The Filthy Few: A Steve Nastos Mystery (5 page)

Nastos shook his head. “Let's get out of here before we catch a disease.”

They locked the room and returned to the office to take the key back. Sandhu was standing at the counter puffing on a cigar-sized joint and watching a foreign film on a small, fuzzy
TV
screen.

Carscadden dropped the keys on the counter. “Here, thanks.”

Sandhu was enthralled by his show and didn't respond.

Nastos watched some of the
TV
program. An older guy with a white turban was surrounded by two younger guys with their swords out. They were circling the older man, obviously taunting him.

Carscadden asked, “Nastos, you think the guys following Walker would watch this place to see if anyone else came looking for answers?”

Nastos shook his head. “Too labour intensive. It would be easier to hire someone here, maybe one of the Sri Lankans from upstairs. If someone comes around they make a phone call for some easy money.”

Nastos thought of something. He spoke louder. “Hey, Sandhu, hey pal, wake up.”

Sandhu paused the show and took a drag on his joint. “What?”

“Are you going to call anyone and tell them that we were here looking around?”

“No.” He manufactured a stupid smile.

With all of the
THC
in Sandhu's head, Nastos couldn't tell if he was being honest or sarcastic. “Hey, this is important. We've been good to you, we have more money, but if you screw us over you're gonna piss me off.”

“No, I won't tell anyone you were here.”

Carscadden slid more cash over the table. Sandhu wasn't as smooth when he picked it up this time. He giggled to himself and he stuffed the money in his chest pocket.

Nastos waited for Carscadden to sit in the passenger side before he started the car, taking a last moment to look up to the Sri Lankans leering down from the balcony.

Carscadden asked, “We gonna drop off the print cards now? We might beat the traffic.”

“Sure, I think it's fastest to take the Gardiner to South Kingsway to Finch and straight up to the Forensics Unit. I'll quickly drop them off and my guy will have the results by tomorrow.”

Nastos' phone vibrated and he read the screen. “It's from Jacques. He has it.” The message said
Pictures attached. You didn't get this from me.
He scrolled down and saw that there were two pictures and a small document attached. He quickly forwarded it to Karen with a message added.
Karen, show this to Ann. Let me know
ASAP
if these were the guys who shot Walker.

Carscadden pointed out a Thai restaurant across the street. “We should get some Thai this week.”

“I barely get takeout now that it's just me and Jo.”

Carscadden didn't reply. At first Nastos thought it was unlike him, rude even, for a guy who had a stupid comment about everything. Then he began to wonder if the comment was too close to Maddy being gone for him to touch.

Carscadden took out his cellphone and checked the screen. He held the phone to Nastos. “Look what Tara sent. It's from a few weeks ago.”

Nastos took the phone. It was a picture of Josie in the restaurant. The owner, Viktor Kalmakov, was sitting with her at the bar with his arm around her the same way he would with one of his “flavour of the day” girlfriends.

Nastos chuckled. “She thinks he's the most handsome prince in the world.”

Carscadden took the phone back. “Girls love the guys with accents.”

Nastos remained silent until Carscadden asked, “What's up your ass?”

“Karen. She knew right from the beginning that Falconer was a bullet magnet and she never said anything to us. She did it to make sure I'd take the case.”

Carscadden made a noncommittal noise then continued, “Well, for what it's worth, she seemed nice enough to me. A tight little package, if you like that sorta thing.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that part before.” Nastos closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “That's all I need.”

Two people left the Thai restaurant, a young couple holding hands.

Carscadden said,
“That's
what you need,” pointing to them. “A companion. Someone to —”

“Do
not
even finish the sentence.”

“Okay, maybe not Grant, maybe someone stupider, less attractive. Maybe hit up some three-hundred-pound lesbian daughter of Russian beet farmers. Maybe that's the new hotness. There's probably a website that —”

Nastos turned to him. “How long would Tara have to be gone before you could even consider dating?”

Carscadden paused, giving it some thought. “I guess it depends on how it ended. “If she left me, sooner. If she died, I don't know. Maybe a long time.”

“Exactly. And besides Grant and I have . . . It could never happen.”

Carscadden asked, “Why, because you were partners?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Because we tried and it didn't feel right. You fucking happy? There. I made a mistake, a big mistake. Karen and I started — you know what? It was stupid, I figured it out, but not as fast as I should have. End of story.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. No shit. If you ever embarrass me by telling Tara I'll kill you.”

“In the vault, man, don't worry about it.”

Carscadden scrolled through a few messages on his phone. “Did Maddy ever know about you and Karen?”

“No, she never did. It wasn't easy hiding it because Karen sent me a crazy number of texts — I mean really, a not normal number. But it was only one night, I was drunk, I never had any feelings for Karen and I ended it as soon as I sobered up. I got rid of her as a partner, I did everything I could to make up for it. I took time from work. I cooked Maddy's favourite meals, I cleaned the house more. That was the year I adopted the diet she told me to start. I did everything to prove to her that it was all about her and Josie. And I carried the burden of it alone. If I'd had cancer I wouldn't share. I didn't share this either.”

Carscadden watched the young couple as they disappeared from view. Eventually he asked, “Have time for a late lunch with Viktor?”

Nastos checked his watch. “You know, Josie and I were going to have a barbecue tonight. She's done school just after three today and I'd have to leave to get her right now.”

“I'll send Tara a text. She can pick her up and we can meet at your place for dinner.”

Nastos mulled that over. They used to do that all of the time. Josie would love it.

Before he pulled away from the curb something on the motel balcony caught his eye. He thought he saw one of the men point a smart phone in their direction, taking a picture. “You know, I'm beginning to think there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye. I'd like to meet this Ann Falconer either way and ask her some questions.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. We'll drop off the fingerprint cards at
FIU
. Then meet the girls for dinner.”

Carscadden dropped the visor down to block the sun from his eyes. “Sure. We'd love to see little Josie. I'll text the plan to the boss. So what are the cops' names anyways?”

Nastos handed his phone over. “You can read it out to me while I drive.”

Carscadden scrolled down. “Life is about to get complicated for officers Radix and Morrison.”

6

Karen took what had become her usual precautions on the way back to her condo: two separate and illegal U-turns chosen at random intersections while she studied the cars in the rear-view mirror. She was an oddity, a crime journalist who had actually been a cop. She had been shot at, in car chases, done “spin” or surveillance, been beaten up during interrogations. She'd lived almost the entire spectrum of the policing experience. She had learned how to investigate stories and people the way journalists used to in the '70s and '80s, before the twenty-four-hour news cycle turned every story into a Twitter feed. She struggled with the need to condense the story like a marathon runner who was forced to compete in sprints. Her skills presented themselves only when a story needed a journalist who could take it the distance, methodically plodding through the self-serving lies to find the truth.

She avoided the Don Valley Parkway for obvious reasons, taking side streets to monitor the following traffic. Before long she arrived at her building,
701
Don Mills Road. It had once been her older brother's apartment. He lived there while he attended university and when she moved to town she joined him there. After a year as roommates, he moved out, leaving it for her.

When the building owner starting flipping the units into condos Karen bought it for the investment, thinking that she'd build equity until the right guy came along, then she'd flip the cash into a house. Despite working as a cop in a ninety percent male-dominated profession, the only contender who meant anything to her was married.

He's not married now; now he's a widower.
She pushed the thought out of her mind.
With the past we've had, we don't stand a chance.

She took the elevator up to the twelfth floor to number twenty-one, and put the key in the door. She pushed the door tentatively, forgetting that she still had to unlock the deadbolt, and was confused when the door moved so much. The chain at the top didn't block the door from swinging open either. She had watched Falconer lock it as she left. Her heart raced. “Ann?”

“Yes?” the voice was Ann's, from a back room. Karen checked her watch. It was two p.m. Usually Falconer slept all day.

“Why isn't the chain on?” Karen eyed the apartment, looking for anything that might be out of place.

Falconer stepped out from the kitchen, using a finger to smooth out her lip gloss. “It's beautiful out; I'm going for a walk.”

Karen noted the white capris and white tank top Falconer was wearing. Her hair was like something out of a Bon Jovi music video. “Are you sure that's a good idea? Where are you going?”

Karen had never been a coward. Even with a dad who was a cop and over-protective of his daughter, she was raised with a cop's street smarts. However, since Walker was shot to death and after hearing the
Life and Times of Ann Falconer,
weariness was becoming paranoia.

“I'm going to the park,” Falconer replied. It was a lie, a rehearsed statement offered almost before the question was asked. Falconer wasn't exactly a nature lover; she was a former prostitute with a not-so-former drug addiction. “And where were you anyways? I thought you'd be back sooner.”

“I was meeting with my friend. Ann, I told you, he's going to help us find out who shot Rob. Are you sure you really want to do this, with everything that's going on?”

She raised a defiant chin and proudly charged for the door. “I won't be too late.”

“If you need some money I'd rather loan it to you than for you to do anything dangerous.”

Falconer found the mirror on the wall by the front door and checked her hair, sweeping it back from her face and smiling to herself. Her demeanour changed for Karen. “I don't need you telling me what to do.”

And that sentence was the one that sent Karen over the edge. They both knew that the one thing Falconer needed most was a handler or Falconer wouldn't be freeloading with her.
No rent, unrestricted food; she could at least clean the place up a little.

“Ann, I know what you're doing. I'm not stupid. You're raising money for drugs. If you want some cash for a bag of weed I'll give it to you — if it helps you relax. I just don't want you hooking for hard drugs. It's too dangerous with everything that's going on. There are men looking for you —”

“My name is Martina Svobadova.” Falconer left the mirror and stormed over to the door. She slipped on her white shoes, two-inch clunky heels with silver buckles, and gripped the door handle. “You'd rather I stay here? So you can put on your video and ask me a hundred more questions? How's your little book coming along? You're going to make millions and millions from my life story and you don't want the golden goose out of your sight? I can write my own life story. I don't need you.”

“You don't need me? Take a look around, Ann — sorry,
Martina
. You came here looking for help and I brought you into my home. All I ask is that you don't do anything to make things more dangerous than they already are!”

Falconer wrenched the door handle and pulled it open. “All you care about is you.” She slammed the door behind her.

Karen couldn't tell if the thumping she heard was the sound of Falconer stomping down the hallway or the blood pounding in her head.
Damn, her cellphone
. She went into Ann's room and searched for the phone. The room was a mess, a collection of empty Coke cans on the dresser. Clothes, clean and dirty, on the floor. She found the phone charger plugged into the wall on the floor but there was no sign of the phone and she didn't know the number to call it. She thought back to Nastos telling her to get rid of it, that it could be traced.
At least she's not here, and when she comes back, it's going down the garbage hatch.

She went to the kitchen, tugged open the fridge door and gripped a Mike's Hard Lemonade, then a second and carried them out to the balcony. She sat in her wicker chair, kicked her shoes off and rested her aching legs on the cool railing before twisting open one bottle and taking a long slug. She leaned back and used the other cool bottle to ice her head.

It barely took five minutes to get the two drinks down. She tried to tell herself that it was because they were invigorating with a witty, crisp flavour and not because Falconer was driving her to alcoholism. Karen gathered her two empties and put them in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. She opened the fridge and took an inventory of food. She had a steak marinating for the barbecue that was still mostly frozen. “Looks like today is the cheat day this week.” She resigned herself to having to order pizza and finish off the last of the lemonade coolers.

The cellphone needed a charge so she plugged it in and left it on the microwave and went to her bedroom to get the home phone. Right away she noticed that her bed was a mess. She always made it in the morning. And even though two drinks were starting to work their magic she clearly recalled making it today. Falconer had been in there. A sick feeling hit her like cresting the first hill of a roller coaster. She forced herself to check the wastebasket by the bed and found balled-up Kleenexes.

When she worked the Sexual Assault Unit with Nastos she had to escort the Child Protection Workers while they checked in on single moms with drug habits or vulnerable lifestyles. She had learned to find the most subtle signs of women working in the sex trade. Dozens of balled-up Kleenexes was a sign. Living with a former and suspected prostitute and seeing evidence like this was enough that she could no longer deny the obvious. Falconer had been working in the apartment all day, and planned on working all night on the streets.
Hell, if I had one of those
CSI
blue lights they'd see the apartment from the fucking Space Station.

Karen gingerly grabbed the sheets and blankets from the bed by the corner and dragged them to the floor. She was going to stop at the laundry room but with the objectivity that alcohol provides she decided
what the hell
. She heaved the bedding and pillows down the hallway. She propped open the door and flipped the top swivel lock so the door couldn't lock behind her, then snaked the bedding down the hall and left them in a heap near the garbage chute.

She came back inside, washed her hands in the kitchen sink then took the last two lemonade coolers out of the fridge. They weren't going to be enough but there were a few bottles of wine in the cabinet in the dining room. Her cellphone hadn't charged enough to reconnect to the network but she did see that four messages waited for her, all from her boss, Megan Swan. Two were voicemail, the last were text messages.
Karen, you need to produce
SOMETHING
, you're two weeks
OVER
deadline. Call me when you get this.

Megan had begged her to at least produce some fluff work. Ten reasons women can live without men, things to pack into carry-on luggage,
anything
, but it wasn't in her nature. When she thought she'd have the Rob Walker story, being a few days late would not have been a big deal. Then the Ann Falconer story came to her and it was worth the next few days of being late. Now she was two weeks behind and she hadn't produced anything and it was slowly exploding in her face.

She resigned herself to the fact that she would be fired within days and decided she'd rather ignore the messages than call Swan and say something self-destructive.

She dialed the local pizza place by memory and ordered a large Hawaiian with extra pineapple then retreated to her previous position the balcony. She listened to the sound of the city. The pervasive din of traffic, thunder from a passing jet. She observed the serenity of a clear blue sky being sliced in two by the aircraft's vapour trail. With Falconer ripping her life apart, she thought she could relate.

Ann, you bitch.
She sipped at the third cooler hoping it would last until the pizza arrived and pondered Ann's strategy.
Trying to make so much money so fast means you're planning on running. You'll go to the streets, won't make it alone and will eventually trust the wrong person. You'll get found and be dead within a week. You'll bring them back to me and I'll be dead too.
She forced herself to pause after the third bottle. She had plenty more booze but it was wine and didn't taste as good with pizza as the hard lemonade.

She regretted meeting Ann, regretted the death of her man Rob Walker — even though she had nothing to do with it — and regretted about a million other things in her life. She sighed and thought of Nastos.
If I got him would it be worth this? Yeah, probably.
With him in her mind she stood and checked her phone again. This time it was able to connect to the network. She brought it and the charger outside and plugged it in again.

It was close to three p.m. now. The afternoon sun was on the other side of her building. She sipped from her bottle watching the building's shadow slowly stretching out. The phone began to ping that she had new messages. She pressed a button to wake the screen and saw that Nastos had sent an email. She opened the attachments and saw two pictures of young men wearing brand new police uniforms. She noticed that it had been forwarded from Jacques Lapierre.

A feeling came over her that took time to decipher. She decided it was the payoff. Her instincts had been right. Falconer had watched cops shoot Walker, which meant that she was going to break the biggest news story in Toronto. She had the sole witness living with her, and hours and hours of exclusive interviews. Falconer still needed to see the pictures but these guys matched the description perfectly. She returned to the balcony to wait for the pizza, this time with her laptop, and began writing, mostly questions, quick observations. She typed a few sample intros and headlines, nothing more than brainstorming. The real work would begin tomorrow. After Falconer gave the positive
ID
, it would be enough to go to the editor. Plus it would be enough to get Falconer other accommodations, with another babysitter while Karen could write the story.