The Guilty Plea (13 page)

“I had my friend Hamdi at my old law firm do a title search on Nathan’s house,” Kennicott said. “Place’s mortgaged to the hilt.”

“Guy’s on his third marriage,” Greene said.

“Sounds like Wyler Foods is in trouble too.”

“From the mansion to the millhouse in three generations,” Greene said.

“That’s a good way to put it.”

“Not my phrase,” Greene said. “Happens all the time. The grandfather starts a business, the father builds it, and the son squanders it all away. Nathan’s broke and his little brother’s on a spending spree.”

“Nathan e-mailed Terrance at five ten on Monday morning saying good luck today in court. ‘Even though we fight, I still love you’ was the last line.

“Could be a self-serving e-mail. The guy has a temper.” Greene motioned to the croissant in front of Kennicott. “Eat up.”

Kennicott forced down a hunk of the doughy bread and washed it down with the watery coffee. Now on the TV there were highlights of various soccer matches, each goal accompanied by wild cheering by the fans and players.

Greene took out his notebook and wrote. “We have about a four-and-a-half-hour gap.”

Kennicott swallowed more of the croissant. “From twelve forty to five ten. Between Terrance’s last e-mail to his lawyer and Nathan’s e-mail to him, which is never answered. What does the coroner say about the time of death?”

“Don’t believe what you see on TV,” Greene said. “They can never pinpoint it. The body was cold. Food in the stomach. Could have been dead two, three, four hours. No way to know.”

“Where does it leave us?”

“With a big black hole.” Greene went back through the pages of his notebook. “Nathan Wyler—what time did he say he got to work?”

Kennicott turned back in his notebook too. “About three o’clock.”

“You remember that Wyler Foods truck we saw in their driveway?” Greene asked.

“WFRESH 4. I saw it at the food terminal two days ago, when I notified him that his brother had been murdered.” Was it only two days ago? Less than forty-eight hours. Kennicott felt as if he’d been living in this case and Terrance Wyler’s life for weeks.

“Perfect.” Greene picked up his cell phone and pushed a preset number. “It’s Greene. Who’s in charge of toll road records?” He kept the cell in his ear but turned the microphone away from his mouth. “Nathan’s vehicle was the only one with a transponder, so we know he takes the 407. I want to find out what time he hit the highway and when he got off.”

“You think he was angry at his brother because of all the money he was spending—”

Greene put up his hand to stop Kennicott and swung the phone back in place. “I have a license number I need you to trace on the 407. Rush job. Thanks.”

It was amazing how wide-awake Greene was, Kennicott thought as he looked around the bakery. A cooking segment had come on the TV and the chef was making an egg-based tart. Among the continual lineup of men buying coffee at the counter, he saw the first female customer of the morning. An older woman who purchased three loaves of white bread.

Greene turned the phone away from his mouth again. “They photograph every license plate on the 407, whether the car has a transponder or not,” he said to Kennicott. “Means we can trace when and where any vehicle got on and off that highway.”

He put his finger back up in the air, turned the phone back to his mouth, and wrote some notes. “Good, okay, thanks,” he said and hung up.

Kennicott tried to read upside down what he’d written. It was a collection of numbers and times.

Greene looked at Kennicott, his eyes sparkling: “Wyler got on the 407 at one fifteen, going east. Remember, the non-toll highways were all cut off because of all the other murders that night. But he didn’t get off at Highway 427, which you’d expect him to do if he was going down to the food terminal. He went all the way east to Yonge Street. Exited there at one forty-two.”

“Yonge Street,” Kennicott said. “Near Terrance’s house.”

“Right,” Greene said. “But even closer to Samantha’s place.”

Kennicott felt a hit of adrenaline spike through his system. This is what it takes, he thought, to make homicide. On the TV now, politicians were standing in the Portuguese parliament making impassioned speeches with exaggerated hand gestures. Greene tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “Let’s go,” he said.

Kennicott got up. But Greene pointed back to the table. “Finish your croissant.” A chunk was on the plate. By the time Kennicott tossed it into his mouth, Greene was already out the door.

In his early twenties Ari Greene spent a summer in Israel. He visited with some of his mother’s distant relatives and worked for a few weeks on a kibbutz in the Negev desert. That’s where he met Natalya, a waif of a young woman who’d left in the first wave of Jewish exodus from the Soviet Union. Beautiful and secretive, she was perhaps the most manipulative person he’d ever met in his whole life. They had a lot of fun together. Six months after Greene got home, she showed up one day on the concrete doorsteps of his parents’ house. Natalya wanted Greene to marry her so she could get into the country. When he refused, they had an enormous fight. She disappeared, only to pop up again in his life when he’d least expect it.

He’d never forget the first time he took her to a Canadian grocery store. It was the only occasion when she was totally unable to control her emotions. All the food. Fresh. Bountiful. The endless aisles of it. She started running back and forth to assure herself that all this really existed. She’d grabbed Greene and cried. All those gray years of deprivation, and here was a world full of everything.

He thought of Natalya as he walked into the sprawling Ontario Food Terminal. The produce, the smells, the color. This was the daily challenge of human existence: to get food from the ground to people’s mouths.

Inside Wyler Foods, Nathan Wyler stood behind a long table, sorting through crates of fresh fruits and vegetables his uniformed employees brought up to him in waves. Greene stood back to watch him work.

Wyler’s fingers flew over every tray of fresh goods like a concert pianist. He shouted out a cacophony of criticism of almost everything he saw, laced with profanities.

A buxom redhead who’d been at the cash register at the front approached Greene. The Wyler Foods uniform was tight on her. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Wyler.”

“Detective Greene, what are you doing back there?” Wyler shouted. “Paulette, bring him up here.”

Greene held out his hand as he approached the table and Wyler shook it.

“Angelo, take over for a while,” Wyler said to one of his many assistants. “Detective Greene’s in charge of Terry’s case. We need to go for a walk.”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be at work today,” Greene said.

“It’s the food business,” Wyler said, leading Greene out of the shop. “Never stops. This is how we were raised.”

“A hard way to live.”

“Only thing I know,” Wyler said. “I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.”

“No one likes funerals,” Greene said.

“Maybe it will hit me at the graveyard. But I can’t believe my baby brother’s dead.”

Greene walked with him, not saying anything. A cart zipped around the corner and honked at the last minute. They jumped to get out of its way.

Wyler pulled out a cigarette pack before they got to the exit door. “You smoke?”

“I quit in grade ten,” Greene said.

Wyler snorted out a laugh. “That was smart.” Outdoors, he took another look at Greene before he lit up. “Where’d you go to school?”

Greene was wearing a light Windbreaker. He stuffed his hands into the side pockets before he answered. “Marlee High.”

Wyler took a long drag. “Greene with an
e
on the end. Right?”

“That’s me.”

“I bet you recognized me right away,” Wyler said.

“Remembering faces is a good thing if you’re a detective.”

Wyler took another puff. “You had a good punch.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever hit in my life.”

Wyler laughed. “Hope you enjoyed it.”

“You know something?” Greene laughed as well. “I did.” He took his hands out of his pockets.

“Any news?” Wyler asked.

“Not yet. I wanted to ask about your business.”

“It’s a dogfight,” Wyler said. “Let’s get something to eat.”

He led Greene back inside to a greasy spoon tucked away in a corner. The old couple who worked there looked like they’d run the place for a few centuries. Wyler ordered bacon and eggs, and Greene got a muffin.

“Food business is going down the crapper.” Wyler dug into his meal the moment his plate came. “Everyone’s stealing from everyone else. The big chains are selling gas and books and housewares. The department stores, the gas stations, the bookstores, even the drugstores, for fuck’s sake, are all selling food. No one’s making any money.”

“Your store appeals to a higher-end market, doesn’t it?”

“There’s no brand loyalty anymore. Everyone wants a deal.”

“What was it like when Samantha and Terrance opened their own store?”

Wyler piled the food into his mouth.

“Total fuckup. Last thing we needed was more competition from our own family. Samantha thinks she’s so smart, but I know all the suppliers. You think they’d deliver their grade-A stuff to that bitch?”

“You must have been angry at your brother too.”

Wyler eyed Greene carefully. “Of course I was pissed off. Terrance always had things easy. Mr. Handsome. Mr. Top Athlete. Guy with all the beautiful girls. I’m sweating it out up here, he gets to go to school in the States. Comes back with money in his pocket so he can buy his house in the city, marries Sam, who treats our whole family like dirt.”

People in the restaurant were looking at their table.

“Let’s go outside.” Greene took out a twenty-dollar bill and insisted Wyler let him pay.

Out in the parking lot, Wyler lit up another cigarette. “What she did to my brother was unbelievable. My mom would make Sunday dinner, and Sam would cancel at the last minute. Find some asinine excuse not to come with Simon, and Terry’d show up alone. Pathetic.”

“I heard you argued with him at the Sunday-night dinner.”

Wyler’s big shoulders shook with amusement. “When didn’t we argue? Family business. Terry thought there was always money for everything. Advertising. Film festival parties. You name it.”

Greene spotted a bench at the far end of the lot. “What did you do Monday morning?” he asked in a neutral voice when they sat down.

Wyler looked around. For the first time he seemed to realize that Greene had isolated him.

“I don’t know. I came to work.”

Greene had anticipated this evasive answer. He’d checked with the gatehouse half an hour before, when he arrived at the food terminal. “You got here at three oh seven a.m.,” Greene said. It was important to make a suspect aware that you knew a lot about him. Keep him guessing.

“Yeah,” Wyler said. He stomped out his cigarette on the asphalt.

“That time of night, you could drive here from your home in what, half an hour?” Greene said.

“Twenty-four minutes, if I come straight here.”

“Fastest way is using the 407.”

“Yeah, the fucking toll saves me about five minutes.”

“But Monday morning you took the 407 all the way to Yonge Street at one forty-two. That’s one exit away from Terrance’s house.”

“I know.”

“Even closer to Samantha’s place.”

Wyler pulled out another cigarette, clicked on his lighter, and took a drag. “Just my luck.”

“You didn’t think I’d find this out?”

Wyler looked back over the parking lot. “It didn’t even occur to me until a few hours after that young cop told me Terry’d been murdered. I guess I was in shock.”

“It didn’t occur to you that you’d been at your sister-in-law’s place—”

“What?” Wyler tossed his cigarette on the ground and butted it out. “You crazy? Me at Samantha’s place? No one in my family would talk to that bitch in a million years. It’s the redhead.”

“The redhead?”

“Paulette. The one on cash. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice her.” When a homicide happened, time stopped and everyone near it was captured in one gigantic freeze-frame photograph. Inevitably, there was collateral damage. It looked as if Nathan Wyler had been caught, literally, with his pants down.

“Look, I’ve only been married to Harriet for six years,” Wyler said. “She wouldn’t sign a prenup. Another divorce will wipe me out.” He looked at Greene, almost pleading.

Greene thought about what Kennicott had told him. All of Wyler’s debt.

“I park in the basement of the condo I’ve sublet for her. It’s a new building. Costs me a thousand a month to put her up there. They’ve got video cameras and all that shit.” He pulled out his wallet and fished out a plastic card hidden under a leather flap. “Here’s my passkey. Records when I come and go. I left about ten to three. I know because I listened to the sports at the top of the hour. That time of night I get here from her place in less than twenty minutes.”

Greene took the card. “Anything else I should know?”

“Those two other houses on the court where we live. We used to own them all. Parents on one side, Jason on the other. We had to sell both of them. Now the whole family’s under one roof, and the fucking mortgage is halfway up my ass.”

“What about the fleet of fancy cars?”

“Ha.” He had a loud, cackling laugh. “Financed to the roof. Used to have transponders for all four, now just the van. Can’t even afford the stupid toll. The gardener and all that junk, it’s all for show. Dad’s too damn proud. It would kill him if people knew.”

Greene remembered the time his father found himself on the 407 toll road. It was last winter, after Greene’s mother had died, and his father got lost trying to visit an old friend. He’d ended up in the ditch, narrowly missing a light pole. Greene threatened to take away his license, and after lengthy negotiations his dad agreed to only drive during the day, and to stay off the highway.

To add insult to injury, his father didn’t realize that the 407 was equipped with scanners that automatically read his license plate. Two months later, when the bill arrived for seven dollars and fifty-seven cents, he was outraged.