Chapter 7
The detectives were back at their desks early the next morning, all of them sipping their morning coffees and wondering if the others had gotten as little sleep as they had. The mood in the squad room was somber, with none of the usual playful banter.
St. Patrick's Day had come off without a major catastrophe, no massive street parties or near riots to speak of-just the usual number of arrests for drunken behaviour and public urination.
Inspector Caruso called them together in front of the murder board Chin had started to put together on a whiteboard fastened to the end wall of the squad room. The picture and name of Yvonne Redmond was front and centre, with numerous photos from the crime scene surrounding her. Bartolucci's picture and name was posted towards one side of the board, the question of his possible involvement still up the air. Below him was Jennie Swindon, whose full statement had yet to be taken.
The Inspector took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Pepper thought the bags below them big enough to carry a week's worth of groceries. The Inspector slipped his glasses back on as he turned to address them, fiddling with his watch. "Chin, you've been looking into this girl's social networking pages, right?"
"Yes sir. There's nothing on either her Facebook page or Twitter account that stands out as being peculiar. Her interests and posts are exactly what you'd expect. She seems to have no interaction, on those sites anyways, with someone who even looks like they might be a suspect in this kind of thing."
"Well, looks can be deceiving, Chin," the Inspector said. "When we get this guy-and we will get this guy-I bet you'll be surprised how he looks like any of the people you might find on anyone's Facebook friends list."
"Yes sir."
The Inspector turned to McTavish. "You two got the location of that party the Redmond girl was last seen at from Ashley Devers, right?"
"Yes sir. It's on Broughdale Ave. I've already looked up the ownership. It's owned by an Aaron Kazinski, but it is currently rented out to a number of students. I've already spoken to him and he's given me the names of the three guys who are on the lease."
"Good. I want you two to visit these guys and find out what you can. Do they remember seeing anything out of the ordinary, did they know all the people that were there?" He waved his hand dismissively. "You know the drill."
The Inspector stepped over to the murder board and pointed to the picture of Jennie Swindon, again, an enlargement of what was probably a picture from her high school yearbook as well. He turned to Pepper and Wallace. "You guys are going to see Jennie this morning and get her statement?"
"Yes sir," Pepper replied, taking a glance at the clock. "We figured we'd go after the doctors do their morning rounds, let her take her time waking up without us in her face first thing."
"That's good. I understand Officer Findlay is going to be there with you?"
"Yes, I've made sure she's available."
"Great. She's good at things like this."
"We're going to see Crying Sam first," Wallace piped up. He was referring to Alphonse Deluise, who was known on the street as Crying Sam, likely due to his weepy eyes and constant sniffing.
"Crying Sam? The guy that's your snitch?"
"Yeah. We want to ask him about those roofies Janssen talked about. See if he's seen them on the streets."
"Sounds good. Find out as much as you can about that. Maybe he knows who might have even sold them to our guy." The Inspector looked back at the pictures and writing on the murder board, his eyes lingering on the pretty face of Yvonne Redmond. He subconsciously started twisting his watch.
"All right then, everybody stay in touch in case anything comes up. I'm meeting shortly with the Chief, and then the two of us are going to see Mayor Dickinson. City Hall has already scheduled a formal press conference for noon today." He paused, seeing the intent look on the faces of his detectives. He wrapped his knuckles on the edge of the desk in front of him. "Let's hope we get a break today. I want to nail this fucker."
The detectives went back to their desks. As McTavish and Chin headed out, Wallace picked up the phone and punched in some numbers. "Alphonse, it's Wallace?..Alphonse, wake up." Pepper looked over as his partner rolled his eyes. "Alphonse, can you hear me? All right, all right. We need to talk." There was a pause. "No, right now," Wallace continued. "I don't give a shit how late you were up last night-right now. We'll be at King and Lyle in ten minutes. Be there." He ended the call, hanging up the landline. "Let's go, we're making a stop at Timmies first."
They both took the stairs to the parking garage this time. Pepper wheeled the unmarked car out of the garage and headed to the Tim Hortons at Dundas and Egerton. They zipped through the drive-thru, picking up a large coffee and two donuts for Crying Sam. They circled back, the cool temperature letting them know winter wasn't over just yet. It was the kind of day where people looked out at the heavy clouds and felt liked crawling back into bed. St. Patrick's Day had been sunny and crisply bright, but today brought none of that long-awaited optimism that everyone hoped for at this time of year. Nearly all of the winter snow was gone and the early hints of spring had yet to send up their invigorating shoots. The leaden clouds hung low and ominous, the type that seem like they've reached their destination of choice and were going to hang over the city for the whole day. Under the somber skies, everything looked grey and depressing-a typical March day.
Pepper wheeled the car around and headed east on King, spotting their scraggly-looking informant at the corner of Lyle Street, his coat wrapped tight around him as he hopped from one foot to the other, trying to stay warm. Pepper pulled the car over to the curb and Crying Sam hopped in. The car was already moving before he had the door closed behind him.
"Jesus Christ, guys, how fuckin' early is it?"
"It's early, that's how early it is. Here," Wallace said, handing a cup of coffee back to their passenger.
"Four sugars and two creams, right?" Crying Sam asked, the pungent scent from his body odour and rotting teeth reaching them all the way up in the front seat within seconds of him being in the car. Pepper cringed, cracking open his window. He looked in the rear view mirror at Crying Sam, their prime snitch when it came to drug cases. The guy was a user-and definitely looked the part-but he was of much more value to them on the streets than in a cell somewhere.
Crying Sam was tall and gangly, with a nervous twitch that made him look like he was constantly on the verge of having an epileptic fit. His long oily hair hung limply to his shoulders, like someone had dumped a plateful of spaghetti on his head. His beak of a nose was constantly running, his continuous sniffing nothing new to them anymore. His skin had a sickly greenish pallor at times, a perfect match for his rotting tobacco-stained teeth, of which many were missing. He lived on fast food, and Pepper wondered if the guy could even remember the last time he'd had a decent meal. But he was a font of information when it came to London's drug trade, and Pepper and Wallace had an unspoken agreement between the two of them and Crying Sam. If he answered their questions when they took him for a ride, they left him alone, but more importantly to him-they usually gave him something to eat.
"Hey man, what the fuck are you opening that window for? It's fucking freezing outside," Crying Sam complained, taking a sip of his coffee.
"You stink, Alphonse," Pepper replied, turning onto Dundas Street and heading east. Crying Sam refused to meet in anything like a coffee shop, not wanting to be seen with the detectives if at all possible, so, they always picked him up and drove around as they asked their questions, usually giving him some kind of food and drink, what Crying Sam called his 'Happy Meal'. At this time of day, his Happy Meal consisted of a sickeningly sweet large coffee and two donuts.
"Boston Cream, my favourite," Crying Sam said, ignoring Pepper's comment regarding his hygiene as he hungrily bit into one of the donuts. He devoured the first, and Wallace waited until he slowed down with the second before starting with his questions.
"We hear there's some new kind of roofies o
n the street. You know anything?"
"Not that I've heard."
"Apparently these are some kind of super-roofie, that work much faster and last longer than the stuff we've seen so far."
They had Crying Sam's attention now. "I've heard about those from a friend of mine in Toronto. He says the word is that it can make the person almost comatose. Sounds like some serious shit."
"In Toronto? Has your friend seen it?"
"Naw, he said he's just heard of it. Thinks it's coming up from the States. He said it's supposed to cost some serious cash, though. You know the way it is-you want the good stuff-you've gotta pay for it."
"But you've never heard of this stuff being in London?"
"No, not yet. But if it's in Toronto, it's only a matter of time." He paused as the two detectives looked at each other, knowing what each other was thinking-if this shit showed up and word got out to the university and college crowd, they were fucked.
"Does this have anything to do with that girl that got killed yesterday?" Crying Sam asked, wiping the last of the donut topping onto his stained jeans.
"Since when did you start watching the news?" Wallace asked.
"Fuck the news. When something like that happens, the word is on the street in no time."
Wallace nodded to Pepper, who pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store on Dundas Street. Both of them ignored Crying Sam's question.
"We're done, Alphonse," Wallace said, nodding towards the car door. "Enjoy your coffee."
"What the fuck, no ride back? Fuck man, it's cold outside."
"The city of London has an excellent bus service, and there's a bus stop right across the street," Wallace continued as he reached into the back seat and dropped some coins into the snitch's trembling hand. "And look, there's even one of those plastic bus shelters to keep you nice and cozy while you wait."
Crying Sam got the message and twitched his way out of the car, drops of coffee flipping over the edge of his jerking cup. "Fuckers," they heard him mutter as he walked away from the car.
"Do you think he's lying?" Pepper asked, watching Crying Sam stutter-step his way across the busy street.
"No, I don't. For one thing, I think he knows better than to keep something like this from us. And for another, if he did know more, he'd be cagier about it, trying to find out how much we already knew. No, with Crying Sam, what you see is what you get." The snitch looked at them from inside the bus shelter, his weepy eyes glaring as he shivered.
Pepper was just about to put the car into gear when his phone rang. He drew it out of his pocket and looked at the caller before putting it to his ear. "Hi, Mom."
"Hi, sweetheart. I won't keep you. I just want to make sure you're coming for dinner tonight."
Pepper rubbed the bridge of his nose, having almost forgotten. "I'll make it if I can, Mom. But I'm not too sure-things are a little crazy right now."
"I can imagine. I saw the news last night. That poor girl. I'm sure her parents must just be beside themselves. I know you can't say anything about it, so I won't ask. But are you all right, sweetie?"
"I'm fine, Mom. Yesterday was a tough day, but I'm fine."
"That's good. Anyways, I hope you can make it for dinner. Your sister's going to be there, with Matt and April, and your grandmother, of course. I'm experimenting with something new." Pepper wasn't surprised. His grandfather on his mother's side had been a baker, and had started a family-run bakery decades ago. Pepper's mother, Joanie, had worked at the bakery along with her parents and her siblings for years growing up. After her brother and sister married and moved away, she remained working at the bakery, taking on more of a role as her parents got older. When Pepper's grandfather had passed away from cancer eight years ago, it had been a huge blow to the family. Old Grandpa Alfred was beloved by everyone who knew him.
It had been a tough first year or so after Alfred's death. Pepper's Grandma Dot and his mother tried their best to keep things afloat. Worried they were working themselves to death, Pepper's father, Dave, sat the two women down and told them they had to take a step back, that financially they'd be okay, they didn't have to put in such long hours day in and day out.
The two women talked, and talked some more, mother and daughter throwing ideas back and forth. They both loved the bakery, and were reluctant to give it up, but they knew they had to either sell it or make changes. So they altered a few things at the bakery, and started up a catering company. They were free to pick and choose jobs as they wished. They kept their hand in the game, but they weren't killing themselves.
Pepper's Grandma Dot was a whiz at the business side of things, much like she'd been in the early days. While her husband sweated in the kitchen, basking in the heat of the baking ovens, she'd been out front, making sure each customer left with something good, but more importantly to her, with a smile on their face. She had a way of making people feel special. People would stop by just to chat, or show pictures of a new grandchild, or a new kitten, and she always took the time to listen and smile. She'd been that way her whole life-and that hadn't changed when they'd closed the bakery and started up the catering company. People still dropped by, and she made time for them, even if they didn't need any catering done. There was something about Grandma Dot that people gravitated to. Maybe it was her smile that seemed to radiate sunshine, or the youthful twinkle in those old grey eyes-whatever it was, Pepper-and everybody else-loved her dearly.
While her mother was busy dealing with the bank and taking care of customers, Joanie attacked the menu, coming up with new ideas that made their customers come back to them time and time again. She was constantly experimenting with new recipes, using her family as guinea pigs before offering them to clients, much to the family's good fortune.
"So what's this new thing you're making, Mom?" Pepper said.
"I'm trying a new twist on Beef Wellington. Now mind you, it is a new recipe, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. But just in case it doesn't turn out, we can always order pizza from Tony's."
Pepper couldn't remember the last time one of his mother's 'experiments' hadn't worked out. "Okay, Mom. I'll try to make it if I can, but it depends on how the day goes. If I can't make it, I'll call."
"Okay. You just be careful, sweetie."
"I will, Mom. Love you."
"I love you too. Bye."
"What's my favourite girl making for dinner tonight?" Wallace asked, familiar with his friend's family get-togethers at Maison de Pepper.
"Beef Wellington."
"Beef Wellington. I love Beef Wellington. If there's any left-"
"You don't even know what Beef Wellington is."
"Sure I do. It's?well, it's beef?um, it's beef in a Wellington sauce." Pepper started to laugh. "It doesn't really matter. If your mom's making it, you know it's going to be fantastic. And like I said, if there's any left over-"
"I know, I know," Pepper interrupted. "If there's any left over, send it home for her adopted son Rupert."
"You got it, buddy." Wallace smiled as his partner slipped the car into gear and headed towards University Hospital. It was time to have a talk with Jennie Swindon.