’ve closed the books,” I said.

  “Because there’s no going back for me.”

  “I think you’re clear. I think we both are.”

  “All right.”

  “How’s Carlo?” I asked.

 
“He’s terrific, thanks. Cara too.”

  “I’m happy for you,” I said.

  “Thanks, Geller. And how’s your new business, this repair shop of yours?”

  “We’ve got a case.”

  “I hope it works out better than ours did.”

  “We did all right.”

  “Let me rephrase it then: I hope so many bodies don’t pile up.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I’m walking up a trail in a northern forest, a steep, narrow path lined with club pine and Labrador tea and the brilliant yellow petals of Arctic cinquefoil, opened wide to catch beads of morning dew. I walk carefully over moss-covered rocks that can turn an ankle, past trees scarred by bear claws, birches rubbed free of bark by moose antlers. Step around a nasty clump of wolf shit full of coarse white fur, probably from a meal of rabbit. I come to a fast-running stream and start across a path of stepping stones. I’m almost at the other side when the second-to-last stone gives way under my foot. I look down and it’s not a stone at all but the submerged face of a man dressed in a suit. “Watch where you’re going!” he snarls and my foot slips off his face and I tip over into the freezing water. Fish bump against me. Something long and slick slides over me. I put my hand down to brace myself and it sinks into the mud and I can’t pull it out. The harder I try, the deeper I sink. “You ruined my goddamn suit,” says the underwater man. “I’m never going to get these stains out.” And the water rises higher around me until I too am beneath the surface.

  I woke up with my stomach in a knot, my breath shallow. Seven in the morning and nowhere to go but into the shower, where I tried to wash away the memories of Stefano di Pietra and his miserable end in the Don River. Maybe seeing Ryan last night had brought them back.