She grabbed some plants that George recommended and rushed out.
Half an hour later, Kevin Brace’s former cell mate walked into 301 and sat in what Parish had come to think of as Brace’s seat.
“Fraser Dent,” he said, reaching out to shake Parish’s hand. The man was bald on top, with long hair on the sides, giving him a clownlike appearance. He had a broad, sarcastic smile on his face.
Parish realized that she’d gotten so accustomed to Brace’s silence in this room that hearing someone else speak was surprising.
“What’s up?” she said, pulling out a fresh sheet of paper and an only slightly chewed pen.
“Nothing, really,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face. “I kicked in a window yesterday at the shelter.”
“And . . .”
“Oh, with my record, there’s no way I’ll get bail. I want you to do me a favor. Call Detective Greene and tell him I’m in here.”
“Detective Greene,” Parish said cautiously. “Last time I looked, he was a homicide detective. Why would he care about a guy breaking a window?”
“Tell him that the air-conditioning broke at the shelter, so I’m resting here for a few days. Besides, the Jays are playing in Kansas City, and inside I can watch the games after curfew.”
“You want me to tell him that?”
“You can tell him I’d like to get out, say, Friday. I looked at the weather map. This heat wave should be done by then.”
Parish put her pen down and smiled.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll call Greene for you.”
“If you can’t get ahold of Greene, then just call Albert Fernandez. I hear he’s doing well these days at the Crown’s office.”
Parish laughed. “What a coincidence. He’s prosecuting murder trials, so I’m sure he’d be very interested in your case too.”
“Perfect,” Dent said.
“Okay, Mr. Dent,” Parish said, “I’ll call them both if you answer one question.”
“Shoot,” he said.
“A guy like you has had his share of lawyers. Why call me?”
Dent broke out into a big grin, befitting his clownlike appearance. “Like I said on the phone, a former client of yours
told me
about you.”
“What did he say?”
Dent laughed out loud. “He didn’t
say
anything, Ms. Parish. He just gave me this note. And he told me anytime I’m in jail, you’re the best lawyer in the whole damn country.”
Dent handed over a folded piece of paper. Parish slowly unfolded it, her hands shaking. She opened it and instantly recognized Brace’s handwriting.
May 7—Early Morning
Nancy
Whatever happens today, I want you to know that you are an extraordinary lawyer and very special person. I wish you all the happiness you deserve.
Please take care of Mr. Dent. He may need your services from time to time.
Kevin
For some reason the garbage smell in the metal elevator wasn’t as bad as Parish remembered it when she took it back down to the ground floor. As the front door of the jail clanged behind her, she turned down the long ramp that ran off to the side, the same ramp she’d trudged up with her loaded briefcase all through those dark winter months.
There was a soft breeze, and the air was warm, moist. As she went down the ramp her footsteps sped up. She knew what she was going to do today.
When she had left the garden shop, George had foisted two potted plants on her.
“You’re a bit late for these, Ms. Parish,” he had said.
“What else is new?”
“Time you moved up to perennials. Give them a try.”
“What are they?”
“Lavender.”
“Lavender?”
“They smell great and don’t even need fertilizer. Just keep them in the sun, Counsel. The only trick is, don’t plant them too deep.”
“I think I can handle that,” she had said, taking the two pots as she slid her cell phone into her jeans pocket.
“Besides,” George said, almost smiling, “lavender kind of reminds me of you, Ms. Parish.”
“Why’s that?” she said.
“Because they love the heat.”
Lavender it is, Parish thought as she sped down the ramp—pen bouncing
rat-tat-tat
off the rails—and hit the street. Running.
W
hat about the Leafs?” Ari Greene asked. He’d gunned the car to get through the rock cut and had pulled over at the side of the road in front of the old lakeside resort. Kennicott looked over Greene’s shoulder and spotted a teenage girl alone on top of the tall wooden diving tower. She looked nervous.
“Kevin junior’s a fan. Like his dad,” Kennicott said, looking back at Greene. “Remember all the different Maple Leafs glasses in Brace’s apartment? I noticed them the first time I rushed in there. I assumed they belonged to Brace.”
Greene was listening intently, looking at Kennicott. “There was a collection in Wingate’s apartment too,” he said.
“That’s my point,” Kennicott said. “The son’s autistic. Likes to have familiar things with him. It makes much more sense that all those glasses were his, not his father’s.”
Greene snapped his fingers. “Brace was alone in the apartment every afternoon during the week.”
Kennicott shrugged his shoulders. “He stayed home to nap.”
“He wasn’t napping,” Greene said. “McGill told us herself, Kevin didn’t sleep much. He was taking care of his son.”
Kennicott’s eyes drifted back to the girl on the tower as she peered over the edge, steeling her courage to jump.
“But Wingate told us her grandson was never in Brace’s apartment, and you believed her.”
“I
said
I believed her,” Greene said. “I had to keep her talking. When a witness makes a definitive statement like that, it’s either entirely true or a desperate lie. At that point she and McGill were both desperate to keep the boy out of this.”
“You think Kevin junior did it and they’re all covering for him?”
Greene shrugged. “Why would he be in the apartment so early in the morning? More logical that Sarah McGill was there.”
Kennicott was still watching the girl on the tower. By her body language he could see her confidence ebbing.
“Let’s stand back,” Greene said. “When a case is over, I like to ask, Who won and who lost?”
“Sarah McGill wins. Hands down,” Kennicott said. “She’s got her husband back, and her son too. Katherine Torn is dead. The café is saved, and Children’s Aid will never bother her about the grandchildren. No one even knows she was in the apartment that morning except you, me, and Fernandez. You think she killed Torn?”
Greene just stared at Kennicott. “Torn’s father and her riding instructor both said she had great balance. Made her a terrific rider. Why would she fall on the knife the way McGill says she did?”
“The floor was slippery,” Kennicott said. “I fell on it.”
“Yes,” Greene said.
“McGill told us that Torn grabbed the knife out of Brace’s hand,” Kennicott said.
“She probably did. Torn was desperate for attention. Most suicide attempts are just that—attempts, cries for help, not meant to succeed. Given everything we know about Katherine, I have no doubt she was choking Brace. Probably pulled the knife toward her just like McGill told us.”
“But?”
“Most turning points in people’s lives happen in an instant, with little or no conscious thought. Torn was at the end of her rope. Drinking again. Her platelet level going through the floor. Sarah McGill was desperate too. Her restaurant failing. Her kids having children. Still paranoid about Children’s Aid. Suddenly Torn comes running out of the bedroom. Naked. Crazed. Without warning she starts choking
Brace. McGill rips her hands off—remember, she has strong hands; she’s made bread every day of her life for many years. Torn grabs Brace’s knife and shoves it toward her stomach. The moment of unplanned opportunity presents itself. All those years of anger, all those years of loss; for McGill this is her one and only chance.”
“You think she stabbed Torn?”
“Doubt it. Her prints weren’t on the knife.”
“She could have put her hands over Torn’s hands.”
“Or she could have pushed her. Imagine. Torn snatches the knife and points it at her stomach. Maybe even pierces her own skin. McGill grabs Torn by the upper arms.” Greene squeezed both his hands hard around the steering wheel, demonstrating. Then he pushed his hands forward. “All McGill had to do was give her a shove.”
Greene looked over his shoulder to see if the coast was clear on the busy highway as a trail of cars zoomed past. Kennicott saw that the girl on the diving tower had walked off the platform and was starting back down.
“Remember what McKilty, the pathologist, said about skin?” Greene said. “Once a knife penetrates the surface, there’s nothing in the stomach to stop it. It’s like going through a feather pillow. Back in the 1980s McGill pushed a cop through a window in a protest against Children’s Aid. Just one hard push this time is all it would take.”
Kennicott looked back at the tower. The girl had stopped when she was at eye level with the platform, clutching the rungs of the ladder. Even from a distance Kennicott could see that she was squeezing the wood hard. He imagined her knuckles turning white under the pressure.
Her fingers.
Kennicott looked back at Greene’s hands, both still tight on the steering wheel.
The idea came to Kennicott so clearly he felt his eyes pop open. “The bruises on Torn’s upper arms,” he said.
“What bruises?” Greene asked, looking back at Kennicott.
“Remember the autopsy? When you came in with McKilty and I was looking at Torn’s body.”
“You were looking at her shoulders.”
“And the top of her arms. There were prints. Ho said they were nothing. McKilty said the same thing. Could have been caused by almost anything.”
“Especially with her low platelet level. Body bruises very easily. We see those kinds of marks all the time,” Greene said. “Useless as evidence.”
“Unless there’s something unique about the marks,” Kennicott said. He held up his hand, fingers spread. “The hand mark on Torn’s right arm had a thumb and four fingers, but on her left arm, there were only impressions for three fingers.”
“Three fingers,” Greene echoed. “McGill is missing the ring finger on her left hand.”
They stared at each other for a long moment.
“Maybe Sarah McGill was holding Katherine Torn and she pushed her into the knife,” Greene said. “That explains why Brace put her in the bathtub. To wash away McGill’s DNA. His voice box has been cracked and he can hardly talk. So he waives bail to keep his secret safe. He sees you testify, realizes that you figured out there was someone else in the apartment, and decides to plead guilty.”
“To protect who? Sarah, his son, his grandchildren?” Kennicott asked.
“Remember what McGill said to us about Brace,” Greene said. “‘Poor Kevin, he loved two women, and they were both crazy.’”
“Where does that lead us?” Kennicott asked.
“December seventeenth wasn’t the only time McGill was in Brace’s apartment,” Greene said.
“When else would she be there? Torn would know about it.”
Greene shook his head. “Go back to your chart. Torn spent Sunday nights with her family. Brace didn’t work Mondays. Even insisted on it as a condition of his contract with Parallel Broadcasting.”
“Because?”
“Because he spent Sunday nights with his wife,” Greene said. “Two women. Six nights with one, the seventh with the other.”
Kennicott nodded. “But on December seventeenth Torn surprised him. Came home in the middle of the night.”
“Remember Rasheed, the concierge,” Greene said. “You caught him on video making a phone call just after Torn pulled into the underground parking. We assumed he was calling Brace to tell him Katherine was home.”
“But he was calling to warn him. Because he knew Sarah McGill was there.”
“McGill. The master of disguise. She closes the café at two o’clock on Sundays. Takes her an hour to clean up, then three hours to drive downtown. Free parking starts on Market Lane at six. And her daughter told me that nothing unusual happened on Sunday night—just the normal family dinner. Four generations. Edna Wingate; her daughter, Sarah McGill; her son-in-law, Kevin Brace; her granddaughter Amanda; and her grandson, Kevin junior. One big happy family. Like they’d been doing forever.”
“And then Brace and McGill . . .”
“Had their regular night together. Wingate can look me straight in the eye and tell me the truth. She didn’t see anything unusual that Sunday night. Rasheed understands smuggling people in and out of places. That’s why we see him on the video going into the elevator. I’ll bet he pushed the up button for number 12, to buy Brace some more time. Still, McGill would have been in a rush to get out.”
“That’s at two o’clock.”
“Right. A few hours later McGill goes back to talk to Kevin. Maybe to get the extra money. Or just for one last kiss. She knows Kevin will be up, the door will be open for Mr. Singh. She assumes Torn is asleep. But Torn isn’t asleep. A woman’s intuition, maybe, or her own little trap to catch Brace fooling around with his wife.”
“This all gives McGill motive to kill Torn, doesn’t it?” Kennicott said. “Get rid of her once and for all. Especially if Torn’s standing in the way of a million-dollar contract.”
“Exactly.” Greene put his arm on Kennicott’s shoulder. Kennicott couldn’t remember Greene doing something like that before.
A thick quiet descended on the car.
“But why did Brace tell Singh he killed her?” Kennicott asked.
“Maybe he didn’t see what McGill did,” Greene said.
“Or maybe Torn really did kill herself, and he felt responsible,” Kennicott said.
“Or maybe the son did it, and they’re all covering for him,” Greene said.
Greene took his hand off Kennicott’s shoulder and glanced back at the highway to see if he could pull into traffic. There was no gap in the oncoming cars.
“But we’ve got Sarah McGill’s three-finger handprint on her arm,” Kennicott said. “That’s powerful evidence.”
“Is it?” Greene said. “Maybe she was trying to pull Torn away. Save her. Maybe Torn fell back into her arms. McKilty said that with her platelet level that low, she’d bruise easily.”
Kennicott turned back to the reluctant diver. The girl was motionless on the ladder. She seemed frozen in space.