‘Karen was found dead last night. Seems like you two may have been the last ones to see her,’ Penner said matter-of-factly. The news seemed to really upset Jane. Dave seemed more nervous than concerned.
‘That’s awful!’ Jane cried. ‘What happened?’
‘We aren’t too sure right now,’ Penner hedged. ‘So, when Karen left, what did you two do?’
‘We went for a walk down by the river. Probably stayed there until one in the morning, I think. Then Dave walked me home,’ Jane said. ‘Did she have a heart attack or something? She was so young and she seemed so healthy. That’s crazy!’
‘No, unfortunately it wasn’t a natural death,’ Penner said. ‘Did anyone see the two of you after Karen left?’
‘Not natural? You mean she was killed? Who would want to hurt Karen?’ Dave asked. Grant wasn’t sure his reaction was genuine.
‘That’s what we’re trying to figure out,’ Penner said, looking at Dave. ‘Do you mind taking off your blazer and rolling up your shirt sleeves?’
‘What? Why?’ Dave asked.
‘I’d like to see if you have any marks on your arms. If you don’t mind, it would really help,’ Penner said.
‘Wait, you don’t think I had anything to do with this do you?’ Dave protested. ‘I was with Jane! Karen left to get a taxi!’
‘Well, if you had nothing to do with it, you won’t mind showing us your arms, right?’ Penner said. ‘We just need to clear you as a suspect. As I said, you were one of the last people to see her, so, if you don’t mind…’ She gestured at his forearms.
‘I can’t believe this!’ Dave said, standing up. He slipped off his jacket, putting it on the back of his chair.
‘Can you roll up your sleeves, please?’ Penner asked. Grant moved a bit closer to get a better look, as Dave did as he was asked. Penner leaned in to examine his forearms. ‘Turn your arms over, please.’ Dave did so reluctantly. There didn’t seem to be any marks. ‘Thank you. Right, I think that’s it for now,’ Penner said, standing up. ‘Please don’t leave town. We may have some more questions for you. Constable?’
Grant followed Penner out of the office. Amanda was still trying to console Jenny.
‘Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch,’ Penner said. She passed Amanda a card. ‘This is a good grief counsellor. It could be good to have her come in to talk to you all.’
‘Thanks, I’ll give her a call,’ said Amanda, putting the card in her pocket. She still seemed dazed. Grant and Penner let themselves out of the building.
‘So, that was interesting,’ Grant said as they were getting into the car. ‘Do you believe them?’
‘I think so,’ said Penner. ‘But they both looked like they were trying to hide something more than an office romance. Can you check them out when we get back to the office?’
‘Not a problem,’ Grant said, writing himself a reminder in his notebook. ‘So, any other leads we need to run down?’
‘Well, I think we should find out if anyone at the taxi stand remembers seeing Mrs. Wong. No point in going now—the midnight cabbies wouldn’t be there yet. Feel like coming along tonight to do some more interviews? Say around eleven, or so?’ Penner asked, pulling out of the parking lot.
‘That would be fantastic! Thank you!’ Grant said excitedly.
‘Perfect,’ Penner said. Her eyes lit up as she saw a familiar neon sign. ‘I don’t know about you, but I need a coffee.’
* * *
Penner dropped Grant off at the precinct before heading home to get some rest. She didn’t have anything she needed to do—all of her paperwork was filed. Left on his own, Grant decided he would spend a little time doing a background search on Mrs. Wong’s co-workers before heading home. It was still early, and he was too excited to sleep. He couldn’t believe he was helping out with an actual murder case. Since he didn’t have a designated office of his own where he could work, he went to the open lab that the patrol officers used. Luckily there was a computer free. He didn’t feel like going all the way up to the third floor to use one of the ones there.
‘Right,’ he said to himself, pulling out his notebook. ‘Start with Mary Johnson, the one who left.’ He entered her name into the system. It came back with two possible hits for the name. He looked at the dates of birth and decided the right one was the second entry—the first was too young, based on the info they had been given. ‘Hmm, a couple of speeding tickets and a bunch of unpaid parking tickets.’ He made a note in his book. Other than that, nothing of interest. He checked Amanda, the boss, then Jenny and Jane. Nothing too interesting. Jane apparently had a noise complaint filed against her two years ago, but nothing had come from it. ‘Now for Dave.’ Grant typed in his name as another officer came in.
‘Almost done, give me five minutes?’ Grant couldn’t place the officer, but there had been a lot of new hires lately.
‘No problem. Care for a coffee? I got some brewing in the kitchen.’
‘Please. Just black,’ Grant said, turning back to the computer. ‘Well, well, well, this is interesting,’ he said, making some notes in his notebook. He clicked on a link and did another search. ‘Well, Dave, I think we may need to have another talk at some point.’ He logged off the computer and went to grab his coffee.
When he got to the kitchen, the officer he had seen in the lab had already left. There was a cup of coffee sitting on the counter, which Grant figured was poured for him. He picked it up and took a sip as his Sergeant walked in, looking around.
‘You drinking my coffee, Grant?’
‘This was yours?’ Grant said, surprised. ‘Sorry, sir, I thought it was poured out for me. Let me get you another cup.’ He scrambled to get a clean mug out of the cupboard. He filled the mug with coffee and gave it to his Sergeant. ‘Here you go, sir. Sorry, sir.’ He couldn’t believe he had drank his boss’s coffee. ‘Not a good move when I need to ask permission to keep working with Detective Penner tonight,’ he thought.
‘Thanks, Grant. No harm done. So, how’d the day go with the detective?’
‘It was great, sir. It was interesting to see her style in questioning people. She has a different style than I do. She knows when to be soft and compassionate, and when to be tough.’
‘Glad to hear it. Hopefully you can take some of what you saw and use it to your advantage.’
‘I think I can, sir,’ Grant said, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘Actually, sir, I need to ask you something. Detective Penner asked if I would be interested in going out with her again tonight to question some more people for the case. Looks like the victim, Mrs. Wong, may have tried to take a taxi home, so she wants to see if anyone saw her at the taxi stand.’
‘Something you want to do?’
‘Yes, sir, if I could. I think it would be good to get more experience with her, if I can. I mean, if it’s okay with you, of course. I know I have my normal patrol to do, but…’
‘Yeah, I don’t see a problem with it. If one of the Brass are interested in having you tag along, take advantage of it. It won’t happen every day.’
‘Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.’ Grant finished his coffee.
‘No problem. Let me know tomorrow during roll-call how it went.’
* * *
Tina was late getting home that night. She’d had wrestling practice after school and then she had gone to her friend Katie’s for dinner. She and Katie were working on a project for their Social Studies class and had decided to try and tie in criminal profiling, but it wasn’t as easy as they had thought it would be. Tina had a pretty good idea how it worked. She had read all of her dad’s books over the years, and had even gone to some of his conferences with him when she was younger. She understood all the theories. The problem was trying to relate the concepts back to the main subject of the project. They only had a couple of days left to hand in their paper, so Tina had told Katie she’d ask her dad for his opinion. Hopefully he would have some ideas they could use.
Dropping her coat and bag at the do
or, Tina walked into the kitchen, turned on the light and called out for her dad. The rest of the house was dark, but taped to the fridge was a note:
‘Hey T, hope you had a great day at school. I had to go to Toronto for work. There’s food in the fridge and here is $20 for pizza, if you want. Great job at the tournament! I am very proud of you! Sorry I missed you today. Love you! Dad.’
‘Working again! Typical,’ Tina slammed her hand against the fridge. She grabbed the twenty-dollar bill from under the magnet, letting the note from her Dad float to the floor. ‘Work always comes before me. He’s such a bastard!’ She turned off the kitchen lights and stormed out of the house.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Grant arrived at the taxi stand later that night, he saw Penner was already there talking to the drivers. He rushed over to her. ‘Sorry I’m late, ma-am.’
‘No problem, Constable. I just got here myself. So far, no one really has any info for us, doesn’t seem like anyone saw Mrs. Wong that night, or at least they don’t recognize her,’ Penner said. She had a picture of Mrs. Wong that she had printed off from her driver’s license. ‘Let’s go talk to those two cabbies parked over there.’ Penner gestured down the street.
Penner and Grant walked down the block to where two other taxis were parked. The drivers were leaning against the hood of one of the cabs, smoking cigarettes and chatting, enjoying the cool night air.
‘Where to?’ one of the drivers asked, dropping his cigarette to the ground and putting it out with his shoe as he saw Penner and Grant approaching.
‘Actually we just have a couple of questions for you. Either of you recognize this woman at all?’ Penner held up the picture of Mrs. Wong. ‘She may have been here the other night looking for a ride?’
‘Yeah, I think she was here,’ one of the cabbies said. He grabbed the picture to get a better look. Grant pulled out his notebook.
‘When was that?’ asked Penner.
‘Two, maybe three nights ago, I think. Around 11:30 or so,’ the cabbie said. ‘It was shortly after I showed up for the night, so not too late.’
‘Maybe three nights ago, you said?’ Penner asked, the excitement leaving her voice. ‘Not the night we were hoping for,’ she said to Grant.
‘Yeah, pretty sure. Definitely not last night, maybe the one before. Each day kinda runs into the next, ya know?’ the cabbie said. ‘I think she was with someone else. Yeah, a young girl. That’s right. I thought it was awful late for her to be out, should have been a school night.’
‘Where did you take them, do you remember?’ Grant asked.
‘Now that, I don’t remember,’ the cabbie said. ‘I think it was to their house, but not too sure.’
Grant flipped through his notebook and read out Mr. and Mrs. Wong’s address. ‘There?’
‘Could be, could be. Sounds familiar but we do a lot of runs, ya know?’ The cabbie lit another cigarette. ‘See lots of people every night, can’t remember them all.’
‘Anything else you can think of? Anything at all?’ Penner asked, grasping at straws as her lead disappeared.
‘The young girl had a knapsack. Smelled a bit, too. I think the lady in the photo said they were just at some school sports event or something. Boxing?’
‘Sounds like Mae’ said Grant. ‘Wrestling, maybe?’
‘Yeah, think so,’ the cabbie said, nodding. ‘I thought it was weird a pretty young girl would be into a tough sport like that. She got mad when I said that to her. She said girls can do whatever they want. Real mad.’
‘Right, thanks for this, you’ve been very helpful,’ Penner said, giving the cabbie her card. ‘If you think of anything else, give me a call.’
‘Will do. Sure you don’t need a lift anywhere?’ he asked hopefully.
‘No, we’re good. Cheers,’ Penner said, as she and Grant walked off. ‘Right, there are a couple more drivers starting to show up. Let’s go see what they have to say.’ As they started walking further down the block, Penner’s phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to Grant.
‘No worries. Give me the photo of Mrs. Wong and I’ll go talk to those two guys over there,’ Grant said taking the picture and walking away.
‘Sounds good,’ Penner said to him as she answered the phone. ‘Penner.’ It was dispatch on the other end. ‘Really? Where? Any witnesses? Right, I’ll head right over.’ She hung up the phone and walked quickly over to where Grant had just started talking to two new cabbies. ‘We’ve gotta go.’
‘What? Where?’ Grant asked. ‘We just got here.’ Penner had already started walking back to her car, so Grant gave the two cabbies his card. ‘I’ll be back to ask you some more questions. Either soon or tomorrow, I’m not really sure. Detective Penner?’ He ran to catch up with her. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We’ve got another murder. And since Millar isn’t here, it looks like you’re my partner on this one,’ Penner said. ‘Stay close, don’t touch and pay attention to everything. Let’s go.’
‘Yes, ma-am!’ In Penner’s opinion, Grant sounded far too excited for what would probably be a very long night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Grant decided to ride to the new crime scene with Detective Penner. She wasn’t giving him too much information, so he wasn’t even sure where they were going. He figured his patrol car would be safe parked on the side of the road until he could get a lift back to it later that night, or morning, whatever the case may be.
‘So, where are we off to?’ Grant asked as he got into the passenger seat.
‘We have a new Jane Doe over on King Edward, beside the Big Ben statue,’ Penner said. ‘But first we’re going to stop at the corner store up the street and grab a coffee. I think it’s going to be a long night.’ She fastened her seat belt and pulled away from the curb.
‘The Big Ben statue, ma-am?’ Grant asked, a bit unsure. ‘Is that the horse jumping statue?’
‘That’s the one,’ Penner said. The statue was relatively new. It had been installed the year before to immortalize one of the best horse and rider teams in horse-jumping history. Penner pulled into the store parking lot. ‘Want anything? It may be a long night.’
‘Coffee and a chocolate bar would be great, thanks,’ Grant said as Penner got out of the car. She came back several minutes later with two coffees and a bag full of snacks.
‘Alright, let’s go.’ Penner pulled out of the parking lot and headed east along Flora Avenue. ‘There are way too many one-way streets in this city,’ she grumbled. The downtown core had one-way streets criss-crossing each other in every direction. If someone didn’t know their way around, the downtown core could be a nightmare, especially during rush hour.
They had been driving in silence for about five minutes or so, when Grant asked, ‘So, do you know anything about the scene? You said it was a Jane Doe, so I guess we haven’t ID’d the victim, yet. Cause of death?’
‘Don’t know. Dispatch just said it was a Jane Doe and gave me the address. Unless someone witnessed the crime, we don’t usually get too much info right off the bat. If we had a witness, then we may know the cause, but not this time,’ Penner said, taking a left onto another one-way street.
‘Right. Makes sense,’ Grant said. ‘So, this afternoon, I was able to run a check on the people at Mrs. Wong’s office.’ He pulled out his notebook.
‘Let me guess, nothing,’ Penner said, not very hopeful.
‘Actually, for almost everyone, you would be correct,’ Grant said. Penner turned to him, interested. ‘Dave, the guy we were interviewing, has a bit of a past.’
‘Really? I’m listening,’ Penner said.
‘Yeah. So, in March last year he was arrested for domestic abuse.’ Grant read from his notes. ‘Turns out he hit his wife after she confronted him about an affair he was having. He claimed his wife was hitting him and he was just defending himself, but the arresting officer didn’t see it that way.’
‘His wife?’ Penner asked, rather surprised. ‘So, is he still married?’
&nb
sp; ‘As far as I can tell, yes,’ Grant answered, putting his notebook away. ‘Maybe he thought Mrs. Wong was going to let it out that he was having an affair at work again and he got worried and did her in?’
‘That’s very possible. If he just walked up behind her and hit her with something it would explain why he didn’t have any defensive marks on his hands or arms. He’s a big guy, too. Probably wouldn’t be too hard for him to carry someone her size for a couple of blocks. Maybe Jane helped him,’ Penner mused, pulling up to the new crime scene. ‘Okay, we’re going to have to try and poke holes in his alibi. See if we can corroborate the fact that the two of them stayed together after Mrs. Wong left. Good work, Constable.’ They got out of the car and started walking towards the taped off area. Grant hid a sly little smile.
* * *
‘Oh, great,’ Penner muttered as they got closer to the yellow tape surrounding the statue. Grant looked around to see what she was commenting on. He really wasn’t sure.
‘Detective Penner, what can you tell us about the victim?’ Arden pushed forward to confront Penner. As always, he was accompanied by his camera man, who was trying to get some good shots for the morning news. ‘Is this related to the murder the other night? How did she die?’
Penner walked up to him. ‘How do you know it’s a ‘she’? And how are you always here before I am? Maybe you have something to do with it, eh?’
‘What?! Come on, you know that’s not true. I have my informants, same as you. Plus, I overheard one of the first cops on scene say it was a middle-aged woman,’ Arden said, signalling to his camera man to stop filming. ‘You know, I would expect an accusation like that from your partner, not from you. Speaking of which, where is Detective Millar? Finally get fired?’ Arden asked hopefully.
‘He’s not here,’ Penner said. ‘We have work to do. I suggest you just keep out of the way.’
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