Buffalo jump

CHAPTER 27

Franny had lived in a high-rise on Carlton just east of the old Maple Leaf Gardens, where the Leafs played for sixty-odd years-some very odd-before moving to the Air Canada Centre, where corporate revenues could flow more freely. I had never been inside his place. Any time people from the office got together for drinks after work, it was usually at a bar on King or Front.

Outside his apartment door, Katherine Hollinger handed me a pair of disposable surgical gloves. “Put these on.”

“I’m not contagious,” I said.

“Or infectious,” she shot back. “You know the rule. No touching.”

“I know.”

“Not even with the gloves.”

“I get it. No touching. I’ll pretend we’re in high school.” Oy. Was it just the Percocet that made me so giddy around her?

“You see anything at all, let me know.”

“Of course.”

“More convincingly, please.”

“Of course. ” I snapped on the gloves.

“Much better.” She opened the deadbolt with a single brass key and in we went.

Franny’s one-bedroom apartment was about the same size as mine, but his windows faced south onto a blighted stretch of Carlton frequented by low-rent hookers wobbling on too-high heels and in too-tight skirts. I much preferred my view of the city skyline and the Don Valley. The Track, as this part of town was known, had a darkness all its own.

Franny’s living room/dining room combo was effectively divided into three functional spaces: a eating area, living room and office.

The eating area consisted of a round table and two chairs, over which a chandelier hung. It didn’t look like he’d dined there recently. The table was covered in newspapers from the weekend, the Sunday Clarion on top.

The living room had a black leather sofa and recliner facing an entertainment centre with a large flat-screen TV and stereo system. Next to the recliner was a small table on which rested a number of remotes and on the floor beneath that a pizza box. That’s where he probably ate his last meal. Books and CDs filled smaller shelves in the entertainment unit, along with DVDs of action films featuring muscled-up Hollywood hunks and whippet-thin fighters out of Thailand and Hong Kong.

The office was built into a corner of the living room, its centrepiece an old-fashioned rolltop desk with dozens of pigeonholes that should have been stuffed with notes, bills, statements, parking tickets, takeout menus and other detritus of metropolitan life. They were empty.

I asked, “Where is it?”

“What?”

“It. Everything. His mail, bank records, phone bills.”

“We took it all downtown,” Hollinger said. “Gregg and I will sort through it there.”

“Does he move his lips when he reads?”

“Easy, you. He’s my partner.”

“But you’re the brains.”

“Someone has to be.”

The artwork was all generic: prints of a waterfall pouring over moss-covered rocks, a hooked marlin breaking through aqua waters, red-tailed hawks wheeling over a green forest canopy, all in the same chrome-and-glass frames. They could have come from any hotel chain.

I turned to Hollinger. “Did you find a notebook on him?”

“I don’t have the complete inventory.”

“He wasn’t much for computers.”

“So we’ve gathered.”

“He usually had a black notebook in his jacket pocket.”

“Thanks. If we find it, I’ll let you know.”

The kitchen was a small galley like mine. A few basic pots and pans in the cupboards. A dish set that had to have come from Ikea. One drawer had cutlery and a few utensils, the other a thick sheaf of takeout menus. It wasn’t hard to guess which got used more.

The bathroom had the basic items a man needed to keep himself shaved, showered and reasonably well groomed, plus a few more. Grecian Formula: who knew? A tube of K-Y jelly and a box of 12 condoms, about half of which remained. A few prescription medicines, including one for arthritis pain.

The bedroom had room for a queen bed, a dresser and night table and little else. The closet had the usual mix of inexpensive suits and casual clothes, along with a collapsible ironing board and shoeshine kit. Of course he’d have those, the old-fashioned lug. A freshly pressed shirt, a shine and his pompadour in place, and he’d be ready for action in no time.

So who would murder him? There was nothing to indicate he was living beyond his means. If anything, the apartment was distressingly plain. And too much like my own. Same little kitchen and bathroom, same parquet floors, same fixtures and windows. Same little place built for one.

Was this my future? Nights alone eating in front of the TV, an array of remotes at my side? Would the ghosts that followed me home from Israel ever stop rattling their dusty bones long enough to let me settle down, fall in love again, do more than simply keep my head above Toronto’s ever-rising tide?

I turned to Hollinger. “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“Do people call you Kathy?”

“Not since they issued us Glocks.”

“Kate?”

“Friends and family only.”

“So it’s Katherine then?”

“No, it’s Hollinger. Detective Sergeant Hollinger if you want to be formal.”

“Okay, Hollinger. Why’d you bring me here? You’ve carted out everything that matters.”

“How do we know what matters?”

“How would I? I’ve never been here before and I didn’t really know him outside work.”

She pursed her lips and looked down and shifted her weight from foot to foot. When she had made up her mind about whatever she had been pondering, she said, “Sit.”

We sat on the leather couch.

She snapped off the gloves and indicated I could do the same.

“I hate these things,” she said. “Even the powdered ones make my hands clammy.”

“So why were we wearing them? If you’ve removed all his documents, surely you’ve processed the place.”

She held my gaze with hers, held it more gently than any cop in my experience ever had, and asked, “Who wants you dead?”

“Excuse me?”

“I thought I spoke clearly. Who wants you dead?”

“I’m not following.”

“Then you’re not trying. Your colleague, Ms. Raudsepp, provided an interesting piece of information this morning. Something you couldn’t have known.”

“Why?”

“Because it happened after you left the office Tuesday.”

“What happened?”

“According to her, Mr. Paradis came in sometime after three o’clock. He was there until at least seven. Just after six this call came in.”

Hollinger pulled a small chrome tape player from her briefcase. “All incoming calls to Beacon Security are recorded, correct?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Then have a listen,” she said, and pressed play. Franny: Hello? Male voice: You the detective looking into a nursing home called Meadowvale? Franny: That’s me. Who’s calling, please? Male: I have information. Franny: What kind of infor- Male: The helpful kind. As long as you can pay, say, five hundred cash. That a problem? Franny: It depends on the information, of course. It’s the client who pays. Male: You bring the cash, I’ll bring what I know. Then you decide if it’s worth it. Franny: I don’t think so. Male: Okay, three hundred. What I know about this place, your client can sue the shirts off their backs. Franny: Who are you? Male: I used to work there, okay? See what I’m saying? I know all kinds of shit about it but I got to keep a low profile. I don’t want them to know it was me who told you. Tell you what, man, we’ll start with a hundred, okay? Like a down payment. You like what I got, we’ll talk terms. Franny: Why don’t you come by the office now? Male: I told you why. Look, there’s a warehouse on Commissioners just west of the recycling plant. Erie Storage. Park behind there at twelve-thirty tonight with a hundred cash and I’ll tell you enough to show you I’m your man. Franny: I don’t think so. Male: You think I’m going to all this trouble to rob you of a hundred bucks? I could mug an old lady for more. Franny: I’m not worried. Male: Then be there. You’ll solve your case hands down.

And then the line went dead. The caller had suckered Franny cleanly, lowering his price until it was no obstacle, then making his information sound so tantalizing- the ex-employee who knows what really went on — that Franny had followed it blindly to his death.

“Jonah,” Hollinger said.

“Yes, Kate?”

Her smile all the way gone now. “The call came in on your line. Your buddy Francois answered it for you. Maybe he wanted to pay you back for everything you’d been doing for him. So let me ask again: who wants you dead?”

I said, “The voice on the tape sounded American. ‘You’ll salve your case hands down.’ Like from Chi- cah — go.”

“Or Buffalo,” she said. “They’ve got that Midwestern ah sound too. Does that ring any bells?”

“No.”

“I’m surprised you’re not being more forthcoming. Aren’t you still recovering from your last gunshot wound?”

I looked at her with new-found appreciation. “You checked me out.”

“It’s what I do,” she said. “So how’s the arm?”

“Much better, thank you. And you’ll have to take my word for it. I’m not up for arm wrestling.”

She gave me a quizzical look.

“Never mind,” I said. “Long story.”

“The gang you were investigating on that job, the Di Pietras. Heard from them lately?”

“No,” I lied.

She said, “Maybe they reached out to touch you.”