Stranglehold (21 page)

Kennicott felt his heart rate speed up. His mind went back to the funeral home. Greene had looked so ill at ease. He was usually so calm but he’d been awkward when he met the kids. Then he’d left abruptly. And before that, the first time they’d met at the bakery he’d seemed upset. Totally out of character.

From the corner of his eye, he saw someone approach the table. It was Francis, the café regular, with a newspaper in both hands. “E-e-e-excuse me, Mr. Darnell,” he said. “I found an article a-a-a-about the Vikings.”

“Great, Francis,” Darnell said. Endlessly patient.

Francis looked at Kennicott. “My name’s Francis like Francis Tarkenton who played for the Minnesota V-V-V-Vikings and lost three S-S-S-Super Bowls.”

“Nice to meet you.” Kennicott shook his hand. But his mind was elsewhere. Something had tweaked in the back of his brain.
He was a white man. He was tall with big shoulders. His pants were made of a nice material.

“I-I-I’ve got to clip the-e-e-ese articles,” Francis said, before wandering off.

“Francis has been here every day since the café opened three years ago,” Darnell said.

“It’s nice the way people treat him,” Kennicott said, distracted. This idea that had just come to him was so improbable. But . . .

“Everyone pitches in,” Darnell said. “The Beach really is a community.”

“In Welland, at the visitation, did you speak to him for very long?” he asked.

“To who?”

“Detective Greene.”

“We chatted for a minute or two. He seemed uncomfortable being there. Then an old high-school friend came up to talk to me. I guess it’s tough for you guys, losing someone you work so closely with and still having to deal with victim’s families as professionals.”

“Sometimes I think it’s the most important thing we do,” Kennicott said, thinking,
I remember his name because Jennie did a few murder trials with him. Talked about him a lot.

He thought back to the last two murder trials he’d done with Greene. Raglan had prosecuted both of them. And both were during the time she had left Darnell.

It was unbelievable. It couldn’t possibly be. And yet.

His mind went to something he had seen in Sadura’s drawings of the man on the scooter. He had copies on his desk. Even though it was late, he had to get back to the office and take a closer look.

GREENE KNEW ALL THE VEHICLES THAT REGULARLY PARKED NEAR HIS HOUSE. THAT’S WHY
the nondescript Toyota down the street from his front door caught his eye when he drove home at the end of a long day. He could see someone was in the driver’s seat but not much more. He’d been wondering whether Kennicott suspected him and had put him under surveillance. But surely if he had, it would have been a hell of a lot less obvious.

He went inside, making a point of not staring at the car, and ate some Mexican food he’d picked up at a local restaurant while catching the end of Hap Charlton’s debate with the mayor on TV. When he was done, he peeked out the front window. The car was still there.

To hell with it, he thought. He grabbed his car keys, walked quickly out the door, got into his Oldsmobile, and gunned it out of the driveway.

He tore past the Toyota and swung around the block, fast. But not so fast that the car couldn’t follow him. It did. He cut through three or four streets, turning quickly. The car stayed close behind. At a T-intersection, he signaled left, then swung right and turned again at the next street, sure that whoever was following him wouldn’t be able to keep up.

When he came back to the bottom of his block, he slammed his car into park, jumped out, and hid behind a big willow tree.

A few seconds later the Toyota drove up and parked behind his Olds, right under a streetlight. The driver’s door opened and an elderly man wearing a suit and bow tie got out, an aged briefcase in one hand.

Without looking around, he walked to the front of the Olds and opened his case on the hood. Greene heard the click of a pen. The man wrote something on a small piece of paper and slipped it under the windshield. Then he walked straight back to his Toyota, started the car, and drove away.

Greene waited for about five minutes before checking his car. He found a business card, printed on simple white stock, tucked in under one of the windshield
wipers. It read:
ANTHONY CARPENTER, QC, LLB, AND CERTIFIED SPECIALIST IN ESTATES LAW, 500 DANFORTH AVENUE, TORONTO, ONTARIO, M4K 1P6
.

He flipped it over. On the back a yellow sticky note was attached with a message in neat handwriting:

Mr. Greene, please come to my office at twelve noon tomorrow regarding my client, Ms. Jennifer Raglan, deceased. She suggested we should not communicate by means of telephone or electronic media. Please bring a one-hundred-dollar ($100.00) bill for the purpose of my retainer.

“WELCOME TO YOUR EARLY FRIDAY MORNING, DETECTIVE KENNICOTT,” FRANCINE HUGHES
said, giving him her usual greeting. The veteran receptionist at Homicide was the keeper of all administrative details for the squad, including the officers’ schedules.

“And to yours,” Kennicott replied. “Plans for the weekend?”

“Not really. Clean my apartment. Watch the telly.”

Hughes was an older woman who, he’d long ago learned, was keen on knowing everyone else’s private business but evasive about her own. He suspected she had few friends, and that was why in part she was so enthusiastic about her job.

“Hard to believe it’s only been four days since the murder, isn’t it?” he said, hovering near the edge of her desk while she opened the logbook and marked him as “in.”

She looked up, her face sad. “Jennifer. I mean who would have thought such a terrible thing. And those poor children.”

“By the time I started here, she’d stepped down as head Crown. Did she used to come by often?” he asked.

“More than the other head Crowns ever did. She was a very hard worker. But always had time for a chat. A few years ago when my mother was sick, she asked about her every time she was here.”

“Detective Greene and I worked on two murder trials with her,” he said. “Greene must have known her well.”

“Very,” she said. “He took two days off after she died. Can’t say I blame him. He always tries to be the strong, silent type, but I could see how see how upset he was.”

“It’s hard to imagine Greene taking any days off,” he said. “He’s always in at work so early.”

“That’s Ari for you,” she said, her eyes warming with affection. “I’m always telling him that he works too hard. Take some long weekends in the summer, for
goodness’ sake. A few weeks ago he told me he’d be coming in later on Mondays for a while and I said it’s about time.”

There were many facts in the case that Kennicott had been careful to not let anyone but Alpine and Greene know about. Probably the biggest one was that Raglan had booked into a motel on Kingston Road on each of the five Monday mornings before her murder.

“That’s hard to believe,” he said. “He always seems to be here when I get in in the mornings.”

“Well, take a gander at the logbook.” She turned it toward him, open to the charts for August and September.

They were easy to read. For the five Monday mornings before the murder, and on September 10, Greene hadn’t come in to work until one in the afternoon.

“I was very happy for him,” she said. “First time in years he’s taken time off for himself.”

“Really.” His eyes were glued to the times on the chart. He could feel his hands starting to shake.

“A few days ago he told me his Monday-morning vacations were over and that next week he’d be back to his usual routine,” she said. “To me, though, he still looks tired. I’m sure he misses Jennifer, just like we all do.”

“I’m sure he does,” he said, handing her back the logbook before it fell out of his hands.

THE LAW OFFICE OF ANTHONY CARPENTER WAS ON THE SECOND FLOOR ABOVE A GREEK RESTAURANT
, accessed by a long, narrow staircase. A receptionist who introduced herself as Mrs. Stanopolis showed him straight into Carpenter’s office, a high-ceilinged room with fake wood panelling that Greene thought had probably been installed in the 1960s, and a pine desk that appeared to be even older. As did the standing lamp in the corner, the battered steel filing cabinet beside it, and the high-backed leather chair where Carpenter sat. He wore a bow tie that was clipped on at a crooked angle and plastic-frame glasses with lenses as thick as a thumb.

“My apologies for being so circumspect yesterday,” Carpenter said as Greene took a seat across from him. His desktop was empty. “But my client’s instructions were very specific.”

“Jennifer?” Greene said.

“Yes, Ms. Raglan. She told me to contact you on the evening of Thursday, September thirteenth, which I did last night, and to meet with you on the morning of Friday, September fourteenth, which I am doing now. But we can’t discuss anything until I am retained. Did you bring the money as I requested?”

“I did.” Greene took an envelope out of the thin leather briefcase he usually carried and passed it over.

Carpenter looked inside, fingered the hundred-dollar bill, closed the envelope, took out a pen, and wrote the date on the back. “Good,” he said. He got up and pulled a file folder out of the top drawer of his ancient filing cabinet, put the envelope inside, put the folder away, pulled out another file folder, closed the drawer, and sat back down.

He smiled at Greene. “I believe in doing one task at a time. My desk is always clean.”

“A good way to work,” Greene said.

“Been doing this for forty-seven years,” he said, opening the file. “I have here
a prepared retainer agreement in duplicate. Please review the top copy and then sign both documents.”

He handed Greene a ballpoint pen, his business card, and two sets of papers, each perfectly stapled in the left-hand corner. Greene read through the agreement, signed at the bottom of each copy, and passed them back.

Carpenter took a close look at his signature, put one copy in his file and the other in a large white envelope that had Greene’s name typed on it. “This is for your records.”

Greene put the envelope back in his briefcase.

“Now I need to go to my safe,” Carpenter said. “Please wait here a moment.”

Without fanfare he left the room.

Greene looked around the sparse office. He tried to imagine Jennifer sitting in this same chair. Why, he wondered, would she pick a lawyer like Carpenter? And for what?

He got up, went to the window, and looked down on the busy street. He noticed a dark car pull up on the near sidewalk. He watched three men get out.

“Here you go,” Carpenter said, returning to the room and sitting behind his desk.

Greene backed away from the window and sat across from him.

Carpenter was holding a sealed envelope, and he showed its back to Greene. “After it was sealed, Ms. Raglan and I both signed across the flap,” he said. “My specific instructions are to deliver this to you and no one else on today’s date.”

He passed the envelope over, along with a long silver letter opener.

“Now, I am to leave you alone to read this for five minutes.” Carpenter left the room again.

Greene looked at the signatures. He’d seen enough of Raglan’s writing to know it was hers. He sliced open the envelope. Inside was one sheet of paper with a handwritten note.

SUNDAY NIGHT, Sept. 9

Ari, I’m writing to you tonight before I see you for our final motel rendezvous tomorrow. (I can’t wait to see you, and I can’t wait till we don’t have to sneak around like this anymore!)

By the time you read this, I will have held my press conference and gone public with my terrible secret. I’ll be bombarded and hounded by the press,
so I’m going to lie low for a while. Once this blows over, I’ll get in touch and we’ll be together.

I picked Mr. Carpenter randomly so there would be no way for anyone to trace my contact with him, and through him my contact with you. I also made him promise he would never call or e-mail you.

Don’t be angry that I didn’t confide in you earlier. I couldn’t. You had nothing to do with any of this, and this scandal is going to be so big that anyone close to it will be damaged. Give me points, at least, for keeping you out of it.

I always thought you’d wonder why I insisted on going to such extreme lengths to keep things between us secret. Well, after Thursday you will understand.

I know you will be shocked by what I was forced to do. The price of love is so very high. I had to save my son.

Always.

J.

He read the letter again and then turned the paper over. It was blank, as he knew it would be. Still, he’d been hoping there would be more words. More of her.

There was a quiet knock on the door. “I was instructed to inquire, after five minutes, if you required more time,” Carpenter said, standing in the doorway.

“I’m done,” Greene said. “I need a large blank envelope and some stamps.”

Carpenter returned to his desk and opened a drawer. He produced an envelope and a roll of stamps. This guy must have won a ton of Boy Scout badges in his day, Greene thought.

“When did you meet with Ms. Raglan?” Greene asked.

“She came in early in the morning on the seventh, a Friday, and asked me specifically if we could meet that Sunday evening. I’d never met her before and she didn’t have an appointment. She looked very distressed. We met on Sunday at four
P.M.
and I waived my usual weekend surcharge.”

The price of love is so very high.

Greene wrote out an address on the large envelope. He looked at Carpenter’s business card for the return address. He put Raglan’s letter in the envelope, sealed it, put a stamp in the corner, and passed it over.

I had to save my son.

“Can you mix this in with all your regular mail and post it later today, please?” he asked.

“Consider it done,” Carpenter said.

“Anything else?” Greene asked.