The Weight of Stones (10 page)

They looked at each other until their little smirks grew to smiles.

He said, “Is that your rousing manifesto for woman's lib on the edge of the twenty-first century?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. It sounded better in my head.”

He pushed his plate aside and asked her about Balani. McKelvey had an impression of the man that was somewhat tainted by something he'd heard on the street.

“You guys have a little bad blood?” she said.

“Who said that?”

“Just something I heard. How he didn't appreciate your involvement. Who knows. Cops are gossip whores, right. Everybody talks about everybody behind their back. Like high school, except we get to carry guns.”

“Balani's problem is he focuses on the big show. He wants the glory of the big-name case so he gets his name in the
Star
and the
Sun
, and he forgets about the little details that make a case. All I ever wanted was for them to take a look at some of the information I was pulling together. I spent hours out there on the street, talking to people, to some of these kids. You think I don't know what happened here? He treated me like I'm some fucking beat cop.”

She shifted a little, looking into his eyes, and said, in a voice absent of malice or accusation, “We're all guilty at times of letting our hunches lead us around by the nose. Even when the evidence isn't there or it points somewhere else. We're only human.”

But it had been upside down from the very start, something off about the whole thing. McKelvey had watched as Gilmartin and Balani bumbled their way through what they ignorantly assumed was an open-and-shut drug murder that would likely never be solved. McKelvey stopped getting information. He pushed things farther than he should have, he saw that now. He got aggressive because something in Balani's ego brought out the worst in him. Words were exchanged on more than one occasion. McKelvey finally reached the limit of his frustration. He put Balani against the wall of a corridor one day, used the strength of anger coursing through his body like an electric pulse to hold the bigger man in his place. Everything started and ended that day.

“This is my son,” McKelvey had said. “Don't cut me out!”

Hattie wiped her mouth with a napkin then neatly folded it in two and set it beside her plate. “Sometimes,” she said gently, “we're too close to something. To see it clearly.”

McKelvey opted not to share the rumours he'd heard on the street concerning Balani. About his years on the Drug Squad. How he liked his dope. How his work on the joint task force would now allow for the perfect mixture of power and lack of accountability. But kids on the street said stuff like that about cops on the Drug Squad all the time. It was a grey area, word against word. He drained the mug and said, “Let me ask you something. Between you and me. Okay?”

She nodded and waited.

“Are you still friends with that woman over in Court Services?” he said.

“Gail,” she said. “We're still friends, yes. Why?”

But she knew. She knew why. She knew him, and she knew his mind. He chewed his thumb a little, playing through the words in his mind. He needed to be careful here. It was a fine line. But she didn't wait for him.

“Hey,” she said, leaning in, “I know what you're thinking.”

“Is that so?”

“They're going to release Duguay. You and I both know it. But let the joint task force do its job, Charlie. They'll probably have a tail on him the minute he steps outside the courthouse. These guys have spent a year and a half working on this project, you think they'll stand by and watch a scumbag like Duguay sail off into the sunset? He won't be able to take a piss without someone writing down the time and location.”

“I'm tired of waiting,” he said. “Waiting for Balani. Waiting for the Crown. I can't wait any more. Christ, I'm not getting any younger.”

“What are you looking for?” she said, resigned to the fact that she would have to offer whatever help she could.

“You can bet they'll have a tight wrap on the proceedings for this,” he said. “I'd appreciate knowing when and where. That's all. I just want to make sure this asshole doesn't slip away. I want to be there to look at his face.”

“That's it, eh?”

That, and to begin the process of following this man. He would become Duguay's shadow. Watching, waiting.

“That's it,” he said. “Cross my heart and pinky promise.”

He held out his crooked pinky, and she smiled and brought hers in until the digits were intertwined, locked in a schoolyard pledge of the ages.

“Well, I'm off to an interview,” Hattie said. “How about you?”

“Guess I'll go over and do a little paperwork. Since I'm down here,” he said.

She shook her head as she got up from the table. He put his hand out and she smiled again and moved past it, giving him a light kiss on the cheek.

“Be good,” she said.

He felt his face rush with blood, and he looked quickly around the coffee shop.

“Don't worry,” she said. “I kept my tongue in my mouth.”

At the police station, McKelvey started to fix a coffee at the stand, but it had been brewing since seven that morning. It smelled like a blend of old tires and burnt plastic. He tried it, shivered, and tossed the cup in the garbage. In the washroom, he was bent over the sink to splash some water on his face when the door opened and someone came in. It was Rogers, a young and recent addition to the Hold-up Squad. Probably the one who would take McKelvey's job. The department was big on succession planning.

“What are you doing in?” Rogers said, moving to the urinal. “Thought you were off for a couple of days.”

McKelvey raised his head, water dripping from his pasty face. He felt awful and looked even worse. His body was in the throes of a fever, or else something was shutting down. Rotting from the inside out.

“Yeah, well, I was born here,” McKelvey said. He grabbed some paper towels, wiped his face, dried his hands and tossed the balls of paper in the waste basket.

Rogers was unzipped, his head tilted back, and he said, “You're dedicated, that's why. Old school. All of you guys, you treat it like the army or something. The Marine Corps. My generation, we're not interested in working eighty hours a week. Loyalty only goes so far, right. We want a gym and a cafeteria that serves salad. Flex time.” He laughed as he zipped up his pants and turned to the counter to wash his hands. McKelvey ran his fingers through his hair and regarded the younger man. He was thirty years old if a day, and the rest of his life was spread before him like a buffet.
The things I
thought I knew back then,
McKelvey thought. And with each day he lived, with each year that passed, it became all the clearer that nobody had a goddamned clue.

“You don't look so good, if you don't mind me saying,” Rogers said. “You got that flu?”

“What the fuck is it with everybody? I'm fine,” McKelvey said.

“Right. Well, you have an awesome day, Detective,” Rogers said on his way out, giving McKelvey a pat on the shoulder.

“An awesome day,” McKelvey answered, nodding. “I'll do that.”

He sat at his desk looking through the thick file that contained all the information he had gathered on Gavin's case. Names and dates, locations and co-ordinates, time-frames stacked against witness statements, photocopies of crime scene photos. Always going back and looking for something he might have missed, his greatest fear, to miss an obvious link in this thing.

He scanned the autopsy report again, for the hundred and sixth time:

City: Toronto

Name of Deceased: Gavin Charles McKelvey

What followed were nearly two pages of cold specs regarding Gavin's height and weight, hair colour, distinguishing features, every square inch of his flesh catalogued for posterity. He recalled the mixture of surprise and regret as he stood there looking down at the body, discovering for the first time the tattoos the boy had kept hidden beneath his shirt.

Manner of death: Homicide

Cause of death: Gunshot wound, head

Body identified by: Father

Autopsy authorized by: Coroner, Chief Medical Examiner

Photographs by: Dr. Harold Manners

Investigating Officers: D/S Raj Balani (lead); Constable
Kevin Gilmartin (responding)

Summary of gunshot wound: The entry site is situated on
the left upper forehead where it measures 0.6 inches to the right
of the anterior midline. The wound is circular, having a
diameter of 0.21 inches. Gunpowder residue is located in the
wound and the immediately underlying tissue. The course of
the projectile runs through the skin and soft tissue, producing
hemorrhage to the left frontal lobe. Several curvilinear lead
fragments retrieved from the wound. Projectile proceeded
through the frontal pole of the brain in a downward direction to
perforate the cerebral peduncles and pontine region. The
projectile then impacts with the occipital bone. A large calibre,
mushroom-shaped projectile is retrieved and forwarded to
Forensics for Ballistics Identification.

Shot in the head. Face to face with his killer. The trajectory suggests the killer is taller than the victim—
or else the victim
was forced to kneel.
His punishment for a drug debt or an argument, or nothing. His boy died for nothing, and that knowledge was what tortured McKelvey's soul with each breath that he drew; that his boy died for absolutely goddamned nothing, and here he was, still alive in spite of himself, in spite of all the places he had been, the risks he had taken. And it was true, absolutely true, that McKelvey would have exchanged his life for that of his son—without hesitation. It was what he wanted more than anything, to be able to deliver that gift for his wife and his son. The midnight pacts made with god and devil both.

It was in these moments when he sat with his file of papers, his ragged clutch of faint hope, that he understood with a sense of shame what had happened to him. To them all. His family. In many ways what he had
allowed
to happen to them, the three of them. Whether through his direct negligence or inadequate fathering, or through the anger he had displayed when his son's course veered from the track, this was his failure to bear alone. Caroline had been a good mother. She had tried to be a good wife. But it is impossible to be a wife to a stone. And now, just like the family members of crime victims who overnight begin sporting photo buttons of their loved one and calling for the police to take action, this was all McKelvey was left with: the residue of memory, regret. His file folder, his papers, the single-minded drive towards justice and revenge. This was what came to a man who was filled with self-loathing for words left unsaid, a touch left undone. A bitterness and anger, a deep disappointment with himself, that boiled in his veins like a toxin.

Sometimes he saw the face of his boy as a young child, the ever-present cowlick and the boundless energy and curiosity, and he would close his own eyes and try to reach back there and hold the boy or kiss his forehead, physically reach back there through time and once again hold the body close to his chest, the body of his boy forever sleeping on that bed of steel...

It was after seven when McKelvey looked up from the file. He'd gotten lost again. He gathered the papers back in order, put the file in his briefcase. He said goodnight to those still labouring at their desks, making calls, doing paperwork. He felt momentarily unburdened, as though the fog was finally lifting, and he could see an end to the suffering, a finite point on the horizon that promised peace. For he knew what he must do. For his boy. For himself. For Caroline. For the ghost of a family. A more lucid thought had never been conceived.

The night is cold and clear. It occurs to McKelvey that he has not started his Christmas shopping. But Christmas for the past two years has seemed less like a holiday and more like a black hole. The days are long, the nights even longer. He sometimes drinks too much and Caroline gives him a look...

Now his stomach flares as he slides behind the wheel of his truck.

He tastes blood. A scent of what—gauze? Razor blades in his stomach, a mouthful of rust. Head spins with an intoxicated dizziness. He brings a few fingers to his lips, then pulls them away; they shine with blood, greasy like fingerpaints. He is weak, and he can't turn the engine on.

McKelvey fumbles with his seatbelt, stumbles from behind the wheel.

The open door buzzes in the night, the drone of an alarm.

He gropes at the seat in an attempt to locate the files, teetering there like a drunk leaving a bar after last call. He makes out a blurry form moving at an angle across the lot, but he is already sliding down the side of the truck.

And he goes down, down, down, the pavement good and cold on his face.