“Shannon is four months tomorrow, and little Gareth out in Calgary is six weeks,” she said. “It’s funny. You have kids, and you think they’ll never grow up. All of a sudden they have jobs, spouses, mortgages. And now babies.”
Greene nodded. “You deserve it, Ms. McGill, especially after your son.”
Her mood change was instant. She clawed back at her cigarettes. “Read my whole damn file, I bet, didn’t you, Detective? All those fucking social workers.” For the first time she seemed to lose her composure.
Wingate looked over at McGill. Mother, daughter. A look of seasoned pain on her face.
“Things were very different back then,” Greene said, watching her intently. “They treated you terribly, that much I understand.”
“Understand?” Her face reddened. “How could you ever understand what it’s like for a parent to have her child taken away?”
Greene curled his hands, digging his fingernails into his palms. For a moment he thought of Hannah, his father’s lost daughter. He feared he’d never know what else his father had lost.
“Back then, as you call it, they thought nothing of just grabbing your children. Taking them away.” McGill tapped the back of her cigarette again. “They labeled you a bad mother, and that was it.”
Greene nodded. “I’ve read the reports. Kevin junior was severely autistic, and from the age of two—”
“Refrigerator mom, they called me. Preoccupied with myself because I left Kevin in the crib for half an hour,” McGill said, the bitterness barely below the surface, like a rocky outcrop covered with a thin layer of moss. “Those books and articles by that ass Bruno Bettelheim. Children’s Aid made me read them all. Their favorite was one called “Joey: A Mechanical Boy,” all about how the child was saved from his evil, neglectful parents by his warm and loving therapist. A goddamn fairy tale.”
Greene nodded. McGill was dead right. When he’d come across this in the file, he’d done some reading about the controversial psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. In the 1950s Dr. B, as he liked to be called, developed a theory of treatment for a then-new field of study—childhood autism. Bettelheim, who claimed to have studied with Freud, blamed the parents, mostly the mothers, who he said had subconscious death wishes for their children. Especially boys. Even the most conscientious mother was suspect.
“Those social workers would come and sit in our kitchen and write down everything I did on their damn little yellow charts. Every word I said. Every gesture I made. They didn’t care that Amanda and Beatrice were perfect children. Oh no. They said I didn’t even realize that I wanted Kevin junior dead. I was a threat to my own son. Even to my daughters. Whatever I did, I was guilty.”
Tears jumped from her eyes. A bit of a surprise to Greene, like her swearing and her smoking. They slid down her cheeks, and she didn’t move to wipe them off.
Wingate put her hand out across the table and held McGill’s arm. “It was worse than losing my parents in the war,” Wingate said. “Seeing my daughter blamed. Then the threat that we’d lose the girls.”
Kennicott had passed Greene a beige file folder from the briefcase
he was carrying. Greene opened it. “That’s why, Ms. McGill, you quietly signed over custody of the girls to Kevin,” he said.
McGill looked at Greene, still not wiping away the tears. “It was the only way to keep from losing them. Kevin left me, and the girls went to live with him. I had to sign over full custody to him. No access.” Suddenly she laughed. A loud, strong laugh. “You should have seen those Children’s Aid people when they heard that Kevin had my girls. They were desperate to get their hands on them. What could they do? And poor Kevin. Everyone thought he was the bastard who’d dumped his helpless wife, left her and took their kids. The press hated him for it. Kevin just took it. Never said a word.”
Now the tears were streaming down her face. Greene reached into his pocket, pulled out a freshly pressed handkerchief, and passed it across to her. She clutched it, but still made no move to wipe her face.
“The day I heard that Bettleheim committed suicide was the best day of my life, after the birth of my children and my wedding day,” McGill said. She looked at the handkerchief in her hand as if she was uncertain how it got there. No one moved.
“After they took my son, I lost it. Poor Kevin,” she said, taking up her pack of cigarettes, crushing it, and tossing it back onto the glass table. “He loved two women in his life, and we were both crazy.”
“You weren’t crazy, Ms. McGill,” Greene said. “Your child was stolen from you.”
McGill finally put the handkerchief to her face. “Stolen,” she said.
She picked up her crushed cigarette pack. She dug into it and managed to get out a slightly mangled cigarette. She lit it and calmly blew the smoke away from the table. “Now you know our little secret, Detective. Kevin would bring the girls to Sunday figure skating, Sunday soccer, Sunday gymnastics. I was a master of disguise. All those years when the kids were growing up, I snuck down. Never missed a week. By the time the social workers finally backed off, the girls were teenagers with a million friends each.” She eyed the beige file on the table. “That my Children’s Aid file?”
Greene shook his head and tapped the closed file. “No. I have your recent bank records in here. Tough times for the Hardscrabble Café.”
She met his eyes. “I told you that the first time you came. It’s a difficult business.”
“Every month, you get a cash injection of two thousand dollars. Seems to be keeping you going.”
McGill twirled the cigarette in her hand.
“And I’ve got your husband’s bank statement,” Greene said, deliberately choosing the word “husband.” “For the last year, two thousand dollars in cash has come out of his account at the beginning of each month.” Keeping his hand on the unopened file, he met her eyes. “As you told me, the mail takes only two days to get up to Haliburton. In a homicide investigation, sometimes it’s the most obvious things you overlook. Yesterday it all fell into place for me. You came down to Toronto the night before Katherine Torn was killed. The concierge, Rasheed, told me that Kevin had asked him to put a brick in the basement door on Sunday. You came in unnoticed. Never caught on video.”
McGill began to twist the handkerchief. She didn’t speak.
“Your truck, which still had snow on it from the drive down, got the parking ticket because you got delayed, didn’t you?”
The silence in the room was palpable. All eyes were on McGill.
“I was in 12A that night, Detective,” McGill said at last.
“And that morning too,” Greene said. “When Mr. Singh came, you were right behind the front door.”
Like hikers cresting a high ridge, they’d just crossed over into new territory. And they both knew it.
F
ernandez checked his watch as he pulled open the gray steel door of Vesta Lunch. It was 1:59 a.m. Stacks of freshly printed newspapers blared out headlines declaring
THE LEAFS WIN THE CUP, LORD STANLEY IS OURS
, and
LEAF NATION CELEBRATES
. The counter was packed with customers, most of them wearing blue-and-white Leafs hockey shirts. The big stand-up fridge behind the counter was plastered with
GO LEAFS GO
bumper stickers, and blue-and-white flags sprouted on all sides of the old-fashioned cash register. Even the picture of Mother Teresa above the door was adorned with the team’s flags.
The Vesta Lunch had been a low-rent Toronto tradition since it opened in 1955. Serving breakfast twenty-four hours a day—and preparing take-out meals for the prisoners housed at nearby 14 Division, often with a little bonus for the police officers who picked up the brown bags—the diner was a natural late-night hangout for prostitutes between gigs, students wired on coffee, and the assorted detritus of the city’s midnight hours.
Fernandez had driven by the place many times and never thought to go inside. But earlier that evening, as he was crossing Queen Street, Phil Cutter, the loudmouthed Crown Attorney, had come up behind him.
“Fernandez, I need to talk to you,” Cutter said, getting close, so that his booming voice sounded all the louder.
Fernandez looked to his left and saw a streetcar coming toward them. He quickened his pace. Cutter followed in step.
“You know the Vesta Lunch? An all-night diner at Bathurst and Dupont?”
“I’ve seen it,” Fernandez said as he reached the far curb. As usual, the sidewalk was packed with people.
“Good. Meet us there at two a.m. sharp,” Cutter said.
“Two a.m.?”
“Two a.m. Don’t be late.”
“What’s this about?”
“Just be there. The Vesta.” Cutter turned and vanished into the crowded sidewalk traffic. That was it. Nothing in writing. No cell phone calls. No e-mail.
Fernandez looked around the diner. The window side had a number of booths with high-backed bench chairs. Phil Cutter, Barb Gild, and the chief of police, Hap Charlton, were in the last one. There was a space open for Fernandez beside Charlton.
Fernandez took the empty seat. In his hand he had a folded notebook and a new, thick pen that he put in front of him on the table.
“Coffee?” Charlton asked. He was as affable as ever. There was a steaming mug in front of each of the other three.
“No, I’m fine,” Fernandez said.
“Our distinguished colleague doesn’t deign to drink watery Canadian coffee,” Cutter said. Even when he tried to whisper, his voice was a growling bark. There was a napkin on the table, and he was flipping it over and over. A substitute for not being able to pace back and forth, Fernandez thought.
Charlton chuckled. “This stuff
is
pretty darn watery,” he said. “Drank it for decades. Night shift—Vesta Lunch—one and the same for a copper. Getting spoiled by the fancy lattes at headquarters.”
Fernandez gave Charlton a forced grin. Everyone grew quiet. It was time to end the chitchat.
“So,” Fernandez said, opening the notebook and picking up his pen, “what’ve you got?”
“Put down your fancy pen, Albert,” Cutter said. He kept flipping his napkin back and forth, faster now.
Fernandez looked him in the eye as he slowly closed his notebook and put his pen on top. He looked around, unsure who was going to speak.
“Brace wants to plead guilty.” To Fernandez’s surprise, it was Barb Gild who was talking.
Fernandez gave her a slight nod and waited for an explanation. No one said anything.
It took a few moments until it sank in. So this is how they want to play it, he thought. They’re going to tell me only what they think I need to know. If I want more information, I have to ask for it.
“What’s he want to plead guilty to?” Fernandez asked.
“First,” Gild said.
Fernandez felt a spasm in his stomach. “When?”
“This morning.”
His stomach started to churn. “Who told you this?” he asked Gild. He could think of only one thing. The pages Marissa had found in the photocopier outside her office.
“Do you really need to know?” It was Cutter speaking. For once, his voice actually was quiet, and he’d even stopped playing with his napkin. He looked at Gild, then at Charlton, and flipped his napkin very slowly.
“Do I?” Fernandez asked.
“Look,” Cutter said. Remarkably, he was still keeping his voice down. “This plea needs to go through without a hitch. Got it?”
“Well, I’m not going to stand in the way of his pleading.”
“Yeah, but Summers might.”
“Summers? Why?” Fernandez asked.
Cutter gave his colleagues another look. “There might be complications.”
“Such as?” Fernandez looked around. Silence. “Do I have to keep guessing?”
Charlton finally spoke. “Such as Brace’s lawyer.”
“Parish?” Fernandez had not expected this. “She’ll be upset, sure.
She’s worked her tail off, and she’s got a good shot at beating the first degree at least. How’s that a complication?”
Again he looked around. No one moved. He’d never seen Cutter so still.
Then he saw it all. So clearly.
“Wait,” he said. “How do you know what he’s told his lawyer? That’s solicitor-client privilege.”
Silence again.
“No judge in this province would authorize a wiretap on her phone.”
“True,” Charlton said. “No judge would authorize it.”
Again the silence. Fernandez understood. They were telling him that just because it wasn’t authorized doesn’t mean they’d never do it. No one would ever know. The image flashed through his mind of a bunch of police officers sitting in a room listening in on Nancy Parish’s personal phone calls. The ache in his stomach seemed to rise in his gut. He thought of the photocopied pages again. About Brace’s silence; his writing out of instructions.
“But I thought Brace wasn’t talking,” Fernandez said.
Cutter leaned in real close, his voice as near to a whisper as he could get it, but still loud enough to hear clearly. “We got the information from the best possible source. Brace’s own handwriting.” Then he began to laugh—that piercing, annoying laugh, which seemed even more sinister at half volume.
Thank you, Cutter, Fernandez said to himself, moving his pen a bit farther toward the other side of the table. “You had someone in the jail looking at that notebook Brace carried everywhere with him?”
Cutter could barely contain his glee. “Most people forget, but I started out as a defense lawyer. Long time ago. Let’s just say that I’m still on good terms with an unnamed veteran guard at the Don.”
Fernandez nodded his head slowly. “And that’s why Detective Greene isn’t here,” he said.
“Listen, Fernandez,” Cutter said. He was playing with the napkin again. “This city is going to rat shit. You know that. We see it every day in court. All the guns. The gangbangers. You want to prosecute homicides?
This is what you’re going to be up against. Don’t give me any of your Boy Scout bullshit: ‘Crowns don’t care about winning or losing.’ Up here in homicide prosecutions, we play to win. Besides, don’t worry about your pal Nancy Parish. Brace never calls her. Period.”
“Okay,” Fernandez said. “What do you want me to do?”
Cutter started to laugh. “Easy. Win the case. If Brace tries to fire Parish, object. Parish tries to get off the case, object. Don’t give Summers any wiggle room.”